Many of you remember my war stories of Korea. Yes I was in Korea and on the front lines. While we didn't see much bloody combat, we did see combat from time to time. My most vivid memories were of the Korean winter, it was mighty cold to a California boy. I was part of the Fortieth Division that replaced the 24th. Division who were pretty well mauled by the massive Chinese push south. I was in automatic weapons. I was the gunner, one of a team of five, on a half track. Half tracks, which were more like a half tank and half truck with a machine gun turret on the back, were created in the second world war for anti aircraft but in Korea we were brought in to counter attacks by massive human waves of young Chinese soldiers. Firing all of my guns at one time I could create quite a lot of fire power, 1,800. fifty caliber bullets per minute. It was noisy and cold in my little turret. We, along with the tanks were favorite targets of the North Korean forces.

Because at that time we had air supremacy, my only time shooting at airplanes was on one occasion when our own airplanes attacked us while we were in the rear protecting our own artillery. One Sunday morning they flew in and shot and killed many of our own men, so we fired back. (That included me.) Quite an unusual thrill to shoot your own airplanes.

We moved every few weeks spending time on the front lines living in bunkers and then time several miles from the front lines protecting our artillery where all five of us lived in a big round tent recessed into the earth about four feet, then it was back again to the front. In snow and ice we kept warm by a gasoline fire day and night. Real below zero weather! I took some photos and did a lot of sketching both in Korea and in Japan for the years we were there. Here are some photos and several sketches including two cartoons that were published in the Christians Science Monitor.

Check out the Korea section in the 'PHOTO ALBUM', and the Korea section in the 'CARTOONS' section to see what it was like for yourself.