c.K. Holloway, Jr.lKorean War Memoir page 1 ESCAPE FROM HELL A NAVY SURGEON REMEMBERS PUSAN, INCHON, AND CHaSIN KOREA 1950 by CHARLES K. HOLLOWAY, JR. Captain, Medical Corps, United States Navy (Retired) (unpublished manuscript completed October 1997) Copyright © by Charles Kenneth Holloway III and Jean Barrett Holloway C.K. Holloway, Jr./Korean War Memoir page 2 DEDICATION This book is dedicated to the officers and men of the First Marine Division, the Navy hospital corpsmen, and the Navy medical and dental officers, who served in the Korean War in 1950. None of us would have gotten out of the Chosin area without their outstanding performance. And, for her generous and loving support, to Martha, my wonderful wife, who was waiting for me when I returned home. C.K. Holloway, Jr.lKorean War Memoir page 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword 5 About the AuthorlThe Author's Methods 5A-D Maps SE-H Introduction 6 One: Oakland and Orders to Duty with the Marines in Korea 10 Two: Miryang and the Naktong River Battles 22 Three: Local Color Observations at Chzang Won, Miryang, and Masan 29 Four: 15 September 1950, The Invasion ofInchon: The Noises of War 37 Five: Charlie Medical Company at Inchon and Kimpo Airfield 44 Six: The Capture of Seoul and Staging for the Invasion of North Korea 55 Seven: Charlie Medical Company Loads Aboard the USS Bexar and We Go for the Wonsan Landing 63 Eight: I Am Transferred to Easy Medical Company In Hamhung and Begin a Cold Journey Up the Mountain to the Chosin Reservoir 69 Nine: 06 November 1950, Easy Medical Company Moves Up the Mountain in the Changjin River Valley: We Meet the Chinese Army 76 Ten: 11 November 1950, The Seventh Marines Move to Koto-Ri and Easy Medical Company Follows 82 C.K. Holloway, lr.lKorean War Memoir page 4 Eleven: 15 November 1950, The Seventh Marines and Easy Medical Company Occupy Hagaru-Ri 87 Twelve: The Cold Begins to Take Its Toll at Hagaru-Ri 94 Thirteen: The Chinese Trap Is Sprung 100 Fourteen: Last Days at Hagaru-Ri: We Fight Our Way Out of the Chinese Trap and Arrive At Koto-Ri 109 Fifteen: The Marines Regroup at Koto-Ri and Continue Down the Mountain to Hamhung 118 Sixteen: The Marines Return to Pusan and Masan 127 Seventeen: We Spend Three Weeks In Masan and Then Fly Home 136 Eighteen: February and March 1951, Home 142 Epilogue 146 Acknowledgments 151 Appendix General D.P. Smith's Division Memorandum 152 Three Presidential Unit Citations 154 Special Action Report of Company "E", First Medical Battalion, First Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force 160 Photographs: 10 selected from over 100 176A-J C.K. Holloway, Jr.lKorean War Memoir page 5 FOREWORD The Chosin Reservoir story -- a tale of superb gallantry to rival the knights of old -- was made by heroes, and first of all has to be Ken Holloway, M.D. He tells his story-­ not for self-aggrandizement or glory -- but to recount the heroic measures undertaken by those ill-trained and ill-prepared citizen soldiers who defiantly stood against immeasurable and overwhelming odds to extract the Chosin few from disaster. Dr. Holloway's simplicity of speech, style, and manner are all honest reflections of his deep­ seated character. He stands tall for his personal responsibility to care for all entrusted to him. His story of hardship, enduring life-threatening elements of weather plus the calculating destructive forces of the enemy, is reported with clarity, reason, dignity, kindliness, compassion, and grace. He has the eyes and ears which could see and hear and the memory to recall and record. To read this narrative is to suffer the indignity of ill-preparedness, the bone-numbing coldness of the intemperate weather, and the perseverance against overwhelming odds of a few committed souls who truly believed and lived for "honor, duty and country." Ralph E. Faucett Rear Admiral, Medical Corps United States Navy, Retired Friday, January 16, 1998 C.K. HollowaylKorean War Memoir page 5 A About the Author by Martha Jones Holloway Charles Kenneth Holloway, Jr., Captain, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy (Ret) was born in 1918 in Floydada, Texas, and died in 1997 in La Jolla, California. Known to his wife Martha and his friends as Ken, he spent 49 years in the practice of medicine. He took his medical degree from the University of Texas School of Medicine in 1942 and did his internship at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, during World War II. Obligated to serve in the Armed Forces, he chose the Navy and was assigned as division medical officer, Escort Division 63, in the Pacific. After World War II, he resigned from the Navy to take a residency in surgery at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. At the end of one year he found he could not support his family on the $100 per month that residents got in those days, so he spent two years in general practice in Grants Pass, Oregon. However, surgery was his first love, and he rejoined the Navy to finish his residency at Naval Hospital, Oakland, California. That residency was interrupted by the Korean War when he received "proceed immediately" orders. In the midst of an operation he handed his scalpel over to another surgeon and left the next day to serve as a surgeon with the First Provisional Marine Brigade, Reinforced, Fleet Marine Force, Korea, and later with the First Marine Division, Korea. (Specifically, he was first a member of Charlie Medical Company, Fifth Battalion, First Provisional Brigade, which continued as supporting unit of the Fifth C.K. HollowaylKorean War Memoir page 5 B Regiment, First Marine Division upon arrival in Korea. Later at Chosin he commanded Easy Medical Company which provided support for the Seventh Marine Regiment, First Marine Division.) He was with the Marines and the other U.S. and U.N. forces who were trapped by the Chinese at the Chosin Reservoir in the freezing winter of 1950, but was fortunate to be among those who fought their way out. Those survivors were allowed to come home in January of 1951, and he resumed his residency at Naval Hospital, Oakland, where he eventually became chief of surgery. His next duty was as chief of surgery, Naval Hospital, San Diego. After that he served as: Executive Officer, Naval Hospital, San Diego, 1967-1968 Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Hospital in USS Repose, AH-16, 1968- 1969, Vietnam Commanding Officer, Naval Hospital, Long Beach, CA 1969-1971 Military decorations include: Legion of Merit with Combat V Legion of Merit; Bronze Star with Combat V (these two for the Korean War) Four awards of the Presidential Unit Citation R VN Honor Medal First Class, R VN Medical, Navy Unit Commendation Certifications: Diplomate, American Board of Surgery 1954 Fellow, American College of Surgeons 1956 c.K. HollowaylKorean War Memoir page 5 C He retired from the Navy October 1, 1971, with the rank: of Captain, MC, USN, and immediately went to work in the Emergency Department at Kaiser Permanente, San Diego, retiring in 1991. He was a member of the Society of General Surgeons, the Rotary Club, the Chosin Few~ the U.S. Naval Institute, the San Diego Zoological Society Research Council, and the Institute for Continued Learning at University of California Extension at San Diego. C.K. HollowaylKorean War Memoir page 5 D The Author's Methods by Jean Barrett Holloway The richness and accuracy of detail in Captain Holloway's writing is derived from two archival treasures: First, there are the 119 35mm slides (most in color) he and his fellow medical officers took and shared with each other throughout their time in Korea. He used these slides as the basis for informational lectures he gave about the war when he returned to the United States early in 1951. The slides are still in excellent condition and are also archived on CD-ROM. Second, there are the many letters, still preserved, which he wrote to Martha, his wife, on the portable typewriter that survived the war with him (although her letters to him were lost at Chosin). Captain Holloway used these letters, his slides and lecture notes, copies of his military reports and citations, the memories of his battle companions, and a good deal of research and reading to recreate and ponder his Korea experiences. He wrote and re-wrote the memoir over several years in the 1990s, using the support of writing workshops held at the UC San Diego Extension Institute for Continued Learning. He also passed copies of the chapters as he wrote them among his family and friends for their interest and comment. CIA ~ The World Factbook 2002 - Asia l p"bl i c. do~i ~ 1 • • '41 .~, ~ .~ ;iI!iij __ ~':.r1·~ =~~J'i ...... tr-~ '") .. , 'J"" ·-1 'yJ}.. .. I i -- ==- ... - 1/1..1, ."' ...-.....-- _-. Korean Peninsula o 50 100lcm A , sb n 1,{uml CHINA Sea of Japan North Korea International boundary -'- Inlernal administrative boundary * Nationa' capital @ Intemal administrative capital Railroad Expressway Road North Kore.l/lJ$ 12 in fern",' divisions: nine pmvifltf1s Idol and three municipltlities (Ii). o I I I ,2,5 ~o Kilometers I . ill I I • o 25 50 MiCes L~~/C4Nt:~ fll'36N/«1N Korea Bay 2123/2003 " ')P\i les ao "'ile.s N i C.K. Holloway, Jr.IKorean War Memoir page 6 INTRODUCTION The earliest known accounts of human history, from both the oral tradition and the written word down to the present, are mainly filled with the stories of wars, one war after another.