My Two Years As an Infantryman in the United States Army
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My Two Years as an Infantryman in the United States Army A REPORT By Frank McGill March 13, 2006 Frank McGill in Caribou, Maine October or November 1950 ii REPORT From: Frank McGill To: Grandchildren Date: 2 Jul 2005 Subj.: My Two Years as an Infantryman in the United States Army Ref: (a) Monthly Command RePorts, 45th Infantry Division, 179th Infantry Regiment, APO 86, for October, November and December 1952 (b) ToPograPhic MaPs, Army MaP Service, Korea, L751 and L851 Encl.: (1) PhotograPhs, seventeen (2) MaPs, round triP road route of trooP truck convoy, CamP Rucker, Alabama to Fort Hood, Texas (3) MaPs, ocean route of trooP transPort shiPs, Seattle-Adak-Yokohama-Inchon (4) MaP, route of trooP train from Inchon to Chuncheon in Korea and truck route from Chuncheon to Line Minnesota, the front line (5) MaP, AMS toPograPhic, 179th Inf in reserve, Inje area in Korea, 1:50,000 (6) MaPs, AMS toPograPhic, road route for trucks from Inje north to Line Minnesota in Korea, 1:50,000 (7) MaPs, AMS toPograPhic, 179th INF regimental sector on Line Minnesota, the front line in Korea, 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 (8) MaP Overlay, Enemy Positions, Annex #1 to Intelligence Section III, December 1952 Command RePort, 179th Inf (9) CoPy, Prayer card entitled “Prayer of a Soldier” and handmade calender (10) CoPy, D.D. Form 24, RePort of SeParation From the Armed Forces of The United States, 27 Jan 1953 (11) CoPy, Discharge Certificate, United States Army Ready Reserve, 4 Feb. 1957 (12) Table of Organization and EquiPment, 45th Inf Div, Korean War (13) CoPy, Daily Journal for 29 Oct 1952, Monthly Command RePort, 179th Infantry Regiment, APO 86 (14) Information for Researchers at Archives II in College Park, MD ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .......................................................................................................................v WELCOME TO YOUR LOCAL DRAFT BOARD.............................................................1 FORT DEVENS, MA - A SHEET OF ICE .......................................................................3 ALABAMA, HERE WE COME.........................................................................................5 MY FELLOW SOLDIERS AT CAMP RUCKER, AL.........................................................7 BASIC AND ADVANCED INFANTRY TRAINING AT CAMP RUCKER.........................12 SOME WEEKEND PASSES .........................................................................................17 INTELLIGENCE AND RECONNAISSANCE TRAINING AT FORT BENNING, GA.......19 TRUCK CONVOY TO INFANTRY MANEUVERS AT FORT HOOD, TX ......................21 INFANTRY MANEUVERS IN AND AROUND FORT HOOD, TX ..................................23 HOME FOR THIRTY DAY LEAVE BEFORE GOING OVERSEAS ...............................25 FAR EAST, HERE I COME ...........................................................................................26 ACROSS THE PACIFIC ON AN MSTS TROOP TRANSPORT SHIP...........................28 TOKYO BAY AND THE PORT OF YOKOHAMA ..........................................................30 REPO DEPOT AT CAMP DRAKE, NORTH OF CITY OF TOKYO ...............................32 HERE COME THE MARINES .......................................................................................35 INCHON TO CHUNCHON, KOREA BY TRAIN ............................................................36 45TH INFANTRY DIVISION REPLACEMENT COMPANY, NORTHEAST OF CHUNCHON.......................................................................................................37 HISTORY OF THE 45TH INFANTRY “THUNDERBIRD” DIVISION ...............................39 THE SOYANG RIVER...................................................................................................40 GLOSSARY FOR US ARMY TOPOGRAPHICAL MAPS OF KOREA...........................41 THE TOWN OF INJE ....................................................................................................42 MY BULLET PROOF VEST ..........................................................................................44 MY CAREER ON THE ‘VICE’ SQUAD ..........................................................................45 SLUGFEST ON LINE KANSAS.....................................................................................46 NCO SCHOOL AT CHUNCHEON . .. .. 47 WELCOME TO LINE MINNESOTA .............................................................................48 CODES USED IN THE DAILY JOURNALS OF THE COMMAND REPORTS ..............51 iii 2ND BATTALION OBSERVATION POST ON HILL 749 AT DT29754560 ....................53 ATTACK ON F (FOX) COMPANY OUTPOST ..............................................................56 HISTORY OF THE NORTH KOREAN 45TH INFANTRY DIVISION...............................59 MAP OVERLAY OF ENEMY POSITIONS ON LINE .....................................................60 AIRCRAFT SUPPORT ..................................................................................................61 ATTACK ON HILL 812 ..................................................................................................62 LIFE ON THE LINE .......................................................................................................64 G (GEORGE) COMPANY, 179TH INFANTRY REGIMENT, HERE I COME ..................69 THREE MAN DAYLIGHT OBSERVATION PATROL ....................................................71 THANKSGIVING DAY, 1952.........................................................................................73 BACK IN THE FRONT LINE TRENCH..........................................................................74 WINTER IN THE TRENCH ...........................................................................................77 PATROLS .....................................................................................................................78 TIME TO GO HOME .....................................................................................................81 CHUNCHON TO SEOUL BY TRAIN.............................................................................84 45TH INFANTRY DIVISION REPLACEMENT COMPANY NEAR SEOUL .....................85 REPLACEMENT DEPOT AT SASEBO, KYUSHU ISLAND, JAPAN.............................86 MY ONE DAY OF LEAVE IN THE SHOPPING DISTRICT OF SASEBO, JAPAN ........88 BACK ACROSS THE PACIFIC, SASEBO TO SAN FRANCISCO ................................89 CAMP STONEMAN, CA TO FORT DEVENS, MA ........................................................91 SEPARATION FROM THE US ARMY AT FORT DEVENS, MA ...................................92 CAMPAIGNS, US MILITARY IN KOREA ......................................................................93 ENCLOSURES iv PREFACE The originals for the command rePorts, reference (a), and the toPograPhical maPs, reference (b), are located in the National Archives at 8601 AdelPhi Road, College Park, Maryland 20740-6001. We know this federal government archive and research center as Archives II. Archives II oPerates under the National Archives and Records Administration, see enclosure (14). Monthly Command Reports Monthly Command RePorts contain a considerable amount of information relating to the everyday activities of an infantry regiment while it is in combat. The rePort is comPosed of seven sections. Those sections are: I. Introduction II. Narrative of Activities III. Intelligence IV. Personnel V. Logistics VI. Chronology VII. Daily Journals Most of a rePort is devoted to its Section VII, the Daily Journals. This journal is a minute by minute log of messages within the regiment from 0000 to 2400 each day of the month see samPle, enclosure (13). The messages in these journals were tyPed uP at the regimental headquarters for the 179th Inf as the events were occurring. The maP location, for each event mentioned in the message, is identified in the journal by a six digit set of longitude and latitude coordinates. See enclosure 13 for a tyPical day’s journal entries. During October, November and December 1952 the tyPist for the 179th Inf was at the regimental headquarters in the village of Kajon-Ni. Kajon-Ni was on the west side of the Soyang River at coordinates DT310406. This was about two miles behind our Position on the Main Line of Resistance (MLR), the Minnesota Line. The originals for the command rePorts are under the control of Maria T Hanna, Modern Military Records (NWCTM), Textual Archives Services Division. They can be viewed and coPied in the Textual Research Room on the 2nd floor of the archives. They are filed among the: Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1917- (Record GrouP 407). 45TH Infantry Division, 179th Infantry Regiment Folder: 345 - INF(179) Command RePorts, October/November/December 1952 Box #: 4342 v Location: 270/68/12/05 They total 700 Pages: 100 for October, 300 for November and 300 for December. ExcerPts from these rePorts are in enclosure (13). The originals at the Archives II were tyPed on legal size Pages, i.e., 8 1/2" X 14". They have been modified by me, so that they fit on the 8 1/2" x 11" Pages of this rePort to my grandchildren. It is sad that the originals of these command rePorts are turning yellow and are becoming very brittle. The corners of the documents are beginning to break off because of this brittleness. I questioned the young lady, who oversees these records, as to when they would be microfilmed. She said that there is no Plan to microfilm them. That was in either 1996 or 1998. When originally tyPed in 1952, these rePorts were stamPed SECRET SECURITY INFORMATION. In 1996 and later, as I was making coPies of the rePorts, a declassification