United States Navy Chaplain Corps - Yearbook

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said, Thank God I am here able to experience this moment of freedom after 32 months of living hell. Another rather thin, but sun-tanned southern soldier quietly stated, We had a couple of good fellows who held services for us whenever possiblef, One tall Texan said, They took our Testaments away and only let us have short supervised services on Christmas and Easter. A great number of the returning Americans wore lead crosses made from melted toothpaste tubes. Catholics and Protestants alike possessed them. As you looked into the eyes of these men you felt proud of them. Think of what they had endured for their country. Think of the one named Valdery who showed you a torn bit of scripture he had carried all the way. He said, The Lord has been with me through two death marches, first Bataan and now this past one. I want to thank Him now.'l . . . You can't help but remember the proud Marine who came through the gate that separated the Americans from the Commonwealth and other U.N. troops. The oflicer asked, American ? The reply was, Yes, Sir! Not this fellow, he replied, K'Marine, Sir! He was courteous and you immediately liked him-you were proud he was a 7th Marine-your outfit. . . . There were some sad moments, men on stretchers, some men with Chinese symbols like the dove of peace of Chi- nese numbers tatooed on them like medieval prisoners . . . Life would hold great moments ahead for all, even the sad. As one man said, Today it is like I have been born all over again. Chaplain Robert W. Smith tells the story of an Air Force sergeant who was shot down while making a bombing raid over North Korea. He descended by parachute into the midst of enemy troops. He resigned himself to immediate death or torture. He was overwhelmed by a longing to live. As he walked off toward prison he could hardly believe his ears for he heard North Korean children singing, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.', This one song changed his outlook and he felt if these children can sing about Jesus then surely they do have respect for life. He . . . came back to tell that story. He wasn't a church member, he seldom went to church, he had taken Christianity for granted and now he realized that America's greatness was not in her tanks, planes, or bombs but in her God, in Jesus Christ, her Freedom, everything revolved around Him, and it took that simple little Sunday School song, Jesus Loves Me to awaken him. . . . I have seen them accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour as they knelt at the altar here in Freedom Village, I have heard them tell me how Christ saved them at the prison camps, how they were Born again -a spiritual birth into God's Kingdom. I have watched tears roll down sunken, sun-tanned cheeks as we talked about our Lord. I have heard men tell me that if God calls them they will become missionaries. Chaplain Vinson states, In the early months of the war, no religious services were permitted in the camps. Some few loyal Christians began to request permission to hold services. One lay preacher, Alfonso Johnson, from Columbus, Ohio, likened his experiences to those of the Apostle Paul, as he too, was jailed for attempting to hold services. I asked where he found words of comfort and encouragement in the time of trials. He replied, I just kept reading more about Paul, finding that he met the same problems as I, and was triumphant, many years agof' In later months the prison ofiicials permitted the men to hold religious worship services in small groups under the watchful eye of an interpreter. On occasions like Christmas and Easter, large services were held with excessive photographic coverage for propaganda purposes. Most of the men desired to stop for a moment of prayer in thanksgiving to God for their freedom and His ministry to them during the long prison months. We retired to one of the small chapels, located adjacent to the waiting room, to bow in a moment of prayer. It was indeed a privilege to kneel there before the altar and pray with these men. More touching was the occasional man who desired to lead in prayer himself. These men poured out their hearts to God in joyful thanksgiving at their first opportune moment after coming back to freedom. Some stories were elicited by the question put by Chaplain Vinson, Do you have your New Testament with you?,' Many said, . . . that their Testament was taken from them along with other possessions when they were captured. Some lost them in the hospitals. Some reached down in their personal effects bag and brought out their prized possession, a well worn dog-eared Testament. Many had crude canvas backs, the result of a prison camp rebinding to try to preserve the book. On the pages of these testaments were marked the favorite passages that had brought comfort in the time of misery, hope in the time of despair, light in the time of darkness. All the men liked to tell about the place the New Testament had played in their lives. Each man was pre- sented with a fresh, new Testament to carry with him on his journey back home. Chaplain Bakker said that the men told him, You couldnit get my New Testament from me' and showed him copies well worn and somewhat frayed. After a final blessing the man next goes to the Refreshment Section. The procedure for the rest of his time at Freedom Village is described by Chap- lain Stretch, In the Refreshment Section is usually a general of the Army or the Marine Corps to greet and chat with his men. From here those who wish to be interviewed by newspaper and magazine correspondents are taken into the Press Section. Then come ditty bags of toilet articles handed out by an attractive Red Cross girl, the shedding of prison clothes and hot showers. In pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers the man proceeds into the Army Evacuation Hospital set up alongside the warehouse, for chest X-ray and thorough -198-

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Big Switch. Chaplain Paul C. Hammerl counsels with a returned POW at Chaplain R. N. Stretch, llth Marines, holds service for two Freedom Village' repatriated POW's at Freedom Village Chapel. Division Chaplain Francis T. O'Leary administers communion during a mass celebrated at Freedom Village for UN POW,s repatriated from North Korea on 6 September 1953 at Munsan-ni. -197- l w

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physical examination. Here he has his dinner and receives any mail which awaits him. Later, returning to the ware- house, he is issued new clothing of his own branch of service and waits for further transportation to Inchon and the ships which will take him to the United States. His waiting is in a comfortable lounge maintained by the Red Cross, where light refreshments are served and the scenes and events of home are presented in posters, photographs, magazines, and newspapers. Chaplain Bakker also has this general note, On Wednesday, 5 August at 9 a.m. we started receiving our POWs. I was on hand to shake the hand of nearly all our UN personnel, and many of the South Koreans. The number of Marines returned was very few. The first one of our men that I welcomed there in the shadow of the Truce Pagoda was Pfc. Francis E. Kohus, Jr., from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was captured on Warsaw in 52. One of the lads returned was captured in March of this year on Vegas, where this outfit suffered many casualties. I had a service with his company last week, and will have another one there every Thursday. As you have read in the papers, the men were not too emotional-they looked as though they had all the stuffings beat out of them. By contrast-these Communists come by singing and shouting and waving their flags--there goes another truck load of them. Of course our men have been beaten down for a long time, without proper food- they told me that two of our chaplains starved to death- one of whom was repeatedly kicked in the stomach. The commies never had it so good with food, medicine, etc. On the 10th of this month I saw the men being loaded on an LST, awaiting transportation out to the GENERAL WALKER for passage home-they still looked somewhat gaunt, peaked, and washed out. The trip home with good food, etc., should do them a world of good. Chaplain Meachum concludes with this statement, When the gate swung wide on 5 August at Freedom Village, ambulances, 4 to 6 in a serial, came through 3 or 4- times a day with returning POW's to be processed, 341 Americans were received. Approximately 90 percent of these were Negroes. This week was a field day for me as a Baptist chaplain, because most of these men were Baptists. They greeted me, one after another, with a big smile, Chaplain, I've been waiting many months to talk to you! Whereupon they would pour out their hearts in relating their religious experiences during the long months of their imprisonment. They were permitted to gather in large num- bers for religious services on special occasions, such as Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. Many of them related that they had gathered in small groups regularly to worship. The first man with whom I talked, by the name of Dobbins, told me from his stretcher that he conducted services until he became ill and was sent to the hospital. The chaplains of the lst Marine Division were designated to minister at Freedom Village under the Detachment Com- mand of Colonel Metz, USMC. The 25 chaplains of the division will participate in the entire processing with groups of 8 working l week at a time. At the end of this first week, every chaplain who participated, including Protestants, Catholics, and a Jewish chaplain, had a rich experience in his religious ministry . . . For all these returned, we chap- lains thanked God that these have been able to endure the awful hardships of the Chinese Communist's imprisonment. . . . One said that he was a Christian before being cap- tured, but that while he was in prison God laid His hand on him, calling him to become a minister of the Gospel, and so he will go to school in Atlanta, Ga., to prepare himself. It is in order here to quote Chaplain John W. Berger, Methodist, who was in the GEN. N. M. WALKER, While aboard the GEN. N. M. WALKER CT-APl25J the first group of returning prisoners in Operation Big Switch were brought aboard at Inchon. Chaplains at Freedom Village had evidently done an excellent job of ministering to the immediate needs of these men. It fell to us fMaj. Henry Durand, USA, Roman Catholic, and myself, Protestantj to accompany these men back to the States. The constant interrogation to which these men were sub- mitted left little time for planned religious activity. Consequently, while we had two services daily fone eachj, most of our time with these men was spent regularly at irregular hours. We spent this time in their berthing com- partments talking both with individuals and groups as the occasion presented itself. However, I did not once leave a compartment without one man asking, Chaplain, could I talk with you a few minutes? -and often it was two or three asking. All the 300 plus men certainly knew there were chaplains aboard during those 2 weeks enroute home. But some in particular sought us out. My memory still vividly recalls the confidences brought to me by men who now had a new fear--of their own companions. There were at least a half dozen with whom I counseled that had yielded to the pressure of prison life and availed too much of enemy propaganda. But it was not ours, as chaplains, to investigate. For such matters we urged re-counsel with the CIC team aboard. As such, we, as chaplains, acted in the true and accepted capacity of letting the confessor think out loud and begin that period of catharsis which would in some measure bring him back into harmony with his prior environment. In addition, there' were all the rest who reflected their months in prison with that noticeable reticence to converse with anyone. And I think this is where we did our best work-by simply being among them hours at a time, working quietly, slowly, in Christian love and fellowship. CMy own particular interest in the returning prisoners lay in the fact that somewhere among them was a young man who had been a part of my young peoplels group, and because of a broken home, also a part of my own home. I looked anxiously for him, but he was not among this first group.j Besides the above mentioned progressives,', I had partic- ular fellowship with one Negro sergeant. He had led many of the religious services while in prison camps and had a particular ministry through music. He provided three quar- tets while aboard ship, indicating that that was one of their means while in camp to revive their spiritual needs. The two of us worked together in the compartments. While much will be written about these men, more will be left unsaid. God only knows how so many men survived the ordeals reflected in their thoughts and bodies. It seemed a 199-