Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Joseph E. Hannah was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
My name is Valerie Jones. It's the year 2003, and we're here at the First Baptist Church today, and I'm interviewing Joseph Hannah who prefers to be called Joe. And Joe served in the Korean War and he was in the service from September the 10, 1952 until September 10, 1954. Good afternoon, Joe.
Good afternoon, Valerie.
To kind of get us started, how about telling me something about your getting in the service, where were you living, and were you drafted or did you enlist?
Well, I was, of course I lived in California near Visalia and out east of Ivanhoe, a little west of Woodlake, but I was playing professional baseball when I was drafted. I was in Topeka, Kansas playing for the Topeka Owls. The season was going to be over in just a few days but I got my notice to report on September 10th, on September 10th. I hurried up and flew home to report to the officer in Visalia, and then a few days later I was put on a bus to go to Fresno to get sworn in, and then headed for Fort Ord, California where I had my basic training.
Okay. How long were you at Fort Ord?
Well, I was at Fort Ord from September 10th to about the first of October of '53, and finished the baseball season at Ford Ord. I was -- I went clear through the total 16 weeks of basic training, but being a professional baseball player it was pretty easy for me to make the Fort Ord Baseball Team that the General wanted to entertain the troops, and play against other services around America, and I went out for the team and made it, and played that whole season. And then the Captain Babcock, who was head of Classification and Assignment, decided that he didn't like athletes because they were being more or less coddled, and in a sense we were, but we did our duty and entertained the troops, and so they shipped all of us who were POR qualified overseas, all of us that had our basic training all done. So, I only had less than 11 months left in the service when they shipped me over to Korea, and went to Japan, and went through CBR School, chemical radiological and biological warfare school, and spent about a month or two there, and then was shipped over to Korea. We landed at Inchon and got on a train that didn't have any windows, it was open to the weather, and it was cold as ice. We were on board benches, and we traveled to Seoul, and we got off there. And I'll always remember the Salvation Army, because they were the ones that were there and brought donuts and cookies to us soldiers.
Oh.
So pretty soon a truck come to get us and take us to our location. And I got to my unit in Korea which was the 5th RCT, which was the regimental combat team, a small unit that had all the power of -- the weapons of a larger force, but in smaller amounts, and we -- our job was to plug up the holes where the enemy was coming through, our troops. Now, I never had any combat experience. The war was over around, I mean, the fighting was over somewhere in June or July. I forget when, but still things were precarious, and so, I didn't have any combat experience. Of course, I almost walked through a mine field without realizing it, going to stand guard duty, and I got to my unit on New Years Day 1954, and it was in the evening and it was cold. They put us on these cots, gave us a sleeping bag, and I kind of froze to death all night long. So, I spent three months climbing around the mountains of Korea, and doing maneuvers, and that sort of thing. We were real close to no man's land at this point, and I don't remember the towns we were near, but we were north of Seoul. And I climbed a lot of mountains in the snow and ice, and, you know, I had a good time. But guess what happened around spring training time?
What happened?
Well they wanted a baseball team in the 5th RCT, and so they asked -- invited any good baseball player to try out for the team, and so I went down there, and they already had my name because they already knew I had been a professional baseball player, and I played for Fort Ord. We traveled all over Fort Ord playing other service teams. We had a good team. Okay, that's about it. I was not a war hero, but let me tell you, I would have, I would have done my duty if they had asked me to.
I'm sure you would?
But because I was a baseball player I did not enlist. I loved baseball and I wanted to play it, but when they drafted me, I knew it was my duty to serve. And I had a rifleman's MOS. I would have been right up there in the front lines, because I couldn't type, I couldn't be a clerk typist. So I had a rifleman's MOS, and I carried a 57 recoilless rifle all over those mountains, which weighed 55 pounds with the cover, and me and another fella, it was a KATUSA, a Korean from Korea, that was in our unit, and he was a wonderful guy. He was husky, it was him and me that carried this rifle all the time, because those little squirts just couldn't handle it, going over the mountains. And I was pretty strong when I was young, anyway.
Tell me a little bit about this group that you were with climbing all over these mountains. Anybody in particular you remember? You mentioned the Korean gentlemen, but anyone else maybe you buddied up with or remember in particular?
Well, you know, I don't even remember the names of all the guys in the tent.
That's not unusual.
But, yes I had a good time. Especially after the baseball season got started. An interesting thing, when we went to join the team, we were in Taegu, and I thought they had moved the 5th RCT down to Taegu. So, I thought they had forgotten all about me, and I was kind of sad because I wanted to play baseball. 'Cause when I got out, I wanted to be in professional baseball again. And, you know, I'd liked to play if they were going to have a team. Well, we moved down there, and I thought they had forgotten all about me. And then one day they call me out, and sent me down to Pusan, and when we got there we get this lieutenant -- oh what's his name? I'll think of it after a while. We got in trucks, two trucks, with all us guys and they drove us way, way back over and around the mountains and then down into -- onto a little peninsula where the ocean came in there, and it was an old Japanese naval base, and that's where we had spring training. We didn't have any balls. We didn't have any bats. We didn't have any gloves, and we waited there for the army to send us equipment. So one day here comes this airplane and it zooms down over us, and we got out there and it goes around and zooms down again, and then comes and zooms down again, dropped out a whole bag of baseballs, dropped out bats, dropped out gloves. So anyway, we had some really funny experiences. One experience was kind of tricky, because I was standing guard duty one night, this is before the baseball, when we were close to the no man's land and they drove me out, the Corporal Guard, they drove me out and told me where my post was. I was to climb up the hill, top of the ridge, and then I would start going down the ridge, and when I met the other guard then I would turn around and go back. So, I go up there, and I start walking down the ridge. I never ever met a guard, and when I got down to the road, where the pass to go up, there I recognize, this is the road I started walking up the hill. Snow all over the ground, it was kind of light, the moon was out. So it was pretty light and I saw this big tree stump up on the hill that I didn't notice when I came down there, and as I got closer -- now we were not allowed to have our clips in the rifle, they were in our pocket, because it still could be dangerous, but we had the clip in our pocket, and when I got up there I saw this man standing there looking at me and it kind of scared me. Well, I took that clip out and I put it in my rifle and walked up a little closer and I said, "Who goes there?" You know, and I gave him the secret number that I was supposed to say, the secret word, and he's supposed to repeat something else back to me and he had forgotten it, and it was the other guard and I didn't know this, and I said it again. And I'm getting a little nervous myself, I was getting ready to plug him. And I said it again, "Who goes there?", you know, and he said, "guar...guar...guar...guar guard." He had walked off the trail and had gone to sleep in his parka, you know, in the snow, and I had walked right past him. Well that was my real war story.
Oh goodness, goodness. When this group left Fort Ord, you said all of the athletes were sort of determined that they needed to leave and go to war. Were there other ball players or were they just various athletes or --
No. All the guys which were on the team at Fort Ord were former professional -- they were professional baseball players. So we had a very good team. It was a really good team.
Oh, and so you all ended up in the same --
No. Some of them only had eight weeks of basic, so they got to stay and finish their 16 weeks and by that time a lot of them didn't have enough time left in the army, and by the time I got to Korea I only had from January 1st to September 10th to be out of the army. So, it was kind of silly to send me over there with such short time and a waste of money, but anyway, I'm glad I went, because I cannot remember all the things, but I remember us ball players being in this Quonset hut, and having such a good time. We had a great time, and I was just fortunate that I was a professional baseball player and was -- gotten out of Fort Ord to play baseball, instead of having to go to combat, because I could be dead now. Because I was a rifleman, and, you know, they consider a third of the guys in a battle, don't come back.
That's right.
So anyway, and I met some marines there. This is for Bob, and I was really impressed with the marines.
Good.
Yeah, I was.
How did you keep in touch with your family?
I wrote letters, mainly to Kay. We were newlyweds, and I was homesick all the time I was over there, and she wrote me almost everyday, and oh, man, I looked forward to those letters.
How long did it take your mail to catch up? Was it a pretty lengthy time?
No. It was really well, you know, I don't know. I forgot. All I know is when I got in my company it wasn't long before I was getting letters everyday, and then some of them would come the next day, and maybe a couple, three of them would come at once, and I wrote three or four times a week but --
How was your food while you were over there?
Well I thought the food over there was good. I heard a lot of complaints, but shoot, I enjoyed the food. I mean, I like food, it doesn't have to be gourmet for me to like it. Wasn't as good as mom cooks.
Oh, okay. I was going to ask you if you had trouble getting supplies, but I guess the biggest trouble you had was getting your balls and bats; right?
Yeah.
Now, how did you -- you had a team. Did you have two teams, and then you --
No, we had one team.
And you would go and play other --
-- other bases, yeah.
And they would have teams?
Yeah, oh yeah. All of them had a team, and the troops would come out in droves to watch us play, and the Koreans would watch us play. I've got a funny story for you. We play -- a lot of teams would come to our place to play, to see, and we would go to their's. Well, we went to this one place, and you know what a honey bucket is?
Yes.
Okay. That honey bucket is real close to the ballpark, and they would get a crust over them, and they weren't too bad, but a foul ball would go up and would come down in them and just make a little hole in that crust, and it would be a smell -- would just be enormous. Well we had a lot of Koreans there. Old men and old women and everything, and we had a guy on the other team was running for a foul ball, and he ran right into one of these honey wells, and I'm telling you the Korean people there, they laughed. They absolutely laughed themselves almost to death, and it was funny.
He wasn't on your team, was he?
No. But he took off his clothes right there in front of everybody. Of course, he didn't take off his shorts, but he wasn't going to leave that messy stuff on him, he went up to his waist.
Oh, dear. Did you feel any stress at all being over there other than the fact you were home sick, anything that --
Well, you know, they were having the ceasefire talks with the communists. So, we didn't know, but that it could start up again. That sort of thing. No, I wasn't really fearful except when I met the guard that night on guard duty. I did almost walk through a mine field, which was scary as the dickens if it hadn't been daylight. Of course, it was frozen ground. Sometimes if the ground is real frozen, you can walk over a mine and it might not go off, but here was this -- and tell you how stupid I was, here along this ridge was a single wire and it had a little -- signs on it, hanging on it. At various intervals I glanced at it, but it had weathered so much I couldn't really read it, I could have if I got up real close. So I just decided I was going to go to this ammo dump where I was standing guard, guarding the ammunition rockets, you know, and all these kind of things, mortar rounds, and things down here, a whole lot of stuff like that. I would stand guard there. So, I just threw my leg over this wire and started down the hill, and it was daylight, and this fella down there, black fella, he looks up there and hollers at me, and starts screaming toward me, "Stop. Stop. You're walking through a mine field." So, I turned around and looked to see where my steps were, and I stepped in the same place and went back up. I guess I went 15 yards down the hill, and then I looked around and I saw duds of shells that had never gone off and stuff laying on the ground. I walked back up and I straddled that fence again and went to look at the thing that says, danger mines and duds. So that's my war story.
Were there any other events memorable or unusual or that you would like --
Well we had a little guy who became our mascot, this little Korean boy. He was an orphan, and of course there were lots of orphans, and he was about eight-years-old. I forgot his name now, but he was a precious little guy, and he would go with us to the ball games. And I guess he had been in an orphanage, a Christian orphanage. And when we would play these other teams, other little boys would come up to him, and they would be dirty and stuff like that, and he would give them a candy bar and he would say, you know, you ought to wash up, and do this kind of thing, and gave these other little boys advice. And we took him to church. It was interesting some -- another religion took him to church, and he didn't like it, but he liked ours, you know. I have forgotten a lot of things, I had such a good time. I had a lot of laughs and, you know, service is not all that bad. Course you don't like it interrupting your life, but, you know, I was really glad to do it, even though -- man, when I was getting ready to get shipped over, I was really broken hearted. I was leaving my wife and family behind, you know, and I didn't know whether I'd come back or not, you know. It's a funny feeling, you know.
It is. Tell me, do you recall the day your service ended?
Well, yeah.
And how did you get from Korea to get back?
Well, have you got time for this?
Sure, sure.
I wanted to go home, and I was -- well, to be very frank with you, I was the best player on the team. And so the Colonels and Generals, well no Generals there, but Colonels, and some of the other top officers, they didn't want their team to be bad. They told me, "If you'll stay until the seasons over, we'll fly you home," and they said, "We'll make you a Corporal." And I said, you know, "Sir, I just want to know I'm on the way home." So we went to a place where they muster us out, at least to ship us out for home, and it was another base where they did this sort of thing, and, you know, I got a terrible, terrible stomachache. It was awful. I thought I had appendicitis. I thought I was really sick, and the guys said, You need to go to the doctor, whatever it is, I forget what they call it now. You need to go to the hospital or the place where they take care of the sick people on the base and I said, "Don't, they'll make me stay here, and I won't get to go home. I want to get on the boat. Then after I'm on the boat, I'll go see the doctor." Well it rained that day, we were outside. I went over against a barracks, it had some eves that came down which kind of kept the rain from falling on me, and I laid on my duffle bag with my head, and I laid there and I groaned and suffered for hours, and then they -- I forgot how long it was, but later on they took us to another place to sleep, and we drove in a truck and I was on that truck, open air truck, and we're driving and I begin to feel better, and by the time we got to that other location where we were going to sleep, close to the ship, my stomachache went away, and I was so happy.
So you got on the ship, and how long did it take to get back to the States?
It took us 14 days. It took us 17 days going, and took 14 days going back. I had stood in so many lines I said, "I'm not standing in any lines unless my compartment eats first." So, I would only stand in line when my compartment ate first, and I lost about nine or ten pounds on that voyage home, and I felt like a million bucks.
Where did you come into, what port?
We came into Fort Lewis Washington, and that was so beautiful coming in down by Victoria and through that channel up there into I guess Pusan or whatever, and then they put us on, I guess it was buses, down to Fort Ord. And so I got out about August 20th, and Kay met me there, and I was in heaven, yup.
Okay, so you remember that well?
Yeah, I do.
And did you go back to playing ball?
Yup. I went and joined the Los Angeles Angels which was a Triple A Team, Chicago Cub Triple A Team in the Pacific Coast League, and I finished the season with them. And I did pretty good, they let me play a few games and I, you know, I was just a young guy. So I finished the season with them. And the next year, I went to spring training with them, but ended up in -- making Georgia Class A Ball the next year. And I went back to spring training with Los Angeles Angels and ended up with the Cubs, and ended up with the Los Angeles Angels again, and played that season, a good portion of that season, and then was sent to Memphis Tennessee, and I played for the Memphis Chicks in the Southern Association. And then the next year, I was back with the Chicago Cubs again, and ended up with the Los Angeles Angels and played on that team on the Pacific Coast Championship, 17 games in front of the second place team. Yeah, anyway, then I played until 1963.
Okay, what did you do after that? Did you go onto school or --
Well I would go to school in the off-season baseball, and I'd go out here to COS.
Did you use GI Bill to go?
Yes, huh-huh.
Good.
And then after that, I didn't do it consistently, when I quit playing baseball in 1963, I went back to Fresno. I went to Fresno State, and I was going to be a teacher, and they had stopped giving out the provisional teacher things which I was trying to get, and so I said, well, I got to find something to do. So I went to barber school. I barbered for about four years, and I decided to go back to the -- the school people here wanted me, the administrators, they thought I'd be a good teacher and good role model for kids. So I went back and got my education and taught for 21 years, and then we decided we wanted to travel and sing cowboy songs. So, I retired from teaching in 1992, and so we've been traveling the world, and I've been used to traveling.
Used to traveling.
In baseball and the army.
______ Did you ever join any veterans organizations or anything of that nature when you got out?
I joined the American Legion.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I'm still a member of the Ivanhoe American Legion.
American Legion.
Yeah.
Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about military in general?
Well, I don't think it did, no. Because I always liked our military. I believe that America needs a good powerful military and, you know, the bible says there will be wars and rumors of wars, and I don't see anywhere in the bible where it condemns you for being a soldier. If you're going to protect your homeland, which everybody should, you're going to have a strong military. And I think, I think we've got a nice strong military, and I believe that what we are doing now and in Iraq is the right thing. Not that I like it, but I don't like war more than anybody else, but a lot of these idealistic people just do not understand, somehow that there's something screwed up about the way they think. If they think that if we'll be little bitty nice boys, and let everybody run over us that they'll quit doing it. I never ever found a bully on campus that would quit harassing the weaker people, unless somebody bigger put him down, and I did that a few times in school, and I became a hero of the weaker kids on the campus. You follow what I'm talking about? If -- we'd be saluting Hitler if it weren't for the United States. Russia couldn't stop him. England couldn't stop him. It was the United States that stopped Hitler, ______ the Japanese and I'm not saying they didn't contribute, but they wouldn't have. Russia never won a war until the United States was on the same side, in their history that I know of. Japan, little Japan, Japan whipped them along time ago. So, I believe we need a strong military, and I think we need the kind of people that will use it at the right time and the right place.
Good. Is there anything that we haven't talked about or that I haven't asked you about that you would like to share or you remember that you might want to add?
Well, yes.
Okay.
I wish I had been a better Christian when I was in the army. I prayed, I read my bible occasionally. And I was not mean or anything, but I did not witness -- I did tell some guys that I was a Christian and I went to church. But that's one of my regrets and -- but -- and I can't think of anything else that -- all the time I was in the army, I wanted out, I wanted to be home. I'm a homeboy.
Yeah, okay. Well Joe, thank you very much.
You're welcome, Valerie.
And we'll be talking to you again.
Okay.