Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Richard Bertel Holmsten 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.
Okay, we are rolling on the tape. Today's date is September--Wednesday, September the 17th of 2003. I'm at the home of Dick Richard Holmsten and his wife Florence, in Roseville, Minnesota, which is a suburb of St. Paul. Richard B. Holmsten was in the Korean Conflict. And we're at his home. His wife Florence is in the room with us. She'll be in and out a bit. And the only other person here is me, and I'm Patsy Kuentz, the interviewer. Dick was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March the 19th of 1930. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict in the 8th Field Artillery Battalion 25th Infantry Division. Right, Dick?
That's correct.
Okay. And the highest rank that he attained was Sergeant First Class. He enlisted. He was in the service, rather, for the Korean Conflict from October 8th of 1950, to September of 1951. And he served in Korea. He actually was in the service before, and maybe we could get him to tell us just a little bit about that. There's sort of a lead-in here. So, let's get started with the interview. Dick, tell us, how did you get into the service? Were you drafted, enlisted, and maybe you can explain how it happened, the first time and the second time again, too.
My wife and I got married then but we both graduated from high school in 1947 at St. Paul, Minnesota. I was 17 years old. And I along with six or seven other people were highly recruited by the University of Minnesota to play football, which I agreed to do. And I enrolled in the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1947 and played freshman football in the Institute of Technology Engineering. I completed my first year of college. And in the spring of 1948, they determined that I was too young and immature to compete with the GI's that were coming out of the service. And so they worked out a deal so that I could go into the service in September of that year, 1948, and get out in September of 1949 and not lose a year's eligibility on my college competition requirements. So I agreed to that. I enlisted in the Army and left home in September of 1948 and served--and served my entire time at the Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Artillery School. In Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where when I got out of there as a corporal I was teaching in the artillery school converting from the World War II method of artillery fire direction to the current one which is putting into force at that time which was brand-new, which was what was called the Korean--Korean method of artillery fire direction and adjustment. So I got out of--I got out of the service in the fall of '49, went back to the University of Minnesota and was on the football team for a short period of time and competed, went to the University of Minnesota. And in the spring of 1949--excuse me, in the spring of 1950, I was--my wife and I were on our way up north, to northern Minnesota. We heard on the radio that the Korean War had started. And by July of 1950 I was sent a letter that I was on a short list for recall and my status was inactive reserve. And they needed fire direction specialists, which I was one, with an MOS, military occupational specialty of 2704. And told not to lose contact with the offices in the Twin Cities, to stay in the state. So in September of 1950, I received my recall notice, went through the usual military physical exam and all that, and was told that I was going to have to report on October 8th of 1950. We subsequently, prior to that on September 26th, we got married in St. Paul, Minnesota. I did leave on October the 8th of 1950. Went to Fort Lewis, Washington. Went through the orientation and all the necessary things for shipping overseas. And shipped overseas directly to Japan.
Well, now, how did they--how--how did they get you to Fort Lewis?
By train. What they did is they had--they were recalling a bunch of reservists at the time and they attached a car onto the North Coast Limited, and it was essentially a combination troop train, passenger train, and we went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, that way.
Oh, okay.
Fort Lewis.
Fort Lewis?
Fort Lewis, Washington.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now was--I'm sure it was tough to leave your new bride?
Very tough.
Yeah.
But then they were--what choice did we have? And so what I did all, every time the train stopped I would get off and I would send a postcard back to Florence.
Oh, is that right?
As to where I was and what I was doing, so she ended up with a travelogue between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Fort Lewis, Washington. One of the things that happened to me which was a good break, all my life I've had a series of good breaks, is the man that ran the food service for the North Coast Limited was the father of a GI who had been killed in the Second World War.
Oh.
And he was a family friend. And he found out that I was on a train and he arranged that the group that I was with could eat in the dining car with linen and all that went with it--
Whoa.
--rather than eat with the troops and the troop kitchen type arrangement. So I was a very popular guy on that trip.
(Laughter) Made some friends early on?
Made friends early on.
(Laughter) That's great. What was this man's name?
His name was Clyde Cahill, C-a-h-i-l-l.
Yeah. And he lived in St. Paul?
He lived in St. Paul.
Yeah.
He lived in St. Paul. He was a steward on the--he ran the food service department of the North Coast Limited. And it was just the luck of the draw and his son had been killed in Europe.
There was a soft place in his heart for--
GI's.
--GI's?
That's right.
Isn't that something (laughter).
I was tell taken care of.
Yeah, you and some buddies.
Yeah, very much so.
Yeah. So you got to St. Louis--oh, St. Louis, oh, Fort Lewis?
Fort Lewis.
And how long were you there?
I was in Fort Lewis, Washington, from approximately the 15th of October or the 10th of October, whenever we arrived there, until the 1st of November.
Okay, okay.
And we left--we left Fort Lewis, Washington, in the first part of November and 15 days on the ocean.
Okay.
To get to Japan.
Yeah. Now at Fort Lewis, what did they do with you? You obviously didn't have to do boot camp again?
No, but they--they issued clothing and they went through our normal testing and reclassification.
Okay.
And there I was doing everything possible to keep from going to Korea, and trying to convince them that I was a refrigeration--trained refrigeration engineer and that I should go to something to stay home. And the man finally said to me, he said, "Look, Holmsten, you've got two choices. You've got a good MOS, which we need. If you insist on going on this refrigeration kick, we'll put you in the infantry. Now which way do you want it?"
That helped you make that decision?
That made my decision real easy.
Yeah, right, right, yeah.
So I went--we went across and then when we got to Korea--when we got to Japan, we had to go through a firearms orientation again, were issued combat clothing and the likes of that.
Were the firearms different from the last time?
No, no. It really hadn't changed anything.
No, they really hadn't changed anything?
No, it really hadn't changed anything. It was just a reorientation.
Yeah, yeah.
It was small arms. I was issued a carbine rifle as my personal weapon. And that followed me all the way through Korea until I made sergeant where they changed it from a carbine to a pistol. Why, I don't know.
(Laughter) Yeah, you wondered why, interesting. So where in Japan were you then?
We landed in Tokyo.
Tokyo?
And we landed and we went to Fort Drake in Tokyo. And Fort Drake was the--what was called the west point of Japan. And it had been taken over by the occupation crews and made as the headquarters for McArthur and everything else, and it was used as a reception center for filtering through the replacements that were going through there to Korea.
Oh, okay, okay. And how long did you say you were there then?
I was there about three days.
Oh, just three days?
Yes.
Oh, okay. All right, all right. So then you got on another ship?
Got another ship. Went back --
What kind of a ship was it?
They we--they were--they were troop ships.
Troop ships, okay.
And they were troop ships. And they--we went then from Yokohama Bay which is right outside of Tokyo.
Right.
Over to Inchon. That was a two-day, two nights, I think.
Yeah, yeah. You didn't have any sea sickness?
Oh going over I had all kinds of it. But I got over that. We ran into a real bad storm. The original route--the original route was from Seattle up through the Aleutian Islands and around that way to Japan. And we got part way up the coast towards Alaska and ran into some terrible weather, and my stomach didn't get along with it and they switched from what the north--what they call a northern route to the southern route down through Hawaii. That way it added about two or three days to our time on the sea.
Yeah.
But it got us out of the heavy water and I liked that better.
Yeah. You probably weren't alone in becoming seasick?
Oh, everybody was sick.
Yeah, yeah. Was it your first sea trip like that?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
And I--there again, I was lucky. I made it possible so that I could--I got a job where I was in charge of a kitchen crew which meant that I had good food.
If you could eat it (laughter).
If I--as soon as I could eat it, which was about three or four days and then I could eat it. But I didn't have to pull any other duties around that thing. I had something to do and I didn't have to stand in chow lines and didn't have to wash any pots and pans but I was in charge of a kitchen crew.
So this was people chopping and preparing food and--
Preparing food and then cleaning up and everything else. And it worked out fine for me.
Uh-huh.
And we had a lot of fun with that.
Yeah. And it gave you something to do on that long trip too?
Right.
Yeah, yeah. So then the two or three-day trip from Japan down to Korea--
Nothing--
--that was easy?
That was just an easy trip.
Okay.
Nothing out of character with that except just the--the biggest--the biggest thing was the anticipation of not knowing where we were going and what we were going to do.
Yeah, yeah. Great fear of the unknown?
Fear of the unknown.
So then you got to Inchon?
Got to Inchon. Landed there on December 7th.
So this is December 7th of 1950?
1950.
Okay.
And Inchon has very high tide, which means that the ship was out in the harbor a long ways and we off-loaded from the ship to an LST.
Mm-hmm.
And then they took the LST and ran it up on the shore and dropped the gate down and we walked off as if we were invading someplace.
Yeah, yeah.
And we walked into a situation that was a completely bombed out wreck situation. All the rail cars there were full of holes from the invasion, because we were right after the Inchon invasion, about two months after the Inchon invasion.
So all that stuff was--
--all that stuff was there and it was very impressionable on me. And I remember it as if it happened yesterday.
Yeah.
The holes scared the wits out of us. There we entered, we got put on a train and went to Yong-Dong-Po. And if you look on the map you'll see that it's about 15 or 20 miles. It took us two and a half days.
Is that right?
Because--
Oh, we got a map here. Florence has just handed me a map. Okay, here's Inchon.
There's Inchon. Here's Yong-Dong-Po.
Yong-Dong-Po, okay.
Right up here.
Okay.
And the--that was quite a ride because the train would move 2 or 300 yards and stopped while they had to fix the rail--the rails and everything else and the--
A long trip?
A long trip.
Yeah.
It was--it was a cattle car. There were no seats. You were just in there and you made the best of it.
Sitting on the floor?
Sitting on the floor on your duffel bag.
A bunch of guys squeezed in?
A bunch of guys squeezed in. No facilities. The only time--the facilities were at the train stop and everybody went off the outside there.
Whoa. So then you got to the destination, Yong-Dong-Po.
We got to Yong-Dong-Po and we went through with the 8th Army Field--8th Army Replacement Center there where we were assigned to our outfit. There I received my assignment to the 8th Army Field Battalion. That's the first time that I'd heard that name at all.
Is that right?
And a very interesting thing happened in that situation is that I met two--two fellows who were going to--part of my friends from the time I left, Robert Schranck, who was from Mankato, Minnesota.
Is that right?
And he's the same basic situation I did. Same football for Purdue University and gone to school there. They called him out into the Reserves the same as me. And he was about the same size as me.
Huh.
And a nice--a good fellow. He and I have maintained a friendship to this day. And another one is a boy by the name of Sefton Stallard, S-t-a-l-l-a-r-d. Sefton was from Elizabeth, New Jersey, and he--here, again, was another enlisted reservist who had been recalled.
Okay, yeah.
He had put in two years at Brown University.
Okay.
Very--very smart. So the three of us became a cadre. There were all fire direction specialists. All basically the same background. And Bob--
Do you--do you keep track of the guy in New Jersey too?
He's dead.
He's passed away?
He's passed away.
All right.
I keep track of his wife.
Okay.
His mother -- his wife, rather.
Yeah, yeah. And the fellow in Mankato?
He's presently retired living in Devil's Lake, North Dakota. And I keep track of him and he comes to town and stays with us a time.
Oh, that's great.
So he was--he ended up being a sports reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Oh, okay.
And was quite well written in sporting events and hunting. He's primarily in the wildlife hunting area.
Okay, okay. So you ran into those two guys and you stayed buddies, oh, many--worked together really.
Yeah, we worked together, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, okay. So--so then what happened?
Well then we--after we met--after we got to Yong-Dong-Po, then we found out we're going to the 8th Field Artillery Battalion. They shipped us from there up here to Kaesong which was just at the 38th Parallel which is where we actually joined--we joined the 8th Field Artillery.
Okay.
And at that time everything was coming south. The Chinese had just started the war. Had just gotten in the war and everything was coming south. And they were fighting a holding action protecting--protecting everything from running us out of Korea. And so the first part--the job of the 8th Field Artillery Battalion was to put together a Fire Direction Center, because their Fire Direction Center had been wiped out on August 22nd, 1950, in the Pusan perimeter. And they lost all their officers and all their enlisted fire direction specialists. And they were without a fire direction control so they were in an artillery outfit that was kind of at sea.
Yeah.
So it took from that period of time. So Sefton Stallard, Bob Schranck and I ended up in the 8th Artillery Battalion. And then Captain Joe Hall came from another--was transferred in from another organization. And that whole organization ended up being put together as a Fire Direction Center.
Re-established?
Re-established in mid-December of 1950.
Yeah.
So that's where we started off and that's how we--how we fitted into the group.
Yeah.
We were not always well liked. We were--the regular Army people didn't have much time for the enlisted reserves. We had ER in front of our serial number.
Yeah.
Which segregated us. They were RA.
Yep.
And it was RA all the way was the famous saying.
Uh-huh.
And so--but we survived. And the Fire Direction Center and the Field Artillery Battalion of Headquarters Battery is kind of a small group all by itself. It consists probably of about 15 or 20 people. You got your wire, wire crew specialists, your radio specialists, your commanding officer of the battalion, so on and so forth. So we didn't have much to do with any of the people--we had nothing to do with the gun batteries. And the forward observers were in contact with us by radio or telephone. So that was the way that we operated.
Yeah.
And so we had another advantage of being in the fire direction--it that all the--all of the time that I worked, I was working in a lighted and a heated environment, because we had to use drawing boards and the plotting pencils and the slide rules and so forth, it was necessary to do that. So that-- so that--and quite a bit of my time was at night. And so every night I would write a letter home to my new wife, Florence, and had a way to do it. And so that letter become a travelogue.
Yes, that's wonderful.
And there was no censorship of anything because this was not a war, this was a police action. So I was--I was very detailed in where we were. We were 2,000 yards east of this intersection or 4,000 yards south of that intersection.
My.
And so she kept a good--and this--this map is a map that was prepared for my--from the big Korean map. And it shows on here all the dates--
Yeah, I see.
--as to where we were. And you can follow us. We were up here 12-14. And then we were pushed south all the way back down here. We ended up down here 2-10, down south of Seoul, 2-10. And you can see we went back.
Started coming back north again a little bit, slowly but surely.
3-6.
Still south of Seoul, but--
Right. And the big--the big thing that I was involved in that was the thing that I'm very proud of is the fact that going north crossing the Han River on March the 6th, we cross the Han River.
Yeah.
And our Fire Direction Center was the coordinating Fire Direction Center for the interior artillery barrage which accounted for, according to newspapers, 70,000 rounds of artillery being fired at the Chinese in a three-day period?
Whoa.
And we were--we were coordinating fire from Battleship Missouri which was out in the harbor.
Mm-hmm.
And we were--had all the heavy guns of the 25th Division that we had normally nothing to do with. But you can see here that was 3-6-51. We got pushed as far south down here all the way south of Seoul before we could turn around and start north again on 3-6 we--on January 26th. And then we got all the way down--well south of Seoul, the Suwon area. And the Suwon--Suwon had the big airport that was put into service very early in the--as soon as--as soon as we outran the Chinese, we got down there and turned around.
Mm-hmm. How did you cross rivers? Were there bridges blown out?
Well, there was--there are two ways of crossing rivers. When you--we operate on the Red Dog Highway which was the main highway up here. And whenever you'd get to where a bridge was, they would--the engineers would make a temporary road down in the river and you would go cross through the water if it was shallow or they would put up pontoons.
Oh, pontoons.
We had pontoon bridges. They were a very efficient operation. And they suffered a lot in there because they were well out ahead of everybody putting up these pontoon bridges. And when we crossed the Han they were up there early and put that up so that we went--actually we went across the bri--we went across the Han the day after the infantry on bridges that were already put in place by the Core of Engineers.
Uh-huh, yeah.
Combat Engineers, I mean.
Right. They had to--well, it was a risky business--
Risk business.
--for them anyway. But snipers or people left behind from the Chinese Army?
Correct.
Yeah, yeah.
Where we had the equipment to beat them, they had the numbers that made beating them difficult.
Yeah, yeah. What kind of artillery did your unit have, were they howitzers?
Our unit had--our unit had 105 millimeter howitzers.
Okay.
Which is a little bit more than four inches. And we had three gun batteries and each gun battery had six howitzers.
Okay.
So we had 18--we had Able, Baker and Charlie were the gun batteries, A, B and C. And we had--then they were--we were in direct support of the 27th Infantry Regiment. They were talked about in all the reading materials. They were called the Wolfhounds and we were called the Wolfhounds' Bark.
The Wolfhounds' Bark (laughter).
Right. That was our trade name all the time--all the time that I was there.
Okay, okay, yeah. So how many guys would work together in this--
Well, we would--we would have a small room and we would have a--
Was it in a tent or was it--
Well, it was either--it was in a tent. Or if we could be lucky enough to get in a village and take over a small bombed out house and put canvas over the windows and make blackout conditions.
Okay.
And bring in a stove and heat and that would be fine. And they were very cramped quarters. For what we needed was a plotting table, somebody to run that, an HC, a hor--a horizontal control operator.
Okay.
And then we had what we call the vertical control operator who--who took the horizontal deflections of the guns as commanded by the forward observer, left, right, so on and so forth, and plotted that on the board. And then there was a vertical control operator that told the guns how much to raise or lower the guns to shoot, to shoot the distance. So those were on. And then we had to have one for each battery.
Okay.
So if we had--if we knew we were going full bore we would have three VC operators and one HCO table.
Okay.
Because that was common knowledge between all of them.
Okay.
And then an officer in charge was called S-3, operations officer. That was Captain Joe Hall in our case all the way through. And then you had an intelligence officer, S-2, who would always be aware of where the front lines were and would always have what we called a no fire line, that we could not fire below that line.
Because that's where your own people might be?
That's where our own people might be.
Yeah, yeah.
That happened on too many times, that--that information didn't get back to us fast enough. But that was--that was the S-2's responsibility. So that is what was in the Fire Direction Center. And then each of them had a radio each--each--we had a radio operator to each gun battery, and a radio operator for each forward observer. And we started off where we would move into a position, we could be firing in a real short period of time of one hour or so, but then it would all be firing by radio, radio connection.
Okay.
And the wire crews would connect us up by hardwire and switchboard. And once we got the wires in it was a lot better communication.
It didn't, the communication didn't break up quite as much or--
Oh, they don't break up. And they were always operating on battery-operated radios and then they weren't, if the battery wasn't operating, you couldn't hear them.
Right.
So they're not nearly as sophisticated radios that we have now. They were big, big radio packs. Each forward observer had a jeep, and each jeep had its own radio and each jeep had its own generator that generated his own electricity for radio transmission.
Right.
So each one was a self-contained communications. And there was three forward observers attached to three different infantry regiments companies. They would fire back. And we knew them by name but not by sight.
Yeah. And so these forward observers would just physically creep up to where they could see?
Where, yeah. They would creep up to where they could see and they would say that they want a definition round at such and such a coordinate. So we'd shoot one round out there. And then they would adjust from that round either left or right so many hundred yards, up or down so many hundred yards and to zero in on--the idea of--a howitzer is not an accurate firing piece. So what you do is you bracket everything. You go too far to the right, then you go too far to the left, and then you go back to the middle.
Okay.
You go over, and you go short, and you go to the middle.
Okay.
So that is an oversimplification of the process but that--that's what it amounts to.
Yeah. So I'm assuming that these forward observers were probably in a risky situation?
Right, yeah. They were--they were right up there with the infantry.
Yeah.
The infantry and the binoculars and a radio. And they were--they were what the Chinese were looking for, because if they could get the forward observer, they could get--they would stop the artillery.
Right.
And the next priority on their--I was a part of their concern.
And so they shot at you sometimes?
Right. So what we were--by having--by working in a heated environment and lighted, we were vulnerable because we were at night generally all at night, so we had a very tight perimeter defense that was on duty 24 hours a day that was guarding right around the Fire Direction Center,
So people couldn't actually get into the Fire Direction Center?
No, no.
Yeah. Did they ever shoot artillery at the Fire Direction Center?
Oh, yes. We took a lot of--we took not so much artillery but mortars, because we were in mortar range all the time.
Oh, okay.
Mortars are--
They go a long way?
No, mortars don't go very far.
Oh, okay.
Mortars go maybe a hundred yards, 200 yards, yards.
Okay.
Maybe a thousand yards. Our firing range was normally about 5,000 yards. Well 5,200 yards is three miles.
Yeah, okay.
So that was what our--we were firing even down to a thousand yards. But generally 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 yards.
Yeah. Did you ever hear what--what kind of equipment or what kind of artillery, whatever, got the unit that was wiped out before you got there?
Yeah, it was a mortar. It was a mortar.
It was a mortar?
A mortar, heavy mortars.
And they landed close to you but they never hit you?
Well, they, they--we lost--we had one--one bad where they landed right in our area and they killed us--they killed the chief of section. And that's what made it possible for me to make Sergeant First Class because I took over as chief of section when he was killed.
Okay.
And that happened in June of '51.
Okay.
They--we lost a lot of forward observers. We lost a lot of wire crew. Wire crew, they were susceptible to land mines.
Yeah.
Because they were laying wire and going along the ditches.
Yeah.
And land mines and snipers. And we lost a lot of wire crew boys and men, good men.
Yeah, yeah. That's tough. And the whole while you kept writing Florence?
Every night. And so she was--she had a good deal going with the local postman and--
Yeah, I guess, she saw him every day. (Laughter)
She was a senior at the University of Minnesota at the time and living at home.
Okay.
And it was just a block from the St. Paul campus. And that worked out--her father was a professor at the University of Minnesota.
Mm-hmm.
And that worked out fine.
Yeah.
And so the--but it also turned her on that these letters were shared with my parents and they got letters and everything else with people. Because I was writing a lot, there was a lot of people writing to me, so I was well-informed.
Yeah. Well which is nice, it keeps you close to home.
Oh, letters are the backbone of the Army.
Oh absolutely, absolutely. And did you get--how frequently were you able to get mail?
Well, we--we got mail whenever the Service Battery which was generally located about ten miles south of us could get up to us. And that was daily, if possible.
Great.
And then they would pick up our mail and get it back, and then they would get it back to the Division.
Oh, that's nice.
So we were all taken care of in that regard.
Yeah. Well, let's do talk a little more about life, you know, while you were in the service. What was the food like?
Well, we--Headquarters Battery, we--in December when we got there we basically existed on sea rations.
Yeah.
And sea rations are three cans of, you got beef and grease, or you get the--
(Laughter).
--or you get cookies.
Yeah.
Something like that. One of the unfortunate or fortunate things that happened to us while I was there, it doesn't sound right, was when General Walker got killed, he was replaced by General Ridgeway. And Ridgeway came up here and he found out that all the cooks were back in Service Battery. And he said that we could get more cooks. We're going to have at least one hot meal a day on the front line units. So they moved all the cooks that were back in the Service Battery up and they had to set up food kitchens. So we got one hot meal a day. And that was a Godsend.
Oh, I bet, I bet. I bet you looked forward to that?
Oh, yeah, we got hot coffee this way. And you could always go over where the cooks were and get a cup of coffee anytime you wanted. And they were a 24-hour operation.
Yeah.
And we had good cooks. There was no shirking of responsibilities. But they didn't give 'em anything to work with. But they give fresh, fresh meat once a month and what they call a Class A ration. And they--we moved a lot.
Yeah.
And if we were in the same location three days, that was a permanent location.
(Laughter) Different definition of permanent, right?
Right, right.
Yeah.
Well, we had--the biggest--one of the biggest problems is we--I got there first part of December of '50, and I basically lived in my same suit of clothes from then until about March because there was no way to take a bath. There was no way to take a shower until they could get--the engineers would bring up a shower unit.
Yeah. I bet that felt good.
Shower unit is an interesting story.
Yeah.
They would bolt two tents together. And one tent you'd come in there and you'd take your clothes off and throw them on a pile and they would burn them.
It was so bad that they'd have to burn them?
Burn 'em, they would burn 'em. And then you ended up with just your boots, your boots and your personal sack that you hang around your neck and go into the shower. And we were very close to the Turks. And the GI is a very open individual in a shower. It don't make any difference who he takes a shower with--
Right.
--it's part of the game.
Yeah.
Well the Turks don't operate that way. They cannot--they cannot show their naked bodies in front of anybody. So in order for them to take a shower, they had to take their T-shirt and hold it away from their body and run the soap inside their T-shirt and their shorts and inside everything else. And that was quite a novelty as far as we were concerned. We were just young kids, 21 years old.
Yeah.
And never seen anything like this before.
Taking a shower with your clothes on basically.
Yeah.
(Laughter).
And when the combat engineers would bring up the shower units and they would chop a hole in the ice. Because you remember the climate of--the climate of Korea was approximately the same as Minnesota.
The part that you were in?
The part we were in. It was approximately Minnesota. It got down in like minus ten at the coldest.
Oh.
And living outside. And so the clothing was--and then the other was that when we first went over there, the information was that this would be over by Thanksgiving. Well, I didn't get there until December--December 7th and it wasn't over yet.
Right.
And they issued us summer clothing. And I had a summer sleeping bag. So I took care of that one day when one of the--and I was freezing at night and I was cold. And so one day our truck was going north and we were in a convoy and it stopped. And there was a truck going south and it was in a convoy and it was going south. And I looked over on the fender of the truck going south, it had a winter sleeping bag rolled up on the fender of the truck and that winter sleeping bag jumped into our truck.
(Laughter) Accidently.
Accidently. And I ended up with a winter sleeping bag, a winter cap, winter mitts and some size 30 pants. Well I wear size 36 pants, so I didn't--those weren't so good; I traded them off with somebody. But I--I was the envy of our group, because I--from then on I got to where I could sleep good at night.
Yes, yes.
I could crawl in there and pull my boots in with me and sleep in the bag. And while you're very vulnerable for Chinese and we lost a lot of men in their sleeping bags.
Is that right?
They didn't get me fortunately.
So now where did you sleep? Was there--did you have cover or...
No, we would sleep if--we would--if hypothetic--well, actually, realistically, we would set up in a village.
Right.
If we were setting up in a village--
Right.
--in a village that meant that there was some houses around there. We would take over one more room. And often there would be a Korean that didn't leave.
Oh, they stayed with the house?
And they--when they stayed with the house, they stayed with the house to protect that house.
Yes.
So they would do anything we wanted to do as long as we didn't wreck it.
Yeah, okay, okay.
And they would keep the cleaning, keep the fire going and keep the house warm and so on and so forth.
Uh-huh.
So we would sleep on the floor. And then if we were in a situation where there weren't any houses and then they would have to set the Fire Direction Center up in a tent. And then we would sleep wherever we could sleep.
Yeah.
I slept one night when we were travelling in a retreat, we were up for about three days, I rolled out my sleeping bag under a truck and woke up in the morning and I was sleeping on top of a creek bed, on top of rice.
Oh, my gosh.
Right on the ground.
Yeah.
I was warm. And Florence had knitted me a real nice sweater, a sleeveless sweater, a very thick sweater. And so I would crawl in the sleeping bag and shove that sleeping bag--shove that sweater up in the hole of the sleeping bag.
Oh, yeah.
So I would breathe through that sweater.
Yeah.
And the frost never got all they way through.
Yeah. So you got enough air?
I got enough air. I still got plenty of air.
Yeah.
A GI is a very inventive sort of a person. And you can't imagine how these young fellows would set up their gun crews and everything else to protect themselves from the weather.
Mm-hmm.
Cold is tough to do. So I've never--my family never went on a camping trip.
So this was your first--
I camped for a year.
--outdoor adventure?
I camped--I camped for a year and that's about the end of it.
You didn't need to do it anymore after that?
And we were eating with mess kits and....
Well, did you have plenty of the kind of supplies that you needed to be able to do your work? Was there ever a--
Well, our supplies consisted of a pencil, a paper and slide rules. And so we were never short of those--the thing that we had, we had a young fellow in our outfit by the name of Joe Quartararo who was regular Army, and a little Italian boy from out in the East Coast someplace. And Joe was our radio expert and radioman.
Mm-hmm.
Well he had the ability, he couldn't fix anything. But what he had the ability to do was to con everybody in the wire section into making sure that all of our radios worked. And he took good care of us. So as long as he could--as long as he could make sure that our radios worked and he got us hooked up first to the wire, he was--he was our friend.
Yeah, yeah.
We took good care of Joe and Joe took good care of us.
Yeah, yeah. I wondered--I'm thinking of what career those skills would lead one to. Did you hear--
Well he actually retired. I kept track of him. And he actually retired as a master sergeant and got in his full 30 years.
Thirty years, okay.
And was in--was a communications specialist. And learned radio on radio communication and procedures for the service. And so he--he operated in that role.
That's what he did?
That's what he did.
That is what he did, yeah. How stressful was this whole thing for you? That's kind of a weird question I know, but did you feel a lot of pressure?
Well, when you're real busy--
Yeah.
--time goes fast and you haven't got time to be stressed out.
Yeah, yeah.
And the biggest--the biggest problem that we had was when we weren't--when we're in reserve and they tried to--they tried to make soldiers out of us, that created more stress than anything.
(Laughter) Well, what did they try to do to make you soldiers?
Well, they tried--they'd call for an inspection and they'd make up--make us shave. And they make us do all these--
Shine your shoes?
Shine your shoes. Mundane things that we thought was a waste of time. And I remember sitting next to a fellow one day and he'd had enough and he took his .45 pistol out and he shot his knee off and he said, I'm going home. He was sitting right next to me. And that was one instance that kind of stuck with me.
That would do it.
But as far as stress is concerned and they--oh, you're once tired probably was the biggest stress of all, because there was no such thing as a--if there were fire missions we had to be ready.
Mm-hmm.
And if the artillery, if the infantry needed us we had to be there.
Was there a lot of firing at night?
Oh, yes, most of it.
Most of it?
Well not most of it but a lot.
A lot. It didn't matter whether it was daytime or evening, whatever.
No, no. We had flares and stuff time targets that we could bust in the air, so the forward--because they made an explosion, you could always watch where the explosion was.
Right, right.
And the other was that the Chinese couldn't move at night. So firing at night for us was a harassment to them, to keep them awake.
Okay.
But it also kept our gun crews awake. It kept me awake too.
Right, right. You were up with it?
Right.
(Laughter). Did you tell me earlier that you had a little plane, that there was a regular little plane too or not?
In the 25th Division we had an air spotter plane.
Okay.
And we would often talk to him on the--on the radio. And he would tell us where he was and he often would come and land on the road next to us and we met him a couple of times.
Yeah. Well, they could land on a dime?
They could land on a dime and take off on a dime. That was a little straight piece of road and he would land and then he could always come in and get food and get something to eat.
Mm-hmm.
And get some new maps or whatever.
Mm-hmm.
And but we were always supplied with maps and situations, so... That was the S-2's job to maintain the fire line. Maintaining a fire line was important.
Yeah, yeah. Did you do anything special for good luck? Carry a good luck charm of any kind?
No, I never carried a good luck piece. Just my pencil and the letters from home. That was my good luck.
Yeah, that kept you going?
I had a picture of Florence right up on the wall. See in March of '51 the Army made us modern. They converted a standard six by six truck. They put what we would call a camper now on the back of it.
Okay.
And that put all the fire direction equipment inside this little building which was--which was on the back of a truck. That gave me a desk, a permanent desk that I didn't have to pack and unpack--
Oh.
--and I could put a picture up. And then when the wire crews came, all they had to do was clip on wires and our inside telephones and radios were all hooked up.
Ready to go?
We had our own generator and our own lights and our own heat in there. But it took until March-- March to get that fire direction truck. But our Service Battery worked it out and built it and absconded with the materials somehow and got it built for us. And when they found out that--then eventually they would send other artillery outfits over to take a look at it. And they would--by the time I left, I guess all the artillery outfits had one.
Is that right? Somebody just got really creative--
Creative.
--initially and--
Yeah, creative. And then we could move into a place and be in business in a hurry and move out without--otherwise we had to knock down all of our--
Take down and setup time, yeah,
--tables and tents, or whatever, and roll them up and load 'em up. And march order was the command to move. Whenever you got an order that you were going to march, that meant you had to pack up everything, roll up your bedroll and throw it on the truck and move out.
Yeah.
Once we got the truck, our biggest problem there was we had to build sandbag protection around it.
Yeah.
And that made some interesting moments.
Yeah.
They would get a backhoe up there, dig it into a hill when we were going to stay put.
Oh, so halfway protect it?
Right, right.
And also, I assume that would reduce visibility too?
It would reduce visibility, yeah. They always threw a net over the top.
Uh-huh. So it would blend in?
Blend in. Make it blend in. But they didn't--we had Bed Check Charlie occasionally, but I don't know when he ever did any good.
Bed Check Charlie?
Well a guy that would fly over and throw hand grenades out from a small airplane.
Oh, is that right?
Chinese. He--he would fly over.
He knew where you were?
Yeah, he knew where we were.
And he'd just throw--he'd pop the pin and throw it down?
Yeah, right.
I never heard of Bed Check Charlie.
Did you ever watch M.A.S.H.?
Yeah, you know I did watch M.A.S.H., but I didn't remember that part of it.
But he was-- END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE
A boy sitting on the curb and we picked him up and he became part of our group.
Oh.
And he really saved our life many times over because he could tell the difference between a North Korean and a South Korean. And the same way that we could tell the--
By the--
--by the language.
By the language?
By the language. The same way that we could tell people who live in the north versus people who live in the south.
Right. The accent?
The accent.
Yeah.
And he really saved our hide many times over. And--
So he traveled with you?
Traveled, oh, yeah. But you know in a lot of ways you could say we were kidnapping him from his parents, but we didn't know.
Yeah. He wanted to go?
Yeah. And he--the last I heard from--we had a 10 or 15-year reunion of our group in the 70's and they--the story that floated around there was that that little boy was taken back to the states and went to medical school. We were never able to verify that, so....
What was his name?
Boy Song.
Boy Song (laughter). Whatever it was.
Whatever it was it was, you know.
Yeah. So did anybody have a story as to how he got to the US? Somebody must have brought him?
Well, we had--this one fellow that was kind of his benefactor more than me. And it was in the wire section. And I can't remember the guy's name. Sorry about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Or I'd put that into this but--but he took care of him. He sent away--we took in collections and then bought him clothes from Montgomery Wards and cowboy boots. And--
Fixed him up good.
Fixed him up good. He lived good.
Yeah. So now--so he traveled with you. And how did he see, I mean--people would come up?
Well, the ref--the refugees would be walking through all the time.
Oh.
He'd, he'd filter in with the refugees.
Oh.
And he would come back and tell us.
Okay. Who the bad guys were?
Who the bad guys were. And we were there one night and he pointed out and there was three or four of them in a little cave behind our Fire Direction Center, and they were going to get us that night with--and get us. And one of them kind of smoked them out of the cave and turned them over to the MP's and we never did see them.
Yeah.
No, but he was worth his weight in gold.
Oh, I tell you, yeah, yeah.
He knew how to handle--well, he could speak Korean, so when we would get into a Korean house, he could tell them to get lost.
Yeah, or what you needed.
Or what we needed, yeah.
Yeah.
You take care of these fellows, they'll take care of you.
Yeah.
He must have told them that because, boy, then we got good cooperation.
Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Well--oh, we have a picture here of this little boy. Oh, isn't he cute. So he was like 10-ish?
Ten, 12.
Twelve maybe. That's neat. When you had time off--I know you said that they tried to make soldiers out of you. But did you--if you had time, and you had written your letter for the day, what did you do to entertain yourself? Or was there ever really a time when you had a few free minutes to do something for fun?
Well, yes, we used to do in the winter-time what we would do, if we were in a place, say, semi-permanently, two or three days, enough to have some free time.
Yeah.
One time I remember we went up and we found a little ravine and we set up on one side of the ravine and we put a bunch of beer cans and we set up on the other side of the ravine and then we would take our carbine and we would shoot at the beer cans and roll them down the hill.
Firing practice?
Firing practice. And have some fun with that.
Yeah.
And then the other was, once we got in the spring of the weather if there was a lake around there we would take hand grenades and throw 'em in the water and they'd explode and then the fish would float up.
And then you'd have something to eat?
Well, we wouldn't eat 'em, but you could laugh about it. It was fun.
Yeah, yeah.
And they--but it was always--in the winter-time it was tough to find something to do. You really were busy with your clothes.
Yeah.
When we played, our--our little Fire Direction Center was a close one and we played a lot of canasta.
Canasta was the game?
Canasta was the game. And of course there was always a poker game going someplace if you were interested in finding it. And some of those games got pretty large. But they--you could always find it if were you looking for it.
Yeah.
And--
Did you lose any money?
No, I was not much of a gambler. I had enough responsibilities at home, I couldn't afford to take any--
You needed the money?
I needed the money.
You didn't want to risk it? No, no. How did you handle your money? Did you have it sent home, or did you--
I had all it sent home. Florence got a check 127, 150 bucks a month or something like that.
Is that right, yeah.
And I--my--they moved so fast they lost my pay records for a long time. So all I would get--come payday they would pay--you could draw ten dollars if you needed it, okay. Well, you didn't need any money. What did you need any money for?
Yeah. Yeah they're feeding you, they're clothing you.
They're feeding you, clothing you and everything else, and so I didn't draw any money. But then around the--I think it was the first of June, I think so, they had to clear the records and then they brought the money records up there. And then I had it all made up in a big money order and sent home.
Oh, oh.
They had the facilities to make out money orders and send them home.
Uh-huh.
That was--they didn't want you to carry money.
No, no.
Well, the temptation to gamble and the black market.
Yeah.
And we never saw any village where there was commerce going on. At that particular time in history, Korea was a good place to fight a war because you didn't ruin anything. It had all been ruined by the time we got there. But it since has been built back and it's, you know, a growing operation.
Right, right.
But 1950 it was a wreck.
It was just basically demolished?
Basically demolished. There was no--there was commerce, there was no stores open, nothing going on.
Yeah, yeah. Did you ever get any time off where you could go someplace else in that period of time that you were in Korea?
No, I didn't. I had a chance to go to R--to go to Japan on what's called R and R. But when you went to R and R, that put you, moved you back in the rotation list.
Oh.
So you sacrificed rotation time. So I was in Korea for one reason and one reason only, to figure out a way to get home.
(Laughter) in one piece.
In one piece. And I was not a good soldier in that regard. They were not--but we had--once in the spring of the year, the combat engineers brought up a bulldozer and they flattened out a spot and we developed a softball team.
Oh.
And we had a lot of fun with that. And I played a lot of softball. And they--that was a good diversion.
Oh, I'm sure.
Volleyball.
Yeah.
And things like that. So they would--but that all happened, that all happened in May, June, July.
Right.
You couldn't do that in the winter-time.
No, weather had to be better?
Yeah.
And you had to be far enough back?
Yeah, far enough back, yeah. It was--by that time--after we finished the Han River crossing, we were pretty stable in our operation.
Oh, okay.
And then they brought in--by that time the war had been going on long enough, they brought in some more divisions, I think, and they put us in reserve. Pulled the whole division off, pulled the 25th Division off the line.
Okay.
Which meant they pulled us off the line and then we would be in reserve for like a week or two weeks. And then the special services would find something. Jack Benny came other there one time.
Oh, is that right? I was going to ask you if any entertainers were there.
Jack--Jack Benny came. We saw him.
Yeah. So did they put some sort of a theater or--
It was an amphitheater.
An amphitheater?
An amphitheater. And everybody goes there. And your helmet becomes your seat.
Oh, okay.
Your helmet becomes your seat. And so you learn to have that right with you.
So it's kind of up the side of a hill almost?
Up the side of the hill.
Yeah, okay.
And they set them up on the base of the hill. A rolling stage for them and lots--lots of PA systems.
Yeah.
So that was--I remember playing baseball with the Chinese sitting across not too far from us watching us play. And they were having a good time watching us play. And--
Trying to figure the game out probably?
The game. And we had lot of--
But they didn't shoot at you or anything?
No, they weren't shooting at us.
But that would have to be a little spooky?
A little spooky.
Know you're being watched by the enemy pretty closely?
Yeah.
Did anybody else, any other entertainers?
That's the only one that I can recall.
Mm-hmm.
You had the White girls there.
What?
The White girls.
Oh, yeah, they--what was that for?
The White girls?
They were a group of woman who came.
Singers or?
Well, the Red Cross girls.
Oh.
The Red Cross girls brought up--
Oh.
The Red Cross girls brought up doughnuts. Had a wagon, a fun wagon, and doughnuts and coffee and paper and writing material and things like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Writing materials used to come in our sea rations.
Oh, is that--you know, I meant to ask you how you got the paper.
Yeah, yeah. And they came in our sea rations.
So there were a couple sheets of paper and an envelope?
Yeah. And then I could always get over to--envelopes were not always easy to get. But I would send home--Florence would send a packet of envelopes.
Oh, okay.
And envelopes were harder to get than paper. We had lots of paper.
Yeah, yeah. Now did you have to use stamps or did you--
No stamps.
You never had to spend any money to send the letters?
No, no, it was all free. You just write free where the stamp went.
Okay. All right.
So it didn't have any--didn't have anything like that. So we had no--and we had no censorship.
Yeah.
So you didn't have to worry about what you said.
Yeah.
And letters didn't come home cut up.
Yeah, yeah. I heard of stories where they arrive just like a neck (laughter), yeah. So what did you think of the officers and the fellow soldiers, you talked a little bit about the guys in your unit. What did you think about the officers that you worked with?
Well, Joe Hall was a career officer, an alcoholic but a good man.
Okay.
We had Doc Ribini (ph) who was part of the medics. And his basic ability as far as taking, with the exception of the medics, was he had the ability to go back and he could requisition five gallons of medical alcohol at a time. And he took care of Joe Hall's habit on that.
Oh, okay.
And those two got along fine. We had one fellow, Lieutenant Reedy who was a second lieutenant that should never have been in the Army. He was just a misfit. And everybody--one night sitting around one of the things that happened that straightened him out was that one of the fellows shot in and said Reedy, you and I are going on patrol tonight and you ain't coming back. And we had equalizers like that. And he just--they finally got him to do something back in the reserves, but they got rid of him. But that--the regular Army soldier--see all of--all of the regular Army men were a product of the Second World War.
Sure.
So they saw this war a lot differently than the Second World War.
Right.
And they--but it was the only war that I knew anything about.
Right.
So I had nothing to compare it to.
They were well-seasoned.
They were well-seasoned. And--but see our fire direction system was different than the fire direction system that they had normally worked with. And they were always comparing them and trying to tell us how they were different, so on and so forth.
Yeah, you told me that it was different. Is there some kind of a way that you can tell me in summary how they were different.
Well, in the Second World War, as I understand it, the forward observer had to know where the artillery was located. And in the new system, the forward observer didn't care. All he had do was give us a compass reading to the target.
Oh, okay.
And we would--and we would have a disk, a round disk that we would rotate and set that, head north on that disk. And we would set that disk up so that as a--as a compass. So we would have the same compass reading. He would say make the intersection of such and such a road. So we would put a pin in there.
Okay.
And then we would spin this--we would spin this dial. And then from that point on he would adjust the--sometimes he could almost be at right angles to the artillery piece. But if he would say drop yards, we would move our pin 500 yards south, but that would be on the rotating south, not straight south on the--
Oh, okay, okay.
And so that would really be so much to the right.
Okay.
And so on and so forth. So that made it a lot easier for the forward observer. He didn't--and then he didn't have to know where--
--where you were or where the artillery was.
Or where the artillery piece was. And he could adjust just as if he was--he adjusted that as if he was the artillery piece himself.
Yeah, right there.
Right there. And that made a big improvement. And it was a lot easier to train forward observers. And they didn't have to try to get tricky. The way they used to have to do it, they would--they would have--they would fire one round out and they would land someplace. And then they would drop 500 yards. And now they had a--and the forward observer had to figure out where that--where it dropped, which direction it went.
Okay.
And he had to interpolate his findings in that way. So it was a much easier system.
Mm-hmm.
And--
You had to have some intelligence to be able to do this though?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, they--well, the Fire Direction Center is basically, it was a manually slide rule operation. Now I'm sure it's computerized and everything else.
Yeah.
But--
Slide rules went away a long time ago.
Right.
(Laughter).
But they--the vertical operator would take--would take the new distance. I would be--my job was horizontal control operator. And when we would--when we would drop so many hundred yards, then they would have to move their--their--their distance meter back and tell them then and how many--how many clicks up or down--
Right.
--the barrel of the gun is, the howitzer.
Yep.
And so it's, it's a situation that developed. The biggest thing--the biggest thing in the Fire Direction Center, and that's where Bob Schranck and Sefton Stallard and I, because we had a good basic--all three of us had a good basic mathematical education, fit in real well. And the other ones that we fit in real well was Smiley James, Frenchy Garrett, some of other fellows that were there, regular Army and we got along fine. But they depended on our mathematics ability.
Right.
To work as a unit.
The calculation.
The calculation.
For the unit, yeah. Well now as time approached, you knew you would be there a certain length of time. Did you--how early did you know exactly when you were going to leave?
Well rotation became a conversation piece somewhere in the--we were over there for the duration and six months.
Okay.
That's the way it went. And so--but after in March or April, they started to get--they started to come up here and figure out your points, your points system. You got so many points for being on the line duty.
Mm-hmm.
So many points for being married.
Oh, you got points for being married?
Points for being married. Points for being married with a family.
Right.
I didn't have a family.
Right.
But some of 'em did.
Yeah.
Some of 'em were married and had family, reserves that were called in.
Yeah, yeah.
And so they--I knew--I had it figured out in June. That by the point system that was, as it was going on then that I--my letters indicated that I knew then that I was going home sometime at the end of August, I would get out of there sometime in July or August.
Okay.
So we were kind of watching this thing and waiting, waiting for the news.
Yeah. So how did you find out that your time was going to be over?
Well, I got--we were sitting around one night and the first sergeant came up and he said, It just came down. And he says, Here's your papers, you got to be ready to go in the morning.
All of a sudden?
Sure.
Boom.
And that's good.
Yeah, that's true (laughter).
That's good. Keep you busy up until the time--and we were in reserve at the time.
Yeah.
And then--so then they shipped me back to Inchon, the same place I had started.
Yeah.
I actually went through the same--same replacement center in reverse that I came through to get into and get out of.
Uh-huh.
And went back the same route, Inchon to Japan. But I didn't go to Tokyo this time, I went to Sasebo.
Uh-huh, okay.
And then from Sasebo back to Fort Lewis, Washington.
Now how was that ship crossing?
Well that was a lot easier. And then we didn't have a weather situation. And I was a Sergeant First Class at the time and I lived good. I had a state room and I--I had no duty and--
And you were getting out?
I was getting out and I was going home.
Yeah.
But you know, apparently my name came up on a board someplace there and a fellow by the name of Bill Best. Bill Best grew up--he was over in Korea the same time I was. But his family home and Florence's family home were three blocks apart.
Oh, my. So he knew your name right away?
Yeah, he did.
Yeah.
I didn't know him.
Okay.
And I had no reason. But he had been in the service in the Second World War. He was quite a bit older than me.
Mm-hmm.
But he was called in the reserves, the same way. And he was going home on the same ship as I was going home.
Yeah. I'll be darned. So did he come over and talk to you?
Oh, yeah, sure. We got well acquainted. So by the time we got to the states we knew each over quite well.
Yeah. And he was--he was getting out also?
Oh, yeah, he was going home, he was getting out.
Whoa.
But I don't know, I don't remember what outfit he was in. He wasn't in our outfit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so then you got to Fort Lewis and--
Fort Lewis.
And what did they do with you there?
They processed--processed us out, and had medical exams and paperwork.
All that stuff?
And all that stuff. And I got paid the last six months of my pay in one chunk, plus travel pay all the way home. So when I got back to St. Paul, Florence and I were pretty well fixed.
Yeah.
We had a chunk of money to start with and--
Yeah, feel like millionaires, I'm sure.
Bought a car for 18, 18, 17.
18, 18, 17?
Never forgot that number, 18, 18, 17.
(Laughter), 17.
A brand-new Plymouth, yeah.
(Laughter). And that number stuck with you?
It stuck with me.
And it was--what year was it and what was it?
Well, a '51 Plymouth.
Is that right?
A '51 Plymouth, yeah. Brand-spanking new. First time I had--I never had a car. I had a junker when I was in the service.
Yeah. You thought you were living high?
Yeah, we were living high.
You were alive?
I was alive.
You were back?
I had a job.
You were married?
I was married.
Now, tell me about this job.
Well, my--my father operated Holmsten Refrigeration.
Okay.
So I had a job waiting for me to go back. So I made a mistake there, I think, I went to work for him right away rather than go back and finish my education, so I never got a degree.
Okay.
And it was laying out for me, the GI Bill.
Yeah.
And everything else was there for me.
Yeah.
But I had the job and I liked it, and so I just went to work.
Yeah, yeah.
And stayed right with my dad and stayed in the refrigeration business.
So how long were you in the business?
Oh, I was in the business until 1990--1995.
Oh, my gosh, so after your dad passed away.
Yes. Then I started my own--then we started our own business, Holmsten Ice Rinks, and built ice skating rinks all over the world.
Is that right?
Yeah. And we built about 250 ice rinks. And some of 'em in Saudi Arabia and some of 'em in Alaska and some of 'em in Australia.
So now you traveled a lot then?
Yeah, I traveled a real lot, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So--
And so now if you had gotten a degree, what would that have done for you?
Well, basically what it would have done for me is it would have give me a stature. There were times that I met with architects and city council where I couldn't say I was a registered engineer, that it would have helped.
Okay, okay.
But eventually, eventually as a number of rinks--I had a registered engineer working for me.
Yeah.
So I was able to do that. Frank Cerillo (ph).
Right.
And then eventually others. And so--but my part of the business was design and selling.
But that degree would have offered some legitimacy to your credentials?
Right.
Your background?
That's right, that's right.
Did you use any part of the GI Bill at all?
No.
Or any kind of classes, anything like that?
Nothing, nothing.
Okay. Did you ever use the VA loan option?
Oh, yes. Our first house we bought on the VA loan.
Is that right? Okay.
And that we did do. And then bought our first home in '50--what--
'53.
'53.
In St. Paul?
St. Paul.
Okay.
A little duplex.
What was the address, do you remember?
2127--no, no, 2231--no, 2231 Knapp, yeah.
Knapp.
Knapp, K-n-a-p-p, in St. Anthony Park.
Is that right.
About a mile from here. Where we're sitting right now.
Yeah, yeah. How long did you keep that house?
Well, we--that--that was a duplex and we rented out half of it. I never made a payment--a house payment. The rent always made the house payment. All I had--the only expense that Florence and I had were the taxes and the heating.
Yeah. A little, the upkeep maybe.
A little upkeep. And we lived there and then we kept that house and bought another house about--
About five years.
About five years.
Okay.
Well, we kept that house 25 years.
We kept that house 25 years. We moved out of that house because we had a family and was a small bedroom. So we kept the house and we rented it to the University of Minnesota students and never had any problem renting it. And so then we rented both halves afterwards.
Right.
And kept the house. Actually we--we paid off the loan three times.
Three times?
We paid it off once and then we refinanced it for the business and then we paid it off again and refinanced it for the business. And it all started because of the GI Bill.
Yeah, yep.
And they--so then we ultimately in 1960--what, bought 2127 Dudley which we stayed in until 1986 when we moved here.
Mm-hmm.
We've always lived in Saint Anthony Park. We haven't moved very far. Florence hasn't moved a block and a half from her parents where she was born.
(Laughter). Yeah.
So we're not, we're home bodies.
Yeah.
We're St. Paul natives.
So even though you traveled a lot for business you always came home to the same place?
Well, Florence went to England with me.
Oh, nice, very nice.
And we really--it's really only the biggest trip we took.
Well, Ecuador.
Ecuador. Yeah, we went to Ecuador.
Oh. And was that business also?
Yeah, business.
They were doing a rink down there?
Well, we were promoting it. It never happened.
Oh, okay, you were looking at it?
But we did business in England. And we did business in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Yeah, yeah. So who all did you keep up with? The two fellows you were talking about.
Well, actually I kept up with Bob Schranck, Sefton Stallard, Bob Baur.
Okay.
And Joe Quartararo.
Mm-hmm.
And another fellow named Art Charine (ph).
Okay. And he was in your unit too?
Yeah.
Where was he from, do you remember?
Art Charine (ph) was from Bay City, Michigan.
Mm-hmm.
And Joe Quartararo is from--Joe Quartararo is in New Jersey. No Stallard was in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Okay.
His father, his father had a family business. His father was Federal Savings and Loan.
Uh-huh.
Bob Schranck's father had a family business. He was a John Deere dealer in Mankato. And my father had a family business. He was in the refrigeration business in St. Paul, Minnesota. So we all had the same thing to talk about.
Yeah, yeah. Lots of common area?
Lots of common area.
A couple of global questions to just sort wrap up. And then we'll have a little bit of time, I want you to tell about your book too before we are over with. Like how you went about it, that sort of thing, what the name of it. How do you think your military experience affected your thinking about war and your military--your thoughts about the military in general? Or did it?
Well, it certainly teaches you how to get along. How to make the best of a bad situation.
Mm-hmm.
And they--you know, also the other thing that's missing today is you learn to respect authority. You might not agree with it, but if it's one stripe more than you do, you do it.
Yeah, yeah.
And you don't--you don't question it. And that's--that's a tough lesson to learn in many instances.
Yeah.
But it's something that has to be learned and it has to be respected. You have to learn authority. But as far as--I've always felt that while the Army may not always be correct, the Army is always the Army.
Right, right.
The boss may not always be the boss but he's always the boss.
Right.
And the boss may not always be correct but he's always the boss.
Yeah.
And that thing as far as--as far as the overall picture of it, we have a well-functioning military system that really looks out for the soldiers. It looks out for the soldiers a heck of a lot better than the Turks get looked out after, the British, so on and so forth.
Yeah.
I guess that's about all I can say on that.
Yeah. Did you join any veterans' organizations?
Oh, yeah, American Legion.
American Legion?
I belonged to the American Legion until about years until--until we got out here. And then the post that I belong to disbanded and they transferred it to another post and that didn't work out, so I just dropped it.
Yeah, yeah. And you said that you had a little reunion once?
1981.
Of your group?
Of the group, yeah.
Who put that together?
Bob Baur put that together in Lansing, Michigan.
Is that right?
And Stallard came from Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Schranck came. And Schranck at that time was living in Minneapolis, and--
So how many of there were you?
Oh, there must have been about 10 or 15 of us.
Is that right? Spouses came too?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So did you have a good time?
We had a good time. We had a good time. And they--the paper wrote it up pretty well in Lansing, Michigan.
In Lancing, yeah, okay.
And we had a good time.
Yeah. Just over a weekend kind of?
Over a weekend.
Yeah, that's nice. Did you think about doing it again?
We did it one more time after that in Rochester, New York, at Garrett's home. And that was, what, only about three of us showed up.
Mm-hmm.
And then--now Garrett's dead. And right now it's survival of the fittest.
Yeah.
I'm 73 years old and the other ones are all that same age, so...
Yeah, yeah. You're kind of at that point in life there?
Yeah, yeah.
Every once in awhile something happens. Was the--as bad as the military experience would have been, a wartime situation is never a good thing, how do you think it affected really your life?
I think it helped. I--as bad as it was, I didn't get hurt.
Yes.
I mean, I don't wish it on anybody else. But as far as I was concerned, it taught me leadership.
And you really hadn't had an opportunity for that?
No, no.
Yeah.
And I had to learn to get along with people that I didn't agree with.
Yeah.
And we had a job to do.
Yeah.
And we had to get with it and get it done. And bitching and moaning didn't do any good.
Yeah, that's right. It wasn't going to change anything?
It wasn't going to change anything.
Yeah.
So, that's just--
That's an important lesson to learn?
You bet it is. And I think more people should learn that. I'm--if anything, I would be in favor of compulsory military training today. And get some of these kids off the streets and give them something to do rather than--you get into trouble when you got free time. And you have free time when you don't have a job and you don't have a talent.
Teach them something?
Teach them something. Teach them respect for--
Doing something useful?
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I grew up just at the end of the CCC camps.
Yeah.
And that's what they did there in those.
Right.
But times change.
Well they do, that is true. That is true. Now before we wrap up, we've got just a few minutes. Tell me about your book. Now you had all the letters that Florence saved for you. Talk about that just a little if you will.
Well I wrote these letters and Florence saved them all and kept them.
Yeah.
And then one day here about a year or so ago, maybe two years ago, I broke my foot.
Ah.
And I was home here.
Immobilized?
Immobilized. She had to find something for me to do to get out of her hair.
It does work that way, doesn't it?
And so we took the letters and we sorted them. And then I took all the personal stuff out of them and then put them all together and what it became was a travelogue. And it's a very accurate travelogue.
Mm-hmm.
Where I was and what I was doing.
Basically every day.
Every day. And they--and the problems are all there.
Mm-hmm.
And it becomes an accurate--because there's--the accuracy of it is verified with some newspaper articles and so forth that my dad had--my dad had a--my dad had a big map of Korea in his office. And whenever he'd get a letter or Florence would get a letter--Florence worked for my bad.
Oh, okay. While she was in school?
While she was in school.
Yeah, great.
She was a bookkeeper and telephone operator.
Great.
And so they were together. And she lived at home with her parents.
Yeah.
And so--
So he kept a map and he kept track of you?
Kept track of everything.
Where you were moving?
And when I got back, the standard joke was well if you're going to go see Bert, which is what his name was, his name was Bertel, which is my middle name.
Yeah, yeah.
And you go see Bert you have to look at the map.
You have to know where his son is?
Yeah. And what's going on.
Yeah, yeah.
Because all the fellows that worked for us in the refrigeration were all GI's.
World War II.
World War II GI's.
Yeah, yeah.
We had a service business.
Yeah.
About 15 employees.
Yeah.
We had a big company.
Yeah, yeah.
So I wrote the book.
You put together--
The diary.
Yeah, the diary.
The diary.
Yeah, put together the diary.
Mm-hmm.
And then Carlton Vang was a friend of ours from high school, a published author. He took a look at this and he said, Dick, he said, this is not really going to go over too good. But why don't you let me change it to a novelette.
Mm-hmm.
So he took that book and had at it and we found the McFarland Publishing Company. And they took it from there and edited it and corrected it and it's now 200 and some pages. And the name of the book is Ready to Fire.
Right.
And that's their name. We didn't have that name for it at all. And--
Ready to Fire Memoir of an American Artilleryman in the Korean War. And it's got you--
Yeah, a picture on the front.
A picture as a young strapping good-lucking good guy on the cover.
The thing about that book that's different is most all of the books that were written that I was able to written are written from an officer's point of view. And this is written totally from an enlisted men's point of view.
Right.
And some of the trials and tribulations of being an enlisted men in the regular Army.
Right.
And so that's--that's what the book is. And--
This is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And you get to mention your friends in the acknowledgments. Bob Schranck and all those guys.
What I did there was, I sent each one of those people a letter, not unlike the one that you asked me to sign, a release--
Mm-hmm.
-- so that I could use their name.
Right, right.
And the ones that--for instance, I have used the name in this interview of Captain Joe Hall. I tried to get ahold of him because I wanted to get a release from him.
Yeah.
Well, his name in the book is Captain Joe.
Yeah, okay, yeah. So then you didn't--he is not recognizable to someone else?
Right. Smiley James, we couldn't locate him. He's just Smiley.
Yeah, okay.
So that's the way that I got that book. And I've had a lot of fun with that book. And I've had a lot of fun now selling it.
Oh, I bet. Now where do you sell it?
Well, on Tuesday I went to--I belong to the Kiwanis Club. And I introduced it at the Kiwanis Club and I walked out of there with five orders.
Yeah.
And my son who is a sales, salesman, he's a chip off the old block, he's in a Ford agency. And he's--I don't know if he's making all his salesmen that work for him buy a book or what.
(Laughter).
But he's given me two orders for ten.
Wow.
And.
There could be prizes, you know, giveaways.
Sure.
Whatever, yeah.
And so the--and then Murray High School which was--we have stayed very close to our high school.
Oh, okay.
Florence and I are kind of the organizers of our Class of '47. We had our 50th reunion, our 55th reunion and our class of '48 is having their 55th reunion, and so we're going to go there Friday this week and we will have to get rid of 10 books there I'm sure.
Yeah, yeah.
And the second Monday--the second Wednesday of every month all the graduates of Murray High School in St. Paul get together for lunch. And we have some--last month about 60 people showed up. And that's probably the smallest luncheon that there's been, upwards of 120, 130. That's all classes.
Mm-hmm.
That's at a local restaurant here. And so they get together with books and a couple other fellows are authors, and we get together for lunch and have a good time.
Yeah.
So Murray High School is--is a very close-knit group. Our high school class is very important to us.
Yeah. It's a--it's group that's kind of stayed together throughout years?
Yeah, right, right.
Fifty-five years is a long time?
Yeah.
Yeah. Well that's great. I think that's wonderful that you've produced that book. You know I think there are more World War II books like that than there are Korean conflict at this point.
Probably.
As I looked to see.
The World War II people are getting pretty few and far between now.
Yes, they are.
The problem there is memory.
Yeah. And I couldn't ever have remembered what I wrote in the book.
Yeah.
If I didn't have those letters.
Yeah, those letters--
That's the only way it could have happened.
Right.
Because then you get some authority to it, some-- what word am I looking for?
Verification.
Verification.
Yeah, the details.
The details and so forth that--for instance in this book Schranck is--who is the town clown, okay.
Yeah.
He took a bucket and poured gasoline and it ran down--it ran down--emptied a can of gasoline and ran down the hill and he lit it and it became a fire right down to the Fire Direction Center.
Oh, God.
You know, and--
It's a different definition of fun (laughter).
Yeah.
Well that's great. That's great. Well is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to put on this tape?
No, I don't think so, but I appreciate this.
Yeah, well good. Have we--was this about what you expected?
I think so.
Okay. All right, good, good. Well thanks so much. I enjoyed--I've enjoyed meeting both of you?
You see a copy of this?
Oh, yeah. I'm going to get--I'm going to make you a copy.
Oh, that's good.
How about that?
That'd be fine.
Yeah, yeah.
You got to type all this out or--
No, actually--well, I'll tell you about that in a second, yeah. Okay, well, I guess we'll call it done.
Call it done.
All right, thank you.
[END OF TAPE]