One of the last Chosin Few tells his story
latkins@nwadg.com
In 1948, World War II was over but the draft was still on, Milt Walker remembered. He knew he wasn’t quite ready for college, and he knew didn’t want to be drafted into the Army. He saw ads that said, “join the Marines and see the world.” That sounded like a good idea to the 18-year-old Walker and he made a decision that would change his life.
He signed up for three years in the Marine Corps and went through basic training on the West Coast. He wasn’t given a choice about his job in the Corps. After basic training, he joined a busload of new Marines to travel to Camp Pendleton. Getting off the bus, everyone got an assignment. Walker was one of a handful of recruits assigned to Baker Battery.
In January and February 1949, Walker was sent to Kodiak, Alaska, for cold-weather training. He didn’t realize that his own experience of cold weather warfare would be very different.
No one knew much about Korea when he joined the Marines, Walker said. It was peacetime and when word of unrest in the far east penetrated to his unit, they still didn’t think much about it. His unit was part of a big Fourth of July parade at Camp Pendleton in 1950. After their equipment was stored, Walker headed back to his barracks, but he was stopped by a First Sargent who had orders for the young marine. He would leave the next day for San Diego to prepare for deployment to Korea.
As they traveled to their new assignment, the marines expected to spend some time in Japan waiting for more soldiers to bring their unit up to strength, but that didn’t happen. They were needed immediately. Their transport was detoured to Puson and within three days, Walker found himself in actual combat. His unit had its first casualty there.
His job in Korea was to drive a jeep that pulled a trailer full of communications equipment. That meant he was just behind the front lines helping string miles of phone lines. He moved every few days.
At one point he was caught in an ambush and had to abandon his jeep and take shelter in a roadside ditch. The jeep was destroyed, but there were no casualties. He received a commendation for his part.
“Every marine is in the infantry,” Walker said, explaining that, while his primary job was driving, he had a weapon and the training to use it.
Later, his unit took part in the amphibious landing at Inchon which was actually behind enemy lines. They cut off supplies for the North Korean forces and headed to Seoul to retake the capital city.
The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, called “Nightmare at the Chosin Reservoir” by armyhistory.org and “The Most Harrowing Battle of the Korean War,” by History. com, was Walker’s next stop. He drove a truck filled with galley equipment up a narrow mountain road for three days. After he reached the camp and unloaded, he headed out to fill his trailer with fresh water from the reservoir, but an M.P. stopped him. That was how Walker learned that they were surrounded by North Korean and Chinese soldiers.
The war was almost won when the Chinese reinforcements arrived. North Korea couldn’t have continued without them. Even the commanders were surprised by the numbers of Chinese, Walker said. He has read since that there were 10 divisions with 10 to 12 thousand soldiers each — a total of 120 thousand. The U.N. troops numbered about 15,000.
“That first night was a mess,” Walker remembered. “They came at us in waves.” Among the thousands of soldiers were women and even some children. They had little equipment, but they kept coming.
But there was another enemy for the all the troops — the weather. The winter warfare training in Alaska didn’t prepare them for temperatures of 40 degrees below zero. While they were better equipped than the Chinese, they didn’t have enough gear for the extreme cold. Walker remembers leaving his C-rations on the manifold of the truck for an entire day, but even then they weren’t thawed. He knew he was lucky. The truck had only a little bit of heat, but it might have saved his fingers and toes. He still has problems due to that long-ago frostbite, but he didn’t have anything amputated.
The U.N. troops managed to hold their ground but they were completely surrounded and supplies started to run low. Luckily, there were Naval and Marine aircraft in the area, and the surrounded troops started to receive airdrops with food and ammunition.
At one point, the company firing mortars ran low on shells. They used their code word when they radioed for more ammunition and the next night a delivery of hundreds of boxes of frozen Tootsie Rolls was received. Luckily, they also received their shells, nicknamed Tootsie Rolls.
After a few days, a decision was made. There was no way for the troops to continue north. The only road they had was the one that brought them up the mountain. Marines, Walker said, never retreat. When a reporter asked the commander, General Oliver Smith, about ordering a retreat, Smith had an answer.
“Retreat, Hell. We’re just advancing in a different direction.”
They had to fight their way back down the mountain. Some days they traveled a mile or two. Some days not even that far. They couldn’t travel at night, so they spent their nights defending themselves. There were days when it was snowing so hard, the planes couldn’t fly. One night as the decimated company was almost ready to give up, someone looked up and saw the clouds break apart far enough for one star to show through. That one star gave them the hope they needed and the small break in cloud cover gave the planes the chance they needed.
At the start of the return trip, Walker was still driving his truck, but he finally had to give it up. When he left his truck every tire had been shot out and there were 19 bullet holes in the tailgate. The radiator was so full of holes that he would drive only a short distance before stopping and catching antifreeze in a bucket, pouring it back in and going a little bit further. He walked the final two or three miles.
After Chosin, Walker returned to the states. His enlistment had been for three years but, during the conflict, everyone had a year added to their time. Walker married his high school sweetheart who was working in Washington D.C. and he asked to be assigned there, but they sent him to McAlester, Okla., only one hundred miles from where he grew up.
When his time was up, his superiors tried to convince him to re-enlist or to join the reserves, but Walker knew that he was done with the military and separated completely. While there was no way to know it at the time, if he had stayed in the service, even the reserves, he would probably have been sent to Vietnam.
Instead, he spent a career working for a sugar company and raising a family in Colorado Springs. After he retired and moved to Bella Vista in 1992, he heard from an old buddy from his marine days. His friend invited him to come to a reunion for the “Chosin Few.” Although he had never really talked about his military experience, he decided to go and he found himself returning to most of the reunions since.
“I’m proud of what I did,” he said. “But I’m not bragging. It’s just what happened.” If he had the chance to live his life over, he wouldn’t change any of it, he said.
Last year, he finally took advantage of an offer from the South Korean government. They invited all Korean conflict veterans to return as their guests. He spent a week in five-star hotels, touring the country he had once defended. Walker was surprised to receive medals and a plaque acknowledging his service at Chosin. In Korea, he said, even schoolchildren know about the battle at Chosin Reservoir and they were eager to thank him for his part in it. There were thousands of people watching the presentation of the awards.
This year, there won’t be a reunion of the Chosin Few. There are now very few of the survivors left. But later this month is the 70th anniversary of the battle and each of the Chosin Few was asked to tell his story one more time, so everyone knows what happened at the top of that mountain during the freezing early winter of 1950.