Canadians in Korea

Heroes Remember

Canadians in Korea

Transcript

I remember one time we were on guard there and one area we were in, we were kind of in a hilly area and we got this awful odour and I said, "Jumping Moses, what's that odour?" So the wind was kind of blowing up from the valley and I said, "Gee whiz there's something down there, something is real bad, so tomorrow we'll go down and have a look." So next day went down around about ten o'clock, there was three of us, and walked down, there was a little brook running through and there was a bunch of trees there. Right in the trees there was this Chinaman, this Chinese soldier who's dead there, and he was pretty well decomposed and it wasn't a very nice sight. I don't even want to say, like there were maggots going through him and every thing else and the smell was unbelievable, the odour. So I said, "Let's get the heck out of here." I was kind of scared of disease and so on. So we got back up to camp and I told the major what it was. He said, "Oh. You get back down there," he says, "take some masks put on you and go down," he said "and take a few Jerry cans of gas." Went down and we took about three Jerry cans of gas. These were like what was in, four gallons I think was in the Jerry can. We soaks the thing with gas and set it on fire, so, got rid of that effort. But this was all over, they were all over there because things were moving so fast when they got chased out and then we went... Another area we went in, this was in the front, one part of the front line we had to take this position up and gee whiz, we got in there to this area and the trenches were still there, rocket launchers and all the ammunition, everything was there. Enough ammunition to start a little war. It was all American stuff, where they got overrun, they took off. The second evening, they came in full force like I said with these darn bugles going and we opened fire on them and they went back and they'd come in periodically and then sometimes there wouldn't be that many. Then of course what the worst was they'd get back far enough, they'd let go of mortars. And they were masters at the mortars, I'll tell ya about the old story, put a mortar, put one of them in your back pocket. We had mortars too and we'd let them go at them, but the worst thing I despised and the most useless thing going, we'd be at a stand to there and things would be fairly quiet. So in the evening, especially on night patrol, it'd be about nine or ten men and you'd go out there, dark as heck going through there, going out looking for trouble, that's all I'd say it was. And there was mines all around. You had to go through our own mine fields, was in front of us but then we'd get down there and of course these Chinamen were hidden all over the place there. Oh yeah, well you knew they were there. Interviewer: You knew they were there but could you see them? Oh yeah, well you pretty could see, oh yes you couldn't help but see because I mean, once you start, they start firing you knew where the fire was coming. You could see the flame from the, in the night from the rifles and mortars. They'd set off mortars, you could... Of course the place, sometimes they'd fire flares from the, our position they'd fire flares out and would light the thing up just like you'd see them coming as plain as day. We had prisoners taken and so on and I thought it was useless, just going out looking for trouble. But we'd come back and then coming back you'd be scared we'd get mixed up, and after having a little skirmish sometimes and then you come back and try to get back through these darn mine fields getting back and then of course our own fellows were there didn't know if it was Chinese coming in or us so we had to make sure they didn't fire on us. The greatest defence we had of all was the napalm. The American jets would come in and they'd lay out napalm out. And we didn't know ‘till after but these Chinese, they went down, the trenches sometimes were ten and fifteen feet deep and this napalm... What would happen it would go over and it was, the heat was so, it was like a jellied gas, and the heat would, if you were down in the trenches, it would bust your lungs, take the oxygen out of the air. But still these buggers would come up. We wondered how in the heck they were surviving, but after we went through and we found out the trenches, they went down and then they went in, they dug in. They had a place in there, quarters where they could sleep. And this was, this was the way they operated, they're just like moles. There was one time, there was a hell of a scare come on. There was, the Americans got hit with this called Songo River Fever. It was from a mite from a, from rodents. And I know in our bunker there, sometimes we'd have the, we'd get this what we'd call the Japanese news, or the Crown news we get news from home and we'd have the paper down, and we'd hear this stuff dropping on the newspaper, it'd be mice or rats going over top of us. But twenty-four hours, was the, if you got the Songo River Fever, you were gone. So we had to keep everything in steel cans, any food we had like nut bars or anything we wanted to eat, steel ammunition cans. Then the, the refugees would be coming in from the north, be coming down and the roadway would be just white, they all wear like white clothing and you'd see them coming a line, it'd be miles of them, coming, but you had to be very careful because once in a while the Chinese or the, the North Korean (inaudible) put somebody in there. Could be somebody pushing a baby carriage or a cart, like a baby carriage, so you'd think it was their kid in there or something a baby, but first thing they'd, there'd be a machine gun in there. So you had to be very careful, you never could tell. When we got there, we dug in and we never moved back a foot. They'd fire BOOM!, just, the fire power was unbelievable that we went up to. And I was often wondering, I never knew then what we were facing, we were all green, didn't know, we were in those hills and these Chinese come in and they'd, when they'd come in in a force and they'd be blowing bugles coming in and it's a scary thing. Of course we were in a hill and in a defensive position. We let go of mortars and fire at them and everything we had and of course they'd get chased back. It was after that I learned there was four, there was close to a half a million between North Koreans and Chinese back there. If they ever wanted to put the whole, they'd a ran right over us, and I can't understand to this day why they didn't.

Description

If you've ever wondered what the Korean War might have been like, this clip will answer a lot of your questions.

William G. Doolan

Mr. Doolan was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia on May 2, 1930. He grew up during the Second World War knowing that his brother had been made a prisoner of war. When Mr. Doolan was old enough, he joined the militia and in 1950 enlisted in the army to go fight in Korea. After completing his training in Petawawa, he was sent for further training in Japan, and then to the front where he was a rifleman for the infantry. Aside from a bout of malaria, he escaped unscathed and returned home to his family.

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