March 2012
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken of the Chosin Reservoir. Very likely our recovery teams will be back in North Korea later this year. One of our two previous base camps was on the east side of the Chosin–the other was at the Unsan battle zone, farther west. We hope to be working on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir this Spring, and even to do some exploratory work on the west side, along the road to Yudam-ni.
All of this will take place in the battle zone, but we are tracing POW movements out of the area very carefully. Sadly, many of the men captured at Chosin were already disabled by wounds or frostbite. So, in the past, we’ve recovered the remains of POWs along with those who died in battle, from within the main fighting area. But we’ve also been allowed to work just north of the battle zones. Our teams made one recovery of a POW who died near the start of the route up to Kanggye, where many of those captured at Chosin spent Christmas 1950.
Conditions en route were terrible, even worse than those encountered by men captured at Kunu-ri in the west or at Hoengsong in February 1951. But we know that men stopped at villages along the way. Names like “Little Death Valley” and “Valley #1” are well known, and then the Chosin POWs came to the main holding point near Kanggye. By the routes taken, Kanggye is over 60 miles north and west of the upper end of the Reservoir, so we have no real hope of getting there this year. But the villages en route are another matter. We’ll always be watchful for opportunities as they unfold. Sometimes North Korean escorts have allowed our recovery teams to work beyond the fighting areas, and sometimes not.
A few early men, like Elliott Sortillo, passed through Kanggye in December and went to Camp 5. Others like “Red” Sitler passed east of Kanggye and ended up at the Apex Camps with Tiger Group. But most of the men at Kanggye were there until mid-March 1951. Then, by train and cart and mainly on foot, they continued to Camp 1 at Changsong on the south bank of the Yalu River. On 11 February 1951, a very unusual event unfolded at the Kanggye Camp. Chinese and North Korean captors demanded that the POWs sign a peace petition. The senior officer present, a Marine Corps major, thought things through. Kanggye was isolated, a place without witnesses, and his men were at great risk. The petition itself was nonsense, and signing it would do no great harm. But with a little luck, it could get the names of those present “out,” making their captivity undeniable, and pretty well assuring that as a group they would not simply vanish. He spoke briefly, he ordered the men to sign, and they did.
Some of these men later died, but most did not. The Kanggye Peace Petition of 11 February 1951 became an exercise in mockery, it back-fired on the captors, who gained nothing and were suddenly in a spotlight. So what happened to the major? He returned alive, explained himself, and continued to serve with honor. Like Johnny Johnson and Doc Shadish, he did what he could and he did what was right. Lieutenant General John N. McLaughlin, USMC, who had landed at Guadalcanal in 1942 then brought out his men from Kanggye in 1951, finally passed in 2002. Met him once, shook hands, he was a good man.