An Interview with Bill Wilson, Korean War Veteran
#
Bill Wilson was one of
the many young men who was sent to Korea during the war. He volunteered for the army in 1950. Mr. Wilson fought in both Heartbreak Ridge
and the Iron Triangle. Having seen
combat, he wonders why he was a survivor.
After all, he had looked eye-to-eye with his enemy on many
occasions. He had received his enemy's
small arms, mortar, artillery fire, and walked through booby traps and
mines. Since the war, Mr. Wilson has
lived with a survivor's syndrome and harbored the burden of a survivor's
guilt. Now, Mr. Wilson at age
seventy-three, lives at home with his wife and has retired from
construction. Recently, he received a
recognition letter and some medals from South Korea.
I was born on September 27, 1928 in the village of Zena, Oklahoma. My dad was in construction and my mother was a homemaker. One of the first and deepest influences in my life was my father instilled within me discipline and responsibility. When I was about ten years old, [my family and I] went on a trip to New Mexico to tour the caverns, which were very impressive to a ten year old.
After high school, I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma
to enlist in the army; but during the oath I chickened out and returned home.
I went to Oklahoma University to study arts and sciences.
After a stressful year, I hitchhiked to Hobbs, New Mexico where my
sister and her husband were living. At
the end of the summer, I received a message that my father was in the hospital.
Because of this, I returned home.
I enrolled at Northeast Oklahoma Junior College, and worked part time
for my father. At the start of 1950, I decided to work for my father full time
in order to save some money for college.
My dad was on the draft board, and when the Korean War broke out I was a prime candidate to be drafted because I was twenty-one, unmarried, in good health, and not in school. One day my dad came home from an emergency draft board meeting and told me I was number one on the list to be drafted. Instead of being drafted, I went to the recruiting station and volunteered with the hopes of getting into the Core of Engineers, which I was not accepted into.
On August 22, 1950 I was sworn into the army for a two year tour duty. [I] was first processed through Fort Riley, Kansas. I was first stationed at Camp Carson, Colorado. My next transfer was to Camp Mc Coy, Wisconsin. From there I was sent to combat in Korea.
When I arrived in Korea in, middle [of] September of 1950, there was a battle going on in the eastern mountains of the peninsula in an area [of] very high mountainous terrain. I was taken to the east side of the peninsula when I arrived in Korea, and was assigned to the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division. When we moved up on the line, the area that was under contest at the moment was a high ridge called Bloody Ridge, which was trying to be taken by the 9th Regiment of the 2nd Division. There were three regiments in the division: the 9th, the 23rd, and the 38th. The 9th was attempting to take Bloody Ridge along with assistance from the 23rd Regiment.
When we arrived at division headquarters, as replacements for the division, this battle was winding down. The 9th and the elements of the 23rd had pretty much secured Bloody Ridge. The next ridge over they decided needed to be taken also. There were strip-fire artillery down on these transportation centers to disrupt things. So the high brass decided that this had to be taken also; and this duty was assigned again to the 2nd Infantry Division. The highest peak, Heartbreak Ridge, at that time of course had no meaning other than the highest peak, was assigned as a mission for the 23rd to take that hill. This they proceeded to do, and they started about the middle of September. Some time around the fifteen or sixteenth of September elements of the 23rd tried to climb the ridge against heavily defended and dug-in Chinese and North Korean troops--into the face of the fire. What they faced was a tremendous amount of mortar fire, small arms fire, and grenades, etc. being poured down on their heads from the high ridges. The 23rd Regiment was taking tremendous casualties from this. So they started, primarily then, making night attacks trying to use darkness as a cover to try to get high enough on the ridge to get into position to attack the bunkers and the replacements that were the Chinese. But still the Chinese were so heavily defended and well armed and so forth that the Chinese were more than able to hold their ground. So the 23rd Regiment was called back out of the line, and the high commanders had to reevaluate their position because they weren't getting the job done.
So about October the third, fourth, or fifth, somewhere in there, they had revised their tactics. Instead of the regiment attacking in line, attack abreast and with several units at one time to try to spread the points of contact with the enemy. In other words, to divert his attention. So we started the second phase of the attack on Heartbreak Ridge. The two to three weeks in the middle of September to the first of October had failed; they failed their mission. The second attack we started back under these new conditions. At that time, is when I joined the regiment. But, I had not yet been assigned to a specific company. So they gathered up a number of us to use as stretcher-bearers to carry ammunition and food up to positions to troops, and to carry the wounded down off of the mountain. This we did night and day for four or five days until at one point, one morning they gathered us up and said that they were going to take us up and assign rifle companies.
We marched up this mountain trail, and they were very high, very rugged
mountains like in Colorado. When we
got up on the ridge, they assigned each of us to particular rifle companies. I was assigned to I-Company of the 23rd Regiment.
Being assigned to I-Company, we were assigned to a foxhole with another
fella; and he had been there for awhile, under these circumstances, to help
us new replacements get oriented as to where we were and what we were doing.
We held those positions for a number of days under heavy artillery
bombardment. For several days we took
a number of losses. At one point,
on rare occasions, our own artillery would misfire their missions. One particular day they fired a battery of
a hundred and fifty-five millimeter howitzer guns into our lines, in our positions.
One of the worst shellings we ever sat under was our own guns.
We heard shots and people calling to medics, "I'm hit! I'm hit!" We had the French battalion attached to us; United
Nations troops had moved us up. At
that time, we had moved over the ridge. The
French had gone through us and taken the next hit. So after they had secured that hill, we were all dug in expecting
the counter attack, which always occurred in large numbers; but it didn't
happen. In fact, by that time it was
get'n to get late October. [We had]
warm days, like in the summer, and we had even gotten to the point that we
sat up on the edge of our holes, which we never did because we'd get hit. It'd gotten so quiet. We were sitting on a very high ridge and we
could see the valley's woods. This
one particular day, that it was so quiet, we heard a lot of rumbling and our
artillery started firing on hills across the valley in front of us; and then
we heard this roaring, rumbling sound in 
the valley behind us. It was a column of our tanks coming up this
valley. They rolled up to where they
were abreast of us and then began to fire into these mountains--everything
they had--and then turn around and run back.
Apparently reloading, and then they would go forward, back up, and
fire again. What was happening--and
we knew none of this, we were just sitting up there like spectators at a ball
game--was that the Chinese were replacing their troops.
They had taken such tremendous losses that they had brought in three
new, fresh infantry divisions to make the counter attack that we were waiting
for. But these tanks broke through
into this other valley over there just in time to catch them in a position
of replacing the other troops. At
that time, the troops are very vulnerable because they're not in very defensive
positions; and so they were cut'n 'em real bad.
And that was pretty much the culmination of the battles at Heartbreak
Ridge. Lasted some thirty days from early September
to late October, and the 23rd Regiment took heavy casualties. They took about two thousand of the regiment.
A regiment's only a little over a thousand people.
[War] is not like the movies. Each individual soldier is not a hero. Many, many never reached the mountain. Many of them never reached age. Many never got off the beach. They never knew what war was; their total war lasted a matter of minutes. Very few of us lasted the whole thing.
Well, after Heartbreak Ridge, why then we moved over to an area commonly known as the Iron Triangle--which was in the central part of Korea. Then we were dug into defensive positions along the road. At that point, we were having confrontations between Chinese and the United Nations troops. Then, by that time, the winter was settled in and the temperatures in Korea dropped down to thirty degrees below zero.
So, I was on the line a total of about seven months, close to seven months. Then I was sent to the division head quarters for a special assignment to train officers that were coming into the division. By training them, by introducing them to the conditions where the enemy troops were. That was [a] much nicer duty. We actually had a cot to sleep in and didn't have to sleep in a hole. We had a motel compared to what we had. I served there with division head quarters until such time I rotated home. You accumulated rotation points for the amount of time you had been in line in the combat in Korea. You got enough points you could be replaced and be sent home. I spent a total of eleven months in Korea.
It's not uncommon to see old men breakdown. World War II and the Korean War and to a large extent, Vietnam, were probably the last of the true infantry wars--when you have mass infantry lined up against each other. Seeing the nature of the things that have taken place now, like in Afghanistan, you never see the commitment of thousands of infantry soldiers in lines confronting each other in mass battles. Weapon systems are so great that old infantry, that we knew, has become obsolete because we would be like sheeps to the slaughter under that kind of power. I think the thing that you get from World War II and Korea war soldiers, particularly, is a story of a kind of war that probably will not happen again. It's a dirty business, and not nearly as much heroism in it. At least fifty or seventy percent of the time, he [a soldier] doesn't make it. Many, many times, he never sees an enemy soldier. We weren't facing sophisticated weaponry, as compared to what we have today. At the time, it was sophisticated. But it was artillery, mortars, and rifle fire that we faced.
# The worst part of battle was fear and fatigue. I received battle stars for the Chinese Counter Offensive (Heartbreak Ridge) and the Second Korean Winter (the Iron Triangle). [I also received] the normal ribbons and battle stars and the combat infantry badge.
[My war experiences] matured me beyond my years. They made me realize the value of life. The military also made me more responsible and responsive toward a given situation. The biggest lesson I learned while in the war was do not get into wars. I do not regret any of my actions.
I was only twenty-three when I retired from the military. It felt very strange returning from the war. It was like returning to a society that you did not understand, [one that] you had to adjust to. I met a girl and married her, and [we] began our life together. I earned my degree in architecture and worked in Miami, Oklahoma as a contractor in construction. An office became available in Pittsburg, and so I moved there to operate the office. I then had three children: Mark, Abby, and Scott.
From this perspective, I would not change anything [in my life]. I would like to pass on to those people who are in trouble--hang in there.
This oral history was researched and prepared by Cassie Stuckey, Spring
2002.
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