Deadlock in Korea by Ted Barris

Author:Ted Barris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780887625282
Publisher: Thomas Allen Publishers
Published: 2010-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

During the third week of May 1952, an officer in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment was just getting his feet wet as a platoon commander in Korea when things changed dramatically. Capt. Herb Cloutier should have expected it; it seemed to be the story of his military career. When he tried to get overseas to Europe during the Second World War, they made him an instructor for officer training. When he volunteered for service in the Pacific, his unit had just set sail from Seattle when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. And when he hoped to get to Korea, instead he helped train the Special Force. This time, after about a month at the front lines in Korea—honing his skills as a patrol platoon commander in no-man’s-land— he was called before his commanding officer, Lt.-Col. P. R. Bingham.

“Herb,” the colonel began, “I’ve got a job for you.”

Cloutier nodded.

“I can’t tell you where you’re going, but you’re going to leave the battalion for a while. I want you to just take enough to put in your big pack. Good luck. And keep your feet and knees together.”

“Geez, I’m going on a parachute mission,” Cloutier thought. Later that night, in the darkness at Fort George Airfield, about fifteen kilometres south of the front, Cloutier and a British soldier named Hudson, with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI), were hustled onto a transport aircraft; Hudson had no idea where they were headed either. Inside the DC-3, Cloutier’s imagination went wild. He looked around for parachutes. He thought for a moment that he was headed north over North Korea for a jump beyond the Yalu River into China. When the Dakota landed at Pusan, Cloutier got even less information from the Americans (he later found out they were CIA) who met him and Hudson. Nor were any details of their destination revealed when he boarded a freighter headed out of Pusan harbour. It wasn’t until morning, when the boat pulled into a port, that he found out.

“What’s your name?” asked one of the Americans on shore.

“Cloutier.”

“Rank?”

“Captain,” Cloutier said. “Canadian army.”

“Come with us,” the Americans said.

“But where are we?”

“What the hell do you mean, where are you? You’re on Koje.”

Cloutier didn’t want his ignorance of the place to show. He kept his mouth shut and took in the activity around him. At his first breakfast in a big US Army mess hall on the island, Cloutier saw all the Americans eating with their weapons on their laps or in open holsters. Then, en route to Gen. Boatner’s quarters, he saw the compounds. Prisoners were packed into every corner. The anti-American signs, posted during Dodd’s kidnapping, were still hanging everywhere inside the barbed wire. It wasn’t until Capt. Cloutier actually met Gen. Boatner, however, that he learned he and Hudson were the advance party for a company of RCR and KSLI troops that would assist in the complete overhaul of the prison camp on Koje-do.

Gen. Boatner explained to Capt. Cloutier how he intended to resolve the Koje-do problem.

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