Valleys of Death

by Bill Richardson

  “Save the tag. I don’t need it,” I said.

  A couple of days later, we sat overlooking the 38th parallel. We’d pushed the North Koreans back and now awaited orders to attack. My section was covering a road. I had set my two guns on the left side so we could get good flanking shots at anything approaching.

  Sitting in my foxhole, I watched as the full moon began to rise. I got the feeling that there was something safe and secure as it washed gently over us. I felt like God was protecting us or surely trying to help. He’d at least kept me alive. My shoulder throbbed, but I kept humming “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” to keep my mind off the pain.

  Timeline to Pyongyang. Constructed by author based on daily battalion situation reports from the National Archives

  Oh, the moonlight’s fair tonight along the Wabash,

  From the fields there comes the breath of new mown hay.

  Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,

  On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

  If only we were back home, we could all go to sleep under the moon’s calming light and wake up safe to the warmth of the sun.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE GENERAL

  I woke up and my shoulder was on fire. I could hear Walsh and Heaggley talking.

  “You’d better get Vaillancourt up here,” Walsh said.

  I blacked out and woke up again in the back of a jeep ambulance bouncing down the road. It was dark and I had no idea where I was headed. I passed out again, and when I came to, the medics were transferring me to a box ambulance. I could see other litters with wounded soldiers. Holy shit, I thought, I must be being evacuated further to the rear. The last thing I heard was the rumble of the ambulance’s engine before I passed out.

  I woke this time just as they carried me into the battalion’s aid station. The medics set the stretcher on a dirt floor. There was a medic leaning over me, and he spoke to me with a quiet, reassuring voice.

  “You’ll be okay, Sarge, I’ll take care of you.”

  When I was thirteen years old, my old gang and I were down by the railroad with a bow and arrow. We were using the top of a peach basket for a target. We were shooting the arrows a hundred yards to the target that was placed on a hill. One of us would sit on the hill and collect the arrows that had been shot, then bring them back to the firing point and another guy would go to the hill. It was my turn and I was lying on the hill waiting to collect the arrows when I looked up and an arrow was headed right for me. I tried to roll out of the way, but the arrow dug deep into the calf of my left leg. The tip went right down to the bone.

  I quickly pulled it out.

  I was afraid to tell my mother and hid my injury for five days. I knew I would catch hell for being on the railroad, to say nothing of being stupid for lying on the hill next to the target. Soon, the wound was infected and I was forced to tell my mother.

  When my mother asked how it happened, I lied.

  “I fell on some reeds and one penetrated my leg,” I said.

  She did not buy my bullshit story and grabbed one of my buddies. He talked, and she scolded me all the way to the doctor’s office, which was a few doors down. In those days the doctor worked out of his home. He propped my leg up on a table and took out what looked like a big green worm.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “Had you waited any longer, the infection would have spread.”

  I may have been lucky, but I didn’t learn anything. I woke in the battalion aid station just as the doctor was cleaning out my shoulder wound. It wasn’t infected, but he told me I was lucky.

  For the next several hours I rested on a stretcher next to a wall with a large crack in it. I could see on the other side three or four South Korean soldiers. They were standing around a guy tied to a chair. They were working him over with what looked like rubber hoses. He was gagged, but I could still hear him moaning and trying to scream. I watched for a while and then turned my head and tried not to think of what I had seen.

  I didn’t know the facts. I knew the North Koreans slaughtered a lot of innocent men, women and children. I also knew some of the South Korean civilians had collaborated. I knew one thing for sure: It was out of my hands. But I still felt a little sorry for the guy.

  The next day, I felt fine. The doctors still had me on a Jell-O diet, so when the doctor came on his rounds, I told him I wanted to leave.

  “I need to get back to my unit,” I said.

  He shook his head. I pleaded with him. I was worried about my men.

  “You leave, Sergeant, and you’re on your own,” the doctor said. “I am not releasing you.”

  I pulled my uniform shirt on and found the medic from the night before and got my rifle and gear. “Good luck,” he said as I started north along the road. I had no idea how far I had to walk to get back to my company.

  Not more than a half a mile down the road a military police jeep stopped me.

  “Where are you headed?” asked the driver.

  “Third Battalion, Eighth Cav,” I said.

  “Get in, we’ll take you up the road,” the driver said.

  I jumped in the back, grateful for the ride. We got to a road junction and there was a steady stream of traffic moving in all directions. Long lines of trucks filled with supplies and troops, some towing massive artillery, crawled along the road.

  One of the MPs walked over and talked to an officer standing by a jeep. He motioned for me to come over a few minutes later.

  “The general’s going to get you back to your unit.”

  “A general, holy shit.”

  The general was a tall, lean man with an air of authority. As I got closer, I could see one star on his helmet. It was Brigadier General Charles Day Palmer, the commander of the First Cavalry Division Artillery. A World War II veteran, he’d fought in the Normandy invasion, the breakout at St. Lo and the battles across France and the low countries to the Siegfried Line with the Second Armored Division.

  “I understand you are a sergeant in the Third of the Eighth,” he said.

  “ Yes sir. L Company.”

  “Just stay with me and I’ll get you back to your unit.”

  He turned and grabbed the radio handset from his jeep. A battalion commander who’d missed his initial point (IP), the time when his unit had to move on the road, was on the other end.

  “Colonel, is your executive officer there? Put him on the radio,” Palmer said.

  The executive officer came on the radio.

  “Major, you are now in command of the battalion. I’m going to give you a new IP time. Do not miss it. Tell the colonel to report to my headquarters ASAP. Do you understand the message?”

  “Roger that, sir,” the new battalion commander said.

  I also got the message: to never, ever miss an IP time.

  “Lets go,” the general said to me, climbing into his jeep. We skirted the road and drove up to his headquarters. The headquarters had just moved into what looked like a number of wooden schoolhouses.

  When we stopped, Palmer called a sergeant major over to his jeep.

  I didn’t catch his name, but it didn’t matter. When you’re that senior, sergeant major is fine.

  “Get someone to give Sergeant Richardson a haircut and then bring him to my mess for dinner tonight,” Palmer said.

  I sat down in a field chair outside, and the sergeant major talked to me while my hair was being cut. He told me that the headquarters just moved in and hadn’t finished setting up security.

  “We have a possible situation,” he said.

  “Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

  “Do you see that high hill directly behind this building? We just moved in here today, and I am afraid there could be some North Koreans up there in that pagoda,” the sergeant major said. “I haven’t been able to get anyone up there yet. To be honest with you, my guys are not very good at taking care of things like this.”

  “Well, Sarge, what do you want me to do?”

  “I
f I give you a couple of men, would you go up there and check it out?” he said.

  “I guess so, if that’s what you want, but who the hell does your security?” I asked. “The quartering party should have checked that out before you moved into this place.”

  He agreed. “I know, but they didn’t, and now it’s worrying me.”

  After my haircut, the sergeant major brought two of his men to me. They were young privates and didn’t seem too confident. These were not the battle-hardened soldiers from my section.

  “Look, you men stay back and cover me as we move up the hill,” I said. “Then while you move up I will cover you.”

  I took the lead up the fairly steep hill. When I got a ways up, I called the pair of soldiers forward. Then I moved out again. We did this five or six times until we got to the pagoda. Crouching, I approached with my rifle at the ready. I moved quickly to the rear. The pagoda was deserted and there was no sign of any recent activity. We stayed up there for thirty minutes. The guys with me had been very nervous and now looked relieved. The sergeant major thanked us and I made a point to personally thank the two men. There was nothing like a little excitement before supper.

  The general’s mess was in a room with a table set up in a U shape. The kitchen truck was backed up to a room next to it where the cooking was done. The general asked me to sit next to him at the head of the table. He introduced me to his staff and then called the mess sergeant over.

  “Sergeant Richardson. Meet Sergeant Richardson.” We talked for a few seconds and quickly established the fact that we were not kin. The general asked if I would like a beer.

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  Then Palmer turned to his staff. “Let’s let the sergeant eat, and when he’s through we can ask him some questions,” Palmer said. “You all need to hear what an infantryman’s life is like.”

  The meal was some kind of meat, powdered potatoes and green beans. Good fresh-baked bread. The best thing was the cold beer. To tell the truth anything would have been better than the Jell-O diet at the battalion aid station.

  When dinner was over, the general turned to me and told me to tell his officers what it was like in the infantry. Every staff officer was looking at me. This was a real chance to tell officers, including a general, what it was like and what we needed. I took a deep breath and then just told the truth.

  “Look, I want you to know I’m not bitching, I’m just telling you the way it is with me and my men. My company strength was down to sixty-eight men and until recently we were fighting day and night. We have always been short of ammo. Most of the time we have been on one ration for two men and water has been a serious problem. Recently, we were given a box, which is called a 50-in-1, that contained a lot of razors, shaving cream, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Basically a bunch of stuff we didn’t need. We need food and ammo.”

  The questions started right after I was done. They seemed genuinely interested.

  How was the morale of my men through all of this?

  “Since we broke out of the Pusan perimeter, it has been great.”

  Besides ammo and food, what else do you need?

  “More artillery fire support.”

  They all laughed. When I left, they all thanked me and shook my hand. I never forgot the kindness the general showed to me. That night I slept in a building with wooden floors. During the night, I had a nightmare. I was in a hole and artillery fire was coming in on top of me. I dug deeper and deeper in the dirt with my hands. I couldn’t get deeper because there were old boards in the way. When they woke me up, I was clawing at the floorboards. I looked around the room and the other ten guys in the room were up and looking at me, their eyes wide and scared.

  “You all right?” one of them said. Even in the dark, I could tell I’d spooked all of them.

  “I’m fine,” I said. It took a lot of talking to convince them that I was fine. They still didn’t believe me when they finally went back to sleep.

  The next morning, General Palmer took me to my company. When I arrived, Vaillancourt met me.

  “Great timing,” Vaillancourt said. “A couple of men are being put on the promotion list, and if you were not here, we couldn’t put you on the list.”

  I was being put in for promotion to sergeant first class. Vaillancourt told me that we had orders to cross the 38th parallel and move north.

  When I got back to my section, I had three new replacements. Mac was a corporal and I assigned him to Heaggley’s squad as a gunner. Allen had traveled with the circus and proved to be a resourceful guy. We were still short food, so he fixed a box to his ammunition backpack and I told him to pick up any discarded C rations. There were always items on the ground that had been thrown away. I told him that whenever we stopped he could make a mulligan stew out of what he picked up.

  We were all saddled up ready to move out and two of the Koreans nudged me and pointed to McKee, one of the replacements. He didn’t know how to put his gear together. Each step he took something fell on the ground. The Koreans were laughing. I got ahold of him and then I called Heaggley over and told him to take care of the situation.

  The next day Heaggley came to me.

  “Rich, it is impossible to keep him straight. He’s going to get someone killed.”

  “Okay, I’ll try to get him sent to the rear.”

  I went to Vaillancourt and asked that they send McKee to the rear, where maybe he could do something in the trains’ area. They both blew me off. I figured as much. Heaggley would just need to keep a close watch on him and we’d hope to hell we did not get into a heavy firefight.

  The battalion was attacking along open rice paddies. We were walking in single file on top of the paddy dikes. Heaggley’s squad was in the center and Walsh’s was on the right and just a little behind.

  I was with Heaggley. All of a sudden there was a thunderous roar as an artillery barrage hit us. I was blown straight up in the air. My feet were over my head. I came down on my shoulder and my head. The mud softened the blow. Grabbing my helmet, I yelled for my section to run forward out of the kill zone. Three guys in front of me and two behind me were wounded. I could hear them moaning as they clutched their stomachs and legs. I checked myself; I had escaped without a scratch. Medics hurried to the downed men. I looked back and saw Heaggley standing dazed.

  “Get moving,” I yelled.

  He looked at me with a funny expression on his face and then looked down at his waist. He had been hit by shrapnel in the stomach. I could see the blood soaking through his fatigues.

  “I’m hit, Rich.”

  “Get down,” I said. And I hollered, “Medic!”

  Heaggley fell to his knees and rolled over on his back. I was torn. I wanted to run to him, but I had to keep the rest of the section moving. It was one of those choices that you never want to make. I saw the medics coming and turned to join the other men.

  “Good luck, buddy. See you later,” I screamed over my shoulder.

  I couldn’t look back, but I knew I’d probably never see Heaggley again. A stomach wound, I thought, Jesus Christ I hope he makes it. I wanted to sit down and cry, but this was not the time or the place for that. I had damn near lost a whole squad.

  We had to quickly reorganize. We were three quarters across the open area and took up positions behind a railroad embankment. I called Mac over.

  “You’re the squad leader and for the time being you’re also the gunner.”

  Mac’s eyes were as big as plates. He’d been with us less than two days.

  “Any questions?” I asked, prodding him into action.

  “I got it, Sarge.”

  I hollered for Allen and told him to get one of the Koreans. When they came back, I sent them to get the ammo we’d dropped in the rice paddies.

  “Get there and back as quickly as you can,” I told Allen.

  They raced off and I turned my attention to the North Koreans. They’d dug in on the high ground two hundred yards to our front. There was only one way to go
at the hill and it was straight forward. I looked across the open space we were going to cross. There was little cover. This was going to be tough. There was no time to dwell on Heaggley or on our dwindling numbers.

  The longer we sat behind the railroad embankment, the tougher it would be to get started. Bromser was waiting to get artillery support. The same guys I’d had dinner with. I hoped they remembered what I’d told them and come through. Leaning back against the embankment, I saw Allen and the Korean hustling across the field, each carrying two-pack boards with ammo.

  “Get ready,” Bromser said.

  I gripped my rifle and closed my eyes. My mind knew going forward was crazy, but I willed my legs to move. Soon, I was running and leading the rest of the section across the paddies. Mortar and artillery fire crashed around me, but I didn’t notice. I only saw the flashes of the North Korean machine guns ahead of me. I stayed close to Mac. I could hear him hollering at his squad to move. Looking to my right, I saw that Walsh was right beside us. He had his squad moving. It all seemed almost normal. It was just another day. Another attack.

  Soon, we were in holes left by the artillery barrage. I could hear Walsh’s 57 firing into the North Korean positions. Mac had his gun zeroed in on a North Korean machine gunner. After a few blasts, we joined our attacking platoons as they closed on the crest of the hill. My section moved up just in time to see the last of the North Koreans running away. For the next several days, each attack ended this way. It seemed the North Koreans were staying long enough to slow us down, only to run away as we got close.

  During breaks, Walsh and I pressed Vaillancourt for information on Heaggley. When we got to the outskirts of Pyongyang, we finally got word. Heaggley was still alive when he was evacuated to the field hospital. That was good news.

  On October 19, 1950, the First Cavalry Division was the first American unit in the captured city of Pyongyang. We’d been slowed after the North Koreans dropped all the bridges across the Taedong River. We added the North Korean capital to our legacy. First in Manila. First in Tokyo. Now first in Pyongyang.