War Trash (27 page)

Today I received an American brigadier general Matthew Bell from the fearless Korean soldiers in Prison Compound 76. After careful examination, Bell is good in every respect, no trace of insult and physical damage. I prove this statement!

The Highest American Commander on Koje Island

Signature____________________

May 11, 1952

With a grunt General Smart signed his name. Then we shook hands with Bell again. He got into a blue sedan, and many of us waved goodbye to him. In spite of General Smarts glum face, Bell doffed his cap a bit as the car drew away.

At 2:00 p.m. a celebration started in Compound 76. After Colonel Choi summarized this episode and its importance to the seven thousand men, Chaolin delivered a speech too. He thanked the Korean comrades-in-arms for this great victory and said we Chinese would learn from their heroic spirit and bravery. He concluded by declaring forcefully, "The Chinese people will remember this great historical deed forever!"

I was moved, intoxicated by the euphoria over the victory, to which I had also contributed my little share. In joining the great struggle, I felt as though my life had finally gained a purpose.

In the midst of loud applause, Ming went to the front and belted out "Song of the Guerrillas on Mount Halla " in Korean. He had just learned this song from one of the three women. He was such a splendid singer that the audience encored him, so he sang a snatch from the Chinese opera The White-Haired Girl. After that, the three women performed a short dance and then chanted "The Spring Song." And finally, a group of prisoners acted out a skit, "Capturing General Bell Alive."

Besides the men of Compound 76, the POWs in a nearby compound also watched the performances from across a narrow road. Altogether there were more than thirteen thousand spectators. Even the American military police and the South Korean guards couldn't help but keep their eyes in our direction.

18. AFTER THE VICTORY

As we were celebrating our victory, hundreds of GIs sealed Compound 76, and no representatives, except for the three women, were allowed to return to their compounds. So the four of us Chinese got stuck there. On the same day General Smart revoked the agreement Bell had signed, declaring it illegal, made under duress. He announced that he would take all necessary measures to restore order in the camp, including the use of force. Soon we got word that Bell and Fulton had both been demoted and had left Koje Island. From the radio we heard that Pyongyang and Beijing had widely publicized our victory, which had provided ammunition for propaganda and some leverage for our negotiators at Panmunjom. Yet I began to feel uneasy about this victory, which had caused us to be trapped here and might bring more trouble to the Korean prisoners.

From mid-May on, the American troops harassed the POWs. They fired rifles, pitched tear-gas bombs into different compounds, and drove tanks up to some fences to spew fire from flamethrowers onto the slogans and the portraits of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung erected by the prisoners. Every day the guards would fire at the inmates in Compound 76. Within three weeks about two dozen men had been wounded. Obviously the enemy intended to provoke the inmates so that they would have a pretext for punishing us.

After a few meetings among the leaders of Compound 76, to which Chaolin and Ming were both invited, a conclusion was reached: the enemy must be planning to take revenge, so we must prepare for it. In addition, General Smart might have another object in mind – six compounds controlled by the Korean Communists had repeatedly refused to be screened by U.N. personnel, so he might be intending to solve this problem as well. Very likely the enemy would attack Compound 76 to set an example for the other bellicose compounds and intimidate them into obedience. Therefore the leaders decided to organize for self-defense, preparing for the impending violence; at the same time, we must not give the enemy a handle for any large-scale attack, so we should avoid acting rashly and know where to stop. The Korean prisoners responded to the leaders' call enthusiastically and organized themselves into different task groups. An assault brigade was formed: its members were armed with self-made weapons – cudgels, gasoline bombs, and long spears made of pieces of steel ripped from oil drums, sharpened, and tied to the tips of bamboo poles with iron wire. They also began digging trenches within the tents to protect themselves from gunfire. We, the four Chinese, all joined them in building defenses.

On the early morning of June 12, about forty tanks and armored personnel carriers and twelve hundred GIs surrounded Compound 76. The snarling of the vehicles woke us up, and we watched them from within our tent. General Smart supervised the operation on the spot, wearing a steel helmet, a pistol, and binoculars on his broad belt. We saw all the gun barrels pointing at the barracks inside the compound. A battalion of GIs, looking ghostly in their gas masks, all raised their bayonets, ready to charge.

Inside the compound the prisoners got into the trenches to defend our position.

At eight sharp a gunshot shattered the silence. At once two columns of personnel carriers and tanks plunged forward, knocked down the front gate, and rolled into the compound. Following them, all masked, the foot soldiers ran in, seven or eight as a group. Without delay flamethrowers started launching torrents of fire at the tents;

rifles and machine guns burst out crackling; grenades and gas bombs went off here and there. The explosions thundered while greenish gas was billowing all over the place.

As Chinese, the four of us were not allowed to take part in the combat; ten men had been assigned to protect us. While I was wondering how the Koreans could possibly fight such an unequal battle, the members of the assault brigade sprang out of their trenches, wielding their spears and cudgels, and charged the enemy. They shouted "Mansai! Mansai!," which means "long live" in Korean, an exclamation somewhat like "hurray." As they were attacking, machine guns began raking them. A few men got close enough to stab at the GIs, but most were shot down before they could reach them. Several of their gasoline bombs hit the personnel carriers and tanks, which started burning, though the brief fires could hardly have done much damage. Meanwhile, all the other prisoners were chanting the "Internationale" – "Rise up! slaves of hunger and cold. Rise up! you who won't suffer anymore…" We joined them in bellowing the song. Strange to say, this felt more like a demonstration than a battle.

Some Koreans sang their army's fighting song while confronting the GIs, who charged at them with bayonets and even fired at them point-blank. Many of the prisoners shouted in English, "Death to GIs!" and "Down with Truman!" Within live minutes all the men of the assault brigade had fallen, lost in the dark smoke and the greenish gas. Crazed by the sight, Wu Gaochen was about to leap out to join the battle, but two Koreans pulled him down, saying if he got killed they would be punished.

About twenty minutes later the gunfire subsided. The GIs began rounding us up. They came into our tent, pulled us out of the trench by the collars, and forced us to go to the front yard. When we got there, I saw that most of the tents had burned down; two were still standing but in flames. There were numerous scorched spots on the ground, and everywhere were cartridge cases, shrapnel, bamboo poles, shards of glass, and dead and wounded bodies, from which blood was still flowing. The air was so heavy with nauseous gas, smoke, and diesel fuel that we couldn't breathe without coughing. A few of us stepped aside to help our wounded comrades, but the GIs stopped us. The assault brigade had consisted of about four hundred men, the best among the Koreans; they were all lying on the ground, scattered like bales of rags, some still smoldering. At least half of them had been killed. A few were screaming for help like small boys crying for mama. One of them managed to sit up; he seemed to have suffered a concussion – his eyes, ears, and nose were bleeding. Wordlessly he was flailing his arms in every direction as though blind.

Meantime, a group of medics wearing Red Cross armbands were busy treating the wounded GIs, carrying them away on stretchers or bandaging them on the spot. None of the medical personnel bothered about the wounded Koreans until every GI had been helped.

With the aid of a Korean prisoner, the Americans singled out us Chinese and took us to a corner where about thirty Korean representatives and officers were sitting on their haunches. They made us squat down in the same manner. Toward noon they ordered us to line up, all with our hands clasped behind our heads. Then they put us on a truck, which shipped us to "the top jail" on Koje Island. They told us that we had become "war criminals." On the way I saw smoke and fire rising from the hamlet on a hillside in the north. The enemy had found out that some of the villagers had collaborated with the POWs, so a unit of South Korean troops had been sent there to plunder the village. A breeze wafted over the cries of women and children, which sounded shrill, like the long chirps of insects. Gunshots broke out from there now and again. Soldiers were taking away buffaloes and sheep while dogs barked explosively. Later I heard that most of the civilians had been removed to Pusan.

"The top jail" confining us was a standard prison house surrounded by a high stone wall capped with rolls of barbed wire. Inside the jail it was dark, cold, and damp; the cells were guarded by GIs around the clock. All the new arrivals were shut in solitary confinement here. We were not allowed to stand up or lie down in the daytime. All day long each of us had to sit on a reed mat, four by seven feet, that almost covered his entire cell floor. I was given a tattered blanket, which I wrapped around my legs during the day. Having nothing else to do, I often rubbed the wounded area in my thigh to help the blood circulate.

I was afraid I might develop arthritis in such a damp, cold place, so I often sat on my heels. Some guards would snarl at me when they found me in this posture, and would order me to sit down fully on the mat. Sometimes when they were not around, I would do a few squats.

Although we were "high-ranking prisoners" now, our food was the same – two barley balls a day, with a ladle of soy sauce soup in which sometimes floated a few bits of cabbage leaves or mustard greens. In a corner of my cell sat a toilet pail with a lid on it; the pail was collected every morning by a Korean man. There was no lamp in my one-windowed room, so as soon as dusk fell, I had to go to bed with my head on my shoes stacked together as a pillow. The cell was teeming with fleas, which would torment me viciously until around midnight, after which they'd subside. I guessed they must have become sluggish after they were engorged. But little by little I grew accustomed to them and could go to sleep soon after I lay down.

My enthusiasm about the collective struggle had begun to wane. At heart I was starting to doubt the wisdom of abducting General Bell. True, we had created a piece of international news and provided ammunition for the Korean and the Chinese governments, but at what cost? Our living conditions had definitely deteriorated, and hundreds of men in Compound 76 had been killed or wounded. Why hadn't we thought about the consequences beforehand? Was any news story worth so many lives? Who would get credit for the "victory"? Of course the Communist leaders here, not those men buried underground. The enemy was brutal, yet we could have avoided being hurt by them. The real task for the leaders here should have been to make sure that all the POWs survived unharmed. Any effort other than that must have had ulterior motives. Lonesome and miserable, I felt I had been used too, though compared with the dead and the wounded, I was lucky.

In this special jail corporal punishment was commonplace. I often heard prisoners scream while GIs hit them with sticks and belts. I was not often beaten or kicked like others, because I didn't talk back. One morning I was taken out for interrogation. I wouldn't tell the Americans how we communicated with the Koreans, so they led me into a windowless room. In came two strapping GIs, one toting a rifle while the other hauled a fire hose. "We're going to do some cleaning today," said the one holding the nozzle, smirking. He then turned it on. A column of water hit my stomach and hurled me backward. My head banged into the wall so hard that I blacked out instantly.

When I came to a moment later, the water was still hitting me. I huddled into a ball by embracing my knees, with my back toward the men. The water struck my spine and lower back until my pants were ripped from behind. They laughed and wound up the session by giving me a few kicks in the buttocks.

"Get up, gook!" ordered one of them.

I was shivering, my chest and head aching. I managed to turn over but couldn't stand up.

They pulled me to my feet, dragged me out of the house, and left me in the small courtyard to dry my clothes for a while. I sat in the warm sun, still queasy, watching the seagulls sailing beneath the clouds. My face felt puffy and my eyes smarted. I wanted to weep but checked myself, aware that some eyes were observing me. Far away in the east, toward the beach, a bell was tolling, and a group of men were chanting a work song in Chinese. I turned my head to listen closely, then I caught sight of Mr. Park behind the grilled window of his cell. He was waving at me, raising his thumb and clasping his hands to congratulate me for having thwarted our enemy's attempt to extract information from me. A Korean officer in the next cell even saluted me. I waved back, trying hard to smile.

That evening the one-eyed Korean man doling out food handed a bowl of barley to me through the steel bars on the door of my cell. I forced myself to eat some. To my surprise, beneath the coarse grain were about a dozen small meatballs made of pork and onion. Hurriedly I turned away from the door so that the guards couldn't see the meatballs while I ate them. Evidently there were agents among the Korean workers here. Mr. Park may often have been given this kind of meal. Although grateful to him for having the meatballs smuggled in for me, I was bothered by the fact that even in this prison for "war criminals" he still enjoyed privileges like a top official. It was simply impossible for our captors to take full control.