I become a big fan of this blog author on the Chinese website called Wenxuecity.com (文学城 in Chinese). Mr. Li has the same last name as my late mom. I wish to meet him one day in person and to praise him! Mr. Li is a good writer, poet and storyteller. Unfortunately he writes everything in Chinese, so I must translate them to English.
This blog is similar to the one I wrote (or translated rather) yesterday, except this time the storyteller, Mr. Michael Bryan, was not a Korean but a former Lieutenant in the C company of the Fifth Division of the Eighth Army, also a POW in our story from the Korean War. Mr. Li’s blogs were sorted with the more recent being on the top, I did not see it until today.
Similar to the Korean translator in the last story, Mr. Bryan was 89 year old when the blog was published in 2016. He told the blog author, Mr. Li, a volunteer at a veteran nursing home in the D.C. area, that this was a story he would never forgot for his entire life.
Like the last story, this one also happened during the Fifth Phase Offensive (in Chinese, 第五次战役) by the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) of China. I will skip some background details and get to the core of the story directly. Again, I will use “I”, “me” and “my” below to refer to Mr. Bryan to make the story more vivid. Here it comes:
I had my closest encounter with the PVA in the battle of the Dobongsan (in Chinese, 道峰山) outside Seoul. I was operating a machine gun to cover the retreat of my folks in the C Company after the PVA launched a raid at 4AM, out of nowhere and out of blue to all of us. Earlier that night, we were listening the baseball game between the NY Yankees and Detroit Tigers, and my friends and I were betting on the Yankees to win!
My bullets had killed many Chinese but that did not stop them. Suddenly, one PVA soldier dashed to me even with several wounds in his body. I could see his bloody eyes and several grenades in his hand. At that moment I recalled the warning from the commander of my company, Mr. Gordon, that we should never show mercy to any wounded PVA, as the Chinese were always severely short of medicines, and their wounded soldiers most likely would die even after being rescued from the battlefield. To be wounded is like a death sentence, so their best bet was to kill more enemies before they die.
Unfortunately I was not quick enough and the Chinese soldier leaped to my machinegun bunker and ignited the grenades. I lost my consciousness right away after the explosion.
When I woke up I found myself laying on a stretcher, severely wounded on my left shoulder and left ribs. Every breath was a struggle with great pain. Several other American soldiers were laying nearby. Chinese soldiers were busy burying dead bodies or consolidating their trenches. Interestingly, while they were doing those things, they kept singing. I had never heard those songs before but I assumed the Chinese sang to help regain energy from the exhausted night. Every time when they passed us by, they stopped singing and just quickly gave us a curious glance.
I felt thirsty but could not speak. So I lift my right arm to wave at a Chinese, who figured out what I wanted and fed me with water from his military kettle. I felt much better after drinking.
Not too far away I saw many Chinese wounded soldiers laying on a thin layer of cotton comforter — the Chinese gave the stretchers to us. Unlike us, the wounded Chinese soldiers could not be moved to their base for treatment and with a shortage of medicine, seemed to die sooner or later.
Further away, I saw something very interesting: A few female actresses — or soldiers rather — were singing and dancing to a group of PVA soldiers at rest. I honestly believed the Chinese military performers were more helpful than the Broadway actors /actresses visiting us during Christmas, or even our military pastors.
The performers were truly non-stopping. The shows had to be repeated as the audience soldiers took turns to rest. They started the show again every time new audience soldiers arrived and never complained. They also did far more than just performing. I saw one female performer feeding food to a wounded soldier by chewing the fried soybean in her mouth first and then fed into the soldier’s mouth. They also cleaned up and wrapped the wounds.
There were 17 of us, with 5 heavily wounded like me. The Chinese did what they could to us, just like to their own soldiers. Our wounds were all cleaned and wrapped with gauze. One female Chinese soldier came to help me eat. She picked up a can of beef but did not know how to open it. A lightly wounded soldier came to show her the way with gestures. She then used the spoon to feed me, and used a towel to clean up the saliva and soup around my lips every once in a while. I stared at her black eyes but she never looked me in the eyes. She was so young that I could see the yellowish fine hairs in her face. She must be no more than 19.
After serving foods to all the heavily wounded POWs, she started her own meal of fried soybean and fried flour. I managed to make some noise to cause her attention, and when she turned her face back to me, I took out two of my sausages and waved to her. She took a look at my eyes for the first time but then turned her back at me and continued her own fried flour.
Soon after that, I needed to visit the bathroom. The girl hesitated for about five seconds and then ran away to get a blanket and a clean basin. She used the blanket to cover my lower body and then reached beneath the blanket to help me loosen the belt and lower the pant. She then put the basin under me and held it steady for me to poop into it.
What she did shocked other POWs, and they all looked at her with disbelief! When I was done, she took the basin away and buried the stool. She then brought some water back to help clean my body using a wet cloth under the blanket. She was gentle and nice and knew what she was doing, treating me just like a Chinese soldier. I was so moved and used my fingers to write down the words “Thank You!” on the ground. I sincerely hoped she understood the meaning of my words!
At noon the American bombers visited us in an air raid. The Chinese blew a whistle to alert everyone to take cover. Some entered the military tunnel, which was not big enough for all. The Chinese had put all US POWs under a huge rock, but apparently all the safe spaces were taken by us. Some Chinese could only lay on the ground with no cover of any kind at all. Many of them killed by the bombs. This was by far our most scaring time of our lives, because we never had to go though an air raid before. I however kept reminding myself this was what the Chinese had to experience everyday!
Then suddenly a shrapnel hit the back shoulder of one of the lightly wounded POWs, and he was crying like a baby. The Chinese girl ran to him despite the ongoing heavy bombing. She quickly found where the shrapnel was and used her teeth to bit it out. Apparently this was the Chinese way of treating the wounds. Her mouth was full of blood. Then, before the next bomb hit the ground, she put her own body above the POW to cover him from further shrapnel!
After the air raid, the Americans started their ground attack from the bottom of the hill. The Chinese quickly reemerged from the tunnels and started their defense. Many PVA soldiers died and buried. I could see their angry faces and was extremely scared about whether the Chinese would kill us as revenge? However, during the entire battle they were too busy to even look at us, like we did not exist.
An hour later, another round of air raid started. I knew another wave of offensive by the UN troops would start after the air raid. Seeing the many PVA soldiers on the ground without any cover, I yelled the word “POW” to my fellow Americans. They quickly got it and all of us, 17 in total, moved to an empty slope and used our bodies to spell out POW on the ground. Two soldiers also took out their small mirrors to reflect the sunlight to the sky.
The bombers dived at us low enough to see the “body letters” and they simply flew away without dropping any bombs. No ground attack either for the rest of that day.
The Chinese took advantage of this precious peace time to bury the dead and cleaned the wounds. Amazingly, when they were taking care of the wounded soldiers or taking rest, they started singing again, all of them! Although I had no idea what the song words were, the song was so soothing to me. When that Chinese girl came to clean me up, I pointed to the Chinese side and signaled her to sing for us. She blushed and looked around and then looked at a place far away. Just when I regretted for making such an unreasonable request, she started singing for us! I could not understand what she was singing but did not matter, as her voice was so sweet. Oh, it was a song from the heaven! Every POW applauded when she finished!
The Americans did not attack us the next day, either. At the lunch time two PVA officers came to us, and using gestures plus simple English words, they asked us if we could find a way to communicate with the US troops down hill to return the POWs to them. My guess was they might have received the order to breakthrough but did not want to take us along with them. Our foods had been mostly used up and they did not have much left, either. I saw the Chinese girl only had a small number of fried soybean on her palm and she engulfed them with a mouthful of water from her military kettle.
I suggested that we could use two POWs holding a white flag to go downhill. The Chinese did not think that was a good idea. To them, holding a white flag meant surrender, and they would never surrender. They figured out a better way: Painting a big red cross on a white T-shirt with merbromin, and held it up to go down. I then asked them to carry me down as well, they looked at my wounds and agreed.
There we were: Two POWs holding the red cross T-shirt in front of us, two Chinese solders carrying the stretcher with me on it, and the Chinese girl who had been taking care of me all these days. The American soldiers quickly saw us and Mr. Gordon, the C company commander, came to greet us. I talked briefly to Mr. Gordon, explained that the Chinese would release us.
Mr. Gordon could not believe his ears as he was prepared only for accepting the Chinese surrender. He sent one soldier back to the bunker to call his superior about the situation and then sent two unarmed squads to go back to the hilltop to get the other POWs back.
Just when the Chinese girl was turning around to go back to the hill, one fellow POW put his watch and a bag of his remaining foods in his hand and offered them to the girl ceremonially. She did not take them, and then the guy laid them down on the rock near her. Seeing this, all other POWs did the same thing, offering their watches, lighters, foods, flashlights, harmonica, mirrors, first aid kits and painkillers.
The moment when the girl saw the the first aid kits and the painkillers, there was a blink of total excitement in her eyes. I saw her using cloths tore from her shirt to wrap the wounds. Apparently nothing else interested her more than the medical stuff. Still, she did not say anything but only gave a glance on her superior standing by. I then asked if she could leave her white towel bag as a gift for me. It was a bag with a dove on it with some Chinese characters that I did not understand. The Chinese officer looked at her and said nothing. She untied her towel bag and simply put it on my stretcher. She then quickly picked up all the medical stuff, and hold them up tightly to her chest!
When they turned around to leave, all POWs saluted solemnly. Mr. Gordon and all the other American soldiers did the same. We held our salute until they all disappeared!