|
After I left the British, I was given R&R again. I met some of the KSLI and HQ personnel in Tokyo and we drank one hell of a lot of beer. On my return, I was assigned to the Capital ROK Division from 25 November to 18 December, 1951; while with the ROK, there was no personal contact with them and I just did air strikes as required. I did work with a Kiwi artillery captain who would call in smoke artillery on selected targets for the Navy Corsairs. After leaving the ROK, I went on R&R again but in Nagoya. I came down with something and was hospitalized there. I was quite ill but never did find out what the problem was. My last assignment was with the 1st ROK Division from 19 December to 19 January 1952 and, for some reason, I have had trouble remembering all that transpired. During this era, pockets of North Korean guerillas were still fighting in the southwest of South Korea. Air surveillance and air strikes were an effective method of flushing them out and I was sent as part of the ground party to work with the ROK. I left Pyongtaek and headed to the port of Masan. Here our vehicles were loaded on a freighter for the passage around the bottom of Korea. During the loading and positioning of my radio jeep, one of the Korean stevedores was killed when he fell three decks into the hold. We off-loaded at Mokpo and reported to the American liaison officer attached to the 1st ROK. I do not recall ever calling an air strike while being with this unit; however, at one point, I came across an ROK intelligence team. They had a North Korean guerilla prisoner and were trying to get information form him. The torture was so brutal that I was tempted to intervene or shoot the prisoner. I was cautioned by a US officer to butt-out, which I ultimately did. I was not there much longer after the incident. In February 1952, I returned to the US aboard a troop carrier. We sailed from Yokohama and landed in San Francisco. After some leave I reported to the 763rd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at Shawnee, New York. I took my discharge there in September 1952, and returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In Canada, I completed my undergraduate Arts, married Anne Margaret Laidlaw of Troy, Inverness Co., Cape Breton, entered Law School and graduated with an LL.B from Dalhousie University at the Spring Convocation in 1956. I was then accepted and attended in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago returning to Canada in the Fall of 1957. I practiced corporate law in Toronto and Montreal before returning to Halifax and served on the Premier’s staff and then as a Provincial Crown Prosecutor. In 1965 I left for South Africa and after two years in Johannesburg with City Merchant Bank and the Anglo-American Union Acceptances Merchant Bank, I returned to Canada and taught law in Sudbury and Vancouver. I practiced law for a number of years in Vancouver and then retired to Phoenix, AZ in 1988. Shortly after retiring, I acted as an economic advisor in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1990 – 91. I have resided in the Vancouver area continuously since 1994. In 1998, the Governor of the State of New York awarded me the Conspicuous Service Cross for service to the people of that State. EPILOGUE: In the early 90s, I attended a 6147th Tactical Air Control Group (Mosquito) Association reunion held at the Sandestin Resort, Destin, Fla. Marvin Glass, a retired major who happened to be the CO of the 6150 TACP at the time I was attached, gave my wife and me a lift to Tampa. During the drive, he apologized profusely for the lack of support afforded to the Tactical Air Control Parties. I had to be clothed by the British or freeze and there was no documentation about my Purple Heart (since corrected with great difficulty) or other medals, no probable earned citations, and no promotion. It had bothered him to the point that he was going to formally complain to his superiors—and even considered resigning his Command, but he didn’t. It all goes to show that the outfit was in an on-going state of confusion with poor administrative direction and it appears that those at the "Front" were out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Such is the luck of the draw. |