‘YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH’
by James E. Van Zandt
Long buried in the bowels of the bureaucracy, the little-known report produced by the 1953 Potter hearings pertaining to Communist atrocities in Korea deserves to see light. Fortunately, its key findings were revealed and preserved in VFWmagazine. Here is a recap presented by then-Pennsylvania Rep. James E. Van Zandt. (Senate Report 848, 83rd Congress, 2nd session, Jan. 11, 1954.) Sgt. Berry F. Rhoden was handed a card before being shot in the back. The legend on the card said: “You are about to die the most horrible kind of death.” Rhoden barely survived, but many Americans did not make it through the North Korean atrocity mill. “The Communist enemy committed a series of war crimes against American and U.N. personnel which constituted one of the most heinous and barbaric epochs in recorded history,” so concluded the Potter report. Sen. Charles E. Potter, of Michigan, who lost both legs in WWII, made a determined and persistent inquiry into Communist atrocities. More than 200 pages of testimony were recorded during his hearings in December 1953. On Jan. 11, 1954, came the formal report, documenting murder, starvation, torture, experimental medical operations and many other crimes against humanity. “Virtually every provision of the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners of war was purposely violated or ignored by the North Korean and Chinese forces,” the Potter report declared. “More than 5,000 American prisoners of war died because of Communist war atrocitiesand more than a thousand who survived were victims of war crimes.” According to Potter’s report, “Approximately two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died due to war crimes.” The Potter report also documented 35,459 war crimes against civilian victims in Korea, plus a total of 20,785 war crimes against military personnel in all the United Nations forces combined, including U.S. troops. War Crimes Division During three days of hearings, the Potter committee took the testimony of 29 witnesses, 23 of whom were American military personnel who were either survivors or eyewitnesses of Communist atrocities. The other witnesses were former Army field commanders in Korea, and officers of the War Crimes Division (WCD). Hundreds of photographs were presented in evidence from the files of the WCD in Korea. First reports of atrocities committed by the Communists in Korea against captured Americans began to trickle into Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters in July 1950, before North Korean aggression had been under way two weeks. MacArthur at once set up the WCD in the Korean Command, with a view to preparing on-the-spot evidence for presentation to the U. N. With the signing of the Korean War armistice in July 1953, the WCD in Korea did not terminate operations. It continued to pile up new evidence of Communist brutalities. Stated the findings: “The evidence before the subcommittee conclusively proves that American prisoners of war who were not deliberately murdered at the time of capture or shortly after capture, were beaten, wounded, starved, and tortured; molested, displayed, and humiliated before the civilian populace and/or forced to march long distances without benefit of adequate food, water, shelter, clothing or medical care to Communist prison camps, and there to experience further acts of human indignities. “Communist massacres, and the wholesale extermination of their victims, is a calculated part of Communist psychological warfare. The atrocities perpetrated in Korea against the United Nations troops by Chinese and North Korean Communists are not unique in Communist history.” Potter emphasized that several blood-chilling methods discovered in the Korean atrocities were exactly those used by Russian forces against the Poles in the notorious Katyn Forest Massacre, which had been investigated earlier by another committee of Congress. The House committee which investigated the WWII Katyn Massacre said in its report: “Communist methods being used in Korea are identical to those followed at Katyn.” The Katyn Massacre has gone down in history as one of the most brutal blood purges ever. In that single operation, in the winter of 1940-41, the Russians liquidated some 15,000 Polish army officers, thus removing the last obstacle of resistance to control of all Poland by the Kremlin. Hill 303 & Sunchon Tunnel One case in Korea illustrates the Communist technique of massacre. On Aug. 14-16, 1950, 45 Americans were captured by North Koreans on Hill 303. “On the fourth day all of the prisoners were led to a ravine and without warning, while their hands were tied, they were shot in cold blood. Only five survived,” recorded the committee. The Sunchon tunnel massacre was even more brutal. On Oct. 30, 1950, 180 American POWs who had survived the Seoul-Pyongyang death march and had been without food for four or five days were killed in this way: “Late in the afternoon, the prisoners were taken from the railroad cars in alternate groups of approximately 40 to nearby ravines, ostensibly to receive their first food in several days, and they were ruthlessly shot by North Korean soldiers using Russian burp guns. One hundred and thirty-eight U.S. soldiers lost their lives in these atrocities.” Pfc. John E. Martin of Ferndale, Mich., attached to the 29th Regimental Combat Team, was one of the survivors of the Sunchon tunnel massacre. He described the entire Communist operation to the Potter committee. He related that prisoners were ordered to crouch, as against an air attack. “So when we all ducked down, some more of them came up over a little rice paddie and just opened up,” he said. After the volley, a member of the firing squad went into the ditch to check, Martin told the committee. “They went down and kicked somebody, and if he groaned they shot him again or bayoneted him, and then kicked somebody else.” Taejon & Muju Massacres Other atrocities documented in this report include the Taejon massacre of 60 Americans on Sept. 27, 1950. In Taejon, civilians numbering 7,000 were slaughtered in the prison yard by gunfire between Sept. 23-27. Only one American soldier survived this massacre. He was Sgt. Carey Weinel, of Kansas City, Mo., attached to the 23rd Inf. Regt., 2nd Div. He told the story to the Potter committee: “They hit me three times, aiming at my head. I have a scar on my neck, another on my collar bone and another hit my hand. After they thought everybody was dead, they started burying us. … I came close to getting panicky but somehow or other I figured as long as I had some breath there was hope.” Sen. Potter: “In other words, you were buried alive?” Sgt. Weinel: “That is right, sir.” “How long were you buried alive?” Sgt. Weinel: “That is hard to say, sir; as I say, I was shot around 5 a.m. and I stayed in the ditch until it was dark that evening.” In another case, the bodies of five American airmen were discovered in the Muju area late in December 1950. Their flesh had been punctured in as many as 20 different areas with sharpened, bamboo spears. Under such torture, no one perforation was sufficient to cause death by itself. Lt. Col. James T. Rogers of Greenwood, S.C., a medical officer attached to the First Corps, told of his post-mortem examination after the bodies had been found by a South Korean patrol. “By the nature of the wounds, I am of the opinion that the instrument of torture had been previously heated. After torturing them with the superficial wounds, they bayoneted them with the same instruments and these fellows were left to bleed to death.” Ordeal of Sgt. Treffery The detailed picture presented by Sgt. Wendell Treffery of Terryville, Conn., fairly presents the whole pattern of Communist atrocities. Treffery was an Army hospital corpsman attached to the 1st Marines at Inchon, Sept. 18, 1950. Captured by Chinese forces while enroute to the Chosin Reservoir, American prisoners were marched up the mountain to the Communist prison camp, comprising three unheated sheds. Treffery related to Potter: “They took our heavy clothing, and shoes, and left us with only a pair of fatigues. It was about 20 below zero … we found out, when we backtracked on Dec. 1 to the point of capture, that our wounded had not been returned to the American lines, as promised in the surrender agreement. “Our wounded were still lying there, all frozen … we marched two days. The first night we got some hay and slept in the hay, cuddling together to keep warm. The second night we slept in pigpens. That night I froze my feet. … I got marching the next 16 days after that. During that march all the meat had worn off my feet, all the skin had dropped off, nothing but the bones showing. After arriving at Kanggye, they put us up in mud huts. There we remained until early January 1951. Then they moved us in oxcarts about 10 miles south of Kanggye, until April 25. “A Chinese nurse came around to care for the wounded the first three days. She had a bag at her side stuffed full of newspapers, and a big pair of shears like we cut hedges with around the house. She said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I stuck my feet out from under the blankets and showed her the raw bones of my feet. She told me to lay down on my back, so I slid down. “She started to clip off my toes. She missed the joint about a 16th of an inch, and hit the solid bone. She crunched them off, took them all off except the two big toes. Then she took that dirty newspaper and wrapped it over the blood and pus and tied it on with a piece of string. Then she went out. “I said to the other fellows: ‘How do you like that?’ I tore my comforter open and ripped out some cotton. Then I ripped up a pair of fatigues and made bandages over the cotton. I took care of my feet all winter long. The other three men who were with me died. By April 25, I was the only one alive in our group.” During the winter of 1950, Treffery related, the prisoners got a “very small bowl, about half a coffee cup, of food once in the morning and once in the night.” “They wouldn’t give us water. Why, I don’t know.” “In the springtime, a lot of greens were growing out in the field, and I took them and boiled them down and got the juice and ate the greens.” Q. Sergeant, could you tell us how many American POWs died in Camp 1? A. I’d say about 800 total. Q. That would be in what period of time? A. May 1951, sir, until August 1951. Q. What was the cause of their deaths? A. Dysentery, lack of medicine, malnutrition. But the Communists were able to supply reading matter for the American POW camps. Treffery testified that the Communist Daily Worker arrived regularly from New York; also the Daily Worker from San Francisco and from London. At Seoul, prisoners were subjected to cruel and unusual punishments, often publicly humiliated before the civilian population, Treffery continued. “One of the men was put in jail for trying to escape. He was put in confinement. All during the day he sat at attention, with his arms like this [demonstrating], and his legs under him. Once or twice during the day they’d stand him on his right foot and get the civilians in off the street, and then they’d slap him to the floor. That happened once or twice a day during every day he was in prison … about five or six months.” Torture of Pvt. Kinard Pvt. Charles E. Kinard of Quincy, Fla., told of being captured, after being wounded about July 10, 1950, in the Battle of Seoul. After being stripped of his watch, money, equipment and clothing, he was systematically tortured. “I was taken out to the hills and they gave me some more treatment. First they put rocks in my shoes, and then they would chase me around until I would fall. I had lost quite a bit of blood. When I would come to, they would give me the lighted cigarettes to my feet, legs and other places. “Then giving me all this, they decided to try something new. They took the C-ration can opener which was hanging on my dog tag around my neck and inserted it into the wound in my left shoulder and gave it a half-twist. And one of them said ‘ptomaine poison!’ I don’t know where he heard the words. “After he inserted this into my wound, I took it out. He slapped me and hit me on my shoulder, on the wound, with the butt of his rifle, and put the can opener back in there. I decided it would be best if I left it there.” When the exhibition was over, Kinard grasped the can opener with his right hand and removed it from the wound. He never received any medical attention, beyond his own improvised ministrations to the battle wound. Feats of Courage The Potter hearings carried more than 200 pages of testimony along these lines. It is a record of brutality. “The feats of courage and bravery demonstrated by our GIs throughout the atrocities are without equal,” Potter reported. “They have shown a strength which is compounded of personal physical courage and the spiritual power of Almighty God. I don’t think the Communists can, or ever will, understand this force. This is our greatest and most potent weapon. It makes us proud to be Americans.” J Editor’s Note: Unlike WWII, no war crimes trials were held after the inconclusive Korean War. Thus, the North Koreans and Chinese were never held accountable. James E. Van Zandt, who died in 1986, served as VFWcommander-in-chief three times and was elected to 11 terms in the House of Representatives beginning in 1938. His article (this has been modified) appeared in the October 1954 issue of VFW. Memorial on Hill 303 Executed in a ravine by North Koreans more than 50 years ago, 40 GIs of the 81mm Mortar Plt., H Co., 5th Cav Regt., 1st Cav Div., and other units remained long forgotten. That is until VFWPost 10033 (“Hill 303 Memorial”) in Taegu, Korea, helped recognize them with a memorial. The Post donated $500, assists in its upkeep and made the three survivors VFW life members. On June 23, 2000, with two survivors present, a long overdue, permanent tribute to the Americans was dedicated. “The memorial contains five posts, one for each survivor,” according to then-VFW Post Commander Rick Fletcher. “The chain that circles the five posts contains 40 links, one for each soldier killed on Hill 303.” The memory of Aug. 17, 1950, at Waegwan was burned into the memories of the five survivors. Veterans Roy Manring (who died in early 2002) and Fred Ryan were on hand to participate in the ceremony. One year earlier, they had also returned to Korea to identify the massacre site’s precise location. Shot five times, Ryan recalled the men’s spirit in the face of death. “They died that day cussing out the other side,” he said. Manring was hit 13 times, yet still felt compelled to say, “I feel guilty I survived.”