Fellow Marines, I am pleased and proud to have been invited to be here today, to reminisce about my 1095 days of service, ending as a Sergeant in February 1954, a mere 68 years ago. My service number is 1178143 and MOS 0231.
Personal Background
My time in the Marines has been the most important of my life, and I became a man of principle because of my service in the Corps. Of course, it was John Wayne movies which motivated my enlistment, as was the case for many of us.
You are not here to learn about me. You are here to learn about Marine Corps service in Korea in 1952 -1953. However, so that you can better understand why becoming a Marine was so important to me, I must share with you my personal background.
Most Marine enlisted personnel were then white and came from southern states. The Marines, as the Navy, was dissimilatory in recruiting and assignment of non-whites. Those men I trained and suffered with at Parris Island were a very different segment of the population than I had been exposed to previously.
I was born on 12/24/31, into a privileged New York City, Wall Street involved, family. The Lipper family was both financially independent and, because of my mother’s activities after her divorce, 7 years later, politically influential.
I was small at birth and still am. I was bright, curious, and spoilt. I attended an elitist, test-entry elementary school and I hated having to go to school. In elementary school, I had only one friend, with whom I subsequently became a partner in Wall Street.
Becoming a Page
On a Sunday, in May 1945, at the age of 13, I read in the New York Times that Pages in the Senate, House of Representatives and Supreme Court, only went to school from 07:00 to 09:30, and decided that was for me.
My mother, after her divorce, started working for liberal political causes. She became the Executive Assistant to Wendell Willkie, FDR’s defeated opponent in 1944, and afterwards was successful as the lobbyist responsible for the passage in the Senate of the Fair Employment Practices Act. So, my mother and I went to Washington and met with New York Senator Robert Wagner. He liked me and agreed to trade the multiple elevator operator positions he was holding, with a Senator having a Page appointment available. So, on July 1, 1945, I became one of 14 Democratic Party Senate Pages That’s the way patronage on the Hill worked.
I was only a Page for a year, as the Republicans won campaigns for most Senators in the following year, and then they were awarded an additional 7 Page appointments. Based on a policy of last in, first out, I was one of the Pages losing their patronage.
After being a Page and Before enlistment
I then went on to attend arguably the best test-entry high school in the country, the Bronx High School of Science, from which I dropped out of in my junior year. Though the classes were generally interesting to me, not being on any of the athletic teams, I wasn’t being successful with the then newly admitted girls and decided to go to work. However, I did make some good friends at” Science”, including my friend from the elementary school which we both attended.
In the next couple of years, I worked in Texas and New York, ending up as an oriental art dealer, after having worked for two auction galleries. I worked hard, played hard, and was reasonably successful. On my Marine discharge, the only job offer I had was from the largest of the New York auction galleries.
Marines enlistment and Parris Island
Now, we come to the Marines. The Sergeant, in the lower Broadway recruiting office, in early February 1951, told me to go away, eat bananas for the next 3 days, and them come back, when I would be 112 pounds, the Corps’ minimum requirement. I did so and went to Parris Island. For the record, I weighed 140 pounds on my PI graduation, and have never since weighed less. Being the smallest in my PI group, guess the weapon I was required to carry? Yes, it was a BAR.
0231 and Amphib Recon
Because of my being assigned a 0231 MOS and looking Mediterranean. the Marines wanted to send me to the USN Arabic language school. I hadn’t enlisted to become part of a Middle East embassy unit. So, I used a bit of influence, and my orders were changed. I was assigned to the Amphibious Reconnaissance unit, based in Tent City, Camp Lejeune, with an indication that I’d be sent to Korea. At Amphib Recon we learned about surveillance, vegetation, communication technology, aerial photo analyses, and we swam from submarines on to Onslow Beach. Also, I was one of 13 Marines sent to attend the Army’s Intelligence school at Fort Riley, in Junction City, Kansas. The advice offered in one lecture was, “if captured, learn how to make friends with pain”. I was unimpressed by anything Army.
Pendleton and Korea
After receiving orders for Korea, I spent additional training time here in Pendleton and in an upper California Marine cold weather training facility. I fell in love with the San Diego area, not the on base, rigorous training, and decided that someday I wanted to live here. That took me 41 years to achieve, as we moved to Del Mar in 1993.
Eventually, in September 1952 I arrived in Inchon and was assigned to the 1st Platoon of the 1st MarDiv’s Recon Company. I believe that I had the rank of Corporal.
Defense is different than offense
As a Marine, I had been trained to be an aggressor, to hate the enemy, to move forward and take control of territory, eliminating as many enemies as possible. We’d been advised not to make close friends, as if they “grew a third eye”, we should not also be disabled. However, Korea was different for the Marines after the Inchon landing. There was a static. 38th Parallel, Main Line of Resistance (MLR) and outposts, on hills Infront of the MLR, to be defended. At no time between September 1952 and the UN’s effective surrender in June 1953, was there any forward movement by the Marines in Korea. This was most frustrating to both Marine officers and troops.
On the night of my arrival at Recon, one of the Platoon Leaders took me up to the MLR, which was soon receiving longer range artillery incoming. It was scary and exciting, but mostly frustrating, as we were but observers and had no ability to respond.
Recon was unique. The Company reported directly to the 1st Division’s G2 section. Almost all the Recon troops were 0231’s, a number being from eastern Europe, and enlisting to get a U.S. residence visa on discharge. The Marines seemed to think if English was not a recruit’s first language, then they should be in intelligence.
Recon was special
As I quickly learned, we were lucky and had the best of the Korean campaign. We were based almost 20 miles behind the MLR. We lived in tents, on cots with balloon mattresses and sleeping bags. Each Fire team had access to a Jeep. We had steak and egg breakfasts awaiting us, on mess trays, in the mess tent, on our early morning patrol return and debriefings. We didn’t live the terrible life of Marines on the outposts or MLR, living in bunkers, cold in winter and hot in summer. We had heads close to our tents and didn’t have enemy ears tacked to bunker entrances.
Speaking of luck, I am one of the luckiest men alive, all due, as I will come to in a bit, the stupid mistake of an arrogant, Quantico- trained, medal-craving, inexperienced, Platoon Leader. He received his medal, in the same unnecessary action, when I caught a bit of shrapnel, and I believe that he should have instead been severely disciplined.
We, in Recon were cowboys. We went out, on most moon clouded nights, at first in Fire team strength, at 22:00 to 23:00, going forward, past the MLR and outposts, for about a half to a full mile, returning at about 04:00. Our mission was one of enemy and territorial surveillance, not engagement. Recon Company was not specifically trained or equipped to be warriors. We were intended to be intelligence gatherers.
We crawled along the dikes, as the paddies were thought to be mined. Very quickly, it became the practice that I was point, a role I was good at and wanted. This continued for several months. I was good at smelling the enemy’s garlic and body orders. This was possible due to the high-level of humidity in Korean paddy areas. Listening for the gook personnel’s movement was critical. I never wore a helmet, as that interfered with my hearing.
Gook, is a derisive term describing Asians, originating in the Marine engagement in the Philippine-American war (1899-1902) and used freely by Marines in Korea. Further, in this talk, I am using the term “enemy combatant”, on the advice of my family advisors and others.
We wore what we thought necessary and chose the weapons we wanted for the mission. Our favorite weapon was the WWII $13 production cost, pressed metal, .45 caliber Grease Gun. The Grease Gun shot fewer rounds per minute and had less capacity than the Thompsons but was less prone to jams and lighter.
When in the PX in Seoul, which was less than an hour away from Recon, and freely accessible to us with our Jeeps, I bought a light weight .45 revolver, which had been designed for the Airforce. It was much more comfortable than the standard .45 model. What I was tempted to buy at the PX was a 12-gauge shotgun, as that would have been the ideal weapon for when, at night, you expected to be firing at sounds and movement. Unfortunately, the Geneva convention forbids the use of shotguns.
I only clearly saw a single enemy combatant that I killed. It was during a sniper training session, atop one of the outposts, with enemy troops visible on not too far distant high points. I shot, he fell, that was it.
Over time, the size of Recon units was increased to 2 Fire teams or even a full squad and prisoner snatches became an unfulfilled mission. The theory was for us to lie aside the dikes, shoot up an approaching enemy combatant column, grabbing the last one or two soldiers for interrogation. It never happened.
Here’s where it gets politically untidy. My belief is that NCO’s manage combat and that the Recon Platoon Leaders had no real supervisory function in small number personnel surveillance missions. They were frustrated, as they couldn’t do the brave things they were trained to do, siting back at the MLR or base, waiting for us to return. No medals were likely for supervising from afar. Therefore, for their own career benefit, the size of operations increased. In other words, they wanted engagements, rather than intelligence gathering, as patrol missions.
Before describing Recon’s night of disaster, I would like to observe that units which can expect to mostly operate at night require very different training than units intending to engage and capture territory. It’s all well and good to train all enlisted Marines to be riflemen, but in Korea that which occurred, once the MLR and Outposts were established, occurred mostly at night. The high ground vision advantage of daylight isn’t important at night.
The enemy combatants usually attacked at night. We didn’t do much attacking. We, the enlisted Marines, wanted to win and winning had to do with controlling real estate. Marine actions in Korea were very much controlled from Washington and defense and maintenance of a status quo was the then objective.
It was generally believed that the enemy combatants were doped up when they attacked the outposts. Not all their waves were armed, as the later waves were to pick up and use the weapons of the earlier waves. In describing the actions of the enemy combatants, I should note that we never really knew if we were facing North Koreans or Chinese but respected the Chinese more.
Incidentally, we had far more respect for the Korean Marines, than we did for the ROK soldiers. Of course, as Marines, we didn’t think much of our own soldiers either.
Daylight mission
During the period of my service in Recon, we only had two casualty causing engagements. The first was the only time we ever initiated an action in daylight, and this was in Company strength. It was a stupid use of Marines. There were villages, only a few straw shacks, between the two MLRs and there was a belief that some of the villages were housing enemy troops. Therefore, Recon was given a mission of inspecting and destroying the shacks. We moved forward, in a line of Platoons, and almost immediately received mortar and larger incoming. My best friend lost his leg in the 3rd Platoon. He was eventually helicoptered to the wonderful and lifesaving hospital ship. There were other injuries, but no KIAs. The intelligence sought and shack destruction could have been accomplished at night, and by a much smaller force, without the benefit of commissioned supervisory personnel.
February “Ambush”
In the case of the February 1953 disaster, a new Platoon Leader has been assigned to the 1st Platoon. This was his first mission with Recon. He was an intelligent and attractive man from Long Island, NY. The mission was to have been in an area we had been previously patrolling. It was at the southern edge of the Panmunjom circle. I was then a Sergeant and Platoon Guide. Our usual mission was to ascertain if there was enemy activity further north around the demilitarized circle. We, the NCOs, were not informed of any change in mission. As usual, we were to be in a column, and I assumed my normal position as point. The new Platoon Leader ordered me to take a rear position in the column, saying that it wasn’t appropriate for a senior NCO to be point. I told him that I had by far the most experience as point, but he was adamant, and I reluctantly followed his orders. He appointed a Marine carrying a PRC 10 as point. Stupid. The Marine in the point position walked into an “ambush” and we suffered numerous KIAs, including the point, and a few MIAs. In the retreat, the Lieutenant was wounded, as was I. I was later told the Lieutenant asked one of the other Platoon Leaders if he would get a medal?
Of course, it is possible that I too would have entered the ambush zone, but I believe probably not. In the event I had done so, I too would have likely been a KIA casualty, and not here today.
Subsequent information
That which I and others learned subsequently, was that an engagement was indeed expected and the “ambush” not a surprise to either the Platoon Leader or the Recon CO, for whom I had great respect, as he was a WWII Mustang. They apparently wanted the action. The Lieutenant did not inform any of the platoon NCOs of the expectation. As it happens, both the Platoon Leader and the Commanding Officer committed suicide after their discharge from the Marines. The Platoon Leader of the 2nd Platoon, who stayed in the Corps, retiring as a Major, and I tried to have the medal award situation corrected by the Corps, but to no avail.
Imjin River crossing
Another adventure occurred in March of ’53 when either 4 or 8 of us, I do not remember, crawled across the frozen Imjin one dark night to learn if there were any enemy installations there. The ice broke as we approached the northern shore and my feet got soaked. After a couple of hours, we returned to the safe south side. My feet had become frostbitten, but I already had one Purple Heart and never put in for a second one.
R & R
During the Korean conflict, Marines were awarded a one-week Rest and Relaxation, R&R, leave, in either Japan or Hong Kong. I opted for Japan, and it changed my life. As a former oriental art dealer, I knew about the Asian culture, but I did not know about the ladies, which is what R&R was all about. After my discharge, I tried to spend as much time in Asia as I could.
Closing Comments
In my life, I have been fortunate in business, unusually fortunate in attracting my wife of 60 years, and most fortunate to have been able to serve in the Corps.
I close by advising you that with the passage of time remembered acts become more heroic. It’s correct to describe combat, at least as in Korea after the Inchon landing, as long periods of waiting and brief periods of fear and excitement.
The Marines are a team. Prior to my enlistment, I had never been on a team. I loved being a member of the Marine team, especially in Recon, in Korea, 70 years ago. I currently wear a decal tattoo of the Recon Company logo, stating Swift, Silent, and Deadly, as being products of the unit. I am still good at the Silent.
Political observation
My last memory is that I would have considered reupping if we, as a United Nations component, had not effectively surrendered in June 1953. The Korean conflict was the first in which America has not been able to achieve its objective. WWII was the last time we won in conflict, except for Grenada. The American public and therefore their representatives, seem to have lost their willingness to sacrifice, for the principles justifying the commencement of the hostilities. If so, we Marines have become a defense, rather than an attack force, which is so very different than our traditional mission.
Thank you, Semper Fi, and I will be pleased to take any questions and provide a copy of the talk text to anyone contacting me at arthurlipper@gmail.com.
Following is an interesting map of Korea:
