Garand Picture of the Day #104 -Hungnam Evacuation, December 1950

[Mark in Rochester]

USS General J.C. Breckinridge (AP-176)

A U.S. Marine guards two captured enemy soldiers on board the transport, probably while en route from Hungnam to Pusan, circa late December 1950.
Note his M1 rifle (with safety in the "off" position), cartridge belt and other gear.
This photograph was received by the Naval Photographic Center on 18 January 1951.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

[frankderrico]

Another great pic Mark, thanks. Does he have rubber slip overs on his boots? Safety off, whats with that?.....Frank

[Mark in Rochester]

They are shoe Pac M-1944

[Joe W]

As far as the safty being off, there is a good possibility that the M1 is not loaded. I would bet those two POWs are quite content to be sitting it out on that ship. You would need a loaded weapon to force them to leave the comfort of the ship and return to combat. :)

[Joe W]

Somehow I posted twice

[rayg]

Not a good way to be holding the muzzle of a loaded weapon, :D Ray

[Calif-Steve]

Notice the picture of North Korea going up in smoke. The US pancaked the North as we withdrew. It took North Korea years to re-build the country. My Chinese friends tell me that in China today all of the history books describe how the USA started the Korean War. They are stunned when they visit the USA and learn the truth.

[Capt Quahog]

My wife's mother comes from Northern Korea near the border with China. The woman, was pregnant in 1950 with two small children. The husband disappeared, probably grabbed by the communists and impressed into the North Korean Army.


They ran, with hordes of other refugees, all the way down through Seoul, ending up in Pusan where my wife was born. She tells me that there are still markers around the port city to commemorate the Walker Line and Pusan Perimeter. Unlike the United States today, school children in South Korea are taught not only their own, but also American History. They know who General Walker was and what the Americans and allies did there.

[Fredtheobviouspseudonym]

One of the reasons the war dragged on so long was the prisoner issue.

The Communists would not release our prisoners (any) unless we returned ALL North Korean and Chinese prisoners.

However, many, perhaps most, did not want to go back to the "people's liberated worker's paradise." They wanted to go to Taiwan or be released in the ROK.

Syngman Rhee, for his own political reasons, just had his guards on his PoW camps open the fences and let the prisoners run for the hills rather than go "home."

It took lots of talking but eventually the Communists did release most of our prisoners. IIRC it was finally established that many American and British PoWs, mainly pilots, were kept in Communist captivity and died there over the next years or even decades.

[0311Shooter]

A few years ago I caught part of a documentary on NK and it showed school children doing "duck and cover" drills under desks for WHEN American bombers come.

They are taught at an early age that America is BAD.