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Korean War veterans recount time in service

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Korean War Veterans Remember

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EVANSVILLE — Nearly 7 million Americans served in the military during the Korean War with more than 54,000 making the ultimate sacrifice.

“I think there are people … that think of Korea as kind of the forgotten war or the forgotten conflict,” said John Ehle, an Evansville native who is making sure that does not happen.

Ehle’s efforts have captured the recorded memories of Evansville area World War II and Vietnam veterans, those who lived through the Great Depression and now the stories of Korean War veterans. Monday’s recording at the VFW offered time for seven veterans to have their memories added to the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project.

Greetings

“I guess it all starts out for most of us with a letter that said, ‘Greetings, your friends and neighbors have chosen you to represent them,’” said Richard “Lefty” Luers.

“So that’s what we did,” he said.

“I guess for me, you’re a 20-year-old kid, and you get a draft notice, and they tell you you’re going to go someplace, and you can’t even spell the name of the place, let alone where you’re gonna go.”

Born and raised in Evansville, Bob Olsen enlisted at age 19 and served 3 1/2 years in World War II, then went into the inactive reserves. For years, he heard nothing from the government.

The Korean War started in June 1950.

“One day … on Dec. 11, I came home and there was a letter in there, (that said) pursuant to authority, you are hereby ordered to report to …”

“I had 11 days to get my affairs in order,” he said.

Olsen flew 28 missions over North Korea.

‘I would do it again’

Leonard Meehan was among many of the men who didn’t see much action, leading to several comments about enjoying their service.

“I was drafted like everybody else in ’52, but I thought I’d rather be in the Navy than the Army, so I enlisted in the Navy in May of 1952,” he said.

He completed radio training in Maryland before spending part of his service on the USS Intrepid. He was discharged and returned home in May 1956 and got married.

“That’s about it I guess. I would do it again. But I made a lot of friends. Didn’t see … any action that we speak of, but enjoyed it.”

Dave Fellows recalls never losing anything except “maybe some of my hair,” he jokes now.

“It was a very interesting, exciting experience,” he said. “I had two or three close calls during those six months in Alaskan waters.”

Serving during the Cold War, Fellows was stationed in Alaska patrolling the North Pacific shipping lanes and playing “a cat and mouse game” with the Soviets.

With his father’s health failing, he was asked to come home and take over the farm in 1958.

“Otherwise, I probably would have stayed in the Navy and flown aircraft, which I thoroughly enjoyed, for a much longer period of time,” he said.

The military was good for Luers. He got a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, pilot license and VA benefits, “all paid for by Uncle Sam,” said Luers, a former Evansville police chief.

“I can’t complain, but I’m one of those that survived. (For) one of the (about) 53,000, it wasn’t so great for them. They didn’t get to come back like we did.”

His service also helped get him a job.

“I wouldn’t have been hired on the Evansville Police Department had I not been a veteran,” he said. “Because the chief at that time was a veteran, the guy that recommended me was a veteran, and they were looking for a veteran. Now you can’t do that, but in those days, if you were a vet, you had a little better shot at a job.”

Purple Heart effort

June 9, 1953.

“Boy, that’s when I got wounded,” said Rod Leeder, who entered the Army on his wedding anniversary—Oct. 16, 1951.

After training to be a radio operator, he sailed to Japan, then Korea.

“I was on the ship 11 days, and I was sick 12,” he said.

It was around midnight when the Chinese attacked June 9.

“They were shooting mortars,” he said. “We were getting shells … thousands of them.”

They knocked out the wiring in the command post bunker, forcing Leeder and a Korean soldier to leave the bunker to run a new wire.

“I heard the shell coming and everything. I dove for the ground.”

He suffered shrapnel wounds and went from one hospital to another in Korea, then Japan and then on to a ship for home.

“And that was a good ride all the way home,” he said with a laugh. “I never got sick once.”

“That was about the story of my adventure over in Korea. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Leeder received the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

Life in Korea

Olsen and his airmen had two items with them on missions, and he displayed them to his comrades.

“This is a compass that we were given,” he said. “It’s an anus compass. In the event that you were shot down, you knew where to put it.”

Each soldier also had a card with an American flag that contained text in Korean and Chinese that said, “The bearer of this pass is an American airman. He is friendly toward you. Help him return to American or South Korean forces, and you will be rewarded.”

The only thing Luers can remember about Korea “is the everlasting, penetrating cold,” he said. “It was always cold. The mountains were 40 below zero.”

“Just the grueling daily routine of being in a combat zone day after day after day. Sometimes you got shot at and sometimes you didn’t,” he said. “But it was just a long, dragged-out affair of being there.”

Richard “Angelo” Golz discovered firsthand that the Koreans didn’t ship bodies home.

A weapons carrier came to the dump one cold day. Opening up the back end of the carrier, Golz said, “it was full of frozen bodies—North Koreans.”

Big holes were dug in rice patties, and “that’s the way we took care of them, the North Koreans,” he said.

Mail call

Luers lived in Brodhead when he was drafted and served two years starting in February 1952. Luers and Golz knew each other since age 16 and served together.

“I was in the transportation corps, just a lonely little ol’ truck driver with stories that won’t quit because I went from one end of Korea to the other,” Luers said.

Waiting on a cold winter day during mail call, Luers got an unexpected letter.

“The mail clerk would hold this up and say, ‘And this is one of my favorites,’” Luers recalled. “And then he’d say, ‘Is there a Richard Beautiful Brown Eyes Lefty Luers in the group? And if he is, would he like to share this with us?’”

“And it’d be from him,” Luers said pointing to Golz, who still takes satisfaction in a prank more than 50 years ago.

“I was far enough away so he couldn’t shoot me,” Golz said laughing.

‘Scared beyond anything’

“There was only one time that I ever was scared beyond anything,” Golz said.

He was assigned to guard duty from 2 to 5 a.m.

“They warned us to keep a good lookout, that there might be infiltrators, which I didn’t like,” he said.

He wandered around in the quiet, dark night around 4:30 a.m.

“I stepped around the mess camp, and I stepped on a cat, and the cat screamed. And I don’t know if I wet my pants or … had a heart attack.

“That was the worst part of the whole thing,” he said to a table full of laughter.

“Otherwise it was a great thing—good experiences, lots of good friends, lots of friends that didn’t come back. I think that everybody did their thing, as I did, and hopefully I did a good job of what I was told to do.”