THROUGH IMPROVED FARM PRACTICES
•i i" ‘>
Three of’em That Stayed, Were With Me. Just Kids; We Called’em Cheese
Eatersf Sgt. James Williams Recalls After 33 Months As Communist fPO W’
not fceepout the cold..
food. FOr the. first 18 month*
Williams was in the compound
food consisted of 600 grams of
dried, cracked com per day.
Roughly 2i ounces. River water
was used for drinking and all
Just idlder six months after
the “polfce action” had begun to
Korea with the sudden attack
across tine 38th Parallel by North
Korean troops, shortly after
midnight of December 3, 1950
the position of CpI. James C.
Williams, 50Srd Field Artillery
Battalion, 2nd Division, was
overrun by ‘‘Chinese Volunteer”
troops and the start of 33 months*
of captivity began for Williams,
a veteran of 13 year’s service in
the Army.
“We walked from that night1
until January 21st, 1951,” Wil
liams recalls. “There weren't
any riding for anybody.*' ' i;
Sgt. Williams, apparently un
der some kind of Army order,
did not want to talk much about
that “walk,”’ He did admit tf&i
a good many died. How they
had died he would not say. He
did point out that the Army will
release the full story In 60 days
after the begtotog of the truce
to Korea.
Finally, on January 21st, Wil
liams and his fellow prisoners,
including Turks, English,
Frenchmen, Phlllipinos, Austral
ians and possibly others, arrived
at Camp 5, on a branch of the
Yalu River In the Northern .Tip
of Korea. ^ - •
* ’ ‘ ‘ i men were assigned to
i one room, mud shack.
"" !■.» ... * -en ground.
Work consisted of dragging
rocks and logs out of the moun
tains to rebuild the mud Shacks
around the prison compound
where some 1250 prisoners were
held. At all times during the 33
months Williams was a POW
he was guarded by Chinese Vol
unteers.” . .
The particular compound in
which he was kept when not at
work held 247 men. Finally ^in
April of 1951 they got a blanket
a piece, after the worst of the
winter had gone •
After 18 months on th® 600
grams-per-day corn diet Wiliams
says their food improved a little
and was changed to soy beans
which lasted for the other 15
months of his imprisonment.
When Williams was captured
he weighed 184 pounds and
upon release he weighed 132, a
shrinkage of 52 pounds. Quite
a few of his comrades at Camp
5 died from exposure but again
Sgt. Williams did not want to
talk much on the subject and
admitted that he didn’t want
to 'go “back over there to any
atrocity trials.”
Williams says that some oO or
40 of the 247 men in his immed
iate group were “pros” or pro
gressives, who spent a good deal
Sf their time attending classes
while their buddies worked. Only
three of that 247 who had near
ly three years of “progressive
t? remain
communists,
education’
behind -
Williams
ipr
!*ids, a
."wSS^as asked if they
r,Vf ■ ' -1 ^ 'V ‘
youdg
’• Wil
■ Sgt. Jamefs C. Williams
were “brown-nos£rs.’ He said
“Yes, only we ’em ‘cheese
eaters’ this tim£«”
They and the progressive class
mates were largely, in Williams’
opinion just a hdnch looking for
a softer spot and if “cozying" up
to the' Chinese meant a little
better food and a little less hard
work, they did it.
Some of that group that stay
ed behind were scared to leave
with the-others, Williams agreed
and he expressed the belief that
all will want to come back to the
states when they get another
chance, away from the meh that
knew th'em for what they were
in the camps.
“'We never thought about es
cape,” Williams admits. “There
Maurine Corps Band One of Those in Kinston Parade on Saturday
Above 6 pictured the Second
Marine A|ir Wine Band, from
Cherry Point which is one of
|be ,, I debt bands that nil
march in the LENOIR COUNTY
VETERANS DAY celebration that
is brine held in Kinston on
Saturday of this week.,
A parade that beginr at »
o’clock Saturday afternoon will
niove down HeritagesStreet, from
Vernon, to Bright Street, from
there it will progress to Queen
ate to the,, occasion will be held..
The eight massed bands, of
some 500 pieces, will combine to
play “THE STAB SPANGLED
BANNER” under the (ttrection
of Lt. Paul L. Bley USMC direc
tor of the Cherry point Band.
Former National Vice Coin
Continued on Pace 8
/
wasn’t any escape. We didn’t
look like them people and once
we stepped outside our area, we
were bound to be spotted.”
The three men Williams knew
who stayed behind were Clar
ence Adams, of Memphis, Wil
liam White of Kansas City, Mo.,
and Larry Sullivan of “some
where in California.” Checking
this list as remembered by Wil
liams against the list released by
Pekin Radio, all three are found
but Sullivan’s name is listed as
Lawrence, rather than “Larry”,
the name he was known under
in Camp 5.
In those 33 months Williams
says he received three letters
no Red Cross parcels and the
only news they had in that en
tire time of the outside world
came in occasional issues of
the New York Daily Worker, the
London Daily Worker and anoth
er Communist rag from the west
coast called the “Peoples’
World”. “They! (these three pa
pers) always hollered about the
United States being wrong in
picking on the Communists,”’
Williams says, “So we never paid
much attention to ’em and had
just about had no news from
the States as that kind.”
Williams said he wrote home
about every week. His family
only received two letters in the
33 months he was a prisoner.
The only doctors Williams re
calls seeing in his entire 33
months as a “POW”’ were Amer
ican doctors who were also pris
oners and who had neither drugs
,jPe equipment to work on the
many who sickened ancf died in
the Camp 5 compound.
Chinese discipline was “very
sloppy,” Wiliams says. “Not to us.
They were plenty strict on us.”
But they were arguing all th&
time among themselves and he
saw many fights between Chi
nese but it was impossible' to tell
their relative ranks, since they
wore no rank of insignia, and all
purported to be “volunteers.”
Williams wondered at those
few who might have swallowed
the Communist party line.
“Their story was too simple for
me,” he declared. “That kind
of story sure wouldn’t lead me
anvwhere ” he ndderi
During his captivity he was
promoted from corporal to ser
geant and he is now waiting for
the finance department to get
all of his back pay lined up.
Something betwen “seven and
eight thousand bucks,” ’Williams
points out with an understand
able smile.
Unusual Crime Is
Cleared Up With
Saturday Confession
Johes County Sheriff Jeter
Taylor announced Saturday
that one- of "the mos t unusual
crimes committed in his county
in a long time was cleared up
over the past weekend with a
confession from 60-year-old
Benjamin Franklin Bryant of
Dover Route Two, who admitted
placing a barricade of cross
ties on the Atlantic and East
Carolina Railroad track about
two miles west of Dover in the
Northern tip of Jones County.
, After complaints had been fil
sd by the railroad company over
such, an incident on Wednes
day, night, Sheriff Taylor says
he told the railroad folks that
the' crime was likely to be re
peated, the next night and for
them tdjet him know as quickly
i» train Crewmembers could get
to a telephone so that he could
?et bloodhounds on a reasonably
was right, with
Continued on Page 8
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