Wayne: MIA
Chorwon Valley, Korea: August 12, 1952.
He was to the left of me. I know he was to the left because the light from the Searchlight Company’s beacons were ricocheting off the low hanging clouds in the valley. They clearly showed our medic Wayne alongside Sgt. Flaherty to the left of me.
The British Centurion’s tracers kicked up the dry soil in front of us. Lt. Theiss ordered our platoon to halt. He signaled me to fire the flare as a signal for all supporting weapons to cease fire. We continued up Hill 121, but I fell into one of the deep concentric trenches dug by the Chinese infantry. As I fell, I hit my head on the rear lip of the trench. I was temporarily stunned as my helmet rolled into an adjacent trench. To my left was a firing step. By the time I climbed out of the trench to engage the Chinese, chaos ensued. I thought I saw Wayne and Sgt. Flaherty walk into a curtain of smoke and earth. It was a blast from a concussion grenade. From the rear, ear-piercing screams startled me. A Chinese squad tried to ambush us. They were were incinerated by our recoilless rifle team. Amid the smell of cordite and the retching dust the artillery had kicked up, I saw Sgt. Flaherty on a litter being carried down the hill by the KATUSAS (Koreans Attached To the US Army). Lt. Sidney ordered us to withdraw. But where was Wayne?
The final body count listed Wayne as missing.
Where was my bunker buddy? He was the 2nd platoon’s medic. I shared with him the fun, our fears, our mail. The future? The future could be our following night. After he was listed as missing, I kept in contact with Wayne’s family. No news.
I wrote to the Department of the Army, perhaps they knew. No, Wayne was still MIA. A month later I was sent to Japan to train for an attack on the east coast of North Korea.
Finally, after two years in the army I was discharged. Wayne’s mother and I exchanged letters. She sent pictures of Wayne to the U.S. repatriated prisoners at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. No one was able to identify him.
After the truce was signed in 1953, I thought this was the end of the story.
Some years later, I received an email from Wayne’s niece, Holly. She wanted to know the details of our raid on Hill 121. We had a very friendly exchange. I told her all I knew, which lacked many details.
In 2007, my wife and I decided to visit Wayne’s older brother in Allentown, PA. His wife and Wayne’s niece, Holly were there. The only information I could provide them with was that Wayne was our platoon mascot. We knew we could depend on him. Their reaction to the two photos of him was, “Look how skinny he is.”
Five years ago, 2010, Holly was in Washington D.C. Persistent and determined to discover information about Wayne, she went to the Department of the Army. They provided her with a satellite photo of Hill 121. With a magnified viewer, she went through the entire Hill. No luck.
It was only after I had contacted Ed Heister (a rifleman in our platoon), that we discovered the story of Wayne and Hill 121.
Ed Heister was carrying a hemorrhaging Truman Bastin back to the Imjin River so that he could reach an aid station. The jon boats that carried us across the river were waiting to bring us back.
Ed Heister placed Truman in a jon boat and told the GI in charge to release the boat. He refused. He said that three more men had to occupy the boat before it could be brought across.
Wayne, who was standing nearby, took out his pistol jammed it into the GI’s gut and told him if that boat is not released, he was a dead man. Truman was ferried across immediately.
“What happened after that?” I asked.
“Wayne returned to Hill 121 to see if there were any more casualties.”
That was Wayne. A hero in every sense of the word, and a treasured buddy.
For the complete story read: Cold Ground’s Been My Bed: A Korean War Memoir
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