Bob Molesworth

Well, we were still in the battle, we were still going out on patrols against them [the Chinese soldiers] and we were still living there. We had one thing. When we took the hill and we started digging in and what have you, we dug bunkers and we eventually dug trenches, first our own trench and then we had communication trenches from one trench to another. And we had to dig […]. But then we had one guy that was killed, they went down for water and it was two guys and they went down and they were killed. So we investigated that and apparently, they came from the [Korean] village that was just down there. We never bothered with villages before. We used to go through the villages to advance but we never bothered too much with the villages, because we always took the hills, the mountains, that’s what we wanted, to be up on the mountains for our own protection. And so we never bothered to much with the villages. But this little village, it was only about maybe 24, 25 houses in it and we had these two guys killed so we went down and we cleared the village out, which was really something to see. I didn’t like it because their little villages were just little houses. And I went into one place and here on the floor, laying on the floor, are all the kids, all them, boom, boom, boom. It’s just like you walked in there and you see a bunch of heads all laying on the floor and they’re all dressed in white, white clothes. Now the reason why they were all in white clothes, because if they weren’t in white clothes, we could shoot them. Right? They’re enemy. So they gave the order to the South Koreans to dress in white. I don’t know if you know that but that’s a fact. They told them all to dress in white. So, and we walked in and I see all, that was the worst thing that I seen, is all these kids in white, of course, they’re scared. Right? Well, we’re in there with the guns, you know. We’re looking for a couple of North Koreans that shot our guys. So we weren’t playing around. Yeah, well a lot of them were, holy geez, what the […] are we going to, you know. But they had to get them all out. Clear the village and send them back. Well, we had a couple of South Korean soldiers with us from the ROK Army [the Republic of Korea Army]. Right? Because they would tell them what to do, like tell the parents and that what to do. And the parents had to get all the kids out and take them back. They had to go back because we burnt all those houses down. We had good relations with the ROK Army, they were very very good. And once, we had a whole bunch of Koreans that used to bring the ammunition and everything up to the front lines, they were very very good. And they used to sing a song, it was called Adidong [a popular song sang by the Canadian soldiers during the Korean War]. And we learnt that song. And we used to sing it. I can still sing it. Yeah. I still sing it and a lot of the guys here all know it. They don’t know the Korean national anthem but they will all sing Adidong. They were very good bringing the ammunition up to us and everything. Strong support, we had strong support coming into the front lines. Beside, not only that, they were bringing out rations. We had to eat. We were eating American rations. They had British rations for a while but they’re not as good as the American rations. But now, they’ve even got Canadian rations which now are better than the American rations.