Ramon Brown

The training there, what they tried to do with us, is if you’re driving down the road in a convoy and you’re attacked, how to block road or how to let the other, you know, get the other people through.  In most cases they’d hit the first truck and then the last truck and then the other ones - you know, like shooting peas in a barrel.

We had further training there, on what Service Corps line was in the field.  We used to go to, if the infantry was out on exercise, we’d go out and we had certain ways of picking troops up.  There was the short platform, and the long platform, and, you know, we would pull in, the infantry would get on the trucks and we’d take them up.  The only ones that we never had to pick up was the Van Doos.* Colonel Dextraze** said, “My troops will walk.  They will not ride.”  But, as it turned out, the Van Doos were – well, they always were a good outfit.  But, no, he wouldn’t let them ride back.  They had – when they were through their exercise – they walked back to Fort Lewis.

We were over now in a war zone, and we had to do tours of guard duty.  Picked to go on guard duty on the end of April, and May Day is the next day, the 1st of May.  That was a big thing for the Communists.  So I’m on duty with a Sten gun*** and I said to the officer, I said, “What about some ammunition?”  “Oh, we haven’t got any yet.”  Well, that was a lie, because he had some in his nine millimetre [pistol].  I know, because one of our boys picked it up and fired it, before the officer came in, and it went - the shot went right between my legs.

So I’m on guard duty with an empty Sten gun.  I said, “What do I do if the enemy comes?  Go bang, bang, you’re dead?”  “Well, don’t worry about it.”  Yeah.  Don’t worry about it.  I’m the one who’s going to be on guard duty.  Anyways, that was my first experience with guard duty over there.

We had to either move the troops around, because they didn’t have enough vehicles, so we would be designated to move the infantry to certain areas, or we had to take up ammunition.  Set up a supply point, okay?  And, the only ammunition we took really to the fighting troops was the artillery shells.  We took them right to the guns.  But the infantry, no, we had an area there where they would come down and pick their ammunition up and their food up and what have you. There was one time we had the - I think – believe it was the Princess Patricias,^ I’m not sure now.  But they had a stretch of road that had camouflage nets spread over it, because the Chinese and North Koreans could see that area of the road.  And any dust coming up, well, they knew there was vehicles there and they would fire on it.

But, no, it was - like we could be going out 24 hours a day as truck drivers moving stuff around.  And then, finally they come along and wanted to know - they were short of wireless operators, people to operate the 19 sets^^ now and then.

We were in one area there, which – my batteries were dying.  I finally I had to go off the air.  Well, this was a bad time to go off the air because apparently there was a push [ground offense] coming.  But I had no batteries, so I shut her down.  And next thing I know, there was a vehicle come in and said, “You got to get on the air.”  I said, “I can’t get on the air.  I have no batteries.”  “Well, you have to get on the air because there’s a push coming.”  I said, “Who will help?” You know. So anyways, he stayed there and we used his wireless [radio].  And the area we were in, it was a beautiful thing to see, but the unfortunate part is, people were dying.  It was right at suppertime, the hill down the area from us, the Corsairs^^^ were coming in and dropping napalm, and it was marvellous to see how they did it.  But, like I say, every time a napalm [bomb] dropped and burst into flames, there was some poor soul over there, even though he was my enemy but he was still a human being, he was dying, and a heck of a death, I’m sure.

What we used to do, when a unit pulled out of an area, we’d go and check their area, because a lot of good stuff was left in areas when they bugged out, what have you.  So we went over, this other fellow and myself, went over to this area, and seen this bomb type thing there “That looks like one of them trip flares, with the parachute on it.”  “Yeah.  That would be nice to have the parachute.”  “Okay” - so we rigged up a wire and we backed away from it, just in case.  And we got in a slit trench and I said to the guy that was with me, I said, “Now, this would be great if it was rigged up like the Germans.” “What’s that, what do you mean by that?”  “Well, if I pull this, this trench blows up.”  So with that I pulled the cord and it happened to be just a trip flare.  So, okay, we watched the trip flare, watched it land in the field, so we hustled over to this barb wire fence, got into the field, and we got the one that we’d set off and then he found another one.

So as we were coming back, we were about 30 feet from the barb wire, maybe a little bit more, and I said, “Hold it, stay right where you are.”  “Why?”  “We’re in a mine field.”  There was the red triangle hanging along – on the barb wire we didn’t see going in.  We were looking up at the flare.  So anyways we got the got the flares.  Luckily we made it home, both of us.

*Nickname for Le Royal 22e Régiment

**Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Dextraze, commanding officer, 2^nd Battalion, Le Royal 22e Régiment in Korea

***British submachine gun

^Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment

^^Wireless Set No. 19 radio

^^^American Vought F4U Corsair fighter-bombers