thedrifter
06-28-04, 08:56 AM
Two Hills, One Nightmare
In separate actions, two GIs emerge as uncommon heroes in a common hell
Saving Lives Under Fire
The irony was not lost on Navy Corpsman William R. Charette. Having read about the near-cataclysmic events at the Chosin Reservoir in 1950, he found himself, surprisingly, assigned three years later to the same company that had fought there. Most of the men had rotated out of Korea by January 1953, when Charette joined F Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. Now near Panmunjon, the company was located close to the site of the stalled peace talks.
Peace, though, wasn’t reigning anywhere near the three hills dubbed Reno, Carson and Vegas. One clear and freezing morning, Charette heard what he thought was thunder but, in reality, the roar was actually thousands of Chinese soldiers—attacking the 5th Marines that held the hills. In time, the hills fell, and, on March 27, Charette’s company was called to take part in a three-battalion assault on Vegas to recapture it.
The intensity of the fighting was unmistakable as Charette saw men entangled in the barbed wire where they had died. Immediately, he began treating the wounded as his company moved ahead. Life soon became chaos for the young man as the cries for “corpsman” came from everywhere. Disregarding his own safety amid a hail of small-arms and mortar fire, Charette answered them as best he could throughout the day and into the night, literally losing all sense of time. He later recalled, “The Chinese above us were rolling grenades downhill onto us. There were so many going off there was no way to count them. It was just a constant roar.”
Answering one of the calls for help, Charette came upon a marine in the point squad with severe wounds. A grenade landed near the corpsman and his patient. “I couldn’t see it in the dark. I knew it was there, and it was going to go off,” he said, describing how he used his medical bag to try to push the grenade away.
Knowing his patient couldn’t survive more wounds, the Ludington, Mich., native shielded the man with his own body. The blast, which blew Charette’s helmet off and knocked him unconscious with wounds to the face, had also left him temporarily blind and deaf. When his sight returned, he saw he was the least wounded of the five men around him. The man Charette had shielded was also alive—thanks to the medical bag taking the brunt of the blow.
Earlier Charette had given his coat to a wounded man, and now his medical supplies were nearly gone. Even so, he improvised, ripping his own clothes apart to make bandages and tourniquets, and pulled flak jackets from dead marines to cover their wounded comrades who were drawn to him like a magnet. Near dawn on March 28, the lead company was ordered to pull back.
Under cover of darkness, Charette and other marines began evacuating the wounded from Vegas. When they came to a trench that had been torn up by an explosion, he didn’t hesitate to stand and carry a severely wounded marine to safety—an action he repeated over and over until the men were safe. “I could hear the bullets zipping by my head, but I had no choice.” Charette said, “I couldn’t leave the guy there.” Casualties were heavy for both sides in the battle for Vegas, with the Chinese sustaining more than thirteen hundred and the Marines; 118 dead, 801 wounded and 98 missing in action.
Nine months after the armistice, Charette was still in Korea, working in a postwar MASH unit when the chief surgeon gave him the news that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. Like many who have received the award, Charette protested that he did not deserve it. Home he went nonetheless. After spending Christmas with his family in Michigan, he traveled to the White House for the presentation on Jan. 12, 1954.
After receiving the Medal of Honor, Charette finished out his days of service training new corpsmen at Great Lakes, where he met his wife, Louise, who was in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). After 90 days as a married civilian with a pregnant wife, Charette opted to make a career out of the Navy. He signed up for submarine school where, he said, “I found a home.”
In 1958, he was honored to select the remains of what would become the Unknown Soldier of World War II. “This was a tremendous honor for me,” Charette said. “My grandchildren and their grandchildren will be able to visit the Tomb of the Unknowns and realize I had a small role in this national monument.”
After serving during Vietnam and the Cold War, Charette retired in 1977. When a local newspaper honored veterans from WWI, WWII and Vietnam, Charette was shocked that Korean veterans weren’t included. “ I don’t understand that, because 54,000 Americans lost their lives in Korea.”
http://images6.fotki.com/v87/photos/1/133612/1075969/corpsman-vi.jpg
Charette, like the Marine corpman pictured here, was “Doc” to the men he treated under fire in the fierce March 1953 battle.
http://images5.fotki.com/v89/photos/1/133612/1075969/navymedalt-vi.jpg
Ellie
In separate actions, two GIs emerge as uncommon heroes in a common hell
Saving Lives Under Fire
The irony was not lost on Navy Corpsman William R. Charette. Having read about the near-cataclysmic events at the Chosin Reservoir in 1950, he found himself, surprisingly, assigned three years later to the same company that had fought there. Most of the men had rotated out of Korea by January 1953, when Charette joined F Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. Now near Panmunjon, the company was located close to the site of the stalled peace talks.
Peace, though, wasn’t reigning anywhere near the three hills dubbed Reno, Carson and Vegas. One clear and freezing morning, Charette heard what he thought was thunder but, in reality, the roar was actually thousands of Chinese soldiers—attacking the 5th Marines that held the hills. In time, the hills fell, and, on March 27, Charette’s company was called to take part in a three-battalion assault on Vegas to recapture it.
The intensity of the fighting was unmistakable as Charette saw men entangled in the barbed wire where they had died. Immediately, he began treating the wounded as his company moved ahead. Life soon became chaos for the young man as the cries for “corpsman” came from everywhere. Disregarding his own safety amid a hail of small-arms and mortar fire, Charette answered them as best he could throughout the day and into the night, literally losing all sense of time. He later recalled, “The Chinese above us were rolling grenades downhill onto us. There were so many going off there was no way to count them. It was just a constant roar.”
Answering one of the calls for help, Charette came upon a marine in the point squad with severe wounds. A grenade landed near the corpsman and his patient. “I couldn’t see it in the dark. I knew it was there, and it was going to go off,” he said, describing how he used his medical bag to try to push the grenade away.
Knowing his patient couldn’t survive more wounds, the Ludington, Mich., native shielded the man with his own body. The blast, which blew Charette’s helmet off and knocked him unconscious with wounds to the face, had also left him temporarily blind and deaf. When his sight returned, he saw he was the least wounded of the five men around him. The man Charette had shielded was also alive—thanks to the medical bag taking the brunt of the blow.
Earlier Charette had given his coat to a wounded man, and now his medical supplies were nearly gone. Even so, he improvised, ripping his own clothes apart to make bandages and tourniquets, and pulled flak jackets from dead marines to cover their wounded comrades who were drawn to him like a magnet. Near dawn on March 28, the lead company was ordered to pull back.
Under cover of darkness, Charette and other marines began evacuating the wounded from Vegas. When they came to a trench that had been torn up by an explosion, he didn’t hesitate to stand and carry a severely wounded marine to safety—an action he repeated over and over until the men were safe. “I could hear the bullets zipping by my head, but I had no choice.” Charette said, “I couldn’t leave the guy there.” Casualties were heavy for both sides in the battle for Vegas, with the Chinese sustaining more than thirteen hundred and the Marines; 118 dead, 801 wounded and 98 missing in action.
Nine months after the armistice, Charette was still in Korea, working in a postwar MASH unit when the chief surgeon gave him the news that he was to receive the Medal of Honor. Like many who have received the award, Charette protested that he did not deserve it. Home he went nonetheless. After spending Christmas with his family in Michigan, he traveled to the White House for the presentation on Jan. 12, 1954.
After receiving the Medal of Honor, Charette finished out his days of service training new corpsmen at Great Lakes, where he met his wife, Louise, who was in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). After 90 days as a married civilian with a pregnant wife, Charette opted to make a career out of the Navy. He signed up for submarine school where, he said, “I found a home.”
In 1958, he was honored to select the remains of what would become the Unknown Soldier of World War II. “This was a tremendous honor for me,” Charette said. “My grandchildren and their grandchildren will be able to visit the Tomb of the Unknowns and realize I had a small role in this national monument.”
After serving during Vietnam and the Cold War, Charette retired in 1977. When a local newspaper honored veterans from WWI, WWII and Vietnam, Charette was shocked that Korean veterans weren’t included. “ I don’t understand that, because 54,000 Americans lost their lives in Korea.”
http://images6.fotki.com/v87/photos/1/133612/1075969/corpsman-vi.jpg
Charette, like the Marine corpman pictured here, was “Doc” to the men he treated under fire in the fierce March 1953 battle.
http://images5.fotki.com/v89/photos/1/133612/1075969/navymedalt-vi.jpg
Ellie