'Sleep well, the Marines are going in there now'
Local Korean War veteran talks about his experiences
By Ellen Williams SA Reporter

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 when the communist forces of North Korea smashed across the 38th parallel to invade the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

Two and one-half million persons lost their lives in this war. Sandwiched between World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War is often referred to as "America's Forgotten War." But for one man who left the Washington County community of Springbank for the cold mountains of Korea, it is definitely not forgotten.

Delbert Carney was 19 years old when on Aug. 19, 1951, he rode the Hummingbird Express from Mobile to Montgomery and was inducted into the United States Marine Corps.

Carney became part of Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marines Division. He was sent to Parris Island, S.C. There he engaged in eight weeks of intense basic training. "When I finished up basic training, I knew how to kill a man," Carney said. "They taught us like World War II. A good bit of WWII was hand-to-hand combat, and they taught us a lot of hand-to-hand too."

Going to Korea

The night before the ship landed on the way to Seoul, Korea, Carney's group was given orders to "Come top side in the morning with your cold weather gear on." He said the weather seemed too warm for that so he thought, "Shoot, why do I want to put on all that old bulky stuff?" But the next morning there was about one-half inch of ice on the deck of the ship, and the young man from warm south Alabama was eager to put on his heavy clothing.

He got off the ship that night and recalls going single file into the mess hall to eat supper. Before he boarded the train, young Carney went back to the mess hall. Since his group was the last one to come through the hall, he asked the mess sergeant if there were any steaks left. The sergeant said, "Yes, how many do you want?" Carney replied he'd take what he could get into his mess kit. "He gave me five," Carney said. The next day when he got out the steaks, several soldiers excitedly gathered around wanting to know where he got them. They began to "auction off" the steaks. He got $25 for two and "I ate the other three," he smiled.

Carney was taken by train to the end of the railhead and then by truck to division headquarters. There they called names and the men were separated first into battalions; then names were called again, and the men put into companies. This took two days and "nobody slept," he said. The new arrivals were given a three-day orientation. "We could see them fighting at night; see the tracers up there, you know," Carney said. "Then we went on the front lines. They always relieved (troops) at midnight." He went on to explain that this was done to keep troops from being fired upon during the exchange. "Since there was little foliage in Korea; in some places they could see us coming as far as from here to Chatom," he stated.

AWashington County lad

becomes a U.S. Marine

Carney said he was just north of Panmunjon (South Korea) most of his time there. He spoke of the very cold weather. Each squad would go out on, what he referred to as the "listening post," 75 yards in front of the main body of troops. He recalled lying on a little incline while it was snowing. "I lay on my weapon, " he recalled, "to keep the snow off." He said some Marines slept, but he did not. "We were about 30 or 40 feet from the tank road," he said.

Wherever the flares dropped, there were white parachutes about 3 feet square, on the ground Carney recalled. One night while he was lying out on the "listening post," he saw a strange sight: one of the white flags (parachutes) moved. "I could see it move and disappear," he said. Carney immediately got on the listening post speaking device and quietly contacted his platoon sergeant back over the hill, and asked, "Where's the patrol?" His sergeant told him that it was an hour from his (Carney's) position.

When Carney related that someone had picked up one of the white parachutes, his sergeant replied, "Shoot him." Before he could get his communication device laid down, he heard someone step into the waters of a small stream below his position. He tried to get out the words, "Who's there?" But it came out garbled. "I have never been so scared in my life, " he admitted. It was the American patrol who was way ahead of schedule. Patrols were supposed to be strictly synchronized to be in a specific place at a specific time, but this night the patrol was running ahead of schedule. The disappearing white parachute was a man putting it into his jacket.

Going on patrol

Carney recalled vividly the first patrol he ever went on. The first thing the patrol had to deal with was being penned down by the flares bursting all around. "They looked like they were going to hit you right between the eyes," he said. It was dark and the men on patrol walked in a straight line, one right behind the other; each holding on to the belt-loop of the man in front of him, in order to stay together in the dark. If you varied off, "You might step on a mine," Carney explained.

"Butterfly" mines were dropped from the air, and when they hit the ground, they armed themselves. Then when disturbed in any way, they would lift about four feet into the air and explode. The man in front of the squad was the mine-clearance man. He held a mine detector and his job was to locate the landmines. He had to try to cover every spot of ground. Carney estimated that it would take three hours to walk about 100 yards. If the mine-clearance man got a beep, the word was passed back for everyone to squat down. When the mine was cleared, they got up and started again. Sometimes, the mineclearance soldier paid for finding a mine with his life.

At one point, Carney's patrol had to "hit the ground." He recalled that it was pitch black. He grabbed onto the ankle of the man in front of him. When he got back to camp, he got amused thinking, "If that man had been dead, I guess I'd still be out there holding onto a dead man's ankle."

The front lines

Sgt. Carney was on the front lines in Korea from March 18 until the cease-fire at 10 a.m. on July 27, 1953. During that time he was allowed to go behind the lines three times for five days rest. And when they were off the front, he explained that they had to fall out into two or three formations every day. 'They called us at six o' clock," he said. We had to walk back to the front lines where we got one hot meal each day, dinner." He also said that the Marines required the men to be clean shaven because of the prevalence of facial wounds. The shower point was two and one-half miles back from the front lines. The men went two or three from a squad to shower. At the shower point, the first room was where each soldier removed his dirty clothing and showered; in the next room was clean clothing and a man just took whatever size he picked up. This left some men with legs showing and some with sleeves hanging over their hands.

Carney related a 24 hour alert when the U.S. forces dropped flares for 3 days and nights. "It never got dark for that 72 hours," he said. The flares were sent up to show the enemy's advance and keep the U.S. forces from being surprised. "We had been told that there were 60,000 Chinese behind the mountain," he said. Carney said his group fought mostly Chinese and some Mongolians. "They would send them to attack us in waves. The first wave would have guns; the next wave wouldn't even be armed, they just rushed forward yelling and screaming. They would pick up guns off the dead. We just shot until they stopped coming."

On his third and last rotation to the front lines, Carney said they were told that the Twentyfifth Army Division had been overrun and they were being sent in. As they passed the Twenty-fifth coming off the front lines, Carney described the sight this way: "That was the worst shot-up bunch of men I ever saw. Some were dragging others on blankets; some men were holding others up as they limped along. We told them, 'That's all right boys. You can sleep well tonight. The Marines are going in there now'."

Cease-fire and

prisoner exchange

The Korean War did not end by one side defeating the other. It ended by a cease-fire when both sides agreed to stop fighting at the 38th Parallel on July 27 at 10 a.m. The men were in the trenches on the front lines at battle-ready when the whisper started down the line, "It's 10 o'clock, it's 10 o'clock." The firing stopped.

Finally, some soldiers got up enough courage to stand on the trenches and hold rifles above their heads. The Koreans/ Chinese did the same. Forces on both sides began immediately pulling back about 2,000 meters.

The space between the two armies was called "No Man's Land." Cross-ties were placed to show the area not to go beyond. Carney's battalion patrolled No Man's Land.

Both sides shot up all their artillery ammunition. The shooting went on from midnight to daylight the next morning. It was about 30 days after the cease-fire that the exchange of prisoners began.

Carney's company was made the DMZ (de-militarized zone) police. They were put on the gate to stand for the exchanging of prisoners. Carney said the American prisoners came back in ambulances. They had not been well-cared-for and many were too weak to walk. Carney said he often spoke to the POWs and congratulated them for enduring.

He said the exchange went on for at least two months. "We would get back four or five of ours," he stated, "and we sent back 1,200 to 1,500 of theirs a week." One morning a man came through and Carney noticed two soldiers snapping to a smart salute and was told that this man was the highest ranking officer captured in the Korean War, a General Dean. Carney said the general's weight looked to be down to about 125 pounds.

Of interest about the Korean/Chinese prisoners was that the U.S. had issued them new clothing and new shoes. But before they returned to the communist zone, Carney said they cut up their new shoes and shed the U.S. issued clothing. Most of them put their legs through the sleeves of their tshirt and tied it around the waist and that was all they carried back to communist zone.

The flag incident

Carney said the communist prisoners were brought to the exchange point in trucks. Even before you could hear the sound of the trucks, he said you could hear them singing- two or three miles away. And when they got into view, they sang and waved small Korean Red (communist) flags. Young Delbert got hold of one of those Mao Se Tung flags though. And each time a load of those singing, flag-waving POWs came through, he slowed each truck to about 5 MPH.

"I would throw that red flag to the ground and stomp it and spit on it." The silence then would be downright eerie. "It was just like turning off a radio," he said, "solid silence. They were so quiet, you couldn't even tell if they were breathing or not." As truck after truck came through, the young marine from Springbank methodically shut down their flag-waving and singing.

Friends

There are individuals he recalls such as his friend, Jimbo Atchison, who pulled targets for him on the rifle range at Parris Island. When those in charge found out that the puller and the shooter were friends, they moved Atchison off Carney's targets. So to show his displeasure, the 19 year old from Springbank, deliberately missed some shots the next day.

And Carney remembers with a smile, the medic for his company who was named Moon Mullins; a man who always smiled, joked, pulled pranks, and kept up morale.

After the war, while still in Korea, Carney was chosen to attend NCO school. "It was almost like boot camp. They let us off on Sundays from 12 to 6, but there was nothing to do. One Sunday, I was walking down a road and an ambulance passed me and stopped. I waved him to drive on by. But about that time, a soldier jumped out and grabbed me around the neck and went to the ground with me. It was James William Moss, also from the Springbank area whom Carney hadn't seen since Moss had gone into the Marines."

Old soldiers

Although his combat record is impressive, what Carney values most is the award he received from the Alabama National Guard when he retired in 1988.

Carney racked up 37 years service including his Korean active duty and his Alabama National Guard service.

Several years back, when men from the Washington County Guard Unit met at Chatom Baptist Church for a send-off ceremony to Iraq, he asked to say a few words of farewell: "Men, I've always told you straight. When you go to Iraq, you won't know who the enemy is. They will all look alike. Do your duty. And I will promise you this. I will pray for you every night before I go to sleep."

Delbert Carney said this of himself, "I was what the marines called a groundpounder, the infantry." But he is much more than that. I came away from that interview understanding at last, what kind of good men it is the Marines still look for.

Ellie