Patrols and No Mans Land

Heroes Remember

Patrols and No Mans Land

Transcript

In order to hold the line of the 38th Parallel, it is important to be aware of the enemy’s every move. In an effort to achieve that goal, our men scour the area between the lines known as ‘No Man’s Land’, hoping to avoid surprise attacks. When the infantrymen are not digging, they are patrolling. We were in a static warfare. Where it was a static line,

Tank crew observing the landscape.

38th Parallel. That was No Man's Land. We could go there. The Chinese and the North Koreans could go there too. And most everything was done on patrols.

Evening.

You always had patrols every night. Where are they? Where could they be?" We were like cats and dogs,

Men getting ready for a night patrol.

y'know. We watched one another. You had a route mapped out because in positions, in No Man's Land, there were minefields and all sorts of stuff. Patrolling is always dangerous. There are different kinds of partols. There were fighting patrols, where you made contact and all hell broke loose. The goal was to make contact with the enemy . . . Bug him, y'know. We put shoe polish on our face and hands, and we discarded our wrist watch, if you had any wrist watch we'd discard that. You couldn't be seen because if you got caught, you took the beating. There’s also a patrol we called a snatch patrol and that’s to try and grab a prisoner. There is reconnaissance patrols. That means you just go out and

A patrol sending information back to Headquarters.

you look and you don’t do nothing. So you know where they were or what was going on and that. A listening patrol was you’d go in front of your positions, usually three guys. You’re in a hole and you wait for the enemy, who would try to pass by next to you… without being seen. We were using phones, field phones and we’d have to the carry

Soldiers laying down barbed wire.

the wire. It went from a telephone in here, down the hill to three or four

View from top of a hill, looking down to a river valley.

hundred yards into the valley, and this was your communication link. I'd tell my commander that at such a place there was this. Elsewhere there was that. In a patrol, there are two scouts who go ahead. When they give

Patrol about to embark.

the signal to advance, you advance. When you get to them, they move ahead a bit again, and so it goes. It's less dangerous to be a scout than being with the group, because if they attack, they attack the group in the back.

Injured soldier getting bandaged on a stretcher.

Only problem is, if there were land mines, the scouts were the ones to hit them. Most of the casualties occurred, up until and including the cease-fire, were from patrols.

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Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 2:54
Person Interviewed:: War Korean
War, Conflict or Mission:: Korean War

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Patrols and No Mans Land

Heroes Remember