Aspects of Trench Life
Heroes Remember - Korean War
Aspects of Trench Life
Transcript
By that time they had set up what they called
the James Town Line and the whole deal was
that you just prevented the North Koreans and
the Chinese from attacking.
We were not allowed to attack into North Korea,
we had to just hold the line.
It was very much like the First World War,
trench warfare cause we lived in bunkers.
We dug our own holes and we covered
them up to keep the rain out and
that's where we lived. I think the part that
I remember most disliking is the
heat in the summer time.
Most Korean Veterans will say they
remember the cold, maybe because
I was raised on a farm in Manitoba,
it was cold but I don't remember it as
much as I remember the heat.
You just, you know, when the temperature
got up around 100 to 110, somewhere in there,
you just wanted to find a place and not move,
some place where it's cool if there is such a thing.
Bunkers were cool, most of the time and
you just, you didn't, you didn't move.
The Chinese didn't bother you during the
heat of the day cause they
were probably too hot too.
So, I think that's the part I dislike more
than anything and then during the
rainy season everything was wet.
You couldn't wear a leather watch strap
because it turned green and rotten,
anything leather, it would rot.
The rats were big too.
They were big healthy rats.
They were well fed I guess.
I think the mice were the more dangerous
cause I think they carried a disease.
The rats were very large and very shiny,
their fur was very shiny
so that's a sign of a healthy rat.
We didn't have houses.
We didn't have even heated tents.
We just had a hole in the ground,
made our own stoves and that's,
and if you could scrounge some gas
to cut your diesel with, then your stoves
would burn fairly clean but if you were
burning straight diesel, then they would
carbon up and once in a while explode and
blow your stove pipes all apart and everything
would be covered with a greasy soot.
That was Korea.
Description
Mr. McKinney describes Korea as being like World War One because it was trench warfare. He goes on to discuss what it was like in the bunkers – excessive heat or rain, rodents and fickle stoves.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 2:47
- Person Interviewed:
- James McKinney
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- Korean War
- Battle/Campaign:
- Korea
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- 1st Field Artillery Regiment
- Rank:
- Sergeant
- Date modified: