The Enemy

Transcript

Anchor: The South Korean soldiers along whose side the United-States of America, Canada and 14 other UN allied nations fight, are known as the R.O.K. or ROK, which stands for Republic Of Korea. The enemy is of course North Korean but, threatened by an American presence along its border, communist China soon joins in.

Roland Boutot: The enemy fired at anything that moved.
(Enemy attack)

At one point, there was gunfire in one area of the mountain, and we were headed that way. We were going to see what was going on. There was nothing. There were no Chinese, nothing. They were gone. They had dug tunnels through the mountain. And when they saw us coming and firing at them, they escaped into the tunnels and came out on the other side of the mountain. They'd dug tunnels.

Jean-Paul Savary: There were even tunnels going through the mountain with an opening to shoot a canon from the other side of the mountain. You could see the holes in the mountains where cannons were hidden. So they pointed their cannons on a target, and when we saw them lining up, we knew they were preparing to attack.

Raymond Tremblay: Did you know that the Chinese kept their families with them on the front line? In crawl trenches, under the ground, the whole family! They did things differently from us. They didn't live like we do. That was their life.

Gerald R. Bowen: But when they attacked us they came in the thousands. Bugles blowing and shouting and screaming and up they'd come.
(Attacking at night)

George W. Elliot: They used sort of wave attacks.
(Firing during attacks)

The first wave on an attack, when they attack you, generally don't have any weapons.

Charles Trudeau: Let's say there were 5,000 Chinese on attack. The first 2,500 would attack. When they fell, the next 2,500 would pick up the weapons of the fallen and keep on coming.

Ray Nickerson : Really the hill was just crawling with Chinese, just crawling with them.

Gerald R. Bowen: It's hard to believe but you could see all these figures coming up and you start firing on them of course and they start to drop, but there doesn't seem to be any end to them, you know. And I guess the thought in your mind is "When are they going to stop?"
(Firing at the enemy)

Gerald R. Bowen: I think they might have had a battalion of stretcher bearers behind every assault battalion because when the sun would come up in the morning and you'd look out, there'd be nobody there. They'd take all their bodies away.

Charles Trudeau: Don't forget . . . how can I explain it? The Chinese people were like us. They went there, but it was worse for them, because they had to go. We went because we got paid well, and we still get paid well. Chinese are human. They also have friends. Maybe not in the same way as us, but they didn't want to lose everything either. The guys weren't there just to . . . give up their lives . . . but when they were ordered to do something, they did as they were told, but that doesn't mean they enjoyed it.