ATIS INTERROGATION REPORT NO. 3075 30 January 1951
The following information was obtained from recovered American military personnel, who were interrogated upon arrival in JAPAN from KOREA by Central Interrogation Center, ATIS. Interrogation was conducted at Tokyo Army Hospital by Lt FUSCO.
Source was captured alone by North Korean soldiers about 70 miles northeast of ANDONG on 12 January 1951. The captors took everything of value and all his outer clothing including shoes. They gave him a pair of worn out Korean rubber shoes in exchange for his combat boots. He was allowed to keep only his OD shirt and trousers. They walked all night long on 12, 13, 14, and 15 January. During the day, they usually made their way into small villages where they entered homes which were inhabited. They warmed themselves, rested and ate. Source states that his captors had 3-1 gallon size thermos jugs with 2 compartments in each. Into one of these compartments, the Koreans put the rice that was cooked after being taken from the people with whom they stayed that day. In the other compartment, they put a hot rice soup. These thermos jugs were very convenient to carry and supplied both the food and drink requirements of the group throughout the night until they put up for the next day when they replenished their supply.
Throughout this period, source was not interrogated for the simple reason that none of his North Korean captors could speak English. On the night of 15 January, when the man assigned to guard him relaxed his vigilance, source escaped in the darkness. He was shot at but managed to avoid being hit. He kept running most of the night. While running, he estimated that he was about 50 miles from the place he was captured. Since it took 4 nights to get there it would probably take at least that long to get back to the UN lines. He decided to follow the example with some modifications set by his former captors in the manner of procuring food, warmth and shelter. There were some disadvantages such as:
1. He was unarmed.
2. He could not speak the native language.
3. He was improperly clothed.
4. He was not positive as to the whereabouts of the UN lines.
5. He did not know the location of enemy forces.
The general plan that he decided upon was to travel from sundown to sun-up avoiding, by circling, any large towns or villages. He would look for isolated houses or a very small settlement of 2 or 3 houses. He would investigate as to which were occupied and which unoccupied so as to have a predetermined avenue of escape. The ideal arrangement would be to find a single home occupied by old folks and children. He would then enter, ask for food, forbid any of the occupants to leave while he was in the house, try to have a member of the household warn him in case of possible danger and trust to luck to get by safely until sundown when he would take off again.
For 5 days he followed the procedure he had set upon. It worked out well. He found out that with a fairly liberal use of the words "No", "Yes", "GI", "Sukoshi" (a little), "Takusan" (a lot), and a good deal of imagination in the use of sign language, he was able to make himself understood. The occupants would grumble a bit in Korean but on the whole cooperated by feeding him and allowing him to warm and rest himself. He could not permit himself the luxury of a long restful sleep. At each stop he would try to find out if any other Americans were nearby. Finally, after 6 nights and 5 days he found his way to an MP check point at ANDONG. He had lost 15 1bs during his ordeal.
For the CO, ATIS:
AURELL
