James Berry

Berry, James Transcript

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[Beginning of Recorded Material]

Berry: My name is James Berry and I was born 1929 in Madison County, VA, and I went to school Wolftown-Wolftown, Virginia, W-O-L-F-T-O-W-N and went to school, no went to school in Roof, Virginia then 

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to Wolftown school, then I got out. I had to get out when my father passed away to help on the farm and I had to get out of school, so I didn’t finish school.

Interviewer: So you were working?

B: Yeah, I worked, yeah.

I: On the farm?

B: On the farm, right.

I: What did you do?

B: Oh, a little bit of everything, a little bit of everything. Made hay, cut corn, shuck corn,

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 just regular farm work back in them days.

I: Uh, raising livestock?

B: Had to raise some livestock, right, yeah, yeah.

I: So you were working on the farm at the time the Korean War broke out?

B: No, I enlisted in the Army

I: When?

B: 1947.

I: 1947, you enlisted?

B: In the Army.

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I: Why?

B: Well, I just wanted to. . .

I: You had a job working on the farm.

B: No, I was working in the highway department. The Virginia Highway Department when I enlisted in the Army.

I: Oh, so you chose your job and farm too?

B: Went to Virginia, worked for the Virginia Highway Department. And then I decided I wanted to get in the Army and see a different life, 

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and uh, and so. . . 

I: Joining Army, was it popular at the time? Everybody wants to join the Army?

B: Well at the time, my cousins and I went together, and we just went in, taking our basic training and went to Guam, came back, went to Ft. Lewis, Washington for the Second 

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Infantry Division. And when the Korean War broke out, we went to Korea.

I: So what was your specialty? Were you a rifleman or what?

B: No, I was a tank driver. 

I: Tank driver?

B: Tank driver. 

I: Wow!

B: When I was on Guam, I was a heavy equipment operator, 

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operating graters, rollers, cranes, and everything else. They told me when I got to Ft. Lewis, Washington, I see you’ve an MOS of heavy equipment operator, said I’m gonna put you in a heavy equipment to drive. So they put me in a tank.

I: What was the name of the tank you drove?

B: M-26, uh no M-4, M-4, right.

I: How was it to drive inside 

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of the tank?

B: I liked it, I liked it, yeah.

I: What do you feel? Tell me the details.

B: Well, I mean it was rough, rough going see

I: How many soldiers were inside of the tank?

B: Five, five people.

I: Why do you need five?

B: Well, you need the driver and the assistant driver and the loader and the gunner, and tank commander. It was a five crew.

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I: So, how did you know that the Korean War broke out?

B: How did I know? Well, they let us know the Korean War headbroke out and we was the first division army to leave the states to go to Korea to Pusan.

I: Most of the Korean veterans say that they always stop at Sasebo or Yokohama.

B: No, 

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no, we didn’t stop.

I: So, what did you feel that you were going into the war? Were you scared?

B: Well, not really. I was young. I just tried to survive, I didn’t try to be a hero. Just done what I was ordered to do. I know like my tank commander he told me where to go 

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and how to put it and he said you put it and I said you know how to get out so that was a yeah.

I: So what happened after you arrived in Pusan. Tell me about it.

B: After we arrived in Pusan, I went to my tank and we was in combat the next day, yeah, the 18-mile to Pusan when we landed. 

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Perimeter, had an 18-mile perimeter.

I: How was the situation in Pusan Perimeter? Was there every day severe battles? 

B: Well, yeah. You see something every day. 

I: Was it really severe battle there?

B: Yeah, we just kept going, and we got them on the push, and at the Naktong Battle 

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MacArthur made an invasion up at Inchon and cut the Koreans off. Then we started pushing them.

I: So were you using a tank at the time?

B: Yeah, I got off the ship and went to my tank and out we went.

I: Tell me about it. How was it? How exactly was it? You drove the tank to the front line? 

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And what did you do? You stop there and just start bombing or what?

B: Well, we fired and everything else from one place to another, yep.

I: But, it was a kind of trench war, right? You didn’t move around 

B: Yeah

and just went around and did you engage with the North Korean soldiers?

B: Well, yeah, we uh moved and they was trying to ambush and everything else you mean.

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We were just firing on them and moving from place to another, just trying to get them.

I: Did North Koreans have tanks, their own tanks, too? So, which ones were better?

B: They did, yeah. Well I don’t know, they had them T-30 something Russian tanks, and they were good too.

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I: Had you faced the Russian tanks pretty close?

B: Yeah, pretty close.

I: How far? How close?

B: Well, how many yards, yeah, not that a lot. Knocked out a lot of them.

I: Were you wounded ever?

B: No, I was never wounded. No.

I: Oh, so they protect you?

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B: [laughs] Yes.

I: What did you eat inside of the tank? Did you sleep inside of the tank? Tell me about being inside the tank.

B: I stayed inside the tank, and this tank was from North Africa from the Second World War.

I: Oh, from North Africa?

B: Yeah, we had a history of where the tanks were, see. . . and had the seals 

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all was around the hatch where you sit down, it was all gone, and you sitting in the tank, and it’d rain, and water just run down your back. Yes, sir.

I: It was very hot in the tank, right?

B: That’s right.

I: So, what happened to you after that in the Naktong River? Did you move north?

B: Well, we moved north, that’s right, correct, and we went on up. I don’t know where, in this big schoolhouse.

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I: Big what?

B: Big schoolhouse, different outfits. So they come in told us that night, about 10:00 that we want you to get ready tomorrow, we thought we was coming home by Christmas, that’s what we thought. And said, uh, get ready to march by 4:00 in the morning, that 300,000 Chinese done crossed the Yalu River, and 

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well, I thought a thousand times and I said, “why didn’t we set up and wait for them instead of moving and they got up back around us, surrounded us. And we started to move out and . . . 

I: Where was it? Do you remember?

B: Kunwoori

I: Kunwoori?

B: Yep.

I: So you are in Chosen?

B: I was on up, up in the North 

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and  we run out of gas and so other tanks and something moving out of there and they just pushed us off the old lot thing to get through see and we cut off three days. We stored the guns in the tanks and stuff and we uh stayed up that night

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 and we stayed out three nights and four days before I was captured. And well they cap- on the thirtieth, they dropped a note in a hand grenade box and it said, uh, “helicopters are gonna be in here to pick you up”, and I had uh the only food I had left was a can of cherries and they was froze

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 and I take my bayonet, I was getting the cherries out of the can when they dropped this note and said the helicopters were coming. . . . and no helicopters never come. We got captured and they walked us up the road about 100 yards and they put us in this ditch, and they said, “uh, put your head down between

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 your legs”, and they set up machine guns all up the banks and said put your head down between your legs, take your helmet off and put your head down between your legs. I thought that was my time to end, then they said raise your head and then they said, “No, we are not going to harm you, not gonna hurt you American Imperists” they call it, that we gonna try to take care of you, so. . . 

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I: That’s what the Chinese said?

B: Yes, that’s what they said and . . .

I: So they have been nice to them.

B: Well, they were pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, hard course. Well, I heard before and I seen it that if Koreans captured you, they going to kill you, they gonna get you.

I: Did you destroy your tank?

B: Yeah, we destroyed the guns and things on it, yeah.

I: No, no the tank, destroy the tank when you leave the tank?

B: We left the tank and destroyed the guns on it 

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so nobody could use it. And hit the hills

I: So that’s how you were captured? Do you remember when was it?

B: November 30th, 1950, And we walked all at night. Slept in caves. 

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in all the villages, then walked all at night. Sometimes -40° below zero. We walked from November 30th to January 25th, I think, but you know we stopped along different places. In caves and so forth.

I: And where did you go? Did you go into the camp by January 25th?

B: Yeah, and we got landed in Camp Five.

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I: Camp Five?

B: They interviewed me, and asked me one time about radar, and I said I don’t know a thing about radar, and they slapped me up-side the head with the butt of a rifle, and again then they asked me how many guys are on a tank, and I told them I didn’t know how many were on a tank.

I: But you knew.

B: I knew, yeah. I didn’t want to tell him.

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I: Why not?

B: I didn’t want to tell him, you weren’t supposed to tell nothin’ like that.

I: It’s just simple fact that there are five men. Right?

B: Five men, and the interpreter said, “I know how many are there?”. And he said, “We would kill you for lying about this.”

I: And?

B: And so they didn’t do it.  I said well, I just don’t know.

I: And they hit you?

B: Oh, yeah, they hit and beat me.

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I: And where did they hit you?

B: They beat me in the back, and the first time they slapped me up-side the head with the rifle butt.

I: Where did you sleep?

B: Where did I sleep? Well, when we went to Camp Fire, we slept on the floor on a mat.

I: How many people were in the room?

B: I think about 22.

I: Twenty-two people in one room?

B: in one room, and all of them died besides me and another guy. 

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Died, and they’d come around and say how many dead. We’d drag ‘em out, couldn’t bury them or nothing, we just dragged them out to a hill near a river or water, just laid them. Didn’t get nothing at Camp Five. 

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The only thing they done at Camp Five was trying to give us lectures.

I: Lectures? About Communism?

B: About Communism, right.

I: How did you receive that?

B: Well you know, I just listened, you know. In my mind I’m not worried about it, see. At Camp 3, we had a couple of instructors, one of them spoke good English 

I: Chinese man or woman

B: Chinese man. He said he was 

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going to school in Texas, and he said that when the war broke out they sent him back to China, and he was one of our interpreters. And we told him, “You know America’s better than China?”, and he said, “Well, America’s alright, but they’re too wasteful.” I said, well that’s true to myself, I didn’t tell him.

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But they are. America is too wasteful. And we was given boiled water for a long time.

I: So when were you released from Camp Three?

B: August.

I: August of what?

B: ‘53.

I: Wow! You’ve been there like ah . . .

B: 33 months. 

I: 33 months?

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B: Captured November 30th of 1950 and released August of ‘53.

I: Were you able to write your diary or write back to family?

B: Yeah, I’d write back to the family.

I: Oh, you did? 

B: They’d give us pen and paper. Yeah.  They got us in a bunch taking us down to this parade ground.

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Told us they signed the armistice and said that you’d be going home in 30 days unless something. Said the American done something and done something to cause not going and you’d think everybody would be all just jumping up and hollering and happy, but everybody wondered “can it be so”. 

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I: Can it be so?

B: It’s like it hit you so, is this so?

I: You couldn’t believe it?

B: We couldn’t believe it, that’s right.

I: So, since that day, they treated you better?

B: No. 

I: Chinese

B: No. Didn’t change a bit. They didn’t change when the armistice was signed. They were just the same way. I’m going to ask you a question. Why can’t South Korea and North Korea, same people, why can’t they get back together?

I: That’s exactly the question I wanna ask everybody and to myself.

B: Why ain’t, I don’t understand that.

I: Mhm, mhm.

B: And, well, the North sees exactly how the South is doing. 

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I can’t.

I: It’s hard to understand.

B: That’s right. There may be some people up in the North that may have relations with people down in the South. I mean, you don’t know. I mean it could be. It was the same with the Berlin Wall. And I don’t know, it’s just. . . I don’t understand it.

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I: Yeah. So what do you do after you come back to the states?

B: I didn’t do anything for a couple of years.

I: Did the military pay you?

B: No, they didn’t pay me nothing

I: How did you then survive?

B: How did I survive?

I: Yeah.

B: I mean they pay money when I got out, back pay, and that lasted me for a while ‘til I went to work.

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I: How much did they pay you when you were in the prison camp? Was it the same salary as other soldiers?

B: Two dollars and fifty cents a day, that’s what I got.

I: For prisoner of war?

B: For prisoner of war, right.

I: So you were there.

B: 33 months. So I think it was about $1800 or somethin’. 

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I think that was about it.

I: So you were able to survive with that money for a while?

B: A good while, yes.

I: And then after that, what did you do?

B: Well, I went to work at a wood mill in Winchester, and that closed. Then, I got a job at Henkel Harris Furniture, and worked there for 32 years. . . furniture factory.

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I: When did you retire?

B: 1959. 1989.

I: Would you shake hands with the Chinese soldier if I arrange the meeting?

B: Yeah. For a while, I didn’t like him, but I got to thinking, I said they was doing the same thing our government is doing. You know, yes, I would. I got a doctor in the VA, he’s Chinese. Later on, I got to thinking they was doing the same thing we was doing with fighting one another. We was doing what our government wanted us to do. 

I: So you willing to share? I mean to shake hands with the Chinese?

B: Yeah, right. I am. Sure am.

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At the age of 21, I landed in Korea, with the 2nd Infantry Division as a tank driver. I was captured on November 30th, 1950, by the Chinese. They walked us from November 30th until January 25th, 1951, to Camp Five. This was done all at night, 

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sometimes the temperatures were 40 below zero. After spending 33 months as a prisoner of war, I was released when the war was over. [shows image]. This was a picture at Kunwoori when I got captured, this was the roadblock.

I: How did you get that picture?

B: A guy gave it to me. I don’t know. Somebody got it to me.

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I: So that’s the kind of road situation there. 

B: Yeah. Below the Chosen Reservoir.  [Shows image of the uniforms worn at Camp Five during the winter].   This is the picture of the uniforms we wore in the winter time. Chinese uniforms, they gave us to wear.

I: That’s inside Camp 3?

B: Yes

I: So who took this picture?

B: Oh, I don’t know. They took a picture of me pitching horseshoe and my sister had it

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I: Who gave that to you?

B: This boy in California sent it to me. He had a lot of pictures. 

I: What else?

B: And this is a picture here while the Chinese is trying to teach communism to the people, boys. 

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I: They were teaching you guys.

B: At the time they were trying to teach us communism.

I: Your name in Korean as it’s pronounced. This is from the Korean government.

B: Okay.

I: Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs and the Korean Veterans’ Association together. This is the medal 

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I: James, I want to thank you for your service and sacrifice for the Korean nation. Korea is now very strong in economy and democracy, and we couldn’t do it without you fighting for us. Thank you!

B: Thank you, thank you.