John Shea

[Beginning of Recorded Material]

J:         My name is John Edward Shea. It’s J-O-H-N, E-D-R-D, S-H-E-A.

 

I:          What is your birthday?

 

J:         My birthday is 12/30/30.

 

I:          You [were] born right after the Great Depression.

 

J:         [LAUGHS]

 

I:          Generations of [the] Great Depression.

 

J:         Yep.

 

I:          Where were you born?

 

J:         I was born in Providence.

 

0:00:30

 

I:          Tell me about your family and your siblings when you were growing up.

 

J:         I had a brother and a sister.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         My brother served in the Second World War under General Patton, he was a tank driver. My sister — she worked for [Naragance] Electric with my brother. My —

 

I:          How about your parents?

 

J:         My parents —

 

0:01:00

 

J:         My mother worked. . . at different dinner parties for this here — there was a rich family, and she used to work for them. The family — [it] all depends. There was three or four different members of the family that she worked [for]. They would have a dinner party, and she would serve the table and — clear the table and stuff

 

0:01:30

 

J:         like that. That’s what my mother did.

 

I:          Mm.

 

J:         My father was a mechanic for Mobil Oil. At that time, they called it Standard Oil of New York.

 

I:          Uh-huh.

 

J:         That was the original name then. My father was the first diesel mechanic in Rhode Island. There could’ve been other men around, I don’t know, but they said he was [the] first.

 

0:02:00

 

J:         New York had diesel; Rhode Island did not have any diesel trucks at all.

 

I:          Ah.

 

J:         They were just coming out. My father went to New York for a month — he was a night foreman for Mobil here in Rhode Island, or in those days it was Standard Oil.

 

I:          So didn’t [the] Great Depression really affect negatively your family?

 

J:         I don’t really know.

 

0:02:30

 

J:         They were — they had to be involved in it somehow. I was born after the Depression.

 

I:          But still there [was a] lingering impact of [the] Great Depression —

 

J:         Oh yes.

 

I:          on so many people.

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          But because your father had a great job, right? So —

 

J:         Well, my father was just a mechanic originally,

 

I:          Right.

 

J:         And then he worked his way up to foreman.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         He used to work nights, because at nights — during the day,

 

0:03:00

 

J:         most of the trucks would be on the road delivering gas, and they’d do most of the repairs at night.

 

I:          Got it. Tell me about the school you went through.

 

J:         I went to [Clairie] School, that was a grammar school, and that was named after Father Clairie. We were in St. Joseph’s Parish. They used — the original name — what used to

 

0:03:30

 

J:         be St. Joseph’s Clairie School.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         That was the original name, and we just called it Clairie, because every — all our papers, we had to put down Clairie School on it. Then I went up to Hope High School for three years; I graduated from there.

 

I:          So that’s 1950?

 

J:         1950.

 

I:          Yeah, and how did you come to know about the Korean War?

 

J:         I got drafted.

 

I:          When?

 

0:04:00

 

J:         1951, I think it was. I went in — I was in for two years.

 

I:          So did you know anything about Korea before you were you drafted?

 

J:         No.

 

I:          You didn’t —

 

J:         Well, I heard of the country, yes.

 

I:          How? Tell me.

 

J:         On the news and stuff like that. I knew about the country, I knew

 

0:04:30

 

J:         we went to war there, and I knew we had troops there. I knew when Japan was there, and that — I think the first part of the Korean was when they — didn’t they take one of our ships? The North Koreans?

 

I:          Yeah. In 19th centuries.

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          You talking about the one?

 

0:05:00

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          19th century?

 

J:         What was just before the war. They —

 

I:          Not just before the war, but it was 19th century, the black ship by the Commodore —

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          Perry was abducted and burned down

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          there, and then Americans attacked again in eight — no — and therefore we called the fur–

 

J:         1950. We went in in 1950.

 

I:          Yes. So you were drafted, and where did you get the basic

 

0:05:30

 

I:          military training?

 

J:         Down at Camp Gordon, Georgia.

 

I:          Oh. What kind?

 

J:         Signal.

 

I:          Signal? Tell me about it. What did you learn? Morse Code?

 

J:         Well, I was in Boy Scouts, and I’d do flags and I knew how to flag. When I knew how to flag, they tried to get me on radio and everything.

 

0:06:00

 

J:         I was mediocre.

 

I:          Mm.

 

J:         Then I got there — just sent me through basic, and then I went to Korea. There was this colonel —

 

I:          When did you arrive Korea?

 

J:         I arrived in Korea was. . . I don’t know, I forget. . . September, early September.

 

0:06:30

 

I:          1951?

 

J:         Yeah I came home ’52, I spent the year in —

 

I:          So it must be —

 

J:         Oh ’53; I got there in ’52.

 

I:          ’52, September?

 

J:         September ’52, or July.

 

I:          Where did you arrive in Korea?

 

J:         I went in through. . . where the capital was.

 

I:          Seoul?

 

J:         I came up the west coast.

 

I:          Incheon?

 

J:         Incheon.

I:          You landed in Incheon?

 

J:         Landed in Incheon.

 

0:07:00

 

I:          And then go to —

 

J:         The capital was completely destroyed and everything.

 

I:          Mm-hmm. Tell me about the first scene of capital city?

 

J:         My first [in] was at the capital — we went in there. We were backing up the troops to break up the — to help break up the China supply line that was going down.

 

0:07:30

 

J:         We went in that way. . . and that’s where we were. We were just stationary at first. Then we went further north — they opened up a base further north, and they put in the [message] center there. I worked out in the message center.

 

I:          As a messenger?

 

J:         I can’t say.

 

0:08:00

 

I:          Mm. What was your unit? Do you remember?

 

J:         10th Core.

 

I:          10th Core, and. . . that’s it?

 

J:         10th Core Message Center.

 

I:          What was your rank?

 

J:         My rank? Buck private.

 

I:          [LAUGHS] Private.

 

J:         I had no rank whatsoever. You didn’t get any rank till you came back to the States,

 

0:08:30

 

I:          Mm.

 

J:         because they wanted me — well, I can’t say. [LAUGHS]

 

I:          Tell me about — more description about the Seoul that you saw. How bad was it?

 

J:         Everything was wiped out — the capital was wiped out. [unintelligible] It was right by the capital. It was all destroyed.

 

I:          What were you thinking, seeing all those things?

 

0:09:00

 

J:         We was at war. . . . That was it. See, my brother was in the Second World War, and I went to see different war movies and everything else, and you get there and you see what war did to the — like — he was over in Europe, and you see war done over there, the France and Europe and everything else. You saw the same thing in —

 

0:09:30

 

J:         in Korea. You just — you took it for granted. That was war.

 

I:          What were you thinking?

 

J:         That I was there to do my job, and that was it.

 

I:          Do you know why you were there?

 

J:         Yeah, to try and free the Korean people.

 

I:          How was Korean people that you saw?

 

J:         The Korean people — I never really

 

0:10:00

 

J:         got involved with personally with too many Korean people, to be honest with you, but I got there, and I give them a — when — we could drive down the road and everything, when we pushed them back out of North Korea. I was stationed up in North Korea. All the farmers used to be out there, and — I can even remember the old honey buckets. [LAUGHS]

 

0:10:30

 

J:         You can’t laugh about them, but it’s true.

 

I:          Yep.

 

J:         You know?

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         And how they used to be out there, and the farmers used to be there in the fall. They used to bring their lumber down back home — and there, what’s it — the house that they lived at at home in South Korea. They [would nail] the wood, so nobody would steal their wood so that they would

 

0:11:00

 

J:         be able to take it back up north wherever their rice paddies were.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         And those guys — I can remember those guys and those rice paddies. The guys, they’d take me there all day long working.

 

I:          Yep. Do you — have you been back to Korea?

 

J:         I wasn’t back — at all.

 

I:          At all, but do you know what happened to Korea now? Do you know how Korean economy is?

 

0:11:30

 

J:         Yes, I know that the — [unintelligible] — [bro,] I was in North Korea before I came home, and they was moving us back, back to the 38th Parallel. We were much further north than that.

 

I:          I’m going to ask about that, but I want to — I want you to tell me about knowledge of — your knowledge about modern Korea right now. Korean economy, Korean democracy,

 

0:12:00

 

I:          and so on.

 

J:         From what I read is that the Korean people — the southern part of Korea — I think the people are doing well for themselves. They earned it, they’re working for it and everything else. Now on the North Korean — I feel sorry for the people, on the North Korean. It just seems like the capital is the only one that’s surviving

 

0:12:30

 

J:         there. Those are the only people that’s really working — is the people that’s got involved with the capital. Those are the only ones. The other poor people, they’re starving. What they could grow or whatever —

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         is what they’re living on. That’s all I actually know about it, to be honest with you. Anything that I read — we had that

 

0:13:00

 

J:         book that. . . in fact, I got it at home — the Korean book I read, the — I guess it was printed in Korea, and half of it is about the war. First half’s about the war, and the second half is about all the new business — this is all South Korea.

 

I:          So it’s full of pictures, right?

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          It’sReborn Korea, isn’t it?

 

J:         Reborn!

 

0:13:30

 

I:          Yeah.Reborn Korea —

 

J:         Korea Reborn.

 

I:          Yeah, Korea Reborn, and you were able to see the pictures before the war, during the war and after the war, right?

 

J:         Yep, and the capital — the capital city — it must’ve been 50,000 people there when they was having the. . . what was it —

 

I:          Olympics?

 

J:         They were having the matches for — soccer matches, or was it?

 

I:          Yep, yeah, yeah.

 

J:         They showed all the — all the women and everything

 

0:14:00

 

J:         lined up down the street. That’s all you could see was people. They were all dressed up, and they all looked beautiful.

 

I:          So what do you see — this contrasting picture, what do you think about this thing?

 

J:         I think the people worked for it. You gotta give them credit, and I give them credit because making automobiles, they’re doing oil, they’re doing — they’re doing just about everything. They’re working for it. They’re taking away — they’re taking away from the culture of

 

0:14:30

 

J:         just rice paddies.

 

I:          And honey bucket.

 

J:         And honey buckets. They’re taking away from that.

 

I:          What is the credit that you want to give to yourself?

 

J:         To myself?

 

I:          Yeah, about that.

 

J:         The only credit I give to myself, I was there to do a job, and I done what I was told.

 

I:          You’re too modest.

 

J:         No.

 

I:          We were able to build that nation because you fought for us

 

0:15:00

 

I:          and you gave us chance to rebuild our nation.

 

J:         You people deserve a lot of credit. You people are the one — all that we did in my opinion is drive the — drive them out South Korea. You people are the one that rebuilt South Korea. You people deserve the credit, because you lived with

 

0:15:30

 

J:         nothing and you made something out of nothing.

 

I:          But we were not able to do it if you didn’t fought for us.

 

J:         Well, you had been under Chinese rule. All that we did is what we had to do, then we pulled back to the 38th.

 

I:          Mm-hmm. Tell me about your routine — service

 

0:16:00

 

I:          during your stay stationed in Korea.

 

J:         Well, I — I was a messenger and. . . just routine stuff.

 

I:          Like what?

 

J:         Routine stuff like what a messenger would do. Drop this off to here, drop that off there.

 

I:          Did you walk, or did you ride —

 

J:         I walked.

 

0:16:30

 

I:          Walked?

 

J:         Well, everything was inside —

 

I:          of the compound?

 

J:         of the compound.

 

I:          Where? In Seoul, or where?

 

J:         Oh, this was up in North Korea.

 

I:          Up in North Korea?

 

J:         North Korea, yes. There was 10th Core.

 

I:          10th Core, so you arr–

 

J:         10th Core Headquarters I was at.

 

I:          Yeah, you arrived September of 1952, and you left when? When did you leave Korea?

 

J:         I left in ’53 in the end of May.

 

0:17:00

 

I:          ’53 or ’54?

 

J:         ’53. They signed the peace treaty in July of ’53.

 

I:          Right, so —

 

J:         I left just before we signed. Well. . . we signed — I’m wrong, we signed a cease-fire in ’53.

 

I:          So when you say that you were in North Korea, that was very close to 38th Parallel, right? Not, not really deep in North Korea.

 

J:         No, it was actually North

 

0:17:30

 

J:         Korea we were up.

 

I:          Hmm.

 

J:         I forget what towns —

 

I:          You don’t remember?

 

J:         We were up on the right-hand side, and they were on the left-hand side, the enemy.

 

I:          Was it west or east?

 

J:         If you looked at the map, I would say the right side was east, because that’s where

 

0:18:00

 

J:         the water was,

 

I:          Yep, yeah.

 

J:         so I was up on the east side, but we were over on the side [thing].

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         We had a message center.

 

I:          Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Was it dangerous mission?

 

J:         Could be.

 

I:          Tell me if — if there were any —

 

J:         I didn’t go no [end-to-end] — I did not go any [and in-fighting].

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         I was armed — in fact I was double-armed. I carried a rifle,

 

0:18:30

 

J:         and I carried a handgun.

 

I:          Mm-hmm. Normally the private doesn’t carry handgun, right?

 

J:         Normally no.

 

I:          No. So, were you able to write letters back to your family or friends?

 

J:         I used to write — I used to write to my mother and write to my girlfriend.

 

I:          Girlfriend. Tell me about what you write.

 

0:19:00

 

I:          Unless this is another secret. [LAUGHS]

 

J:         See, that’s what I’m up against, because I swore I would never reveal —

 

I:          No, I’m talking about the letter that you wrote.

 

J:         The letter —

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         I wrote to my wife. She was just my girl–

 

I:          Oh, you were married?

 

J:         No, I wasn’t married then, but I was engaged to her.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

0:19:30

 

J:         I went to my mother-in-law and asked my mother-in-law about giving her a ring for her birthday, because I was leaving in June and her birthday was in July.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         They get there, and her father always came home for lunch because he worked just down the street in the mills. He was a textile [chemist]. She got there, and

 

0:20:00

 

J:         I asked him about giving her a ring and everything else, and my mother-in-law. He said was perfectly alright. He says, “Under one condition,” and she says that you wait till you come back from Korea to get married.

 

I:          Hmm.

 

J:         “But you want to give her a ring — but make it her choice. If she wants it for her birthday, or wait until you come back from Korea.”

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

0:20:30

 

J:         So I get there and I says to her, “Would you like the ring?”, and I brought it out of my pocket and I showed it. She said, “You bought me a ring?” I says, “Yeah!” And then she looks at it, “You bought me a ring?”

 

I:          [LAUGHS]

 

J:         She asked me twice. I said, “Yes.” She got [unintelligible], she put out a hand, she said, “Well, put it on my finger!”,

 

I:          Mm.

 

0:21:00

 

J:         so I put the ring on. And then we got married — I got out of the Army on 11th November, we got married on the 26th of November.

 

I:          19–

 

J:         ’53.

 

I:          ’53. Must been very hard for you to be separated from your fiancée.

 

J:         Yes and no.

 

0:21:30

 

J:         If I had time, yes. If I didn’t have time, if I was busy doing something, it’d be no because you’ve [unintelligible] your mind on what you have to do.

 

I:          You stayed there, you fought there, you carried very important mission — you know, carrying those secret messages to each other within your compound, and you coming back to country that you remember and

 

0:22:00

 

I:          the country that now is completely different. What do you think about this?

 

J:         Someday I’d love to go back. . . to be honest with you.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         I’d love to go back to — just to see the country.

 

I:          Yeah. You know about what’s happened in Korea there, right?

 

J:         Yes!

 

I:          Yeah, what do you think [about] whole thing?

 

J:         I feel sorry for you people because, for an honest answer, I still think that North Korea’s gonna try and overtake South Korea.

 

0:22:30

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         My personal opinion.

 

I:          Mm-hmm.

 

J:         Not wishing them any bad luck to go to war, because war is hell.

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         And if you were involved with it, you would [take and] know what it is, but like I say I feel sorry for the people.

 

I:          You know that Korean government has a program called Revisit Korea?

 

J:         I know that,

 

0:23:00

 

J:         and I talked to — I talked to a couple of different guys about going over, that if they got a program that, if I payed my flight over, that you live for 10 days or something for nothing in Korea.

 

I:          After World War Two, U.S. has involved about dozen war,

 

0:23:30

 

J:         Yes.

 

I:          including very limited, but —

 

J:         It was strictly Korea.

 

I:          Yep. That’s why I think we need to learn more about Korea, and I want our young generations to learn more about the Korean War.

 

J:         Yes! I agree with you.

 

I:          But do you know our history textbook really tells about Korea, or not?

 

J:         I would say it gives you a good idea of Korea. They don’t tell everything that’s going on,

 

0:24:00

 

J:         no.

 

I:          It has a very short coverage. One paragraph, two maximum, a page.

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          Compared to the Vietnam War, it’s just one-third of it.

 

J:         Yes! I a–

 

I:          And the history textbook doesn’t tell about modern Korea at all.

 

J:         See, I never bothered looking through — you know, history book on it, to be honest with you. All I read was a book that

 

0:24:30

 

J:         you people printed up. I was in charge of — part of the books, and I put a couple in the [eastbound’s] library.

 

I:          What are the things that you vividly remember out of your service, and what other final message that you want to leave to this interview?

 

J:         What I remember, I can remember the shelling. I could remember the —

 

0:25:00

 

J:         what I never forgot was the rain. That [foolish] rain would come and it’s raining, you — you hit the sack at night, and it’s raining just as hard the next morning. [BOTH LAUGH]

 

I:          The monsoon.

 

J:         The monsoon.

 

I:          Yep.

 

J:         I can remember the monsoon, and I can remember the freezing.

 

I:          Mmm.

 

J:         I had — what actually happened is that

 

0:25:30

 

J:         there was a colonel, and you couldn’t start the Jeep. It was — I don’t know, it was, say, 10 below zero. He’s over there and he’s pumping the gas and pumping the gas, and I said — I was on guard duty — and I says, “You’ll never start it like that!” He said, “You think you can start this?” I says, “I don’t know, but you got a swimming pool in there

 

0:26:00

 

J:         with gasoline.”

 

I:          [LAUGHS]

 

J:         I said, “I can smell it!” So I get there, and I start playing with just — you know, the starter, you know? Then I get there, and when I get the gas pumped out — it didn’t kill the battery or anything. I got it where it could click a couple times, and then it would stall out, you know, flood itself out. Then I got it

 

0:26:30

 

J:         where it started, and he says to me, he says, “Don’t go too far!” He’s seen the sergeant, and he says to the sergeant, he says, “Have this man — stay over in this area.

 

I:          [LAUGHS]

 

J:         Don’t put him over [unintelligible],” because we used to be broken up in half. We had, like, the Inner Guard, and out there was the Outer Guard. I never went Outer Guard anymore. I [sent] in

 

0:27:00

 

J:         a guard right near the headquarters.

 

I:          Are you proud of your service?

 

J:         Yes.

 

I:          About the Korean War?

 

J:         Well, I didn’t do any hand-to-hand fighting, but I am proud of what I did do. I am — yes, I put on that uniform, and I walked the walk.

 

I:          Mm-hmm. Any other message to this interview that you want to leave with?

 

J:         Again, I feel sorry for the

 

0:27:30

 

J:         Korean people for what’s down the road, of my opinion.

 

I:          Mm.

 

J:         I don’t know, I could be 100% wrong, which I hope I am, but I still think there’s gonna be a day where North Korea’s

 

I:          Yeah.

 

J:         going to wind up taking — take over the South again, because they’re running out of money up north. Now, that’s my opinion of what I read,

 

0:28:00

 

J:         and. . . that’s all I do know, to be honest with you.

 

I:          You’re right. You’re right. Yeah, it’s very unfortunate that our country is still divided, and North Korea is suffering from —

 

J:         Yep.

 

I:          brutal dictatorship,

 

J:         Yeah.

 

I:          so that’s why I think it’s impor–

 

J:         And North Korea — and you got tons of people who lives down north of — the other part of their family lives north,

 

I:          That’s right.

 

J:         and they’re going, and they can’t get

 

0:28:30

 

J:         them anything. Anything they send, the North Koreans grab.

 

I:          Mm-hmm. Thank you, John, again —

 

J:         Okay.

 

I:          thank you.

[End of Recorded Material]