An Interview with Douglas Clement
I
had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Douglas Henry Clement who had served
during the Korean War and was discharged with the rank of Buck Sergeant with 3 stripes.
I was nervous going into the interview, even though I had asked my grandfather
about his experiences during service before. The interview took place at 2:30
at the Canton Library on Tuesday, May 21st, 2002. As the interview
progressed I became more comfortable, and by the time of its conclusion I felt
I had learned a great deal. Equally, I think Mr. Clement enjoyed the interview
very much, because we decided to meet again the following Tuesday to talk more
about his experiences. I felt that no matter how long I interviewed him, I
would still be only scraping the surface of stories he had to share. The
transcript below is a mere fraction of the enjoyable interview…
Question – From when
to when did you serve?
Mr. Clement – I
enlisted in the Marine Corps on January 29th, 1951, and served until
January 29th, 1954.
Question – What were
your main reasons for enlisting?
Mr. Clement - Well, there was a war going on. The Korean War was approximately six months old at the time. I had a draft notice, there were five (pause) high school guys, five of us who all had a draft notice. And I always leaned toward the Marine Corps, um; I met a lot of Ex-Marines from World War II. I grew up in Farmington and I was just impressed with the marine core. So, the five of us had our draft notices and we went down to Hartford at the old Post Office and we were gonna join up. Well, two of the guys joined the Air Force and went to Long Island, one of my buddies joined the Army and went to Chicago, and me and my other buddy joined the Marine Corps and six months later we were on the front lines in Korea. (laughs)
Question – Wow.
Mr. Clement – Quite a
contrast. But, um, like I said, I was impressed with the Marine Core and
I’m extremely proud that I joined the Marine Corps…
Question – What particular areas of Korea did you serve in? Were you moving around a lot or primarily staying in one location?
Mr. Clement – When we
got there, um, when we landed at Pusan, we boarded the small plane…Actually,
they assigned you to a replacement draft and I wound up going to Weapons
Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment. And I basically had
infantry training but I wound up in the heavy machine gun platoon. The heavy
machine gun, um, is a water-cooled gun, 450-600 rounds per minute and belt fed.
The gun weighs 32 pounds and the tripod, which you mounted it on weighed 53
pounds. We had weapons training, then they had a big offensive movement the 1st
of September, the end of August, and we were on the East Coast, about thirty
miles north of the 38th parallel. The 38th parallel was
the dividing line between North and South Korea. The First Marine Division was
anchored in, um, 30 miles north of the 38th parallel, in an area
called the Blue Diamond Ridge Line. And actually you could see the Sea of Japan
from where we were, and we made a big offensive move, and held it. Then bided
our time.
Question – How did
you deal with the climate while you were over in Korea?
Mr. Clement – The
climate…(pause). The summertime was very hot, very hot and dry. The
winter…the winter, it was unimaginable. I had seen it 28 below zero. We
were on the front lines from January to February. 60 days. They would try to
get a hot meal up to us maybe once a week, and there’s one particular
time, when I went down into the valley, the command post had a thermometer and
read 28 below zero. Now what I’m going to tell you now, don’t be
offended. But the guys would take a leak on their rifles to keep the bolt
action working. It was just so cold and we spent 60 days on the front lines. A
huge blizzard came up, and we couldn’t be rotated. The guys stayed there
for 60 days, and we never took our clothes off. We never changed, we never
washed, we never shaved. It was the same clothes for 60 days. The weather was
unbearable. Genghis Kahn is the one who said that only a fool would go into the
upper Mongolian area in the wintertime. It was devastating.
Question – Could you
describe any of the jitters or nervous experiences you had?
Mr. Clement – Uh, yeah. Just give me a minute (long pause). Um, going out on the night watch on the front lines was, uh; it’s hard to describe. I mean, you were right on the very front line, your buddy’s right next to you in a bunker but your on watch alone, and its…If you’ve ever been scared, this is the time you would be scared. And occasionally, the North Korean’s or the Chinese Communists would blow their trumpets, bang their symbols, or role their drums. They would yell at us, like, “Hey Marino we saw your sister yesterday.” “Hey Marino we were talking to your wife.” It was scary. And of course, you couldn’t do anything, because if you fired you gave away your position, so you waited for them to fire first. It was a nightmare.
Question – What was daily
life like? Was it hectic all the time or only sporadically?
Mr. Clement – No, we
had our quiet times. At this time, at this stage of the war it was more of like
a holding position. People just stayed where they were on the front lines. The
truce talks or peace talks had already started. So it was like I said, a
holding position. We went, in the spring of 1952, let me see, approximately in
March, that the 1st Marine Division went from the East Coast to the
West Coast. We actually set up around Panmunjom, where the peace talks were
going on. That was memorable. I could remember also, another thing that I
remember quite a bit was when the Seventh Regiment was set up on the place
called Death Valley. It was quiet, you know, we would get a few incoming rounds
once and awhile, but the tankers, our tankers would come up in the morning.
This is about a half a dozen tanks, and they would open up their big guns and
then turn around and go back. Well, this was enough to draw fire from the North
Koreans but the tankers were gone so we had to sit there in our foxholes and
take it. (laughs) Couldn’t do anything about it. It got to the point, I
don’t know, we were up there maybe three to four weeks.
Question – What
happened to the tanks? Why did they leave?
Mr. Clement – Because
of harassing fire. They didn’t want to sit there, because then they would
be a sitting target. The tanks would rather have those in the trench line get
pounded away. They wanted to save the tanks, so they would go up fire a bunch
of rounds and then go back into the reserve area. But it was just enough to
aggravate the enemy and he would return the fire.
Question – So what
did you do once you were in the foxhole? Just stay there and wait?
Mr. Clement – Sweat it
out.
Question – Where you
ever in there for a very long period of time?
Mr. Clement – Well, the
incoming would…(pause) Yeah, sometimes the barrage would last an hour or
so. It wasn’t too bad in comparison to some of the other outfits. But,
um, there was another spot there. Our front lines and the Korean front lines
couldn’t have been any more than 100 yards apart at a place called
“Luke the Gook’s Castle”. These nicknames come up out of
nowhere. “Death Valley”, “Bloody Ridge”, “Pork
Chop Hill”. The “Punch Bowl” was another nightmare. The
“Luke the Gook’s Castle”, we could actually see them, and
they could see us and we would snipe away at them, and they would snipe away at
us. That was it.
Question – Did
“Luke the Gook’s Castle” just represent a section of the
front lines then?
Mr. Clement – Yup, the
front line, like we were here, and 100 yards in front of us were the bad
guys…
Question - Could you describe an instance where you felt really proud to part of the war effort?
Mr. Clement – When I
came home. When we came home, back in the San Diego Harbor, it seemed to me
like the whole city was they’re waiting for us. They had bands playing,
they had the small ships come out into the harbor and they were shooting out
big streams of water. They had a huge, huge, snack table, or buffet set up for
the guys when they came back, or got off the ship. So that was good. They say
Korea was a forgotten war but, I don’t know, I don’t agree with
that. I don’t agree with it at all. It was something that had to be done,
so we did it.
Question – What was
the weather like on the voyage home and during your celebration?
Mr. Clement – We came
back…(pause). We were there just a year, so we came back in July, and the
weather coming home was nice. The return trip home, we were on the U.S.S.
Megs, and I would compare it to a cruise today because there was nothing to
do except go home. The food was good, the showers, and we even had some fresh
milk. I’ll never forget that. Some of the guys took us down to the end of
the galley, and we had fresh milk. At least they said it was fresh. It was
good.
Question – Did you write many letters to your parents or friends at home during the war?
Mr. Clement – That box,
right there is completely full of every letter I ever wrote home. I tried to write
as much as I could. My mother kept all the letters. Every single one of them.
Question – Did you share with your parents what was going on or did you try to separate them from your experience during the war?
Mr. Clement – Never
told them a thing. Never told them a thing. They would try to give us magazines
or something to read or anything, and that’s what I would tell them. I
would read an article, and then I’d write about it. I’d write about
the weather, I’d write about the food, other guys that I saw, um, other
letters that I got, but I never told my mother that I was on the front lines
being shot at. It just didn’t do it. You know, you have to draw the line
somewhere. She knew what was going on though. I let it go with that.
Question – Did you have
any daily tribulations that you just couldn’t put up with?
Mr. Clement – No. It’s funny, everyone accepted what was going on and I think, personally, that the U.S Government did everything they could for us. I mean, you are in a war, your up in the front lines and your being shot at, and you can only do so much. Like I said before, they tried to get us one hot meal a day. In the wintertime, and I thought that was pretty good. It was at least better than C-Rations. Like Cornbeef hash, beans and franks, hamburger patties – that’s what made up the C-Rations, and they were dated 1942.
Question – What was
your food like? What were you typically eating?
Mr. Clement – Well,
when we were in reserve, the food was good. (cough) But when we were on the
front line it was C-Rations. Eh, you do what you had to do. Like I said –
they called it the big three. Ground meat and spaghetti, beans and franks, and
sausage. There were three cans included and there was a little packet of
cigarettes. Smoking then was the in thing. Old Gold or Chesterfield. A little
chocolate patty, instant coffee. For water, the guys drank out of the brooks if
they had to. Water was usually treated, that we drank, but there were times
when we drank out of the brook and we are still here.
Question – How did
you feel about the civilian population living in Korea at the time?
Mr. Clement – The people were friendly; the one’s we saw. But then again, you had to be very skeptical of them. Infiltrators mixed right in with the civilian population and that was a problem…