Another story of my father-in-law’s time in the Korean War, all in his own words. Any comments by me are in italics.
All internet images have been removed from this post, sorry.
While
serving in Korea in 1952, I was authorized to carry my own personal side arm
instead of the assigned weapon, a carbine, for extra mobility. My job was to
walk about a mile on the MLR (Main Line of Resistance) to visit my 75mm gun
emplacements. I followed a path along a communications trench just below the
crest of our hill, stopping frequently, with both hands free to hold my 20
power binoculars. I was looking for targets of opportunity for my guns in the
mile wide valley separating us from the enemy trench lines.
My pistol was a Colt Commander
which was a lighter weight (26 oz) aluminum frame, shorter versions (4 inch
barrel) of the Govern. At night I slept with my
pistol under my make-shift pillow, round chambered, hammer back, safety on. My sleeping bag had a breakaway zipper for fast exit.
Colt Commander,
not the exact pistol in the story
Unless
I expected trouble, I left my M-2 carbine, with a selector switch making it capable of firing full automatic, in my command bunker. It was kept
loaded with two 30-round magazines taped back to back. We also had a .45 cal
Thompson submachine gun on wall pegs. Both were cumbersome to carry up and down
the steep hills. I need to be ready to move fast to avoid snipers in the
valley.
Sometimes .45 caliber
ammunition was hard to find but my daily walk took me past our Sherman tanks
which were dug in along the MLR. They were used in direct fire as needed, with
only their turret and 76mm cannons exposed, and heavily camouflaged. Tankers
had grease guns, cheaply made .45 cal. Submachine guns, so I could get
ammunition from when needed. Some cartridges being issued had steel instead of
brass shell casings, left over from WWII production as was nearly all of the equipment
being used during the Korean War. (Congressmen Please Note: when 36,634
American soldiers are KIA, it should be called a War, not a “conflict”).
While offline
and in a blocking position, I took pistol practice often to remain proficient. My
pistol started having unusual jams on extraction and ejection. Occasionally a
spent shell casing would stove pipe (get caught by the slide moving forward and
left standing straight up in the breech). A change of magazines did not help. I then
found that most of the tip of my pistol’s extractor had broken off.
When fired,
a brass shell casing will expand to the chamber walls then contract back to near
size for easy extraction. A steel casing also expands but remains glued to the
chamber walls. That is what broke my extractor, making the pistol unreliable in
time of need.
I
explained what happened in a letter to my father in Conn. He relayed the
problem to Colt HQ in Hartford. A replacement extractor arrived in the mail
from Colt very quickly and at no charge. My pistol was then good as new, thanks
to caring strangers at Colt, 7,000 miles away.
Lt.
Marshall Tharp
Korea,
9/52-6/53.
Notes
from his son-in-law: growing up in the 50s on the gritty Lower East Side of
Manhattan, many of the adult men had served in either Korea or WWII. My mother
told me to address grown men as “sir”. When I did so, most of them would reply
with a grin, don’t “sir” me, I’m not an officer. I knew of the Korean War. It was
only in my teens that I heard about the “police action” or “conflict”. It’s always
been the Korean War to me.
If
you’d like to read more of his stories, please comment below and let him know.
4 comments:
Great little story. I've had issues with steel cased ammo before as well, but nothing like it breaking an extractor! Colt is a wonderful company. My father also wrote to them (but during Vietnam) over some issues and received incredibly quick responses, including one on the owner of a .38 Police Special that was retrieved from a VC.
More Korea stories please!
Thank you for posting this. Your stories are fascinating and I have enjoyed them very much.
Another little fascinating glimpse of life during the Korean War. Thank your father-in-law for sharing his stories, which I really enjoy and always look forward to reading more:).
Thanks for another story from him, its interesting views into otherwise lost details that most of use would never know of, and like all the other memories people have of living such interesting lives, is lost to time, without it ever being known about.
such details of lives lived enrich all of us when shared, and help keep reminding us that we are all better off not living through such interesting times.
Here's to him sharing more for years to come.
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