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Two more Carrico tales:
The Time I was Most Scared in
Korea
The Day Satterfield Died
 Frogmen
practicing "drop & pick up" off Silver Strand, Coronado, CA just prior
to Korean War
Preface: The author served
with U.S. Naval Underwater Demolition Teams (Frogmen) in Korea. He has
recently had a book published of his experiences entitled: EXPLOITS OF
U.S. NAVY FROGMEN IN KOREA that is available.
With the war in Korea having been over for more than 50 years, Phil’s
memory of those times, he admits, grows weaker as time goes by. However,
in discussing those times, as a memory comes, he has begun jotting them
down. Enclosed are a few of those bits and pieces from a far away time
and place which all Americans should hear and remember.
time
The Time I was Most Scared in Korea
Team 3 had pulled this particular raid from a sub – I don’t remember us
pulling a raid from another sub, so it must have been the “Perch.” We
had slipped in at night and blown a railroad tunnel far north on the
East Coast of communist Korea and were steaming back toward Japan
submerged. The sub ran into a minefield.
We were asleep and suddenly realized the sub had stopped. Not knowing
what the problem was but aware that something was bad wrong, we sat wide
eyed and watched the crew members run back and forth with big eyes and
white faces. The sub suddenly started jerky movement in reverse and then
forward – something like a car trying to get into a too small parking
space. Suddenly we heard a scrapping sound along the outside hull that
sounded like death tolls to us. It was the cables of moored mines
scrapping along the sides and the skipper was trying to maneuver away
from them without them hanging up on the vessel and being pulled down on
us. The seesawing back and forth probably lasted only 15 or 20 minutes –
but seemed like hours to us. Gotta say, I never wanted to board a sub
after that.
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day
The Day Satterfield Died
About the op where Satterfield was killed – It was a bright, warm and
beautiful morning when we pulled into this little cove on the West Coast
of Korea. A village sat back from the beach and little kids were all
over the place waving at us. Being far south of the action, we
anticipated a picnic type of job and all went ashore without a thought
of danger and nobody was armed.
Our mission was to sound out the cove to see if LST’s could beach there
to unload supplies. The whole mission reminded me of the early days in
Japan, before the war, when my squad from Team 3 had sounded all the
beaches for occupation forces maneuvers.
Suddenly all the kids just disappeared – someone noticed something was
wrong and started yelling, “hit the water!" At that time 4 or 5 young
army age men in civies popped up from behind the dunes and started
leveling rifles. Some of our guys were still standing there with their
mouths open when the men started shooting—then everybody broke for the
water. I happened to be in the water with a flutter board at the time, so I got
to the boat in a hurry (the boat being a LCPR, the vessel most used by
Frogmen units). I did have enough reason about me to go to the seaward
side of the boat to be pulled in. In his haste, Satterfield went to the
shoreward side of the boat and as we pulled him in with his back to the
beach, the NK’s (North Koreans) empty a clip right between his
shoulders.
The most amazing thing about that fiasco was that only one guy bought
it. The guys who were on the flanks and far away from the boat, ran
opposite ways down the beach.
I heard later that a company of Marines went into the village soon after
and found the following: The NK’s (North Koreans) had taken over the
village and had been living there for some time holding the entire
village captive. Of course they were long gone before the Marines
arrived. There was a rumor that sometime later, the SK’s (South Koreans)
took drastic action against the village.
Postscript: My painfully inadequate attempts at relating this incident surfaced—when I realized my fading memory would not bring back shipmate
Satterfield’s first name. It does prove to the surviving warriors of our
era however, that uncle time marches on—without sympathy. Satterfield
died far from home on a foreign shore, actually before he had begun to
live—but he had friends and Teammates by his side…
Phil’s book, EXPLOITS OF NAVY FROGMEN IN KOREA is available.
Call him at: 936 5362421 or email him at: pcarrico@academicplanet.com
or write: P.O. Box 531 Daisetta, Texas 77533
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