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Standing L to R: 1 Ledbetter, 2 unk, 3 Adams - Midwest, 4 Akerson - Los Angeles,
5 Johnson - Los Angeles, 6 Nelson - Midwest, 7 Carrico - Texas,

Kneeling L to R: 8 McCormic-Texas, 9 Austin - California, 10 Lt. Atcheson - Texas

The brass had begun hearing rumblings out of North Korea. Then, seeing the fat around the bellies of the U.S. occupation forces in the area, they decided to hold giant amphibious maneuvers.

These maneuvers were scheduled to toughen up the occupation forces in Japan and Korea—in preparation for trouble that seemed to be brewing in North Korea with the communists.

Sounding out the beaches to be used in these maneuvers was the reason this ten-man detachment was sent to the Far East. Fast women and hot sake was the reason they kept missing passage back to the States.

The unit missed one passage too many however, because the communist jumped off on June 25, 1950. This ten-man detachment of UDT was the only Underwater Demolition personnel in the Far East at that time.

Communist troops began pouring down the Korean peninsula. Using Russian made T-34 tanks, they ran roughshod over the sparse U.S. occupation forces and the ill equipped ROK's.

At this point MacArthur became desperate to slow the communist advance until he could regroup and get reinforcements to the area.

That UDT detachment just happened to be in the right place at the right time, no matter that their training had been only to the high water mark or that they had no training what-so-ever in commando tactics. They were "blow" boys, they knew explosives—and that's what was needed to take out the supply lines that were feeding the communist advance.

THE BIG TEN had been housed at Camp Chigasakijust south of Yokohama. The camp was home for the 71st Heavy Tank Battalion (1st Cavalry Troopers mounted on steel horses).

These Frogmen were a mixed group. They hailed from the northeast and the Deep South. There was California beach boys, midwesterners and even a representative of the Big Thicket from east Texas.

Some 40 days after the communist jumped off, August 4*, 1950, the detachment got the word -"saddle "up"...

Early on the 4th, the outfit left Camp Chigasaki on a big army truck, carrying only their war-bags.

On arrival at a Tokyo airbase, they boarded a Navy PBY amphibian and took off. At this time the rank and file still did not know the scoop—only that we were headed for Korea...

A couple of hours in the belly of a PBY, according to rational men everywhere will satisfy your need for flying for a lifetime

We landed in the port of Sasebo on the southern island of Kyushu, just across the Sea of Japan from Korea. As we floated to a stop, a VP boat, which had been waiting for us, moved alongside. As the last man came aboard, the coxswain dug flank speed and we flashed across the bay to the APD, USS Diachinko. The little ship was hauling anchor as we climbed aboard.

As we stepped on deck, a grinning boatswain mate, who was stripped to the waist and sporting tattoos that would make an old China Hand blush, shoved Thompson Sub-machine guns guns in each of our hands.

Thompson
Sub-Machine Gun

The rest of the afternoon, as the Diachinko drove at 28 knots across a glass like sea, we learned all there was to know about a Thompson Sub-Machine gun.

Our friend, the boatswain mate, threw inflatables off the bow and as they swept by, we fired thousands of rounds at them from the fantail

With darkness our target practice ended and we were advised to take a nap—as it was going to be a long night (Have you ever tried to sleep in an APD doing 28 knots)?
 

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About 9pm, we were roused and escorted to the officer's mess. Now think about that - for 9 white hats to enter officer country, the event had to be earth shaking. It was....

Once seated and being careful not to break wind or belch (you've gotta act house broke in officer country), we stared at each other as our UDT officer spread charts, maps and photos on the table.

Once we found that we were only going on a little demolition run—we relaxed. The idea was, from using aerial photos of this railroad tunnel, located some 48 miles north of the 38th parallel, to determine the approach and calculate the amount of powder needed to blow it. A piecesa cake!!!!!

At 1 am we were rudely aroused. Our ETA off the objective was in 1 hour and we had several things to do—like getting our eyes night-ready, applying face paint, seeing to our gear, etc...

continue—

Fantail photo

The menacing outline of the Korean shoreline loomed off our starboard quarter as the ship eased to a stop. The boatswain and his white hats were expertly dropping a VP boat into the water from a swinging boom. Underwater mufflers had been attached to the boat and we could see that 30 caliber machine guns had been inserted in the turrets on each side of the cockpit.

The ship's crew tossed our 10-man rubber boat over the side and attached it to the VP boat. However, loading the 60-pound packs of TNT was our baby— like the old boatswain said, "anyone who handles that stuff must be an old "China Hand", (crazy)!

Our old friend, the boatswain, who chauffeured the VP boat and two gunner mates to handle the 30 caliber's were the only ship's company who took this ride...

About a mile offshore our LT tapped the boatswain and he pulled up. As we straddled the gunwales of the rubber boat and started paddling toward the darkened shore—old Boats threw us a kiss and whispered, "brake a leg." Then he pulled the VP hard starboard and began the first of half-mile circles that he would run while waiting for us...

We negotiated the breaker line without flipping the boat, then held up in the white water a hundred yards offshore. The LT and Peekskill, the closest thing we had to an old China Hand, would swim the rest of the way, do some sneaking and peeking, then signal the boat in at a point where it would have some cover.

After what seemed like hours of straining and cussing, trying to hold the boat in place, we finally saw Peekskill swimming out to us - he signaled, and we followed him on in.

The railroad, at this point, was built on a ledge, which had been carved from the side of the mountain. The track entered a tunnel right where we landed and this tunnel was our targets. Immediately, as we pulled the boat on the beach and took cover, we saw a problem. The tunnel was directly in front of us, but on a ledge 30 feet above our heads, with no access that we could see, Peekskill told us that the Lt. had gone down the narrow strip of beach to try and find an access to the ledge and that we were to sit tight. Then he took off after the Lt.

After a couple of minutes we began to hear someone move around on the ledge. We were fingering the unfamiliar Thompsons—but not having a target, we just set tight, hoping no one pitched a grenade down from the ledge.

Suddenly a muffled blast went off (we found out later that the blast came from a grenade which the Lt. had tossed into the tunnel). Then all hell broke loose as automatic fire began spraying out of the tunnel mouth.

Being out of the line of fire, we were almost like casual observers. However, the screams of pain, shouts and curses were all in Korean and coming from the tunnel mouth just 60 or 70 feet from where we huddled.

Suddenly the sound of running feet came from down the track and a voice began to shout in English, "hang in there Lt., I'm coming." We could only see the silhouette, but recognized Peekskill's voice as he charged the tunnel. He was screaming like a banshee and firing the Thompson from the hip as he closed with the invisible communists. (He had just gained the ledge as the grenade went off and figured the NK's were killing the Lt.).

As we moved away from our cover and began firing into the tunnel mouth, a round hit Peekskill and he went down. As we continued to fire, Peekskill rolled to the edge and took another round as he went over the edge. We heard him hit 20 yards down the beach from us, then roll to the water's edge where he was still.