ATIS INTERROGATION REPORT NO 4083 19 March 1951
The following information was obtained from recovered American military personnel, who were interrogated upon arrival in JAPAN from KOREA by Central Interrogation Center, TIS. The interrogation was conducted at Tokyo Army Hospital by Capt SHAPPELL.
On 11 Feb 51, while on outpost duty on Hill 704, source with three ROK soldiers, was captured by twelve Chinese and made to march quietly about 1/2 mile down the hill to a partly burned out house. Here he was stripped of everything but a suit of heavy underwear.
A Chinese interpreter called source to one side, showed him a map (1:1,000,000 scale) of KOREA and asked him to point out the position of all UN Forces. He was next shown a set of three pictures, each 15” square of a Chinese platoon annihilating three UN companies. The first picture was the attack, the second the halfway point and the third showed the battlefield after the engagement. Finally, he was asked to fill out a card about 6” x 4” reproduced below.
Source heard later that the three ROKs were shown the map, pictures and were asked to sign a form printed in Korean. The four prisoners stayed in this house at the base of Hill 704 until 13 Feb 51, when their clothes were returned to them and they were taken up the hill and told to gather up American hand grenades. While they were doing this, E Co, 19th Inf attacked the hill and in the confusion all four men escaped and made their way to the lines of F Co. which was supporting the attack.
While on a mission to contact the 2nd Div near WONJU on 12 Jan 51, source’s jeep hit a land mine and was wrecked. Source, Cpl HAYWOOD, Cpl SHERRON, Pvt ZSERAI and a Korean interpreter all of A Co, walked about two miles through the mountains in an effort to contact friendly forces. During this march, the group became separated and source and Pvt ZSERAI were captured by seven N. Koreans dressed in civilian clothing. Weapons, shoe pacs and all personal possessions were taken and they were marched further into the mountains and placed in a hut.
After several hours wait, about 250 – 300 guerillas had assembled and the two prisoners were marched all night until a village was reached. Here, source was taken into a room occupied by three Koreans. One, speaking perfect English, told the source that he was a prisoner of the Korean People’s Army and would not be killed. He next asked if source had anything taken from him and when source said yes, the interpreter had everything returned. Source was then told that the N Korean Army was not the enemy of the UN Forces but President TRUMAN and Gen MacARTHUR were. He was then quizzed concerning his outfit, no. of men in outfit, no. of men in TAEGU and PUSAN and lectured on how the Communists were fighting a peaceful war.
During the interrogation, Cpls HAYWOOD and SHERRON were brought in and after they were interrogated along the same lines, all four were held together. During the afternoon of 13 Jan 51, they were given safe conduct passes and told to leave. The four men walked steadily until 15 Jan 51, meeting N Korean patrols who waved them on after reading the safe conduct passes, until the lines of the 2nd Div were reached.
For the CO, TIS:
WEELDREYER
