From: Fred Martin (mung@in-touch.net)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 07:10:48 PDT
Had a nice long talk with the girlfriend's father yesterday and
found out he was one of the first outfits (army artillary) into Korea,
came from Japan on LST's (landing ship tanks)...said they didn't have
equipment to lash down vehicles and used several turns of no. 9 wire.
Also said the damn cooks were too lazy to lash down the mobile kitchen
truck and rough seas took it over the side...bummer! The point of this
is...he said the M-211 (I think...with the automatic
transmission)...while in Korea wasn't liked. He said that while going
downhill on muddy type terrain...(also commented on no hard top roads in
Korea) that the darn thing would downshift on it's own and all wheels
would slide...losing traction and steerability. Any of you guys that own
these noticed this? I think that while we all have enough mud...maybe
Bobby Joe can volunteer his vehicle to field test this...unless the
shift kit he put in his corrected it.
He also described in detail the firing of the 105 artillary piece (7 of
them to a battery)...from the aim stake to the charge 5 and fire for
effect bit and said at night that you got used to them going off...but
when you heard charge 1 and fire for effect...you immediately started
rolling up your bed roll and prepared to get out of there...cause the
enemy was about to overrun you. He then went on to tell about a small
plane that the enemy used at night (had a GI name for it) which looked
for fires (cold in Korea) and would drop mortar shells on you. Said one
of the guys on a halftrack with quad 50's on it trained it on the moon
and waited forever till the plane came in light of the moon, led him a
little and shot him down. The rest of the guys were sure proud of
him...but a couple of nights later...another one came. I told the
girlfriend that he should write down his memories. Maybe it should be
posted on the Korean War Project. One last comment on the truck that I
bet Bobby Joe didn't know...Paul (Paul W. Mills) also told me that they
would put a wire around a can of beer and put it down the gas tank to
cool it...sounds crude...but must have worked for them. Thanks for the
band space. Fred Martin
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