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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this addition is

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Patrick Finn. He is a US
Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War.

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He is also one of the Chosen
Few, the Marines who found a way

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to escape Chosen Reservoir despite being completely
surrounded and badly outnumbered by Chinese forces.

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Mister Finn, thank you so much
for being with us. You're certainly welcome.

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Where were you born and raised their
Minneapolis. Was there a history of

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military service in your family? Oh? No, none whatsoever. Well,

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I had a brother that was a
Navy I'm sorry. Now you actually joined

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a little bit earlier than you should
have, right, Yes, well,

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some of the other guys were doing
it, and it looks kind of romantic,

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nice uniform, and you could go
into the beer hall and so on

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and so forth. So I fudged
my age a bit, and I was

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on a three year enlistment and when
that expired, I thought I'd have enough,

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but they told me I had to
bring back my uniforms and so on

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and so forth. So or paid
ninety two dollars. That's awful lot of

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money, and I swettered my options
as well you could re enlist, so

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I relisted, and within a year
I was in Korea. So you ended

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up in Korea because of ninety two
dollars exactly not very smart. But now

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you were a rifleman in Korea?
Where you trained initially as a rifleman?

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Yes? And what type of weapon
were you trained? And one? Did

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it come pretty easily to you?
Were you good marksman? Fairly decent?

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Coming from Minnesota. You do get
involved with guns a bit, so that

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was a fairly decent martsman. What
unit were you attached to? The fifth

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Marines? When did you find out
that you were likely going to Korea?

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Probably August of nineteen fifty, late
July, or shortly after the war broke

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out. The war broke out on
June twenty fifth, so sometimes shortly after

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that. Before then, did you
know much about Korea? I didn't have

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any idea. I didn't know where
it was or anything about it really.

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So when you arrived in Korea,
what was the situation there? Chaotic?

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Things had happened awfully fast for the
Koreans and for the US support, and

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so things were They seemed chaotic,
but they were actually pretty well orchestrated you

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know, if everybody did their job, it was. It all worked good.

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But to me, as a former
civilian, it looked like it was

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to hands. When in nineteen fifty
did you arrive? Were we still in

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the Pusan perimeter or were we around
in Chao? So I came in at

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once on wance On Harbor. We
had to wait out in harbor for a

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while because they had a lot of
mines that they had to sweep out first.

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So as soon as they got that
done, we joined the group started

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our track toward the Chosen Reservoir.
At first the track was going well correct,

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Yes, it seemed like all of
the tools that the war was almost

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over. They did a little mopping
up to do of some North Koreans that

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were still there. But we found
out a lot different after the Chinese centered

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the war. Well, that was
obviously the game changing event there in November

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of nineteen fifty. How did you
find out, Well, we took some

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captives and found out. But the
people in Tokyo that were supposedly running the

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war wouldn't believe that there was a
Chinese there. They said they would never

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come in. Well, they were
there, but the Chinese did a real

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good job of camouflizing themselves, so
they were completely around us before we had

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any idea they were. There was
roughly one hundred and thirty thousand people Chinese,

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so they did a real good job
of They would only move at night,

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not during to day, so we
didn't have a clue until they were

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coming after us. So you had
North Korean prisoners telling you that the Chinese

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were coming, and the higher ups
didn't believe it. We had Chinese tell

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us that the Chinese that we captured, they said that they were. In

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fact, they were very open about
what we were against. They even said

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that there were a couple of hundred
thousand more on the other side of the

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Yellow River. In case the first
patch didn't get the job done, Explain

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what's happening as you discover you're surrounded, What orders are you getting, what's

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the atmosphere like with you and the
other men. It happened very suddenly in

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the middle of the night. It
was about one or two in the morning.

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We heard these bugles and clattering and
whistles going and people screaming. Really

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made you wonder what was happening,
And there that was the Chinese coming after

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us, and by the time,
we knew that they were all around us,

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and the first thing they did is
just came in and looked for anybody

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in a sleeping bag and they would
stab them. So that was our awakening

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to it. Then we realized that
we were completely surrounded, so you had

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to be very careful so that you
didn't shoot some of your own people.

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Everybody kind of well, they did
their job, so it worked out too.

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It was supposed to be at workout
took the toll of a lot of

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Chinese. The bad battle. I
was in un hill number fifteen to twenty.

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They counted the next day that there
were three hundred and forty two Chinese

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dead, and I'm I'm not sure
if our count It was like in the

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twenties. So our training paid off. What kind of orders were you given

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once you were surrounded? What were
commanders telling you? Well, at first

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it was a fifty percent watch,
and we put up the trip wires and

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so on so that we'd know of
anybody coming in. The words came that

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there were bord Chinese or people out
there than they imagined, so they pressed

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one hundred percent moments and then,
like I say, suddenly all we hear

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was these bugles and all those terrible
racket and it was intimidating at first we

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realized what was going on. That's
the way they told their men what to

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do. We battled until I believe
it was it was starting to get light

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at six o'clock or so in the
morning before we had a chance to really

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kind of every group, and it
was kind of a kind of a rude

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awakening to this whole thing that,
you know, we thought we were told

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that we'd fight our way up through
North Korea and there's ships waiting for us,

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we'd go home, we'd be there
for Christmas. So this is quite

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quite a change in agenda. You
mentioned that they were the Chinese were stabbing

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or bayoneting sleeping bags, trying to
kill the Marines. At the same time,

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you've got horrible weather conditions there with
the cold. Explained just how cold

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it was, Well, we had
two enemies, the Chinese and the weather.

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The weather was I'm from Minnesota,
so I was kind of used to

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weather, but this was something else. We were twenty They say thirty blows

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there a weather then in Minnesota.
But it's cool like that. You've got

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a place you can go in and
get warm, and so on. In

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Korea, we couldn't. I mean, you were just out of it all

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the time. The sleeping bag incident
where the two guys were killed at first

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on the first attack. So from
then on we didn't dare use our sleeping

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bags, so we might wrap around
our feet or wearing like a jacket for

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a while. But the weather was
just it was horrible. Uh, we

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weren't trained for that. We had
to learn how to cope. For an

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example, that everything froze, the
food froze, the water froze, and

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we learned to take food that we
wanted and seven inside of our shirt and

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so eight hours or so later to
be warm enough that you could open it

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up and eat it. The other
thing was that if you didn't keep moving,

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you'd freeze to death. There were
a lot of bodies that were absolutely

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well frozen in the position that they
were last in, whether it was with

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the rifle or sleeping or whatever happened
that that was that was pretty grotesque.

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We had a lot of things happened
that we weren't used to, just things

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like that that we had to learn
fast. And I was lucky. I

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was a reserved. What I went, I was like excuse me, first

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replacement draft when I got into Greer
uh, and so I budded up to

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a fellow that was a regular marine
and had been through combat. And so

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that was that was a real lucky
break for me because he he gave me

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the quick education on what did you
foxhoil a little deeper and uh that type

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of thing. In fact, he
actually saved my life twice. One of

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them was, uh, when the
Chinese came to my side and I made

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a move to cheot him, and
my rifle approached just a click and this

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man Riley shot and killed the Chinese. So saved my life. Uh.

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He taught me a lot of things
about don't don't be satisfied with it with

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a shallow foxhil, keep taking even
though the ground was like rock. That's

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exactly I was going to ask.
Could you dig a foxhole when the grounds

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that cold? It was hard?
You take your your k knife or canine

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knife and just break it up much
you could. It was very tempting to

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stop and not do it. A
lot of the guys took a little piece

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of wood and so and so forth
and built a kind of a barrier around

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the fox showl. His advice to
me. It was really well taken.

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Sometimes I didn't want to do what
he suggested. But one night a mortar

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but off right behind us and killed
two guys right behind us. And if

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we hadn't had a deep Fox show
we'd been, we'd have been dead.

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We were kicked out of the Fox
show like the concussion. But if we

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hadn't, if we'd have been more
towards the surface, we'd have been either

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killed or seriously wounded. So he
used my safe. Here's my guardian angel.

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That's Patrick Finn, a veteran of
the US Marine Corps and the Korean

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War, describing how he and other
Marines were surrounded by the Chinese at Chosen

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Reservoir after an ambush in late nineteen
fifty. As you just heard mister Finn

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say, there were two enemies for
the Marines at Chosen Reservoir, the Chinese

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and the weather still ahead. Mister
Finn describes the brutality of hand to hand

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combat against the Chinese and how the
Marines finally broke out from Chosen Reservoir.

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But when we come back, we'll
talk more about the horrifically frigid temperatures.

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The one thing he says you had
to do to stay alive in those conditions

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and much more. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles sixty Seconds of

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Service. This sixty Seconds of Service
is presented by T Mobile. T Mobile

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offers exclusive discounts for veteran and military
families and are proud supporters of the National

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Defense Network. Visit t mobile dot
com to learn more about how they support

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00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:50.799
our military community. In Cadillac,
Michigan, a program at the Veterans Serving

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Veterans Park is helping to memorialize the
sacrifices of their local heroes. The group

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has a goal to assimble one hundred
memorial picnic tables to place on the park's

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brand new pavilion. So far,
they have about seventy of them put together,

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and it's been done with the help
of several community groups. It costs

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fifty dollars to have a veteran's name
engraved into the table. Each one is

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built from the ground up, with
much of the material donated by the Home

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Depot. They tell us it takes
anywhere between forty five minutes to an hour

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to assemble just one table, but
they say it's well worth the time and

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effort. The Manton High School cross
country team is scheduled to be on hand

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next to put together tables next week. For more great veteran stories, just

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go to National Defense Network dot com. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg

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Corumbas. Our guest in this edition
is Patrick Finn, a veteran of the

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US Marine Corps and a survivor of
the horrific Battle of Chosen Reservoir during the

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Korean War. Mister Finn and the
other survivors are often known as the Frozen

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Chosen. We now pick up mister
Finn's story as he explains what he and

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his fellow marines tried to do to
generate some warmth in the bitter cold and

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really just stay alive. One of
the things we had to do, whether

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you wanted to do or not,
was keep moving. If you didn't move,

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like some people that were wounded and
so on, and they had to

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stop, they froze to death.
It was just as simple as that.

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You could. We knew it was
on the other side, so in the

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daylight when they weren't attacking us,
we could wrap the sleeping bags around us

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and so on, and we could
build a fire and warm some chow.

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But that night you just, uh, you were on guard all the time,

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and that's kind of what wears you
down too. You get so exhausted

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and the cold weather also helps exhaust
you, and you can't you eatn frozen

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chow, so you get a lot
of strikes against you. But we wouldn't

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have made it out of there,
I don't believe unless it was as well

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orchestrated as it was. I mean, uh, the air force was uh

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protecting us and keep firing at the
communists and keep their heads down. So

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it gave us a chance to to
react more if if they'd have been able

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to swarm in in the numbers that
they had had been bad. But uh,

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in the Marine Corps, everybody looks
out for the other guy, so

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and that worked. That worked.
Everybody remembered it, and uh, you

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were very dependent on the guy next
to you and see on you. The

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training that they gave us was well
worthwhile. But they didn't know that we

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could have this weather thing to contend
with, and that was really that was

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really a crippler. We were very
fortunate, I think in our commanding general,

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man by the name of Opie Oliver
Oliver Smith was uh. He was

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combat savvy. He he knew exactly
what the and he didn't do exactly what

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they asked him to do with Tokyo
because he knew better what should be done.

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And he wasn't insubordinate, but he
was. He slowed things down where

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they'd fit. In other words,
Tokyo wanted to go right up to the

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Yallou River. Well, that would
have meant a supply line that was probably

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seventy miles long, and General Smith
knew that that was not safe, and

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so he had any reason to slow
it down, he would do that.

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And the other thing that I knew
about there was he stopped and built an

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airport runway. Should say that's crazy, but he knew that it really got

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bad. He wanted the place to
be able to take the dead and wounded

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out and bring replacements in and also
supplies. So he did those kinds of

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things quietly. But he's amazing General. I think personal thoughts, I wasn't

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quite as impressed with those that were
trying to run the war from Tokyo.

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I understand why, yes, how
did they resupply you when you're totally surrounded.

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A lot of it was by parachutes
before they blew up the bridge.

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There's only one supplier out one road, and when the Chinese watched us go

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into the trap, but once we
were in there, they blew up the

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only bridge that we could get out
through. And so therefore we were pretty

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much dependent on air drops of supplies
both AMMO and food whatever we needed,

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and parts of the bridge to rebuild
it. Right. Yeah, that was

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that was amazing. It was one
of the miracles of the war as far

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as I'm concerned, that they could
take And somebody remembered that there was a

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sedgeway bridge over in Japan, and
they put their thoughts together and flew over.

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They dropped one first, and the
parachutes weren't enough they didn't support the

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part of the bridge, so it
kept crashing down. So after that they

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had extra parachutes and so on,
and you dropped eight of those position then

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it was our way of survival.
I just marvel at that all keep together.

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How big of an area is it
at chosen reservoir that you are in

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as you're encircled, you know,
I don't know if I can answer that

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because it kind of tapered off,
but it previous sized area. I guess

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I can't tell you exactly, but
it went up toward the Yalu, which

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was I think twenty or twenty five
miles north, and then first we had

217
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to fight our way south as the
Chinese had you encircled, how did they

218
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try to attack you and how did
you try to to respond or take the

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fight to them. We more often
took a defensive nature because of that.

220
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There was a few of us compared
to how many of them there were,

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and they would manpower didn't mean anything
to them. They just keep waves.

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In fact, the first wave often
times they wouldn't even have rifles, wait

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till somebody else was killed, and
then they'd take that rifle. So it

224
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was like a shooting gallery really a
lot of the time. It had to

225
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be for us to do that with
that many of them versus what do we

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had. So they did not value
their soldiers' lives. No, No,

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they were more interested I think in
trying to get food if they if they

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made an advance or whatever. And
they weren't for the most part, weren't

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dressed very well. I didn't have
one case where friends in our group named

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David kind of disappeared. Well,
you know, we're did you go worzy.

231
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It's one nobody knew. And three
or four days later somebody shot a

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Chinese soldier and wearing David's clothing.
Those kinds of things are they're hard to

233
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look at. I mean, it's
just painful. You mentioned that they parachuted

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in supplies of weapons and food and
the parts to create the bridge amazingly.

235
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How did they deal with wounded service
members? How did you evacuate? Well,

236
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that was that was a problem.
Uh, it was hard to evacuate

237
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them up from the reservoir once we
got down a further breaking out of there

238
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than we could. But uh,
it was a case of making him as

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comfortable as we could. The corman, Uh for plasma's when they'd have to

240
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put in their mouth to keep it
from freezing, or morphine, you know,

241
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pain killer. Uh. The wound
that it was really hard because they

242
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almost had to stack them up and
a lot of them are on the trucks

243
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and if there were wounds to bed
that they couldn't be mobile at all.

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It freese enough and we saw all
of that. That is Patrick Finn,

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00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:15.839
a US Marine Corps veteran of the
Korean War and one of the frozen chosen

246
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:21.640
the Marines who survived the horrific Battle
of Chosen Reservoir. When we come back,

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we'll spend time discussing the brutal fighting
at Chosen Reservoir and how a lot

248
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of the fighting was hand to hand, and later mister Finn tells us how

249
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the Marines finally broke out from Chosen
Reservoir, what happened after that, and

250
00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:42.880
his unforgettable return to Korea decades later. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is

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Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in

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this edition is Patrick Finn, a
US Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War

253
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and the brutal Battle of Chosen Reservoir. In a few moments, we'll hear

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how the Marines finally broke out of
Chosen Reservoir and what mister Finn has to

255
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say about the price of freedom.
But now mister Finn takes us inside the

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intensity of the fighting at Chosen Reservoir. As I asked him if he had

257
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engaged in hand to hand fighting,
Yeah, it was. It was so

258
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close in As I mentioned earlier,
you're cautious in your shooting because you didn't

259
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want to shoot your own people,
and we had a close combat like that

260
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that can be a problem. So
yes, there was there was hand to

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end. What's that like? You
know, when it's over, it's scary

262
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:48.440
what's happening? You're just so busy
doing what you're taught to do that don't

263
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I don't remember ever being scared when
it was happening. The boy. After

264
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it was over, it you know, it's it becomes a reality then and

265
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it's it's uh uh I'll say it, but it's it's shakes you. When

266
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I got back to the hospital of
Japan, I was really, uh a

267
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kind of overwhelmed or concerned with what
I'd done in the hand to end and

268
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whatever. Killing somebody is it's not
my nature and uh we had some good

269
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advice and so on and kind of
tempered that, but it's it's, uh,

270
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you know, they're they're there.
They didn't want to be there anymore

271
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than we didn't want to be there. So it's just uh, kill ery

272
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killed. Were you? Was this
with fists? Was it with knives or

273
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whatever you could grab or well?
Yeah, usually it was uh was made

274
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:45.079
at if you had or or a
butt or uh. There wasn't too much

275
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of that. Usually we had uh
enough uh latitude that we could shoot or

276
00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.960
throw over an aid or whatever.
It was an experience that I wasn't raised

277
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to uh be involved in. I
mean, this is so different than anything

278
00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:10.200
I'd do. The thing that really
kept it glued together is people doing their

279
00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:15.759
own job, from the general,
the air force, and the medics,

280
00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:25.480
the chaplains of everybody took chaos and
it was chaotic and did what they had

281
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to do or we should have done
to get us out of there. And

282
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that plus some prayers that got us
out. Talk about the defensive strategy,

283
00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:40.680
how much was it explained to you
based on where they positioned you and so

284
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forth, what they thought was the
most effective way of stopping the Chinese from

285
00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:49.759
attacking. I wasn't high enough in
the management to get all the inside,

286
00:23:49.799 --> 00:23:56.240
but I can give you an example
of the hill that I had the toughest

287
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:00.480
time, the hill number fifteen twenty. The Chinese were already embittered up,

288
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and they had foxhols and so on, and we were told to take the

289
00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:10.640
hill, and we did. That's
always harder when you're going up and they're

290
00:24:10.839 --> 00:24:17.279
already there. But we did manage
to take the hill. And we were

291
00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:22.839
holding it, and we sent down
for more AMMO and the AMMO carriers got

292
00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:27.720
ambushed, so we didn't get the
AMMO, and we kept firing until the

293
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Chinese were kind of quiet. Then
they knew that as soon as that machine

294
00:24:32.839 --> 00:24:37.960
gun we were down to one machine
gun stopped firing, that it was open

295
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game for them. And twenty of
our guys are eighteen, I'm not sure

296
00:24:42.519 --> 00:24:48.079
the count went down the hill and
there were six of us, one machine

297
00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:52.559
gunner and five riflemen still up there, and when that machine gunner ran out

298
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of ammo, we had to go, and we took a trail down the

299
00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:04.359
side to the mountain. We regrouped. There wasn't enough of us left to

300
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have a company, even so they
joined us with I think it was how

301
00:25:08.799 --> 00:25:12.680
company, and they went back up
again the next day. It took the

302
00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:18.160
hillow again. That's kind of the
way it operated. You did what had

303
00:25:18.160 --> 00:25:22.400
to be done at the time because
there was no real there's no real game

304
00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:26.519
plan is to you know what they're
going to do, or we just have

305
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.160
to react to it. That at
some point, did you injure your leg?

306
00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:34.200
Yeah, well it froze them.
Yeah, very embracelest today because of

307
00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:40.720
it. It's uh. And then
the trigger finger. You know, you

308
00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:45.000
had the gloves which you couldn't wear
the gloves all the time because you wouldn't

309
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:48.799
be able to fire at a short
notice. So we had to cut the

310
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:52.799
chips up of the gloves, so
we had our fingers. I've got some

311
00:25:53.839 --> 00:25:59.240
problems from that, but it's I
was lucky compared to a lot of the

312
00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:04.079
guys. How long did your recuperation
take? Wait? I was in three

313
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:10.480
different hospital in Japan. It was
just kind of a gradual thing and it

314
00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:15.359
never did really go away. It
changed into neuropathy in later years and that

315
00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:22.279
type thing. It got better.
Yeah, they said it would get better.

316
00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:26.599
It did. We had to watch
out for fumus or something after that

317
00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:32.400
because your feet were very sensitive to
it. A lot of the guys lost

318
00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:37.720
toes and lost feet, and yeah, I was. I was very fortunate.

319
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Are you still sensitive to cold?
Oh? Yeah? Was that the

320
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end of combat for you or did
you come back after recording? Oh?

321
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We fought our way down. Every
every able bodied person had to do that,

322
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and we had a wounded and did
in the trucks. Then we would

323
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guard the trucks as best we could
and keep them, but as I said

324
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:04.160
earlier, a lot of them frosed
to death anyway. So tell me how

325
00:27:04.200 --> 00:27:10.160
you finally escaped from Chosen reservoir.
Was it once the bridge was completed,

326
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:14.839
Yes, that's that kind of opened
a way, But we had to fight

327
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:17.680
our way all the way down.
I mean, the Chinese were not going

328
00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:21.480
to give up that easily. What
was that like? Describe that fighting well?

329
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:26.519
Sporadic. What they would do is
try and slower a convoy down and

330
00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:30.839
they would shoot the drivers of the
trucks or jeebs or whatever. That was

331
00:27:30.839 --> 00:27:37.599
a favorite because that would stop everything. And every time that happened and the

332
00:27:37.640 --> 00:27:44.240
possession stopped, you have to,
you know, start combat again to break

333
00:27:44.279 --> 00:27:48.400
it loose and get the clear the
nest and get rid of the Chinese.

334
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:56.799
Even if it meant pushing the truck
over the edge of the mountain. You

335
00:27:56.920 --> 00:28:00.480
did what you had to do.
A lot of it was text and a

336
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:08.160
lot of it wasn't that. The
parts that really kept things going, I

337
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:14.200
think is the fact that everybody's supporting
each other. If they hadn't done that,

338
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:19.640
if they just kind of ran rampant
and scrambled, we'd all been buried

339
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:26.519
up there. How was the escape
organized? Where were you and the convoy

340
00:28:26.599 --> 00:28:29.119
and and that sort of thing.
Well, we were towards the end of

341
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:34.039
it. Item company was to carry
up the rear. When we first we're

342
00:28:34.119 --> 00:28:38.920
leaving the reservoir. We kept our
big guns at the end, of course,

343
00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:44.279
and kept lobbing them over into the
Chinese and you can see them coming

344
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:49.319
over the over the ridges as we
proceeded out. The kind of eerie feeling.

345
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:55.960
You feel very powerless. I mean, you have to do what you

346
00:28:56.039 --> 00:28:59.640
have to do, and you want
to do that, but you feel like

347
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:03.160
you'd like to do more, and
you know you're kind of lovered it.

348
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:07.359
Once the evacuation started. How long
did it take you to get out of

349
00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:15.079
there? I can't tell you exactly. I'm guessing twelve thirteen d's. That's

350
00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:18.759
a guess, because we did it
more or those two parts. I did

351
00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:25.079
anyway down from the reservoir down to
hagar Ree and then met up with some

352
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:29.400
of the others and continued on from
there. Now, the thing most Americans

353
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:34.079
take from the story of Chosen Reservoir
is the fact that the Marines were able

354
00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:40.079
to escape. They weren't annihilated there, but What sometimes gets overshadowed is it

355
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:45.319
still came at a very heavy cost. Terrible, terrible woodman is a heavy

356
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:48.799
cost. But this was a lot
of men, A lot of men would

357
00:29:48.839 --> 00:29:55.039
and I think if I remember correctly, there is thirty five thousand killed in

358
00:29:55.160 --> 00:30:00.440
a war. That's some people from
other countries too, of course. Yeah,

359
00:30:00.440 --> 00:30:07.279
that was that was uh uh very
expensive war in the way of human

360
00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:15.680
beings and and uh disabilities what have
you. Yeah, it's hard and you

361
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:21.480
lost some close friends there. Oh
no, that was that was hard.

362
00:30:21.559 --> 00:30:25.000
That's Riley I was talking about.
That saved me so many times. On

363
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:30.880
uh December third, he got killed
and a couple others, real close friend.

364
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:36.599
December third, for some reason,
Uh was the toughest on my friends,

365
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:44.160
you know. But uh, yeah, it's painful. It's painful to

366
00:30:44.839 --> 00:30:48.960
to see a wounded person that you
can't really help in a way. Well,

367
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:52.119
for example, let's tell you what. The six of us were coming

368
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:56.920
down the side of the hill.
We weren't quite sure we were coming down

369
00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:03.480
into uh our territory. But on
our way down, I heard this real

370
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:10.000
hard mourning and crying, and we
stopped and here was a gunny sergeant the

371
00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.519
bars that he was this she was
just really badly shot up. He died

372
00:31:14.599 --> 00:31:18.559
later, but then hauling him down
the hill. Uh. It just there

373
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:26.960
so many of those things happening that. Uh, there's a lot of stories

374
00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:30.559
any others that stand out to you. One of them was, of course,

375
00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:34.079
on our way out, we were
afraid that we weren't going to be

376
00:31:34.119 --> 00:31:38.599
having air support because it was cloudy
and the guys couldn't fly well. And

377
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.960
the night before we really took off, we looked up in the sky,

378
00:31:42.400 --> 00:31:47.400
uh, and here was a star
came through it, almost like the Star

379
00:31:47.480 --> 00:31:52.119
of Bethlehem. And we knew then
that they that the weather was clearing and

380
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:59.000
that we had a chance of getting
out. That was there was things like

381
00:31:59.079 --> 00:32:07.359
that that do stand up about that, and the bridge and individual things.

382
00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:13.119
The touchy roll story has been told
so many times where we were running out

383
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:19.039
of ammunition and everything had a code
name, and mortars were called tutsi rolls,

384
00:32:19.720 --> 00:32:23.720
and they got out the radio and
said, Japan said we need toutsier

385
00:32:23.799 --> 00:32:29.480
rolls really bad. And the next
day, I think it'd be nineteen over

386
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:34.880
there, the flying box car came
through it through palets of toutsyer rolls.

387
00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:37.960
But it was a good thing for
us because all of our food was frozen,

388
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:43.440
so we could take these toutsyer rolls
and shove men against our bodies and

389
00:32:43.559 --> 00:32:47.839
have something to nourish us. But
there's a lot of those kind of stories.

390
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:51.279
Did they finally send you mortars at
some point? Oh? Yeah,

391
00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:54.240
they correct that. You know afterwards
you could laugh at it. At the

392
00:32:54.319 --> 00:32:59.200
time, it was very serious.
The tucci roll people come to our conventions

393
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.160
every year. They very good supply
as what's yer olds with? What was

394
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:09.440
it like when you were finally free
from that horrible situation? Unbelievable. I

395
00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:15.880
got flown through uh Japan as in
the hospital, and we were we were

396
00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:20.920
hungry because we weren't eating right,
you know, we're eating anything frozen.

397
00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:24.279
And I remember they told you you
could you can have anything you want to

398
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:30.160
eat. Would you like it?
Oh boy? The chocolate balt pool that

399
00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:32.599
down and ask came right back up? I was. I got so sick

400
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:37.519
because my body wasn't used to that. But for a long time it didn't

401
00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:40.200
think it didn't feel possible that it
was that it was out of there,

402
00:33:42.359 --> 00:33:47.000
and had such terrible memories of what
it was like. Uh, the country

403
00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:55.359
was leveled and the UH civilians were
distraught when we heard there were cold,

404
00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.480
tired, exhausted. I should see, hungry for real food and all the

405
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:07.199
other things necessities of life. And
a few years back I had a chance

406
00:34:07.239 --> 00:34:10.360
to go back there, and I
didn't know if I even wanted to go

407
00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:15.199
back there, but I did,
and I'm so glad I did because I

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saw that what we did was right. It was the right thing to do.

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The the Koreans have taken them,
made a beautiful country out of it,

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and they're so appreciative. Right to
this day, they're just it's like

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it happened yesterday. They're wonderful people
as far as I'm concerned. We've talked

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about South Korean people a little bit, but just when you see the difference

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between North and South Korea, now, how does that make you feel?

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It's amazing. It tells me it
was the right thing to do. Painful

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as it was, and I wouldn't
do it again, but I'm so glad

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I did it. You know,
I really started to think about this was

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worth going to a country I didn't
know, fighting for people, and I

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00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:10.119
didn't know. But when I look
back at it now, if they hadn't

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00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:15.400
decided to fight that war. It's
not the communist they had kept going.

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I really believe that they would have
felt pretty powerful. Nobody said no,

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00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:25.840
and I think they would have gone
to Japan and the Philippines. Well,

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00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:30.800
you know, they kept going,
So we did the right thing. You

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00:35:31.559 --> 00:35:37.360
have seen the price of freedom up
close. You know what the cost is.

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00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:40.719
What do you want people to know
about what it takes to preserve the

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00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:46.440
freedoms in this country? In a
lot of ways, I think we really

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00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:54.599
need to wake up and realize that
how valuable our freedoms are. I think

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00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:59.159
a lot of us, because we've
been free for you know, a long

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00:35:59.239 --> 00:36:01.199
time, but I think a lot
of us just taken for granted that it's

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00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:07.679
always going to be there, and
that is necessarily true. As I say,

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00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:10.639
even then example of Korea, I
think if we don't let that happen,

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00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:15.599
there'd be nothing to stop them.
They just kept going. So I

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00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:22.679
hope become more aware. I think
of how valuable it is. A lot

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00:36:22.760 --> 00:36:29.199
of people would just love to get
into this country and live and enjoy our

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00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:31.719
freedoms. They don't have it.
You need to be thankful for them,

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00:36:32.039 --> 00:36:36.920
very much, very much. Just
a couple of questions remaining. Sir,

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00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:40.880
First of all, what are you
most proud of from your service? The

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00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:47.519
end result? I think of going
back there and seeing what the Korean people

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00:36:47.639 --> 00:36:53.960
made out of it. You go
back and they've the streets are clean,

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00:36:54.239 --> 00:37:00.039
there's no graffiti, and that people
are are happy, and they're they're dressed

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00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:06.079
comfortably and on, and we know
what's happening in the earth. They don't

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00:37:06.119 --> 00:37:08.599
have that, In fact, they
don't even know it exists. I guess

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00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:15.159
I'm proud of that. And lastly, sir, what does it mean to

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00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:19.480
you to have us at the American
Veteran Center record and share your story.

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00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:24.320
Well, I think it's a story
that has to be kept fresh because of

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00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:29.400
the freedom part of it. In
fact, are chosen few. You know,

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00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:32.960
we're all getting old. I'm ninety
two, and we're kind of disappearing

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00:37:34.039 --> 00:37:37.840
group that we started what do we
call a legacy, and that's for our

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00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:47.559
children or grandchildren, widows or whoever
to pick up the story and learn what

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00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:54.840
did happen there in Korea. They
really, even little kids know what happened.

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00:37:55.440 --> 00:38:00.840
They're so aware. When I was
there, we were in a museum

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00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:06.840
and they had an exhibit of chosen
reservoir, and I get cheers I think

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00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:09.719
of this, but there are a
lot of little kids, maybe twenty five

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00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:15.519
or thirty kids and two teachers,
and the kids kept looking at us.

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00:38:15.599 --> 00:38:19.920
The kids will do. And teachers
said something to him, and they all

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00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:24.199
got big smiles on their face,
taken before us, and I said,

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00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:30.440
we love you and thank you.
So that just broke me up. That

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00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:35.559
makes it worthwhile. Mister Fann,
I can't think of a better way to

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00:38:35.719 --> 00:38:37.800
end. Thank you so much.
It's been an honor to speak with you.

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00:38:37.960 --> 00:38:42.960
We appreciate your time today and thank
you so much for the service you've

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00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.360
given to our country. Patrick Finn
served in the fifth US Marine Division during

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00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:53.079
the Korean War, particularly at the
brutal Battle of Chosen Reservoir. I'm Greg

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00:38:53.159 --> 00:39:08.719
Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and

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00:39:08.840 --> 00:39:14.639
thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
a presentation of the American Veterans Center.

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00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:21.000
For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow

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00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:25.440
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00:39:27.159 --> 00:39:31.679
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00:39:32.199 --> 00:39:37.800
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468
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:42.800
podcasts. Thanks again for listening,
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