James Edward Swart

              Eric Walz History 300 Collection
James Edward Swart – Life during the
Korean War
By James Edward Swart
March 3, 2004
Box 4 Folder 33
Oral Interview conducted by Jessica Josie Rhodes
Transcript copied by Alina Mower June 2005
Brigham Young University – Idaho
JS: Hey.
JR: How are you?
JS: I’m fine.
JR: Okay, are you ready?
JS: I’m ready as I’m gonna get.
JR: Okay, thank you for doing this for me.
JS: Alright.
JR: Okay, I’m just gonna say some things, like I’m gonna say today’s date and it’s just
for, on the record okay?
JS: Right.
JR: Don’t think I’m stupid ( laughs). Okay today is March 3rd 2004, no, yeah, March 3rd
2004 and I’m speaking with Granddaddy Swart.
JS: Yeah.
JR: And, I’m going to ask you some questions now and you can stop whenever you want
to. You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, and, just whenever you have
something you want to say just say it, and just feel what— do whatever you feel is
necessary.
JS: Alright.
JR: Okay, the first question is, when and where were you born, and what is your
background?
JS: Well I was born in Wilmington North Carolina or at Wrightsboro North Carolina in
1929. I don’t know what time of day but that’s when I was born, my Father was a— had
a— owned a dairy with his brothers and we all worked in the dairy together.
JR: Cool, did you like it?
JS: I thought that was the way people were supposed to live till I got grown.
JR: ( laughs) That’s awesome, I never knew that, well I mean I did but.
JS: Un- hun.
JR: Sorry, did you serve in the armed forces during the Korean War?
JS: Yes.
JR: Were you in combat?
JS: I was in a combat outfit; we was 3 miles behind the line I was in the 31st field artillery
battalion 1nth division.
JR: Do you know what part of Korea you served in?
JS: It’s central Korea somewhere about the 38th parallel. There was no towns or nothing
in that area so I don’t really know it is right now. I was above the 38th parallel.
JR: Okay, what was your rank and assignments?
JS: I was a communications Sergeant in a service battery of field artillery battalion.
JR: What did you do?
JS: I took care of all the, the message center, ya know communications.
JR: Okay, so did you like deliver messages, or did you like, take them?
JS: Well, I had a telephone, I took the, no I didn’t deliver messages as such, but I had a
telephone, I took care of the telephone, I took care of the mail, stuff like that.
JR: That’s cool; did you meet and make any new friends during the war?
JS: None that I know of in Korea but I did make some before I went to Korea when I was
in training. One I have been in contact with ever since I been in the service. He lives in
Alabama; I’ve been to see him a couple or three times.
JR: That’s awesome, wow. Did you meet any old friends from home?
JS: On the ship coming back there were a couple of the boys that were in school with me.
I don’t remember the names of them; I think the— boys that were on the ship with me that
was coming back from Korea— was on the ship when I came back.
JR: Okay, so you didn’t see anybody like during service?
JS: No, no. Oh, now well I was in Korea, Wesley Burton, which is a cousin of mine,
came by and saw me one time.
JR: That’s cool, was he serving too?
JS: He was in Korea, in the service, in another outfit.
JR: Okay.
JS: I had, I had two cousins that were in the service at the same time, Wesley Burton
which is Uncle Charlie Burtons’ momma’s brother’s oldest, next to oldest brother’s son
and Uncle Martin’s son Martin Jr. was in there. I never saw Martin Jr. I did go down to
his outfit one time. He was in the, Seoul Korea in the, in the military police but when I
got to Seoul Korea that time, one time that I got down there, he was not in at that time so
I did not see him down there.
JR: Oh okay, how did you get along with other soldiers you served with?
JS: I think I got along with ‘ em fine.
JR: So it was just, you didn’t mind bein’ with ‘ em?
JS: On no, un uh.
JR: Okay, that’s cool, so what kind of things did you guys do? Did you like hang out
together?
JS: What, there was no, there’s no hangin’ out in a war zone huny ( laughs).
JR: Oh, I know, I don’t know anything about that.
JS: I mean I had duties to do. I had, I took care of any— like if the phone lines went down
I had to go check them out, I had to sit there and answer the telephone at certain times
‘ cause we had to keep the telephone on twenty- four hours a day. There was three of us
assigned to, there were two others assigned with me to this communication section and
we operated the switchboard. Like I said, I went and picked up the mail from the— I was
in, we was in service battery I had to go up to battalion headquarters to pick up the mail
from the mail and bring back to the batteries and, and distribute the mail around. Other
than that, that was our duties. I had a truck and a radio, a truck with a radio on it. I could
talk back and forth with.
JR: Yeah, as you can tell I don’t know much about things so.
JS: I remember right smart about things but its, like I said it was all— it was— we had
jobs to do and we did ‘ em. I’d eat and I’d sleep and I took care of the telephone ( laughs),
took care of the communications really.
JR: How did the military train you for combat?
JS: I took basic training in Fort Jackson South Carolina; I had six weeks, as far as combat
I didn’t; I don’t think I really got a whole lot of combat training.
JR: Oh okay, do you feel that you were prepared sufficiently?
JS: For what?
JR: Like, do you feel that, you got all the training you needed for what you had to do? Or
do you wish…
JS: For what I had to do, yes, I had gone to communications school before I went so I
knowed how to do the telephone and that kind of stuff. See I had the training, I had the
truck drivers— I went to truck drivers school in, when I was in Fort Jackson and I also
went to, they said field wire school. Which is your communications department and so I,
that training I did but as far as combat you do the minimum, I had a minimum amount of
combat type training.
JR: Okay, so is there anything you wish they would have told you?
JS: No, I don’t think so.
JR: Okay, did your religious beliefs help you cope with the war experience?
JS: Probably, I had faith that I would be back, and I really didn’t, I was not that much
afraid of life that I hadn’t accepted what was coming on to me.
JR: Okay, so you were pretty confident?
JS: Yeah, that I was gonna come back ( laughs).
JR: That’s amazing ( laughs) that’s really cool. What did you do to entertain yourself, like
if you had time off? You sounded really busy.
JS: Didn’t have any time off, we were three miles behind the lines, we had duties that we
performed, I had books to read and such as that but as far as, and we did have a radio, ya
know, just to play the radio but other than that, that’s all. We took the, the beer came in
once a month, we had a little beer once in awhile.
JR: ( laughs) So what kind of food did you have? Like, were there just rations?
JS: Whatcha mean what kind of food?
JR: Um, like you ate, did you just eat rations?
JS: Well they had, we had uh kitchen outfit, kitchen group that, in our outfit, they cooked
regular meals. Some of it was like, dried stuff, canned stuff, they did have some fresh but
most of it was either canned or dried. We even had potatoes that, they were little tater
potatoes squares and they would come in, they were like flakes and they, whenever they
cooked’em they would put them in the water and they come out little squares. That kind
of stuff, I mean. When we was on, say when I went to Seoul that time and if you was on
the road they gave you, like sea rations. Which is a can of food, some crackers, cigarettes,
stuff like that. That you could just open up a can and eat.
JR: Wow, okay. Wow I never knew that ( laughs).
JS: Huh?
JR: I never knew that.
JS: You didn’t?
JR: No, what are some of your most vivid memories of the war?
JS: I don’t know, I reckon, well one time they were, we got fired apun. We was behind
the lines and one night right after I got there they start, there was on the— just above us
toward the line there was a OP Plane, observation plane landing field and one night just
about dark they started firing at it and it come down into our area some but that was the
biggest thing. We had a, we were across the street from a, from the hospital and one night
they started shootin’ over there at the hospital and what it was was the guard had opened
up on a, on the ambulance because the ambulance didn’t stop when they got to the gate
but they didn’t hurt nobody.
JR: That’s good.
JS: One time when I went up to the firing batteries to get the mail, I was commin back
and I noticed these little puffs out in the field around me. I got back to my outfit and
found out it was, they, it was the gooks firing at us. But, other than that there was, fairly
routine. I didn’t have a bad time.
JR: Good ( laughs) that’s good to hear. Did you volunteer for service?
JS: No, I got drafted in 1950 and got out in ‘ 52.
JR: So what was the drafting process like?
JS: What was what?
JR: The drafting process? Like.
JS: Drafting?
JR: Like how did you know you were drafted?
JS: They sent me a letter and told me that I’ve been selected to represent the United
States in the armed service that’s what they done. ( laughs)
JR: And they told you were to report to?
JS: They told me to report to the Courthouse in Wilmington and the they sent us to
Fayetteville and— actually they sent me a letter, I went to the courthouse, they took us to
Fayetteville, run through the physical, and then they told us we passed and told us when
we would be ready to assigned, they went back down there and took us to Fort Jackson, a
whole group of us at one time.
JR: Okay this is more of a political question I guess, what were your beliefs on
America’s goal in the war, like what was America trying to accomplish?
JS: We were supposed to be defeating to communist, to keep the communists from taking
over South Korea.
JR: And you agreed with that?
JS: Well, let’s say that I didn’t feel like they accomplished the goal because the war’s still
going on.
JR: That is very true.
JS: Hum?
JR: That’s true.
JS: They’re still there, probably the same place I was when I was there. They’re within
fifty miles of where I was when I was there and I was there in 1952 so that’s fifty- two
year ago.
JR: Yeah, about the supposed peace settlement, that they publicized, what were your
feelings about that?
JS: How you mean?
JR: Like, when soldiers came home the army published they had had a peace settlement,
a cease- fire.
JS: They didn’t have a, they had a cease- fire but they didn’t have a peace settlement.
There was no peace settlement period. They’re still there and they’re still lookin’ eyeball
to eyeball at each other across the 38th parallel and every once in awhile one of them will
get killed over there right on, after fifty- two years ( laughs) now.
JR: How were you treated when you came back? Like.
JS: Fine, I mean there was no, we didn’t, now I understand that, Vietnam there was a
difference in the way people treated, in Korea we didn’t run into that problem.
JR: Okay, that’s very good then ( laughs) I don’t know, is there anything else you’d like to
say?
JS: Well I was gonna say that we did, we went to Korea; I thought we went to win, but
we did not go to win, or they did not go to win. They didn’t win, they stopped, they
controlled, when I was in Korea they was controllin’ what we could do. They would not
allow us to fight, if they’d of turned us loose we could have whipped North Korea. There
was no, if they wanted to they could have took North Korea, but they did not.
JR: Why do you think that is?
JS: Political.
JR: Political.
JS: Political, I mean, and see how much its cost the United States over the many years
that they have kept troops in Korea. Now, the cost of that war, if you’ll look at the loss of
lives in Korea against the loss of lives say in Vietnam, Vietnam was about ten years,
Korea was about four years and it was real close to, they lost almost as many people as,
in Korea as they lost in Vietnam in the three to four years that we were in Korea, that was
before the peace settlement, the peace accord, you understand what I’m talking about?
JR: Yes, sir.
JS: And, but like I say we’re still losin’ people in Korea, and have not settled it and its
talk like we may someday have to fight them again, right now. Hopefully not.
JR: So do you think they might, like, send soldiers, like, into more of a conflict than there
is now?
JS: There was a, there has been talk of doing that, of taking North Korea because of the
threat of nuclear weapons in North Korea. If you read the news you’ll see it.
JR: Yes sir.
JS: If you read today’s news you will see about the possibility of going to North Korea. I
don’t think we will but it is possible.
JR: Very true. Oh, did you ever watch the show M. A. S. H.?
JS: Do what?
JR: That show M. A. S. H. on TV? Um, it’s a…
JS: Oh yeah, M. A. S. H.
JR: I know you weren’t in a medical unit but how did, what did you think about that
show, like did it represent the Korean conflict?
JS: That show, the, pictures, the area that they show look a lot like Korea in the area
where we were.
JR: Really.
JS: Yes, we were in a hilly, mountainous type territory where I was and they was similar
to the territory that they showed. Actually that, M. A. S. H. was taken in California.
JR: Whoa, I didn’t know that.
JS: It was. I was taken in California but the area actually looked a whole like Korea
where we were, uh, you had a little question in here about civilians. I can’t tell you about
civilians, how they were treated because where we were there were not civilians, we were
fifteen to twenty miles there was a civilian line twenty miles behind us, fifteen to twenty
miles so there was no civilians up there where we were so I don’t know how they were
treated. There were some civilian casualties, there were, some American soldiers shot
civilians. I did not know about that. I couldn’t tell you, but where we were there was no
civilian people. Now, in the M. A. S. H. area they were showing would not have been those
people that they show was there. There would not have been any people there. In that
show, because where we were, now in the rear hospital there may have been people
around the rear hospital, but at, where that M. A. S. H. was supposed to have been right
behind the lines there was not have been any civilians in that area because there was a
civilian line in Korea approximately twenty miles south of where our outfit was located.
Like I said there was a hospital located, was one of those M. A. S. H. units across the road,
I never went to it but it was right cross the road from us and but there was no civilians
there period. There was no, there was no contact with civilians unless you went back
south approximately twenty to twenty- five miles.
JR: Did you have a problem with landmines at all?
JS: No, not really, we were subject, we had a stupid captain that sent us up in the hills
which he, I found out afterwards that we had been in danger not realizing we’d have been
in danger. There was, we was up fillin’ us some communication trenches that the North
Koreans had built in the hills up there and it’s possible there could have been some
landmines around there but we just didn’t happen to step, get any of them. I understand
that in the outfit that I was in that they did lose a truck when they backed in to move the
kitchen out they backed the truck in on a landmine and they’d been on a landmine which
was a vehicle type mine and they had had the kitchen set up on that mine for, for the time
it was there, when they got ready to move they backed in there and loaded it up they
happen to hit it and it blowed the truck up. But it didn’t, nothin’ like that happened to us.
To me, personally. Now I did, I was close enough to the line where I could, at night I
could look up to the north of our outfit and see the rifle shots up on the hill up above us.
JR: Did that scare you?
JS: No, they weren’t shooting me ( laughs).
JR: Oh, granddaddy ( laughs).
JS: No, not really. They was far enough away, it was like a couple miles. See, there was
mountains in front of us and they would be up on them mountains and I have seen where
they was bombing one day, where our people were bombing and we were shooting and I
seen them mountains jumping up and down with them blowing it up but other than that I
mean, that was close as I got except where I went up there to get that thing and they were
shooting at me and I didn’t realize they were shootin at me but they probably wasn’t
shootin at me; they was probably shootin at anything out there. It was across the lines so,
as far as that goes I had a fairly good experience in Korea.
JR: Well that’s a good thing, man.
JS: Now, I lost some people, I lost some friends there.
JR: You did?
JS: I’ve lost some of them that were in Korea that took basic training about when I did,
didn’t come back. Fellow Young that live out in the country went to service with me and
he got shot up right bad and, cousin Martin Swart got shot up when he was in Korea.
There was a kid, lived over here on a Kerr avenue that was bout my age that got shot up
in Korea. So, I say that there were some that didn’t come back.
JR: Yeah, yeah, that’s a scary thought.
JS: But I didn’t have any thoughts of, I didn’t have no problem, I was goin’ be, I was
comin back, there weren’t no problem with me ( laughs).
JR: ( laughs) Oh, granddaddy. Is there anything else you would like to?
JS: That’s about good as I can tell you. I hope I’ve give ya some insights.
JR: Oh it was wonderful, thank you.
JS: Into what, now war is, I don’t recommend it for nobody, don’t get me wrong, my
experience was not that bad. There were some things that I changed, that I have changed
personally while I was there. My attitude on life changed somewhat.
JR: Really?
JS: Yes, from fear of death to not as fearful of death as I was before I went, when I,
before I went to Korea. Other than that I, I was changed when I came back because
things, life teaches you a few lessons when you go through it. Accept things that will be
like they will be. Like I say, I don’t recommend war but the experience, it didn’t hurt me,
it probably helped me in the long run. Get some insight about how things change with me
and you look forward when go into life so you’ll accept, things, you can learn from
anything. I mean any experience, regardless to what it is you can learn from it. Maybe
you think it’s insignificant right now but later on you say well I’m glad that happened to
me because I understand why, you know? So you get some understanding of what’s goin’
on. Okay huny?
JR: Okay, thank you granddaddy.
JS: Love you huny, okay bye now.
JR: Love you too.
JS: See you shortly and enjoy life. In the first place behave yourself and enjoy life.
JR: ( laughs) Thank you. I will.
JS: Love you huny.
JR: Love you too.
JS: Bye now.
JR: Bye.