WE had arrived on a Saturday evening; a good time to start life in the Camp, we discovered, since there was no early reveille on a Sunday, nor any compulsory political study. On that day, too, the meals were the best of the week. There was a minute portion of pork per man which was served as pork soup in the morning and pork stew—a thicker soup—with beans, in the evening, and two loaves of bread per man instead of rice. In my own case, these Sunday treats were overshadowed, however, by the joy of reunion with my friends. The Colonel and all the officers and warrant-officers taken in the 29th Brigade battle on the Imjin River in April 1951 were there, except for Ronnie, Henry, Beverley, and Terry, who had died. With them were the officers captured from the Brigade in the New Year, 1951, when we had fought a rearguard action north of Seoul. From the Rifles, I found Joe, James, Robin, and Sandy, their Doctor; and from the Gunners, Spud, whose comrade had died on the march north. These five had suffered terribly as prisoners in the bitter cold of January and February, 1951; and at one time or another had suffered, too, from the cruelty of their captors. Spud, for instance, had been strung up by his thumbs at Pak’s Palace and, worse, experienced the agony of pins being thrust underneath his fingernails. In spite of it all, they were relatively fit, thanks to an improvement in the diet since the preceding Thanksgiving Day and, not least, to their own splendid spirit. Only Denis was actually sick, lying at that moment in the Camp “Hospital” with pneumonia. I looked in on Tom, Ron, and Jack, whom I had not seen since November; and found Duncan, whom I had left in his bunker the previous September when I escaped to the coast. They had kept him there for a further seventy days, during which time he never once came outside even to make a visit to the latrine. He had swollen up with beri-beri as a result though, by now, he was on the road to recovery.
Sam, our Support Company Commander, decided to take me on a tour of the Camp. He explained that the compound was based on the main schoolhouse in Pyn-chong-ni, a village ten miles east of Pyoktong and four miles south of the Yalu River. The schoolhouse ran approximately east/west, a long building of timber and mud constructed during the Japanese regime. A corridor ran its entire length at the rear and, off this, sliding doors opened on what had once been classrooms. At the western end was a double classroom known as “The Library”, which contained, in addition to portraits of all the Communist Party leaders throughout the world, all of twenty books and a few three-month-old copies of The Shanghai News, The London and New York Daily Worker, and the San Francisco Peoples ’ World. As the books were all either treatises on Marxism or translations of Russian novels, one may say fairly that “The Library” had a definite political bias. The other classrooms were used as sleeping-quarters, each room having a central alley, on either side of which the floor was covered with rice-straw mats. On these, at night, the prisoners lay, each covering himself with a padded quilt, a blanket, and a greatcoat as protection against the penetrating cold. Outside each door, a stove stood in the passage for which a small ration of wood was provided to heat water for washing clothes and bodies.
The main entrance to the building was in the centre, where a wide passage ran back to the classroom corridor and an exit to the rear. As we stood in the doorway—there were no doors—Sam pointed out to me a huge red star and two white peace doves which had been hung above it by the Chinese as Christmas decorations. The word “Peace” had been placed there, too. The prisoners had protested at this decoration, taking the view that the red star was no symbol of theirs, and that peace doves and the slogan “Peace” should really mean Peace and not be used as an instrument of propaganda. They had torn the word down secretly. Sam and I agreed that we would remove the star and pigeons at the earliest opportunity.
Below the main entrance was a large mud playground, covering about half the area of a full-size soccer pitch; now an exercise and parade ground for us. The schoolhouse stood on a higher level and, to reach the mud rectangle, one had to cross a promenade about fifteen feet wide and descend a flight of concrete steps. From the promenade, which ran the whole length of the exercise ground or “square”, there were three flights of steps leading down: one below the main entrance, one at the western end by the exit gate to the Chinese headquarters, and one at the eastern end which led to the cook-house. We walked east along the promenade and descended to the kitchen.
This Camp had been established in the previous October, when all officer and warrant-officer prisoners not held back for further interrogation had been concentrated in it, with a few non-commissioned officers of the United Nations Command Air Forces. The cook-house had been built at this time, a long partitioned building containing a kitchen with nine huge cast-iron cooking pots heated by wood fires, a small room to accommodate the fourteen cooks, and a communal bath-house which had been built so inefficiently that it had never been serviceable. Sid and Tony, and Sergeant-Majors Gallagher and Morton were the British representatives working as cooks under Mac, the American Major in charge. The kitchen was more often than not filled with smoke as the chimneys drew off only half of it, the remainder finding its way out through air vents in the roof, as in mediaeval times. Our eyes watering, Sam and I returned to the schoolhouse by the main entrance and came to the back of the building, by way of the rear exit.
A few yards behind, there was another, higher platform, on which stood a short promenade and a number of Korean dwelling houses. Originally, these had been the quarters of the school staff. Now they housed the overflow of prisoners from the schoolhouse who had named the area of their residence “Snob Hill”. I discovered that I and the other four new arrivals were quartered in this area which was now almost filled to capacity.
Perhaps the most important residence on “Snob Hill” was the Barbers’ Shop. In this snug little room were a stove, a table, two home-made chairs, and three home-made barbers: one engineer, one marine, one airman. They had built a little empire there; an empire which provided a weekly shave with a cut-throat razor, a monthly haircut, and unlimited repartee. As in many a small town, the Barbers’ Shop provided a sounding-board for all matters of controversy in the community. The time came when the barbers constituted a self-appointed board of assessment for all rumours relating to the peace talks, which many took more seriously than they cared to admit.
The daily routine in the Camp, though often irksome, was very simple. Within a week, a newcomer felt that he had been following it for months.
At dawn, the compound was roused by the Chinese and assembled on the square for physical training exercises or, occasionally, taken for a short, escorted walk along the road. What made this so tiresome was that after returning, washing, and tidying one’s quarters, there was a wait of two and a half hours until breakfast. After the meal, the school bell was rung for morning political study. A lunch break followed—there was no lunch—and the afternoon study session commenced at two o’clock, ending at four. The second meal was at half past; and this was followed, again, by further study in small groups. At nine o’clock, the lights were extinguished at the main. This was the weekday routine.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the fare was the same at both meals: rice—very bad rice in those winter days—and diacon soup. On Tuesdays we had rice and beans for the evening meal and two and a half buns of bread. On Saturdays, though we had no bread, there were beans to relieve the monotony of the diet in the evening. And on Sundays and Thursdays—what a feast we had! Rice and pork soup in the morning; pork stew and bread in the evening.
Every ten days, there was a small issue of sugar to each man, and a packet of tobacco. With this came two sheets of paper, each equal to four foolscap sheets: one for the latrine, one for smoking. As some men had the tobacco of non-smoking friends, but not their paper, any newspaper, lecture syllabus, or periodical left about for a moment would disappear instantly. Paper was at a premium.
Each evening, the six platoons in which we were organized would gather at the foot of the steps leading up to the main entrance to receive an address by the company commander—an elderly, grey-haired Chinese we called More-in-Sorrow-than-in-Anger on account of his reproachful look—or by one of the “vice-company commanders”, of whom our favourite, for the fun he provided, was a man with a squint known as Tilt. Two interpreters, Zee and Gen, spoke abominable English—Zee particularly. Flanked by sallow-faced Chinese, the speaker would begin his address in his own tongue, continue for about five minutes and then pause for the translation.
“Say, you guys,” Zee would say, “to-morrow is Thursday”—or whatever day it was. “The Company Commander, he say you gotta get outa your goddam beds. O.K.”
There would be another torrent of Chinese, another brief translation into English, sometimes unintelligible. The meeting would break up and another day would be almost over.
On the surface, this was the dull and irksome life of a prisoner; bearable, if tedious. Really, it was not like that at all. Every hour of the day, we were at the mercy of evil, political extremists who could—and did—reach into the Camp to take out those whom they wished to exploit for their own uses, and those who led and organized the demand for proper treatment as human beings. The real danger to a prisoner’s body—and mind—began when one of the Chinese staff came in to his room to say:
“You are wanted by the Headquarters. Pack your everything and come with me.”
Or when a Chinese came into a room to say:
“Which is so-and-so’s kit?” and begin packing it, heedless of the questions of the individual’s friends as to his whereabouts, as to his future.
The name of the Camp Commander was Ding. He was of medium height, pale skinned with fine bones and long fingers. His eyes were narrow even for a Chinese and glittered like a snake’s. He was a fanatical Communist; his staff were terrified of him; he hated us if only because we rejected the political indoctrination programme and remained loyal to our own Governments.
Ding’s Headquarters staff was extraordinarily large for the care of about three hundred and fifty prisoners. There were seventeen different staff officers, in addition to a deputy camp commander and an assistant deputy commander. Of this group, there were five with whom we had real contact as prisoners normally inside the compound: Wong, Chen Chung Hwei, Sun, Big Chu, Little Chu, and Niu. Wong was a big man, almost six feet tall, and broad. He swaggered about the camp, tried to bully any prisoner he got on his own, and lost no opportunity—however small—to have us punished. In the early days of captivity under the Chinese, Wong had lectured in his American-English both to Camp 5 at Pyoktong and Camp 1 at Chiangsong on the prospects for those who refused to take part in political study.
“No one knows you are our prisoners,” he reminded his sick and starved audience, “no one knows you are here. If you resist us, we shall put you in a deep hole where you will remain for forty years—and your bones will rot. The world will forget you.”
On another occasion, he demanded at the end of a lecture given to the officers that they should hand over all erotic photographs they possessed.
“We know,” he said confidently, “that you officers purchase many such pictures to keep with you. Everyone will hand them in at once.”
As there was no move to comply, each prisoner was searched but without result. It was suspected that Wong had hoped to make up a collection of these items and he thus earned the name “Dirty Picture” or “DP Wong”.
Chen Chung Hwei was a little man with a twisted body and a twisted mind. His spine was misshapen, hunching and bending forward his tiny shoulders. His face was scarred by a childhood burn. Walking along, his big eyes darting from side to side—pools of gravy in white saucers, the Padre called them—he resembled an evil gnome. A poor schoolmaster before the Communist Revolution, he had seized the opportunity to gain power and was prepared to go to any length to hold it. He was the staff officer concerned with maintaining order in the Camp; a task he loved, I think, because it involved spying on us.
Sun was also a little man, almost girlish in his mannerisms. Of all the staff he was, perhaps, the most sincere Communist; and he believed in the maxim that “the means are justified by the end.” For many months he had been the organizer of the political study programme, and it had been obvious to him from the outset that his programme was an absolute failure. As lectures were read out, certain passages—“the people of America are starving”, “Soviet Russia alone defeated Germany and Japan”—were greeted with boos, derision and genuine laughter. Sun’s little yellow face would darken as he cried:
“Keep silent! You do not want to hear the truth!”
Little Chu was a jack-of-all trades: he dealt with the mail; he helped Chen Chung Hwei with discipline; he kept the prisoners’ records. A short, slight, frog-eyed Chinese, he was a willing assistant in any unpleasantness that was inflicted on the prisoners.
Big Chu came into a different category. He was the staff member who undertook affairs of special significance: interrogation, discipline, even propaganda were his fields, providing that some important aspect was involved. Slim, about five feet ten high, he walked with a peculiar bouncing gait. When Big Chu paid a visit to a prisoner to converse in excellent English with a heavy Chinese accent, it usually meant that the Camp Commandant was concerned in his call.
The only other member of Ding’s staff who was of importance in our lives was Niu. Niu’s likeness to an Oscar Wilde Clergyman was astounding. He could have played Dr. Chasuble without difficulty. He spoke slow but good English with an affected accent; he was intense about “culture”; he was never less than polite; and he was a thorough-going liar. Niu never became involved in any nastiness; he faded out of the picture before it began. His task, which began in the Spring of 1952, was to control our entertainment and recreation. In this he succeeded.
The Chinese made feasts of the American Thanksgiving Day and Christmas in 1951—a decision perhaps not entirely unaffected by the resumption of the peace talks and the international outcry following the publication of the Hanley Report on the treatment of prisoners-of-war by the Communist Command. Official photographers arrived to take pictures of all the jollity; every effort was made, without success, to get individual prisoners to write articles for the Communist Press in praise of the Chinese for all their good treatment and especially for the Christmas and Thanksgiving feasts. The photographers found it impossible to take a good picture, for the prisoners covered their faces whenever they appeared. The Press representatives found that none of the prisoners could write. At Christmas time, they attempted a new tactic: they insisted that the prisoners should send Christmas Greetings to General Peng Teh Huai—the commander of the Chinese Communist Forces in Korea—and to Ding. The prisoners Daily Life Committee refused to do so.
On arrival at the Camp, the prisoners had “elected” this committee, at the insistence of the Chinese, to deal with the day-to-day administration of the compound. As all the captives were members of their respective naval and military corps, there was no question of “electing” anyone. Naturally, a choice was made from amongst the senior officers, and their names were circulated amongst the remainder as candidates to be “elected”. In this way, we secured our own nominations to the committee; Colonel B and Denis being the American and British senior representatives respectively. Because of the long spell of solitary confinement our own Colonel—as the Senior United Nations Officer—had undergone in 1951, he was kept off the committee. He was universally respected by all nationalities in the Camp, and it was desired to keep him available if some major issue arose.
As soon as the Christmas festivities were over and the last photographer and Press representative had departed, Colonel B was arrested for heading an “underground resistance movement” opposed to Chinese discipline, military interrogation, and political study. There was also the matter of withholding the prisoners’ Christmas Greetings for the Commander-in-Chief and Ding!—apparently a secondary, but actually a principal charge. In forty degrees of frost, he was placed without either greatcoat or bedding in an open cell in the centre of the village under close guard. He began slowly to freeze to death. An American major, a member of the committee, made representations to the Chinese for his release and was himself arrested. The two remaining members of the main committee, a marine and an engineer major, were arrested together. Denis, discharged from hospital after seven days’ treatment for his pneumonia, was arrested a few hours after his return to the compound. Finally, our own Colonel was arrested seven days after my arrival in the Camp. On 8th February, 1952, their “trial” began.
We were all ushered into the Library, where the walls were lined with armed guards and the Camp and Company Headquarters staffs. Squatting on the floor, we saw the Colonel, Colonel B, the three American Majors, and Denis come in. Denis was deathly pale and we saw that both his wrists had dropped. One at a time, beginning with Colonel B, the defendants came forward to read their “confessions” to the crimes of opposing the humanitarian policies of our captors. The words they read were in stilted English, quite obviously partly dictated by the Chinese; and what was even more pitiable was that we knew that the majority of the crimes to which they “confessed” were non-existent—illusions in the minds of the Chinese. With a word of warning to any potential offenders among us, the Chinese departed, having informed us that the punishments would be decided by higher authority and promulgated in due course. The “trial” was over. There had been no need for an arraignment, or for a defence: the defendants had “freely confessed” their guilt before us all. Leaving the library, we commented to one another that this was a pattern of judicial procedure which we had observed before at rather longer range. It seemed that what we had read about it in the “reactionary” Press had been true.
I do not know exactly how all the confessions were extracted before that trial; but I do know, in detail, what happened to Denis.
Initially, in spite of considerable pressure, he refused to say a word when charged with being a conspirator in a plot against the plans of the Chinese to improve our Daily Life—the Chinese term—and to teach us the Truth as our captors professed to see it.
Having no success with this stratagem, a new Une was adopted. Denis was asked to sign a document in which he acknowledged the Colonel’s responsibility for his actions. Very naturally, he refused. Then it was put to him that he could ameliorate the Colonel’s position by “confessing” his own guilt—and the wording of this confession was “suggested” to him. Thus, in an attempt to release the Colonel from implication, he made a statement assuming full responsibility for all he had done to ensure that the British element in the compound voted properly in the committee elections and followed the instructions of the Daily Life Committee. In this way, a confession was secured which gave the Chinese enough evidence to dispose of Denis for some time, though, in the event, they ignored that part of it which vindicated the Colonel. Denis now being in their grasp, they decided to follow up their advantage before the trial and obtain a certificate from him that he would give military information freely.
Ding dealt personally with this case, as he had dealt personally with the Colonel in securing a “confession”. Denis was brought before him, a proposition was made, and turned down. As Ding never personally supervised physical pressure on prisoners, it was Sun who took Denis away to an out-house and had him strung up to a beam, arranging it so that Denis’s hands were secured so far up behind his back that he had to stand on tip-toe. Every hour, for four hours, Sun returned to ask Denis if he had changed his mind: Denis had not. Sim left him until the morning, when he was cut down. The next night began with another refusal to sign the certificate, after which Sun left Denis, stripped to the waist, outside Ding’s house until he was blue with cold and too chilled to speak. After being taken back to a warm room for a time, he was sufficiently revived to utter another refusal. Sun took him to a cell down in the centre of the village and tied him again to a beam in the same way as on the previous night. This time, however, he realized that Denis’s resistance was stronger than they had anticipated. After returning twice to give him an opportunity to change his mind, Sun left him for good. In the morning the Guard Commander untied him and the matter of the certificate was not raised again. This was the reason why Denis’s wrists had dropped when we saw him at the trial.
Some days later, the varying, long sentences were announced in the Library, amidst booing: the Colonel, Colonel B and Denis got six months imprisonment each. The three American Majors were each sentenced to three months. By this time, hope was high that the peace talks might succeed before the longer sentences expired.
In and abound the village were other prisoners, quartered singly or in pairs: men who had been removed from the compound for renewed military interrogation; men who had never been into a compound with other prisoners and were deliberately kept in permanent solitary confinement in an attempt to prise information from them; men who had seen too much since their capture and were thus too dangerous to release to a compound; all sorts of men in little rooms, and holes in the ground, living under varying conditions of discomfort. These men were seen only occasionally when a party of men from the main compound passed on a ration detail or to collect wood. An unknown, bearded face might appear in a doorway, pass down an alley to a latrine, accompanied by one or two guards; unable even to smile in reply to the greetings of comrades as he passed.
This was the life to which the six sentenced officers were now committed.