“All Rangers are to be subject to the rules and articles of war to appear at roll-call every evening on their own parade, equipped each with a firelock, sixty rounds of powder and ball, and a hatchet…”
—Journals of Major Robert Rogers2
The 2d and 4th Companies finished their training cycle about the last week in November and immediately began to prepare for the trip to Korea. The Morning Reports of 1 and 2 December show some last-minute losses. In anticipation of the unit’s departure, some men were dropped from the rolls and a final roster was submitted with the Morning Report.
On 1 December 1950, the Executive Officers of the 2d and 4th Companies, Lieutenant James C. “Big Jim” Queen and First Lieutenant John “Jack” Warren, respectively, were dispatched from Columbus, Georgia, to travel together by commercial air to San Francisco, California. Each officer—Queen for the all-black 2d and Warren for the all-white 4th—acted as a one-man advance party for his unit.
Jack Warren of 4th Company was a short, cool, and sophisticated New Yorker. He had an aristocratic flair and the poise of a New Englander. Jack carried his cigarettes in a case in the inner breast pocket of his Eisenhower jacket. Whenever he withdrew one, he would tap the end on the case and use a lighter. His wife was a New York City telephone operator, and each evening he would call so they could chat.
Queen, who was very tall, and Warren, who was very short, were the “Mutt and Jeff” advance party team. They would discuss and rehearse their lines ahead of time before going to see any of the point of embarkation (POE) officials—whether in Finance, Transportation, or Ordnance. Although 1st Ranger Company had passed through a month before, 2d and 4th Companies had not gotten any special briefings. No one had a copy of 2d or 4th Company’s TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment, the official document showing the exact personnel and equipment that belonged to a unit), nor did anyone have a copy to show orders with authorized allowances. The technical department personnel did not have any experience with airborne or Ranger units. So Queen and Warren greeted them with patriotism and gusto: they were volunteers going to combat, because things had turned for the worse in Korea after the entry of the Chinese; they were Rangers and paratroopers, triple volunteers who had signed up for the military, signed up for special training, and signed up to jump out of airplanes behind enemy lines. They were very convincing, and their routine helped get the extra supplies both companies would rely on in Korea.
When they got up to the Ordnance Depot, Queen and Warren met a very pretty black lady who was the chief clerk. With a straight face and all sincerity, they told her that:
—All paratroopers carried a .45-caliber pistol as a standard second weapon in a shoulder holster. (The submachine gun .45 was what was supposed to be carried by Rangers, so they got those, too.)
—All paratroopers carried “jump knives” as a standard item for use in cutting themselves out of their parachutes in case they landed in a tree or in the water. (These were switchblade knives; only the 2d and 4th Companies carried knives at all.)
—All paratroopers received eighteen Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) per company and three .30-caliber Light Machine Guns (LMGs) per company, one for each platoon, and didn’t need any heavy machine guns at all because there weren’t enough men to physically handle them, and even if there were, the cold weather in Korea would freeze up the guns’ water jackets. But the additional LMGs were needed because paratroopers jumped with their LMGs in an individual weapons container that attached to the jumper parachute harness with a pongee cord (a 30-foot, rubberized, stretch rope), and these weapons frequently broke loose from the harness and were lost.
After this masterful, dramatic performance, they convincingly and politely asked for three M1–C Sniper Rifles, each with a six-power scope, for each company. One of those M1–Cs would become Queen’s primary weapon just a few weeks later after the early morning firefight at Tanyang Pass on 14 January 1951.
While in California, Mutt and Jeff put in requisitions for everything except ammo, and hoped that the requisitions would be filled and all of the items would be in Japan when the units arrived there before reaching Korea. Some weapons would be used to train raw recruits on board the Navy ship that would transport the men of the 2d and 4th to Japan for the longest leg of their travel to Korea.
Both XOs got their men three-pouch hand grenade carriers they had not seen before. The problem with this carrier was that it fit on the pistol belt and not up high, the way General Matthew B. Ridgway was famous for carrying his grenades. Like the .45-caliber holster, it hit against the leg or hip when you walked. Throughout the war Jim Queen never carried more than two grenades in it (one fragmentation and one white or color smoke phosphorus grenade). The color smoke grenades were carried by the officers and the radio operators, in case they were needed for identification from the air or to mark the front lines. In general, each trooper carried the grenade he wanted. Some liked white phosphorus grenades to burn down buildings or set fires in foxholes. For special missions, the Rangers were taught to use thermite grenades to produce extreme heat.
The last requisitioned items, air/color panels, were worn on the back of the SCR–300 radios or on the light pack while on the move, if the Rangers needed to call in an air strike. At a minimum, every Ranger in Korea from 2d Company had a pistol, knife, rope, and medical kit with morphine, as well as any specialized materials needed for his assignment (for example, radio operators carried SCR–300 radios).
In addition to requisitioning supplies for their units, both XOs spent time at the Finance Office getting travel pay for the permanent change of station (PCS) move for spouse/family home from last registered address and making out final allotments. Queen allotted all of his pay to his wife—except for ten dollars, which he thought he might need for PX supplies while in combat.
The cool nighttime weather in the San Francisco Bay area meant that winter uniforms were worn on a year-round basis. There was no snow, but the town was very hilly and at night the cool ocean breezes came on shore.
When business was done, there was time to socialize. Both XOs went to town together once, and after that went separately. They didn’t encounter any blatant prejudice; each wanted to explore different sections of the city.
Jim Queen went into town about three times during the week he was in San Francisco. He loved the old trolley cars, which were similar to the ones in his hometown of Washington, D.C. He went into a friendly little bar twice and had to show them how to make the “Paratroopers/Airborne Cocktail” (cheap champagne with milk). The next drinks were purchased by a friendly crowd of black locals who had never seen a black Ranger officer and were sympathetic to our fighting men in Korea. With the Chinese now in the war, things didn’t look too rosy from this side of the Pacific—particularly considering San Francisco’s very large Chinese population.
The 2d Ranger Company’s XO took time throughout the week in San Francisco to prepare himself for combat in Korea. Few realized how cold and inhospitable Korea could be. The terrain was hilly, which would not only make it difficult underfoot but would add wind chill to temperatures that froze water in canteens, cut the battery life of both radios and vehicles in half, and made frostbite a constant reality. The weather would quickly dip to sub-zero temperatures, and blinding snow coupled with the cold would cause weapons such as carbines and BARs to freeze up, mortar tubes to crack, and blood plasma and rations to freeze. It was a heck of a place to fight a war.
Queen, however, had done a two-year tour in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska before going to the 82d Airborne Division, so he knew how to prepare his clothing and equipment for fighting during the winter in Korea. He prepared as best as he could. He bought a pair of finger gloves to wear inside his mittens for added warmth, and purchased a good sewing kit and sewed the pile liner from his old Alaska jacket into the hood of the field jacket he would wear for the next eight months in Korea. He also bought a pair of hunter’s gloves (mittens) at a local Sears & Roebuck (mittens were warmer than gloves and could be worn over gloves). The hunting mitten had a slit cut in the palm of the right hand that would allow a hunter to reach through with his finger and pull the trigger of a weapon. Queen cut a slit in the palm of the left glove and sewed up the edges in a similar manner to match the right-hand mitten to allow him to load a magazine or clip with either hand, as needed. He sewed a half-inch-wide, one-foot-long, elastic tape to each mitten, then fixed a loop to it so that it could be attached to the sleeve/cuff button of the field jacket. That way, if he dropped a mitten or took it off, it would not be irretrievably lost in the deep snow. School kids would call these “idiot mittens,” but in the field they could save his fingers from frostbite.
Queen also picked up extra white, civilian, woolen socks and placed one pair in his pack and another in the side pockets of his “jump pants.” Damp socks in cold weather also meant frostbite, and dry socks were more essential than rations. He padded the knees and seat of his jump pants and the elbows of his field jacket. With his sewing kit and extra large needles, he sewed extra pockets onto his pants and field jacket. He added an extra six inches to the bottom of his pants because regulation pants were too short to cover his long legs. As he made these alterations, Queen thought of how often he had been in trouble with his old battalion commander for modifying his field uniform and equipment. For example:
—Queen preferred to wear buckled combat boots instead of jump boots in the field, because jump boots would get wet if you walked in grass heavy with dew. Combat boots had a better chance of keeping feet dry and of fitting his size 14E feet. The largest size Corcoran jump boot from the PX was a 12E or a 13E—if you sent away for it. Any infantryman and any Ranger will attest to how important it is for boots to fit.
—Queen got an M2 compass, instead of the basic lensatic compass, for indirect fire with the 75 mm Recoilless Rifles.
—He purchased a rucksack instead of a musette bag or a full field pack because the rucksack could carry more and be packed more quickly.
As he made these preparations he still wore his insignia, in spite of warnings about snipers seeking to kill officers who wore outside insignia. However, he knew Koreans and Chinese did not shoot as precisely as Germans. Queen had that stereotypical view of all Asians wearing glasses—his own prejudice, perhaps. He still had a Red Cross knit scarf from his enlisted man days in World War II, and a wool knit sweater on which he reinforced the buttonholes so that things would not come open too easily during rigorous movements. He would wear these same clothes for the whole eight months he would spend in Korea, washing his clothing and waiting for it to dry whenever he reached a shower point because he seldom found his sizes in the available Quarter Master (QM) clothing table at the end of the shower line. He wouldn’t see his “B bag”—a duffle bag with extra clothing not needed in combat—until he returned to Japan with the 187th ARCT in August 1951—after the 2d Ranger Company was inactivated and the Rangers were reassigned as needed. He would later learn that the 7th Infantry Division had kept this gear some place in Taegu, at Division Rear, for the whole time he was in Korea.
Queen cut a slit in his long johns and two pairs of boxer shorts, so his butt would not freeze when heeding nature’s call; nor would he ever be caught with his pants completely down and unable to haul out in a hurry. He took a pair of pack suspenders and hooked them up to an M1 pistol belt so he would be able to drop his pack quickly and still have a rifle–pistol belt carrying a .45 (with two extra magazines), compass, grenade pouch (with two grenades), bayonet and scabbard, canteen, binoculars, first aid kit, and poncho. He also would sling an extra bandoleer of six clips of eight rounds each across his chest so he would have more ammunition for combat.
As the troops of the 2d and 4th Ranger Companies were arriving at Camp Stoneman, California, their advance party headed for Camp Zama, Japan. After their week of preparations in San Francisco, both officers believed they had done a good job getting equipment for their units. Queen and Warren boarded a Trans World Airlines plane at Travis Air Force Base bound for Japan. The XOs flew on a civilian aircraft similar to the C-54 (four props, non-jet) with female hostesses.
The first stop was at Honolulu Airport, Hawaii, for refueling, where they landed in daylight and stayed on the ground about an hour. The weather was delightful, with a slight breeze, but no young ladies in hula skirts met them with leis. During the long flight from Hawaii to Wake Island, they got up and walked around the plane. Both XOs kept thinking about what would happen if the plane went down. They were flying in a prop-driven aircraft because in 1950 commercial jets were not yet flying that route. This was a regular flight with a civilian crew, a few Marines, and some Red Cross workers. There was emergency equipment (rubber life rafts, buoys, radios) stowed on the floor in the rear. Both XOs lay down on the pile of emergency gear, which made a better bed than folded-out web aircraft seats along the inside of the fuselage.
After several hours of sleep they landed at night on Wake Island, part of the Marshall Island group in the northern Pacific. This American territory had a combination military/civilian airport and was used mainly as a refueling stop and weather station. After leaving Wake they headed to Tokyo, Japan, without stopping at Okinawa or Formosa, and landed at Okida Airport in the morning. Although crossing the International Date Line was an unusual event in 1950, there were no special ceremonies, although both XOs made sure to reset their watches.
As they circled Tokyo in preparation to land, they could see Yokohama Harbor and Mt. Fuji. Queen thought about how far away they were from Fort Benning. After landing, both XOs were taken to Camp Zama because billets in Yokohama or Tokyo were very unusual without special circumstances or VIP status. Camp Zama was a small Army base near Yokohama used for the staging of units and replacements.
At that time Camp Zama held a group of former POWs from the 1st Cavalry Division. These soldiers had been captured by Chinese forces when the Chinese entered the war and overran the 8th Cavalry Regiment. Some had been released by the Chinese without being taken to POW camps; some had escaped in the confusion of the battle. This group was being debriefed by the Military Intelligence personnel at Camp Zama and processed for return to the States, because under the Geneva Rules of Land Warfare those prisoners released voluntarily could not be returned to combat against the same enemy in the same theater of operations.
In talking to several of the officers, both XOs soon realized the magnitude of the equipment that had been lost, destroyed, or abandoned in the fighting. The officers told of huge waves of Chinese attacking with bugles and whistles blowing. They talked of the very cold weather and the lack of proper winter clothing; some had frostbite. They told of atrocities committed by both the Chinese and Koreans. (Very much later, several boards of inquiry would conduct postwar investigations, though without detailed findings.) None of the officers had been taken to any of the rear POW camps, and they considered themselves to be very lucky and were glad to be leaving. None of them seemed to have been tortured or had any real horror stories to relate. Both the 2d and 4th Ranger Companies would later attend escape and evasion (E&E) orientations held by the cadre at Zama. The release of these prisoners was seen as a propaganda ploy, because later captives were not released until 1953, after the Armistice.
The day after both XOs arrived at Zama they took a short trip to the depot near Yokohama to check on their equipment requisitions. They found everyone to be cordial, but Jim Queen was a little afraid of Japan and its people. He had read about earthquakes in Japan, and the ground didn’t seem too solid to him when he got off the airplane. The myth of the invincibility of the Japanese soldier was lingering in Queen’s mind, which was filled with images of the bloody battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa as he headed back to camp. On his way, a young Japanese man stopped him to ask if he wanted a silk screen painting. The offer was not what he had expected, and the eager young artist was also far from what Queen had expected. The sample the artist showed him looked very nice, and Queen had some Japanese money, which he had not learned to count too well. So Queen took a photo of his wife, Phyllis, out of his wallet and gave it to the young man, with the money that he counted from the handful that Queen showed him. Queen gave the artist his wife’s name and their address in Raleigh, North Carolina. The artist didn’t give him a receipt, and Queen soon forgot all about it. Later, Queen thought that he had just gotten ripped off, but true to his promise the artist made an excellent painting and sent it to Queen’s wife, Phyllis. Queen didn’t see it until over two years later, when he rotated back to the States in March 1952.