Carl Hughes and the 581st Signal Radio Relay Company - Page 7

Our First Assignment

My team left shortly after arriving and went out on our first assignment. It was with the 187th Regimental Combat Team. I remember sitting on a hill with Walter Malloy watching two or more airplanes fly in a vertical circle and bomb and, I guess, strafe a trapped North Korean unit. This assignment only lasted about two weeks and we returned to our unit. We then reboarded landing craft for the invasion of Wonsan. I was by myself on a small landing craft with the team jeep and had to wait for the Navy to clear the landing area of mines. After landing I had to find the 581st for the trip North. It wasn't long after we left Wonsan that we stopped on a high plateau around the time of Thanksgiving and Sergeant Overstreet read us a general order basically telling us that we were trapped and if captured we should go along and get along. The name of the game was to survive and make it home. So much for being home by Christmas! It took me a long time to find something to support my youthful understanding of what I thought I had heard. I finally found it in a book by James Michener, The Voices of Asia.