2. We Stay in the Wrong School House
We Travel to Iwon, North Korea
About a few days after we had landed in Wonsan they ordered my Relay Team
north to the city of Iwon. Iwon lies about 100 miles north Wonsan. When we
arrived in Iwon we picked out a place to stay the night. As usual we chose an
empty schoolhouse. Because of the war school was not in session. We set up our
cots and equipment, fixed our dinner, and settled in for the night just the six
of us, five enlisted men and an officer. The weather had not yet turned very
cold but it was nice to be in a building out of the weather such as it was. We
often stayed in schoolhouses while traveling to a new station so that was not
unusual.
Korean Officials Request The next day some Officials from the city came to us and asked us to help them. They wanted to prepare a large sign for the impending "Invasion" that would occur on the next day. They knew that the US 7th Infantry Division would make an amphibious landing tomorrow. They needed our help to write the sign. So we helped them spell out a sign that said "Signal Corps Welcomes US Army." One of the Colonels there later turned out to be one of my bosses at Pacific Telephone Company some four years later. I thought it best not to mention it to him that I had met him there.
Visitors Wake Us Up We had stayed for another day waiting for our assignment to a mountain to set up our Radio Relay Station. On the next morning some visitors woke us up to inform us that we needed to move out and quickly. Our visitors included a few Generals and some Colonels who advised us that we had chosen to stay at the headquarters of the US Seventh Infantry Division to spend the night. Would we kindly and quickly move elsewhere? Actually it was more like "Get the Hell out of there." While possession is nine points of the law, Generals outranked us and out we went and quickly at that.