Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Wayne Fletcher. He's a US Army veteran of the Korean War. Mister Fletcher served nearly eleven months in Korea in nineteen fifty one. He served as a gunner with fifty caliber anti aircraft guns. However, these guns were mounted on half tracks and used in support of
American ground forces. Wayne Fletcher was born in Eustace, Maine, in the midst of the Great Depression, and he begins our conversation explaining what life was like for his rural family during those difficult days.
That was bone, that was the Depression shotted in twenty nine. I was BONIFETI one. So my folks were cool wick, bringing everybody around us laws. My father was either he worked in the woods or he was a guide, his sport's guide of worked in manufactury mill, different things of that nature. Sometimes you worked on the log drive, driving the log down the rivers. My mother run her home. She had five children.
Was there a history of military service in your family?
I know the onlybody I knew of before me was my uncle. He was in the Festival War.
You enlisted in the army in September of nineteen forty nine. What happened after you enlisted? Where did they send you?
And what happened when I enlisted? I went to basic training in Fort Dictioner, Jersey, from about thirteen weeks.
Where did you go after Fort Dix?
Well, I went to Logan Heights in El Paso, Texas. It was now shoot from Fort Bliffs that they had put in the Second World War. They've all small, four men hot we lived in. They would motopool and before we had a half track for the fifty calibers and in fifteen thirty seven millimeters on them.
So let's talk about that. How did you get assigned to anti aircraft fire just buy their choice? And what did that training consist of?
Well, we had we had to learn the ins and out to the track itself, so we could do what we could ourselves. If we get in more time, we could probase detendent on somebody else. We had to learn the maintenance of the track. We learned. We learned how to take the guns atop and put them back together and clean them. And then we'd go on the range and they would they would have grown, they would fly by out quite a way rout promise, and we would fire at them to see if we could get them.
So we've tried down a lot of astro shooting. I was a gunner and I had a right candoneir in a left canyon air, which that means the right carnyar took out of the two guns on the right and kept the munition flowing, keep them un jammed, and the end the left did the left ears.
How long did it take you to get good at it?
I'm to say, you know, long we were. We were pretty well knew what we were doing. The short order a couple of couple of months. We kept doing it, you know, even if we're learning pretty good, so we would, you know, only but now get rusty on it.
You mentioned before that one of your responsibilities obviously is being able to assemble and disassemble these fifty caliber guns. Talk about that process.
Like if you were in battle after a long you would have to change the barrels on them. If you were trying to let one gun to alone, the barrel would get red hot and the waft of barrel and the bullets would go out to hambuzigzagging all over the face. So you had to learn how to change the barrels, and my cantons would have to do that when you were firing, to change the barrel. If you get in there fighting was going on, you change the barrel while you're using the other guns.
Me a little bit more about your fire team and the other guys.
I was a gun on, but I said, in that kind of a terraff, I had sights and a two hand or you will hang on or to make a gun go up and down and it would rotates. If you make them go sideways, you go all the way around. They have fifty calibers. They go hold on the bottom around the tarrat. The cannoniers would actually be walking on.
There's metal cases themselves. In Korea, when you're in a firefight, they would make sure that they had another container of cottridges right there to the hook right on to keep right on going. I missed a few shots, but it wouldn't be many. Take with their job. Keep them on jam and keep their guns of firing there as long as of the targets out there, I kept on firing. Now.
As I mentioned at the beginning, in Korea, the anti aircraft artillery was used for ground combat? Is that also how you trained it?
We never use them for any aircraft. I was always personnel the enemy on the ground.
What other gear did you carry in addition to the big guns? Did you have rifles and other things with you?
Yeah? We all the crew had the cabine, the m city cabine, and I think we started out with a semi automatic, but they changed us all over to automatic, full automatic ones. The driver himself had, but they're called the grease gun. It was forty five caliber. It was all metal or they had a metal stock on it that would push in out of the way I would pull out so you could put it against your shoulder
and fire it. They called it the grease gun. It was forty five caliber and it was especially for the drivers to keep the side of them.
Any other weapons, pistols, knives.
They didn't issue us any, but every once so far you'd be able to buy one off on somebody. I don't know where they come from, but I remember one time I had the forty five caliber for a while, and there was other other weapons. We had a thirty caliber. We eventually mounted a thirty caliber machine gun on the top pide of the tarrat shooting down over the hood
of the vehicle. Remember, we never had to use it, but if you had to then to get climbing on your track, we would we would be able to point that down there and move away.
Sir, When did you first learn that your service might be needed in Korea?
Coming back off bivouac, we've been out of the Ring pacticon and and they'ing different things. Then we go back and the tronvoys stopped and a big banner come out said, Wall you are I got all big. We didn't know what to talking about, but that's just I'm we heard about it. We had a meeting before we were getting ready to go to Korea and somebody said we were going to the far East. Well, I'm a country boy. I don't know too much about things. I'm thinking that's
good because the walls in career in the West. I didn't off our East. I was going Wow, I thought I was going to some place safe. I was going into higher East.
Was there anything particularly memorable about the trip over there?
Oh, my gosh. Yes, we met a boat landed in Japan Pereskebal. We had our equipment. I don't understand what it was all about so we had our equipment, went out on the range, dungeon proractical practicing, and this and that and the other, put them back all on the ship and headed for Korea. I think we were in good hand about a month.
You mentioned that you entered combat in early January of nineteen fifty one. Where was that and what was the state of the war.
We landed and push on. The Chinese had joined the North Koreans and they had pushed all the United Nations troops down to just they had just to help holding on by just a little bit down the various southern tip of Korea and will we landed in January sixth, It was cold and blue blazers.
What was the American morale like at that point?
I think we were all confused, didn't know what the heck we're getting into. Or most churches too young, We didn't know. I was like nineteen. I don't know about them, but I wasn't liking it. I was scared to go into law.
As you also mentioned, it was very cold, and that is one of the most famous things about the Korean War. You come from a relatively cold climate in Maine, but how would you describe the climate in Korea that winter.
It's a lot like Maine. It might not be quite as cold, and howd of Maine I'm in, but it was very close because the river throves over there snow on the ground. The river throws over solid, so they're time close to the same Tambasa Hire, Maine. We never did know what the temperature was. We just knew it was cold.
And did you have winter gear?
Yes, we did. We were a fortunate lunch because there was a lot they got there early that did not.
And what did that? Winter gear consist.
Of wonder sweeping bags, insulated boots, and had had underwear and had have your clothes to wear on, you know, the pants and shirts and jackets and rainy ear.
And from what I understand, the entire time you were in Korea, you slept outside every.
Night, except except when we went back, when they put it back in the rear to give us a little rest.
Describe that, what's it like sleeping in that cold over and over again?
Sometimes we shut in the vehicle. A couple of guys are sweep in the cab, a couple of guys that sleep up on the turrets, and a couple of us had a tap we would put over us and sleep on the court of the Haut drag. It was cold, but I was awful, thankful that it came from a cold climate.
You think that help help you?
Oh? Yes, you probably come from down south. You know it never gets down real coal. I think I don't know how to how to handle it.
Did it have any lasting impact on your health? Do you still, you know, get frostbite or anything like that?
No, I do not. The only thing is when and then set to calibers. I said, right between them, they were made off to my head and we never want ear protecting. So it affected my hearing not terribly there, but if I if I want to rarely hear some things, I have hearing as I should put it end.
How did the cold impact your gear, your guns and so forth.
I think you had to be very careful you didn't get too much oil on them. If you oiled them, you had to oil them and then try to write mustard off if you didn't. Automatic for sometimes it's sluggish because the stickned up, but as a whole that didn't. We didn't have any trouble with it, but freeze up it.
I can remember you mentioned that you did not have hearing protection. So how would you describe the sound those guns make?
Ooh terrible a fifty caliban for even know what a fifty caliber is? Oh sure, I'll for me eight inches long. The fire between four hundred and fifty and five hundred rounds a minute, So there'd be two of them when I was when I was firing, and it'd be two thousand rounds a minute going. They've been in firefights that I could not hear a sound. After they're done, You're gonna holler ate my face, career, any any sound whatsoever. So I'm facunate to have the hearing that I have.
That's Wayne Fletcher, a US Army veteran of the Korean War who served as a fifty caliber anti aircraft gunner in support of ground forces. When we return, Fletcher describes combat, how it changes your mindset in the midst of battle, and some intense moments of battle that he remembers. Well, I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles sixty Seconds of Service.
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This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is Wayne Fletcher. He's a US Army veteran who served eleven months in Korea. In nineteen fifty one as an anti aircraft gunner in support of ground forces. We've covered the frigid weather and the operation of the guns, but mister Fletcher had plenty to say about combat itself. In just a moment, we'll hear some of his vivid
memories from combat. But first I asked him how often the halftrack with the guns mounted on it was on the move during battle?
Very often because we were either pushing him back or they were pushing us back. Good push, and Polls saying it depends on Sometimes you know, they'd put a big bunch together and make a big porstion a certain area. You'd pulled back and fighters you went and get out of there and get back aways and get reset up ready for him so he's in And I'm sure they would do the same thing. N backed in the rio we had we looked like a bunch of giftses. We had polls looked to the side of the half pack,
and we had the top. If we were back in the area, we could put that top out like an awning and uh have a place to set out during the day. And but you couldn't have that on the front line. Everything had to be so you could leave and shut very short on how are.
You arranged on the battle line?
Basically what it was there was a line all over across Korea. There are be infantry, there would be a tank, be some more infantry, and then a hack tack and then it just went that way all across unless you come to a place we couldn't go, like up Steve Hills and shot. Then they were just just infantry. Of course the tank could go some places we couldn't go. They had a better track ring.
And so were you being contacted as to where to fire? Was it your own observation? How did that work?
We were own observation because there were different phases of the like if we were get they were getting ready to take a hill, the infantry we would go over. The tanks could stank, were shoot, and we would shoot above the infantry to keep the enemy down while the armed men were going up the hills. We could only shoot so far the fifties and under. The tanks could store out further, so they would to give support to hit the enemy down so the infantry could advance.
How would you describe combat?
I think when you were in the battle, you're all animal. You think nothing of their lives, their enemy, and you want to do me, and they're out to get you, and you wanted to make bankster to try to get them finished. I remember one battle were puting all the men and one got away, and I was mad at myself. We're going to turn into an animal, have no thought. So then people on the other side. I remember one
time who had been overrun. I'd tried, didn't have me get to belong to that believed been overrun by a bunch of people mentioned the Koreans. I guess they were. You had high uniforms start behind them line the night before, just for the observation, but they were coming up against
and the next day they did. David found out that are there and never after them, and they come back to our lines, and the brew from the half cuts up and shout them to guys, they were trying to get away and never going across the Harn River, and put those sights on them and just look's mowing grass and slowed them down. So they were going to get back across with the information that come together. The one
got away, and I was surmied at myself. I didn't want any information going back to tell them what we had over that they were coming up again.
How frequently did your position behind the infantry and the tanks come under fire?
Oh, we were going to fire at a small weapon, fire and archellry fire. No, no aircraft, but quite often the bullets were flying both ways, bullets archivalry. But because they didn't have the actual we had, but they had actually everybody lost one of our men to archivalry. We were just setting there and I was watching a hill and then the glasses out of the hill learn that Barker and I looking the activity on that hill, looked at me. They're trying to leave the hill, a bunch
of them. And so I told Lieutenant and I said, there's a bunch of goofs on that hill. I said, it looks like they're trying to leave. So we put up in positions, putting the lead to him, and they sent They sent the right back to us and the artillery farm and fighting back and forth, and we're setting there and they're getting zeroed in on the closing clothes on shelves were going off and were flying from the
shelves that actually was coming in. I told the Lutana and I said, got the heck, get the heck out of here, get out of sight. Beye sometimes he said, no, no, I said, We've got to wait till life know where that gun is. Decided to leave, and the sagont in charge of the two tracks, it was over me. The ten started bugging out and said and took his forty five one point and he said, and where are you going? It looked like he was going to run off and leave us to come back and try to bug out.
Our church will come in and our scrapma hit him and killed him when he died later and UH got the battery, talked to the terminals behind the turrets of my gun was working in the walk bull. It's just apply both ways, probably more. I think we had better equipment. I know we did than they did. But two way back, Oh for sure, were you ever hit no land? All around me and never touched me? The good laders did mud life all planned for me. I guess what's.
It like to be in that environment, the combat environment, day after day after day for months, every.
Day it was not every day we were on the front lines all the time that we weren't the back and they were arresting. But a lot of days, it was calm. The enemy was over there and we were over here. A little shooting maybe going on, but not not a loss. Quite a few days it was fairly calm days. The nights were kind of scary. You didn't know who's going to be, who were sneaking around or whatever. We had were at once that there's a big push coming on, and I remember specifically that time, but we
were all very concerned. So we dug in the same bay around the track so they actually wouldn't come blow the track for pat you know. And we had a battle and they did push us back for ways scar at the time, but I'd be able to keep my head. Sir.
Your time in Korea ended in late nineteen fifty one. At that time, the war is not over, but you had to be exhausted at that point. So how did you feel about going back home?
Oh? My word, and I love it. I'm about to tell you a story about that. Going back home. We knew what it was getting time because round eleven months to spend your career, and so he got rotated back and we were sitting around, we were back in the rear. They kind of lacky, I remember their name up and
literally talking about that. We were sitting around and you spoke to among the guys, which one I forgot now I think it might have been Max, And I said, secondly asked him, how would you like to go home? You look right up and the rest of us kind of got a long face. There were six of us on the track, and we felt they were just put one to two off at a time and leave. Some of the old guys there had been fighting and knew
more about it than any one's coming in. So we stared to walk off and run the lays and he said, oh, by the way, her and one of the other guys can't remember from them out now. He said, do pack your bags too, and just one old guy left there pretty strong. I could head back around the com and he said, oh, you can pack your bag too. Boy, did he kill her home? That up me would just surprised me. It took pretty in all of us guys that had been there for eleven months off at the
same time. Don't think you know, I don't think that'd be very s Matt. But we didn't. We didn't refuge to the home. That was a very joyful time. Boy, was moment.
Better voyage home than the voyage over.
You're saying, oh yeah, the bob we went over on at like twenty five hundred the bow which come back on this post to hold about the same. They had six thousand men on it. You got two meals a day, get up to go to breakfast, get back in line. You had ten line prinier all day. You get back in get two meals in a day. We didn't care. We were headed home.
So you did not return to Korea, and you actually did not stay in the Army much longer, even though the army offered you a chance to be serving with the Army Corps of Engineers, which was something you had been interested in earlier. Explain what happened.
First of all, we wanted to take my rank. Plus I was looking forward to going home until that put ice on the take, I guess. And then they told me that. I said, now I'm going home. I might not just think about it. I said, Artner's got to take my rank. I don't know if it were to change my mind as a home, but that sealed the deal for me.
Just a couple more questions in our conversation here, mister Fletcher, what are you most proud of about your service to our country.
I'm right I was able to do my duty. I'm right I did it. I told somebody else I don't want to do it again. I love my country and always did and and I won't see any great hero said, but I'm glad I did.
Lastly, sir, what does it mean to you for us to capture your story and share it with future generations.
I do believe in the younger generations need to know about it because there's so much that they don't know, don't realize. There's so many people that had it so much worse than I did. The entrantrymen for shoulder stem rough terrific stuff, trying to take the hero and move it down pretty well in safety except for the artillery car and overhead for him.
Mister Fletcher, it's an honor to speak with you, sir. I thank you so much for your time, and most of all, I thank you for your service.
Sir. Yes, and you're very welcome, and I'm glad you're doing it because the younger generations need to know about it, and you need to know that we need to stand up for our country.
That's Wayne Fletcher, a US Army veteran of the Korean War. He served as a fifty caliber anti aircraft gunner in support of American ground forces. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook
and on Twitter We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles.