| Summary: | (5:40) Mr. Gober describes his experience at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Bill Gober
June 23, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 2
Clint Alley: Ah, well what happened after you captured Seoul?
Bill Gober: Okay, after we captured Seoul we came back to Inchon and loaded back aboard ship, came all the way around the isl―, the peninsula here and went into Wonsan and made another landing. [Mr. Gober points to the position on a map].
CA: Okay. And that was in North Korea?
BG: That was in North Korea, um-hm.
CA: Okay, okay.
BG: That was, that was in October. First of, I believe the 7th of October when we landed there.
CA: Okay.
BG: And from there then we went, went inland. Part of the division came down here and helped the, the South Korean army were having some trouble there in one little city. And then the rest of us began to work our way up the coast here and went to this little town here, Hungnam. And from Hungnam we went into what they called the Chosin Reservoir. This, this right here.
CA: Okay, so you were at the Chosin Reservoir.
BG: Yeah, um-hm.
CA: Okay. Would you like to tell us about that?
BG: That is a biggie.
CA: Yeah.
BG: You can see on the map there the red troops, the Chinese, they had totally encircled us through October. They had come through the, come up, see now. Let me give you a little history here. This is, around here, Manchuria and everything, and over in here is Russia. And the Russia and Chinese didn't want us up close to their border. So they let the Chinese come in across the border there and they, they walked the mountains at night and got behind us and trapped us. And we was totally encircled with 157,000 Chinese. And we had 23,000 troops total, Army unit and us and so then the temperature began to drop and it went b―. You'll see different, different parts of it, different temperatures. They told us it was forty below zero.
CA: Oh, my goodness, forty below.
BG: And you, you can look at some pictures here and see what I'm trying to say here.
CA: Hm.
BG: They'll be further over in here where we was in that real bad weather. But, anyway, we was in it from, through October through the 24th of December.
CA: Um, and y'all were trapped there at the Chosin Reservoir.
BG: We was trapped in the, in the area. They were, the Chinese had a cut off and it was, see McArthur sent a bunch of, a general over there when they, they realized that we were in a situ— situation we were in. And he advised us to break up in small groups and try to filtrate south. And our general didn't agree with him. He said, "We'll come out as a group or we won't come out." So he got us all back together, a little town named Hagaru. Got the whole division back with the Army unit and we started our trek out of there on the, just one road out. That was the only one and they was, uh, we didn't have any helicopters or anything to lift us up over it. We had to walk out.
CA: Um.
BG: And that's where we ended up with a, a trap there for a, during that time from, well they, they, they attacked in, a big quantity of men on the 27th of November, at night. And, uh, so we survived that round. And then we kept getting consolidated to ready to come, try to make a trek out of there. So, when, on the twen—, on the 10th of December we had congregated at Hagaru right at the bottom of the Chosin Reservoir. Now with the Chosin Reservoir is a, is a electrical system like, sort of like Wilson Dam out here. That's where North Korea got the power. And we could not destroy it. They wouldn't let us destroy it.
CA: Hm.
BG: See that, that area right where the—
CA: Yeah.
BG: So, Hagaru is right, right at the bottom, right there. And it's from right here to where we, our destination culminated is about sixty-five or seventy miles. And they's one road out. And, uh, we had to fight through that, that number of Chinese to get out of there.
CA: Um-hm.
BG: And when, uh, when we kicked off here the 10th at Hagaru to come that sixty or sixty-five miles it took us to the 24th of December to travel that distance.
CA: Um, my goodness. And that was all on foot?
BG: It was all on foot.
CA: Um.
|
|---|
