JMJ

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Nov 51..Grenade/Mortars

Dear Readers,,,,In basic trainning I hit a soldier on his helmet with a fake grenade when I had to throw it..The mortar attack unusall how many mortars and how long it lasted..Phillip meyer S/sgt Ret.
JMJ
Kumwah,North Korea                                 
"L" Co,5th RCT 24th Div.
Nov 1951 Phillip Meyer S/sgt Ret
                                                                        The Grenade
 As time went on we would change positions.Now a bunker another day a fox hole..One day I was assigned to this fox hole.The advantage was I could see all the way down the hill.I did not have trees to obstruct my view,Even the brush in front of the fox hole had been cut so we had a clear view to our front.One day a soldier came to our fox hole.He gave us two hand grenades each.Up to that point we did not have grenades.
I looked at them on the sand bag in front of our fox hole.I thought ,,Now if I had to throw one it would be a problem the pin in the position it was in would be hard to pull out.So before the sun set.I took each one of the grenades and fix the pin so it would come out very easy..Then it got dark and .I kept looking down in the valley.I put my rifle down and picked up a grenade with my right hand. My other hand close to the grenade,
Then down in the valley a white flare. That meant the enemy had tripped a flare,It was very bright and as it came down.I looked at my right hand and just before the flare went out I saw the pin on the grenade was missing..Somehow when my left hand got near the grenade and the flare going up I had pulled out the pin.
The maximum 2 seconds passed.My buddy was asleep in the fox hole.I had been squeezing the handle on the grenade.I looked to my front where the brush had been cut and threw it high and straight heard a sound as the grenade hit the ground and the explosion.The next thing I heard from another fox hole.was"Who threw that grenade"?? When morning came I put the pins back the way they were and gave my grenades to other soldiers...I do not have to say what would have happened if I had made one small mistake.
                                                                       The mortar attack
 This time I was in a bunker on the other side of the hill.What made it so unusall was instead of the hill going down on a slant this hill went out about 50 feet before it started to go down.So from our bunker we could not see down the hill.I got on guard as the sun went down..When I heard the familiar sound of a mortar but this time around four mortars were coming in all at once.I looked to my front as they exploded
in a straight line, A few minutes later more in the same area...They just kept coming in.My buddy got on guard and I told him about the mortars.I slept ,,on guard again,My buddy said they are still at it.Then more mortars came on us..The night passed with no let up on the mortars.It had snowed a little,When the sun came up I got out of my bunker and looked around .Everywhere I looked there were the holes made by the Mortars..In that very small area hundreds of mortars had fallen on us during the night.Anywhere from 5 to 600.The miracle no one got wounded....It seemed for us the mortars stayed just the right distance from our fox hole...
Phillip Meyer S/sgt Ret.