But prison life was not all horror. The Chinese announced a huge clean-up campaign of the camp. To get it rolling, they offered a pack of cigarettes for each two hundred dead flies caught, or three smokes for a rat.
Each evening Sanitation Officer Schlichter picked up the dead flies and rats, counted them out, and marked them down in his notebook. Then, with a guard, he marched in front of a camp official, who determined if the count was honest with a broken chopstick.
No one objected to Schlichter's handling the tobacco; he did not smoke.
One sergeant, who had been active as a Scout, devised a gauze flytrap, and placed it over the reeking latrine. When he had about 1,500 flies enmeshed in it, he took them to the Yalu and drowned them.
That night, when Schlichter turned in flies for cigarettes, the Chinese officer's eye popped. He said, 'So many flies—good! Good!' Then his eyes narrowed. 'How come no squash?'
But he paid off.
The Turks, closer to the soil than Americans, sought out pregnant rats, caught them, and slit them. Sometimes they got twenty-one smokes per rat.
There were libraries available, stocked with books from Communist countries, extolling the beauties of collectivism and exposing the fallacies of the capitalist system. From boredom, everybody read them.
The only newspapers available were old copies of the New York
The sole English or American books in the library were Steinbeck's
Life, through 1951 and 1952, was composed of details, now, in addition to the constant education. Men cooked, cut firewood, and wondered about the war.
There was almost no news. Newer prisoners, taken after the big hauls during the summer and winter of 1950, were never allowed to mingle with the older prisoners.
There was free enterprise, even in a Communist camp. The troops had been paid just before Kunu-ri, and almost everyone had a great deal of MPC. Money was useless; besides, all knew that the Military Payment Certificates had been changed, and doubted if the government would make the old ones good. An old watch went for $200. A cigarette cost $10, or sold at a volume price of three for $25.
Some men gambled. Schlichter saw as much as $1,000 rest on the turn of a card—though men seldom bet their food or sugar ration.
Inevitably, some men in Camp 5 soon had all the money there was to be had.
That was also part of free enterprise, any way you cut it.
For recreation, the POW's were taught to sing the 'Internationale,' and 'The Chinese People's Volunteers' Marching Song.' Sometimes, by a particularly hearty rendition of these, they could get extra chow.
Slowly, bitterly, even though the dying had ended, the months dragged on.
Finally, on 12 August 1952, Schlichter and many others, classified as reactionaries unfitted for further education, were sent to Camp 4, at Wewan. This was a camp reserved for sergeants; there were three POW companies: Number 1 contained three French N.C.O.'s, Puerto Ricans, Niseis from the 5th RCT, 35 British sergeants, and 23 Turks. Number 2 was wholly American and white, while Number 3 was filled with colored soldiers.
Here, one man asked Schlichter, 'Do you think a POW-camp promotion will be permanent?' The man was a private who had told the Chinese he was a sergeant.
Schlichter answered him that, unlike a posthumous promotion, he didn't think it was.
On Koje Island, the U.N. compounds were now filled to bursting with Chinese and North Koreans. The 2nd Logistical Command in Pusan, under whose command Koje-do remained, continued to cope as best they could.
Actually, all seemed to be running very well.
The POW's were busy in workshops, making placards, flags, and newssheets, with which they flooded the island. They were making other things, too, but these they hid.
Each day one American N.C.O. with a couple of POW trusties made routine inspections of the compounds housing the 80,000-odd captives. There was no question that food, clothing, and housing were adequate, although the number of POW's in each compound made control difficult, and close inspection almost impossible.
POW's still disappeared or turned up dead; there still seemed to be dissension in the compounds. But none of the guards thought it was their business, or of any great concern.
In the absence of concern, or pressure, the control of the camps tended to grow lackadaisical.
And certain of the POW's tended to grow more and more arrogant.
The command of Koje-do changed rapidly, now, as Colonel Fitzgerald became a sort of permanent executive officer to various officers sent in by 2nd Logistical Command in Pusan. In all there were thirteen different commanders, none with any experience with POW's—and none with any backing from higher up.
Certain nations of the U.N. were hypersensitive over the treatment of the POW's, whether because of common geographical background or fear of American discrimination, or whatever. These, and the International Red Cross, and the Neutral Nations Inspection Teams—called NITS by all Americans—harassed the POW Command regularly regarding POW rights and privileges.
None of these agencies could enter North Korea because of the blunt refusal of the Communists, but they compensated by being twice as officious on Koje-do. Because of their vigilance and constant complaints, higher head-quarters in the Eighth Army and FECOM made it quite clear that no force of any kind might be used against the POW's, regardless of their actions.
Colonel Lee Hak Ku and the mysterious Hong Chol were spreading their network of control through the compounds day by day. Certain American officers knew this, but their hands were tied. As Major Bill Gregory said: 'No commander could get any backing from General Yount in Pusan, General Van Fleet, Ridgway, or anyone else. Ridgway himself never seemed to care a hoot in hell about what happened in Koje-do.'
There were certainly no appropriations for new compounds, new wire, new construction materials. Eighty thousand potential tigers milled behind the flimsy, jerry-built wire pens that had been erected in early 1951; no better ones were ever built. Such requests were promptly rejected.
One big reason so little concern was shown for the POW camps was that higher headquarters, with the start of truce talks, was convinced the war would end any day, automatically ending the POW problem by repatriation.
There were matters that needed straightening out within the compounds—but each commander on Koje-do knew clearly that if the hair of one POW were bruised, if one guard bashed a prisoner, neither Van Fleet nor Ridgway would lift a finger to aid during the ensuing hue and cry.
It is very clear that if Washington and Far East Command had been less concerned with world and neutral opinion and more with internal order, the near tragedy that was to come to Koje-do could have been averted.
By late 1951 it was already clear to both Americans and neutrals that there was intense political ferment within the compounds. The POW's were dividing into Communists and non-Communists—and amazing to the neutrals, who would not at first believe this—many POW's began to petition the U.N. not to allow them to be repatriated.
The treatment of the POW's, and their glimpses into non-Communist life, had had some results. More fundamental, however, was the fact that many Koreans and Chinese had been forcibly pressed into the Communist armies, and many of these had no political belief and even, in thousands of cases, a genuine hatred of their rulers.
The U.N. was slow to capitalize on this fact. The situation called for fair and impartial screening of all POW's, as Swiss Delegate Lehner reported. There was an unspoken reason behind the United Nations' reluctance to become involved in the POW's loyalties, however.
After agreement on the cease-fire line in November 1951, hopes appeared bright for a quick end to the fighting in Korea. The only really knotty question remaining was disposition of each side's POW's. The Communists—who had oasted of having taken 64,000 POW's, mostly Koreans—now claimed they had only 11,000 available to return. This disclosure caused anguish among the ROK's, who wondered at the fate of 50,000 of their countrymen, but did not seem an obstacle in the way of the U.N.'s desire for peace.
