U.N. governments wanted any part of the mess at Koje-do.
With the combat power came more engineer construction troops. The purse strings had been loosened, and Boatner was to spend $3,500,000 in a matter of days to secure the island. The old compounds were filled to bursting; the watchtowers were inside the perimeter of fences, where they could be rushed, and the compounds were enclosed by only a single apron of barbed wire, held fast by already rotten saplings instead of solid timber.
Everything was makeshift, insecure. The towers would have to be moved without the wire, three aprons of wire stretched, more machine guns placed, and stronger fences laid.
The day after the new engineer troops arrived, Boatnef inspected them. The entire battalion was prettifying their area, painting rain barrels, and building a PX to store their goodies. When Boatner ordered the Engineer commander to report to him, that officer was far from defensive.
'General, I've got to take care of my men.'
Boatner told him: 'You're not here to make a model camp, police the area, paint rain barrels, or anything else—you're here to build compounds. You start doing it on a twenty-four-hour basis, as of now, with maximum use of your equipment. If you have any question about this, ask me now. The next time, I'll relieve you.'
The colonel got the point.
Boatner hated to talk to the Engineer in this fashion, but he just didn't understand these people. Not understanding the enormous pressures created in Washington and Tokyo, they were still determined to make life as pleasant as possible and to carry on business as usual.
Now he could begin Phase I in earnest, the beating down of the POW's, even while Phase II was in progress.
During the first days, Boatner was worried all the time by the prospect of a mass break. If this happened, hundreds would be killed, and the uproar would shake the world. He knew that, coldly and confidently, the Communist leaders were planning a break. They had no hope of getting off the island; they wanted a mass atrocity with which to brand the United States.
Haunted, Boatner drove his own troops, both infantry and engineer, with the whip of his own barbed tongue, with the lash of his threatening voice. Slowly he got his own urgency across to them.
But when he took over, on 12 May 1952, not even the Texas A&M Mothers' Club, who had come to know him, would have bet on the Bull.
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36
Twenty Rolls of Toilet Paper, One Quart Mercurochrome
— Francis Bacon, MEDITATIONS SACRAE, DE HAERESIBUS.
BRIGADIER GENERAL Haydon L. Boatner, who had graduated from the care and handling of a few thousand Texas A&M cadets to the full responsibility for more than eighty thousand Chinese and North Koreans on Koje-do, was well aware that the United States was not wholly without blame for the riots and bloodshed that had already swept the island.
The American Army had been ineffective at Koje-do, and the reasons lay in the background of the POW question. The United States had never faced handling massed POW's since the War Between the States, and both sides had botched it then; in World War I the Allies shouldered the burden; and in the last war it was not until 1943 Americans had any prisoners, and these were from a foe of the same basic culture, who sensed they were already beaten.
There had never been enough Japanese POW's to matter.
But in Korea the United States not only had taken thousands of POW's of alien culture; it faced an alien psychology also. The 'specially trained' guard units sent out from the States understood neither Orientals nor Communists.
And fighting a limited war, which was expected to end at any time, no long-range provisions had been made for POW's. There had been set up no real POW guard troops or equipment; every dollar spent on these had been begrudged.
When General Walton Walker had been in retreat, and plans drawn up for a possible evacuation of Korea in December 1950, the POW's had been sent to Koje Island so that they could not hamper an evacuation from Pusan. Once on Koje, every higher commander preferred to keep them there, for out of sight was out of mind, and every higher commander had better things to worry about, especially when the peace talks began.
Also on Koje-do were dumped thousands of refugees from Wonsan, and among these were enemy agents, to keep a pipeline open between North Korea and the island. And to the dedicated Communist, such as Nam II, a POW of his own blood was as much a potential weapon as a gun—or word.
With such a situation, with such a lack of understanding of the real problems, or of the men they held, it seemed almost criminal to blame men like Charlie Colson for fumbling the hot potato dumped into their laps.
General Boatner, the old China hand, had the good fortune of every other commandant's experience. And he was wise enough to seek help.
He knew that in Japan was General Sung Shih, a Nationalist officer graduate of V.M.I., who had been an aide to Stilwell in Burma.
Once, when Boatner, some two miles behind the lines, had been sprayed with American psychological warfare leaflets from an aircraft, he had called Eighth Army Psych War Branch, saying caustically, 'The 2nd Division has no intention of surrendering to the Eighth Army!'
'What the hell are you talking about?' The Psych War officer asked.
Boatner informed him of where the Chinese lines were, and furthermore, told him the leaflets were no damned good. They had been written in high literary Chinese, and wouldn't motivate a common soldier with a full gizzard to take a crap.
Rather abashed, the officer, who had studied only high literary Chinese, came up to visit Boatner, and asked for help. Boatner had given him the name of Sung Shih, in Japan.
Now Boatner remembered this officer, whom he knew well, and requested him to come to Koje-do.
General Sung—who had no official business with the American Army, and whose presence made the Chiang- hating U.N. allies scream with rage—arrived on Koje, but unfortunately the correspondents got to him before Boatner. They printed the fact that he had come, and forthwith Sung had to go—but not before Boatner asked his advice on how to handle his CCF POW's.
You must not, Sung said, say no to a Chinese bluntly. It was always best to give a minor point or two, to permit him to save face. But at the same time, you must always show a Chinese very plainly who is master. He would, General Sung Shih indicated, understand nothing less.
It was advice that was to stand Boatner in good stead.
On his second morning on Koje-do, he got word by telephone that all hell had broken loose in the Chinese compound of 6,500 POW's.
Boatner had seen Frank Dodd, sick and strained on his way to Tokyo, and he knew what had happened to that officer when he visited a compound, and he thought,
This mood lasted two seconds. But Boatner realized he was in command, and he could not command from a desk, whatever Frank Pace thought about it.
He went to the Chinese compound by a circuitous route, without fanfare, with only his aide. Though he did not sneak about, neither did he seek to attract attention. Up ahead, he could hear a terrific commotion.
At the CCF compound, he saw an incredible sight.
Inside the compound, lined up in ranks, with perfect discipline, stood 6,500 Chinese, each with a blue and yellow banner in his hand, all chanting and singing and waving the flags in a concerted drill, all within an area of some three hundred square yards.
