An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China

Chapter 4. Camp 5

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ★ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On December 10, 1950, approximately five hundred of us arrived at Camp 5, which was located on a peninsula just outside the town of Pyuktong, on the Yalu River, which separates North Korea from China. It was a beautiful spot, but not if you were a POW. The camp would eventually hold several thousand United Nations prisoners, including British, Turks, Australians, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and Americans, both black and white. At that time the camp was run by North Korean civilians with a couple of North Korean officers in charge. Later, the Chinese took over. We had been told that when we arrived at our permanent camp, there would be hot food, warm buildings to sleep in, and the wounded would be taken care of, but we found just the opposite. There were no hot meals, no beds, no blankets, and no medicine. Twenty-five POWs were packed in an eight-by-ten-foot room in a small hut. Because there was not enough space for everyone to lie down, our legs would stretch over each other’s chests. The air smelled so bad that when it was my turn to lie down, I put my nose to a small hole in the wall to get some fresh air. After all the promises of good conditions, this was a bitter disappointment, but war is war. Almost immediately, prisoners began to die. The first to die were those with untreated wounds. With no medicine , there was nothing we could do for them. They just died. The next group died from malnutrition. They simply starved to death. Then disease took others. We had dysentery , often from drinking bad water. You could not walk anywhere without stepping in feces. We dug a slit trench with two logs alongside it, and we’d try to sit on the logs. c h a p t e r f o u r Camp 5 For the first time in my life, I felt I was being treated as an equal rather than as an outcast. —Clarence Adams Camp 5 : 47 One guy fell in and no one had the strength to pull him out. By this time we had lost so much weight, we were too weak to do much of anything. I had dropped down to about ninety pounds. We lost men who went outside the huts to relieve themselves. Often they were too weak to make it to the latrine areas, and we’d find them later frozen, just outside the building. Thirsty men also died when they ate contaminated snow because they either refused or were physically unable to walk away from the living areas to find clean snow. Some of our guys were virtually eaten alive by lice. These hog lice were as big as soybeans, and they sucked your blood. We’d remove the shirt off some guy who had just died and we’d see his body just covered with lice. These were usually guys who were so badly wounded they could not pick the lice off themselves . I’d get a buddy to pick the lice off of me and then I would do the same thing for him. You had to pull them off carefully because the head was buried Camp 5, located on the Yalu River near Pyuktong, North Korea. This photograph was probably taken by Frank “Pappy” Noel, a well-known AP photographer and POW. The Chinese allowed Noel to take several carefully screened photographs. Hundreds of Americans lay buried on the hillside above the camp. Photo courtesy of the National POW Museum, Andersonville National Historic Site, Andersonville, Georgia. A rough drawing of Camp 5 made by fellow prisoner Richard M. Bassett and used with his permission. Camp 5 : 49 under your skin, and if you broke it off, it would become infected. When you mashed a louse between your fingers, you’d hear a popping sound and see the blood running down your fingers. I managed to find Peach the second week we were in Camp 5. I wanted to thank him for trying to help me on the march, but he was dying. His shoulder wound had become badly infected, and the pus was just oozing out. Every day I went to his hut, held him in my arms, and squeezed the pus out of his wound. We both knew he was going to die, but I did everything I could...