'I did the best I could': Texan Bobby Little reflects on combat in Korean War
When Texan Bobby Gene Little reflects on his time serving in the Korean War, he recalls the horrors of combat, as well as the privilege of serving his country.
"I didn’t do more than anyone else - I did the best I could," the 93-year-old who was born in East Texas but now lives in Lubbock said, reflecting on his service and life back home.
Serving three years in the Marines, his service nearly spanned the entire length of the Korean War. Bobby was born in Slate Shoals, Texas to James and Rossie Little. He “had two brothers and one sister and another sister who died at a young age.” James was a farmer and took whatever jobs he could get. Bobby noted, “I attended school in Paris (southwest of Slate Shoals). I played basketball and baseball. I loved baseball and played in the American Legion and while we didn’t make the tournament, I was one of three picked to go.
Signing up
“I attended Tyler Jr. College for a short time. I was going for a business degree and earned a license to sell real estate. In August of 1950, my buddy from high school, Andy Jackson, was going to get drafted. We decided to join the Marines together. We enlisted at the Paris courthouse. We were inducted in Dallas. They put us on a train for Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Andy and I got in the same platoon. We went to the same boot camp (13 weeks). We were given weapons training, self-defense, obstacle course, etc. I went in weighing 124 pounds and got out of boot camp at 150 pounds. We got a short leave home.
On to Korea and war
What follows is Bobby’s own account of his days in Korea.
“On the 27th of January 1951, the 5th Replacement for the First Marine Corps Division sailed out of San Diego Harber for Korea aboard the USS General Breckenridge. After stopping Kobe, Japan to drop some troops off. We sailed to Yokohama, Japan, left our sea bags in storage and then sailed to Pusan, Japan. We landed in Pusan on February 14, 1951. We were placed aboard trucks and hauled inland to our regular unit for service in Korea. Andy and I were both assigned to the 60mm mortar section of How Company, Third Division, Fifth Regiment, First Marine Division as ammo carriers. It was late at night in the middle of a rice paddy with 10” of snow on the ground.
“Early morning on the 15th of February, we broke camp and boarded trucks which hauled us north of Wonju, Korea. We were put afoot and started north to begin the United Nations Spring Offensive, code name ‘Killer’. On the 18th of February, Andy and I saw our first combat action and witnessed what shells, napalm and bombs can do to the human body. The 21st of February, we were in our first fire fight. We took three North Korean medics prisoners. We were on the line from the 18th of February and about the 10th of March we were still on the line when code name “Killer” changed to “Ripper” which is what the Army’s IX and X Corp called the Spring offensive.
“Our operations involved moving by foot almost daily to secure new objectives or plug holes in the main line of resistance. We were in fire fights or night probing action almost daily for 70 – 75 days at which time we were declared unfit for combat due to physical strain, dysentery from eating nothing but cold c-rations and casualties from combat that we were pulled off the line for a few days to get rest and hot meals. That didn’t last long, and we were back on the line again.
“We were in fire fights from February to April 13th at which time H35 had a reinforced platoon patrol assigned to make contact with the enemy about 10:00 a.m. across a valley in front of the lines. My 60mm mortar gun and squad was assigned to the platoon making the patrol. We got caught in the middle of a rice paddy when we were hit by small arms fire and light mortars. I can’t explain the feeling one gets when bullets are flying around you like bees, and you have no place to go but bury your face in the mud of a rice paddy. We finally laid down a smoke screen and moved out of the open positions with only six casualties from our patrol.
“The next day, the entire How Company moved out with tank support and too the position where the North Koreans were firing on our patrol. My 60mm mortar squad had a very close call from an 82mm mortar white phosphorus shell that missed our gun position by inches when it landed. We were firing support for the assault on the ridge where the North Koreans were entrenched. During February, March and April, the North Koreans probed our lines in the cold of the night blowing bugles and whistles and shouts about how you Marines were going to die. We always had 50% alert at night when the enemy probed our positions. However, we always went on 100% watch regardless of what we had been through the previous day or night.
“It was sometime during this period that we were moving by foot along a section of the road when some Marine Corps trucks came through us loaded with the bodies of dead Marines that were still clothed with shoes, leggings and dungarees on and were stiff and laying in the bed of the truck. You didn’t need to be very smart to realize that you could just as easily been one of the group in the back of those trucks as not.
“Our unit was in fire fight one day in April, and the 3rd Squad leader in our 60mm mortar section, Blackie Campo, was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell and received a slight surface wound to the head. Blackie was from a large Hispanic family with nine kids. He came from Iowa. The corpsman wrote him ups for the Purple Heart and the War Department notified his family that he had been wounded in action. The sudden shock caused his mother to have a heart attack and die. The word came back to the front lines to pull Blackie off line and send him home for his mother’s funeral. A runner was dispatched to bring Blackie down the hill, but he made the mistake of telling him that he was being sent home for his mother’s funeral. Needless to say, the way things were handled, Blackie had a nervous breakdown while still on the line. I let everyone know right then, no one was to contact my mother if I should get hit and this may be the reason my two weeks in “E” med in June 1951 was never made a part of my record. Who knows.
“The largest single fire fight that I can recall, we were hit by the Chinese about 4:30 on the morning of May 23, 1951. By 9:00 am we counted 162 dead and 10 prisoners. How Company had 5 wounded and no KIA. The next two or three days we moved by foot to take back some of the positions that had been overrun by the Chinese when we encountered. The point of our column came upon a nice flowing stream with large boulders in it. The cool, flowing water was most inviting, especially since we had been hiking most of the day and our canteens were empty and the days were starting to get warm. Being near the front of the column, I didn’t waste much time in filling my two canteens and didn’t give the halazone tablets enough time to be effective before I had started to drink. Word came back to us from the fire team on the point of the column for the troops not to drink the water. When we moved upstream some 100 yards, it was very obvious why the word was ‘don’t drink the water’. The stream was full of dead American soldiers that had been there since the Chinese overran their position on or about the 21st or 22nd of May. There were American and Chinese corpses all over the area where the American Army had been positioned in bunkers and fox holes before the Chinese hit them.
It was about one week later that we were still moving across the hills by foot, sometimes by day and sometimes by night. On the 4th of June we were moving by night, and it was very dark. An 82mm mortar came in on us and blew me over an embankment from the trail with full field pack, plus a 60mm mortar tube and bipods on my shoulders and around my neck. I was unable to throw the gun from my shoulders before rolling down the 30 foot embankment. This damaged my neck and lower back to the extent that I was evacuated to “E” Med Field Hospital for two weeks. I still have problems with this injury some 73 years later.
“How Company was still on the line when I returned to duty on the latter part of June 1951. We continued on the front line until mid-August at which time the 5th Marine Regiment went into a rest period in the Wonju Valley for 2 – 3 weeks. When Moving positions on the front line, a common sight was decomposing bodies of enemy soldiers on the trail or near the defensive positions on the ridge line. Some may have been charred from napalm or maybe a leg shot off and laid there and bled to death or maybe just had their head blown off and the rest of the body still undamaged. In the summer of 1951, we did a lot of nighttime patrols in front of our lines with units in size from a four man team to a platoon size.
“When the 5th Regiment came out of reserve the first of September, 1951, we were put in the heart of the battle to secure the Punch Bowl area in the central-eastern part of Korea. This was some of the fiercest fighting of the Korean War. H Company, 5th Regiment replaced F Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. How Company occupied the same position for 8 days in mid-September and had 82 casualties out of a company of 250 men. We didn’t hate one foot of new ground during this time!
“My high school buddy and friend, Andy Jackson, was one of the 82 casualties when he caught some shrapnel in the chest and stomach from an 82mm mortar. We had been together since joining the Corps in August 1950. We were in the same platoon in boot camp as well as advance training right up to the time he was hit. I was there with him by the time Doc Ambrose, Navy Corpsman, had given him some medication for the pain. Four of the laborers carried him down the hill on a stretcher. The gunnery sergeant refused to let me go off the hill with him. That was the last time I saw Andy. He died after a week at sea on a hospital ship. I didn’t learn about it until late October when Terrell Hill’s mother in Paris, Texas sent him a newspaper clipping tell of Andy’s death. Terrell was a young man that Andy and I knew in high school. He ended up in H Company Supply after joining the Corps and coming to Korea in mid-1951.
“When in combat, it seems that death is always at your elbow and always a second away. It doesn’t take long to realize that it doesn’t pay to become very attached to anyone as a friend because it makes it that much more difficult to accept their loss. When you are in combat, your survival depends on the fellow on you right or left and his survival depends on you! For that reason, it's difficult to not to develop a bond with the me in your unit.
“Elia Hizar, Russel Green and I just missed the casualty list by 3 inches when an 82mm mortar shell fell on a sandbag at the entrance of a lightly constructed bunker that we had taken cover in on the same ridge that Andy was hit by a mortar shell. We all received concussions and since my left ear was only inches from where the shell exploded. My hearing has been impaired on the left side ever since. As I have expressed above, in combat, an inch or a second can mean the difference in making it or not making it back.
“We continued on and off the line. It was mostly on the line until I was rotated back to the states the end of February 1952. We had to sleep in holes on the front line in the winter of 1951 when the temperature was recorded at -27 degrees. You don’t live, you just try to survive. The weather was warm enough to have a heat stroke in the summer and cold enough to have frostbite in the winter. It was a real challenge to survive in these conditions carrying 75 to 85 pounds on your back and living in holes like we did without the added danger of someone trying to kill you with everything at their disposal such as rifle shells, mortars, artillery, hand grenades and land mines to name a few.
“About the only thing enjoyable to look forward to was going off line and down the hill ever six to eight weeks for a hot shower and maybe a warm, cooked meal then back up the hill. We were first told that we would be rotated out of Korea after 6 months but when six months came, we were told 8 months, then 12 months. We felt like the only way to be rotated was with a wound that was severe enough to keep you from performing your duty.
“I was asked how many firefights I was in during my 12-1/2 months in Korea. I have no way of recalling that number but would feel that from 200 to 250 would be a very conservative number. Sometimes the Chinese would probe our positions two and three times in one night. They loved to use tracers in the burp guns and that made for a good in the dark of night.
The aftermath of war
“After returning to the states, we were never given any treatment or consideration to what we had gone through during the year in combat and trying to adjust back to a normal life. Combat conditions were about as animalistic as things can get and still call it civilized."
A final thought about combat
Bobby’s time in Korea came to end. “We took a ship, the USS General William Weigel and sailed back to Japan to pick up our sea bags at Kobe. They couldn’t find them. Arriving at Treasure Island, I got orders to Henderson Hall near Washington, D.C. up the hill from the Pentagon. I worked for the commandant’s office on guard duty. I stayed there for 15 months. In late ’52 to early ’53, I worked on a detail when (Dwight) Eisenhower got in office. I turned down a reenlistment and came back to West Texas. I drove my own car back, a 1950 Ford Custom. “We had a history teacher in school that would tell his students each year that he could predict the winner of all future wars as well as the previous wars. His answer was always the same: ‘Death, Disease and Destruction.’ I must agree with him on that.”
Trying to adjust to civilian life
“I tried two or three jobs but wasn’t qualified. I went to work for Petrolite selling chemical additives for oil and gas pipelines in McCamey, Texas then in Four Corners, Colorado. I had trouble fitting in (anywhere), I probably had PTSD. moved to East Texas where I worked for a local real estate office then worked for Magna Chemical and then moved to West Texas.”
Finally recognized for his service
After sending numerous letters to the Department of the Navy in 2000, Bobby was finally awarded the medals and ribbons earned for his service in March 2001. Here are his awards:
Purple Heart Medal
Combat Action Ribbon
Presidential Unit Citation
Good Conduct Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Korean War Service Medal with four bronze stars
United Nations Service Medal
Republic of Korea War Service Medal
Rifle Sharpshooter Badge
Pistol Marksman Badge