MARINE BIRTHDAY NOVEMBER 10, 1953 K2, Taegu Air Base, Korea, 1953. The “Police Action” was over since the armistice was signed in June. Winter was approaching and the pot-bellied oil stoves in the Quonset huts and tents were fired up. The front line troops were very busy building the buffer to control the armistice line confronting the Chinese and North Koreans. I was an Air Traffic Controller in the Taegu Air Route Traffic Control Center located on the airbase at K-2. We worked shifts each day between meal times and kept open 24 hours a day controlling the airways of southern South Korea. No one was firing at us and we only used our carbines when they issued them to us for target practice. Only the bandits in the hills were a problem. They kept stealing the copper wire of the communication system. The typical life of the far behind the front lines support troops. Sometime in September the Service Club started to assemble a performing group to put on a camp show. We started small, but, the director, a former show-girl from the New York theater crowd really made us into a cohesive and entertaining bunch. Now don’t ask me her name. We had a pianist, “Casey“ from Kansas City, a band, the 24th Division Dance Band, a Master of Ceremonies (M.C.), a Marine Lieutenant from Marine Air Base at Pohang, K-3, and a group of starry-eyed amateurs to fill things out. Our director put together a slapstick and funny hour or more of songs and jokes. A real old fashioned burlesque amateur hour string of acts. Yours truly sang a couple songs and was part of the finale, a take-off on opera with all of use dressed in Wagnerian costume with mop wigs and protruding chest architecture, mouthing the Italian words of the “Anvil Chorus“ while it blared from the loudspeaker. It was so campy we could only sustain it for about 3 minutes and then the curtain closed abruptly. We put this show on for two performances in the Service Club at K-2 and then were requested to go “on the road”. We did. Another seven performances were given at surrounding Army bases and one hospital and then we went to our final show. Because all this was transpiring in late October and early November, the M.C, who as I noted, was a Marine arranged to have the whole troop airlifted to Pohang, for a November 10th, the Marine Birthday, evening show We were transported by Marine R4D (DC3) from K-2 to K-3 a distance of about 35 air miles, but, all that over some low mountains. Arriving at the Marine Air Base we were treated like the show people we were. I was a mere E3 (Airman Second Class) but, was accepted into the NCO Mess for dinner before the show and breakfast the next morning. We put on our show to an enthusiastic audience and were feted for the rest of the evening. Beer was available. We bedded down in the transit barracks for a good sound sleep. The next morning after breakfast we were driven to the ramp to load onto the return trip air transport. I don’t remember why, but, the M.C. and I couldn’t make the flight. We were stuck at Pohang and they were not about to supply an aircraft for just two of us. The M.C., as noted, a Marine officer, did have some influence and obtained an open jeep with a Marine driver to take us home. Thirty-five miles by air translated into many more dusty, bumpy, dirt road miles by jeep. Luckily though, the weather was good and I had my raincoat with me. By the time we arrived at K-2 in the late afternoon we were covered with Korean soil. I can’t say dust because by then the layer was about a quarter inch thick. It was all great fun except for a sore derrière and aching bladder. I had been a part of a bunch of good-time guys (we always had at least one fifth of CC in the costume box) and I had had my few minutes of fame, or so I thought at the time. And the Marines of Pohang had a real stage show for their birthday. Was that really 60 years ago? My how the generations fly! And the armistice still holds! ------------------------------------------ Here is her picture.- Club Announcement - “Casey“ from Kansas City- Another performer- Me a couple months later
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:48:42 +0000
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