I am baldwin frank myers. My first name is spelled balwin when i reported back to them and said this was frank myers they did not know why was because they only knew me as baldy. Can you spell your last name . Myers. My birthday is may 29th 1918 owyhee county, idaho. It is an orange valley. That is an indian name . It is an indian name. I do not know what it means. Tell me about your family. Where you are growing up. I grew up on a cattle ranch about five miles south of jordan valley. My mother was born in east europe. She was austrian. My father was an old cowboy whose ancestry goes back to the neptune in 16 22. He arrived in charleston, south carolina. His descendants served in the revolutionary war. They were original founders of tennessee, the city of newport. They came to missouri, and in 1841 migrated to california. An old man of 62 brought his 12 grandchildren out in california. What about your siblings . I have one in reno who runs a computer store. I have another that is insane francisco. He is in an apartment for seniors. I have a daughter and another son that i dont keep much track of. I dont know where they are. What school did you go to . The first second grade i walked three and a half miles to go to school with my older brother. He was 18 months older and i. Through very cold weather sometimes, and snow. It was called the South Mountain school. Right on the border of oregon, idaho. It was called the South Mountain school. My parents divorced, and we moved. I stayed with my father. We moved to an area called murphy. He bought a place called the grace creek ranch. We stayed there for three or four years. And we moved to ashton, oregon. He married again. I did not like the person he married, so at 13 i moved out. I ran away from home and went to oregon where understood i had relatives and family. So you just i left. After a while my brother my dad came back and i saw him. I made an arrangement with my uncle that i would go to a boarding school there. He could send my report cards and i would read work on his ranch. When did you graduate high school . 1949. What is the name of the high school . Crane high school. Its a boarding school in oregon. Did you learn anything about korea . I did not know where korea was at the time. But i was interested in geography, history, and migrations and origins of people. I was not knowledgeable at that time. What did you do after graduation . From high school i worked on the ranch in the summer. That fall i was persuaded by some of my friends and an Army Recruiter to join the army. When did you join the army . September 22nd, 1949. Where did you get based in . California. I was enlisted at idaho. I was put in charge of 200 recruits, approximately, to go on the train down to what was your specialty . Rifle man . That is kind of a long story. I went to the army to operate heavy equipment so i could have a job when i got out. Like bulldozers and heavy equipment. When i joined the army, there is a lot of new people there that have difficulty adjusting. The new recruits were coming in. On one occasion, the two companies were going to fight for some reason. There were alliance that wanted to attack our hawaiians. I said we are not going to do that. I walked through the two companies persuading them not to fight. If we fight we will both be rich strict at the rest of the time we are here. Go back to your barracks, no fighting, and if you feel that you have to and you want to beat somebody up, go off the company area at the end of the street, and i will come down and take you on when at the time. When i did that, only a few of them showed up. I went down there, but then other guys came out and said we are not going to see you get beat up. That made everything evaporates. Nobody wanted to fight anybody. That was over. The next day i was called in to the orderly room by captain smith, the master sergeant. They asked me what the hell it was doing out in the Company Street last night. I said i was trying to stop a riot. He said were trying to get yourself killed . At that time, the captain said, what are your plans in the army . I said i want to learn a trade so i could get a good job when i get out. He said we want you to go to leadership school. Youre going to go to leadership school, and if you dont, i will blackball you the rest of the time you are in the army. So i said let me talk to my friends. We decided i better go to leadership school, which i did. When that happened moss riflemen. Class . Class a 13. When did you leave for korea . That is another little short story. I was stationed at Camp Stoneman for departure to korea. I was visiting my mother who is living in San Francisco at the time i got home i got to the camp late one night. It was about 1 00. I had just gotten in bed, and some person was going through the barracks stealing wallets. An african guy. I saw him. I yelled. There is a thief in here the person started running out the door. I only had my shorts on that i chased him out and tackled him and held him down on the street till others came up and helped arrest him. I had to stay then passed my ship out date as a witness for his arrest and incarceration for stealing. On about the end of may, sometime, or the 1st of june. Im not sure of the day. I was boarded on a ship transport. 1949 . 1950. In late may. Sometime around the middle of the night. Collins. That was the name of the ship. We sailed out today for okinawa. That was an uncomfortable trip for me, because i did not like bobbing around like a cork in the ocean. It was pretty rough. I think it was about the 12th of june. Where . Okinawa . Yes. Okinawa. It was a little hard to get used to. The mosquitoes and the heat. After a while, i was out in the street and the young man named daily. It was a sunday. The bell rang. The whistles blew. We were summoned to attend a meeting. It was announced on loudspeaker that a war had become begun and korea. We were going to immediately exercise in the field, taking combat training. What was your unit at the time . I was within 29th infantry regiment. My Company Commander was alexander. One time i was training with a person named james and a couple of others who were bright, capable people by the way. He was very helpful. He was helpful in helping people. Reading maps. Interrogating prisoners. We had these training cycles that we were going through in okinawa. Water . No thank you. Not right now, but pretty soon. K you are leading, scouting, patrolling and seeing what is ahead of you. Its intelligence. Very dangerous. It was. James, my buddy tony and others went ahead with that. Of course i ran into jim and tony later on in combat. That is another story. Kind of a sad one because they got captured and they saved my life. They went up to rescue a medic on the hill in combat. So you knew you were going to go to korea, right . No. At first we were told we were going to japan to relieve the 24th division who is going to be sent to korea. We shipped out. We got as far as sass a bill. Then they told us we were going to korea. Were you scared . No. You are not . No. You are going to the war. For some reason i never had a lot of fear in my life. Oh. So when did you arrive in korea . Where . We arrived there approximately in pusan about the 22nd of july, as soon as i can tell. On the root over we encountered an enemy submarine. We heard death charges going off. People panicked. Our ships started to the only way i can explain it is just about getting sunset. You heard boom, boom, boom. It was like the ship was hitting rocks. Everybody thought the ship was sinking. I said theyre just dropping death charges. Sure enough, there was a canadian corvette circling the smoke pot and dropping death charges. They were flashing red light at us. We were told we had to move out and parts of what seemed to be a submarine moved up out of the water and dropped back down. I was told later that that was a submarine. It was probably russian. Russian. Right. When you arrived in person, what was the situation . How did the Korean People look like at the time . How was it . My First Impression when he landed there, we were marching up this kind of a steep incline on dirt streets. There was older buildings. There were many people lining the streets all dressed in white clothes. A lot of young people. They were applauding us. I just thought it was kind of strange. I could not communicate with them, which is not like me to not communicate with someone. We marched up to the top of the hill where there was a school house. We disembark and took showers and changed our clothes. At night, we boarded a train. Or trucks. I forget. Im a little confused about that. We went to a place called some of us went and trucks and some untrained. Thats why mueller confused. I enjoyed a good nap. I think what i did was flawlessly. I think it was a train. Okay. It probably was. We disembark when we got there and marched away to the school house. When we were there, as we were approaching we saw many wounded people. I believe it was the 19th regiment of the 24th division. Some of them were pretty bloodied up. Shot up and wounded. They looked pretty scared. I said dont worry, you guys. We will win the war for you. I had no idea at the time with that was going to lead to. After getting ourselves organized we went out on a couple of patrols. When i specifically remember. I was issued a sniper rifle. Thank you. I liked being a soldier, i guess, where i could reach out over long distances and see what was going on. We were taken out to a place, i believe it was southwest of change you by truck. We saw one of our vehicles wrecked. I could not tell if it was shot up or not. It was alleged that it had been ambushed by guerrillas so we were going to do something about the gorillas. I had to position high up on a hill. I had to observe what was going on and saw an unusual number of people in white clothes which i thought were farmers moving through the race pattys below and around them heading towards jinju generally. Our guys were splashing around the creeks swimming and pretty soon we were told to board up the trucks and get back. So we left there and i was a little concerned about the migration of white clothes coming in around our area with what was going on for sure. We got back to change you, and later that night, i believe. Maybe the 20 i dont know what date it would be. We boarded up the trucks again. We had it out for hadong. There were road problems. We slept over the night. And early in the morning we had a patrol out. Jim, tony and some others were in that patrol. When they came back they woke everybody up. The colonel gave us a speech. We were gathering up we were going to go to a town that was currently occupied by guerrillas with pitchforks and knives. I dont know it was before or after that. We ran into several truckloads of pretty badly shot up korean militia. South koreans. I understood that there had been a problem at the head, but i did know what kind of a problem, because i did not understand the language. I was not briefed being a private. We continued on. We started marching at that point on. We were not and trucks anymore. We were marching. We had two columns extending a mile and a half to two miles. About ten steps apart. One column on each side. I was in reserve country. That was icompany. The lieutenant was in charge. It was a little bit after eight maybe a quarter to nine. We were probably a couple of miles east of jinju on a windy road. All of a sudden we could hear fires exploding. Machine gun fire, rifle fire and so forth. We know that there was some kind of contact ahead. We did not know what to expect. We arrived on the scene probably 30 minutes later coming up a windy hill over the crest of the hill. I could see about a half a mile ahead going down into hadong, and the road ran through, down to the right and along the foot of the hill that we called the North Mountain or north hill. North koreans were entrenched on it and ready for us. Then a road further, another for 500 yards, another road that led down to jinju. When i came around the hill, i saw three burning vehicles. One at the pass. Two more 500 yards down toward our direction, burning. I also saw another one burning and i got distracted for the moment. It turned out to be an orange colored jeep. It was our air to ground jeep. It was burning not far from where general cheese monument is. As we were continuing down the hill, we received mortar fire on the hill that we had just come the back of. It was about five rounds each of mortar rounds. They wounded to squad members of my unit. They were pretty badly wounded. They were screaming. I laid my rifle down and ran down to help them and do it i could. When i got down there i saw his stomach was blown out. Either had a shoulder and chest wound. They were screaming loudly and i did not know what to do. I was told to go back to my position and let the medics handle it. Its hard to not be able to help somebody, but i could see if i moved him i wouldnt hurt him more. I went back to the position and the medics came, picked them up and put them in stretchers and loaded them on a lurie. Was that around august . No, im sorry. That was july 27th. Im glad you asked. This started the firing started about 8 45 in the morning. You stay you still belong to the 27th and century . At that time i was at the 29th infantry. This was kind of a blow by blow account as i recall it. When we left jinju, it took us a day to get to jinju from when we were in hadong. We spent one night on the road. The next morning we camped out the 26th, and the 27th we began to take hadong. You have such a vivid memory. I sleep with it every night. I wake up with it every morning. I used to wake up at 2 30 in the morning. Same old thing. Carrying grenades and rifles going up the hill. The same hill, trying to rescue a medic. And all these koreans shooting at me. Im shooting at them. Jim and tony are shooting at them to. I would wake up and try to figure out do you have p. T. Is the . Yes. A very bad case. I didnt know. When i came back, i did not know what i wanted to do. When i game back to japan i was so tired i dropped. I was looking for somebody that shared my experience. I dont know why did that. When i came back home i thought i want to go to school, stop wars. Im going to go to law school. Whatever unqualified for. I took a bunch of tests through the veterans administration. Their comment was to me, you must have had a terrible childhood. I said why . They said you are angry. You have very low self esteem. You are very aggressive. You are suicidal. You are all this and that. You are a timebomb ready to go off. I said no, i had a very happy childhood. Why would you even think that . I had all the range and open space i wanted to roman. I was happy. I had brothers and sisters. I had good parents. No, i was happy. I said the only thing that happened that was really upsetting in my life is going to war in korea and seeing all my friends killed, and i feel really guilty about it. I felt that i could have or should have done something more. When i tried to go back and help, i was told where and what to do. I had to go back. They restrained me and i felt guilty about it. Then another time i felt that when i held a guy till he died, when he was dying he said, tell mom and that i will be all right. That i love them. He died. I didnt know who he was. I didnt go back to see him. Where did you go from jinju . We were taken out again. Weve got chased off that hill and back through jinju, and after jinju fell when i left there. Where did you go from there . I was loaded on a train. I was helping the wounded out of the school house on to the train. The train left jinju and the last thing i remember is fighting for my rifle with somebody that was trying to get it away from me. I was lying on a stretcher or i believe was pusan. It might have been a nurse or somebody. Next thing i remember is i heard a lard strange noise and i shot upright and looked around and some of this big round hole in the wall. Everything was white where i was. I looked out the window. I saw beautiful green grass. I said why am i . In heaven . Where is mom and dad . They said no you are on a ship and you are going to japan. So you were in the hospital ship . Yes. Were you wounded . I was wounded. I couldnt see out of my eye. I had blinds thoughts, moving around, at my right ankle was very badly sprained, i could barely walk on. It but when we lift that hill position, the reason i am talking about why the here is that we were put on this position and i had my sniper knife. I went to that position and i some movement over there and there were can koreans unloading some equipment to prepare an attack on us. And then somebody came out to get me and i said you tell them to scent and airstrike out here in this area, and hurry up because theres thousands of greens and a lot of equipment out there. About an hour and a half later 14 course airs flew in from i would say the south or southwest, and attacked that area, then the lone he 53 mustang flew down and i thought he was going to shoot me. He went over there and he drifted off with his wings, and went down to where the course wears were a spent two weeks in the hospital. And did you get any medal no. The person who told me i was getting a medal was the police who said i should be getting a medal of honor i dont know, its just a metal. So a colonel woke me. Up i hadnt slept in days. He woke me up in a dead sleep and asked how did you get hurt . I said i was bringing a messenger back to the city. And the korean who lived the he had read money on him, which is korean money. I was taking him down to the cp to be deep, i sprained my ankle, and i was trying to say i was bringing the messenger in and he was a korean messenger in in my opinion. On anyway they put that i was a Company Runner. Im not a Company Runner so you went to camp strike . Yes. Then i spent two or three weeks there processing groups and then they wanted me in the headquarters, head of fiscal demand. So they send me to the physical headquarters, and i wouldnt be paid saw used russian cars for cigarettes. What do you mean by you werent paid . Well i couldnt find out where my records were, and the military wasnt paying. I didnt know what to say. How did it happen . You are still in the army. U. S. Army. Right . Yes but i didnt know it. Here is the rest of the story. I got a security clearance. From back home i could work in a secret, cage secret documents or something, i didnt know that i was reported missing an action. I would read that casualty reports and when they i saw my name on the casualty reports and said gravy. When did you read . That october, 1950. So i looked up the code name from gravy and i said colonel this is why im not getting paid. He said oh you are missing in action we had a laugh about it. And not long after that one of my leaders, he was a cure year than, we kept looking at each other and he finally says youre the guy that pulled me out of the race pad, a pulled him by the color and pulled him into the bamboo the. Get his name was quiet for. He was a lieutenant. So, he remembered that, and