501st CRG: Bill Wetzel's Story

I was assigned to Two Rock Ranch station until 1950 when 12 of us volunteered as cadre to be sent to Cp Pickett VA and assigned to Hq Co 501st Comm Recon Gp.After completing training at Cp Pickett part of our unit went by train, with all our vehicles and equipment, to Cp Stoneman Ca while the rest of us went by troop train. The only interesting part of the train ride was our stop in Flagstaff AZ while track was cleared of a wreck ahead of us. About a third of the company had to be bodily carried back onto the train after visiting the local watering holes. An old timer at the station got on the train with us and when the conductor found him a while later the train was stopped and the poor old guy was put off in the middle of nowhere to find his own way back to town!

We were transported on the USS President Jackson to Japan and then through the inland passage between the main islands of Japan to Pusan Korea. Enroute we had the unpleasant experience of almost sinking a small Japanese or Korean ship transporting lumber piled quite high on deck. We were chugging along towards a channel between two islands when he tried to cut in front of us while crewmen on deck seemed to be giving us the one fingered salute. The captain ordered the deck guns to open fire on him but he had gotten so close they could not bring the guns to bear. We finally found out that the ship was heading for rocks and he was trying to warn us!

We arrived at Pusan without further incident and off loaded through a warehouse and went to a local replacement depot before departing for Inchon on a small freighter. (one of the guys "borrowed" a case of 45 automatics and put them in one of our trucks. A couple months later the CID came to our unit in Seoul and the culprit was subsequently transferred out of the unit!) We had a pleasant enough trip to Inchon (white sheets on bunks,all the ice cream we could eat etc. We did find out, upon opening our ammo boxes given to us in Pusan that almost all the ammo was tracer which, if we had been forced to use, would have played hell with our weapons!. The evening we arrived in Inchon harbor "bed check charlie" payed a visit to Inchon and dropped a couple Grenades or something but did not venture out over the harbor which made us extremely happy as we were told that once the tide went out in the evening nothing could leave the harbor until morning. We offloaded onto a landing craft and then proceeded to Seoul. All of us were a little nervous as we did not know how far the "front" was to the north and we had gotten word that at the first "pit stop" our people that were bringing the vehicles up by land one of our two or three "ROTC" junior officers had been shot and killed by a sniper while answering the call of nature. As far as I remember that was the only KIA our unit had while I was there. We set up shop in a compound that we were told had been a Junior College in the middle of Seoul. There was quite a stench for awhile at the beginning until everything had been cleaned up. Kind of a weird feeling for awhile at night as civilians were not allowed back in Seoul for a time.

Was transferred (via ASAPAC Tokyo) from Seoul to 8603d AAU on Okinawa. Enjoyed the tour there. Played a lot of pinochle at the NCO club. Listened to a lot of Lefty Frizel records at our favorite bar in Fatima, lots of Beach Parties and saw the new post almost completed on the shore of the South China Sea before departing for Two Rock Ranch Station Petaluma Calif in April 1953. (Do want to mention that about the only buddies name I have found on the internet is Tennis J Drake who I served with in the Philippines and at Two Rock Ranch and later ran into in Paris France where he was doing embassy duty.) Really enjoyed my two tours of duty at Two Rock.