Just an Average Joe - Korean War veteran Jim Byers

Jim Byers' Korean War had its share of adventure

Jim Byers didn't fly a sleek F-86 Sabre jet into "MiG Alley" to shoot down enemy planes. He was a draftsman, a support troop in the Korean War. One of more than 5.7 million "average Joes" who served there. The ones most Americans have forgotten.

But he left his mark. It wasn't a red star painted on the side of a jet, the sign of an aerial kill. His role was just a small part of the total effort that helped the Air Force win the air war.

"There was no glamour. I drew charts and flipped them at briefings," he said. "But I knew I was helping do something important."

He still believes that 49 years later. Proud of his one-year stint in Korea, he can still recall the little details of his tour. And he has a mind and scrapbooks full of memories.

But Korea was the last place he wanted go in the spring of 1952. He was 18 years old and two months out of high school. He dreamed of college, but had no money for that. And though he had a job, he knew he had no future as a drug store soda jerk.

That made him a prime candidate for a quick trip to the front lines. The Army and Marine Corps were drafting men to drive the "communist hordes" from South Korea. But Byers couldn't see himself as a "grunt" dodging bullets in some strange land.

"There was no way in hell I was going to get drafted," he said.

So on advice from a cousin, he joined the Air Force. He hoped that would keep him out of the war. And he hoped it would be his ticket to college. Plus the Air Force told him he could be a draftsman, his lifelong wish. So two weeks later, he was in basic training at Sampson Air Force Base, N.Y. From there, he went to draftsman school at Fort Belvoir, Va.

"Life was good," Byers said. He finished training in September and received his first assignment -- San Francisco. "I knew that's where you went for 'later deployment' to the Far East. But I wasn't too concerned."

The Army "brat" from Washington, D.C., was hopeful. Though he'd never been away from home -- except to visit his grandparents In North Carolina -- he just knew he'd go to Japan.

He was right. His troop ship steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge and made a beeline for Japan. He was sure he'd do a three-year stint there. As he neared Japan, a fantasy formed in his mind. His thoughts turned to Tokyo nightclubs, drinking beer, parties and chasing Japanese girls.

But his bubble burst one day after he got to the port of Yokohama. He got orders for Korea.

"Man, I nearly wet my pants," he said. "I thought, 'So much for a cushy desk job in Tokyo.'"

He wandered around in a daze for a while. But he managed to make friends. One was a soldier he'd later visit in Korea. Another was a New Zealander who gave him "the skinny" on Korea duty and a bottle of Scotch whisky to drown his sorrows. But he was too dumbstruck to drink. As he collected a ton of winter gear, his helmet and rifle, he wondered what lay ahead.

"Let's face It, I'd never done anything of consequence in my life," he said. "I was headed for a bloody war and just couldn't figure out what a draftsman was supposed to do there."

He soon found out. Five days after reaching Japan, he took off for Korea.

First impressions

Byers hopped a C-47 transport to Chinhae, on Korea's southern coast. Arriving in the middle of the night, he couldn't form a first impression. Confused, he crashed onto his cot and slept.

His first sight the next morning was of a busy flight line. It was full of people readying planes for missions, a host of vehicles and P-51 Mustang aircraft. As a lad growing up during World War II, he loved to draw the fighters. Seeing them somehow gave him a kind of comfort.

"I was in awe and thought it was all pretty neat," he said. "That's when I told myself it wasn't going to be that bad, that I'd make it. I was actually glad to be there."

Korea didn't scare him anymore. So he vowed to be the best draftsman there -- and find out what Korea was all about. Not the attitude most troops had In those days.

Maybe somewhere in the back of his mind floated the words of the top commander in Korea, Gen. Douglas MacArthur: "There is no security on Earth; there is only opportunity."

So the young troop found things to do outside the norm. And, at times, that led to adventure.

He joined the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing at "Dog Patch," what troops called the base outside Chinhae. Each day, Mustangs flew close air support missions for U.N. troops fighting all over the Korean peninsula.

As a statistical draftsman, Byers made charts and flipped slides at countless briefings. Though not overly challenged, he said the work kept him busy and was satisfying. The charts detailed all the intelligence information wing pilots needed to fly their missions.

"I found out quick what a draftsman does in war," he said. "I wasn't in the fighting. But passing information was, probably, the next most important thing in Korea."

Just before Christmas, his unit packed up and moved to K-55 air base. Today it's Osan Air Base, some 35 miles south of South Korea's capital city of Seoul. But Byers refused to fly in the C-119 Flying Boxcar transports taking his mates north.

"They'd have had to put me in jail first," he said. "Too many of them had crashed." So he volunteered to ride "shotgun" in a train car taking equipment to the new base. It was freezing cold, and he slept on top of a desk. But he got to see more of the country than most airmen did.

He spent his time on the ride looking at the Korean countryside. At one stop, he paid a Korean boy a few dollars worth of military payment script to find him a charcoal stove. Made out of pounded tin cans, it warmed up the car "about two or three degrees," he said.

What he saw of the country "was like being in another world, compared to D.C.," he said.

His wing bedded down at a base with a concrete runway, but no planes. There were a few buildings, but no fence. It was the Air Force's first permanent air base in the country.

"It was miserable," he said. "It was so cold you never seemed to warm up."

But once the planes arrived, things heated up. With several daily briefings, Byers and the other draftsmen kept busy. After a hard day they'd all look like the walking dead, he said.

So when he had a chance, he'd get out of Osan -- Korea, if he could.

When it was his turn, he hopped a plane to Japan for some "rest and recreation." Once, he got a bit too much "R&R" and missed his plane back to Osan.

"I Just knew I'd get busted," he said. But he managed to talk the sergeant at the passenger terminal -- after paying him $20 -- into stamping his orders "transportation unavailable." He was lucky to miss the plane. The huge C-124 Globemaster transport crashed, killing 129 people on board. At the time, it was the world's worst air crash ever.

Troops got two R&R trips in Japan during their tours. Byers got four. Once he went under the guise of buying new drawing pens for his shop.

"You'd do anything to get out of Korea," he said.

When he managed to get a three-day pass, Byers would hitchhike to Seoul. He'd go sightseeing In what was left of the ravaged city. The North Koreans captured it four times before the fighting stopped.

On one trip he decided to visit the soldier he'd made friends with when he first arrived in Japan, whose name now escapes him. His pal was on the front lines above Seoul.

"I just wanted to see him," he said. "And I wanted to be able to say I visited the front."

He asked some soldiers how to get there. They thought he was nuts. But one told him to ask at the Army transportation office. There he said he had to deliver a message to the soldier.

"No one asked a single question. And just like that, I had a ride," Byers said. A jeep driver took him right to where his friend's platoon was. He found his buddy, who was glad to see him.

"But In his next breath, he asked me if I was out of my mind," Byers said.

After a short visit, his pal asked Byers if he wanted to go on a patrol. By then, in July 1953, the lines had stabilized. Both sides traded artillery fire, but there hadn't been any action on the line in months. So the armies sent patrols out along the line to check for signs of advances.

Though his heart was pounding through his temples, Byers said OK. He'd even brought his own rifle and helmet.

The 15-man patrol set out along a well-worn path. After a while, the point man found signs that enemy soldiers were in the area. Byers was choking on adrenaline.

"I thought, 'Lord help me, if the enemy's ahead, just let me die quickly,"' he said.

Byers spotted the first Chinese soldier. The guy behind him yelled, "Shoot him before he shoots you. The airman didn't freeze up.

"I was so scared I emptied 30 rounds into the guy," Byers said. The rest of the platoon opened fire on other Chinese. They killed several enemy soldiers and suffered no casualties.

After the platoon leader filed a report to headquarters, the soldiers went back to their camp. There, Byers bid his buddy good-bye and took off for Osan, all in the same stride. It's the only bad experience he had in Korea, and one he doesn't like to talk about.

"He only told me and the kids about It 10 years ago," said Kathryn, his wife of 42 years.

The cease-fire took effect in Korea a month after his close encounter. Both sides dug in along the Demilitarized Zone and set up their defenses, where they remain today.

In September 1953, Byers went home, without a scratch. But more than 54,000 Americans died during the war.

After 30 days of leave, he went to Germany. From there, he did tours in Alabama and California. Then Byers returned to Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. By then, he'd decided to make the Air Force a career. He also set his sights on going to college.

The day he arrived at Maxwell, he noticed a "beautiful gal in a tight yellow sweater" who made his eyes pop out. He asked her out to dinner the next day. She accepted.

"We had spaghetti at an Italian restaurant," Kathryn said. "He knew how to treat a lady."

Not all Gls are bad

After a whirlwind courtship -- and convincing her father that not all GIs were bad -- they married in September 1958. The couple soon had the first of four children.

It was while trying to get Into aircrew training -- after seven years in the service -- that Byers found out he had to use his GI Bill or lose it. He opted to get out and go to school.

"I loved the Air Force," he said. "Getting out was one of the toughest decisions of my life."

His GI Bill helped him get his bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Then he went to work for the Navy in 1963. He started working in thermodynamics -- calculating aircraft engine performance. Then he ran the Navy's advanced research and development programs for aircraft engines until 1984 when he moved to Pennsylvania to work on engine failure prediction measures until he retired In 1989.

But he never forgot where he got his start. He said the seven years he spent in the Air Force were his formative years.

"I was a kid when I joined the Air Force," he said. "The Air Force gave my life direction."

The Byerses retired to Jamison, Pa., and have four grandchildren. Keeping them company is a chubby, deaf and slightly blind dog, Max, who barks at people from the back yard.

Today Byers sports a "fashionably gray" crewcut and beard. He'll sip a whiskey once in while, and has a nice paunch. He still holds Kathryn's hand when they take a walk. And it doesn't take much to get him to talk about his days in the Air Force.

"I miss its traditions and camaraderie -- and the friends I made," he said. But what he loves most is talking about his adventures In Korea. His blue eyes light up with pride when he does.

"We had a tough job to do -- keep South Korea free and take care of the Chinese If they interfered," he said. "We did that."

Byers hopes one day the two Koreas will sign a peace accord, even reunite. But he's not optimistic. And he doesn't know anyone who believes that'll happen any time soon. So the recent thaw in North-South relations, while encouraging, doesn't change his mind.

"We can't give up on South Korea. I think we should have more troops there," he said. "We can't let the North Koreans do the same thing they did before. We fought too hard, lost too many good boys 50 years ago, to let that happen again."

COPYRIGHT 2001 U.S. Air Force, Air Force News Agency
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group