The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 28, 2001 - AS A soldier's torment Tom Flynn says telling the truth is the only way to purge his memories of a massacre of prisoners he believes the U.S. Army has covered up. NEARLY 50’ years later, ‘make sense of what I saw,” Tom Flynn still gets night- mares. They typically come in the winter, beginning in Decem- ber and on into January, da- ting back to events of Feb. 18, 1952 on an-island off the coast of South Korea, Jt was the middle of the war . between South and North Korea and Flynn was an 18-year-old American soldier in a combat company, What he saw was a massacre of North Korean prisoners of war prompted by an American officer. ‘ ” Flynn, now retired and living in » Terrace, repressed’ those memar- ies for years. But they kept coming back to the point he put his marriage and mental health at risk. : “I'd drink too much. I couldn't said Flynn in a conversation last week. “I'd get choked up thinking about it.” Finally, Flynn began seeing Dr. Tom Strong, a Smithers psycholo- gist. “He asked me, ‘Do you want this to die with you?" Of course not,” said Flynn. ’ What he did was swear out an affidavit in 1997 of his memories of that day in 1952. Putting those words down on. paper have acted as a therapy to Flynn. They’ve also become the base for a wide-ranging,.seargh by Flynn ‘for the, truth of, ‘what, hap: pened that. day. Koje-Do Island held thousands of prisoners of war ¢, “* A special report by Rod Link TOM FLYNN sits at his kitchen table, holding his old American Army identity card, surrounded by ° years of research he’s done inio the shooting deaths of enemy prisoners of war he saw commit- ted by American troops during the Korean War. The events have bothered Flynn ever since and he has sought psychological help because of them. ners, ' And so on the morning of Feb. 18, 1952 Flynn and his unit found themselves acting as security at one of the compounds, — Instead of what Flynn thought would be a fairly orderly process- ing of prisoners in advance of re- patriation, the Amesicans rolled in Ve Bayi fied" atid wiiks at btherready. Tevet irrarnt nes Os FHT ~ ‘Thousands of prisoners began - pressing up close to a line of stretched out Ameri- and.also civilians sus- pected by the South Koreans of having Communist North Korean sympathies. The Korean War began in 1950 when Communist North Korea invaded South Korea... It quickly resulted in the Americans a | we always thought that fought honourable battles. | was young. | wan- ted a piece of the action. | can soldiers. Flynn was a radio operator and was stationed a bit behind that line, giving him a_ better perspective of what was going on. A new colonel: in Flynn’s regiment, see- ing what the prisoners were doing, ordered an aide to throw a backing South Korea concussio enad and the Narth Koreans wanted to bea into. the crowd "The hero were gradually beaten “ prisoners then surged back. But as the al- forward and the sold- lied .forces advanced into North Korea, the Chinese then entered the war, resulting in a stalemate. This was followed by pro- longed, protracted and agonizing peace talks, It’s here where the thousands of prisoners on Koje-Do came into play because any peace or truce would be followed by ithe repatriation of the priso- iers began firing, kill- ing close to 150 of them. “It was provoked, no question,” said Flynn, “This colonel just came out of nowhere, I read later he got promoted and worked in the Pentagon.” Flynn and his fellow troops were forbidden from writing home about what happened and their mail was censored, News reports EMIT A Ge were also filtered and gave a dif- ferent picture than what actually occurred, said Flynn. “They said it was the prisoners who started it. That's wrong,” said Flynn in pointing to a photocopy of a February 1952 edition of The New York Times. The article says prisoners armed with homemade weapons attacked the American soldiers, prompting them to open fire, It’s something Flynn says never hap- pened. He’s had very little luck in finding other written documents on what happened. When Flynn’ tried to get a copy of his military records, he was told they were de- stroyed in a fire in 1973. He’s also locked in vain for fellow soldiers who were with him that day. “It paints to a cover up,” said Flynn, “This is distorted history.” Flynn’s research has helped him deal with thase nightmares. He may never find the truth. He may never completely quell those nightmares but he says he'll die happy because he looked for the reasons behind what happened. “I’m an American by birthright. T always thought that we fought honourable battles. I was young. I wanted a piece of the action. I wanted to be a hero,” he said, Local man recalls slaughter of unarmed Korean POWs The following is a portion of Tom Flynn's affidavit, sworn out in Ter- race in 1997, about the events of Feb. 18, 1952 which haunt him to this day. The gates were flung open, and we ran into the compute and quickly formed a line in front of their barracks. To my left and te my right were gun towers. On my left flank was ‘I’ company. On my right flank was ‘M’ company, In the. middie were ‘K’ and ‘L’ compa- nies. All companies had fixed bayonets; and in the on-guard po- sition. ‘All the while, 1 thought it strange as there were no loud speakers, no tables set up to screen the POWs. Of course, | didn’t think much about the above as [ was only 18 at the time. Later on J realized the sinister, or the stupidity of the whole mission rested on one mani, namely a Co-. lonel Kiine. On'T’ company *s side, some POWs were trying to get out of the doors from their barracks. Col. Kline, whom £ was standing next to, told ‘I? company, “Don’t let them cut! Use force if necessary.” ‘Y’ company then started to shove their bayonets through the thing doors. At the same time all the POWs came out of all the pri- son bartacks. 1 know now that they must have thought they were all going to be reports say, about their having spears, knives, etc. There was no riot at Compound 62. There wasn’t a problem until the word got around tothe other POW com- pounds because of the massacre that we did in Compound 62, The POWs in Compound 62 were un- armed; no spears, no weapons. This is not a second-hand report killed, just as I would have thought if I were a priso- ner in a North Korean camp. Some ac- by some re- porter. These None of the companies ae eyewit- knew what happened. They "°° fae h heard the explosion and povws singing they all opened fire. at the top of ” their lungs, counts. claim that there were about 1,500 priso- ners, bul they were not there. I’m telling you as an eye-witness. there were approximately 5,000 in Compound 62. Now the sus is coming up and they’re out of their barracks. They are singing in loud voices, so loud it sent chills down your back, It was something | wiil never forget. I don’t care what the official and swaying back and forth, ‘L’ company star- ted ta get a bulge in their sector of the line because of the massive pressure of the POWs in the rear was forcing the POWs in the front outa the bayonets of ‘L’ company. So they were slowly being im- pelled inch by tach so ‘L* compa- ny would slowly give ground. Now what happens next leads me to believe that it was a sinis- ter move; not tactical, nor stupid. Colonel Kline tells his aide “I can’t have a bulge in that line, throw a concussion grenade be- hind them (POWs).” I could not believe my ears? The aide then threw the grenade behind the POWs. When it went off, 1 could feel the concussion standing next to the colonel. It was a real loud but law boom. As soon as it went off, the pri- soners ia the rear jumped forward. By the time the wave of pressure hit the prisoners in front, they were lilerally thrown into ‘L’ ‘company, None of the companies knew what happened. They heard the explosion. and they all opened fire. And the Republic of Korea soldier in the tower opened up. It seems like an hour, but it was only a few minutes. In that short time span, on the ground lay 137 dead and approx- imalely 200, plus or minus, woun- ded POWs. All unarmed. CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD The Mail Bag Money well spent? Dear Str: This is in response to your article in Feb, 21 edition of The Terrace Standard, “Audit cost $30,800.” The general public is being led to believe that the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations had approved and compiled an efficiency audit as requested by Terrace Health Watch. We had initially requested a complete review into the accounting practices and financia) affairs at the hospital. In actual fact it was denied because the Ministry felt that “an efficiency audit would be very broad, costly and time consuming to complete and was more extensive than necessary.”, Instead they said they were willing to carry out a shorter review in an attempt to address a few of our concerns. Your article did not make clear what motivated Health Watch to request such an audit. According to the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations, the Terrace Health Council had run operating deficits totalling $959,380 from 1994 to 1998 and had incurred an additional deficit of $654,372 for the 1998/99 fiscal year. So between 1994 to 1999 there was a total of $1.6 million deficit for Mills Memorial Hospital. What motivated our group to seek an “efficiency audit” was the devastating impact this financial situation was having on patient care, and working conditions for medical professionals and their support staffs. It should also be noted that in correspondence by the Minister of Finance (letter of December 19, 2000} “with the ministry’s historic concerns and those raised by the health watch group, a review of the hospital's financial operations was considered warranted.” In other words the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health found our concerns legitimate. It is unfortunate that they had decided against a full efficiency audit, Clearly a complete cseview would have disclosed whether or not the ministry was providing adequate funding and/or if the health council might be able to improve their allocation of health care dollars. To this date there is ongoing stringent restrictions on hospital admissions. The intensive care unit continues to struggle to stay open. Surgeries continue to be cancelled by members of hospital administration (creating long wait tists) much to the frustration of patients and their health care providers. There remains no nursery or pediatric ward even though our communities are greatly in need of these services. Is it any wonder that quite a number of our healthcare professionals have found employment in other hospitals? One might ask, “How are these conditions going to attract new recruits to this hospital?” The health watch growp has asked for transparency and accountability from this present government. Last year local health authorities spent over $230,000 on a regional review, the Terrace Area Health Council 4 - spent : $10,000, on «public relations: and- $10,000: for -A; chairs for the education room. Shouldn"t we be-able: ta- ask if. those funds could have been better spent? P believe so. Ida Mohler, Terrace Heaith Watch, Terrace, B.C. Where there’s a will ... Dear Sir: { want to make a brief comment regarding Claudette Sandecki’s February 21, 2001 Through Bifocals column. In her first twa paragraphs she implies that the age of 65 is the time to start planning. 1 would like to suggest that if we all wait untit we are 65 to write a will then a great deal of us will die intestate (without a will). A Last Will and Testament is a document that should be prepared early in life with frequent reviews and, when necessary, re-writes. It contains much, much more than funeral plans and disposition of human remains. It is your last directions to your executor(trix), your heirs, partners and many other interested persons and parties. Not everyone of us will live to the age of 65 for many reasons, Plan now, age 65 may be way too late. Lyle Harvey, CFP, CLU, CH.F.C. Terrace, B.C. Growing disgust Dear Sir: I nearly choked on the irony of Prime Minister Chretien's public address to civilians and party officials on his China’Tour 2001. In a pitch to take the moral high road in Sino-Canadian relations, Chretien's speech emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary to good governance. Here at home, our MPs voted on whether the Ethics Councillor is to be truly independent and autonomous, reporting to directly to Parliament as stated verbatim in the Liberals Red Book 1993. This from a Liberal government who gave out more loans and grants through the HRDC to Jean Chretien's own Saint Maurice riding than all of the Prairie provinces combined or B.C. They went on to give central and Atlantic Canada hundreds of millions more for airports, highways, harbours, resorts and tourism while many western Canadian rural communities are on the critical care list. Now we are about to witness Minister of Industry (and Subsidies Canada), Brian Tobin proclaim a massive national shipbuilding program aimed at the state propping up failed shipyards in the Maritimes. It sure makes you wonder about the contradictory doublespeak evinced by our PM and his righteous Liberal government and should surptise nobody as to why the phenom of western disgust is a growing cause. Gerry J. Bloomer, Lakelse Lake, B.C. About the Mail Bag The Terrace Standard welcomes letters. Our address Is 3210 Clinton St., Terrace, B.C, VAG 5R2. You can fax us at 250-638-8432 or e-mall us at sfandard@kermods, net. No attachments, please. We need your name, address and phone number for verification. Our deadline is noon Friday or noon Thursday if It’s a tong weekend.