The Prisoners Go Free

At 8:45 one morning last week, a U.S. Marine captain stared down the frozen clay road to Panmunjom. He could make out a distant blaze of standards, the glint of their points in the winter sun. "Here they come," the captain's squad muttered, as the tramp of marching feet grew loud. "All right," the captain said. "Everybody get back and keep this road clear. These guys have been waiting a long time for this . . ."

"Come & Be Free." The Chinese prisoners came in columns of five, and proudly, out of the neutral zone (see NEWS IN PICTURES). The first two men flourished pictures of Chiang Kai-shek and of Sun Yatsen, the founder of China's republic. The tight-drawn ranks bore red, white and blue Nationalist banners, the Stars and Stripes, the pale blue and white of the U.N. Some P.W.s wielded crude, homemade flagstaffs, their jagged points torn from beer cans. A few kept their prison camp basketballs. One clasped a French horn. "Dear anti-Communist comrades," boomed a loudspeaker as the P.W.s neared the edge of freedom, "we have come here to welcome you." The P.W.s called back, "Hsieh, hsieh [Thanks, thanks]," and their voices swelled into the U.N. zone. The loudspeaker told them: "Please come quietly, and be free."

All day in the sunshine, and late into the night, 14,209 Chinese anti-Communists poured across the line. They broke ranks to embrace the welcomers. They passed out mimeographed pamphlets thanking "Dear U.N. honorable fighters" for not letting them go back to Communism. One gaunt P.W. hailed an Irish Franciscan friar he had known in the camps of Koje Island. "That was Kuo Shu-han," the priest said. "Among the men he is a hero. He went into a 1,500-man compound dominated by Communists, and brought out 300 anti-Communists." A middle-aged P.W. thanked a young lieutenant, then broke down. "One thousand days behind the wire," he sobbed, "one thousand days . . ." A band rataplanned a Sousa march, and the P.W.s, loaded into trucks, were driven off towards Seoul. Korean farmers lined the road to cheer them. The Chinese P.W.s waved their flags and chanted, "Resist Russia--Down with the Reds." Then they sang songs of what they would do to the women when they got to the Nationalist island of Taiwan (Formosa), and cried to themselves that they were free.

"Have You Seen Him?" In Seoul, 40 miles to the south, some 8,000 Koreans were swarming into a bullet-pocked suburban station to greet the first Korean P.W.s, who were coming by rail.

The 7,574 Korean P.W.s were more reserved than their Chinese comrades. They peered, blinking, from boxcars as the crowd gave them apples, cakes, caramels and tea. "Mansei, mansei [Long live]," the P.W.s said, while a station loudspeaker repeatedly blared the Lullaby of Broadway. Then Syngman Rhee paid them recorded tribute. In their stand against the Communist explainers, said President Rhee, the P.W.s had dealt the Communists "the most resounding ideological defeat in their history." But there was deep sadness in the gayly bedecked station, and the welcome soon turned into a wake. Old men and women shuffled along the platform, showing the P.W.s tiny scraps of paper that bore the names of still-missing sons. "He was in the army," they wailed. "Do you know him? Have you seen him?" There were few replies. The P.W.s, listless now and silent, just nibbled at their cakes and kept to themselves. The old ones turned sorrowing away, to wait for the next P.W. train from Panmunjom.

"It's Unfair." From Taejon to Taegu and the farmlands beyond, Koreans turned out to cheer the "AntiCommunist Patriotic Youth" as their trains rumbled south through the night. But the P.W.s were somewhat disillusioned by their welcome at South Korean Army reception depots. Army officers told them they could join up (with no advance pay, no bonus, no leave), or they could return to civilian status and--if they were still in their 20s the draft. One young P.W. lieutenant was bitter. "I want to go to school," he said. "I've been in the Army eight years, almost four of them behind wire. It's unfair."

The Chinese P.W.s were still joyful. At Inchon, where grey U.S. LSTs waited to take them to Formosa, the P.W.s got a traditional Chinese celebration. Dancers cavorted on stilts, and performed the ancient lion dance, in honor of the great Chinese victory against the explainers; they balanced tiny children atop long poles; they gave the P.W.s fine silk scarves and paper garlands. Then the P.W.s patted the children goodbye, cast farewell glances at the girls in the swirling skirts, and moved off toward the waiting LSTs. Starting next morning, the 14,000 sailed for a new life on Formosa. They seemed determined to return to the mainland and wipe out Mao Tse-tung. "With one heart," said one 24-year-old, "we return to Formosa. With one life, we shall eliminate the Communists."

"Living Symbols." The U.N. liberation schedule ran smoothly, with no hint of interference from the Communists. But on the second morning, a small boat laden with 50 U.S. marines slammed into an LST and sank. Twenty-eight marines were drowned, or died from exposure.

These U.S. marines, who were due to help convoy the Chinese P.W.s safely to Formosa, were perhaps the last of some 7,000 U.N. soldiers who died for the P.W.s' freedom. Of some 30,000 U.N. soldiers killed in Korea, these 7,000 were killed after the U.N. decided to hold out, as an essential condition for peace, for the right of the P.W.s not to go back to Communism. At week's end U.N. Commanding General John Hull gave this sacrifice due measure. The newly liberated P.W.s, said Hull, are "living symbols" that man everywhere can escape from Communism rely upon U.N. support, and find "sanctuary in the free world."

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