Winter in Korea
By SIR SHENTON THOMAS* AS a people we are prone to understatement, but to speak of the winter in North Korea as "cold weather," as happened recently in the House of Commons, is a misuse of language. You might just as well refer to a blast furnace as a warm fire. And to laugh, as some Members of Parliament are reported to have done, when the Minister for Defence confessed that he did not know when the " cold weather " started, is shameful. The only fit punishment for such people is to send them out to Korea now ; they won't find much to laugh at there.
I feel strongly on this matter, because I have friends serving in the UNO Forces, and I myself have spent a winter in North Korea, or rather in Southern Manchuria slightly north of Mukden, which in turn is not very far north of the Manchurian-Korean western boundary as marked by the Yalu River, of which we are hearing so much, and is actually south of the boundary in the eastern sector. I was interned as a prisoner of war. Our first camp was on the edge of the Gobi Desert, which showed itself to us as a vast monotonous plain covered with small grey pebbles and stretching as far as the eye could see. Luckily, after six weeks, we were moved to more attractive country, which with a little imagination reminded me of the South Downs. Winter in this locality differs slightly from the winter which our men in North Korea seem now to be enduring, in that we had little rain and very little snow, but we had the same icy winds and the same terrible frost. But my experiences give some idea at any rate of the conditions which, generally speaking, obtain on the North Korean frontier during the winter.
We arrived at Pusan on October 11th, 1944, and at that time of year Korea was a pleasant land of little sharp-edged hills, undulating country and fertile river-valleys. Everywhere were rice-fields, and there were heavy crops of millet, barley, wheat and soya bean, with peach, apple and other fruit trees in the villages and hamlets. There were fair numbers of cattle which looked in good condition, and most of the villages showed some pigs, but of other livestock we saw little with the exception of the Mongolian pony, a coarse, tough, shaggy little beast which was generally drawing a two- wheeled cart in tandem with another, or with a mule which was invariably the leader. An interesting point is that the wheels are rubber-tired, possibly so as to cope with the mud of spring and early winter. The sun was hot and the sky cloudless, and much of the country was carpeted with the blue and mauve Michaelmas daisy. We travelled by the South Manchurian Railway.
It was not really cold when on October 14th we arrived at our first camp on the edge of the Gobi, and I remember sitting on the ground in reasonable comfort with a blanket round my shoulders while the Japanese went through the long and boring routine of check and counter-check and roll-calls which Ive had come to learn was part of their drill whenever a fresh draft of prisoners was to be taken over. But the winter was at hand, and I find from my diary that on October 11th, after a day of brilliant sun, some of our laundry was frozen stiff on the line.
We moved to our new, and better, camp on December 1st. My diary says: "Reveille 5 a.m. Train to new camp 7 a.m.: arrived 3.30 p.m. Thin snow in many places, and we climbed steadily. Say 2,000 feet here. Much cultivation and ploughland everywhere. ,Undulating country and later quite hilly. Very cold on arrival with a small blizzard." The winter in its early stages is grim ; indeed it is always grim unless there is complete absence of wind and a cloudless sky such as one finds in the Swiss mountains. There is too much wind ; it may blow half a gale or just a fresh breeze, but it cuts like a knife and chills the very marrow of one's bones. It raises clouds of dust which covers everything inside and outside and gets into eyes, nose and throat. Visibility is bad and the dun monotony is depressing. I remember a day when the
*Formerly Governor of Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for Malaya.
whole countryside was covered with brown snow. But we had, as I have said, very little snow. The atmosphere was said to be too dry, and never was the ground covered by more than four inches; this, by the way, was on March 2nd. Our troops seem to be less fortunate, and snow, of course, connotes rain.
As a welcome change from the icy winds of early winter we enjoyed now and then a delightful day of brilliant sun and cloudless sky, with the thermometer somewhere between freezing-point and zero. As the severity of the winter increased, the wind became less frequent and the good Swiss days more common. The tem- perature varied, but for weeks on end it was below freezing-point by day and night, and constantly it was below zero. Thus, on November 27th we had 43 degrees of frost (that was in the Gobi). On January 25th we had 51 degrees, and in the room in which we did our washing there were icicles over a foot long ; we didn't wash much. On February 2nd we had 37 degrees and on Feb- ruary 4th 50 degrees. January and February would seem to have been mid-winter. Later the weather becomes more capricious. For example, my diary records a little snow in the nights of February 9th and 10th, but warmer ; 35 degrees of frost on February 11th with a glorious day to follow ; and February 12th quite balmy.
On March 2nd the thermometer was below zero at breakfast, and again on March 7th and 8th, when the Japanese engineer turned off the steam-heating in the mistaken belief that spring had arrived. It may have been due ; it had certainly not arrived. On March 22nd we had half a gale all day and such clouds of dust that the whole landscape was blotted out for hours on end. And on April 1st, when in accordance with Japanese Army orders the steam-heating was finally turned off, we had a strong wind all night and all day, with visibility practically nil from dust and terrible cold. But two days later the discomfort without heating became top much for the Japanese who (fortunately for us) lived in part Of our barracks. On April 3rd we had 16 degrees of frost and a keen wind from the north. So the Army regulations were disregarded and we were warn once more. This was winter's last effort, and by the middle of April the spring had come, with a south wind, warm sun, showers and mud, which is at least a change after months of a ground frozen solid to a depth of three or four feet To face the winter we had been issued with a raincoat lined with fur down to the waist, long fur-lined boots, a Balaclava helmet, thick gloves and thick socks. We had to return these to store on March 22nd in spite of the weather. We wore everything we had, which wasn't much. Previously we had been issued with Japanese Army cold-weather uniforms of cotton-cloth tunic lined with corduroy and breeches lined with canyas. They were good. We hollowed out a groove in our mattress of rice straw so that we could snuggle down with some protection against draughts, we folded our blankets double, and we wrapped scarves and even dressing-gowns—if we had them—round our heads. And, thanks to c/vr devoted orderlies, some of us derived immense comfort from bricks which they managed to heat in the kitchen and which made perfect bed-warmers—all this in steam-heated rooms. For further protection there were double windows throughout the building, and every crack which might let in the least draught was sealed with paper. Because of the dryness of the atmosphere we had strict orders to sprinkle water over the floors of our rooms as often as need be, and anyone who was found with a dry floor was severely called to account by the Japanese. Before going to bed I used to empty a large basin of water over my floor and hang up a soaking wet bath-towel. It was always bone dry by the morning. If this precaution was neglected one was liable to get a very nasty throat ; the same thing was done in all railway coaches.
On really cold days most of us were forbidden to go out at all as our lungs might be affected. I went out once in such weather, but only for a few minutes as I found it difficult to breathe. We were all warned to look out for frost-bite, and we got through with only a few mild cases. (lathe whole our health was good, and there was no serious illness. There were some coughs and colds and sore throats, as might be expected, but usually they disappeared in a few days. We were out on most days, tramping round and
round the• barrack-square for exercise, and the men had outside work to do.
On re-reading this, I am left wondering whether in my anxiety not to exaggerate I, too, have been guilty of the national vice of under-statement. Our winter was only made bearable by an efficient system of steam-heating throughout the building ; that saved our Jives. No such relief is available for our men in the front line, and, if the Press telegrams are correct, they have not even yet got proper clothing. It would be difficult to exaggerate their plight, and even more difficult to exaggerate the crime of those who have allowed them to fight and work and sleep in the open so ill-equipped. . With only one little war on our hands, surely we could have made certain that our men were fitted out to the last button. The winter in North Korea is a savage, deadly foe which is not yet at its worst, and it will not be over till the middle of April. Our men will have the fortitude to stand up to it, but they need very badly our sympathy and willing help.
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