Elkhorn veteran spent three years as a prisoner of war after deployment to North Korea in 1950
Editor
When Grant McMillin of Elkhorn volunteered for deployment to North Korea, he never expected to be spending more time there than he had originally anticipated.
McMillin. X, moved to Lake Geneva at the age of 18 and came up to the City of Elkhorn to join the United States Armed Forces in 1945. He went through various types of training, including communications and radar training for countering battery fire.
“We were using radar that was dropped from an aircraft and assembled on the ground to direct fire to counter mortar fire,” he said.
After finishing a final course of radar training, McMillin said he volunteered to go to North Korea when American troops were getting “mauled a little bit,” by the North Korean Army.
“They had a very good army,” he said.
However, McMillin was told by his first sergeant his request to volunteer was denied, as too much money had been invested in his training.
So, he came back from Fort Sill in Oklahoma and purchased a 1947 Plymouth Convertible and drove it back. Two weeks later, upon graduating from radar service school, he headed back to Fort Hood in Texas, his home base.
In a short time however, all of that would change.
“A couple of days later, the first sergeant came in, and I was sound asleep, time to get up in the morning, and he jumped on my bed and said, ‘how would you like to sell your car,’” he said.
“I said I don’t want to sell my car, I just bought it. He said, ‘well, where you’re going, you’re going to need a tank, not a car.’”
Three days later, McMillin, along with ten others, were preparing for their upcoming trip overseas, training for combat conditions.
The Chosin Reservoir
McMillin – a soldier in the U.S. Army’s 57th Field Artillery, Seventh Infantry Division – followed Marines into Korea one day later on Sept. 16, 1950.
As the North Korean Army moved north, McMillin said the Seventh Infantry Division followed. Meanwhile, facing extremely cold temperatures, the Marines First Division entered the Chosin Reservoir.
Shortly thereafter, the group McMillin was deployed with was turned around and brought back to aid in the Chosin Reservoir. The morning after arriving at the reservoir, the Chinese did too.
“We were outnumbered about 10 to one,” he said. “There were about 2,500 of us facing about 25,000 Chinese and we held out for about four days.
“Artillery didn’t make any difference then, everybody became an infantrymen.”
Along with seven other soldiers, McMillin was told they were to hold back and if the Chinese were to break through, they would push them back up and straighten American lines. At about 10 p.m. that night, word came down that it had happened.
Running up towards the mountain to push the Chinese out. About where he thought the line should be, he heard a pop and knew that fire was coming.
“So, I hit the ground, but I was knocked down,” he said.
Taking a bullet through his right ankle, McMillin asked a lieutenant if he should stay and provide cover fire and was told to go back if he could get back. But when he got back to the first aid station, he was in for a surprise.
“Someone came out and said, ‘if you’re looking for help, you’re in the wrong place,’” he said.
With no medics, McMillin was left with no other choice than to grab his first aid kit and aid himself.
“So, I took my boot off, and I’m laying in the snow and you get that false light that you get from snow and I looked at my ankle and thought, oh, half of it’s gone,” he said.
Fortunately, the shot was actually a clean shot, only taking a little bit of the bone after going through McMillin’s ankle.
Bandaged and unable to get his boot back on, McMillin threw his extra pair of socks on his foot.
The next day, McMillin said troops decided to fight their way back to the marines, eight miles away. With blown bridges, they struggled but managed to power their vehicles through swamps that had frozen over, but not nearly enough to support the weight of the vehicles.
Climbing a hill late in the evening one night, McMillin said he walked up and stood beside his first sergeant in the road, who said “You know, I’ve heard that the Chinese let the wounded go and only hold the able-bodied people.”
“Of course, being a smart-alec private, first class, I explained to the sergeant he had better hurry up and make his decision because I could see Chinese and they weren’t even 25 yards away,” he said.
“He walked out in the road and pulled a white flag.”
McMillin said someone from inside one of the trucks he had hidden under decided to fire on the Chinese, who returned fire with sub-machine guns, killing all of the wounded in those trucks.
A Prisoner of War
Put in a small valley, McMillin said they were held for nearly a month by the Chinese forces. During that time, he said there were probably 300 men imprisoned with him.
In February, the Chinese decided to move the prisoners to a permanent camp. McMillin said they spent about a month on the road.
“The first group of us marched 85 miles,” he said. “That’s where we stayed for probably a month, waiting for more wounded to catch up with us.”
In that valley, McMillin said they lost about 200 of the 300 men either to the wounds they already had or to dysentery and disease.
Being able to walk again, McMillin attempted to aid his fellow prisoners.
“I destroyed some government property, which I had been warned never to do…I took a guy’s feet off,” McMillin said. “Because if I didn’t, he was going to die. He is alive today.”
Another asked him to remove a bullet from the base of his skull, something McMillin refused out of fear he would kill the man due to its proximity to the spine.
A learning experience
McMillin told Elkhorn Area High School students Monday that he tells students this because you never know what you’re capable of until you’re tested.
“You will do anything in your power to help everybody around you and keep them alive,” he said.
