Twenty-eight days. That’s all George Morris had left of his three-year stint in the United State Marine Corps.
‘I was counting down the days,? said Morris, now a 79-year-old Brandon Township resident.
‘I was almost out when I got the notice there was one more year to go.?
Morris? first three years of service in the peace time Marine Corps between 1947 and 1950 were rather placid compared to his last year.
In 1947, Morris, then a 17-year-old high school student, weighed about 115 pounds.
‘I was small but tough,? said Morris. ‘That’s why I joined the Marines’it’s a tough outfit. I can remember my mother telling me in her Scottish accent that, ‘You’re too wee to be a Marine.? They took me anyway ‘both Mom and Dad gave their written permission for me to enlist.?
Morris? expectations of the rugged 10-week Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. was just as he had anticipated.
‘In 1947 there’s a lot of old Marines from the Second World War working in boot camps’I guess these guys were still on edge from the World War,? he said. ‘I recall being awoken at 2 o’clock in the morning, and marching us through a swamp somewhere in South Carolina. And they called that just good training. Today there’s laws to protect the trainees from those things.?
Morris was then assigned as a military policeman to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Mare Island, Vallejo, Calif. About a year later he was reassigned to Camp Lejeune, N.C. before ending up at Camp Pendleton, in Oceanside, Calif.
‘At Camp Pendleton my Marine outfit was selected and used in the background action for Republic Studios, ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,?? he said. ‘John Wayne, along with other actors, were on the set for the movie. We sat around and talked between ‘takes,? so I yelled over and said, ‘Hey Duke, how about a picture?? He stopped what he was doing and someone snapped a picture of us. Wayne was that kind of guy’easygoing, just a nice guy, talked to us about his family.. He was a real people guy’not a movie star’what you see is what you get with the Duke.? ‘I was assigned to ‘Dog Company,? or Marine D-2-7’first division. I was trained on mortars.?
With less than a month to go in his Marine stint, the United States entered the Korean War.
‘I was counting down the minutes left when from the government I had another year left in the Marines due to the war,? he said.
So in the summer of 1950 Morris, along with Marine Dog Company, departed San Diego aboard the 500-foot USS Thomas Jefferson. The ship landed in Kobe, Japan, then entered the war in Korea just outside of Pusan.
Along with other troops, Morris was flown north to the Chosin Reservoir, an area near the Yalu River.
‘That was the farthest point north in Korea the United Nations troops would ever go’I was there.?
Morris was part of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a decisive battle in the Korean War. Shortly after the People’s Republic of China entered the conflict, the People’s Volunteer 9th Army infiltrated the northeastern part of North Korea and surprised the U.S. Corps at the Chosin Reservoir area. The 17-day battle in freezing weather soon followed. Between Nov. 27 and Dec.13, 1950, about 30,000 United Nations troops, which included Morris were encircled by more than 100,000 Chinese troops. Although Chinese troops managed to surround and outnumber the UN forces, the UN forces successfully broke out of the encirclement while inflicting crippling losses to the Chinese.
‘The Chinese were all dressed in white when they came over the hills,? he said. ‘They were a mass of humanity. We were shooting and they were like dead flies all over the hillsides. They just kept coming at us and doing really weird things to demoralize us, like using loud speakers screaming, ‘They’re going to kill us all.? None of us ran from them. I knew if something happened to me they were going to pick me up and take me home, no matter what.?
‘Food was a real problem up there’dysentery was rampant, you really had to watch what you ate. Our food was frozen solid. It was about 30 below zero’all-you-could-eat C rations crackers and cheese. The Chinese just kept coming south. We would circle the tanks and stay in the center at night for protection.?
‘We were marching south to Hungnam, North Korea on the ocean, where the Navy would pick us up. About 50 miles north of Hungnam, we stopped at a military base.?
‘We walked into a tent to get our feet warm,? he said. ‘I put my feet up by a wood stove in this tent, but I could not get my boot off’they were frozen onto the bottom of my feet. An officer saw my feet once I finally got the boots off and recognized the frostbite’they were dark blue. The officer wrote me a pass to ride in a truck the rest of the way to Hungnam’but I decided to walk’I figured I needed to keep moving or I’d lose my toes.?
The evacuation of the UN forces from the port of Hungnam marked the general withdrawal of UN troops from North Korea. The evacuation movement by sea, a 193-ship armada, assembled at the port and evacuated not only the UN troops, but also their heavy equipment and the Korean refugees. As the Marines marched south, more than 100,000 South Koreans followed. From Hungnam, the Navy evacuated the troops back to Pusan.
‘Of the 35 Marines in Dog Company, eight of us made it out of that march,? said Morris. ‘Not all died. Some were wounded and came back to the company.?
Morris went back into combat and participated in five major battles during the war. He returned home in September 1951. He returned to Michigan later moved to Brandon Township in 1978.
Morris retired from Consumer’s Energy in 1990, after more than 27 years. Morris was married to Pat for 49 years.
The couple have four children, David, Kathleen, Colleen and Angeleen.