Only 149 Americans

At Panmunjom last week, daily groups of 100 blue-clad U.N. prisoners crossed the line to freedom, while groups of 500 enemy P.W.s crossed in the opposite direction. The Communists had erected a welcome sign twice as big as the U.N. sign, reading: RETURN TO THE ARMS OF YOUR FATHERLAND. Many of the northbound enemy P.W.s, carefully outfitted by the U.N. before they started north, had wrapped rags around their heads and otherwise made themselves disreputable. Red cameramen took their pictures, and the Red propaganda mills called them "mutilated, emaciated wrecks."

The exchange was supposed to be a trade of sick and wounded under the Geneva Convention, and the U.N. had followed the agreement closely, though U.N. commanders knew that the Communists would make their propagandistic most of the amputees and litter cases. The Reds, to fill their quotas, were sending back soldiers who were generally in good health, including some who were recently captured. One was a cocky, 19-year-old Marine machine gunner, Pfc. Joseph B. Brit Jr. of Long Beach. Calif., who had been captured during the Bunker Hill fighting on March 26. Brit said he had parried a few Red attempts at indoctrination by asking a stream of diversionary questions. "I guess," he grinned, "they thought I was a real card." His bouncy demeanor was far from typical (see below).

Rear Admiral John C. Daniel, chief of the U.N. liaison group, concluded that many hundreds of really sick and wounded allied prisoners were being left behind in the North Korean stockades. He called a liaison meeting one day to ask the Communists to increase their quotas. His opposite number, North Korea's Lee Sang Cho, had learned or guessed what was on Daniel's mind and, even before Daniel could make his request, voluntarily promised to increase the number of allied returnees. He did--by exactly 79.

But by week's end. when the delivery of U.N. prisoners was completed, only 149 U.S. wounded had been returned. This was a pitifully small accounting when measured against official figures for three years' fighting: 2,365 Americans whose capture has been acknowledged by the enemy, another 9,156 missing.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.