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In 1982 I was working in San Diego and met a veteran that had been a Marine at the chosen reservoir. We were talking one day and he described the cold and misery there when the retreat first started. He said he was mixed a lot of people from other units and everyone was just walking and trying to get to hell out of dodge. He flagged down an ambulance coming down and ask if they would give him a ride and they said yes but be warned the back is full of dead. He said he didn't mind and climbed in the back, there were bodies stacked as high as they could be stacked and all were frozen solid. He said he just sat on one of the bodies and was damned glad to get the ride. He retired a First Sargent. He owned a little radiator shop next door to the shop I worked so I spent a lot of time talking to him and even helping him get his little MG timed. He was quite a character and some nights he would drink a bit too much and instead of driving home he would go to sleep on his counter wearing just his shorts. Morning would come and old sully would be laying there in his shorts on the counter top in front of a plate glass window and all the women dropping off cars would have to pass in front of his shop. My boss who owned the shop next door bought his radiator business just so the women wouldn't have to walk by his shop. He was really a good person, his daughter was a career Marine and his wife worked as a nurse at Scripts Hospital. I've met a lot of Korean War vets over the years, the last shop I worked at in Nevada the owner was 8 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he told me that he was with his Father downtown LA that morning when they heard over the news. Later in life he too was in Korea as a Tank crewman driver. He told me it was so cold the men outside would try and lie under the Tank at night to stay warm and he and the crew would allow one guy to come inside and thaw out for about 30 minutes and they do that all night, the Tank just idled and never shut down because it was just too cold to restart.Illinois soldier ID’d from 55 boxes of remains returned by North Korea in 2018
Cpl. Asa E. Vance was reported missing in action Dec. 2, 1950, near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.
