News-Info-Alerts

Re: There Was No Way Out

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: December 23, 2002

"Jerry Morgan is a fighter

He fought to survive through three wars and 33 months in a Prisoner of War camp to finally retire as a master sergeant. Even honored with numerous awards and decorations, the fight remains against discrimination and for equality.

By Elliott Jones staff writer
December 22, 2002

Jerry Morgan only expected to be gone for a while as he kissed his wife of six months goodbye as they embraced in a warm July in Georgia.

The 25-year-old man thought he would be home by Christmas. After all, it was to Korea –– not World War II –– that he and other U.S. troops were headed off to with their steel and wood rifles in 1950.

But within five months he was a POW held by North Koreans and gripped by intense cold. An arctic-like winter flooded the land, submersing where he slept at night: On a floor warmed by a fire burning in a tunnel underneath a small hut in which he and nine other POWs were crammed.

Just two feet above where they lay huddled, ice formed on the walls. The floor space was so small they all had to turn in unison to make sure everyone got warmth.

There was no way out. Armed guards kept them in camp. And Korean and Chinese military troops kept their liberators away for 33 months until a truce finally ended his capture and the war.

Morgan, who now lives in Gifford, was among thousands of military servicemen taken prisoner during that 1950s-era war. More than one in every three POWs died in captivity in a conflict in which there were 33,651 combat deaths, according to the National Prisoner of War Museum, Andersonville, Ga.

Intense winter cold, injuries and rudimentary medical care combined to kill off a large percentage of those held hostage, said museum spokesman Alan Marsh.

Morgan had metal shrapnel in his leg from an explosion just before his capture by Chinese troops. In the POW camp, pieces of the metal would work their way to the surface of his skin and he picked them out.

"I was in better shape than a lot of folks," said Morgan, who was a platoon sergeant when captured.

Now is 77 years old. He served in the Army for 28 years, a span that included World War II. The veteran flies a U.S. flag outside his house.

And most recently he was added to a list of 300 people nationwide, including 10 Floridians, who have received a Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust Award, said program organizer Ron Armstead, of Boston.

The award is a nationwide program aimed at noting black military servicemen and women whose service to their nation has been under recognized, Armstead said.

Morgan’s life dates back to strict racial discrimination and to the assigning of secondary status to blacks both in and out of the military.

He enlisted for World War II, going in as a Pennsylvania native who thought of himself as being a mean, tough adversary. The infantryman was shot in the knee in the biggest, bloodiest battles in Europe in World War II: The Battle of the Bulge, December 1944.

But he didn’t get to come home with the first wave of soldiers who paraded through New York at the war’s end. He and many other blacks hadn’t accumulated enough service points from time in battle and getting medals because they had been assigned to service at the rear, he said.

For the most of World War II, Morgan helped unload ships. Then he was assigned to guarding Nazi POWs in France. Finally, as the war pressed on, he joined a group of white soldiers in battling back Nazi Germany’s last major offensive: The Battle of the Bulge.

He arrived in New York after all the initial jubilation over the war’s end. He and other troops –– black and white –– who went home later were given "big meals," he said. "We were just another group of troops."

CAPTURED

The Veterans Braintrust Award is not only given to blacks, it is awarded to people such as late Miami resident David Williams, a white man who worked for 50 years to get a Congressional Medal of Honor for a black soldier from Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma man was a member of a black tank battalion Williams commanded.

The man died in combat while helping hold back overwhelming enemy forces as the remainder of his unit pulled back, Armstead said.

Somehow the application for the award was lost after Williams recommended it in 1942. In 1997, the Congressional Medal of Honor was finally awarded to the man.

Morgan was nominated for the Braintrust Award by Robert Fletcher, a Michigan resident who is on the federal Department of Veteran Affairs’ advisory board for former POWs.

"He saved my life twice," said Fletcher, who was a 17-year-old untested infantryman when he came under Morgan’s command in the Korean War.

"He taught me how to survive" on the battlefield, Fletcher said.

They were among a contingent of integrated troops on a mission –– trying to liberate POWs –– when the Chinese surrounded the poorly armed troops. Food ran out.

"They had us totally pinned down with artillery, mortar and machine gun fire" as Morgan was down to his last eight bullets.

The 228-member unit had lost 92 men. U.S. airplanes dropped food and ammunition that fell into Chinese hands.

The U.S. troops were fighting for their lives. Now they weren’t in control of them.

After his capture Nov. 27, 1950, Morgan and the other POWs were turned over to the North Koreans and were marched at night through rocky mountainsides regardless of whether they were injured. Morgan was wounded in the right leg. "Anyone who fell behind, we never saw again," Morgan said of the marches.

"To stay alive, you had to keep marching," he said.

They were fed small portions of corn gruel and kept out of sight during the day so spotter airplanes wouldn’t see them. Then they marched again.

They ended up 90 miles behind the front lines in a POW camp on the Chinese border on the Yalu River.

Once again they were segregated racially. Morgan’s platoon of 10 black men supported each other.

"Some people would worry about themselves,"Fletcher said. "Jerry was more interested in everyone else. Every day he would come around and talk to individuals to help keep their spirits high," Fletcher said. "He gave me hope to stay alive, to keep living." All 10 members of Morgan’s squad survived.

If one of the group was too sick to eat, "We made him eat," said Morgan. Sometimes the healthy POWs gave their meager food rations to the sick. If necessary, "We force fed a man."

Grumbling was inevitable. "We’d just talked it out," Morgan said. "There wasn’t any need for fighting among ourselves.

"Every day we were looking for our troops to come over the hill. Every day we just tried to survive, hoping and praying we’d live to see the next day and that we’d soon be free," Morgan was quoted as saying in a book, "Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War" by Lew Carlson.

Early in 1951, the Chinese took control of the POW camps, a move which Morgan said helped save many lives. The Chinese brought in some medical care and better food.

The Chinese were still strict. To this day, Morgan won’t talk about punishment for fear it would anger the North Koreans and jeopardize the lives of any former servicemen the he believes may still be held in North Korea or China. At the end of the war, there were 8,000 missing servicemen.

The former POWs do talk among themselves at conventions for former POWs. They speak with their actions: embracing, crying.

Their experience in war made them "closer than brothers," he said.

INDOCTRINATION

When Morgan guarded German POWs in France, the camps were under the Geneva Convention rules for the humane handling of POWs. The Chinese weren’t.

For the first 13 months of his captivity, his wife and family didn’t know he was alive. He was officially listed as being missing in action.

In that isolation, the Chinese tried to control POWs through indoctrination, an attempt to mentally coerce soldiers to doubt their beliefs and loyalties.

Morgan and his group were asked "what kind of life we lived in the United States and why were we over there fighting for the white man?" Morgan said. "They told us when we returned to the states we were going to have to do the same thing:" be subjected to discrimination.

It wasn’t until 1954 that the U.S. Supreme Court finally reversed federal law by ordering the desegregation of public schools. The court found that the previous policy separate but equal wasn’t fair, Carlson said.

In 1948, President Harry Truman had ordered the desegregation of the military, still it years for things to change both inside and outside the military.

When Fletcher showed up for military service at Fort Knox, Ky., at the outbreak of the Korean War, the young black went into a restaurant and sat down with a group of 10 whites he had gone to high school with in Wisconsin.

"The waitress turned all kinds of color," he said. "She said she couldn’t serve me." So Fletcher and his group of friends got up and left.

The base also was segregated with separate theaters and housing. And there was a quota, which Fletcher thought was a limit on how many servicemen could be sent to his first choice for overseas assignment: Europe.

Later he found it was a racial quota. His white friends ended up in Europe. He ended up in Korea with bullets flying around as Morgan advised the novice combat soldier to keep his head down.

In POW camp, Fletcher "never thought I would see equal schools, equal living."

Some black POWs other that those in Morgan’s group did go over to the other side. . One lived in China for a while. Eventually that man came back to the United States and died in 1999. Prior to his death, he told his daughter "it was hard to call it (Chinese indoctrination) brainwashing when what they were telling you was the truth," Armstead said.

Morgan remained skeptical even though "there was 20 percent truth in what the Chinese were saying," Morgan said. Blacks were discriminated against in the United States.

Yet, "Hobos and bums eating out of garbage cans back in the states live better than these Chinese," he said in POW camp. A guard overheard him. "I had a few rough days."

The Chinese "talked down to us. They talked against religion" that had been a important part of his youth. "We went to church every Sunday. No question."

In POW camp, "We had our private spiritual and religious prayer services within our own little platoon. We formed our own choirs and we had our own ministers.

The camp commander questioned their religion, saying, ‘"If you believe in God, why doesn’t he come down here and save you?’" Morgan said. "We just mumbled under our breaths, ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be here.’"
Survival included a battle of wits.

"The Chinese just couldn’t comprehend the black American. We were always laughing and talking and singing. We had them completely befuddled. We would be doing all that and right next to us would be a company of whites. They would be sitting around dejected, not laughing or talking."

"Back in the United States we were used to being down," Morgan said, "and the only way for us to go was up."

FATHERHOOD

While Morgan was away in Korea, a child was growing in his wife.

It wasn’t until the middle of 1952 that the Chinese let him have a letter from her. In it was a photo of a son he didn’t know he had until that moment.

"That was a happy feeling" looking at the infant, Jerry Morgan III, he said. "Yet I wondered if I would ever see him in person. I wondered if I would ever see anyone. That was constantly on your mind" as the months in captivity went on and no liberators appeared in the surrounding hills.

In those same hills he helped bury POWs who died. In the winter, the ground was too frozen to dig deep holes. "We covered them the best we could and said a brief prayer," he said. "Then they marched us back."

Back in camp, loud speakers in the camp always said the Americans were losing.

"There was constant fear, even though I didn’t show it outwardly," he said.

"Bad food, improper clothing, the God-awful loneliness and the incessant attempts at brainwashing almost drove a man out of his mind," Morgan was quoted as saying in a newspaper story soon after his release.

FREE AGAIN

A cease fire agreement ended the war on July 27, 1953. In the POW camp, all that Morgan heard was a rumor: they might be released.

POWs were loaded onto Chinese trucks and headed south for three days. Morgan’s hopes of freedom were bolstered when he saw United States as well as Chinese and North Korean troops assembled near the 38th Parallel, the border between North and South Korea.

When his truck stopped, two U.S. soldiers came to the back and he stepped down.

"When I shook an American’s hand, I knew that was it." He was wearing Chinese clothing but he was free at 10 a.m. Aug. 6, 1953. To himself, he said, "Thank you Jesus."

He telegraphed a message to his wife: "Thrilled beyond words to be released. Join me in prayer of Thanksgiving for my release."

By Aug. 23 he was stepping off a ship in California and he headed off to see his father, mother, wife and son in Pennsylvania.

Yet Morgan felt he had arrived home the moment he had stepped off the back of a truck that Aug. 6.

After North Korea, the next conflict Morgan was assigned to was the Vietnam War where he worked with South Vietnamese villagers to help improve their living conditions.

Finally, his health forced him into military retirement at Fort Benning, Ga. He went south to Orlando to work as a Florida hotel and restaurant inspector, a job that eventually moved him to Vero Beach. Then from 1980 to 1992, he was the Indian River County School District’s supervisor of operations who took care of grounds maintenance and custodial staff.

After developing two cases of cancer in 1989 and 1990, he ended up too sick devote his full energy to his job. "I’m the type that if I can’t do a job for you, I don’t do it." He left, going into a retirement in which he has actively worked with local veterans groups, including the Veterans Service Council where he met now deceased Vero Beach resident Conway Austin, a Marine colonel who was on hand when Morgan was handed over to U.S. troops in Korea.

Also, Morgan has been active locally in bolstering civil rights. He heads up the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Committee.

"The dream is still alive," said Morgan, echoing the words of the slain civil rights leader.

"We’ve come a long ways" in ending discrimination, he said. Still, "We have a long ways to go. In this country there is segregation, to a degree, in where you live, what kind of employment you can get and where you are accepted."

Morgan is no longer a POW. Yet to him some of what his captors said about racial inequality, more than a half a century ago, remains true in the United States.

"We have to keep trying," he said.

Getting to know Jerry Morgan

* Service record: He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He was a POW for 33 months in the Korean War. "Faith in God," he said, "and expecting to be rescued" kept him going.
After 28 years in the military, he was medically discharged in January 1971 due to knee wounds from World War II and the Korean War and other conditions. He retired as a master sergeant.

* Honors: Bronze Medal with "V" device for valor in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, Bronze Medal, two Purple Hearts and an Honor Medal Second Class.
* Medical: He retired from the military with a 40 percent disability. In civilian life he survived bouts with prostate and lung cancer.
* Most proud of: "Survival. The Lord kept me alive" in military and civilian life.
* Community activities: Member of the St. Peter’s Missionary Baptist Church and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Indian River County. He is president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Committee in Indian River County.
Also he is a member of the National American Ex-Prisoners of War, American Legion Post 181 of Gifford, The Korean American Ex-POW Association and the Vietnam Veterans Association, among others.

* Background: A native of Pennsylvania who moved to Vero Beach in 1972.
His mother was a housekeeper for white families. His father worked in steel mills and plastered walls and hung wall paper.

* Family: He and wife, Doretha, are in their second marriage. Between them, they have six children: five boys and one girl. His first son was born while he was a POW.

To learn more about prisoners of war, visit the National Prisoner of War Museum, Andersonville, Ga.

This National Park Service facility, in southern Georgia, has exhibits about POWs from the Revolutionary War until modern times. Exhibits show what a POW’s life can be like from capture to gaining freedom.

The museum is at the site of the Civil War’s Andersonville Prison, a notorious Confederate-run POW camp that held 32,000 Union soldiers in a camp designed for 10,000. About 12,920 men died there during the camp’s 14-month lifespan. Those POWs died of disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, crowded conditions or exposure to the elements, said Alan Marsh, a museum specialist.

In addition to the museum, the 495-acre park consists of the historic prison site and a National Cemetery.
For more information, call the park at (229) 924-0343 or go to the Internet site: (www.nps.gov/ande).
The park is off Interstate 75 about 10 miles north of Americus, Ga.

© 2002 - The E.W. Scripps Co."