MH: Did you ever feel as if it would be impossible to fight on?

Bergee: No. Not once do I remember feeling that I was a participant in a hopeless cause. I read about being trapped in the newspapers and magazines after I arrived back in the States, but during the campaign I only felt complete confidence that I was a United States Marine, with other Marines. If the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, and the Army 3rd Division, who were down below in the valley, could not break through to us, then we would break out to them. I never knew if I would be one of the survivors, but I knew the Chinese could not contain the 1st Marine Division.

MH: Marines have a certain closeness, don’t they?

Bergee: Yes, we knew that in the morning light we would find our buddies still next to us–dead or alive, they would still be there. The Corps’ justifiable pride in itself is not built on braggadocio but on actual accomplishments. Many articles have been written about the Chosin fight by writers who were not there, but let me tell you, as one who was there, we were a band of brothers–and we were coming out of that trap like Marines, or we weren’t coming out at all!

MH: I heard the Marines even brought out most of their dead.

Bergee: Yes, that is true. There were some who could not be reached, who had been isolated and overrun, but all of those we could reach, we brought out. When the Marines reached Koto-ri, the final perimeter that had been defended throughout the exodus from Yudam-ni, before the final breakout south, we buried 85 officers and men. Those men were interred at Chosin because the space was needed on the vehicles for badly wounded. The bodies of those we buried, however, were returned to the United States in 1953 in accordance with the Korean Armistice. The remains were then re-interred as requested by their next of kin. God love them all!

MH: Would you talk about some of the experiences the Marines underwent during that campaign?

Bergee: I could fill up your notebook with experiences. One of my gunnery sergeant friends distinguished himself one night by daringly exposing himself to intense machine-gun, mortar, grenade and small-arms fire to lead 12 men against overwhelming odds (they were facing approximately two battalions of Chinese) to reach and aid men of his command. He was awarded the Navy Cross for that act of heroism. Inside the perimeter at Hagaru-ri, the Marines prepared for the anticipated night attack. Every man became a rifleman–clerk-typists, cooks, truck drivers, communications men, supply personnel and engineers. The perimeter flares revealed wave after wave of Chinese advancing across the snow-covered ground. Hand grenades were lobbed at the onrushing enemy, machine guns opened up and the mortars began firing with devastating effect. Finally, our men met the enemy head-on, with bayonets. Temporarily, the Chinese had been beaten off by so-called rear echelon troops–but the Chinese had not figured on their opponents being Marines. I have often thought what the Chosin area must have looked like when spring arrived that following year. There must have been dead bodies all over the place. It has been said that the 1st Marine Division killed 40 Chinese to every dead Marine. It seems possible to me, since I saw the bodies of Chinese soldiers stacked like cordwood at daybreak after that battle.

MH: It was certainly a grim business, wasn’t it?

Bergee: I recall seeing one Marine sitting behind the wheel of a jeep, a bullet through his forehead. He had been hit as he tried to make a run for Hagaru-ri; his jeep had veered off the road, jumped over an embankment and landed near the edge of a creek. The Chinese had stripped him of his helmet, weapon and winter clothing, leaving him clad in only his winter underwear.

MH: There have been numerous stories of close calls at Chosin. Did you witness any personally?

Bergee: The helmet of one of my men was spun around on his head as a bullet passed in and out through the side. I remember seeing a Marine smoking a cigarette one morning, and a bullet knocked the cigarette right out of his mouth. I felt my left shoepac suddenly become untied. A bullet had severed the shoelace, and as I bent over to look at it, my canteen was shot off my belt. I had just gotten out of my sleeping bag one dark night, took two steps, and a burp gun cut loose and sent about 20 rounds into my bag. The down feathers really flew!

MH: What about the Chinese? Were they good fighters?

Bergee: Compared to the Japanese, they were not. They would try to overwhelm you with sheer manpower. No, I personally don’t believe they were good soldiers, but they were extremely disciplined and tough. We killed so many of the Chinese who attacked us that they were finished as a fighting unit. That unit never again entered into combat during the Korean War. It is ironic–they had orders to annihilate the 1st Marine Division, but we annihilated them. Of course, there were individual acts of heroism by Chinese soldiers, but generally they depended on overwhelming strength in numbers. I shall never forget the many nights of massed attacks by the enemy. The damn bugles blaring in the cold night air, the yelling of the Chinese as they swarmed toward our positions wave upon wave–those sights and sounds will always remain in my memory. Everywhere you looked, there were charging Chinese. It reminded me of knocking over an anthill and watching the ants scamper to and fro.

MH: Most of the heavy fighting took place at night, didn’t it?

Bergee: Yes. During the day our column continued down the road, and we could see that the hillsides on both sides of us were swarming with Chinese soldiers. Every now and then a sniper would kill a Marine and we would blast away at the hillside, but most of the time the enemy would wait until dark to launch an attack against our column. The Chinese had a way of appearing suddenly at night, during the coldest, darkest part. They would attack in great numbers and would yell and charge our lines. In the hills all around us we would hear a bugle, then off to our right another, and then to the left another. It was really frightening! One dark, moonless night, one of my men hollered, ‘Sarge, the gooks are here!’ I knew that, unless we received an airdrop, we would soon be completely out of ammunition. I yelled back: ‘If you run out of ammo, throw snowballs at the SOBs–but be sure and put a damn rock inside them!’

MH: Did daybreak bring any relief from the continuous onslaught?

Bergee: No. With the coming of morning, just before the dawn, I heard bugles and knew another big attack was on. The human sea came charging toward us, their padded, mustard-colored uniforms dark against the snow. My face was covered with frost, my beard had tiny ice balls interwoven in it, and although I had on mittens, my fingers hurt from the cold. My parka was dirty and blood-stained. A day like all of the other days. That is how it was at Chosin.

MH: Did you ever personally engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy?

Bergee: Oh my, yes! I vividly remember the time a Chinese soldier hit me with his fist right in my frozen nose. Well, that really made me mad, and I grabbed him and bit off his ear. Yep, I really did. I bit his ear off, then killed him.

MH: Was there really much hand-to-hand fighting?

Bergee: God, yes! The Chinese would attack in waves, and we couldn’t kill them all. They would overrun various positions, and we had to fight them man to man. It was war at its worst, believe me. We battled desperately night and day in the face of almost insurmountable odds throughout a period of two weeks. There were 11 Medals of Honor earned in 11 days. That should show you the intensity of the battle. For a Marine, the Medal of Honor is an extremely difficult decoration to win. I don’t mean that other service branches get the Medal of Honor the easy way, but for a Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor is truly difficult.

MH: How was your air support?

Bergee: When it snowed, which was most of the time, there was no air cover. The Corsairs did a magnificent job whenever the weather cleared. They strafed and bombed enemy positions and then would make another run, dropping their deadly napalm. Some of the Corsairs flew so low during their strafing runs that I imagined they arrived back at their carriers and the airfield with snow in their undercarriages. I remember once staring down at a dead Chinese soldier who had been strafed by one of our planes. I could see the evenly spaced bullet holes in the snow going out across the field. His jacket bulged with two cartons of Chesterfield cigarettes and a brand-new pair of U.S. Marine Corps­issue gloves. I wondered what dead Marine that joker had stripped to steal those items. As I passed him, I gave his stiff body a kick.

MH: Was it possible for you to be supplied by air?

Bergee: The U.S. Air Force used their Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars to drop us much-needed supplies, including the huge parts needed to rebuilda destroyed bridge south of Koto-ri. The enemy had blown up that bridge astride the only road out, and it was necessary for the equipment to be airdropped at Koto-ri. After that, the engineers worked under enemy fire to rebuild it. If that bridge had not been repaired, the column would not have been able to get out a single vehicle loaded with wounded, dead and equipment. It lay astride the road over a deep ravine. On one side was a sheer drop of thousands of feet, and on the other was a steep embankment, hundreds of feet high, that towered above the road. The airdrops were a godsend. It was also possible to evacuate seriously wounded and frostbite cases by air at Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri when the sky was clear enough for the planes to land and take off. Almost everyone had a colored scarf made from the silk of the supply chutes.

MH: Do the memories of that campaign haunt you at any time?

Bergee: Not really, but the memories are always there. As they say, one sign of age is a tendency to live in the past. I now understand why. It is only after a life filled with living and sharing love with someone you cherish and adore that you can savor the meaning and importance of an experience such as the Chosin Few shared. The bad memories I can live with, and the good memories I treasure. I recall one Marine had an eye shot out–it was hanging down his cheek–and yet he led a counterattack against the enemy. That sort of bravery was common during the Chosin campaign. I have come to believe that I have an obligation to the future, to give young people the chance to have a meaningful understanding of the past and the glory that was, though only in retrospect. It is important, not to me, but to the future.

MH: One of these days all of you will be only a memory. Do you hope that the younger generation will know and remember what all of you went through at Chosin?

Bergee: Yes, definitely! I don’t want the younger generation to forget what their fathers and grandfathers went through in North Korea. Not so much to make us out as heroes, but to know that a band of brothers stood side by side against overwhelming odds and terrible weather, and came out of Chosin as a fighting unit. The Chinese had orders to annihilate the 1st Marine Division. But they failed. And they failed because we were a team–a first-class team–and we had something deep inside that they did not have, and that something was esprit de corps!

MH: Does this interview awaken your memories? Would you rather I not go into some of the details?

Bergee: No! I don’t mind. That was a time when the Marine Corps was once again put to the test. We did what was considered impossible and came through with our colors intact, with most of our dead and wounded and, most important, came through as a fighting outfit ready to do battle again!

MH: How do you characterize yourself?

Bergee: I am a survivor. We were all survivors. Remembering my comrades in arms who did not return saddens me, but I have satisfaction in knowing that we did a good thing, and the pride and sorrow get mixed together. I am glad to say that I survived, and although I lost many dear and close buddies, if I am perfectly honest with you, I am glad that I made it back! I can shut my eyes now and see those tattered, frostbitten Marines on their long walk out of Chosin. I remember vividly that march out of the trap, and although I didn’t make it all the way on foot, I am damned proud of having served in that campaign. I don’t honestly believe that any of us has ever lived through any other experience as bad or shared so much comradeship. None of us survivors ever mention it, but we all felt that we were all very close to hearing the angels’ wings.

MH: How long did the withdrawal go on?

Bergee: Time had no meaning. Progress was so slow, and we had such a long way to go. We moved through infinite darkness in ghostly clouds of snow over an icy road that led to the bottom of the mountain and safety. We carried on with the only strength that was left to us–the pride and discipline of a Marine Corps fighting division.

MH: What was flank duty like?

Bergee: Being placed on flank guard was extra tough duty. You were out on the hillside, away from the main column, out where the Chinese were waiting in the dark. Every now and then, you could hear a voice–in Chinese! That had an adrenaline effect. The realization that you were so close to the enemy charged you with new energy and cleared your mind. Gone was the stumbling weariness. You suddenly became sure-footed, alert! You had reached the enemy and would have to eliminate him or be eliminated. Then the voices would stop. The only sound would be the scuffling of your own shoepacs on the icy trail. Suddenly a loud, sharp Chinese voice would be heard again–probably a challenge or a command. It was definitely hostile. The enemy was yet to be seen. Then they opened up on you. There would be a torrent of American oaths, then answering fire from the Marines. One time we came across an enemy squad that had been sleeping on a wide shelf of ground that jutted from the hillside. Most of them were killed in a brief firefight; one was bayoneted in his foxhole. One or two of them ran off into the night. Shadowy figures continued on down the trail. That was flank guard duty at Chosin.

MH: Can you sum up how you feel today, 45 years later, about the Chosin campaign?

Bergee: I have done a lot of thinking about the Chosin campaign. It was an experience few have during their lifetime. I am sure that not all of us experience the same emotions in reliving our past, but I think about the heroic efforts of all of those men. Every survivor of Chosin was a hero in my book. Many squads, platoons and companies made gallant stands against overwhelming enemy numbers, night after night. When the division reached Masan, west of Pusan, after it had reached the port of Hungnam and shipped south, more than 400 cases of frostbite were treated.

MH: What acts did you witness that you regarded as outstandingly heroic?

Bergee: Heroism is a quality few of us would have been able to define in words at that time. It is only in retrospect, after time has passed, and in the civilized comfort and safety of your own home, that exploits you witnessed, and sometimes took part in, take on the character of true heroism. At the time, we were too involved in survival to assess that heroism. It was a real characteristic of the Chosin Few–of being a hero and not knowing it at the time. Cowardice is easily defined because it is so unusual; heroism is not, because it is so common. So when I remember Chosin and the men who fought and died there, I do so with awe. I recall the sheer guts of one of the mortar men. The company was being raked with automatic-weapons fire. That man stood up, in full view of the enemy, exposing himself to sudden death, so that the mortar gunners 35 yards behind him could use him as an aiming stake. He continued to do that for more than two hours. The mortars destroyed many targets, and his heroic act allowed us to break out that morning. Yet that man received no award or citation. Another time, one of the patrols drew withering fire from the enemy, this time on the forward slope overlooking the road. Unable to set up a machine gun because the steep slope would not afford enough elevation to reach the enemy, one of our men lay down under the front leg of the tripod, raising it so the gun could be used to return fire. The machine-gun crew only fired off a few bursts before the enemy fire was trained on the exposed gun. The young Marine who was being used as part of the tripod took a direct hit in the temple. Here is a testimony to a brave young man. He was never cited for bravery, either. Fighting all the way back with frozen feet was in itself a heroic act, but no one received a medal for it. It was a situation where everyone involved was fighting for his life. There was no such thing as ‘rear echelon’ troops at Chosin. To romanticize war is folly, for it is not lovely. In no way do I worship at the shrine of those for whom war is great. It is, however, necessary that free men–men of principle–be willing to fight and if necessary die for that freedom and those principles. Some people tell me it would be wise to try and forget those times. They may be right, but I know I cannot forget. I cannot forget that band of brothers who fought and died alongside me during that terrible winter of 1950. I cannot forget that we who were there share a common bond that time can never change.

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This article was originally published in the December 1995 issue of Military History magazine.

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