Starvation Rations
Life as a POW during the Korean War was filled with trials, including near-starvation. The entire time Korean War POWs were on the march from one camp to another, they mostly ate plain sorghum. The captives were also given cracked corn on occasion. But after arriving at Camp No. 1, my father’s second camp, the sorghum was frequently served with a sauce. The sauce was thick, pasty, and spicier than hell. One day, they asked the Chinese waiter-master what it was. When he explained that it consisted of dog meat ground up with red hot peppers, their stomachs did flip-flops. That ended the “dog sauce” for them, though they admitted there were times in their awful hunger, it did add taste to the sorghum and corn.
POWs in the camps were sometimes fed the scraps of food and leftovers from the guard’s meals. So they got fish heads and tails and other scraps. Prisoners often caught their captors peddling skinned rats to them, insisting that they were squirrels.
My father, SFC George J. Matta, said in his POW survival story that they got to the point of eating bugs and rodents just to stay alive. His memoir is the true story of a Korean War POW.
They didn’t worry about nutrition, calories, or appeal. Substance was the thing that mattered. The only goal was to get enough into your body to make it to the next meal. Needless to say, there was very little they would turn down.
Lack of Proper Medical Treatment
Sgt Treffery, imprisoned with my father, got a sample of the kind of medical treatment the Chinese would provide. After the survivors of his unit surrendered to the Red Chinese, they took all their outer gear (jackets, boots, etc.) and left them walking in socks and shirts and pants. It was winter. During the march into North Korea, they would spend the night in pig pens and other outbuildings. It got below freezing every night, and they would start marching again at first light.
On the second or third night, Sgt. Treffery’s feet froze, and he was forced to march with frostbitten toes and feet. By the time he got to the POW camp, most of the skin was gone from his toes. He had his socks wrapped around his feet and toes. The treatment he received came one day when a girl entered their hut with garden shears and told him to lie down. She took the shears and cut off all his toes. Later, he broke off the remaining bones of his toes that were left, fearing infection or gangrene would set in. This is only one of the war stories of courage and survival found in Sgt. Matta’s father-son memoir project.
Homemade Remedies
Realizing they would not get any decent medical aid from the Chinese or North Koreans, the prisoners did their best to care for themselves and their fellow soldiers. They suffered from recurring bouts of dysentery, tuberculosis, malnutrition, and related deficiencies such as avitaminosis, and other harsh conditions like frostbite.
To treat dysentery, my father would sneak down to the kitchen and, without any trouble, locate and steal some salt. He rolled it into balls and ate one about four times a day. Along with the salt, he burned some maize down into a black charcoal-like mixture and ate it. This unorthodox prescription cured his dysentery within two weeks.
To combat the vitamin deficiencies, they improvised their own form of medicine, such as creating a yeast supplement called “Camp Marmite” from maize or rice.
POWs also had problems with Intestinal worms. Some POWs would use the cover of night to sneak into the guard’s garden and steal hot peppers. The thought was that the hot peppers would kill the worms.
To treat frostbite, they would use snow or ice for initial treatment, applying dry friction, and soaking the affected area in cold water to gradually thaw it. Other methods included using their own body heat by tucking frozen fingers under an armpit.
These homemade remedies were great when they worked, and when they did, they were passed along to other unfortunates.
Relying on One Another
One of the South Korean soldiers they shared their hut with, called Tony, had severe boils on his feet from the long march to the camp. These boils would normally be harmless, but in the camp, without proper treatment, his became infected.
At first my father and his friend, Sal, tried some tobacco leaves soaked in warm water. They applied them to the wound as a poultice. It apparently did some good because it drew out some of the puss and maggots and allowed him to sleep a little better that night. After two days, they ran out of tobacco leaves and had to come up with something else.
Next, they decided to try onions. That night, as the guard slept outside their hut, they snuck into the nearest Korean family’s garden and stole some onions. They boiled them and tried to stem the spread of the infection by putting them on Tony’s badly swollen leg. The onions also seemed to help, but he was losing his strength, and they could tell that blood poisoning was about to infect his entire bloodstream.
Then Sal attempted to steal some alcohol to try to clean out Tony’s wounds. Unfortunately for Sal, he was caught and jailed for his attempt. Tony died four days later of what would have been corrected with little effort in the States. It upset the entire hut a great deal.
Men dying needlessly was a common occurrence in the camps.
Seeing Friends Die
Dying soldiers were sometimes physically strong, but they couldn’t handle the hardships and stress, and they gave up. Others were physically weak but had fortitude and inner strength that allowed them to handle what was thrown at them. Survival was as much a mind game in the POW camps as a test of their physical endurance.
My next blog will talk about the POWs’ attempts to collect and retain the names and hometowns of fellow POWs and why this was so important.
