Veteran recalls 'forgotten battle' of Chosin Reservoir
The ex-Youngstown resident is quoted in a book about the Korean War, 'In Mortal Combat, 1950-1953,' by John Toland.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Louis Joseph Grappo remembers fighting his way out of a Chinese Army trap at the Chosin Reservoir in Korea as clearly today as when it happened in 1951.
He was one of a handful of survivors from the Army units of the Chosin Reservoir combat -- the "forgotten battle" of the so-called "forgotten war."
Tuesday is the anniversary of the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950, which led to United States involvement in the war a few days later. During the war, which lasted three years and one month, American forces suffered 33,629 battle deaths and 20,617 deaths from other causes, as well as nonfatal wounds to 103,284 military personnel.
Grappo, a former Youngstown resident, spent less than three months in Korea -- Sept. 18 to Dec. 3, 1951 -- before being seriously wounded during the fight south from Chosin.
He said of the 3,300 men on the east side of the Chosin Reservoir, there were about 3,000 casualties, mostly dead, captured or missing.
"It was the biggest slaughter of the Korean war," and yet most Americans don't know much about it, Grappo said.
Faked his age
In a telephone interview from his home in Indian Harbour Beach, Fla., Grappo, who lived many years on Youngstown's South Side and still has family in the Youngstown area, said he entered the Army in 1948 at age 15. He used an ink eradicator to alter his baptismal certificate to make it appear he was 18.
Grappo was born Feb. 28, 1933, in East Palestine, the youngest of 12 children of Alexander and Louisa Grappo, who moved their family to West Marion Avenue in June 1933.
He was reared by brothers and sisters after his mother died when he was 4 and his father died when he was 7.
He attended elementary school in Cuyahoga Falls and Akron and at St. Patrick School here. In 1947, he attended St. Paul Monastery in Canfield, studying to be a priest. He then transferred to The Rayen School and had just finished his freshman year when he joined the Army on Aug. 26, 1948.
He said he enlisted because he wanted to be like his brothers, who had all served in the military during World War II.
Grappo, now 69, was 18 when, as a member of a heavy mortar company with the 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 7th Division, he landed at Inchon, Korea, on Sept. 18, 1951, and joined other Army and Marine Corps units that fought their way to Seoul and routed the North Korean Army.
Near the end of November, Grappo's unit went by convoy to the Chosin Reservoir, where U.N. forces were preparing to push the North Korean troops to the Yalu River and the border with China.
His unit went up the east side of the reservoir to relieve the 5th Marines so they could consolidate on the west side with other Marine units.
Surrounded by Chinese
Unbeknown to U.S. forces, the Chinese had massed several divisions along the North Korean border with the intention of eliminating the 1st Marine Division, and attacked Sept. 27 and 28, 1951, surrounding American troops on both sides of the reservoir.
An account of the Korean War, including what happened to Grappo's unit, is contained in a book by John Toland, "In Mortal Combat, 1950-1953." Grappo is talked about and quoted on several pages.
On Dec. 1, after the Chinese attack, a truck convoy carrying about 500 wounded Army soldiers, with troops marching beside the trucks, began an effort to break out of the Chinese trap.
Leadership of the convoy, of which Grappo was a part, fell apart when American napalm was dropped on it, Grappo acknowledged.
"It killed a lot of guys. Also, we didn't have enough ammunition and clothing, and while the Marines provided air support, there was no ground support," he said.
The escape effort, named Task Force Faith for its leader, Col. Don Faith, continued south.
At that point, Grappo said, his unit was still in pretty good shape, but the rifle companies "got slaughtered. Most of the men were out of ammunition, and because of the severe cold, weapons would not fire consistently. It was like a shooting gallery," Grappo said.
Grappo, with feet frozen so badly he could not walk, was hanging on to the rear of a truck carrying wounded when he was shot in the right leg during an ambush by two divisions of Chinese.
Grappo could find no room on any of the trucks.
"Guys were strapped onto the hoods and fenders and packed inside, screaming and yelling from their pain, begging for help," he said.
When he finally found a spot in one of the trucks, he was hit again, this time in the shoulder and neck by shrapnel, and he passed out.
When he regained consciousness in the morning with Chinese "all over the place," he said, he rolled over on his stomach and played dead. He took out his wallet and removed his watch so the Chinese wouldn't be tempted to search him and find him alive, and put his face in his helmet so the Chinese couldn't see his breath. He pulled a dead soldier on top of him, and then passed out again.
When he awoke, he was the only man in the truck alive. When two young Chinese soldiers came into the truck and saw him, Grappo pleaded with them and showed them his wound.
"They just looked at me and left," he said.
Grappo said he didn't think he could walk -- but he also didn't believe he would live through another night.
Headed toward Marines
So, later in the day, when American planes began strafing the Chinese troops, Grappo got out of the truck, while the Chinese were distracted, and took off for the other side of the Chosin toward Marine lines, a distance he estimated at 600 to 800 yards, using an old Chinese rifle and a brand new Russian rifle as crutches. He was about halfway to the Marines when the Chinese opened fire on him.
"I heard the cracking sounds of the bullets, but they missed me," and he made it to the Marine lines.
During the two months he spent recovering in a hospital in Japan, his brother, a California attorney, intervened and wrote a letter to the Department of Defense telling them Grappo was underage. He was eventually sent home and discharged from the Army on March 16, 1951.
His war experience has not left him despite the lapse of 51 years.
Although it is less intense now, he said the gunfire "imprints on your brain. Every sound you hear, every footstep, every door closing, would sound like a rifle going off."
Grappo said he's bitter about what he calls a "bad rap" given the Army's performance at Chosin by the Marine Corps and others.
He admitted that Task Force Faith officers and NCOs had lost control of their men. But, on a man-to-man, individual basis, there were a lot of heroes there. "A lot of guys fought with nothing, knowing they were not going to survive," he said.
"Forget whether they were in a Marine uniform or an Army uniform. They all died for their country. They were all Americans."
Life since the war
After the war, Grappo, though he never went to college, worked as a manufacturing engineer in Ohio, California, Texas and elsewhere. He also worked as a civilian employee for the Merchant Marines from 1956 to 1965. He retired and moved five years ago from Austin, Texas, to Florida.
After he was discharged, he married a woman in California. They had two children, but the marriage failed, and they separated when his daughters, Olga and Roxanne, were 15 and 14, respectively. Both live in Memphis, Tenn.
Twenty-one years ago he married his wife, Maryann, whom he met while working for Data General in Texas.
These days, he spends a lot of time on the computer and reading, and is president of Coquina Palms Home Owners Association.
alcorn@vindy.com