WOODBINE – Richard “Dick” Mathers, 82, of Ocean City was just 21 when, by virtue of the first letter of his surname, he was shipped to Korea in 1953. There was a “terrible, terrible war” being waged and the young Army private found himself in the hot and cold of what some term “The Forgotten War.”
Mathers spoke of his service in that land of temperature extremes Jan. 25 at Woodbine American Legion Post 298. It was the first of what Cape May County American Legion officers plan as a rotating series of veterans speaking at various legion posts about the wars in which they served.
“Some veterans don’t want to talk about their service,” said Jim Scanlon, senior membership chairman of American Legion Post 524, Ocean City where Mathers is a member. “We are fortunate to have Dick who was willing to speak.”
Woodbine’s post Commander Dave Zweigenbaum welcomed Mathers and about 50 to the presentation. He said it was the hope of officers that if posts would sponsor veterans to tell “war stories, it will bring veterans out of the woodwork into the post and get them active in veteran’s life.”
As an Army engineer, Mathers was in a battalion whose mission it was to find and blow up mines and bridges, but also to build bridges so that South Korean forces could cross waterways.
Mathers brought poster boards filled with black-and-white photos he took back then, or peasants who scratched a meager living from the land, and showed some of the homes his unit helped to build.
Soldiers from across the nation united to freeze in fox holes and swelter in summer heat, Mathers said.
“We had Jews from New York City, sons of steel workers from Pittsburgh, farm boys from Iowa and Nebraska and African Americans from Alabama, and we were united to get the job done,” he said.
As Mathers’ recalled, President Harry Truman spearheaded the nation’s thrust against the spread of communism from Russia and China when Korea seemed the next likely target.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” he noted. “Our commanding officer could not speak the language, Orders were given, but it was uncertain whether those being fired upon were friend (South Koreans) or foes (North Koreans). He said ‘They’re North Koreans start firing.’ But we killed a lot of innocent people. We did not know the language; it was difficult for us to get along.”
North Koreans, he said, would slaughter innocent people. “This is what we were up against,” he said.
“It hit me there when I was 21. I was in a foxhole, it was 25 below zero, and I said, ‘God, what am I doing here?” It dawned on him that the people for whom the U.S. and 19 United Nations were fighting to help could not read, they had no schools, and life was barely worth clinging to. “Yet in the end they were all going to be very happy. I helped save the country,” he smiled.
The extreme cold made fighting an unbearable hell for soldiers from the South, who were not used to such biting cold. Then, in summer, monsoon rains would deluge the troops.
Mathers recalled one such storm brought rain for 21 days. “I walked knee deep in mud.” He pointed to a photograph of the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. in which the statue is clad in a poncho. “Our feet got wet and muddy; our clothes were wet and could not dry. For young Americans this was really difficult,” said Mathers.
Mathers recalled being among troops who were far outnumbered 15 to one, he estimated, by foes whose ranks were bolstered by Chinese warriors.
To fight against that onslaught, Mathers recalled solders with frozen fingers and feet. But then, he believed, through a friend from the Philadelphia area whom he met, God had a plan for him to help his comrades.
He went into supply, an area of which he had no knowledge. Quickly, he realized that the assignment affording him the ability to better clothe the soldiers in his battalion. With a shipment of worthless, to them, special services sports equipment, Mathers managed to get warm clothes and especially extra boots so that boots would have an opportunity to dry before next wearing.
After an IG inspection by “a full-bird colonel,” which Mathers first feared, that officer realized that what he had done by supplying the men with dry, warm clothes, helped boost their morale and assisted them in becoming a better fighting unit. A promotion elevated him to corporal.
As part of the 74th Engineer Combat Battalion, who worked 14 hour days, every day for about $3 a day, Mathers soon found himself with orders to build a bridge, which he did by recalling techniques he was taught in his training at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. He divided his men into three groups. As one ate, another worked, then they switched, so that progress would not stop when troops were eating.
Mathers recalled another time when North Koreans were on the march against them, and they feared they would run out of ammunition. Into fox holes they dove, and again, they were miraculously spared from death. “That was a miracle,” Mathers said.
He also remembered one night, going out with “A pack on my back. In the bag was TNT and dynamite. If I was hit by a bullet, I would have been dead.”
At times, Mathers would choke back tears at the thought of how near death he and his comrades came back then in 1953-54.
He also told of a night patrol in which their unit was ordered to blow up a bridge to slow the progress of the enemy. “We set charges for 20 minutes, went back and boom! Up it goes,” he said.
To end his recollection, Mathers read an article how prosperous South Korea has become. He noted it is a producer of automobiles, cell phones, and other electronic parts. Its industrious people remain grateful for what Americans did in the conflict that ended, not in victory, but in a truce. Technically, the war continues to this day, stopped by that truce at the 38th parallel signed on July 27, 1953.
Mathers pointed to his photographs of the Korean families who built homes of supplies left over after the conflict ceased, and for which his unit was extended six months.
Mathers read a letter from his company commander that praised his talents and efforts, and recommended him for any service school of his desire.
“It was so wonderful he took the time to write. This letter, after 60 years is better than any medal I could receive,” said Mathers.
