The Fighting Wantuck

The Fighting Wantuck, APD 125, 09/12/50

The four LCVPs slung from davits just forward of our 40mm guns would carry Item Company, 3rd Btn, 5th Marines into the assault on Wolmi-do. We and our two sister ships would be the sharp point of the UN when we opened the assault on the Invasion Beaches at Green Beach.

Seventy eight days later, only 20 of these 200 Marines would still be standing.

09/15/50, about 7:00 a.m.
Off Green Beach, as Inchon burns beyond Wolmi Do

Note the empty davits. Our four LCVPs had loaded our elements of the 5th Marines and were taking them in to hit Wolmi.

Wolmi's dominant 351' peak is just discernable in photo center

Formidable Wolmi-do was battered, but awaiting I Company, 3rd Battalion 5th Marines, who had just debarked down Wantuck's nets into our LCVPs.

LCVPs from Diachenko and Bass carried in G and H Company, respectively, from 3/5 in the assault on Wolmi. A crushing Naval and air barrage supported the Marine assaults.
	Wantuck was Control Ship for Blue Beach, Bass for Red Beach and Diachenko was Central Control.

The LSMR's crossed the bows of our assault LCVPs for a culminating rocket assault on Wolmi just before we landed our Marines.

Wantuck supported UDT-1, both at Wonsan during mine clearing operations and later.

Wantuck operated with 41 Royal Marine Commando in raids along the east coast.

Korean War Prelude

Wantuck began 1950 ... Sinking a Sub(?) ... her first look at green tracers.

	APD 125 Wantuck won the Korean Presidential Unit Citation for her part in the assault on Wolmi Do, which initiated the Infantry action in the Inchon Invasion
With the Begor, our four APD's constituted TD-111 which, as Navy Special Operations put it, "provided the operational catalyst for the multinational raiding force that repeatedly struck North Korea's railway system".

For participation at Inchon, Wonsan, Commando raids, mine clearing support and other actions, Wantuck won 5 battle stars during the Korean War

Map and summary of Pusan Perimeter battle, to time of Inchon invasion

To kill the Fighting Wantuck took
One Of Our Own Ships
She fought hard to the end

"None Like Us"
After my discharge I joined Philco Corporation as a Field Engineer for a few years before college, and they sent me back to Korea in 1952, where I was responsible for keeping our long-range air search radar working. All our Air Force ops in North Korea were monitored and controlled from that radar, and I can tell you there were a couple of very hairy times when I had to get the damned thing up after some sort of failure. Imagining what was going on in the cockpits, and how lonely and scared the guys must have been, I sweated bullets at those times but fortunately there were only two of them that were critical and I lucked out. There were brass from Kimpo and probably elsewhere, just standing around waiting while I was at it, those were the only times the Air Force techs actually jumped when I sent them off to get parts or megger signal cables. Fortunately, I did get it back on both times. One Air Force SSgt spent his entire tour of duty there apparently working on a PPI, which I fixed in about three hours once he rotated back to the States, mostly having to fix bad solder joints he inserted while playing around. Some of the thirty or so Air Force radar techs at 606 AC&W were very good, though. I thought highly of one guy who challenged me once to see which of us could fix a PPI fastest. I beat him hands down but was proud of him, and still am. That's the sort of thing I remember these days, the interactions from day to day, but there were some wild moments at times.

The things I most remember, though, and most like to remember, were the months on Wantuck just before Korea, when we ruled the Pacific and little Wantuck sailed around the Philippines and Guam and was Station Ship in Hong Kong.

So many of my Marine Corps and Aussie pals for sure went through hell during the Korean War while I was just a working tourist, but I do so clearly recall and love those pre-Korea days, chasing (in vain) the British girls in Repulse Bay liberties, settling for some of the most beautiful Chinese girls I've ever dreamed of instead, fighting off guys trying to roll us in Guam, having our choice of gorgeous ladies in the Philippines, fighting and bleeding all over each other's whites in the open-sided bars in Kowloon, wee-hour poker games below in the electronics shack, in fact all of life in the sultry, steaming, alien-smelling Pacific Isles when I was young and the juices raced, and there were "None Like Us".

I didn't realize it at the time, but it comes from my heart to say that kicking and scratching at life in little Wantuck, between chasing around with all those enchanting Far Eastern ladies, kings of the world in our Whites on $65 or so a month, are memories to take an old sailor smiling to his grave. Bert

B. L. Kortegaard, ex Wantuck Crewman

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A SOLDIER DIED TODAY

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,

Our Country is in mourning, for

A Soldier Died Today.

© 1987 A. Lawrence Vaincourt

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Seventy eight days later, only 20 of these 200 Marines would still be standing.

© 1987 A. Lawrence Vaincourt

© Kortegaard Engineering ©