Fifth Gospel:The Odyssey of a Time Traveler in First-Century Palestine Read online

  I thought of the night, the night that seemed eons ago, when under a bright full moon, with the distant sound of coyotes howling in the background, I had proposed to Amanda Clearwater and she had accepted. Sitting on a large flat rock under a giant saguaro and oblivious of the time, we made plans far into the night. I would return to the reservation to teach history, and she would finish nursing school and work at the clinic. We were very happy.

  I thought of the night I had gone out into the desert after the double funeral and climbed a tall rocky hill and howled at the moon and cried and cursed mankind and the universe and even God. I screamed out at the futility of it all, at the cruel, cosmic jest. I raged at the heavens and the earth and the Creator because everything I ever cared about was always destroyed. Not only that, but the destruction was random, meaningless, purposeless. A barroom brawl, a drunk crossing a center line on a highway. It was all a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and it certainly signified nothing.

  I took my last look at the desert and pulled the stick back. The climb was swift and steep, and when I leveled off at 45,000 feet, all I could see below me were clouds. Memories of a different sort began to intrude. Clarence had made me go through the Korean experience again. “It’s all in the reports,” I had objected. “Tell me anyway,” was the firm reply. And so I had told him, and briefly hated him for making me live through something again that I’d spent the last five years trying to forget. It wasn’t his fault, though. He couldn’t have known how it haunted me.

  5

  Come warriors like the eagle free.

  Come to battle like the eagle.

  A Chiricahua Apache War Chant

  The last thing in the world I expected on June 23, 1953, was being shot down over North Korea 52 miles behind enemy lines. Although the performance of the MIG-15 was slightly better that that of the F-86 North American Sabre which I was flying, as a general rule, the North Korean and Chinese pilots were not very good. In fact, all but 38 of the 800 MIG-15s destroyed during the Korean War were downed by Sabrejets—a kill ratio of 14 to 1 over the enemy. The six .50 caliber machine guns, three on either side of the nose, gave the F-86 an extremely tight group in air-to-air combat, and our ground crews were the best. Malfunctions of any type were rare.

  I was shot down for three reasons: first, we were outnumbered; second, this particular batch of enemy pilots was very good indeed; and third, because I was very stupid. The last was the biggest contributing factor. I had allowed myself to become complacent, lulled into a false sense of security by our terrific track record. I was an ace plus two, having downed seven MIGs. The enemy had never challenged us when we went out in force, and there were 32 planes in the flight that day. The peace talks at Panmunjom seemed to be getting serious at last.

  Well, they pulled out all stops that day, proving that General Weyland’s dam destruction program was hitting them where it hurt. The month before, on May 13, 1953, 59 F-84 Thunderjets had attacked the great dam at Toksan, twenty miles north of Pyongyang. That night the dam, weakened by the concussions of several hundred bombs, gave way. The sudden flood washed out the main bridges, rail lines, and roads from Pyongyang. General Mark Clark issued a statement saying, “The breaching of the Toksan Dam has been as effective as weeks of rail interdiction.” Encouraged by the results, General Weyland ordered missions against the dams at Chasan, Kusong, Kuwongam, and Toksang. All had the same degree of success. It was more than the enemy could take evidently.

  So it was that on June 23, 1953, when 32 Sabrejets, each with a thousand-pound bomb under each wing, streaked toward the dam at Tae Gwang Ni, they scrambled everything they could get in the air to intercept us. I was just kind of daydreaming along when what seemed like the whole Chinese Air Force came swooping down straight out of the sun. They hit us hard and fast and with great determination, perhaps desperation. I had no sooner jettisoned my drop tanks and begun to climb when I felt my aircraft start to buck like a crazed wild bronco. Another group was simultaneously hitting us from behind. Almost immediately, I lost some control in the rudder pedals. They were responding with a sluggishness that made my stomach sink sickeningly. I began to lose altitude fast. The cockpit began to fill with thick acrid smoke as I fought to bring her up. The hydraulics had been hit, so I had to brace myself against the firewall, grit my teeth, and strain every muscle for everything I was worth to move the stick back even an inch. Finally something gave, and I came out of the spin at about 2,000 feet in something approximating level flight but not close enough for comfort.

  The MIG-15s had two Nudelmann-Suranov 23-mm nose-mounted cannon on the left side and one 37-mm cannon nose-mounted on the right. Hits by those monsters were not to be taken lightly, and I had been hit hard. As smoke continued to fill the cockpit, I saw to my astonishment that the MIG was still on my tail. It wasn’t enough for him that I was flaming and smoking like a Pittsburgh steel mill on Monday, or that the after part of my fuselage was totally engulfed in a raging fire, or that a major portion of my control surfaces had been shot away. This guy was staying on my tail, continuing to fire, wanting to make sure. Dedication. There’s nothing like it.

  My options were nonexistent. I couldn’t climb. I couldn’t evade. I couldn’t engage. I was too low to eject. There was nothing for it but to ride the old Apache Avenger down if she held together long enough. But where? I was over typical North Korean terrain, which is to say mountainous. The mountains are Archean rock, and while few of the peaks are very high, the ranges are steep, abrupt, and stony. I was sliding down toward a small valley ringed by those inhospitable mountains.

  The little valley was a quiltwork of rice paddies and dikes. A river wound through the valley, and there was the inevitable farming village consisting of no more than forty thatched huts. Its name, I later learned, was Pang A Da Ri. No level terrain. No level terrain. My final course of action was one I decided on very quickly when my friend behind me began to open up again. I’d just have to use the narrow dirt road that more or less paralleled the river. Like it or not, that would have to be my landing strip. I kept losing altitude, and now the smoke was so dense that it fairly filled the cockpit. I couldn’t see the instruments clearly, and only snatches of the valley were visible through the smoke. I slid back the canopy to get rid of it. That worked, but now the wind was howling about me like a thousand banshees. Using every last drop of adrenalin in my entire body, I somehow managed a wobbly landing approach to the road. Fortunately, there were no vehicles or people on the road. I was going in for a belly landing and was at 400 feet when the tenacious Chinese pilot behind me tagged me yet again. That was point, game, and match.

  Now all power and virtually all control were gone. It was not only a belly landing on a narrow dirt road that wound around a mountain pass, but also a dead-stick landing. I hit that road hard, bouncing three times, and losing major fragments of my aircraft on each bounce, before it settled into a rapid slide that assaulted the ears—the tortured airframe screeching as ten tons of steel grated and ground its way along the road. Struts caved in, rivets popped, and the whole craft was rapidly being rendered into junk by the incredible shrieking stress that seemed like it would never end.

  I rode that road for a good half mile but was still doing about 80 mph and using up my “runway” much too fast. The road took a sharp curve around an outcropping of rock dead ahead, and I, of course, couldn’t steer. Regardless of where the road went, I was condemned by the laws of physics to go in a straight line. I could only sit there as a spectator. I wasn’t going to make it. I remembered the centuries-old farewell of the Apache warrior going into a battle from which he knew he would not return: It is a good day for dying.

  I was about to begin my Death Chant, when suddenly deliverance came in the form of a North Korean Army two-and-a-half-ton truck rounding the bend and coming head on. I’m quite certain that the very last thing in the world that the driver and officer in the cab of that truck expected to see, as they rounded the bend in that quiet little valle
y 52 miles behind the front, was an American jet fighter coming straight for them on the road. If it is possible for men to die of fright, they did for a certainty. At least, that’s what it looked like. Their eyes bulged like frogs’ and the driver probably didn’t recover in time enough to make the futile gesture of putting his foot on the brake. An F-86 weighed 20,610 pounds, and the contest wasn’t even close. It was like a Greyhound bus colliding with an MG midget. I plowed into the truck head on, collapsing the cab, and sending both the truck and my Sabrejet sliding back down the road in the direction from which the truck had come. The truck had been doing about 50 mph when we’d collided, so its forward momentum slowed me sufficiently. Both truck and plane come to a shuddering stop only ten yards from the outcropping of rock at the bend in the road. That’s what you call close. In fact, that’s what you call a miracle.

  The occupants of the cab posed no immediate threat; it looked like they’d never again pose a threat to anyone. But I still didn’t know how many, if any, men were in the back of that truck. A two-and-a-half-ton truck could hold the better part of a platoon. I popped out of that cockpit like a rabbit and ran around the back of that truck as fast as I could, hoping to be there before any possible passengers could recover. Pilots were unofficially given some latitude in their choice of sidearms, and I was carrying my father’s Colt .45 Peacemaker. It was in my hand with the hammer on full cock when I reached the rear of the truck. Five men had been catapulted out of the back onto the ground. One was a North Korean soldier, whom I promptly shot as he scrambled to retrieve his burp gun, a scant yard away from his outstretched hand. The others were American POWs. Inside the truck, a dozen other Americans and four KATUSAs (Koreans Attached to United States Army) had already subdued and were enthusiastically beating the brains out of the other North Korean guard with his own rifle butt. In fact, before I could open my mouth, I saw that they had beaten his brains out. One of the South Koreans let out a vicious stream of words that I didn’t understand, kicked the body, and then spat on it as if to punctuate his last sentence. I gathered that the prisoners hadn’t been treated well.

  Things had happened so fast. Twelve minutes before, I hadn’t a care in the world. Now I owned two hunks of junk—one had been an advanced jet aircraft, the other, a truck. I was also, at least for the foreseeable future, in the infantry.

  “You guys O.K.?”

  “I think my arm is busted,” a voice issued from the bottom of the pile of tangled arms and legs on the floor.

  “I cracked some ribs,” said another. “I heard ’em crack.”

  “Who’s ranking man?” I asked.

  “I am, sir,” replied a thirtyish Marine staff sergeant.

  “O.K., listen up. My name’s O’Brien, second lieutenant, Air Force. I’m assuming command. Everybody out of the truck! Move! We can’t afford to hang around here too long.” They were a game lot and quickly complied. What’s more, they appeared to be in good health, indicating that they hadn’t been POWs for very long.

  “You KATUSAs,” I said, “strip the bodies of the guys in the cab and the two guards. Get into their uniforms and grab their weapons.” There was some hesitation. “Sir,” one said, “we fear that we will be treated as spies in the event we are recaptured. We would be tortured in the dire extreme, and thenceforth be executed.”

  I was all too painfully aware of the rapidity with which the second and minutes hands on my watch were moving. I had no time for debates about the Geneva Conventions or similar twaddle. No time.

  “What is the duty of a soldier?” I asked rhetorically. “It is this: to obey orders. I order you men to put on those uniforms, and in so doing, I accept full responsibility. In the event we are captured, I will make a sworn written statement for the record to the effect that you wore enemy uniforms under protest and that you were only following orders. Refusal to obey orders in the face of the enemy is, in both the United States and South Korean armies, punishable by death. I will point out that you had no choice and that you consequently bear no responsibility.”

  This seemed to satisfy them, whether because of my implicit threat to shoot them for disobeying orders or because they had never heard of Nuremberg and really believed that line, I’ll never know. All that really mattered was that they moved quickly and began to strip the bodies.

  “Sergeant,” I said, going down on one knee in the dusty road, “draw me a map and tell me what’s behind you and where. Don’t take any longer than five minutes.”

  The Marine was a career man, a World War II vet who really knew his business. I was to learn in the following days that he’d been through some of the toughest—Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa, among others. He expertly sketched in what lay behind them. They’d been POWs for only three days. For the most part, the last thirty of the fifty-odd miles they’d traversed presented no real obstacles. There seemed to be no minefields, and they’d seen only two major installations, both of which we could skirt. There were, however, eight checkpoints they’d gone through. Avoiding those would mean leaving the road and adding days to our journey. The men carried no food. These things all meant that hijacking another truck was essential. We had to get as far away as quickly as possible. The only vehicular traffic they’d seen going in either direction, aside from the occasional, lone jeep or truck, had been at about 0100 hours, when what appeared to be an entire Chinese infantry division, had passed them, headed south. (All large-scale movements in the latter stages of the war, especially on roads, were performed at night, due to American air superiority.) The sergeant, Duncan was his name, was good; he was very good. He had finished briefing me at almost precisely the same moment that four of the KATUSAs appeared at my side, dressed and armed as North Korean soldiers.

  “O.K.,” I said, getting to my feet, “there’s nothing for it but to get ourselves another truck. Meanwhile, let’s do some marching. Every minute counts.”

  I strung us out in two columns, one on each side of the road. The KATUSAs kept their weapons at the ready, “guarding” us POWs. I took up my place at the very end of the right column, and I had Duncan directly across in the left file; there were seventeen of us. I carried my Colt .45 tucked into my belt inside my flight suit, and Duncan had one of the North Koreans’ bayonets concealed under his unbuttoned fatigue shirt. I’d given the KATUSAs their instructions by the time we’d covered the first mile on our way south. Our lives were in their hands. Their sense of timing was all important.

  We’d gone about eight and a half miles before we finally saw what we were looking for—a dust cloud on the horizon rapidly heading our way. The orders that I’d given stipulated that we were to hit only single vehicles; two or more were to be let by, and, if they stopped to ask any questions, we’d just have to try to bluff our way through. I had prepped the KATUSAs for that eventuality, although they really didn’t need it. Armies are alike the world over, and confounding officers comes second nature to enlisted men. It’s not only a sport. It’s an art. Where are we going, sir? Why, down this road. He said not very far. Who, sir? The captain. The captain that was with the major. We don’t know why, sir. He didn’t tell us. The major. The major that was back there. The one with the captain. The major that told us to take these prisoners with us. No sir, we didn’t catch his name. No sir, but maybe he was with the engineers. Something about using the prisoners on a work detail. To repair a bridge or build one, something like that. He said he’ll rejoin us shortly. He had to go somewhere first. No sir, he didn’t say. Is there anything else we can do for you, sir?

  The dust cloud was getting closer and closer, and the butterflies in my stomach were having a field day. We all strained our eyes to see the type and number of vehicles. Now it was only a mile off. A North Korean Army three-quarter-ton truck. Nothing else.

  “This is it, guys. Remember what I told you.”

  Holding up a hand MP-style, one of the KATUSAs stood in the middle of the road to halt the vehicle. It didn’t reduce its speed; it just kept on a-comin’. The driver just
put his hand on the horn and kept it there. The truck did not show any intention of stopping, but our stalwart KATUSA stood his ground. The other three that were also in NKA uniform joined him in the road and took aim with their burp guns at the windshield. The driver hit the brakes so fast and hard that he almost threw himself and his passenger through it. He screeched to a shuddering, dead stop and began to yell and curse. Afterward, one of the KATUSAs told me it went like this:

  “What do you idiots think you’re doing?” the driver had demanded. As we’d planned it, the two KATUSAs he’d driven by at the head of the column checked the back of the truck. The one who’d halted him approached the driver, while the last KATUSA casually approached the passenger side.

  “Trying to help you, sir,” he saluted the passenger, an NKA captain. “There’s trouble back there, a helicopter commando raid. That’s where we captured this scum. We even got one of the pilots,” he said, gesturing to me. “But there’s still some mopping up going on. We suggest you turn around and take a detour, sir.”

  The KATUSA at the rear right hand side of the truck shook his head at the KATUSA doing the talking, indicating that the back of the vehicle was empty. He, in turn, gave an almost imperceptible nod to the KATUSA opposite him on the driver’s side.

  The NKA officer puffed out his chest and blustered, “I am Major Lee Soon Mi, chief of battalion intelligence. I am under orders to proceed directly to division intelligence without delay.” He held up a battered leather briefcase that was handcuffed to his left wrist. There were two additional locks on the briefcase itself. “This material is of the highest priority, and I am to deliver it immediately. I order you to let us pass.” Since both North Koreans were looking at the KATUSA on the major’s side of the truck, neither saw the burp gun of the KATUSA on the driver’s side come up to shoulder height. When his partner on the other side suddenly hit the dirt, he opened up. The North Koreans never knew what had hit them.