Veterans column: Newark's Nickells captured in Korea
Corporal Walter Nickells of the 24th Infantry Division, had survived two nights behind enemy lines in Korea, but he knew his chances of evading capture were slim. According to an interview he did with the Newark Advocate that was published on May 24, 2009, he tore up the flying license that he had received from the Newark-Heath airport, “because fliers were being killed more quickly than the other prisoners.”
On the third day, he entered a home looking for food. He found everything but something to eat. He went outside and fell asleep behind a straw stack, but woke up when he heard voices. The family who lived in the house had returned and noticed his shoe prints in the mud. In an article in the Advocate dated July 26, 2003, Nickells said that he came out of hiding and, “put his hand to his mouth, begging for food. They warned him of troop movements and motioned him to leave. He jumped over a stone wall into a yard, where a woman hollered and screamed at him as he ran up a hill. Another woman with a German Shepherd in her yard gave him a can of food and motioned for him to move on.
He later thought that a general in his division, who had a German Shepherd, was hiding in that house and told the woman to feed him. Nickells hid behind a bush but another South Korean civilian saw him. As a North Korean patrol came by, the South Korean gave him away. He was captured on July 22, 1950.” ‘The first thing they did was take my shoes,’ Nickells said. ‘They had no shoes.”
He joined other American POWs from the 24th Division and they were taken to Seoul. POW Shorty Estabrook, one of the men with Nickells left his memoirs of what happened next. In the third week of August, they were transported by train to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Food and water were in short supply, the injured hadn’t received medical treatment and some of the POWs began to die. To make matters worse, the weather was turning colder since winter comes early to North Korea. The men were housed in a school on the outskirts of the city.
In the middle of the night on Sept. 5, 1950, they were taken to a train station and traveled north. On Sept. 11, 1950, they arrived at the town of Manpo and were housed in old Japanese Army buildings in the center of town. The food and medical conditions were still poor and more POWs died. When the Chinese army came across the Manchurian borders, they commandeered the barracks and the prisoners were forced out into the streets.
On Oct. 9, they left Manpo and began walking north, they were all barefoot. Nickells told the Advocate he “grew up on a farm and ran up hills barefoot” and said that walking through rivers and land strewn with glass and the debris of war “didn’t bother me a bit. Other grown men their feet bled, my skin was tough.” While they were marching, it began to snow, and more men died. Estabrook related in his memoirs, “On October 25, 1950, we went to a place we now call the “Corn Field” which is a short distance from Manpo. The winter winds were blowing and the chill factor began to plummet. We would collect in groups of about five guys, and dig as best as we could, or rather scrape, a shallow hole in the earth. We would jam together there below the force of the wind, and lie down side by side to share each other's body heat. We thought this was as bad as it would ever get but it wasn’t.”
On Oct. 31, Major Chong Myong Sil took over the command of the POWs. For Nickells and the others, their hell was just beginning.
Doug Stout is the Veterans Project Coordinator for the Licking County Library. You may contact him at 740-349-5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org. His book "Never Forgotten: The Stories of Licking County Veterans" is available for purchase at the library or online at bookbaby.com & Amazon.com.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Veterans column: Newark's Nickells captured in Korea
