Kenneth Albert Himes The Royal Canadian Regiment Korea.http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/hrp/hrp_detail&media_id=1551Mr Himes was born February 6, 1932, in Fort William, Ontario. He left school while in Grade 6, and worked at various jobs. After joining the Militia in an attempt to make money, he was posted to Churchill in the medical corp. While there he met men from the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) on training - he was so impressed with their skill and level of training, that he decided to join the RCR, and no other unit, as soon as he came of age. Canada was already looking for volunteers for Korea at the time Mr Himes became eligible to join, and thus was sent to Winnipeg the same day he signed on. After basic training in Petawawa, special training in Wainwright, and mountain training in Jasper, Mr Himes was notified Christmas Day 1952 that the RCR would be shipped to Korea - they arrived in Seoul in late April. Within two weeks of arriving in Korea, Mr Himes found himself in the middle of the Battle at Hill 187 - it would prove to be the worst action he participated in during his tour. After the peace accord was signed, Mr Himes remained in Korea with the RCR for an additional 8 months, patrolling the demilitarized zone. Having 3 years served under his belt, Mr Himes left the military soon after returning to Canada, but joined the RCR again when he found himself out of work. He remained with the RCR until he retired from active service in 1962.
Off to War...Transcript
Interviewer: When you had made your intention known, what was the reaction of your family? Well, mother didn't think I was going to go anyway, so that didn't matter. And... until one day I walked, came home, there's a little bit of a story here. I was taking a girl to the show one night and I happened to walk by the recruiting armouries, and there was a sign that said recruiters inside. So I went in, I haven't seen that girl since, and next morning I went to work. They said if I was still interested to go back in the afternoon, one o'clock. So I went to work, boss was home sick, and I got my cousin to look after my, I was with bread route then, and I told him to look after my route, I'm gonna check on this army bit. And at one o'clock, at three o'clock in the afternoon I had a ticket in my hand for the train that night, going to Winnipeg. Went home, wrote, mother wasn't there, left a note saying if you want to see me at eleven o'clock train, and left. Interviewer: Did they in fact see you off? My mother got down there. Wanted to know where the heck I was going! Interviewer: Did she have any words of advice that you can remember? No. She knew I was going to do it anyway, so that's the difference.
Premonitions of death...
Transcript
It was aboard ship, and we were all... just before we got to Japan, and a chap by the Corporal Doug Newol. Did basic training together, he was from Newfoundland, he had the bottom bunk and I had the top bunk I got used to that with my brother. And he said to me one night, he said "Come up on board, on the deck" and it was dark, and he told me a story, and he said "You know," he said "in the Second World War," he says "my two brothers were killed, and neither one lasted two weeks." And he says, "I'm afraid that's going to happen to me." So I kind of said, you know, "Don't worry Doug, we'll, we'll get through it, that's just you know coincident that, that happened." Well I went to "A" Company and he went to "C" Company, and on May the 2nd, on May the 2nd he had come up with a group to pick up food for the, for the "C" Company, and him and I happened to just run into each other, and all he said to me, he said "Ken. It's close." He was killed that night. And that was on the fourteenth day. Interviewer: What impact did that have on you and your morale? I didn't know that he was killed right then, but I got tasked in with removing the bodies, the casualties, we had a lot of casualties during the night. I think we had somewhere around like eighty people were wounded, killed, missing. And so on the 4th my company commander, Major Bates, called me up and he said "You're taking that party out there and picking up the bodies." And I went out, because I've asked people before if they've seen Doug Newell and nobody seemed to know him. But as soon as I got out there, they had brought a lot of the bodies into one spot and I just looked down, I seen his back, and I said "That's Doug Newell."
Interviewer: And that was all within two weeks, of coming up to the front.
Yep. Well this all happened in one night.
Interviewer: And it was within that two week period that Mr. Newell died.
Yep. That he died, yep.
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Interviewer: You had mentioned, Mr. Himes, that this action where your friend Mr. Newell was killed, that that happened within two weeks. You indicated that you've gone to the front in about a week and a half, so three or four days later... was it the first three or four days relatively quiet until the battle that you're referring to?
Well, they did a lot of ranging in. The Chinese were ranging in and so they wouldn't put a big barrage down until they'd send over, you know, a few shells here, there and whatnot. And that would.... ranging in... oh maybe one gun was firing so.... the time between another shot. And... but they were putting another one being ranged in, and all that...different spots.
Interviewer: So the trick here was that they were trying to get all of their artillery pieces sitting in the right area and they were then assumably getting ready for an attack of some sort.
Yeah.
Interviewer: What, what actually did happen?
"A" Company sent out a patrol, for a fighting patrol, there would be probably about thirteen, fourteen people on it. And when they entered into the valley, they ran into some Chinese. The patrol ran into some Chinese and a fight, fire fight started, which started the whole thing. And then all the artillery, the Chinese artillery and mortars were being dropped onto "C" Company, and a group of us, ten of us from "A" Company we got word that we had wounded down there, from the patrol. But by the time we got together and started down with stretchers we got about half way and it was time to throw the stretchers away, and carry on into the battle. As I say, I didn't see Doug Newell that night at all anywhere, and it was pretty well chaos. The Chinese were shooting at us, our own artillery was firing on our own hill. The lieutenant in "C" Company, he called down for a barrage from our own artillery and our mortars were fired, and... so we had everybody shooting at us I think. The armoured corps were firing their flat trajectory weapons, and machine guns, and... So on the way down, all I could, as I approached the hill, all it was just like a red cherry, the explosions were that fast.
Interviewer: What else do you remember about that night?
That we were very busy, and the time flew actually. I found the time just flew, I guess we were so busy.
Interviewer: And you were tending to the wounded at that time?
No way! No way. The wounded just have to wait in those cases there.
Interviewer: You would have to wait? ]
Yeah, see I wasn't a, I was just a stretcher bearer what they called... I knew first aid and I carried a rifle. And I also carried, when I went down there, I carried a bag that had the red cross on it. Well I got rid of that right away, because I was going to be shot if I was caught.
Interviewer: Why would you have been shot?
Disguised myself as a medic. And with a rifle in my hand!
Interviewer: Ok. So you would be seen as trying to camouflage what you really were.
Yeah.
Interviewer: Which was in infantry.
Yeah.
Interviewer: But your job, actually that night was as a stretcher bearer.
I was, supposed to go. Yeah.
Interviewer: And in a time of chaos and crisis you were expected to become an infantry man again. Yeah. Always an infantry man.
Interviewer: After the Chinese backed out and the battle came to an end, was it light or dark?
It was light when they started, they were pulling out. It was over about, just at dawn they were on their way out.
Interviewer: And you men then went about the business of taking the wounded back?
Yeah, the wounded were coming back. They were going out from different directions because it was hard to keep track because a wounded person, if you could still walk - he was walking out himself, so....
