[537] 1stMarDiv ComdD, op. cit., and Rees, Korea, p. 434.
Marines on line that night warily scanned the darkness in front of their trenches. Slowly at first, then with increasing rapidity the white star cluster shells began to burst over positions all along the line. Thousands of flares illuminated the sky and craggy hills along the 155-mile front, from the Yellow Sea to Sea of Japan. The war in Korea was over. Of the men from the one Marine Division and air wing committed in Korea during the three-year conflict, 4,262 had been killed in battle. An additional 26,038 Marines were wounded. No fewer than 42 Marines would receive the Nation’s highest combat decoration, the Medal of Honor, for outstanding valor—26 of them posthumously.
CHAPTER X
Return of the Prisoners of War
Operation BIG SWITCH—Circumstances of Capture—The Communist POW Camps—CCF “Lenient Policy” and Indoctrination Attempts—The Germ Warfare Issue—Problems and Performance of Marine POWs—Marine Escape Attempts—Evaluation and Aftermath
Operation BIG SWITCH[538]
[538] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: PacFlt EvalRpt No. 6, Chaps. 9, 10; 1stMarDiv ComdDs, Jul-Sep 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnls, Jul-Aug 53; 1st MAW ComdD, Jul 53; 11thMar, MAG-33 ComdDs, Jul 53; HRS Subject File VE23.2.S8 “CMC Statements on Korean POWs”; HRS Subject File #1 “Prisoners of War—Korea—General”; HRS Subject Files “Prisoners of War—Korea—News Clippings, folders #1, #2, #3”; Korea War casualty cards from Statistical Unit, Casualty Section, Personal Affairs Br, Code DNA, HQMC; MacDonald, POW; Berger, Korea Knot; Clark, Danube to Yalu; T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War—A Study in Unpreparedness (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963), hereafter Fehrenbach, Kind of War, quoted with permission of the publisher; Field, NavOps, Korea; Hermes, Truce Tent; Leckie, Conflict; Rees, Korea; USMA, Korea; MSgt Roy E. Heinecke, “Big Switch,” Leatherneck, v. 36, no. 11 (Nov 53), hereafter Heinecke, “Big Switch”; Life Magazine, Jul-Aug 53 issues; New York Times, 5 Aug-6 Sep 53; Washington Post, 5 Aug-6 Sep 53.
Between August 1950, the month that the first Marine was taken prisoner and July 1953, when 18 Marine infantrymen were captured in final rushes by the CCF, a total of 221 U.S. Marines became POWs.[539] The majority of them—nearly 90 percent—ultimately returned. After the conclusion of hostilities, Marine POWs were among the UNC fighting men returned in Operation BIG SWITCH.
[539] Marine Corps prisoners, including their unit designations and date of release (or death), are listed in MacDonald, POW, pp. 249–273.
The new mission of the 1st Marine Division, with the cease-fire, called for organization of the Post Armistice Battle Positions and establishment of a No-Pass Line approximately 200 yards south of the Demilitarized Zone boundary. In addition to maintaining a defensive readiness posture for full-scale operations if hostilities resumed, the Marine division was charged with control of the Munsan-ni area and assisting in repatriation of prisoners of war. Obviously, since the Panmunjom release point for receiving the POWs was located in the Marine zone of action, the division—as in the earlier LITTLE SWITCH prisoner exchange—would play a major part in the final repatriation.