With the armistice and ending of the war expected almost daily, the Munsan-ni Provisional Command was activated and reorganized in June. Once again, the 1st Marine Division was responsible for the United Nations Personnel and Medical Processing Unit, organized along lines similar to those used during the preliminary exchange. The division inspector, Colonel Albert F. Metze, was designated Processing Unit Commander. Sections under his direction were staffed by Marine and naval personnel. The normal command structure was reinforced by special engineer, medical, interpreter, food service, chaplain, security, signal, supply, and motor transport teams. Planning for the project, like all military operations, was thorough and continuous.
As in April, the Munsan-ni Provisional Command assumed responsibility for handling the UN repatriation at Panmunjom as well as supervision of the receiving and processing of ROKA personnel. Brigadier General Ralph M. Osborne, USA, was placed in charge of the command, with headquarters at the United Nations Base Camp. The RCT landing exercise for the 1st Marines, scheduled in July, was cancelled because of shipping commitments for Operation BIG SWITCH, as the Navy Amphibious Force readied itself for the repatriation of prisoners. By the end of July, the 1st Marine Division was supporting “approximately 42,400 troops with Class I [rations] and 48,600 with Class III [petroleum products] due to the influx of units and personnel participating in Operation BIG SWITCH.”[540]
[540] PacFlt EvalRpt No. 6, Chap. 9, p. 9-134.
Several days before the exchange, however, it became evident that the old site of the Gate to Freedom used in the April exchange would have to be abandoned. It was found inadequate to handle the larger number of returning prisoners—approximately 400 daily—to be processed in the new month-long operation. The new site, Freedom Village, near Munsan-ni contained an old Army warehouse which was renovated by the 1st Division engineers and transformed into the 11th Evacuation Hospital where the UN Medical and Processing Unit was located. Members of the division Military Police Company provided security for the exchange area. Marines from practically every unit of the division were assigned duties at the United Nations Processing Center. As General Clark, UNC Commander later recalled:
Preparations for Big Switch were necessarily elaborate. At Munsan we had a huge warehouse stocked high with clothing, blankets, medical equipment and other supplies for the returning POWs. At Freedom Village nearby we had a complete hospital unit ready. It was one of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) which had done such magnificent work close to the front through most of the war.[541]
[541] Clarke, Danube to Yalu, pp. 298–299.
On 5 August, the first day of BIG SWITCH, Colonel Metze took a final look around the processing center. Readiness of this camp was his responsibility. If anyone had real understanding of a prisoner’s relieved and yet shaken reaction to new freedom it was this Marine Colonel. Chosen by the United Nations Command to build and direct the enlarged Freedom Village, Colonel Metze himself had been a prisoner of war in World War II. He knew from personal experience how men should be treated and what should be done for them early in their new freedom. For many, this was after nearly three long years in Communist prison camps. That morning, as described by an observer:
Members of his [Colonel Metze’s] command stood by their cubicles, awaiting the first signal. The 129 enlisted Marines, corpsmen, doctors and other UN personnel had held a dress rehearsal only the day before. Everything was ready.[542]
[542] Heinecke, “Big Switch,” p. 44.
Fifteen miles northwest another group of Marines assigned to the Provisional Command Receipt and Control section waited almost in the shadow of the famous “peace pagoda” at Panmunjom. UNC receiving teams, each headed by a Marine Corps major, “watched the road to the north for the first sign of a dust cloud which would herald the approach of the Communist convoy.”[543] The United Nations POWs had been assembled at Kaesong and held there in several groups, preparatory to the return. The exchange agreement had specified that the repatriation would begin at 0900. Precisely at 0855 the Communist convoy, led by three Russian-made jeeps, each carrying one CCF and two NKPA officers, moved out from the Communist side of the peace corridor. Trucks and ambulances followed the jeeps.