Schlichter [Charles B., Sgt.], barked out his response, and stepped down.
“Sergeant,” the big Marine said gravely, “glad to have you home.”
“Fella, you don’t know how glad I am,” Schlichter said.[558]
[558] Ibid.
In the preliminary prisoner exchange, the week-long “LITTLE SWITCH” in April 1953, all of the returned Marine personnel were men who had been wounded at the time of their capture. They were recently-captured POWs, deliberately segregated by the enemy from early captives. All of these home-coming Marines had been captured since May 1952. Generally speaking, they had all been fairly well-treated.
During Operation BIG SWITCH, by contrast, 41 Marines were repatriated who had spent nearly three years as Communist prisoners of war. The majority of USMC returnees in this second exchange, however—a total of 91—had been captured relatively recently, in 1952 and 1953, and 25 had been held since 1951.
Throughout Operation BIG SWITCH, the Allied Command transferred a total of 75,799 prisoners (70,159 NKPA and 5,640 CCF) seeking repatriation. The Communist returned 12,757 POWs. In addition to the 3,597 Americans, this total represented 1,312 other UNC troops (including 947 Britons, 228 Turks, and small numbers of Filipinos, Australians, and Canadians) and 7,848 South Koreans.
The BIG SWITCH exchange went relatively smoothly, marred for a while only by the unruly behavior of some Communist diehard POWs. In a manner reminiscent of their earlier camp riots, the Communist POWs put on a blatant propaganda show for the benefit of world newsreel cameras. As the train carrying CCF and North Korean prisoners moved into the Panmunjom exchange point, enemy POWs noisily shouted Communist slogans, defiantly waved Communist flags, and hurled insults at UN forces. Some POWs stripped off their [U.S. provided] uniforms, “tossing them contemptuously to the ground.”[559] Others spat in the faces of U.S. supervising officers, threw their shoes at jeep windshields, and sang in Korean and Chinese “We will return in the Fall.”[560]
[559] Life Magazine, v. 35, no. 7 (17 Aug 53), p. 22.
[560] Metzger comments.