Marine division and wing elements were designated responsible for the security of nonrepatriated enemy POWs. By terms of the armistice agreement, these were held by UNC custodial forces from India. In commenting on the airlift operations, performed largely by HMR-161, the UNC Commander noted:
We had to go to great lengths to live up to our pledge to Syngman Rhee that no Indian troops would set foot on South Korean soil. Therefore, we set up an airlift operation which carried more than six thousand Indians from the decks of our carriers off Inchon by helicopter to the Demilitarized Zone. It was a major undertaking which just about wore out our helicopter fleet in Korea.[561]
[561] Clark, Danube to Yalu, p. 299.
One of the recommendations made by military officials after the April LITTLE SWITCH exchange was that all interrogation of returning POWs be done either in America or on board ship en route home, rather than in Tokyo. This system was followed and worked out well. The POWs boarded ships at Inchon, following their clearance at Freedom Village. Interrogation teams, in most cases, completed this major part of their repatriation processing before docking at San Francisco. Two weeks of recuperation, good food and rest aboard ship enabled many POWs to arrive home in far better shape for reunion with their families than they had been in when received initially at Panmunjom.
As in LITTLE SWITCH, Marine and Navy personnel were processed by members of the Intelligence Department of Commander, Naval Forces Far East, augmented by officers from other Marine staffs. Marine officers who conducted the shipboard interrogations again included Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, ComNavFE liaison officer, as well as Lieutenant Colonel William A. Wood, Major Stewart C. Barber, and First Lieutenant Robert A. Whalen. All returning POWs were queried in depth by counterintelligence personnel about enemy treatment and atrocities, questionable acts committed by that small proportion of our own men whose conduct was reprehensible, and routine military matters. A security dossier was prepared on each prisoner, and all data about him went into his file case. The LITTLE SWITCH reports had indicated earlier—and this was subsequently confirmed—that some U.S. servicemen were definitely marked for further detailed questioning and scrutiny.
Circumstances of Capture[562]
[562] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: HRS Subject File: VE 23.2.S8 “CMC Statements on Korean POWs”; HRS Subject File: “Korea—Korean War—General”; MacDonald, POW; Montross, Kuokka, and Hicks, USMC Ops Korea—East-Central Front, v. IV; Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1967), hereafter Ridgway, Korean War; Heinecke, “Big Switch.”
As the Commandant, General Shepherd, was to testify later during an investigation, “the prisoner of war question had never been a major problem [in the Marine Corps] due to the extremely limited number of Marines taken prisoner.”[563] As one returnee at BIG SWITCH bluntly put it: “You fought until they reached you with a bullet or a rifle butt—that was the end.”[564]
[563] HRS Subject File: “VE 23.2.S8—CMC Statements on Korean POWs,” CMC Statement dtd 14 Apr 54, p. 2.
[564] Heinecke, “Big Switch,” p. 58.