By early 1951, Major McLaughlin, a captured Marine staff officer previously attached to X Corps, was senior officer among the Kanggye prisoners which included a heterogeneous collection of U.S. 7th Division soldiers, U.S. Marines, 18 Royal Marine Commandos, and Navy hospitalmen. UN personnel were scattered throughout several farmhouses, with no attempt made to segregate the enlisted and officers. The Chinese designated prisoner squads of 8–12 men, depending on the size of the room to which they were assigned. CCF-appointed squad leaders were those prisoners who appeared more cooperative.
In direct opposition to orders, Major McLaughlin set about establishing communication between the small scattered POW groups, despite ever-present surveillance. He tried to achieve effective control of the POWs so that a united front of resistance against the enemy could be maintained. At mass indoctrination meetings, held regularly every few days, the Marine officer issued instructions to enlisted personnel through five Marine noncommissioned officers. As one ex-prisoner recalled, the “cold, smoke-filled barn was the locale for wide-spread exchange of information between the many little groups.”[581] Daily routine at Kanggye stressed study and political indoctrination. Squad leaders were responsible for lectures and discussions on assigned topics in Marxian dialectical materialism. The curriculum was more intense than most college courses. On the other hand, physical treatment of inmates—except for chronic malnutrition and grossly inadequate medical care—at Kanggye was less brutal than at most of the other prisoner compounds.
[581] MacDonald, POW, p. 63.
MAP 34 K. White
POW CAMPS IN WHICH MARINES WERE HELD
Interrogations went hand-in-hand with indoctrination. Prisoners were grilled regularly on order of battle, close air support, naval gunfire methods, UN aircraft, weapons, unit locations, and other tactical information. The Chinese were even more interested in the life histories and biographical data of their captives. POWs were required to answer “economic questionnaires” and at frequent intervals compelled to write elaborate self-criticisms of their political attitudes and class backgrounds. The CCF were satisfied only when prisoners—whose original truthful answers had been rejected—revised their own family status and income statistics downward. POWs, being interrogated, often found the Chinese arguing with them over such far-away matters as the prisoner’s parents or his own family annual income and social level.
In March 1951, after an indoctrination period of about eight weeks, the Kanggye POWs were transferred, and the camp itself was later abandoned. The officers were relocated at Camp 5, Pyoktong, while the majority continued the march westward to the newly opened Camp 1, at Chongsong.
Despite its numerical designation as Camp 5, the Pyoktong compound had been organized two months earlier and was the first of the permanent CCF centers. It became the headquarters of the entire prison-camp system. Approximately 2,000 UNC prisoners were interned here by the early part of the year. They were housed in native huts. New inmates arrived regularly from temporary collection centers in the south, where they had been held for months. Sometimes they were marched to the Yalu during the Korean winter while still wearing their summer fatigues. Pyoktong offered little chance for escape. The compound, situated on a barren peninsula that jutted out into the Yalu Reservoir, was so secure that the Communists did not even surround it with barbed wire or employ searchlights. It was hemmed in on three sides by fast water currents, while the one exit from the peninsula was closely guarded.
Conditions were far more severe here than at Kanggye. A starvation diet and complete lack of medical care quickly had their inevitable effect. Pneumonia, dysentery, and malnutrition were rampant. The basic diet of boiled corn or millet resulted in associated deficiency diseases, such as beriberi and pellagra. Between 20 and 30 prisoners died daily. Many experts, nonetheless, felt that “if the Chinese during the winter of 1950–51 killed their prisoners by deliberate neglect, the North Koreans who had handled the captives before they became primarily a Chinese responsibility killed them by calculated brutality.”[582]