October 10, 2014 at 4:53 p.m.
Harshaw veteran travels to visit Korean War Memorial on Honor Flight
Harshaw veteran travels to visit Korean War Memorial on Honor Flight
Because Perdew is a Navy man, it's no surprise that airplanes aren't his preferred method of travel.
He made an exception for Monday's Never Forgotten Honor Flight though, and despite a couple of bumpy landings, he said it was a trip he'll never forget.
"It was a one-time experience," Perdew said. "I'll probably never have the opportunity to go back and see it again. Fortunately, I got to go to Washington D.C. and see it all. I wish I could have spent a week there."
The group, featuring just two World War II veterans, a single Vietnam veteran and more than 90 Korean War veterans, left early Monday morning and spent the day touring the different memorials around Washington D.C.
Perdew was particularly impressed by the Jefferson Memorial and loved seeing the Iwo Jima Memorial up close, but the Korean War Memorial, the one dedicated to him and the other Americans who served there, was especially moving.
"It's kind of a triangular shape with trees in the lower part," Perdew said. "It comes up a slope where they have the platoon in formation. I had never been to D.C. and I didn't know what they had for our memorial. It has 38 men on patrol. Originally you see 19 men on patrol, but when you look against the black wall and see the reflection, there are 38 men on patrol. That means the 38th parallel."
Perdew would spend plenty of time around the 38th parallel, but his story with the military began long before he was deployed overseas.
"I joined the Navy in April of 1951," he said. "I wanted to beat the draft. Both my brothers were drafted after I joined up. I had been working on radio repair for a couple years and that gave me an advantage. I applied for electronics school in the Navy, and actually the recruiting officer put me there, even in boot camp. They tried to send me to Annapolis to make me an officer, but I didn't want that because it meant another six or eight years."
Instead, Perdew went to electronics school for a year, where he went on to finish in the top quarter of his class, earning him the right to choose his duty station. He always dreamed of living on the West Coast, so he picked a station in California.
"I was in one of four squadrons of six boats each," he said. "We ran 110-foot landing craft, which are rarely mentioned in the war. I was an electronic technician for the group and we were stationed in Japan. We were a sea-going outfit based ashore. Our boats did not have a keel in them, so we couldn't take them out to sea."
Most of Perdew's orders in Korea took him to the scene of one of the most important battles of the war.
"Most of my trips were stationed at Inchon," he said. "We were two boats at a time, usually. We'd sit on the mud banks there at Inchon and smell their delicious mud. It was horrible. I did three trips over there, so I have three stars on my ribbon."
Perdew's squadron's job was to transport Marines and recover busted or stranded tanks.
"They were trying to drive the tanks through the rice paddies, and that didn't work," he said. "They had Patton 48-ton tanks, which were a little lighter than the Sherman tanks the Army had, but they still wouldn't go through the swamp. We had to take them upriver."
"We were mainly operating on a tributary of the Han River, and it's like a snake trap," he added. "Some of the officers involved, leading us, didn't know how to run a river. They tried to take a shortcut through a snake bend, and hit a rock which punched a hole through the engine room. They had to turn around and go back, but we kept on going alone."
Perdew was on the ship for a specific reason, but he found it awfully hard to do his job because of the area's unique geography.
"I was in charge of keeping the radios working, but when we went upriver, the radios didn't work," he said. "The mountains were too high and we couldn't reach out, so if we had been hit with anything, no one would have known about it. I heard an Army boat got lost that way, but I couldn't say for sure."
Then things got interesting for Perdew and his mates.
"On these trips up the river, we ran a little north of the 38th parallel," he said. "The Marine base was just south of the parallel on the back of a hill. Our landing was exposed to a Korean gun on the other side. They didn't bother us if they took the Marines out. It was when we brought some in that they didn't like it and would dump some artillery on us. Fortunately, we never got hit. It was the closest call I ever had."
Now decades later, Perdew is no longer doing the transporting. Instead, he was the passenger on the latest Honor Flight.
Craig Lau of Peoples State Bank traveled with Perdew on the flight. Months ago, Perdew met with Lau in his office and they got to talking about the Honor Flight.
Lau wanted the bank to sponsor Perdew and expressed interest in serving as a guardian for the trip. As a combat veteran himself in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, Lau knew how meaningful it would be for Perdew to see his memorial.
Usually, the wait to become a guardian takes several years, but fortunately, Lau was moved to the front of the line so he could travel with Perdew.
Each guardian is assigned to two veterans, and Lau was able to travel with another Northwoods man, Robert "Lefty" Woelfel of Park Falls.
"Being there with these guys who have memorials in their honor was absolutely incredible," he said. "When we got off in Ronald Reagan Airport, there were thousands of people in that airport that weren't normal travelers. They made a little pathway and were cheering on the veterans. They were cheering and screaming and kissing them. It was incredible to see that response. You knew it was special, right off the bat. These guys are in their 80s and 90s, but they were acting like they were in there 40s and 50s the way they were walking around and talking."
Perdew was right there with them too.
"At first, it was kind of intrusive, but I thought, 'What the heck, I'm here. I might as well enjoy it,'" he said. "I was shaking hands on both sides of the tunnel. There were lots of people in uniforms there to welcome us. It was beautiful."
It was certainly a reception worthy of a Navy man, bumpy landings and all.
Andy Hildebrand may be reached at [email protected].
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