Our Warmest Wishes For The Holidays - Korean War Veterans ...

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Prisoner exchange at Panmunjom, 1953 Little Switch and Big Switch © As you may recall, the Korean War prisoner exchange was accomplished in two stages: Little Switch and Big Switch. The former involved the transfer of wounded and disabled. Frank Praytor, who was working for the Pacific Stars and Stripes at the time, took numerous photos of the exchanges, which we have converted from negatives to prints. We present some of them here. Unfortunately, he said, “I cannot distinguish between the two just looking at the negatives.” So, we present these never-before-published photos without distinguishing between the stages. Praytor gave us a bit of background on the photos. “Probably the greatest frustration working for Pacific Stars and Stripes was the heavy-handed censorship imposed by the Far East Command during the Korean War,” he said. “Editors in Tokyo became so intimidated and psyched out that when given the choice between a staff-written news report and the same report written by one of the wire services, they printed the latter. “That gave them an excuse when the FEC censor called and complained about something in the paper he didn’t like,” he noted. “The editors could point out the wire service story was approved before it reached them. To make it easier on themselves, they’d kill the staff-written story and go with the wire-services’ [articles] just to avoid the harassment.” It was the same with photos he took in Korea. As Praytor explained, “It was so much hassle involved in getting a news-worthy photo of mine in the paper, they’d either not use anything, or if there was a wire service photo that had been passed, they’d use it instead of mine.” For him, getting his photos developed was difficult. “My 120 and 35mm rolls of film were dutifully developed by the Japanese gentleman in Tokyo who operated the Stripes photo lab. He’d trim them and slip them into packaged sleeves. It was easy for me to go into the lab files and leave with my photos (Stripes did not furnish my film, I got it from my dad at home), so I felt no guilt when I took all my negatives I could find just before I left for the states and discharge.” We thank Frank Praytor for allowing us to be the first to publish these photos—and we copyright this material in his honor. 1, 2 North Korean General Nam Il arriving at the Panmunjom “Peace Pagoda” for a day of negotiations 3 Prisoner exchange at Panmunjom, 1953 4,5 UN truce negotiators meet with the correspondents after a day of negotiations 6 Free at last! Prisoner exchange at Panmunjom, 1953 7 ROK President Sygman Rhee opening presents on his birthday anniversary in 1953 in his palatial mansion 8, 9 Never missing an opportunity to propagandize, the North Koreans collected their former POWs in ambulances for the return to North Korea. UN forces delivered them to the exchange site by train! 10 General Harrison, head of the U.S. negotiating team, arriving at Panmunjom for another day of peace talks 11 UN Truce Team at “Peace Pagoda,” Panmunjom, 1953. 1 4 58 7 8 9 November-December 2007 The Graybeards
2 3 5 6 10 11 59 The Graybeards November-December 2007
Page 1 and 2:
Our Warmest Wishes For The Holidays
Page 3 and 4:
From the President Louis T. Dechert
Page 5 and 6:
SPECIALLY DESIGNED TO HONOR KOREAN
Page 7 and 8: My appointment as editor was announ
Page 9 and 10: Korean War Veterans Association Man
Page 11 and 12: Minutes: Board of Directors Meeting
Page 13 and 14: Korean War Veterans Association Fin
Page 15 and 16: CERTIFICATION OF ELIGIBILITY FOR KW
Page 17 and 18: BUSINESS Minutes: General Membershi
Page 19 and 20: Minutes: General Membership Meeting
Page 21 and 22: “efforts to educate people on the
Page 23 and 24: Continued 23 The Graybeards Novemb
Page 25 and 26: Not Forgotten: The Greek Expedition
Page 27 and 28: School Not Free 27 The Graybeards N
Page 29 and 30: More 30 - INDIANA CHAPTER 1 -[IN]
Page 31 and 32: Letter from Rutherford Union School
Page 33 and 34: The monument in Pinellas Park, FL s
Page 35 and 36: LEFT: The start of the Pensacola mo
Page 37 and 38: The solemn service concluded with p
Page 39 and 40: members, friends, and family member
Page 41 and 42: 199 MANASOTA [FL] We collected 106
Page 43 and 44: Commander Herb Southworth (L) prese
Page 45 and 46: Blue-shirted CID 270 members riding
Page 47 and 48: KWVA National Director Jeff Brodeur
Page 49 and 50: The Mayor of Rehoboth Beach’s Pro
Page 51 and 52: Korea Service Veterans Memorial Hig
Page 53 and 54: ...................................
Page 55 and 56: 68th Fighter Interceptor Squadron T
Page 57: Membership Report (12-22-07) for a
Page 61 and 62: William E. Cranston, a KWVA VUMS Wi
Page 63 and 64: Tour “After Battle” Report News
Page 65 and 66: The Seoul Railroad Station in June
Page 67 and 68: David and Eva Williams with Korean
Page 69 and 70: Book Review The Coldest Winter: Ame
Page 71 and 72: Although I joined this outfit in 19
Page 73 and 74: Thanks! As we have noted in past is
Page 75 and 76: Clarence Harold Thompson I am looki
Page 77 and 78: 38th Ordnance Co. Association Membe
Page 79 and 80: plus other cultural/industrial faci
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