Mar/Apr 2013 - Korean War Veterans Association

Airmen gather by a plane
Dentyne Is My Favorite Gum
In December 1969, before I left home for my U.S. Army
assignment in South Korea, my mother asked me to look
into the black market in Korea for my father’s West Point
ring, to no avail. My father, Captain Fred Brinson Rountree
Sr., went MIA in Korea on January 14, 1951. His presumed
date of death was January 31, 1954. His aircraft, a B-26B
Invader bomber, was shot down near Hamjong-ni. He and his
navigator, Lt. Don Thomas, bailed out of the aircraft while it
was burning.
Though the order to bail out was given, they received no
response from the gunner, Sgt. Bernard Mitchell. The navigator
was able to escape and make his way through enemy
territory to friendly lines, where he was
befriended by a Christian family who
hid him in caves (see the ‘Cave Man’
story referenced below). My father and
Sgt. Mitchell were never heard from
again.
My father was born on August 13,
1922 in Egypt, Georgia. He graduated
from West Point in 1946 and was
assigned to the Army Air Corps as a
pilot. He met my mother, who lived in
Newburgh, New York, at a West Point
dance. After he graduated, they married
and moved to El Paso, TX for flight
school, where I was later born.
Shortly after we arrived in El Paso,
the Army Air Corps became the U.S.
Air Force. After flight school, the family
was transferred to Japan, where my
father’s squadron, the 13th Bomber
Squadron, 3rd Bomber Wing (the
“Devil’s Own Grim Reapers”) flew to
Korea to support the war effort.
After completing his 40th mission, on
January 14, 1951, my father took off for
what was reportedly a routine mission,
during which their aircraft came under
fire and was shot down. I was 3 ½ years old at the time, and
my brother, who was born in Japan, was 1 year old.
Over the years, I have seen reports, especially the
‘Nielsen-Henderson List,’ that show my father was a POW in
North Korea. Other reports indicate that many pilots were
moved out of the POW camps to unknown destinations prior
to the prisoner
exchange after
the armistice.
58
“Chadwick”
Pre-flight Planning
March - April 2013
The Graybeards