By Jeremy Kirk
Stars and Stripes

When he was released after 32 months in a Chinese prisoner-of-war camp, Pvt. Ronald Lovejoy weighed 78 pounds, had sores on his tailbone and couldn’t walk.

He considered himself fortunate.

"There were so many that died that first winter in 1950," said Lovejoy, a former soldier with the 38th Field Artillery Regiment. "It was unbelievable that they died that fast. I was one of the lucky ones who made it out of there."

Lovejoy was one of thousands who spent time in brutal POW camps that turned young, strong soldiers into fragile skeletons. More than half of the U.S. soldiers captured by communist forces died.

The issue of POWs became a major stumbling block in the armistice negotiations. Thousands of captured communist fighters said they didn’t want to go home, and the U.N. Command was reluctant to forcibly repatriate them.

Lovejoy was captured Dec. 1, 1950, about 10 miles south of Kunu-ri.

Lovejoy was a forward observer, helping direct artillery fire. In late November, the 38th Field Artillery was retreating with the 15th Field Artillery after suffering heavy hits from Chinese forces.

The two units split up. Lovejoy’s unit put grenades down the throats of their 105 mm howitzers and took off running.

"We picked the wrong way because we ran smack into the Chinese," Lovejoy said. "It seemed like thousands of Chinese just kept coming and coming."

The Chinese lined the 150 or so soldiers up and placed machine guns around them.

"We thought they were going to kill us right there," Lovejoy said.

Instead, a Chinese officer who spoke English came on a loudspeaker system and declared the troops were not POWs.

They were "fellow students of the Chinese people’s volunteer army," Lovejoy said.

After two weeks of marching, Lovejoy ended up at Camp No. 5 at Pyoktong near the Yalu River. He lived in a hut next to Pfc. Richard Krepps, another 2nd Infantry Division soldier captured the same day.

The soldiers rapidly lost weight during the first few months. They were fed cowfeed and millet, a tasteless mush with few calories to sustain grown men. Some soldiers refused to eat it, Lovejoy said.

One British soldier would encourage soldiers to eat every morning.

"He’d speak to Krepps and say, ‘Krepps, you got to take these two tablespoons of millet this morning,’" Lovejoy said. "He’d shake his head. He wouldn’t do it."

Lovejoy befriended Krepps, and the two spent time reminiscing.

"We talked about home and food — hamburgers, milkshakes, fried potatoes — everything you could think about," Lovejoy said. "I know he was very despondent, and he was real sick, too. He just gave up. We couldn’t get him to eat anything."

Krepps ended up in the Chinese hospital, but didn’t come back better. He laid on the ground day after day, weak and listless, Lovejoy said.

"We had talked that evening (before Richard died)," Lovejoy said. "(The next morning), I reached over and said to Richard, ‘Are you awake?’"

Krepps was stiff, Lovejoy said.

After the Chinese removed Krepps’ body and stacked it among the dead, his wallet was left on the floor. Lovejoy took the wallet and kept a photo of Richard for 48 years and met Krepps’ twin brother in 1999.

Lovejoy endured, but he had nightmarish experiences in the camp. Chinese soldiers twice slit his sides and stuffed cooked chicken and hog liver inside him.

The remedy was to help him gain weight, and it actually worked, Lovejoy said. His weight increased to around 120 pounds, but he didn’t have the strength to carry himself.

Day after day, men died. The freezing cold, skimpy diets and broken spirits whittled men down. According to T.R. Fehrenbach’s This Kind of War, half of the 3,200 soldiers in Camp No. 5 died between March and October 1951.

On the battle front, the war had bogged down.

By June 1951, communist forces sustained heavy losses, and the U.N. Command had equally suffered. Aggressive movement by either side meant more losses with uncertain gains.

Armistice negotiations with the communists began in July 1951 and dragged on for two years.

During the first year of negotiations, the two sides agreed on the 38th parallel as the dividing line for the truce. The only thorny issue was the return of POWs.

The U.N. Command held around 132,000 communist prisoners, and as many as 50,000 said they did not want to be repatriated. The communists refused to believe prisoners didn’t want to come home.

To forcibly repatriate the prisoners was viewed as immoral, even if it meant the war would drag on. President Harry Truman said, "Forced repatriation was repugnant to the free world."

By June 1953, the communists relented. Communist prisoners would be screened by a neutral commission at Panmunjom, and have a free choice.

After more than two and a half years in Camp No. 5, Lovejoy and the other men heard the words they had waited for: An armistice had been signed, and the war would end soon.

"Everybody just took their hats and threw them up in the air," Lovejoy said. "I just stood there in disbelief (thinking) it couldn’t be true."

Lovejoy was repatriated at Panmunjom during Operation Big Switch, a huge prisoner exchange that lasted from August to December 1953.

"They asked me and another guy if we wanted to have our first meal with General Taylor (then the Eighth Army commander)," Lovejoy said. "I had a spoon of peas, a spoon of potatoes, and I had a small piece of hamburger steak. I was so stuffed I could hardly get up from the table."

During Big Switch, more than 75,000 Korean and Chinese prisoners were returned, and about 12,800 U.N. soldiers were released. Of that total, Americans numbered about 3,600. More than 40,000 Korean and Chinese soldiers and 23 Americans chose to not return home.

"I can’t describe the looks on their (returning prisoners’) faces," said Dennis Thompson, a sergeant who worked at a train station south of Panmunjom during the exchanges. "It was bliss, I guess."