Turkish Brigade in Korean War

[Tolga Alkan]

There is a serie of photographs concerning of the Turkish troops fought in the Korean War by Life Magazine dated February 1951. They labeled serie as "Turkish Army soldier on duty in Korea during Korean civil war" . Photographer is Carl Mydans. I decide to not post them due to copyright matters, you could look at:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... 984d5aaced

[Le Page]

The Turks resisted brainwashing, etc., better than other troops because none of them spoke English. If the Americans or other English-speakers couldn't communicate with them, how could the Chinese?

[Tosun Saral]

The Turkish soldier believes in İslam. He is a strong believer. I dont want to make a religionous progaganda which I dont like, but truly want to say that islamic fate makes a believer to be stong againts all evil. For that reason Their hearts and mind were bright even under torture and in prison.

PS: There are 30 millions of Turkic people living in the province of Uigur (Uygur) in China. They tried brainwashishing with the help of communist Turkic soldners in Turkish Language.

[smiller77]

Ignoring the evidence on the theory that telling the same lie often enough will make most people believe it, the communists continually attempted to portray the "People's Republic" as a paradise. Among the lesser known communist propaganda efforts was an attempt to use the POWs in an "Olympics" (November 15-27, 1952) to pretend that these pathetic, vulnerable, defenseless human beings were actually well treated, living and enjoying healthy activities in a communist wonderland.
POW Inter-Camp Olympics booklet of 1952

This is entirely a new information. Thank you.

Dear Kardesh< we called Brave Koreans as Brother>

In hard combat Turks always wish their flanks rather than other units..so Korean worriers, and called them kardesh < brother>

Wrestling is Turkish -Turkic Mongolian < white Mongols> national sport as all we can read that POW Olimpic listing, Turks were mostly in the ring.

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The Wrestling Turks and American Military Morale in the Korean War



by Don Miller




The summer of 1996 found me for the first time in Turkey. My destination was Edirne, a city near the Bulgarian border which served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire until Christian Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.Edirne is the site of the oldest continuing athletic event in the world. Almost annually since 1640 hordes of Turkey's finest athletes have gathered there for the Kirkpinar, the world series of Turkish oil wrestling. Hardly any tourists attend the tournament, and almost no Americans. Why did I go? Because of a book I read in 1957.

My status as a college student, from 1950 to 1954, kept me deferred from the draft thruout the Korean War, and I have always felt some shame that I was spared when so many young men my age died in Korea. In 1957 I completed graduate school, the year that Eugene Kinkead published his deeply disturbing account of the mortality rate of American prisoners-of-war who were incarcerated by the North Koreans. The Russians, having developed the science of brain-washing, had taught it to the Chinese, who passed it on to the North Koreans, who found that American prisoners were ideal targets for psychological manipulation. Never before - or since - were American soldiers shown to be so widely susceptible to demoralization.

A study conducted by the U.S. Army Medical Corps after the war found that one-third of American POWs were guilty to some degree of collaboration with the enemy. In the three years of warfare, not a single one escaped from captivity. Most alarming of all, out of 7,190 captives, the death rate was 38%, or 2,730. One out of three never came home. These statistics far exceeded the rate for any other American war. Nine enlisted men and three officers were later convicted by courts martial. The most notorious was a Sgt. James Gallagher, who murdered three barracks-mates, helpless with dysentery, by kicking them out into the snow to freeze in the dead of winter.

The study revealed that neither physical torture nor lack of food or medical care had caused the general collapse in morale. Once captured, many of our men lost all sense of allegiance to their country or to one another. They refused to obey their own officers, cursing and even striking them, buying into their captors propaganda that capitalistic rank no longer existed. On forced marches from one prison camp to another, able-bodied men would refuse to lift the stretchers of the wounded. The strong regularly took food from the weak, and the sick were ignored . . . or worse. Many prisoners simply withdrew into a state of isolation and inactivity.

Our commissioned officers had been segregated out by the North Koreans, but each compound still had senior non-coms who, had they established order, would have prevented the tragedy. Instead, the men - chiefly the young - were left free to become easy prey to their captors. Death came most often from what Army psychiatrists simply termed "give-up-itis." First the sufferer became despondent, later he lay down and covered his head with a blanket, then he wanted ice water with his food, next only ice water, and if noone managed to break thru, he was dead in three weeks.

The greatest number of North Korea's prisoners was, of course, American. Of the twelve nations represented, however, the third most numerous were the Turks, with 229. The U.S. Army study found them to have been just as exemplary in prison as they were in battle. The Turks' secret weapons were discipline, great pride in their brigade, and an unbroken chain of command. The final official report contains this Turkish officer's account of his prison experience:
"I told the Chinese commander of the camp that I was in charge of my group. If he wanted anything done, he was to come to me, and I would see that it was done. If he removed me, the responsibility would fall not on him but on the man next below me, and after that on the man below him. And so on, down thru the ranks, until there were only two privates left. Then the senior private would be in charge. They could kill us, I told him, but they couldn't make us do what we didn't want to do. Discipline was our salvation, and we all knew it. If a Turk had questioned an order from his superior to share his food or lift a [stretcher], the way I understand some of your men did, he would literally have had his teeth knocked in. Not by his superior, either, but by the Turk nearest to him. The Communists made attempts to indoctrinate [us]. . .but they failed completely, and eventually gave up."

The crowning consequence of this discipline was that, although half of the 229 were wounded when captured, not one died in prison. When a Turk got sick, the rest nursed him to health. If he was ordered to the hospital, two well Turks went along to minister to him hand and foot and to carry him back to the compound when he was discharged. At mealtime two Turks were dispatched to carry the food back, and it was divided equally down to the last morsel. There was no hogging, no rule of dog eat dog, not ever. Death by "give-up-itis" was impossible. While an American might curl up alone at night and die in the bitter cold, the Turks all piled together in one corner of their cell, and every hour the two on the outside would rotate to the center of the pile. The Chinese guards actually grew to fear their Turkish prisoners, as they watched the interminable wrestling matches which kept them so tough - and, paradoxically, so loyal to one another. As a consequence of this study President Eisenhower issued the now-famous Uniform Code of Military Conduct, and the Korean experience, thank God, has not repeated itself.

That was how, forty years ago, a book on the Korean War "hooked" me on Turkey. My admiration was not then easy to admit, for I was a newly-minted Anglican priest and these Turks were all misguided Moslems. I had emerged from seminary equipped with my own fix on all the non-Christian religions, and Moslems were fanatics who just wanted to kill everybody else. Here I was, faced with evidence of Moslems who really lived the Golden Rule, and of Christians whose self-absorption had produced despair and death. I kept chewing on that paradox - and those stereotypes - until finally a chance came to do some observation for myself.

Four times now I have visited Turkey, to see what kind of wrestlers the Turks are and, more importantly, what kind of people they are. So impressed was I by the Kirkpinar Festival, and the hundreds of athletes, officials and dignitaries with whom I had my halting conversations, that I kept coming back. These are guileless, friendly, physically awesome men who come from every province of a big country just to wrestle, forty at a time, in a great grassy field, barefoot and barechested, covered with olive oil, in 92-degree summer heat. These fighters range in age from twelve to forty, and each contest may last from a few minutes to an hour. I find it hard to imagine many of our own wrestlers matching their stamina, or to be competing in such a gruelling sport at the age of forty. The Turkish style with its dearth of rules could not easily be introduced into our country, because the brotherly trust which exists between the combatants is unknown in rule-rich American sports. There are referees, but their involvement is minimal. Turks oiled bodies are so difficult to grasp that, in seeking to secure leverage for a throw, a wrestler is permitted to thrust his hand or his entire forearm down into his opponent's leather trousers, something which would freak out any Western athlete. Intentional fouls are almost non-existent. There is no such thing as a draw, the match continuing until one wins and the other loses.

A most impressive aspect of the tournament is the participants almost universal comradeliness. Opponents will kibitz and joke with one another while waiting for their line to be sent onto the field. Before tying up for this fight to the finish each pair engages in elaborate Islamic rituals of respect for one another. If during the match one wrestler should get something in his eye the struggle simply pauses, his opponent usually fetches cloth and water to wash it away, then they face off, and the fight is resumed. Once the match is decided they rise to embrace, touch foreheads together and leave the field. A foreign observer must ask how much these deeply-ingrained wrestling traditions contribute to the fact that Turks historically stick together in tough situations, while we Americans seem often inclined to "look out for Number One.

When the three-day tournament draws to a close, and the champions have been cheered by a packed stadium, the President of Turkey crowns the Bash Pehlivan of all Turkey, a national hero frequently honored by his home town with a statue. The current Turkish champion, whom I am privileged to consider a friend, is also a champion Sumo wrestler in Japan. Almost forty, but in extraordinary shape, he confesses to a longing to take up American football.

Fellow Americans, we have a lot to learn from the Turks and the way their wrestlers treat one another even when they are fighting. We must go on struggling to love and care for one another despite the immense racial, ethnic and religious differences which characterize American culture. If we fail, then the individualism of which we proudly boast will be our undoing at the hand of some other power whose people have learned to stick together for the common good. Jesus, as always, hit the mark when he said, "Greater love hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends." It is simply not enough that we be cajoled to celebrate our diversity, which is no more than a glib piece of contemporary sloganeering. Americans will either become genuine brothers, bound together by a compassion which transcends mere tolerance, or this first great world experiment in democracy is destined to fade and crumble.

Turkish Wrestling.


This page built and maintained by Matt Furey.
© Matt Furey Enterprises, Inc. 2000-2003.[/quote]

when repoorting something it is always good to give ACCURATE as well as COMPLETE facts on something. I in no way say the Turkish troops are not excellent soldiers. But in the interet of reporting something accurately and honestly let us be both ofd those things.
You point out that none of the 229 turkish soldiers died in captivity. Well for one they were captured AFTER the winter of 1950-1951 when the majority of the american soldiers died. From no food, to extremely long marches, to no winter clothing in neg. degree weather, to if they could not keep up in the march they were executed. which will indefinitely play on you morale when half the number you started with on a march dies before they get there and you are PREVENTED from heloping them if they can no go any farther on their own. Then l;ets take the camp life. If you do youyr research , actual reserch not the report which was by Eugene Kinkead which as been proven to be totally innaccurate and unsubstantiated, you will also learn that once arriving at the campes the officers, NCO's and lower enlisted were SEGREGATED and not at the same camp to PREVENT them having a structured chain of command. The turks were NOT. Also in the camps it is alot easier to feed 229 persons than it is to feed and keep alive 1500 at a camp , which as i stated already the prisoners having marched through dead of winter with little clothing and no food for MONTHS 9something the turkish troops did not have to endure) no matter how much better the camp life can get you can not overcome with a little bit of food and shelter what has already taken its toll on their bodies. to use a term it is like putting a band aid on a sucking chest wound. to litle and most suredly to late.Also the mind set itself of the soldiers comes into play. the turkish troops were an all volunteer force. A huge amount of the americn troops were reservists and draftees. Not career soldiers. The draftees wdid not choose to be soldiers. it is alot different to say you a career soldier so you know you on your own made the choice to be possibly in this situation and to just take someone and say i know you may not want to but we are forcing you into servicce and risking you being captured whether you want to be or not. DID you join the military and go fight? if i am not mistaken you didnt, which is fine but if you were drafted and forced could you not say that being forced into a situation you in no way asked for you would have behaved differently? ANbd if you look at the court martials after the war. SOme of them were court martialed for doing something to improve their MENS stauts. get them food, medicine etc, NOT personal gain. IS it not a leaders responsibility for the welfare ofg their men? Yes some did for personal gain but many did to aid their mens survival. risking punishment so they may have a chance to live. So where i do not want to take away the courage of the turkish solidiers i do not like inaccurate and incomplete information to be represented for others.

[Tosun Saral]

NCO Master Sergeant Mesut Kaya Özis served at Korea
Source: Erhan Çiftci

[Tosun Saral]

Döner was in Korea in 1954 before conquering Europa !! ) My friend Denizyaran send this pic to another forum.

[Tosun Saral]

imam of Turkish Brigade at Korea Lt. Ali Özyılmaz

[dfdenizyaran]

First Turkish Brigade. Caps, boots and jackets are US made. I love the pictures of the First Brigade, they used a mixture of Turkish and US equipment. US Colt holsters on Turkish belts. US bayonets ( for Garands) and Mauser ammunition pouches..

[Sir John]

Hey guys look at this Marilyn Monroe with Turkish soldiers in Korea ((:

[Sir John]

First Turkish Brigade. Caps, boots and jackets are US made. I love the pictures of the First Brigade, they used a mixture of Turkish and US equipment. US Colt holsters on Turkish belts. US bayonets ( for Garands) and Mauser ammunition pouches..

They are not turkish and this is not turkish music culture they are Cingene

[Kayhan Kabadayi]

The pictures are not a cd recording for you to be able to tell the kind of music and your input that they are gypsies is reckless!

[Corwin]

Dear List Members,

I've just found out about this site and read everything you wrote.
I've learned a lot. Thank you.
I would appreciate it if you could help me.

Do you have the details of Atlas magazine previously mentioned ?
The comments about "Yıllar Boyu Tarih" are great. i did not know about it. do you know of other journals which published on the Turkish Brigade during and after the war ?
Does any of you have old photos, diaries, letters from the war or know where\how can i find something like that ?
Do you have any further detail on the girl in the stamp (Choi, Min-Ja) ? is there a way to contact her ?
Do you know where can i find material on Ankara school ?

I know it's a lot of questions but there are so many interesting things about this war...
Thanks in advance !

[hussar455]

Hello A very interesting article. Is there a way of finding out when British POW's were released or died. Thank you

Eddie

[Tosun Saral]

Please forgive us Axis but we are dicussing Korean war with non English speaking friends in facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/koresavasi/