(tense orchestral music) - [Narrator] "The Big Picture" is a report to you from your army, an army committed by you, the people of the United States, to stop communist aggression wherever it may strike.
(tense orchestral music continues) - [Narrator] In the background was the growing struggle between two powers to shape the postwar world.
(tense orchestral music continues) Four horsemen driving civilization to the brink of an abyss.
(tense orchestral music continues) - [Narrator] They thrust across the 38 parallel.
- [Narrator] The 38th parallel.
(tense orchestral music continues) - On Sunday, June 25th, communist forces attacked the Republic of Korea.
This attack has made it clear beyond all doubt that the international communist movement is willing to use armed invasion to conquer independent nations.
- [Narrator] Today, "The Big Picture" will show our United Nations' forces crossing the 38th parallel.
(tense orchestral music continues) - My name is Bill Rector.
I was born in 1930, and I am a farmer from Denver, Iowa.
Growing up in the Depression, I've seen some hard times.
There were cold nights.
My grandfather and father were both farmers, so I followed in their footsteps.
My grandfather served in World War I.
My dad was in World War II.
And I followed them again.
My name is Bill Rector, and I was a Gunner's Mate on the U.S.S.
Los Angeles during the Korean War.
(gunfire booming) (tense orchestral music continues) The footage you are about to see is my own.
Has never been shown on television.
Filmed on my 8mm camera during the war.
(tense orchestral music continues) This is my story.
(tense orchestral music fades) (tone chimes) (frenetic orchestral music) We left and headed right for Korea.
That's what we did.
And it wasn't long, out in the bay, and we were in the task force.
135 was our ship.
This is a destroyer.
Our task force was 77.
Which they had one battleship.
The battleship was the Missouri.
Cruisers was the Yavuz, which they had all their planes on and whatnot.
(frenetic orchestral music continues) Then we had 15 destroyers, all the way around the task force.
They were supposed to watch so that there was no torpedoes or anything that anybody else could send in.
(frenetic orchestral music continues) (helicopter blades whirring) Wonsan Harbor was where we went into.
That was the difference between North Korea and South Korea.
(frenetic orchestral music continues) I joined in January 2nd of 1952.
I signed up as a Gunner's Mate, GM3, and I was the head of this gun.
It's a three-inch-fifty.
The projectile is about three feet tall, and about four inches around.
You would load the gun from the side.
And we had 20 guys that handled the shell.
And we had four loaders.
(gun firing) (explosion booming) It was a double gun.
One would shoot, and it would go out about maybe six or eight inches.
And the other one.
And then it would come back, and the other one would shoot.
By handling them three-inch-fifty shells, they got really good.
We practiced a lot.
(frenetic electronic music) I'm on my three-inch-fifty, looking along the side of the ship.
(gun firing) And right next to us there is the five-inch.
But the eight-inch is the farther one.
And you can see as they're shooting here.
They're shooting over on the guns up on the side of the mountain.
And they're trying to knock 'em out.
(frenetic electronic music continues) (tone chimes) (rhythmic jazzy music) This is initiation.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) Anybody that had never crossed the equator got initiated.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) The ones that had went across it before are the ones that are doing the damage.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) Here they wanted to drown these guys, just about.
And that poor little guy, he was a cook, and they about drowned him.
(laughs) (rhythmic jazzy music continues) Now, these guys here, they made 'em shine shoes, the captain's shoes.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) For nobody that had ever done it, I think the guys that had been through it had more fun (laughs) making it dip and even with the poor guys that's never been on it, you know?
We had 1,600 men on our ship, and we took on another 800 or more.
We picked 'em up in Hong Kong where you crossed the equator.
And just to go through this ritual, you might say.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) This was a lieutenant they didn't like.
And so these guys are really ganging up on that poor guy and shooting water on him, and they about drowned him, him and another guy.
(laughs) Here, they tarred and feathered this guy.
They put sorghum all over this guy.
And then they took a pillow with feathers in it and put that feathers over the poor guy, had him tied up there.
(chuckles) He was trying to get the feathers off there.
(laughs) They had a king and queen's court.
Now, here they are, all lined up here, the court.
You had to go through the court to be initiated.
And as you go through, you couldn't look at the king or the queen, each one tells you you've gotta go through a different thing.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) They got a paddle gang here.
And they have a paddle.
As you go by, they pop ya.
And here now they've got a tank where they flip 'em over backwards into the water.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) Here's the baby.
Everybody had to kiss the baby.
This is a big chief.
And they take and put Limburger cheese.
They put everything that they can find, ketchup, mustard, everything around his belly button.
And then you gotta kiss the baby.
There I am right there, comin' up.
That's me.
So I gets up there, and what'd they do?
Rammed my head in there.
(rhythmic jazzy music continues) (tone chimes) (contemplative guitar music) My friend's name was Reynolds, Richard Reynolds.
We would go on liberty together.
We would eat breakfast, dinner, and supper together.
We pulled into to Hawaii.
This is Richard Reynolds and his wife and her girlfriend.
There they were on the dock waiting for us.
(contemplative guitar music continues) It was so great to have somebody.
Because we we were in the same department, we got to stay together.
He slept just a couple bunks away from me.
So we were very lucky to be together.
We were just like being married, you might say.
(laughs) I didn't know if I was gonna make it or not without him, you know.
Because being away from home, being a farm boy, we didn't know nothin'.
(contemplative guitar music continues) (relaxed guitar music) We would go out to sea for 30 days, and then we would come in for seven days for R&R.
We would have to stay on the ship one day and work.
(relaxed guitar music continues) And stand watch.
And then the next day we would have liberty.
This is where we're pulling into Sasebo.
This is up to the top in Japan.
And Kyushu is down more on the bottom end of it.
But we're coming into the bay here with our ships.
(relaxed guitar music continues) And so we went over there.
You'd have to take a little ship over, a boat over there, across the bay.
They had areas there where we could go on liberty in Kyushu, Japan.
(relaxed guitar music continues) All the salesmen were standing there.
And the Navy guys are going in and doin' their shopping, trying to make a bargain with 'em.
A lot of them had their stores, and they weren't very wide streets.
But they would have little stores on each side of the walkway there.
And it would be like a half a block long.
And one store right after the other.
(relaxed guitar music continues) Anyhow, there's about four or five of us guys went on liberty.
And this is in a store, and they had all kinds of goldfish and different kind of fish that they were selling to people.
As you see here, a lot of these guys would carry their stuff and they'd be loaded down.
How he could carry all that stuff, I don't know.
(relaxed guitar music continues) Right here where we're at now, and we went into Kobe.
And we were the first naval ship in Kobe since World War II.
And they never wanted us to be over there after dark.
And so they told us, "If you go over there, "make sure you go with three or four other guys, "and make sure you're back before it's dark.
"Because if you get over there, you might never come back."
So we went over there, of course, you know.
And we could pay 50 cents.
You could have this taxi just drive ya all over town.
And so that's what we did a lot of times.
We'd just take a little sights-seeing tour.
(relaxed guitar music continues) Richard Reynolds and I did everything together.
(soft piano music) After about two years, I don't know why, but they transferred him.
First, they shot a stringer across from our ship to their ship.
Then they pulled a rope across.
(soft piano music continues) And then they got a cable across, and they put a little seat on that cable.
And I roped from our ship to their ship.
And he got in that little seat, and they pulled him across the water.
I don't know, I bet you that was a thrill for him.
(laughs) But anyhow, that's how he got from our ship to the other destroyer.
See your friend go, wasn't good.
(tone chimes) (tense rhythmic music) (water rushing) We were gonna make our usual run down in Wonsan Harbor.
(tense rhythmic music continues) We were getting shot at at.
And if you see them spots in the water, see, they were shootin', had some bombs there.
We think that where these MiG planes came from was from Russia, and they had gave 'em to the Koreans, North Korea.
That's what the story was.
I don't know if that was true, but that's what the story was.
It was a plane that was takin' pictures of our ship.
We were after it.
It was just gung ho.
(tense rhythmic music continues) We shot it down.
And I think we ended up shooting two or three of 'em down.
(tense rhythmic music continues) If they landed in the water, usually they have a lifesaver on, and then we could get 'em, pick 'em up with our little boats.
Or our other ships would send theirs out to help.
See, they're firing right here at some planes there too.
But that's what these MiGS like to do.
They'd come down real low and be just off the water.
They'd more or less try and run their plane right into a carrier or any ship that they could.
But this was our biggest fight that we had.
And that was in 1953.
(tense rhythmic music continues) Them are MiGS, yep.
But they were fast.
They'd just come outta nowhere.
But that's why we always had to be out there watching.
(tense rhythmic music continues) We were shooting with our three-inch-fifties.
The five-inch were shooting at 'em, but our three-inch-fifty is the ones that would shoot down these planes like we see here now.
(tense rhythmic music continues) And those MiGS were so fast.
They were hard to hit.
And that's the same way with our jets that were after 'em.
It was kind of a scary day, 'cause you never knew when one was gonna maybe fly right into your mount.
This was more action than I'd seen.
(tense rhythmic music continues) The next one hit right underneath our turret.
And that shook us up.
And the next one hit up on the stack.
And all the shrapnel came down.
And I had 20 loaders, and they got hit.
It was nerve-wracking.
And I was supposed to be watching over my flock, you might say.
(tense rhythmic music continues) I had 23 guys.
I was more or less just nervous from that.
(tense rhythmic music continues) Trying to get 'em down off our gun without getting hurt worse than they were.
(tense rhythmic music continues) But I think right here, our planes knocked a gun out right here, one that was shootin' at us.
And one of our planes come in there and shot.
Or maybe we shot, and it hit the target.
(tense rhythmic music continues) (tone chimes) (tense music) When we were in Korea, we were off about a half a mile, and our helicopter took off from the fantail, saying that they was two pilots that got shot down.
We're runnin' on the beach.
And so we had our glasses, and we could see 'em.
And there was about 600 Koreans after him.
Our helicopter come in there and had his sling down, picked up the one guy that was hurt, pulled him up to the helicopter, made another swing, come down and got the other one.
And the way they come and they come back to the fantail.
(tense music continues) But in the meantime, we were shooting at these Koreans that were following him.
Every seventh bullet would ignite in the air above 'em.
And it had shrapnel.
And they would explode.
It would just flatten 'em.
You couldn't believe what it was doin' to these people.
(tense music continues) Them guys were so happy to be on the ship.
And they kissed the deck.
They were that happy.
(tense music continues) I'm just very fortunate to be here today.
And I guess the Lord was helpin' me a all the way.
(contemplative guitar music) - [Narrator] Support provided by Carbondale Tourism located in Southern Illinois.
Carbondale offers outdoor recreation, local eateries, nightlife, and year-round entertainment.
More information can be found at carbondaletourism.org.
- [Narrator] Support comes from NOTS Logistics, a full-service supply chain provider with headquarters in Nashville, Illinois and Cartersville, Georgia.
Dedicated to supporting and employing veterans since 1981.
Learn more at notsLogistics.com.
(lively music)
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