| A member of Joseph P. Chaisson American Legion Post 41 for 34 years shares his memory of the “Forgotten War, Conflict and Police action known as the Korean War. Besides his vivid memory of being surrounded by an army of Chinese in the vicinity of the Changjin (Chosin) Reservoir, his hands and feet are reminders as he still suffers from frost bite. Sonny Burton joined the U.S. Army January 10th, 1949 at age 18, attending basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. After a short leave he traveled to the west coast by train and traveled by troop ship to Japan where he was assigned to the 17th Infantry Regiment, part of the 7th Infantry Division at Sendai, Japan, receiving advanced infantry training while also training a South Korean soldier under a special program. Each American soldier was assigned a Korean soldier as a “Buddy” or “running mate”.
The 17th Infantry Regiment took part in the advance to the Yalu River along with the 1st Marine Division. On November 27th the Chinese Communist Forces created multiple attacks on the greatly outnumbered and surrounded UN Forces. The 1st Marine Division made an attack back towards the Port Of Hungnam breaking through the Chinese lines. Sonny Burton and portions of his Regiment had not moved through the Chinese with the advance. Surrounded and feeling abandoned, his unit traveled the ridges, hunkering down during daylight hours. The ground too hard to dig fox holes, they made position of rocks. At night they continued to travel towards the coast, sometimes at a belly crawl to avoid being picked off by the Chinese occupying the same ridges. Without food for three days they came across an abandoned Marine truck convoy, searched the trucks and found a frozen can of chicken and fruit cocktail. On December 22nd reaching the UN Forces at Hungnam Harbor, he loaded onto a troop ship traveling south, eventually receiving his orders in August, 1951 to return back to the United States. He finished his time in service at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and West Point, New York.
He was discharged in June, 1952 and returned to Milo, Maine. | |
- HANFORD (SONNY) BURTON
