Another Family Gem

[hunyadi]

As posted before my grnafather was in the AAC durng WW2. Consequently his father was a ground-pounder in WW1 seeing action in France with the 88th Infantry Division. In the past years I have learned more about one of the 'black sheep' of the family. My grand uncle Bill Asbury (brother of my grnadmother). Apparently he was not as bad as his brother Robert who sired several children with various women and dissapeared into the horizon on a motorcycle... Grand Uncle Bill was a little different. Many describe him as a person who should have been born in the middle ages.

While going through my grandparents estate I found a shoe box filled with photos of grand uncle Bill and his time in Korea. Also in the box was a diary that he kept in 1949 which led up to his assignment to Japan - but not his deployment to Korea.

Bill was follwing a family tradition, here he is with his father (far left) Bill second from left and (I believe his neighbor - father and son who also joined with Bill)

[hunyadi]

For the Asbury family - the USMC was a family tradition. Here is Bills father, William Asbury during WW1. Probably to ensure the birth of Bill and Robert, providence saw that his father was never deployed to Europe.

[hunyadi]

There are too numerious photos to post about Bill in Korea, but here are a few of them. The quality is not the best as they were probably shot with a Brownie camera, and as Bill comments on the back of several of them, the weather was not the best conditions for film. Here is a shot of him with his walrus mustache and pipe.

[hunyadi]

Another shot of him with platoon mates. As written on the back, he apologises to his mother the picture is in poor shape because he carried it with him during the rainy season and it got wet several times

[hunyadi]

If you notice - Bill has a mustache and generaly looks to be in shabby shape. The other guys have to shave and look somewhat presentable. As I had said before, Bill was meant to have lived in the middle ages. He was not one who cared for authority - even the USMC could not break him of that. But the officers looked the other way and for good reasons. According to Bill and family legends, Bill accepted and then volunteered for dangerious missions. Namely his offciers found out that Bill, working alone produced results. Apparently Bill would go out into no-mans-land and even infiltrate behind enemy lines with just his fatigues, a cap and his .45. He would then go out and at times wait for days for North Koreans or Chinese officers and NCOs to come across his path. He would wait for the right time when these men were isolated from their unit (sometimes to go pee...) then he would sneak up to them with his .45 and say in Korean 'come with me and live or die right here'. They mostly chose the latter. So here he would come back with POWs. Apparently officers tired to decorate him for bravery, but he tunred them down or never wore the medals.

One of my favoire photos is this one that he sent to his mother the inscription on the back is 'bringing back POWs'. I am guessing that he is in the back of the column with the cap - not the helmets and field packs. The POWs look to be in their underwear.

[hunyadi]

Another interesting photo - he writes on the back that the white smoke on the hill is a fire mission that he dirrected while on recon. I assume that he discovered a target and the following morning helped the artty to hit the target.

[hunyadi]

Well grand uncle Bill survived the war - came back to his wife and son. She would later give birth to triplets of girls. Notice the son in service star on the front door of the farmhouse.

Bill - now shaved! - tried for the rest of his life to adjust. Never keeping a job for very long and never finding his way to get rich. He died at age 70 of a heart attack while in the county jail. Arresed for poaching deer out of season.

[hunyadi]

Another shot - a MASH unit helicopter. Of significance is Bills uncle was Crawford Sams. Crawford Sams was an Army surgeon who was one of the first to get jump wings for his work on personal oxygen tanks for pilots who had to bail out at higher altitudes. This was done by him in the closing days of WW1! Later on Sams was one of the pioneers in the Army to create the MASH units to reduce the battlefield casualties - to good effect in Korea. In 1952 Colliers magazine published an article on Crawford Sams for his daring mission into North Korea to investigate reports of the Black Plague - this was done at the request of the North Koreans to the US military. The NK docotrs were stumped and asked for assistance. The US responded as they did not want their own troops coming into contact with the deadly plague. As I said - its a family tradition.

[Brian Wolfe]

Hi hunyadi,

Very nice series of photos and being family they are priceless. Have you ever though about getting repaired copies made of the ones that are showing a lot of damage. My wife has several of her family when they served and we took the damaged ones to a photo lab and had retouched copies made. Of course we kept the originals but the repaired ones are the ones on display. The cost is not all that bad either.

Just a thought.

Thanks again for sharing your photos.

Cheers

Brian

[hunyadi]

Hi Brian - the best part of it all is that I also have the original negatives of almost all of these photos (there are about 100+ but these are the more interesting ones) and the negatives are in great shape. Obviously the storage of the prints and the negatives were in differnt places.

As an aside - does anyone know if I can get Willaim 'Bill' Asbury Jr's service record on line?