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Just an Average Joe - Korean War veteran Jim Byers

Airman, April, 2001 by Louis A. Arana-Barradas

Jim Byers' Korean War had its share of adventure

Jim Byers didn't fly a sleek F-86 Sabre jet into "MiG Alley" to shoot down enemy planes. He was a draftsman, a support troop in the Korean War. One of more than 5.7 million "average Joes" who served there. The ones most Americans have forgotten.

But he left his mark. It wasn't a red star painted on the side of a jet, the sign of an aerial kill. His role was just a small part of the total effort that helped the Air Force win the air war.

"There was no glamour. I drew charts and flipped them at briefings," he said. "But I knew I was helping do something important."

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He still believes that 49 years later. Proud of his one-year stint in Korea, he can still recall the little details of his tour. And he has a mind and scrapbooks full of memories.

But Korea was the last place he wanted go in the spring of 1952. He was 18 years old and two months out of high school. He dreamed of college, but had no money for that. And though he had a job, he knew he had no future as a drug store soda jerk.

That made him a prime candidate for a quick trip to the front lines. The Army and Marine Corps were drafting men to drive the "communist hordes" from South Korea. But Byers couldn't see himself as a "grunt" dodging bullets in some strange land.

"There was no way in hell I was going to get drafted," he said.

So on advice from a cousin, he joined the Air Force. He hoped that would keep him out of the war. And he hoped it would be his ticket to college. Plus the Air Force told him he could be a draftsman, his lifelong wish. So two weeks later, he was in basic training at Sampson Air Force Base, N.Y. From there, he went to draftsman school at Fort Belvoir, Va.

"Life was good," Byers said. He finished training in September and received his first assignment -- San Francisco. "I knew that's where you went for 'later deployment' to the Far East. But I wasn't too concerned."

The Army "brat" from Washington, D.C., was hopeful. Though he'd never been away from home -- except to visit his grandparents In North Carolina -- he just knew he'd go to Japan.

He was right. His troop ship steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge and made a beeline for Japan. He was sure he'd do a three-year stint there. As he neared Japan, a fantasy formed in his mind. His thoughts turned to Tokyo nightclubs, drinking beer, parties and chasing Japanese girls.

But his bubble burst one day after he got to the port of Yokohama. He got orders for Korea.

"Man, I nearly wet my pants," he said. "I thought, 'So much for a cushy desk job in Tokyo.'"

He wandered around in a daze for a while. But he managed to make friends. One was a soldier he'd later visit in Korea. Another was a New Zealander who gave him "the skinny" on Korea duty and a bottle of Scotch whisky to drown his sorrows. But he was too dumbstruck to drink. As he collected a ton of winter gear, his helmet and rifle, he wondered what lay ahead.

"Let's face It, I'd never done anything of consequence in my life," he said. "I was headed for a bloody war and just couldn't figure out what a draftsman was supposed to do there."

He soon found out. Five days after reaching Japan, he took off for Korea.

First impressions

Byers hopped a C-47 transport to Chinhae, on Korea's southern coast. Arriving in the middle of the night, he couldn't form a first impression. Confused, he crashed onto his cot and slept.

His first sight the next morning was of a busy flight line. It was full of people readying planes for missions, a host of vehicles and P-51 Mustang aircraft. As a lad growing up during World War II, he loved to draw the fighters. Seeing them somehow gave him a kind of comfort.

"I was in awe and thought it was all pretty neat," he said. "That's when I told myself it wasn't going to be that bad, that I'd make it. I was actually glad to be there."

Korea didn't scare him anymore. So he vowed to be the best draftsman there -- and find out what Korea was all about. Not the attitude most troops had In those days.

Maybe somewhere in the back of his mind floated the words of the top commander in Korea, Gen. Douglas MacArthur: "There is no security on Earth; there is only opportunity."

So the young troop found things to do outside the norm. And, at times, that led to adventure.

He joined the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing at "Dog Patch," what troops called the base outside Chinhae. Each day, Mustangs flew close air support missions for U.N. troops fighting all over the Korean peninsula.

As a statistical draftsman, Byers made charts and flipped slides at countless briefings. Though not overly challenged, he said the work kept him busy and was satisfying. The charts detailed all the intelligence information wing pilots needed to fly their missions.

"I found out quick what a draftsman does in war," he said. "I wasn't in the fighting. But passing information was, probably, the next most important thing in Korea."

Just before Christmas, his unit packed up and moved to K-55 air base. Today it's Osan Air Base, some 35 miles south of South Korea's capital city of Seoul. But Byers refused to fly in the C-119 Flying Boxcar transports taking his mates north.

Just an Average Joe - Korean War veteran Jim Byers

Airman, April, 2001 by Louis A. Arana-Barradas

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