Buck Matthews
Dogpatch Days
Recollections of a Non-Combatant in the Combat Zone
Animals
Admiration Dawg of the 12th Squadron, a pampered mascot, was reliably reported to have been taken on at least ten combat missions during the Korean War, the only known canine to have flown in combat during that war. When the new Combat Support Group Commander of the 18th Wing barred dogs from the Officers’ Club (Top of the Mark) at K-10, all the pilots and most of the other officers vote “Admiration Dawg” as a member of the Board of Officers to ensure he was properly authorized to enter the Club, recalled Col. Bill Myers of the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing.
I never saw it happen, but rumor had it that the Koreans ate dogs.
We only half believed it, but that’s enough for GIs.
Somebody said it happened, so it must have happened.
I know three dogs they didn’t eat – our K-10 Comm Squadron kennel club of Lady, Whitey, and Crip. Three mutts of different, mysterious ancestry and identical personality, beggars all.
Lady was a brown short hair who had that “enough-is-enough” look of having had one litter too many, though we never saw her with pups.
Whitey, whose pale face and sightless left eye determined his name, had the rolled-up tail and heavy coat that hinted at a Malamute in his background.
Crip’s name was the inevitable result of a poorly healed broken right front leg, but the dog, with his black and fawn coloring, was all dignity and beauty and courage. As if the leg wasn’t enough, in February of ’52, he tangled with a weapons carrier and was so badly injured that we asked an AP to put him down.
He was having nothing to do with that and dragged himself under the Quonset hut and stayed there ‘til the shiny boots were gone.
We had to cut up his food for him for awhile but he survived.
Compared to those three, the rest of us were on TDY. They were there when we came, they were there when we left.
I always wondered what became of them when we pulled out.
There’s no question that our squadron pet at K-46 was a Korean delicacy.
In the Wonju market one day, I came upon an old man selling piglets. Always a competitive shopper, I failed to crack his 150,000 Won ($25) asking price, so went back the next day with a flight of Korean houseboys, who worked him down to 100,000.
I carried him back to the base in a little reed basket and raised him in a pen I built behind the Comm Center.
Captain Murphy was ready to ream me out until the pig won him over. Even some of the pilots visited him occasionally.
We called him “Grand Champion Flying Porkchops Out of Wonju by Weapons Carrier”. It took four of us to load him in the whip to take him back to market before I shipped out. And I got 150,000 Won for him.
© Copyright 2008 Buck Matthews. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes without permission in writing from the author. Used with permission by BelleAire Press as a tribute to those American servicemen and women who served during the Korean War.