Time, January 1, 1951 p. 16
Said a grimey G.I.: "I keep thinking of my three
kids at home and hoping that somebody would take care of them if what
is happening here should happen in America."
At Inchon, 964 Korean orphans and other waifs of
war, aged six months to eleven years, were waiting to be taken to an
island off the South Korean coast. Some of the older ones were too weak
from starvation to walk, or too sick (e.g. with scabies, whooping cough,
tuberculosis). They were to have been settled in a children's refuge
at Seoul, but U.N. reverses caused that plan to be abandoned.
The ship scheduled to take the children from Inchon
to the island last week failed to arrive. Lieut. Colonel R.L. Blaisdell,
chaplain of the Fifth Air Force, telephoned the Combat Cargo Command.
Promptly, 15 C-54s loaded with rations for 15 days were dispatched to
Kimpo Airport and the children were trucked there from Inchon. They
and their 80 attendants, mostly Korean women, were flown off to their
island sanctuary.
Air Force Nurse Mary Wilfong showed signs of
weeping. "Taking care of the wounded isn't a pleasant job always,"
she said, "but it never hit me like this. Those kids were so helpless
and so pitiful".
MAG-001
