Eighteen-year-old Johnny Moore was an energetic, self-confident
private first class when he entered combat with a heavy-weapons
platoon in Korea. Four and a half months later, after surviving
heavy attacks on the Pusan Perimeter and in one of the forward
units of the western column advancing on the Yalu River, he was
captured by the Chinese infantry. Moore and other American POWs
suffered from starvation rations, bitter cold, and mental torment.
Although the intense Chinese efforts to change the prisoners’
ideologies were largely unsuccessful, they were very effective in
engendering distrust among the prisoners and abandonment of duty by
the officers. Encouraged by an American sergeant, Moore worked with
his captors to obtain better sanitation, a fairer distribution of
food, and, on two occasions, medicine for the sick. Twice he tried
to escape from imprisonment. Just four days after his twenty-first
birthday, in 1953, the Chinese released him. Moore cooperated fully
with US military interrogators, giving as much information as he
could on the prison camp and the methods his captors had used. But
two years later, army officers arrested him at his home and charged
him with treason. Although the charge was dropped and a Field Board
of Inquiry returned him to regular duty, the army’s treatment of
him left Moore further traumatized. He eventually went AWOL and
turned to drinking, gambling, and other self-destructive
behaviours. Military historian Judith Fenner Gentry has worked with
Moore’s memoirs of his experiences during and after the war to
corroborate, clarify, elaborate, and situate his story within the
larger events in Korea and in the Cold War. She has consulted
records from courts-martial, newspaper interviews with returning
POWs, and Freedom of Information Act documents on the Army Criminal
Investigation Division and the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps.
General
Imprint: |
Texas A & M University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series |
Release date: |
August 2013 |
First published: |
August 2013 |
Authors: |
Johnny Moore
• Judith Fenner Gentry
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 25mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Cloth over boards
|
Pages: |
336 |
Edition: |
New |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-62349-007-2 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
1-62349-007-3 |
Barcode: |
9781623490072 |
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