Hedge Goes Home

Perhaps more clearly than other U.S. officers on the scene, Naval Lieut. Horace G. Underwood knew what he was fighting for in Korea. He put it no more and no less eloquently than many others. "I just feel," he said, "that the things I believe in can't go on under a Communist regime." More tangibly, however, than those of the others, the things in which "Hedge" Underwood believed were symbolized for him right there on the battlefield. Two miles west of Seoul's center stands Chosen Christian University, founded by Hedge's own grandfather and namesake, Horace Grant Underwood, one of the first Protestant missionaries to Korea.

House on a Hill. Horace Underwood I, a Presbyterian, had gone out to Korea first in 1885 and there married a medical missionary. By 1915, when the Underwoods first opened the gates of Chosen college, Korea had become one of the most Christianized nations of the Orient. In time the new college grew to be the second largest university in Korea. Under the Japanese occupation (1910-45), Chosen and a few other Christian schools like it were the only educational institutions in Korea which kept native Koreans as teachers. It became identified with Korean nationalism.

When the elder Underwood died, his son Horace Horton stepped easily into his shoes as president of Chosen. He and his wife Ethel lived and reared their four sons in the big comfortable Underwood house on a hill overlooking their college. When Pearl Harbor came, the Underwoods were interned by the Japanese and later repatriated to the U.S. Young Hedge, the eldest of their sons, served with the U.S. Navy. After the war he joined his parents at Chosen college. One day early last year two Korean Communists dropped by at the Underwood house. Mrs. Underwood, who was entertaining some friends at tea, went to the door to see what they wanted. The intruders pumped a charge from a sawed-off U.S. carbine into her (TIME, March 28, 1949)-Hedge himself preached the sermon at his mother's funeral.

Behind a Ridge. When the Communists invaded Seoul, Hedge headed south to see what he could do to help the Army. Wearing the same threadbare seersucker suit he had worn when fleeing Seoul, he was soon a familiar sight at General William Dean's 24th Division headquarters.

Last week, back once more in his old Navy uniform, Hedge Underwood crossed the river Han with a detachment of U.S. Marines. Facing eastward, he could look once again at a flat-topped ridge behind which lay his old home and his family's college. His job with the Marines was the interrogation of Communist prisoners. From them Hedge soon learned that a large unit of North Korean troops was using the college as headquarters. The Marine commander gave the obvious and necessary orders. As Hedge watched, a rain of shells poured down on Chosen Christian University, which three generations of Underwoods had helped to build. Refugees from the city brought back a tale of terrible destruction. U.S. observers rushed up to forward observation posts to check on the damage done. Hedge Underwood for once lingered behind.

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