Hands Up

Brigadier General Haydon Lemaire ("Bull") Boatner was ready for his big test on Koje Island. He intended to break up the big compounds, and he decided to start with the 6,000 hard-core North Koreans in Compound 76--the gang that engineered the abduction of Brigadier General (now Colonel) Francis T. Dodd. To impress 76's inmates, he staged a rehearsal with tanks and flamethrowers in an empty compound next to theirs. The prisoners answered by digging chest-deep trenches and continuing to turn out steel-tipped spears and other crude weapons on their hidden forge.

This week Boatner sent a message to 76's tough leader, North Korean Colonel Lee Hak Koo: "This is a legal order for you to prepare the prisoners of war in Compound 76 to move out into the newly constructed compounds . . ." Lee ignored the order. When the paratroopers of the 187th Airborne Regiment moved in, the prisoners fought tooth & nail. In the first hours of battle 32 Communists were killed and at least 85 wounded; one of the paratroopers was killed and 13 wounded. But eventually a heavy tear-gas barrage brought the Communists out of their trenches, choking and weeping, with their hands in the air. Even before the smoke and dust of battle had settled, it was clear that Bull Boatner had won.

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