ATIS INTERROGATION REPORT NO 3037 29 January 1951
The following information was obtained from recovered American Military personnel, who were interrogated upon their arrival in JAPAN from KOREA, by Central Interrogation Center, ATIS. Interrogation was conducted by Lt FUSCO.
Source was captured with a ROK paymaster at HUKSU-RI by North Korean guerrillas on 23 November 1950. Source who was riding in a jeep accompanied by 2 ROK soldiers and a ROK paymaster was assigned to take pictures of bridges, culverts, and roads in that area. When they were fired upon, they dismounted and were engaged in a brief fire fight during which the two ROK soldiers were killed. Seeing that capture was imminent source placed a grenade under the radio in the jeep, thereby rendering it useless and also incurring the wrath of the leader of the guerrillas.
The captors took his weapon, camera, clothes, wallet, and rings. Source and the ROK paymaster were led to a small village where there were 40-50 guerrillas. He was taken to a house and interrogated by the leader who was the only Chinese in the group. The Chinese claimed that he held a rank equivalent to that of a Chinese Army non-commissioned officer. His English was very poor. He stated that he had learned it when working for General Chennault and the Flying Tigers in 1941. Source stated that the Chinese was a professional soldier. He was very arrogant and eager to show that he was the boss. He ruled the band with an iron hand. He never trusted any of them to come too near him nor to get behind him at any time. Source believed that the Chinese leader was able to get away with this “iron hand” rule, because he kept the band well supplied with food. Where the food came from could not be determined.
The first interrogation which lasted about 2 hours did not include many questions of a tactical nature. The interrogator thought he had made quite a catch in capturing a photographer. He wanted to know exactly what source was doing when captured, what pictures were taken, and the reason for taking them. When he was not satisfied with the answers he cuffed the source on the side of head to show his displeasure and his authority. He then attempted to question source on when the attack on MANCHURIA and CHINA was scheduled to come off. Even though source stated he knew nothing of such a plan, he kept repeating the question every few minutes. He also wanted to know if source had spoken to any Chinese soldiers who had been captured by Americans.
The following day the Chinese leader took the ROK paymaster outside and shot him. He had not even been interrogated.
Everyday source was given a liberal dose of Communist indoctrination. And yet, it appeared to source, who was a Pulitzer School, Columbia University graduate, that the leader himself was not fully convinced that Communism was best for the Chinese people. He stated that the Communists had taken most of the land, as well as a goodly portion of the farm products from the Chinese farmers. The Chinese leader also stated that in his opinion neither CHANG KAI SHEK nor MAO TSE-TUNG was any good. He believed that the Chinese people should not depend on the Russians because they had not kept their promise to send airplanes to aid the Chinese in KOREA.
On 27 November the Chinese decided to release the source, because he could get no further information from him and it would serve no purpose to kill him. Source was taken to a road, shown the way back to his unit and released.
For the CO, TIS,
AURELL
