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When American troops first arrived in Korea in July of 1950, they found themselves in a hot, humid climate that showed them no mercy as they fought the enemy and trekked up and down one hill after another. A few months later, Army soldiers and Marines experienced just the opposite in the Chosin Reservoir area when temperatures dropped to extreme, below zero cold. Navy personnel stationed in the waters off the Korean coastline, assisting in close air support efforts, also were exposed to extremely cold temperatures. When spring approached, American ground troops in Korea experienced the misery of downpours of rain and sloshing through mud. This page of the Korean War Educator provides raw weather data from four weather stations (Pusan, Seoul, Kangnung and Inchon) in Korea. Additional, it details information about cold weather injuries. The KWE’s "Weather Report" also provides a means for Korean War veterans to share some of their memories of the weather conditions they experienced in the Korean War. To add your information to this page, contact [Please enable JavaScript.].
The raw data regarding the weather in four stations in Korea (Pusan, Seoul, Kangnung, and Inchon) was supplied to the Korean War Educator through the help of Meang-Ki Kim of Kongju National University. Because there was a war going on at the time, there are segments of data missing for some months in 1950 through 1953. The raw data found here includes daily-mean temperature ONLY. (Daily maximum temperature, daily minimum temperature, wind speed, precipitation, and snow fall are in the works.) Our special thanks to this Korean scholar for the much-needed help to provide weather information to the KWE. Click on the links below to see the information in PDF form:
Thousands of American veterans (in fact, more than 5,300 in just the first winter of the Korean War) suffered frostbite during the extreme cold temperatures in Korea during the war years. Many of them were evacuated and received treatment in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, however, too many others did not have that chance due to the battle conditions they were in at the time. The latter lost fingers and/or hands, toes and/or feet, and had to endure the anguish of frostbitten noses and ears. Decades later, these Korean War casualties are still experiencing the after effects of frostbite. Some receive medical assistance and compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. But there are still thousands of Korean War veterans who either don’t know they are eligible for disability benefits based on their cold weather injuries, or they can’t get anyone in the VA to believe that their current health problems are service-related.
Volume 30, Issue No. 6, pages 82 to 84 of LIFE magazine (February 5, 1951) carried a story about the latest treatment for frostbite victims of the Korean War. It stated:
Frostbite is caused by cold, but almost never by cold alone. The 25-below-zero temperature in the North Korean mountains did little harm to the U.N. troops as they moved northward in an orderly advance. But when the same men turned in desperate retreat through the same ice-bound region, the Korean winter struck them down by the hundreds. They were often immobilized, pinned down by enemy fire. There were no replacements. The wounded lay too long on the frozen ground. It was the military situation rather than the harsh climate that produced most of the 5,300 frostbite casualties listed so far for the U.S. Army and Marines.
Subjects in the magazine include the following:
Vincent J. Yeasted is a former Korean War combat Marine who lives in the hills of Pennsylvania. During the Chosin Reservoir campaign, he served under James Stemple in Able Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Due to the conditions that existed at the time, Yeasted suffered severe frostbite. Decades later, when he tried to file a VA claim for benefits related to his cold weather injury, he found the going uphill. A letter from his former commander helped push the claim through.
In 1999, Lynnita Brown visited the home of Mr. Yeasted, and conducted a full-length oral history interview with the USMC veteran. Following is the letter that Col. James Stemple (now deceased) wrote on Yeasted’s behalf, used with Mr. Yeasted’s permission.
October 3, 1994
To Whom it may concern:
Subject: Cold Injury, case of Vincent J. Yeasted, former US Marine, enlisted Serial Number 116003
The following summarizes events in North Korea in November and December, 1950 which caused severe frostbite and associated injury to then Private First Class Vincent J. Yeasted, U.S. Marine Corps. I, James W. Stemple, then a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, commanded the 3d rifle platoon in Company "A," First Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. During November and December, our 7th Marine Regiment as part of the 1st Marine Division was engaged in fighting Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) in and around the Chosin Reservoir in mountainous central North Korea near the Manchurian border.
On or about 11 November, Pfc. Yeasted was a Browning Automatic Rifleman (BARman) in the third squad of my three squad reinforced rifle platoon. The platoon was returning from an arduous day-long combat patrol several miles to the west of the Korean village of Koto-ri. It was just getting dark as we approached friendly lines. By radio, I was ordered not to return to our company positions several miles to the east, but to stop and establish a roadblock across a valley to the west of the friendly positions, and that we could expect an enemy attack from the direction that night. Also, that because of the distance from our company command post (CP), we would not be receiving either our packs or a re-supply of rations that night.
Temperatures that night dropped to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. To this point in the campaign, we had not yet been issued cold weather gear and were still wearing ankle-length leather shoes and canvas leggings with brass hooks and eyelets, and legging laces. As we dug our foxholes, we were reinforced by a 2-gun section of 75mm recoilless rifles and a 2-gun section of heavy machine guns. We stayed in our foxholes all that night and shivered. Because we had been on patrol since early morning, we were wearing only M-1943 field jackets over our utility clothing.
The next morning, and over the next several days, my platoon members began complaining that their hands and feet were hurting from the cold, and I lost my first few Marines to frostbite, mostly new replacements.
The entire 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, including my first platoon, continued aggressive day-long patrolling, engaging the enemy as we encountered them. There were no tents or shelter from the elements of any kind for the rifle platoons. The rifle platoons were generally on long patrols all day, returning to their company positions at about dark. No warming fires were permitted in our front line positions. We just went to our foxholes, ate our evening meal of "C" rations, often as not frozen solid, and established 50% watches for the night. The action was repeated day after day.
On November 14, our company advanced north along the road from Koto-ri toward Hagaru-ri located at the southern tip of the Chosin reservoir, a major objective of our 7th Regiment. At about noon we halted our advance, and I was ordered to use my platoon to construct a footbridge over the Changjin River which flowed north to Hagaru-ri along our route of advance. (The bridge location was in the vicinity of Army Map Series (AMS) Korea, Sheet 6635II, approximate grid coordinates 556614.)
The footbridge was to be used the next day to enable another infantry battalion, the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, to have a "dry-foot" crossing of the river before advancing to Hagaru-ri along the high ground across the river. The Changjin River at that location was about 100 feet across and 6-to-12 inches deep. A tumbling mountain stream, it flowed fairly swiftly over a rock-strewn bottom. A narrow gauge railroad track ran parallel along the east side of the river.
The weather that day was below freezing all day, and the river banks and surrounding hills were covered with 4-to-8 inches of dry powdered snow. We worked building the bridge until nightfall. We used rocks and smaller boulders, pulled with our hands from the riverbed and from along the banks of the river, to build "cribs," upon which we placed railroad ties that we could loosen with our entrenching tools and logs and other debris from the woods along the west side of the river. The building of the bridge involved wading into the stream, pulling up and carrying rocks in our bare hands and building the "cribs" upon which we laid the timbers. The water was so cold in the stream that it was frozen where it pooled naturally, and would freeze quickly where our rock-piling caused it to pool. Pfc. Yeasted was the largest and strongest Marine in my platoon. Because of his size and unusual strength, he spent most of the day going in and out of the water, lifting rocks, positioning them, and carrying and positioning timbers for the bridge.
When we completed our work, I was ordered to dig in for the night in the vicinity of my present position, extending my platoon from the right edge of the river, eastward across the railroad track and across the road. My platoon was the most advanced unit of any toward the enemy that night. It took us well over an hour to chip and dig our foxholes for our night defensive positions. It was hard work and we were extremely tired and cold. Because of our forward positions, again there could be no warming fires.
Our socks, shoes, leggings and trousers were frozen to our legs and feet. Our jacket sleeves where they were wet were frozen around our lower arms and hands. The temperature that night dropped to minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
At about 9:00 p.m. that night, I was ordered to send my troops back about 500 yards to the rear in order to exchange our leather shoes and canvas leggings for new cold weather footwear called "shoe-pacs." It was my understanding that the "shoe-pacs" had just been received in the rear that day. It took several hours to accomplish the exchange for the entire reinforced platoon.
For those who are not familiar with them, the "shoe-pac" was a leather boot top with lacing and with a rubber foot, like a heavy conventional "rubber." It was very poorly designed for cold weather operations. Two pairs of one-half inch thick flat felt inserts, or soles, were issued with each pair of boots; one pair of the inserts was to be placed on the bottoms in each boot, and the other pair was to be placed next to the skin, generally one under each armpit, along with a pair of wool socks. The felt inserts in the boots were supposed to capture the moisture from foot perspiration, and at the end of the day the wet inserts and the wet socks worn that day were to be exchanged with the dry items under the armpits. Body heat would dry the wet inserts and socks over the next twenty-four hours.
This design was not suitable for the combat infantryman's use, particularly for the conditions we were exposed to during November and December 1950 in the Chosin Reservoir campaign.
Rifle platoons were the eyes and ears, and fingers, of the larger units, constantly patrolling, looking and feeling for the enemy. For example, not a day passed between 10 November and 7 December when I was evacuated that my platoon was not involved in a lengthy patrol action, frequently involving contact and combat with our Chinese enemy. The weather was extremely cold, most days below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Between 26 November and 7 December temperatures dropped to 20 to 30 degrees below Fahrenheit. We walked up and down rugged mountains, not too unlike the higher Alleghenies in West Virginia and Pennsylvania in the deep winter. The ground was covered with snow twelve to twenty inches deep.
During combat patrols or in movement to contact operations, our feet would perspire profusely in our rubber-bottomed boots as we walked. Then, for combat, we would be forced to stop, lie on the snow-covered ground, engage in combat and then get up and move again, repeating this activity many times over during the day, and often times, nights and around the clock. During stopped periods our bodies and our feet would be immobilized, and one could actually feel the inserts freezing in the boots. Under these conditions, wiggling the toes in the boots did little to restore circulation, or prevent further freezing. This type of activity resulted in a cycle of repeated freezing and thawing of the feet within the boot.
Quite frequently after stopping for the night and preparing our night defensive positions, we would remove our boots and literally "peel" the frozen inserts from our boots like pulling cheesecloth from a round of cheese. Under these circumstances the daily changing of felt inserts and socks was mostly ineffective, particularly for the Marine infantryman in the rifle platoon.
The morning of November 15 following the bridge-building episode, my platoon was ordered to proceed in advance and to "screen" for the forward elements of the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines in its advance to Hagaru-ri along the road. This resulted in a six-mile forced march for my platoon over the snow-covered, hard-packed road, while wearing the oft-times ill-fitting new footwear. The previous night's shoe-fitting had been done hurriedly and poorly by dim kerosene lantern in a dark tent. As a result, nearly every Marine in my platoon, including PFC Yeasted, reached Hagaru complaining of bloody, blistered feet,as well as the cold.
Over the next several days, I began to lose my Marines, including some of my best NCOs, to the medical evacuation process due to frostbite. In addition to the problems with frozen feet, almost every Marine in the platoon also suffered cold injury to their hands from the ice river and handling the cold stones with bare hands. After a few days we experienced first pain, and then splitting of the skin on our finger tips. The skin would partially heal, but the numbness remained, enabling many of us to handle and retrieve hot rations cans from fire without feeling pain from the heat. Pfc. Yeasted was one of those who suffered both the frozen, blistered feet and the splitting fingers. As the platoon was now reduced in strength below 50% he, like many others, would not go to the battalion aid station for relief. He was concerned that if he did, he would be evacuated, as he had seen happen to other platoon members. Parenthetically, every Marine still alive today who served in my platoon in Korea in the period described above, complains about painful feet and hands in wet and/or cold weather, and a tingling sensation and coldness in the feet almost constantly. Pfc. Yeasted is no exception.
Before the campaign was over, almost every man in my reinforced platoon had been killed or wounded by enemy action, and/or lost due to severe frostbite.
During the period from about November 17 to November 22 prior to the battalion commencing the advance North from Hagaru to Yudam-ni, my platoon was assigned the mission as a platoon-sized combat outpost located some 2 miles to the northwest of the remainder of the battalion in Hagaru and in the vicinity of the geographic region of P'eygouk. The position was on a cold, fully exposed snow-covered hilltop. It snowed frequently during this period and the platoon, including Pfc. Yeasted, patrolled out from the outpost to the west and northwest daily, moving five to six mile over the frozen mountainous terrain each day, seeking contact with the enemy. The 2d platoon of "A" Company manned a similar outpost several miles to the northeast of my position and under the same conditions.
Pfc. Yeasted was wounded seriously in action on December 3 when he was shot in the shoulder and chest. Because of his wounds, he was placed aboard a truck, along with dead Marines and other non-ambulatory wounded for movement along the evacuation route. The supply column of trucks, jeeps, and artillery, moved along a road, surrounded by attacking Chinese Army units until the 1st Marine Division was able to withdraw back to Hagaru from the vicinity of Yudam-ni, some fifteen miles to the northwest of Hagaru. An expeditionary airfield had been constructed at Hagaru for medical evacuation purposes. Thus, while wounded on 3 December, Pfc. Yeasted's cold injuries were further aggravated by being immobilized aboard the truck in sub-zero temperatures for four more days before he was evacuated from Hagaru to a hospital in Japan on 7 December.
Substantiating information concerning environmental and topographical conditions, temperature extremes, and the nature of the combat that Pfc Yeasted encountered in November and December of 1950 during the Chosin Reservoir campaign where he received his cold injuries, are well documented in official Marine Corps history and can be obtained by writing to the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Branch, U.S. Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, DC.
If additional information concerning the circumstances surrounding then Pfc Yeasted's cold injuries is needed, you may contact me at the address listed below. [signed - Col. (Ret.) James W. Stemple, U.S. Marine Corps.]
Ray Walker of Brentwood, Tennessee, was also a frostbite victim from the Chosin Reservoir campaign. He knew full well what an uphill battle it is to file a claim and receive VA benefits for Korean War cold weather injuries. He wrote:
My symptoms were that it feels that I'm putting my feet into a shoe that has a rolled up sock in it, they're numb, at times ache, burn, itch - not constant but the numbness is constant. My neurologist found I have idiopathic (unknown cause) neuropathy of the legs and feet. This can also be caused by diabetes, and diabetes can be caused by cold injury also."
Walker’s advice to other veterans seeking VA assistance was this:
In order to get this done it is IMPERATIVE that the veteran go through a veteran association service officer. I found the VVA (Vietnam Veterans Association) to be the most helpful. If the veteran goes to his own doctor, he should not mention cold injury, but get a neurological exam. Cold injury generally causes a neuropathy that can be determined by a neurologist.
The V.A. doctors are lax in this area - but when given an objective, neurological exam, they've got to act on it. And do not get discouraged. Be sure to file an appeal, and do it through the VVA service officer. Give the VVA service officer the video. He should take it from there. It takes determination.
Also, E-mail to a former Marine, Beltram, at [Please enable JavaScript.]. He lives in Santa Barbara, and is one of those who pioneered the Cold Injury Claims with the V.A. Discouragement is what they count on. The VA doesn't want to spend the money, so you have to be patient and persistent.
The Delaware Commission of Veteran Affairs published a newsletter called, "The Centurion." In Volume 5, Number 2, October-December 1996, the issue of Korean War cold weather injuries was highlighted in the article, "Korean War Veterans’ ‘50s Frostbite Injuries Return to Haunt Them." The text of the article follows:
When former soldiers got together for a reunion, they were astounded. "Everybody was having problems." Thousands of men who limped home from the Korean War, hurt not by bullets but by relentless subzero cold, are making painful discoveries four decades later. Frost-injured limbs that once got better are unexpectedly getting worse with age.
Veterans who quietly overcame their injuries are suffering today from new symptoms that include infections, skin cancer, joint deterioration, and extreme sensitivity to cold. In the worst cases, men are losing limbs to amputation as infections settle into stumps and scars that lack healthy nerves and circulation. Most of the afflicted are veterans who fought and froze on the windblown mountains above North Korea’s Chosin Reservoir—scene of a disastrous battle in which Allied forces were overwhelmed by invading Chinese and by temperatures hovering near 30 below.
I always had problems, but I never paid too much attention to them until I got older, and I started getting worse and worse and worse," said Ernest J. Pappenheimer, a former Marine gunnery sergeant who lost all his toes to frostbite and today leads a national group for cold-injured veterans. "Any front-line soldier or Marine has got to have a problem. And I was probably more fortunate than most of the victims." Pappenheimer, 68, spends winters in Louisiana to escape the cold, returning each spring to his home in Michigan. Even now, at his lakeside house near Flint, his feet burn on chilly nights when the temperature dips below 50. Year-round, his stumps and heels are prone to dangerous infections and wounds that won’t heal. And his joints "crackle like Rice Krispies," a reminder of the deterioration caused by 45 years of walking on stubby feet.
The battle at the Chosin Reservoir lasted about a week toward the end of 1950, ending in retreat. [KWE Note: The withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir was not a "retreat." It was a breakout. - Lynnita] It is assumed that nearly all the 18,000 Allied soldiers and Marines who fought there suffered frostbite or some "cold injury.
Frostbite occurs when ice crystals form inside tissues, destroying cells and blood vessels as they expand. Although less extreme, cold injury is an insidious condition in which prolonged exposure constricts vessels—cutting off circulation like a tourniquet. Extremities can die from lack of blood flow even though they don’t actually freeze. In either case, surviving tissues are often left with damaged blood vessels and nerves. Later, the natural forces of aging, such as impaired circulation, can make once manageable ailments intolerable. No doubt, the phenomenon has been experienced by other frostbite victims—from veterans of ancient wars to children lost in snowy woods. But the victims were scattered by time and place, their symptoms poorly understood until a group of men who fought under the same extreme conditions came together: The Chosin Few.
It happened in a San Diego hotel in 1985. Several hundred veterans were gathering for the first meeting of a national organization called the Chosin Few. The former Marines and soldiers had met to reminisce. But as they looked around, they were dumbfounded. "Everybody was having problems walking, getting up," said Pappenheimer. They complained of excess sweating, malformed toenails, infected stumps, skin cancer. Many had moved south to escape cold winters. The revelation that cold injuries were revisiting so many veterans mobilized the Chosin Few. Pappenheimer helped organize a committee that educates veterans and doctors about the latent effects of frostbite and cold injury.
The Chosin Few sent delegations to Washington, finally persuading the Department of Veterans Affairs to change its outlook toward ex-servicemen disabled by the cold. The government is now approving about 600 claims a year, many of them filed by veterans of Korea. A turning point occurred in 1994, when the Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to stop denying disability payments to veterans who cannot produce evidence that their symptoms stem from their service at the front. It was an important reversal because many troops had thawed out in first-aid stations and returned to battle without any record made of their injuries.
Although the government is approving some claims, the Chosin Few contend the message has not filtered down to veterans hospitals and claims centers. They say doctors know little about delayed symptoms, and have unfairly dismissed complaints as psychological—even if the veterans fought at the frozen reservoir. This, they say, has led to benefits being denied unjustly. The government compensates about 30,000 people for disabilities resulting from frostbite and cold injury, according to the VA. They include veterans who survived the prison camps and battlefields of World War II as well as Korea. (Dept. of Vets. Affairs, Daily News Summary, 5/7/96)
Excerpt from "Winter on the Mountain Top" found in S/Sergeant Sarno's memoir on the Korean War Educator:
It didn’t take long for Sarno and the others to understand why the Charlie tankers were so happy to see their replacements arrive. "Let me tell you," he said. "We froze our gajonies off each and every night on that coldest of steel chariots. It was cold beyond imagination. We knew it was cold down in the valley, but on the mountain top, the wind never stopped any day or night. That wind coming out of Siberia was incessant, and at night time the temperature dropped to 35 below and lower." Sarno said that everything was iced up so much that they didn’t even receive competition from the enemy. "We had everything the Marine Corps could give us to keep warm," he recalled, "but our first two nights were ungodly unbearable. We thought we were properly clothed, but by two o’clock in the morning we were crying—crying body pain from the cold. The intense cold contracted our muscles so tight the pain was excruciating, so much so that it caused tears to flow." He said that by the end of their guard duty that night, their only goal was to just stay alive in the cold. "For sure," Sarno said, "this was our devilish frozen hell on earth, and our internalized mission was to fight and to endure." He said that the temperatures were so low that all five tanks had to be started up every three hours and left to idle for one hour to prevent the gasoline-fed engines from freezing up solid.
Excerpt from "Southern Attack" found in the Gunny's memoir on the Korean War Educator:
When Yudam-ni was abandoned, a long train of vehicles and troops started on a 35-mile journey to the south. First it would be Hagaru, then Koto-ri, and the trek down a treacherous mountain road. I didn't have a thermometer, but was told by others (and it was documented in later reports), that it got as cold as 35 degrees below zero, made even more intense by a strong north wind. It got so cold that some of the vehicles could not be started without a tow. There was plenty of snow, so dry that you could melt a cup of it and get very little water from it. I don't recall it being very deep. I think it was the kind of snow you get with strong winds--the kind that drifted in places.
It was so cold some of the weapons did not function well. It was also so cold that our canned C rations froze. I can recall chipping away at a can of frozen franks and beans, one bean at a time. For the most part, I took the little round cakes of dried cocoa furnished in the C rations and ate that along with whatever candy might be among the box of rations for the day. Heating them up was next to impossible, besides the fact that no one wanted to draw the enemy's attention with smoke from a fire. Using a cooking table (lighting a match to it) was not sufficient to thaw the food.
We were always cold and hesitated to expose our bare body to the elements even to cope with our bodily functions. While at Chosin, I don't recall saving at all, and bathing was just face and hands for the most part. In 35 degrees below zero--no way. Also, we did not have the opportunity. We wore several layers of clothing to try to keep warm. It was hard to keep our clothes dry, but at times we took the chance and lit a fire, until we had to put it out for fear of the enemy seeing it. We had also been issued a type of boot called a "Shoe-Pac." They caused feet to sweat when walking, and when you stopped, if you stood still for very long the sweat started to freeze. I understand that this caused a lot of frost bite. I had previously switched to my boondockers (shoes), and because of that, I think that I faired much better than many others. I came out with only a slight case of frost bite. The bitter cold made me appreciate heat when it finally became available to me. Living in northern Michigan, I now notice how sensitive my feet are to the cold. There is no doubt this will forever be a lasting reminder of my involvement in the Chosin Reservoir campaign."
Excerpt from "Reserve Area" found in Corpsman Fly's memoir on the Korean War Educator:
Fly was not only learning the ropes as a newcomer to combat situations, he was also experiencing the cold of Korea for the first time. While his company had the latest in cold weather gear, the men still got very cold. Shortly after Fly joined his company on the front line, the company began its march to the rear to be in a reserve area for a few weeks. It was a march that remained fresh in his memory for decades. "During that march, late at night (so the enemy would not be aware of our movements), we had a snow storm every bit as bad as our Pickle Meadows experience stateside," Fly recalled. "During the night, I had to drop my backpack and run to answer a call for corpsman, thinking someone might be hurt. For example, just before the snowstorm started, two men were getting very thirsty and dehydrated. The officers asked for permission to use chlorine tables to purify ditch water. I decided that the water was just too contaminated and the chlorine tabs would not kill all the pathogens. The ditch water in Korea was more lethal than any sewer waste you can imagine. I respectfully said, ‘No Sir.’ As I walked back to get my backpack, the snow started flying furiously. And as I placed my backpack on my back, the Marines were already out of sight. Though the snow was getting thicker and deeper, I followed my sense of direction, which had never failed me. As day broke, I was extremely thirsty from the long march. I spotted the reserve campsite and was looking forward to drinking some cold water, for in spite of the snow and cold, I was sweating. But all I found was hot coffee. I drank a pot full, spread my shelter half on the ground, placed my sleeping bag on top of the shelter half, got in and slept till noon.