“He told all our friends I was dead!”
By Dylan C. Fox
Joseph Lawrence Annello
April 5, 1933 – November 8, 2018
Annello’s portrait in his dress uniform. (Courtesy of www.iamthevoluntourist.com)[31]
While twentieth-century conflicts like World War II and the Vietnam War remain embedded in the American cultural consciousness, the Korean War has often been described as “forgotten” for its relative lack of representation and acknowledgment despite costing the lives of 36,914 American servicemen and an estimated 2,661,509 Korean civilians.[1] Over more than three years the war raged across almost the entirety of the Korean peninsula, involved the military forces of 20 nations, and was frozen in a perpetual stalemate by an armistice that did not officially end the war. Both north and south of the 38th parallel that divides Korea, service personnel often endured overwhelming odds and hardships – one such soldier being Joseph L. Annello.
Joe Annello was born on April 5, 1933 to Larry and Sue Annello in Boston, Massachusetts. By the age of 6, Joe’s mother and father were likely experiencing financial difficulties as they lived in a house rented by Joe’s grandfather Joseph Annello, an Italian immigrant who worked as a street peddler while Larry was out of work.[2] In 1950, after finishing his third year of high school, Joe made the decision to run away from home along with a friend. As he recalled the story: “Well, one day a friend of mine and I were sitting around Boston and we decided we wanted to see the world, so we ran away from home, and we went to join the navy. However, my friend couldn’t pass the physical, so we went down to the second floor in the Boston Post Office and joined the army. … We were adventurous kids and we wanted to get out and see the world and I think we both knew that our parents didn’t want us to join the service.”[3] The two friends were then split up for the rest of their service as Joe was sent to basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey. While originally slated for deployment to West Germany, Joe swapped assignments with another friend and was stationed in Fort Devens 30 miles from Boston, which gave him the chance to mend relations with his parents.
Joe’s time at Fort Devens was over in a short three months as his division, the 3rd Infantry, was shipped to Japan after the outbreak of the Korean War. While in a camp to the north of the city of Beppu, Joe was assigned to heavy weapons duty and simultaneously assisted in the training of South Korean recruits.[4] When Joe and the 3rd Infantry arrived in the North Korean port of Wonsan in October of 1950 it appeared United Nations forces had the upper hand in the war and General Douglas Macarthur (in)famously declared he intended to see the war over by Christmas.[5] Yet, on the 25th of October, the People’s Republic of China intervened to assist their North Korean allies. The tides of war began to rapidly shift with the introduction of the Chinese and Joe eventually found himself embroiled in some of the most grueling conflicts of the entire war – the Battle of Chosin Reservoir and Operation Killer.[6]
The Battle of the Chosin Reservoir occurred over the course of 17 days amid biting winter weather and rocky terrain. Despite still being only 17, Joe’s company was so understrength that he had been made a squad leader.[7] Some of the bitter conditions of the battle are best recounted in Joe’s own words: “I didn’t drink coffee in those days, but I would take the coffee and keep it cupped in my hands, just to warm my hands. … Our foods were frozen so bad you couldn’t break them up with a bayonet. If you were lucky enough to be close to a tank, they would punch a hole in the top of your C-rations and put them on the tank [and] in about five or ten minutes you’d have it boiling hot. If you were lucky to be near a tank! … We were sleeping on the open ground under the stars, in the snow, in a foxhole. We couldn’t dig foxholes; the ground was so frozen.”[8] During the battle, UN forces were encircled by the combined communist offensive but managed to break out and retreat, inflicting heavy casualties while ultimately forced to retreat back to South Korea beyond the 38th parallel.[9]
By April of 1951, Joe and the 3rd Infantry Division were embroiled in the UN counteroffensive Operation Killer and sent to relieve embattled friendly forces on the Kansas defensive line. On the 24th, just after night had fallen, Joe and 21 other Americans were surprised by several Chinese divisions that surrounded their positions. He and his men had their communications cut off and Joe was shot in the legs while crossing foxholes under fire. Before Joe could respond he was then hit by the shrapnel of a grenade blast that injured his spine and knocked him unconscious. Joe awoke to the prodding of a Chinese bayonet and was dragged hundreds of yards to other captured UN soldiers as he was unable to walk.[10] Among the captured was Joe’s friend Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura, who carried Joe for 10 miles until their captors told Miyamura to leave Joe behind; Miyamura initially refused but Joe insisted, believing it to be best for his friend.[11] Joe lay in a ditch for days without food, water, or medical attention until he was recaptured by another group of patrolling Chinese soldiers.[12]
The patrol loaded Joe into a cart and took him around 50 miles north to a Chinese outpost. For several weeks, the disparate group of Americans and a Turkish soldier survived off scavenged grass and endured dysentery from river water, all while attempting to take care of a comrade who had gone into shock from an infected leg wound.[13] Joe pleaded with his captors for a knife to perform an emergency amputation on the soldier’s injured leg but was he was denied each time; when the soldier succumbed to his wounds, Joe wrapped the body in his poncho and buried him in an empty kimchi cellar.[14]
Knowing they only had a few weeks before they would suffer similar fates, the group began plotting an escape. Lieutenant Melvin Shadduck of the Air Force, the only one capable of walking, volunteered to swim down the Imjin River and send for help. The next time Shadduck went to fetch water he quietly slipped into the river, where he alternated swimming at night and hiding during the day for 72 hours until he made contact with a group of South Korean soldiers.[15] Shadduck then relayed the position of the Chinese camp to the 1st Cavalry Division, which sent in a task force of tanks and aircraft to liberate the prisoners. By the morning of the fourth day after Shadduck’s escape, just after the sun came up, air support began strafing the entire Chinese camp beside the prisoner hut Shadduck described. Joe called it “the happiest moment of [his] life” as he watched a convoy of American tanks roll into the camp 30 minutes later. The liberated POWs were strapped to the sides of the tanks and rode for three hours until the task force reached a field hospital; from there, Joe was evacuated by a helicopter of the famous Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) and was cycled through three different hospitals in Japan while recuperating.[16]
Despite his arduous experience and injuries, Joe reenlisted and attempted to return to Korea: “When I came back, I really felt guilty about a lot of my friends who were still over there. I really did. And I tried to volunteer to go back, and I re-enlisted.”[17] Yet, military regulations prevented deployment to a country where a POW was captured; Joe instead took an offer from the Pentagon to learn Japanese at the Army Language School and join the Tokyo-based 500th Military Intelligence Group.[18] In 1953, while traveling to Monterey, California for language training, Joe picked up a months-old copy of Newsweek and came across an article detailing the repatriation of Hershey Miyamura after 28 months of captivity in North Korea.[19] Joe was stunned to learn that not only was his friend alive but he had also been awarded the Medal of Honor – the first to be classified as top secret to avoid retaliation from his captors. With a new mission in mind, Joe set out to track down Miyamura: “When I found out that Hershey was still alive, I drove to Gallup, New Mexico to see him. When I walked into the place that he was working, he turned white as a sheet and said, ‘My God, you’re dead!’ When I assured him that I was still alive, he said that he had told all of our friends that I was dead!”[20]
Annello and Miyamura pose together. (Courtesy of www.iamthevoluntourist.com)
After reuniting with Miyamura, Joe completed his training at the Army Language School and took up his assignment in Tokyo with the 500th Military Intelligence Group. With the beginning of direct US involvement in the Vietnam War during 1955, Joe was sent over to Vietnam four times to serve in an advisory capacity and spent an estimated 120 days there.[21] As an advisor, intelligence officer, and sergeant-major, Joe’s duties in Vietnam were mainly focused on collecting information about “the health, morale, and welfare of the troops, what they were thinking.”[22] In 1959, Joe married Jung (Joan) Ae Choi, whose uncle happened to be one of the Korean recruits that Joe trained prior to his deployment in the war.[23] After 20 years, Joe retired from the army on August 1, 1970. His exemplary service earned him an impressive list of medals, including: “[A] Silver Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Prisoner of War Medal, Good Conduct Medal (7th Award), Japanese Occupation Medal, Korean Service Medal (3 Battle stars), Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Korean Defense Service Medal, United Nations Korean Service Medal and several other service medals.”[24] He used his GI benefits to study at the University of Massachusetts, where he graduated with degrees in civil engineering and business administration.[25]
After two decades of service and his experience as a POW, Joe spent much of his civilian life content to leave many of his memories from Korea in the past. Yet, the memories seemed to begin seeking him out. In 2000, while living in Oregon, Joe answered an unexpected knock on his door that turned out to be the daughter of Melvin Shadduck, the pilot that escaped the POW camp. Shadduck’s daughter informed Joe that Melvin had passed away from natural causes. After the visit from Shadduck’s daughter and a subsequent stroke a year later, Joe became aware that “we [didn’t] have much time left,” and made a vow to reconnect with the remaining POWs.[26] Joe reached out to his former brothers in arms, Hershey Miyamura, David Hammond, Billy Christopholous, and Gene Ramos, for a get-together in Las Vegas; there, Joe’s wife Joan heard about the groups’ experience for the first time.[27] After Las Vegas, Joe began to share his experience more and he became a frequent sight at memorial parades and veterans’ breakfasts – often accompanied by Miyamura or other Colorado veterans.[28]
In 2007, Joe experienced a unique kind of closure to his POW experience. He joined the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) on a mission to South Korea to recover the body of the soldier buried in the kimchi cellar.[29] During the search, a curious Korean man asked what they were doing and, when the team explained their mission, the man revealed he was the son of a farmer who provided Melvin Shadduck food during his escape. The man led Joe and the JPAC team right to the soldier’s remains and tearfully explained that his father was executed days later by Chinese soldiers for assisting Shadduck. Joe told the man that, “…because of his father’s efforts, five soldiers had gone on to freedom and life back in their own countries. For this, we were eternally grateful to him.”[30]
Joseph Lawrence Annello passed away on November 8, 2018. He was laid to rest by the Army Honor Guard, his life-long friend Hiroshi Miyamura, and is survived by his wife Joan. The intricacies, tragedy, and heroism of both Annello and Miyamura’s incredible stories serve as a sober reminder of what is lost if the “forgotten war” continues to be underrepresented.
Footnotes ↓
[1] “History,” Korean War Memorial Foundation, accessed August 15, 2021, http://kwmf.org/history/.
[2] “1940 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Joseph Annallo [sic].
[3] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 1),” Douglas County Libraries, accessed August 15, 2021, https://archives.dcl.org/digital/collection/doh/id/757/rec/294. 1:05.
[4] Ibid., 11:50.
[5] “'Home by Christmas' - October 1950 to January 1951,” BBC News, May 26, 2010, https://bbc.com/news/10162993.
[6] Richard W. Stewart, “The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention,” ed. John S. Brown, U.S. Army Center of Military History, October 3, 2003, https://history.army.mil/brochures/kw-chinter/chinter.htm.
[7] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 1),” Douglas County Libraries, accessed August 15, 2021, https://archives.dcl.org/digital/collection/doh/id/757/rec/29419:20.
[8] Ibid., 26:30.
[9] Richard W. Stewart, “The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention.”
[10] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 2),” Douglas County Libraries, accessed August 15, 2021, https://archives.dcl.org/digital/collection/doh/id/758/rec/294. 5:00.
[11] JK Yamamoto, “Joe Annello, Friend and Comrade of Hershey Miyamura, Dies at 85,” Rafu Shimpo, December 4, 2018, https://rafu.com/2018/12/joe-annello-friend-and-comrade-of-hershey-miyamura-dies-at-85/
[12] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 2).” 8:30.
[13] Ibid, 15:45.
[14] Joseph L. Annello, “POW Experience of Joe Annello,” Korean War Ex-POW Association, February, 2015, https://koreanwarexpow.org/pow-experience-of-joe-annell0/.
[15] Douglas Larsen, “Air Force Takes Wraps Off Tales Of Fliers Who Escaped from Reds,” The Daily Chronicle [Centralia, WA], July 18, 1955, p. 9. https://newspapers.com/clip/18874910/melvin-shadduck-korean-escape-1955/.
[16] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 2).” 23:15.
[17] Ibid, 39:50.
[18] Ibid, 40:30.
[19] Ibid, 31:30.
[20] Joseph L Annello, “POW Experience of Joe Annello.”
[21] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 2).” 38:45.
[22] Ibid, 39:15.
[23] Nikki Lumbre, “#VeteranOfTheDay Is Army Veteran Joseph L. Annello,” VAntage Point, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, December 1, 2018, https://blogs.va.gov/VAntage/54600/army-veteran-joseph-l-annello/.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Barbara A. Belt and Joseph L. Annello, “Veterans History Project Oral History Interview (Side 2).” 34:15.
[27] Ibid, 36:10.
[28] Colleen O'Connor, “‘Forgotten War’ Never Far from Korean War Veteran's Memories,” The Denver Post, May 6, 2016, https://www.denverpost.com/2010/06/23/forgotten-war-never-far-from-korean-war-veterans-memories/;
Bryan Wendland, “Veterans Form Breakfast Club to Swap Stories,” 9News, July 25, 2018, https://www.9news.com/article/news/veterans-form-breakfast-club-to-swap-stories/73-577471390.
[29] Joseph L. Annello, “POW Experience of Joe Annello.”
[30] Ibid.
[31] “Korean War Veterans Joe Annello and Hiroshi ‘Hershey’ Miyamura,” I Am The Voluntourist, September 25, 2019, http://www.iamthevoluntourist.com/korean-war-veterans-joe-annello-and-hiroshi-hershey-miyamura/.
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