Chambersburg man recalls defending Pork Chop Hill during Korean War

(Chambersburg) — The heroics and victories of World War II were fresh in young men’s minds when Cliff McClelland dropped out of school in 1948 to join the Army.

“Kids that age couldn’t wait to get in,” he said.

But by the time Platoon Sgt. McClelland defended Pork Chop Hill in 1953 during the Korean War, the politics of a modern world had rolled back warfare to World War I.

“It was trench warfare,” McClelland said. “Unfortunately if you were on the hill when the Chinese hit you had to take care of yourself. It was pretty chaotic. You could get separated from your buddies. They would be isolated in different areas. Each bunker was like its own fire post. The idea was to hold on until help comes.”

McClelland held on and rotated out of Korea with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

“It was good to know I got out of there,” he said.

McClelland completed a 21-year career in the Army, including two tours in Vietnam. He worked another 39 years for government contractors. He helped with the coding of the telemetry on the first Space Shuttle, which he saw take off and land. He worked at Site R, the “Underground Pentagon,” and retired to Chambersburg in 2008.

McClelland, 84, has looked back on the battle for the small mountain in rural Korea. United Nations soldiers and Chinese troops attacked and counter-attacked over what became part of the demilitarized zone after the war. Thousands were wounded or killed.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” McClelland said. “Why go through all this and turn it over to them? All the people killed up there, it makes you think. It’s 60 years later, and I have hindsight. What was the strategic plan that went into it? Why put the effort into it and give it up? I guess it was an embarrassment to the Army for the Chinese to take it. “You don’t think about it at the time. You’re just glad to be out.”

First trained for an anti-tank and mine platoon, the Indiana native served with occupation forces in Germany until the start of the Korean War. He was shipped across the Atlantic, then across Pacific. On lay over in the states, he married Charlotte, his childhood sweetheart.

His voyage aboard the Marine Carp from Seattle to Korea took more than 20 days. It was cold.

“We were packed in there like sardines,” he said. “Everybody was sick, barfing everywhere.”

His unit was assigned to Pork Chop Hill where almost every night they strung concertina wire in front of the U.N. lines. The hill was the length of a couple of football fields.

McClelland would check in with each fighting position before stringing wire in the sector so the troops would not toss hand grenades at them.

“They didn’t know who was down there,” McClelland said. “All they knew is that they heard a noise. They were ready to shoot you. A time or two I heard a handle pop, and you had three or four seconds (to find cover). It was just dumb luck we weren’t killed.”

He also did a lot of waiting.

“You think about home, your wife, how many more days I have,” McClelland said. “You try not to think about them coming up there after you and that they’re gonna shoot you and kill you. When they do, everything is blanked out. You’re just hanging on trying to stay alive.”

The Chinese interfered with U.N. calls for reinforcements by jamming radios and cutting the wires between headquarters and the outpost on the hill.

“A half-dozen men would be in the command post,” McClelland said. “You’d plug up all the holes where they could throw a grenade and fire burp guns. If you happened to be in an exposed spot you could get it.”

Incoming artillery also flattened bunkers and trapped soldiers under four-by-fours and sandbags where the Chinese killed them.

McClelland lost the hearing in his left ear when an explosion blew out his ear drum.

He lost a buddy when a “bouncing betty” anti-personnel mine took off half his head.

“I wrote a letter to his wife,” McClelland said. “I probably shouldn’t have. At 19 I didn’t know what to say. We all felt bad. I was trying to ease some of the pain. He was one of the best men. He would probably have been the next platoon sergeant.

“You had a fast turnover. They were there eight or nine months, if they lasted that long.”

The Chinese held the higher hills around Pork Chop Hill and lobbed mortars on anything or anyone moving to the hill.

“Most of the stuff going on on Pork Chop Hill was at night,” McClelland said. “For some reason the Chinese thought we couldn’t fight at night.”

During a Chinese attack on May 8, 1953, McClelland led his men across open ground to resupply soldiers on the hill with ammunition, according to his Bronze Star commendation. The men were not armed for prolonged fighting and did not have assigned positions. They later evacuated the wounded.

“You basically tried to keep your butt down,” McClelland said.

Jim Hook can be reached at 717-262-4759.

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This article comes to us through a partnership between Public Opinion and WITF.