Scrounging in Korea

Scrounges

With supplies and materials difficult to obtain, the U.S. military was a valuable source because of its habit of discarding innumerable useful items. Koreans had a bonanza for many years, and all kinds of items “made in the U.S.A.” could be found in the markets. In a country so desperately poor, the Americans were regarded as immensely wealthy … and therefore it was right to use any means possible, including stealing, to secure what they wanted for themselves. In many cases a legal arrangement was made. For instance, sometimes a farmer would have a contract with a military unit to take away garbage which could be fed to pigs. Yet often it seemed that tremendous waste of materials bought with U.S. tax dollars was involved.

Missionaries too had the “scrounge fever,” and I was infected over and over again. I have already told how I had just arrived in Korea in 1948 when the local Military Advisory Unit pulled out and the American officers told us to come and carry off furniture and all removable items for their cottages … which I did, and thereby supplied many of our Chonju homes. But the three greatest successes of my scrounging career are related here.

The Cement Scrounge

By 1954 the Soh-seng-won church in the village where everyone had leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) had outgrown its original mud, stick, and straw building and needed a new church. I have described elsewhere how they eventually put up a brick building for which we were able to provide some help and toward which they contributed liberally in spite of their poverty. Here is the story of how we secured cement for this construction, and also most of the large timbers.

Cement for building was non-attainable in this era just after the end of the Korean War, even if the congregation could have afforded it. But the Lord, with the help of the U.S. Airforce, provided.

10/25/54. Wednesday I spent all day at Kunsan and vicinity in the hope of getting some materials for the leper colony church but got nowhere on it, mainly because the man I wanted to see at the airbase had gone to Japan. He had told me several days previously that the Australians had left several hundred bags of cement he thought we could get… Thursday Mr. Linton picked up word that some materials might be available at another source in Kunsan at the airbase so I went over again (with Bob Smith). This particular lead turned out to be a wild goose chase, but I accidentally stumbled on another situation which will be quite a windfall. A colonel of the engineers there is anxious to get a cement warehouse cleaned up and will give us all the broken bags and loose cement on the floor. I went over to look at the warehouse and it is about the biggest I ever saw and we estimate that there is in the neighborhood of 2000 bags of cement, mostly loose, which is available, and it may be more than that. It is not first class stuff since some of the “air” has gone out of it, but it will do by using a little stronger mixture. Since our leper colony church will take only about one-tenth of this amount we are getting the rest for the new girls’ school building, and the total value of the stuff will likely be four or five thousand dollars which we are getting simply for the trouble, labor, and transportation cost by merely sweeping it up and bagging it and bringing it over here.

On the way to see the warehouse with the sergeant, I asked, “How much cement is there to be cleaned up?” “I don’t know, there are broken and leaking bags all over the floor … it’s probably several inches deep!” We gasped when we saw the place … just about the biggest warehouse we had ever seen. The sergeant claimed that there had been 500,000 bags of cement stored there to build run-ways, and we believed him. Returning to Chonju we rounded up a crew of workmen, purchased tools and several hundred rice straw bags (used to hold about 200 pounds of rice) and returned to the airbase. It was necessary to negotiate with various authorities and the provost marshal for passes for these workmen to get on and off the base. We persuaded the railway company to let us have some box cars and got permission for them to enter the base and for trucks to come in to move the cement to them, and so on.

Our workmen were busy for a whole month, gathering up what was left in broken bags, shovelling up loose cement (often several feet deep), and even collecting the enormous wooden timbers and metal run-way strips which had been used to keep the cement bags off the damp ground. All of this was as instructed by the sergeant, who was happy not to have to send his own men in for such hot dirty work.

11/19/54. I got up at five Monday morning and came in here (from a country trip) in time for breakfast and then drove to Kunsan to get a couple of more boxcars to haul cement from the airbase. We got two box cars with 1700 bags last Saturday and Dwight has gone over today to get the remaining 800 or 900 bags plus about 75 large pieces of timber lying around in that warehouse which they have given us permission to have. The whole operation should give us about $5000 worth of stuff and the cost of getting it will be negligible in comparison.

At the end of the month four large box-cars, loaded to the ceiling, and probably carrying twice the permitted tonnage for each car, arrived in Chonju. Again we hired trucks to take what was needed the twelve miles out to the location of the church and the rest we sent up to where Mr. Linton was preparing to build the new Kijun Girls’ School building there in Chonju. He too was having trouble getting cement, and here was all that was needed. In the case of both the church and the school, by using a heavier than normal mixture this cement was used for foundations and for laying brick, but would not have been strong enough for finer work because of having been exposed to the air in that warehouse. The big timbers (otherwise almost impossible to buy in Korea) provided the roof trusses for the church, and the metal run-way strips were excellent to use on scaffolding for both buildings.

After figuring up the costs for paying, feeding, and boarding our workmen, purchase of shovels and bags, and the renting of trucks and box cars, I calculated that our cement cost about ten cents per bag, each of which had somewhere between 100 and 200 pounds of cement. This totalled thousands of dollars of savings for the two projects. Let me add that both buildings are still in full use, and we Americans can be proud that good use was made of the wastefulness of our fine airmen!

The Tent Scrounge

In the years immediately after the Korean War, churches were starting so fast we could hardly keep track of them. In 1955 there were 50 (just about 1 a week) started in North Chulla Province, which was the area of responsibility of Chonju station. These new Christians were far too poor to build churches and yet places for worship were an immediate necessity. We were besieged with delegations coming from far and wide asking for help. Sometimes we were able to get hold of and remodel an old abandoned house and make it over, but even that was not always possible. Many requests came for tents. We did not have any, but in some places Christians had already acquired old U.S. Army tents and fixed them up as “churches.”

One day in March, 1955, I heard somehow that the Kunsan airbase was disposing of some old tents because the men were being provided with better quarters (quonset huts). I went to Kunsan and was sent to Lt. Bill Boone, a Presbyterian from Seattle who was most friendly and helpful. He showed me all the “salvage canvass” he had for disposal, but told me it would be necessary to bid on it when it was sold in large lots at auction in Seoul three days later. But he called a captain in Seoul who agreed to hold back the tents from the sale if we could see him in person and make an arrangement before that date. Fortunately I found a seminary student going to Seoul right away and sent word by him to Pete Mitchell, our mission business manager, authorizing up to $100.00 for at least six squad tents. That size tent is 16 by 32 feet and makes a good meeting place for 75 or 100 Koreans seated on straw mats on the floor.

When there was no reply after a few days I returned to the airbase. Bill Boone said he had received no word as yet, but we managed to get a call through to Pete who said he got the whole pile of tents for $60.00 and that I could collect them as soon as a paper he is sending reaches me. I learned later that, when Pete visited the captain in charge, he found him friendly and sympathetic. He asked how much he should bid. “Oh, maybe $60.00 for the lot,” was the reply. “Okay,” and the deal was sealed without waiting for any other bidders. In due time I received the paper with which to claim my “surplus canvass.”

Having been told that it was 6000 pounds I rented a 3-ton truck and found some workmen and drove to Kunsan. With the paper work done, I led my truck over to where the canvass was piled up on the ground. As we began to load all sorts of tents and huge tarpaulins, the truck driver looked at the pile and said, “This will take 6 truck loads.” “No,” I insisted, “6000 pounds is 3 tons which is what your truck will carry.” But he was right … instead of 6000 pounds it must have been 60,000. This required negotiating for permission to have a 40-foot railway gondola car moved on to the base, and the truck had to make more than 6 trips to fill it. In those days this kind of cargo was so precious that it necessitated putting some of our men aboard to guard it all the way to Chonju and in the railway depot there while we figured out what to do with the haul.

It so happened that Mr. Linton had started building the Kijun Girls’ School but had suddenly had to leave for an operation in the States, leaving me in charge of the construction which had just begun. Materials were piled around the site and had to be guarded at night anyhow, so I had all my canvass moved up there and spread out on the grounds to dry and sort. We never saw so much canvass in our lives! Even after discarding the stuff that was too rotten or damaged to use, we had about 70 usable squad tents (20 of them almost new), and a number of smaller ones, and 20 immense tarpaulins plus 30 smaller ones which had evidently been used at the airbase to cover enormous stock-piles of materials. In addition there were jeep tops, canvas water bags, gun covers, awnings, truck covers, etc. Someone told me that a squad tent cost the army $450.00 new. Just what my haul was worth, I have no idea, but it cost me just about $200.00 for the whole operation. But then, what to do with all this stuff?

Mr. Linton was starting the mission college in Taejon, 65 miles away. When he returned from the States, we shipped most of the tarps to Taejon where they were extremely valuable in the construction of his building out in an open rural area without other warehouses or shelters. Then I allocated up to 6 tents to each of the missionary evangelists in the three provinces where we worked, charging them a couple of dollars for each tent so that I recouped my investment in this scrounge. I kept about 20 for myself and stored them in our basement until they could be loaned out to help start churches. We set up a system of letting new places borrow them. As a result a number of the tents were used more than once, although they tended to deteriorate pretty fast since they were old to begin with and exposure and use damaged them further. I took one large squad tent up to the Noh-goh-dan camp site in the Chidi San mountains where we used it on our family vacation for two summers. Other tarps were most useful in a variety of ways. But, most importantly, scores of Korean congregations can look back upon these tents as the first place of Christian worship in their village.

It gave me some satisfaction to remember that there is a good precedent for missionaries getting into the tent business!

The Quonset Scrounge

When we arrived in Chonju in the fall of 1948, the athletic field of the Shinheung Boys’ School was covered with quonset huts left behind by a U.S. army unit which had been stationed there. These buildings take their name from the place where they were first manufactured: Quonset, Rhode Island. My dictionary describes a quonset hut as: “a prefabricated, metal shelter shaped like the longitudinal half of a cylinder resting on its flat surface.” Mr. W. A. Linton was principal of the school and dismantled the buildings to use for re-roofing school and other mission buildings. Such buildings were extremely valuable, since the galvanized sheet metal roofing was practically indestructible.

We always coveted these quonsets and were anxious to get some. Early in December of 1956 we had permission to spend the day Christmas shopping in the airbase PX. Late in the afternoon the chaplain’s assistant told me that the chaplain had sent word for me to see a certain person and I could get some quonsets. I could not find the officer but left a note with him to the effect that we would be glad to dismantle and remove from the base any buildings they didn’t want … I knew they had been paying Koreans to take them away.

A day or so later Tommy Taylor had word that 3 quonsets were available so the next morning we sent Frank Keller over to get the proper permissions for us to take Korean laborers in to dismantle them. He returned that night with word that 6 buildings were available. This called for immediate action! At 5:30 the next morning Tommy Taylor, John Moore and I took 8 laborers to Kunsan where we found the sergeant who took us to the officer in charge. He was already celebrating the holiday season pretty generously and was none too alert as to what was going on. “Take any you want,” he said. The sergeant led us to “Marine Hill.” During the Korean War a marine radar station had been on this hill at the edge of the airport overlooking the Yellow Sea. Their former base and any buildings remaining on it would revert to the Korean government at the first of the New Year. I asked the sergeant which ones we could take. “Take all you want except this one they plan to use for an officers’ club.” I replied, “That’s a dangerous thing to tell missionaries!” but he didn’t seem to care.

We were flabbergasted with the possibility of removing virtually a whole marine camp consisting of about 23 quonsets and 16 vertical sided metal buildings … one of them 75 by 20 feet in size. We began trying to take apart one of the buildings, which are put together with screws and bolts. You can imagine what the salt air blowing in off the western sea had done to those metal parts during the years! It was apparent that this would be no easy job, especially with the bitter cold wind and occasionally heavily swirling snow sweeping in off the ocean. But gradually our men got the knack of taking the buildings apart. Meanwhile I looked around and saw that here was a huge bonanza far too valuable to keep to ourselves. Driving back into Kunsan City I telegraphed each of our other stations: “Come and get it!”

That day we brought one quonset and a lot of tin back to Chonju. The next day we repeated the schedule and came back with 2 quonsets and a lot more tin. Bob Gould had arrived from Taejon that morning and took back a truck load that night. Mr. Linton and Bobby Talmage also came down from Taejon on Friday and went back with more loot … these buildings will mean wonders to the college, providing dormitory space, barns, roofs, etc. Friday night Tommy Brown and Herb Codington came to Chonju and we all went to the airbase Saturday. I took my gang of men over Saturday and got an estimated 500 to 600 sheets of tin, while Herb and Tommy got most of a quonset. R. K. Robinson from Mokpo and Mr. E. T. Boyer with the Wilson Leper Colony truck from Soonchun showed up at the base on Saturday. John Folta and Dwight Linton from Kwangju joined in. Eventually almost all the able bodied men of the mission got in on the scrounge.

In about a week the hill was picked clean. Mr. Boyer carted off an undisclosed number of box-car loads to be used in Soonchun for schools and for the Wilson Leprosy Colony. Mr. Linton took them to Taejon where they became dormitories for the new college, warehouses, and a garage. R. K. and Dwight took them for station buildings in Mokpo and Kwangju. Herb Codington used them to create additional wards for the tuberculosis patients at his hospital. I took them to Chonju for a station garage, for a building to house the mission press which had just received a consignment of surplus U.S. Army printing equipment, for the Kijun girls’ school to use for roofing (but they used it for a rural church instead), and to roof a new mission residence Tommy Taylor was building. I laid aside a good supply in the attic of our home and later took it up to the summer camp we developed in the mountains to roof the cabin we built there.

Uncle Sam’s brave marines can be proud of a job well done in support of so many projects of the Presbyterian Mission in the southwestern corner of the Korean peninsula!

Transcribed from Joe B. Hopper, “Scrounges,” in Thirty-Eight Years Below the Thirty-Eighth (unpublished manuscript, 1991). The chapter was dropped from the abridged published edition, Mission to Korea (Providence House Publishers, 1999).