My Father and Puerto Rico’s 65th Infantry Regiment

The American citizens of Puerto Rico are experiencing the ripple effects of the economic and health devastation from the ravages of Hurricane Maria as they wait for electrical power and water services to be restored, more than 90 days after the hurricane struck.  In this devastating moment,  it is important to remember the valiant contributions of thousands of Puerto Ricans in military service to the United States.  This article was  published in the Spring/Fall 2012 The Bronx County Historical Society Journal and was awarded the Carl M. and Nettie M. Halpern Memorial Award  for Best Reminiscence Article.      
                                       

 

PFC Juan Hernandez-Ramos on the left in Korea.

As a little girl, I loved looking in my mother’s “treasure chest” on her dresser.  My small fingers would dip into an Old Masters cigar box and carefully pull out sparkly clusters of  earrings and bright beaded necklaces. There were also two very curious photos of my father.  In one of the sepia-toned snapshots, my father wears soldier’s gear and stands tall and mustached, next to two other soldiers.  In another, he is bent down between two little Asian girls in long dresses.  I asked my father about the pictures and with a mix of pride and nostalgia he said they were taken in a place called Korea.

Like thousands of other Puerto Ricans in the 1950s, my parents came to New York in 1957 and lived in the South Bronx. My parents and older sisters and brother lived in a large four bedroom apartment on Beck Street, near Longwood Avenue.   I was born two years later, the first “New Yorican” in my family.  Growing up, I spoke two languages—Spanish to my mother and English to my father, sisters, and brother.

My father was so strong to me.  Sometimes on Sundays, he would walk my mother, and younger sister and I to Mass at St. Athanasius Church on Tiffany Street, my hand held in his.  His hands felt big and rough.  Later that evening, I would sit beside him on the sofa and laugh along with him as we watched The Jackie Gleason Show on our console black and white TV.  My father was a huge Jackie Gleason fan.  He worked as a hospital orderly and later was a cab driver and  identified with the working class background of Gleason’s characters, especially Ralph Kramden. 

Other evenings, I sat quietly next to him as he diligently practiced his architectural lettering, a home study course he had enrolled in. One especially cold winter day, I awoke feeling enveloped in warmth. My father had placed his winter coat over me as I slept. These moments are special because they were so rare.

With the exception of the two photos in my mother’s jewelry box, there was no other memorabilia of my father’s service in Korea.  It was a chapter my father had lived and put behind him as soon as it was over.  It was not something he ever talked about. 

As a teenager, I grew more curious about my father’s service in Korea.  I learned the Korean War began in 1950.  My parents and older sisters (my brother was not yet born) were living in Puerto Rico.  I wondered how my father could have fought in Korea, when my family was not living in the United States at the time.  When I asked my father about this, he remarked casually that he had served with a Spanish-speaking unit from Puerto Rico. This made me even more curious. 

In college I took a course on the history of Puerto Rico and learned of the complex relationship the island had with the United States.  Puerto Rico was neither a state nor territory and its residents are United States citizens.  It was not until 2000, the year of the 50^th anniversary of the Korean War, that I learned about this unique unit my father served in.

My father had been a solider with the Puerto Ricans of the 65^th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Borinqueneers. Borinquen is the name the Taino Indians had for their island before the Spanish arrived in 1493.  In 1898, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States after Spain’s defeat in the Spanish- American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. The first body of native soldiers was constituted March 2, 1899 when Congress authorized the formation of the Puerto Rico Battalion of  Volunteer Infantry.

Through an act of Congress, the  unit became a part of the Regular Army on June 30, 1908 and was designated the Puerto Rico Provisional Regiment of Infantry.  In 1920, the regiment was re-named the 65th Infantry Regiment.

Prior to the implementation of the Jones Act in 1917, Puerto Ricans were not U.S. citizens and not subject to the draft.  However, threats to the United States from the growing war in Europe and a worldwide outcry and movement away from colonialism compelled Congress to grant citizenship to Puerto Ricans.

A month after Congress passed the Jones Act, the United States entered World War I to help its allies, Britain and France.  Thousands of Puerto Ricans were called into service,  but Puerto Rican battle casualties amounted to 1 killed and five troops wounded, reflecting U.S. Army policy of restricting non-white units to non-combat roles.  Puerto Ricans were sent to guard the Panama Canal Zone and other installations throughout the Caribbean, thus freeing an equal number of American soldiers for combat.  

The Army began sending the 65th overseas in early 1944.  They served mostly in security missions including protecting supply depots, roads and railroads and airfields from attack. The 65^th received battle participation credits for the Napples, Foggia, Rome-Arno, Central Europe and Rhineland Campaigns. saw action in Italy, Central Europe and the Rhineland Campaign.  While on the front lines, its soldiers were awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and ninety Purple Hearts.

In 1945, at the age of 17, my father, Juan Hernandez-Ramos, voluntarily enlisted in the Army.  He lied about his age to the recruiter.  His two older brothers, Roque and Wilfredo had already been drafted. “I wanted to follow in my brothers’ footsteps and be a soldier.” For many Puerto Ricans, sentiment for Puerto Ricans to align themselves more politically with the United States also compelled their decision.

My father was sent to Camp Plochet, Louisiana for basic training shortly before the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, bringing the war to a swift end.  After the war, the 65th returned to garrison duty in Puerto Rico.

When his enlistment term ended, my father remained in the Army Reserves.  With the outbreak of the conflict in Korea, my father was called back to active duty.  By then he was married with two daughters and one more on the way.
Col. William W. Harris, Commander of the 65th, wanted to ensure the 65th would be able to maintain its combat readiness in the face of the anticipated difficulty of sending replacements from the island once the regiment entered combat. He requested and was granted permission for a 10 percent increase in company-grade officers and enlisted personnel. 
 Harris reached out to radio stations and local newspapers to help recruit the additional men.

On  August 14 , El Imparcial, one of Puerto Rico’s leading newspapers, announced that the Department of the Army had requested two thousand Puerto Rican volunteers to fight in Korea.  Prospective candi-

dates, the announcement read, could be single or married,  less than thirty years old, and must have served honorably during World War II. The island's other foremost newspaper, El Mundo,  announced that the Army was seeking sixteen hundred men for the 65th Infantry for a twenty-one month deployment.  By August 18 , more than seven hundred veterans had responded to the call.Four days later on the 22nd,  the Department of the Army had also recalled another 1,200 members of the enlisted reserve corps. When the 65th sailed for Korea,  it had 3,880 officers, NCOs, and enlisted men. Sixty-four of the 206 officers were Puerto Rican.

On August 27^th 1950, my father was on his way to the combat zone. They arrived in Pusan, Korea on September 23^rd.  “It took us almost a month to reach Korea,” he said.  “Our ship stopped in Panama to pick up the 3d Battalion, 33d Infantry, (stationed at Fort Kobbe in the Panama Canal Zone).  Four days before reaching Korea, we ran into a typhoon.”

The Puerto Ricans were sent into action immediately. The 65^th was attached to Maj. Gen. John B. Coulter’s IX Corps of the Eighth Army division . My father’s regiment landed at the port city of Pusan ( The name was changed to Busan in  2000, due to a new method of transliterating Korean), on the Korean Peninsula’s southern tip, where the United States forces had been holding a perimeter against the Communist North Korean invaders.  “When we finally arrived, there were soldiers waiting with ammunition in their hands for us,” said my father.
The 65th was ordered to send a rifle battalion to relieve a battalion of the 9th Infantry on Hill 409, near the village of Changyong, while a second battalion would secure the bridge at Yuga-myon along the main supply route linking the division with the Eighth Army supply base at Pusan.The 65th patrolled a  forty-square-mile area to locate and destroy whatever enemy troops remained. They were augmented with two artillery units from the 15th and 503d Field Artillery Battalions, a platoon of tanks from the 9th Infantry regimental tank company, and a unit from the 82d Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) Automatic Weapons Battalion.

My father recalled the fear that consumed much of the time of every soldier in combat situations.  “In the beginning, you are scared, but then you get used to it,” he recalled. “You have to remember your basic training skills.”

The night before his unit  was readying for its next maneuver, my father and some more seasoned soldiers began to take down their camp.  A priest came in to conduct Mass for the men. Joining the seasoned soldiers were a group who had not yet experienced combat. In a spirit of brotherhood, after the Mass my father and other soldiers walked over to offer whatever encouragement they could to the new arrivals. “You could see that the new men were so scared,” he said. “A few of us went to talk to them and told them how we felt the same way when we got there. But I told them, eventually, you will feel better.”

Religion played an important role for the men of the 65^th.  Attendance at Sunday Mass and Protestant services was always high, with only the most necessary duties keeping the men away.  Some companies even initiated a nightly rosary devotion. The men frequently knelt in prayer before heading out to their next action.

While on patrol one day, my father and another soldier were sent to check a house in the distance.  “We decided that I would go into the house and the other soldier would cover me,” he recalled. “The house had two doors and I started to go toward the door on the right side, but then I noticed the left-side door opening.   I froze for a moment and then began to walk toward the left door,” he said. Then the door opened suddenly and a Chinese soldier walked out with his hands up in surrender. That was my lucky day,” he added with a nervous laugh.

Hunger and the harsh winter were other debilitating conditions the soldiers of the 65th battled against. “There was plenty of food in the front of the line, but it didn’t get back to us,” he remembered. “When it did, we would be set to eat and suddenly the Chinese would attack, so there went the food.”

Unaccustomed to the cold, the men found clever ways to keep warm ranging from using blow torches to full-sized squad tent stoves.

Back home on the island, pride in the 65^th was fever pitch.  Stories and pictures of the soldiers got almost unlimited space in the newspapers, with writers giving the highest praise for the sacrifices of the soldiers.  Radio programs and baseball games were dedicated to the troops. 

Tape recordings with an address from then Governor Luis Munoz-Marin, as well as highlights of the latest sports news, and songs from the island’s top entertainers of the era were sent to the men to lift their spirits.  The Lion’s Club of Bayamon shipped 16 cases of such Puerto Rican delicacies as pasteles, arroz con pollo, and arroz con gandules.  In 1952, Mrs. Ines Mendoza de Munoz-Marin, wife of the Governor, sent a copy of the island’s recently approved Constitution to the men. The Puerto Rico Constitution codified the island’s new political status as a Commonwealth, or “Freely Associated State”, as it is referred to in Spanish.

On September 27, three months after being invaded by the North and after 12 days of fierce and bloody battles, the besieged capital of Seoul was finally under the command and control of UN forces. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of United Nations Forces in Korea until 1951,  became overconfident and believed that the war should be expanded to include China, despite misgivings from President Truman and the Joint Chief of Staff. 

MacArthur ignored a cable from The Joint Chiefs asking him to reconsider his decision and warnings from Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai of China that if UN troops approached the Yalu River, the Chinese would enter the war. On MacArthur’s orders, South Korean forces streamed toward the city of Unsan on the way to the Yalu River, which separated China from North Korea.

The U.S. led UN forces rapidly approached the Yalu River but on October 25, 1950, 300,000 Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. “We were no match for them in those days,” said my father.

The Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951. The United States Eighth Army was overrun, and the 1^st Marine Division, with attached United States and British Army units was completely encircled.  The outnumbered Marines had no choice but to retreat and began  battling their way back to Hungnam, the third largest city in North Korea.and a port city on the eastern coast on the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea). The men of the 65th rushed to their defense and were ordered to stay behind and fight the enemy. They were instrumental in protecting the supply lines.  As a result, the Marines were able to withdraw to their ships with the 65th holding the rear guard. The 65^th were among the last units to embark from Hungnam The 65th was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation for their defense

Over 43,000 Puerto Ricans served in the military during the Korean War, most with the 65th Infantry Regiment, including almost 40,000 volunteers, and approximately 3,540 of them lost their lives. The 65th was awarded battle participation credits for the following nine campaigns:

UN Defense-1950

UN Offense-1950

CCF Intervenntion-1950

First UN Counterattack Offensive-1951

UN and CCF Spring Offensive-1951

UN Summer-Fall Offensive-1951

2nd Korean Winter 1951-52

Korean Summer-Fall-1952

3rd Korean Winter-1952-53.
         In January 1951, the 65h Infantry Regiment participated in Operation Thunderbolt, a reconnaissance-in-force; and Operation Exploitation, an exploitation to the Han River. By the end of the month, the regiment had advanced to a region just south of Seoul and was ordered to seize three Chinese-held hills. The assault began on Jan. 31 and took three days. On Feb. 2, 1951, with the objective within reach, two battalions of the regiment fixed bayonets and charged the enemy position, forcing the communist soldiers to flee. It was the last U.S. Army battalion-sized bayonet charge in history.

           The 65^th had established a reputation as one of the 3^rd Infantry Division’s best and most dependable formations.  Through the Fall of 1952, the regiment faced fierce fighting at Outpost Kelly and Jackson Heights in the Chorwon Valley of North Korea as the Chinese launched heavy assaults to overtake these positions.

The regiment suffered over 800 casualties (including 500 battle casualties and 306 non-battle casualties) defending and attempting to retake Outpost Kelly and Jackson Heights.  After the battles, the reputation and morale of the regiment were shattered when 95 soldiers of the 65^th and one officer, were ordered court-martialed for charges ranging from desertion to avoiding hazardous duty, to willfully disobeying the orders of a superior officer, and misbehavior before the enemy. 

The Army tried to keep the court-martials quiet, downplaying the number of men tried and the severity of their sentences.  But letters from the soldiers to their family and friends back home triggered a storm of outrage. By late January 1953, newspapers in the United States and Puerto Rico began running stories announcing the court martials.  An investigation ensued.  By 1954, all the sentences had been overturned.

A report on the court martials written in 2000 by the Department of Army’s Center of Military History cited a severe shortage of non-commissioned officers, language problems, inept leadership and ethnic and organizational prejudice as conditions prevalent within the 65th as well as the Eighth Army and 3^rd Infantry Division, which influenced the failure of the 65^th in the Fall of 1952.

In 1956 the 65^th was deactivated making it the last segregated unit to be deactivated and the only unit to be transferred from an active Army to the Puerto Rico National Guard. It was then assigned to the 92nd Infantry Brigade (now the 92nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team) and along with its sister battalion the 1-296th Infantry,  has served in the War Against Terrorism and Operations Iraqi Freedom Enduring Freedom. 

For its valiant service in Korea, the 65^th Infantry received the United States Presidential Unit Citation, United States Meritorious Unit Commendation,  two Republic of Korea Unit Citations and the Greek Gold Medal for Bravery. Individual members of the unit received 156 Bronze Stars, 421 Silver Stars and ten Distinguished Service Crosses, 5 of which were awarded to Puerto Ricans. Finally, in April 2016, the 65th was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in a ceremony on Capitol Hill. 

  Of their service, Gen. MacArthur wrote, "The Puerto Ricans forming the ranks of the gallant 65th Infantry give daily proof on the battlefields of Korea of their courage, determination and resolute will to victory, their invincible loyalty to the United States and their fervent devotion to those immutable principles of human relations which the Americans of the Continent and Puerto Rico have in common, They are writing a brilliant record of heroism in battle, and I am indeed proud to have them under my command."

My father served in Korea for a year and was honorably discharged.  He and a small group of returning soldiers traveled to Japan and then onto Seattle, Washington, the second leg of his long journey home.  There, they received the equivalent of a heroes’ welcome, one not given to returning Korean veterans.  In Seattle, they met the Mayor of the city, who treated the men to a ball game.  They rode in a limousine accompanied by a police escort.  The team owner treated the men to food and beverages. Shortly before the game started, the announcer spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of announcing that with us today is a group of fighting men who have just returned from Korea.”  At that point, the people in the stands stood and gave the veterans a standing ovation.

My parents separated in my early teens and I seldom saw my father. As an adult, my father resurfaced for a short period, but by then our relationship had deteriorated.

As the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War approached, I decided to reach out to my father and interview him about his experiences in Korea. By then, my father had moved back to Puerto Rico. He was living near San Juan and volunteering with his parish church and at the San Juan Veteran’s Center. A year later at my father’s burial service, a fellow veteran's center volunteer recalled how much the staff looked forward to my father's volunteer days and how he would miss “mi hermanito, Juan (my little brother, Juan).” He also told me my father carried my article with him (an early version published on the website, El Boricua in August 2000) and showed it to whomever he could. He is buried in the Puerto Rico National Cemetery in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, the cemetery for veterans.
I’m glad that I reconnected with my father to learn of his experiences with the 65^th.  It helped me to see another side of him, one unaffected by the complications of personal  limitations.