Themes

R H Johnson

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Pichon-Li Camp on the Yalu river

The next move around 20 October 1951 was to Pichon-Li camp on the Yalu River. This was a camp for officers and aircrew.

The Chinese staged show trials for all sorts of crimes. The prisoners had no defence because all their captors made them plead guilty and the judges would return their verdicts after having a five minute smoking break outside.

Johnson was in hospital with suspected TB for over two months in the winter of 1951, but then the Chinese doctors decided it was bronchitis and discharged him.

The Korean treatment of the prisoners in the Camp was grossly unfair. Within a couple of months they had forced eight senior American and British officers to confess to imaginary crimes and put them into solitary confinement. At this time several inmated attempted to escape, but no prisoner ever succeeded in getting away.

Despite all of this, in some ways conditions had improved, Johnson wrote in his report that:

'During this time there were many amusing incidents. The fear of death was no longer with us as the names of all prisoners had been exchanged and each one now had to be looked after and accounted for.'

'The stupidity of the Chinese was often ludicrous. One of the Turks, in a temper, disarmed a guard and refused to give his rifle back to him. He was not punished as the Turks were a "racial minority" among us and the Chinese were most sensitive to being accused of "racial discrimination".'

The inmates played all types of games in the camp including cricket, football, basketball and baseball.

The Koreans banned celebrations for the Coronation of the Queen in 1953 as they considered them to be political demonstrations. The senior British officer was put in jail the day before. A Chinese soldier who tried to break up the festivities was nearly lynched and the entire guard came out to suppress what nearly became a riot.