EDITOR'S NOTE : Jim Dillman included the first part of his account on the "GuestBook Page" 12/23/03. I contacted Jim and he added more information including some pictures including a nice aerial view of site "B". Jim was a member of the 7th PsyOp Group and the 24th Detachment since this designation was applied to personnel stationed in Korea from 1968 (See Origin of 24th Detachment)
Its difficult for this editor to believe that its been almost 45 years since I was involved in the initial construction of Site "B" in the Chorwon Valley. One picture I took in 1962 appears to be in the same location as the barracks in the 1971 picture provided by Jim. (See Comparison). For other information about Site "B" and pictures of intitial construction Click Here.
I was site commander at VUNC "B" Site from Sept 1970 to June 1971. I have some pictures of the site that I will send on to you. We had quite a time up there including being fired on by a morter round while entertaing some "donut dollies". Seems a ROK practice round fell short and landed right where the old transmitter hut had been. We had already torn it down and used the wood to build a private "hooch" for me. 20 feet to the North and our quonsut would have been trashed! By that time the transmitters had been replaced with 10kw units and we had a new generator building next to the fuel dump with two new 60kw units.
Had 6 GI’s there and the rest were civilian Koreans. Names I remember are Oh Jin Soo (Guard), pretty boy (generators) , playboy (generators), Mr. Chong (technician)(spoke good English), Mr. Hong (technician), MacKay (GI),Totemeier (GI), Sender, (GI), Frank .....(GI-last name escapes me), .......(GI) (from Texas as I remember), and Crane (GI).
I Enlisted in 68, I went to Ft. Monmouth for 9 months of electronic school as 32C20 (Fixed Station Transmitter Repair) and then to Hawaii at Schofield Barracks for 16 months. While there, my unit (Transportables Detatchment) was being disbanded, so I found myself the Generals' driver for USA
Stratcom. Easy life then, SP5, no duties, very little work, then orders came from Ft Huachuca (Stratcom HQ) to go to Korea with only 9 months left on my enlistment! The General tried to stop or change orders, but in September 1970, I found myself in the garden country of Korea!
After a couple of days at Youngsan enduring tremendous culture shock, I was shipped out to what our Commander called the Army's best kept secret! Anyway, to make a long story short, it didn't take long to get acclimated to the country, and I left in June 1971, but actually offered to re-up if the Army would guarantee me 6 years at "B" site.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I asked Jim to provide some information about several of the pictures he submitted that appear below:
The "Play" or Mine pix includes (l to r) McKee, Totemeier, and Sender. We would go into the mine field behind the compound and dig up the mines, then explode them later. We had an ample supply of dynamite and extra hand grenades and used them, too. We made a lot of improvements to the grounds including a patio and concrete brick wall surrounding it.
Taeqwani was the local village where we would go partying. It was South of the compound a couple of miles. They just got electricity the first week I was at the site & I had my first dinner with the local officials and tasted kimchee for the first time. ASA Camp Alamo was located near there. We were further North than they were by a few miles. Our Korean civilians lived there also.