Dave Easton

Rats

I don't plan on spending any time at a major city landfill or touring a metropolitan sewer system, but if I did, I couldn't possibly find a rat population larger than the one I encountered as a U.S. Marine in the Land of the Morning Calm, 1952-53. It is my considered opinion that at that particular point in time, the only things that outnumbered the Chinese in Korea were the rats.

On line they could be seen in the bunkers as they scuttled along the ceilings between the bottom row of sandbags and the supporting timbers. I recall one bunker where our makeshift bunks were arranged in an "L" shape. My buddy Joey and I slept on the lower tier with our feet at the intersection of the two legs of the L. At the top of the vertical leg of the L, where my head would be, was a table we had made from ammo boxes. At some point during the first couple of days in that bunker, I for some reason opened my eyes and looked up. I found my gaze being returned by six or eight beady little eyes less than a foot away. After that I slept with my feet closest to the table and relied on Joey’s feet to deter visitors to the end where my head was.

In reserve it was the same, the rats were everywhere and in great numbers. Other than our packs we had no storage, so anything a person wanted to keep or store went under the cot. The rats quickly figured out that was the place to be. We had two men bitten by rats in one reserve period and both were immediately evacuated to Japan. One trooper reached under his rack for something and was bitten on the wrist. The other poor devil was unaware that as he slept a rat had nestled under his chin to take advantage of the warmth of his breath. When the guy rolled over and startled the rat it bit him on the upper lip. After a period of adjustment that went through fear and revulsion and finally ended in hatred, we all learned to live with these little bastards—but never on friendly terms.

Some guys, like my friend the Greek, had very specific means for dealing with the enemy rodents. On a visit to the 81mm mortar site where he was stationed, I stopped at a gun pit and asked a couple of mortar men if they could point out the Greek’s bunker. They showed me where it was but advised caution if I intended to enter. As I approached I could hear what could only be gunshots coming from within. I paused and announced myself at the entryway and was rewarded with a “Come on in!” Inside the Greek was lying on his back with one hand across his chest holding a .45 automatic. He had been shooting at rats as they scurried along between the timbers that formed the support for the roof of the bunker.

The memory that best recalls just how significant the rodent population was occurred one day just after we had come off line. We were establishing a new reserve camp on the reverse slope of a hill. I have long since forgotten the name given to this camp but I know it was named after a second lieutenant who was KIA. The engineers had been there before we arrived and had terraced off the slope into shelves where we would be erecting squad tents.

Someone in the battalion decided that an attempt would be made to drive out the rats before we erected the tents. The companies were arranged in skirmish lines about twenty yards apart and facing uphill. Each man had an entrenching tool. The flamethrower guys from weapons company were sent up to the military crest facing downhill. On signal the flamethrowers began spraying the down slope while slowly advancing toward the deployed skirmish lines. What had a moment before appeared to be a lifeless hill suddenly became a writhing, squealing mass of motion.

We have all seen western movies where the cattle or buffalo herd runs off in a panic without a destination in mind, but intent on getting somewhere else. That’s what we at the lower levels saw coming, but instead of cattle or buffalo, this was a stampede of rats. As the tide flowed between and around our feet each man was bent at the waist and was swinging his entrenching tool as fast and as hard as he could. It was impossible to miss and every swing killed one or more of the herd.

Eventually the flamethrowers passed thru the last skirmish line and the surviving rats crossed a road and disappeared into the brush. The Korean Service Corps was put to work cleaning up the carcasses, which were dumped into a pit and burned again before being covered. We began unloading canvas and poles to erect the camp. The tents went up and we were moved in before dark; after dark the rats moved in.

Dave Easton is the author of Leatherneck Sea Stories: Recollections of Marines, Korea, and the Corps of the 1950s (Canopic Publishing, 2007)