Hero's Return

The man's hair was whitening, the lines of ordeal were carved in his face, and he was gaunt beneath his suntan. To those who knew him three years before, he looked ten years older. But even in his incongruous costume--an ill-fitting suit, blue cap, thick-soled sneakers, an orange shirt, a red tie--he was still cheerful and erect, still very much a soldier. He was Major General William F. Dean, 54, commander of the first U.S. forces in the Korean war (elements of the 24th Infantry Division), hero of Taejon, highest ranking U.N. officer taken prisoner by the Communists, first Medal of Honor winner of the Korean war.

The Communists delivered Bill Dean back to freedom last week at Panmunjom.

Looking for Water. At Freedom Village, after the doctors looked him over (he was having some trouble with his teeth, had a trace of amoebic dysentery), he sat down before a microphone and grinned at a crowd of newsmen. "You are the first Americans I've seen since July 1950," said General Dean. "I'm sure you look a lot better to me than 1 do to you." Then he told his story: how he and a small group of officers and G.I.s fought their way out of burning Taejon in that first grim month of the war; how he became separated from his party when he went to the help of a wounded man; how he lost touch with his aide; how he fell down a cliff while looking for water. For 35 days he wandered, dazed and hungry, begging food at farmhouses. Finally he was betrayed by a South Korean who led him into ambush.

Matter-of-factly, he recalled the first ugly weeks of capture. Sick from diarrhea, the Reds' prize prisoner was subjected to three relentless interrogations--one for a stretch of 68 hours, one for 44 hours, and one for 32 hours. His bottom got so sore that he sat for hours on his hands, until those, too, became swollen and sore.

"So Help Me God." "I was threatened but not beaten," said he laconically. How grueling it had been was not related by modest Bill Dean, however, but by a North Korean named Lee Kyoo Hyun, who was interpreter and companion to Dean for one month in 1950, later escaped and joined the U.N. side as an interpreter. A North Korean colonel threatened to cut the general's tongue out if he did not divulge military information. "Okay," replied Dean. "Cut it out. Then you can't force me to broadcast."

Repeatedly, he refused to talk, finally was ordered to put his refusal in writing. "I swear that I have no military information," Dean wrote, "and even if I had any, I would not divulge it in order not to become a traitor to the U.S. So help me God!"

Pretty Well Read. After the interrogations, Dean lived in virtual isolation with several Korean-speaking guards. Once in a while he had a visit from two Communist correspondents, Alan Winnington of the London Daily Worker and Wilfred Burchett of Paris' L'Humanite. At first, not allowed to read, he passed the time by doing mathematical problems in his head. One favorite exercise: squaring all the numbers from i to 1,000. Later he was given Communist books--the works of Lenin and other Red scriptures--to read. "I'm pretty well read on Communism," said Dean wryly.

As much a hero in captivity as in battle, he came back to a hero's welcome. In the hush of a hospital ward at Seoul, South Korean President Syngman Rhee decorated him with the Order of Taeguk, the government's highest military award. Old friends--officers and G.I.s who had fought beside him in the first dark days--clasped his hand and pounded his back. When the time came to begin the trip home to his wife, son, daughter and a grateful nation, the general wept softly.

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