At 92 years old, Lampasas resident and Marine Corps veteran James Welch still remembers his days in Korea as if it were yesterday.
Born in 1933 and growing up in the 1940s, Welch was raised on images from the heroic acts of Marines in World War II, which drew him to follow in those footsteps when the U.S. entered the Korean conflict.
“The Korean War was going, and I felt like it was my duty,” Welch said.
He joined the Marines in July 1951 alongside two friends, Harvest and Freeman. The trio took a train from near El Paso to Albuquerque for their physicals. After being diagnosed with a heart murmur in high school, Welch’s first objective was to pass his medical exam.
“Harvey was a sleepwalker and flat-footed, but he played football and was a good athletic kid. Freeman had a trip knee,” Welch said. “In Albuquerque, they didn’t even listen to my heart, didn’t check Freeman’s knee. They checked the other knee, and they rejected Harvey because he was a sleepwalker.”
Welch attended bootcamp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. His first week was unpleasant. He came down with tonsillitis, leaving him in the hospital for a week and forcing him to graduate a week after his friend Freeman.
Welch was supposed to go to communications school, but with the school closed he joined a company that went through infantry training. He spent his first month working in the mess hall.
“Since I could type, they had me typing all the stuff out for the menu and ordering, stuff like that,” Welch said. “Nice thing about working in the mess hall was that you could have steak for breakfast if you wanted it. Anybody that had mess duty at that time, a lot of us would have steak and eggs for breakfast.”
Before going abroad, Welch spent time at “Tent Camp No. 1” at Camp Pendleton, about 40 miles north of San Diego. There, Welch became a “BAR man” for his ability to handle the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, a light machine gun. The BAR was used by American forces from World War II through Vietnam.
In January 1952, Welch boarded a ship on Coronado Island alongside thousands of other Marines.
“They say there were at least 6,000 of us on that ship,” he said. “It was a merchant marine ship from World War II and being that my last name was Welch and Freeman was Williams, we got stuck at the very back end in the lowest part of the ship you could get to. We were six deep in bunks.”
THE WAR ZONE
Welch said it took 22 days to travel from San Diego to Yokohama, Japan. From there, he went to Sasebo, Japan before setting sail on a troop transport to the war zone in Korea.
When he arrived, Welch found himself in the Punchbowl, a distinctive bowl-shaped highland valley located seven miles south of today’s Demilitarized Zone. The Battle of the Punchbowl was one of the deadliest conflicts in the Korean War.
Welch’s assignment in Korea was to install electrical wire to provide communications from headquarters to the front lines. While wire could be installed on the ground, Welch credits the Koreans for being experts at cutting wires.
“I had to learn to climb a pole -- a so-called pole. What they had was a pine tree, and you cut all the branches off so you could learn how to climb the tree,” he said.
Welch moved from the Punchbowl five times, including to Hill 229, the Battle of the Hook, Camp Sharp and the Kimpo (Gimpo) Peninsula. After his first three months as a wireman, he became a switchboard operator. One moment stands out from the rest about his time in Korea.
“The hardest time I ever had in Korea was inside a bunker,” Welch said. “We were being relieved on the front. At least two-thirds of the whole battalion had gone to the rear and had to cross the river, and the bridge was made of pontoons and metal rolled over it for the trucks.”
Welch, his master sergeant and radio man were tasked with running communications for the whole battalion for 76 consecutive hours after a monsoon wiped out the bridge and separated the three from the rest of their battalion.
“It was a good thing it was raining,” he said. “I’m inside the bunker, and it got to leaking, so we put a shelter hide over the switchboard and had a light there. And I sat on that switchboard for 76 hours.”
THE LINE OF FIRE
Nearly 37,000 Americans died in the Korean War from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, the same day as Welch’s birthday. While in Korea, he was surrounded by danger.
“The last week I was there, we were getting mortar rounds about every 30 minutes to an hour,” Welch said. “You got to where you didn’t want to get out of your bunker to get out and eat. You’re just in the bunker hoping you are not going to get hit.
“Every time you hear a bullet going or a mortar coming in, you keep thinking ‘It has my name on it.’ You are always worried about that.”
Welch’s 13 months in Korea had some close calls, including a day spent laying wire along the front lines with a fellow soldier named Weinstein. The duo were warned by a Jeep full of British Royal Marines they were walking through a rice paddy full of mines.
“They said, ‘We just thought we’d let y’all know, there are mines out through there wherever you go,’ ” Welch recounted. “Here we have been walking on this rice paddy two or three times and hadn’t stepped on a mine yet. I told Weinstein if we just remember where we put our feet the last time, we will be OK.”
One of the more emotional moments for Welch came when he had to record the death of a fellow Marine while operating the switchboard.
“I remember they called in ‘Banana Split,’ a kid I had gone to bootcamp with, infantry with, everything,” the veteran said. “I remember I started crying because we were close. I asked the Lord, ‘Why him? Why didn’t You take me?’ ” Welch must have been overjoyed to return to the Land of the Free, but he said the transition was tough. Every July 4 that came, it still felt like he had not escaped the line of fire.
Welch remembers lying in bed trying to sleep one Independence Day when he heard the sound of a howitzer artillery round that caused him to pop up in his cot. He locked eyes with a fellow serviceman 10 bunks down, and the pair shook their heads realizing they were not in Korea. But after another round, the men ended up underneath their bunks.
“Here we are stateside, still remembering what it was like,” Welch said. “They did six rounds, and by the time I got out from underneath the cot, I couldn’t sleep.”
LIFE AS A VETERAN IN 2025
Welch’s passion for his country didn’t stop with himself. His son Zach and grandson William have both served in the Marines. Welch is optimistic the legacy will continue.
“It makes me feel good,” he said. “I hope I will get another grandson, then we will have four generations.”
In 2022, Welch made the trip to Washington, D.C., courtesy of Honor Flight Austin, an organization dedicated to providing veterans a free trip to the nation’s capital.
The Korean War veteran was thankful to have support on the trip that included stops at the Korean War Memorial and the Marine Corps War Memorial, which depicts the flag-placing in Iwo Jima during World War II.
“It really felt nice to know that we have people who donate for us veterans to fly us up for free,” Welch said. “And they also provide someone to take care of you, whether you need it or not. I had a guy who was EMS out of Austin who lived in the same room as I did and took care of me.”
And last Saturday, Welch was in Burnet at the 250th Marine Corps Birthday Ball hosted by the Texas Hill Country Semper Fi Society. Every year, the group celebrates the anniversary with the cutting of a cake and honors the oldest and youngest veterans present. These days, Welch is the oldest.
“I’m just thankful I’ve still got some veterans who can remember and talk,” he said. “I don’t have too many Marine veterans here in town that were in Korea. There are not too many of us Korean veterans left.”
