Evening star., 1953-03-13

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Lost Of q Series).
although it still is the officia
term. For it is not possible fol
these ex-Red soldiers to sit or
the fence and be merely mon
Communist.
They are. most of them, bitter
anti-CommunistS who took the
first chance they got to desert
from the Red armies. They look
on themselves. not as war pris-
onerS, but as political refugees
the same as the people who fee
from Red rule in East Berlin OF
East Germany.
Some Hot Against Reds.
Some of them are really
bloodthirsty anti-Communists, +"
explained Capt. Gerald H. Mil
Ter. Miami. Fla, information Of
flcer at anti-C Communist camp
No. 3 for Chinese prisoners.
"One boy here told me that
when the Communists came to
his village they burned his father
alive and then drafted him into
the army. That boy would like to
go home some day as a liberator
He has some unfinished business
to attend to-"
Some of these anti-Red prison.
ers may of course be only op-
portunistS who figure the U. N.
to win over Communism in the
Far East. But most Americans
who run the camps. believe 80 to
80 per cent of them are sincere
and would prove it by jumping
at a chance to join the Chinese
Nationalist or Republic of Korea
armies-knowing that recapture
by the Reds would mean a
hideous death.
Altogether, there are nearly
$4,000 of these anti-Reds. More
than $4,000 of them are in Camp
3 at Mosuepo on the southern
shore of Cheju Island. The others
are North Koreans scattered
among six camps on the main
land, of which Nonsan and San
Mudai are the largest with about
10000 men each.
Islands" of Peace.
Compared to the camps that
hold the 5000 Chinese Reds at
Cheju City on the northern shore
of Cheju Island, and the $4,000
North Korean Reds on Koje
Island and it's neighboring islets,
these friendly" camps might al
most be the sites of a Boy Scout
jamboree.
There are guard towers, barbed
wire and security troops, but
here they are quite part Of the
background rather than the
bristling first line of defense as
at the explosive Communist en-
closures.
The small number of guards
at the friendly camps are little
more than an internal police
force to keep normal order
among men who are nervous and
edgy after confinement that av-
erages more than two years.
Escapes are a few adventur-
Gus souls who slip through the
wire to steal an hour with a
village girl, or try to trade their
warm American Army uniforms
to the ill-clad South Korean
guards for little luxuries or use
full cash. The last two North Ko-
reanS who escaped from NonSan
left a letter Of apology to the
camp commander the night they
took off. They we're picked up at
the front several weeks later,
trying to join the South Korean
army. They were returned to
camp, broken-hearted.
Have Troubles, Too.
This does not mean that all
is sweetness and light inside
these anti-Communist COM
pounds. Lock up any group of
men for two years and you'll get
a predictable quota of trouble.
Camp commanders report squab-
bles and even riots among rival
cliques for power inside the
compounds. Occasionally these
have led to gang murders and to
when guards had to use
riot tactics to restore order.
The extreme willingness of all
the anti-Reds to cooperate with
the U.N. has given their camps a
happy" look that is missing in
the grim Communist camps.
Both paint and prisoner in
genulty have decorated the anti
Red camps with garish Oriental
artwork, archways, anti-Com-
slogans and posters. The
turn out all varieties of
gadgets and devices from that
universal raw material - the
American beer can.
1T keeps them out of trouble
and makes their compounds
better place to live in," says the
Nonsan camp commander, Col.
Charles c. Ege of Carmel, Calf.
Fate Of POWs Worries Them.
AS at the Chinese camp at
Mosulpo, Col. Ege has carpenter
shops, forges, tinsmiths, BARRIERS,
tallors, bands, musicians, enter
tainerS and even a portrait
painter going full blast.