Historica Dominion Institute, The Memory Project Speakers’ Bureau DVD
Captain Mort Lightstone, CD, Korean War
My name’s Mort Lightstone. I served with the Canadian Air Force from 1951 until 1978, a total of 28 years. During that period of time, I acquired over 6.5 thousand hours on military operations and missions, that’s flying hours.
Enlistment
When I was finishing my grade 12 in Ottawa, towards the end of the year my parents took me aside and advised me they had to take out another mortgage on the house in order to keep me in high school. My ambition at that time was to be a lawyer but I was also an air cadet and I had some inside information on how the air force operated and towards the end of the school year, 1950/1951, I knew I had to go out and work. The air force was in a phase of building its strength, so I decided to join the air force. And at that time, to be an officer in the air force, you had to be air crew. Or if you had a university degree, then whatever profession you’d care to pursue. But just as a high school graduate, I had to go air crew, which was fine, and I undertook the navigation training which went on for a year. And I graduated on April 12th, 1952.
So on April 12th, 1952, I got my air force wings, which I still wear today, and I became a very young officer and my first posting was to be trained to fly on the aircraft that we were using on the Korean airlift and off I went. And the next thing I knew, I was flying in a war zone.
First Posting
As soon as I got my air force wings, I was transferred to Montreal, to an air force station in one of the suburbs at Lachine, to RCAF station Lachine and I was trained on the operational aspect of the North Star aircraft. The North Star aircraft was a four engine aircraft, it was not a pressurized aircraft and in those years, in the early 50s, it was the largest aircraft used by Air Canada.
The Korean Airlift
Within a year of joining the air force, I was assigned to the Korean Airlift. The Korean War at that time was in its second year and it proved to be a very interesting experience from two perspectives. One is the military operation aspect of the Korean Airlift and the other is the political situation of how the conflict was viewed at that time. Because North Korea attacked South Korea, I believe the war started … Let me correct that. The conflict started on the 25th of June in 1950. But because it was the north attacking the south, it was considered to be civil disobedience, not an invasion from another country. Because it was considered civil disobedience, the forces that were sent over were considered to be policemen. It would be comparable to Scarborough attacking Etobicoke [Ontario].
So at the end of the conflict, when the truce was signed in 1953, and our soldiers and sailors and airmen came back to Canada, one of their primary concerns was to gain their veterans benefits. And the government said, “What benefits, you’re not a veteran? You weren’t there as a military person, you were there as a policeman.” Notwithstanding that the action was identical to any kind of a war anywhere in the world. And in fact, it took 39 years for that terminology to change from a police action to a war. I don’t mind pointing out that this medal here was awarded to me by Canada for service on the Korean Airlift 39 years late. Thirty-nine years late. It’s most amazing.
Another aspect of the political situation was, sometime during 1952, both sides realized they were literally at a stalemate, even though there was a lot of armed conflict going on. But the belligerents met at a place called Pan Moon Jung to talk about ending the conflict. And they talked for a year. Pan Moon Jung, at that time, every Canadian was aware of that name and that location. It’s on the 38th north parallel between North and South Korea. There were four nations around the table, two communist nations and two western or allied nations. The two allied nations of course were South Korea and the Americans. On the opposite side of the table were the North Koreans and the Chinese.
But during that year of discussion, soldiers were still being killed and maimed and so on. Prisoners were taken and believe me, those soldiers who had the misfortune of being captured by the north side, they went through terrible, terrible conditions in the POW [Prisoner of War] camps. But as an indication of how silly the politics can get, the North Koreans argued for three weeks that the little flag on the table in the building in Pan Moon Jung, the little flag for North Korea should be taller than the American flag. They discussed that for three weeks. And during that three weeks, the conflict was ongoing and as I say, people were being harmed and so on.
But eventually, they agreed on a ceasefire and what a lot of citizens today don’t appreciate was that it was just a ceasefire, it wasn’t the end of the war. And the truth of the matter is; of the four nations around the table, only three countries signed the ceasefire. The one country that did not agree to the ceasefire was South Korea. Very surprising fact. So technically, North and South Korea are still officially in a state of war but they have agreed not to shoot.
Early Days in the Korean War
To be part of the United Nation force was exciting. Remember at that time, we were not aware or they didn’t really push this aspect that we were policemen and not members of an armed force. We felt very much part of the Canadian Air Force or on takeoff from that base near Seattle, as the United Nations flight. But we’d fly from there to Alaska, refuel in Alaska, then fly westward to the end of the Aleutians to a little island called Shemya, the United States Air Force. Half the island was runway and the other half of the island was a few barracks and a dining room facility.
We’d stay overnight in Shemya and then fly from Shemya to Haneda Airport in Tokyo. We’d stay in Tokyo for four days. The location that we stayed at was called Ebisu, a suburb of Tokyo. And specifically, it was previously a Japanese naval base. And the role of that particular base in Ebisu was to train kamikaze [suicide bomber] submariners. So they learn to operate a one man submarine and they carried enough fuel to go one way only, never to come home. But the base had like 40 or 50 pools. They looked like swimming pools but in fact, they were long, thin training pools. Very interesting to see it.
Ebisu was at that time, during the Korean conflict, being operated by the Australian armed forces. And for some reason that I’m not, I don’t know the background, United States military were not welcome at Ebisu. So it was an R&R [Rest and Relaxation] centre for British Commonwealth forces. So very often, different British Commonwealth nations or members of their armed forces would show up from Korea for a week or two and then go back to Korea, back into action.
The return trip, I remember again, the first flight and I was a very young officer, you know, literally a brand new officer, and very excited about being in that theatre and so on, but I was told that on our return flight, we were going to be carrying some wounded soldiers to an American facility in the [United] States.
When my crew arrived at the aircraft, we climbed onboard and the configuration of the cabin had been changed to receive stretchers. So we were going to, as I recollect, we were going to have onboard 27 or 30 stretcher cases. And the American nurses, the armed forces nurses, were already onboard preparing to receive these wounded soldiers. Now, these nurses were perhaps up to five years older than myself and most of the crew. We were in our late teens or early 20s and they were around 23, 25. They looked extremely attractive; particularly in their air force flying suits or their nurse’s flying suits. And I remember going into the cabin with the crew and we did all our pre-takeoff checks and I had made the decision, as a good officer, once we’re up at altitude and well on course, that I would go back into the cabin and say hello to these wounded soldiers and try to cheer them up.
It didn’t take too long until the ambulance buses arrived and at that time, I had never seen an ambulance bus before. Certainly in North America, there was no need for ambulance buses, although now it’s very common and I think most citizens have seen them. But that was a novelty, to see these buses. I didn’t see the offloading of the buses and the loading of these wounded soldiers onto the aircraft. But after we took off, and climbed on course, got up to altitude and set our heading over the Pacific eastbound, I put on my new air force officer’s cap, because I wanted to make sure they knew I was an officer, and I walked up to the bulkhead door and opened the door and then I saw these soldiers in their stretchers and all these young nurses were scurrying around, taking care of them. Most of them were splattered with blood already. And one of the soldiers I saw had a metal pipe holding his face together. And the way I describe that moment in time is that’s when the movie ended. It was no longer an adventure. You know, that sort of aura was gone, it was over. And then I saw the reality of war right there in front of me.
I did an about turn, went back into the cabin, to the cockpit, strapped myself into the navigator’s position and didn’t leave it for eight hours. I just couldn’t face what was going on back there. So that was my first mission. Subsequent to that, the flights to and from Japan were less, less exciting because I knew what to expect. It was more of a consideration of the navigation aspect.
I remember one particular flight, we were between Haneda and Shemya. And one of the navigations aids that I was using, or attempting to use, was called LORAN, a special kind of long range radar. And from time to time, one or two of the soldiers from the cabin would come up to stretch their legs and look around the cabin and of course in those days, there was no terrorist threat, that was permitted. But this one soldier was leaning over my soldier and I was very frustrated at that time because the Russians were jamming LORAN. And I was having some difficulties getting enough navigational information to have the confidence that I knew exactly where we were.
And he saw my frustration and he asked some pointed questions. And I thought, oh, this guy knows the right questions to ask so I explained to him not only that the Russians were jamming the LORAN but I explained exactly how. What I missed was he was wearing on his army uniform a special soldier flash which said, War Correspondent. So here I was talking about things that were sort of military confidential and sure enough, he wrote it up and he quoted me. And I got into big trouble when I got back to our base in Montreal, at Lachine. However, I lived through that but the Air Commodore at the time didn’t appreciate it.
The Importance of Remembrance
In the last century, and this century, over 100,000 Canadians have paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedoms, for democracy. And they fought the tyrants and the negative regimes all over the world. And not one, not one has died defending Canadian soil. It’s a very significant fact, that our soldiers, sailors and airmen fight the battles of other people in other parts of the world to stop the tyrants and their regimes from forcing their will and their standards on Canada and our citizens. And that has been going on for so long that we’ve enjoyed peace and freedom, that we’ve, other than on Remembrance Day, we’ve lost sight of the fact that such freedoms have come at a tremendous price. Now, we have to pay the price of maintaining the freedoms.
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