Samuel David Hawkins | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 11, 1933 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
| Allegiance |  United States (1950–1953) |
| Service/ |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1950–1953 (defected) |
| Rank |  Private |
Samuel David Hawkins (born August 11, 1933) was the youngest of the American defectors of the Korean War. [1] [2] Hawkins was one of twenty-two American and British servicemen to defect to China after the conclusion of the war in 1953. Hawkins returned to the United States in 1957.
Hawkins was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father, Clayton O. Hawkins, whom Hawkins says he had an unhappy relationship with during his childhood, had served in World War II. [3] He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 16. Captured and made a prisoner of war by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army troops, he chose to remain in China after the signing of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, one of twenty-two American and British servicemen to do so. [2] While in China, he studied politics at the People's University of China in Beijing, and later worked in Wuhan as a mechanic. [4] Hawkins was featured in Virginia Pasley's 1955 book 21 Stayed: The Story of the American GIs Who Chose Communist China—Who They Were and Why They Stayed. [2] His father died in a fire in Tuskahoma, Oklahoma while Hawkins was in a prisoner-of-war camp in China. [5] In 1954 Hawkins was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. [6] In 1956 he married a White Russian woman named Tanya who had grown up in a French convent in China and worked at the Soviet embassy in Beijing. [7] [8]
Hawkins was permitted to speak with the foreign press in China. His interviewers included African-American journalist William Worthy, as well as correspondents from Reuters and Look magazine. [9] As early as June 1956, Hawkins indicated his desire to return home in an interview with a British journalist. [10] Finally, in late February 1957, he took a train from Guangzhou to the border with British-ruled Hong Kong and departed mainland China by walking across a rail-bridge to the British territory. Upon his arrival in Hong Kong he was met by U.S. Vice Consul S.M. Backe, who questioned Hawkins and issued him a one-way passport to the United States. [6] He stated that the major motivation for his departure from China was the way the Soviets had suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which turned him off Communism. He was the seventh ex-U.S. Army soldier to come back after defecting to China. [11]
Neither the U.S. nor the Chinese government provided Hawkins with money for his return trip to North America. Rather, a wealthy Oklahoma City oilman, M. H. Champion, paid for Hawkins' ticket after Hawkins' mother, Carley Sallee Jones, made a public plea for assistance. Champion also promised Hawkins a job after his return to America. [12] Hawkins landed in Los Angeles, California, on March 2, 1957. He had defected for more than three years [13] and spent more than seven years in East Asia. On June 23, 1957, he was interviewed by Mike Wallace, and explained his decision to defect and his motivations for eventually returning to the United States. [3] The following week, Wallace interviewed World War II veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Charles E. Kelly. Wallace described how Hawkins had been "accepted back into his community," and asked Kelly, "How do you think that we should treat U.S. Army turncoats?" Kelly responded:
He's a human being; we should treat him the same as we treat any other G.I. In my opinion, I think the boy deserves it; he just got off on the wrong track. And I know for a fact when he went to Korea, he didn't know whether he was going to come back or he was going to stay there. So, maybe he got a little scared when he was captured. Maybe he was pressured, tortured. I don't think it's the boy's own fault. No doubt at the time—I never seen him or never met him—no doubt he was young and he wasn't trained properly. [14]
In June 1957, it was announced that Hawkins' wife Tanya would arrive in Hong Kong, with the intention of traveling to the United States to be with her husband. [15] She arrived in the U.S. in the fall of 1957. She claimed that after her husband left China, she lost her job there. [7]
After his return to the United States, David Hawkins worked in Oklahoma City as a salesman in an oil firm. In 2001, the United Press and Associated Press reported that Hawkins had studied to become a physician's assistant, was married, and had children. [16] Hawkins returned to China to participate in the filming of Shuibo Wang's 2005 documentary film They Chose China, about the 22 American and British soldiers who defected. The film features fellow defector Clarance Adams and his personal story extensively. [17]
Wilfred Graham Burchett was an Australian journalist known for being the first western journalist to report from Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb, and for his reporting from "the other side" during the wars in Korea and Vietnam.
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Charles Robert Jenkins was a United States Army deserter, North Korean prisoner, and voice for Japanese abductees in North Korea.
Larry Wu-tai Chin was a Chinese Communist spy who worked for the United States Government for 37 years (1944–1981), including positions at the U.S. Army and the CIA, while secretly being a mole for the Chinese Communist Party's intelligence apparatus from the very beginning. He kept passing classified documents and secret information to the People's Republic of China even after his retirement, until he was finally exposed in 1985.
Operation Big Switch was the repatriation of all remaining prisoners of the Korean War. Ceasefire talks had been going on between the North Korean, Chinese and United Nations Command (UNC) forces since 1951, with the main point of contention being the repatriation of all prisoners to their home countries, in accordance with Article 118 of the 1949 Geneva Convention. China and North Korea wanted prisoners to be compulsorily repatriated as outlined by the Geneva Convention but the UNC insisted that prisoners who wished to remain where they were be allowed to do so. After talks dragged on for two years, the Chinese and North Koreans relented on this point, and the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on 27 July 1953.
James George Veneris (1922–2004) was an American soldier during the Korean War who was captured by the Chinese and was one of 21 American soldiers at the end of the war who decided they would rather stay in China than return to the United States.
William Worthy, Jr. was an African-American journalist, civil rights activist, and dissident who pressed his right to travel regardless of U.S. State Department regulations.
An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China is a memoir by Corporal Clarence Adams posthumously published by the University of Massachusetts Press and edited by Della Adams and Louis H. Carlson.
Charles E. Kelly was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II. Kelly was the third enlisted man to be decorated with the Medal of Honor for action on the European continent, after S/Sgt Maynard H Smith 306th Bomb Group and Flight Officer John C "Red" Morgan 92nd Bomb Group, Hanover, July 28, 1943.
The Mike Wallace Interview is a series of 30-minute television interviews conducted by host Mike Wallace from 1957 to 1960. From 1957 to 1959, they were carried by the ABC American Broadcasting Company television network, and in 1959–1960, they were offered by the NTA Film Network.
James Joseph Dresnok was an American defector to North Korea, one of seven U.S. soldiers to defect after the Korean War.
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Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force (USAF) effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. Communist forces introduced the MiG-15 to Korea on November 1, 1950. USAF pilots reported that the performance of the MiG-15 was superior to all United Nations aircraft, including the USAF's newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a MiG for a financial reward. The success of the operation is disputable since no Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. However, on September 21, 1953, North Korean pilot Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, unaware of Operation Moolah.
The following events occurred in August 1950:
Clarence Adams was an African-American GI during the Korean War. He was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a POW until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, these 21 Americans were considered defectors.
After the Korean War, 333 South Korean people detained in North Korea as prisoners of war chose to stay in North Korea. During subsequent decades of the Cold War, some people of South Korean origin defected to North Korea as well. They include Roy Chung, a former U.S. Army soldier who defected to North Korea through East Germany in 1979. Aside from defection, North Korea has been accused of abduction in the disappearances of some South Koreans.
Claude Batchelor is a former United States Army soldier convicted by court martial of collaborating with China during the Korean War.