Newspapers across the country reported on the news channel that on August 29, 1953, another 145 Korean War POWs were released from the Chinese communist camp.
An estimated 7,000 American troops were captured during the war.
“Four hundred Allied prisoners returned to freedom on the 25th day of the Korean prisoner exchange,” reported United Press International from Panmunjom, Korea, and printed in the Wichita Eagle in Kansas. “Russian-built trucks arrived at the scheduled time this morning with the first contingent of the day of 50 Americans and 50 ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers.
Among the names published that day was Captain Gene Lam, MD
“I will say that people, especially his kids, said, ‘Dad never talked about it,’” his wife June Lam told Cowboy State Daily from her home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “Well, he looked at me and said, ‘Why would I want to do that again? Why would he want to talk about captivity or hunger?’”
Wyoming roots
Gene Lam was born on August 4, 1924 in Douglas, Wyoming, and grew up in Glenrock.
After graduating high school, he attended the University of Wyoming for a year before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943.
Initially destined to be part of an engineering unit, June Lam said an officer looked at his paperwork and saw that he had been a pre-med student. He asked the 19-year-old if he wanted to continue his studies.
June Lam met Gene in Nashville, Tennessee, when he was completing his pre-medical studies at Vanderbilt University in a special military program.
They married and he received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburg in 1949.
Battalion Surgeon
After his internship at Fort Lewis, Washington, Lam was sent to Camp Campbell, Kentucky. From there he was sent to Korea as a battalion surgeon.
He was one of the soldiers of the US Army’s 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division, captured by the Chinese when they overran American positions during heavy fighting.
He spent the next 34 months as a prisoner of the Chinese communists in Camp 2 on the Yalu River.
Years later, June learned from her husband that before his capture he had been on the battlefield in an ambulance treating soldiers. He also tried to evade the Chinese for three days before he was finally captured.
“He was officially missing for a year,” she said.
Lam’s eldest son, Dr. David Lam of Sitka, Alaska, said he was 7 or 8 years old when his father returned. He has few memories of him from before the war.
“The only thing I really remember was the day a propaganda photo of the Chinese was published in the local newspaper,” he said. “There he was playing chess, and it’s like three in the morning. My mother wakes me up and says, “Your father is still alive.” I said, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ And I went back to sleep.”
When her husband was repatriated, June said she and her children went to the San Antonio, Texas, airport to greet him. She had their third child shortly after he was initially sent to Korea.
“I had my kids with me, three of them, and the kids kept looking at the plane and watching the plane as people were getting off,” she said. “It was almost the last person wearing a uniform, and he got off the plane, and my three-year-old, who had never seen him, never met him…said, ‘Mommy, is that my dad?’
“It gives me chills even saying it now, but that did happen.”
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Captain Gene Lam, MD, was honored in Glenrock, Wyoming, with a hot dog roast in the park upon his return from three years of captivity by the Chinese. The photo here was published in the Casper Tribune-Herald. (Newspapers.com) -
Gene Lam was a freshman at the University of Wyoming in 1943 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army. This is his photo in The Wyo 1943 yearbook. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) -
The Casper Tribune-Herald advertised the Glenrock picnic in honor of Captain Gene Lam, MD, in its October 18, 1953 edition. (Newspapers.com) -
Casper Tribune-Herald – The Glenrock parents of Captain General Lam, M.D., were happy to know their son is still alive, as reported in the Casper Tribune-Herald on November 19, 1951. (Newspapers.com) -
Dr. Gene Lam died on December 10, 1997. He is buried in Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Find a grave) -
Glenrock’s Deer Creek Museum offers a small exhibit on Dr. Gene Lam, born in Glenrock and prisoner of war during the Korean War. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
‘He was a good man’
David Lam said that after his father’s return, he and his sisters met their father. After his return another son was born.
“I had the utmost respect for him. He was a good man, yes, I mean he never talked much about the war. Nobody did,” said David Lam. “But other than that, he had a family to look after and he liked all of us. We liked him, and he still believed in the military. He went back and spent 20 years with them before retiring.”
Although his father did not talk much about his war experiences, David Lam said he remembers talking about his hunger. One story was about soldiers catching a rat and cooking it, and another was about the Chinese giving prisoners a chicken that they put in a pot of water. His father got the claws.
The first year in the US after his three years of captivity included regaining his health after vitamin deficiencies and tuberculosis. When he was declared fit for duty, Captain Lam wanted to pursue a specialty in obstetrics, but the military said they didn’t have much need for midwives, June Lam said. Instead, they offered him training in anesthesiology.
“He was a good anesthesiologist,” she said.
As one of the few medical officers in the POW camp, he tried to care for the men with him. David Lam said many of them died in the camp. His father secretly recorded their names and serial numbers and retrieved the information when he was released.
An article in the Casper Tribune-Herald & Star of December 20, 1953 states that Captain Lam was called to Washington DC to appear before a Senate committee investigating the atrocities of the Korean War.
Neither June Lam nor David Lam could confirm that story, but David Lam said his father was interviewed and spoke to multiple groups and agencies after his release. After his health recovered and he returned to active duty, he said he became a trainer for troops on how to survive if they became prisoners of war.
“He was probably one of the best trainers in the Army for 10 to 15 years,” he said. “He also did a lot of training in, ‘How do you practice medicine when you have nothing to work with?’ The number 1 Chinese treatment for everything was actually chicken fat soaked in penicillin.
“They cut a hole in your stomach and implanted it under the skin and that would cure everything.”
‘Quiet and independent’
June Lam said that from her perspective, her husband had not changed after his captivity. She characterized him as a ‘quiet and independent’ person.
Gene Lam’s December 12, 1997 obituary in the Casper Star-Tribune noted that he was chief of anesthesia at Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning, Georgia, and subsequently served at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco Presidio. He ended his military career with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Gene Lam received the Bronze Star Medal with a “V” for valor, the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal, the Prisoner of War Medal and the Combat Medic’s Badge, as well as other service medals and ribbons for service in World War II and Korea.
After twenty years of service, Gene Lam retired from the military and opened a private practice in Virginia Beach, Virginia, until his second retirement in 1989. In addition to David Lam, he and his wife June Holly raised Gene Wells, Heather Ellen Morstain. and Dana Michael Lam.
David Lam, a native of Wyoming, said his father occasionally brought his family on visits to the state to see his parents. He remembers hunting rabbits with his father.
June Lam said she remembered a trip back to Wyoming after his captivity to see his family. Glenrock had a picnic and other events in his honor.
Glenrock’s Deer Creek Museum has a special exhibit for Lam with his uniform and a brief summary of his ordeal as a POW.
June said that unlike some other POWs, her husband stayed in the military because he believed he owed them their medical care upon his return.
“He never grumbled. He never worried about being captured,” she said.
Gene Lam died on December 10, 1997. He is buried in Princess Anne Memorial Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Valley Killingbeck can be reached at [email protected].
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