COL John "Jack" Jessup - Anybody heard of him?

[FILO]

Trip,

You probably took the trip over to Pusan with my Dad. He was in Japan with the 25th when they shipped over to Pusan. He was 17 in 1946 when he enlisted.

[Trip_Wire (RIP)]

Originally Posted by FILO

Trip,

You probably took the trip over to Pusan with my Dad. He was in Japan with the 25th when they shipped over to Pusan. He was 17 in 1946 when he enlisted.

I was an unassigned replacement in the 'pipeline.' At Camp Drake I asked for assignment to the 25th ID because I had served with them in Japan on Occupation duty. No assignment!

I asked again at the repple depot in Pusan and was granted my wish. The train from the Pusan area to the MLR was something else. No seats, just two wooden slabs/platforms running the length of the car like a lower and upper berth. When it got dark they pulled the blinds, saying that local guerrillas like to take pot shots at the windows.

People got off the train at various stop fro the outskirts of Pusan to the MLR. They were usually met by a 2 1/2 ton and an NCO and driver.

Of course my trip was in 1951 where the COL's was in 1950. The trip to the MLR was short in 1950 at the Nakdong River on the outskirts of Pusan. My unit was North of Seoul a little longer train ride.

[FILO]

Originally Posted by Trip_Wire

I was an unassigned replacement in the 'pipeline.' At Camp Drake I asked for assignment to the 25th ID because I had served with them in Japan on Occupation duty. No assignment!

I asked again at the repple depot in Pusan and was granted my wish. The train from the Pusan area to the MLR was something else. No seats, just two wooden slabs/platforms running the length of the car like a lower and upper berth. When it got dark they pulled the blinds, saying that local guerrillas like to take pot shots at the windows.

People got off the train at various stop fro the outskirts of Pusan to the MLR. They were usually met by a 2 1/2 ton and an NCO and driver.

Of course my trip was in 1951 where the COL's was in 1950. The trip to the MLR was short in 1950 at the Nakdong River on the outskirts of Pusan. My unit was North of Seoul a little longer train ride.

Dad went over at the onset in 1950 with the 25th. He loved occupation duty in Japan and in fact after his 12 month tour in Korea, he asked to be reassigned to Japan, but, he had been overseas since 1947 so they shipped him back to the States. My Dad was from upstate New York and was used to cold weather, but, he told me that he never was more cold than his time in Korea.

[Trip_Wire (RIP)]

Originally Posted by FILO

Dad went over at the onset in 1950 with the 25th. He loved occupation duty in Japan and in fact after his 12 month tour in Korea, he asked to be reassigned to Japan, but, he had been overseas since 1947 so they shipped him back to the States. My Dad was from upstate New York and was used to cold weather, but, he told me that he never was more cold than his time in Korea.

Sounds like your Dad and I have some things in common. I arrived in Japan for Occupation duty in June of 1947. I had enlisted for the 1st Cavalry Division and was assigned to A Troop, 5th Cavalry Regiment at Camp Drake. I was injured at the training area at Mt Fugi and spent some time in the 49th General Hosp. in Tokyo. I was reassigned to the Signal Company at the 25th ID in Osaka, Japan I stayed there until Oct 1949. Yes, I also loved Japan and almost married a Japanese girl who was really an American. She finally got her citizenship back. Due to family problems on both sides we never married. She was a great gal though!

My wife now is retired from NWA and we have made many trips to Japan both before and after her retirement. I still love Japan. (Although it took the war in Korea to really convince me.)

Korea; however, was another story. I had many bad memories from there and of course I must agree it is the coldest place in the world to me. I shudder when I see pictures of the winter war there. I have been back just once to the Pusan area for one day on a cruise and did visit the UN cemetery there. It was really different from the Pusan I remembered.

[FILO]

Trip,

PM in-bound. From your info, it wouldn't surprise me if you may have known him.

[CSB]

CSB:

I read his Platoon Leader article. Sounds pretty accurate for that period of the war.

Damn, Trip Wire, you must be older than dirt!

Sigaba: I am humbled by your extensive research and detailed post.

It sounds like the late COL Jessup was a infantryman in Korea, did his duty honorably under under dangerous and difficult conditions, and like many of The Greatest Generation obtained his college degree with his GI Bill. He apparently achieved some renown as an academic and a historian. Reaching the rank of Colonel is no small achievement, regardless of branch.


I hope it was with pure heart and empty head, perhaps to impress coeds, and maybe as memories merged with his research in his dotage, that he expanded his personal oral history to include UDT/SF/Delta, etc.

His hooah biography came up in an article following his death. I sent a message to the author, lest the author continue to make a fool of himself.

As for COL Jessup:

De mortuis nil nisi bene: Speak nothing but good of the dead.

[Sigaba]

CSB--

Sir, thank you but it was mostly the search function at jstor.org and that I happened to read an article on Liddell Hart last night that brought back a lot of bad memories.

I think there may be two John Jessups under discussion in this thread. One is John E. Jessup, the historian, and the other is John F. Jessup, the Ranger in the news letter for which you provided the link.

I share your hope that the historian Jessup's memory misfired as opposed to the potential that he deliberately misled his peers, students, and admirers (a la Joseph Ellis).

[Team Sergeant]

The Special Forces community (The Special Forces Association and members of the Special Forces Command) has been informed of the below article and they have answered, no one in the US Army Special Forces has ever heard of anyone by the name of Col. John E. Jessup.

We also received word from the Navy SEALS, Col. John E. Jessup was never a Navy SEAL.

That is all.

Team Sergeant





February 27, 2009 12:00 PM

An American Hero Passes into History
Col. Jack Jessup was a legend known by few outside the military.

By Mark Corallo

The newspaper obituary started with an interesting line: “He was a Frogman in the Navy during WWII.” Jack Jessup — Col. John E. Jessup — was indeed a Navy Frogman in WWII. And he was born in 1927, which means he was 18 when the war ended. Jack Jessup lied about his age when he enlisted in the Navy. He was 15 or 16 years old, and he decided to go off to war to defend freedom and liberate the world from tyranny. Well, he was a big kid, and the recruiters weren’t too worried about birth certificates — especially when it came to a street tough from Queens who had already had a few run-ins with the law.

The next line in the obit noted that he retired as a colonel after 30 years in the Army Special Forces, serving in both Korea and Vietnam. That’s still not an unusual story; plenty of guys lied about their ages to get into WWII and then made a career out of the armed services. The bit about SF, however, is a clue.

The newspaper obituary started with an interesting line: “He was a Frogman in the Navy during WWII.” Jack Jessup — Col. John E. Jessup — was indeed a Navy Frogman in WWII. And he was born in 1927, which means he was 18 when the war ended. Jack Jessup lied about his age when he enlisted in the Navy. He was 15 or 16 years old, and he decided to go off to war to defend freedom and liberate the world from tyranny. Well, he was a big kid, and the recruiters weren’t too worried about birth certificates — especially when it came to a street tough from Queens who had already had a few run-ins with the law.

The next line in the obit noted that he retired as a colonel after 30 years in the Army Special Forces, serving in both Korea and Vietnam. That’s still not an unusual story; plenty of guys lied about their ages to get into WWII and then made a career out of the armed services. The bit about SF, however, is a clue.

Fifteen years ago, when one of my buddies from Officer Candidate School saw my wedding picture, the one where Jack is standing next to me in his dress blues, he was temporarily speechless. He instantly recognized the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Hearts, the Silver and Bronze Stars with V devices. He saw the Ranger Tab, the SF crest, the Pathfinder badge, the Combat Diver badge, Master Blaster wings and combat jump wings, Combat Infantryman Badge, underwater demolitions badge, I could go on. Officers don’t wear the badges earned for rating “expert” on a weapon, but if they did, Jack’s would have formed a ladder from his chest to his knees.

Jack received the Distinguished Service Cross in Korea. The DSC is second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. At lunch one day when I was visiting on Christmas leave, I asked him to tell me the story behind that medal. I knew that before receiving the DSC, he had already been shot in the stomach and awarded the Silver Star in another engagement with his first unit in Korea. He was truly reluctant, but I pressed. I wanted to hear it from him.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...VjOTg4Yzc3NGY=