The martial arts world may be well versed in the life time martial arts achievements of Jon Bluming, the Kyokushin Karate 10th dan black belt and Judo 9th dan black belt. Jon was a pioneer in mixed martial arts and never lost a judo or karate match and strangled the legendary judoka Kaminaga unconscious. However, this record of service feature is focused on a much less known aspect of Jon Bluming’s life, as a combat soldier.
Jon is not afraid to speak his mind and points out positives and negatives of any subject that matters to him including.
The greatest fear he ever experienced was in combat and not in martial arts and this article will provide a real look into Jon Bluming, the soldier.
Jon on the differences between real combat and martial arts
Jon Bluming, just back from his first time in Korea, Dec 1951. 18 years old.
Jon asked me to remind readers of how his service was 58 years ago but writes.
I know my comrades and I of that time are still almost every day still at it . Like you cannot get it out of your mind.
Of the 650 members of the first battalion there are only 70 still alive but many of those cannot come to the reunion’s because they are to ill or cannot walk anymore. Just now a book is on the market about those years and the exploits of the first battalion and it keeps me wondering how I escaped more harm except that I cannot get it out of my mind. So I am the real lucky one for it gave me the strength to make something of my life.
Now their is NO comparison between the real close quarters combat like in Hoengsong and Inje in battle when your fighting not only to win but to SURVIVE and doing a fight for your favorite sport or your work as a martial arts Sensei. And of course it is the ultimate way of fighting for their is no escape but going at it for all you have at that moment and my experience is that once the fight is under way you don’t think anymore but you get kind of panicky and want to kill anything in sight just to get it over with. When I came to the hospital in February 1951 after the Hoengsong surrounding business they found a round little wound in my right ankle and the surgeon asked me about the fight and did I know that it was a Chinese bayonet.
Even if I could save my life I really DON’T know how that wound was received during combat. It was too hectic. That’s my experience, and believe you me, I don’t really want to have that fight again. But I am PROUD to have served my country and did not turn and run. Besides there was no turn and run it would have had me killed like the 28 other men in that fight.
Again this is my experience and I have been in both situations.
Before a fight, especially at night, I was shaking (17 years old) and thinking, “Please let this go away.” Once you’re in it you do anything to get it over with and still shaking, and after fall into a dead sleep if that opportunity was given. Thankfulness when you escaped especially in hospital in Tokyo when you are safe and between clean sheets and a good meal.
Bootcamp marines 1949. Age 16 .
The second year 1952 Oct 13th. I was more mature and I think experienced and went into that fight at Arsenal with open eyes and mind for my friend was in danger and I went down and got him and several wounded Rangers out that night. Hans and I got the Forgotten Hero Award of the Rangers that night, the only two to get this high award for the Rangers as foreigners even if it took many years and about three years of investigation.
Again their is no comparison between sport and the real McCoy as any real veteran will tell you, and in the case of many veterans of the Korean war the stress will always be in the back of your mind. In sports I never had stress, only being mad as if things did not go as I wanted them to go, like making a mistake. Even in Japan I NEVER lost a martial art bout in Judo or Karate. MMA I established in 1965 and showed that to Oyama Sosai in 1966. They only started it in 1985 when the big business saw BIG money in it and they where right. The difference between Real war and games is very simple. In war they can very easily KILL YOUR ASS. In games, you can try your hand at competition without that reality. If martial arts champs would do good in war depends on the man and his KOKORO but I can tell you that many of those hard nosed MMA fighters will shit their pants once in the real close combat with their weapons at the ready and the mortars and artillery and enemy trying to kill them. Again it is everyman for himself and has nothing to do with sportsmanship and being a MMA champ or K1. There is NO comparison. People who were never in war will have absolutely NO idea what it is about and most of them just think about the heroic and "romantic side" of war. I found out about war in Tokyo when I saw those poor bastards with no legs and half of their faces blown off etc. That time I know that I was NOT happy to go back to war in April 1951 and back in hospital may 51 when we marched towards Inje. They asked me always WHY did you go back in July 1952. Well they told me and I read in the newspapers that the war was over and the next BT would be occupation troops and that idea I liked. I nearly had kittens when on board of the troopship to Korea we heard that the war was on full spirit again I was so scared and pissed that I could not sleep at night.
Arsenal 1952
When I arrived in Aug 52 at the front behind the mountains, with bunkers and trenches like WW1, a few mortars came in and two soldiers were dead and have not even seen the front or the trenches. That LATER gives you much to think about NOT at the time it happens your only happy it was NOT you. Tell that to the MMA champ.
You can only tell them what your life was in those days but they will usually nod but they will have no idea what really was going on. Like getting ready to assault a hill like the Teaysan, 1179 metres, July 1951, a week before going home (4 died for nothing), going up there knowing that hard boiled North Koreans were waiting in well prepared bunkers and of course on top of the hill and in full view of all those attacking soldiers How can you explain to the soft living people how that feels.
I always made fun of those so-called pussies that had to go to the shrink in the army because they had a hard time. Until my old buddy, Hans, came back from Indonesia where he lived after his divorce because the 10 of little shrapnel he had in his body because of an hand grenade which was thrown by a Chinese patrol passing the outpost Nudae in 53, and he died in my arms, in a hotel in Bunnik, because he could not take it anymore after all those years of terrible pain. THEN the stress, which is hidden deep inside of me (so the army shrink told me), came out and my wife and my buddies told me to go to the veterans’ hospital and seek help. Post service fighting the war again at night. Now I also know what the other veterans go through and I will never again make fun of them again.
Also my good friend Gary Friedichsen, two tours of duty in Vietnam, highly decorated, was finally KO’d by Agent Orange, and the bone cancer took his life some many years after the war.
That makes you very sad and you will never get it out of your mind. If there is a GOD then PLEASE BLESS those soldiers who did everything to make their country proud.
And may the GODS smile upon all of you. Prof Jon Blumin.
Jon’s answers to Tank’s questions
Jon Bluming was born on the sixth of February 1933 and his mother later told him he was a very long and skinny baby.
At age 7 when World War II broke out the young Bluming came close to killing himself when he was standing on a wooden cart looking skyward at German planes. He stepped back and fell off it and came down hitting his back of his head on the street and knocking himself unconscious.
He witnessed the German army cross the Berlage bridge into Amsterdam and five years later the English and Canadians doing the very same but as allies not enemies. Jon can remember the horror of his friends being taken away by the Germans and after the war only one came back the rest were all killed. When the war was finally over Jon was 12 years of age and suffered from a bad case of malnutrition weighing about 45 kg.
Jon and his family, suffered the rigors of wartime. He was not born into a long line of military combatants, however his mother’s younger brother who lived in Germany under the Hitler regime was a subject of compulsory military service. His uncle was convinced that Hitler was a new holy man for Germany and volunteered for service in the SS reaching the rank of sergeant. Jon can remember hearing his uncle, when he visited them in their small flat in Amsterdam on holiday, talking of what a mistake he had made and all the horrible things he had seen in Russia including the killing of the Jews. He commented that he did not want to return, but that was impossible, and on returning to his unit he was killed by a sniper at Dolchik, Russia, and his body at that time could not be removed from deep in the woods and still remains there today.
Jon’s mother’s sisters were all married to Germans and there were other members of the family in the resistance including recipients of the resistance medal after the war. Bearing the previous in mind, Jon had an understanding of the war from both sides and although he was a child in wartime his childhood was happy if not somewhat poor, but he did not know any better.
In the summer of 1944 life was extremely difficult, and Jon and his younger sister had to beg for food going door to door. They would take whatever was on offer including bread, tulip bulbs, sugar beets and apples. While begging and foraging they would steal anything that would make life less harsh including firewood and coal. This continued up until the liberation in May 1945 when Jon can remember climbing on a tank and getting cigarettes for his father.
His father had to stay home in hiding from the Germans, and when they were in the street he would disappear under the trap door in the floor as he had escaped from a German slave labour camp in France.
Jon came under enemy fire for the first time during this period when along with one of his school friends, Hans, he was shot at while stealing firewood from the side of a river, in front of a German post. In Jon's words, “they missed and we set an Olympic running time.&rdquo.
Jon remembers how the Germans tried to keep total control by keeping everyone in fear of them and their tactics. He was witness or subject to many cruelties and horrors of war and the following are some of his recollections.
While walking by the Amstel River and Tol Street on the opposite side of the river he witnessed considerable action, because the Germans had sealed off the entire neighbourhood with troops and trucks and were rounding up all Jews from their homes and loading them into the trucks.
He heard a commotion coming from the third floor of one of the houses and later learned that the very old invalid couple that lived there were unable to walk down the stairs so the sadistic German soldiers threw them out the window to their death and loaded their bodies onto the truck with the terrified Jews. Jon remembers he felt like he had been hit by 220 volts of electricity.
He can remember, along with his friend Hans, hearing of 12 resistance fighters being shot, and when visiting the location, the bodies had been removed and seeing the evidence of the killing everywhere in blood.
Jon can remember nothing exciting in those times only the fear of Germans killing many people for revenge and always hunting Jews and resistance fighters.
During the bombing of Germany a plane was shot down and its bombs dropped on a house in Jon’s Street, and only one block away, totally removing the house from existence.
Reminders of the danger of living in a war zone included the remnants of war, such as the metal from antiaircraft shells that Jon and his friends would find in the street.
Jon remembers stories of his family at the German border in Limburg where, in World War I and World War II, people hardly had any food, work or money. He visited their, along with his family, spending a whole day travelling by train from Amsterdam. This was an in 1942 and travel was so slow at times you could walk alongside the train.
Jon found himself always hungry and looking for food to steal from farms such as carrots, potatoes, apples, and seasonal fruit. He had the occasional close encounter and hairy escape from angry farmers and their dogs. Even though he took considerable risks he knew no better and found the thrill of his actions fun at the time.
Jon’s family had no involvement with unarmed combat or martial arts and in those times, in his location, boxing was the only form of available combat sport. In 1946 Jujitsu was established in Amsterdam, and later other martial arts, including the introduction of Karate by Jon in December 1961. Jon laughingly remembers they did not even know how to spell karate in those days.
Jon first began boxing in 1946 from a Jewish boxing coach who had escaped from the Germans and started his boxing school after the war in the Jewish neighbourhood of Joden Houttuinen. Jon loved boxing and received his first of three broken noses during this period. His boxing coach’s name was Cosman and the training was of good quality, providing Jon with not only a great physical workout but also a rush of adrenalin from the physical contact given and received when he was matched in the ring with his fellow boxers. Jon can remember the local lightweight champion warming up in the ring and the pleasure of watching him going through his moves. He trained there in boxing for two years, from age 13 to 15, and on turning 16 and graduating from lower technical school, Timorplein in Amsterdam he applied for the Marine Corps.
Although Jon never wrestled, when he returned from Japan in 1961 he delighted in taking wrestlers on in the dojo and dominating them with his chokes and armlocks. He discovered to his delight that many a wrestler would try to escape by bridging and turning away exposing their throat and he would choke them with the knife-edge shoke, one of the very first simple ground movements he learned from his first teacher and dear friend Ger (Grandad) Schutte in November 1953.
The story behind Jon’s broken nose was that, “my friend Hans from elementary school simply clipped me with a right hand on the nose when we were sparring in the ring.” After the war good training equipment was hard to come by and there was one glove in the gym that was like a rock. This particular glove was the choice of both Hans and Jon and on this particular night Hans was the lucky one, being first in and getting the rock-hard glove.
Jon had a habit in his first year at high school of being absent and would run the streets begging and stealing. When his mother met the teacher in the street and was told he had not been at school for weeks on end she was furious. When Jon came home one day and lied telling his mother he'd been at school his mother took a pound of flesh or more from his backside. The young Jon in those days did not realize the difficult predicament his mother was in after his father left them in dire straits after the war and how she had to work so hard for so little money to support the family.
The priest at his mother's church was also a police officer of the children at police headquarters in Amsterdam and Jon was made to attend classes at the headquarters where he got his clock cleaned. The priest promised that if Jon went to the lower technical school for two years he could join the Marines and go to the East Indies.
Patrol with point 30. Summer 1952.
In 1949 Jon along with 2500 other young military hopefuls entered the Navy base in Amsterdam for medical and entry tests but only 30 came through the process and were sent to Voorschoten and after another 14 days only two got accepted into the Navy as Jon states and became punching bags for the Marines.
The Marine boot camp in Doorn at the very same camp almost 60 years later his close friend Lt. Robbie Zuiderwyk, the general Commandant of the Marine and Navy forces, would pipe in the Marine Jon Bluming dojo for martial arts for the Marines. Jon is very proud and emotional about this great honour.
1949 was not an easy time for Jon, a former street smart kid with attitude who had learned how to live by his wits begging and stealing to survive in the desperation of wartime Amsterdam.
August 1949, he began his service at boot camp at Camp Doorn, where he at times rebelled and found himself receiving punishment in the form of scraping down the floor of the weapons building with water, sharp sand and a street brick or it was marching drills with a full combat pack of bricks.
There was one particular Corporal that delighted in this form of punishment and restricting Jon’s weekend leave. He would stand smiling, smoking a cigarette, and employing as much physical and mental torture as he could. Jon remembers when this Corporal went to Korea in 1952 and was jailed, followed by a dishonourable discharge for cowardice in the face of the enemy.
By the end of 1949, with a treaty signed with the Indonesians the prospects for Jon looked like spending the next six years in camp and that was something he was not willing to suffer. He requested a meeting with the Commandant and just before Christmas Day 1949 he received an honourable discharge signed by General De Bruyne.
After working in some dirty jobs for very little pay, in July 1950 Jon read in the newspaper they were looking for volunteers to fight aggressors in Korea. He wrote to The Hague and was invited to come to the Alexander Moultrie Camp in The Hague. He was once again a soldier in the Dutch battalion for United Nations called the Heutz Regiment. Jon felt a sense of adventure to go and fight alongside the Americans, Canadians, and English who had liberated them from the misery of the war.
Jon considered after missing out on the East Indies that Korea would be a better place to go. Jon found the training less than beneficial but the comradeship definitely first-class to the point of demolishing a communist newspapers printing press that printed untruths about them. The outcome being they had to pay two dollars a month compensation for their entire tour of duty.
Nudae outpost 1953
Jon remembers his service in Korea in 1950 in his own words how he felt ignorant in the company of all the veterans of World War II.
Between 1952 and 1953 he finally felt a true veteran himself and that he had achieved what he had always wanted to, that being one of the best himself. He was rewarded with the Forgotten Hero award from the Rangers and the Army Commendation medal with V for valour and his third Purple Heart.
He had fulfilled his ambitions in the military, had seen plenty of combat, and he had completed his military service and knew that a lifetime Army career was not for him.
Jon and his friend Hans Crebas received a field promotion to PFC October 11, 1952 and 1953 Jon, the squad leader with the .30 and .50 calibre machine guns that he had the honour of running on most patrols as he preferred this to four hours nightly guard duty.
Jon recalls that he was a wild one in those days in the eyes of the brass with his womanizing and socializing it did not go over well in seeing them overlooked in his last year for getting his sergeant stripes. At the time he cared little as he was positive that he was not going to stay in the Army after the war.
Jon remembers of unarmed combat that when he was 17 there was absolutely no unarmed combat training in the Marines or the Army. He can remember in 1963 the first demonstration he gave for the commandos under the control of an officer who was a member of staff in Korea but not a fighting man.
The post-demo result was Jon that was told that the training was much too dangerous for them and that's the way it stayed for many years. Fortunately today things have changed and there are some foreign instructors in the Army and the Marines and some with direct training links to Jon.
Jon first trained Marines plus the Navy in 1967 and still does occasionally today. One name that Jon can recall, who was a World War II legend in military close combat, in the first six dan Black belt from the Kodokan before World War II was one Demott Patrick O'Neill who he described as a tenacious fighter along with Englishman Trevor P Leggett.
Jon has conducted many seminars for military and police personnel including on meeting Jan de Bruin in 1980 who asked him to conduct a seminar at the Navy base in Vlissingen. Jon never taught bayonet and knife training to the forces, as they had their own instructors for that.
Jon's group with the most nightly patrols. 2nd from right Jon Bluming, just before he was wounded the 3rd time Oct 1952.
In retrospect Jon believes in today's world he would have joined the commandos and been happy to serve in a Special Forces unit like that of the US Special Forces. In Jon’s words, “the Korean War really made me and I learned a lot in those days combined with Japan after the war in my association with Donn Draeger, my other martial arts influences including Kurosaki Oyama and Kuroda.” These influences moulded Jon into the combatant and fighter he is and gained him the title “The Beast from Amsterdam.&rdquo.
Jon received the Juliana Cross for Korean service twice, as well as the Korean United Nations medal twice, Korean bronze war medal twice, three purple hearts, the Forgotten Hero Award from the ranges earned on the 11th of October 1952 after getting out wounded Rangers during an assault on the hill next to the outpost. The Belgian bronze medal for service rendered to them, and other medals presented in later years that Jon humorously describes as Mickey Mouse medals.
He also received two presidential unit citations from the USA and two from the Korean president for Hoengsong, Wonju, Hill 325 and Inje, February 13, 1951 in July 1951.
In 1966 he received the gold medal of the Tokyo Police for, as he put it, for kicking ass, which had been in 1961, and working with Captain Westerling during the period between 1963 and 1970 he got the Army commendation medal from the US with V. This was for “being stupid” in East Germany and as Jon says “never again”.
He also received the coveted Infantry Combat Badge and a Russian medal for assisting the “special boys,” as he puts it, with his techniques of unarmed combat for more than four years.
October 1950, Jon boarded the troopship Zuiderkruis bound for Pusan, via the Suez Canal. Jon very much enjoyed the sightseeing side of this whole new but very Stone Age like country until the temperature dropped to 31° below zero and everything froze.
From Pusan, Jon's outfit travel by train to Taegu and were then transported by truck to Suwon. It was here that they received some training in American weaponry and Jon got a BAR light machine gun.
Jon's outfit soon discovered the harsh realities of the dramatic weather changes ranging from the bitterest winters to red hot summers and sometimes constant heavy rain. Between the stench of raw sewage put on all the rice paddies and the fact that their battle dress was made of summer material when it was very cold made conditions less than favourable for combat.
On Jon's first patrol they were involved in a skirmish with guerrillas from the North Korean army and after that firefight Jon experienced having comrades from a company killed in action. It was from then on that Jon had to suffer the realities of war in a foreign harsh environment and effects of sleep deprivation.
Jon was in B company and on January 9, 1951 they were trucked to the frontline into a full frontal offensive between the South Korean army and the Chinese. It was during this full offensive while crossing a stream amongst the confusion and chaos of battle and wounded Koreans crawling away from the front that directly behind Jon one of his comrades, private Sour, fell face down dead and B company had their first combatant killed in action.
Murphy's Law hit Jon hard when he found himself running on adrenaline with the effects of driving him to fight, when he saw a Chinese soldier between trees shooting with a light machine gun at Jon's outfit. Jon committed to taking him out took aim and being the mechanism dropped from his rifle along with ejecting rounds falling to the snow covered ground. His platoon leader Lt. Oostendorp gave him a quick smack in the face and pulled him behind cover.
Jon remembers although he was always hungry, fatigued, and freezing cold his, and his comrades, morale was high.
January and February 1951, Jon's outfit found themselves at the front line as part of the 38th Regiment. Their duties included keeping a main supply route open and preventing the Chinese from advancing in order to prevent being overrun and Korea being lost. Jon was the youngest soldier there at the time and his commander Lieutenant Theo Oostendorp was the youngest officer at only 21 years of age.
Jon, under the command of Lt. Oostendorp, was part of a platoon strength patrol that performed a reconnaissance mission in the mountains to ascertain if the enemy was present. Taking a peek Jon was shocked to see thousands of Chinese and a diamond attack formation coming towards him. All he wanted to do, along with his 40 comrades, was get the hell out of there.
Other operations his outfit were involved in included collecting supplies for the second division from the airport at Wonju and then destroying it hindering the advance of the Chinese. Jon can remember looking at the snow covered mountains and realizing that there were up to half a million Chinese enemy concealed there.
The effects of sleep deprivation were a real enemy to Jon and on more than one occasion in a compromising position he found himself nodding off. After a nerve-racking reconnaissance patrol along a valley beneath the high mountains they come to a small village that was on fire and cautiously they cleared the village. Jon sat down on the porch of a small house to rest and must have fallen asleep. He awoke to an old villager with a stick poking him in the crotch and pointing with the stick the direction his comrades had taken. Jon headed in the direction of his patrol, running into a tank positioned near a small bridge where four soldiers were around a small fire and they were fortunately Americans who were waiting for Sergeant Vogelzang to return so they could blow up the bridge. Sometime later Jon's patrol returned and he voiced his frustrations for being left behind but was pleased to be back with his comrades even though he felt 10 years older.
Not long after this they started their retreat walking for days without food or sleep in a while. Jon fell asleep standing with his chin on his rifle and landed on the hard icy road.
It was around about now that the war lost its charm for Jon and he started to think that this war was a big mistake for him. By now Jon was a runner for the B company commander, Captain Bill Clumpkens, a man he considered an excellent soldier who'd served in World War II and in the Indies.
When the captain was wounded Lieutenant Montery to go and Jon became his runner. On February 12 hostilities erupted around Hoensong and the Chinese overran the ROK and turned the machine guns on Jon's outfit. By the following night Chinese commandos known as the “Sharp Swords” had launched a rear offensive. When Jon's commander was killed they were ordered to fix bayonets and fight their way out. Jon can remember seeing his friends killed and wounded everywhere he looked, but they fought with bravery and commitment. Corporal Sjeng Wunnik, an old commando of the English school who served in World War II, was responsible for their escape after he went forward and found an escape route from Hoengsong and was later highly decorated for this action.
Middle Arsenal outpost 50 meters from the Chinese. 1952.
The next day Jon's outfit was ordered to attack Hill 325 to ensure the second division were not overrun again. Jon was a runner with Lt. Montery and after they had destroyed radio equipment inside a hut in the Valley and made their way back up the hill covered with icy snow they observed the Chinese parallel to them across the valley on another hill. Suddenly Jon felt a burning pain in his right upperleg and looked down to see blood and cloth coming out of his winter parker. There was no time to hesitate and he was ordered that it was nothing and to get moving. Jon continued to run and engage the enemy for another 3 miles until he made it to Manyong station where his wound was checked and he found that he had two bullets lodged in his thigh. He was transported in a Red Cross truck to a military hospital and that same night flown to Tokyo for hospital treatment.
It was now 1951 and Jon was 18 years of age. He was recovering in Japan and his comrades had captured the hill but it had come at the cost with 30 men killed and half a battalion wounded.
During that six weeks in Tokyo, Jon, walking through the wards of the hospital, came face-to-face with the tragedies of war seem mean good lost half their faces arms and legs and it scared the hell out of him.
It was in Tokyo that Jon first visited the Kodokan Judo Institute and observed a demonstration by Master Mifune, a happening that would affect his later life in martial arts.
On recovery Jon was flown back to Korea and in April found himself at Inje where his outfit found themselves encircled and were ordered to get out. They walked for three days over rough terrain until a small plane dropped a message telling them that on the other side of the mountain the entire Chinese army was walking just as fast also towards the US lines and were unaware of their presence. On receiving the message Jon's outfit upped the pace by considerable arriving hours before the Chinese. This action is known today as the three-day hunger retreat because they had absolutely no food until they made it back to the lines.
The attack on Inje. May 1951
The Chinese broke through the UN lines and launched a rear offensive, which lead to Jon's outfit once again running as fast as they could as they were grossly outnumbered. It was a case of calling in air strikes and artillery to deal with the mass troops in the second division stop them in days, trapping them in a valley. Again in the end of May the enemy broke out taking out the howitzers and their crews and out of a running both sides of the hills over the Valley. Jon's comrades were being killed by the Chinese in all directions, he grabbed his carbine and ran towards the road to avoid mortars that were being directed at the heart of the fracas.
Making his way through a stream as fast as possible out of the valley he found himself immediately below the enemy and realized he'd been compromised. Immediately he engaged them with hand grenades until he felt pain in his right ankle and got out of there as quickly as possible. He was evacuated by Jeep and spent the night with GIs and the following day he was taken by MPs and loaded into a Red Cross vehicle bound for a mash hospital as a result of shrapnel in his ankle. He was also found to have scabies and it took more than six weeks before he was back with his outfit.
On his return he was saddened to find out 21 of his comrades had been killed in action and many more wounded. Some of the dead were close friends and the platoon had lost 20% of the troops during this encounter. Post this action Jon’s outfit went back into combat for the remainder of their tour to Taesun mountain that rises some 1197metres.
There was no more running and retreating. It was very much bunker and trench warfare. The Chinese were persistent in the efforts to launch raids on your lines and Jon's outfit were involved in night patrols and probing into enemy territory. On July 26, Jon's outfit, just days before their tour, ended found themselves in full combat gear and tasked with the impossible orders to take a hill that they could not achieve and even if they did could not hope to hold fast.
Nudae outpost. My point 30 in bunker .
After making their way down the jungle clad hillside and up the other side, they found their comrades had been gunned down immediately in front of the Chinese trenches. The South African Air Force was called in to bomb the Chinese bunkers that were as close as 20 metres from Jon's outfit. Simultaneously an order was received to retreat and Jon reckons he was close to an Olympic medal time getting out of there.
Jon was wounded twice on this tour of duty and experienced the realities of fixing bayonets in trench warfare resulting in the deaths of many of his comrades and close friends. Jon swore as a result of this horrific experience he would never take a backward step for anybody and would live by the old saying an eye for an eye.
On their arrival in Rotterdam, Prince Bernhard was there to greet them and his speech was truly appreciated and he was considered a soldier among soldiers. Jon received his honourable discharge in December 1951.
February 1952, with little job prospects and reports that the war in Korea was close to ending and it would be occupation by peace troops Jon once again enlisted. He was sent to Commando school in Roozendaal where the Van Heutz regiment had its new camp. He was involved in a training role of a black platoon from Suriname as a duty NCO.
July 1952, Jon was part of the 40 man group bound for Germany en route by ship to Korea. It would via the ship's radio that Jon learned that the peace talks were over and full hostilities were once again the reality. Immediately on docking they were transported by truck to the front lines and once again it was a matter of taking or defending hills and mountains.
Jon's Battalion was on the mountainside of Alligator Ridge to the left of the infamous hills known as Old Baldy and the Whitehorse. This mountainous terrain costs hundreds of lives and was fiercely fought for and defended. Jon preferred night patrols over guard duty in the trenches and found strength in the sound and reliable group he went on patrols with. He was again in C Company and in September 1952 his platoon took over the outposts Nudae and Erie. Taking the second outpost involved grave danger and the former being only 15 metres away from the Chinese trenches which were mined and sealed off with barbed wire.
Duties included patrols where the aim was to ambush the Chinese and snatch prisoners. Capturing a prisoner had its rewards in the form off five days in Tokyo living it up. Jon’s friend, Hans Crebas, was chosen by the Americans 38th Regiment as a scout because he and his group had done more patrols than any other group. It was Hans that had to lead the way showing the Americans the terrain that he knew so well.
Jon could hear from his machine gun bunker the unmistakable sounds of the enemy engaging Hans and the American company he led attacking them as usual from the rear flanks. Jon felt concern for his friend Hans and pleaded with Lt. Bos to allow him to venture down the valley in search of Hans which he eventually consented to. Fully armed with his carbine, 45 pistol, and hand grenades, Jon set off down the hill in search of Hans. Eventually after having to take concealment until a Chinese patrol had passed Jon unwisely called out to his friend and fortunately received a reply from Hans. Hans was carrying a wounded American soldier and he and Jon spent the rest of the night helping wounded soldiers back to their lines.
Back at the outposts that were greeted by an American and Korean general and told they would get a medal for the actions. The following day they received their promotions to PFC but no medals and once again Jon felt cheated.
Back in the trenches since hostilities broke out once again and Jon feared that the Chinese would take the outpost. He immediately headed for his .30 calibre bunker to find it had been completely destroyed from a direct hit from an 82 mm mortar. Running back to the command bunker to report his weapon had been destroyed when a 60mm mortar fell close behind him knocking him to the ground and almost rendering him unconscious.
When he got back up from the ground he experienced extreme pain behind his left knee and remember screaming out, “no not again!” He made his way to the command bunker and fell in joining a wounded fellow Dutchman and several Americans.
Being fed up with looking at the wounded in the command Post Jon limped back to his own bunker only to be the victim of a massive explosion where most of the heavy wood framing of the rooftop caved in on him. The pain was immense but Jon managed to limp back to the command bunker sitting there until first light when he was evacuated to the MASH.
The shrapnel was never removed from behind Jons knee after several weeks of rest followed by training he returned to the front lines this time at Nudae. They were constantly under attack even though this outpost was not as close to the Chinese as Erie. It was very much a case of patrolling every night and waking to be hit from incoming artillery and mortars.
Jon was awoken in his bunker one night by the screams of his friend Hans and immediately grabbed his .45, going over the top and jumping into the trench below where he found his buddy wounded on the ground. He lost most of his hand and there was blood gushing from his face chest and arms. Jon picked his friend up carrying him through the trenches to the mainline about 1 km away. He took him to the first aid station where a medic had to resuscitate him as he stopped breathing. The medic indicated to Jon there was not much hope for Hans and Hans was later evacuated by helicopter to a hospital. Fortunately Hans survived, losing most of his hand and carrying a fair amount of shrapnel in his body to this day.
May 1953 after R&R and more training Jon was back in the frontline at Chungmokil on the final stretch of his tour involved in one patrol after another. Just before Jon's time was up he was asked to go on a patrol by Lt. Douna because of his experience however the camp commandant refused to let him go as his time was up and he was homeward bound. As fate would have it his patrol met with fierce hostilities from the Chinese and it was radioed in that there were many casualties. A support group was sent down only to find many dead and wounded and Jon had lost several of his friends as well as Lt. Douna and Sergeant Vreeswijk. Jon felt very sad knowing there was an armistice declared the day after his friends had lost their lives.
Jons tour was over and after six weeks on a troopship he was back home. Jon had to face an ugly ordeal on his return when he was ordered to present himself immediately to a military camp by the Provost Marshal. He was immediately locked up and held in jail for a week and then held under house arrest at the camp while a decision was made in relation to an incident that happened in Korea that left some Korean pimps dead by the military court. Jon was called into the office of the camp commandant and informed him that he was a free man and everything was okay. Jon was offered a post at the NCO school in Weert but had made his mind up to get out and it had enough of Army life and within weeks was a civilian once again.
Jon on security work
Although Jon never worked the doors as a bouncer, many of his understudies were bouncers. In Jon’s words, he had the honour of being asked by Colonel Meyers, a Korean veteran, to bodyguard Prince Bernhard, the husband of former Queen Juliana, in the 70’s. He bodyguarded Prince Bernhard ever 5 years, on his birthday in July, when he gave a party for the military forces veterans, not because of high risk, but more to keep the over enthusiastic veterans at bay. Jon recalls dealing with a member of the press who bothered Queen Juliana, by means of palm strike sending him over two tables.
Kregg P.J. Jorgenson on Jon Bluming
Kregg P.J. Jorgenson served in Vietnam with Company H, Rangers, and later with Apache Troop, the 1st of the 9th Cavalry. He was a sergeant during the Vietnam War, serving between 1969 and 1970, and besides a Silver Star more than nine times decorated for bravery and three times wounded. He is the chairman of the decoration committee of the Rangers, a graduate of the University of Maryland and City University-Seattle and a law-enforcement officer in the Pacific Northwest.
The line in 1951 April.
Kregg Jorgenson wrote of the young soldier Jon Bluming.
Private Jon Bluming, age 19 years, was on the second combat tour of duty in Korea. He was tall gangly and one of the 636 members of the Van Heutsz regiment to arrive on the troopship Zuiderkruis November 23, 1950.
Then just 17 years of age he was the youngest soldier in the detachment that was made up of just two infantry companies and one heavy weapons Company. The Dutch soldiers were volunteers and many were seasoned veterans of the Paras or commandos who had served in Europe or the Dutch East Indies.
Not long after arriving Jon found himself involved in heavy conflict against a Chinese border when 260,000 Chinese Communist forces attacked the combined United Nations forces.
There were initial mass retreats to escape the onslaught and the Dutch were soon part of the Allied forces and had a brief introduction to the US weapons and equipment. Back to back operations countered the Chinese advance and Private Jon Bluming now found himself fighting a new war.
Reconnaissance patrols, missions to snatch prisoners, and hit and run night raids were required in the early stages of combat.
Chinese attack included infiltration by wearing South Korean army uniforms and yelling to the Dutch not to shoot because they were Republic of Korea soldiers. However once inside the perimeter they would ambush the unsuspecting Dutch soldiers.
There were bitter hand-to-hand close combat encounters and the Dutch lost a hundred of their soldiers including the battalion commander and three other officers.
The delaying action of the Netherlands battalion earned them both the US Presidential unit citation and a South Korean unit citation for their bravery and heroism with Lt. Col. Den Ouden receiving the Militair Willem Orde, the Netherlands medal of honour, posthumously.
Private Bluming's battalion, with little break, found themselves assaulting a strategic hill known as Hill 325 by means of a bayonet charge. In a bloody encounter the Dutch raiders had the Chinese on the back foot fleeing the dugouts of the snow-covered hill. This was some bloody and close combat and in the end only seven of the Dutch raiders were left standing.
The success of the operation was short lived when Chinese mortars were responsible for the death of two more of Jon Bluming's comrades in Ketting-Oliver and Anamaet. Private Bluming was wounded taking two rounds in his right thigh in this battle earning him the much coveted combat infantryman's badge, his first Purple Heart. He found himself in Japan recuperating before he returned to combat.
Six months later at Inje and now a seasoned Bluming received his second Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds from a Chinese grenade in another battle. It was after this than Bluming would return home to civilian life only to soon re-enlist and volunteer to return to Korea.
It was August 1952 when Bluming arrived back in Korea for his second tour of duty along with some of his buddies of similar backgrounds. Bluming's close friend, Hans Crebas, was a fine sniper and scout who was selected along with Bluming to lead infantryman to take a hill.
This meant moving down a hill and across a valley to enable the taking of the hill. Before long small arms fire and grenade explosions could be heard followed by more to artillery and even tank far on the Hill. That night, as a battle dragged on, Bluming began to worry about his friend and scout, Crebas. He volunteered to move down the valley and search for his friend and was given permission.
Armed with a carbine and a .45 calibre pistol plus some grenades, Bluming took off down the hill into the darkness and unknown. Close to the bottom of the hill he met up with Crebas who was carrying back a wounded American soldier. All night Bluming and Crebas carried back the wounded soldiers and the next day they both receive field promotions to PFCs.
In no time at all Bluming's position was under Chinese mortar attack and while making his way to a bunker he was knocked down when an 82 mm mortar exploded behind him. Although a flak jacket took the brunt of the force of the shrapnel he felt a burning sensation in his left knee in the back of his knee a mass of blood. The force of the explosion knocking him to the ground left him not only was a wound to his knee but also an aching back and ringing ears.
He made his way to the command bunker where the seriously wounded were being treated in and his knee bandaged before grabbing his rifle and heating back to his bunker. Only minutes later his bunker took a direct hit and collapsed on him and it was for this that he received his third Purple Heart.
On yet another mission on a hill, Crebas took a hit from a Chinese grenade and his friend Bluming would pull this critically wounded friend to safety.
Reunion of the Dutch Veterans Day 2007
