Newspapers across the country carried the news that 145 more Korean War prisoners were released from the Chinese communist camp on August 29, 1953.

An estimated 7,000 US soldiers were captured during the war.

“Four hundred Allied prisoners returned to freedom on the 25th day of the Korean prisoner exchange,” United Press International reported from Panmunjom, Korea, and printed in the Wichita Eagle in Kansas. “Russian-made trucks arrived at the scheduled time this morning with the first contingent of the day, consisting of 50 Americans and 50 Republic of Korea soldiers.”

Among the names published that day was Dr. Captain Gene Lam was also present.

“I will say that people, and especially his children, say, ‘Dad never talked about this,'” his wife, June Lam, told Cowboy State Daily from her home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “He looked at me and said: ‘Why would I want to do this again? Why would he want to talk about being imprisoned or hungry?’”

Wyoming Roots

Gene Lam was born on August 4, 1924, in Douglas, Wyoming, and grew up in Glenrock.

Following his high school graduation, he attended college at the University of Wyoming for a year before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943.

June Lam, who was originally scheduled to be part of an engineering unit, said an officer reviewed her paperwork and saw that she was a pre-med student. He asked the 19-year-old boy if he wanted to continue these studies.

June Lam met Gene in Nashville, Tennessee, while completing her pre-med degree in a special military program at Vanderbilt University.

They married and he received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburg in 1949.

Battalion Surgeon

Following his internship at Fort Lewis, Washington, Lam was sent to Camp Campbell, Kentucky. From there he was sent abroad to Korea as a battalion surgeon.

He was among the soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Regiment 2nd Division captured by the Chinese who overran American positions during intense fighting.

The next 34 months were spent as a prisoner of Chinese communists in Camp 2 on the banks of the Yalu River.

Years later, June learned from her husband that he had treated soldiers in an ambulance on the battlefield before he was captured. He also tried to evade the Chinese for three days before he was finally captured.

“He was literally missing for a year,” he said.

Lam’s oldest son, Dr. David Lam said he was 7 or 8 years old when his father returned. He has very few memories from before the war.

“The only thing I really remember was the day a Chinese propaganda photo was published in the local newspaper,” he said. “He was playing chess there and it was like three in the morning. My mother woke me up and said, ‘Your father is alive.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ And I fell asleep again.”

When her husband was repatriated, June said she and their children went to the airport in San Antonio, Texas, to meet him. She gave birth to her third child right after she was first sent to Korea.

“I had three children with me, and the children continued to watch the plane and the plane as people got off the plane,” he said. “He was pretty much the last person in uniform and he got off the plane, and my 3-year-old, who had never seen him, never met him… ‘Mom, is that my dad?’ he said.

“Even saying this now makes me shudder, but it happened.”

‘He Was a Good Man’

David Lam said that after his father’s return, he and his sisters got to know their father. After his return, another son was born.

“I had a lot of respect for him. He was a good man, yes, so he didn’t talk much about the war. Nobody did,” David Lam said. “But other than that, he had a family to take care of, and he loved all of us. We loved him, and he still believed in the military. He came back and spent 20 years with them before retiring.”

While his father didn’t talk much about his war experiences, David Lam said he remembers him posting about being hungry. In one of the stories, it is told that the soldiers caught and cooked a mouse, and in the other, the Chinese gave the prisoners chicken that they put in a pot of water. His father took the claws.

His first year after three years of captivity in the US involved regaining his health from vitamin deficiency and tuberculosis. When Captain Lam was declared fit for duty, he said he wanted to become an obstetrician, but the Army did not have much need for obstetricians, June Lam said. Instead, they offered him training in anesthesiology.

“He was a good anesthesiologist,” he said.

As one of the only medical officers in the prisoner of war camp, he tried to care for the men with him. Many died in the camp, David Lam said. His father secretly recorded their names and serial numbers and returned the information when he was released.

An article published in the Casper Tribune-Herald & Star on December 20, 1953, states that Captain Lam was summoned to Washington, D.C., to appear before a Senate committee investigating Korean War atrocities.

Neither June Lam nor David Lam could confirm this story, but David Lam said that his father was interviewed and spoke to many groups and agencies after his release. After his health improved and he returned to active duty, he trained soldiers on how to survive if they became prisoners of war, he said.

“He was probably one of the Army’s best instructors for 10 or 15 years,” he said. “Also, ‘How do you practice medicine when you have nothing to study?’ He also received a lot of training on the subject. The #1 Chinese cure for everything was basically chicken fat soaked in penicillin.

“They would make a hole in your abdomen and insert it under the skin, and it was thought that would cure everything.”

‘Quiet and Self-Sufficient’

June Lam said that from her perspective, her husband had not changed after the years he was a prisoner of war. He described her as a “quiet and self-sufficient” person.

Gene Lam’s obituary, published in the Casper Star-Tribune dated December 12, 1997, stated that he served as chief of anesthesiology at Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning, Georgia, and later at Tripler General Hospital and Letterman Army Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was stated that he was on duty. The Presidio in San Francisco. He completed his military career with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Gene Lam was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with a “V” for heroism, the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal, the Prisoner of War Medal, and the War Medic Badge for World War II. He was awarded other service medals and ribbons for his service in World War II. and Korea.

Gene Lam retired from the military after 20 years of service and opened a private practice in Virginia Beach, Virginia, until his second retirement in 1989. Besides David Lam, he and his wife, June, raised Holly Gene Wells, Heather Ellen Morstain. and Dana Michael Lam.

David Lam, a Wyoming native, said his father occasionally brings his family on state visits. He remembers hunting rabbits with his father.

June Lam said she remembers traveling back to Wyoming to see her family after her POW experience. Picnics and other events were held in Glenrock’s honor.

The Deer Creek Museum in Glenrock has an exhibit dedicated to Lam; Here is his uniform and a brief summary of his ordeal as a prisoner of war.

June said her husband stayed in the military, unlike some other POWs, because he felt he owed them for their medical care after he returned.

“He didn’t grumble at all. “He was never bothered about being caught,” he said.

Gene Lam died on December 10, 1997. He was buried at Princess Anne Memorial Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at [email protected].