This account was provided to us by Sgt William Furey. If you have a story or account of events in your tour, please contact me via e-mail and it will be published.

Following boot camp graduation at Parris Island, S.C. on May 5th 1947, I was assigned to A Co., 4th Marine Regiment at Camp LeJeune, N.C., which was being rebuilt, and there were about 20 of us aboard. I was assigned as a Browning Automatic (BAR) Rifleman in a fireteam of an infantry squad, in the 3rd platoon.

Our Company Commander had been a WWII Marine Raider, a tough group of Marines and he believed in hard training. We did daily 20 mile marches, field problems and several night problems every month.

Our 1rst Sgt was a highly decorated WWII combat veteran. Our Gy/Sgt and Platoon S/Sgt had been in the 4th Marines in 1940 and were taken as POWs at the fall of Corregidor.

In September 1947, the Company went to Little Creek, VA for Amphibious training.

In January 1948 we sailed to the island of Vieques Puerto Rico for amphibious landings and infantry training. We were allowed liberty in the town of Isabell Segunda, where I spent my 18th birthday. In March 1948, while aboard ship, returning from maneuvers on Vieques, P.R., I was promoted to Corporal.

In August 1948, A Company flew from Cherry Point, N.C. to Quonset Point, Rhode Island and boarded the Navy Light Cruiser, USS LITTLE ROCK (CLG-4) for a Mediterranean Cruise. We put into the ports of Gibraltor, Sicily, and Rhodes, Greece for liberty. On our departure from Rhodes, our 3rd platoon received orders to pack our 782 gear, weapons, and sea bags because we were going on "special, detached, dangerous duty". Due to the danger of this assignment, they gave platoon members the option of not going, but it was up to the Marine not wanting to go to get a replacement. Several short-timers did this, by exchanging places with Marines on mess duty.

The destroyer USS McKenzie came along side and we boarded her for an overnight trip to Haifa, Israel. We dis-embarked and loaded our gear onto UN trucks, hiding our weapons, by putting them on top of the cases of ammunition, C rations and grenades. We covered them with our packs and sea bags and we sat on top.

As a result of the following actions; the assassination of of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, the killing of Consul General Thomas Wasson, the shooting at the consul and vice-consul, the wounding of a consular guard and Naval radioman, the kidnapping of the Consulate Chief Code clerk and a report by the US Army Attache of a conversation he overheard, that Consul General John MacDonald would be killed next, set the gears in motion for the present Consul General John Mac Donald, to request the U.S. State Department to send him more Marines, and we got the job.

We relieved a small contingent of 13 Marines, taking up our duties as Consulate Security and body guarding any Consulate staff members who left the compound on Official business. In addition, we guarded the U.S. Navy Radio Station, located in the Convent next to the Consulate and the YMCA where we and UN personnel were billeted. The first night in the YMCA we were awakened by machine gun fire from outside our window. Having been told that this was a neutral zone, we were puzzled. Then we heard a truck grind gears and drive away, followed by incoming mortar shells landing nearby. A few days later I asked a Haganah soldier about the machine gun and he said " Oh! We only have one machine gun that we drive around at night shooting it from various places, to make the Arabs think we have many." I asked him about shooting from our neutral area and he said I must be mistaken because it was in the dark.

The rooms in the YMCA were nice, at 3 pounds a day with meals. The food was sparse, so we filled up on a sort of pita bread, cocoa, and tea at all our meals. Because the city water pipes had been blown up, the water was trucked into Jerusalem each night, so we had no showers. We would put a flat iron into the sink and run the water so it came up to just below where the top of the iron joined the bottom and then plugged it into a wall socket. This warmed the water allowing us to take a "sailors bath" and shave. Later we bought a coffeepot to heat the water. The nuns at the Convent did our laundry for a minimal cost, as well as any embroidery we wanted on our clothing.

We were under daily sniper, machine gun, mortar and rocket fire, but were fortunate to have only one casualty during our tour. One evening, while standing duty on the main gate, I saw a rocket round swish through the air and hit the open lighted window of the Navy radio shack located in the Convent next door. The Navy radioman on duty had stepped out of the room a minute before or he would have been badly injured or killed. During his busy schedule he had failed to close the window shutters after it got dark, making the lighted room a perfect target for whoever fired the rocket.

On Christmas eve. I was on duty at the Main Gate, with all posts covered. One Marine fired off a few rounds from his Thompson while on post at the YMCA. He was relieved from his post and the rest of the evening was quiet. The LT and Sgts were in Bethlehem for the Holy Services.

In January 1949, Marine Embassy Guards relieved us. They had numerous uniforms and Dress Blues. They were surprised when we told them that there wasn't any clothing cleaning in Jerusalem. On my last day of duty, I was relieved by a SSGT on the Main Gate, who was wearing Dress Blues and white gloves.

We left all of our 782 gear and weapons at the Consulate and returned to the United States via the Destroyer USS GAINARD, from Haifa to Cypress, a Navy plane to Malta and then to a Naval Air Base in Casablanca. We waited there for a week for passage back home by ship and plane. We arrived at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and stayed at the Marine Barracks for the night. We then left by bus to Camp LeJeune, N.C. I was transferred to B Co., 4th Marines, drew new 782 gear and a rifle and we sailed off with the 2nd Marine Division for maneuvers on Vieques,P.R. a few days later.

In September 1949, I was playing football with the combined 4th and 9th Marine Football team. We changed our colors and became the 6th Marines under Col Homer Litzenberg. I left the 6th Marines in November 1949 and was discharged in February 1950.( I was recalled for the Korean War, with the 2nd Infantry Bn from Boston, in July 1950.) In September 1950, many of the members of the platoon that served at the Consulate in Jerusalem, made the landing at Inchon and fought their way out of the trap at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. For the second time they became the "Chosin Few".

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