I owe my life to Tootsie Rolls

As a little girl, one of my Daddy's pet names for me was Tootsie Roll. He loved Tootsie Rolls and it was always the candy he chose when he had a choice. It was not until many years later that I learned the significance of these little candies to him and his fellow Marines who fought in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir.

My Dad joined the Marine Corps in 1950, the day after his High School graduation. My grandparents, both German immigrants and naturalized Americans, were incredibly proud that their only child had decided to serve their adopted country. My Dad completeed Boot Camp at Camp Lejeune on his 18th birthday, April 24, 1950. Little did he know that he would be with the 1st Marine Division when they invaded Incheon in September. By the end of November, he was part of one of the most important battles of the Korean War, the Chosin Reservoir.

The UN Forces, of which my Dad was a part, were surrounded by the Chinese Army. Then a cold front moved in and the temperatures drop to -30 degrees, at night, and everything froze. Equipment, medical supplies, food, Jeep batteries all stopped functioning. Hoses and belts snapped in trucks, making them inoperable. As if things weren’t bad enough, they started to run out of ammunition. The Marines called in for “Tootsie Rolls”, the code name for 60mm mortar rounds. Unfortunately, the radio operator didn’t have the code sheet, but he knew the situation was serious, so he called in the order for “Tootsie Rolls”. Soon, pallets full of Tootsie Rolls were being dropped from the sky!

The Marines, however, were resourceful. They soon learned that the candies would melt in their mouths and the sugar gave them energy. The size of the candies made them perfectly pocket-sized, so the men filled their pockets with them and munched as they marched, hence the wrappers in the snow, as shown above. They further realized that, once the candies had been softened in their mouths, they became pliable and would freeze solid, when exposed to the sub-zero temperatures. This made them to perfect material to plug up bullet holes in trucks as well as repair ruptured hoses and belts.

The Marines got their trucks running, packed up their casualties and were able to fight their way out of the siege. The Marines that served in this campaign are, to this day, known to as the ‘Chosin Few’. It is considered one of the great battles in Marine Corps history and all recruits are required to learn about it.

My Dad came back from Korea and finished his first tour at Camp LeJeune. It was there he met and married my Mom, also a Marine. When news came that my brother ‘was on the way’ he transferred to the Reserves, where he spent another 25 years serving in the Marine Corps. He retired from the Corps in 1980 with 30 years of service.

My Dad never talked about what happened at Chosin when my brother and I were kids. We knew that he had received a Purple Heart, but never knew, until years later, that he received it for wounds suffered at the Chosin Reservoir. He also told me that he tried to refuse it, because it meant that his parents would be notified, and he didn’t want them to worry.

In 2016, I traveled with him to the Chosin Few Reunion, held in San Diego. This was to be his last. There were Tootsie Rolls everywhere! We all got tote bags from Tootsie Roll Industries. They have retained their close ties to the Marines and are proud of the role the accidentally played in the Korean War. We traveled to Camp Pendleton for a ceremony and a tour of the base. I was pleasantly surprised to see buckets of Tootsie Rolls next to the Howitzer gun they had on display. We were also invited to a Graduation ceremony at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. The Graduates were told that there were Veterans of the Chosin Reservoir attending the ceremony and many of them came to meet and shake hands with these heroes.

I was so happy to have the opportunity to learn more about this major event in my Dad’s life before he passed away. I asked him if he thought that the Tootsie Rolls saved his life and he said, “oh yeah!”. “So I wouldn’t be here is it wasn’t for Tootsie Rolls?”, I asked. He nodded his head and said, “neither would your brother”.