Vince Staten: 1953: Big Stone Gap Soldier Defects

Corporal Edward Dickenson of Big Stone Gap returns home in 1953.

(From Pathe newsreel that was shown at Strand Theatre.)

It was a small story below the fold on the front page of the Christmas Eve 1953 edition of the Kingsport Times:

“Friends, Kinfolk Are Bewildered By Decision Of American Captives.”

Twenty-two American prisoners-of-war who were being held in North Korea had chosen to remain in a Communist POW camp, in effect defecting to China.

They had “turned down their last ‘safe’ chance to return to freedom,” as the Associated Press story put it.

I posted that front page on my blog Christmas week and a reader wondered what had become of the almost two-dozen deserters. Had they remained in a Chinese prison?

I told him I didn’t think they remained prisoners but stayed on a “guests.” But I didn’t know what happened to them, I’d have to look it up.

That kicked up a memory in my head: I recalled that one of the defectors was from Southwest Virginia. I couldn’t remember the details except that he had died after I moved back to Kingsport in 2002. But he wasn’t listed in that Christmas Eve story.

There was a prisoner from Memphis, another from northern Kentucky. But no one from Southwest Virginia.

At first I just dismissed it as one of my “misremberances.”

But I made one more search, this time turning up a ten-years-later story about the POWs from 1963.

And there he was: Corporal Edward S. Dickenson from Big Stone Gap. Eddie, as his father called him in a Kingsport Times story, had been a member of the original group of defectors but by the time of the Christmas Eve story he had reconsidered and decided to return home.

The original story about “the captives who wouldn’t come home” made headlines all over the world when it broke in Sept. 1953. The Kingsport Times even sent reporter Virginia Davis up to Cracker’s Neck, a community outside Big Stone Gap, to see what Eddie’s family thought:

"I cannot believe my son has been converted to communism," Eddie’s mother, Mrs. Bessie C. Dickenson told the newspaper reporter.

Bessie told the Times-News she had learned from Elmer Powers of Clintwood, a returned prisoner of war in the same camp with her son, that her son was alive and in good health on Aug. 5. Powers had said that her son was loaded on a truck that day and taken from the camp by the Communists.

Mrs. Dickenson said she had received 30 letters from him since he was captured Nov. 5, 1950, and that in each he had stated his desire to come home. She said he was optimistic during the truce negotiation because he thought he would soon be released.

She said her son's letters had said he was being treated well and was getting plenty of food and clothing and not to worry about him.

"I will not believe this is true about my son [defecting] until it is proven."

The Dickenson family awaiting Eddie's return.

She had a long month of worrying about Eddie. But then on October 21, 1953 a clutch of reporters, including the Times’ Virginia Davis, made the trek up to Cracker’s Neck again. Eddie had changed his mind and wanted to come home.

"Well, thank God . I knowed he was coming home if they'd let him."

She added, “Now I don't think I have a burden to place on the Lord. I just felt like Ed was coming home, and it's been a shame the way I worried.”

The newspaper reported that Dickenson had enlisted in March, 1950, and was a member of the First Cavalry Division. He had attended school at East Stone Gap School, dropping out in fifth grade.

Mrs. Dickenson said she felt Eddie was "doped or something," as she tried to explain why she thought her son went over to the Communists.

Ralph Flanary, who went to school with Dickenson, was outside the home. He told reporters that, "People all around are proud to see Ed come back. Nobody believed he could be a Commie, and I never did think Ed was that kind of boy."

The Dickenson home on Powell Mountain.

The story of Corporal Dickenson’s homecoming was in newspapers all over the country and featured on a Pathe newsreel shown at the Strand Theatre. Many of the papers carried the Associated Press report by “famous correspondent” Don Whitehead, who had won two Pulitzer Prizes as a war correspondent.

It was a good story but Whitehead had another reason to cover it. The Kingsport Times News explained he was already in the area, visiting his father in Inman, Virginia, five miles away.

Whitehead’s story, datelined “Cracker’s Neck, Va.,” began, “Cpl. Ed Dickenson came back to an almost hysterical welcome in the home of his childhood Sunday night and hinted that he may never again leave these hills.

“The young soldier who turned his back on communism after first refusing repatriation as a prisoner of war was almost mobbed by relatives and friends at the end of his 10,000-mile journey from Korea.

“A driving rain splashed on the hills and formed pools of water in the muddy lane leading from the road to the house. But the rain didn't dampen the celebration. Dickenson's brothers, sisters and friends poured out of the house into the rain to smother him with hugs and kisses.

“Dickenson could only grin happily when asked how he felt. Earlier he had said that he was undecided whether he will re-enlist in the Army as he had once said he would do.

“’I said I was going to re-enlist,’ he said. ‘But I've got a lot of thinking to do about it. It's too early to say what I'll do.’

“Dickenson's 73-year-old father, Van Buren Dickenson, said: ‘Ed's just got to stay at home. I'm going to knock him out of that idea of going back into the Army. We need him too bad at home.’

Why had Eddie initially decided to stay behind?

Another wire story explained;

“To persuade American POWS to choose communism, the Reds have promised free women, free schooling, free homes and a chance to rule the United States when it is conquered. This is the testimony of Cpl. Edward S. Dickenson, the Cracker's Neck, Va., youth who chose freedom after first refusing repatriation along with 22 other U. S. war prisoners.

As for Van Buren Dickenson’s intention to keep his Eddie at home, that didn’t work out.

The Army decided to court-martial Corporal Dickenson, accusing him of informing on fellow prisoners to gain favors for himself while a prisoner.) During the trial in March 1954, Ed was convicted and sentenced to ten years of hard labor. He served three and a half years before being paroled and returning to Cracker’s Neck.

From May 17, 1954 Life Magazine

He led an uneventful life there.

When the Associated Press caught up with him in 1963, it reported, “Dickenson married a local girl and has four children. He is presently out of work. Until a month ago he had been a laborer for a construction firm in Cracker's Neck, in the economically depressed, hilly section of southwest Virginia.”

Of the 21 POWs, the AP wrote, “Seven stayed. One is dead. Thirteen came back.”

The Associated Press returned to the story in 2002, trying to located all the soldiers who had originally planned to defect rather than return home.

Through his wife, Ed Dickenson declined to be interviewed.