On Nov. 27, 1950, Powhatan’s J. H. Ransone, Jr. and approximately 3,000 other U.S. Army soldiers were surrounded by as many as 30,000 North Korean soldiers at the frozen Chosin Reservoir near the Chinese border. After a five-day battle, and with no possibility of rescue in the sub-zero temperatures, the American soldiers were ordered to break out of the Communist trap on their own. On December 1, 181 survivors reached the relative safety of a small North Korean town, still surrounded by Communist forces.

Corporal J.H. Ransone, Jr. was one of those survivors.

He had endured killing temperatures and no food, and had seen his platoon wiped out by friendly fire. He had taken five enemy rounds, run out of ammunition while surrounded by hostile forces, been abandoned by two American officers and survived the crash of his evacuation flight.

Almost 60 years later Ransone has been presented with three flags to honor him as a Korean War veteran and one of the Chosin Few. Congressman Eric Kantor acquired an American flag which flew over the Capitol on the 55th anniversary of the Korean War and drew up a declaration which stated that “Mr. Ransone was a heroic soldier who survived the terrors of combat and the cold at the famous Chosin Resevoir.”

Accompanied by an American flag, which flew over the State Capitol and a flag of the Commonwealth, Delegate Lee Ware’s commendation stated that “J. H. Ransone is a son of Virginia, a patriot and a soldier in the Korean War who survived the terrors of the Chosin Reservoir.” Delegate Ware presented all three flags at a family ceremony.

Ransone, who will celebrate his 80th birthday in July, is a retired insurance executive and restaurant owner who went to Korea as a 20 year old corporal from Cartersville. “I didn’t even know where Korea was,” he said. “I’d never even heard of it.”

He saw his first combat at the Inchon Landing and then, as a member of the 7th Infantry Division 32nd Regimental Combat Team Able Company of Task Force Faith, was sent on the ill-fated mission to cross the Yalu River, push the Communists out of the country and end the war. The American forces were so ill-prepared for the severity of the Korean winter and the strength and tenancy of the opposing forces that at times “it reminded me of Custer’s Last Stand,” Ransone commented.

The Communist forces allowed the American task force to enter the area unopposed, then encircled them on three sides allowing the frozen reservoir to close the Americans’ right flank. The 32nd was allowed to penetrate farther north than any of the other American forces.

“They simply over ran us,” Ransone said. For five days, Ransone never left his fox hole, engaging the enemy daily, often all day and night and often in hand to hand combat. In the fox hole next to him, not five yards away, casualties were replaced on a daily basis. When the Marines were unable to get through enemy lines in order to provide relief and the order came to break out, a misdirected napalm drop by American aircraft took out everyone remaining in the platoon, except Ransone.

A force that had gone in to the valley at least three thousand strong was now reduced to less than 2,000 and “may have been only a thousand,” said Ransone. Forced by the terrain into an almost single file retreat, the American forces were easy targets for the Communist troops and took tremendous casualties. The surviving Americans ran a ten-mile gauntlet with Communist troops on three sides to reach an enclave of friendly forces. Ransone took five rounds from one Communist machine gun nest and, unarmed and alone, fled from another and out onto the frozen reservoir. He was rescued by reserve forces, taken to a field hospital and tagged for evacuation. Along with 32 other survivors he was airlifted out of a hastily constructed remote air field.

The plane crashed in enemy held territory and American air cover allowed the evacuees and the pilot to escape back to that same air field. A second flight got them safely out of the combat zone.

He was evacuated to Japan, patched up and sent back to Korea. He also returned to Korea in 1987 as an honored guest of the South Korean government.