Newspapers across the country carried the news of another 145 Korean War prisoners who were released from the Chinese Communist camp on August 29, 1953.

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

“Four hundred Allied prisoners returned to freedom on 25th day of Korean prisoner exchange,” reported the United Press International from Panmunjom, Korea, and printed in the Wichita Eagle of Kansas. “The Russian-built trucks arrived on schedule this morning with the day’s first contingent of 50 Americans and 50 ROK soldiers.”

Among the names released that day was Captain Gene Lam, MD

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

Wyoming roots

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

After graduating from high school, he attended college at the University of Wyoming for a year before being drafted into the US Army in 1943.

Originally intended to be part of an engineering unit, June Lam said an officer reviewed his documents and saw he was a pre-med student. He asked the 19-year-old if he wanted to continue those studies.

June Lam met Gene in Nashville, Tennessee, while he was completing his pre-med studies at Vanderbilt University in a special military program.

They married, and he went on to earn his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1949.

Battalion Surgeon

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

He was among the soldiers of the US Army’s 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division, taken prisoner by the Chinese as they overran American positions during heavy fighting.

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

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

“He was officially missing in action for a year,” she said.

Lam’s eldest son, Dr. David Lam of Sitka, Alaska, said he was 7 or 8 years old when his father returned. He has few memories of him before the war.

“The only thing I really remember was the day a propaganda photo from the Chinese was published in the local paper,” he said. “He was playing chess there and it’s like 3 in the morning, my mom wakes me up and says, ‘Your dad’s alive.’ I said, “Oh, that’s nice.” And I went back to sleep.”

When her husband was repatriated, June said she and her children went to the airport in San Antonio, Texas, to greet him. She had her third child right after he was initially deployed to Korea.

“I had my kids with me, three of them, and the kids kept looking at the plane and they watched the plane as people were getting off,” she 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… he said, ‘Mommy, is that my dad?’

“It gives me the chills to even say it now, 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. Another son was born after his return.

“I had the utmost respect for him. He was a good man, yeah, I mean, he never talked much about the war. No one did,” said David Lam. “But apart from that, he had a family to look after and he liked us all. We liked him and he still believed in the Army. He came back and spent 20 years with them before retiring.”

Although his father didn’t talk much about his wartime experiences, David Lam said he remembers him talking about being hungry. One story involved soldiers catching a rat and cooking it, and another involved the Chinese giving prisoners a chicken that they put in a pot of water. His father got the claws.

His first year in the US after his three years in captivity involved recovering his health from vitamin deficiencies and tuberculosis. When he was declared fit for duty, Capt. Lam wanted to pursue a specialty in obstetrics, but the military said they didn’t have much need for obstetricians, June Lam said. Instead, they offered him anesthesia training.

“He was a good anesthesiologist,” she said.

As one of the only medical officers in the POW camp, he tried to take care of the men with him. David Lam said many of them died in the camp. His father secretly recorded their names and serial numbers and brought the information back when he was released.

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

Neither June Lam nor David Lam could confirm this story, but David Lam said his father was interviewed and spoke to several groups and agencies after his release. After he recovered and returned to active duty, he said he became a trainer for troops on how to survive if they became prisoners of war.

“He was probably for 10 or 15 years one of the best coaches in the Army,” he said. “He also did a lot of training in, ‘How do you practice medicine when you have nothing to work with?’ Chinese treatment no. 1 for anything was basically chicken fat soaked in penicillin.

“They would cut a hole in your belly and implant it under your skin and that was supposed to cure everything.”

“Quiet and autonomous”

June Lam said from her perspective, her husband has not changed after his years as a prisoner. She characterized him as a “quiet and self-contained” person.

Gene Lam’s obituary in the Dec. 12, 1997, Casper Star-Tribune stated that he was chief of anesthesia at Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning, Ga., then served at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Letterman Army Hospital , at the Presidio of San Francisco. He ended his military career with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Gene Lam received the Bronze Star Medal with a “V” for bravery, the Purple Heart, the Army Commendation Medal, the Prisoner of War Medal and the Combat Medic Badge, as well as other service medals and ribbons for service in World War II . and Korea.

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

A native of Wyoming, David Lam said his father brought his family back for visits to the state to see his parents from time to time. He remembers hunting rabbits with his father.

June Lam said she remembered a trip back to Wyoming after her captivity to see her family. Glenrock had a picnic and other events in his honor.

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

June said her husband, unlike other prisoners, stayed in the military because he believed he owed them medical care after he returned.

“He never got lost. He never fussed about being captured,” she said.

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

Dale Killingbeck can be contacted at [email protected].