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**Granate** · 04-07-2012, 09:54 AM

Anybody??

**Bill D.** · 04-07-2012, 10:14 AM

I had not heard of the book until your post.
I looked it up on Amazon.
The 35 readers who posted reviews rated it quite high.
Here is the author's biography according to Amazon:

Combat historian Patrick K. O'Donnell has authored seven critically acclaimed books which recount the epic stories of America's troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the current conflict in Iraq. His bestseller Beyond Valor, which tells the gripping tales of U.S. WWII Ranger and Airborne veterans, won the William E. Colby Award for Outstanding Military History. His other books include Into the Rising Sun; Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs; We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder With the Marines Who Took Fallujah; The Brenner Assignment: The Untold Story of the Most Daring Spy Mission of WWII; They Dared Return; and Give Me Tomorrow: The Korean War's Greatest Untold Story - The Epic Stand Of The Marines Of George Company, which is his most recent work.

**Granate** · 04-07-2012, 11:59 AM

Mr. Dienna
I thank you for your response on this subject. The reason why I asked this was because of the fact that the man shown on the front cover of the book IS know one else but my wife's Uncle. His name was Jimmy Semonneti. This picture was released by the Chinese Army Photographers some time during the war and his picture was seen by just about everybody around the world. Not once did they get the caption right.

The picture was taken shortly after his company was taken prisoner by overwhelming odds. The Chinese were very ticked off about their heavy losses to these Marines so that once back at their camp (Note: not there POW camp) they were subjected to numerous, inhumane, and non-human treatment. Naturally they all tried to not be broken. But my wife's Uncle broke along with many others and told them lies as best as they could. He was burned with cigarettes ALL over his body. They then dislocated a few of his limbs by using the buts off Japanese and Mosin-Nagants rifles. If anybody refused even from lying to these malcontents, they were taken out of the tent and immediately shot in the back of the head. Some were even shot for the fun of it. He told me and my wife that the scene was similar to the Deer Hunters portrail of being forced to play the game of Russian Roulette, only with out the Russian Roulette.

They dislocated his face so many times that he would hope that he would die in the mean time. They performed what is considered now days as "Water-Boarding". Jimmy always told us that everytime he woke up for another day that he would pray for death. Back then when his picture was taken by the Chinese photgrapher, he came home with a very disfigured face. Hed did not come home looking like he did when the picture was taken. He still maintained before his death in 1995, that he was in constant pain in his jaw and in his joints. The cigarette burns all over his body and having some of his teeth were missing and that he suffered from some awfull Arthritis. My wife's dad and the best Dad I ever new! He was put under what is now known as water-boarding. Like I stated before, he did not look like the same person before he was captured.

Know that he passed away in 1995 that he had one of the biggest funeral I have ever seen! The Cleveland Plain Dealer did a piece of what he had went through in Korea. It all was a very sad time for a lot of people. Even representatives from th Press were there and an Marine Honor Guard.

So that picture taken of him looking upward was him watching a flight of F-80's I believe fly away gave him little hope. THERE WERE NO AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER was even around because if there were they would of been taken prisoner.

So Mr. Dienna, I thank you for your response. Now you and a few people know everthing about that picture and the face of a young Marine whose life was changed that day.

Mark
MACVSOG & Ordnance collecter and Historian

**Bill D.** · 04-07-2012, 03:16 PM

Mark....
Thanks very, very much for the information.
It is one example of why forums such as this one can be so important.
Was your wife's uncle actually in the unit about which the book was written?
Or did the author, like so many others, just accept an incorrect caption?

You've provided a really fascinating account of a true American and a true hero.

**Granate** · 04-07-2012, 08:39 PM

Sir,
for the life of me I wasn't told by him my Dad and my wife's Dad. They all served in Korea and none of them ever told me with what outfit they were in or where they were when the battles started. Mr. Simonetti was the same, he truly did not want to talk about it much which for me and my wife was a great surprise when he did. He just never mentioned who he was with, strange isn't.

It sure seems so. I have seen cation after caption explaining who he was and that he was fighting in the Chosin therfore the look he had and how much clothing he was wearing to him being called another name and not once did they know who he was. The sad part of it all was the media who will swear up and down that they took the picture. Like he told us, it was all BS. I had just been captured around a half hour or more when this Chinese photographer took my picture. If there were any Americans around then they would of been stripped of all of their items, beaten, and told to walk with these other Americans. Also, he and the other Marines were THE only ones around because the other Companies had pulled back in miles. You can tell it in his face that he was really upset about the flight of F-80s leaving the area.

I also have his obituary around here somewhere. When I find it, will a picture of it be enough for you to post it for me? I have no scanner or even a printer for that matter.

Mark
MACVSOG & SOG Weaponry Historian

**historyguy** · 04-07-2012, 10:22 PM

Originally posted by Granate View Post

The sad part of it all was the media who will swear up and down that they took the picture.

With all due respect, Sir, veterans (or family members) "will swear up and down" that they are the one in the picture. I have seen this veteran identified as someone else by people just as adamant as you are.

This is, actually a photo by famed photographer David Douglas Duncan. It appears in the photo essay "There Was A Christmas" in the December 25, 1950 issue of Life magazine. Now I ask you, if it really was taken by a Chinese photographer during the Chosin Reservior campaign, how did Life manage to get ahold of it that soon?

Duncan himself stated he did not ask the veteran's name. He did ask him, "What would you like for Christmas?" To which the man replied: "Give Me Tomorrow."

Although I applaud your devotion to your wife and her uncle, you should face reality, and perhaps understand why O'Donnell did not chose to take your word as to the veteran's identity. Not only since family members of other veterans claim it is their relative in the photo, but because it has been documented (i.e. published) as a David Duncan photo since December 1950.

Attached Files

**Granate** · 04-10-2012, 01:23 AM

Found his Obituary that we had for safe keeping. Just need someone else to post the pictures that I took of it?

Mark
MACVSOG & Weapons
Historians

**Granate** · 04-14-2012, 10:52 PM

Mr. Vincent "Uncle Jimmie" Simonetti and his picture shown of himself while in captivity.

Uncle Jimmy which I will now call him Mr. Simonetti.

Mr. Simonetti and his unit (What ever unit he was is in because he never told us) was sent to Korea in August of 1950.

In November he was captured by the Chinese as they had surrounded his unit along with some other UN soldiers in the Changjin Reservoir. READ: Chosin.

A month later he was taken to Prisoner of War Camp No.5, the exhausted, grimy 19 yerar pld, wearing summer fatigues and a parka in bone chilling conditions, was looking up at American fighter planes overhead when someone snapped his picture. Although the photograph was creditied to Life Magazine photographer David Duncan, Mr. Simonetti recalled that it was a Chinese photographer took it.

Mr. Simonetti was listed as MIA by the US Government at that time. A relative in Cleveland saw the picture on the cover of Life and told his parents that he was at least a live. The photograph on the cover of Life was about a story inside entitled "Christmas for a GI". It then appeared again in Life's Anthology printed in 1973.

His health problems started in the POW Camp No.5, whereby torture was routine and medical non-existent. He and a dozen of his comrades were jammed into a tiny cell, where they slept in shifts stacked on top of each other. It was not unusual for a POW to wake up and find himself sleeping next to a friend who had died overnight.

Durring his 33 months in captivity, the Cleveland native shrank 155lbs. to 99 lbs. Hunger prompted him to steal food from enemy pantries at night and take it back to his fellow inmtes, who dubbed him "The Shadow." Each of the 13 times he was caught, Mr Simonetti was beaten, tied up and thrown into a pit.

When he was freed in August 20th 1953, a month after an armistice had been signed, he was suffering from malnutrition and nervous caused by beriberi.

During the whole time in captivity, Mr. Simonetti never lost his faith in GOD. He used his knuckles as rosary beads for counting prayers and often led his fellow Catholoics in reciting the Mass, which he new by heart.

NOTE: There is much more to this obituary than what I have already stated here.

He passed away after suffering a massive heart attack. He was only 64 years old.

Mark
MACVSOG & SOG
WEAPONERY Historian

**historyguy** · 04-14-2012, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by Granate View Post

Mr. Simonetti and his unit (What ever unit he was is in because he never told us) was sent to Korea in August of 1950.

FYI:

G Troop
8th Cavalry Regiment
1st Cavalry Division
Captured November 1, 1950
Regular Army

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