Ascom City Map & B.Duplantis

When I first began the search for information, over ten years ago, I made contact with Belford Duplantis. He had a map issued for GIs that were stationed at Ascom City so they, we, could find our way around to the other camps that made up the base in its entirety. The buildings that are in bold at about mid-page were built by the Japanese. They were in use by our forces when Ascom was at its zenith, and they were used when I was stationed there, 1973-75, at the small camp with no name at the top left, indicated only by Stockade. Below, I have included a photo of Belford, and a panorama of Ascom City as scene from the hills behind the stockade. Those hills separated Ascom City as we knew it from Inchon. They were the same hills over which the Marines came when assaulting Seoul in September of 1950.

Original Map of Ascom City, circa 1962.

L to R: Belford Duplantis, Titano, from Guam, and Luther Spivy, from Georgia.

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Ascom City with the stockade in the center. This area is now covered with two story residential housing common in small Korean suburbs. The Church has been rebuilt. The village to the right in the photos remains surprisingly intact, considering that the rice paddies and the distance lands toward the horizon are now filled with 10-15 story apartment blocks.