RETURN TO AMERICA

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28774, 20 December 1958, Page 11

RETURN TO AMERICA

Turncoat From Korean War

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, December 19.

The ringleader of 21 American turncoats in the Korean War crossed the border from China into Hong Kong today on his way back to the United States, the American Associated Press reported from Hong Kong.

The soldier, Richard G. Corden. came out of China nearly five years after he led the group of Americans captured in Korea to voluntary exile.

There was no immediate indication whether he was going home to East Providence, Rhode Island, for good or only for a visit.

Corden told some American youths visiting China 15 months ago that he liked the country and intended to remain indefinitely but might make “a brief trip home some time.” Now aged 31, Corden was captured on November 20, 1950. Other prisoners described him as the “big wheel” in prisoner-of-war camps.

Corden was the tenth turncoat to leave China. One died there. The other. 10 still are there, some working in factories and some last reported going to school. Asked when he arrived in Hong Kong why he came back, Corden told reporters: “I was just waiting for the time when 1 thought it would be worth while going back, and now’s the time.” Corden said he left Wuhan, in China, on December 7. He said all the other turncoats still in China were ‘‘doing well.” But, he did not know whether any others would return to the United States.