Car Accident Reconnects Korean War Buddies

Car accident leads to reunion with Korean War buddy
Military Times
Adele Uphaus-Conner
The Free Lance Star
September 2, 2017

WARRENTON, Va. — If it weren’t for the car accident earlier this summer, Korean War veterans Jim Cunningham and Don McIntyre would never have found each other again.

“God was in it from the get-go,” said Cunningham, 86, a Spotsylvania County resident.

Marine Corps veterans Jim Cunningham, left, and Don McIntyre, talk on Aug. 19, 2017, in Warrenton, Va. Both served together in the Korean War and reunited for the first time in 63 years. (Adele Uphaus-Conner/The Free Lance-Star via AP)

The two met up for coffee last weekend at the Warrenton home of McIntyre’s daughter. It was the first time they’d seen each other in 63 years.

In 1953, Cunningham and McIntyre, who were 23 and 20 at the time, served together with Marine Aircraft Group 12 at airfield K-6 in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. They were in the motor transport pool — Cunningham was a dispatcher and McIntyre was a driver. Their job was to collect downed aircraft from all over the country and take the wreckage to Inchon, where it would be shipped to Japan to be rebuilt.

Virginia State Trooper Greg Finch responded to the accident. It was a hot day and he invited Cunningham to come and sit in his car while he wrote up the citation.

“We got to talking. It took him an hour and 15 minutes to write up the ticket,” Cunningham said.

During the conversation, Cunningham mentioned that he’d served in Korea.

“I told him I had a real good friend in Korea and I was still looking for him,” Cunningham said. “I told him his name was Don McIntyre. He said, ‘I know Don McIntyre!’ ”

Finch told Cunningham that his father lived one mile down the road from a Don McIntyre in Bath, N.Y.

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