April 9, 1951, Ten months into the Korean War. Stars twinkled in the night sky and the Sea of Japan was calm. The carrier deck rose and dropped slowly. A dark storm loomed over the horizon. The restless sea beckoned with low fingers of waves as if to warn of a waiting doom. They heavily overloaded us with equipment, weapons, and canned food. I crawled into the Douglas AJ Savage Bomber's belly where, instead of bombs, four other men on the top-secret mission waited for our night drop into North Korea. All of us were in peak physical condition and we were too inexperienced to comprehend what we had volunteered to do.