Staff photo / Raymond L. Smith
Philip DeCapito, 90, of Champion, shows off some of the awards he’s received for his military service. DeCapito served in the Navy during the Korean War and was part of an underwater demolition team.

CHAMPION — Philip DeCapito, 90, lost three fingers on his left hand and had a steel rod placed between his femur and tibia bones in his left leg after a detonator blew up unexpectedly while he was setting up a bomb at the base of the Chosin Reservoir Dam on Dec. 5, 1950.

DeCapito’s unit was placing mines around Chosin Reservoir for nine days, before blowing it up. Seventy-eight bombs were placed around the reservoir.

“I was placing five barrels of dynamite in a hole,” DeCapito said. “As I was putting one detonator cap in place, with two others wrapped around my wrist, it exploded.”

DeCapito described a corpsman running over to check his wounds, giving him combat morphine, and then helping him finish placing the explosives in the reservoir , before helping him back to a submarine.

“When we got to the submarine, its commander asked how long the timer was set for,” DeCapito said. “They were set for four hours, which was 15 minutes away, so the commander had the submarine dive deep to the water’s bottom before the dam’s explosion. The explosion was so powerful that it moved the submarine more than 8 feet.”

“When we blew the dam up, we put everybody on top under 10 feet of water,” DeCapito said. “Everybody died. Everybody around the dam was killed.”

All members of the Underwater Demolition Team were on the submarine, so the submarine’s commander had them go out to determine if there was shrapnel around the sub, before he slowly took it to the surface.

Raised in Warren, a son of Oreste and Stephanie DeCapito, DeCapito signed up for the U.S. Navy Reserve in 1946, at 16 years old, while he was still at Warren G. Harding High School. He didn’t become an active duty Navy recruit until he was called up in 1949 to participate in the Korean War.

“I signed up for the reserves after a fight with my dad over grades,” DeCapito said.

While in the reserve, DeCapito every summer trained at the Naval Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Va., where he received demolition training.

“It was there that I was taught how to put together bombs ,” DeCapito said. “I learned how to trigger a bomb while learning underwater demolition.”

DeCapito never fired a gun while in the military. He was trained to be a firefighter.

He was assigned USS Rockbridge Amphibious Attack Transport-228, which had 150 Marines, 30 Naval Underwater Demolition Team experts — including DeCapito — and eight corpsmen. DeCapito says UDT members now are called Navy Seals.

Prior to the Chosin Reservoir campaign, DeCapito described his typical day as a UDT as seeking out, identifying and then getting underwater mines that were placed to damage battleships set up to be exploded by sharpshooters on the ships.

“It was amazing how the Chinese could sneak the mines in and place mines around our ships,” he said.

The battle at Chison Reservoir involved various U.S. Marine divisions, which were supporting the United Nations in the fight against China’s People’s Volunteer Army 9th Army. It is considered one of the most important battles of the Korean War.

The Chinese PVA surprised the United Nations-backed U.S. forces on Nov. 27, 1950.

The battle took place primarily on a 78-mile stretch connecting Hungnam and Chosin Reservoir. DeCapito said they blew up the dam on Dec. 4, 1950.

During the battle more than 3,000 U.N.-backed forces were killed, 6,000 wounded and 7,000 suffered from frostbite.

Nearly 25,000 members of the Chinese forces were killed.

DeCapito was taken to the USS Enterprise, a Naval aircraft carrier, before taking him to the U.S., where he was treated for his numerous wounds.

“The doctors at Newport, Rhode Island, were sharp,” he described. “They operated on my knees. They took a vein from my brain and one from my toe and put it together and placed it in my leg. I have a steel brace on my leg. I have not had any pain. They did everything they could to save my hand.”

He was in active duty in the Navy for three years and 17 days. He then worked for the Navy for four years as a civilian, while he was being treated for his various wounds.