Late Lynn sailor had key role at Korean War peace talks

PEABODY – When the United Nations Command began conducting truce talks at Panmunjom, Korea in 1951, aimed at ending hostilities in the region, Lynn native Robert G. Turner was there taking copious notes as the Army’s civilian stenographer.Turner, who lived the past three decades in Peabody, died Oct. 3. He was 82.Although he served in the U.S. Navy with the Flotilla Eight staff during World War II, it was his work as a Department of the Army civilian stenographer that brought him into the limelight. Turner attended all meetings among the North Korean and Chinese Communist delegates and the United Nations Command, recording every word uttered at the negotiations for 25 months. He received a letter of commendation from Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr., which stated, “You contributed greatly to the support of the delegation in the armistice between the armed forces of the United Nations Command and those of the Korean Peoples Army.”Yellowed newspaper clippings from the Daily Item files show Turner, then 25, standing outside the truce camp – basically a cluster of tents – dressed in drab green Army fatigues. In one article, Ed Hymoff, an Item correspondent in Korea, describes Turner as a young man with a ringside seat in history.Two days after the truce talks began, Turner was speedily transferred from his post in Tokyo, Japan to Kaesong, Korea, a city held by the Communists, then referred to as the Red Army. For two months, Turner sat around the Musan Base Camp as the proceedings started and stopped, eventually resuming in Panmunjom. Many sessions were dull, Turner told a reporter on the scene, but the experience left him with indelible images.As Turner put it, “The Communist Chinese and North Korean delegates are of a different caliber. The Chinese are arrogant and rude. During one of the Item Three sessions on airfield supervision, they turned their backs to the UN delegate then speaking and began talking, laughing out loud between themselves and reading newspapers.”Turner also recalled the diminutive Communist cameraman who followed him around until he was able to get the stenographer’s photograph. New arrivals at the truce talks, albeit a UN delegate, staff member or journalist, were routinely photographed by the North Koreans.Turner was impressed by North Korean Gen. Nam II’s tact as a diplomat, saying, “As a former schoolteacher, he seems to know what is going on. And he can answer any debatable point or make a quick-thinking extemporaneous speech without any hesitation. Even his Chinese associates are respectful.”During the armistice talks, Turner was granted a 60-day leave. He returned to Lynn to visit his parents, Albert and Mary Turner, at what was then their 26 Green St. home, presenting her with a pen used by Admiral J.C. Daniel to sign the first exchange of sick and wounded war prisoners.At the time, many American soldiers were still being held prisoner or missing.Asked by a Lynn newsman for his opinion on the progress of the peace talks, Turner was quoted as saying, “The only way we’ll have a peace there is if the Communists want one. What we want won’t make any difference.”History would prove Turner correct. The war, labeled by most historians as the Korean Conflict, ended with an armistice agreement signed in July 1953. The Korean peninsula remained divided. North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, occupied the territory north of the 38th parallel, while South Korean or the Republic of Korea, assumed control south of the line. Little has changed since.Turner, the husband of Virginia H. (Walkup) Turner, was born and raised in Lynn, the the son of the late Albert A. and Mary (McAuliffe) Turner. He attended St. Joseph’s School, St. Mary’s School, and was a graduate of Lynn Classical High School. He was also a graduate of Burdette College. He lived in Lynn for many years and in Peabody since 1967.Turner enjoyed reading and current events, and was an avid New England sports fan – the Red Sox, the Patriot