Sams’ early military career was rather eclectic. Born in East St. Louis in 1902, he enlisted in the Army during World War I and served one year. In 1922, while attending the University of California at Berkeley, he enlisted in the California National Guard as a private. A year later, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry. He transferred to the Field Artillery and in 1925 graduated from the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Okla. Wishing to pursue a medical career, he resigned from active duty in December 1925 with the rank of captain. While attending medical school, he was re-commissioned first lieutenant, Field Artillery Reserve. Upon receiving his medical degree in 1929, he was commissioned first lieutenant, Medical Corps, and ordered to active duty; within two years he accepted a commission in the regular Army Medical Corps. In 1941, he became the first medical officer and one of the first line officers to qualify as a U.S. Army paratrooper. During World War II, Sams saw service in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. In October 1945, Sams, now a colonel, was assigned to be SCAP’s top medical officer. Three years later, he was promoted to brigadier general. Over the years, Sams gained vast experience in broad-scale public health issues. He treated bubonic plague epidemics in December 1941 in Haifa, Jaffa, Palestine, and later in Port Said, Egypt. It was this personal experience that was needed now.

Clark began conducting reconnaissance, attempting to find a suitable landing site. Unfortunately, the communists, fearing another Inchon-style amphibious assault, had constructed an in-depth defense network along the beaches and harbor of Wonsan that included mined beaches, barbed wire, and gun emplacements.

Having gotten the ball rolling by alerting the senior members of MacArthur’s staff of the possible outbreak of bubonic plague, Sams was not about to take to the sidelines now and he volunteered to lead the mission into North Korea. On the one hand, since he was the only medical doctor with hands-on experience dealing with the disease, it made sense. But the political stakes of such a move were enormous. If the theater’s surgeon general, and a general officer, were killed or captured during the operation, the communists would achieve an immense propaganda coup. Nonetheless, MacArthur agreed and signed off on it.

Reports indicated that bubonic plague victims were concentrated in hospitals in and around the North Korean port city of Wonsan. A joint CIA and Navy operation was quickly organized. The CIA’s Z Unit, based in Tokyo and led by Maj. Jack Y. Canon, was in overall command. Leading the small team into North Korea was one of the Navy’s most outstanding junior officers in the war, Lt. Eugene F. Clark. Clark, who entered the Navy during World War II, was a mustang, commissioned from the ranks. Described as having “the nerves of a burglar and the flair of a Barbary Coast pirate,” Clark led the reconnaissance team on Yonghung-do Island in Flying Fish Channel in advance of Operation Chromite, the amphibious landing at Inchon on Sept. 15, 1950. For his role in Chromite, he was awarded both the Silver Star and the Legion of Merit. Clark received a second Silver Star for the Sinuiju Operation, a series of CIA-sponsored intelligence gathering raids up the west coast of North Korea. It was in this operation that Clark became the first to discover Chinese Communist troop presence in the country.

Assisting Clark would be Lt. Cmdr. Joung Youn of the South Korean navy, who had helped Clark at Inchon and in the Sinuiju Operation. Like Clark, he also received two Silver Stars and the Legion of Merit for his role in those missions. Joining them would be a third Korean, a native of Wonsan and the chief of the Wonsan area spy network, known by the nom de guerre “Ko.”

Every mission needs a name, and in honor of the general who initiated it and who would accompany them, Clark christened the mission Operation Sams.

Operation Sams began at the end of February 1951 when the team boarded at Pusan an APD – one of four high-speed transports that the Navy had refitted for special operations missions. This particular APD also included the kind of medical laboratory Sams would need. Needless to say, everyone connected to the mission was properly vaccinated. As the APD made its way north, nine teams were inserted in the Wonsan area. Their purpose was to provide real-time reconnaissance and other assistance to Clark’s team once it landed. The mission itself was simple: Upon landing (at night), Sams would be taken to where there were infected patients. One would be selected and brought aboard the APD. If for some reason transporting the patient was not possible, then Sams would conduct on-the-spot examinations and draw enough blood samples for later analysis.

Operation Sams encountered problems almost immediately after the APD rendezvoused with the destroyer Wallace L. Lind (DD 703), tasked with supporting the mission, off Wonsan. The seas in the area during this time of the year are often rough, and for almost two weeks the ships were forced to remain on station, a situation made perilous by harbor mines that broke free from their moorings and floated out to sea.

During this time, the team established a forward base on one of the islands off the coast of Wonsan where the CIA had a secret base to monitor its agent network in the region. Clark began conducting reconnaissance, attempting to find a suitable landing site. Unfortunately, the communists, fearing another Inchon-style amphibious assault, had constructed an in-depth defense network along the beaches and harbor of Wonsan that included mined beaches, barbed wire, and gun emplacements. Several times their scouting boats came under fire. Sams, meanwhile, was examining the island’s inhabitants. He discovered many cases of typhus and smallpox. From the survivors he learned that epidemics of these and other diseases had been so severe that only about 10 percent of the population had survived. Then, the team discovered that an even greater danger awaited them on the mainland. The communists knew Sams was coming.