In my prior posting I discussed the battlefield heroics of the soldiers of Taskforce Smith. Just north of Suwon you can see the site of their battlefield heroics for yourself. On the hill the Taskforce Smith soldiers garrisoned back on July 5, 1950 a large memorial constructed by the Korean government stands to commemorate the battle that introduced the first US soldiers to combat in Korea.
The front of the memorial is lined with the flags of all the United Nations countries that provided troops during the Korean War:
Something I have seen quite often at memorials commemorating a US action during the Korean War is that they are called UN actions instead of American actions:
Yes, technically the Korean War was a UN action, but Taskforce Smith just like the bulk of the UN fighting in Korea was handled by American soldiers. If you look at tourist brochures or signs in Osan the memorial is also labeled a UN site as well. Click on the image below to enlarge it and take a look for yourself:
It may seem like a trivial point, but why then are memorials to battles during the Korean War by the ROK Army not called a UN memorial site as well? Call me paranoid, but it seems like just another subtle way to down play the involvement of the US military during the Korean War, which I have seem plenty of in Korea.
At least this map of the battle identifies the US forces:
Anyway the statue on the memorial like most memorial statues in Korea is quite good:
Koreans for whatever reason really excel at making some really good, detailed memorial statues. After checking out the memorial you can actually follow a trail and walk up the hill behind the statue and see what the terrain was like that the soldiers of Taskforce Smith found themselves on that fateful day 57 years ago:
Before entering the tree line make sure you take a look back towards the road:
Across the street you can see the adjacent hill that also garrisoned soldiers of Taskforce Smith. Along the side of the hill you can see another memorial marker:
This memorial marker commemorates the first UN soldier killed in the Korean War. The soldier’s name was PVT Kenneth Shadrick, 20, of Wyoming, WV who died by machine gun fire along the side of the road engaging a North Korean tank with a bazooka. The monument was across the street thus I would be risking my life trying to get over there with the speeding traffic on the highway that runs between the two hills. A pedestrian overpass would be a most addition here.
As you enter into the woods you can see very little due to thick underbrush:
Along the way though you can still make out old bunkers that were garrisoned by soldiers during the Korean War:
Additionally some of the old trench lines that run on the hillside are still maintained for use by the ROK Army today:
Due to the thick underbrush there is no view from the top of the hill. However, during the Korean War the soldiers of Taskforce Smith would have had a commanding view of the northern farming plain in front of them. Here is the best view I could get which on the mid-slope of the hill of the view towards the north:
There are still some rice paddies, but most of the plain to the north has now been covered over with buildings. However, during the Korean War the soldiers of Taskforce Smith would have been able to see the North Korean army coming from quite some distance. I can’t help but wonder what those guys must have been thinking seeing thousands of North Korean soldiers advancing with tanks leading the way coming right for their one single battalion.
The memorial can be found on the side of the northbound lane of Highway 1 between Osan and Suwon. You cannot reach the memorial from the southbound lane, you must take the northbound lane. The site is not marked in English and the best landmark to spot it is to use the KTX tracks. When you pass underneath the KTX tracks you will start climbing up the hill and then keep a sharp look out for the memorial and the parking lot to your right. Make sure you don’t miss it because like I said you cannot reach it from the southbound lane which means you would have to turn around twice to reach the memorial. This is not an easy thing to do on Highway 1.
It has been 57 years since the Task Force Smith Battle against the communist North Korean forces on July 5, 1950 at the beginning days of the Korean War. The battalion of soldiers called Task Force Smith after their commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith was quickly deployed from occupation duty in Japan to Korea to delay the North Korean advance until more American units could arrive to fight the communist aggressors. History tends to record Task Force Smith as a an example of a military blunder, but the fact of the matter is that Task Force Smith really did fight the best they could with what they had and should not be looked down upon as being an example of poor soldiering. They were great soldiers and Americans that fought well in defense of freedom for a country few had ever heard of. To truly understand Task Force Smith it is important to examine the morale and psychology of the unit at the time.
The soldiers that composed Task Force Smith were from 1st Battalion, 21st Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. The 24ID was located in Japan and were conducting peacekeeping operations. The priority of the military at the time was on occupation and reconstruction duties in Japan and not collective unit training. Plus the soldiers were living a soft life that included personal shoe shine boys and flirting with numerous prostitutes. Even the lowest private felt like a king in 1950 Japan.
Plus many of the soldiers in the Army at the time were not old enough to have fought in World War II. They were young teenagers during World War II and grew up believing the US and especially the military was invincible. However these young soldiers had no idea what real combat was like, but John Wayne had taught them on TV that combat was glorious and you can run around the battle field with out fear of bullets and when somebody does gets hit they just spin around and lie on the ground motionless. There was no movies like Saving Private Ryan that conveyed the real horrors of actual ground combat.
The soldiers of 1-21IN, 24ID were not a lone and unique example of untrained soldiers at the time, as the unit is sometimes referred too. In fact LTC Smith actually instituted a vigorous company level training program to improve the soldiers basic infantry standards beginning in January of 1950. However, the unit would not have time to conduct vigorous battalion level training due to the on set of the Korean War that was launched on June 25, 1950..
LTC Smith’s unit was in fact a microcosm of the entire post-war military in 1950. The army was filled with untrained, but highly patriotic youths brought up to believe America and it’s military were the best in the world without appreciation for the realities of the hard work and training it takes to stay the best. All the John Wayne movies in the world do not make up for tough, realistic training. Unfortunately for them, they would soon learn this reality in the far away hills of Korea. A place many of them had never heard of and would soon give their lives for.
The Deployment of Taskforce Smith
It was not their fault that no one had told them that the real function of an army is to fight and that a soldier’s destiny, which few escape, is to suffer, and if need be, to die.
T.R. Fehrenbach, author of This Kind of War
Task Force Smith soldiers move North to meet their destiny.
Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith was first notified of his 1-21 Infantry Battalion’s deployment to Korea on July 1, 1950 when he was called into the office of the 24th Infantry Division’s Commanding General’s office. The commander General Dean notified LTC Smith that his battalion was chosen to lead a delaying action in Korea against the advancing North Korean forces. They would be the speed bump that would slow down the North Koreans until more US forces could arrive to destroy them.
Commander of all US forces General Douglas MacArthur had referred to Task Force Smith as an “arrogant display of American strength.” This sentiment caused many of the soldiers in Task Force Smith to feel that this was just a temporary “Police Action” as the Korean War is sometimes referred to, and they would be back to their comfortable lives in Japan in no time. They believed that once the North Koreans saw the all mighty American Army in front of them, they would turn around and run back to North Korea. The North Koreans had other plans.
LTC Smith’s orders were to deploy the battalion as quickly as possible to Pusan and from there advance as far North as possible along the Taejon to Seoul road to set up a defensive line to delay the North Korean advance until General William Dean could get the rest of the 24ID deployed to Korea. The 24ID was spread throughout Japan on occupation duty and was not configured for rapid deployment. They needed time to get everyone mobilized and prepared for deployment. Task Force Smith’s mission was to give the Division that time.
1-21IN deployed on July 2nd from Camp Wood, Japan with two rifle companies, headquarters, and a two mortar platoons, and a 75mm recoilless rifle platoon. In total the small battalion totaled roughly 430 men. The unit flew by plane to a military airfield near Pusan. By July 3rd 1-21IN had arrived by train to Taejon where they began to move North to meet the advancing North Koreans. On America’s birthday, the 4th of July, 1950, 1-21IN met up in Pyongtaek with part of the 52nd Field Artillery battalion. Field Artillerymen only had six 105mm howitzers, totaled 108 men, and were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Miller Perry. Task Force Smith now totaled roughly 540 men and were on their way to stop two advancing North Korean Divisions totaling upwards of 20,000 men who had days prior routed the ROK Army. But this was a “police action”, and those 20,000 North Koreans are supposed to run in fear when they see the US soldiers in front of them. It didn’t quite work out that way.
Task Force Smith moved North from Pyongtaek and set up a defensive line on some key high ground along Highway 1 just North of modern day Osan. The Task Force dug in and prepared to fight the advancing North Koreans. These soldiers would soon learn that warfare is not a John Wayne movie and the enemy doesn’t always follow the script.
Taskforce Smith Engages the Enemy
(The T-34), perhaps it was the best all-around tank developed in World War II, with very high mobility, a good low silhouette, and very heavy armor plating. It could be stopped, but not with the ancient equipment in the hands of the ROK’s or Task Force Smith.
T.R. Fehrenbach, author of This Kind of War
On July 5, 1950 Task Force Smith sat entrenched in a defensive line just North of modern day Osan. A steady rain fell on the defenders as they awaited for the inevitable battle. At 0700 Lieutenant Colonel Smith saw eight North Korean T-34 tanks moving south down the highway from Suwon to Osan heading straight for the ridge line the US soldiers were dug in at.
LTC Smith called on his six supporting howitzers from the 52nd Field Artillery Battalion to pour what artillery men like to call “steel rain” on the enemy. The howitzers fired their 105mm artillery rounds on the enemy tanks but this “steel rain” met even stronger iron as the rounds were unable to penetrate the thick armor of the T-34 tanks.
The T-34 tanks were from the NK 105th Armor Brigade that were screening in front of the advancing NK 4th Infantry Division. Some of you may remember the NK 4ID from when they battled the ROK 7ID in the Battle of Uijongbu. The Americans would be equally frustrated by the superior T-34’s armor as their ROK Army counterparts were.
The eight T-34’s continue to move forward and engage the Americans on the ridge line oblivious to the artillery fire that could not penetrate their armor. Lieutenant Ollie Connor took a bazooka and ran down the hill into a ditch along side the road and fired on the T-34. The bazooka round had no effect. He then fired into the rear of the tank which is supposed to be the T-34’s “soft spot” which that also had no effect. In all Lieutenant Connor fired a total of 22 bazooka rounds which all had no effect on the T-34’s. The tanks would of been easy kills with anti-tank mines but the infantrymen had none at their disposal. Air power could of also hit the tanks hard, but the steady rain caused the US Air Force to not fly sorties in the vicinity of Task Force Smith due to concerns of friendly fire incidents.
The first T-34’s unimpressed by the ambush continued forward looking for the real fight not realizing that was in fact the real fight. The North Koreans felt there had to be a stronger American force awaiting somewhere to ambush them and this was just a road block to occupy them with. This was the legendary American Army they fighting, there had to be more. However, there was no more; it was just Smith and his men.
The tanks continued down the road towards the artillery positions. The artillery men fired one of their total of nine anti-armor rounds at one of the tanks. There was only nine of these rounds in country at the time. The lead tank was hit in the front and burst into flames. The three NK tankers jumped out and fired at an American machine gun position killing an assistant gunner. This assistant gunner would become the first US fatality of the Korean War, he soon would not be alone; many more would follow. The three North Korean tankers were eventually quickly shot down by the other Americans.
The other tanks were not detoured by the destroyed tank and moved forward. The artillery men were practically using their howitzers as direct fire weapons firing at ranges of 150-300 meters at the T-34’s. One more tank was disabled when it was hit in the treads, but the other tanks kept coming. The tanks moved to the rear of the howitzers and destroyed LTC Perry’s headquarters and vehicles but by passed the howitzers and kept moving south. The Americans still had their six howitzers but no means of communicating with LTC Smith’s infantry men because the tanks had cut the communications line in between the infantrymen and the artillery men. Artillery is of no use if there is no one to communicate with them to call in the indirect fires.
Once LTC Smith realized that his communications with LTC Perry had been cut he sent runners to try and restore communications but they twice returned saying they could not run a line due to enemy direct fire on them. The radios between the infantry men and the artillery also would not work due to the rain damaging their equipment. Comms or no comms the tanks just kept coming.
The artillery men continued to fire at the tanks as they passed by. However, some of the young artillery men panicked and ran at the sight of over 40 tanks moving through their area. Officer and sergeants took over the howitzers, continuing the heavy fire on the tanks. They were able to disable another track before all the tanks passed them and continued south. Amazingly the artillerymen took only two wounded including LTC Perry with no dead. The nearby infantry men had sustained 20 dead in the fight against the tanks. The artillery men had only one destroyed howitzer but most of their headquarters and support vehicles had been destroyed. The artillery men from the 52nd FA had fought bravely against the enemy tanks destroying three of them but without communications the artillery men would have no more impact on this fight.
Routed But Not Forgotten
The withdrawal immediately became ragged and chaotic. Nobody wanted to be last in a game where all advantage obviously lay with being first.
T.R. Fehrenbach, author This Kind of War
After what must have seemed like an endless column of North Korean tanks, they passed by the ridge defended by LTC Smith’s infantry men with little resistance. The main column of the NK 4th Infantry Division came into sight. The NK column was composed of dismounted infantry, approximately 4,000 of them, walking in congested groups down the road accompanied by more T-34 tanks. Great more tanks, but at least there was finally something Smith and his guys could actually kill.
However, by this point in the battle, the John Wayne movie illusions of combat had been shattered after the unit’s fight with the North Korean tanks. The soldiers couldn’t have been to thrilled to see more tanks and let alone 4,000 enemy infantry on top of it.
Heavy casualties could of been inflicted on the dismounted North Korean infantry if LTC Smith had communications with his howitzers to fire artillery on them. LTC Smith was still not able to restore communications and figured the artillery men had been destroyed by the North Korean tanks that had passed by. Also if the steady rain would of stopped, American air power could of decimated the North Korean column, but Smith had neither and would pay dearly for it.
Smith ordered his mortars to start the attack. The enemy took casualties and began to search for cover. The North Korean soldiers though battle hardened and mentally prepared for combat were not tactically disciplined and did not realize their numerical superiority and initially did not mount an effective dismounted counterattack. The North Koreans did however unload on the ridge line with artillery and tank fire. The volume of fire was ferocious but without an effective infantry counterattack to dislodge Smith’s men, the US soldiers continued to hold the high ground.
However, after the North Koreans began to realize their numerical superiority they began slowly to flank the American forces. Task Force Smith was slowly becoming enveloped by the North Koreans and sustaining heavy casualties, plus many soldiers had simply ran out of ammunition to fire. LTC Smith made the tough decision to withdraw. A withdrawal is difficult to execute even with a well disciplined unit much less soldiers that were scared and poorly trained in withdrawal operations. Once the order was given many of the soldiers simply took off and ran, leaving behind their weapons and equipment.
LTC Smith headed towards LTC Perry’s position to see what had become of the artillery men. He was amazed to see the artillery men were still intact. However, it was to late for them to provide any effective fires in this battle. He gave the order for them to retreat, but not before they effectively disabled their howitzers rendering them useless to the enemy. The artillery men still had a few trucks left and loaded up their men and began retreating.
To make matters worse for Smith, the already chaotic withdrawal was rendered more difficult because the prior enemy tanks had now occupied Osan to the unit’s rear. He had to have the unit withdraw towards the east instead. Nobody wanted to mess with those tanks again. However, the east was filled with slimy rice paddies the soldiers had to navigate through instead. I’m sure the soldiers preferred that then to fight those tanks again. Some of the trucks from 52nd FA stopped and picked up about 100 infantry men along the way.
The North Koreans were happy with just capturing the ridge line and chose not to pursue the Americans. Not because they were exhausted but because there was to much good loot on the hill to plunder. I’m sure the NK soldiers have a great time taking watches, wallets, and equipment from all the dead and wounded American soldiers. This probably slowed the North Korean advance more than the battle itself.
The next morning LTC Smith could only account for half of the unit’s 540 men. Approximately 181 American soldiers were either killed or captured that summer day in July 1950 and inflicted approximately 127 casualties on the North Korean enemy. Those 181 lives had delayed the North Koreans for 7 hours.
Weeks later scattered soldiers from Task Force Smith would trickle into Pusan. Some soldiers had made it all the way to the East Coast and followed the coast line down to Pusan. One soldier reached the Yellow Sea and used a Korean sampan to travel to Pusan.
Other 24th Infantry Division units had arrived over night and set up positions in Choenan and Taejon areas. They to would be routed at a great cost of American lives, but more time had been bought. The 24ID had been piece mealed and trickled into Korea one unit at at time. No general would ever want to fight a battle with piece mealed units, but the 24ID has no choice, but to do so to delay the advancing enemy. The 24ID had actually delayed the enemy long enough for the 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry Divisions to arrive in strength from Japan. These two units would go on to achieve heroic acts of bravery in saving the country of Korea by holding the Pusan Perimeter. However, the Pusan Perimeter would of never been formed without the precious time payed for in American lives by the units of the 24th Infantry Division and Task Force Smith.
The Lessons Learned from Taskforce Smith
Task Force Smith though poorly trained and ill equipped was still able to put up an effective defense for a limited amount of time. If they had land mines, air support, and more ammunition they probably could of sustained their defense longer and inflicted more casualties. However, with two approaching North Korean divisions they were sure to be over run at some point and the Army commanders in Tokyo knew this. So to blame the defeat of Task Force Smith solely on the unit and LTC Smith, like some people like to believe, for allowing his unit to become so poorly trained and outfitted during peace time, I find to be misguided.
The Army commanders in Tokyo are the ones that allowed the soldiers of 1-21 Infantry and the rest of the occupation forces in Japan to become so poorly trained and ill equipped in the first place, but it really isn’t their fault either. As is so often the case the blame really lies with the politicians.
The US Congress at the time set the Army’s strength at 10 combat Divisions, but they did not provide enough money to sustain these 10 Divisions. At best there was enough money to fund only 6 Divisions. The politicians however are always eager to not be seen as “soft on defense” and mandated that 10 Divisions had to be kept knowing full well they would not be properly funded. After all the US had the atomic bomb, who needs ground forces when you have nukes, right? At least that is what Congress thought.
The Army short on money chose to use their scarce resources to ensure that the front line Divisions in Germany were fully manned and trained due to the increasing Soviet threat than to allocate resources to an occupation force in Japan. Thus the four Army Divisions in Japan received little money for equipment and training and many units were only filled with 50% of their required personnel.
Combine this with the John Wayne attitude of the military’s youth at the time and this is how you end up with a Task Force Smith. It is important to understand that Task Force Smith was not unique. It was just microcosm of the military in the Pacific that was allowed to weaken by the US government due to budgetary reasons that forces the military to focus its scant resources to defend Europe then to train an occupation army.
The politicians apparently thought just like the young soldiers, that enough John Wayne movies and patriotism can make up for rigorous training and good equipment. Past greatness doesn’t sustain the readiness of an Army. If this was the case the French and Italians would still be military powers today. Training and the best equipment are what makes a military strong.
However, as often is the case, the politicians don’t pay for their bone headed errors, the soldiers do and Task Force Smith payed for these mistakes in blood.
Today a memorial to the soldiers of Task Force Smith can be found just off of Highway 1 between Osan and Suwon. It is a fitting memorial with sculptures depicting American soldiers facing off in every direction just like they were that rainy day on July 5, 1950.
Wars are often filled with lots of “what ifs” and the Korean War was no different. One of these “what ifs” was a little known battle in the opening days of the war outside of the city of Uijongbu. Uijongbu is located about 20 kilometers north of the South Korean capitol of Seoul and is the primary transit point to reach the city from the north. The battle for this city would decide if the nation’s capitol would fall to the North Korean invaders 57 years ago.
Uijongbu 57 Years Ago. Highway 3 is the road running north and Highway 43 runs northeast
On June 25, 1950, the North Korean (NK) 3rd Division crossed the DMZ and battled the ROK Army 2nd Division in the Pocheon area which lies 25 kilometers Northeast of Uijongbu up highway 43. The NK 4th Division moved south of the DMZ and fought the ROK 7th Division just North of Dongducheon in the vicinity of Soyosan mountain which is the mountain that lies to the north of today’s American Army base Camp Casey. The ROK 7th Division was able to cause heavy casualties on the NK 4th Div. as they withdrew South from Soyosan to Dongducheon, and then to Deokjong. The ROK Army at the time did not have the man power, tanks, or equipment the North Koreans had. Never the less the ROK 7th Div. continued to put up a stingy defense as they withdrawed South towards Uijongbu along Highway 3.
In the above map you can see Highway 3 and Highway 43 running south where the ROK Army has defensive positions lining each side of both highways all the way to Uijongbu.
Meanwhile the ROK 2nd Div. withdrew from Pocheon after they were actually able to get the NK 3rd Div. to momentarily withdraw from Pocheon. The surviving elements of the ROK 2nd Div. took up positions in hilly terrain overlooking the highway 43 approach to Uijongbu. The hills were defended by two battalions of ROK 2nd Div. infantry soldiers and were facing an entire advancing NK 3rd Div. reinforced with T-34 tanks.
The plan was to have the ROK 7th and 2nd Divisions counterattack and stop the North Korean advance before it reached Uijongbu. The ROK 2nd Div. was to counterattack from their high ground overlooking Highway 43 and the ROK 7th Div. was to counterattack from their high ground just North of Uijongbu over looking Highway 3. However, the ROK 2nd Div. never counterattacked and stayed in positions as the North Koreans brought their armored column at them. The ROK soldiers fired artillery at the T-34s but it had no effect. The tanks were actually so unconcerned about the ROK defense that they just simply drove right by them into Uijongbu. The North Korean infantry following behind the tanks eventually began to engage the 2nd Div. soldiers. Once engaged the soldiers began to retreat further into the country side and melt away. The NK 3rd Div. now had an easy path into Uijongbu and shed very little blood to gain it.
Uijongbu as seen one year after the end of the Korean War. Picture from the qsl.net site which has many great historic pictures of Korea.
The NK 4th Div. on the other hand had shed much blood in their fight with the stingy ROK 7th Div. as they fought down the Highway 3 corridor. However, with North Korean tanks now in their rear due to the collapse of the ROK 2nd Div. the 7th never got a chance to launch a counterattack to destroy the NK 4th Div. Instead they had to withdraw to the Southern end of Uijongbu where they began to engage both the NK 4th and 3rd Divisions. The 7th Div. could not hold up against such an onslaught and withdrew from Uijongbu. The North Koreans now had Uijongbu and a clear path to Seoul. The North Koreans eventually captured Seoul two days later and had destroyed 60% of the ROK Army in the process.
In the above graphic you can see where the memorial along Highway 43 stands today just northeast of Uijongbu. You can also see how the North Korean tanks just simply drove right through the ROK Army defenders on the hill and into Uijongbu.
Uijongbu During the Korean War
Uijongbu as seen in 2007.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if the ROK 2nd Div. hadn’t collapsed and counterattacked from their positions instead of retreating? General Lee who commanded the Division is on record as saying that he did not execute the counterattack plan because his reinforcements had not arrived and he would of taken great losses during any counterattack. So rather then see himself and his men die in battle they felt they could not win, they retreated. If the 2nd could of held its line, the ROK 7th would of surely held its line against the NK 4th Div. who they had inflicted heavy casualties on. By holding the line one more day reinforcements would of come from further South to shore up the front line.
The collapse of the ROK 2nd Division ended up being the last straw that broke the camels back because over in the Munsan corridor to the West of Uijongbu the legendary Korean General Paik Sun Yup was holding his line in the vicinity of the Imjim River and Pukhan mountain. General Paik is regularly an honored guest at USFK functions and a person I have had the pleasure to meet. The man is literally the living embodiment of Korea’s modern history.
During the early days of the Korean War the then Colonel Paik was was the commander of the ROK 1st Div. The 1st Div. was the only division to stop the North Korean advance. However, with the collapse of the 2nd Division, Seoul would fall on the 4th day of the invasion and the ROK 1st Div. was now surrounded on three sides and forced to withdraw across the Han River leaving behind all their heavy equipment and only bringing what they could carry with them across the river.
If the ROK 2nd would of held the entire western front line could of possibly held. Additionally the hasty capture of Seoul caused the Han River bridges to be prematurely destroyed trapping much of the withdrawing ROK Army units such as the 7th Div. North of the Han River. Much of the equipment and soldiers of these units ended up captured and killed by the North Koreans. This rapid destruction of the ROK Army would eventually lead to the withdrawal to the Pusan Perimeter where the UN backed American military eventually intervened with enough combat power to stabilize the front lines. The stablized lines allowed General Douglas MacArthur to execute his famous Incheon Landing Operation and with it the destruction of the North Korean military. But what if the front lines were stabilized in the vicinity of Seoul when the American and UN forces intervened? Could have the American and UN forces crushed the North Koreans quick enough before China had a chance to prepare their forces to intervene in Korea? Who knows but it is interesting to think about the possibilities.
Today the site where the ROK 2nd Div. had their defensive positions is now commemorated with a very large memorial recognizing the war dead from the 2nd Div. during the early days of the war. The memorial is actually quite beautiful and well maintained. It is definitely a worthy tribute to remember the division’s war dead. However, every time I think about the ROK 2nd Div. even at the memorial, I can’t help but think of, what if.
Memorial located on the hill commemorating the Battle of Uijongbu
For those who have read my series of postings about General Haydon Boatner (Part 1 begins here) you may be interested in visiting the modern day site of the Geoje POW camp. Today a small section of the former Goeje Island POW camp has been reconstructed into a museum to remember this little known chapter of the Korean War. The museum is located adjacent to the modern day city Gohyeun which is more well known for its massive ship yards than for its significant Korean War history. At the entrance to the museum visitors are greeted by the flags of all the nations that participated in the defense of the Republic of Korea during the Korean War:
Just passed the flags is this quite impressive fountain and statue of a rifle with a fixed bayonet:
One thing about war memorials in Korea that I have always liked is that they have a lot of really impressive sculptures and this one is no different. Before heading into the main camp visitors will go through the prison’s museum. Inside the museum they have artifacts and recreations of what happened here during the Korean War using mannequins:
These recreations do a good job of visually displaying how large the camp once was as well as the tough living conditions the prisoners found themselves contending with:
Of course the recreations include the final uprising in the prison:
Unfortunately I could not find a recreation of North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku hiding in a ditch after the uprising. The recreation pictured above actually reminded me of some of the protesters I’ve seen outside of Camp Red Cloud before. Just take PW off their shirts and I would think they were Hanchongnyun members.
Once you finished checking out the museum you can walk towards the actual prison camp recreation by crossing a bridge over the tree line and then walking through the gate you see below:
Inside the enclosure there is a number of tents and buildings that were used to house the prisoners. Here is an example of your typical quonset hut building of the day:
Many of these buildings were also used as classrooms to teach democracy and capitalism to the prisoners while other ones served as job training centers. There are also the ruins of a few of the actual buildings from the 1950’s that are still visible:
This ruin used to be the camp’s post exchange (PX). The floor to the PX was paved with concrete because the building also served as the officer club and dances were often held here. It makes me wonder if this was the building where General Boatner was invited to a cocktail party when he first arrived at the out of control prison camp?
Here is a view from slightly above the camp that shows the modern day city of Gohyeun that is adjacent to this museum:
Now compare this picture with what this place looked like during the Korean War:
As you can see the camp’s tents and buildings used to fill the entire valley that is now occupied with the high rise apartments and buildings Gohyeun.
Overall, a visit to the museum may be worthwhile if you are visiting the island anyway or if you are a Korean War scholar that likes to visit historic sites like this from the war. However, what I didn’t like about the museum is that it felt more like a Korean War theme park than an actual museum. The perfect example of this picture below:
Visitors can have their pictures taken as prisoners in the camp. This seemed pretty outrageous to me since this place should have a more solemn tone to it considering the serious and tragic nature of what happened here. Most of the Korean War memorials in the country do have a solemn tone to them so the fact that this one has turned into a carnival atmosphere is actually an exception to the rule. Never the less an interesting place to visit, but probably not worth your time to see if your sole purpose for coming to Goeje Island is to visit this museum.
Sometimes heroism in warfare is not always won on the battlefield. Heroism can also occur in the rear ranks by strong leaders organizing and motivating logistical and support units to operate at full capacity to support the frontline units. Often in warfare the rear logistical units can become to complacent due to their distance from the frontline combat units. This complacency inevitably causes inefficiency that ultimately effects the frontline soldiers. This inefficiency and displacement from combat often causes tension between the frontline and rear echelon units that usually leads to colorful names for the rear troops. This has been a fact throughout the wars America has fought. Frontline soldiers today often call the rear echelon troops Foblins (FOB is a forward operating base). During the Korean War they were known as REMF’s (Rear End Motherfu****s). It was these REMF’s that would lead to one of the most embarrassing incidents of the entire Korean War.
Koje-do is a large island located in the southeast of Korea. It covers some 383 squared kilometers and is the second largest island in Korea only behind Cheju-do Island. The island has much historical significance with it’s links to the legendary Korean Admiral Yi Sun-shin. Today the island serves as a holiday destination for people from Pusan and as the home of the Daewoo ship building industry. However, probably the most infamous incident in the island’s history has to be the Koje Island communist prisoner of war (POW) camp constructed on the island during the Korean War. Long before there was Abu Graib there was Goje Island. What happened at Abu Graib totally and utterly fails in comparison to the incompetence and horror of Goje Island during the Korean War.
During the increasing combat on the Pusan Perimeter the US and allied forces found themselves with increasing numbers of North Korean POWs. It was decided that a camp had to be constructed to house the POWs. Goje Island was chosen as the site because of the fact that it was an island making it difficult to escape and it was far from the front making rescue attempts impossible. Additionally it was away from Pusan thus preventing the vital port in Pusan being clogged due to the amount of POWs held there, if the allies had to withdraw from Korea. The area chosen on the island to build the site a flat valley near the center of island that had access to a seaport to resupply the island from. Hap hazard housing and facilities were constructed on the site and very quickly POWs began to fill the camp. After the successful Inchon Landing Operation the amount of POWs increased greatly as even more North Korean troops were captured by the allies. With the entry of the Chinese into the war the camp continued to fill up well past it’s maximum capacity.
The following facts should give you some idea of how overcrowded the POW camp was. The facts are from March 1952, in the article “Prisoner’s Island: Tension and Tedium Rule Koje’s Barbed-Wire World”. This was an extensive story about life for the prisoners on Koje island off the east coast of South Korea. The story appeared in Vol. 32, Issue Number 13, pages 92 to 98 in the March 31, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine. Here are the facts:
Koje had 3,000 Prisoners of War under the age of 17
170,000 prisoners lived there
38,000 of the POWs were Korean civilians pressed into Red armies
21,000 were Chinese POW’s
111,000 were North Korean POWs of both sexes between the ages of 6 and 63
60% of the Chinese POWs were illiterate
24% of the Koreans were illiterate
Messages were sent from compound to compound via dragonflies
Each arriving prisoner received about $50 worth of GI uniform
Compound 66 had 2,600 North Korean officers who believed in communism
6,000 Koreans and 13,000 Chinese signed anti-Communist petitions, sometimes in blood
In February of 1952, 69 POWs in Compound 62 died in a riot
Prisoners of War on Koje studied language, history, manual crafts, modern farming, and the difference between democracy and totalitarianism.
To put the massiveness of these numbers into perspective, Abu Graib never held more than 4,000 prisoners at its peak in 2004.
Overcrowding and Incompetence
The overcrowding combined with an ideological battle within the camp made living conditions increasingly unbearable. The POWs segregated themselves into gangs that either believed in communism or capitalism and even further divided themselves by religion as Christianity was increasingly accepted by the prisoners. The gang like atmosphere in the prison bares a striking similarity to America’s prisons today by how prisoners segregate themselves into gangs based on ethnicity. The different gangs regularly fought for turf and influence in the prison camp.
The guards that secured the compound rarely if ever went inside the compound. Most of them were rear echelon troops bored and uninterested in duty on the island. The prisoners pretty much ran the prison themselves with the American soldiers standing guard outside the wire.
Due to the lax security within the compound the communist block was able to intimidate and crush opposition and when they had accumulated enough strength within the camp, they decided it was time to start waging war against the Americans from within inside the camp as well. They knew they couldn’t begin a conventional fight against the Americans because they would all just eventually be shot and killed. They decided the best way to open up another front against the Americans was to begin a propaganda war from inside the camp. This campaign would have better results than they ever could have imagined.
North Korean POW camp leader Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
On the morning of May 7th, 1952, the commander of the communist faction North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku requested that the commander of the prison, Brigadier General Francis Dodd urgently come and meet with him for an important reason. BG Dodd had met with COL Lee before and didn’t expect anything unusual from this request. In a well rehearsed and coordinated move COL Lee’s men surrounded the General and his guards and quickly subdued the guards and pushed them out of the compound and grabbed the general and moved him deep within the compound. The prisoners all pulled out their home made weapons and threatened to kill the general if any attempt to enter the compound was made. The seizure of the American general made instant headlines. Americans woke up to headlines of torture and abuse at Goje Island because the prisoners made demands that the US stop torturing, abusing, and starving them if they wanted their commander back. This was of course nonsense but to other nations around the world who didn’t know any better they of course began to wonder, “What the heck are the Americans doing on Goje Island?”
Additionally the communist block had a field day with the propaganda value of the Goje Island uprising. Here is what Pravda in Moscow wrote in response to the uprising:
Koje Island! Again the gloomy shadow of Maideneck (a Nazi extermination camp in Poland) has come upon the world, again the stench of corpses…… the groans of the tortured…… we learn that “civilized” Americans can be yet more inhuman, yet more infamous than the bloody Hitlerites. Dachau was a death camp, Maidenek was a death factory; Koje is a whole island of death. The American hangmen are torturing, tormenting, and killing unarmed people here. They are experimenting with their poisons on them….
This Kind of War
Page 398
To echo the communists claims the Red Cross condemned the treatment of prisoners on Goje Island as well. They condemned the over crowding, violence in the camp, and the lack of food reaching some prisoners because the communist leaders would store the food for themselves and only hand it out to prisoners loyal to their movement. The Red Cross also would not condone any force to put down the uprising and regain control of the camp in order to meet acceptable humanitarian standards. The Red Cross could provide no advice on how to meet acceptable standards, but was quick to criticize the Eighth Army forces guarding the prison for not meeting those standards.
COL Lee had scored a massive propaganda victory by claiming torture and abuse after capturing the general that was repeated and endorsed in newspapers across the globe. He even scored a bigger victory when another General, BG Charles Colson arrived to take charge of the camp and agreed to demands made by the prisoners to stop torture and abuse in exchange for General Dodd. Before releasing Dodd, the North Koreans put him on trial for war crimes and forced him to the statement that Colson had approved earlier.
After the release of General Dodd, General Colson retracted the signed statement made by Dodd, but by agreeing to the demands in the first place it had the effect of legitimizing the North Koreans’ claims of torture and abuse to the world’s media. The global media was having a feeding frenzy over the Goje Island story and it began to directly effect the truce negotiations being waged at Panmunjom. The US military brass was furious at what was going on at Goje Island and at General Colson for agreeing to the prisoner’s demands.
There were problems on Goje Island, but the prisoners were always fed and did what they wanted in the camp. The biggest problem on the camp was the overcrowding, because no one expanded the camp because everyone thought the war would end any day and all the prisoners would go home. The problems in the camp was not from torture or abuse, but from incompetence of the people running the camp. This incompetence would end once a man named Brigadier General Haydon Boatner.
The New Commander Takes Charge
Brigadier General Haydon Boatner was an old China hand for the US military. He served in China during World War II and spoke fluent Mandarin. He was serving as the assistant division commander of the Second Infantry Division on the frontlines of the Korean War when he went on leave for R&R in Japan. It was while on leave in Japan that he was notified that he was taking over the Geoje Island POW camp. The camp had been commanded by rear echelon troops and the Eighth Army commander General Mark Clark wanted a proven combat leader to fix the mess that the rear echelon commanders had created on Goje Island and General Boatner conveniently on leave in Japan was just the man he needed.
General Boatner soon arrived in Pusan and received a debriefing from General Colson on the situation on Goje Island. While in Pusan he even ran into the recently released General Dodd who was visibly a shaken man after being held hostage and was on his way to Tokyo to report to his superior there over the incident. Dodd would go on to be reduced one rank to colonel and forcibly retired from the military. While meeting with General Colson, Boatner was amazed how oblivious he was to the media frenzy over Goje Island. There was little access to the media in Korea, but in Tokyo the media frenzy in the newspapers could not be missed and Colson would soon find out about the frenzy after meeting with Boatner and returning to Japan where he was also disciplined for his part in the Goje Island mess.
Boatner found the lack of information reaching Korea to be even worse once he arrived on Goje Island. The first thing the command staff on Goje wanted to do once he arrived was to throw him a cocktail party. General Boatner couldn’t believe that the staff on Goje was more concerned about cocktail parties than ending the uprising and the subsequent propaganda beating the US was taking due to the mess on Goje Island. The priorities of the soldiers on Goje Island became only more evident as Boatner looked around the camp. He found soldiers in different uniforms and some soldiers carrying weapons and others not. The reason he found for the lack of weapons was the fear of accidental discharges. For a commander that had fought on Heartbreak Ridge, Boatner could not believe the attitude of the soldiers he found on Goje Island. General Boatner immediately ordered one standard uniform and put everyone under arms to the objection of the staff he inherited. They were an absolute disgrace and he was going to fix it.
Internationalizing the Problem
Boatner discovered that this attitude was allowed to manifest because many of the officers and soldiers that the Army found unfit for combat had been sent to this island instead of the frontlines. General Boatner decided it was time to start a purge to rid the camp of the unfit soldiers and leaders. He relieved over 400 soldiers from the island and now had to replace them. To replace them Eighth Army sent him combat team from the 187th Airborne from Japan, a Canadian company, a British company, a few Greek soldiers, and a Turkish company. The Eighth Army commander General Clark received a lot of criticism from the governments of the soldiers sent to Goje because these countries wanted nothing to do with what was going on with Goje Island. It was a political kryptonite that everyone wanted to steer clear of, but General Clark felt the problem on Goje was a UN problem and not solely a US problem and by sending foreign units there it internationalized the problem.
Expanding the Camp
After General Boatner had successfully conducted his purge and refocused the attention of the camp on regaining control of the prisoners and not holding cocktail parties, he then focused on expanding the camp in order to break up the organized groups of prisoners. Boatner know that he had to expand the compound quickly because the camp was not only making international headlines that were disgracing the country, but was also being used for political fodder during the negotiations at Panmunjom.
One of the most sensitive issues being discussed during the negotiations was the return of POWs at Goje Island. The allies wanted to give the prisoners an option of either staying in South Korea or returning to North Korea or China. The Chinese and North Korean negotiators wanted all the prisoners sent back to North Korea and China. When challenged that many of the prisoners wanted to stay in South Korea the communist negotiators would counter that the prisoners only say that because they are being inhumanely tortured on the island and would hold up western media reports that had sensationalized what was going on at Goje Island to prove it. Additionally images of the daily protests at the Goje camp complete with prisoners chanting communist slogans and holding up pictures of Marxist leaders were filling the daily newspapers across the globe feeding the perception of torture, abuse, and the fact that all the prisoners wanted to be returned to North Korea and China.
An engineer unit was sent to Goje to help expand the camp. Initially the engineer commander was more concerned about building a new PX for the soldiers than expanding the camp, but General Boatner set him straight and ordered his men to work 24 hours a day building the new barracks to house the prisoners. The PX could wait.
Breaking the Enemy’s Will
Along with Boatner’s efforts to restore discipline in his troops and expand the camp he also needed to break the will of the enemy. Boatner felt that since the prisoners’ commander North Korean Colonel Lee Hak-ku had successfully brought massive media attention on the island that at anytime he could order his men to attempt a massive prison break that would end in the deaths of many prisoners further causing disgrace to the US military and the condemnation of the world. Boatner had to work on breaking up the loyalty of the prisoners to Colonel Lee.
The prisoners would challenge General Boatner’s authority on just his second day on the job. A Chinese faction of soldiers loyal to Colonel Lee began to cause a commotion in the camp. General Boatner went to the camp to see what was going on. He was amazed to see 6,500 Chinese soldiers in perfect formation chanting slogans and holding propaganda signs. Outside the wire the American soldiers were gathered hooting and hollering back at the Chinese. It was a chaotic scene that Boatner was quick to get control of. He ordered his aid to bring the commander of the US soldiers to him and the Chinese commander. Boatner proceeded to scald the US commander to take control of his men. The commander, a lieutenant colonel had served under General Boatner on the frontlines of the war and quickly responded and got control of his men and stopped the hollering at the Chinese.
Boatner than turned his attention to the Chinese commander who was a colonel in the Chinese Army that spoke a northern Chinese accent that Boatner understood completely. The colonel not realizing Boatner could speak Chinese brought an interpreter with him that reiterated demands about the Geneva Convention, Panmunjom, and the usual communist talking points of the day. General Boatner, to the Chinese commander’s shock, responded in perfect Mandarin that he was full of crap and then proceeded to tell him the names of respected Chinese generals he had fought with during World War II. The fact that he could speak Mandarin combined with his association with prominent Chinese commanders impressed the Chinese commander. The Chinese commander agreed to end the protest and through small acts of Chinese cultural understanding over the proceeding days Boatner was able to win the respect of the Chinese commander. In just a few short days General Boatner had already eroded support for Colonel Lee Hak-ku’s uprising in the prison.
Next Boatner turned his attention to eliminating the communist propaganda such as signs and statues that had been erected around the camp. Boatner wanted to avoid one large operation that the prisoners could organize against and cause a massive incident that could turn into blood shed which would be reported around the world. Boatner decided instead to use well timed raids that featured tanks backed with soldiers trained in riot control. Boatner’s men raided one compound at a time over a series of days to slowly destroy all the propaganda around the camp thus avoiding one large operation. Slowly but surely General Boatner was able to eliminate the communist propaganda inside the camp. In the first week of Boatner’s command it was clear to all the prisoners that there was a new boss in town and it wasn’t Colonel Lee Hak-ku.
Isolating the Prisoners
It was long known that villagers outside of the Goje POW camp were helping the prisoners inside the camp with supplies and the sending of messages back to their masters in North Korea and in turn influencing the on going negotiations at Panmunjom. Many of the villagers on Goje were actually North Korean civilians relocated from Wonsan and Hangnum in North Korea. Among the evacuated civilians were many North Korean agents that were aiding the prisoners in the camp. General Boatner knew he had to stop this rat line running from Goje to Panmunjom and the only way to do that would be by forcibly moving thousands of villagers away from the camp.
The problem with doing that was that with the Red Cross and media hanging around would condemn such an act. However, the problem with the civilians supporting the prisoners got so bad that Boatner had to do something about them before he could move on fully ending the uprising in the prison. Boatner sent trucks to the village to move the villagers. The military in two days was able to move the entire village and burn the huts down. It brought some bad headlines in the short term, but in long term it totally isolated the North Korean leadership within the prison.
Ending the Revolt
It took 30 days for the engineers to complete the expansion of the prison and during this time General Boatner was able to restore discipline among his own troops, divide loyalties within the prison, and end the rat line of communications from and to the prison. The last thing that had to be done was to end the revolt and restore order.
With the new camp constructed the time was now here to begin moving prisoners into the new and more secure compound. There was tens of thousands of prisoners total on Goje divided in separate camps of 6,500 prisoners. General Boatner chose the most violent camp with the head communist leadership, including Colonel Lee Hak-ku in Camp 76 to begin the movement of the prisoners from. Boatner felt that by crushing opposition here first, it would set an example to the rest of the prisoners. Using crack paratroopers from the 187th Airborne Brigade, Boatner had his men completely surround Camp 76. The men were under very explicit orders to use non-lethal means to move the prisoners and could only shoot to kill with the permission of the commanding officer only. It was imperative that the operation didn’t turn into a blood bath for the world’s media to report. The paratroopers had trained for weeks for this operation and were ready to put down the uprising by chopping off it’s head at Camp 76.
Weapons found hidden within the Geoje Island POW camp.
All at once on June 10th, 1952, the soldiers cut down the wire around the camp and moved in. The paratroopers moved in slowly and deliberately subduing prisoners. As they moved further into the camp the prisoners set fire to the buildings creating a smoke screen to fight the paratroopers in. The paratroopers began throwing concussion grenades into the smoke which had the effect of breaking up the frontlines of the resistance. As prisoners fled the impact of the grenades they were quickly captured by the paratroopers. The last 150 holdouts made one last ditch effort to fight off the paratroopers by hunkering down in trenches they had dug. As the paratroopers closed in on the trenches some of the prisoners panicked and ran towards the paratroopers to give themselves up. However, as they ran from the trenches the hard core communist cadre chased after them and killed some of the defectors. The paratroopers quickly moved in to stop the slaughter and a melee ensued. You can watch historic video footage of the operation at this link.
Once the operation was over 43 POWs had been killed and 135 wounded with half these casualties coming from the communists attacking their own people. Only one paratrooper who had been speared to death was killed in the operation. The paratroopers searched through the compound and found corpses hanging from inside the buildings to serve as an example to anyone that did not resist the Americans. They also found detailed plans by the communist to conduct a mass prison break on June 20th and slaughter anyone in there path in order to make maximum headlines against the Americans.
Outside the paratroopers found Colonel Lee hiding in a ditch and dragged him to his new compound. The leader of the communist uprising had gone down without a fight. The 6,500 prisoners in the notorious Camp 76 had been broken down and moved to the new compound and divided into more secure compounds of 500 prisoners per camp. The smaller number of prisoners per camp made it harder for them to organize and easier for the guards to manage. After this operation the rest of Goje’s prisoners voluntarily moved without confrontation to the new camp. By June 12th all the prisoners had been moved and General Boatner was firmly in charge of Goje Island. Colonel Lee and the rest of the prisoners of the Goje POW camp would never give General Boatner and his successors anymore problems for the rest of the war
Lessons Learned from the Geoje Island Incident
The US forces during the Korean War had been completely unprepared for the detaining of massive amounts of enemy prisoners. During World War II the US military dealt with few prisoners because very few Japanese ever surrendered. In the European theatre the allies didn’t start taking massive amounts of German prisoners until the war was just about over and the Germans had lost their will to fight. During the Korean War the US had taken massive amounts of prisoners and the enemy was far from being vanquished. Additionally these prisoners came from an alien culture and ideology that US commanders understood little about. Enemy prisoners looked at using prison as just another front in their war against the US and its allies.
To compound the problem the US commanders were so consumed with fighting the immediate war little emphasis was put into the handling of prisoners and possible propaganda value to the enemy for any mistreatment. Additionally the assigning of poor soldiers and officers to manage the prisoners combined with the inadequate facilities to house the prisoners would lead to strategic consequences later in the war.
The mistakes made during the Korean War in the handling of prisoners would repeat itself to a much smaller degree during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Abu Graib prison abuse controversy, but the propaganda value was just as valuable to not just the immediate enemy, but all the interests opposed to America in general as well.
Here are some of the big lessons learned I think the military can take away from these two very big historical blights on the image of the US military in the last 50 years. First of all, plans need to be made to house prisoners before going to war. Before the war even started there should have been an engineer unit designated to immediately begin building a compound to house prisoners. The Korean War was an unexpected war, but the Iraq War had plenty of prior planning and unfortunately the prior planning did little to plan for the amount of prisoners the US would end up holding. One engineer company during the Korean War built a camp to hold tens of thousands of prisoners in one month. What if the US military built a camp of similar size in the desert some where in Iraq to hold prisoners instead of Abu Graib? This would have easily prevented the overcrowding of the prison.
Secondly, Abu Graib should have never been chosen as a place to hold prisoners to begin with due to its notorious image from the Saddam Hussein era of power in Iraq. What if during the Korean War the US military started holding prisoners within Soedaemun Prison in Seoul? What kind of message would that have sent to the general Korean population during the war? During the Korean War Goeje Island was actually a well chosen location for a prison that planners during the Iraq War could have learned a lot from.
Next thing is that a mission as politically sensitive as handling prisoners of war at a detention facility should be handled by only highly professional soldiers. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to have people like Charles Graner and Lynndie England to have such authority over prisoners? Janice Karpinski was just a female version of Francis Dodd. Abu Graib was surrounded by just as much incompetence as Goje Island during the Korean War. It wasn’t until competent leadership backed by crack troops were conditions in the camp able to improve on Goje Island. The lesson learned is that highly professional units with excellent leadership that deal exclusively with handling prisoners of war should be formed before a war is even initiated. The adhoc nature of soldiers and agencies thrown together in Abu Graib caused an environment ripe for abuse.
Finally, internationalizing the Goje prison by General Boatner was a brilliant idea because it shares responsibility for anything that happens within the prison. The international media glee over Abu Graib would probably have been much more tempered if more countries were involved in the management of the prison. This is something that should become a standard practice in future conflicts.
These were all painful lessons learned in the aftermath of the Goje Island Incident that would unfortunately be forgotten 50 years later in Iraq. Military planning requires more than just maneuvering infantry and tanks and hopefully in future conflicts the US military properly plans to deal with the handling of prisoners of war. Especially when such an issue can have such strategic impact, which in the case of Abu Graib is still being felt today. The painful lessons learned from Abu Graib could have been avoided with a close study and appreciation of the experiences of General Haydon Boatner on Goeje Island.
In the Associated Press’ latest attempt to make old news, new again that I blogged about earlier this week, they made mention about another possible incident of civilians being killed by US forces in Pohang during the Korean War. Now South Korean AP writer Jae Soon-chang has released an article about this incident from the Korean War:
A half-century on, the cold, matter-of-fact words leap from the typewritten page of a U.S. warship’s journal: “DeHaven received orders from the SFCP to open fire on a large group of refugee personnel located on the beach.â€
The destroyer’s officers questioned the order, then complied. What happened next is frozen forever in the minds of those who were there.
“The sea was a pool of blood,†said Choi Il-chool, 75. “Dead bodies lay all over the place.†Witnesses say 100 to 200 civilians were killed in the Navy shelling.
For seven years, since going public with their private grief, the survivors of that day, Sept. 1, 1950, have demanded an investigation of what they say was an unprovoked U.S. attack on refugee families huddled on a Pohang beach early in the Korean War. The Seoul government said in February it would launch such an inquiry, armed now with firsthand evidence — the declassified U.S. Navy journal — to back up what the victims say.
This sounds like a very tragic incident however it is short in context and details and jumps to the conclusion that this was done intentionally to kill innocent civilians. Jae of course then goes on to use the Muccio Letter to confirm his thesis:
The AP writers Charles Hanley and Martha Mendoza are literally making a career off of one topic, No Gun-ri. With no new claims to make about the incident they have now gone back to recycling old claims in order to make headlines. Their latest article to make the front page of Yahoo is about the Muccio Letter that was sent to the State Department from the US Ambassador in Korea, John Muccio during the Korean War. News of this letter came out a year ago and now Hanley and crew are bringing it up again as some kind of new news on the front page of Yahoo:
The reserve Ranger company and some soldiers from B Company had arrived at day break to relieve the artillerymen holding the front line. Soon after the sound of friendly aircraft could be heard in the air. Throughout the day friendly aircraft pounded the Chinese held ridge line with everything they had while the American infantry men supported by tank and artillery fire fought to take back the hill. Just through sheer man power the Chinese continued to stubbornly hold on to the hill. In fact the reserve force was thrown back off the hill three times by the Chinese throughout the course of the day. Eventually COL Freeman made the call to have his lone tank platoon to drive down the road outside of friendly lines and shoot at the back side of the Chinese held ridge line. While the tanks fired on the flanks of the enemy the reserve force would conduct a frontal assault right up the hill in one last attempt to capture it.
While this battled raged on a relief column was being organized to relieve the besieged 23rd Infantry. Colonel Marcel Crombez the commander of the 5th Cavalry Regiment led a column of 23 tanks, 160 infantry men, and 4 engineers from his unit up the 6 mile road leading to Chipyong-ni. They had no trucks so the infantrymen sat on top of the tanks as they rolled north to Chipyong-ni. The relief column started up the road at 3:45PM on February 15, 1951. During the journey up the road the Chinese attacked the column twice. The Chinese charged the tanks with human waves equipped with explosives to blow up the tanks with. The fighting was absolutely ferocious and casualties were heavy on both sides. By the time Crombez’s tanks reached Chipyong-ni only 23 of the 164 infantrymen and engineers riding on the tanks were alive. Of those 23, 13 were walking wounded, only 10 arrived in Chipyong-ni unscathed.
The view from McGee Hill looking south towards the road that COL Crombez’s relief column would appeared from and begin pouring fire on Mangmisan located towards the left of this picture.
This is what the view from the same hill looked like during the battle in 1951
Meanwhile the attack on McGee Hill continued for the 23rd Infantry. The platoon of four 23IN tanks began to hit the flanks of McGee Hill with tank fire. The Chinese tried to assault the tanks with no success. The fire from the tanks combined with the reserve force charging up the front of McGee Hill was enough to cause the Chinese defenders to begin to crack. As the Chinese began to fall back off of McGee Hill towards their stronghold on Mangmisan Mountain, COL Crombez’s relief column appeared over the horizon and began to pour a tremendous amount of tank fire on their mountain stronghold. The Chinese on Mangmisan were now in full retreat with the arrival of Crombez’s tanks. The retreat of this Chinese unit and the arrival of the additional US tanks was enough to cause the remaining Chinese forces to fall into a mass panic and retreat from Chipyong-ni. It was the reverse of the “bug out” fever that had effected US troops when the war first began and now for the first time during the war, the Chinese were the ones “bugging out”.
By night fall all the Chinese had pulled out of the Chipyong-ni area completely; the allied forces had their first victory over the Chinese Communist Forces in the Korean War. The US 23rd Infantry Regiment and their attached French Battalion consisted of only 4,500 soldiers and yet they had some how defeated a vastly larger force of over 25,000 Chinese. The battle did takes it’s toll on the 23rd Infantry Regiment. 52 men from the regiment died, 259 were wounded, and 42 men were missing in action after the battle. The battle was far more costly for the Chinese. Allied forces over the next few days would count over 5,000 Chinese corpses in the surrounding rice paddies, hills, and valleys around Chipyong-ni. Most importantly for the allies this victory showed the rest of the allied forces that the Chinese despite superior numbers could be defeated when confronted with determined men led by great leaders like Colonel Paul Freeman.
On Valentine’s Day of 1951, Air Force spotter planes flew over the surrounding high hills of Chipyong-ni trying to detect the Chinese positions and attack them with rockets and napalm. As usual the Chinese were masters at hiding during the day from allied air attack and little attrition of the Chinese forces was caused by the Air Force planes. Despite the air cover the Chinese mortar men were still able to launch an occasional mortar towards the 23INF’s positions. One of these mortars landed in the vicinity of the regimental command post killing one staff officer and wounding COL Freeman in the leg. Lieutenant General Almond the X Corps commander ordered COL Freeman to leave Chipyong-ni to have his wound treated and sent his operations officer COL Chiles to relieve Freeman. Freeman refused this order because he knew the battle had not been won yet and would not abandon his men.
The Air Force planes that buzzed overhead did allow the 23INF’s forces to take a breather from heavy Chinese attack and the allied soldiers used this time to continuing to fortify their positions and restock their ammunition. COL Freeman limping on one good leg walked around the frontlines and inspected the positions and encourage his soldiers. While he was doing this air drops of resupplies were also being parachuted into Chipyong-ni. However some key ammunition such as mortar rounds were not air dropped. Also the rifle ammunition that was air dropped was individual rounds that were not clipped, which meant somebody would have to clip all those thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Something extraordinary that happened that day was that General Ridgeway helicoptered into Chipyong-ni to encourage the soldiers and review defensive plans with COL Freeman:
The fact that the commanding 8th Army general risked flying into a city besieged by four Chinese division should have been enough of an indicator to the 23INF’s soldiers how important the Battle of Chipyong-ni had become. The highlight of the day however for the soldiers would not be General Ridgeway’s visit, but that the soldiers of the 23INF would have a chance to eat hot chow that day. Nothing motivates a soldier more than their stomachs. For many it would be the last meal they would ever eat.
23IN Soldiers take a break during the day of 13FEB51, Left: William C. Scott, he would die the next night in hand to hand combat, Center: Charles Buttimo, wounded for the 5th time during the battle and sent home, Right: William Johnson, one of the few soldiers to survive the battle without a scratch; was later taken prisoner by the Chinese in May, 1951.
It was so peaceful that day, that rumors began to spread that the Chinese had withdrawn. However, all these rumor were dispelled once night fell over Chipyong-ni on February 14. It was Valentine’s Day, but the Chinese had no intention of showing any love for the 23INF’s forces. The Chinese attack began with signal flares shooting across the sky and bugles sounding off in the distance followed by a ferocious artillery barrage. Once the artillery barrage ended the Chinese began their assault on sides of the 23INF’s defensive perimeter. G Company like the night before was pounded with waves of Chinese attackers that surged down the spur of land that ran from Mangmisan mountain. Other Chinese attacks were occurring simultaneously around the entire regimental perimeter, but clearly the spur of land running from Mangmisan mountain had been chosen as the avenue of approach for the Chinese main effort of this battle. The effectiveness of the prior nights probing attacks had been successful enough for the Chinese generals to believe that an overwhelming commitment of troops to charge the G Company lines would be enough to penetrate the 23INF’s defenses.
To the left you can see the hill held by G Company and Mangmisan mountain in the background.
1LT Heath received word from his third platoon leader, LT McGee, that his platoon located on what would become known as McGee Hill, was receiving heavy casualties from the Chinese assault and could not hold out much longer. 1LT Heath ran down the hill to the nearby artillery position to ask the B/503FA battery commander to provide him some soldiers to help shore up his frontlines. The field artillery commander gave 1LT Heath 15 men to help plug the hole in his line. As he led them up the hill the Chinese were on top of the hill firing down on them. The field artillerymen ran away. 1LT Heath charged after the artillerymen and reformed them and commanded that they charge the hill and fight. It is during this time that 1LT Heath uttered these famous words from the battle:
Goddamit, get back up on that hill! You’ll die down here anyway, you might as well go up on the hill and die there!
It was now about 0100 at night and the artillerymen continued to hide and refused to fight. This was clearly not the finest hour for US artillerymen during the Korean War. However, help did eventually come, Captain Elledge an artillery liaison officer overhead 1LT Heath’s yelling. CPT Elledge was one of those guys that liked a good fight and ran to the sounds of the guns. Elledge rounded up ten artillerymen and charged up McGee Hill in order to plug the hole in G Company lines. Elledge and his men climbed the hill on it’s left flank and found dead soldiers in the fox hills, but oddly enough no Chinese. He had the bodies removed from the holes and he emplaced his artillerymen in them. Elledge even ran back down the hill to carry up a .50 cal machine gun for the artillerymen to defend the position with. Despite CPT Elledge’s actions G Company continued to crumble on the hill.
COL Freeman was well aware of the breach of the regiment’s line in the G Company sector but was hesitant to commit his regimental reserve which consisted of one Ranger company to shore up the line because of a severe enemy thrust in the 3rd Battalion lines. He compromised and sent one Ranger platoon and a tank from his reserve to help 1LT Heath. It was about 0300 and the Chinese infantry were now firing down the hill into the artillery positions located at the bottom of the hill.
Picture of Chipyong-ni from Hal Barker’s collection
The 2nd Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Edwards had assigned a platoon from F Company along with a few artillerymen and the few remaining men from G company to form a counterattack force to retake the hill. The total counterattack force was composed of 36 men from the Ranger platoon, 28 men from F Company, 7 artillerymen, 2 machine gunners, and the 5 men left from G Company. LT Curtis was the platoon leader from the F Company platoon and LTC Edwards assigned him to lead the counterattack, however the Ranger Company commander had accompanied his platoon to the G Company lines and refused to allow his platoon to be commanded by LT Curtis. Rangers back then had big ego just like they do now and he didn’t want a regular infantry officer commanding his Ranger platoon and thus said that only COL Freeman could order his platoon into battle. LTC Edwards solved the command problem by sending one of his staff officers Captain John Ramsburg to command the counterattack force who outranked everyone from the Ranger Company. With the command situation resolved CPT Ramsburg began to organize his force. As he organized his force he called in a mortar strike in order to prep the hill for the counterattack. The mortar strike lasted only 2-3 minutes before the mortar men ran out of ammunition. Remember that mortar rounds were not included in the ammunition resupply air drop that day.
In response to the mortar attack the Chinese began firing mortars back at the counterattack force at the bottom of the hill. The Ranger company commander began issuing orders to his men that interfered with the orders that CPT Ramsburg was giving. Ramsburg ordered the Ranger commander to evacuate his wounded from the mortar strike. As the Ranger commander evacuated his wounded, Ramsburg used this opportunity to launch his counterattack at about 0345. The Ranger platoon lead the way up the hill followed by F company and the other soldiers of the counterattacking force. The Rangers yelled as they charged up the hill, but it drew the attention of French machine gunners on a nearby hill that mistook the Rangers as Chinese. Two French machine guns opened up on the hill. LT Curtis who Ramsburg had sent to warn the nearby tank about the counterattack saw the French machine guns firing at the hill and figured the Chinese had mounted an attack down the hill and ordered the American tank to fire at the hill as well. The counterattack force was being pummeled by both Chinese, American, and French fire.
Ramsburg ran towards Curtis and told him to stop the tank firing. 1LT Curtis stopped the tank from firing and then proceeded to get the French machine gunners to stop firing as well. Despite all of this some of the Ranger platoon were able to reach the top of the hill and shouted for more men to climb the hill to join them. CPT Ramsburg began leading more men up McGee Hill when he was wounded by a grenade breaking his ankle. 1LT Heath who saw Ramsburg go down offered to lead the attack up the hill for him. Ramsburg agreed and Heath continued the attack back up the hill. Ramsburg then slowly began limping his way up the hill when he saw soldiers dragging a body back down the hill; it was 1LT Heath, he had been shot through the chest. Heath had been shot through the chest and the Ranger Platoon leader was killed when they crested the hill by Chinese fire. Heath was seriously wounded, but would survive the battle. As Ramsburg continued to limp up the hill more bodies began rolling down the hill. Finally a small group of soldiers ran down the hill towards Ramsburg and told him the Chinese had counterattacked and recaptured the hill, there was nobody left. The counterattack ended.
Ramsburg went down the hill and consolidated the handful of men left from the counterattack force, the walking wounded, and the artillerymen at the bottom of the hill to form a final defensive line to shoot any Chinese coming down the hill. As Ramsburg formed the defensive line, LT Curtis in the darkness quietly snuck up the hill multiple times to pull down more wounded US soldiers. The battalion commander LTC Edwards on the other hand was able to persuade COL Freeman to commit the rest of the Ranger Company to the fight in his battalion’s sector. Ramsburg’s hodgepodge of men just needed to hold on long enough until the rest of the Ranger Company arrived. However, Ramsburg’s hodgepodge could not hold the Chinese very long because every single man he had left was wounded. CPT Ramsburg gave the order to fall back to lower hill behind the artillery positions and to evacuate the seriously wounded back to Chipyong-ni. The infantrymen were falling back because there was simply none of them combat capable anymore and the artillerymen who had fled the fight on the hill were now the last hope to hold the line against the Chinese attack.
Quad .50 cal machine gun
While all of this was going on the artillery liaison officer, CPT Elledge and his small group of men, who had been also driven off the ridge by the Chinese, were working hard trying to recover a tracked quad .50 cal that had sunk in a rice paddy near the artillery positions. He had just gotten it pulled out of the rice paddy by using the lone tank that had come with the Ranger platoon. Elledge had just gotten the quad .50 cal powered up when he saw CPT Ramsburg’s men falling back. Elledge yelled at Ramsburg if any Americans were left on the hill. Ramsburg told there wasn’t any left and to fire away. The bullets from the four .50 cals on the track smashed into the hills claiming many Chinese lives. American soldiers would later describe the quad .50 cals at hitting the hill almost like a vacuum cleaner. Like I said, Elledge liked a good fight. By this time the first rays of light from the coming morning were visible which allowed the tank commander Master Sergeant Andrew Reyna to spot sixteen wounded men from the counterattack force lying at the bottom of the hill; pinned down by the Chinese fire. As Elledge continued to vacuum the hill with his quad .50 cal, MSG Reyna and his crew drove their tank towards the base of the hill and threw the wounded on the tank and drove off to evacuate them.
By this time three more American tanks had pulled up to help CPT Elledge hold the defensive line. The tanks poured more fire into the ridge line, while Elledge ordered the artillerymen to point their 155mm howitzers at the ridge line and fire. The sounds of the howitzers firing and the rounds instantly smashing into the ridge line had to be absolutely thunderous. By this time the sun was clearly up and the US soldiers felt some sense of relief because the Chinese soldiers usually withdrew at the first sign of day light because of they feared strafing by the US planes. However, this morning the Chinese decided to stay and fight. It would be a fateful mistake.
COL Freeman’s 23INF Regiment after winning the fight at Twin Tunnels followed by the securing of the village of Chipyong-ni stood at about 70% combat power when he was given the order to hold Chipyong-ni from about 5 Chinese divisions located in the surrounding hillsides. COL Freeman’s combat power consisted of three battalion’s of infantry and augmented with B Battery 503 Field Artillery which was equipped with 155mm guns, plus B Battery 37th Field Artillery regiment which was actually an Air Defense Artillery unit equipped with tracked gun systems, an Engineer company, a Ranger Company, and a medical company. What made the 23INF Regiment so different from the other US infantry regiments in Korea was the fact they were also augmented with a 1,000 man all volunteer battalion from the French military led by one of my all time favorite military leaders, LTC Ralph Monclar. COL Freeman’s regiment totaled 4,500 soldiers with only 2,500 of the soldiers being dedicated infantrymen to face approximately 20,000 Chinese troops in the surrounding hillsides.
COL Freeman knew that his limited man power meant that he could not hold positions on the high hillsides that surrounded Chipyong-ni because it would spread his regiment out too thin. So instead he consolidated his frontlines on smaller hills near the village that overlooked the surrounding rice paddies. COL Freeman put his engineers to work improving the fighting positions around the village and stocking up on supplies needed for the expected Chinese siege of the village. A siege is what COL Freeman got from the Chinese. The week before the pivotal battle beginning on February 13, 1951, the Chinese consolidated positions around the 23INF and cut off all supply lines to the city. The Chinese commanders were intent on destroying the hated 23INF who had inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese during the retreat from Kunu-ri in North Korea and the battle of Twin Tunnels just two weeks prior.
This map gives a pretty good generic look at what the frontlines at Chipyong-ni looked like during the battle:
Colonel Freeman positioned his units in a circular defense with one battalion covering each possible Chinese direction of approach to the village. As the 23INF soldiers worked hard to construct their defensive lines the Chinese could be seen moving on the hillsides and preparing for the expected assault on Chipyong-ni. On the night of February 13th bugles could be heard and glow in the dark numbers taped to the backs of Chinese spotters could be seen by the 23INF’s soldiers that were being used to move Chinese forces into position for that nights assault on the 23INF’s frontlines.
These low hills seen today are where the French battalion’s positions were located.
February 13, 1951, The Chinese Attack Begins
The first attacks were launched against the 2nd Battalion in the south and the French battalion in the west. The attack was not a massive human wave assault as the allied soldiers had been accustomed to seeing from the Chinese which indicated this was a probing attack to identify the 23INF foxhole locations and the positioning of their heavy machine guns before the final Chinese assault. Recognizing this the French forces launched their own assault back at the Chinese by fixing bayonets and charging directly at the Chinese forces advancing across the rice paddies to the front of the French battalion’s frontlines. The French assault came complete with the playing of an air raid siren to mock the use of the Chinese bugles being played to direct the Chinese troops. The French soldiers, many of them Algerians with red turbans were outnumbered four to one by the Chinese, but they so intimidated the Chinese that many of them ran back towards the Chinese frontlines and a few even surrendered to the French.
Here is a view from the French frontlines looking towards the two Chinese controlled hills. Notice the flat rice paddies the Chinese had to cross in order to engage the French soldiers. It really isn’t surprising that the Chinese decided not to use this axis of advance as the main effort of their attack.
The 2nd Battalion’s G & F Company as well deterred the Chinese probing attacks that night, but with some difficulty. The two companies were positioned along a ridge line that included a spur of land that shot up the side of the large 397 meter Mangmisan mountain. Unlike the French who had the advantage due to the Chinese having to cross a large rice paddy, the US soldiers had to fight four different assaults on their position that night by Chinese forces primarily using this spur of land from Mangmisan mountain. 1LT Thomas Heath the G Company Commander, had a fougasse bomb, which is a barrelled napalm mixture, installed at the bottom of his hill. As the Chinese charged his hill 1LT Heath initiated the defense by blasting the napalm bomb that incinerated the charging Chinese. However, more Chinese continued to pour down the mountain directly towards the G Company lines, but the defenders continued to hold off the Chinese assaults.
This soldier died during the Chinese night assault that captured the saddle he was on. Photo by Otto Schmaltz.
Chinese continued to probe the entire regiment’s defensive lines the rest of the night, but the next morning all the Chinese withdrew just after first light and COL Freeman sent out recon teams around the perimeter to look for any remaining Chinese soldiers and determine the number of dead. The patrols killed and captured a few Chinese soldiers that had been left behind from the night time assault. The patrol had counted approximately 500 dead Chinese bodies around the regimental lines with an unknown number of dead and wounded from artillery strikes in the surrounding hill sides. A light snow started to fall the morning of February 14, which eerily covered the dead Chinese soldiers; it was Valentine’s Day.
