Basic Information
- Name: Tahsin Yazici
- Born: Turkey
- Battlefield: Battle of Kunu-ri
- Date: November 26 – 30, 1950
Background
The Korean War saw a total of 22 countries participate in the defense of the Republic of Korea against communist aggression from North Korea. These countries that answered the United Nations call to evict the communist aggressors from South Korea came from a wide variety of countries that sent varying amount of troops. One of the largest troop contributors to the war effort would come from the nation of Turkey. Turkey deployed an entire infantry brigade with supporting artillery and engineer assets to South Korea. The brigade arrived in Korea on October 17, 1950 with a force of nearly 5,000 men. Ultimately, 14,936 Turkish soldiers would rotate through the brigade through the course of the war making Turkey the fourth largest contributor of troops to the defense of South Korea.
The fact that a nation like Turkey would deploy such a large force for a country it had no historical ties and little contact with would seem strange on the surface, but when you recognize the geo-politics of the Korean War era, the deployment of this Turkish Brigade was vital to the survival of an independent Turkish state. During World War II Turkey had maintained strict neutrality despite heavy lobbying by the allied powers for Turkey to enter the war against Nazi Germany. The Turks had rightfully feared that if they joined the allied powers, Soviet soldiers would have entered Turkey and never leave. The Turks feared the Russians more than the Nazis and their fear proved correct when the Iron Curtain fell over Eastern Europe with the end of World War II.
The Cold War was beginning and the Turks knew that the only way to resist at a minimum Soviet hegemony or worse Soviet occupation would be to ally with the United States against Soviet expansion. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed to counter Soviet expansionism and Turkey was left out. When the Korean War broke out in 1950 the Turkish government felt they had to set an example to the western world and fight against communist expansion in Korea in order to join NATO and ensure that the west would come to fight in Turkey one day if needed against Soviet expansion there. Soldiers of the 1st Turkish Brigade were fighting just as much for their own country as they were for the survival of the Republic of Korea (ROK).
Deployment to Korea
The Turkish brigade arrived in Korea one month after the successful Incheon Landing Operation that had decisively defeated the North Korean army in South Korea. Most of the 5,000 Turkish soldiers were draftees that were completing their mandatory military service of two years. The vast majority of these conscripts had never left the immediate area of their remote farming villages much less travel to the other side of the world to fight a war. Plus very few soldiers could speak English and additionally found themselves immersed in a non-Muslim environment for the first time. Initially American commanders had a hard time trying to accommodate the Muslim diet of the Turkish soldiers, but were eventually able to. To say that the Turkish soldiers must have felt isolated and out of their element in Korea would be an understatement.
General Tahsin Yazici (left) talks to General Douglas MacArthur seated in his Jeep.
The person in charge of leading these fish out of water soldiers was the old, but battle tested commander, General Tahsin Yazici. General Yazici had served in the Turkish military for so long that he was a unit commander during the Battle of Gallipoli in 1916 that defeated the British and French’s attempts to conquer Turkey in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The Turkish military had not fought a battle of that magnitude in the 44 years since then and needed someone of Yazici stature to command this vitally important mission. General Yazici had voluntarily took a reduction in rank to command this unit similar to the French General Ralph Monclar because he recognized the importance this deployment would have for the overall future of his country.
After debarking at the port of Busan the brigade was moved to the United Nations staging area in the southern city of Daegu. The 1st Turkish Brigade made quite a splash with the media when they arrived in Daegu due to their large mustaches and rugged looking appearance that was further emphasized by the large sword like knives that the Turks carried on their hips. By appearances alone, the Turks looked like soldiers you did not want to mess with. However, when they arrived at the staging area the soldiers must have had little idea that they would just over one month later being fighting for their lives in some of the most desperate combat of the entire Korean War.
The Final UN Offensive into North Korea
In November of 1950 General Douglas MacArthur had begun a final massive offensive operation in North Korea to mop up the remaining elements of the North Korean Army and end the war before Christmas. It was part of this offensive operation that the 1st Turkish Brigade would see their first combat action of the Korean War. The brigade had been assigned as a subordinate unit of the 2nd Infantry Division.
At this point in the war the 2nd Infantry Division was north of the North Korean capitol city of Pyongyang in the vicinity of the village Kunu-ri and moving northward towards the Yalu River to mop up the remainder of the North Korean Army. It was Thanksgiving Day on November 25, 1950 and spirits were high as troops ate their Thanksgiving meal and hoped for the end of the war before Christmas. The 1st Turkish Brigade had been held in reserve during the offensive operation since they had no combat experience and American commanders probably felt there would be no need for them with how well the war had been going.
American commanders knew that they would probably meet some Chinese soldiers as they advanced to the Yalu River. In fact US intelligence had estimated 48,000 Chinese had crossed into North Korea to aid the remaining North Korean units. The UN forces had over 100,000 soldiers available and felt with their heavy weapons and air power any remaining resistance could be easily dealt with. Little did the intelligence officers realize that 12 divisions of approximately 300,000 Chinese soldiers had in fact clandestinely infiltrated into North Korea by moving at night, avoiding roads, and moving through rugged terrain to prepare a major surprise offensive against the UN forces.
Forward US elements had already had running gun battles with smaller Chinese units and even captured prisoners. The Chinese prisoners actually confessed that upward of 300,000 Chinese soldiers had moved into the country, but the senior leaders of the US military would not believe that many soldiers could have infiltrated without US aerial reconnaissance spotting them. Thus the allied units continued to push north and spread out their frontline over an ever growing North Korean landscape filled with towering mountains and freezing weather that hid a massive Chinese trap.
The Chinese trap was sprung on the Thanksgiving night of November 25, 1950 when waves of Chinese attackers with bugles and drums playing smashed against the UN frontlines.
At first the US forces that composed the frontlines had little idea how big the offensive the enemy had launched really was. The American defenders were killing enemy soldiers a hundred at a time just to see more of them coming. By the morning of November 26, 1950 it was clear to the US commanders that this was not some small scale attack and proceeded to cancel their own offensive operations until they were able to determine how big of an enemy they were facing.
The 2nd Infantry Division had been hit hard that night and as the Chinese attack died down during the day, the Division commander Major General Laurence Keiser worked to reorganize his frontline that had become badly mangled due to the Chinese attack. Some units had fallen back from the pressure, others were destroyed, some units held, and amazingly enough the Chinese just simply missed attacking other units as well. This caused huge gaps and an uneven frontline that the Chinese would assuredly try to exploit once night fell.
Though the pressure on the 2ID had subsided that morning the Chinese continued to push their offensive against the ROK Army II Corps to the east of the 2ID. The Chinese had especially looked to make contact with the ROK elements composing the allied frontlines because they knew the Koreans units would crumble quicker then directing their attack against American units. The Chinese attack quickly caused the ROK regiment to collapse and they withdrew south exposing the entire right flank of the 2nd Infantry Division. The 2ID’s 38th Infantry Regiment was the division’s eastern most unit that had their defensive positions oriented towards the north. General Keiser ordered the 38th Infantry to modify their defensive positions to protect the division’s eastern flank. This would end up being easier said then done.
Chinese soldiers prepare an ambush during the Korean War.
Late in the afternoon the Chinese wasted no time beginning their attack against the 38th Infantry. The regiment held well against the initial Chinese assault, but as soon as the sun set and darkness fell, the waves of Chinese attackers backed by their haunting gongs and drums only increased their fanatic attacks against the American defenders. The Chinese additionally that night launched other attacks across the 2ID’s frontlines, but clearly their main effort was to crumble the American defense in the east. That night whole companies of American soldiers who had only a day before enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal would cease to exist after confronting the tidal wave of determined Chinese infantry.
Daybreak of War
At daybreak the next day the status reports across the division were all dire. Really the only good news for General Keiser the morning of November 27, 1950 was that at least his intelligence officers were able to determine how many Chinese units his division was facing. Through interrogations of captured Chinese soldiers, intelligence was able to conclude that the division was being attacked by five Chinese divisions of roughly 100,000 soldiers. The 2nd Infantry Division only had four regiments, the 23rd Infantry, the 38th Infantry, the 9th Infantry, and the 3rd ROK Regiment to fight the five Chinese divisions with.
Now that General Keiser had an idea of what he was up against he issued an operations order to move his forces further back onto high terrain features to create a new defensive line. The commander of the 38th Infantry Regiment Colonel George Peploe wanted to begin a large withdrawal south towards Pyongyang to garrison terrain more favorable to a defensive operation, but he was ordered to continue to hold the eastern flank by General Keiser. To help with the defense, Keiser gave Peploe permission to round up retreating Korean soldiers from the 3rd ROK Regiment. Keiser’s commander, the I Corps commander Lieutenant General John Coulter had yet to fully comprehend how big of a Chinese offensive was launched against the allies western sector and decided to send the Turkish Brigade that was serving in the Corps reserve to help the division stabilize their eastern flank. The 2ID was being attacked by five Chinese divisions and the Corps commander felt one unproven Turkish brigade would even the odds. This shows how little the upper command echelons of the US military in Korea understood what they were up against. They still believed despite all the evidence otherwise that the US military was up against a few thousand Chinese volunteers instead of a 300,000 man Chinese Army.
General Yazici was ordered to move his brigade north from Sunchon and then to the east of the village Kaechon to establish a defensive line to the right of the 38th Infantry. This brigade had been in country only a short time, was sitting in the Corps reserve until now, had no combat experience, spoke very little English, but were now tasked with the defending the eastern most flank of the entire United States Eighth Army. General Yazici and their men were eager to get in the fight, but would soon learn what a mismatched fight they were about to take part in.
The Turkish position in the far eastern sector of the 2ID area of operations at Kaech’on can be seen at the center of the above map.
Initially the Turks urge to get into the fight would prove to be too great. As they established their position in the east almost immediately they began to report back to division that they had engaged the enemy and had killed and captured many of them. This report back at division seemed incredible considering all other reports coming from the frontlines were so dire. What ended up being determined was that the Turks had ambushed a column of South Korean soldiers from the collapsed 3rd ROK Regiment. This was an obvious sign of how green the Turkish brigade was that they could not identify uniforms of the ROK military.
The Chinese continued to press their attack that night but the 2ID’s frontline continued to hold with even the 23rd Infantry Regiment commanded by Korean War hero Colonel Paul Freeman actually attacking and gaining ground that was lost to the Chinese. However, this was all coming at a cost with the Americans continuing to lose entire company level units to the Chinese attackers. There was a limit to the amount of Americans that could keep fighting while it appeared that for the Chinese, their manpower was limitless as they just kept throwing waves and waves of attackers at the American defenders.
The early morning hours of November 28, 1950 saw a massive attack against the 38th Infantry. The Chinese attackers focused their attacks against the 3rd ROK Regiment soldiers who quickly broke and retreated exposing the right flank of the remainder of the 38th Infantry. The Chinese exploited this and began to surround entire US infantry battalions. At daybreak these surrounded battalions were only able to be rescued by a taskforce of American tanks that was able to break through the Chinese lines and rescue the surrounded Americans. By noon it was clear the present defensive front could not be held and General Keiser ordered all units to withdraw from their present positions and form an arc around the village of Kunu-ri.
The Defense Kaechon
As the rest of the division began to withdraw towards Kunu-ri, General Yazici and his men remained in place east of Kaechon. Due to a lack of communications with higher headquarters as well as language issues, the Turkish Brigade was late in receiving orders to withdraw. The Turks fought throughout the day against assaulting Chinese forces and were able to hold their positions at great cost. That evening General Yazici finally either received or properly understood the orders to withdraw towards the hamlet Sinnim-ni. Unlike the US units that withdrew during the day, the Turkish Brigade had to conduct their withdrawal during the night that caused mass confusion among the soldiers as trucks and equipment became backlogged on the narrow road towards the village. Additionally by withdrawing at night it opened the Turkish column to attack from the Chinese who preferred to conduct operations at night.
In the early morning hours of November 29, 1950 the Chinese opened an attack on the withdrawing Turkish Brigade which was now in the vicinity of Sinnim-ni. The brigade’s headquarters had pulled back about three miles west of Sinnim-ni into the village of Kaech’on. General Yazici was at first not even aware that his three infantry battalions had been enveloped by the Chinese in the vicinity of Sinnim-ni due to having no communications with them. The Turkish artillery battalion had withdrawn from Sinnim-ni to Kaech’on and informed General Yazici that his three infantry battalions had been completely surrounded and were not able to withdraw any farther.
In response Yazici ordered his one reserve infantry company and a platoon of attached American tanks from the 72nd Armored regiment to attack up the road towards Sinnim-ni to open a route for his infantry battalions to withdraw on. The relief element was successful in re-opening the route. Miraculously the three infantry battalions though suffering heavy casualties had survived the Chinese envelopment all night and were still intact. One battalion had actually ran out of ammunition and had to charge the Chinese attackers with swords to take their weapons from them to keep fighting.
This is how a December 11, 1950 TIME magazine report described the action at Sinnim-ni:
Red Chinese soldiers attacking a ridge line near Waewon last week were shocked to come face to face with swarthy, fiercely mustachioed Turks howling down upon them with bayonets fixed. In this and other Turkish bayonet charges some 200 Chinese were killed, and soon stories of the Turks were spreading like a tonic along the U.N. line.
The Turkish brigade (5,000 men) is led by Brigadier General Tahsin Yazici, who likes to twit British war correspondents with such remarks as, “Yes, I remember your General Townshend well. We took him prisoner at Kut-el-Amara [in 1916].” Last week Yazici’s smart, tightly disciplined Turks were thrown in to hold the line the R.O.K.s abandoned east of Kaechon. Estimated Turkish casualties at week’s end: 500. A U.S. doctor said it seemed that a Turk waited until he had at least three wounds before he reported to the medics.
After 48 hours of concentrated action on the shoulder of the Red Chinese wedge the Turks were short of food and ammunition, fighting with knives and fists, and even hurling stones at endless waves of Chinese attackers. Yet U.S. tanks that went forward to rescue trapped Turkish units found the Turks preparing to attack. Ordered to pull back from positions where they were surrounded by the swarming Chinese, the Turkish commander replied in amazement, “Withdraw? Why withdraw? We are killing lots of them.”
By the time the relief column arrived the Chinese were worn out from the failed assault on the Turkish positions that night and did not engage the withdrawing Turks. Instead the Chinese followed them along the hillsides that rimmed the small road towards Kaech’on. The Turks had been in contact for an entire day and night and had so far held up well to the Chinese offensive, however they had a whole lot more Chinese attacks to deal with coming up.
The above map shows the Turkish position at Kaech’on and where they were ambushed on the road to the west of the village during their night time withdrawal.
The allied withdrawal was complete by noon and General Keiser then issued new orders to establish a new frontline against the Chinese onslaught. The Turkish Brigade was ordered to hold the right flank of the 2nd Infantry Division from their position at Kaech’on to include blocking a road southeast of Kaechon across the Kaechon River. American advisors to General Yazici passed the information to him, but due to Yazici’s fear of spreading out his brigade to thin or language issues, he did not send any units across the Kaechon River and instead manned a tighter frontline around the village of Kaech’on.
While the Turks were consolidating their position at Kaech’on the Chinese had launched an attack north of the city against the frontline of the 38th Infantry Regiment. The Chinese had succeeded in breaking through the frontline and the 2nd Infantry Division headquarters relayed orders to General Yazici to attack north to re-establish the frontline position that the 38th IN had lost. However, once again General Yazici either did not understand the order or refused to follow it because he did not attack north. Once the Chinese had consolidated their position north of Kaechon they began to launch a mortar attack against the Turkish positions at Kaechon. In response to the mortar attack Yazici ordered his men to begin to withdraw further down the road to the west towards the village of Kunu-ri. However, since the Turkish Brigade had not secured the route on the south side of the Kaechon River the Chinese were able to use this route and go around the Turkish Brigade and establish blocking positions on the south side of the road heading to the west.
The Desperate Withdrawal
Since the Turkish withdrawal was not coordinated with the division headquarters they became inter-mixed with the withdrawing elements of the 38th Infantry. The small road became clogged with vehicles and men from both units. As night fell the mixture of Turkish and American units on the road were attacked by the Chinese unit positioned on the southern hillsides of the road. Mass confusion due to the loss of command during the withdrawal caused soldiers to take cover from the Chinese attack on the northern hillside. The only thing that saved the withdrawing column the night of the 29th from destruction was a deadly B-26 bombing strike on the attacking Chinese unit. A successful bombing strike at night was a rarity at this point of the Korean War, but this successful strike came at just the right time for the Turks and Americans. The strike gave them enough time to get back on their vehicles and continue the withdrawal west towards Kunu-ri.
At the end of the valley to Kunu-ri one last Chinese position was pouring fire into the column from Hill 107. A mixed unit of American and Turkish soldiers conducted a bayonet charge up the hill and secured and held it from Chinese attack thus allowing the remaining elements in the column to reach Kunu-ri.
Reconsolidating at Kunu-ri
As the 38th IN and the Turkish Brigade retreated towards Kunu-ri, Colonel Paul Freeman’s 23rd Infantry Regiment continued to hold the northern frontline to allow these elements enough time to withdraw and reconsolidate their units. Once the units were reconsolidated they were to travel down the road heading south from Kunu-ri towards the village of Sunchon while the 23rd IN fought a delaying battle against the Chinese to give these elements enough time to withdraw.
At this point in the battle the Turkish Brigade was already decimated from their first fight with the Chinese. Colonel Freeman would later comment about the Turkish soldiers, “The Turks had been committed, but they had taken a look at the situation and they had no stomach for it and they were running in all directions.” Colonel Freeman’s assessment of the Turkish Brigade conflicts greatly with the public perception of the performance of the brigade at Kunu-ri. The reasons for this would become clear later on.
Throughout the remainder of the night the 38th IN commander Colonel Peploe was able to consolidate his men as they exited the valley just south of Kunu-ri. Colonel Peploe tried to consolidate the men of the attached 3rd ROK Regiment, but they had received orders from their own commander to withdraw south cross country and left the 38th IN where they were at. Meanwhile the Turkish Brigade was still exiting the valley and General Yazici continued to try to reorganize his men after the disorganized withdrawal.
At daybreak on the morning of November 29th a resupply column of Turkish trucks had driven up the road from Sunchon to Kunu-ri to resupply the reconsolidating Turkish Brigade that had used much of their supplies after the frantic withdrawal that night. As the Turkish column had driven up the road they had been attacked and nearly wiped out by Chinese forces. The few surviving Turks who survived the attack notified the 2nd Infantry Division headquarters about the roadblock. A platoon of MPs were dispatched to investigate the roadblock and they came under intense fire about 4 miles down the road and returned to division headquarters at Kunu-ri. A large Chinese element had infiltrated through the division’s exposed eastern flank and set up positions on each side of the road heading south from Kunu-ri to Sunch’on.
Trapped at Kunu-ri
In response General Keiser decided to send a reconnaissance company to try and clear the roadblock. Around noontime the company had radioed back to division headquarters that they could not remove the Chinese roadblock and needed reinforcements. That afternoon Keiser then sent an infantry company from the 38th IN reinforced with a platoon of tanks from the 72nd Armored Regiment to help the reconnaissance company to open the pass to Sunchon. Even this combined unit could not remove the Chinese blocking the pass to the south. At dusk General Keiser called off the attack and ordered his elements to form a perimeter around Kunu-ri. General Keiser then coordinated a plan with the British 27th Commonwealth Division located in Sunchon to launch a simultaneous attack the next morning from both the north and the south to try and open the road so the 2nd ID could withdraw south.
The above map shows the blocking positions the Chinese setup on the road to Sunch’on that became know as “The Gauntlet“.
With the 2nd ID trapped at Kunu-ri, the adjacent I Corps to the division’s west offered to allow division elements to withdraw on the road heading west and then south towards Sinanju in their sector. The division’s supply trucks and the 2nd ID headquarter’s advanced party all took the route towards the west and then south towards Sinanju, the remainder of the division maintained the perimeter at Kunu-ri. General Keiser actually considered withdrawing the rest of the division down this road but after his supply elements had crossed the road heading west the headquarters had received an erroneous report that the road had become blocked by Chinese forces when in fact it had not. Additionally the I Corps commander General Coulter would not give permission for the entire division to use the road. Since General Keiser believed he could not use the road, he decided to stay with his original plan of launching a simultaneous attack with the British the next morning to reopen the route heading south.
Running the Gauntlet
On the morning of November 30 after a night of attacks and mortar strikes on the units at Kunu-ri, the 2nd ID began its attack from the north while the British began their assault from the south to open the road. General Keiser believed that the Chinese only had the one roadblock four miles from his division’s position to break through, however, the Chinese had actually had a series of reinforced roadblocks placed throughout the entire valley. By mid-day the division had not been able to eliminate the Chinese opposition in the valley and it became evident to General Keiser how large of a Chinese element he was up against.
With such stiff opposition to the south, General Keiser considered using the road to the east and then south to Sinanju in order to complete the withdraw. However, the division had already moved four miles to the south down the valley and Colonel Freeman of the 23rd IN that was holding the northern front against the Chinese attack felt that his men could not hold off the Chinese attack from the north long enough for the entire division to drive back up the road and then head east on the road. Due to this fact General Keiser decided that the division was going to run the gauntlet through the valley in order to reach the British lines. An order of march was arranged with the 23rd IN being the last unit to travel down the valley as the divisions rear guard. The Turkish Brigade was ordered to travel down the valley before the 2nd Engineer battalion, the 503rd Field Artillery and Colonel Freeman’s 23rd Infantry making them one of the last element to go through the valley.
At 1300 a column of American tanks would lead the charge through the valley. The tanks had come under intense fire and had to stop twice to remove barricades set up by the Chinese. The Chinese defenders had used the carcases of the destroyed Turkish trucks to block the road. The tanks successfully removed the barricades by using their tanks to push the wrecked vehicles off the side of the road. The removal of these barricades by the tankers probably saved the lives of many of the trucks that were following the tanks. The tankers had survived the intense Chinese ambush due to their armor and linked up with the British by 1400.
It only took the tanks an hour to run the gauntlet, but the stop and go effect of stopping to remove the barricades caused a similar effect on all the vehicles behind them. As the vehicles stopped they became easier targets for direct fire and many vehicle occupants jumped out of their vehicles in search of cover to return fire. The vehicles behind the tanks were mostly all soft skin vehicle and most could not survive the Chinese ambush. It was estimated that the Chinese had forty machine gun emplacements pointed on the road along with fixed mortar targets. This heavy concentration of fire power quickly disabled many light skin vehicles which further caused the road to become congested.
The most dangerous portion of the road leading south to Sunchon was an area simply known as the The Pass. The Pass was where the hillsides were the steepest and the road was at its most narrow point. This is where the majority of casualties was occurring as vehicles and soldiers entered this bottleneck. During any lull in gun fire, often drivers would jump back in their vehicles during a lull in the firing and not wait to reload their passengers thus leaving many soldiers stuck in the valley looking for rides on other vehicles. This caused all command and control to breakdown and at this point the 2nd Infantry Division was truly broken.
The Aftermath of the Gauntlet
At the conclusion of the withdrawal through the valley that became known to soldiers as simply ”The Gauntlet”, the 2nd Infantry Division suffered the following casualties:
A count rendered on 1 December listed 2d Division battle casualties at 4,940 for the last half of November. Of these, 90 percent, or about 4,500, had been incurred since the 25th. Officer casualties alone numbered 237 and touched most grades and branches. These losses represented one-third of the divisions actual strength of 15,000 on 15 November, and when reconciled with nonbattle casualties, replacements, and returnees, left the division 8,662 men short of authorized strength, Equipment losses were equally heavy. In addition to hundreds of trucks and trailers, the major losses included 64 artillery pieces, almost all of the 2d Engineer Combat Battalions equipment, and between 20 and 40 percent of the signal equipment carried by the various division units. [The United States Army in the Korean War]
No unit was hit as hard as the 2nd Engineer Battalion. Ironically their commander Colonel Alarich Zacherle had actually asked the 2ID commander General Keiser days before the Chinese offensive to redeploy his battalion south to Pyongyang because the heavy engineer equipment of bulldozers and bridging equipment was not needed this far north in the mountains. General Keiser refused his request and Colonel Zacherle and his men found themselves instead of being the first ones out of Kunu-ri, but the last ones. They had lost nearly all of their equipment in the ambush and were forced to burn their unit colors to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Chinese. The 2nd Engineers had went to Kunu-ri with roughly 900 soldiers and returned from Kunu-ri with only 266 men. All the rest were either dead or captured to include their commander Colonel Zacherle. Zacherle would spend 2.5 years in a Chinese prison camp before being returned as part of the Armistice Agreement. He was one of the few 2nd Engineer soldiers to make it back from captivity alive; most were never seen again.
The infantry regiments did not fair much better. At the time a US infantry regiment was authorized 3,800 men. The 9th Infantry lost a total of 1,474 men, the 38th Infantry lost 1,178 men, and the 23rd Infantry lost 545 men The number included non-combat casualties such as frost bite. The difference in casualties between the other units and the 23rd Infantry is staggering. The 23rd was able to have over half as less casualties than the other regiments despite being the rear guard unit in constant contact with the Chinese, simply because Colonel Freeman made the decision on his own to take the western road out of Kunu-ri. If General Keiser had made the decision to use the western road instead of the southern Sunchon road, the 2nd Infantry Division along with thousands of American lives would not have been lost that day.
The Turkish Korean War Legacy
The Turkish Brigade was not spared the ravages of the failed Kunu-ri battle between the 2nd Infantry Division and the five Chinese divisions. The Turks suffered heavy casualties in the fight with 218 soldiers killed, 94 missing in action, and 455 wounded to go along with losing 90% of the Brigade’s equipment. These are staggering losses for a brigade of 5,000 soldiers. Nearly 20% of the brigade’s men had been either killed, wounded, or captured on their very first mission.
The US government was very concerned about what the Turkish public’s reaction would be to the steep casualties if they ever learned the details of what happened at Kunu-ri. Due to incompetence at the Corps and Division level the inexperienced Turkish Brigade was thrown into battle with few interpreters or concept of operations against a vastly numerically superior Chinese enemy. Additionally the Turks had been left on the eastern flank of the battle all by themselves and not one American commander had even bothered to check on why they hadn’t withdrawn when the initial order was put out. A case could have strongly been made that the brigade was used as human cannon fodder because the Corps commander John Coulter could have sent the British Commonwealth Brigade also in reserve to aid the 2nd Infantry, but he did not. Was it because British lives were not as expendable as the dark skinned Turks?
General Yazici being awarded a Silver Star by the Eighth Army Commander Walton Walker.
General Walker issues medals to Turkish soldiers after the Battle of Kunu-ri.
This tactic of turning a military catastrophe into something of legendary proportions has been used before in history (think Custer’s Last Stand) and would be used later on in the Korean War by the British after the loss of the Gloucestershire Battalion during the Battle of the Imjim. This is why media accounts after the battle such as this TIME magazine article speak so glowingly of the Turkish Brigade. To this day if you read Turkish veteran sites, the accomplishments of the Turkish Brigade are still greatly inflated, but even the truth of what happened to the Turkish Brigade at Kunu-ri should be enough to take pride in.
Like the rest of the 2nd Infantry Division some of the company size elements of the Turkish Brigade fought heroically while others did not. This is to be expected with a unit that had no combat experience and found itself squaring off with over a division’s worth of well trained and combat experienced Chinese troops. One of the people that did not run was General Yazici, the old warrior who fought in the Battle of Gallipoli and was now leading men in a country far from home that would have a lasting impact on the future of not only Korea, but Turkey as well. Not only were the Turks far from home, but the US military leadership had wrecklessly thrown the unit into a murderous battle with little prior training, minimal understanding of the concept of operations, and almost no liason support. This old warrior and the men who did fight, battled the Chinese heroically and became legendary survivors of “The Gauntlet” for their bayonet charges up the steep hillsides against the Chinese troops. Such actions need no inflation and General Yazici and his men are truly Heroes of the Korean War.
You can read more of the ROK Drop featured series Heroes of the Korean War at the below link:
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Note: For an even more detailed reading about Turkey’s involvement in the Korean War I recommend reading this thesis paper by Ms. Anne Fanning.
