Isegoria

Thousands of Korean refugees in January 1951 were pouring southward, streaming through U.N. lines, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War), and with them came disguised NKPA:

Muñoz, like all the old hands, had grown wary of infiltrators.

One day he ordered his roadblocks, “Let no more civilians through.”

A sergeant, a recallee who had had to leave his new business and was understandably bitter about it, said, “Captain, I’m not about to shoot civilians.”

Muñoz put hard black eyes on this man. “Sergeant, I realize you’re new. We’ve had experience with this. Some of these ‘civilians’ have inflicted casualties on us, and unless you want to be killed, you’d better watch it.”

One night, while on roadblock guard, the sergeant disappeared. Muñoz figured some “civilians” had probably thrown his body into the deep snows along the road. In spring, thousands of skeletons were found all over the roadsides of Korea, but few of them could be identified.

T. R. Fehrenbach discusses leadership (in This Kind of War):

But the one thing a democracy has in common with a dictatorship is that when there is military failure, heads must roll. Perhaps, as Voltaire remarked, it is not a bad policy, since it tends to encourage the remaining leaders.

[...]

History has tended to prove that, like bishops, generals need a certain flamboyance for public success. Walker had none; he could never have been a public figure, win or lose.

Flamboyance in itself is worth nothing, but when it is coupled with genuine ability, history records the passage of a great leader across the lives of men. It is no accident that the names of Clausewitz, Jomini, von François, or Gruenther — brilliant minds all — are known only to students of warfare, while all the world remembers Ney and his grenadiers, Patton’s pearl-handled pistols, and Matt Ridgway’s taped grenades.

Ridgway was brave:

He was possessed of such personal courage that, caught in artillery shellfire, he was always the first man out of the ditch — a habit that caused his aide, a Medal of Honor winner, once to remark, “Oh, Jesus, I wish the Old Man would wait a little longer!”

T. R. Fehrenbach shares an anecdote (in This Kind of War) that I heard first heard about Russians on the eastern front:

Mount saw that some attacking Chinese had no rifles; as they advanced, they waited until a companion was hit, then took his weapon.

In the bitter cold of the Korean winter, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War), sentries were having trouble staying alert:

It was cold enough to keep a man’s teeth chattering all night long — but Pritchard had learned a lesson earlier in the campaign. At first, every man had been issued a sleeping bag — and this had proved a mistake, fatal for a lot of Americans who could not resist the temptation to crawl in the bag, even on guard, and fall asleep.

The Chinese had learned the expensiveness of bugling and tootling their way into American lines. Now they came quietly, padding on rubber-soled feet. The only way for the outposts to have a chance was to issue only one arctic sleeping bag to each two men. This way, one man would be too miserable to go to sleep, and he would damn well see to it that his buddy didn’t sleep too long.

It was not a popular ruling, but it saved lives.

The problem that worried Washington was not what was happening in the frozen wastes of North Korea, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War), but what was happening in the chancelleries of Communist nations:

“Sir,” [a young lieutenant] asked the briefing officer, “but what do we figure the Communists will do?”

The briefing officer touched his pointer to the floor, looked down. Then he met the lieutenant’s eyes and smiled wryly.

“Son, I don’t have a living clue.”

In Washington, General of the Army Omar Bradley could have said the same. He was certain of only one thing: That a war with the Chinese, on the mainland of Asia, was the wrong war, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy. The more important men in government tended to agree with him.

[...]

Harry Truman had not altered his basic belief that the United States might engage in general war with the Communist bloc, but it had no reasonable hope of forcing its will over the vast expanse of immense humanity of Eurasia.

[...]

In the last days of November 1950, MacArthur wired Washington: We face an entirely new war … this command has done everything humanly possible within its capabilities but is now faced with conditions beyond its control and strength. MacArthur now wanted to accept Chiang Kai-shek’s offer of Nationalist Chinese troops, but Washington told him such a move would have to be cleared with the U.N. — which was obviously hostile to the idea.

Now, at Christmastime, a new wave of apprehension swept over the American people, for unlike the old wars on the frontier, this one was reported daily by electronic means.

[...]

It must be emphasized that the decision to withdraw from North Korea was a strategic one. Once contact had been broken both in east and west, American and ROK forces were under no immediate pressure forcing them backward. But the stance in the mountains of North Korea was exceedingly perilous with unknown numbers of Chinese in the war. The supply situation had never been good, and the transportation network was completely incapable of standing up under the needs of a large-scale campaign. MacArthur wanted to pull back.

And there was always the haunting fear that a bigger war might start, elsewhere. If the Russians came in, fully, all the men in Korea might be cut off as Russian submarines and air interdicted their lifeline; and forgotten in the general chaos, they might be slaughtered at leisure.

The action on the Ch’ongch’on and at the reservoir, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War), was described as the greatest defeat in American history:

To place the defeat in North Korea in perspective, American casualties during the entire time of action did not come to half one week’s total in the Ardennes campaign, when Germans killed or wounded 27,000 Americans in one seven-day period.

The Marines at Yudam-ni were ordered to retreat, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War), but it would be called an attack to the south:

At Yudam-ni only the wounded and those who could not walk were placed aboard vehicles; many men who were hurt had to walk. Then, the infantry battalions leading the way, the regiments came out through Toktong Pass.

They came out intact, with their jeeps, guns, tractors, and trucks. Strapped to the fenders and hoods of vehicles lay bloody, half-frozen Marines. Others lay across gun barrels, or were carried in ox-drawn sleds taken from Koreans. It was not a motor march. It was a tactical battle most of the way, against Chinese who held the hills in depth. But the Marines came out, for three reasons:

One, Davis’ and Taplett’s men were able to climb the encircling mountains, knock the enemy off the ridges, drive them across the high timber. Moving by night, attacking cross-country in savage terrain and savage weather, these Marines took the Chinese in the flank, and by surprise. In the face of incredible hardship, the Marines were able to mount offensive action — and Barber’s Fox Company, 7th Marines, had been able to hold off two enemy regiments for six days, preventing the Chinese from closing their ring. If Barber had not held, the way would have been much more difficult.

Two, Marine air from the 1st Air Wing near Hamhung, carrier pilots from Philippine Sea and Leyte, and Air Force supply planes flew constantly over the column. Marine aircraft strafed, bombed, and napalmed as close as fifty yards from the leading elements. Marine air, flying so low as to touch the mountains, knocked out roadblock after roadblock, as fast as the Chinese assembled them. Marine pilots volunteered to fly night missions in the dangerous mountains.

Hour after hour, the sky above the American troops was black with friendly aircraft, and without them, in spite of their courage, in spite of all else, the ground troops would never have come out.

Third, General Sung Shih-lun had gambled. In the horrendous terrain, he had never been able to bring his full manpower to bear on the embattled Marines, outnumbered though they were. By pushing his men across the mountains from the Yalu in fourteen days, he had had to leave most of his supply and artillery behind — and as the battle continued day after day, stinging night after night, even Sung Shih-lun’s sturdy peasants neared collapse.

The Chinese had come into Korea well fed and well clothed, but they were without supply, depending on the countryside for future livelihood. Near-starvation and dysentery hit them, too. The hardy Chinese peasant, while brought up to hardship, was no superman. As the Marines neared Hagaru, weary CCF units deserted their peaks under air attack. The Marines found some who had thrown away their arms and who lay huddled together in the snow, freezing and apathetic, trying only to stay alive.

The Marines paused to consolidate after each move forward along the Main Supply Route, T. R. Fehrenbach explains (in This Kind of War):

The terrain made it impossible for the division to remain intact, but at each successive plateau along the MSR, units were consolidated at regimental or battalion strength, with supporting artillery able to fire in any direction.

[...]

This consolidation, and the fact that most Marine officers had had experience with Oriental warfare, learning the importance of keeping tight, steelringed perimeters by night whatever happened in the rear, did much to save the division.

[...]

The moon came up, huge and swollen, rising clear and bright over the swirling ground mists. It came up behind Easy Company, silhouetting the company positions for the enemy, but not throwing enough light along the dark corridors to reveal the lurking Chinese. On the hill, the temperature had dropped to twenty below.

Easy’s men heard monstrous shuffling sounds through the dark, as of thousands of boots stamping in the snow. They heard sounds, but they could see only ghostly moon shadows.

Yancey asked Ball, on the mortars, to fire star shells.

Ball had little 81 ammo, but he tried. The flares wouldn’t work — lifted from crates stamped “1942,” they fizzled miserably.

[...]

The enemy mortars fell first, bursting with pinpoint precision among the foxholes on the forward slope of Hill 1282. Then, in the moonlit hills, bugles racketed; purple flares soared high, and popped. The shadows suddenly became men, running at Marine lines.

The Chinese did not scream or shout, like North Koreans. They did not come in one overwhelming mass. They came in squads, yards apart, firing, hurling grenades, flailing at the thin line across the hill, probing for a weak spot across which they could pour down into the valley beyond.

Again and again they were stopped; again and again Chinese bugles plaintively noised the recall. The icy slopes were now littered with sprawled figures in long white snow capes.

Again and again, while the Marines’ guns grew hot, they came back to flail at the hill. Looking down into the shadowy valley, John Yancey could see hundreds of orange pinpoints of light, as the enemy sprayed his hill with lead.

The night seemed endless. A grenade exploded close to Yancey, driving metal fragments through his face to lodge behind his nose. Many of his men were hit. Those who could stand continued fighting; those badly hurt were dragged some twenty yards behind the company position, where a hospital corpsman worked over them in the snow.

There was no shouting or crying. Now and then a man gasped, “Oh, Jesus, I’m hit!” or, “Mother of God!” and fell down.

The attacks whipped the hill. By the early hours of morning, most of Easy’s men had frozen noses or frozen feet in addition to their combat wounds. Yancey’s blood froze to his moustache, dried across his stubbled face. Snorting for breath through his damaged nose, he had trouble breathing.

[...]

The platoon, all Easy Company was in desperate straits. Captain Phillips, who had carried ammunition to Yancey’s platoon during the night, and who had said again and again, “You’re doing okay, men; you’re doing okay!” took a bayoneted rifle, and ran out to the front of Yancey’s line.

“This is Easy Company!” Walt Phillips said. “Easy Company holds here!” He thrust the bayonet deep into the snowy ground; the rifle butt swayed back and forth in the cold wind, a marker of defiance, a flag to stand by.

[...]

John Yancey realized that some sort of counteraction had to be taken to push them out. He ran back of the hill, found half a dozen able men coming up as replacements. “Come with me!”

With the new men, he charged the breach in Easy’s line. His own carbine would fire only one shot at a time; the weapons of two of the replacements froze. The other four dropped with bullets in their heads—the Chinese aimed high.

Beside the CP, Lieutenant Ball, the exec, sat cross-legged in the snow, firing a rifle. Several Chinese rushed him. Ball died.

Now Yancey could find only seven men in his platoon. Reeling from exhaustion and shock, he tried to form a countercharge. As he led the survivors against the broken line, a forty-five caliber Thompson machine-gun slug tore his mouth and lodged in the back of his skull. Metal sliced his right cheek, as a hand grenade knocked him down.

On his hands and knees, he found he was blind.

He heard Walt Phillips shouting, “Yancey! Yancey!”

Somebody he never saw helped Yancey off the hill, led him back down the rear slope. He collapsed, and woke up later in the sick bay at Yudam-ni, where his sight returned.

Behind him, on 1282, Captain Walt Phillips stood beside his standard until he died. Late in the afternoon, a new company relieved Easy; of its 180 men only twenty-three came off.

But they held the hill.

[...]

Reality had caught up with the Marines, as with all men, but they had faced it well. Everywhere, the Marines had held.