DRIVE NORTH, U.S. Marines at the Punchbowl

DRIVE NORTH U.S. Marines at the Punchbowl by Colonel Allan R. Millett U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired

Marines in the Korean War Commemorative Series About the Author

he Raymond E. Mason, Jr., TProfessor of Military History, Ohio State University, Allan R. Millett is a specialist in the history of American military policy and institutions. He is the author of four books: The Politics of THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in Interven-tion: The Military the Korean War era, is published for the education and training of Occupation of Cuba, 1906-1909 Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department of Defense (1968); The General: Robert L. observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. Editorial costs have been Bullard and Officership in the defrayed in part by contributions from members of the Marine Corps United States Army, 1881-1925 Heritage Foundation. (1975); Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps (1980, revised edition, 1991); and In Many a KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES Strife: General Gerald C. Thomas and the U.S. Marine Corps, DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS 1917-1956 (1993). His most recent book, co-authored with Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC (RET) Williamson Murray, is A War to be Won: Fighting the Second GENERAL EDITOR, World War (2000). He also co-authored and co-edited sev- KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES eral other works on military affairs and has contributed orig- Charles R. Smith inal essays to 25 books and numerous journals on American EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION historiography, foreign and defense policy, and military his- W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist Catherine A. Kerns, Visual Information Specialist tory. A noted lecturer and officeholder in many prestigious military history societies, Dr. Millett is now president of the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center U.S. Commission on Military History. 1254 Charles Morris Street SE A graduate of DePauw University and Ohio State Washington Navy Yard DC 20374-5040 University, Dr. Millett served on both active and reserve 2001 duty, retiring in 1990 with a rank of colonel in the U.S. PCN 190 00319 500 Marine Corps Reserve.

the platoon commanders of 1st Marine The official histories of the 1951 cam- University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Division in 1951. Their contribution paign for the Marine Corps and Army Alabama. Allan R. Millett, “Korea, 1950- began with an interview with Captain are much used and often-cited, but 1953,” in Benjamin F. Cooling, ed., Case Frederick F. Brower, USMC (Ret) in 1998 should not be used as scripture: Lynn Studies in the Development of Close Air and went on to access Lieutenant Montross, Major Hubard D. Kuokka, Support (Washington, DC: Office of Air General Charles G. Cooper, USMC (Ret) USMC, and Major Norman Hicks, USMC, Force History, 1990) covers the issues “Blood and Tears,” an unpublished The East-Central Front, Vol. IV, U.S. and the source material in detail. Lynn memoir; Mr. John E. Nolan, “Korea Marine Operations in Korea, 1950-1953 Montross, Cavalry of the Sky: The Story Comments,” 11 December 1999; and (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G- of U.S. Marine Combat Helicopters (New interviews at the 50th Reunion of the 7th 3, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, York: Harper & Bros., 1954) is a popu- Basic Class (4-7 May 2000) with Colonel 1962) and Billy C. Mossman, Ebb and lar account of HMR-161’s Korean War Earl T. Roth, USMC (Ret), Mr. Harold Flow: November 1950-July 1951 in U.S. service. A more conventional official Arutinian, and Colonel David J. Hytrek, Army in the Korean War, five volumes account is Lieutenant Colonel Eugene USMC (Ret). to date (Washington, DC: Office of the W. Rawlins, USMC, Marines and For sardonic views of the campaign Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, Helicopters, 1946-1962 (Washington, of 1951, see Paul N. McCloskey, Jr., The 1990) and Walter G. Hermes, Truce Tent DC: History and Museums Division, Taking of Hill 610 (Woodside, CA: and Fighting Front (1966), another vol- HQMC, 1976). Eaglet Books, 1992); Lieutenant Colonel ume in the same series. The Air Force I visited most of the battle sites Gerald P. Averill, USMC (Ret), Mustang: official history is Robert F. Futrell, The described in this study in 1994 and 1998, A Combat Marine (Novato, CA: Presidio United States Air Force in Korea, 1950- and I have profited from the advice of Press, 1987); [Private First Class] Burton 1953, rev. ed., (Washington, DC: Office Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, F. Anderson, We Claim the Title (Aptos, of Air Force History, 1983). The docu- USMC (Ret) and Colonel Franklin B. CA: Tracy Publishing, 1994); and mentation for the close air support con- Nihart, USMC (Ret), both veterans of the [Sergeant] A. Andy Andow, Letters to Big troversy may be found collected in campaign in infantry battalions. Jim Regarding Narrul Purigo, Subject File K239-04291-1, “Close Air Gunnery Sergeant Leo J. Daugherty III, Cashinum Iman (New York: Vantage, Support,” Research Archives, Air Power USMCR, provided valuable research 1994). Historical Research Center, Air Force assistance. DRIVE NORTH U.S. Marines at the Punchbowl by Colonel Allan R. Millett, USMCR (Ret)

he rumble of Ame- not want to turn over command in General Thomas arrived in rican field artillery the middle of a battle. On the other Korea to face an entirely new war. through the morning hand, General Van Fleet wanted The October 1950 dream of unify- mists in the valley of Thomas to take command of the ing Korea under the sponsorship the Soyang River division as soon as possible, some- of the United Nations (U.N.) had gave a sense of urgency to the thing Thomas had not planned to swirled away with the Chinese change-of-command ceremony do since his formal orders from the winter intervention. The war still inside the headquarters tent of the Commandant, General Clifton B. hung in the balance as the United 1st Marine Division. Four days of Cates, designated 1 May 1951 as Nations Command attempted to hard fighting in the withdrawal turn-over day. Thomas had drive the Communist invaders out from the Hwachon Reservoir had planned to spend the intervening of the Republic of Korea (ROK) for brought the division safely to the week on a familiarization tour of the second time in less than a year. river on 25 April 1951. The trek Korea and the major elements of The U.S. Eighth Army and its away from the Chinese 39th and the Eighth Army. He had thought Korean counterpart, the Hanguk 40th Armies had not yet, however, his call on Van Fleet the day before Gun (South Korean Armed Forces) brought the division to the No had been simply a courtesy visit, had rallied in January and February Name Line, the final defensive but instead he found himself 1951, under the forceful leadership position 15 miles south of the river caught in a delicate matter of com- of Lieutenant General Matthew B. designated by Lieutenant General mand relations. Ridgway, USA. United Nations James A. Van Fleet, commanding the U.S. Eighth Army. In a simple MajGen Gerald C. Thomas, right, meets with MajGen Oliver P. Smith prior to the rite that included only the reading spartan change-of-command ceremony witnessed by a handful of participants drawn from the 1st Marine Division’s staff. of the change-of-command orders Gen Oliver P. Smith Collection, Marine Corps Research Center and the passing of the division col- ors, Major General Gerald C. Thomas relieved Major General Oliver P. “O. P.” Smith and took command of a division locked in a battle to stop the Chinese Fifth Offensive. The ceremony dramatized the uncertainty of the Marines in the second year of the Korean War. Understandably, General Smith did

ON THE COVER: Two Marine machine gunners “keep the gun hot” in their pursuit of fleeing Communist troops. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127- N-A8866 AT LEFT: Marines quickly demolish enemy bunkers with grenades and planted charges before moving north. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8504

1 valley and the corridors to Seoul while at the same time recapturing the territory south of the Soyang River, which opened an alternative corridor south to Hongchon. When General Thomas called on General Van Fleet on 24 April, the Eighth Army commander, a combative 59-year-old Floridian with a World War II record of successful command from regiment to corps in Europe, felt confident that his forces had blunted the four- day-old Communist offensive. However, he had an organizational problem, which was that the 1st Marine Division should be shifted back to X Corps and redeployed to the No Name Line under the command of Lieutenant General Edward M. Almond, USA, the division’s corps commander throughout 1950. The relationship between O. P. Smith and Almond, however, had become so ven- omous that Ridgway assigned the Marine division to IX Corps in January 1951 and promised Smith that he would not have to cope with Almond, whose style and sub- stance of command angered Smith and his staff. Van Fleet had honored Ridgway’s commitment, but the operational situation dictated that the Almond-Smith feud could not take precedence. Van Fleet explained the plan to shift the 1st Marine Division back to X Corps to Thomas without going into the Almond-Smith problem. Van Fleet did not give Thomas a direct order to proceed immedi- Command had then driven back offensive. Eleven Chinese armies ately to the 1st Marine Division the Chinese Communist Forces and two North Korean corps (40 headquarters near Chunchon. (CCF) and the North Korean divisions) would smash south just Thomas believed, however, that People’s Army (NKPA). The allies west of Hwachon Reservoir in the Van Fleet had sound reasons to had advanced well north of the sectors held by the U.S. I and IX want a change of command now, 38th Parallel in central and eastern Corps. At a minimum the Com- so he caught a light plane fur- Korea. Goaded by Mao Zedong, munist forces, about half of Peng’s nished by the 1st Marine Aircraft General Peng Dehuai ordered his total army, would drive United Wing and flew to the primitive joint expeditionary force of Nations forces below the 38th airstrip that served the division. 693,000 Chinese and North Korean Parallel. The maximum objective Escorted by the new assistant divi- soldiers to mount one more grand would be to threaten the Han River sion commander, Brigadier

2 General Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, the chief of staff, and Colonel Thomas decided that the issue Thomas went directly to Smith’s Alpha L. Bowser, the G-3, both of of command could not be post- van and told him of Van Fleet’s whom sympathized with Thomas poned—and now at least Smith request and future plans. Smith but thought Smith should remain knew he faced the prospect of refused to relinquish command. in command. Thomas thought the again serving under Almond. Without mounting an argument, division was well positioned to Thomas returned to Smith’s van Thomas left the van and went to refuse the open left flank of X within the hour and stated simply: the operations center to confer Corps, but he also felt the tension “O. P., the table of organization with Colonel Edward W. Snedeker, in the command post. calls for only one major general in

Major General Gerald C.Thomas

erald Carthrae Thomas spent a lifetime dealing with challenging command relationships and Goperational problems inside and outside the Marine Corps. Born on 29 October 1894 on a farm near Slater, a western Missouri railroad town, Thomas grew up as a working boy in a working family. He was also a good student and versatile high school athlete. Living in Bloomington, Illinois, he attended Illinois Wesleyan University (1915-1917) before enlisting in the Marine Corps in May 1917 to fight the Germans. Thomas, age 22, mustered in at five feet, nine inches and 160 pounds, strong of wind and limb from athletics and labor. Dark hair and heavy eyebrows set off his piercing blue eyes and strong jaw. He would need every bit of his emotional balance and physical stamina—lifelong traits—for the Marine Corps placed him in the Germans’ sights for most of 1918. As a sergeant and lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, Thomas learned about war at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and the Meuse-Argonne. When the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals were authorized in 1932, Captain Thomas, professional officer of Marines, pinned on one award for gallantry and another for being gassed. In the interwar years, Thomas had already fought against Haitian guerrillas, served a second tour in Haiti as a staff officer, and commanded a Marine detachment on a Navy gunboat in the Caribbean and Central America. He also lost one wife to disease, married again (Lottie Capers Johnson of Charleston, South Carolina) and started a family of two sons and two daughters. The Marine Corps recognized his potential value in wartime by sending him to five different Army schools (including the prestigious U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth) and assigning him twice as an instructor in Marine Corps schools. Between 1940 and 1950, Thomas proved that the Marine Corps had not wasted a minute or a dollar on his professional education. In a decade that saw him National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A132593 advance in rank from major to major general, Thomas division deployed to the South Pacific, Lieutenant prepared the Fleet Marine Force for war as an instructor Colonel Thomas went to war as Major General at Quantico, military observer abroad, and a staff officer Alexander A. Vandegrift’s operations officer (G-3), an in the 1st Marine Division as the division conducted its assignment that made him one of the architects of victo- last pre-Pearl Harbor amphibious exercises. When the ry on Guadalcanal. A trusted intimate of Vandegrift’s,

3 Thomas served as the general’s chief of staff during the ognized his special qualifications to go to Korea. In final months of the Guadalcanal campaign and then addition to his recent service as Commanding General, played the same role in the I Marine Amphibious Corps’ Fleet Marine Force, Western Pacific, Thomas had done a landing on Bougainville. He returned to Washington pre-war China tour in the Peiping legation guard. And with Vandegrift when the general became Commandant despite his dogged defense of the Marine Corps in the in 1944. As a brigadier general, his second “spot” pro- Battle of the Potomac, 1945-1947, he got along well with motion in a row, Thomas fought the battles of demobi- the U.S. Army. As head of research and development, lization and postwar defense reorganization, 1944-1947, Thomas also understood the 1st Division’s importance as the Director of Plans and Policies on the as test bed for future techniques like vertical envelop- Headquarters staff and played a critical role in winning ment. legislative protection for the Fleet Marine Force in the After his successful command of the 1st Marine National Security Act, 1947. He then spent two years as Division in Korea, April 1951-February 1952, Thomas commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Western returned to Headquarters Marine Corps as a lieutenant Pacific, a brigade-sized force that garrisoned the general and Assistant Commandant/Chief of Staff for Shantung peninsula and the city of Tsingtao until the General Shepherd. For the next two years, Thomas Chinese Communist military victories in North China in focused on reorganizing the Headquarters staff on func- 1948 made the American enclave irrelevant. Thomas tional general staff lines, on improving Marine Corps successfully withdrew his force without incident in relations and representation within the Department of February 1949 and returned to educational and devel- the Navy, and planning the postwar Fleet Marine Force opmental billets at Marine Corps Base, Quantico. of three divisions and three aircraft wings, a force more Thomas’ rich and exciting career had not, however, than twice as large as the Fleet Marine Force in June been without professional risks and cost. His aggressive 1950. personality, the force with which he defended his con- For his “twilight cruise” Thomas became victions, and his unwillingness to tolerate leadership Commandant, Marine Corps Schools, Quantico (1954- lapses that endangered Marines had made him anathe- 1955), his favorite post and role as officer-instructor. ma to some of his peers, two of whom stopped his first Upon retirement he remained in government service as promotion to major general. Others thought him too the first executive director, Net Evaluation Committee, demanding a colleague. In 1951 only two opinions National Security Council staff from 1956 to 1958. He counted, those of Commandant Clifton B. Cates and then entered private business in real estate and insur- Lieutenant General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., ance in the Washington, D.C. area. He regularly attend- Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, and ed 1st Marine Division Association functions and events Cates’ likely successor as Commandant. Although nei- related to Marine Corps history; his four sons and sons- ther Cates nor Shepherd were part of Vandegrift’s in-laws all served as Marines, two retiring as colonels. “Guadalcanal gang,” they knew Thomas well and rec- General Thomas died on 7 April 1984 at the age of 89. a division. Either you turn over to 1951 that did not depend solely on Rotation Draft, composed of 62 me, or I’m going to leave.” Smith Communist bullets. Headquarters Marine officers, 1,196 enlisted did not respond, and Thomas Marine Corps now sent out men, and 73 sailors; the draft again left the van. After several replacement drafts not just to fill included 103 convalescing wound- minutes of more tension, Smith holes in the ranks from casualties, ed. The 10th Replacement Draft emerged from his van and told but also to allow the surviving vet- arrived late in June, adding 74 Thomas that the change-of-com- erans of longest service to return to more officers and 1,946 men to the mand ceremony would be held at new assignments in the United division and 12 officers and 335 0800 the next morning. The 1st States or for release from active men to the aircraft wing. One Marine Division had a new com- duty. The 9th Replacement Draft naval officer and 107 sailors joined manding general as it entered a reached Korea in early June, bring- the division and wing. new era in its service in Korea. ing 2,608 Marine officers and Nevertheless, Thomas thought enlisted men to the division and 55 that the manpower planners had The New Division officers and 334 men to the 1st cut their estimates too close and Marine Aircraft Wing. New naval requested that subsequent drafts Although the last veterans of the personnel for both Marine organi- be increased by a 1,000 officers campaigns of 1950 did not leave zations totaled six officers and 66 and men. Despite the personnel Korea until the autumn of 1951, sailors, mostly medical personnel. demands of forming the new 3d the 1st Marine Division had started The incoming Marines had a Marine Brigade at Camp a process of transformation in April departing counterpart, the 3d Pendleton, Fleet Marine Force,

4 weapons, and fieldcraft. Colonel Snedeker remained chief of staff until he gave way on 23 May to Colonel Francis M. McAlister, whose command of the 1st Marines was cut short by wounds on the 18th. Since he had come to Korea in 1950 as the division G-4, McAlister rotated home, to be replaced temporarily by Colonel Richard G. Weede, who had taken Colonel Bowser’s place as G-3 on 8 May. Shepherd and Thomas had someone else in mind for the division chief of staff’s post, Colonel Victor H. Krulak, the G-3 of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, and a trusted colleague of both generals through World War II and the postwar years. Krulak became division chief of staff on 29 June with a Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A156022 special charge to begin experi- The command team of the 1st Marine Division stands outside a briefing tent at ments with the Marine Corps’ one the division headquarters. Pictured from left are BGen William J. Whaling, assis- operational helicopter squadron. tant division commander, MajGen Gerald C. Thomas, division commander, and Col Victor H. Krulak, division chief of staff. The rest of the division staff brought enough character and Pacific, honored Thomas’ request. pany grade officers of World War expertise to their jobs to please The 11th Replacement Draft (14 II. The enlisted Marines were a Thomas. The G-1, Colonel Wesley July 1951) brought 3,436 Marines solid mix of career noncommis- M. Platt, had spent World War II as and 230 naval personnel to the sioned officers and eager enlistees. a Japanese prisoner of war; his division and 344 Marines to the air- Thomas recognized that the divi- leadership among the prisoners craft wing, accompanied by 22 sion he now commanded was “in had won him the admiration of his sailors. Nevertheless, the division splendid shape” and prepared to peers and great influence on the remained short of majors, compa- fight and win in terrain and weath- staff. Thomas’ two G-2s, Lieutenant ny grade artillery officers, and offi- er “never designed for polite war- Colonels Joseph P. Sayers and cers and enlisted men in almost fare.” He wrote retired Major James H. Tinsley, did a workman- every technical specialization, General Merritt A. Edson that the like job. Like Weede, Colonel especially communications and 1st Marine Division was “the best Bruce T. Hemphill, and Lieutenant logistics. damn division that ever wore an Colonel Gordon D. Gayle served General Thomas had no com- American uniform.” as Thomas’ G-3s under the close plaint about the quality of the Thomas went ahead with plans, and critical scrutiny of Colonels Marines he had inherited from O. coordinated with Shepherd, to Krulak and Weede, who also P. Smith or those sent to him by form his own team as the division served as division chief of staff. Lieutenant General Lemuel C. staff and to appoint new regimen- Colonels Frank P. Hager and Custis Shepherd, Jr., Commanding Gen- tal commanders. Thomas arranged Burton, Jr., performed the thank- eral, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. for Brigadier General William J. less task of G-4 until they rotated The senior officers and company Whaling, an old friend who had to the command of the 5th and commanders were proven World been Thomas’ alter ego on 11th Marines, respectively, al- War II veterans, and the lieutenants Guadalcanal, to become the assis- though Burton later returned as were an elite of Naval Academy tant division commander on 20 chief of staff in February 1952 to graduates, NROTC graduates, and May. Whaling became his eyes and replace Weede. officer candidate school products ears on tactical issues with his The commanders of the infantry that more than matched the com- superb knowledge of men, regiments were all tested veterans

5 of the Fleet Marine Force, and their rendered command to another landing as the senior Marine liai- styles varied more than their com- World War I veteran, Colonel son officer from Fleet Marine petence. After Francis McAlister fell Thomas A. Wornham, Brown had Force, Pacific to Far East in a precision Chinese mortar bar- won the affection of the 1st Command and Eighth Army. No rage on his command group, Marines, “Chesty Puller’s Own,” a less professional than the other Thomas assigned his regiment to very tough bunch of Marines to regimental commanders, Nick- the legendary Colonel Wilburt S. impress. erson brought a driving, no-non- “Big Foot” Brown, an artillery offi- The other two infantry regi- sense command style to the 7th cer sent out to command the 11th ments went to colonels of high Marines that made the regiment, in Marines. The irrepressible “Big ability. Colonel Richard W. Hay- Thomas’ opinion, the best in the Foot” Brown (whose homeric 14F ward brought intelligence and per- division. Nickerson appreciated sized-feet required special supply sonal elegance (too much some of the contributions of his two execu- arrangements, including the air- his troops thought) to the 5th tive officers, the incomparable drop of field brogans into the Marines, succeeded by Weede on 7 Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. wilds of Nicaragua) took command August whose energy and force Davis, Jr., and Lieutenant Colonel only to issue an order to withdraw. exceeded Hayward’s. Almond John J. Wermuth. Promoted to As the 1st Marines trooped by his liked them both, a dubious recom- colonel, Wermuth assumed regi- jeep on the way south to the No mendation. Weede then turned mental command on 20 September Name Line, the files of men broke over command to Frank Hager on when Nickerson’s extended over- into chicken-like cackles, showing 19 November. The 7th Marines bid seas tour ended. that their “red leg” colonel looked farewell to Colonel Homer L. The high level of competence at “yellow” to them. Colonel Brown Litzenberg, Jr., on 15 April and the regimental level did not drop soon showed that their judgment welcomed Colonel Herman Nick- off in the division’s separate battal- was a short round by a mile. When erson, Jr., no stranger to the ions. With an officer corps created the veteran of World War I, Korean War since he had been in by service in six divisions in the Nicaragua, and World War II sur- the combat zone since the Inchon Pacific War, the Marine Corps

Courtesy of the Naval Institute Press

6 Clarence Jackson Davis: Every Marine

n the soft spring of his senior year (June 1950) at Hillsboro High School, Nashville, Tennessee, IClarence Jackson Davis, called “Jack” by his family and friends, discovered several reasons to join the Marine Corps Reserve. Going to war was not one of them. Jack Davis planned instead to go to Vanderbilt University, where his older brother Vince was already a sophomore and a keen midshipman in the Naval ROTC unit. Jack admired Vince, but he did not fancy himself a naval aviator like his older brother. On the other hand, the local Marine Corps Reserve infantry company had some openings, and he and some high school football and baseball teammates liked the idea—advanced by some sweet-talking Marine sergeants—of keeping their baseball team together under the sponsorship of the Marine Corps. Marine training seemed little more than another athletic challenge; the recruiters mentioned unteer Marine from the Volunteer State. After the Fourth that weekly drill often included a basketball game. The of July the ground units of the Marine Corps Reserve new recruits had no active duty requirement and the received a warning order that they would soon be mobi- two weeks summer training sounded like a Boy Scout lized, and on 20 July the Commandant made it official: camp with guns. Besides, the recruiters insisted, partici- Marine reservists in ground units would be called to pating in reserve training made a young man draft-proof active duty “for the duration.” Certainly most (if not all) from the U.S. Army. of them would go to Korea as part of the 1st Marine Jack also saw his enlistment as a potential way to Division. After the confusion of in-processing, medical help pay for his college education and, if all went well, examinations, and additional issues of 782 gear, the become a Marine officer. More farsighted than many of Nashville Marines of Company C, 14th Battalion, Marine his friends and counseled continuously by Vince, Jack Corps Reserve, marched off to war from their reserve had already talked with the Marine major on the center at Shelby Park down Broad Street until they Vanderbilt NROTC staff, who advised him that enlisted reached the 11th Street railroad siding off old Union service would strengthen his chances for selection for Depot. Curious spectators watched the young men the next summer’s Platoon Leaders Class. Serving as an march off, their parade dominated by the blaring of high enlisted officer-candidate in the Marine Corps Reserve school bands at the front and rear of the column. With seemed a less-demanding way of helping pay for his M-1s and dressed in green utilities the Marines did not education than attempting to win a football grant-in-aid look like their predecessors of the 11th Tennessee playing for the hapless Commodores. The Davis broth- Volunteer Infantry, Confederate States of America, but ers calculated that their military commitments would the spirit of those young Nashvillians, equally perplexed allow them to attend school without facing a demanding and determined in 1861, stiffened the backs of their working schedule, a financial relief they could stretch by 1950 successors. living at home to study and avoiding the temptations of Whatever his expectations, Private Clarence Jackson campus social life. Davis, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, did not go off to war Jack enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve at the age untrained—as did his Confederate ancestors and goodly of 17 in March 1950. If not quite a youthful lark, his part of the U.S. Eighth Army in 1950. At Camp decision did not seem very momentous, but a combina- Pendleton, his “station of initial assignment,” Jack’s tion of good planning, reasonable sense, and anticipat- Company C received the triage of personnel mobiliza- ed adventure. He would try the life of a Marine, and he tion: true veterans of active duty were culled out for would be paid to camp out and play sports for the immediate assignment to the Fleet Marine Force, proba- Marine Corps. His life after high school, however, “did bly directly to the 1st Marine Division; Marine reservists not work out as planned.” One night in June 1950, after whose drills and summer camp more or less approxi- graduation, Jack watched a newsreel at a local movie mated boot camp went on to eight more weeks of pre- theater and learned about some distant war in Korea. deployment field training and physical conditioning; and His first reaction: “I was thrilled I was not there.” the untrained true “boots” like Jack Davis went south to Lieutenant General Clifton B. Cates, Commandant of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, to begin the Marine Corps and a fellow Tennessean, made sure their life as real Marines. that Jack Davis learned the true meaning of being a vol- The temporary mission of the Marine Corps Recruit

7 Depot was not turning young men into Marines but into Marines trudged around in the mud and slush in their day laborers and stevedores. All hands spent much of layers of cold-weather clothing issue, all of them per- every day mobilizing the depot for the expected waves ilously close to heat exhaustion and dehydration. of new recruits; the reservists set up bunks, hauled mat- Apparently the Marine Corps had found a way to train tresses out of storage, and carried footlockers into the the replacements for Korea’s winters and summers at the reopened barracks. Every night for two weeks the same time. reservists went to the North Island docks to load ammu- In January 1951, Jack Davis and his comrades of the nition and mount-out boxes for the 1st Marine Division. 6th Replacement Draft boarded the Army transport Not until the division cleared the harbor for Japan did Randolph for the trip to Korea. The Randolph had come the reservists start their formal boot camp schedule, directly from Pusan where it had disembarked a part of which now seemed like welcome relief from the role of the 1st Marine Division, recently evacuated from slave laborers. Jack Davis found boot camp no special Hungnam. When Jack and his messmates reached their challenge. troop compartment, they found the canvas bunks deco- The follow-on field training, eight weeks and manda- rated with messages from the survivors of the Chosin tory for every Marine regardless of assignment, proved Reservoir campaign. Jack did not find the words of wis- more and less fun. Jack enjoyed the long days on the dom very comforting. A few were clever and humorous, ranges of Camp Elliott. He qualified with ease with the but most of the collected battlefield folk wisdom struck M-1 and fired the entire range of individual and crew- Jack as sad, depressing, bewildered, stunned, and even served weapons found in a Marine infantry battalion. suicidal. As the messages from the veterans attested, the Jack liked them all except the M-1 carbine, which rifle- war had almost been lost, had almost been won, and men did not carry anyway. The last phase of the train- then almost lost again. As General Douglas MacArthur ing focused on cold weather, mountain training at Pickel had just reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Jack Davis Meadow, which was neither meadow-like nor cold. and his comrades now faced the Chinese army and an Temperatures that December reached the 70s, and the entirely new war. could usually find the right combi- twin blows of surrendering the Almond model of a modern major nation of leadership and technical independent status of X Corps and general. He truly preferred the look skill to give the separate battalions the abrupt removal of his patron, of the Old Corps of World War II, a strong commander. Among the General of the Army Douglas not a U.S. Army that had remade commanders General Thomas MacArthur. Almond retained the itself in the image of its flamboyant inherited in these battalions were imperiousness and elegant field life armor and airborne generals like Marines whose accomplishments style that characterized many Army Walton H. Walker and Ridgway. had made them legends: Lieutenant generals of his generation and, Thomas wore a uniform that was Colonel John H. Partridge of the 1st especially, his two models, strictly issue from his battered utili- Engineers, who had opened the MacArthur and General Mark W. ty cap and standard helmet to his route out of the Chosin Reservoir; Clark, his army commander in canvas leggings and worn, brown Major Lloyd O. Williams, the master World War II. Surrounded by staff field shoes. Instead of the “gener- marksman, who commanded the officers from central casting—albeit als” version of the Colt .45-caliber 1st Ordnance Battalion; and very talented—Almond favored automatic worn the Army-way with Lieutenant Colonel Henry J. “Jim” high-fashion field uniforms, opu- a fancy leather belt, he carried an Crowe of the 1st Shore Party lent vans and messes, and imperial issue pistol in a black shoulder-hol- Battalion, a heroic battalion com- gestures worthy of Napoleon him- ster. None of his regular field mander at Tarawa and Saipan as self, including the haphazard wear—jacket, sweaters, shirts, and well as another team shooter. awarding of medals. Almond’s airy trousers—would be mistaken for As the commander of a great disregard for time-space factors tailors’ work. His only personal division, whose management he and enemy capabilities, as well as affectation (a very useful one at shared with an able staff, General his habit of ignoring the chain-of- that) was his old Haitian coco- Thomas could focus on his rela- command, had driven General macaque walking stick, whose tions with Generals Van Fleet and Smith into tight-lipped rebellion. only local counterpart was carried Almond. Although Van Fleet took a Thomas had dealt with some diffi- by General Shepherd. On special practical, unpretentious approach cult Marine generals, but Almond occasions General Thomas and his to commanding Eighth Army, would be a challenge. regimental commanders might General Almond had become not Thomas first made sure that no sport white scarves and the divi- one whit more subdued by the one would mistake him for the sion staff red scarves, but the idea

8 was Van Fleet’s, who thought the not think necessary—proved that by telling his Army counterparts scarves would show the troops the division had lost nothing of its from Almond’s headquarters that that senior officers were not aller- 1950 ability to march and fight he could “go to hell” for giving gic to frontline visits. superior numbers of Chinese orders in Almond’s name. Still a part of IX Corps—one troops without prohibitive losses. Thomas took a disgruntled wonders now about the urgency in Meanwhile General Van Fleet met Almond head on. He could be the change of command—the 1st with his corps commanders on 30 charming in his own way—he Marine Division disengaged from April to discuss Eighth Army’s next pointed out his own Virginian and the Chinese 39th and 40th Armies move: an active defense of the No Confederate roots to Virginia and fell back unmolested 15 miles Name Line and maximum readi- Military Institute “Old Grad” to the No Name Line, a belt of pre- ness to meet another Chinese- Almond—but he insisted that pared positions dug by Korean North Korean offensive, predicted Almond stop bypassing the chain- laborers and Army engineers. The for mid-May by Van Fleet’s intelli- of-command or allowing his staff 1st Marines, reinforced by a battal- gence staff. In the reorganization to run roughshod over the proper ion of the 7th Marines, protected of the front, the 1st Marine channels in the 1st Marine the bridges and passes while the Division would rejoin X Corps, Division. Almond insisted he was rest of the division withdrew in effective 1 May. an active corps commander. good order over the Pukhan and General Thomas first had to (Meddlesome was the word the Soyang Rivers, both in flood from fight off General Almond before he Marines chose.) Thomas told him rain and melting snow. By 29 April could focus on killing Chinese. that he was an active division com- the division had put the rivers at its The two generals met every day mander and that he intended to back and filed into the No Name for three days (1-3 May), and make as many visits to regiments Line positions with the 5th Thomas emerged victorious in and battalions as Almond made. Marines, the 1st Regiment of the establishing new ground rules for Thomas added that he would “exe- Korean Marine Corps (KMC), and the Marines’ dealing with X Corps. cute any order proper for a soldier the 7th Marines on line from west Thomas had already told his staff to receive.” Almond pressed to east. The 1st Marines went into that it would take a hard-line with Thomas to go on, but Thomas now division reserve. Colonel Bowser “suggestions” from any corps staff remained silent as if expecting a thought that the retrograde move- member; one of his assistant oper- further elaboration of policy. ment—which he and Thomas did ations officers tested the guidance Almond said he would make many visits. “Is that all right with you?” The 1st Marines regimental headquarters occupies a tent-camp along the road to Hongchon, just south of the No Name Line. United Nations Command air supe- Almond continued. More silence. riority allowed such administrative arrangements. Almond went on: “But I can assure Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8728 you that I will never issue an order affecting one of your units except through you.” Now Thomas responded: “On that basis . . . you are always welcome.” The two generals remained true to their word. Thomas tested the era of good feeling with X Corps almost immediately and to positive effect. Van Fleet had the notion that each division should establish a battalion- sized outpost from which it could patrol northwards to make contact with the Chinese. For the 1st Marine Division the best place to establish such a base—which Thomas and Bowser thought was a miserable idea—was south of Chunchon but north of the critical

9 Morae Kagae Pass, the only route of escape to the No Name Line. The position would be outside the artillery fan of the 11th Marines, and close air support alone (now complicated by Air Force schedul- ing practices) would be no substi- tute. Thomas argued with Van Fleet and Almond that he would perform the mission, but that he should dictate the size of the force and its rules of engagement—and disengagement. When Thomas put his “patrol base” in place on 5-7 May, he sent the entire 7th Marines (artillery and tank reinforced) north toward Chunchon, and he added the 1st KMC Regiment to Nickerson’s task force. In addition, he had the 5th Marines put a National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A8898 screening company in front of A Marine patrol secures a hill and moves forward. Its mission was to maintain each of its frontline battalions, but contact with the enemy, warn of an impending attack, and delay its progress as kept the companies well within much as possible. artillery support. Thomas continued to press X help, and Almond committed two boundary of the 1st Marines and Corps for more artillery since Van X Corps general support artillery the U.S. 2d Infantry Division, not Fleet’s intelligence staff insisted battalions to reinforce the fires of to his front. The 7th Marines would that the next Chinese offensive the 11th Marines. Thomas also be his new division reserve, ready might focus on the 1st Marine negotiated a shortening of his to attack to the northeast. The plan Division. Thomas’ own ground frontage since he had to put two proved to be prescient. and aerial patrols found ample evi- battalions of the 1st Marines into dence of Chinese troop move- the line to replace the 7th Marines, Offensive and Counteroffensive ments between the Pukhan River which left only one infantry battal- and the No Name Line. The com- ion as division reserve. Even Changing their operational style manding general had also heard though he had come to conclude of nighttime infiltration attacks, Van Fleet insist that no Eighth that the Chinese were massing to characterized by surprise and the Army unit, a company or larger, the east instead of to his front, limited use of artillery, the Chinese should be isolated and cut-off; Van Thomas had no intention of allow- Ninth and Third Army Groups, Fleet told his generals that night ing any part of the 7th Marines to augmented by the North Korean II withdrawals and counterattacks be cut off between the Morae and V Corps, opened the Fifth should be abandoned as opera- Kagae Pass and the No Name Line. Offensive (Second Phase). On the tional options. He also insisted that He approved a Nickerson-Davis morning of 16 May 1951, the offen- every division artillery groupment plan to garrison the pass with a sive began with a Soviet-style (the 11th Marines for Thomas) reinforced battalion (less one rifle preparatory artillery bombardment. should use its daily allowance of company) and simply announced Frustrated in his April offensive, shells (the “Van Fleet unit of fire” the change to Almond, who did Peng Dehuai decided that the lim- or five times the normal allotment not object to the fait accompli. ited road network and sharp, of shells) to fire upon suspected Thomas also planned to extract the rugged mountains of eastern Korea enemy concentrations and trans- 7th Marines from its advanced offered a better area of operations portation routes. Thomas persuad- position as soon as he though he for a renewed offensive. Van Fleet ed Almond that the 1st Marine could justify such an action to and his corps commanders would Division could not meet Van Fleet’s Almond. He anticipated that trou- find it more difficult to shift rein- expectations without some Army ble would develop along the forcements against the shoulders

10 Eventually described by X Corps as the battle of the Soyang River, 16-21 May 1951, the Chinese offensive overran various parts of the frontline positions and the patrol bases of the hard-luck 2d Infantry Division and the three ROK divisions to its right. Despite some dogged defensive action by American and South Korean soldiers, the Chinese advanced 30 miles, forcing the three ROK divisions to the south and threatening to roll-up the right flank of the 2d Division, which lost the better part of the 38th Infantry and its attached Dutch battalion in slow- ing the Chinese attack. General Almond decided he needed to insure that the western side of the Chinese salient was secure first; he requested reinforcements from Van Fleet, who sent the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment and U.S. 3d Infantry Division to blocking positions behind X Corps. In the meantime, Almond wanted the 2d Infantry Division to refuse its right flank. Such a redeployment required the 1st Marine Division to extend its sector of the No Name Line to the east and to do so while in contact with the enemy. On the first day of the Chinese offensive, General Thomas visited Almond’s command post at Hoengsong and saw the crisis build in X Corps’ eastern sectors. of any breakthrough, and the steep Republic’s III Corps. The Chinese Thomas and Almond discussed mountains made it difficult to mass did not ignore the western-most what situations the 1st Marine United Nations artillery fire. The division of X Corps, the 1st Marine Division might face, but Thomas broken, forested terrain would Division, which would be pinned would make no commitments until provide welcome cover and con- in its part of the No Name Line by he was sure he could withdraw the cealment from United Nations attacks from the Chinese 60th 7th Marines (Reinforced) from the Command air strikes. The weight Army. The minimal operational ill-conceived “patrol base” north of of the Chinese offensive (27 divi- goal was to destroy one or more the No Name Line. Closer to the sions with three artillery divisions U.N. divisions; a major victory anticipated Chinese attack, Colonel in support) fell on (from west to would be the fragmentation of Nickerson reinforced the outpost east) the U.S. 2d Infantry Division, either X Corps or the ROK III at Morae Kagae Pass, bringing the the 5th ROK Division, and the 7th Corps and a return to a campaign defenders to battalion strength and ROK Division of X Corps with of movement that would dislodge including the regimental headquar- additional attacks upon the neigh- the Eighth Army from the Taebaek ters and a tank platoon. Having boring 9th ROK Division of the Mountains to the Han River valley. just joined the 7th Marines—his

11 regiment in World War II—Second Lieutenant Earl F. Roth wondered who had placed the regiment so far from the rest of the division. He reached the Morae Kagae Pass and the 7th Marines rear defenses only after a long and lonely jeep ride across an empty countryside, but he felt eyes watching him from every hill. When he later saw the piles of Chinese bodies at the pass, he remembered similar scenes from Peleliu. On the evening of 16 May, a Chinese regiment attacked Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A155692 the pass in force and lost 112 dead Marines of the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, gather the bodies of the Chinese 179th and 82 captured before breaking Division, which attacked the regiment’s patrol base at Morae Kagae Pass on the off the action. Nickerson’s force night of 16 May. As part of the Chinese Fifth Offensive (Second Phase), the attack lost two tanks, seven dead, and 19 did not pin the 1st Marine Division to the No Name Line, which allowed its redeployment to the east to aid the U.S. 2d Infantry Division. wounded. The attack gave Thomas plenty of reason to pull back Mildren, X Corps’ operations offi- just wrapped up in their usual Nickerson’s entire regiment, or- cer, correctly assumed that the ball.” Mildren’s assessment did not dered that night with Almond’s Chinese wanted no part of the 1st accurately picture the 1st Marine approval. Colonel Frank T. Marine Division: “The Marines [are] Division’s skillful redeployment to

Gen Edward M. Almond Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute

12 release the U.S. 9th Infantry Regiment for a new mission, saving the rest of its parent division. After artillery and air strikes insured that the Chinese 60th Army marched east to the sound of somebody else’s guns, Thomas ordered the 1st Marines to shift right and take the 9th Infantry’s positions while the 7th Marines marched back to the No Name Line and took over the 1st Marines sector. In the meantime, two battalions of the 5th Marines moved eastwards behind the No Name Line to refuse the division right flank north of the crucial road junction of Hongchon. The 7th Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8875 Marines and the 1st KMC Regiment MajGen Gerald C. Thomas checks the frontline situation map with the 5th slipped to the left to take over part Marines’ commanding officer, Col Richard W. Hayward, center, and the regi- of the 5th Marines’ former sector. ment’s operations officer, Maj Robert E. Baldwin. General Thomas reported at 1730 on 18 May to Almond that the respect of Almond and his staff in As Peng Dehuai acknowledged, realignment had been accom- his first month of division com- the collapse of the Fifth Offensive plished, but that he also wanted mand, General Thomas had no (Second Phase) gave United more corps artillery ready to fire intention of becoming a compliant Nations Command an unprece- defensive fires along his thinly- subordinate commander when he dented opportunity to mount a manned front. He requested and thought Army generals paid too lit- counteroffensive of potential stra- received more aerial reconnais- tle attention to tactical realities. tegic consequences. Even though sance from the Cessna light patrol Thomas and Almond conferred his army group commanders aircraft (L-19 “Bird Dogs”) assigned twice on 19 May and again on 20 protested his withdrawal orders, to X Corps. Thomas had already May at the 1st Marine Division Peng called off the offensive on improved his defensive posture by command post. The issue was a the afternoon of 21 May and issued placing the 1st Marines in positions counteroffensive order from Van orders that the eastern armies almost four miles south of the orig- Fleet to I and IX Corps, a move- should withdraw during the night inal No Name Line. The only con- ment that began on 20 May for the of 23-24 May to a defensive line tact occurred on 20 May when ele- 7th Infantry Division, the IX Corps that would run from the Imjin ments of the Chinese 44th Division element on Thomas’ left flank. River to Hwachon to Kansong, marched unawares into the defens- Almond wanted the 1st KMC roughly the line occupied by es of the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, Regiment to advance beyond the United Nations Command when and left behind almost 170 dead No Name Line to conform to IX the Fifth Offensive began in April. and prisoners when the Marines Corps’ advance, but Thomas Five Chinese armies and three shattered the lead regiment with “expressed reluctance” to send a North Korean corps would defend their battalion weapons, artillery, regiment on an axis of advance the line. and air strikes. The 1st Marine that took it away from the rest of Prodded by General Ridgway, Division awaited more orders. It the division and opened a gap in who flew to Korea to inject some did not expect Almond to remain the division’s defensive alignment. of his special bellicosity into a flag- on the defensive since X Corps Thomas won a concession from ging Eighth Army, Van Fleet had now had fresh troops and the two Almond immediately: he could stolen half a march on his Chinese Chinese army groups had placed make his own arrangements to counterpart by ordering I and IX themselves inside a vulnerable secure X Corps’ left flank and coor- Corps to start a drive to the Topeka salient. dinate the movement directly with Line, a phase line on the ground Although he had won the IX Corps. about halfway to the contemplated

13 May as long as he retained control of the 187th Airborne and the 3d Infantry Division and gained the use of the brand-new 8th ROK Division as well. Instead of driving almost directly north like I and IX Corps, however, Almond planned to use his South Korean divisions to keep the Chinese and North Koreans engaged at the forward edges of the salient. His American divisions would cut across the base of the salient from southwest to northeast, roughly on an axis that followed Route 24 through Chaun- ni—Inje—Kansong where X Corps would link up with ROK I Corps. The counteroffensive, supported by massive aerial bombardment Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8867 A .30-caliber machine gun team and a Marine with a Browning Automatic Rifle and Van Fleet-directed artillery bar- occupy recently abandoned enemy foxholes, using them for cover while pursu- rages of World War I profligacy, ing Chinese and North Korean forces. would bag the survivors of the Chinese Third and Ninth Army Chinese defenses. Van Fleet and the moment. They were thus Groups. Van Fleet approved the corps commanders of I and IX pleasantly surprised when Al- Almond’s plan, and X Corps issued Corps, however, could not create mond, who seized moments its attack order on 21 May. much urgency in their divisions. whether they were there or not, For the 1st Marine Division the Neither Ridgway nor Van Fleet proposed that he could shift to the development of two Eighth Army thought I and IX Corps had seized offensive as soon as noon on 23 counteroffensives with different

Elements of the 2d and 3d Battalions, 5th Marines, hit the forced the enemy to retire northward and the regiment dirt after taking heavy enemy mortar and machine gun fire secured the commanding high ground. from Chinese forces occupying Hill 1051. Air and artillery National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC368657

14 axis of advance provided General the 187th Airborne, and the divi- right. The Marine advance of 24-31 Thomas and his staff with new sional and corps tank battalions. May developed into a two-axis challenges. A shift of corps bound- The result was that the attacks at attack with the 1st Marines and the aries as far east as a line the tip of the salient jumped off on 1st KMC Regiment moving through Hongchon-Hwachon Reservoir time (mid-23 May), but the big the hills south of Soyang, crossing helped some, but not much. As he drive across the base of the salient the river on 28 May, and reaching himself later admitted, Almond had did not begin until 24 May and the the heights above the Hwachon once again promised too much, serious, organized advance up Reservoir on 31 May. The 5th and too soon in the way of decisive Route 24 did not begin until the 7th Marines started the march action. For once he had not under- next day. In the meantime the north in a column of regiments, estimated the enemy; the Chinese Chinese, attacked 12 hours before but the 7th Marines pulled ahead army groups in his zone of action they began their own withdrawal, while the 5th Marines took the were indeed wounded, but not as fought back sluggishly as they commanding heights of Kari-san seriously as Eighth Army estimat- moved up their withdrawal sched- (Hill 1051). The 7th Marines then ed. (United Nations Command esti- ule, a euphemism for—in some turned northeast away from Route mated total Chinese casualties for cases—a Chinese “bug out.” 24 to take the shortest route to the the Fifth Offensive at 180,000, but The result of the gelatinous town of Yanggu, just east of the the Chinese put their own losses at attack by Major General Clark L. eastern end of the Hwachon half this total.) The difficulty was Ruffner’s 2d Division and its Reservoir. The 7th Marines assault- the time and effort necessary to get attached task forces was that the ed and captured the Yanggu the offensive moving with task 1st Marine Division advance, also heights, but watched the Chinese forces drawn from the 2d Infantry dutifully begun on 23 May, had to flee through the open zone of the Division, the 3d Infantry Division, conform to the Army units on its tardy U.S. 2d Infantry Division. The

Gen Edward M. Almond Collection, U.S. Army Military History Institute

15 5th Marines shifted right to the hills east of the road to Yanggu and drew abreast of the 7th Marines on 29-30 May. The next day all of Thomas’ four regiments occupied their portion of Line Topeka. For the rifle companies at the head of each pursuing battalion, the war did not look much like the reassuring blue arrows on an acetate-covered 1:25,000 map. The last two weeks of May 1951 proved to be hot and very dry during the day, but cold and wet at night as unusual spring rains kept the hills slick and the valleys a slough. Water to drink, however, proved harder to find than water for dis- comfort. Few Marines were willing to chance the ground water or local streams, but potable water seemed to take second place to National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-429689 ammunition in the columns of After securing Kari-san (Hill 1051), Marines search two Chinese prisoners of war Korean bearers. In an era when for weapons and documents. “water discipline” made “exces-

Hugging the crest of a ridgeline, the 7th Marines prepare to eral assault by other Marine units. “pour hot lead” into enemy positions as a prelude to a gen- National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A8888

16 none willing to hold any position against the deluge of fire poured upon them. On 28 May, however, the Marines started to discover organized, company-sized defensive positions manned by North Koreans and ringed with mines. By 31 May, the day of the division’s heaviest casualties for the week (126 killed and wounded), the Chinese had disappeared from the battlefield. During the week the division intelligence staff estimated that the division had inflicted 10,000 casualties; what it knew for certain was that the regiments had counted 1,870 enemy bodies and taken 593 prisoners. The 1st National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A155279 Marine Division’s losses for the Marines of Battery L, 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, prepare their 155mm howitzer entire month of May were 83 killed for a fire mission in support of Marine units around Yanggu. Observed, adjust- in action or died of wounds and ed artillery fire provided the Marines with essential support against North Korean 731 wounded. The “exchange defensive positions. ratio” against an enemy still con- sive” drinking a sin in the Marine have the defenders charge right sidered dangerous and willing to Corps, dehydration stalked the back at them in the most intimate fight was about as good as could struggling columns of laden of meeting engagements, a brawl be expected. troops. The columns not only won by the Marines with grenades, The week of divisional attack fought groups of Chinese, but clubbed rifles, bayonets, and fists. brought its share of surprises. The marched through the Eighth Urged on by the company’s enemy provided some of them. Army’s dying fields of February Beowulf, Second Lieutenant Paul The Chinese, aided by the slow and May, passing the bodies of sol- N. “Pete” McCloskey, the Marines advance of the 2d Infantry diers from the 2d Infantry Division. left few survivors, but their post- Division, refused to wait for their Despite the profligate use of fury victory celebration was cut entrappers and poured out of the artillery and air strikes, the Marine short by a deluge of 120mm mor- salient after the first attacks of 23 rifle companies found their share tar rounds pre-registered on top of May. Chinese soldiers from five of close combat in the last week of the position. The company lost is different divisions of the Third May. Moving along a steep hillside commanding officer and other Army Group crossed the path of only by hanging from the trunks of Marines in the swift reversal of for- the Marines on their way to rally shattered trees, Second Lieutenant tune. points at Yanggu and Hwachon; Earl Roth’s platoon saw enemy The six days of offensive action the chaotic pattern of the Chinese mortar rounds fly by them and in the last week of May 1951 withdrawal meant that enemy explode in the gully below. Roth demonstrated to friend and foe bands might appear at any time suppressed a strong urge to reach alike that the 1st Marine Division from the east and south, which out and catch a mortar round as it remained a fearsome killing lead Almond and Thomas to con- passed by, a vestige of his football machine. Using artillery and tank fer daily on flank security issues. playing days at the University of fire, supplemented with battalion When the Marines met the better- Maryland. Although the firefights mortars and machine guns, the armed and trained infantry of the seldom involved even a whole infantry regiments methodically North Korean 12th Division, they company, they were a world of took their objectives with minimal also came under fire from Soviet- war for the engaged Marines. One casualties and no operational made artillery and mortars. The platoon of Company C, 1st crises. The Marines continued to Chinese withdrawal, however, Battalion, 5th Marines, stormed a run into scattered battalion-sized gave Marine artillery a field day; Chinese ambush position only to remnants of Chinese divisions, between 10 May and 7 June the 1st

17 Private First Class Whitt L. Moreland

orn in 1930 in Waco, Texas, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1948, following graduation Bfrom Junction City High School. After serving out his active duty, he reverted to Reserve status. In November 1950, he was recalled to active duty and sent to Korea. While serving as an intelligence scout while attached to Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, he was killed at Kwagchi-dong on 29 May 1951. The citation of his posthumous Medal of Honor award reads, in part: Voluntarily accompanying a rifle platoon in a daring assault against a strongly defended enemy hill position, Private First Class Moreland delivered accurate rifle fire on the hostile emplacement and thereby aided materially in seizing the objective. After the position had been secured, he unhesitatingly led a party forward to neutralize an enemy bunker which he had observed some 400 meters beyond and, moving boldly through a fire swept area, almost reached the hostile emplacement when the enemy launched a volley of hand grenades on his group. Quick to act despite the personal danger involved, he kicked several of the grenades off the ridgeline where they exploded harmlessly and, while attempting to kick away another, slipped and fell near the deadly missile. Aware that the sputtering grenade would explode before he could regain his feet and dispose of it, he shouted a warning to his comrades, covered the missile with his body and absorbed the full blast of the explosion, but in saving his com- panions from possible injury or death, was mortally wounded.—Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A46966

Marine Division artillery fired Generals Ridgway, Van Fleet, and of the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, 13,157 tons of shells, second only Almond all visited his command sent one of his lieutenants out on a to the 2d Infantry Division (15,307 post and praised the division’s per- desperate mission: find ice some- tons). The corps artillery group formance. General Shepherd and where around Yanggu to cool the kept pace, especially since its fires his senior staff visited the division battalion’s beer ration. Second supported the South Korean divi- on 28-29 May, and Shepherd Lieutenant Harold Arutunian’s sions. All X Corps divisions surren- added his congratulations not only patrol returned with ice—stolen dered their trucks to keep X Corps for the operational successes, but from the body bags of an Army guns supplied with shells. By the also for the good relations with the graves registration unit. For at least end of May ammunition shortages Army. And Almond went out of his one week the 1st Marine Division had become an operational con- way to tell the other generals how had fought by its book, and it suf- cern. The artillery expenditures much he valued Thomas’ wise fered negligible casualties by and the stiffening Communist counsel. (Thomas was not so sure pounding every objective with defenses suggested that the “happy that Almond listened to anyone, preparatory air strikes and artillery time” of X Corps exploitation oper- but at least the corps commander concentrations. For once Almond ations had come to an end. now observed the chain-of-com- did not exaggerate when, on 31 General Thomas had every rea- mand.) Finding another way to May, he characterized the Marines son to be proud of his division, for celebrate a victory, the commander as “fatigued, but spirits high.”

18 North to the Kansas Line mander of the CCF, but Deng Hua, Xie Fang, and Yang Dezhi directed Perched in their most recent fox- the new strategy, “On the holes above the Hwachon Res- Protracted War in Korea,” an- ervoir and the blackened ruins of nounced in July 1951. Yanggu—so flattened and inciner- The other Communist co-belated that only the charred bank ligerents reacted to niupitang in vault gave the town a skyline—the much different ways, but neither forward infantry battalions of the the Soviets nor the North Koreans 1st Marine Division could see only had much leverage on Mao more sharp hills to the north, rising Zedong. If they wanted the war to ever higher into the smoky dusk of continue—and they did—they the last day of May. They did not depended upon the Chinese army know that conferences elsewhere to bear the brunt of the fighting. were already deciding their fate in Now that the war had not pro- the month ahead. duced a great Communist victory, The Chinese Fifth Offensive and Stalin (beset with political prob- its crushing defeat had opened the lems at home) saw no reason to go way for a second “entirely new National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC382822 beyond his commitment of Soviet war,” but not one that made any of The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the air defense forces to “MiG Alley” the belligerents very happy. The Commander in Chief, U.N. Command, along the Korean-Manchurian bor- Communist coalition shared a Gen Matthew B. Ridgway, USA, to der and to rearm the Chinese common problem with United continue the offensive but only by army. The Soviets, in fact, saw Nations Command: was there any advancing to the Wyoming-Kansas truce negotiations as a way to operational option that offered Line, a phase line in the mountains increase their influence in the advantage worthy of the risks of north of the 38th Parallel. The under- United Nations as well as to buy strategic escalation? What if the lying objective of these operations was time to rebuild and rearm the designed to support a negotiated end Soviet air forces, for example, Chinese forces. The North Kor- to hostilities. mounted attacks on the American eans—represented by the pestifer- airbases in Korea? What if the duct niupitang attritional warfare ous Kim Il Sung—wanted only Soviet navy mounted submarine or of position until United Nations more war and no talks, unless a maritime aviation attacks upon the Command casualties reached truce brought an end to American U.N. naval forces that roamed the unbearable proportions. air strikes. Kim and his inner circle east and west seas with impunity? Mao’s use of the word niupi- agreed, however, that the 38th Relatively certain that Joseph tang could not have been more Parallel should be restored as an Stalin would not authorize any apt since niupitang was a deli- international border and that all attacks that might bring American cious but very sticky candy from foreign troops (including the retaliation on Soviet bases in the his native Hunan Province, an irre- Chinese) should leave Korea— Far East, Mao Zedong sought some sistible sweet that took a very long after the South Korean army had employment of the Chinese time to eat and usually made a been fatally weakened and the Communist Forces that would mess. The niupitang strategy North Korean People’s Army eventually destroy the will of the would work well with a policy of restored to fighting trim and much- United Nations and the Republic of biantan bianda or simultaneous enlarged. Kim ordered his generals Korea to continue the war. On 27 negotiating and fighting. Within to fight to the death for every May 1951, Mao Zedong opened two months Mao replaced three of rocky foot of North Korean soil. discussions on strategy with his the four army group commanders, The process of political-strategic principal commanders in Korea. retaining only Yang Dezhi, a mod- reassessment, which had begun Within a week Mao conferred with ern commander and a protégé of with the Chinese intervention in eight senior officers of the CCF, Deng and Xie, and promoting him November 1950, blossomed in May especially First Deputy Comman- to second deputy commander and 1951 like the cherry-blossoms in der Deng Hua and Chief of Staff de facto director of operations for Washington, D.C. and Korean Xie Fang. Mao told his field com- the Communist field forces. Peng coastal resort town of Chinhae. manders that the CCF would con- Dehuai remained the titular com- Hints of peace negotiations sprout-

19 Close Air Support Controversy y the spring of 1951, the question of close air port strikes were not likely to be tactically relevant, but support for United Nations Command ground the air direction system the Air Force preferred also forces had become a serious inter-service contro- added to the problem. The definition of close air sup- B port was that air strikes should be coordinated with the versy that pitted the Marine Corps and some of the senior commanders of the Eighth Army against the fire and maneuver of the ground forces through the pos- United States Air Force and General Matthew B. itive direction by a forward air controller (FAC) who was Ridgway, the United Nations and American theater com- fully knowledgeable about the ground combat situation. mander. To some degree the controversy involved the There was no fundamental disagreement that a Tactical employment of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing and sever- Air Control Party (TACP) with reliable air-ground com- al lesser and often false issues, e.g. jets versus propeller munications (vehicle- or ground-mounted) should be aircraft, but the heart of the problem was simply that the available so the FAC could direct air strikes by sight, just Air Force did not want to perform the mission. It regard- like an artillery forward observer. The Air Force, how- ed close air support as a wasteful and dangerous mis- ever, did not want to use its own personnel for such use of offensive tactical air power. Marine Corps avia- missions, and it did not trust the Army to provide a com- tion and Navy carrier-based aviation regarded close air petent FAC. The Air Force might provide an Air Liaison support as an essential contribution to the ground cam- Party down to the regimental level to do air strike plan- paign. The victim in all this inter-service wrangling was ning, but it was not going to send Air Force officers the Eighth Army and the 1st Marine Division. (presumably pilots) out to the front to direct air strikes. From the Air Force perspective, the close air support In some fairness, the Fifth Air Force did provide such mission belonged at the bottom of its offensive air mis- Tactical Air Control Parties to the Eighth Army in 1950, sions, although the leaders of the Army Air Forces as and they were shot to pieces—radio-jeeps and people early as 1943 insisted that air power was the equal of alike. ground combat power in the conduct of war. The same The Fifth Air Force in 1950 created an air strike direc- senior officers donned new uniforms in 1947, but did tion system that depended on airborne air controllers, not drop their old ideas about close air support, despite basically the World War II system. During the course of the relatively effective use of ground-directed air strikes the fighting in 1950 the Fifth Air Force and Eighth Army against the German army in 1944-1945. The Air Force committed people and equipment to form the 6147th position was rooted in negative experiences: the bomb- Tactical Control Squadron, later expanded to wing sta- ing and strafing of friendly troops; the extraordinary tus. The “Mosquitoes,” as the forward air controllers (air- losses to ground fire in making front-line, low-level borne) came to be known, did yeoman work through- bombing runs; and the conviction that Army ground out the war, directing air strikes from their two-seat, commanders knew nothing of fighter-bomber capabili- propeller-driven North American AT-6 “Texan” aircraft, a ties and would scream for close air support when World War II pilot trainer. The “Mosquitoes” lacked artillery was a more rapid and appropriate response to nothing in courage and skill, but they were still hostages their indirect fire support requirements. The guidance in to the JOC system. Either the air strikes had to be pre- effect for Air Force-Army close air support operations in planned or they had to be requested as a matter of dire 1950 was the “Joint Training Directive for Air-Ground National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A131261 Operations,” an agreement only between Tactical Air Command and Army Field Forces, not the Service headquarters. In theory and application in Korea in 1950 the doctrine of the “Joint Training Directive,” which the Air Force embraced as authoritative, made close air support difficult for a ground command to obtain. Basically, the Air-Ground Operations System (AGOS) required that a ground commander request air support prior to an operation and be very specific about his needs. Requests had to be processed through an Army operations officer (G-3 Air) from regiment through field army and reviewed by an Air Force officer at each echelon of command (the air liaison officer) until the request reached the Joint Operations Center (JOC), run by an Air Force general, which would allocate the available air strikes. The request system insured that close air sup-

20 Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A130146 emergency or diverted from other missions. the uniforms of the pilots or the type of planes they The Navy-Marine Corps system, developed for flew. The senior Marine ground commander did not amphibious operations in World War II, offered a differ- command aviation units, as the Air Force charged. ent approach. The Air Force tried to brand the system Either X Corps or 1st Marine Division did not command as driven by amphibious operations, which it was to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. some degree, but the system had proved itself in land The Navy-Marine Corps system accommodated campaigns on Saipan, Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, the planned requests, but its strength was its tactical flexi- Philippines, and Okinawa. The Navy and the Marine bility. Each infantry battalion in the 1st Marine Division Corps brought the same system to Korea, and it worked. had a Tactical Air Control Party of two elements. One It worked so well that Army generals, especially Major group served as the Air Liaison Party, part of the battal- General Edward M. Almond, embraced it without reser- ion operations staff. The other group was the Forward vation. His successor as commander of X Corps, Major Air Control Party, an officer and communicators who General Clovis E. Byers, also became a convert, and it could process requests for air support and direct air cost him his command. Other Army commanders at the strikes from the ground, usually well forward with an division level envied the system and wondered why infantry company. In practical terms, this system meant they could not receive adequate support, but they were that each Marine infantry battalion had two Marine offi- too intimidated by Lieutenant General Matthew B. cers (naval aviators) as part of the battalion staff to Ridgway to push the issue. insure that air strikes hit the enemy and did so soon The Air Force consistently misrepresented the enough to affect the tactical situation. The system essence of the Navy-Marine Corps system. The naval worked, and the Marine Corps saw no reason to aban- services never challenged the important of air superior- don it. ity or interdiction operations. The naval services simply As X Corps commander, General Almond liked the argued—and placed in their own doctrine—that if close Navy-Marine Corps system, which he saw at close quar- air support missions were to be flown at all, they should ters during the Inchon-Seoul campaign and again dur- be rapid, responsive, appropriate, and effective. The 1st ing the withdrawal to the Hungnam enclave. In fact, he Marine Aircraft Wing might be best trained to perform ordered his Army divisions to form their own TACPs or such missions, but it was the system that counted, not he arranged for the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing to send

21 TACPs to Army units (American and Korean) within his agement” doctrine. “Smith, I’m sorry, but I don’t com- corps. The ability of the TACPs to direct strikes natural- mand the Air Force!” ly drew most of the sorties flown in December 1950 by Even though Eighth Army and Fifth Air Force made the Marine squadrons and the naval aviators flying from serious efforts to establish all the personnel and com- the decks of Task Force 77. munications elements of the AGOS request and direc- The operational conditions and requirements of 1950 tion organization, the Air Force’s lack of interest and made it appear that the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had ability in close air support still discouraged ground come to Korea to be General Almond’s corps aviation commanders from making pre-attack requests. The sys- component. In fact, X Corps functioned much like a tem virtually guaranteed that emergency requests would modern Marine air-ground task force, even if Almond be answered late, if at all. With their own TACPs at the had no direct authority over any of his supporting tacti- battalion level, the Marines could and did short circuit cal aviation squadrons. Fifth Air Force, however, the system by making emergency requests to an air- thought this ad hoc arrangement should not continue. borne Mosquito, who would then divert either out- In early 1951, General Ridgway and Lieutenant General going or returning interdiction strikes to the Marines and George E. Stratemeyer, Commander General, Far East release direction of the strikes to the forward air con- Air Forces, insured that General Douglas MacArthur trollers. If the attacking aircraft happened to be flown by placed X Corps in the Eighth Army and the 1st Marine trained Marines, so much the better. The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing under the operational control of the Fifth Division FACs, however, reported that in April 1951 the Air Force and the Joint Operations Center. The Marines JOC had answered 95 percent of their requests, but only could perform their close air support magic for all of 40 percent of the missions were flown by adequate Eighth Army, not just X Corps. Ridgway, however, numbers of aircraft, properly armed, and arrived in time demanded that Fifth Air Force study the whole close air to make some difference in the battle. In the meantime support question and find ways to make the JOC system losses of aircraft and pilots soared in the 1st Marine more responsive to unplanned ground requests for air Aircraft Wing, in part because non-Marine controllers strikes. provided poor information about the terrain and enemy While Fifth Air Force and Eighth Army both conduct- situation. In April 1951, the Marines lost 16 aircraft and ed reviews of the Air-Ground Operations System, the 10 pilots (one captured, nine killed) to enemy ground war went on. The 1st Marine Division returned to the fire. fray in February 1951 without its usual customary air Although X Corps received ample close air support support, either in quality or quantity. Marine fighter- during the Fifth Offensive (Second Phase), Almond still bomber squadrons (F4U Corsairs or F9F Panthers) flew criticized the AGOS practices. Major General Gerald C. missions for all of Eighth Army with results that depend- Thomas entered the fray when he learned that his divi- ed entirely upon the ability of either the airborne sion had received only two-thirds of its requested air “Mosquitoes” or ground spotters (if any) to identify the strikes in late May. Only about half of the delivered sor- targets and communicate with the aircraft. In the mean- ties were effective, and almost all were over an hour or time, Task Force 77 sailed north to attack Communist more late. The only concession Almond and Thomas railroads and highways (“the bridges of Toko-ri”), and received was the stationing of one mixed Corsair Air Force fighter-bombers of varying nationalities (pre- squadron from Marine Aircraft Group 12 at K-46 a prim- dominately American or Australian) showed up to con- itive strip near Hoengsong, but the JOC (Kimpo Airfield) duct missions for the 1st Marine Division with mixed still had to approve the missions. With the AGOS still in results. Major General Oliver P. Smith asked Ridgway to place—albeit somewhat more efficient and flexible—the use his influence with Fifth Air Force to give Smith oper- war against the niupitang Chinese and North Korean ational control of just one Corsair squadron. Ridgway defenders would go on—and the 1st Marine Division refused to raise the issue and breach the “single man- would indeed get stuck. ed everywhere—most planted by Then Van Fleet, pressed by ation of an enclave at Tongchon, shadowy Soviet sowers in the Almond, proposed a significant still short of Wonsan, but well worlds’ capitals and at the United change in the exploitation cam- north of the “Iron Triangle,” the Nations. The Joint Chiefs of Staff paign that followed the defeat of central Korean network of trans- kept General Matthew B. Ridgway the Fifth Offensive. When the bulk portation connections and moun- informed on the flood of specula- of the Chinese forces had already tain corridors bounded by tion and hope. Until the last week escaped the bag between X Corps Chorwon-Pyonggang-Kumhwa of May, however, Ridgway had no and ROK I Corps, Van Fleet pro- from west to east. Ridgway and reason to link his sense of the posed a series of amphibious Van Fleet agreed with Almond that strategic shifts underway with the envelopments up the east coast control of the “Iron Triangle,” even continuing operations in Korea. that would conclude with the cre- from Tongchon, would give either

22 mountains north of the Hwachon Reservoir all the way to the coast at Tongchon. Anticipating that a ceasefire would entail the creation of some sort of territorial buffer zone, Ridgway wanted to reach a line (Kansas) well north of the Wyoming Line, his non-negotiable position for ensuring the ground defense of the expanded Republic of Korea. Two other considerations shaped Ridgway’s thinking about the conduct of the war. Some of the general’s critics and champions later suggested that he had become too interested in his personal goal of becoming Army chief of staff or faint-hearted at the prospect of excessive American casualties in Korea. Ridgway’s ambition was well-known to his Army peers, but he realized that trying to please Washington was a fool’s errand. Nor had Ridgway, notoriously ruthless in relieving non-fighters, suddenly become casualty-shy. He simply saw no purpose in risking lives in adven- tures that probably would not pro- duce the promised results. Moreover, Ridgway had become convinced that air power could give him an offensive option to punish the Communist armies beyond bearing, his own high explosive, high altitude version of side an advantage in ending or whelming with truce talks in the niupitang. Recent changes in the continuing the war. wind. Ridgway’s greatest fear was Air Force high command in the General Ridgway, however, did that someone would give away the war zone placed very aggressive not agree that Van Fleet’s proposed territorial gains already made in and persuasive air generals in Operation Overwhelming could be May and the additional ground he Ridgway’s inner council. General mounted because of resistance in wanted to control in June after Otto P. Weyland, the Far East Air Washington and sheer operational Operation Piledriver, a straight- Forces director of operations since feasibility. Even a modest shore-to- ahead push by all four of Van early in the war, became the com- shore movement would require Fleet’s corps. The Eighth Army’s mander, and Lieutenant General disengaging the 1st Marine Divi- goal would be the seizure and Frank F. Everest assumed com- sion and (probably) the 3d Infantry defense of a cross-peninsula line mand of the Fifth Air Force. Both Division and transporting them to (Wyoming-Kansas) that would Weyland and Everest, tactical avia- a port for embarkation. From retake Kaesong, hold the mountain tion commanders in World War II, Ridgway’s perspective, time was of ranges and passes northwest of the championed aerial interdiction as the essence, and the requirements Imjin River, secure at least part of the most decisive way to use air of Overwhelming were too over- the “Iron Triangle,” and hold the power in a war like the Korean

23 conflict. Both also insisted that the For the 1st Marine Division the arrangements uncertain, and the senior theater Air Force officer high-level discussions on the rela- 7th Marines in need of a break, should have operational control of tive weight of the ground and air Thomas did not push Hayward all aviation units with combat wars on bringing the Communists and Nickerson until they all had a capability, including the carrier air to terms had no immediate effect chance to think about the new groups of Task Force 77 and the since X Corps’ mission remained attacks. 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. unchanged: seize the Kansas Line. The terrain alone appeared for- Ridgway’s coolness to any Nevertheless, the Marines needed midable. A long, high ridge of the amphibious operation and his at least a brief pause, which Taebaek Mountain chain dominat- warmth toward the Weyland- Almond would not grant the divi- ed the 1st Marine Division’s zone Everest interdiction campaign, sion on 31 May. He ordered the of action. The ridge was known as Operation Strangle, would have attacks to the north to continue, Taeu-san and Taeam-san for its critical effect on both the 1st and on 1 June the 5th and 7th two highest peaks, 1,179 meters Marine Division and the 1st Marine Marines dutifully pushed on—and for the northern most Taeu-san Aircraft Wing for the rest of the went nowhere. With the 11th and 1,316 meters for the southern war. Marines short of artillery shells, air Taeam-san. Taeu-san/Taeam-san were bordered on the west by the A rifle platoon of the 5th Marines does some “ridge-running” as it moves to an Sochon River, which ran into the assault position in the broken terrain south of the Punchbowl. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8868 Hwachon Reservoir just past Yanggu. The Marines also inherited the southern part of another parallel ridge to the west, but dominated by the Taeu-san/Taeaum-san hill mass to the east, which meant that any force attacking directly north of Yanggu would receive fire from its right flank. The terrain situation to the east was even more daunting. The division’s eastern boundary ran generally along the Soyang; the distance between the two rivers was 15 miles, more or less, and the entire zone stretched another four miles to the west. The Taeu-san/Taeam-san ridge, however, did not uniformly run northwards. The whole ridge complex had once been a volcano, and the crater created a depression in the mountain, the “Punchbowl,” open at its eastern edge where the Soyang River had eroded a hole in the crater wall. The southern lip of the crater, remained, however, as a formidable extension at a right angle east of the main ridgeline, which provided a transverse position for fire directly along all the lower ridges to the south. In a sense the whole Taeu-san/Taeam- san complex looked like a giant leaf with its thin tip to the south and its thicker (higher) base to the

24 north; many veins (ridges) ran intermediate objective (a small hill west and east from the central called X-Ray) and entered the spine, some creating separate com- lower ridges of the hill mass north partments to cross, others eche- of the Hwachon Reservoir and loned southwest or southeast and west of the Sochon River. The fight running uphill to the central stem, was an uphill slog all the way. dominated by a series of separate General Thomas learned that the peaks. The terrain is a defensive press identified the engaged commander’s dream. Americans as “GIs.” He wrote The 1st Division attack on the home: “That is us, and we are not Taeu-san/Taeam-san massif and GIs.” Expert at the coordination of the ridge adjoining it to the west supporting arms, Colonel Brown began on 2 June and ended almost used artillery to the limit of its three weeks later with all four effectiveness, but each objective infantry regiments very bloodied, ultimately had to be taken by but unbowed and with three of Marine infantry, savaged with them on or beyond the original grenades and mortar shells as they Kansas Line. The advance uphill literally crawled uphill. Brown had for about eight miles took the mea- to pay special attention to his left sure of the entire division as had flank, his boundary with the 7th no fight since the Chosin Reservoir ROK Division, and he often had to campaign. For the 1st Marines, its deploy one battalion against flank- losses exceeded those of Decem- ing attacks while the other two ber 1950, and the entire division continued their forward crawl. As suffered 183 dead and 1,973 Brown recalled: “it was the tough- wounded. Both Generals Van Fleet est fighting I have ever seen.” and Almond questioned General Over the same period (2-10 Thomas about his division’s losses. June), the 5th Marines faced an National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A9304 Especially aggravated about the even greater ordeal, especially its The look on the Marine’s face tells the poor quality of his close air sup- 1st Battalion, whose zone included whole story. Having just engaged in a savage firefight with enemy forces, port and the Eighth Army’s timo- seven ascending peaks before it these Marines continue their grueling rous treatment of the Fifth Air could reach the crest at Hill 1316 upward climb. Force, Thomas felt no need to (Taeam-san). The 2d Battalion’s apologize to Van Fleet for com- zone was somewhat less demand- enced company commander pleting his mission. “Well, General, ing, and Lieutenant Colonel Glen allowed his men to be trapped in a you told us to take the Kansas E. Martin more deft in paving the North Korean mortar barrage, and Line, and we took it for you. I’m way with air strikes and artillery, another company, run off its objec- sure we paid for what we got, but and the weight of the North tive by Corsair-dropped napalm, we got what we paid for.” Thomas Korean defense faced the 1st found itself the target of Com- wrote his family that his Marines Battalion anyway. It took two long munist artillery. McCloskey’s pla- were the best he had ever seen, days for the 1st Battalion to cap- toon in Company C started the and “Big Foot” Brown told his ture Hills 610, 680, and 692, a dis- two-day ordeal with sergeants as friends that the feats of his regi- tance of about 2,000 yards. In addi- squad leaders and ended it with a ment had to be seen to be tion to the stubborn defense by the corporal and two private first class- believed. Thomas fully appreciated North Koreans, the three rifle comes in command; almost every pla- the North Koreans’ tenacity: “They panies survived one “friendly” toon commander suffered at least fight like Japs!” artillery barrage and one errant air minor wounds. In the meantime, The battle began in earnest on 2 strike as well as tank fire from the the 2d Battalion had advanced June with the 1st Marines and 5th valley below to the west that, almost 5,000 yards along the east- Marines attacking abreast, each while welcome in bunker-busting, ern edge of the ridge, but its move- with two battalions, with the 7th did not seem especially concerned ment did not put it on terrain that Marines and 1st KMC Regiment in about the position of friendly menaced the North Koreans on reserve. The 1st Marines took one troops. At one point an inexperi- Taeam-san.

25 At this point, General Thomas regiment received Navy Crosses loose connection with the 7th ROK decided he needed to bring his for heroism, the 7th Marines four, Division. Nickerson’s regiment also two uncommitted regiments into and the 1st Marine two.) The 7th inherited the highest and most the battle since the burden of close Marines, after all of two days rest, heavily defended ridgelines that combat in May-June 1951 had fall- went into the attack on the right of ran eastwards to Taeu-san (Hill en disproportionately upon the 5th the 1st Marines, which allowed 1179) and the western rim of the Marines. (Nine members of the Brown to slide left to guard his Punchbowl. Thomas put the 1st

Private First Class Jack Davis: Combat Marine

fter a short stop at Kobe, Japan, the Marines of truck convoy was ambushed. Filled with wide-eyed the 6th Replacement Draft joined the 1st Marine reservists from the 1st and 2d Replacement Drafts, the ADivision in late January 1951. In the process of company started north toward the Yalu with a full com- retraining and reorganizing, the division was conducting plement of seven officers and 224 enlisted men. It also counter-guerrilla operations around Pohang, an east had a new company commander, Captain Carl L. Sitter, coast port within the Republic of Korea. Jack Davis (pic- a World War II combat veteran. He had replaced the first tured on the left in the first row) was assigned to company commander, reassigned to Quantico, Virginia, Company G, 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, somewhere near as an instructor at The Basic School. Andung, northwest of Pohang. Known within the regi- In just about one month, the second Company G ment as “Bloody George” Company, Jack’s new com- practically disappeared, lost to battlefield deaths, rades were little more experienced than he was with the wounds, and frostbite. The company fought its way into exception of a handful of officers, noncommissioned Hagaru-ri on 29 November as the spearhead of Task officers, and privates. The original Company G had Force Drysdale, taking 48 casualties from the gauntlet of landed across Blue Beach at Inchon and fought in the fire the Chinese created for the convoy of tanks and liberation of Yongdung-po and Seoul. It earned its nick- vehicles. At Hagaru-ri the company tried to retake East name during the Chosin Reservoir campaign. The com- Hill, but faced too many Chinese with too few Marines. pany first met the Chinese at Majon-ni and lost nine The dwindling ranks of Company G, nevertheless, held dead and 15 wounded (including attachments) when its the shortened perimeter and took 60 more casualties.

26 Captain Sitter received the Medal of Honor, and 10 other could extract the 5th and 7th Marines from the Hwachon company Marines were awarded decorations for valor, Reservoir sector to the north. Hill 902, a 3,000-foot including a Silver Star for the first sergeant, Master tower, became the 3d Battalion’s objective; the hill dom- Sergeant Rocco A. Zullo. Within 10 days of battle, the inated a road into the Pukhan River valley and a critical company lost all but 87 officers and men, and fully a bridge on the road south to Chunchon and the No Name third of these “originals” had been wounded and Line where the division was to establish a new defensi- returned to duty. Jack Davis had not yet experienced the ble position. The battalion beat the Chinese to the peak physical and emotional ravages of combat when he (aided by Marine trucks) and moved down three paral- joined Company G, but he could appreciate having even lel western ridges where Lieutenant Colonel Virgil W. a handful of veterans around to stiffen the third Banning, the battalion commander, expected to meet Company G. the Chinese on their belated climb toward the peak of Assigned to the 3d Platoon as a BAR-man, Jack soon Hill 902. Banning placed one rifle company on each of learned that Sergeant Robert W. “Blackie” Jones, new to the three entrant ridges and arranged his supporting the company but a World War II veteran, had strong arms into the evening of 23 April. Around 2000 the opinions about weapons. Sergeant Jones liked the Chinese attacked, first striking Company G, the most Browning Automatic Rifle, and he had a way of finding advanced (by plan) and defender of the center ridgeline. additional BARs for his squad. Sometime in February, Huddled behind barriers of rocks—no foxholes could between Operations Ripper and Killer, as the Eighth be dug here—Company G threw back a Chinese regi- Army ground its way back toward the 38th Parallel, ment with the assistance of Companies H and I, which Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller inspected Company G. fired across its flanks and sent reinforcements. Marine Puller found Jones’ squad armed in an unusual manner. and Army howitzers and mortars showered the attackers “How many BARs are there in a Marine rifle squad?” he with shellfire. Rallied by Technical Sergeant Harold E. asked the squad sergeant. “Three, sir!” Jones smartly Wilson, an Alabama reservist, the center platoon of responded. “How many BARs do you have in your first Company G barely held. Jack Davis’ platoon held its hill- squad, sergeant?” Puller continued. “Six, sir!” Puller side position along the southern slope of George Ridge; then asked: “How did you get these weapons?” Jones the platoon suffered two or three killed and several responded with even more snap in his voice: “We liber- more wounded, popping up to spray the Chinese in ated them from the Army, sir!” Puller grunted his between the artillery barrages. Jack made it through the approval and went on without further comment. Jack, night unscathed, but the next morning, as the battalion standing next to Johnson in the ranks, almost laughed at backed away from the Chinese under an umbrella of the spirited exchange. close air support strikes, Jack fell victim to some Sergeant Jones also demonstrated quick thinking unfriendly “friendly fire.” As he and some other Marines under fire. Sitting on a rice paddy dike somewhere struggled down the steep eastern slope of Hill 902 with between Wonju and Hoengsong in late February, Jack’s stretchers loaded with dead and wounded Marines, two squad watched spouts of cold, muddy water rise from Marine F4U Corsairs strafed the column, showered the the paddy less than a foot beyond their outstretched cowering infantrymen with ricocheting bullets and rock boots. “Blackie” did a back-gainer off the dike to a fragments. Although he took no life-threatening hits, lower-level paddy and screamed at his men to take Jack found himself a bleeding, lacerated, and thorough- cover. The Chinese burp-gunner faded into the woods ly enraged member of the “Society of Walking without molestation. Jack also learned the value of Wounded” and headed for the battalion aid station for water from Sergeant Jones and soon carried two can- treatment. Rested, fed, and patched up, he returned to teens, the only man in the squad to do so. He checked the company on the No Name Line. his water sources carefully, especially after he found a Although he avoided telling his parents about his rotting horse upstream in one clear, bubbling brook, and combat experience, Jack wrote his brother Vince that he used halazone tablets liberally. His health remained should forget about leaving Vanderbilt and joining the good despite his constant fatigue and unrelenting diet of Marine Corps to fight in Korea. If Vince became an offi- C-rations. Nevertheless, he lost weight and seemed to cer, his chances of surviving would not be as good as an shrink within his parka and field equipment. enlisted man’s since the Marines expected all officers to The new Company G received another opportunity to lead from the front. Artillery officers—to which Vince add to its “bloody” reputation in the first days of the aspired—had no greater chances of survival since they Chinese Fifth Offensive, April 1951. Upon the collapse all had to serve as forward observers with rifle compa- of the 6th ROK Division on the division’s left flank, nies before assigned to the comparative safety of a fir- Major General Oliver P. Smith sent the 1st Marines west ing battery. “Stick to the Navy for my sake as well as the of the Pukhan River to seize the critical hills that domi- folks. I’ll do both our shares of the dodging.” Jack’s war nated the river valley and the only road by which he had just begun.

27 KMC Regiment into the 5th Marines hard-earned foothold below Hills 1122, 1216, and 1316 (Taeam-san). Hayward’s regiment (with the exhausted 1st Battalion in reserve) moved into an expanded sector east of the Taeu- san/Taeam-san massif and started to work its way north toward the southern lip of the Punchbowl. Thomas did not pressure Hayward to move aggressively since such an advance would have put the 5th Marines in a salient below an L- shaped hill mass still occupied by much of the 12th NKPA Division. Before the 5th Marines could press forward to its share of the Kansas Line, the South Korean Marines would have to take Taeam-san. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A155066 For five days (5-10 June), the 1st The natural beauty of this quiet scene in North Korea means little to these KMC Regiment repeatedly assault- Marines as they rest during a lull in the struggle for the Punchbowl. In the wide, ed the Hill 1122-1218-1316 com- calm valley before them, each green field may hide a Communist gun position, each tree an enemy sniper. plex but, despite maneuvering to the right and left of the peaks, the Taeu-san to avoid being cut off by by the Korean Marines around the Korean Marines made no progress the American Marines now Punchbowl. and lost over 500 men without tak- advancing steadily on both their To the west the 1st and 7th ing even one objective. Anytime flanks. Marines fought from one hill to the the Marines gained a foothold, a Service with the 1st KMC next hill with consistent but costly North Korean counterattack threw Regiment came as a surprise to success. The 1st Marines reached a the Marines back. Neither side some Marine officers. Assigned line of hills identified as the Brown took prisoners; one South Korean against his wishes to the 1st Shore Line, a more defensible position assault discovered 10 bound ROK Party Battalion, Second Lieutenant than the original Kansas Line, Marines executed with neat head- David J. Hytrek, a former private which ran through the Sochon shots. In desperation, Colonel Kim first class in the 5th Marines in River valley to the regiment’s rear. Suk Bum, the Korean Marine regi- 1950, wanted an infantry assign- The 1st Marines started the regimental commander, decided to ment to avenge the deaths of his mental advance on 6 June and abandon the American way-of-war comrades who had already fallen completed its mission on 14 June. and ordered a three-battalion in Korea. Instead a crusty master The experience of the 2d Battalion unsupported night attack on Hill sergeant serving as a personnel represents the regimental ordeal. 1122, the most exposed North officer assigned many of the for- After two days of modest Korean position. Advancing by mer enlisted men of the 7th Basic advances, the battalion, with the slow infiltration, the South Korean Class to combat service support 1st Battalion on its left flank, ran Marines fell on the Communists at battalions. “Let the college boys into a very stubborn and skilled 0200 with complete surprise and get killed in this war,” he growled. North Korean force on Hill 676. ran the defenders off to Hill 1216. Hytrek, however, had barely The attack stalled, in part because With a solid hold on at least a part arrived at his new unit when he a heavy mortar concentration fell of the crest, the Korean Marine received orders to report to the short and inflicted 40 casualties, regiment held its ground while its Korean Marines as a liaison officer. including the battalion comman- American advisers called in General Thomas wanted experi- der, Lieutenant Colonel Robert K. artillery and air strikes on Hills enced lieutenants sent to assist the McClelland. On 10 June, the battal- 1216 and 1316. The North Koreans Koreans, so David Hytrek found ion sent two companies against the soon fell back to the north to plenty of war in the battles fought eastern face of the hill since it

28 could then take advantage of sup- bearers” struggled forward through and the Taeu-san/Taeam-san porting tank fire from the valley constant shelling with ammunition peaks to the east above the below. Many of the North Korean and water and stumbled back- Punchbowl. Colonel Nickerson bunkers, however, were sited to wards with loaded stretchers. In used his supporting tank company protect them from tank guns, two days the battalion took more to good effect, but Communist 75mm recoilless rifles, and 3.5-inch than 300 casualties and lost more mines in the Sochon River valley rocket launchers. Air strikes would than 200 members of its loyal force put more than half of the company have eliminated them, but repeat- of Korean porters. The Marines (10 of 17 tanks) eventually out of ed requests for close air support found more than 100 North Korean action despite heroic and costly went unanswered until 2000 when bodies in the bunkers, including efforts by Marine engineers to one four-plane strike broke the the NKPA battalion commander. sweep the ground. Nickerson’s use North Korean defense. All day The battalion went into reserve on of supporting arms mirrored long, Marine squads inched 12 June when the 3d Battalion Brown’s—long on artillery and upwards through the bunker com- replaced it. short of crucial close air support. If plex, eventually destroying the Wedged into a narrow but diffi- the 7th Marines rifle companies bunkers with grenades and satchel cult sector between the 1st Marines took their assigned hills with charges. In one case a lone Marine and the 1st KMC Regiment, the 7th slightly less cost than the 1st jumped into a bunker, killed three Marines fought for 10 days (9-19 Marines, they had to defend them Koreans with his rifle and stran- June) to establish the regiment against even more stubborn night- gled the fourth with his bare (two battalions abreast) along the ly counterattacks. The NKPA battal- hands. Throughout the day “chiggy critical hill complex to the west ion commander in this sector

Corporal Charles G.Abrell orn in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1931, he attended public schools in Las Vegas, Nevada, before Benlisting in the Marine Corps in 1948 at the age of 17. Following recruit training at Parris Island, South Carolina, and a short assignment on board the USS Noble, he was sent to Korea in 1950 where he took part in five successive operations: Inchon, Seoul, Chosin, and two against the Chinese Communists. For his bold actions on 7 November 1950, he was awarded the Commendation ribbon with Combat “V.” As a fireteam-leader with Company E, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, he gave his life on 10 June 1951 at Hill 676 near Hangnyong. His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part: While advancing with his platoon in an attack against well-concealed and heavily-fortified enemy hill positions, Corporal Abrell voluntarily rushed forward through the assaulting squad which was pinned down by a hail of intense and accurate automatic-weapons fire from a hostile bunker situ- ated on commanding ground. Although previously wounded by enemy hand-grenade fragments, he proceeded to carry out a bold, single-handed attack against the bunker, exhorting his comrades to follow him. Sustaining two additional wounds Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A46965 as he stormed toward the emplacement, he res- fatally wounded in the resulting explosion which olutely pulled the pin from a grenade clutched in killed the entire enemy gun crew within the his hand and hurled himself bodily into the bunker stronghold.—Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR with the live missile still in his grasp. [He was] (Ret)

29 employed reverse slope defenses, which swept each topographical crest with fire and put the North Korean soldiers close enough for sudden assaults. One 7th Marines company had to throw back five such attacks in one night before it could call its hill secure. On the eastern side of Taeu- san/Taeam-san ridge, the 5th Marines advanced through the ridges that ran down to the Soyang River valley. Alternating in the attack, Hayward’s three battalions had to cross five different east-west transverse spur ridges before they reached the last (and highest) ridgeline above the Punchbowl, some 8,000 yards from the regiment’s original line of departure on 6 June. As the regiment pushed north, the North Korean defenders Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8745 took their toll, although somewhat Crewmen of Battery C, 1st 4.5 Inch Rocket Battalion, reload their multiple-rocket launcher for another devastating ripple against North Korean troops. The bat- less than the regiments to the west. tery of six launchers could fire 144 rounds on target in less than a minute. Again, supporting arms and close air strikes that arrived broke the Platoon. As the Marines worked with a Ka-Bar and a hole in his left defensive positions until the regi- methodically through the bunker side that filled with blood and a ment, lead by the 1st Battalion, system, supported by mortar and damaged kidney. Just as the sur- reached the last objective, the Hill machine gun fire, their casualties viving Koreans reached the “Last 907-Hill 920 ridgeline. No longer mounted. Cooper called in more Stand of the 3d Platoon,” the Air able to fall back to another defen- artillery and air strikes, but enemy Force jets—which had flown one sive position, the remaining sol- fire from his front and from two dummy run to get the route right— diers of the defending North flanking ridgelines cut his ranks returned and dumped their napalm Korean regiment went into their down to squad size. He lost two tanks in the middle of the melee, bunkers with no intention of con- radio operators and then had the only 30 yards from Cooper’s posi- ceding Hill 907 to the oncoming disconcerting experience of listen- tion. The Marines almost suffocat- Marines. ing to Hopkins, who had turned ed, and most of them suffered The final assault on Hill 907, the ferocious on the eve of his change burns, but the North Koreans dis- regimental objective of the 5th of command, screaming obscene appeared, incinerated in the Marines, caught the desperate challenges to the North Koreans flames. The Marine attack ended character of the mountain war in over the battalion tactical net, pre- 100 yards short of the summit, but Korea in June 1951. The long, nar- sumably to confuse the listening the next day the 3d Battalion occu- row ridge that led to Hill 907 enemy. Cooper managed to pied Hill 907, abandoned by the allowed no more than a reinforced arrange for one more air strike, Air North Koreans after the division platoon to deploy against the line Force jets armed with napalm. headquarters they were protecting of North Korean bunkers that Marking the target with white had displaced. stretched to the peak. So the 1st smoke, Cooper ordered an On 18 and 20 June, General Battalion, 5th Marines, had the advance through the swirling Almond and General Thomas visit- objective, which it assigned to mess, only to find the North ed the high ground now held by Company B, which passed the mis- Koreans attacking him. Knocked the 1st Marine Division, and the X sion (at Lieutenant Colonel John L. down by a ricocheting bullet in the Corps commander agreed that Hopkins’ direction) to Second back, Cooper lost his carbine to patrols in the mountains ahead Lieutenant Charles G. Cooper’s 3d another bullet and ended the fight would be all the offensive action

30 required of the Marines. In the patrols and the daytime construc- more rainfall before the deluge meantime, the defensive positions tion of trenches and bunkers, two stopped in September. The of the Kansas Line should be different changes of climate omnipresent mud and cascading developed into complexes of enveloped the men spread along streams made the patrols and con- trench lines, barbed wire, bunkers, the mountain ridges of the Kansas struction an ordeal, even without and minefields, and before the Line. The changes started a sum- an active enemy. summer monsoon made the sup- mer of discontent, a season of dis- The other atmospheric change ply effort even more difficult than comfort and uncertainty that did began with the preliminary truce it already was. Thomas could tell not reach the level of demoraliza- negotiations on 7 July between the that major changes in the war tion, but nevertheless took its toll military delegations of China and might be underway since he had to on the morale of the Marines. The North Korea on one side and a entertain an endless stream of vis- first change in the weather was group of American officers on the iting military officers of all the predictable, the arrival of the sum- other. When the negotiators at Services, most of whom simply mer monsoon, which advances Kaesong—a neutral enclave within wanted to see the Punchbowl from northward from the island of Communist lines—finally came to the 5th Marines’ observation post. Cheju-do until it reaches central an incomplete agreement on an Only admirals bearing gifts of Korea in late June and blankets the agenda, the one that most affected good bourbon were truly wel- hills with daily showers and occa- the Marines was the question of a come. General Thomas knew his sional downpours that seem to ceasefire boundary between the division needed rebuilding with wash half of Korea into the west two armies. The Communists replacements and some rest. In the sea. The summer rains of 1950 had wanted a return to the 38th meantime, he had some unfinished been light, a welcome blessing for Parallel. The United Nations business with Eighth Army over American airmen. Even though it demanded a line based on the for- the issue of close air support. arrived weeks behind schedule, ward edge of the battlefield if and the next monsoon reversed the when an armistice went into effect. A Summer of Discontent trend. The rains of 1951 gave Presumably the two forces would Korea its normal ration of water. fall back by some agreed distance, When the 1st Marine Division Twenty-six inches fell in July, and and the intervening No Man’s Land settled down to a life of night August brought about 20 inches would become a demilitarized zone. To those with no sense of Marines wait for an air strike by Marine aircraft before moving on an enemy military geography, one hill position. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A9308 seemed no different from another, but the relationship of dominant peaks, road networks, river valleys, and intersecting corridors in the mountains made the control of terrain an important issue, not just a matter of “face.” From the frontline foxholes, however, the gloomy mountains all looked alike and simply reinforced the sense that no disputed peak could be worth dying for. Conditioned by World War II to think of victory in terms of geographic advances, the combat troops of the Eighth Army felt their martial ardor wash away with the rain. No stranger to the challenges of command created by poor weather and endless action—Guadalcanal had provided both—Gerald C. Thomas pressed his regimental

31 National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-432028 United Nations delegates to the Kaesong ceasefire talks pose Craigie, USAF, MajGen Paik Sun Yup, ROKA, VAdm C. with Gen Matthew B. Ridgway at Munsan-ni. Pictured from Turner Joy, USN, Gen Ridgway, and MajGen Henry I. Hodes, left are RAdm Arleigh A. Burke, USN, MajGen Laurence C. USA.

Pictured from left are Chinese and North Korean negotia- Cho, and Gen Chang Pyong San of the North Korean tors, MajGen Hsieh Fang and LtGen Teng Hua of the People’s Army. Chinese People’s Army, and Gen Nam Il, MajGen Lee Sang National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-431929

32 support sorties limited the ground advances and caused avoidable casualties. Thomas consistently raised the issue with high-ranking military visitors to his headquarters, including Van Fleet, who dropped in on 8 July to give Thomas, Nickerson, Hayward, and five other Marines the Distin- guished Service Cross. Thomas persuaded Major General Frank F. Everest to approve the movement of Marine Aircraft Group 12, the premier close air support group of Marine Corsairs, from Hoengsong to the east sea fishing town of Kangnung. The move to Airfield K- 18 put the Marine fighter-bombers National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC378978 closer to their supply sources and Riflemen of the 5th Marines are issued a portion of the initial 40 armored vests only 40 miles from the front. Sheer developed by the Naval Medical Field Research Laboratory, Camp Lejeune, North proximity offered new opportuni- Carolina, for field-testing in Korea. The new vest weighed eight-and-one-half ties to circumvent the Joint pounds and combined curved, overlapping doron plates with flexible pads of bas- Operations Center request system, ket-weave nylon. The garment was said to stop a .45-caliber pistol or Thompson including Everest’s promise to allo- submachine gun bullet, all fragments of a hand grenade at three feet, 75 percent cate 40 sorties a day for offensive of 81mm mortar fragments at 10 feet, and the full thrust of an American bayo- operations. Closer division-wing net. relations seemed at least temporar- commanders to do the digging and forward to Hill 761 and received a ily acceptable to Eighth Army and patrolling Almond ordered. Spor- 7th Marines battalion to plug the Fifth Air Force because Van Fleet adic shelling by the Communists gap. Like Thomas, “Big Foot” had his planners hard at work on provided extra incentives, and the Brown thought the patrol base another version of Operation Marines still took casualties, 39 in concept dangerous and pointless; Overwhelming, the amphibious the last week of June. Thomas both sides had maintained very landing up the east coast that fought a successful rearguard close contact with shelling and would involve the 1st Marine action against Eighth Army and X patrols and needed no additional Division. Corps to hold pointless casualties action. The North Koreans immedi- General Almond, however, did down. On 22 June, Almond ately shelled the patrol base with not relent in his demands for more ordered Thomas to execute an such enthusiasm that Thomas and fighting of dubious value. His Eighth Army plan to push forces Brown withdrew the battalion and aggressiveness brought General northwards to the Badger Line, then told Almond that they would Thomas’ only embarrassment as a between a mile-and-a-half to two- meet X Corps reconnaissance division commander, the Taeu-san and-a-half miles in front of the requirements in other ways. Affair, an abortive operation that Kansas Line defenses. (Later in the Aware that Almond would soon remained unnoticed because the war the Badger Line would be leave command of X Corps, victims were the valiant men of the called the Combat Outpost Line.) Thomas had one overriding reason Korean Marine Corps’ 1st Reg- Each frontline regiment was sup- to remain on friendly terms with iment. Almond had convinced posed to occupy a combat outpost his difficult corps commander: the himself that the North Koreans of battalion strength; Thomas got close air support controversy. With (despite the Hill 761 experience) Almond on 26 June to agree that a pause in the action, Almond mar- would not fight for the lines they one outpost was sufficient for the shaled an array of studies for currently held. Therefore, Almond entire 1st Marine Division front, Eighth Army that demonstrated ordered the 1st Marine Division to given the nature of the terrain. The that the Fifth Air Force’s close con- capture the peak of Taeu-san (Hill 1st Marines sent its 3d Battalion trol of each day’s quota of close air 1179) and develop it into a regi-

33 Private First Class Jack Davis: Seasoned Infantryman

ith a chastened Jack Davis back in its ranks, weakening in the psychological sense. He wrote Vince the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, held its part of that he was not sure whether he could take the constant the No Name Line and watched the last mortar and artillery fire. “You can’t imagine what it does W to a man’s insides to see a big, six-foot man crying and Chinese offensive of May 1951 slide past the 7th Marines to its front and fall upon the left flank of the 2d Infantry shaking with fear, just because his mind has had all the Division. With the 1st Marines on the corps and division killing and bloodshed it can take. When this happens to left flank, the Marines went on the attack on 23 May and man, it also [is] because he is scared to death and wants a week later reached the high ground overlooking the to run but his loyalty won’t let [him] and that if he did reservoir. Squeezed out of the advance, the 1st Marines run, there’s no place to go. Sometime they get evacuat- reverted to division reserve. ed and sometimes they don’t . . . if they do come back in a couple of weeks . . . as soon as the first mortar or With the 5th and 7th Marines struggling to penetrate artillery shell comes screaming over and explodes near- the Communist hilltop positions north of Yanggu, the 1st by they are worse than ever.” Jack was proud that he Marines soon joined the slugfest. Somewhere in the bar- had not yet broken down, but he had some doubts ren ridges Jack Davis’ platoon found itself in a grenade- about his ability to carry on. “I was a dope fiend about throwing match with the stubborn—and uphill— the last month I was in the hills.” He took a quarter grain Chinese defenders. Chinese mortar shells fell among the of Phenobarbital, dispensed by a corpsman, so that he attacking Marines and took their toll, mostly in wound- would quit shaking from cold and fear while he stood ed. Jack saw five Marines from his squad go down in watch at night. He could not eat or sleep without drugs. one shower of grenade and mortar fragments. Amazed Unfortunately, the barbiturates gave him a “don’t give a by his own apparent invulnerability, Jack attacked a shit attitude” that worried him. Chinese position with his rifle and grenades after crawl- Upon his return to Company G, Jack requested an ing to a protected firing position. His attack and a flank interview with the new company commander, Captain assault by his buddy Frank Brown (carrying a BAR) Varge G. Frisbie, and asked if he could get some credit wiped out the Chinese bunker and spider-traps. More for his two Purple Hearts and be transferred somewhere American grenades completed the task. Jack thought he out of the battalion. Frisbie promised to take the matter might have killed three Chinese, his only victims of the up with the battalion personnel officer, and within days war. Private First Class Jack Davis had orders to report to the During the fight, Jack received his second wound of Service Battery, 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, for retraining the war, a grenade fragment that tore open his upper left as an artilleryman—and a survivor. arm and made him a one-armed Marine. While a corpsman bandaged Jack, his platoon commander asked him if he would take charge of three other walking wounded and lead them down the mountain to the battalion collecting and clearing station. Jack agreed, and off he went—slowly—trailed by his more seriously wounded comrades, one of whom had both eyes bandaged. As night fell, Jack’s forlorn band had reached the foot of the mountain, but had strayed through a “no man’s line” into the lines of the 5th Marines. Jack had no idea what the challenge and password was, so he simply screamed: “Wounded Marines! Wounded Marines!” Persuaded that no Chinese could scream with a Tennessee accent, the Marines brought in the wounded and sent them off to safety by jeep. Jack had a second Purple Heart, but his second wound was not severe enough for the Navy doctors to invoke a welcome Marine Corps policy: two wounds serious enough to require hospitalization bought a Marine a trip home. Jack’s arm healed more rapidly than his spirit. After almost six months in a rifle company with no real escape from the most primitive and exhausting field living conditions as well as combat, Jack Davis felt himself

34 mental patrol base on which to anchor the Badger Line. Thomas objected to the mission, pointing out that all the evidence suggested that Taeu-san anchored the main defensive position of the entire North Korean V Corps. Unmoved, Almond ordered the attack to be made, and Thomas assigned the mission to the 1st KMC Regiment, whose lines were closest to Taeu- san and who had shown some aptitude for mountain warfare. One suspects that Thomas saw no reason to squander one of his own Marine regiments on a forlorn hope. Colonel Kim Dae Sik accepted his assignment without a mur- mur, and the 1st Marine Division provided all the fire support it could possibly mount on behalf of the 1st KMC Regiment. Han Pon Haepyong Un Yongwon Han Haepyong! (Once a Marine, Always a Marine!) For five days (8-12 July), the Korean Marines—one battalion at a time—tried to take and hold Taeu-san but managed only to hang on to Hill 1001, a hillock only halfway to Taeu-san. Successive assaults on Hill 1100 produced dead Korean Marines, but no permanent foothold on the Taeu-san main ridge. All combinations of shelling, air strikes, and infantry attacks did not break the North Korean defenses. Colonel Gould P. Groves, senior adviser to the 1st National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC382938 KMC Regiment, demanded that the MajGen Gerald C. Thomas joins MajGen Clovis E. Byers, left, Gen Edward M. fruitless attacks cease before the Almond’s replacement as commander of X Corps, on board a helicopter at regiment became permanently Kwandae-ri, the Corps’ airstrip. Thomas and Byers developed a strong working relationship that profited the 1st Marine Division. ruined by the loss of its key leaders; one KMC battalion lost all its outpost on Hill 1001 even if the 1st faded with two bits of welcome company grade officers and all but KMC Regiment returned to the news: Almond was finally leaving five of its sergeants. Thomas insist- Kansas Line, which it did on 12 X Corps for a new posting in the ed to X Corps that Taeu-san would July. Of the 77 Marines killed or United States and the division had take an entire American regiment missing and 360 wounded in July, been ordered to turn over its sec- to capture (as indeed it later did) 55 of the dead or missing and 202 tor to the U.S. 2d Infantry Division and that the security mission could of the wounded were South and withdraw to corps reserve. be performed without the Badger Koreans. Almond flew off to Seoul after giv- Line. Almond insisted, however, At the 1st Division headquarters ing Thomas a Distinguished that the Koreans hold on to the the bad taste of the Taeu-san Affair Service Medal. He left X Corps in

35 the capable hands of Major After the various elements of the ordered X Corps to form a task General Clovis E. Byers, a 52-year- 1st Marine Division reached their force built around the 1st Marines old Ohioan and Military Academy reserve areas, Thomas ordered a (Task Force Able) to be prepared graduate (class of 1920) with an demanding training program of to move east for a preemptive impeccable professional reputation live-fire exercises, designed by his offensive. Thomas liked none of and companionable personality. new chief of staff, Colonel Victor this business and said so to Byers, Thomas, who knew Byers, could H. Krulak, and the G-3, Colonel who supported Thomas’ insistence not have been happier. In World Richard W. Hayward, former com- that Army ad hocery would give War II, Byers had served with dis- mander of the 5th Marines. Thomas way to Marine command if a real tinction in the Southwest Pacific prowled the regimental training crisis arose. There was none, but theater as commanding general, areas by helicopter and jeep: the Thomas and Byers cemented their 32d Infantry Division, chief of staff 5th Marines near Inje, the 7th sound working relationship. As of I Corps, and chief of staff of Marines near Yanggu, and the 1st Byers wrote another Army general: Eighth Army. He had then com- Marines near Hongchon. The pat- “the 1st Marine Division under the manded the 82d Airborne Division, tern of deployment (with the bat- command of Major General the Army’s only combat-ready con- talions of the 11th Marines posi- Thomas, with Brigadier General tingency force, before becoming tioned to either fire for the 2d Whaling as Assistant Division the G-1 (Personnel) of the Army Infantry Division or train with the Commander and Col. Krulak as Staff. Byers, however, had one glar- Marine infantry regiments) reflect- Chief of Staff, has become a vastly ing weakness. In a faction-ridden ed Byers’ concern about a sudden different outfit from that which it Army, he was a protégé of attack on the 2d Infantry Division was under its former commander. Lieutenant General Robert L. or the 5th ROK Division. Byers also They cooperate with the other divi- Eichelberger, just retired, and not a felt some anxiety about his eastern sions of the Corps smoothly and member of the European clique of flank with the South Korean I willingly.” Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Corps. Eighth Army’s nervousness Byers showed his appreciation Collins, Ridgway, and Van Fleet. exceeded Byers’, and Van Fleet in tangible ways. His staff ensured that the equipment rehabilitation of Combat-ready division replacements disembark from a U.S. Navy landing ship. the division went forward without In the movement of Marines the Corps functioned as a single great unit, even friction. X Corps engineers and though an ocean separated the vanguard in Korea from rear echelons in the artillery helped the Marines turn United States. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A157123 swamps into muddy camps with a few amenities like shower and mess tents with floors and drainage. Army and Marine technical experts worked together to train novice personnel and put everything from ordnance, tanks, radios, watches, motor vehicles, to engineering equipment in working order. The military policemen of both Services cooperated in trying to control the flood of Koreans sweeping toward the Marine tent camps to sell carnal and alcoholic pleasures. In turn, Thomas ordered 12 special Marine training teams from his infantry regiments to work with the 1st KMC Regiment to improve the regiment’s use of supporting arms. All units conducted at least a third of their training at night. Night patrols went to work with rounds in the chamber and

36 engaged guerrillas along the rear From General Byers’ perspective Once More into the Breach area roads. Marines worked with X Corps and the neighboring ROK Korean security forces and laborers I Corps occupied a vulnerable part With neither a ceasefire nor constructing additional defensive of the Kansas Line, more vulnera- great offensive in prospect, positions to protect both I Corps ble than the western sectors and General Van Fleet ordered his flanks. the “Iron Triangle” where U.S. I corps commanders to plan opera- Although only Thomas and his and IX Corps faced the bulk of the tions that would improve their immediate staff knew about the recovering Chinese expeditionary control of the critical terrain in continuing exchanges between force. Byers’ G-2 made a special their sectors. They should prepare Ridgway and Van Fleet over future study of the activities of the North either for some later offensive operations, the focus and pace of Korean III Corps (three divisions of (should the truce talks remain in the 1st Marine Division training 8,500 each) and concluded that the recess) or to defend South Korea program suggested that the divi- North Koreans had the capability for the indefinite future. With the sion might provide the spearhead to mount a serious offensive on defenses of the Kansas Line largely of a new Eighth Army offensive. any X Corps division sector along completed, Van Fleet on 30 July Van Fleet urged Operation the Kansas Line. Well ahead of the decided to convert the combat out- Overwhelming upon Ridgway, but Chinese rearmament programs, III post line (the Wyoming Line) into only if Eighth Army received Corps had accepted a full set of an advanced main line of resis- American reinforcements. The new new Soviet weapons and showed tance where the terrain allowed. Ridgway, a paragon of caution, did every intention of using them The distance between Kansas Line not embrace the plan. Thomas and again in the attack. Over the latter and the Wyoming Line varied Krulak anticipated a landing until part of August the intelligence ana- between two miles and 10 miles. they received a clear signal that lysts saw the usual omens of an In X Corps’ sector Van Fleet there would be no Inchon in their attack: increased patrolling and thought that the trace of the front future when Van Fleet on 3 August counter-patrolling ambushes, in- in July did not allow Byers to dom- ruled that the 1st Amphibian creased desertions, a reduced flow inate the Punchbowl and the Tractor Battalion and 1st Armored of refugees, tank sightings, the Sochon and Soyang River valleys. Amphibian Battalion would not be mass distribution of ammunition Van Fleet wanted X Corps to shift returned to the division’s opera- and rations, a decline in vehicle the focus of its attacks to the high tional control. movement, and the imposition of ground (including Taeu-san) west The disappointment did not radio silence. In the meantime, at of the Punchbowl, but the heavy change the urgency of bringing the Van Fleet’s insistence, Byers had rains of early August made it 1st Marine Division to a new peak ordered the 2d Infantry Division impossible for Byers to begin the of strength in numbers and effec- into action west of the Punchbowl, attacks of the U.S. 2d Infantry tiveness. Two new replacement and the division had exhausted Division and the 7th ROK Division drafts (the 11th and 12th) would itself again fighting the North (Brigadier General Kim Yong Bae). arrive in August and early Koreans and the rain over terrain The 8th ROK Division (Brigadier September with more than 4,000 only too familiar to the Marines. General Choi Yong Hee) would officers and men, more than Only the names of the hills attack the dominant hills east of replacing casualties and a small (“Bloody Ridge” and “J Ridge”) and the Punchbowl. rotation draft. By mid-August the the Service of the bodies changed. Having designated an intermedi- division had the responsibility of To the west Major General Paik ate phase line (Hays) between the caring for 32,000 American and Sun Yup’s ROK I Corps made no Kansas and Wyoming Lines, Byers Korean personnel, making the significant progress against three quickly learned that the terrain, the division almost a small Army NKPA divisions, all entrenched and weather, and the North Koreans corps. The division’s combat very combative in the hills east of would prevent any easy victories. power—enhanced by its ability to the Punchbowl. The campaign The battles west of the Punchbowl use close air support as available— wrecked the North Korean II produced such disappointing remade it difficult for Van Fleet to Corps, but III Corps remained ready sults and bad blood between the move it from the eastern part of to enter the fray, perhaps in a American and Korean commanders the front where the only other major counteroffensive. The only that Byers narrowed the division American division was the hard- fresh force in the eastern sector sectors and committed the 5th used 2d Infantry Division. was the 1st Marine Division. ROK Division (Brigadier General

37 Min Ki Shik) west of the 2d South Korean divisions on its east- campaign, announced on the 23d Infantry Division, which meant that ern flank had not kept pace, thus that the Eighth Army would have X Corps had three committed divi- giving Byers some concern about to manage with less close air sup- sions west of the Punchbowl and his corps boundary. port through the end of the month. only the 8th ROK Division in the Meeting on both 25 and 26 On 26 August, Byers called Soyang River valley and the domi- August, Van Fleet and Byers con- General Thomas and told him to nant hills on either side of the val- cluded that they could no longer move at least part of his division to ley. On 23 August, Byers warned hold the 1st Marine Division in the front east of the Punchbowl Van Fleet that he might have to reserve since all the rest of X Corps where the Marines would take up relieve the 2d Infantry Division divisions had bogged down, and the missions of the 8th ROK with the 1st Marine Division, the corps could not change the tac- Division. Thomas had four days which was “very anxious to take tical balance with artillery and warning since Byers alerted him to action,” but Van Fleet still had an close air support alone. Ammuni- a possible move on 23 August. amphibious role in mind for the tion shortages, caused principally With the plans already in place, Marines, and he vetoed the idea. by transportation problems, had Thomas ordered the 7th Marines to Van Fleet thus spared the 1st already affected operations. Troop start for the front that night, fol- Marine Division the mission of movements, for example, on 28-30 lowed by the 1st KMC Regiment. capturing “Heartbreak Ridge.” August prevented the stockpiling The 5th Marines would move last, Only the 8th ROK Division had of 1,800 tons of munitions. The and the 1st Marines not at all since done better than anticipated, cap- Fifth Air Force, anticipating a break the regiment would be the only turing some of the high ground in the weather that would allow a corps reserve. east of the Punchbowl, but the surge in the interdiction bombing Thomas knew that the division

Rain and mud fail to halt the mortarmen of the 5th mortars at enemy-held positions. Marines’ 4.2 Inch Mortar Company as they fire their heavy National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC380808

38 would receive an offensive mission: capture a ridgeline, an eastern extension of the hill mass that formed the northern rim of the Punchbowl. A corps objective designated Yoke, the ridge had four dominant west-to-east peaks (Hills 930, 1026, 924, and 702) and another north-south extension that began at Hill 702 and ran south through Hills 680, 755, and 793, thus forming a large L just west of the Soyang River. The river itself curled westwards, bounding Yoke Ridge on the north. Since the North Koreans showed no sign of reduced morale and fighting tenacity—they, in fact, had mounted many aggressive counterattacks west of the Punchbowl—the assignment had nothing easy about it. The rains and planning changes made 27-31 August some of the most discouraging days Thomas and his Marines had faced together. From the division commander’s perspective, the mudslides and floods that slowed his truck con- voys were bad enough, but the operational confusion within X Corps, fed by tactical errors and bad blood between the 2d Infantry Division and 8th ROK Division, made the changes of orders reach epidemic proportions. Before it could displace, the 5th Marines detached a battalion to the operational control of the 2d Infantry Division to defend the Kansas Line while the 23d Infantry slipped to the west. The 1st KMC Regiment Courtesy of the Naval Institute Press also picked up part of the Kansas airwaves, and commanders and ward positions. He tried to prevent Line defense, which meant that staff officers scurried by helicopter the diversion of the 5th Marines to only the 7th Marines, struggling to and jeep from headquarters to the 2d Infantry Division and kept cross the swollen Soyang River by headquarters. General Byers, for the 1st Marines ready for such wading or by a shuttle of DUKWs example, made 12 commands calls time, as Byers would release the (amphibian trucks) could man the in one week (25-31 August) and regiment from corps control. In the sketchy positions on the edge of received General Van Fleet three meantime, the 11th Marines fired Yoke Ridge held by dispirited sol- times. General Thomas and his missions all along the corps front, diers of the 8th ROK Division. staff made the best of a bad situa- scattered about the valleys in a Confusion reigned, and the rain tion, pushing the 7th Marines and desperate attempt to stay close to fell. Warning orders flooded the 1st KMC Regiment into their for- its ammunition supply and to

39 avoid having its fires masked by to Thomas the next day: attack On the other hand, North Korean the hills to its front. Yoke Ridge on 31 August. Two fac- prisoners taken by the 8th ROK During a Van Fleet-Byers confer- tors related to the enemy situation Division and the Marines reported ence on 29 August, the army and helped shape Thomas’ plan. large troop movements to the corps commanders agreed that Patrols by the division’s Recon- north and much talk about another they could not wait for more suc- naissance Company and the 5th Communist offensive while the cess west of the Punchbowl before Marines discovered enemy patrols weather limited United Nations ordering the 1st Marine Division active on either side of the Kansas Command air support. Visual sight- into action. Byers passed the news Line, but no more than a nuisance. ings and other intelligence sources Corporal Jack Davis: Truck Driver and Short Timer

ack Davis, an old man at 19, found a new home in rials, Jack hauled cut wood for the battalion’s stoves. He Service Battery, 3d Battalion, 11th Marines. His prin- became an expert at fitting out bunkers with furniture Jcipal responsibility was driving a dump truck and made from used shell boxes and other handy materials; working as a laborer on the battalion’s gun positions and he and his fellow engineers used layers of sandbags, other construction projects. As the weather cooled in the logs, and loose dirt to build sleeping bunkers that could fall of 1951, the 1st Marine Division resumed its attacks withstand a direct shell hit. Jack estimated that they on the high ridges northeast of the Punchbowl. Its oppo- made seven-foot thick ceilings to provide overhead pro- nents were troops of the re-born Korean People’s Army tection. 2d Division. Another enemy was a monsoon season that Even if the pace of the combat froze along with the lasted through the entire month of August, washing weather and Panmunjom peace talks, danger still waited away roads and bridges and making life generally mis- for the unwary and unlucky. Employing their new erable for all hands. Jack Davis found his dump truck in Russian field artillery, the Chinese and North Koreans high demand. In addition to the usual construction mate- started to fire short counterbattery barrages late every

40 second or third afternoon. Even the bunkers to which He warned Vince that no one in Tennessee should dis- the Marines fled to avoid the shelling could be death cuss his love life. Jack also continued to send money traps of their own; weakened by the rains and shellings home for his college savings account. His sense of duty and too heavy for their supporting walls, bunker roofs received a jump-start with his promotion to corporal in habitually collapsed. One such roof fell on top of Jack, November. His greatest leadership accomplishment to bruising his body and pride and burning parts of his date was organizing the theft of an Army jeep that the body when a stove overturned and ignited the bunker’s battery sorely needed. He did his work, and he stayed interior. Jack took his third trip to sickbay with cracked out of trouble as he watched veterans of earlier replace- ribs. ment drafts turn in their equipment and head for pro- There were few diversions north of the Soyang River. cessing for a flight or transport berth back to California. Jack grew his third mustache, not as long and menacing By Thanksgiving the 3d Battalion had endured two as his “infantry mustache” of the summer. One day he snowfalls, general freezing, and the news that it was not received a call to report to battery headquarters, only to on the itinerary for Bob Hope’s Christmas show. Jack learn that the battery commander and first sergeant had bought a contraband bottle of Canadian Club to hoard arranged a little ceremony to award Jack his first and sec- until Christmas. He liked the brand new thermal boots ond Purple Hearts (a medal with gold star affixed). Jack issued to the battalion—until he had to change his had no idea what to do with the medal and presentation sweat-soaked socks in the cold. After a muted celebra- box until the first sergeant suggested he send it home. tion of Christmas, Jack started watching the organization The final package featured paper torn from boxes in the of each rotation group. He wrote Vince that he now mess tent, secured with communications wire. The Davis stood 29th on the list and that 37 men had started home family received the box and properly concluded that in December. Jack reported that he was “kinda nervous Jack had not been entirely honest in his summer letters. about coming home. I’m still not doing much work per Although his anxiety about dying eased some, Jack’s usual.” He worried about his future relations with his fears about living grew as his tour in Korea shortened. parents, whom he remembered as full of sermons about Under the rotation policy adopted in 1951, he could all the things he should not do and think. “If they start a expect to rotate home sometime in early 1952, and the bunch of harping and bullshit, I ship into the regular Marine Corps, having little need for short-timer reservists Marines because I really like this outfit.” He admitted to at the end of a two-year contract, promised to release Vince, however, the he would really have to be aggra- him go to college short of his two-year obligation. Jack vated with civilian life to re-up for a second tour. He cer- thought about getting his personal life in some order. tainly was not going to miss his ride back to the United He wrote a “Dear Jane” letter to a girl friend whose reli- States. On 18 February 1952, Jack Davis left Korea for giosity and immaturity now struck Jack as intolerable. home. confirmed that fresh enemy troops North Korean 2d Division in the fight at the head of the 1st Platoon, were going into position on Yoke process of moving into the Company H, 3d Battalion, 7th Ridge. The 1st Marine Division bunkers of the North Korean 1st Marines. Occupying Hill 680 on 30 attack of 31 August was designed Division on the morning of 31 August, the company had endured to squeeze out the Koreans on the August, the initial Korean Marine a heavy mortar barrage and eastern part of Yoke Ridge and to and 7th Marines attacks still faced learned that North Korean regulars prevent the objective area from extensive minefields and mortar had replaced the scattered Chinese being reinforced from the north barrages as the troops worked the company had chased north of while the battle raged. Two their way uphill. Marine artillery the Punchbowl. The next day the Korean Marine battalions advanc- fire damped some of the enemy company attacked Hill 702, Yoke ing in column from their position fire. The two 7th Marines battalions Ridge, against “light resistance.” on Hill 755 would attack north to took their objectives, but the 1st Brower had commanded his pla- take Hills 1026 and 924 while two KMC Regiment advanced no far- toon for three months, but he and battalions on the 7th Marines ther than the base of Hill 924, the his Marines had not yet closed with would attack westwards from the most heavily-defended position the enemy since they always Soyang River valley with two bat- encountered on eastern Yoke seemed to be patrolling the divi- talions abreast. They would seize Ridge. Almost all the division’s sion’s western-most flank, keeping the ground east and north through casualties for August (three killed an eye on the neighboring South Hill 702 to Hill 602, another lower and 57 wounded) fell on the first Korean division. As the skirmish ridge that ended at the river as it day of the Battle for Yoke Ridge. line approached Hill 702, the changed its direction from east- Second Lieutenant Frederick F. North Koreans greeted it with a west to north-south. Catching the Brower moved into his first big barrage of mortar fire. Only min-

41 utes into the battle, Brower crum- Marines. With American Marines September. The Commanding pled with multiple wounds in his holding the northern edge of Yoke General, Fleet Marine Force, left leg, and he looked with dismay Ridge, the South Korean Marines Pacific (and likely Commandant) at his bloody and misshapen left finally took Hills 924 and 1026, met with the Major General knee. Pistol marksman, model which completed the mission. It Christian F. Schilt, commander, and Marine platoon commander, dedi- did not end enemy counterattacks Brigadier General William O. cated to a career in the Marine and shelling, but the two regiments Brice, deputy commander of the Corps, Brower ended his first bat- held the objective. The 7th Marines 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. “A dis- tle on a stretcher carried by ner- suffered five dead and 75 wound- cussion of the close air support vous Korean “chiggy bearers.” ed, the Korean Marines 70 dead problem revealed that unsatisfacto- Although he eventually served his and missing and 274 wounded. ry conditions still prevail in regard full Korean tour as a semi-cripple, The North Koreans left behind to close air support for the 1st his career in a rifle company ended almost 600 bodies to be counted Marine Division.” Shepherd then on 31 August 1951, and his dam- and 40 prisoners. None of the complained about the poor air aged knee forced him into disabil- allies thought the victory had been support to Van Fleet and Everest ity retirement in 1955. It had been easy. even before he consulted with a short but final war for Second The capture of Yoke Ridge Byers and Thomas on 1 Lieutenant Brower. might have been less costly if the September. Shepherd recruited The fight gave few hints of the Marines had received more effec- Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, ordeals ahead. On 1 September, tive close air support. General Commander, Naval Forces, Far General Shepherd visited General Shepherd made it one of the high- East, to join a coalition of senior Thomas and found no cause for est priority issues when he visited officers who would force the issue alarm. Thomas felt confident that the war zone from 27 August to 12 with Ridgway. the attacks that day would take During his Korean inspection trip, LtGen Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., Commanding care of the Yoke Ridge problem. General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, left, discussed not only close air support, but After seeing Byers, they agreed also the performance of the Sikorsky HRS-1 helicopter. Pictured to his left are that X Corps had problems west of MajGen Christian F. Schilt, Commanding General, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, the Punchbowl where the 2d LtCol George W. Herring, commander officer of Marine Helicopter Transport Infantry Division still had not Squadron 161, and newly-promoted MajGen William O. Brice, the wing’s deputy secured all of “Bloody Ridge” commander. despite the loss of 2,772 American Department of Defense (Photo) A131870 and attached Korean soldiers since 18 August. For the Marines, however, the attacks of 2 September took only Hill 924 (but not Hill 1026) and consolidated the 7th Marines defenses on Hill 602. Throughout the day and the next, the North Koreans bombarded Yoke Ridge and mounted counterattacks of up to battalion-size. The 1st Marine Division’s modest successes came in no small part from the artillery fire from two 11th Marines battalions and three Army corps artillery battalions, which fired 8,400 rounds on 1-2 September, an amount of fire that exceeded the “Van Fleet Day of Fire” for the five battalions (6,000 rounds). The battle drew in the remaining battalions of the 1st KMC Regiment and the 7th

42 The battle of Yoke Ridge pro- Marine Division’s fire support hours. Some trucks still had to be vided ample evidence that the Fifth coordinator made the point in his diverted to lift troops to and from Air Force would not modify the briefing for Shepherd: “Close air the front. In fact, the estimates for request system and that the real support furnished by the Fifth Air shells fell short of the actual purpose of the Joint Operations Force JOC was inadequate and expenditures, 24,000 tons (874,000 Center was to prevent the diver- often not opportune.” rounds) for X Corps in September sion of fighter-bombers from Shell shortages, complex plan- 1951. Operation Strangle, the campaign ning by both Eighth Army and X Intelligence officers believed against the Communist lines of Corps headquarters, and the deter- that X Corps would need every communication. The 1st Marine mination of the North Koreans shell it could find. The combat Division had requested 26 aircraft brought a pause of six days to 1st around the Punchbowl revealed a to support the attack of 1 Marine Division operations. The system of defensive fortifications September. Despite the fact that likely artillery shell expenditures of that had been built before 1951 the requests had been made 40 any future offensive—combined and strengthened since April. hours before the mission, only 12 with road conditions between Much of the NKPA I Corps had aircraft were assigned. Requests Hongchon and the front—would been withdrawn, but its replace- made by the forward and other air make an immediate offensive ment—the NKPA III Corps—was controllers in the heat of combat beyond Yoke Ridge difficult. The one of the largest (30,000 soldiers) took more than an hour to pro- division goal was to stockpile 10 and best-trained in the North duce aircraft on station. One 7th days of fire in artillery shells (“Van Korean army. Unlike the Chinese, Marines request for air strikes Fleet days”) at ammunition supply the North Koreans had plenty of against a heavy North Korean post-60B, the ammunition dump artillery, too, out-numbering counterattack had been canceled and distribution point run by X Marine artillery pieces in the by X Corps’ G-2 because he did Corps and division ordnance men Punchbowl sector. In the Marine not believe the counterattack was located 48 miles from Hongchon division’s zone of action the NKPA real. Despite the mounting evi- and five miles from the gun line. 1st Division appeared to be dence—and much of it came from Until the roads dried and engineers assigned the bunker defense role the 2d Infantry Division’s ordeals repaired the washouts and while the NKPA 45th Division to the west—the Fifth Air Force strengthened the roadbed, the mounted counterattacks. made no concessions. The 1st round trip to ASP-60B took 25 General Van Fleet did not win approval of his amphibious hook The body of a Communist soldier lies atop a bunker captured by elements of the north to Tongchon, but his plan- 7th Marines during the assault against Hill 673. National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC380918 ners produced some more modest variants that might have put all or part of the 1st Marine Division within the ROK I Corps area and closer to the air and naval gunfire support that Task Force 77 could provide. An offensive westward from the coast might bring the Marines and the ROK I Corps in behind the fortified belt so well- manned by the North Koreans. For almost 10 days, Van Fleet and Byers examined their contingency plans and ruled them out as too risky and subject at any moment to another Ridgway veto. The result of the operational paralysis was that General Thomas learned on 8- 9 September that he would repos- sess the 1st Marines from corps reserve, which would release the

43 The “Chiggy Bearers”

hey could be found trudging along after every If a KSC “regiment”—with one assigned to each Marine rifle company in Korea’s mountains in the American division—had efficient and honest officers, summer of 1951. Small men, powered by muscu- the KSC bearer did not fare badly—provided he lived to T collect his pay. Clothing and food were not a problem, lar but thin legs, bent under the loads of their A-frames or chigae, struggling along with ammunition, rations, which could not be said for his countrymen; the “chig- and water, they were the “chiggy bearers.” The 1st gy bearer” ration was supposed to provide 3,500 calo- Marine Division depended upon them to close the gap ries a day and included a ration of 10 cigarettes. After between the supply points served by trucks and the some strident protests in 1951, KSC pay scales moved Marine companies engaged in battle. The “chiggy bear- from those set for the South Korean army toward those ers” made it possible for the Marines to search out and paid other Koreans working as civilians for the United destroy the enemy. Nations Command. Organized by the U. S. Eighth Army in 1950 and orig- One American army logistician calculated that an inally called the Civil Transportation Corps, this army of American infantry company required just about as many Korean laborers provided the United Nations forces with bearers as its own strength, around 150-200. If so, the construction workers and pack bearers. For carrying 1st Marine Division had a “chiggy bearer” shortage since supplies, the Koreans relied upon their traditional it had only 1,922 KSC members in support in May 1951. wooden A-frame packboard or chigae. Although The bearer “gap,” however, applied to all of United renamed the Korean Service Corps (KSC) in 1951, the Nations Command. By war’s end the KSC had a paper bearer corps remained the chigaebudae (A-Frame Army) strength of 133,000, but its “A-frame strength” was about or “chiggy bearers” to the Marines. 100,000 or roughly one bearer for every six American The “chiggy bearers” had either been drafted into and allied soldiers in Korea. Like everyone else on the their country’s service or had volunteered. Members of United Nations side of the war, the “chiggy bearers” car- the KSC had to be medically unfit for duty in the South ried more than their prescribed load. Korean army or be over age 38. Marines often charac- Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A8434 terized the “chiggy bearers” as “elderly,” but, in fact, the KSC included men and boys who had convinced someone that they were unfit for frontline service in the South Korean army. The South Korean government had almost absolute power to commandeer people and things for the war effort, but in reality the KSC competed with other American-financed Korean service agencies for personnel and could count only on unskilled workers (often displaced farmers and farm laborers) for the bulk of its manpower. In many ways the lot of the average “chiggy bearer” was not a happy one, however essential. His contract said that he would carry up to a 50-pound load for as many as 10 miles each day, but the bearers often carried heavier loads for longer distances, especially if measured from valley floor to hilltop. The lines of bearers, shepherded by Korean soldiers assigned as KSC cadremen, often came under artillery and mortar fire. American divisions did not keep track of KSC casualties. Any man could be pressed into service as a bearer for six months, and the living and medical conditions for the bearers were no better than most refugee camps. the end of the war an estimated 300,000 Koreans had served a tour as a “chiggy bear,” and at the height of the fluid war of 1951 the South Korean government impressed an average of 3,000 men and boys a week into the KSC. A postwar accounting of KSC personnel listed 2,064 porters killed in action, 2,448 missing in action, and 4,282 wounded in action.

44 5th Marines from the Kansas Line cealed and strongly-built bunkers conspicuously absent. The key for additional offensive operations and trench systems, the North ground maneuver came from a east of the Punchbowl. Except for Koreans made the 7th Marines (all company of the 1st Battalion that the 8th ROK Division on Thomas’ three battalions) pay dearly in made an undetected night march right flank, the rest of X Corps three days of fighting, 34 dead and to reach a poorly-defended entrant would seize another hill mass soon 321 wounded. The assault compa- to Hill 673, then assaulting through called “Heartbreak Ridge.” Byers nies that crossed the line of depar- a breach in the North Korean expected the Marines to resume ture in the morning fog of 11 defenses. Nevertheless, the 2d the attack on 11 September. September did not expect a walk- Battalion’s attack on Hill 749 With only 48 hours to mount an over. Despite the hour of intense stalled with the three rifle compa- attack, Thomas had little alterna- artillery preparation, the North nies reduced, scattered, and bat- tive but to look again to the 7th Korean defenders fought with tling back small counterattacks in Marines to lead the advance on unflagging tenacity until killed. the dark before a battalion of the Kanmubong Ridge, the hill mass Each bunker system came ringed 1st Marines replaced them on 13 directly north of Yoke Ridge and with mines and booby-traps, and September. So hard-pressed and the division’s next objective. The Korean mortar shells and grenades scattered were the Marines of 2d concept of the operation envi- showered crippling fragments Battalion, 7th Marines, that the bat- sioned a two-phase operation that across every contested position. talion misreported its location and would begin with the 7th Marines Long-range heavy machine gun gave Nickerson the impression that seizing the two most dominant fire from higher up Kanmubong his regiment had taken Hill 749, peaks at the eastern edge of the Ridge took its toll among the which it had not. Moreover, the ridge, Hills 673 and 749. To elimi- Marine assault units that struggled approaches to the hill were still nate a transverse ridge spur (Hill forward with flamethrowers and held by some very combative 680), a secondary attack would satchel charges. North Koreans. Assuming opera- strike directly north from the Hays Once again dark memories of tional control of the 2d Battalion, Line on Yoke Ridge. This mission Iwo Jima and Okinawa came to the the 1st Marines, under Colonel went to 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, veterans. More heirs of the Thomas A. Wornham, picked up commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Japanese military tradition than the the responsibility for occupying Bernard T. Kelly, with the main Soviet, the North Koreans showed Hill 749. Only a helicopter recon- attack to 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, no hesitation in launching counter- naissance proved that Hill 749 under Lieutenant Colonel James G. attacks large and small and at would have to be taken first. Kelly, relatively untouched by the unexpected times and from unex- The logistical burden of sup- fight for Yoke Ridge. When the 7th pected directions. Although the porting five committed infantry Marines had secured the Hill 673- enemy did not overrun any Marine battalions (the situation on 13 Hill 749 area, the 1st Marines positions, only quick shooting and September) proved too much for would come forward and continue quick thinking broke the backs of the “chiggy bearers” of the Korean the attack up Kanmubong’s long the attacks with bullets and Service Corps 103d Division, but axis, “ridge-running,” to capture a artillery shells. Although the 3d the Marines now had an alternative series of peaks designated (east to Battalion took its objective with no for the emergency resupply of west) Hills 812, 980, 1052, and assistance, Colonel Nickerson had ammunition and medical goods 1030. The scheme of maneuver to commit his 2d Battalion to aid and the evacuation of the serious- would allow tanks to fire across the 1st Battalion on 12 September. ly-wounded: the Marine Corps the front of the advancing troops Only a converging two-battalion helicopter. Although the light heli- and artillery fire (even naval gun- attack—the companies in col- copters of Marine Observation fire) to converge in concentrations umn—finally seized Hill 673, and Squadron 6 (VMO-6) had been a from the firing positions to the the subsequent 2d Battalion attack fixture in operations since August south and southeast. The advances on Hill 749 fought itself out far 1950, the battle for Kanmubong had to be supported by hundreds short of the crest. In all the fighting Ridge opened a new era in Marine of “chiggy bearers” since there tank fire proved decisive when the Corps history, the combat employ- were no roads of any kind to bring bunkers could be identified and ment of helicopters as an integral the ammunition, food, and water fired upon, line-of-sight. Many part of Marine air-ground opera- forward in any other way. bunkers, however, could have tions. General Thomas and Fighting from cleverly-con- been reached by close air support, Colonel Krulak had both played

45 key roles in developing the con- 300 Marines and 15 Sikorsky HRS- 1st Marines, commanded by cept of vertical envelopment and 1 transport helicopters arrived at Lieutenant Colonel Franklin B. fighting for funds to procure and the airstrip (X-83) near the division Nihart, faced another day’s battle test helicopters in HMX-1, the command post at Sohwa-ri and with plenty of ammunition, water, experimental helicopter squadron moved in with VMO-6. Anticipat- and rations and without the bur- created at Marine Corps Air Station, ing some employment in the den of casualties. The first lift Quantico, Virginia. HMX-1 gave weeks ahead, Krulak and Herring brought in a helicopter support birth in January 1951 to Marine prepared the squadron for opera- team from the 2d Battalion to run Transport Helicopter Squadron 161 tions in combat landing zones and the landing zone, and the remain- (HMR-161), commanded by a heli- declared it ready for commitment ing 27 flights delivered nine tons of copter pioneer, Lieutenant Colonel on 12 September. Thomas told cargo and evacuated 74 casualties. George W. Herring. Herring HMR-161 to carry supplies to the Not one helicopter was lost to brought HMR-161 to Korea in embattled Marines near Hill 793. ground fire or accident. A similar August 1951 ready to make its Operation Windmill I on 13 resupply mission would have combat debut under the sharp eye September lasted only about three required almost 400 Korean bear- of Krulak, who had made vertical hours, but its impact stretched into ers and a full day to accomplish. envelopment his latest magnificent the future by years. In the short Unlike an earlier parachute resup- obsession. Herring’s squadron of term it made sure that 2d Battalion, ply mission to the Korean Marines,

Second Lieutenant George H. Ramer

orn in 1927 at Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, he enlisted in the Navy in 1944. After the war, he Bentered Bucknell University, from which he graduated in 1950 with a degree in Political Science and History. While attending Bucknell, he enrolled in the Marine Corps Reserve Platoon Leader’s program and was commissioned in the Marine Corps Reserve. He taught high school civics and history in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, before being called to active duty in January 1951 at his own request. As a platoon leader with Company I, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, in Korea, his bravery in covering the withdrawal of his platoon on Kanmubong Ridge on 12 September 1951 was recognized by the posthumous award of the Medal of Honor. His citation reads, in part:

Second Lieutenant Ramer fearlessly led his men up the steep slopes and, although he and the majority of his unit were wounded during the ascent, boldly continued to spearhead the assault. . . . he staunchly carried the attack to the top, personally annihilated one enemy bunker with grenade and carbine fire and captured the objective with his remaining eight men. Unable to hold the position against an immediate, overwhelming hostile counterattack, he ordered his group to withdraw and single-handedly fought the enemy to furnish cover for his men and for the evacuation of three fatally wounded Marines. Severely wounded a second time, Second Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A48025 Lieutenant Ramer . . . courageously manned his In 1963, a facility for physical conditioning at Marine post until the hostile troops overran his position Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, was named in his mem- and he fell mortally wounded. ory.—Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret)

46 Whirlybirds

hen Marine Transport Helicopter Squadron very light loads and insured flight instability. The front- (HMR) 161 deployed to Korea, the squadron mounted engine dramatically increased the helicopter’s Wtook with it an aircraft that pushed the techni- carrying capacity and simplified maintenance since the cal state-of-the-art in helicopter design into a new fron- HRS-1 had clam-shaped nose doors that provided easy tier. Designated the HRS-1, the Sikorsky-designed and access to the engine for the ground crew mechanics. The built helicopter had endured the inevitable ups and new design also improved vertical flight stability. downs that characterized the introduction of any pio- In the earliest stage of evaluation, 1948-1949, Navy and neering aircraft. Without government contracts, the Marine Corps officers, encouraged by Sikorsky, saw capa- Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the Vought-Sikorsky bilities the helicopter did not yet have, even under opti- Corporation, Stratford, Connecticut, produced an aircraft mum weather and altitude conditions. The original designated the S-55, first flown in 1949. Initially market- requirement the naval aviators placed on the helicopter ing the aircraft as a commercial utility helicopter, Igor was a 10-man load (225 pounds per Marine) to be carried Sikorsky hoped the S-55 could compete with the Piasecki 150 miles. The requirements shrank, as it became more H-21 (or PD-22), which had been adopted by the U.S. Air and more obvious that the HRS-1 was not going to be a Force for its air rescue service. The Navy, however, was two-ton-plus lifter. All the helicopter’s other characteris- in the hunt for a general-purpose helicopter that could be tics, however, made it the aircraft of choice for the adopted for shipboard use. Naval aviators liked the S-55 Bureau of Aeronautics, and the Marine Corps joined the because of its economical design, modest size, and ser- program in August 1950, with an initial order of 40 air- viceability. craft. Redesignated the HO4S-1 in its naval model, the S-55 The HRS-1s that went to Korea came into service with represented at least two major engineering advances: the a gross weight rating (7,000 pounds at sea level) about addition of a tail rotor for greater stability in flight and a 1,000 pounds slighter than originally designed with a front-mounted Pratt & Whitney R-1340-57 engine that payload reduced to 1,420 pounds under optimal flight could generate a respectable 600 horsepower. The engine conditions. Its troop load dropped from 10 to four to six. placement helped solve a nagging problem of weight-dis- The helicopter’s maximum speed remained at 90 knots, tribution and flight characteristics. Prior helicopter mod- but its range had dropped by half to 70-mile round trips. els placed the engine directly under the rotor-blades, a Nevertheless, the HRS-1 was not a “whirlybird” of disap- design that gravely limited any so-designed helicopter to pointment, but promise. National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-433347

47 none of the cargo drifted off to 3d Battalion to seize the ridgeline deserters reported that their regi- places and users unknown. The across the Soyang on Nihart’s right ment had 1,200 casualties. use of externally-slung, quick- flank. Nihart’s battalion finally Wornham now had to commit release loads in cargo nets made cleared Hill 749 after sharp fighting his reserve 1st Battalion to ensure easy. For the corpsmen and one company at a time with only a that the complete Hill 673-Hill 749 wounded Marines, helicopter evac- platoon in battle by the evening of complex was secure, leaving uation meant that a hard-hit casu- 14 September. Before Nihart could Thomas only one unbloodied regi- alty could be transported to a med- mount another attack the next day, ment (the 5th Marines) to assault ical clearing station (“battalion the North Koreans deluged his the heights of Kanmubong Ridge. med”) in 30 minutes, not doomed Marines with heavy artillery and At the cost of more than 800 casu- to a day-long stretcher ride. Even mortar fire, pinning them to their alties in the 7th and 1st Marines, without accumulated statistics, Hill 749 positions. The North the 1st Marine Division had only medical personnel could already Korean regiment with accompany- seized the ground identified five tell that medical evacuation heli- ing artillery tried to throw the 2d days before as the departure point copters would save lives and boost Battalion off Hill 749 for four hours for the more demanding advance morale. during the night of 15-16 up the spine of the ridge. Now it The plan for the 1st Marines to September and left almost 200 was the turn of Colonel Richard G. attack up Kanmubong Ridge con- bodies and many blood trails Weede’s 5th Marines to continue tinued to unravel despite the heli- behind when it withdrew, but the the attack. copter resupply and the commit- battle cost the 2d Battalion almost The battle of Kanmubong Ridge ment of two battalions, the 2d 200 casualties and limited it as an continued for four more days (16- Battalion to take Hill 749 and the offensive threat. Two Korean 20 September) and ended with the 5th Marines reduced by some 250 A wounded squad leader of the 5th Marines ensures that a North Korean casualties and only Hill 812 secure- emplacement no longer threatens the advance along Kanmubong Ridge. The ly under Marine control. The com- September attacks into the ridge mass north of the Punchbowl produced the most manders of Weede’s two assault intense combat since the Chinese Fifth Offensive of April and May. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A156867 battalions believed they could also have taken Hill 980, but it would have been difficult to hold with the peak (Hill 1052) still under North Korean control. The problems of Communist enfilade fire from the north simply got worse as the Marines worked their way to the west along the ridge. The Lieutenant Colonel Donald R. Kennedy’s 3d Battalion in the left zone of action had its flank protected by Yoke Ridge and by tank fire, but the 2d Battalion working along the opposite slope enjoyed no advantages in cover and friendly fire, except close air support— which did not arrive. Staggered by its mounting casualties, the 2d Battalion stormed Hill 812 on the evening of 17 September. Without physical contact, the two battalions went into perimeter defenses, expecting North Korean counterattacks from the heights to their front or, in the case of the 2d Battalion, from the broken ground to the

48 of almost 24 hours, the Marines Sergeant Frederick W.Mausert III finally chased off the last of the orn in 1930 in Cambridge, Korean raiders. The Marine victors New York, he enlisted in found 60 dead North Koreans scat- Bthe Marine Corps in 1948. tered among the shattered rocks, Following recruit training at Parris but the victory cost the 5th Marines Island, South Carolina, he was sta- five dead and almost 50 wounded. tioned at Cherry Point and Camp Major Gerald P. Averill, the battal- Lejeune, North Carolina, before ion operations officer, watched going to Korea, where he partici- Marines shoot fleeing Koreans pated in campaigns in South and from the off-hand position while Central Korea. Serving as a squad one Marine took photographs of leader with Company B, 1st the Korean corpses. Battalion, 7th Marines, he was wounded on 10 September 1951. The battle for “The Rock” Two days later at Songnap-yong seemed almost symbolic since it (Punchbowl), he was killed in a had been a no-quarters fight for a courageous action for which he piece of ground of little tactical sig- was awarded the Meal of Honor. nificance. It also was the last part His citation reads, in part: of the battle for Kanmubong Ridge, Sergeant Mausert unhesitatingly for General Van Fleet on 20 left his covered position and ran September ordered Byers to stop

through a heavily mined and Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A46970 the offensive. The simultaneous fire-swept area to bring back battle of Heartbreak Ridge to the two critically wounded men to the comparative safety of the lines. west of the Punchbowl had pro- Staunchly refusing evacuation despite a painful head wound . . . [he] duced few results except soaring led his men in a furious bayonet charge against the first of a literal- casualties in the 2d Infantry ly impregnable series of bunkers. Stunned and knocked to the Division, and Van Fleet wanted all ground when another bullet struck his helmet, he regained his feet of X Corps fire support committed and resumed his drive, personally silencing the machine-gun and to that struggle. In addition, he leading his men in elimination several other emplacements in the area. Promptly reorganizing his unit for a renewed fight to the final approved of Byers’ plan to shift the objective on top of the ridge, Sergeant Mausert . . . still refused aid 8th ROK Division since the divi- and continued spearheading the assault to the topmost machine-gun sion—one of the better units in the nest and bunkers, the last bulwark of the fanatic aggressors. Leaping South Korean army—had taken its into the wall of fire, he destroyed another machine-gun with objectives east of the Soyang River, grenades before he was mortally wounded by bursting grenades and though at prohibitive cost. Only in machine-gun fire.—Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) disgruntled retrospect did the Marines realize that they had north and east. Acutely aware of hard-pressed 2d Battalion to con- fought in their last division offen- his danger and reduced supply cir- solidate its hold on Hill 812 and to sive in Korea. The relief of the 8th cumstances, the 2d Battalion com- find the 3d Battalion on its left. ROK Division simply meant that mander, Lieutenant Colonel Even with the 5th Marines’ lines the South Koreans would shift Houston “Tex” Stiff, asked for heli- more or less connected, the North from the eastern to the western copter resupply. In Windmill II, the Koreans made life miserable for flank of X Corps. helicopters of HMR-161 delivered the troops by sniping with long- The change meant that the 1st six tons of scarce ammunition and range, high velocity antitank Marine Division assumed about engineering supplies in less than artillery guns and by attacking any five miles more of front in a sector an hour on the afternoon of 19 patrols or outposts pushed forward already 15 miles in length. With September. of the main line of resistance. Two the 1st KMC Regiment still holding Just to hold his line across the companies of the 2d Battalion the northern lip of the Punchbowl ridge line, Colonel Weede had to became embattled for two days and the 5th Marines defending part bring up his uncommitted 1st over control of “The Rock,” a gran- of Kanmubong Ridge and the Battalion, which fell in on Stiff’s ite knob about 700 yards west of Soyang River valley, the 1st right and rear and allowed the Hill 812. In a close-quarters melee Marines assumed the mission of

49 and to establish a patrol base there as well as replace the South Koreans. On 21 September, HMR- 161 carried the first fully operational combat unit into a potential battle. Despite poor landing sites and marginal weather, the helicopters delivered 224 Marines and almost nine tons on supplies and equipment in four hours. The troops disembarked by “hot rope,” a rappelling technique that does not require a snap-ring hook-up; the Marines and accompanying load slung from each aircraft could be delivered in 90 seconds after an eight minute flight from X-83, 15 miles away. General Thomas and Colonel Krulak complimented all hands with glowing messages. Van Fleet and Byers sent their own congratulations, fully realizing the potential of helicopter operations. The next operations, Blackbird on 27 September and Bumblebee on 11 October, produced mixed results, but Blackbird proved that HMR-161 could do limited night- work, and Bumblebee demonstrated that HMR-161 could move an entire battalion into a non-hostile landing zone. A helicopter-mobile National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A157221 briefing became a standard stop, A rifleman of the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, disembarks from a Sikorsky HRS-1 helicopter of Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron 161 during Operation dictated by Van Fleet, for VIPs, Bumblebee. The operation allowed two Marine infantry battalions to exchange which included the Chairman of positions on Hill 702 by airlift, not overland march. the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley, USA. After his 1 occupying the sector east of the LaHue’s requests for essential air October briefing, Bradley, no fan river since the 7th Marines were strikes were answered too late or of the Marine Corps, admitted to the corps reserve. To take posses- not at all, again bringing the close his staff and accompanying jour- sion of its sector the 1st Marines air support issue to a boiling point nalists that the Marines might have had to control Hill 854 and Hill with Thomas and Krulak. discovered an operational tech- 884. Lieutenant Colonel Foster C. Marine helicopters, however, nique that might change the con- LaHue’s 3d Battalion found to its provided one of the bright spots in duct of land warfare. The Septem- dismay that the 21st ROK Regiment the sector extension. To buy some ber fighting that might not have occupied the summit of Hill 854, time for another 1st Marines battal- been Iwo Jima II for the 1st Marine but that the North Koreans still ion to move to Hill 884 and to Division, but Bradley’s faint praise held almost all the northern face. explore the possible routes to the gave a little more meaning to the For two days the battalion attacked hill—and any enemy ambushes or battle for Yoke Ridge and and ran the survivors off, but the friendly minefields—Thomas or- Kanmubong Ridge. The surviving Marines lost 11 men to uncharted dered the division’s Reconnais- Marines felt that strange mixture of South Korean minefields and 50 sance Company to move by heli- grief, guilt, relief, and satisfaction more casualties in the fighting. copter to the summit of Hill 884 of veterans. They had upheld the

50 reputation of the 1st Marine winds of winter on the Hays- Line. For the Marines the front Division and X Corps for never Kansas Line. became the Kansas Line bent, shirking the most dangerous and twisted, and renamed to include onerous missions. A Long Winter and a Longer War the terrain captured on the Yoke With the 1st Marine Division in and Kanmubong Ridges. The signs place in its part of the Hays-Kansas While battles still raged to the of approaching winter were many. Line, the division could assess its western zones of I and IX Corps The distribution of cold weather latest month of Korean combat. and most of X Corps focused on clothing and equipment went on First, the North Korean army had the capture of Heartbreak Ridge, throughout the division, and the proved more skilled and deter- the 1st Marine Division secured its Marines’ bunkers started to include mined than the Chinese, but not own portion of the new Minnesota stoves and makeshift furniture immortal. The division intelligence section estimated that the Marines had inflicted about 10,000 casual- Private First Class Edward Gomez ties on the enemy. The number of enemy bodies actually counted orn in 1932 in Omaha, numbered 2,799, and the Marines Nebraska, he attended had taken 557 prisoners. Measured BOmaha High School before enlisting in the Marine Corps against its most taxing battles in Reserve in 1949. In Korea, he par- World War II, Peleliu and ticipated in three operations and Okinawa, the 1st Marine Division was wounded in June 1951. With losses, compared with the casual- a strong premonition of death, he ties inflicted, appeared acceptable: wrote his mother in September: “I 227 killed in action, and 2,125 am writing this on the possibility wounded in action for a total of that I may die in this next assault 2,452 casualties. Almost all the . . . . I am not sorry I died, casualties occurred in the four because I died fighting for my infantry regiments and their attach- country and that’s the Number ments. The single most costly 24- One thing in everyone’s life, to hour period (39 killed and 463 keep his home and country from being won over by such things as wounded) was 13-14 September in communism . . . .Tell Dad I died the first phase of the attack on like the man he wanted me to Kanmubong Ridge, which in- be.” Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A46968 volved two battalions each of both On 14 September, he was killed the 1st and 7th Marines. on Kanmubong Ridge, while serving as an ammunition bearer with What gave the battles for Yoke Company E, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, and saving the lives of four of his Ridge and Kanmubong Ridge a squad members. His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part: special quality was the discourag- Boldly advancing with his squad in support of a group of riflemen ing impact of the geography. If assaulting a series of strongly fortified and bitterly defended hostile one stands along the Demilitarized positions on Hill 749. Private First Class Gomez consistently exposed Zone today—as the author did in himself to the withering barrage to keep his machine-gun supplied 1994 and 1998—in the sectors in with ammunition during the drive forward to seize the objective. As which the Marines fought around his squad deployed to meet an imminent counterattack, he voluntar- the Punchbowl, the mountain ily moved down an abandoned trench to search for a new location ranges stretch off without visible for the gun and, when a hostile grenade landed between himself and end into North Korea. It is difficult his weapon, shouted a warning to those around him as he grasped not to feel that there must be a bet- the activated charge in his hand. Determined to save his comrades, he unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and, diving into the ditch ter way to conduct war than to with the deadly missile, absorbed the shattering violence of the mount one attack after another explosion in his own body. against those forbidding (and still fortified) mountains. Surely the After the war, a plaque was dedicated in his honor at the Omaha Boys Club. same thoughts came to the Marines —Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret) of 1951 as they felt the first chill

51 Corporal Joseph gle, he enabled his company to consolidate its posi- Vittori tions . . . he assumed position under the devastating orn in Beverly, Mass- barrage and, fighting a sin- achusetts, in 1929, he attend- gle-hand battle, leaped from Bed high school and worked one flank to the other, cov- on his father’s farm before enlisting ering each foxhole in turn for three years in the Marine Corps as casualties continued to in 1946. After being discharged, he mount, manning a machine- joined the Marine Corps Reserve in gun when the gunner was 1950 for an indefinite tour of active struck down . . . With the duty. He trained at Camp Lejeune, situation becoming ex- North Carolina, until January 1951, tremely critical . . . and fox- when he joined Company F, 2d holes left practically void by Battalion, 1st Marines, in Korea. dead and wounded for a Having been wounded in June near distance of 100 yards, Yanggu, he was killed in the fight Corporal Vittori continued for Hill 749 in the Punchbowl on 15 his valiant stand, refusing to September 1951 and became the give ground as the enemy Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A48023 second Marine of 2d Battalion, 1st penetrated to within feet of Marines, within a 48-hour period to his position. . . . Mortally Medal of Honor read, in part: receive the Medal of Honor. His wounded by enemy ma- citation reads, in part: chine-gun and rifle bullets While expertly directing the while persisting in his mag- defense of his position dur- Corporal Vittori boldly nificent defense of the sec- ing a probing attack by hos- rushed through the with- tor, where approximately tile forces attempting to drawing troops with two 200 enemy dead were infiltrate the area, Corporal other volunteers from his found the following morn- Davenport, acting quickly reserve platoon and ing, Corporal Vittori . . . when an enemy grenade plunged directly into the undoubtedly prevented the fell into the foxhole which midst of the enemy. entire battalion position he was occupying with Overwhelming them in a from collapsing. another Marine, skillfully fierce hand-to-hand strug- located the deadly projectile In 1986 there was a parade and in the dark and, undeterred Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A46971 memorial service in his honor, with by the personal risk a park named after him in his home- involved, heroically threw town of Beverly, Massachusetts. himself over the live missile, thereby saving his compan- Corporal Jack A. ion from serious injury or possible death. His cool and Davenport resourceful leadership were contributing factors in the n ardent athlete and a successful repulse of the Golden Gloves champion, he enemy attack. Awas born in 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri, and enlisted in the The man in that same foxhole Marine Corps in July 1950. Sent to was Private First Class Walter L. Korea that December, he took part Barfoot, and, due to Davenport’s in four successive operations. Then, heroic self-sacrifice, he survived the as a squad leader with Company G, war. Later, a gymnasium at Camp 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, he died in Pendleton, California, was named in a valorous action at the Punchbowl honor of Corporal Davenport. on 21 —Captain John C. Chapin, USMCR September 1951. His citation for the (Ret)

52 made from ammunition and equip- Division’s energetic development Thomas committed six battalions ment boxes. American fighting of its defensive area, some 14 miles on the main line of resistance and men make their lives as comfort- across and 30 miles deep. The divi- held three battalions in either regi- able as possible; the Marines had sion could hardly afford to take its mental and/or division reserve. no desire for a Valley Forge in the defensive mission lightly. On its The division reserve battalion had Taebaek Mountains. They also fol- left the 11th ROK Division showed the mission of patrolling the lowed their instructions to make some reluctance to either man the Kansas Line and protecting the the Minnesota Line defensible boundary or patrol it very careful- main supply routes. without unnecessary casualties or ly, which concerned the division The principal objective of the the commitment of reserve forces. staff. The U.S. 7th Infantry Division operations along the Minnesota For the first time division staff offi- in the ridges west of the Line was to drive the North cers reported how many sandbags Punchbowl did better. The only Koreans away from their observa- the troops filled and placed and advantage to the west was that the tion posts, combat outposts, and how many yards of barbed wire terrain and corridors offered less forward slope bunker defenses, they strung in front of their posi- opportunity for the North Koreans. and the Marines made major tions. The division had few troops to advances in this terrain cleansing Even without some progress in spare since Byers decreed that one in October and November 1951. the armistice negotiations—and of the American Marine regiments The 11th Marines, occasionally the plenary sessions did not would be the corps reserve and reinforced by corps artillery, pro- resume until 25 October at a vil- occupy positions 17 miles to the vided the umbrella of counterbat- lage along the Kaesong-Masan rear, but at least the reserve (ini- tery fire that kept the Communist road called Panmunjom—the onset tially the 7th Marines) could con- artillery in its caves. Their fire sup- of winter alone would have given duct rear area security patrols. port burden eased with the arrival urgency to the 1st Marine After trying several combinations, in January 1952 of an artillery battalion (four firing batteries) of MajGen Gerald C. Thomas talks with MajGen Clovis E. Byers, USA, X Corps com- Korean Marines; the U.S. Marine mander, center, and Gen Omar N. Bradley, USA, during the Chairman of the artillery advisors who had trained Joint Chiefs of Staff’s visit to Marine frontlines. Among the tactics and problems discussed, Gen Bradley made note of the Marines’ unique use of the helicopter in the battalion accompanied it to the battle. front. The war on the bunkers, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A132072 however, required much more than saturation shelling, given the strength of the Korean positions. The Marines went after the bunkers with 90mm tank guns, 75mm recoilless rifles, rocket launchers, and flamethrowers, supplemented by snipers with .50-caliber machine guns and scoped rifles. Some of the operations did not require close combat, but in other cases only heavy combat patrols, sometimes with tanks, would suffice. Such actions—night or day— cost some American lives. The Marines killed many more Koreans. Some of the raids took the Marines time and again back to terrain they had learned to hate in September. Hill 1052 on Kanmubong (a North Korean strong point and observation post) became a favorite target, and “The

53 The Year of the Boot

n the autumn of 1951, the 1st Marine Division sweat, and even if the feet remained warm, the mois- received a new piece of cold weather clothing: the ture—with its ability to transfer heat four times more boot, combat, rubber, insulated or Insulated Rubber rapidly than dry air—accumulated, too. If a Marine did I not stay on the move, the feet cooled, and the more Boot. No one called it anything else but “Mickey Mouse Boots” since their outsized shape and black color gave sweat-soaked one’s socks, the faster one’s feet froze. the wearer some podiatric similarity to Hollywood’s One hour of inactivity could bring on an attack of frost- famous rodent. Other names for the boots were less bite. The standing operating procedure, therefore, for complimentary, but compared with the “shoe-pacs” they Mickey Mouse bootwear included a provision that each replaced, the Mickey Mouse boots quickly proved their Marine had to dry his feet and change to dry socks at value in preventing frozen feet. least once a day and preferably more often. The U.S. Army had conducted experiments with a The next worse thing to having frozen feet, howev- cold weather boot during and after World War II, but by er, was preventing frozen feet. Changing socks and dry- 1949 it had abandoned the effort since all the experi- ing feet in the open air of a Korean winter tested the mental prototypes did not meet Army standards for staunchest Marines. Units tried to establish a warming long-distance marching. Less concerned about the tent of some sort where the machocistic ritual could be marching requirement, the Navy and Marine Corps con- performed with a hint of comfort and adequate time. ducted their own boot tests, 1948-1951, and concluded Fortunately, the static winter war of 1951-1952 allowed that one boot had merit. The field tests included wear such luxuries and cases of frozen feet in the 1st Marine in all sorts of cold weather and terrain conditions, and Division dropped dramatically. The Mickey Mouse the Marines hiked in the boot and found it at least boots had come to stay. acceptable as winter footwear since no one marched Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A167955 very fast or far in inclimate conditions anyway. The Mickey Mouse boots arrived in Korea in August 1951. The design of the insulated rubber boot was based on the concept that body-heat from the feet could be stored as a vapor barrier between two layers of felt- lined rubber. The airtight boot allowed the wearer to keep his feet warm with captive air, created by the wearer’s own movement. The vapor barrier principle and the boot’s all-rubber construction meant that cold and moisture from outside the boot would be defeated before they reached a Marine’s precious feet. Only a boot puncture by shrapnel or some sharp object could ruin the boot’s airtight integrity, and the boot, like early automobile tires, came with a patching kit. Mickey Mouse boots, however, could turn the unwary and careless Marine into a frostbite casualty. The boots trapped more than heat. They also trapped

Rock” received a new name that Communist artillery observers who tance now justified codenames and suggested the permanency of its infiltrated the 11th Marines posi- special publicity. The squadron final residents, “Luke the Gook’s tions and called in counterbattery also received an aggressive new Castle.” Marine patrols prowled the fire of considerable accuracy, if not commander, Colonel Keith B. Mc- unoccupied terrain at night to dis- heavy weight of shell. Marine gun Cutcheon, whose work in aerial courage infiltrating Koreans. The batteries lost both men and field innovation had made him a leg- frontline battalions had no monop- pieces in such shoots. The rear endary figure in the Corps. oly on armed nighttime strolls. The area patrols used one capability to None of the virtuoso campaign rear areas of the 1st Marine advantage: helicopter transporta- against the North Korean bunker Division (like those throughout tion. With every mission, the work system could reach the growing Korea) were not safe from guerril- of HMR-161 became more routine, Communist in-depth system of for- las, who preyed on road transport. and only the lift of entire battalions tifications, all duly observed and The greater threat was teams of to and from the main line of resis- photographed by aerial observers.

54 National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A157015 Marine foot patrols ranged farther into enemy territory dur- supported by air and artillery, were launched at every ing October, while tank-infantry raids in company strength, opportunity. Naval gunfire—8- and 16-inch Yoke Ridge and Kanmubong Ridge C. Breckinridge to survive Korea. shells from cruisers and the battle- would have been much easier with The September battles had also ship New Jersey (BB 62)—con- Marine air on call. His own anger turned Thomas into a critic of the tributed to the bunker-busting, but was fueled by deaths that touched Truman Administration, and he not enough. The missing ingredi- him personally. One was the loss wrote his brother that the concept ent was close air support. Two of his G-1, Colonel Wesley M. of “limited war” was ridiculous. Marine aircraft groups operated “Cutie” Platt, on 27 September. The China should be ruined as a fighter-bombers within an hour’s most senior Marine officer to die in Communist revolutionary power, flight from the front, but they sel- Korea, Platt had earned a special and it would be easier to do it dom came when called, and their place in the Corps’ history as one now, not later. The administration’s Air Force and Navy comrades of the heroes of the defense of concept of limited war offended seemed even less available as they Wake Island. Now a shell ended a him because “the wounds and flew off to bomb railroads, tunnels, distinguished career and a special worse acquired by Americans here and roads off a target list dictated person. Thomas also knew that his had a real one hundred percent by Fifth Air Force. division included as many as 20 appearance . . . our guys are off General Thomas had grown sons of Marine generals and base in D.C. and plenty.” ever unhappier with the lack of colonels, all eager to prove their Against this emotional back- close air support. When he learned own mettle. He wrote his wife that ground, Thomas again challenged that Van Fleet had told Byers on 28 he worried about these “juniors” the U.S. Air Force. Thomas fired September that X Corps requested constantly, but could hardly ruin the first shot in the new war with a too much air, he ordered his staff their careers and lives by protect- letter asserting that his September to do a study on the lack of close ing them. When one of the casualties could have been re- air support in the September bat- “juniors,” First Lieutenant John C. duced with timely close air sup- tles. His anger grew with his divi- Breckinridge died in combat, port. He forwarded a study done sion’s casualties. As a veteran of Thomas immediately pulled First by his staff that showed how much World War I, Thomas had his heart Lieutenant James Breckinridge out air he had requested and how little hardened early, but he never mea- of his infantry battalion and did so he had received. The 1st Marine sured success by counting his own without regret since he wanted the Division had made 271 requests losses. He knew that the fights for family line of Major General James and had only 187 granted. More

55 Corporal Jack Davis: Veteran

fter an ocean voyage to California, three or four days of out-processing, and an air flight to ATennessee, Corporal Jack Davis, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, returned to Nashville in March 1952. He had been gone almost two years, and he was not quite 20 years old. In his well-tailored green service uniform, bearing ribbons for his two Purple Hearts, a Presidential Unit Citation, and a row of Korean service ribbons, Jack marched across the tarmac towards his waiting parents and older brother. They did not recognize him. He had been the only Marine in uniform on the plane. He also had lost 30 pounds and still sported “a Joe Stalin” mustache. Jack walked past his mother and father, then turned back to them: “You don’t know your own son?” As Jack recalled, “mild bedlam ensued for a few moments.” After three or four days at home, however, Jack real- social conversation without lapsing into standard Marine ized that he was having serious difficulty adjusting to life language, which would have set all of Davidson County outside a combat zone. His brother went off to classes on fire. “I was so unsure of my polite verbal utterances at Vanderbilt, and his parents both had full-time jobs. that I was barely better than a mute. And for a while I He even felt strange driving a new Nash Rambler after preferred not to go out in polite society until I had re- months of driving a Marine truck on Korean country acquired some social skills.” roads. After about a week, he went out and found a job In the autumn of 1952, Jack Davis entered Vanderbilt driving a big truck for a local construction company, University, his education partially funded by a disability and for the first time he felt mildly comfortable, earning pension and the GI Bill. When he graduated with a 75 cents an hour, and enjoying the company of hard degree in geology in 1956, he also had a new wife, Joan men doing hard work. He did not miss being shelled. Fortune of Lafayette, Georgia. Even with a Master’s of His parents found his job puzzling and worried about Science in geology (1959) Jack found the life of a petro- his sanity, but his new job started Jack on the road to leum geologist too uncertain for a family man (two normalcy. “The Marine Corps does a marvelous job sons), and he shifted into sales management in the oil making civilians into warriors, but then to turn those and pharmaceutical industries until his semi-retirement persons back to civilian life approximately thirty days and return to Tennessee in 1971. A small advertising after leaving a combat zone, with no decompression business he and some local friends created keep him period stateside, acclimatizing back to a quasi-polite busy enough—along with church and civic activities in environment, leaves a bit to be desired.” his new hometown of Winchester, Tennessee—until the With his usual enthusiasm, Vince Davis tried to help partners sold the business to a larger Texas-based com- his brother reenter Nashville—actually Vanderbilt— pany in 1998. Jack and Joan now have more time to social life, but the well-intentioned effort on Jack’s enjoy their hobbies and extended family. behalf did not go well. Jack found little in common with Jack has never returned to Korea, but he is proud to Vince’s friends in Vanderbilt’s senior class, and he con- have been the teenage rifleman of 1951 who found him- cluded they would find his service stories meaningless. self in Korea with “Bloody George” Company, 3d Besides, Jack hardly trusted his ability to carry on a Battalion, 1st Marines. serious to operations, only 32 had and Everest did not. Thomas Corps got too much air support arrived within 30 minutes, the thought Collins and Ridgway liked already. Thomas and Byers decid- Marine Corps standard. During var- his letter, “a stick to beat the Air ed to push the issue; Byers’ out- ious conferences in October, Force with.” Ridgway said he rage was fueled by another prob- Thomas had an opportunity to dis- wanted Van Fleet and Everest to lem, the unwillingness of the Army cuss the issues with General J. look at the Joint Operations Center to send its best officers and non- Lawton Collins, USA, the Army system and see if it could be commissioned officers to combat Chief of Staff, and General adjusted, at least to give the 1st assignments in Korea. Byers also Ridgway. Although Byers appreci- Marine Division 40 sorties a day. bridled at Van Fleet’s suggestion ated his aggressiveness, Van Fleet Van Fleet, however, argued that X that his faltering generalship

56 Birthday with a heavy strike north of Kanmubong Ridge. The X Corps study, directed by Lieutenant Colonel Ellis W. Williamson, a pioneer in Army aviation and air mobility operations, produced similar results. For 1-20 November, the entire corps had made 224 requests and had 145 requests filled in some way. Forty-six requests took more than two hours to fill, and Williamson, X Corps G- 3, judged that 42 of these strikes came too late to have the anticipated results. The X Corps’ analyses, like studies submitted earlier in the year by General Almond, changed nothing. Van Fleet and Ridgway saw no immediate advantage in pressing the issue, whatever their personal views. The major influence on their commitment to the Joint Operations Center-status quo was National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC382827 the news from Panmunjom. The Gen Matthew B. Ridgway, left to right, Gen J. Lawton Collins, U.S. Army Chief of negotiators had accepted the Staff, Gen James A. Van Fleet, U.S. Eighth Army commander, and MajGen Clovis United Nations position that the E. Byers, commanding general of U.S. X Corps, study the situation map during Gen Collins’ tour of the frontlines in Korea. Within a month of Collins’ visit, armistice line should be the line of Ridgway relieved a stunned Byers for what some believed was his support for the troops when the armistice was Marine position on close air support. signed, not the 38th Parallel. Each belligerent coalition would with- explained the losses of the 2d Fifth Air Force said it had no air- draw four kilometers from the Infantry Division on Heartbreak craft available, and poor weather point of contact and thus establish Ridge. Byers put his staff to work had affected most of the other a neutral zone between the armies. on studies like those underway in requests. The 1st Marine Division’s Van Fleet had anticipated the the 1st Marine Division. Byers and statistics provided an even more agreement on 14 November and Thomas also raised the related damning picture. During the 30 ordered that no operations by a issue of dictated artillery shell days of November, the division battalion or larger formation could expenditures, which they claimed had requested air support on 26 be mounted without the approval produced predictable shortages days and received no response at of the corps commander. When the when real fighting occurred. Van all on 12 of those days. On the negotiators signed an agreement Fleet was not happy with the two days that the Joint Operations on 25 November on the line-of- senior generals of X Corps. Center responded, it approved contact solution, Eighth Army Byers and Thomas mustered only 52 of 125 close air support interpreted the agreement as an more evidence in November that requests. In terms of aircraft and omen of an early ceasefire. The the Joint Operations Center had ordnance, only four missions were word went forth throughout the willfully prevented X Corps from flown as requested, and only one front to hold down casualties, con- receiving effective close air sup- arrived in less than an hour from serve ammunition, defend the cur- port. The 1st Marine Division the original request. The only mis- rent positions, and even to limit claimed that it had made 188 sion that went as planned occurred patrols to those areas where earli- requests for air support and on 10 November when 89 aircraft er patrols had made contact with received only 53 strikes in re- from the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing the enemy. These rules of engage- sponse. In the case of 86 requests, celebrated the Marine Corps’ ment would be in effect for at least

57 30 days. The instructions had “a and South Korean) and 573 and cake-cutting; General Thomas considerably inhibitory effect on wounded. The 1st Marine Division added a special wrinkle, a one- the operations of the division.” order-of-battle analysts estimated round salute at noon 10 November They also meant that a change in that the division and air strikes had from every weapon in position, the system of air support had been caused as many as 12,000 more which the commanding general overtaken by events. casualties in the three North found “very satisfying.” Thomas An examination of the fighting Korean divisions that faced the then hosted Byers and X Corps by the 1st Marine Division in Marines. Even if wildly optimistic, staff for lunch. October and November 1951 sug- the estimates were probably not Thomas also drew satisfaction gests how large an opportunity completely illusory. If, for exam- from an extensive study done by X cost the ground forces paid for the ple, the Marines had killed or Corps for the Department of Air Force interdiction campaign. wounded only one-third of the Defense. Sensitive to Army carping The aggressive ground operations enemy estimated, they still would about Marine tactics and casualties, and use of artillery and naval gun- have accounted for more than Thomas could point to irrefutable fire demonstrated that even with- 6,000 enemy casualties at a cost of statistics: in both raw number and out close air support, the 1st 660 losses of their own. An percentages the 1st Marine Marine Division (and probably exchange ratio of 10:1—given the Division in 1951 had one of the most of the U.S. Army divisions in rules of engagement—is an opera- three lowest loss rates in the Korea) could still inflict substantial tional achievement in any war, but Eighth Army. Within X Corps its casualties on the enemy. The the Eighth Army missed the lesson. losses in combat were half those of Chinese might have unlimited As the pace of the war con- the U.S. 2d Infantry Division in manpower to throw into the battle, gealed with the coming of winter percentage terms and 50 percent but the North Koreans did not. In and the hope of an armistice, the lower in raw numbers. Between 1 two months of operations that can 1st Marine Division passed through June and 15 October, the Army only be characterized as “defen- another set of organizational mile- division suffered 6,247 casualties, sive,” the 1st Marine Division killed stones. It celebrated the Marine the Marine division, less the 1st 1,117 North Koreans and captured Corps’ 176th birthday with the tra- KMC Regiment, 4,241. During the 575 more at a cost of 87 dead or ditional ceremonies of reading first 10 months of 1951, the 1st missing Marines (both American John A. Lejeune’s birthday message Marine Division had rotated 11,637 Marines out of Korea and received A rifle platoon celebrates the traditional Marine Corps Birthday, 10 November, 13,097 replacements, which did with a no-frills cake cutting on the reverse slope of battle-scared Kanmubong not quite cover the losses from all Ridge. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A159434 sources. In the autumn of 1951 there were still almost 5,000 Marines in the division who had joined the division in 1950, but by Christmas these veterans (the vast majority technical specialists) had all gone home. By the end of December, one-third of the division’s Marines had come to Korea since early September, but the division showed no signed of reduced effectiveness. The 14th Replace- ment Draft (2,756 officers and men) closed the gap, but the 11th (“Home for Christmas”) Rotation Draft opened it again. From the perspective of Headquarters Marine Corps and the Commanding General, Fleet Marine Forces, Pacific, the 1st Marine Division had done a splen-

58 did job in 1951 as a fighting organization and as a source of favor- able publicity. Both Generals Cates and Shepherd visited Thomas in the last two months of 1951 and congratulated him on his successful command. By November, Shepherd knew that he would replace Cates as Commandant and he told Thomas and Krulak that he wanted both of them back in Washington to run the staff of Headquarters Marine Corps. Thomas’ successor pleased the incumbent division commander: Major General John Taylor Selden, an accomplished officer who had commanded the 5th Marines on Cape Gloucester and served as the division chief of staff on Peleliu. A Virginian of “First Family” roots as well as another “mustang” of the World War I era, Selden had a deserved reputation for getting along well with the Army without National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A159279 compromising Marine Corps inter- With a resumption of the armistice talks, a lull set in along the 1st Marine ests. Division’s front in December. While patrols were sent out to maintain pressure The change of command for X on the enemy, work continued on winterizing bunkers and improving defensive Corps showed none of the good installations, such as this machine gun position. feeling that accompanied Thomas’ departure in early January 1952. ordered four days later, his distin- Marine Division and 1st Marine On his latest visit to Korea in guished career in eclipse. His Aircraft Wing, but he had a second November, J. Lawton Collins asked replacement, Major General responsibility, which was to pre- Van Fleet how Byers was doing as Williston B. Palmer, was a pare a new 3d Marine Brigade and a corps commander and whether Europeanist and a Collins intimate. supporting aviation elements for he met the World War II standards General Thomas remained con- possible use (including amphibi- of the Army in Europe. Van Fleet vinced that Byers had been too ous operations) in the Pacific. responded that Byers did not friendly with the Marines for Pending legislation in Congress match the best corps commanders Collins’ and Ridgway’s taste and suggested that in 1952 the Marine of Eisenhower’s army, which too assertive in demanding Corps would add a third division meant that Byers was not Collins, changes in the close air support and aircraft wing to the Fleet Ridgway, or Van Fleet. Without system. Marine Force. The Marine Corps warning, Byers learned from Van The best way to deal with the also was investigating arming itself Fleet on 24 November at a cere- other armed forces, whether the with tactical nuclear weapons. mony presenting a Presidential battlefield was in Washington or With Colonels Wornham, Hay- Unit Citation to the 2d Infantry the entire Pacific theater, had ward, and Nickerson on Hart’s Division that Byers would be reas- always been obvious to Cates, staff, the interests of the 1st Marine signed as commanding general, Shepherd, Thomas, and Shep- Division would not be ignored, but XVI Corps, the theater reserve herd’s successor in Hawaii, as a Service the Marine Corps was force just constituted in Japan. Lieutenant General Franklin A. not inclined to pursue the close air Without ceremony or any chance Hart. The answer was to attack and support issue when the interser- to visit his subordinate comman- withdraw at the same time. Hart’s vice relations landscape looked ders, Byers flew to Japan as mission was to support the 1st good for the moment and the

59 future of operations in Korea so would waste its Marines. The divi- troops became progressively more uncertain. Another factor was sim- sion and aircraft wing should be aggressive with their patrolling and ply that Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, placed in Japan and brought to a use of artillery fire. A summary of and its Navy superiors, including peak state of readiness for battles one day’s operations (8 December Admiral Arthur H. Radford, that mattered. 1951) catches the winter war along Commander in Chief, Pacific, pro- Nothing that occurred in the Minnesota Line. A 5th Marines posed that the 1st Marine Division December 1951 along the Minne- patrol exchanged gunfire with a and 1st Marine Aircraft Wing be sota Line gave any clues that the Korean patrol without known withdrawn from Korea and placed war would either end or be fought results; the regiment called in 117 in strategic reserve. When General with any rational purpose, as seen rounds of naval gunfire on a Hart made his first command tour from the 1st Marine Division. The bunker system and did acceptable of Korea and Japan, he found the division’s defensive posture faced damage to seven bunkers. The 7th senior commanders in Korea and no serious menace from the North Marines sent out a patrol to Japan convinced that Eighth Army Koreans, although the Communist retrieve the body of a dead Marine and engaged in a firefight with an Cpl Kevin J. Griffin receives a blessing from Cardinal Francis Spellman during enemy patrol. The Korean Marines the cardinal’s Christmas visit to the 1st Marine Division. National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-436954 sent out two patrols, which were fired upon by machine guns in hidden bunkers, but took no casualties. The 11th Marines fired 14 observed missions on bunkers or in patrol-support. The following days were no different. On Christmas Day, the North Koreans tried to disrupt the division’s hot holiday meal and a visit by Cardinal Francis J. Spellman but only drew smothering artillery and naval gunfire on the NKPA combat patrols. The next day a heavy snow slowed the action even more, and on 27 December Eighth Army announced that even though no truce agreement had been signed, the restrictive rules of engagement remained in effect. The dawn of a new year did not change the pattern of warfare for the 1st Marine Division. Such nov- elties as psychological warfare units—the masters of the surrender leaflet and the insinuating broad- cast—became regular fixtures at the front, first a source of amuse- ment and later an object of con- tempt. Army searchlight batteries added little light to the operations. An epidemic of boredom and care- lessness spread throughout Eighth Army. To give at least a hint of battle, Van Fleet’s staff dreamed up Operation Clam-Up, 9-15 February 1952, as a way to draw the Chinese

60 and North Koreans into an above- ground killing zone through deception. The basic concept was that the frontline battalions would either go underground or appear to withdraw from the front; allied artillery would reduce their firing to almost nothing; and the usual patrols would not go out. Presumably, the collective impression would be that the United Nations forces had fallen back to the Kansas Line. Van Fleet’s grand deception did not fool the Communists—at least not much. In the 1st Marine Division sector— especially on Yoke and Kanmubong Ridges—the North Koreans sent out only patrols, which set off a series of small battles. The North Koreans also deluged the main line of resistance with artillery fire, a sure sign that they had not been fooled. For all the sound and fury the casualties showed how insignificant Clam-Up had been. For February the Marines lost 23 killed and 102 missing; they killed by count 174 Koreans and took 63 prisoners. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A159378 Whether they had actually inflicted Oblivious to the wet snow and North Korean harassing fires, Marines line up for an additional estimated 1,000 more a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. casualties was guess work. In other aspects of the division’s paign in east-central Korean was Chosin (Changjin) Reservoir and operations, the order-of-the-day ending not with a bang, but a “the attack in another direction” to became doing less with less. The shrug. Hungnam added more honors to helicopters of HMR-161 developed the 1st Marine Division and creat- stress fractures in their tail assem- In Retrospect ed a tradition of valor and profes- blies, so Colonel McCutcheon sionalism that shares pride of place grounded his squadron until the From its initiation in battle as in the memory of Marines with defects could be corrected. The part of the U.S. Eighth Army in Tarawa and Iwo Jima. lack of helicopters slowed the January 1951 until its eventual Yet the 1st Marine Division in modest counter-guerrilla campaign movement to an entirely new zone 1951 added a new and equally in the rear areas. Certainly the of action in western Korea in early useful tradition of valor: that a North Korean lines had become 1952, the 1st Marine Division Marine division in war of diminish- impenetrable. The G-2 estimated fought with as much distinction as ing rewards, fought under unpleas- that 21 infantry battalions and nine its 1950 edition, the division that ant physical conditions and artillery battalions, all embedded in landed at Inchon, liberated Seoul, uneven Army leadership, could the ridges to the north of the main chased the North Korean army maintain the Corps’ highest stan- line of resistance, faced the divi- away from Korea’s northeast coast, dards even without the constant sion. Although the Marines did not and blunted the first appearance of stroking of admiring reporters and yet know what great plans Eighth the Chinese army in the battle of camera crews. To be sure, the divi- Army held for them, their cam- Sudong. The advance to the sion suffered more casualties in all

61 National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A159018 Marine TSgt John Pierce gives some North Korean soldiers phosphorus grenade into the bunker’s entrance. hiding in a bunker a warm reception as he throws a white categories per month of combat in Mountains or Yoke Ridge or itage of heroism in the second year 1950 (1,557) than it did in 1951 Kanmubong Ridge. The only geo- of the Korean War, the 1st Marine (747) or 1952 (712), but there is no graphic location mentioned is the Division and the 1st Marine Aircraft convincing evidence that the divi- Punchbowl and some vague ter- Wing made history for its introduc- sion inflicted more casualties upon rain “north of the Hwachon tion of the transport helicopter to the enemy in 1950 (per month of Reservoir.” The citation gives only American ground operations. In combat) than it did in 1951, only three sets of dates: 21-26 April, 16 January 1951, the Landing Force that its battles had been more dra- May-30 June, and 11-25 September Tactics and Techniques Board, matic and photogenic. 1951. There is no book like Marine Landing Force Develop- In an official sense, the 1st Andrew Geer’s The New Breed to ment Center, approved the first Marine Division in 1951 received honor the 1951 Marines, no collec- doctrinal study of vertical envelop- the same recognition as its 1950- tion of memorable photographs by ment in Employment of Assault predecessor, the award of a David Douglas Duncan to freeze Transport Helicopters. When the Presidential Unit Citation “for the fatigue and horror of war on first operational squadron, HMR- extraordinary heroism in action the faces of young men turned old 161, was formed, its original name against enemy aggressor forces in in a matter of days in December was “Marine Assault Helicopter Korea.” There are, however, no 1950. The same faces could have Squadron 161” until Marine avia- battles in the citation, no identified been found on Hill 924 or Hill 812 tion bureaucrats protested that geographic locations like Hill 902 if anyone had looked. they and the Navy thought the or Taeu-san and Taeam-san In addition to adding to the her- more comprehensive designator of

62 “transport” was more appropriate. among the mountains of Korea, an 161, even more remarkable was the The name mattered less than the irony that bothered no one among growing difficulty in obtaining close mission. When the squadron the community of Marine heli- air support and the suspicion after began operations with Windmill I copter pioneers. The future arrived July 1951 that there would be a sub- (13 September 1951) until the tail to the sound of flailing rotors and stitute for victory. As the 1st Marine section fractures grounded the storms of ground-effect dirt on a Division proved in September 1951, helicopters on 28 February 1952, bit of ground on the lower slopes the young riflemen and platoon HMR-161 conducted six major of Hill 749, Kanmubong Ridge. commanders might not be ready to operations and many hundreds of Today the site is somewhere with- kill and die for a stalemate, but they other less dramatic flights with in the Demilitarized Zone. were more than willing to kill and troops, weapons, and supplies. A What make the fighting qualities die for each other, and that was concept developed for amphibious of the 1st Marine Division, aided what was important to them then. assaults received its first test without stint by VMO-6 and HMR- And it still is.

An alert Marine rifleman, framed in the doorway, provides forced all Marine units to mount security patrols and to cover while another Marine searches through an aban- defend their positions. doned Korean farmhouse. Guerrilla and infiltrator attacks National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A159239

63 Essay on Sources researchers, and I used these invaluable copies of the corps reports and studies sources extensively. General Matthew B. and his “Commander’s Diary.” Byers also The archival sources on the 1st Marine Ridgway, Commander, United Nations corresponded with many of his Army Division, X Corps, and the U.S. Eighth Command, and Commanding General, contemporaries and friends in other ser- Army for the campaign of 1951-1952 are Far East Command during this study, vices. He kept a personal diary that voluminous, but the place to start is the kept extensive correspondence and includes the touching story of his “reas- monthly organizational historical reports, memoranda files, Matthew B. Ridgway signment.” Byers’ comments on the usually containing annexes of other Papers, U.S. Army Military History South Korean divisions in his corps are reports and studies, submitted to the ser- Institute (MHI). His successor as important in giving a full picture of corps vice headquarters for permanent reten- Commanding General, U.S. Eighth Army, operations. tion and reference use. For the 1st General James A. Van Fleet, maintained a General Gerald C. Thomas did not Marine Division, I used the monthly his- personal journal and conducted an maintain the vast correspondence files or torical reports for April 1951 through extensive correspondence with his mili- intimate diaries of his Army contempo- February 1952, supplemented by similar tary and civilian contemporaries, all pre- raries, but he wrote his wife, his brother, monthly historical reports made by served in the James A. Van Fleet Papers, and his oldest son and son-in-law, both Headquarters, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Marine officers and both 1952 members (FMFPac), for the same period. Both 1st Virginia. Van Fleet, like Ridgway, kept of the 1st Marine Division. The Thomas Marine Division and FMFPac reports essential data, studies, maps, memoranda family allowed me to read this corre- included invaluable appendices. Of spe- of staff meetings, and orders/instructions, spondence while I did research on In cial use for this study were two Type C but unlike Ridgway, he never wrote a Many a Strife: General Gerald C. Thomas Special Reports:“Employment of Assault book about the war. His papers are espe- and the U.S. Marine Corps, 1917-1956 Helicopters,” 4 October and 15 Novem- cially important on interservice and inter- (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993). ber 1951; and “1st KMC Regiment and Its coalition command relations. General Thomas also left multiple, exten- Relationship to the 1st Marine Division, Lieutenant Generals Edward M. sive oral histories, 1966-1979, and assort- September 1950-May 1952,” 13 June Almond and Clovis E. Byers saved exten- ed files, now part of the Oral History 1952. The FMFPac historical reports sive files for their periods of command of Collection and Personal Papers include memoranda for the record of the the U.S. X Corps, which included all but Collection at the Historical Center and weekly staff conferences and the travel two months of the period covered in this Research Center. Other personal collec- reports for Generals Lemuel C. Shepherd, study. Especially important is Headquar- tions and oral histories from important Jr., and Franklin H. Hart for their visits to ters, X Corps, “Battle of the Soyang sources are the late General Lemuel C. Korea and Japan. The original reports are River,” June 1951, a special report with Shepherd, Jr., USMC; Lieutenant General in the Records of Marine Corps Field extensive intelligence studies and fire Herman Nickerson, USMC (Ret); Commands, Record Group 127, in the support studies. Almond’s papers are Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, National Archives, but copies may often essential sources on the conduct of the USMC (Ret); the late General Keith B. be found at the Marine Corps Historical Korean War. Almond did an especially McCutcheon, USMC; the late Major Center, Washington, D.C., and the Marine good job at creating subject files, two of General Wilburt S. Brown, USMC; and Corps Research Center, Quantico, the most important containing material the late Major General Thomas A. Virginia. on close air support and artillery employ- Wornham. During my research on The X Corps Command Reports for ment. Like Van Fleet, Almond kept exten- General Thomas, Generals Krulak and April 1951- February 1952 may be found sive personal notes. After his retirement Nickerson furnished me with personal in Command Reports, 1949-1954, Almond became a subject of extensive papers and did so again on this project. Records of U.S. Army Field Commands, interviewing, the most exhaustive by A more extensive discussion of Marine Record Group 407, but these records— Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Ferguson, Corps sources may be found in the which include such things as the USA (Almond’s son-in-law), Professor D. Thomas biography and my Semper “Commanding General’s Diary,” which is Clayton James, and John Toland, and Fidelis: The History of the United States schedule and commentary as maintained these transcripts are attached to the Marine Corps, rev. ed. (New York: The by his aides—can also be found in dupli- Almond Papers and the Douglas Free Press, 1991). cate form in key Army educational and MacArthur Papers, the General Douglas The official documents and perspec- research repositories like the U.S. Army MacArthur Library and Memorial, tives of the senior officers of the X Corps Center of Military History, Ft. Leslie J. Norfolk, Virginia. Throughout his retire- and 1st Marine Division do not provide a McNair, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. ment Almond continued to collect docu- complete picture of the campaign of Army Military History Institute, Carlisle ments and add them to his collection. A 1951 in human terms. With his complete Barracks, Pennsylvania. Like their Marine complementary view of X Corps may be cooperation, I used the story of Corporal Corps counterparts, the monthly “Com- found in the oral memoir of General Clarence Jackson Davis, USMCR, as a mand Reports” include special studies, Frank T. Mildren, the corps G-3 in 1951, way to see the fighting from the per- which for X Corps included analyses of Senior Officers Oral History Project, spective of the enlisted combat Marine. I close air support and personnel matters. 1980, MHI. The Clovis E. Byers Papers focused on the experiences of a special The senior Army and Marine com- are held at the library of the Hoover group of Marine officers, the 7th Basic manders in Korea, 1951-1952, maintained Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Class, those Marine lieutenants commis- extensive personal files that are open to Stanford, California, and include his sioned in the spring of 1950 who became

64 About the Author

Marines in the Korean War Commemorative Series