This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  Several of his men with a light machine gun manned by an assistant gunner who had never fired in combat were sitting close by the stream. They heard the stealthy noises of approaching men, and through the dark were able to make out a mining patrol, 2 NKPA officers, and half a dozen enlisted men carrying AT mines.

  "Wait till they're closer," the machine gunner whispered.

  To fully load a round into the chamber of a light machine gun, the bolt must be pulled to the rear and released twice. The assistant gunner, who had pulled the bolt back once, thought the gun full loaded—until the pressure on the trigger produced only a terrifyingly loud click.

  By the time the patrol figured out what was wrong, the North Koreans were six feet away. The first shot tore off the top of an NKPA lieutenant's head. Swiveling the gun rapidly, the blond young man who had waited just a bit longer than he had intended cut down all of the surprised unfortunates before they could escape.

  Next morning Major General Claude Ferenbaugh, the division commander, who visited front positions regularly, was shown the stiff and blasted Korean corpses. "By God," Ferenbaugh said, "I get these reports all the time, but this is the first time anyone has had the bodies to prove it!"

  He decorated the blond gunner before he left.

  Now there was no offensive action taken against the enemy—but an army could not sit still. It had to patrol, even as the enemy had to patrol, to keep contact, to see what the other side was doing, and to attempt to keep the other side honest.

  It was this patrol action, this continual flirting with danger and death, for reasons many of the enlisted men thought flimsy, that soldiers all across the Eighth Army's line came to hate. But there was no help for it.

  And while the front was still, except for patrols, there was the shelling. The enemy, who had to bring his precious ammunition under air attack over many miles, did not care to waste it. But he was not loath to shoot it, if he had a target.

  One of Busbey's platoon leaders, Jack Sadler, was restive at the inactivity. "How about letting me snipe at them over there with my 75mm recoilless?"

  "Hell, you'll make 'em mad, Jack," Busbey told him.

  "Aw, just one round, anyway—"

  Sadler fired one round at the enemy lines, with indeterminate effect.

  Then, immediately, the enemy shelled his platoon, heavily. Two of Sadler's men were killed—and forever afterward Sadler held himself responsible. After that, a sort of gentlemen's agreement held—each side left the other alone during the day.

  It was a weird war now, not so dangerous, but more frustrating than ever. Now and then, by night, the enemy made limited attacks.

  The U.N. almost never returned them.

  It began to grow quite cold by night, as winter neared. And since the men had to be alert at night—everything in Korea happened at night, whether the Americans liked it that way or not—orders came down for each man to get his sleep during the clay, so that he could remain alert at night without hardship.

  There was nothing else for the troops, holding a line of foxholes and bunkers until the boys of Panmunjom could come to agreement, to do. Bored and restless, they didn't like the schedule, particularly the standing guard each night.

  One night, as the temperature dropped to near zero, Lieutenant Sadler called Busbey's CP by phone at 0200. "Captain, I have a fully armed NKPA here who has turned himself in—"

  Quite a few North Koreans, from time to time, when they could slip past their officers, came voluntarily into U.N. lines. This was nothing new.

  But Sadler continued. "He surrendered to the tanks back of me—"

  Busbey snapped, "How'd he get past you?"

  "By God, I hadn't thought of that—I don't know, Captain."

  "Well, think about it!" Busbey told him, hanging up.

  Sadler roused his platoon sergeant, Trexler, and they got a ROK to query the enemy soldier. He had walked down the road in the valley—right through an area where Sadler had two standing patrols, two foxholes containing three men, with absolute orders that one man remain awake at all times. Sadler and Trexler looked at each other, and went out into the night.

  Jack Sadler went up one side of the trail. Trexler the other. On both sides they found all men zipped up in their bags, sound asleep.

  If the Inmun Gun had probed that night, they could have walked to Seoul for the weekend, as Busbey said.

  After listening to the lame, stumbling stories, Busbey, furious, preferred charges against four enlisted men.

  And two nights later, while the four were awaiting trial, the NKPA attacked down through the same valley. The outposts were alert; they were repulsed at the main line.

  A 76mm artillery round killed Sergeant Trexler, however; and the Division Judge Advocate General said he would have to drop the case against the two men Trexler had caught sleeping on outpost—there was now no witness against them. The two were released.

  But the remaining two, with Sadler's testimony, were convicted by a general court-martial at Division HQ. Each was given ten years at hard labor, and dishonorable discharge.

  Because of their stupidity, and their lack of responsibility, hundreds of their comrades might have died. During the American Civil War they would have been shot.

  But it was a long time since the Civil War, and with the Korean War a new factor had entered American military justice: during a crusade, or a war with fervent popular support, a soldier's malfeasance is almost always regarded severely by civilians. Whatever the effect on his comrades, the public then regards his failure as treason, or close to it.

  Vengeance, indeed, is futile. It is not the purpose of justice. But when—as happened—an officer or man refused to go into combat, or threw away his weapon, crying, before ever a shot was fired at him, and then was permitted to resign, with honor, or had his sentence rescinded and his rights restored on petition at a later date, the nation is playing with disaster. There is a certain percentage of men who will always do their duty, just as there is a small percentage who will never do it, or even recognize it. The majority of men, however, will do unpleasant duties only if their society makes them, whether it is the study of English as children or service with the colors as men.

  Busbey's two men received ten-year sentences—in itself unfair, since equally guilty men got off—but the matter did not rest there. For the father of one of these men was a man of some political influence in an Eastern state. Learning that some got off, while his son did not, this gentleman understandably raised hell.

  The papers picked up the case, from Newark to Dallas.

  An INS man came down to 32nd Infantry from Tokyo, looking for a story. He interviewed the men of B Company, still licking wounds from the night attack. Every man he talked to told him, "Those men didn't get half what they deserved." B Company had learned its lesson.

  The INS man went back to Tokyo and phoned his chief. But he didn't have the kind of story his chief wanted. Many editorials were taking the tack that ten years for sleeping on sentry go was rather rough, even barbaric.

  One year later, the son of the Eastern man was granted a new trial. The Civil Court of Military Appeals had discovered a flaw in the original proceedings. The president of that court had asked the law officer, present at all general courts-martial, "What is the maximum sentence that can be given?" while neither the accused or counsel was present, a violation.

  The new trial was held in Fort Meade, Maryland. The witnesses were now the other enlisted men who had been in the hole with the accused.

  Jack Sadler, at this time in Baltimore, was not called, then or later. The verdict, understandably, and to everyone except Captain Busbey's relief, was reversed.

  In itself, this case was nothing new. Justice, either military or civilian, can never be perfect.

  But inevitably, sooner or later, a people will get the kind of justice and military service they deserve.

  Before Arthur Busbey returned to the States on emergency leave—on the death of an infant child—with to
o many points to be returned again to FECOM, one incident occurred that he would never forget.

  In the valley behind Heartbreak, where his company had now built fairly decent living bunkers for the winter, his patrols were just eating a hot meal at dusk before going in front of the ridge, down into the no man's land under enemy surveillance. He noticed a short soldier, unknown to him, trudging up the hill, a heavy pack on his back.

  "Hey, soldier," he called, "come here."

  The man, just a kid, reported to him.

  "Where're you going, soldier?"

  "To the front lines."

  "What unit?"

  "Any unit, sir!"

  "Well," Busbey told him, "if you go around that ridge line you will be in the gooks' front lines. What's your outfit?"

  The young soldier told him the 187th Airborne.

  "Now I know you're lying, kid. The outfit's in reserve in Japan."

  But the young man was not lying. The 187th had made a practice jump near Pusan—and some men had immediately taken off for the front. The 187th— paratroops are a sharp but fragile tool, which, since they cannot be used and then put back into the bottle, are best reserved for special missions—had been out of action a long time, and these men wanted to fight. Any fight, anywhere, would do.

  Busbey called Battalion. Battalion informed him he couldn't keep the young man, who was AWOL. But before he was sent back to the rear, Busbey gave him a letter of acceptance to B of the 32nd Infantry, In reply to case the paratrooper's C.O. would release him.

  Just before Arthur Busbey went home, in December 1951, he got a letter from another man in the 187th Airborne, wanting to know if this man could have a letter too.

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  33

  Behind the Wire

  The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

  — Ralph Waldo Emerson, SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.

  AS THE LINES stabilized and the year lengthened, Army Postal Office 971 also began to get things stabilized at Yongdungp'o, on the outskirts of Seoul. First Lieutenant Leonard Morgan received a new C.O., First Lieutenant Forrest Patrick. An ex-infantry officer, Patrick was blood and guts all the way, which was sometimes out of place in an APO.

  He tried to get the four officers and eighty-five enlisted men shaped up, with lectures, and other exhortations, while the mail went through.

  One day, he had the men assembled outside t

  he shoe factory beside the Korean brewery, discussing the problem of the five-gallon water cans always being filled with native beer. At another time Patrick discussed proper conduct in the host Republic of Korea, in compliance with a directive put out by the 2nd Engineer Brigade in Inch'on.

  "We've got to be friendly, and make a good impression," Patrick said. "I don't like this going into the local houses and carrying off the possessions, as some of you have been doing. I want it stopped."

  While he talked, two GI's walked past behind him, carrying a large antique dresser on their backs. Even though they were from another outfit, Patrick's show was ruined.

  Finally, a new C.O. came in, Major Harry Steinberg, Adjutant General's Corps. And Steinberg, called "Dollar Sign" because his initials on a piece of paper looked like one, was an operator. He got things done.

  The first month, he got a shower for the em.

  The second month, the water ran dry. A careful investigation proved that Kim, the Korean factotum who took care of the officer's tent, had been an engineer, and had diverted the water from the shower pipes underground to the Korean houseboy quarters.

  Kim went, the water came back, and the mail continued to move.

  Business was good.

  During the third month there was an arrangement with the officers and men flying in now and then from staff jobs in Tokyo—who wanted to see how things were doing in Korea, earn a shiny new campaign ribbon, and qualify, if they came often enough, for the $200 per month income-tax exemption granted to all serving there—to smuggle in Air Force liquor.

  And so the months went by.

  It took a hell of a long time to accumulate thirty-six points this way, but as the boys of APO 971 knew, there were ways much worse.

  On 17 March 1951 Sergeant Charles B. Schlichter's group from the Valley closed in at Prison Camp Number 5, near Pyoktong, on the Yalu River. The officer and N.C.O. ranks were separated from the others, and a physical count revealed 3,200 POW's of all grades present.

  Between March and October that number was reduced by 50 percent.

  American doctors were allowed to continue with sick call and treatment, but they were given nothing to work with. Medicines were almost nonexistent. The food continued below the calorie content necessary to keep an average American's flesh and spirit together.

  One American doctor in the camp told Schlichter the 400 to 600 grams of boiled cracked corn and millet—with occasional dabs of soya beans and Chinese cabbage—issued each day could not contain more than 1,600 calories, and sometimes the content was only 1,200.

  While under this diet extreme weight loss was inevitable, the worst was the diet's lack of mineral and vitamin content. In East Asia soya is almost the sole source of protein for the poor. But the Americans did not understand how to cook the beans; usually half cooked, these were often indigestible, and their sharp edges tortured men already suffering from starvation-induced diarrhea. Many men refused to touch the soya—cattle fodder in the States—and ate the starches alone. Few of these men lived.

  The Geneva Conventions, revised after Western experience in Japanese POW camps in World War II, state:

  To keep prisoners of war in good health, and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies, account shall be taken of the habitual diet of prisoners.

  But to expect an Asian nation accustomed to famine to feed its prisoners of war better than its own half-starved peasantry was and remains wishful thinking on Americans' part.

  The evidence does not suggest that the Chinese deliberately tried to starve the POW's with the end of extermination in mind, in the footsteps of the Nazis. When in late winter the death rate climbed alarmingly, to twenty-eight men each day, the Chinese commandant of Camp 5 showed signs of concern; he ordered the American doctors in the camp to stop the deaths, at once. More medicines were made available—but the commandant angrily resisted the Americans' demands for more food.

  He admitted the POW's were fed worse than the guards—but they were receiving the same diet that class enemies of the Chinese state received, who not only had to undergo two or more years of reorientation on such rations, but hard labor, too. It was only with the coming of spring and summer, when most of the deaths had already occurred, that the Chinese improved the POW's diet. It was again improved, late in the war, for obvious reasons of world opinion. The Chinese did not wish to repatriate tottering skeletons.

  And one fact that stands out starkly among the pieces of evidence is that while 50 percent of the American POW's died, and a percentage of British that caused grave concern later to her Majesty's Government, few South Koreans experienced much difficulty, and not one Turkish prisoner of war died.

  Chemistry and culture killed the Americans.

  The disciplines, attitudes, and organization that Americans brought into captivity killed many of them.

  Only an extremely cohesive group, with tight leadership and great spiritual strengths, coupled with inner toughness and concern for one another, could have survived the shocks visited upon their minds and bodies.

  The British sergeants stood like rocks, and did well. The British other ranks, largely National Servicemen drafted from the factory towns, with little sense of purpose or cohesion, did less well.

  But it was the Turks who did best of all.

  The Turks were a completely homogeneous group, with common back-ground and common culture, and with a chain of command that was never broken.

  They remain
ed united against the enemy, and they survived.

  The Turks did not come from an admirable society. Only a few decades back in time, Turks were slaving in Egypt, and conducting vast pogroms in Armenia. In the last century Turks still blew living men from the mouths of cannon for minor crimes and punished more serious ones by impalement—a peculiarly horrible form of execution, in which a man was seated on a sharpened tapered stake, toes off the ground, and his body weight, and movements, slowly drove him downward.

  There had never been anything approaching freedom, or democracy, in Turkey. Elections have been held, but the losers normally wind up in jail.

  Turkey had journeyed partway into the twentieth century only under the iron fist of Kemal Atatürk and his successors, who were just as determined as the Chinese Communists to destroy an ancient, backward, Oriental way of life.

  Atatürk was determined to Westernize his people by force. He broke the power of the Moslem clergy, revised education, changed the traditional head-gear and alphabet.

  But in the middle of the century the Turkish soldier who served his country's colors was still a fanatically devout custom-ridden peasant, close to the soil and survival, accustomed to the fiercest discipline all his life, from father, state, and army—but with a barbarian's pride in himself and his people.

  He would take baths only with his clothes on in the prison camps, or allow a nonbeliever friend such as Schlichter to view his Koran only through the seven veils, and he went white with outrage if venereal disease were even discussed. But he was completely aware of what he was—he was a Turk, and a Turk was unquestionably the finest of all possible things to be, even as there was no God but Allah. These matters he felt no need to prove or argue; he had imbibed them with his mother's milk, and his mind had not been cluttered with other notions since.

  He knew Russians were Communists, and he knew Russians were enemies, always had been, always would be. He hated Russians; he hated Communists. The matter was not arguable.

  He was close to the soil, and knew hardship; he ate what Allah or the dogs of Communist Chinese provided, without complaint. He also knew enough to eat any scrap of greenery he could place his hands on, and in the camps many better-educated Americans watched him eat weeds in amazement. Later, many of them followed suit.