During this withdrawal on the night of 28 November, Lieutenant Colonel Hutchins was in radio communication with Colonel Freeman. Freeman kept Hutchins informed of the location of the tail of the main 2nd Division in front of the 23rd Infantry. During this fight at the last stop, Freeman told Hutchins the column was only a mile ahead of him. In these circumstances, Hutchins had A Company hold its position until it appeared that the Chinese were about to encircle them. Then Hutchins ordered A Company to mount the first seven of the ten tanks. Hutchins and Captain Stai were in the radio jeep at the head of A Company.
Between Kujang-dong and Won-ni, A Company, 23rd Infantry, stopped, deployed, and made five stands. In all but the last they had firefights with closely pursuing Chinese. According to the 23rd Infantry command report, A Company reached Won-ni at 10:30 P.M. There it passed through the 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry, which was blocking just north of the village.
At midnight the 9th Infantry troops in their blocking position had a hard fight with Chinese. The 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry, meanwhile, had gone through Won-ni but stopped one mile south of the village, where it went into a blocking position. The 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry, then pulled back through it. The 2nd Division withdrawal from Kujang-dong down the main road for a distance of 15 miles had taken seven hours. In this withdrawal, involving four different firefights with Chinese, A Company, 23rd Infantry, had not lost a single vehicle and had suffered only a few casualties. It was a most skillfully executed piece of division withdrawal under fire and a model of combined tankinfantry rear-guard action in defense.'s
When the 38th Infantry, leading the 2nd Division withdrawal to Kunu-n, arrived at its assigned defense positions in an arc northeast of Kunu-n the night of 28 November it found enemy already there. All day aerial observers had reported enemy forces moving south and east deep in the rear of the 38th Regiment. The 2nd Division CP itself had moved during the day from Unhung-ni, several miles west of Kunu-ri on the Chongchon River road, to a point six miles south of Kunu-ri on the road to Sunchon, and within the new IX Corps zone that Eighth Army had just established. When it arrived at the edge of Kunu-ri, the 38th Regiment had to fight to go into position. The Turkish Brigade was on its right (east) in a blocking position.
The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 23rd Infantry stopped for the night about two miles north of Kunu-ri, on the left (west) of the 38th Infantry. Lieutenant Colonel Hutchins and his 1st Battalion stayed in a dug-in position a mile south of Won-ni for the rest of the night, 28-29 November. American stragglers came through its position all night and during the morning of the next day.16
On 28 November, war correspondent Homer Bigart filed a dispatch entitled "On Chongchon River Line" for the New York Herald Tribune. In it he charged that the "UN forces are now paying the initial price for the unsound decision to launch an offensive north of the peninsula's narrow neck. This move was unsound because it was undertaken with forces far too small to secure the long Korean frontier with China and Russia. Even without the open intervention of Red China, the UN Army was too weak to justify scattered garrisons along the Yalu River." Bigart wrote, "There are enough troops to hold the neck of Korea, provided the divisions now spread out on the northwest front can be brought back quickly. But the overall picture is grim." He saw the "United States faced with the ugly dilemma whether to accept a diplomatic defeat at the UN or launch a declared war and bomb Mukden.""
The British 27th Commonwealth Brigade
It is necessary to interrupt the story of the 2nd Infantry Division, which had now reached Kunu-ri, to describe how the British 27th Commonwealth Brigade was soon to find itself embroiled in the Kunu-ri battles. Eighth Army attached the British brigade to IX Corps at 3 r.M., 27 November. The 27th Brigade had ended very heavy fighting against the Chinese in the Pakchon-Kasan area in early November and were resting there in I Corps reserve when the Eighth Army attack to the border began on 24 November. They buried their dead (A Company of the Australian Battalion had 16 dead and 64 wounded) and also the numerous Chinese dead in their area. Then came their attachment to IX Corps and an order to move to Kunu-ri. The brigade at this time consisted of the Australian Battalion and the British Argyll and Middlesex battalions. Brig. Gen. Basil A. Coad commanded the brigade.
The British 27th Brigade began its movement to Kunu-ri on the afternoon of 27 November under a cloud-covered sky and a strong wind from the north. The Chongchon River was frozen over at their crossing point. The Australian Battalion closed into an assembly area south of Kunu-ri that evening, bivouacking in an extensive rice paddy. In the afternoon when a British correspondent with the battalion reached Kunu-ri, he learned that "something had happened." But no one seemed to know just what. He found much confusion in the IX Corps headquarters as to the situation."
It chanced that, on this same day, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, was relieved of responsibility for security of the Kunu-ri-Sunchon road.
When the Australian Battalion arrived at its assembly point south of Kunuri, it settled the question of how the men were to keep warm, by pulling down telegraph poles and digging out railroad ties from the nearby railbed. Smoke from innumerable fires blotted out the moon. American war correspondents at the IX Corps headquarters also found the situation at the CP confusing and unsatisfactory. Some of them charged there was indirect censorship, as IX Corps would not give information about what was happening at the front.
On the afternoon of the next day, 28 November, the 27th Brigade received orders to move south to Sunchon. The Argyll sergeant-major's verbal comments to the battalion were typical of the other battalion orders in the brigade. He said, "We arc going to march south to Sunchon, where reports say the enemy has cut the road. You will carry full magazines for your rifles and Brcn guns. If the road is clear you will march to Sunchon. If it is blocked you will fight your way to Sunchon. But you will go through to Sunchon."19
The Argylls led off to the skirl of the pipes. The Australian Battalion followed, and last came the Middlesex Battalion. The brigade marched single file in lines, one on each side of the road, leaving the middle for the passage of vehicles. Darkness had settled over the countryside before the last of the brigade got on the road. Before the column reached Sunchon, American trucks met them and carried them on into the town. The brigade arrived before dawn on 29 November. The 1st Cavalry Division had cleared the road ahead of them, and there was no trouble during their movement. The brigade, however, was moved quickly into outpost positions, as rumors were rife that thousands of Chinese troops were near and that an enemy attack was imminent.
On the twenth-ninth, the Argylls sent a patrol toward Pyongyang. At the same time, the Australians were hurriedly carved northeast to Yopa-ri on the Taedong River to keep open an escape route for the 7th US Cavalry Regiment, which was reported withdrawing in front of strong Chinese forces. Lieutenant Colonel Ferguson led the Australians to the river, where they dismounted and crossed the ice to a high mountain on the north side. A village at the river's edge burned from an American fighter-plane strike, and black smoke clouds rose against the background of white snow on the mountains. An Australian observer on the south side of the Taedong, watching the burning village, saw a number of Chinese mounted on Siberian horses ride around a house at a turn of the road. They halted and watched the Australians crossing for a few minutes, then wheeled their mounts and disappeared. The Australians stayed in their river position overnight. The next day, 30 November, word came that the 7th Cavalry Regiment had crossed the Taedong River farther downstream. The Australians then crossed back to the south side of the river.'0
Meanwhile, the Middlesex Battalion was ordered north from Sunchon to the pass they had crossed the night before, which the 2nd Division also would have to cross in its planned retreat south from Kunu-ri. The battalion was to hold the pass open for them. As the Middlesex Battalion approached the south end of the pass (later known simply as the "Pass area"), it found that enemy held the high ground at the pass. In a firefight that developed, the Chi
nese drove back the battalion's advance troops. The battalion thereupon received orders to hold a defensive position eight miles south of the pass. The advanced company had hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese in making its withdrawal. The Middlesex Battalion now received reinforcements in the form of five American tanks, a platoon of C Company, 72nd Tank Battalion, and a battery of American 105-mm howitzers. The Middlesex Battalion made a second effort to reach the pass, and with the help of the American reinforcements, it arrived at a point three miles south of it. But it never controlled the pass or the high ground around it."
Increasing Pressure from the CCF
Chinese columns of great size were in motion all day long on 29 November in the Eighth Army area. No longer did they hide by day and fight by night. They defied the UN air force to stop them. The Fifth Air Force put 148 closesupport missions into the air on 29 November, 113 in the IX Corps sector, as against 25 in the adjacent I Corps sector. The Chinese realized by the end of 28 November that everywhere they had the Eighth Army in retreat. At many points they had large numbers of their troops behind the front lines of Eighth Army. This was particularly true on the American right (east) flank; and it was almost equally true in the army center. Most threatened was the US 2nd Infantry Division. It had a host of enemy troops bearing down on it day and night, from front, flank, and rear. The Chinese command must have felt that now they must not let up for a moment, even though their forces suffered heavily from daylight air attack.
Eighth Army took note of this feature. In its comments for 29 November, the army said in its war diary, "Unlike . . . N.K. units in early stages of the war, [instead] of losing contact for an extended period after withdrawals of Eighth Army units, the CCF Armies exerted almost continuous pressure in all sectors." It continued, "Bold daylight movements of regimental size units have been reported frequently in the past three days. These were partially shielded from air reconnaissance on the mountainous right flank by smoke caused by air strikes or fires set by the enemy." Eighth Army concluded on this day that the enemy was "capable of deep envelopment to strike at Pyongyang, or cut the roads to the city."32
On 29 November Eighth Army changed the boundaries of the IX and I corps to give the IX Corps full responsibility for the threatened area and the IX Corps main line of retreat from Kunu-ri south and southwest to Pyongyang. The IX Corps was responsible for the north-south road running from Kunu-ri through Sunchon to Pyongyang; I Corps was responsible for the area west of this road. Also, the army ordered Gen. John Coulter, IX Corps commander, to build a Class-50 floating bridge across the Taedong River without delay, east of the existing bridge, stipulating that the IX Corps and I Corps boundary should not coincide at that point."
All during the night of 28-29 November and during the day of the twentyninth, the 2nd Division and attached troops moved south on vehicles on the Chongchon valley road through Won-ni toward Kunu-ri. The ROK 3rd Regiment marched in single file on either side of the road. While the 2nd Infantry Division was striving to reach the crossroads village of Kunu-ri, where it would turn south on the road to Sunchon, the Turkish Brigade on a road to the south of it was also converging on Kunu-n from the cast on the road from Tokchon. It was falling back in front of a Chinese force that was pressing it hard and had already inflicted heavy casualties. Kunu-ri was certain to become a bottleneck for all IX Corps troops seeking to escape from the encircling Chinese forces. Before the change in corps boundaries, most of the 25th Division had retreated to Kunu-ri, adding to the confusion there.
Meanwhile the IX Corps CP made ready to move south from Happacham (sometimes referred to as the Unhung-ni area), four miles west of Kunu-ri. The corps CP closed there at 1:30 P.m. on 29 November, and moved to Chasan, six miles south of Sunchon on the main north-south Kunu-ri-Sunchon- Pyongyang road. The CP was thus well south of the main battlefield of the next two days and in a position to move rapidly to Pyongyang in case of an emergency. About the same time, the 2nd Infantry Division CP moved from near Kunu-ri to a shallow, cove-like valley between hills in the Yonghyon area, six miles south of Kunu-ri, on the Sunchon road. The division chief of staff and his own staff arrived there at 8:30 A.M., 28 November. The rest of the division staff and Maj. Gen. Laurence Keiser arrived before dawn of 29 November." The permanent defense force for the division headquarters included M16s (quad-50s) and M19s (dual-40s) from the 82nd AAA Battalion and three tanks from the 2nd Reconnaissance Company.
On 29 November, General Walker sent a message to all corps and division commanders indicating the course he had decided upon for the army in the immediate future. This order closed most of the Eighth Army installations at Pyongyang and relocated them farther south, most of them going all the way to Seoul. These included the Medical Depot, the 34th Ordnance Depot Company, the 44th Ordnance Maintenance Company Depot, the 171st Evacuation Hospital, and the Prisoner of War Enclosure. Also closed were the Ammunition Supply Points (ASP) No. 17 at Sinanju and No. 21 at Kunu-ri. The Quartermaster Supply Points at Sukchon and Sunchon were closed. This order would indicate that, as early as 29 November, General Walker had decided not to defend Pyongyang but to pull the Eighth Army back to the vicinity of the Imjin River and Seoul.35
Men of the 11th Engineer Battalion, I Corps, Eighth Army, construct an M4A2 floating treadway bridge over the Tong Dong River near Pyongyang, 2 December 1950. National Archives 111-SC 356051
As explained in Chapter 3 above, Kunu-ri was a village on the northern edge of Kaechon, absorbed by the latter after 1950. In size, Kunu-ri was about one mile north-south and generally half a mile east-west. It lay at the southern edge of the Chongchon River floodplain, where hill country began, and was about three to four miles south of the Chongchon River itself, which swept past it in a north-bending arc. The Kaechon-gang and the Chotong-gang, both tributaries of the Chongtong River from the south, flowed northwest past the westcrn side of Kunu-ri, the Kaechon-gang being the closer of the two to Kunu-ri.
The Chongchon valley road ran southwest from Won-ni (Pug-,von) about five miles to the northern edge of Kunu-ri. Entering the town, it turned south for about a mile through the town and then turned west in the valley toward Anju and Sinanju. Near the point where the valley road turned west at the southern edge of Kunu-ri, another road ran south and then east toward Pongmyongni, Wawon, and Tokchon on the northeast side of the Kaechon River. This is the road used by the Turkish Brigade on its advance from, and then retreat to, Kunu-n'.
At Pongmyong-ni, a road turns south from the Tokchon road and winds generally almost due south to the Taedong River, where a ferry crossed at Samso-ri, and then continued on south to Sunchon. This was the best road in 1950 from Kunu-ri to Sunchon. But the Chinese cut the road at Samso-ri on 29 November and defeated efforts of the 5th Cavalry Regiment to drive them from the road. This made the road unusable to the 2nd Infantry Division in its withdrawal the next day.
The 2nd Division had to take another road south from Kunu-ri that branched off the valley road about a mile and a half west of the southern edge of the town and followed the valley of the Chotong-gang on a winding course southward through the hills toward the Taedong River and Sunchon. About eight air miles, and perhaps 15 road miles, south of Kunu-ri, the Chotong-gang has its source in the divide between the Chongchon and Taedong drainages. Here was the so-called Pass area that soon became so well known to all 2nd Division troops who traveled the road. There is little doubt that elements of the same Chinese formation that seized the main Sunchon road at Samso-ri on 29 November also established the first roadblocks on the alternate road from Kunu-ri only three miles west of Samso-ri.
A rail line ran south from the Chongchon valley at Kunu-ri, following generally the line of the Chotong-gang southward, but turning west to a better grade before reaching the Pass area. On the south side of the divide, the rail and road routes came together again and continued on, never far from each other, south to Sunchon." In describing the situation around Kunu-ri, it is also to be noted that the three air miles of flat land between Kunu-ri
and the Chongchon River was of a delta nature, bisected by numerous streams, large and small, with ricepaddy land in between. It had numerous trails crossing it, but no roads.
During the morning of 29 November dark, heavy clouds covered the sky, and there were snow showers until noon. Air support and aerial observation were largely missing for the continued withdrawal of the 2nd Infantry Division. At 6 A.M., the temperature stood at 21 degrees, but by midafternoon it had risen to above freezing-35 degrees. Everywhere on the 2nd Division front the Chinese closed up fast on the withdrawing troops.
The 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry, with E and G companies of the 24th Infantry, 25th Division, accompanying it, withdrew under heavy enemy pressure south of Won-ni through the defensive position of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry. It then started for Kunu-ri. On the west side of the Chongchon River below Won-m, part of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, held blocking positions to allow a part of the 24th Infantry of the 25th Division to withdraw to the south side of the river. These 9th Infantry troops then joined the 27th Regiment of the 25th Division in crossing the Chongchon. During the day, armor covering the 9th Infantry withdrawal lost six tanks to enemy action.17 Colonel Sloane and his remnants of the 2nd and 3rd battalions, 9th Infantry, assembled near the 2nd Division CP six miles south of Kunu-ri.
At 11:15 A.M., aerial observers reported an estimated three enemy regiments -equivalent to a division of Chinese troops-crossing the Chongchon River to its south side below Won-ni. They moved in two formations. One entered Wonni; the other, larger, body moved south along the valley a short distance and then climbed to the high ground southeast of the river to Hills 622 and 534, peaks in a large mountain mass four to five miles from the river. From there, only four air miles from Kunu-ri, they had it all downhill and could sec in a broad arc to the west and southwest and to the road connecting Kunu-n with Pongmyong-ni, where the Turkish Brigade was fighting a delaying battle. This new and very large enemy force was in a position during the day to threaten the entire 2nd Infantry Division, now in the Kunu-n area, as well as the surviving elements of the Turkish Brigade. It could either move directly against them during the afternoon and night or head southwest into their rear."
Disaster in Korea Page 32
