The greatest concentration of demolition targets was in Pyongyang. Just about every bridge along the withdrawal route was destroyed. In Pyongyang the most important demolition targets were the Taedong River bridges. The rear-guard commander authorized the time of their destruction. The Rail Transportation Officer (RTO) north of the Taedong was also authorized to order execution of the demolitions. There were several large buildings in the heart of Pyongyang that were marked for demolition.
Colonel Itschner called a meeting on 2 December of all engineer officers who would be responsible for executing demolitions. Each officer was required to give a verbal description of his targets and his plans for their demolitions. Some of these major demolitions will be described subsequently. The work went pretty well on schedule, and at 6 P.M. on 4 December information indicated that all troops would have passed through the bridgehead perimeter by 3 A.M. the next morning, 5 December. Meanwhile, heavy equipment and troops not needed to carry out the demolitions had already moved south. During the night, word came that the last troops from the north would pass through the perimeter approximately two hours earlier than estimated. This allowed a speeding up of demolition work. While the Engineers' work was confined largely to bridges, Service troops of organizations in and around Pyongyang tried to destroy all supplies that could not be evacuated. The last planned demolition in Pyongyang was the destruction with napalm of a large supply of bombs at the airfield. Black clouds from the napalm and the thunderous explosions of the aerial bombs could be seen and heard as the last Engineers cleared the southern edge of Pyongyang.`
Exodus from Pyongyang on 3-5 December
When the CCF began closing in on Pyongyang, it was clear that the army units left on the west end of the line in I Corps were under the least enemy pressure. The MSR from Sinanju leading south to Pyongyang, in fact, was free of enemy interference. The CCF pressure was farther east, in the IX Corps sector, concentrated against the US 2nd Infantry Division at Kunu-ri, and also into the void left by the defeated ROK II Corps farther cast and southeast. As late as 2 December a ROK 1st Division patrol returned to Sinanju airport and salvaged several tons of rice. The coastal road was still free of Chinese troops.
On 3 December Korean civilians began leaving Pyongyang in droves. Barges and small boats ferried civilians across the Tacdong River, until the boats were destroyed to prevent such movement south, which clogged the roads the army would need for its withdrawal. No Korean civilians were allowed to cross the army bridges. But they could not be prevented from crossing the ruins of the great steel bridge that had been the main crossing point before American bombers destroyed and dropped the south span into the river. On 3-4 December Korean civilians by the thousands crossed the river on this bridge, climbing to the top of the steel girders and crossing on them, many with great bundles and packages on their backs. It seemed a feat possible only for a tightrope walker. It was an act of desperation. It is not known how many fell to their death in the river below. An Associated Press photographer caught a dramatic and fearsome view of this Korean mass of humanity crossing on the arched beams of this destroyed bridge, every top girder on the sides a solid line of people climbing up or sliding down the steeply pitched steel pathway. Back at the central part of the budge, which still stood, a solid mass of people waited their chance to take the same desperate risk." It was estimated that 300,000 civilians were trying to leave the city. On 4 December it was apparent that only the most heartless suppression by force could have prevented these Korean civilians from crossing to the south side of the river, and attempts to stop them largely ceased. Great numbers then waded the river at its shallower spots.
North Koreans fleeing from their homes in Pyongyang and crossing the Taedong River to the south side, 3 December 1950, as Eighth Army evacuates the North Korean capital. National Archives 111-SC 355229
On 3 December, some 1,500 Korean city officials and others who had aided the UN forces while the latter occupied Pyongyang were allowed to cross the river and escape south. At the same time, the thousands that applied at the city hall for permits to flee the city were told there was no transportation available to help them. There was great fear that an enemy fifth column would start to operate in the city. There was a rumor that enemy airborne troops would drop on Pyongyang. And on the third, the body of a civilian who had been bound and shot was found near the airfield."
Railroads and the Evacuation
In the withdrawal from Pyongyang the movement of both personnel and supplies depended to a large degree on the Korean National Railroads. All locomotives were steam operated and required large amounts of water. As the Eighth Army moved north into recaptured and later captured territory, after the Inchon landing and the army breakout from the Naktong perimeter in the late summer and early fall, the Corps of Engineers had to install 480-gallon pumps and 100-kilowatt generators for the rail shops, roundhouses, and pumping stations. Along the rail fines nearly all the communication lines had been destroyedfrom Seoul to Kaesong, destruction had been 100 percent. Until December, only Korean communication repairmen could be used. There was no copper wire for the rail communication lines. Field wire would function for only a day or two. SCR 399 radios were tried at each main station, but they too were unsatisfactory. By early December a good line had been established between Kaesong and Pyongyang, but it was mid-December before the line between Seoul and Kaesong functioned properly. Beyond Pyongyang north to Sinanju at the Chongchon River, the rail communication line never operated.
The most important help to rail communications came from the Mukden cable, which was buried under the main highway north through Pyongyang to Sinanju and on north to the border, where it crossed at Sinuiju to continue on to Mukden, Manchuria. In late November and early December, Eighth Army had the cable operating from Pyongyang southward, with circuits to Pusan, Taegu, Taejon, and Chonan. Rail communication at Pyongyang was assigned directly to the 3rd Transportation Military Railway Service. During the Eighth Army withdrawals from late November into January, there was no difficulty with rail communications. It had been restored just in time for the withdrawal.
Prior to the army withdrawal from the North Korean front, US Army Engineers had built what was called a "Shoo-Fly" expedient rail bridge across the Han River to Seoul, another over the Imjin River, and a high-level bridge across the Yesong River at Hanpo-ri. Except for these, South Korean bridge and track gangs of the Korean National Railroads repaired the rail lines as Eighth Army advanced from September to December. They worked rapidly and could outperform the US Engineers in the type of work they did. They repaired rail lines mostly by using sand bags, timber trestling, and rail stringers.
By late November, completion of the high-level bridge at Hanpo-ri over the Yesong River, about 25 miles north of Kaesong, made possible continuous rail operations north as far as the Taedong Station, opposite Pyongyang on the south side of the Taedong River. By 1 December rail service operated to Sinanju, but since there was no rail bridge across the Taedong River at Pyongyang, this rail service had to begin at the north bank of the river in that city. This made it necessary, in transporting supplies or personnel from north to south or in the opposite direction, to unload at the station nearest the river bank on both the north and south sides, reload on trucks that crossed the river on a pontoon bridge, then reload onto railcars on the opposite hank. The importance of the rail system in Eighth Army operations can be seen in the 4,000 tons daily that were coming into Pyongyang when the CCF 2nd Phase Offensive began in late November. One estimate states that the Korean National Railroads moved about 95 percent of military tonnage to the front. When Pyongyang was evacuated, all the railroad locomotives and rolling stock north of the Tacdong River necessarily were lost and were destroyed. Rail yards were stripped of supplies, inoperative locomotives were destroyed, bridges, switches, control towers, and other equipment were blown up. This process continued south of the Tacdong after Eighth Army had evacuated Pyongyang and hurried south toward Seoul."
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p; In the Eighth Army withdrawal, the Signal Service was destroyed as completely as were the transportation facilities. Col. Thomas A. Pitcher, of the Signal Section, Eighth Army, wrote the following: "The destruction of signal equipment was systematic during the withdrawal during the winter of 19501951. We didn't know whether we were leaving Korea, but we took no chance of leaving anything behind which could aid the enemy. We did a thorough job of destroying the repeater stations, cable, and open-wire lines.""
Troop movements through Pyongyang continued apace on 4 December, all of it southward. The 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, moved from Pyongyang ten miles south. It was not a long distance in miles, but converging roads entering Pyongyang from the north and northeast poured a constant stream of military traffic into it and held the 35th Infantry column north of the city for several hours. The ROK 1st Division cleared Pyongyang and crossed the Taedong River bridge to the south side just before midnight. The 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, now south of the city, on orders tried to return to Pyongyang during the fourth to bring out supplies left there by various army units but found it impossible to reenter the city. It was on fire, and explosions there could be heard from a considerable distance. The returning troops considered it unsafe to cross into the city and abandoned their mission."
During the day, I Corps reported that withdrawal of the 5th, 7th, and 8th cavalry regiments, the 27th British Brigade, and the ROK 6th Division proceeded on schedule. When the 7th Cavalry moved south out of Kangdong that morning, a report from the TACP with it relayed a pilot report that CCF with selfpropelled artillery was behind it. A Mosquito plane was shot down just after noon. It crashed nine miles south of Sunchon. An aerial investigation at the crash site showed no sign of the pilot, but four enemy soldiers were standing around the plane. During the day all elements of the 1st Cavalry Division and the British 27th Brigade crossed to the south or cast side of the Taedong River. There was no enemy contact during the day except by patrols, although ROK stragglers reported that a company of ROKs was surrounded in or near Sunchon and had engaged in a firefight with Chinese during the early hours of 4 December. The enemy did not seem to be pressing a pursuit.16
The destruction of all military facilities in Pyongyang began on 4 December and continued during the day and that night, on into early the next morning. The British 29th Brigade began the systematic destruction as soon as the ROK 1st Division had cleared through the city.
In its retreat from Sunan, eight miles north of Pyongyang, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, reported at 5:30 P.M. on 4 December that all ammunition railcars there had not been completely destroyed but were left burning. There were 11 boxcars and a gondola. The 1st Battalion notified the 25th Division and requested an air strike on the cars to complete their destruction. When the Indian Field Ambulance Unit joined the British 27th Brigade at Pyongyang, it received orders to burn all its stores, a six-months' supply. The commanding officer of the unit was horrified. Rather than comply, he found a locomotive, filled the boiler with water from jerricans passed along a human chain. His men then cut wood, fired the engines, found two men who said they could run the locomotive, and then got their supplies over the river bridge to the train at 4 A.M. on 5 December, just an hour before it was blown."
The ROK 2nd Division withdraws ten miles south of Pyongyang, S December 1950. National Archives 111-SC 353863
The entrainment of the 2nd Infantry Division Rear personnel at Pyongyang for movement to Seoul affords an example of the difficulties, delays, and growing chaos in the North Korean capital as Eighth Army hurried to evacuate the city. About 8 P.M. on 2 December, the train began loading. Personnel loaded into coaches; division records and personal equipment and belongings were placed in open gondola cars. Enemy air activity over the city, with at least one plane dropping bombs, caused intermittent blackout conditions. Probably it was only the nightly visit of Bed Check Charlie. The train remained in a substation until 4 P.M. the next day, when it moved to the main Pyongyang rail station. In mak ing this short move, the train passed thousands of ROK soldiers, many wounded and most without their individual weapons. In the station, the train's locomotive was uncoupled and put on a hospital train that had higher priority in movement. The 2nd Division train had no choice but to wait for another locomotive. Guards were placed on each boxcar and gondola.
At daylight on 4 December the 2nd Division train still sat in the Pyongyang rail station. The commanding officer of the 3rd serial of the train at 8 A.M. called the personnel of the various sections together and told them that there was a good possibility the train would have to be abandoned and that the Division Headquarters section would have to decide whether to destroy the equipment that could not he carried and have the men walk south or to wait on the train and hope that a locomotive would be available for it. The decision was to wait. As many as 125 men crowded into a coach. At 11:30 A.M., the postal officer began to burn money-order files, letters, and money on instructions of the train commanding officer. An hour later, soldiers and civilians in Pyongyang began to loot boxcars on the tracks in the Pyongyang rail yard, anticipating that they could not he moved south. Leather jackets were a popular choice. At 1 P.M., a locomotive was hitched to the train, but the RTO at Pyongyang said it could be used only for the movement of personnel. All records and equipment in the open gondolas were left behind when those cars were detached from the train. The 38th Regiment lost all its personnel records, the adjutant general of the division lost most of his files, and the Division Rear personnel lost nearly all their personal belongings. The train pulled out of the station at 5:20 P.M. on 4 December. A few miles south of Pyongyang it hit the back of another train, killing several refugees hitching a ride on the rear car.
The train reached Sariwon early on 5 December, only about 40 miles south of Pyongyang. The next day the train crossed the 38th Parallel at 9:45 A.M. At the last rail station north of the 38th Parallel, refugees crowded everywhere. They had been stopped there and forbidden to cross the parallel. Most of them were in tears. Snow now covered the ground. The train continued slowly, passing through Kaesong at 4:10 on the sixth. On 7 December the 2nd Division Rear train arrived at the outskirts of Seoul early in the morning, and about 5 P.M. in the afternoon had crossed the Han River to the new 2nd Division Headquarters in Yongdong-po on the south side of the river."
A Special Problem with the Turkish Brigade
After the lurks' fighting retreat from Wawon on the road from Tokchon to Kunu-ri, where the Turks and the Chinese first met in battle, and their subsequent battles around Kunu-ri, Turkish soldiers were found in widely scattered places west and south of the fighting front, some as far west as Anju and Sinanju, and others as far south as Pyongyang, while the bulk of the brigade was still engaged at the southeast edge of Kunu-ri. In the big enemy fireblock south of Kunu-ri, most of the surviving Turks intermingled with 2nd Division troops and attempted to pass through the enemy fireblock, with varying luck. Most of them turned up in Pyongyang on 1 and 2 December. It was apparent even then that the Turks were in a foul mood at what had happened. In Pyongyang on 1 December, Capt. Ismail Catalogy, aide to Brig. Gen. Tahsin Yazici, the Turkish Brigade commander, said of the Turks, "Many men are bitter-bitter because of requested air strikes which did not come, a lack of transportation to get us out of our rough spot, a shortage of food and ammunition, and the fact that we were not advised on occasions of withdrawal plans. Some think they were let down by the Americans, but we are explaining that everyone had a bad time up there."19 Captain Catalogy estimated that at least 500 Turks had been killed or wounded.
As quickly as possible Eighth Army had to move the Turks out of Pyongyang and get them far behind the front lines for rehabilitation and reorganization. They were sent south to assemble at Kacsong, on the MSR and the railroad that ran north from Seoul to Pyongyang. Upon arrival at Kaesong, the Turkish Brigade was to be attached to the 2nd Infantry Division, which was also moving to the rear for reorganization. Just before midnight or 3 December abou
t 1,100 Turkish soldiers arrived at Kaesong by truck. The next day two train elements were expected to arrive there with another 2,000 Turks.20
The Eighth Army G-4 records indicate that, by the afternoon of 4 December a crisis was reported developing at Kaesong, where the Turks alleged there was no food for them. Immediate action was taken. Nine trucks were sent to Ascom City, a general supply depot between Seoul and Inchon, and two railcars of rations were loaded and arrived at Kaesong at 4 P.M. the next afternoon. At the same time, steps were taken to airlift 8,000 blankets and 4,000 sleeping bags to Kacsong for the Turks. They arrived there on 5 December. The Turks were short on everything, but food, blankets, and sleeping bags were considered of immediate importance.
Disaster in Korea Page 51
