On 6 and 7 December, Chinese forces appeared in Pyongyang together with North Korean units and began the occupation of the city. A South Korean agent in Pyongyang reported that on 6 December between 3,000 and 5,000 Chinese soldiers entered the city, arriving from Sunchon and Kangdong to the northeast and east. ROK stragglers reported CCF soldiers guarding the Taedong River bridge sites in Pyongyang just before noon on 7 December. Still other agents reported during the period 6-8 December that Chinese were arriving in Pyongyang and moving to the south side of the city, but there was no general movement of enemy troops more than a few miles south of Pyongyang. One of the North Korean soldiers who entered the city at this time, later captured, said they were surprised to find still intact the large underground arsenal in one of the numerous coal mines at the edge of Pyongyang, with its store of ammunition and machinery, hastily abandoned when the North Korean Army and government officials fled north in October. This North Korean arsenal had about 1,000 pieces of machinery and manufactured small arms, Soviet-type machine guns, and grenades.'
About the same time enemy troops entered Pyongyang, other enemy units reached the port of Chinnampo, at the mouth of the Taedong River, and began crossing to the south side. Aerial observation confirmed that enemy troops were crossing the river by ferry near Chinnampo on 6 December but did not confirm that enemy troops were yet in the city. Large numbers of Korean refugees fled in front of the Chinese, about 10,000 of them being reported in the Chinnampo area. After 6 December, Eighth Army tried to keep Korean refugees off the main supply roads leading south and shunted them westward to the Haeju Peninsula below Chinnampo. Korean civilian reports said the enemy were screening large masses of refugees for conscription of young men to fill depleted North Korean units. Other agents reported a small group of Chinese soldiers in Sariwon on 13 December, but this was refuted by other reports that none arrived there until 17 December.'
In its retreat south from Pyongyang, Eighth Army prevented many refugees from using the main road south, but refugees crowded the railroad trains, hanging on to every place imaginable on the outside of the cars and the top of boxcars. All trains were stopped at Kumchon, a few miles north of the 38th Parallel, and there the refugees were forced off. Some estimates placed the number of Korean refugees in the Haeju Peninsula, between Chacryong and Haeju, as 30,000 to 50,000 on 9 December.' The army did not want these masses of refugees in the area north of Seoul along the Imjin River, where it expected to form a defense line. Since they were North Koreans, it tried to prevent them from crossing the 38th Parallel into South Korea. Already military writers in the United States seemed to be preparing the American people for disaster in Korea. Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times wrote in the 6 December issue, "The dangerous alternatives of another Munich or Oriental Dunkerque loomed yesterday as the Korean crisis darkened."'
There were plenty of snafus in the army movement south. For example, Engineer troops destroyed a rail bridge north of Namchonjom prematurely on 9 December, as a 30-car train was bringing the ROK 1st Division from Sinmak to Namchonjom. With the bridge out, the troops had to transfer to trucks. But there was no enemy interference-they were far behind. From 9 to 19 December, I Corps reported it had no enemy contact. Disorganization was common at this time. Even with no enemy near, there were tragic accidents caused by extreme nervousness. At night on 13 December, an artillery forward observer with I Company, 35th Infantry, was killed when a guard shot him during a halt for identification.
The weather caused trouble for the retreating army. On 8 December large amounts of floating ice took out the pontoon bridge over the Imjin River at Munsan-ni, and troops going south there were rerouted over the decked railroad bridge. And while the roads south of Pyongyang were congested with Eighth Army movement south to the 38th Parallel, the docks at Pusan on 10 December were jammed with 60,000 tons of supplies. Four hundred railcars were needed to move this logjam to allow further unloading.'
Meanwhile, the major units of Eighth Army were approaching, or already were south of, the 38th Parallel and nearing their intermediate goal-the defense positions north of Seoul. The 2nd Infantry Division had moved all the way to Yongdong-po, south of the Han River, where it was to reequip and take in replacements. The Turkish Brigade was at Sosa-ri, between Yongdong-po and Inchon to reequip and reorganize. The 24th Division had closed on Uijongbu, about 12 miles north of Seoul, by 10 December. The next day the British 29th Brigade, released from 1st Cavalry Division control, was attached to the 24th Division but remained under IX Corps control.
On 13 December, IX Corps issued its Operational Plan No. 4, which called for the 24th Division to cover the corps withdrawal through Seoul if enemy pressure should force it. The 24th Division now took its place on the defense line south of the Imjin River, known as Line B. The 1st Cavalry Division moved to Sibyon-ni on 8-9 December, and on the eleventh it moved to a new assembly area only six miles north of Seoul in Eighth Army reserve. But four days later, Eighth Army ordered the 1st Cavalry Division to move to Kapyong, 35 miles northwest of Seoul, to an important point on the Chunchon road, south of the Iron Triangle, where resurgent North Koreans were threatening the UN right flank. Col. Harold Johnson replaced Colonel Palmer in command of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, and Col. Marcel G. Crombez assumed command of the 5th Cavalry Regiment on 14 December.' On 13 December 1st Cavalry Division motorized patrols had gone as far east as Chunchon, Hongchon, Wonju, and Chipo-ri without enemy contact.
In the midst of the withdrawal, Eighth Army on 9 December rescinded its earlier "scorch ed-ea rt h" policy and its order that all villages be burnt.
The two weeks following Eighth Army's evacuation of Pyongyang saw a bewildering succession of army orders and operational plans. Some were drawn up and not issued; others lasted only a day or two. They apparently represented an effort by the army G-3 staff, and by General Walker, to give the withdrawal some logic and orderly behavior. But few, if any, of these operational plans meant anything in what happened. The army simply went on south as fast as it could, and hardly anyone expected an army order to he acted on, because it would be obsolete and overtaken by time and space before it could be implemented. For instance, Army Operational Plan No. 17 stated that the army final defense line would be from the mouth of the Yesong River on the west to Kumchon, Sibyon-ni, Chorwon, Chigyong-dong, and Hwachon. On 7 December it was modified to change corps boundaries. Then the next day, the army issued Operational Plan No. 18, which set up new delaying positions farther south, which would become effective on further army order. On 9 December, the army announced that plan 18 would become effective at 6 A.M. on 11 December. Then on that same date General Walker sent a letter to the commanding general of the 2nd Logistical Command at Pusan, directing him to construct a series of defense lines between the Naktong River and the port of Pusan.' It soon became clear that the avalanche of orders only gave an appearance of formality to what in effect was a rapid retreat to the Seoul and Han River area and seemed to project a continuation from there to the southern extremity of the peninsula, and a possible exit from the country through the port of Pusan.
On 11 December the I Corps Engineers blew up the bridge over the Yesong River, just west of Kaesong, and during the day destroyed all the bridges across the river in the ROK 1st Division and British 29th Brigade sectors. General MacArthur on that day made a hasty trip to Korea. General Walker met MacArthur and his party at Kimpo airfield, and they drove back to Seoul for a conference. What was discussed at this meeting is not a matter of record, but it can be assumed that part of the discussion centered on General MacArthur's order to X Corps that it should outload at Hungnam and come by sea to the Pusan area and then join Eighth Army. The 1st Marine Division had just reached Hungnam after its long two-week fight to escape the Chinese forces at the Chosin Reservoir. It is also likely that General MacArthur wanted to appraise General Walker's state of mind, since it is known MacArthur was disappointed that Eighth Army did not establish and try to hold a defensive position above Pyongyang. G
eneral MacArthur made another of his public relations statements to the press after his visit to Seoul. He said:
Map 15. The plan for withdrawal defense lines given in Operational Plan 12 in an Eighth Army order to the 2nd Logistical Command, 11 December 1950.
The United Nations command, in spite of its recent heavy fighting, is in excellent shape, with high morale and conspicuous self-confidence.... Every possible advantage has been taken of the premature disclosure of surreptitious enemy build-up operations designed to encompass our destruction by one massive stroke. This enemy plan has failed. All our units are intact and the losses inflicted on the enemy have been . . . as high as ten to one compared with our own.... Notwithstanding the enormous danger inherent in the drastic change I consider that the command for the time being is relatively secure.'
On 15 December air reconnaissance reported that the Chinese had repaired the highway bridge over the Taedong River at Pyongyang and that vehicular traffic had been sighted south of the city. I Corps reported that its Engineers had blown the railroad bridge over the Imjin River that morning at 2 A.M. and that the pontoon bridge over the river had been salvaged and evacuated. It also said that all UN troops were on the south side of the Imjin. The Eighth Army's G-3 Operations Section complained about meager intelligence, stating that it had no indication where the expected enemy attack would be made, if and when it came. Another Chinese envelopment of the army right flank on the east was generally feared. It was to strengthen the ROK troops there that the army's reserve force, the 1st Cavalry Division, had been sent to Kapyong to prevent an enemy approach from there toward Seoul.'
At this time a serious disturbance involved the Turkish Brigade. The Turkish Brigade had been attached to the 25th Infantry Division on the afternoon of 13 December. The division had responsibility for the western end of the army line and accordingly had its left boundary on the sea. South of Kaesong and northwest of Seoul, and on the south side of the Han River where it emptied into the sea, the large island of Kanghwa-do, cut off from the Korean peninsula by a narrow inlet between the Han River and the sea, formed the western extremity of the 25th Division's zone of responsibility. It assigned the Turkish Brigade the mission of patrolling the island and watching for attempted enemy crossings of the mouth of the Han. The Navy and the Air Force were to cooperate with it. On 15 December the Turkish Brigade established a number of outposts on the island. The next day the 25th Division operations officer informed Eighth Army that the Korean Civil Police protested that the Turkish Brigade had fired on Korean refugees crossing the river at Monju and had killed many of them. The refugees had been trying to land from their boats when fired on. The Korean refugee traffic was very heavy through Kaesong, only five miles south of the 38th Parallel, and the incident had occurred where local authorities had been channeling fleeing refugees. US Navy vessels patrolled the area along with South Korean naval vessels.
A Navy message to Eighth Army confirmed that Turkish Brigade troops had killed some refugees. The Navy and ROK messages to Eighth Army requested that action be taken to prevent a recurrence of the incident. At the same time, word came that there was bad feeling and trouble between the South Korean island governor and the civil assistance staff with the Turkish troops on the island. Assistant 25th Division commander, Brig. Gen. Vennard Wilson, visited the Turkish Brigade on 19 December to straighten out the matter. On his return his plane crashed on takeoff. Wilson was injured in the crash and was evacuated to Japan.10
By the middle of December Eighth Army was moving into the Imjin River defense line. The 25th Division was south of the Imjin on the west flank by 14 December. There it had a special problem in controlling the movement of refugees, who were especially numerous in that part of the line. East of the 25th Division the ROK 1st Division was in place. The ROK 6th Division was on line east of the ROK 1st Division, and east of it the US 24th Division was moving into line. Eighth Army considered the area held by the ROK 6th Division a weak sector, and on 16 December it sent the 1st Cavalry Division to the Kapyong area to backstop the ROK division. The ROK 7th and 8th divisions of the ROK II Corps had taken positions in the Wonju area in the unprotected central corridor of the peninsula.
The 8213th Ranger Company, which had been decimated in its first battle north of Ipsok on the night of 25 November in the initial Chinese onslaught against Task Force Dolvin of the 25th Division, had been reorganized and replacements taken in, and the company had trained in the Pusan area. It was now ready for recommitment. On 17 December the 25th Division attached it to the Turkish Brigade, which also received the 79th Tank Battalion at this time."
Signs that the enemy might be approaching the Imjin River began to appear. On 16 December an aerial report indicated that Chinese forces were in Sariwon. A ROK 1st Division patrol on 18 December reported contact with enemy north of the Imjin. The next day it reported its patrols had encountered enemy platoonand company-sized groups north of the river.
On 20 December, F Company, 21st Infantry, 24th Division, sent out patrols to capture enemy prisoners. The army needed information as to the enemy strength and whether Chinese or North Korean formations were in that part of the enemy buildup. The patrol got into a firefight with an enemy force at Hill 216 but took no prisoners. The patrol had seven casualties in this fight and estimated it had killed about 30 enemy. The location indicated the enemy force was probably North Korean.
On that same day, the ROK 1st Division reported its patrols had contact with a small enemy group north of the Imjin that they believed to be Chinese. ROK patrols from this division crossed to the north side of the Imjin River nightly to scout the area to its front for intelligence. On 20 November the ROK I, II, and III corps in the eastern and central parts of the peninsula reported no enemy contact. The US I and IX corps reported only light patrol action. But by this time it was clearly evident that strong North Korean forces held the Iron Triangle and vicinity, and while Eighth Army had virtually no knowledge of the location and strength of the Chinese that might he in its immediate front because it had no contact and its patrol actions were weak, signs were beginning to appear that the Chinese, who had remained static for nearly two weeks after the capture of Pyongyang, were once again on the move. Again on 22 December the US I and IX corps reported no significant enemy activity to their fronts but offered the view that the central area was likely to he the scene of the next enemy attack. I Corps believed there was a CCF buildup of three divisions north of Munsan-ni.'2
It is doubtful if General Walker was greatly cheered on 19 December when President Syngman Rhee decorated him with the Republic of Korea's Military Order of Merit with gold star for bravery and professional skill in his defense of the Pusan perimeter during the preceding summer.
During this period of UN withdrawal in the west, from the Chongchon River south to Seoul and the Imjin and Han rivers line, the US Navy played hardly any role after evacuating UN forces and supplies from Chinnampo. It was during this period that virtually all US naval forces in the Far East were concentrated on the cast coast of Korea at Wonsan and Hungnam for the evacuation of the US X Corps from northeast Korea. That was a massive undertaking, the largest American sealift since the Okinawan campaign of World War II. The Navy completed the evacuation of X Corps at Hungnam on 24 December and tamed out the final stages of transferring the corps to the Pusan area at the southern tip of the peninsula, where it was to prepare to move into the Eighth Army line, which at that time rested in the vicinity of the Han River and Seoul.
While the Navy had little part in the Eighth Army withdrawal in the first part of December to the Seoul area, it was faced with increasing demands to prepare for the possible evacuation of all UN forces from Korea. On 7 December Admiral Thackerav received orders to start removal of army supplies from Inchon, the west-coast port for Seoul. On 20 December, Eighth Army headquarters left Seoul for Taegu, although President Syngman Rhee refused to move the South Korean government. In anticipation of future enemy activity in the western part of Korea bel
ow the 38th Parallel, Eighth Army requested the Navy to plan for providing naval gunfire along the entire western coast of Korea." One had only to lift a finger into the wind to know which way it was blowing.
Demolition Policies of the Eighth Army
It is necessary to comment on the Eighth Army demolition policy in its withdrawal from Pyongyang because it had tremendous importance in the future conduct of the war. According to Maj. Gen. Leven Allen, Eighth Army's chief of staff at the time, the Far Fast Command ordered General Walker to destroy everything that might be of use to the enemy, to adopt a "scorched-earth" policy." After the bulk of Eighth Army had passed south of Sariwon and neared the 38th Parallel, the policy was modified to rescind destruction of villages and civil ian property. But the policy still called for destruction of every bridge and transportation facility the army passed in its withdrawal. This order was still in effect when Eighth Army evacuated Seoul and crossed the Han River, withdrawing farther south, in January 1951. This continuing destruction was interpreted by many in the army to mean that it would never move north again and that the facilities destroyed would never again be needed in American military operations in Korea.
Later, when General Ridgway turned Eighth Army around and started back north, the army was constantly slowed because virtually all bridges and other transportation facilities had to be rebuilt, with great cost and enormous effort by engineering units and Korean labor.
CoI. Pascal Strong, chief engineer of Eighth Army, opposed this demolition policy, recommending that only major bridges be partially destroyed. He pointed out that the Chinese and North Koreans had few vehicles and little heavy equipment and that destruction of all bridges would impede them very little. General Walker overruled him, in some instances directing that rails on the railroad system he lifted and destroyed. The destruction continued after Walker's death and into January 1951 because General Ridgway did not know at first the extent of the destruction. When Eighth Army in the late winter of 1950-51 started back north, Colonel Strong and the Engineers had to rebuild 23 bridges between Chonan and Seoul on the road back to the Han River in 1951. All of this reconstruction was in South Korea.
Disaster in Korea Page 57
