Disaster in Korea

by Roy E Appleman

  The CCF Resume Contact with UN Forces

  The CCF had by now moved up to contact with the Eighth Army and other UN forces in Line Baker. For more than two weeks after the Chinese and some North Koreans entered Pyongyang on 6 December there had been, in effect, a no-man's-land from Pyongyang to the Imjin River line, where Eighth Army stopped in its headlong retreat. This no-man's-land was vast, about 70 to 75 air miles. This situation did not, however, exist in central Korea, in the Iron Triangle area, where North Korean guerrillas held strategically important ground.

  There is reason to think that the CCF were surprised when they found Eighth Army had not regrouped to fight a major battle against them north of Pyongyang in early December. It would appear that the CCF 2nd Phase Offensive in late November and early December 1950 had as its goal the capture of Pyongyang in the west and Wonsan in the cast. At any rate, that is where the CCF advance stopped. For the next two weeks the CCF army in the west in the Eighth Army zone regrouped and resupplied, and its leaders considered what should be their next move when they found that the UN forces had disappeared to their front.

  In the northeast, the CCF were so badly used up after the X Corps evacuated that part of Korea that the CCF IX Army could do no better than just rest and gradually bring in replacements to become combat effective again. This enemy force in the east caused no end of surmises among American and UN commanders as to what they were doing and planned to do. The fact is that these troops and units did not appear in the front lines that developed subsequently until four months later, in March 1951.

  By 23 December various forms of intelligence disclosed that CCF troops were appearing in front of Eighth Army in the lower Imjin River area in the sectors held by the US I and IX corps. The CCF had moved south from Pyongyang by foot, oxcart, sledge, pack horse, and even the two-humped Bactrian camel. Some trucks moved at night.

  Reliable sources reported on 13 December that there were no CCF in the Kaesong area. One agent reported he had traveled from Haeju, Yonan, and Kaesong and saw no enemy personnel on the fourteenth. Residents in those areas said they had seen no enemy in those areas south of the 38th Parallel. ROK police in Haeju, 75 air miles northwest of Seoul on the main west coastal road, refused on 13 December to evacuate the city because there had been no enemy activity there. The Far East Command intelligence summary for 14 December stated that the bulk of the Chinese forces was east-west along the Taedong River in the Pyongyang area. It surmised that the CCF were regrouping under a screen of North Korean troops farther south, which were probing to determine Eighth Army's positions. On 19 December, the same source stated: "Whereabouts of CCF and reasons these units out of contact for such a long period continue in the speculative realm . . . seems to indicate enemy may not yet be ready to resume the offensive.."Se

  In Tokyo on 20 December, General Stratemeyer, commander of the US Air Force, Far East, frustrated that no one knew where the Chinese were, ordered General Partridge, commander of the Fifth Air Force, to use his entire reconnaissance force to locate them-in his words, "to find out where these communists arc." During a period of ten days the Fifth Air Force reconnaissance squadrons photographed a 40-mile-deep zone north of Eighth Army's lines. At Taegu, photograph interpreters examined 27,643 aerial photographs made on these flights but found few enemy. They were unable to locate the Chinese armies.59

  On 21 December the first concrete evidence surfaced that Chinese were closing on Eighth Army. Line crossers from the ROK 1st Division that day reported they had seen large numbers of CCF in front of the ROK 1st and US 25th divisions, on the western end of the UN line. That same day, elements of the ROK 1st Division captured two prisoners a mile north of Korangpo. They were identified two days later as being from the CCF 116th Division, 39th Army. These same enemy organizations had fought against the 25th Division north of the Chongchon in late November. On 19 December I Corps intelligence had reported enemy in platoon and company strength opposite the corps on the north side of the Imjin River but had not been able to identify them positively as CCF. The next day it concluded that Chinese were approaching the Imjin River. After the ROK 1st Division had taken its two Chinese prisoners on 21 December, I Corps concluded that day that a Chinese regiment was in the Korangpo area.

  On 23 December, an air report stated that an aerial attack at 10:20 A.M. had killed an unknown number of enemy and four or five camels on the road ten miles west of Chorwon. The next day, the Far East Command intelligence summary cited recent announcements from North Korean premier Kim II Sung and from CCF leaders that they planned to drive the United Nations forces from Korea. It set the probable date for an offensive between 25 December and 10 January. It estimated the enemy had 650 planes in Manchuria that could be used to support such an offensive.60

  A Chinese prisoner, taken in the vicinity of the Imjin River, said that his 117th Division of the CCF 39th Army passed through Pyongyang on 15 December and arrived at a point about 15 miles north of Kaesong on 23 December. About this time an American soldier who had been a prisoner returned to American lines. He reported that, while he had been a prisoner, an Englishspeaking North Korean officer had asked him, "When the CCF cross the 38th Parallel, what will the UN course be?" Then on 28 December, two South Korean agents escaped from their CCF captors north of the Imjin River, opposite the ROK 1st Division, and reported that a CCF division was near Korangpo and that members of it had said they would attack prior to 1 January."'

  Intelligence available on 23 December and subsequently indicated that a strong concentration of the CCF 39th Army was opposite the ROK 1st Division in the Korangpo area. This town was a road center on the north bank of the Imjin River, approximately halfway between Munsan-ni and Yongpyong. At the latter place the Eighth Army line turned cast from the north-bearing arch it had followed thus far from the west coast up the Imjin River. Opposite Korangpo, on the south side of the Imjin, a major roadnet led nearly directly south to Seoul. This axis was in the US I Corps sector.

  Bugout or Skillful Retreat?

  Was Eighth Army's precipitate retreat from the Chongchon River front 120 miles south to the Imjin River, just short of Seoul in early December 1950, a "bugout," as many termed it at the time and later? Or was it a skillful and timely retreat that saved Eighth Army, as General Walker claimed and as General MacArthur stated to the world?

  British troops and their commanders fighting with Eighth Army could not understand the long and hasty retreat and were critical of it. Brig. Gen. Edwin K. Wright, the able G-3 operations officer of the Far East Command in Tokyo, said that neither he nor General MacArthur thought at the time that Walker's Eighth Army would be forced back of the Pyongyang line but believed that it would rally and hold the North Korean capital. It was initially, therefore, a severe shock to MacArthur when the army headed speedily south for the 38th Parallel. General Wright said that General MacArthur never laid down tactical rules for ground forces. There is some indication that Walker lost favor with MacArthur because of his handling of the battles with the Chinese in November and early December and his precipitous retreat. It may be speculated that Walker would have been replaced as commander of Eighth Army, had not his sudden death on 23 December made such a question academic. But General Wright agreed with the view developed in this research that General MacArthur had an unrealistic faith in the ability of American air power to destroy the Chinese in North Korea and that this led in part to his stunned disbelief when the CCF first stopped Eighth Army and then forced it to turn about in massive retreat.61

  If General Walker had lived, would he have taken Eighth Army out of Korea, or would he have turned it around at some point and confronted the CCF in a major battle? As previously stated, there is evidence on this question pointing in both directions.

  What was the prevailing opinion and feeling of the Eighth Army officer corps in general and of the rank-and-file in early December as it undertook the long retreat? For a time, at least, the situation looked like a "bugout." There was a tremendous amount of talk
in all ranks of Eighth Army in 1951 that the army was indeed headed for Pusan in December 1950 and in following weeks and that its leaders had no wish to stay longer in Korea. Even when General Ridgway, early in 1951, started to turn Eighth Army around, there was at first the term "wrong-way Ridgway" applied to the new Eighth Army commander. The comment was heard with astonishing frequency in 1951 from all ranks in Korea that the men in Eighth Army thought they were heading out of Korea for good at the end of 1950. That view was also reflected in some of the official reports of the army, but generally the subject was avoided there, for obvious reasons. The 25th Division G-4 Section report for December 1950 said, "The apparent careless abandon and indifference with which some troops were observed to bum and destroy equipment with the slightest excuse is almost criminal.... It is impossible to name them [acts of destruction] since they range from abandoning individual clothing and equipment to burning vehicles and trailers, but it was clearly indicated that positive command action is called for in this matter."63

  Lt. Gen. W. B. Palmer, writing later, but with the Korean War in the period of late 1950 in mind, said of American supply discipline:

  It appalls me to think how many failures occur in this very last link of the logistical chain. Equipment is manufactured at great expense. It is shipped 5,000 miles by train, ship and truck. It is issued to the troops eventually, with great labor, carried to the top of a mountain in Korea. How many times, at that last point, has this whole enormous effort been thrown away, as carelessly as a burnt match, by the happy-go-lucky negligence of the very people whose lives depended on their keeping the stuff in shape?"

  One of the most interesting, and perhaps indicative, actions reflecting prevailing opinion in the retreating UN forces in December was the destruction on 15 December of 1.9 billion Won (Bank of Chosen currency). This mass of South Korean currency was estimated to weigh 100 tons, and it required 50 hours to destroy it. Had it fallen into enemy hands, it was thought the money would have been used by them as valid currency in South Korea.6S

  In debriefing statements following the combat in November-December 1950, several American officers said that esprit do corps among American troops was poor, often below that of South Korean troops with whom they worked; that the American troops "had the retrograde movement fever, . . . the feeling among several of my NCOs was that it was foolish to stay and fight. They wanted to pull out."66

  One officer told of hearing American soldiers cheer when they passed the 38th Parallel going south in December. Another officer said, "We were always glad to hear of withdrawal to the next phase line-we intended to leave Korea. When an announcement was made over the radio about the possibility of leaving or being forced out of Korea, we would say `Good."' Some of the officers, however, felt badly about the precipitous retreat southward and said neither they nor their men could understand why the whole army was going back.°'

  When Eighth Army was falling back on Pyongyang, war correspondents with the army, according to one dispatch on 2 December to the New York Herald Tribune, said, "Reporters have been wandering like lost souls for the last few days looking for front lines. CPs from which reporters depart in the morning are not there by nightfall. Fighting shifts rapidly often before newsmen at corps headquarters can get to the scene of action. Jeep-loads of reporters stop frequently along the way to ask about conditions ahead. The answer usually is `I don't know any more than you do!""'

  Brig. Gen. Basil A. Coad, commander of the British 27th Commonwealth Brigade, writing later about the retreat, said, "A series of withdrawals now took place. One of these was in a 132-mile withdrawal from a position 35 miles north of Pyongyang, for, as far as we could see, no apparent reason other than some ominous red arrows marked on the operational maps, showing that the whole of the U.N. forces were about to be encircled."69

  Another British writer commented, "It would be idle to pretend that the retreat had not had an effect on the Eighth Army. In the two British and Commonwealth brigades morale was high, but the men were puzzled by the poor military situation. They felt that western troops, with their wealth of military experience in World War II, and equipped with modern weapons, should have been able to stand their ground in face of the Chinese enemy, however great their numbers."70

  A member of the Australian Battalion of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade who was present during the withdrawal in the last days of November and the early days of December had written:

  The morale within the [8th] Army was very bad at the time of the withdrawal. We had participated in a number of rearguards and seemed to be continually on the move in conditions of bitter cold. The attitude of other units with which we came in contact was of despair. The transport units we used seemed very low in spirit and the talk of the drivers was of the masses of Chinese and that self-inflicted wounds seemed the only way out.... We seemed to receive conflicting orders throughout the withdrawal and to get little or no information about the enemy."

  The term "bugout" became a new word that the Korean War added to the English lexicon. It is of uncertain origin. Some soldiers say it was used in Japan before the war by members of the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, in talking about someone who had gone AWOL. It suggested the way bugs and insects would scurry frantically, seeking new cover, when their shelter of a rock or log was turned over. It was used in Korea to mean that soldiers or a unit just simply ran away when confronted by an enemy force. The troops "bugged out" without fighting.

  General Milburn said that he was first aware of the term during Eighth Army's breakout from the Naktong perimeter in mid-September 1950, and that it then referred to North Korean soldiers who changed from their uniforms into Korean white civilian clothing and fled north. Colonel Fisher, commanding officer of the 35th Infantry, 25th Division, said the first time he heard it was in August 1950, when Lieutenant Colonel Wilkins, one of his battalion commanders, called him on the radio and said, "OK, colonel, you can get in your jeep now. The Gooks have bugged out." General Kean, the 25th Division commander, has also said he heard the term in the summer of 1950 in the Naktong River area fighting, referring to fleeing or dispersed North Korean soldiers."

  Research for this book indicates the probability that this descriptive American phrase was probably coined by black soldiers of the 24th Infantry and may have first been used by them in Japan, but that it spread to armywide use in Korea in the summer and fall of 1950. Ironically, it found its widest use to describe Eighth Army's withdrawal from the Chongchon River front in North Korea in late November and in early December 1950. It became perhaps the most widely used American idiom of the Korean War.

  Col. Emerson C. Itschner, US I Corps Engineer officer, summed up quite well the concept of"bugout" that prevailed in Eighth Army at the end of 1950 in Korea. He wrote: "You will not find `Operation Bug-Out' mentioned in any official report. Nevertheless, officer and G.I. alike serving in Korea have the name for the retrograde movement which commenced with the withdrawal shortly after Thanksgiving Day, 1950, from positions considerably north of the Chungchon River, and ended six weeks later when a defensive line was drawn across Korea 300 road miles to the south.""

  There is little doubt that there was a "bugout" mentality among many men in Eighth Army in December 1950. They wanted to get going south fast and keep going. The command echelon of Eighth Army also seems to have wanted to put a lot of distance between themselves and the Chinese in early December 1950-in order to save the army, they usually said.

  Tokyo and Washington Policy Actions, 6-22 December 1950

  From the evacuation of Pyongyang on 5 December to the death of General Walker on 23 December, policy actions taken in Washington anticipated the course of military action in Korea in the immediate future. When Army Chief of Staff Gen. J. Lawton Collins discussed the Korean situation with General MacArthur in Tokyo on 6 December, MacArthur told Collins that, unless he received substantial reinforcements in a reasonable time, he anticipated he would have to evacuate American forces from Korea.
General Collins told MacArthur that he should not expect any reinforcements in the near future. In Washington the question was also under discussion. Maj. Gen. Charles L. Bolte, the acting chief of staff for operations, G-3, proposed on 3 December that the 82nd Airborne Division, the only combat-ready division in the United States, be sent to Japan at once, where it could be available to protect the Japanese base or be sent to Korea if a decision should be made to use it there. General Bolte said the division could he in Japan within 34 days after being alerted.

  The Army G-4, Maj. Gen. William O. Reeder, agreed the division could be sent but did not recommend it. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, deputy chief of staff for operations and administration, recommended to General Haislip, the acting chief of staff, that a decision on the matter be withheld until General Collins returned from Korea. General Ridgway later stated that he told General Haislip the 82nd Airborne Division should not be sent to Korea under any circumstances, "that it was our only Army reserve capable of immediate combat." When Collins returned to Washington on 8 December, he disapproved the proposal to send the 82nd Airborne Division to Japan or Korea."

  On 28 November General MacArthur had requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to approve Chiang Kai-shek's offer during the summer to send 33,000 Nationalist troops from Formosa to Korea to help the UN, and also to request that he increase the number beyond the original amount. The Joint Chiefs of Staff did not approve the request but said it was under consideration, pointing out the difficulties in the proposal in such a way that it should have been clear it would not be approved. Then on 18 December, MacArthur asked the Joint Chiefs to call to duty four National Guard divisions and send them to Japan immediately. By 23 December the Joint Chiefs had told MacArthur that he could not expect any of those divisions in the foreseeable future.'s Thus, by 23 December, MacArthur knew he would receive no reinforcements from the United States or from Formosa and that, except for possible small UN contingents from other countries, he would have to meet future war contingencies in Korea from the troops already there.