Korean Winter

by Griff Hosker

  I looked at the snow-covered rocks ahead. When it had been daylight, I had fixed the position of the sentries. I would not be totally accurate but so long as I was within fifteen feet then all would be well. The going was a little easier as this was a flatter part. The Chinese had chosen a place which had a natural rock parapet. They had, in effect, a fortress. I could smell smoke which told me that they had a fire. I watched a tiny glow arc over the top to sizzle in the snow. It was a cigarette butt and it meant that I was less than twenty yards from the nearest sentry. I halted and everyone else, a heartbeat later, also stopped. I turned and pointed to Corporal Dixon and the other NCOs. I held up my hand. They knew they had to wait.

  I dropped on to all fours and began to crawl up the snow. The other five copied me. Now they would each have a weapon of choice in their hand. I could actually hear, when the mortars stopped firing, the sound of the men on the other side of the rocks. There sounded to be just four men. Then the sound of the tanks changed pitch. As I had asked, they were withdrawing to safety. The enemy would continue to send their mortar shells in the hope of catching infantry in the pass. I began to climb the snow-covered boulder. I saw that Lofting had his Commando knife and he was insinuating himself between two snow-covered boulders to my left while Sergeant Grant, also with a knife was like me, climbing over a third snow-covered rock. My hood was over my head and I just peered over the top. There were five men and they were seated around a fire. The snow-covered boulders had hidden the fire. There was no one else within thirty yards. We had ascended behind their highest positions. The rest of the men were a good one hundred and fifty yards away and closer to the American threat.

  I looked at Sergeant Grant. He mimed diving at the men. It was a risk but I nodded. I had grenades and so long as we took these five out, I could buy the rest of the team enough time to get into position. I had to hope that the others were also in position. One of the Chinese soldiers I saw below me was a sergeant and I aimed at him. He was just twenty feet away and I aimed at the centre of his chest. Two other men faced me. The one to the sergeant’s right would be my second target. I took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Even before the bullet hit him, I had fired a second bullet at the second man. Sergeant Grant had leapt on to the back of his man while Lofting had appeared like a wraith and slit the throat of the other man whose back was to me. The last man looked up and stared at me. My bullet hit him between the eyes.

  My other three men appeared and went to the bodies to ensure that all five were dead. The tanks’ engines had stopped. I turned and waved forward the rest of the men. Already Sergeant Grant and the others were using the five dead bodies as an improvised barricade and had laid out their grenades. My team of commandos came over first and they were quickly organised by Sergeant Grant through the use of hand signals. I spied a Chinese submachine gun with the familiar drum magazine. I picked it up and moved to the extreme right of the line. The Chinese below us thought that they had defeated the Americans and there was much laughter as they began to leave their mortars to return to their blankets. Sentries resumed their watch. I took my hand grenade and looked down the line. About half of the Americans were in position. I took out the pin and watched my men as the Chinese and North Koreans approached their fires. The fires were forty paces from us and below us. Soon they would see us. I pulled my arm back and was relieved to see all eyes on me and more than three-quarters of our men had their grenades ready. I threw mine as far as I could high in the air. An airburst was always effective. Then, after seeing that everyone had obeyed my orders, I did the same and threw myself to the ground. The concussion was horrific. More than forty grenades had gone off at once.

  I lifted my head and I was aware that my hearing had gone. I had forgotten to cover my ears. I shouted, “Open fire!” And I sprayed the PPsh41 from side to side until the drum was empty. Enough men heard me to obey orders and the rest saw the bullets. Soon sixty guns were pouring lead into the shell-shocked Chinese and North Koreans. When I saw the muzzle flashes from guns on the other side of the enemy, I knew that the Lieutenant Colonel had launched his own attack.

  When the order to cease-fire was given more than two-thirds of the enemy were dead or wounded and the other third were happy to surrender. We had won! My assault team had lost no men and that pleased me inordinately.

  It took another two days to reach the Han River. We had more firefights but nothing like the fight on the snow-covered slopes above the narrow pass. The tanks were able to use their heavy guns and machine guns to destroy enemy emplacements and our infantry winkled out the few survivors. We were the first of the units to achieve our objective. There had been stiffer resistance to the east and west of us. We were ordered to hold our position and to dig defences.

  General Ridgeway himself spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Coulter. I happened to be there when the radio call came in, “You have done well, Tom, but I don’t give a damn about real estate. I want as many Commies dead as you can manage. Dig in and don’t try to cross the river. Let them come to us. Have the 5th dig their tanks in. I will send air cover. You stay there and the rest of the army will squeeze them against you.”

  I knew it went against Lieutenant Colonel Coulter’s nature to fight defensively but the order had been quite clear and so he obeyed. We had had no snow for three days and, as the days lengthened and warmed up, so the snow inevitably began to thaw. We had a position between two Patton tanks of the 5th Cavalry. We had our four Bren guns there as well as the Brownings on the two half-tracks. We still had no mortars but thanks to Sergeant Major Thorpe we had plenty of ammunition and grenades. We took the two Brownings from the jeeps and used rocks instead of sandbags to make a gun emplacement. And we waited.

  The first Chinese and North Korean units came in the early hours of the morning. Sergeant Major Thorpe had arranged a rota and we had men who were watching. Phil Hall was the sentry and he spotted the movement. He was too experienced to make a noise and so he sent Geoff Bates to rouse us. The enemy crept towards us but we had men already racing to our position. I ran to the headquarter tents of the cavalrymen.

  “The Chinese and the North Koreans are about to attack us!”

  They jumped up. Their Colonel had decided that having their crews sleep in their tanks was deterrent enough. He would soon find out that he was wrong. I had retrieved my Thompson from a disappointed Williams who thought he had a new weapon. I threw myself behind the wood we had cut to make a defence. I turned to Phil Hall, “Where are they?” He pointed directly ahead. I stared into the dark and thought, for a moment, that he was mistaken. Then I saw the subtlest of movements. “Well done, Hall, you have good eyes!” I turned to Lieutenant Morrison, “Stand to!” As he repeated the order, I turned to Sergeant Grant and said the same thing. I cocked the Thompson and took three grenades from my battle vest. I heard the Brens and Brownings as they were also cocked. The enemy soldiers were in for a rude shock.

  “Stand by!” I waited until I could see their faces just one hundred yards away and I shouted, “Fire!”

  The combined firepower of my whole section tore into them. The tank crews were aroused and their Brownings added to the hail of lead. Yet, still they came.

  Having emptied my magazine, I lifted a grenade and, pulling out the pin, hurled it towards the enemy. I had no need to shout for we had protection and my arm had thrown the grenade thirty yards. My men emulated me and, as I reloaded, I saw the enemy physically recoil as the shrapnel shredded into them. Some would be killed outright whilst others would be so badly wounded that they would not be able to carry on. More of the 5th Cavalry joined us. The Headquarters Company picked up weapons and fought alongside the men on the line. When the tanks were fully manned, they fired High Explosive shells to break up the attack. By dawn, the first attack was over. The second attack was on the 95th and began halfway through the attack on us. We could hear it but were in no position to do anything about it. Our eyes were fixed to our front. I lit my pipe as we waited for dawn to break.
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br />   Sergeant Grant said, “They are hard men, sir. I think our lads would have given up long ago.”

  “Perhaps but this is not their country, if they were fighting for England then they would fight until the last man. Trust me I know.”

  “Can we win this, sir?”

  I looked into the eyes of Sergeant Grant. I knew the answer I should give but he deserved the truth, “Realistically? No. But we will keep on because this is just the start. If Chamberlain had been stronger in Munich then who knows how many lives might have been saved? We keep on doing what we do and trust in God and the men alongside whom we fight.”

  “Not the politicians, sir?”

  I burst out laughing, “They are the last people I would trust! They look out for number one and they always will. You show me a politician with a gun in his hand and I will change my mind. Churchill was the last politician to put his money where his mouth was. I would trust him!”

  The enemy did not come again that day. We removed our casualties. Two of my men had wounds which needed attention and we reloaded our weapons. We ate and we snatched some sleep. Unless there was an airdrop then we would run out of ammo in the next four days. Just before darkness fell, I slipped out with ten volunteers and went to the Chinese and Korean dead. With the guns of the two tanks watching over us we collected as many guns and ammunition as we could. When the next attack began, we would use their guns to fight them. I liked that irony!

  When darkness came so did the enemy. They were determined to shift us. Word came that our defence was helping the other elements of our reconnaissance to make inroads. We were the thorn they had to remove and we stubbornly hung on. I had a Russian submachine gun and two magazines. I was more profligate with the bullets than I would have been with my Thompson. The bullets scythed down the enemy. We were well protected. In the middle of the night, at about 0200, the attack ceased. I heard some of the tank crews breathe a sigh of relief. I hissed, “Commandos, this is not over. Keep a sharp eye out and listen for the enemy. Use your noses!” The Chinese and North Koreans ate different food to us and would smell differently.

  “Yes sir!” rippled back towards me and I took out my Colt. I had a full magazine and I knew that the enemy had something up their sleeve.

  Lofting had a poacher’s eye and ear. I heard him hiss, “Watch out lads I can smell ‘em!”

  That was enough for me. I saw a patch of snow move. It was impossible and yet it moved. I had enough bullets and so I wasted one. The bullet smacked into the head of the North Korean who was just fifteen feet from me. My men saw what I had done and four dead Chinese later the enemy fell back! They were more successful on the eastern side and Lieutenant Colonel Coulter lost twenty men. The attack was repulsed but I knew the Lieutenant Colonel would not sleep easy. He would regard that as his failure.

  We had six days of attacks and assault but we held on and when they gave up we had a line along the Han River. There was still a huge North Korean and Chinese enclave to the east but Seoul was within assaulting distance and we were sent back to Suwon. General Ridgeway himself greeted us. He shook my hand and that of every Commando. It was his way for he was a soldier. “Major, you and your men have done more than we could ever have expected. The traditions of the Commando have been upheld and then some. I hoped for a unit citation but…” he waved an arm “but you and I are soldiers and I will just say, ‘Well done!’”

  “Thank you, sir, it has been an honour,”

  “And, sadly, we now lose you. You are being returned to the Commonwealth Division. Good luck, Major.”

  We spent another three days at the base. We had a long way to travel. The men used the PX to buy what they needed. It was like an Aladdin’s cave for my men. We also waited as long as we could in the hope that we might receive some long-overdue mail. We did not and so we headed east in early February. We were not there to see Seoul recaptured for the final time. I had no idea of Ji-hoo’s fate but I hoped he had survived. He deserved to. The Americans had left us our four vehicles and so we travelled east through recently recovered land and we saw the bitter result. There were hanged men in every town. They were the North Korean sympathisers and guerrillas. The Republic of Korea had been harsh in its punishment and in all honesty, I could not blame them. The men looked forward to British command. I did not disillusion them. We would have an Australian as our commander but, from what I could learn, he was a good bloke. I let Ashcroft drive and I enjoyed my pipe and a great quantity of pipe tobacco courtesy of the Americans. They had wished to reward me. I wondered if my war was coming to an end. With our air superiority and the supply problems of the Chinese, I hoped so but the Communists had a fanaticism which terrified me. I had killed more men in less than a year in Korea than I had in six years of war in Europe and Africa. It was a frightening and sobering thought.

  Lieutenant Colonel Coulter was a changed man. He had lost good officers and men and he was not the gung-ho commander I had first met. He understood war. He had wanted to give me something in return for our service but I had shaken my head, “It is not necessary, sir. I fought alongside Americans in the last war and it is good to see that you have not changed. Our people share more than a common language, we share the same values and ideals. We are the same under the skin. You take care sir, and survive. America will need men like you to train the next generation! You pass on what you have learned.”

  We were heading first, to Wonju, which had been recently recaptured and then we would be on the Kansas and Utah line of defences. The British were defending a twelve-mile sector. It took almost a week to arrive and, when we finally reached the British sector, we had to spend three days in Wonju while the paperwork was sorted out. I asked about our mail but I knew what the answer would be. It was still chasing us! The good news was that we were put up in a hotel. We had hot showers and soft beds. I knew it could not last but those three days were like R & R!

  Chapter 17

  It was while we were enjoying the comforts of a bed that we heard first that General MacArthur was about to be replaced by General Ridgeway and, a few days later, that Seoul had been recaptured. Both appeared to me to be good news. Lieutenant Morrison and I sat in the bar of the hotel enjoying a drink. “Do you think the war might be over, sir? I mean we have Seoul again and we have blunted all of the attacks so far. With better weather, we have more air support.”

  I shook my head, “You are clutching at straws. This war has some time to run. The Chinese have an almost inexhaustible supply of men. It is only their long supply lines which give us any hope.” He nodded and I sipped my whisky. “Listen, Jake, if you want to resign and go to Israel, I will expedite the paperwork.”

  He shook his head, “I know, sir, but that would be like desertion. So long as you and the lads stay here then so will I.”

  “Very noble and, to be honest, you may not have to be here that long as this unit is due to be rotated back to England. We have exceeded the expected time here. Don’t forget you and the ones who came with you were replacements but the unit has been here since last summer. That means that you could resign when we are back in Blighty.”

  “And we leave tomorrow for our new posting, sir?”

  “Yes, we are heading north. There is a push across the whole front.” I smiled as I had garnered that information from an American Major who was on his way home. He had been more than a little indiscreet. He was one of MacArthur’s men and resented Doug’s removal. “I think that the plan is to envelop large numbers of the enemy. We are heading for the Imjin River.”

  “And what is the make-up of the brigade sir?”

  “The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, they are a good unit, are brigaded with the Glosters, Ulster Rifles, a Belgian unit and the Royal Irish Hussars who have the 7th Tank Regiment attached to them. They have all been here for some time. Then there is the Royal Artillery support. It is a good division.”

  We left the next morning and drove with the flow of traffic to the Headquarters of the 29th Brigade. That the enem
y would know an attack was imminent was not in doubt. Despite the scourging of the south in February there were still North Korean sympathisers and there were too many loose-lipped officers like the Major of Intelligence I had met. The constant traffic heading for the north could only presage one thing, an attack. However, the Chinese and North Koreans had been badly hurt during the Korean winter and I hoped that their morale would be weakened.

  Brigadier Tom Brodie came from Northumberland. Our paths had never crossed as he had spent the latter years of the war in the Far East, Burma, but I knew of him. He had stayed in after the war and was a professional soldier. He was old fashioned too and I liked that. He made a point of meeting me personally and his words told me that he had done his research. He had also met my father during the war. All in all, I felt comfortable after meeting him. He was no glory hound and he cared for his men. He was also resolute. I had been told that when the Chinese had begun their New Year Offensive his orders had been quite clear. The staff sergeant who took me to him quoted the Brigadier’s order, ‘I have no intention that this Brigade Group will retire before the enemy unless ordered by higher authority to conform with general movement. If you meet him you are to knock hell out of him with everything you got. You are only to give ground on my orders.’