Nicholas A. Canzona

“ Atomic bombs, guided missiles, jet planes, and other marvelous new weapons had convinced a large section of the public that the day of push-button warfare was at hand. These Americans sincerely believed that wars could be waged at long distance, and the Marines of the Brigade served their country well by demonstrating that even in the tactical millenium it was necessary to seek out the enemy and close with him. ”

“ Undeterred by roadblocks, heavy hostile automatic weapons and highly effective artillery fire, extremely difficult terrain and intense heat, the Brigade met the invaders with relentless determination and, on each crucial occasion, hurled them back in disorderly retreat. By combining sheer resolution and esprit de corps with sound infantry tactics and splendid close air support, the Brigade was largely instrumental in restoring the line of defense, in inflicting thousands of casualties upon the enemy and in seizing large amounts of ammunition, equipment and other supplies. ”

“ Never before had one man ruled so much of the earth’s surface. Yet there was something neurotic and fear-ridden about the Kremlin’s outlook which success could not cure. It has long been a historical theory that this psychosis may be traced back to Russia’s bondage in the Middle Ages under the Mongols and Tartars. At any rate, victory and enormous spoils did not give Moscow a sense of security in 1945. Buffer state was piled upon buffer state, and thousands of World War II prisoners were enslaved behind the “iron curtain” to build new Soviet military installations. ”

“ And on 28 July the commander. Major General Pang, issued a message to his troops:
“Comrades, the enemy is demoralized. The task given to us is the liberation of Masan and Chinju and the annihilation of the remnants of the enemy. We have liberated Mokpu, Kwangju and Yosu and have thereby accelerated the liberation of all Korea. However, the liberation of Chinju and Masan means the final battle to cut off the windpipe of the enemy. Comrades, this glorious task has fallen to our division! Men of the 6th Division, let us annihilate the enemy and distinguish ourselves!”156 ”

“ Throughout 17 August the evacuation of dead and wounded had been a major concern of every Marine, from fire team leaders up to the Brigade commander. Men risked their lives dragging casualties off the blazing slopes of Obong-ni Ridge to relative safety at the base. Litter bearers plodded back and forth across the fire-swept rice paddy, and a steady stream of wounded passed through the 1st and 2d Battalion aid stations behind the road cut. ”

“ In addition to knocked-out and abandoned Communist tanks, vehicles, mortars, and antitank guns, the countryside was littered with enough small arms, ammunition, and gear to equip several hundred men. Even the North Korean paymaster had been caught in the sweeping tide of Brigade arms, and Marines distributed a huge quantity of worthless currency among themselves.
Not only did the Marines reap a harvest of enemy materiel; they also recaptured a great quantity of United States Army equipment lost during the Communist drive. ”

“ Shortly before 2200, the telltale whine and rattle of mortar shells cut through the darkness and the men of Able Company crouched in their holes. The explosions were followed by a shower of fire as white phosphorus enveloped the center of the company area. Almost every man in the gully was painfully wounded, leaving Stevens without a mortar section. The edge of the barrage hit the 3d Platoon’s area, wounding Fox and several of his men. ”

“ Having failed to prevent the formation of a democratic Korean government—the only government in Korea recognized by the United Nations—the Reds at Pyongyang were making every effort to wreck it. Since 80 percent of the ROK electric power originated north of the frontier, they were able to retard economic recovery by cutting off the current at intervals. There was no other unfriendly act in the Communist bagful of tricks that Pyongyang neglected to employ while its radio stations blared forth a propaganda of hatred. ”

“ Asia was ripe for change after World War II. In spite of Japan’s defeat, that nation had made a good deal of progress with its “Asia for the Asiatics” propaganda. The Far East seethed with unrest in 1946, and Communism spread ominously through a China weakened by three decades of invasion, revolution and civil war.
While Nationalists and Communist armies contended for the ancient empire, an undeclared war went on in the background. This was the cold war between the United States and Soviet Russia as they supplied arms and munitions to the opposing forces. ”

“ Some of the 5th Marines outfits had been so thinned by combat that an appeal was made for volunteers from supporting units to serve temporarily in rifle companies, with the privilege of returning to their former status after the emergency. The hearty response was a tribute to Marine morale as well as Marine basic training which made every man a potential rifleman. Engineers, shore party troops and headquarters personnel came forward in such numbers that some could not be accepted after the arrival of replacements eased the situation. ”

“ Many Brigade Marines had never heard a weapon fired in combat, so they concluded that likely targets were present in the perimeter area. As nerve-taut men stared fixedly into the blackness, forms that had been harmless bushes and rocks took on the guise of Communist infiltrators.
The first shot was soon followed by others. Toward midnight, the firing developed into a continuous crackle, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the Brigade CP. Palpitating hearts pounded even more strenuously when two Marine machineguns began chattering in positions occupied by Brigade headquarters troops. ”

“ No Marine tactical organization of history ever did more than the Brigade to uphold the tradition of the Corps as a force-in-readiness. The transition from activation to embarkation took only 6 days, and it may be recalled that the Brigade became the first United States unit to get into the fight after crossing the Pacific from the American mainland. ”

“ China was unable to offer much resistance, and Soviet Russia could not risk a major war in the Far East. Even so, some of the Soviet border clashes with the Japanese in time of “peace” were actually battles fought with tanks and planes.
In 1937 came the Japanese invasion of China proper. Germany and Italy were launching aggressions of the same stamp in Europe and Africa, and the world was to know little stability until all three totalitarian states had been crushed in World War II.
Soviet Russia had a grim struggle for survival while resisting the full tide of Nazi invasion. ”

“ Western nations were not surprised when Japan and China resorted to arms, but few observers expected the supposed dwarf to beat the giant with ease. Japan’s well led army, equipped with the best modern weapons, landed at Chemulpo (Inchon) and captured the Chinese fortress at Pyongyang in northwest Korea. Sweeping across the Yalu into Manchuria, the invaders overran the strategic Liaotung Peninsula, taking Port Arthur and Dairen. ”

“ South Korean descriptions of Kim Il Sung as an uneducated ruffian were doubtless prejudiced, but certainly he was a ruthless guerrilla leader who showed an uncommon aptitude for politics. His rise in the new North Korean state was spectacular, for in September 1948 he became the first prime minister. The following year he went to Moscow for conferences at the Kremlin, and nine days after the outbreak of civil war in Korea he was appointed commander in chief of the invading army while retaining his position as prime minister. ”

“ Strenuous recruiting had been necessary to maintain the small army of occupation in Japan at part strength, and it was no secret that many of the men were attracted by the expectation of travel and light occupation duties. The possibility of battle had scarcely been anticipated when the invasion began, and combat readiness left a good deal to be desired. Training on the company level had been good on the whole, but both officers and men were handicapped by the lack of maneuvers for units larger than a battalion. ”

“ Possession of Korea has been for centuries an aim of aspiring conquerors in the Far East, and all three rival nations have had a turn.
China was first. From ancient times down to the last quarter of the 19th century, the Chinese Empire held a loose suzerainty acknowledged by the Koreans. Japan won a brief foothold in the 16th century under the great war lord Hideyoshi, only to learn the painful lesson that control of the sea is requisite to a seaborne invasion of a peninsula. ”

“ For the first time in the war-racked 20th century, a group of nations banded together for peace had not only condemned an aggression but appealed to armed force to smite the aggressor. On the same day that the Security Council passed its historic resolution, the United States announced that it was giving immediate military aid to the Republic of Korea.
President Truman, as commander in chief, ordered American naval and air forces into action. Fifty-two other members of the United Nations approved the recommendations of the Security Council. ”

“ The enemy had different plans. At the crack of dawn a small force of North Koreans emerged from the fog and charged recklessly into Company G’s front. There was a furious hand-to-hand clash as the attackers converged on Bohn’s OP in the center of the line. The company commander directed the defense amid grenade explosions, one of which drove a fragment into his shoulder. At his side Staff Sergeant Charles F. Kurtz, Jr., called down effective 60-mm. mortar fire on the Reds while throwing grenades and ducking submachinegun bursts. ”

“ Unit training, including the checking and firing of all weapons, was conducted at the Bean Patch; and Marine patrols were sent out to the rear of the 25th Division to watch for infiltrating forces. Patrols in rugged country were fed hot meals delivered in special containers by the versatile helicopters of VMO-6.
Truckloads of supplies rolled in daily from Pusan, including some of the equipment left behind at the docks when the Brigade landed. But no tentage was available, and the exhausting marches of combat had forced the men to discard everything except fighting tools. ”

“ Few areas of the earth’s surface are so consistently rugged. Bleak cliffs seem to thrust themselves dripping out of the sea on the East Korean littoral. The peaks become higher and more perpendicular as they march inland, until altitudes of 9,000 feet are reached.
The principal chain of mountains extends from the Yalu in the north along the east coast to the Pusan area. Just south of the 38th parallel a spur branches off diagonally to southwest Korea in the region of Mokpu. The remainder of the peninsula consists largely of smaller ranges and foothills. ”

“ The price of Soviet military aid against Japan, in short, was the restoration of Russian territory in the Far East that had been lost in the defeat of 1905.
The Historical Background
It was inevitable that the fate of Korea would be involved in any such readjustment. Korea is one of those tragic areas of the earth’s surface which are destined in all ages to be a doorstep of strategy. As the focal point of the China-Russia-Japan triangle, the peninsula offers each of these powers a threshold for aggression against either of the other two. ”

“ By noon on 17 August, the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines was wobbling. In 4 hours of fighting it had lost 23 dead and 119 wounded, practically all of the casualties being taken by the 2 rifle companies. Every officer in the Brigade could lament the lack of a third company in each battalion; for just when 2/5’s assault needed the added punch of a reserve unit, the outcome of battle had to rest on the failing strength of six depleted rifle platoons. ”

“ Overall control of tactical air operations in Korea was exercised by the Fifth Air Force. Marine aviation units, as components of an integrated Fleet Marine Force, operated in support of the Brigade as their highest priority, and in support of other UN forces as a lower priority. After checking in with Fifth AF TACC at the Joint Operations Center (JOC) , Marine aviation units came under Marine operational control when supporting Brigade ground forces. When providing tactical air support for other UN forces, Marine air units operated under the Air Force-Army system for tactical air support. ”

“ A glance at the NCO’s, the platoon leaders and company commanders of the Brigade could only have brought a gleam of pride to the Commandant’s battlewise eye. With few exceptions, they were veterans of World War II who could be relied upon to get the best out of their men. ”

“ The exposure of the Agrarian Reform as a fraud had hurt the Communists, and the disinterested spirit of the United States occupation was gaining recognition throughout Korea in spite of initial blunders. Pyongyang could not afford to let South Korea take the lead in forming a government, and July 1948 dated the creation of a Communist state known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. After adopting a constitution modeled after that of Communist Bulgaria, the Supreme People’s Council claimed to represent all Korea. ”

“ After Company B received orders to hold up on Hill 125, Fenton ordered his men to dig foxholes along the rain-soaked crest facing Tugok village and Finger Ridge to the west and Obong-ni Ridge to the southwest. The company commander directed the attached 1st Platoon of tanks to remain in the road cut, just to the rear of the famous bend around the forward slopes of Hill 125. Peering through the rain and fog, the Marine tankmen could see the dead, black hulls of the three T-34’s knocked out by the Brigade 2 weeks earlier. ”

“ Early in 1950 the situation grew more tense daily as thousands of veterans returned to North Korea after serving in the Communist armies which overran China. When Radio Pyongyang began making appeals for peace that spring, it should have become obvious to practiced observers of Communist techniques that preparations were afoot for war. On 10 June 1950 the Pyongyang government announced a new plan for unification and peace after branding the top ROK officials as “traitors.” The motive behind this proposal was apparently the usual Communist attempt to divide an enemy on the eve of an aggression. ”

“ Most of the officers and NCO’s of the former KVA were organized into teams to recruit and train Korean volunteers both in Manchuria and Korea. As combined military instructors and political commissars, they created an integrated Communist force out of such oddly assorted material as peasants, guerrillas and bandits. Used first as security troops and later welded into a regular army structure, these thousands of Korean Reds undoubtedly had the principal part in “liberating” Manchuria from the Chinese Nationalists. ”

“ When Fegan’s unit was halfway up the eastern spur, the Marine tankmen saw a platoon of North Koreans attempting to flank the attackers. Machinegun and 90-mm. fire from the M-26’s killed or dispersed the Reds at a range of 300 yards.
As Lieutenant Williams worked How Company’s 1st Platoon close enough for an assault of the summit, several NKPA soldiers rose from their holes and threw down hand grenades. The Marines hit the deck until the missiles exploded, then bounded up and rushed the crest. Unnerved by Williams’ perfect timing, most of the North Koreans fled southward along the ridge. ”