Major John Shaw, the Support Company commander led a charge through the blazing village and into the hills. In the meantime the Cromwell tanks tried to clear the six mile long icy track that the infantry had to negotiate to join the main highway. They were unsuccessful; some of the tanks ran off the road and became stuck and others were destroyed by the Chinese infantry. Of the sixty-five men in the tank crews, only eleven escaped the carnage in ‘Happy Valley’. The rest were killed or captured. Over 150 of the Irishmen were lost during the battle, as they fought their way clear of the trap and on to the waiting US trucks for a ride across the Han River pontoon bridge to safety. They were the last unit to cross the river before the bridges were blown up behind them.
On 25 January 1951, only seventeen days after the CPVF stopped its pursuit, General Ridgway ordered the launch of Operation Thunderbolt and by 31 January the US I and IX Corps had moved up to twenty miles into the area south of Seoul. Generally opposition was light and the Chinese merely fought rearguard actions, rather than holding their ground. As January came to an end, Chinese resistance began to increase, indicating that the main enemy defensive line had almost been reached. On 27 January, the US 3rd Division joined the attack in the I Corps sector and two days later Ridgway ordered a full scale offensive with X Corps joining in on its eastern flank. I and IX Corps continued a steady advance to the Han River against heavier Chinese defences. On 9 February, the enemy line of defence opposite I and IX Corps gave way and the UN forces raced ahead. The 25th Infantry Division retook Inchon and Kimpo airfield, while elements of I Corps reached the south bank of the Han River opposite Seoul.
With the three US Corps advancing in the west and centre of the country, Ridgway ordered the ROK III Corps to begin Operation Roundup. The ROK 5th and 8th Infantry Divisions were to retake Hongchon and destroy the North Korean forces in that area. They were supported by the US 2nd and 7th Infantry Divisions and the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team.
As the UN forces advanced steadily, the Chinese were preparing a counter-offensive, massing in the central sector north of Hoengsong. On the night of 11–12 February, the enemy began his Fourth Campaign with five Chinese Armies and two North Korean Corps, numbering 135,000 men. Their main effort was against the ROK divisions, particularly the 8th Division which suffered heavy losses and they retreated south-east through the snow-covered passes in the rugged mountains. They were being supported by the US 15th Field Artillery Battalion which was also overrun by the Chinese despite the best efforts of their quad-50 machine guns, although they disabled their 105mm howitzers before retreating. One of the gunners taken prisoner that day was Oscar Cortez, who recalled: ‘The South Koreans were passing by in a hurry and right after I heard the Chinese bugles and our quad fifties start firing. All hell broke loose. We got our march order, hooked up our 105s and were ready to move out. It was night and we waited for daylight, but we couldn't move because we were pinned down. We finally broke out and we received machine-gun fire along the way. Bullets came close to my head but I was lucky, they didn't reach me, maybe because the truck was moving pretty fast. We stopped along the way in an open field and started firing point-blank at the swarm of oncoming Chinese. Since the ground was frozen and we couldn't dig in the trails of our 105, I had to stand on the trail itself and fire the gun. The recoil would send the gun sliding back, so I had to push the gun back into firing position and do it all over again until we ran out of ammo.’
Oscar Cortez was one of many prisoners captured by the Chinese and joined one of the columns of POWs trudging northwards. They would find little comfort in the prisoner of war camps. Around the first week of February fifty prisoners were marched out onto the frozen parade ground of Compound 105 in Camp 5 near Pyoktong. They were made to stand for four hours exposed to the extreme cold as punishment for losing two propaganda pamphlets that the Chinese had tried to force them to read. As a result many of them suffered exposure and caught pneumonia, a potentially fatal illness when you are half-starved and exhausted. It was between twenty and thirty degrees below freezing in the unheated buildings and there were never less than 350 cases of pneumonia a day in the camp. Between twenty-eight and thirty-five men died every day and the bodies of hundreds of prisoners are still buried in the hills above the camp.
As the enemy turned the right flank of the UN offensive, a general withdrawal began in the centre section and most of the recently won terrain was given up again. On 13 February, the Chinese moved against the US 2nd Infantry Division positions near Chipyong-ni on the left of the X Corps front. A key road junction, surrounded by a ring of small hills, Chipyong-ni would give the Chinese access to the nearby Han River Valley, where they would threaten the positions of the I and IX Corps west of the river. The 23rd Infantry Regiment and its attached French Battalion dug in and were soon surrounded. The Air Force supplied close air support and flew resupply missions for the beleaguered defenders. That night three Chinese divisions, supported by artillery, assaulted the two-mile perimeter. The attackers were stopped on the edge of the American positions only by extensive artillery support and automatic weapons fire from an attached anti-aircraft battalion.
To the south-east, the situation was grave as the enemy exploited the large gaps in the UN line until the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade and the ROK 6th Division moved into the gap south of Chipyong-ni. The 5th Cavalry Regiment, reinforced with field artillery and tank units eventually broke through the Chinese lines to relieve the 23rd Infantry at Chipyong-ni. Captured documents indicated that the Chinese had lost 5,000 men trying to take the area.
By 18 February, the communist offensive was spent and UN reinforcements had stabilized the line. Rather than attempting to hold the land they had won, the Chinese began withdrawing to the north, where they could resupply and replace their casualties and move away from the strong UN firepower. Ridgway decided to continue to pursue the retreating Chinese and Operation Killer began on 20 February with all five Corps slowly moving forward through the mud and rain. He hoped that the name ‘Killer’ would help encourage the offensive spirit of the Eighth Army, which had taken a battering over the last couple of months. By 28 February, all units had reached their objectives and had eliminated all enemy forces south of the Han River.
Operation Ripper was launched on 7 March, to continue the advance for a further twenty or thirty miles, to recapture Seoul and the towns of Hongchon, fifty miles west of Seoul and Chunchon, fifteen miles farther to the north. Ridgway's objective now was to restore South Korea's pre-war boundaries and to destroy as much of the enemy's forces as possible. The offensive was preceded by one of the largest UN artillery bombardments of the war. On the left of the UN front, the US 25th Infantry Division crossed the Han River and established a bridgehead. During the night of 14–15 March, units of the ROK 1st Division and the US 3rd Infantry Division recaptured Seoul, the capital city changing hands for the fourth and last time in the war.
Although the operation recaptured lost ground, the Chinese pulled back before they suffered too many casualties, so Operation Courageous was prepared, with the aim of trapping the Chinese and North Korean forces north of Seoul, in the area between the Han and Imjin Rivers. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team would drop from 100 C-119 Boxcar aircraft onto the south bank of the Imjin River, twenty miles north of the current front line. In the meantime Task Force Growdon, made up of armoured units from the 6th Medium Tank Battalion from the US 24th Infantry Division and infantry from the US 3rd Infantry Division negotiated their way through enemy minefields to link up with the paratroopers on the 23 March. One of the main objectives of the airborne operation was to cut off and destroy some 6,000 men of the newly organized NKPA I Corps. However, the enemy had continued to retreat faster than the UN forces could advance and most of them escaped.
By the end of March, the Eighth Army units were nearing the 38th Parallel, but there were signs that the Chinese and North Koreans were preparing to launch their own spring offensive. Before it began, Ridgway, bac
ked by General MacArthur and President Truman decided to move even further north to take over more defensible positions. Operation Rugged was planned to secure a new line, Kansas, just north of the 38th Parallel, while Operation Dauntless would extend the front line a further twenty miles northwards to line Wyoming. The new front line would be heavily defended and when the communist offensive was launched, the defenders would conduct a fighting withdrawal to Line Kansas, while causing the maximum amount of casualties to the enemy. The main defensive battle would then be fought along Line Kansas.
By 20 April, the UN forces were established along Line Kansas, but before Operation Rugged could commence, the communist forces launched their spring offensive across the entire UN front on 22 April. By now General MacArthur had been relieved by President Truman and replaced by General Matthew B. Ridgway. Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet took over command of the US Eighth Army.
The new Chinese offensive, aimed at the recapture of Seoul, was their fifth of the war and its impact was felt along the 116 mile length of Line Kansas. Three Army Groups of almost 700,000 men were moving southwards and US I Corps was their first objective. The ROK 6th Division bore the brunt of the initial assault, west of the Hwachon Reservoir and when the enemy broke through, it exposed the flanks of the US 24th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division. The next day the Chinese completed the rout of the ROK division and poured through the gap, advancing twenty miles south-west of the Hwachon Reservoir. They ran into the British 27th Brigade and its attached US 72nd Tank Battalion which held them off while the UN forces withdrew. A series of intense battles were fought by US and multinational forces as the enemy crossed the Imjin River and established bridgeheads on the southern bank.
The Hwachon Reservoir and Dam was an important strategic objective for both sides. When the Chinese captured the reservoir they opened the crest spillway gates on the dam and the quantity of water released raised the level of the Han River by four feet and destroyed two UN bridges. The 4th Ranger Company of the 1st Cavalry Division was dispatched to conduct a raid on the dam and disable the gates but its efforts failed. The 7th Cavalry Regiment tried next and got to within half a mile of the dam before the stubborn defence of two Chinese companies halted their advance. There was limited artillery support for the attack due to poor roads and the division was suffering from low morale and was about to be pulled out of the line. The dam gates were eventually disabled in an attack by Navy Skyraider aircraft using torpedoes left over from the Second World War.
The 29th British Independent Brigade had taken up positions early in 1951 along the line of the Imjin River. The four infantry battalions – 1st Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers; 1st Battalion, the Gloucester Regiment; 1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles and an attached Belgian battalion – had a nine-mile front to cover and would be spread very thinly. The enemy was nowhere to be found and fighting patrols were sent out across the river to look for them. They were there, but well hidden. The Chinese 63rd Army was waiting for the order to attack the British sector, destroy the brigade and push on to Seoul to cut off the UN forces to the east.
On the night of 22 April, the Chinese arrived at the river after a twenty-mile march in full battle order. As they began to wade across the 150 yard wide river, a patrol from the Glosters opened fire on them and began to call in mortar and artillery fire. When they ran low on ammunition the Glosters withdrew to Castle Hill and the Chinese assault began. For two days the brigade delayed the Chinese advance, but by the time their American commanders ordered their withdrawal it was too late. The Glosters were surrounded and eventually overrun, losing twenty dead, thirty-five wounded and 575 missing presumed captured. Their neighbouring battalions retreated in chaos, supported by the Centurion tanks of the 8th Hussars. The fighting was fierce. The tanks crushed the enemy under their tracks and swivelled their turrets to machine-gun the Chinese off each other's tanks. By the end of the day their armour ran red with the blood of the enemy. Sergeant Cadman found a Chinese man battering at his turret to get in, and drove his tank straight through the wall of a house, to brush him off, and then ran over a machine gun post at the side of the road. Some tanks left the road and took to the rice paddy and were ploughing-in Chinese infantrymen who were crouched under every bank. Very few of the British infantrymen clinging to the tanks, survived the hail of enemy fire.
The success of the Chinese offensive in breaching Line Kansas, led to a withdrawal of the whole Eighth Army to No Name Line, closer to Seoul. The fighting was extremely intensive and over a three day period of 24–26 April 1951, six American soldiers earned Medals of Honour, including four awarded to the 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. The rain hindered the Chinese advance, which petered out as it reached the new UN defensive positions, a mere six miles north of Seoul.
As April came to an end Van Fleet moved started moving his forces westwards, to reinforce the defences around the capital. This left the east of the country defended by X Corps and the ROK III Corps, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the Chinese. From 10–16 May they moved five armies eastward and launched an attack across the Soyang River against four ROK divisions. X Corps withdrew the ROK 5th and 7th Divisions under its command, but the ROK III Corps failed to do the same with its 3rd and 9th Divisions and the Chinese quickly destroyed both divisions and poured through the gap in the line. The Chinese had skilfully aimed their main offensive at the village of Namjon, which marked the boundary between the ROK 7th and 9th Divisions and between the US X Corps and the ROK III Corps. By nightfall they had severed the road which supplied the two divisions of III Corps and were preparing to attack III Corps from both the front and the rear.
Faced with a fight to the death or withdrawal, the two divisions chose the latter course of action. They discarded their trucks and artillery and fled south on foot through the Pangdae Mountains. Reports reached the neighbouring ROK I Corps that many personnel abandoned their personal weapons while officers ripped off their insignia of rank in case they were captured. The collapse of III Corps forced a huge bulge in the UN line and the US 3rd Infantry Division in reserve was rushed over a hundred miles to plug the gap. As a result of this debacle all ROK divisions were now attached to American Corps, with the exception of the three divisions of I Corps, now commanded by the recently promoted General Paik Sun Yup. ROK Army Headquarters was now limited to personnel, administrative, logistical and training matters and was no longer involved in operations.
The deployment of the US 3rd Infantry Division from Seoul to cover the retreat of the ROK III Corps and the orderly withdrawal of the ROK I Corps helped halt the communist advance. It was to be the last major Chinese offensive of the war and it failed, like most of the others due to a combination of heavy casualties and poor resupply. General Van Fleet recognized that the Chinese were exhausted and ordered a counter-attack. The goal was to regain the better defensive positions of Line Kansas north of the 38th Parallel and inflict maximum casualties on the enemy. They managed to encircle the 180th Division of the 60th Army and after days of hard fighting, broke up the division and the regiments fled in all directions. Soldiers either deserted or were abandoned by their officers and 5,000 prisoners were taken. The division commander and other officers who escaped were subsequently demoted back in China. By the time the mud and the rain had brought the counter-attack to an end 17,000 POWs had been taken by the UN forces, representing 80 per cent of the total Chinese POWs taken during the whole war.
By 10 June 1951 both sides had come to a halt and were taking up defensive positions roughly along the line of the 38th Parallel, from where the war had begun a year earlier. The Air Force then began Operation Strangle, a massive effort to destroy the Communist supply lines by air. On 23 June the Soviet ambassador to the UN called for cease-fire negotiations. The US Secretary of State Dean Acheson indicated US willingness to accept a cease-fire line in the vicinity of the 38th Parallel and on 2 July the Chinese and North Koreans finally agreed to begin negotiations at Kaesong, a vi
llage north of the front line in enemy territory. However, two more years would pass before they came to a conclusion.
Members of the Turkish Brigade move into position in December 1950, shortly after suffering severe casualties attempting to block the encirclement of the US 2nd Division at the Chongchon River in North Korea.
Korean refugees crossing the frozen Han River in January 1951. Advancing North Koreans dressed in civilian clothing often mingled with refugees to infiltrate behind the UN lines.
January 1951 the evacuation of Seoul is complete and engineers destroy a pontoon bridge across the Han River.
A Sherman tank from the last unit to evacuate Seoul crosses a pontoon bridge over the Han River just before it was destroyed to prevent it falling into communist hands.
Army engineers rig explosive satchel charges linked by primer cord to destroy this railway bridge.
3 January 1951, the 19th Regiment of the US 24th Infantry Division retreat ten miles south of Seoul.
Happy Valley, the area was the scene of the destruction of the tanks of Cooper Force and heavy casualties for the Royal Ulster Rifles in January 1951.
27 January 1951, Corporal Cliff Rodgers comes across the frozen bodies of civilians, shot with their hands bound behind their backs near Yangji, fifteen miles north-west of Inchon.
A bulldozer clears the road for a convoy to travel over a mountain pass north of Punggyi. The tank in the ditch is an earlier M4A3 105mm Sherman without a bulldozer blade and with the older vertical volute suspension system.
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