This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  Colonel Ayres, standing at Osburn's CP, watched the attack for a few minutes. Then, shaking his head, he told Osburn to withdraw his company. Ayres then left the hill, walked back to his own CP, and ordered it to move back.

  NKPA soldiers were coming across the fields in numbers frightening to the Americans on the hill. B Company, on the right, was also under attack. More than a dozen tanks converged bumper to bumper on the road, a beautiful target, and on the hill SFC Collins cursed because he had no ammo for the 75's.

  He called for fire from the battalion's 4.2—mortars-but a tank cannon shell burst near the single mortar observer, not harming him, but shocking him into speechlessness. No one else knew how to direct the mortars, and in the confusion the tubes stood idle.

  Now the advancing and firing North Koreans were only a few hundred yards away, so close Collins could see them stop to load fresh cartridges into their long rifles. B Company began to move down off its hill on the east, withdrawing to the south.

  Captain Osburn shouted down to his men, "Prepare to withdraw—but stay to cover B Company first!"

  A Company was still putting out only a ragged volume of fire. The men just watched, seemingly dazed. The Weapons Platoon, hearing Osburn's shout, immediately got up and moved to the rear.

  Then the two rifle platoons on the hill, not worrying about B Company, began to get out of their holes. The men left their field packs behind, and most of them forgot their spare ammunition. A few even left rifles in the rush. They started down to the south side of the hill, where a small village of straw houses stood in the mist. Here Captain Osburn and his officers started to organize A Company for withdrawal.

  As the last two squads came off the hill, an automatic weapon snarled at them. The two squads panicked. Men started running.

  The running men tore past Osburn, and some of the men with him began to run away, too. The panic was contagious.

  Osburn and the other officers screamed at their men to halt. A few did stop, but the majority kept going. Running about, Osburn got together as many men as he could.

  The 1st Platoon, dug in the flat ground toward the road, was more exposed to fire than the two on the hill. Hearing orders to withdraw, four men jumped up and ran back across the soggy green fields. Rifle fire hit one of these men in the back. The rest of the platoon now were too afraid to desert their holes, and refused to move.

  Seventeen men under Lieutenant Driskell had been dug in along the railroad embankment and could not see the rest of A Company from their position. Now they did not even get the withdrawal order.

  Suddenly they saw NKPA soldiers standing on the hill to their left. Understandably, Driskell became nervous. He asked his sergeant, a combat veteran, "What do you think we should do now?"

  "Get the hell out of here," the sergeant replied.

  Driskell ordered his men to move back along the railway embankment. A large number of them, however, confused and frightened, refused to move. Driskell, after moving to the rear, missed these men, and went back to get them. A few minutes later, while searching the Korean mud houses for possible wounded, a squad of North Koreans surrounded him and the four men with him. Driskell tried to surrender.

  One of the NKPA shot him dead, and then the enemy fired on the other four, killing three. The fourth ran away.

  The men who refused to leave their holes were not seen again.

  A couple of miles to the rear in P'yongt'aek, Captain Osburn began to get his company back under control. The long run took most of the steam out of the men, and they recovered from their panic. They stood waiting in the rain until Osburn came to break them down into some semblance of order for a further retreat.

  Sergeant Collins, disgusted that so many of his men hadn't fired on the enemy, went among his survivors, asking them why they hadn't fired. A dozen of them said their rifles wouldn't work. Checking, Collins found the rifles were jammed with dirt, or incorrectly assembled after cleaning.

  Many of the men did not know how to put a rifle together. It wasn't Collins' fault, since he had joined the company only one day before.

  Once assembled, A Company began the move south. This time, the men obeyed their sergeants' orders—just as long as they were moving south.

  One-fourth of the company was missing.

  The wounded who had made it could walk, but the shell-shocked mortar observer wandered around aimlessly if not helped. Men took turns helping him along.

  The rain stopped, and the day became steamy, humid, and miserable. The men sweated. They had thrown away their canteens, and now they were forced to drink like animals from the muddy ditches and stinking rice paddies, fertilized with human feces.

  All along the road south, they saw a litter of American equipment thrown aside by the other elements of 1st Battalion who had preceded them: helmets, rain gear, cartridge belts, even rifles. By late afternoon, men began to falter, and the company column spread out over two miles.

  Captain Osburn passed the word that any man who fell out would be left behind. No one said very much. They all kept going.

  The mortar observer kept moaning to himself, over and over, "Rain, rain, rain."

  "Why the hell don't you shut up?" one of the men helping him asked bitterly.

  At dark, a ragged, disheartened, stumbling mob of men straggled into Ch'onan. Here they found the rest of 1st Battalion, who had got there first, snoring in the muddy streets, tired, uncaring.

  Captain Osburn located some trucks of the ROK Army and loaded his men in them. Battalion ordered him to take his company two miles south of Ch'onan and prepare a defensive position.

  A Company moved into their designated area after dark. The men now had no entrenching tools. A few men scraped out shallow foxholes with their hands or mess utensils, Most of them fell down on the soggy earth and went to sleep.

  General Dean, at Taejon, after hearing the full story of Task Force Smith, did not feel too badly about the situation. Smith had done the best he could, and he had allowed the 34th Infantry precious hours to prepare the P'yongt'aek-Ansong defense line.

  Bill Dean knew very well that the holding of the P'yongt'aek-Ansong line was vital to his plan of defense. Where he made his mistake was believing that the understrength, untrained, undisciplined, and unprepared regiment to which he gave the orders was capable of carrying out such a mission against a foe as tough and numerous as the Inmun Gun.

  At about 1600 on 6 July, Dean learned that not only had the 1st Battalion fallen back all the way below Ch'onan; more than fifteen miles below the natural defense terrain, but that the 3rd Battalion, which he had left at Ansong, had retreated back twenty miles to Ch'onan without even making contact with the enemy.

  Dean turned his jeep toward Ch'onan. There, in the CP of Colonel Lovless, the commander of the 34th Infantry, he blew his top.

  The withdrawal from P'yongt'aek had exposed his entire left flank. There were some ROK's on the left, called the Anti-Communist Youth Group, but in these Bill Dean rightly placed no confidence.

  Lovless told him about Barth's instructions to bring the troops back from Ansong. Dean, who had been out of communication with Barth—few of the available radios would work in the rain—had to accept that.

  Dropping Ansong, Dean demanded to know who had authorized the retreat from P'yongt'aek.

  There was a long silence in the CP Lovless looked at Colonel Ayres, who finally said, "I'll accept the responsibility for that."

  Dean almost told them to turn around and get their tails going north. But as he opened his mouth, he realized that it was already dark, and there could be danger of a night ambuscade on the march. He figured that there had been enough confusion already.

  He made a painful decision to let the error stand.

  But just as soon as he had returned to his own command post, he thought better of it. He sent word to Lovless to advance his regiment north until contact was made, and then to fight a delaying action.

  Dean took responsibility for the precipitate drawback on
himself, since he considered he had not made his intentions clear to all hands.

  But wherever the fault lay, the result was tragic.

  Late in the afternoon of 7 July, Major John J. Dunn, Operations Officer of the 34th Infantry, was with the 3rd Battalion of that regiment moving north from Ch'onan pursuant to Dean's orders. The battalion was able to advance only a few miles out of town before its lead elements were fired upon. The advance halted.

  The 3rd Battalion deployed out into an area along the road that had excellent fields of fire, and prepared to delay the enemy.

  While Major Dunn talked with the battalion commander, the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon leader, who had driven ahead of the battalion in a jeep, reported to the CP, The I&R Platoon leader showed a couple of bullet holes in his jacket, and one through his canteen. His platoon had been ambushed by a party of some forty enemy up ahead in a tiny village, but all except three of his men got out.

  The leading rifle company of the battalion immediately started forward to rescue these men; Dunn went with it. On the way, they met Major Seegars, the Battalion S-3, who said that he had already found the missing men. Hearing this, Dunn told the rifle company to hold off its attack, and to take up a blocking position on the road.

  As the company moved back, it drew a small amount of rifle fire. Immediately, some American soldiers began firing wildly and indiscriminately; Dunn was able to halt this only with difficulty. Suddenly, friendly mortar shells began dropping on the company's position.

  Dunn angrily went to the rear to get somebody straightened out.

  When he arrived at the 3rd Battalion's holding positions, he was surprised to find the battalion falling back along the road. He was not able to locate either the battalion commander or the exec at the CP.

  Dunn then drove back to the regimental command post and reported the 3rd Battalion's action. A brand-new colonel, Robert R. Martin, was with Lovless. Martin had been hurriedly flown in from Japan, and he was wearing low quarter-shoes and an overseas cap. He had been sent to Korea at the express request of General Dean, who had known him in World War II, and at 1800 Dean had given him command of the 34th.

  After listening to Dunn, Martin asked if Dunn thought the regiment would take orders from him.

  "Yes, sir," Dunn said.

  "Then put them back in that position!"

  Dunn roared back up the road, stopped the retreating battalion, and headed it back. As soon as it was turned around, Dunn picked up Major Seegars and two of the battalion's company commanders in his own jeep, and followed by a second jeep with a few enlisted men, pulled out ahead of the battalion.

  A few hundred yards short of the abandoned good position, small-arms fire blazed at the two jeeps from close range. A group Dunn estimated to be about forty men had ambushed them.

  Both Dunn and Seegars were hit immediately, Seegars. very badly. Several other men were wounded. The jeeps slued to a stop under the hail of bullets, and the men in them tumbled to the road.

  Dunn was wounded severely in the head; an artery was pulsing bright red blood on the road. With great effort Dunn crawled off the road into a clump of bushes, and here he was able to stanch his bleeding. One of the enlisted men dragged Major Seegars to cover.

  One of the officers with the party, unhit, said he would bring help, and took off to the south.

  Keeping low, surrounded by enemy scouts, Dunn crawled up onto a small knoll. Down the road he could see the leading rifle company of the 3rd Battalion, which had been just behind the advance party. When the shooting began, these men had hit the dirt and commenced firing.

  They were close enough for Dunn, too hurt to move, to recognize some of the men. But they did not advance, even though their officers knew that wounded men lay directly to their front, and they constituted a superior force to the scattered scouts before them.

  Then Dunn heard an officer shout nervously, "Fall back! Fall back!"

  The rifle company, under no pressure from the enemy, fell back.

  Unbelieving, sickened, Major Dunn, who would spend three years in a North Korean prisoner-of-war camp, watched his men fall back with no attempt to rescue their own.

  Two hours later a large force of North Koreans advanced down the road and took Dunn and the other men prisoner. During the evening, Major Boone Seegars died beside the road.

  All day on 7 July, Company A of the 1st Battalion waited on the road south of Ch'onan, improving its positions with shovels borrowed from Korean farmers—most of whom were now abandoning their fields, and fleeing south. The monsoon rain continued to fall during the day, and the men sat around in it, talking.

  Somehow, a new rumor made the rounds, one that pleased everyone. A Company was going back to Japan. Other than rumors, nothing much of importance passed during the day. The only food the company could get was from the Koreans, and many of the men went hungry.

  There was fighting north of them during the night in the town of Ch'onan, but it was too far off for them to get the wind up.

  Colonel Bob Martin, now in command of the 34th Infantry, had inherited a debacle. With a disintegrating command, it was not enough to issue orders; orders had a way of being ignored on company and platoon level. Martin did the only thing he could do, which was to try to set a personal example.

  His 3rd Battalion retreated through Ch'onan in disorder; in the early evening of 7 July Martin joined the battalion and ordered its C.O. to return and defend the town. Then, with a small group of soldiers, Martin went inside Ch'onan.

  Confused fighting developed to the west of the town during the night, where elements of the 3rd Battalion were defending. After midnight 8 July, word arrived at the regimental command post south of Ch'onan that Colonel Martin and eighty men were cut off inside the town and that North Korean tanks were in the city.

  General Dean, hearing this report, was too upset to sleep during the night. He had Martin shipped to Korea at his personal request.

  But Martin came out, and reported that the supply lines into the city were clear and that the defenders needed ammunition. Then, just before daybreak on 8 July, he returned into the beleaguered town.

  Now a half-dozen tanks were in the streets of Ch'onan, firing on the rail station, the church, and any Americans or vehicles in sight. The battle for Ch'onan devolved into disorganized street fighting. North Korean infantry marched inside at 0600 and the two rifle companies still defending were cut off.

  In the early morning, Bob Martin was hunting through the streets of Ch'onan with a 2.36-inch bazooka. It was no job for a regimental C.O.—but somebody had to do it. Leading the attack, gathering a small group of men about him, Martin engaged the enemy tanks.

  With his regimental S-3 sergeant, Jerry Christenson, he stood in a hut east of the main street of Ch'onan, facing a T-34. Martin, acting as gunner, aimed the rocket launcher, and fired. The small, obsolete rocket charge fizzled out against the tank's steel hull.

  At the same time, the tank fired. At a range of less than twenty-five feet, the 85mm shell blew Bob Martin into two pieces.

  The concussion burst one of Christenson's eyes from its socket, but in great pain he managed to pop it back in. He was taken captive by the North Koreans.

  With Martin's death, the defense of Ch'onan came apart. There was a great deal of bugging out. The troops that did not bug were chopped up by a superior and better-armed enemy.

  While the last fighting was going on in Ch'onan, Company A was getting breakfast, their first good meal in two days. After eating, the company could see American troops pulling out of Ch'onan, but it was not until several hours later that artillery shells began to fall in their own area.

  When the first shell burst, Captain Osburn gave the order to pull back south. The entire 1st Battalion was moving out again.

  All afternoon and half the night the company marched south, keeping a fast pace. Then, after daylight, the company was shuttled by truck into new positions along the Kum River. Here the men dug new holes, and this time, deep
ones. They received their first resupply of ammunition.

  The rumor about going to Japan began to die a natural death.

  On the morning of 8 July, Lieutenant General Walton Walker flew into Dean's HQ in Taejon. He informed Dean that help was on the way—the entire Eighth Army, all four divisions under Walker himself, were coming to Korea.

  MacArthur had already requested from the Joint Chiefs the following troops and equipment from the continental United States and elsewhere.

  The 2nd Infantry Division, then at Fort Lewis, Washington; a regimental combat team from the 82nd Airborne, a regimental combat team from the Fleet Marine Forces, with heavy Marine air and beach parties, Army engineers, and three tank battalions—of which there had been none in the Far East.

  MacArthur had already envisioned his plan of maneuver for ending the war—the end run to the west coast and the lnch'on landings. But neither he nor any one else had realized yet how hard it was going to be to stop the North Korean advance long enough to put the Inch'on show on the road. As the days went by, MacArthur would continually increase the list of his requirements.

  On 8 July General Dean sent him the following message: "I am convinced that the North Korean Army and the North Korean soldier, and his status of training and equipment have been underestimated."

  MacArthur directed Lieutenant General Stratemeyer to use his bomber forces against North Korean ground troops—an inefficient employment of heavy bombers, but there were simply not enough ground-support groups available. The Air Force had never anticipated having to support a large-scale ground war.

  Air power was not able to halt the North Korean advance. But without the air cover and timely air support and supply FEAF gave them, the American ground units would have been in far worse condition.

  MacArthur then cabled the JCS:

  "The situation in Korea is critical.… This force more and more assumes the aspect of a combination of Soviet leadership and technical guidance with Chinese ground elements. While it serves under the flag of North Korea, it can no longer be considered as an indigenous N.K. military effort.