This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

At midmorning, a scout ran back to L Company saying that Korean infantry was crossing the Kum two miles below them. More than five hundred were already across.

  A liaison spotter plane from the 63rd Field reported NKPA ferrying across the river in two small boats, carrying thirty men each; the 63rd's Operations officer decided to wait for more lucrative targets. Then YAK fighters drove the spotter plane away.

  Meanwhile Stith of L Company decided he'd better found up his supporting machine guns and mortars from the Weapons Company. He couldn't find them. Artillery and mortar fire now began to fall on Love.

  Stith decided it was time to make tracks. He ordered L to withdraw from the Kum River heights. As L went back, one of its platoon leaders, Sergeant Wagnebreth, stopped to inform an officer of the 63rd Field Artillery that NKPA was south of the river; but the officer did not seem impressed with the news.

  L Company went all the way back to Battalion HQ. When the Battalion C.O. found out what had happened, he relieved its commander on the spot and said he would court-martial him.

  Meanwhile, I Company's acting C.O., Joe Hicks, was wondering what had happened to Love. He couldn't reach Battalion, either. Feeling rather lonely, Hicks stayed in place all day, under sporadic shelling. About dark, he received orders to rejoin the rest of the 34th back at Nonsan, and he pulled out.

  The NKPA regiment that had crossed the Kum hadn't wanted Joe Hicks and Company-their scouts had filtered to the American rear and located a far richer target, the 63rd Field. The artillery battalion, consisting of only two firing batteries—artillery fat, as well as infantry, had been well sliced—Headquarters, and Service Battery, was positioned along a secondary road in the scrub- and pine-dotted low hills.

  The 63rd Field was in fashion this Bastille Day, too. Its C.O. had taken sick and been evacuated to Taejon; Major William Dressler was in command. It had no communications with the infantry supposedly holding the Kum River line, and none with its own observers. It could talk only with the 34th HQ, which was to be no help.

  In early afternoon, one of its outposts reported that enemy troops were in the hills. Battalion HQ told the outpost what it saw were friendly troops, and not to fire. Shortly thereafter, the outpost was captured, and its machine gun turned to fire on HQ Battery.

  In this way, the 63rd Field learned it was under attack.

  Mortar shells crashed into HQ Battery area, bursting with clouds of greasy smoke. A shell struck the battalion switchboard, destroying wife communication with the other batteries. Other shells burst on the CP, the medical section, and the radio truck, destroying all remaining communication left to the battalion.

  An ammunition truck began to smoke, and when it went up, HQ Battery disintegrated into chaos, with men running in all directions. Machine guns flayed them. Bullets chopped holes in the doors of the Fire Direction Center hut.

  Major Dressler jumped into a foxhole with a corporal, trying to fight back. Both men died there.

  A few men of the battery escaped up a ravine leading to the south.

  A Battery, only 250 yards away, drew fire at the same time. A company of approximately a hundred North Koreans ran into the battery, screaming and yelping, while mortar fire burst among the guns themselves.

  Some of A's men fought back courageously with small arms. The battery commander was killed. Finally, some of them made it to the south, almost all without weapons of any kind.

  Next, it was B Battery's turn. Four hundred enemy infantry surrounded the battery area, and for several minutes something akin to Custer's last stand was repeated. Then, while a group of ROK horse cavalry, who had ridden out of nowhere to attack the enemy, slashed into the North Koreans on the west, the artillerymen went march order.

  They left their guns, after removing locks and sights.

  The 63rd Field had now lost all ten guns and eighty vehicles. The five howitzers of A had been abandoned intact. Many men were missing.

  Service Battery, overlooked in the first NKPA rush, was alerted by survivors from A. Service Battery marched fifteen miles south to Nonsan.

  A straggler reached the 34th Infantry's CP at Ponggong-ni. When Lieutenant Colonel Pappy Wadlington understood what had occurred, he ordered Colonel Ayres' 1st Battalion to rescue the men and equipment that had been lost.

  Late in the afternoon 1st Battalion marched north along the road, in attack column. Just as they came in sight of the 63rd's old position, they drew machine-gun and carbine fire.

  The small-arms fire halted the battalion.

  Ayres had been ordered to pull back if he could not accomplish the rescue by dark; it was now dusk. The 1st Battalion marched back to its old position. It did not remain there. It loaded into trucks and departed south for Nonsan.

  That night, General Dean ordered an air strike on the abandoned matériel. The practice was becoming standard operating procedure.

  It had been a bloody and tragic afternoon.

  In the fading hours of 14 July, Bill Dean was still optimistic, although everything he knew of the art of war told him his hold on Taejon was precarious. But it was a forlorn optimism—again and again he ordered that the enemy be delayed; again and again his troops fell back, precipitating crisis. He knew that morale was crumbling, and he sent a message to his units:

  "Hold everything we have until we find where we stand—might not be too bad—may be able to hold—make reconnaissance—may be able to knock these people out and reconsolidate. Am on my way out now."

  His line was breached, and the 19th Infantry's flank exposed.

  He was in trouble, but he was not yet beaten.

  The 19th Infantry, the Rock of Chickamauga, on 14 July held the principal crossing places over the Kum, centered on Taep'yong-ni. The 34th Infantry was on its left flank, and ROK Army units held to its right. As the one remaining intact regiment of the 24th Division, the 19th was given the most critical frontage of the river line.

  The total front, counting the bends and twists of the Kum, extended for thirty miles. Having only two rifle battalions, the 19th was forced to leave wide gaps between units, and in some places hope for the best. The Kum itself was 200 to 300 yards in width, with four- to eight-foot embankments, and the water varied from six to fifteen feet in depth. It was a formidable barrier to enemy penetration.

  But it was also crisscrossed with sandbars, and in some places wadable.

  The Chicks were well commanded on 14 July by Colonel Guy S. Meloy, Jr., a combat veteran of the big war. Stan Meloy, a competent and courageous officer, made both his presence and his confidence felt. He placed his 1st Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Otho Winstead, to the front, with his 2nd generally to its rear in reserve. He had six batteries of artillery in direct support. He put his regimental CP at the village of Palsan, back from the river on the main road.

  During the day, some probing attacks came across the river. All failed.

  Then, in late afternoon, Meloy learned of the collapse on his left flank. He had no choice but to move his 2nd Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McGrail, over to the left to prevent his thinly spread line from being taken in the flank and rear. Now he had only one company, F, in regimental reserve.

  And he had lost the battle of the Kum River before it began.

  He could expect no help from the 21st. Virtually unfit for combat after the battering it had taken, the weak Gimlets had been moved by General Dean cast of Taejon to give the ROK's moral support, if nothing else.

  As dark fell on 15 July, Stan Meloy alerted all his units to expect a night crossing. For two days an enemy buildup had been observed across the river. Air strikes had slammed into the enemy columns repeatedly, doing damage, but not halting them. The NKPA was growing wise to the ways of the now dominant American air power; it was staying off the roads by day, camouflaging its tanks and vehicles in wattle huts and orchards.

  On both sides of the river the mud and straw villages were burning, set afire by air and artillery. As it grew dark, a hot, reddish glow overspread the muddy wat
ers.

  Then, small groups of NKPA waded into the river, trying to swim or wade across. The machine guns and recoilless rifles of the 19th butchered the majority of them, but a few sneaked onto the south shore.

  As night deepened, there was sporadic firing. Smoke and the smell of cordite lay heavy over the uneasy lines facing the Kum. No one got any sleep.

  Then, exactly at 0300 on 16 July, a single North Korean aircraft flew along the river. A flare popped behind it, and at the signal the north bank of the Kum blazed with fire.

  Artillery, tank cannon, mortars, and small arms punished the south shore. The volume of fire was as great as anything Stan Meloy had seen in Europe—and under its cover North Koreans streamed down to the river. They jumped on boats and rafts; they waded; they swam, pouring into the river like a swarm of rats fleeing a forest fire.

  Stan Meloy met them with everything he had. And at this critical moment one of the inevitable mishaps of war dealt him a damaging blow.

  One 155mm howitzer of the 11th Field was firing flares on call. The flares gave 1st Battalion visibility over the river, and light to shoot by, but they were slightly off the main concentration of enemy. Colonel Winstead requested a slight shift in flare area. The shift should have taken at most a minute or two—but the gunners misunderstood the request, and completely moved the gun around.

  For many long, crucial minutes the river stayed dark, and enemy infantry poured across.

  Once on the south bank, they poured through the gap between Charley and Easy companies and took the 1st Platoon of C under attack. Hearing the violent firing, C's commander called Lieutenant Maher of the 1st Platoon by telephone.

  Cheerfully, young Maher said, "We're doing fine."

  He put down the phone and took a bullet in the head. Almost immediately, his platoon was overrun. The platoon sergeant was able to rejoin the company with only a dozen men.

  Now, under cover of dark, with dawn only an hour away, the NKPA began to filter through the 1st Battalion and to fire on its mortar and CP positions.

  To the left of the 19th's front, another crossing was taking place. At first light, men in B Company saw almost a battalion of North Koreans on the high ground to their left and rear. More were coming across every minute.

  Then, suddenly, it seemed that the NKPA was everywhere. Colonel Winstead reported to Meloy that his CP and mortars were under attack and that the middle part of his line was falling back. Parts of both Able and Baker companies were overrun. The enemy was coming through the center of the regimental position.

  This attack had to be contained. Meloy and Winstead began to organize a counterattack force. With no organized reserve, they called upon all cooks, drivers, mechanics, and clerks in the regiment, and every staff officer present.

  This conglomerate force went into action, and by 0900 had driven the attack off. A few North Koreans even fled back to the river and recrossed it. Leading the counterattack, both the 1st Battalion S-3, Major Cook, and the adjutant, Captain Hackett, were killed.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Meloy called Dean and reported he had the situation under control.

  But Stan Meloy, this confused morning, did not know the whole picture. Almost immediately, Colonel Winstead reported that enemy units were raising hell in his rear areas, and he had nothing with which to fight them. The artillery batteries were under fire, and screaming for assistance.

  Something had happened to the air support, which was supposed to be on call at dawn.

  Then, a roadblock was reported three miles behind the regiment on the main supply road. Ammunition trucks could not get up to the units.

  Enemy infiltrators struck against F Company, the single reserve force, and pinned it down by fire.

  Colonel Meloy and his S-3, Major Logan, went back to check on the roadblock in their rear, which was being rapidly reinforced by the enemy infiltrators streaming through the hills. Many of the enemy wore white robes, disguised as farmers.

  At the roadblock, Meloy found a sad situation. The American troops in the area, mostly service troops, were not trying to reduce the block, which was a narrow pass between a stream and a forty-foot embankment covered by fire. These troops were lying around, completely disorganized, firing in the general direction of the block, doing no damage at all.

  Meloy immediately jumped in and tried to get some order. As he tried to get a group of men to attack the high ground above the pass, he was hit and severely wounded.

  He told Logan to pass the command to Colonel Winstead, of the 1st Battalion. Logan, after notifying Winstead, finally reached through to General Dean's HQ in Taejon. He told Dean that: the situation was poor, Meloy down, and Winstead now in command. Dean, worried, replied that he would send men to force the roadblock, and for the 19th to withdraw at once—but to try to bring its equipment out with it. As soon as these messages had been sent, an enemy shell struck the regimental radio truck, and all contact with Division was cut off.

  Winstead then ordered Logan to do something about the roadblock, while he went back to his battalion and tried to bring it back from the river. It was now past noon.

  Now, in middle summer, the monsoon rains had finally ended, and the Korean sun was beginning to sear with all its fury. By early afternoon the thermometer reached 100 degrees, and the hillsides became humid furnaces. The soldiers of the 19th were in no better physical shape than the other Japanese occupation troops; they were unused to heat and unused to the steep Korean slopes. This was their first action, but they had had no real rest or sleep for three nights. The long midsummer day, with sixteen hours of daylight, following a night of battle, began to be too much for them.

  The lightly armed Koreans continued to pour through the hills and take up positions on the high ground in the regiment's rear. The NKPA ran through the valleys stolidly, and bounded up the ridges like rabbits; they had been doing it all their lives.

  If Colonel Meloy had had an adequate reserve, he would not have had to lead men personally against the damaging roadblock. The enemy parties in his rear could have done no real damage, and he could have reduced them one by one, since the main line was able to hold until ordered to withdraw.

  But every available fighting man was on line up against the Kum, and there was nothing to wipe up the rampaging infiltrators in the rear. By noon, too, demoralization had begun to set in among the men. The long night and the burning sun had reduced them to panting exhaustion. Ordered to climb the high ground to knock the enemy off the blocking positions, the majority of them lay down and looked the other way.

  Under fire, the line companies along the river began to withdraw on Winstead's order. Coming out of line, they found they still had a long way to go. From hills and bushes in their rear, enemy machine guns chattered at them.

  Again and again, officers were simply not able to organize attacks against the enfilading hills to clear the way. It wasn't that the men were afraid—they were simply unable to walk up the hills to engage the North Koreans.

  Trying to organize his men, Winstead was killed.

  F Company, the supposed reserve force, was ordered to attack the major roadblock to the south. It was under fire and could not leave its reserve position.

  To the south, General Dean was making every attempt to organize a force to rescue the 19th's 1st Battalion. The 19th 2nd Battalion, under McGrail, was ordered to come up from its position on the east flank and break the roadblock.

  Colonel McGrail, coming up the road from the south, ran into heavy North Korean fire. His vehicles were set afire, and he was pinned down in a ditch while many men around him were killed or wounded. His G Company, trying to attack the ridges over the roadblock, took casualties and was forced to dig in. The 2nd Battalion men could not climb the hills, either.

  At dusk, the effort to break the roadblock ended.

  Meanwhile, all afternoon, the troops on the north had waited for the block to clear. Some men did not wait, but began to head south through the hills. Staff officers decided to place Colo
nel Meloy in the one light tank available and to try to get him to safety. The tank got through, leading about twenty vehicles. Just south of the roadblock, the tank engine failed.

  None of the vehicles it had escorted through stopped to pick up its crew or the wounded Meloy. Meloy, badly hurt but conscious, ordered the tank commander to drop a thermite grenade down the hatch while he lay in the ditch and watched.

  Later in the night, an officer finally returned with a truck and rescued Meloy and several other wounded men who had gathered with him.

  An hour after Meloy was sent out, the officer commanding north of the roadblock, Captain Fenstermacher, told the 500 men remaining to prepare for movement out cross-country. He passed orders to set the 100 waiting vehicles afire with gasoline, and as he did so, fell shot through the throat. At dusk, the men scattered into the hills.

  Some of them made it. Some did not. Some of the wounded they brought out, others they left behind. One chaplain, Herman Felhoelter, refused to leave the wounded when the unhurt men would no longer carry them. A sergeant, watching from another hill through his field glasses, saw Felhoelter killed by the NKPA along with his charges as he knelt over them, praying.

  All night, and all the next day, the remnants of the 19th Regiment streamed into Taejon and the surrounding villages. Only two companies, E and G of the 2nd Battalion, were intact. Less than half of the 1st Battalion came back. The regimental HQ had taken unusual losses in both officers and enlisted men. The supporting artillery had lost heavily, too.

  On 17 July, General Dean relieved the 19th with B Company of the 34th. The Rock of Chickamauga then moved twenty-five miles southeast of Taejon to reorganize and reequip.

  The battle for Taejon was lost. General Dean knew that he now had only the remnants of three defeated regiments, each one little better than a battalion in size. The 21st had come apart at Osan and Choch'iwon; the 34th had been shattered successively at P'yongt'aek, and Ch'onan; the 19th had bought it at the Kum River. Not only were the regiments weak in men and equipment; they were exhausted and their morale was poor.