There were mass graves outside Amui, Mokp'o, Kongju, and Hamyang, wherever the Inmun Gun had marched.
The killing was not sheer savagery. The regime was ridding itself of people it could never trust, for the best of political reasons.
Revolution and terror are synonymous; only with the passage of time does any revolution become respectable. After the military triumph of the American Revolution the hard-core adherents of the Crown—more than a quarter-million out of a population of three million—were stripped of their property and forced into exile in Canada and elsewhere. Much of the success of the United States in early days was due to the lack of organized dissent within the Republic.
After the French Revolution, thousands of aristocrats and others who fought the revolution were permitted to return to France, where their descendants have not accepted the principles of the revolution to this day, causing perpetual instability.
In a hideously practical way the Communists knew what they were doing.
The Korean terror exceeded that of now respectable Western social upheavals only in degree, and in brutal Communist efficiency.
But while it was shooting the officials and anti-Communists, the regime made every effort to cater to the poorer masses. Asian Communists have always realized that in nations largely peasant, the peasantry alone is of any real political value. Land was redistributed. It would be taken back later, when the regime was consolidated—but first, it was a necessary step, as in China, to secure the backing of the millions of the poor.
The middle classes, so vital to Western democracy, do not exist in most of Asia. Where they do exist, they are more of a political liability with the mass of people than an asset, for they are regarded with envy and hatred by men who break their backs on the soil. The peasant feels he can live without them.
While the proscribed classes were being wiped out, the Inmun Gun showed every courtesy to the workers of the soil. When the Inmun Gun required food or lodging of the poor, these were paid for—in worthless currency, but paid for none the less. In Seoul, the Inmun Gun had captured the South Korean Government mints, and the printing presses ran off all the currency the Inmun Gun could ever use.
In a country where 90 percent of the people are peasants, the Communist regime had every expectation of success—because peasants they understood. From the first, the peasantry saw little to lose through Communist rule, and perhaps much to gain. Only much later, when the land is collectivized and the iron hand shows through the paternal glove, and when it is too late, does the peasant who has been Communized realize his loss. Communized, he ceases to be an individual man, losing an identity that even the most abject poverty could not take from his before.
Communism had really nothing to offer the peasant but propaganda—the Communist has no more use for the peasant in his scheme of things than does a purveyor of Rolls-Royces—but Asian Communism has always realized that the good will of the peasant was necessary above all else for its eventual success. Americans, in turn, have been slow to understand the peasant, let alone mix with him.
Americans, who cannot understand or even communicate with peasantry, are growing lonelier in a world where the great majority of men are peasants.
Shooting the members of the ancien régime, destroying the merchant and landowning groups, and making certain it respectfully paid cash for every peach its soldiers took from the trees of the farmers, the North Korean State came to stay in the South. Among the people of a nation inured to grinding poverty and accustomed to bloody repression, who had been beaten more than once into sullen submission, its actions aroused no such outcry as might have been expected in the West.
Communism came to stay below the parallel, and had it not been thrown back by force it would be there yet.
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12
Fire Brigade
The situation is critical and Miryang may be lost. The enemy has driven a division-sized salient across the Naktong. More will cross the river tonight. If Miryang is lost … we will be faced with a withdrawal from Korea. I am heartened that the Marine Brigade will move against the Naktong Salient tomorrow. They are faced with impossible odds, and I have no valid reason to substantiate it, but I have the feeling they will halt the enemy.
.… These Marines have the swagger, confidence, and hardness that must have been in Stonewall Jacksons's Army of the Shenandoah. They remind me of the Coldstreams at Dunkirk. Upon this thin line of reasoning, I cling to the hope of victory.
— From a wire dispatched 16 August 1950 by a British military observer at Miryang.
IN FRONT OF almost three-quarters of the Pusan Perimeter of August 1950 wound the Naktong River. Flowing south, the Naktong is Korea's second river; it bends and folds its way between rice paddies and the hills running down to the water's edge. The Naktong averages more than one-quarter mile in width, and more than six feet in depth. At low water, as during the hot, dry summer of 1950, large sandy beaches and bars appear in the river, but it is at all times a formidable obstacle.
Behind the river to the east, the hills rise to twenty-five hundred feet, and on its north, across the top of the Perimeter, they reach three thousand or more. It was here, on the highest hills, that the United Nations Forces, the United States and ROK armies, organized their defense.
There was no hope of organizing a strongly held line; there were still not enough troops for that. Troops dug in on hills that overlooked the Naktong and the major avenues of approach leading east from it. By day these strongpoints served as observation posts, and by night they buttoned up into small tight defense perimeters, acting as listening posts. Between these outposts along the river ran jeep and other mechanized patrols to screen the terrain.
Some miles back from the Naktong the reserve troops were held in readiness to attack against any successful crossing by the enemy. Supporting weapons, artillery and mortars, were also emplaced back in the hills, and registered on all likely crossing sights, and prepared to mass fire against any threatened point.
The object of the defense was to hold the commanding ground east of the river, and the vital road net. There could be no practical hope of holding each inch of ground, as in the position defense, but now the mobility of the American defenders could be brought in play. If the enemy broke across the river at any point, men and firepower could be quickly assembled against him from other parts of the Perimeter.
There were four natural attack routes into the Perimeter. One was on the south through that port of Masan; another through the so-called Naktong Bulge to the important rail and road network at Miryang. A possible corridor of advance ran through the roads and rails to Taegu. Finally, on the far northeast, a valley ran down the seacoast through Kyongju.
As the enemy plan of maneuver developed, it became obvious that the NKPA would attempt all four corridors, almost simultaneously. The NKPA plan assumed that by making a multiple attack against the entire thinly manned line, a breakthrough could be made in at least one area. Because of this plan, the men defending east of the Naktong would be stretched to the breaking point, and the pressure would be felt everywhere.
There was fighting—hard, bitter fighting, along almost all the Perimeter in August. The most dangerous threat developed against the Naktong Bulge, however, and here the action was typical of the whole bitter, desperate month.
After July 1950, it becomes impossible to detail the actions of each division or regiment. Every unit in Korea had its moments of desperation, and many their moments of glory. But by detailing to some extent the experiences of certain units, to a great extent the flavor of the whole action is revealed. For what happened in one stinking paddy valley was very much like what happened in the next, from here to the end of the war.
A few miles north of the confluence of the Naktong and the Nam, the Naktong forms a wide bow to the west, enclosing a loop of land measuring four miles by five, with the town of Yongsan at its eastern base. The territory within the river bend was called by its Am
erican defenders the Naktong Bulge.
The terrain enclosed on three sides by the Naktong is at first hilly, then flattening out to the east, with three large lakes in front of Yongsan. The town of Yongsan itself is a road intersection, with good dirt roads leading east, west, north, and south.
The first serious penetration of the Pusan Perimeter was into the Naktong Bulge.
On 4 August Major General Lee Kwon Mu, Inmun Gun, surveyed the east side of the river from his command post at Hyopch'on. By August, Lee Kwon Mu was already among the greatest heroes of the North Korean People's Army. He had been made a Hero of the Chosun Minjujui Inmun Kong-whakuk, and awarded the Order of the National Flag, First Class.
His 4th Division, NKPA, had, with the 3rd, spearheaded the drive south, taking Seoul and shattering the American 24th Division at Taejon. The 4th had been given the honorary title "Seoul" Division by Premier Kim II Sung.
Lee Kwon Mu, as all the senior commanders of the Inmun Gun, had been fighting most of his life. Born in Manchuria of Korean refugee stock, he had joined the Chinese Communist 8th Route Army, fighting both Japanese and Nationalists. He had attended an officers' school in Russia. Now, at the age of forty, Lee stood at the apex of his military career.
His veteran 4th Division still contained 7,000 men, and to it came orders to attack. With almost no preparation, Lee sent his battalions boiling across the Naktong.
At midnight, 5 August, on the signal of a red and a yellow flare, the 16th Regiment, 4th Division, plunged into the broad river at the Ohang ferry, where the water ran only shoulder deep to an adult Korean. Some of the soldiers crossed on makeshift rafts, but most stripped naked, and with both clothing and rifles held high over their heads, waded into the river.
They caught General Church, 24th Division CG, by surprise. Church had felt the blow would fall farther north in his zone.
The 16th Regiment reached the east bank safely, dressed, and marched down a draw between the American defensive strongpoints. They struck into American units, while behind them more North Koreans swarmed across the Naktong. By 7 August, against a 24th Division that was at less than 40 percent efficiency because of losses of men and equipment, with attendant low morale, the NKPA had seized both Cloverleaf Hill and Obong-ni Ridge, dominating the road into Yongsan, five miles to the east. They could see far down the road to Miryang, an important center.
If Miryang fell, the Perimeter would be in deep trouble.
Now the NKPA built underwater bridges across the Naktong at the ferry site, employing an old Russian trick. These bridges were invisible and therefore invulnerable to air attack. Heavy equipment of the 4th Division poured across; their artillery began to fire by battery.
The town of Yongsan came under the North Korean shellfire.
General Church ordered counterattacks. Fresh troops from the 2nd Infantry Division were coming onto line; the 9th Infantry of that Division had arrived from the States.
Along the critical Cloverleaf Hill-Obong-ni Ridge Line vicious combat now raged for ten days. Hills changed daily from hand to hand, and along this line the Perimeter would be held or lost.
First Lieutenant Frank E. Muñoz, of Tucson, Arizona, was the executive officer of H Company (Heavy Weapons), 9th Infantry, the first week of July 1950, when the orders came to pack for Korea. The regiment—the Manchu Raiders—had been at Fort Lewis, Washington, since April 1946, and, as Frank Muñoz put it, the Raiders were at Parade Rest.
Since most of the enlisted men of the regiment had come in at one time three years before, two months before Korea many enlistments expired, and most of the men left for civilian life. On 25 June, the parent 2nd Division was at 50 percent strength, and conducting training. Some of the training was pretty basic, and all of it was peacetime.
When Muñoz heard the news of the North Korean attack, he felt the same excitement he had known after Pearl Harbor. Then he had been on active service with the Arizona National Guard. After the war he had decided to make a career of it. A middle-sized, tough, wiry black-eyed man of twenty-eight, he was what the Army called a "career reservist"—he would stick around as long as they let him. He felt a deep pride in the uniform, and a deeper pride that he had become an officer.
The army gave the 2nd Division one week to load on shipboard at Tacoma, and the same week to fill up to full strength. As Muñoz said: "We turned the vacuum cleaner on. It sucked up men from everywhere—behind desks, out of hospitals, from depots. We filled up fast."
Unfortunately, some of the men arriving were not infantrymen, and more than some were not interested in becoming riflemen.
The 9th Infantry was the first to embark for Korea, preceding the balance of the division. It landed at Pusan on 31 July 1950, but some of its vital equipment didn't land with it—the regiment had come across on more than one ship. It took a few days at Pusan to get everything straightened out.
H Company got no formal briefing on the war aboard ship, or before. The men heard newscasts, and they saw maps in the papers. Other than that, no one could tell them much. H Company's C.O., young, serious First Lieutenant Edward Schmitt, talked to the men once during the crossing.
He told them very solemnly: "Men, we're going into war. This will be a time when mistakes will cost lives." Schmitt had seen combat in World War II, and he had served in the Occupation of Korea. He talked to them about the importance of maintaining weapons and equipment, and he tried to tell them something about the lay of the land in Korea.
But at Pusan, no one would know there was a war on. The waterfront was raucous and noisy; equipment was piled high in the open; and while there was a lot of frantic activity, there was nothing to indicate things were desperate in the west.
The regiment took the train to Miryang, and above Miryang they encamped on the high ground. They made liaison and reconnaissance with units of the 24th and 1st Cavalry divisions, who held the front lines in front of them along the Naktong.
Here they got plenty of war stories. The heard about the atrocities—dozens of American soldiers found with hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head. They were briefed on the guerrilla-like tactics of the NKPA, the night operations, the probing for weak points, and the use of soldiers disguised as civilians.
To the Manchu Raiders, fresh from Fort Lewis, the 24th Division looked beat up, shoddy, and pretty nervous.
Then, five days after the NKPA crossed the Naktong into the Bulge, Schmitt, Muñoz, and company were ordered up to plug a hole that had been sprung in the 24th Division's wall. They marched over hot, dusty roads beside smelly rice paddies, and went up into a series of hills along the Naktong, called the Cloverleaf.
The heat was ghastly, especially to men fresh from the cool Northwest, and it reduced their efficiency. Many of them dropped out.
Lieutenant Colonel Harrison, the six-foot, gray-haired 2nd Battalion commander, like Frank Muñoz a career reservist, spread the Heavy Weapons Company and its automatic weapons and mortars among the three rifle companies, E, F, and G. The battalion occupied its assigned hills just back of the 24th, and for two days nothing happened.
There was heavy fighting all around, but H Company did not become closely engaged. It rained on 14 August, momentarily breaking the heat, but also breaking up supporting air attacks. And on 14 August both 1st and 2nd battalions of the 9th Infantry were ordered to move against the NKPA positions within the Cloverleaf complex.
After heavy fighting, and after heavy loss, both battalions failed to take the high crests of the hill mass. Exhausted after a day of battle in the broiling heat, 2nd Battalion dug in along the ridges, but the fighting did not cease with darkness.
With night, the North Koreans attacked.
Frank Muñoz's first contact with the enemy came when Schmitt called him at his position with the 75mm recoilless rifles in the rear. "Get our boys, the part of the Machine Gun Platoon attached to Fox Company, out of position. Fox has been overrun!"
Muñoz jumped into his jeep and told the PFC driving to make for Fox Compa
ny's hill. Coming up behind it, he saw it was under heavy fire from SP 76's the enemy had sneaked across the Naktong. At the rear slope of the hill he left the jeep and went through the dark on foot. In the valley behind the hill, Sergeant Bozarth's Mortar Platoon was firing its 81's steadily, and Muñoz located a number of three-quarter-ton weapon carriers standing by.
But F Company, dug in along the front slope of the hill, had been infiltrated in the dark, and had come apart. Many of the men had pulled back, breaking contact. The company commander was dead. Most of the officers were down. F was no longer an effective military unit.
Somehow, under fire, in the dark, Frank Muñoz got a number of the men together and moved them off the hill. Just to the right rose another hill, this one clear of enemy. Muñoz ordered the men he had collected to move to it, picking up any stragglers, and try to organize this hill for defense.
As they did so, they came across other casualties streaming around the hills through the rice paddies. These men told Muñoz that wounded men were still lying in the fields in front of his new hill. Easy Company had been hard hit, along with Fox, and it had also come apart in the night.
Once he had his scattered remnants together and dug in, Frank called Schmitt by radio. He told the company commander about Easy Company.
"See if you can help 'em," Schmitt ordered.
After a bit, Frank was able to raise E Company by radio. A master sergeant was in command. Lieutenant Schultz of Easy had been hit in the head, and badly wounded. Over the radio, Frank and Sergeant Jordan of Easy established each other's location; most of Easy's men were still down in the paddies in front of the hill.
"I'll send you help to bring in your wounded," Muñoz told Jordan. "Start moving back to me—we'll cover you by fire."
He sent five men to assist Easy, and soon fifteen enlisted men—all that could be found—joined him on the hill. He ordered the wounded out. They went down the rear slope of the hill and disappeared to the east.
This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History Page 18