This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  A Chinese squad sneaked close to him with a 75mm recoilless rifle they had captured on the hill. But it was now light, and Elledge saw them. As they loaded the rifle, he swung the gun and cut them down with one burst.

  Now three American tanks moved down the road, blasting the hill with cannon fire. The artillerymen, still on their guns, leveled their huge howitzers and covered the area with bursting white phosphorous.

  Colonel Edwards rushed forward with the Rangers, and B Company, which Freeman had released to him at daylight. Soon, overhead, there was the comforting whistle of friendly aircraft.

  The Chinese tried to come through, to reach the soft belly of the regiment. They failed; a wall of steel had been moved in front of them. They tried to hold what they had taken, George's hill, fighting stubbornly all day during 15 February against air- and tank-supported infantry attack, while American artillery pounded them.

  But air, armor, artillery, and redeployed infantry had plugged the hole. The Chinese had not been able to move swiftly enough during the crucial hours of darkness. All day the best they could do was to hold the single hill they had taken at such cost, and with dusk their spirit broke. Those Chinese who could yet walk faded into the hills.

  After dark, a soft snow fell, covering thousands of Chinese corpses lying in a ring about Chipyong-ni. Hundreds lay in front of George Company's hill, and others dotted the hill itself, intermingled with American dead.

  At Chipyong-ni on 15 February 1951 a massive Chinese offensive had been blunted. On this date the CCF suffered its first tactical defeat at American hands.

  The CCF would try again, and again, but now a new pattern had been set. Eighth Army had risen from its own bitter ashes.

  It would not fall again.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  24

  Vae, Caesar

  I was left with one simple conclusion: General MacArthur was ready to risk general war. I was not.

  — Harry S. Truman, President of the United States.

  THE FIRST WEEKS after the massive Chinese intervention in Korea were a time of crisis not only upon the frozen battlefields of that tragic peninsula but in virtually every chancellery in the world. In New York the United Nations was a ferment of agony, doubt, and indecision. U.N. delegates, as reported by the New York Times, refused to be quoted officially, but now sudden doubt was expressed over future United States policy.

  The Truman press statement of 30 November 1950 brought things swiftly to a head. Truman, while making a temperate statement, in response to a reporter's question, touched upon the sorest nerve of the mid-century. As reported in the Times, Truman said:

  "'Recent developments in Korea confront the world with a serious crisis… we have committed ourselves to the cause of a just and peaceful world order through the United Nations. We stand by that commitment.

  "'We shall meet the new situation in three ways. We shall continue to work in the United Nations for concerted action to halt the aggression in Korea. We shall intensify our efforts to help other free nations to strengthen their defense … we shall rapidly increase our own military strength.

  "'We shall exert every effort to help bring the full influence of the United Nations to bear on the situation in Korea."'

  As it had already been decided in Cabinet and National Security Council, Truman made it very clear that further moves such as attacks on the Chinese mainland, blockades, or bombing, depended on U.N. reaction.

  Then, in response to a question, Truman affirmed that the atom bomb still remained in the United States' arsenal of weapons. In its summary of news I December 1950, the New York Times said: The Truman press statement said the United Nations will fight … for justice and world peace, and we will if necessary use the atom bomb. He would give the authorization, and MacArthur would pick the targets, in accordance with U.S. military policy: CCF bases in Manchuria would be attacked, he added, if the U.N. brands Red China an aggressor. The President showed impatience with the slowness of Western Europe to rearm.

  Within three hours, there was resulting explosion.

  The Times of 1 December remarked: The President's mention of an atom bomb caused consternation and alarm in Britain and brought from France official disapproval. Most U.N. delegates were agreed that it would be politically disastrous to use the bomb in Asia.

  Nothing so awakened the French Assembly as mention of the bomb. To the fear of the bomb lately has been added a fear of General MacArthur, who is regarded as impulsive and reckless in his reported desire to bomb Manchuria and risk extending the war.

  A headline read: Britons dismayed by Truman's talk—Atlee will fly to Washington to discuss crisis with President.

  The London Times editorialized: [Truman] touched upon the most sensitive fears and doubts of this age.…

  Winston Churchill, in Commons, warned the West against involvement in Asia at the expense of Europe. The House cheered Prime Minister Atlee's announced night to Washington.

  In Melbourne, Australia, where there were few friends of Red China, newspapers expressed the hope that diplomatic skill would avert a conflict with Communist China. The Melbourne Herald wrote: The Chinese can no longer be despised militarily. Their revolutionary leaders obviously command unity and loyalty which Chiang never attained.

  Italian Communists and anti-Communists alike expressed deep fears of general war.

  And papers all over the world stated that MacArthur should have halted the U.N. armies no farther north than the middle of North Korea, leaving a buffer between them and Manchuria.

  Whatever else the press statement may have done, it cleared the air: the United States Government understood immediately where its major allies—indeed, the greater part of the world—stood on the China question. Above all else, the world wished to avoid general war, and atomic war in particular. That United Nations and allied thinking was not brought home forcefully to millions of Americans was due to the fact that apart from the Atlantic-seaboard area, few newspapers or other media printed or reflected foreign views.

  For the first time the U.N. cloak that the United States Government had so expeditiously woven for its action in Korea became not a support, but a hindrance. The U.N. in June had been almost wholly responsive to American leadership, and the United States had chosen to implement its national policy under the aegis of the U.N., at the time a great moral victory. With the entry of Red China into the fighting, the sharp U.S. setback in the north, and the prospect of an enlarged war yawning ominously, the nations composing the U.N. suddenly became restive. American leadership, unfortunately, had lost a great deal of its prestige on the battlefield.

  After 1 December 1950, the allies who had tripped unquestioningly into the never-never land would never again allow the United States an unlimited credit card, moral or otherwise. For by I December the vast majority of the member nations of the U.N. wanted "out" of the Korean debacle. Whatever the moral issues, few saw any profit in a continued war with Red China over the eventual fate of divided Korea. The smaller nations had been willing to follow the United States into a small conflict—a police action—against an aggressor as long as the fighting had a clear moral purpose and demanded few sacrifices of them. Now the earth was on the brink of general war, and the moral purpose of defeating Red China was not at all clear in European minds.

  Five years after the close of the most destructive war in history, few nations were willing to risk atomic war for any reason short of immediate self-preservation.

  The British prime minister, deeply worried, called at Washington to reassure himself of American policy. Other leaders did the same.

  In the U.N., thirteen Arab-Asian nations sponsored a resolution asking for a cease-fire in Korea. On 14 December the General Assembly adopted it overwhelmingly. A three-man deputation—Pearson of Canada, Rau of India, and Entezam of Iran—tried vainly to make contact with the Chinese, who at that time were unwilling to discuss the matter except on their own terms.

  But the smaller nations of
the U.N. continued to press the matter. India's Sir Benegal Rau suggested that "Peiping was for peace"; India refused to consider any strong measure against Red China. The United Nations had been envisioned—however it was sold to the peoples of the world—not as a parliament of earth but as a controlling body on the questions of peace and war. Real power, through the institution of the veto, remained where it was in reality, in the hands of the great powers: America, Britain, China, the Soviet Union. The problem, as well as the tragedy of the United Nations organization, was that it had never been anticipated that the great powers at the end of World War 11 would have no community of interest.

  The first U.N. action utilizing force was, in essence, against itself, for the Soviet Union, sponsor of North Korea, continued in membership. Only the fact that the U.S.S.R. was absent in June 1950 permitted the Security Council to take effective action.

  American planners, painfully aware of this accident, strove o overcome such an impasse in the future. The powers of the Security Council—the voice of the big nations—were diluted to the extent of permitting the General Assembly to bypass the Council on certain grave issues. With U.S. sponsorship, such changes were made in the framework of the U.N.

  In effect such changes meant that eventually the U.N. would pass, with constantly increasing membership, completely from big-power control. American planners, unfortunately, could not see they were tugging at the lid of Pandora's box. Some of them, probably, did not understand the political—and power—realities of the world they lived in.

  In 1951, having wrapped its policy in the U.N. cloak, the United States could not, without being branded with hypocrisy, throw off what were now hampering folds. American policy would have to be worked out within the myriad conflicting policies of the U.N.

  The majority of the U.N. wanted an end to the war, as soon as possible. The United States, whatever its own desires, would be forced to listen. Who calls the tune often has to pay the piper, whether he likes the music or not.

  When President Truman made the decision to intervene in Korea—with general support—Dean Acheson said to him that the decision "might not always be so popular as it seemed at the moment."

  Secretary of State Acheson, a much-maligned man, was soon proved to be a prophet, though his status resembled that of most prophets as far as honor in his own land was concerned. Acheson, always intensely anti-Communist, had always to be intensely practical. In the months following Korea, any American Secretary of State in addition to other qualifications needed the abilities of a door-to-door salesman of insurance. Acheson, an aristocrat, a brilliant mind, and a practical man, could never be an effective salesman of policy.

  His policy was Truman's policy, as Truman said, but Acheson became the butt of all the frustration felt by the mass of the American people. The truth was that what the American people wanted was no longer—could be no longer—paramount in the world, once the United States chose to work in conjunction with the U.N. and its allies.

  Someone had to sell this understanding to the people. The Truman Administration could never do so.

  In Washington, in December 1950, there was political crisis.

  On 15 December, after lengthy consultation and much argument, Truman declared a national emergency. For some American leaders, such as Senators Taft and Wherry, this was too much. For others, it was not nearly enough.

  For as Representative Taber of New York told Truman, "The people were confused and upset."

  What the people could not understand was, Was the United States at war or not?

  It had massive forces in the field, killing, being killed, but life went on much as before. Men were being called from factory and field, but there was still "peace." There was war, obviously, but still there was not war as Americans had come to understand it.

  Americans had been brought up to avoid war as the plague, but once in it, to pull all the stops. It had been almost a hundred years since they had fought a war on the far frontier or held the border for civilization, and the taste of those campaigns was still foul in their mouths.

  They had been taught for generations that the use of war for reasons of national policy was wrong, and now that their government followed such a course, in the path of imperial Britain, they felt only anguish and frustration.

  One of the men who felt the agony and the frustration most deeply was America's proconsul in the Far East, Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur.

  It is given to the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to conduct the foreign policy of the Republic. From the time of Athens and Republican Rome, no representative parliament has ever had much success with dealings beyond the water; there have been historians who claim that continued involvement of a people beyond its own frontiers inevitably produces Caesarism.

  The jury on this question must be reported to be still out. At least, no Caesars were produced by the Korean conflict. Both potential Caesars were, in fact, humbled, one at the hands of his superiors, the other by his people. But first they collided, and the shock was felt around the world.

  Douglas MacArthur, one of the most brilliant military minds America has yet produced, graduated from West Point at the turn of the century. He stemmed from a distinguished military family; his father was a lieutenant general and proconsul—of the Philippines—in his own right.

  MacArthur was a product of the old, alienated American officer caste, but, like Dwight Eisenhower, he was never typical of that group. While Eisenhower came to embody all the virtues—and vices, to some—of the old-American bourgeoisie, remote from the hard-bitten cavalry of the sun-blasted plains, MacArthur's mind and heart, at the age of thirty-eight, were forged in the horror of the trenches of World War I.

  At an age when most professionals looked forward to leaves or eagles, Douglas MacArthur wore general's stars. Yet, from the ghastly slaughter of 1917-1918 he retained a profound horror of the effects of war, as well as a never-faltering belief in the idealism that lay behind that war.

  That slaughter he saw at close hand. He was decorated seven times by an awed government and people for valor in the field.

  After what he had seen in the trenches, war could never again be a mere profession to Douglas MacArthur. He would continue to be a professional soldier, but forever afterward war to him would be an awful act, to be entered on only for the most transcendental of purposes.

  In this feeling MacArthur was one with most of the nonmilitary intelligent men of his age. He had a profound hatred of war, but any war upon which he embarked must henceforth be a crusade. In no other way could the suffering be justified.

  It would occur to few of that generation that wars fought for a higher purpose must always be the most hideous of all. It is desperately hard for men to accept that there is a direct path from the highest ideals to the torture chamber—for no man who accepts with his whole heart can fail equally to reject with his whole being.

  In his feeling for war, MacArthur was a typical American of his school. He was one with Woodrow Wilson, whose pronouncements deeply influenced him, and he was one with Franklin Roosevelt. War was to be entered upon with sadness, with regret, but also with ferocity.

  War was horrible, and whoever unleashed it must be smitten and destroyed, unto the last generation, so that war should arise no more.

  When war is entered upon for the highest moral purpose, there can be no substitute for victory, short of betrayal of that purpose, and of the men who die.

  In 1918, and 1941, and even in 1951, probably most Americans felt as felt Douglas MacArthur. Yet MacArthur, raised to the highest honors of the Republic, would remain an uncertain hero in the public mind. He was an aristocrat, if military, and he was a devout Christian—not a social Christian, but a weight-of-centuries Anglican to whom God stood close at hand; and near such men most Americans have always felt uncomfortable.

  It was no accident that of all American military men, only MacArthur and Eisenhower, untypical of their caste, should be ser
iously considered for the Presidency, and that of the two only Eisenhower, more in the mainstream of American social tradition, should receive the office.

  MacArthur, the oldest and the ranking of the hierarchy of generals, was not one of them. And though his thinking was close to that of the people, he was not one of them. It was ironic—and again no accident—that a generation unborn when MacArthur won every significant decoration on the field of battle that could be given by a grateful Republic should come to call him "Dugout Doug."

  It was as well. Right or wrong, had Douglas MacArthur been a man of the people, and so minded, he might have overturned the Republic.

  For now, in early 1951, two points of view concerning war entered collision course. One, MacArthur's, was that of Wilson, Roosevelt, George Marshall, and most of the older generation. War must never be an extension of politics; it must be jihad.

  Such men recoil at the thought of nuclear war, but in general prepare for nothing else. A crusade, by its very nature, cannot be limited.

  But in Korea, in 1950-1951, the United States was not fighting a holy war. Momentarily, and at MacArthur's urging, it had lost sight of its original goal and proceeded into the never-never land.

  President Truman and his advisers, wrapped tightly now in the embracing U.N. cloak, would not enter the twilight zone again.

  Now troops were being used as a counterpawn on the broader table of diplomacy, for a specific, limited purpose: the holding in check of expansionist Communism. The troops remained, fighting, because State argued that abandonment of Korea would be a political error irredeemable in Asia, even while the Pentagon, concerned for Europe, scraping the bottom of its strategic troop barrel, talked of ways to end the war "with honor."

  To each group, the men about the President, and the men about MacArthur, the viewpoint of the other seem immoral. Collision was inevitable and necessary.