This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  The seventeen nations with fighting forces in Korea had already met, and agreed on terms, which in essence were to freeze the fighting and forces where they stood, form a demilitarized zone in the vicinity of the parallel, exchange of prisoners, and the establishment of an international commission with access to supervise any truce.

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, had explicitly instructed Ridgway not to discuss any political or territorial questions with the enemy. Not to be discussed were the seating of Red China in the U.N., Red claims to Taiwan, or any permanent division of Korea, or the 38th parallel as a political boundary.

  From the American and U.N. point of view, the sole purpose of the meetings at Kaesong was to end the bloodshed, and to create some sort of machinery to supervise such an armistice. This done, an entirely separate body would sift the political and territorial questions posed by the Korean situation, in an atmosphere of peace.

  Americans, even the knowledgeable Dean Acheson, had once again tried to separate peace and war into neat compartments, to their sorrow.

  Assembled with Admiral Joy were Major General Laurence C. Craigie, USAF; Major General Henry I. Hodes, USA; Rear Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, USN; and Major-General Paik Sun Yup, ROK Army. Not one of these men was other than a military commander; not one was in any respect a diplomat or politician. They were soldiers, come to forge a military agreement to end the killing.

  On the other side of the famous green table at Kaesong was a formidable array of Communist talent: General Nam II, North Korea Senior Delegate; Major General Chang Pyong San, North Korea; Major General Lee Sang Cho, North Korea; Lieutenant General Tung Hua, Chinese Volunteers; and Major General Hsieh Fang, also Chinese. Several of these men were graduates of Soviet universities, and not one was a fighting man.

  All had held political posts, and with typical Communist deviousness, seemingly the junior man at the table in rank, Hsieh Fang, was the man who actually held the Communist cards.

  Immediately, it became apparent that the Communist delegation intended not only to discuss the proposed cease-fire but everything up to and including the kitchen drain. Immediately, they would not agree to an agenda. Immediately, they made sharp protest at Turner Joy's use of the word "Communists"—there were no "Communists" in Kaesong, but only Inmun Gun and Chinese Volunteers; on the other hand, they used such terms as "that murderer Rhee" and "the puppet of Taiwan" quite freely.

  They insisted that the 38th parallel must be the new line of demarcation, although the U.N. armies in most places stood well above it—and the parallel, as had been proved, was hardly a defensible line—and that unless the United Nations Command ceased actual hostilities in Korea at once they could not discuss the armistice. They at once refused demands to permit the International Red Cross to inspect North Korean pow camps.

  And from the selection of the site at Kaesong—in Communist hands, yet still below the parallel, one of the few spots in Korea where this condition obtained—the forcing of U.N. negotiators to enter Communist territory displaying white flags, as if they were coming to surrender, to the seating of Admiral Joy in a chair substantially lower than Nam II's, the enemy showed that nothing was too small to be overlooked, if it accrued to his advantage.

  As best it could, without sabotaging the truce talks, the U.N. Command began to fight for its own ends. Its delegates had come in good faith, to make an honest end to the killing, with the settlements to come later.

  The tragedy of the talks was that the Communists intended merely to transfer the war from the battlefield, where they were losing, to the conference table, where they might yet win something.

  The United Nations' desire for peace was genuine—almost frantic. Nothing else could have kept their negotiators, subjected to harassment, stinging insult, and interminable delay, at the green table after the first few sessions.

  On 8 July, when Colonels Jack Kinney and Chang Chun San arranged the first Plenary Session, the world had displayed conspicuous joy. Only the United States Government sought to dampen the enthusiasm a bit: the New York Times reported on that date that "fighting for several weeks is foreseen by Washington."

  Washington was still not seeing clearly. No one dared guess that it would take 159 plenary sessions and more than two years of haggling to end the killing.

  Turner Joy, determined to succeed, said: "Unless you come prepared to spend time you only shortchange yourself and those who depend on you. Time is the price you pay for progress."

  But time, above all, was what the Communist world needed in Korea in the summer of 1951.

  And time, thirty fatal days, while the U.N. forces paused and marked time in expectation of immediate peace, was what they got.

  Sometimes the price of progress comes high.

  After the start of talks—first at Kaesong, then transferred to Panmunjom, in a neutral zone ten miles east at U.N. insistence—every action on the checkerboard of the Korean War would be made with one eye on the state of the front and one on the conference table.

  Very soon, the U.N. Command was in quandary.

  It wanted peace; the governments it represented wanted peace. The Communist world was willing to talk, even though it obstructed day to day, and while the talks went on there was always the hope of peace, eventually.

  As Winston Churchill said, "It is better to jaw, jaw, than war, war."

  But yet, with both armies in the field, lurking within gunshot of each other, with nothing settled, war could not wholly end.

  The U.N. Command no longer looked for victory in the field. It had already been committed to settlement in the vicinity of the 38th parallel, though it insisted upon the present line of contact, not that indefensible, imaginary line of demarcation on the ground. If it flailed ahead now, made great gains, these would have already been compromised and might well be lost at the conference table. Ridgway and Van Fleet and Washington were loath to spend lives for nothing. Yet Ridgway and Van Fleet dared not sit still, letting their forces stagnate, despite Washington.

  As summer ripened, there was no progress at the table. The Communist delegations seemed willing, even eager, to delay forever. They had transferred their war largely to the truce table, and now were as happily waging it as before, while they put the time they had bought to good use, if another round at arms should come.

  As summer deepened, and the hopes of the world slowly withered, another round at arms was bound to come. In the green and muddy hills of Korea, the war had not ended. It had begun a new and terrible phase.

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  30

  Bloody Ridge

  The capture of this hill is worth ten thousand men!

  — Remark by a French general on the Western Front, 1916.

  Generous bastard, isn't he?

  — Quote from the French general's first assault battalion commander.

  FOR ALL PRACTICAL purposes the Korean War ended 30 June 1951, when United Nations Supreme Commander Matthew Ridgway radioed his willingness to discuss truce terms with the Communist forces. The end was stalemate.

  At heavy cost, the original aggression and the fresh intervention of the Chinese had been contained. The aggressor in each case had suffered frightful losses and had gained nothing material.

  Having eschewed the goal of victory, the United States had nothing further to gain from continued fighting. It had accomplished its original purpose in going into Korea, the salvation of the Taehan Minkuk.

  The Communist World had gained no territory, wealth, or peoples—but by opposing American arms, by defying the United Nations, with some success, Red China had undoubtedly neared great-power status. Her prestige among Asian peoples, still smarting from Western humiliations, was enhanced, whatever moral questions were involved.

  A nation that had been continually harassed and humiliated by all powers since 1840 had actually defied the world, and fought it to a standstill. It was this Asian feeling of solidarity with China that Americans found so hard to understand, as typified
by the statement of one Captain Weh, of the Nationalist Chinese Army on Taiwan:

  "We listened to the radio, and the Communists were defeating the Americans. All of us in this room were officers who had fought with the Generalissimo for many years. Most of us had fought the Communists all our adult lives. One officer had been captured and tortured by them. In a world the Communists won, there could be no place for any of us, or our families.

  "It was very bad for us to have the Communists win. But we had very queer feelings, listening to the news of disaster in Korea. It was almost like a certain exaltation. I do not know how to explain it to you Americans.

  "For our Colonel, who hated Communists with all his soul, kept saying: 'The Americans are being beaten by Chinese. The Americans are being beaten by Chinese.'"

  It was this feeling, shared by most Asians, that China, though unable now to conquer in battle, wanted to exploit. As long as China could hold a U.N. Army at bay, she stood to gain enormous prestige in Asia.

  And because the United States Government took a certain naïveté and almost total lack of understanding of Asian Communism to the conference table, the Korean War, stalemated June 1951, would go on for two more years, and half as many men again as were maimed and killed in its first twelve months had yet to suffer and die.

  During the fourteenth plenary session at Kaesong, 30 July 1951, all parties agreed that hostilities should continue even while negotiations were in progress.

  But it was from this time forward that political reality in Korea diverged from military, and from this time forward the frustration of American soldiers grew. From now till the end of fighting, political considerations, both international and domestic, would shadow all combat operations.

  An army in the field, in contact with the enemy, can remain idle only at its peril. Deterioration—of training, physical fitness, and morale—is immediate and progressive, despite the strongest command measures. The Frenchman who said that the one thing that cannot be done with bayonets is to sit on them spoke an eternal truth.

  Unwilling to strike for victory, but equally unable to clutch the elusive dove of peace the Communists tantalizingly held forth and then withdrew, time and again, American commanders and American government leaders began to writhe in frustration.

  The situation was hard on the generals, for it was the very antithesis of the American tradition of generalship, cutting across everything it had been taught to believe and do. Their new orders seemed to read: Fight on, but don't fight too hard. Don't lose—but don't win, either. Hold the line, while the diplomats muddle through.

  These were directives desperately hard for men brought up to take positive action, and quickly, even if wrong.

  But it was harder still for the riflemen and tankers and weapons squads dug in along the scarred, dirty hills. Now they knew less than ever why they dug their holes or why they died. Hoping for the war to end at any moment, they kept one eye on Kaesong or on Panmunjom. When they were ordered to defend a hill or to take one, they knew the action was a limited one, and they knew in their hearts, whatever brave words were said, that such action probably would not affect the outcome of the war at all.

  No man likes to give up his life for an inconsequential reason, and there is no honor—only irony—to being the last man killed in a war.

  Still the Eighth Army, dug in along what they called the Kansas Line, could not sit idle forever.

  When the advance had stopped in June, it had not been along any carefully preplanned battle line. There were bulges, salients, and vague areas of no man's land along the whole front. From a military standpoint, corrections were needed. In many places the Eighth Army held disadvantageous ground.

  As the talks droned on at Kaesong, the U.N. Command became more convinced the enemy was stalling. And U.N. commanders agreed that a little pressure, judiciously applied, might have wholesome effect. The decision was made in FECOM, but approved by Washington.

  By the first of August, they were ready to apply such pressure. There was no intention of striking for the Yalu or of opening up the battlefront for a new war of maneuver.

  The new attacks would be limited in zone, for limited objectives, a hill here, or to erase a bulge there, or to deny enemy observation in yet another place.

  The attacks would serve two other purposes—to pressure the enemy into sincerity at the peace table, and to keep the Eighth Army on its toes.

  It was not an ambitious program, or an unreasonable one, in the situation. Policy was guided by restraint, and limited.

  The only thing that would not be limited were the casualties.

  In any democratic society, equality of sacrifice is a cherished ideal. Yet in war nothing is more difficult of attainment.

  Soldiers know that it is never possible to share the load completely. One man went to Korea; another—who equally served—never went west of San Francisco. While American units were decimated in the Far East, others went through training in the European Command, without hearing a shot fired in anger.

  Soldiers know the reasons this must be so, and accept them. But they also like to think they are getting an even break.

  In modern war, short of ending the fighting, combat troops have only three means of escape from incessant action: death or injury, insanity, or rotation. In modern war there are no winter quarters or lengthy withdrawals from action until the harvests are in. In Korea by early 1951, thousands of wounded men had been returned to action, and more thousands of unwounded risked their lives daily, month in and month out.

  In the spring of 1951, with no end to what had been considered a short campaign in sight, the United States Government began to consider ways of equalizing the burden, for it was manifestly unfair, in a free society, to ask a few to bear the entire burden.

  Troops on line began to hear rumors of a rotation policy. Already there had been set up R&R—Rest and Recuperation—a five-day rest period back in Japan. R&R at first worked wonders. Men came off line, away from incessant danger and hardship, for a flight to Tokyo, Yokohama, or Kyoto. They boarded planes at Seoul and elsewhere, gaunt, unshaven, some with the thousand-yard stare. Five days later they returned, new men, rested, bathed, refreshed. R&R gave the troops something to look forward to; it was a morale factor without equal.

  It was only later, when the pressure in Korea was not so great, that men going to Japan turned R&R into the great debauch that came to be known as I&I—intercourse and intoxication. Men coming out of weeks and months of hard combat are too tired and beaten down to seek trouble.

  Men leaving months of filthy living and screaming monotony tend to seek something else again.

  But R&R, then and later, was only a stopgap. Soon there rose talk of Big R—rotation to the United States.

  On 1 May, Captain Muñoz's boss, the 2nd Division G-4, called him in and said, "Frank, you're going home!"

  Muñoz was the second officer to rotate from the 2nd Division. The first quota had been for only one, and the man who got that quota had received the Distinguished Service Cross. Muñoz, who had more infantry-line time than any other officer, had only the Silver Star. He made the second draft.

  He went from the area of the Soyang to Pusan, and boarded the General M. M. Patrick for States-side. A few hours after the "Mickey Mouse" docked, he was on a plane for Tucson. Frank Muñoz's war was over.

  All over Korea, those who were left of the early men to arrive began to go home in little dribbles, as new men came in to replace them.

  A point system was set up. It took thirty-six points to rotate. On line, a man received four points a month; anywhere in the combat zone, from the firing batteries back through regimental headquarters, three.

  Any man in Korea got at least two, which meant rear echelon and service troops rotated at eighteen months. Tankers went out in ten months, the average infantryman within a year.

  Now, if asked why they fought, many men would say, "To get my time in." The point system had great merits—and great disadvantages. No man liked
to risk his neck—and thirty points.

  The handling of high-point men was a continuing problem of commanders from this time on.

  Some men, with enough points, did not rotate. James Mount, who had come to Korea a corporal, was made second lieutenant in the medical service. The promotion delayed him till November.

  One colonel, who had had long and arduous service since the beginning, was ready to leave. On the eve of his departure he received his brigadier's single star. He felt it a crowning accomplishment to his service in Korea—until he was informed that as a general officer he was on a new rotation list; he was now the general officer with the least overseas service in the Far East. Dedicated man that he was, the new brigadier's remarks were pungent and heartfelt.

  After the beginning of truce talks, the primary interest of every man in Korea was going home. It could hardly be otherwise.

  And with rotation, the complexion of the Army changed. Now the men and officers coming in were largely reservists, National Guardsmen, draftees. The percentage of regulars in most line units sank to forty or less, as more and more men were recalled from business and farm to man the line. Few of the new officers and men arrived with any enthusiasm, then or later.

  For whatever enthusiasm the American people might have had for the Korean conflict had died in childbirth, up along the Ch'ongch'on.

  Worse than lack of enthusiasm, the new troops were green. The kind of lessons troops needed to fight this kind of war could be learned only in Korea. In a period of a few months the complexion of the American Army changed, more even than the generals realized.

  New troubles were inevitable. But, under the circumstances, it was not remarkable that they occurred—what was remarkable was that the new men, unready, unmoved, and coming from a society that was beginning to hate this war, did so well.

  On 1 July, approximately 750,000 Chinese and North Koreans held the Communist battle line, against half a million U.N. troops. The CCF and the Inmun Gun had changed, too.