The U.N. was slow to capitalize on this fact. The situation called for fair and impartial screening of all POW's, as Swiss Delegate Lehner reported. There was an unspoken reason behind the United Nations' reluctance to become involved in the POW's loyalties, however.
After agreement on the cease-fire line in November 1951, hopes appeared bright for a quick end to the fighting in Korea. The only really knotty question remaining was disposition of each side's POW's. The Communists—who had oasted of having taken 64,000 POW's, mostly Koreans—now claimed they had only 11,000 available to return. This disclosure caused anguish among the ROK's, who wondered at the fate of 50,000 of their countrymen, but did not seem an obstacle in the way of the U.N.'s desire for peace.
But in March of 1952, at Panmunjom, the U.N. negotiators were forced to admit to the enemy that apparently a great many of the POW's held at Pusan and Koje-do did not wish to return to their homelands. Surprisingly agreeable, the Chinese and North Koreans suggested these men be screened.
For two days, beginning in April 1952, loudspeakers blared in every U.N. POW camp, telling the prisoners that each man would be individually interviewed to determine which desired repatriation, and which, for various reasons, did not.
No promises were now issued to those who might not want to return. In fact, the prospects held out were almost grim. After so many happy months of trying to indoctrinate the POW's, it had suddenly occurred to Americans that if a substantial number refused repatriation, the end of the fighting could be long delayed, with the further delay of repatriation of American POW's in the north.
One Captain Harold Whallon, the son of American missionaries born in China, a recalled Reserve officer, was ordered to Koje-do to assist with the screening. Arriving at the island, he found a number of other officers and men, all with backgrounds similar to his.
The screening began. It was a difficult job; most of the Orientals could not conceive of truly free choice without strings.
But amazingly, of the Chinese, it soon turned out that not more than one in five wanted to go home. Most of the Chinese POW's claimed to be old soldiers of Chiang Kai-shek, forcibly inducted into the Communist Forces, who now considered themselves political refugees.
In the Korean compounds it was different. Here Communist leaders had imposed tight control in many compounds, and a virtual war was being waged between Communist and anti-Communist groups. American guard officers knew of this control, but they also knew that bloodshed would be required to break it. With world opinion focused on Koje-do, and with an armistice hang ing in the balance at Panmunjom, higher headquarters would not listen to suggestions of strong measures.
But the screening went on, and U.N. figures showed that only 50 percent—about 70,000—of the total POW's and civilian internees held by the U.N. Command would return voluntarily to Red China or North Korea.
It was one of the greatest propaganda coups against world Communism ever recorded, but it brought only gloom to U.N. officials, who by now wanted only "out" of the war.
President Truman, informed, declared that "forced repatriation was repugnant to the free world" and that Americans would not force human beings to return to Communist slavery.
He was not wholly applauded, though editorial comment was favorable. It was deeply feared that this development would delay the return of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers now in Korea.
And at Panmunjom, as feared, the Communist representatives dropped dialectics for once and exhibited sheer rage. Publicly to admit defection from their ranks was an unthinkable loss of face. The Communist delegation shrieked that all captured personnel must be returned, whatever their politics.
They stated flatly the U.N. would get no peace, unless at least 110,000 POW's were forced to return. On 25 April 1952, they angrily recessed the meetings.
Faced with stinging defeat in an unexpected quarter, the Communists now planned a diversion—one that would prove to the world that the U.N. was actually coercing its POW's into the stand so many had taken.
The fact that the diversion would be bloody and cost hundreds of lives—North Korean and Chinese lives—bothered Nam II, the man who conceived it, not at all.
Jeon Moon II, or Pak Sang Hyong, the name he went by, was the child of Korean refugees in the Soviet Union. He was a Young Communist, a graduate of the University of Khabarovsk in 1937, and his rise was rapid.
In 1945 he had the honor of being one of the thirty-six Soviet citizens of Korean ancestry ordered to enter North Korea, change citizenship, and organize the Chosun Minjujui Inmun Kongwhakuk, in company with Kim II Sung and Nam II. He became Vice Chairman of the North Korean Labor Party.
In 1952 Jeon Moon II, a short, evil-faced man, was officially listed as a Private Pak of the Inmun Gun in the U.N. prisoner-of-war camp on Koje-do. Good Communists go where they are ordered, and serve wherever they may be.
Certain POW's, newly captured along the battle line and sent to Koje-do, reported to Jeon, head of the Communist Political Committee, once inside the camp. These brought news from the North, and fresh orders from Nam II, otherwise busily engaged at Panmunjom.
In April of 1952, Jeon received special orders. They came to him in a special way, through the major.
The major, whose real name and identity were as difficult to ascertain as that of all Communist bigwigs, had received several months' special training and instruction. He was taught to rehearse his story of the murder of his family by the Communists and of his secret hatred for the regime. When he was thoroughly prepared—even to a clear understanding of the dangers of his task—he was reminded once again of the promotion and decoration his work, successfully completed, would bring, and he was assured that if he did not return his family would receive a pension for forty years.
Then the major was given a dirty, ragged, front-line private's uniform, with a stained U.N. surrender leaflet in its pockets.
It was dangerous, but no great problem, to walk into U.N. lines with his hands up, spouting his story, and brandishing the surrender leaflet with its announced safe conduct.
From there on, the U.N. did the rest. They saw that he arrived at Koje-do. Inside the wire, it was no great problem to contact the Communist grapevine and pass Nam II's word to the head of the Political Committee.
Further screening and separation of Communists and anti-Communists must now be resisted to the death, the major informed Jeon. Further, a high-ranking American officer must be captured. With his life at stake, then a promise against further screening might be exacted—if not, then the enemy without the wire might be provoked into such violence that the Communist claims of U.N. brutality would be proved to all the world.
Jeon, the political officer, had a senior colonel and a full division of men under his tight command. He had compound colonels, captains, corporals. The senior officers, Lee Hak Ku and Hong Chol, felt they could capture Kojedo, if necessary, though they then had no place to go; they saw no great difficulty in capturing the newly arriving Brigadier Francis T. Dodd, the first general officer ever sent down to command the island.
Nor did they, on 7 May 1952.
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34
Frustration
There is a certain blend of courage, integrity, character and principle which has no satisfactory dictionary name but has been called different things in different countries. Our American name for it is "guts."
— From Louis Adamic, A STUDY IN COURAGE.
THE MONTHS AND years that began with the peace talks at Kaesong and Panmunjom were the most frustrating the American Republic, and more particularly its Army, had endured.
While all citizens could feel frustration at the continued thwarting of American policy, and at the continued failure to achieve either military or political results from continuing expense and sacrifice, while political leaders, in or out, fretted and worried over public reaction and tried to trim their sails accordingly, the period was hardest of all upon the military services.
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American military leaders, of all services, are brought up in the belief that vigorous action saves the day, and it is always better to do something, even the wrong thing, than to take no action at all.
History proves that on the battlefield he who hesitates is usually lost.
But in the early 1950's the United States had at last decided that the battlefield could no longer be separated from the political arena—and in politics, domestic and international, the rules are different.
Fools rush in, while success often comes to him who cleverly bides his time.
Seeking a substitute for MacArthur's victory, the United States was forced to bide its time, while its treasure poured into arms, and millions of its young men were forced into hard and painful service they detested.
It was hard for all services. The Navy, forced to blockade and patrol, had lonely, cheerless duty in the China seas, unrelieved by much action. Its carrier pilots flew dangerous patrols, and sometimes its landing parties went ashore on North Korea—but the rest of the time the Navy sowed mines, or harvested them, and merely stood on station in the gray waters off Korea.
Without its utter control of those seas, there would have been no U.N. stand in Korea—but it was made to stand watch only. It was not allowed to blockade the real enemies, nor had it any enemy fleet to engage. Still, despite this frustration, the Navy was fulfilling its primary mission—keeping control of the seas, and holding the sea lanes open.
The Air Force, out of Japan and Korea, flew in support of ground operations of Eighth Army. It bonded, strafed, rocketed, and napalmed, and without it the very presence of the U.N. in Korea would have ended early. Day by day, night by night, over the long months and years, it leveled each city, each shop and factory and mine in North Korea. It had quickly gained its primary goal of air superiority over the skies of Korea, and never lost it.
Yet the Air Force knew frustration, because it could not interdict this kind of battlefront, could not destroy a Chinese ground army that was a lurking phantom, and it could not do what was in so many of its leaders' hearts—strike the enemy where it hurt him.
North Korea it could reduce to rubble, but North Korea did not contain the enemy's war making potential. In this anachronistic type of war, the Air Force had been reduced almost to what it had been in World War I—an adjunct, not the decisive arm.
Except for brief moments, the Korean War had always been old-style, down in the mud. There were only two new developments in this conflict, both of which were in the air: the general use of jet aircraft, and the widespread use of rotary-wing craft for evacuation, transport, and reconnaissance.
In the first days of the war, American Far East Air Force had knocked down the antiquated YAK-9 and YAK—15 fighters of North Korea. It was not until 31 October 1950 that a new phase of air warfare began.
On that date Russian-built MIG-15 jet fighters appeared in strength over North Korea. They raised havoc with the lumbering B-29's bombing the Yalu bridges, and threw a fright into American pilots flying World War II F-51's and Corsairs. On 8 November an American F-80 shot down the first MIG-15, but the Air Force was forced to rush its newest and best fighters, the F-86 Sabrejets, to the Far East.
And here began the incessant air-to-air combats, which without significant change went on until the end of the war. The Communist aircraft, although field after field was constructed in North Korea, and as quickly bombed out, never were based south of the Yalu. They remained, silvery in plain sight on broad airdromes just north of the river, in privileged sanctuary, coming now and again across the river to engage patrolling American aircraft above the Valley of the Yalu—the famous MIG Alley.
American aircraft were never permitted to cross the Chinese or Russian boundary, even in hot pursuit.
On the other hand, although the Communists built up a large numerical superiority, they never attempted to carry the air war to South Korea, or even to the battle lines along the parallel. Both sides enjoyed their "privileged sanctuary"—and the resulting air combat resembled that of 1916-1918, or even the jousting of the knights of old.
American flights of Sabrejets, day after day, spread contrails high over MIG Alley, watching both sky and ground.
Often, across the river, they could see the MIG pilots leisurely walking to their parked and waiting aircraft.
American pilots talked to each other, as they rode by at great altitude and high mach in the sky.
"Dust at Fen Cheng—the clans are gathering," from Blue Leader.
"Thirty-six lining up over at Antung," from Black Leader.
"Hell, only twenty-four coming up here at Tatungkou," from another flight leader.
"Don't bitch—here come fifty from Takushan. That's at least three for everybody!"
Aided by their close ground control radar, the Communist craft rose high, preferably waiting until American fuel ran low before striking. Then at rates of closure as high as 1,200 MPH, the two formations came together.
Immediately, the formations dissolved into individual dogfights.
It was air war with a code more out of the Middle Ages than of twentieth century combat. Yet day after day, always outnumbered, too far away from their own bases to glide to safety, as could the enemy, American airmen accepted mortal combat.
The MIG-15's flashing upward from Manchurian bases were faster than the Sabrejets, and could out climb them. The Russian-built planes carried twin 20mm cannon and a single 37mm against the .50-caliber machine gun armament of the F-86s. The MIG-15 was a superb aircraft, superior to any U.N. craft except the Sabrejet, which proved to be the only United Nations plane able to live in the air with it.
The appearance of the MIG-15 caused many people deep concern. These men had not accepted the fact that culture and weaponry, or even culture and plumbing are not synonymous, and while a society may lag a hundred years behind in comforts and ethics, it may catch up in hardware in a human lifetime.
But the F-86 that flew daily down MIG Alley was an exceedingly rugged plane, extremely maneuverable, flown by competent pilots sifted for the "tiger" instinct—the quality that makes a man bore in for the kill—and above all, it carried a radar-ranging gun sight superior to anything owned by the Communists.
Because of that radar sight, as the Air Force admitted, American pilots destroyed enemy jet aircraft at a ratio of 11 to 1. At sonic speeds the human eye and hand were simply not fast enough—but more than 800 MIG-15's were sent spinning down, to crash and burn over North Korea.
The MIG-15's, flown by North Korean and Chinese pilots, were never handled with a skill matching that of American airmen.
Yet, overall, considering the hours of combat, few jets fell. The high altitudes, the high speeds, the toughness of the planes, which almost required a hit on engine or pilot to cripple, combined to keep losses small in comparison with earlier air combats.
This was to be an interim air war, a testing and a learning phase for both American and Communist. Tactics and weaponry could be put to test, and the answers—radar gun controls, air-to-air rocketry, automatic cannon—reserved to the future.
Through it all, American skill, courage, and ingenuity remained preeminent.
And even though the Air Force could not utilize its cherished strategic power in this war, though it fought under a maze of hampering restrictions, it could still fulfill its mission, like the Navy. It held control of the skies, and could work actively at its secondary missions.
It was the Army that knew the worst frustration, from July 1951 to the end of the war. The mission of the Army is to meet the enemy in sustained ground combat, and capture or destroy him.
The Army was indoctrinated that strength lay not in defense but in attack, and that the offensive, as Clausewitz wrote, always wins.
The Army not only could not win; it could not even work at the task. Yet it was locked in a wrestler's grip with the enemy, suffering hardship, taking losses, even after the peace talks began.
It was the first time that American g
enerals, as well as Supreme Court judges, were forced to study the election returns. At home, the people and government, with certain exceptions, wanted peace, not costly victory. Abroad, American generals were closely watched by jittery allied governments who regarded them as irresponsible jingoists, and their every initiative as a reckless provocation that might lead to World War III.
It is understandable that some American Army generals chafed a little at the bit.
While certain units remained on line, the bulk of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division proceeded to bivouac near Kap'yong on 25 October 1951. Here replacements were fed in; specialists schools set up; a one-week course run for replacement officers. Bloody and Heartbreak ridges had shown that again basic weapons instruction and small-unit tactics—the seemingly eternal weaknesses—were the chief needs of the division, as they were of every United States division manning the Korean battle line.
Training in the Zone of the Interior was just not thorough or tough enough to prepare men for ground combat.
While schools were set up, and battle drills organized, some elements of the division were detached to the south, where guerrilla activities had once again come to the fore.
When the Inmun Gun had collapsed along the Naktong, in September 1950, approximately twenty thousand North Koreans had neither been killed nor captured; they had faded into the rugged hills surrounding Pusan, and made contact and common cause with the guerrillas in the region.
When the frontier was violated, two ROK divisions had been deployed on counterinsurgency missions—and during the course of the war the problem was never completely solved. While the great majority of South Koreans were loyal to the Syngman Rhee government, elements in the mountainous South continued in armed opposition, with the support of some of the peasantry. Because of this support, and the broken terrain, where each valley remained almost a world to itself, the survivors of the NKPA and the guerrillas melted into the population. They were seemingly peaceful agriculturists by day, becoming armed marauders by night.
This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History Page 57