East of Chosin

by Roy Edgar Appleman

  On October 28 a heavy battle broke out between the ROK 26th Regiment and an enemy force in the vicinity of Sudong. The next day the ROK troops captured 16 Chinese soldiers, who identified themselves as members of a mortar platoon of the 37oth Regiment of the 124th Division, 42nd Army, XIII Army Group, Fourth Field Army. They said that three divisions -the 124th, the 125th, and the 126th-were in position behind them on the north toward the Chosin Reservoir.

  On October 30, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, commanding general of X Corps, went to the ROK I Corps prisoner compound and questioned the prisoners through an interpreter. All 16 were former members of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalist Army, which had surrendered to the Communist forces near Peking the year before. This meant that there were more than "Volunteer" Chinese in Korea. Almond immediately discussed with his principal staff officers the information obtained from the interrogation of the Chinese soldiers and then sent a personal radio message to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his Far East Command Headquarters in Tokyo. The Far East Command took the news in stride and showed no great surprise or concern. Their attack plan would go on.'

  But Almond's message to MacArthur did cause a high-level delegation from the Far East Command to fly to Wonsan, in northeast Korea, then the X Corps Headquarters. MacArthur's delegation consisted of Maj. Gens. Doyle 0. Hickey, acting chief of staff; Charles A. Willoughby, G-2,. and George L. Eberle, G-4; and Brig. Gen. Edwin K. Wright, G-3. They came for a firsthand estimate of the degree of Chinese intervention. In an earlier discussion with Willoughby, Maj. Gen. Clark L. Ruffner, Almond's chief of staff, had spoken with concern about the great number of Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) divisions identified in the Eighth Army and X Corps zones of operations. Willoughby had answered that there might be only elements of that many divisions.

  Now in the Wonsan conference General Hickey asked Willoughby substantially the following question: "If, as General Almond states, Chinese forces have intervened, how many Chinese troops do you estimate are now in Korea?" Willoughby said again that only volunteers had entered Korea and that probably only a battalion of volunteers of each division identified was actually in Korea.

  Almond then asked what had happened when the Chinese destroyed the 8th Cavalry Regiment of Eighth Army in the west. Willoughby replied that the regiment had failed to put out adequate security and had been overrun in a small, violent surprise attack and been scattered in the following hours of darkness.2

  After the capture of the 16 Chinese prisoners it took the 7th Marine Regiment, which relieved the ROK 26th Regiment on November 2, five days and five nights of fighting to drive the Chinese 124th Division from the lowlands to Funchilin Pass, all but destroying the CCF force, whose survivors moved north over the pass to Hagaru-ri.

  The ist Marine Division cautiously followed them, its advance elements arriving at Hagaru-ri on November 14. Temperatures during that first day and night on the plateau reached -80F, accompanied by winds of 30 to 35 miles an hour, producing a wind-chill factor of nearly - 60° F.

  General MacArthur, speculating on the situation from his office in the Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo, decided that the Chinese would not dare cross the Yalu in force but that if they did his air force would destroy them. He also decided that the time had come to resume the march to the border and end the war. A big offensive, coordinated from Tokyo, would start for Eighth Army in the west on November 24; for X Corps the offensive would begin three days later. By Christmas, General MacArthur hoped, a secured border could be turned over to the South Korean government, and some of the American troops could be home, the war ended. Apparently disregarded were the disasters inflicted by the Chinese in the Eighth Army zone north of the Chongchon River in late October and early November and the simultaneous heavy fighting with the CCF 124th Division on the road from Hamhung to Hagaru-ri in the X Corps zone.

  The principal inland road running north from the Wonsan-Hamhung coastal plain led to the Koto-ri Plateau and 12 miles farther reached the town of Hagaru-ri, near the southern end of the Chosin Reservoir. This axis of advance toward the Yalu and the border was to be the principal X Corps route of attack, and the 1st Marine Division was assigned to follow it northward from the coast. On November II, Almond moved his X Corps Command Post (CP) from Wonsan to Hamhung.

  MAP i. The peninsula of Korea, which extends from the border of China (along the Yalu River) into the Yellow Sea.

  The mission of X Corps in eastern Korea had initially been to attack west from the Wonsan area to help Eighth Army capture Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. MacArthur changed these instructions on October 17 when the Eighth Army's accelerating approach to Pyongyang made it reasonably certain that it would not need X Corps's help in capturing the city. In this situation MacArthur alerted General Almond on October 17 that if Eighth Army captured Pyongyang on its own, which it did on October 19-20, then the X Corps would attack north instead of west. On October 24, MacArthur made this a formal order: X Corps was to attack north in the eastern part of Korea. For this purpose the place to concentrate forces was the Hungnam-Hamhung area, not Wonsan.

  Thus the matter stood for three weeks. On November 16 the Far East Command took much of the vagueness out of its last order to X Corps "to attack north in the eastern part of Korea." Now it made an important change in the corps's missions. It was instructed to develop a plan to orient its main attack to the border by advancing west from Changjin, 35 miles north of the Chosin Reservoir. At Changjin it was to turn west and cut the Manpojin-Kanggje-Huichon road, which ran south from the Yalu River into the Eighth Army zone. This maneuver would have X Corps aid Eighth Army by attacking into the rear of the Chinese forces facing the Eighth Army.3

  On November 17 the X Corps staff had a plan ready for Almond's review. It called for the ist Marine Division, upon reaching Changjin, to turn west toward Kanggje. Almond rejected the plan because it extended the main supply road too far north; it would be better, he thought, for the ist Marine Division to turn west. at Hagaru-ri, move to Yudam-ni, and from there advance on Kanggje. Almond's plan thus departed from the Far East Command's suggestion that the ist Marine Division advance by way of Changjin. In his review of the plan Almond also added another important change to the Far East Command's suggestions of November i6. He wanted a regimental-size force, to be provided by the US 7th Infantry Division, to go north on the east side of the reservoir to Changjin and free the 5th Marine Regiment on that side of the reservoir so that it could join the main force of the ist Marine Division on the west side of the reservoir at Yudam-ni. This would concentrate the whole of the ist Marine Division for the push west to Kanggje and would give the mission of protecting the right or east flank of this attack to another force-a new regimental task force from the 7th Infantry Division. Now, for the first time, the 7th Division was brought into the Chosin Reservoir campaign plan.

  Meanwhile, on October 2q the US 7th Infantry Division had begun landing over the beaches of Iwon, 150 miles up the coast north of Wonsan. Its first regiment ashore, the 17th, began carrying out the advance of the division, which was to attack north to the Yalu. The 17th Regiment headed for Hyesanjin by the road that ran through Pukchong and Pungsan. Its axis of advance was about 6o air miles east of that of the 1st Marine Division on the road to Hagaru-ri and Yudam-ni. Neither could assist the other. Almond now had about 84,000 men in his command. Later, after the arrival of the US 3rd Infantry Division, X Corps would have ioo,ooo men. The 31st Infantry landed after the 17th, and the last of the three regiments of the 7th Division, the 32nd Infantry, went ashore on November 4 and moved to a bivouac northeast of Hamhung. Maj. Gen. David G. Barr, of the 7th Division, was moving the entire division north to the border in the Hyesanjin and Singpaljin areas while General Almond and his X Corps staff were working on the plan to implement General MacArthur's last order.

  On November 21, Almond's staff had a new, revised plan ready, labeled "Operation Plan No. 8, Draft 2." It satisfied Almond's earlier objections. Almond sent it at once to Tokyo for revi
ew by the Far East Command. On November 24, General MacArthur directed Almond to implement it, making only one minor change that moved the boundary between Eighth Army and X Corps farther west and south in the ist Marine Division zone. Upon receiving approval of his plan, Almond issued a warning order that evening, and the next day, November 25, he issued Operational Order No. 7, which stated that X Corps would attack on the morning of November 27 with the purpose of severing the Chinese line of communication at Mupyongni and destroying the enemy from there north to the Yalu River border and eastward to the mouth of the Tumen River, at the Soviet border.4

  The two X Corps subordinate commanders most involved were Maj. Gen. Oliver P Smith, 1st Marine Division, and General Barr, US 7th Infantry Division. Since their attack dates were set for November 27, this gave them only two days to get their troops in position for jump-off. The 1st Marine Division was already in motion for the Chosin Reservoir, but most of the 7th Division was more than loo miles away, at or near the Yalu River, and the last of its regiments, the 32nd, was not yet there. For General Barr it was nothing less than a chaotic scramble to try to assemble a regimental combat team and get it to the Chosin Reservoir by the morning of November 27.

  Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L. Murray, a young, strapping 6-foot, 4-inch Marine commanding the Sth Marine Regiment, had already made an enviable record in Korea. Orders reached him on November 17 to concentrate his regiment on the east side of the reservoir, seize a village called Sinhung-ni on the Pungnyuri-gang Inlet about 8 miles north of Hagaru-ri, and be prepared to go farther. On November 23, Lt. Col. Robert D. Taplett's 3rd Battalion led the advance down the east side of the reservoir. Taplett found a good defensive position about 4 road miles north of the Pungnyurigang Inlet and the village of Sinhung-ni, where hills and a saddle between them straddled the dirt road. His battalion dug in there. By November 25 the other two battalions of the 5th Marines were behind the 3rd Battalion on the east side of the reservoir. That was the situation there when the corps operation order mandated their move to the west side of the reservoir to join the 7th Marines at Yudam-ni. But the 5th Marines could not leave the east side of the reservoir until they were replaced by a 7th Division regiment.

  The corps order called for this regiment to be on the east side of the reservoir by noon on November 26. That was a tall order, easy to issue but almost impossible to execute, given the distant and scattered deployment of the 7th Division units. The 7th Division had to use its troops nearest the reservoir. General Barr's effort to assemble a regimental combat team quickly was entirely ad hoc. This force, later referred to generally as the 31st RCT, commanded by Col. Allan D. MacLean, included the 31st Infantry Regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company; the regiment's 2nd and 3rd battalions; the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry; the 31st Tank Company; the 57th Field Artillery Battalion, normally in support of the 31st Infantry, together with D Battery,l5th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion (AAA AW), Self-Propelled (SP), attached, as the main combat elements. The 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, had been chosen as the third infantry battalion of the combat team because it happened to be closest to the reservoir. It was the first unit of the 7th Division RCT to arrive there.

  On November 24, 195o, General MacArthur stood triumphant over the doubters and the critics of his policy. On that day he flew to northwest Korea to see Eighth Army launch its attack from the Chongchon River toward the border. All went well during the first day of the advance and appeared to be going well on the second day, when General Almond is sued his order to X Corps to join in the attack from the Chosin Reservoir on the 27th.

  Not all members of Almond's staff were complacent about the impending attack from the reservoir. Col. Edward H. Forney, of the Marine Corps, on liaison duty with the X Corps as an amphibious-movement expert, was a quiet, thoughtful, outstandingly competent military man. He opposed what he considered a rash action that would endanger the ist Marine Division. Lt. Col. William J. McCaffrey, deputy chief of staff, X Corps, a longtime confidant of and trusted adviser to General Almond, was also uneasy about the projected attack. Others in X Corps questioned the pending operation. McCaffrey expressed this view and the climate of thought at the time:

  We were all trying to get General Almond to exercise some caution in attacking over the mountains from Yudam-ni. All the Marines were concerned that they would be cut off, but General Almond was not about to protest an order from General MacArthur. After all, everyone had said Inchon wouldn't work and this was a replay of that series of disagreements between the Navy, Marines, and CINCFE [Commander in Chief, Far East]. Forney argued that the Marine Division was on loan from the joint Chiefs as US strategic reserve for the Pacific. If it was used up the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] should first be notified that there was a serious chance of this happening.5

  Commenting on Almond's ready acquiescence to MacArthur's orders in this phase of the Korean War, Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway wrote: "One must keep in mind Almond's relation to MacArthur, whose Chief of Staff he still was, on paper; MacArthur's brilliance of concept and perseverance in carrying through his plan of wide envelopment at INCHON, deserving of the highest praise; and his world-wide fame, which made it extremely difficult for a subordinate to question his judgment. Recognition of these facts would indicate that only if MacArthur's decisions were, in Almond's judgment, likely to sacrifice his Corps, would he have felt justified in openly protesting."6

  On November 4 the 32nd Infantry had been the last regiment of the 7th Infantry Division to disembark over the beaches at Iwon. It moved southwest along the coastal road through Hamhung and there turned north. Just south of Oro-ri it turned northeast up the valley of the Songchongang on a road leading toward Fusen Reservoir. It went into bivouac near the crossroads village of Kujang-ni, approximately 25 road miles northeast from its junction with the Hamhung-Hagaru-ri road to Chosin Reservoir. The latter road was the only entrance to Chosin Reservoir and similarly the only exit from it.

  When units of the 31st RCT began their hurried movement toward the Chosin Reservoir, they had to pass through the heavy supply traffic of the 1st Marine Division. The roads were among the poorest and most precarious of any used in the war by American motorized forces. No American troops before or since have fought in as harsh or hostile an environment.

  The road distance from the coast at Hamhung to Hagaru-ri was 6o miles. After reaching the plateau, roughly 4,000 feet high, on which the Chosin Reservoir lay, the road meandered 25 miles from the escarpment through Hagaru-ri northward to what will be called the forward perimeter, the most northerly position held by the ist Marine Division and later by the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, on the east side of the reservoir.

  The Songchon River rises in the mountains east of the Chosin and Fusen reservoirs and flows southwest into the Sea of Japan. The city of Hamhung lies in its delta; Hungnam, the largest port of northeast Korea, is on the north side of the river mouth. A western tributary of the Songchon, the Hungnim, flows south to join the Songchon at Oro-ri, 8 miles north of Hamhung and 16 miles inland from Hungnam. A narrow-gauge railroad, 21/z feet wide, and a dirt-gravel road ran inland along the east bank of the Songchon from Hungnam through Hamhung to Oro-ri, where they crossed the stream to the west side and then followed the Hungnim River upstream northwest toward the 4,000- to 4,5oo-foot plateau.

  From Oro-ri the road continued on flat or semiflat ground with gentle curves through low hills, following closely the narrowing channel of the Hungnim River and a tributary through Majon-dong (sometimes referred to as Santong) to the village of Chinhung-ni. Thus far the road was relatively level but with many turns and twists along the channel of the narrowing stream. From Chinhung-ni the road went northward to the top of the Koto-ri Plateau by a cliff-hanging, twisting, narrow alignment that climbed 2,500 feet in 8 miles. This stretch was called Funchilin Pass. On top of the plateau, 2 miles beyond its edge, was the village of Koto-ri. There the Changjin River came in from the west and bent sharply north to empty its waters into the Chos
in Reservoir. The narrow-gauge railroad and the vehicular road followed the valley of the Changjin River from Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri. There was a stretch of about 0/2 miles of marshland between Hagaru-ri and the waters of the reservoir.

  In 1950 the Hungnam-Hagaru-ri road was two way as far as Chinhungni. There it degenerated into a narrow, one-way trail that climbed Funchilin Pass to the Koto-ri Plateau. From there on to Hagaru-ri the road was of varying width, but never more than a narrow two-way dirt-gravel track, and seldom straight or semistraight for more than short distances.

  At Samgo Station, at the foot of Funchilin Pass, Soo yards north of Chinhung-ni, the narrow-gauge railroad became a cableway for the climb up the escarpment. The steep incline of the cableway began at the village of Pohu-jang, about a mile beyond Samgo Station, and went straight up the eastern side of the pass to the top of the plateau southeast of Koto-ri. On the top the cableway ended, and the railroad track resumed. It followed north down the valley of the Changjin River, parallel to the dirt and gravel road, to Hagaru-ri. From there it continued down the east side of the reservoir, following the shoreline north to the Pungnyuri-gang River. The railroad turned east there to follow the Pungnyuri-gang upstream.

  Early maps showed a small village called Sinhung-ni about a mile east of the reservoir, on the inlet where the vehicular road crossed to the north side of the Pungnyuri-gang. Sinhung-ni is named in contemporary military reports and shown on military situation map overlays. In 1950, Sinhung-ni, like Hudong-ni some miles to the south, had largely ceased to exist, but a few scattered huts still stood on the south bank of the Pungnyuri-gang Inlet and eastward.