The question arises whether earlier in the training of the task-force units any thought was given to practice in withdrawal actions should they become necessary in combat. On this point Lieutenant May, who had been with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, since its reorganization, says, "I cannot remember one minute spent on training for a withdrawal action for anything above a squad or platoon. The lack of this knowledge was quite evident at Chosin."'o
If the breakout had started on schedule, at noon, it would have had only about four hours of daylight. The road distance to Hagaru-ri was about 12 miles; that meant a fast pace of 3 miles an hour if the column was to reach Hagaru-ri before dark. Strong enemy opposition had to be assumed. No thought was given to going part way-as far as practicable, or possible, before dark and then forming a tight defense for the night with the hope of continuing the next day, when there would be a full eight hours of daylight and the prospect of continued air cover. Ammunition drops could have been arranged through Stamford's communication with the pilots overhead before night closed down.
There were few places where a night perimeter could have been improvised by the troops and the convoy en route on December I. It would have had to make use of the reservoir shore and the railroad bed for defensive features. One site certainly would have been the area near Hudongni. Such a defense would have required good troop control.
The Hudong-ni area especially would have offered a good potential overnight defensive area if the 31st Tank Company and the 31st Rear had still been there, and they might have played a decisive role on the night of December 1-2 in helping the task-force column reach it and defend itself overnight. As a feature of the breakout, many junior officers and enlisted men expected a tank-infantry force from Hagaru-ri to meet them as they attacked south. But that never happened."
The problems faced by a retreating force surrounded by an enemy are many, and they need to be considered carefully. Some elasticity in or deviation from a favored plan needs to be considered in advance. The fighting withdrawal faced by Task Force Faith on December i required as much planning as an advance in the face of an enemy. Against expert night fighters like the Chinese, and with only one exit, certainly a continuation of an attack to the rear after dark would be most hazardous. Yet no plan was made for any options once darkness fell. During daylight hours the convoy with its uncertain and somewhat frail infantry support might keep going as long as it had strong air support, which it did have. When darkness fell and air support ended, an altogether new situation would prevail, one adverse to the task force and portending the greatest possible danger. American experience in Korea demonstrated one thing beyond question: when night fell, it was time to circle the wagons and try to survive until dawn. An alternate plan should have been in mind in the event that night came before the task force neared Hagaru-ri, rather than the continuation of a blind effort to cleave through the darkness with an ever-weakening force and an everincreasing number of wounded.
All bridges north of Hudong-ni were intact when the 31st RCT moved northward on November 25-27, and there were no physical roadblocks. It appears from the testimony of several officers that no one at the inlet perimeter knew that the CCF had blown the two bridges between the inlet and Hudong-ni, making vehicular passage over them impossible. It should have occurred to the commanding officer and his staff before the day of the breakout that information on this subject was vital, and pilots should have been requested, through Stamford, to make daily reconnaissance of the road and all bridges between the inlet and the Paegamni-gang and report any adverse development that would hinder passage south. But no request for aerial reconnaissance of the road and bridges was made. One key officer, in response to my questioning, said that it did not occur to him or, as far as he knew, to anyone else at the inlet, before the breakout. There was thus a lapse in obtaining intelligence that was available through aerial observation.12
The only precise contemporary documentary evidence on the time of the beginning of the breakout is found in the 1st Marine Division G-3 Journal and Message file. An air report, Message No. 19, at 12:05 P.M., December I, stated, `Air-I/32 ready to move." This means that an aerial radio report received at Hagaru-ri reported that the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, was lined up at 5 minutes past noon ready to move out. A second aerial radio message received at Hagaru-ri 45 minutes later, at 12:50, stated that the convoy, starting at 12:45, "is making some progress."13 That left four hours of daylight. The sun would dip over the western mountain rim about 4:00 P.M., and darkness would soon follow.
There is little doubt that the napalm drop at the beginning of the breakout had a demoralizing effect on the infantry nearby and on those close enough to see its effects. Most of the survivors of the breakout felt that the task force never fully regained the momentum it had before the napalm hit the leading elements. It is not known how long this accident delayed progress of the convoy down the road, but it was not very long. Lieutenant Colonel Faith immediately set about rallying the troops at the cutting edge, and they responded. Other officers, especially Major Miller; Captain Seever, of C Company; and Lt. Henry M. Moore, the ist Battalion P&A Platoon leader, helped Faith get the attack restored. And the fighter and bomber planes overhead were invaluable in this effort.
It was about 3:00 P.M. when the motor column began arriving at the first blown bridge. During this 2 hour interval the convoy had progressed at the rate of a mile an hour. It required another I Y2 hours to get the vehicles around the blown bridge over an unimproved bypass, from 3:00 P.M. to about 4:30 P.M. Then it was beginning to get dark. After the breakout started, the remaining daylight of December I had been consumed in getting to the blown bridge, moving around it, and getting the trucks back on the road south of it, progress totaling about two and a half miles. At that point the prospect of getting to Hagaru-ri that night was not good. Supporting aircraft ran their last strike about half an hour later. The big enemy fire block and two physical roadblocks were just ahead on H1111221. Hundreds of men, virtually leaderless, were already straggling across a spur ridge of Hill 1221, only partly cleared of enemy, bypassing the CCF fire block and roadblock at the saddle of the hairpin turn, and taking off for Hagaru-ri. It was too late then, without a previous plan decided on as an option, to halt the men and form a perimeter defense for the night. When darkness came at Hill 1221, Task Force Faith had 7 more road miles between it and safety. To proceed against now-known enemy fire blocks and roadblocks ahead, in the dark with a dwindling force of men and no air cover, was a risk that should have been avoided if there had been any possible option. The breakout plan had provided for none.
Another question needs to be asked concerning the command of the 31st Infantry Task Force after Colonel MacLean disappeared at the inlet on the morning of November 29. We know that Lieutenant Colonel Faith, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, assumed command in accordance with Army tradition, custom, and regulations. Because of lack of communications higher headquarters did not know of MacLean's disappearance from the inlet until General Barr's brief visit to the inlet the next day. Higher authority never appointed a new commander of the 31st RCT or officially confirmed Faith, and the latter, therefore, continued to command the 31st RCT east of Chosin to his death.
One wonders whether the situation did not require the direct action of the X Corps commander at that time. Almond learned of the loss of MacLean on the afternoon of November 30, the day after it happened. Because of the close relationship between General Barr and Lieutenant Colonel Faith, it is unlikely that Barr would have recommended a replacement for Faith. After the morning of November 30, General Smith, the Marine commander, was in command of the 31st RCT and of all other Army and Marine troops in the Chosin area north of Koto-ri. It is not likely that he would have appointed a member of the 1st Marine Division to take over direct command of the 31st RCT, and there was no Army officer senior to Faith available to him at Hagaru-ri. General Hodes, who had served since November 26 as Barr's 7th Division representativ
e at Chosin, was not under General Smith's command. On the afternoon of November 30, General Barr had told Smith that he was withdrawing Hodes to the coast. The situation was now one in which the X Corps commander needed to act personally on the command situation at the inlet perimeter.
During the commanders' conference at Hagaru-ri on the afternoon of November 30, the plight of the 31st RCT at the inlet was much on General Almond's mind. He ordered General Smith to bring the 7th Marine regiment from Yudam-ni at once and send it to rescue the 31st RCT. But this was not a realistic order. The 7th Marines could not get from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri at once. They would have to fight their way through major parts of at least three Chinese divisions.
There was another course open for the top command. Brigadier General Henry I. Hodes, the assistant division commander, 7th Infantry Division, was present at Hagaru-ri and participated in the commanders' conference that afternoon. The fate of the 31st RCT was the most pressing business the 7th Division had at that moment or was to have in the succeeding weeks, and its best officer below the division commander should have been placed in charge of the 31st RCT's impending breakout. The presence of the assistant division commander would have been a positive morale factor for the troops. Hodes had been in the practice of moving about frequently among the units of the division and was rather well acquainted with most of the officers in all the battalions. Also, he had been an experienced infantry regimental commander in World War II. His rank would have secured optimum assistance. While one can assume that General Barr would not suggest to General Almond that Hodes be airlifted to the inlet perimeter to take command of the troops there, I believe that the corps commander should have grasped the nettle himself and ordered it on the spot-at Hagaru-ri on the afternoon of November 30.
The 1st Marine Division could have delivered Hodes by helicopter to the inlet the same afternoon. An arrangement should have been agreed upon by Hodes, Barr, Smith, and Almond about how they would establish radio communication between the inlet and Hagaru-ri and how needed supplies, especially ammunition and gasoline, would be delivered to the inlet perimeter so that Hodes would have a chance to withdraw the 31st RCT successfully. X Corps might also have been able to dispatch at once from Hamhung to the inlet a few hand-picked infantry officers of platoon and company rank to replace casualties and thus reinforce badly needed smallunit leadership. None of this was done. These lapses on the afternoon of November 3o are perhaps the worst command failures chargeable directly to the X Corps commander. What was required at the moment was not textbook dogma but keen common sense and recognition of what was possible.
By the time the task-force vehicular convoy passed the enemy fire block and roadblock at Hill 1221 after dark on the night of December 1, nearly all the officers and experienced noncommissioned officers had been killed or seriously wounded. Very few officers escaped to Hagaru-ri, and fewer yet who were not wounded. By dark on December 1, Task Force Faith was almost leaderless, and it had broken into fragments. Fragmentation had started soon after the convoy reached the first blown bridge and while it was moving slowly over the rough bypass around it. It was then that Chinese soldiers moved in from the north and northeast, after the rear guard failed in its mission.
In speaking to Xenophon about a similar situation, Cyrus said:
Now first of all, I think you will do the whole army a great service if you take care at once to appoint captains and officers in the place of those who have been lost. For it is true one may say universally that without commanders nothing good or useful could ever be done; good discipline always saves, but disorder has destroyed many.... How could men be more easily defeated in battle than when they begin to think each of his own individual safety? And what possible success could be achieved by such as do not obey their superiors?14
Virtually all the officers who tried to get the rank-and-file to follow them in attacks at Hill 1221 on enemy positions commented on the reluctance, the surly unwillingness, of the men to do so, and many men who were forced to act soon deserted the effort. Jones, Bigger, Jordan, Kitz, Smith and McClymont spoke of this problem. The men were no longer normal soldiers. They were worn out; they no longer cared. All they had left was individual instinct for survival.
What did the surviving officers and men conclude upon later reflection on the 31st RCTs performance east of Chosin? Major Curtis, the 1st Battalion operations officer, wounded at the foot of Hill 1221 in the late afternoon of December I, was with the motor convoy until its end near Hudong-ni. His experience and training had made him an especially knowledgeable infantry officer. His opinion of the adverse factors affecting the task force is worth noting. He said: "The plan did not work and the mission failed because control was lost from the outset - and, in fact - the rifle elements failed to provide flank and rear security.... Our main problem was maintaining control of the troops under very trying circumstances."
Curtis had thought from the beginning that Colonel MacLean should have assembled his entire 31st RCT at Hill 1221, the best defensive position on the east side of the reservoir, and that he should never have placed the 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry, and the firing batteries of the 57th Field Artillery in the cramped area that became their perimeter at the Pungnyuri-gang inlet of the reservoir, a tactically indefensible position. He voiced his doubts at the time, but he said, "I could not even attract Faith's attention with suggestions of caution." Curtis added: "It has been a particular burden to me that I was the operations officer on an operation that failed-and failed miserably. Needless to say I have spent many hours of self-criticism and chastisement asking myself what could have been done that wasn't done." He summed up much of the underlying causes of disaster: ". . . and finally I come back to the weather-which was an over-riding factor. The cumulative effect of physical fatigue, loss of sleep, short rations, long hours of darkness, sub-zero temperature, was a numbness, dullness, lack of alertness and depression of spirit. When organization, communication, command, and control finally broke down-it was complete-and the instinct for survival took over.... In retrospect I have often been amazed to recall the number of seriously wounded who kept functioning-driven by this survival instinct."'S
Captain Erwin Bigger, commanding officer of D Company (Weapons Company), ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, characterized the Chosin operation as follows:
Small unit leadership was as good as it could have been. Squad and platoon leaders acted professionally and bravely. Company commanders exposed themselves and were unselfish in performing their responsibilities. I am the only surviving Company Commander of 1/32 of that campaign and I was just lucky, fortunate, or what have you-even tho I was wounded. I had so many punctures in my body that I didn't even know about some of them until I reached the Marine Div. aid station.
We were frustrated however by the lack of specific instructions from senior officers. We were not sure who to look for or from what headquarters we were to receive our orders. It is obvious that although senior officers could get in by helicopter, not one came to take over elements of two different combat teams. And there was certainly a lack of coordination of the 7th Div units in the Chosin area. We never knew that there were other 7th Div units as close to us as two miles.16
Captain Earle H. Jordan, Jr., commander of M Company, 31st Infantry, was personally outstanding as a soldier and leader in the Chosin operation. He expressed his lasting thoughts of those days of trial in these words:
It is also my hope that regardless of the decisions and actions, or lack of such on the part of commanders at all levels, the devotion, loyalty and valor of the many enlisted soldiers and junior officers will not be denied. I men tion this with particular reference to the platoon leaders, NCO's, and.private soldiers of M Co. 31st Inf.
In my service in two conflicts, WWII and Korea, the period of my command of M Co. was and is the period in which I take greatest pride. Their performance in this operation was in my opinion equal to the very best as is attested to by their tenacity and toll inflicted upon the
&n
bsp; First Lieutenant Hugh R. May was probably the oldest officer in the 31st RCT, with an enviable combat record in World War II. He was knowledgeable about the troops and the organization of 31st RCT for he had been a member of one of the rifle battalions since the organization of the 32nd Infantry and the reconstitution of the 7th Infantry Division in Japan. About Chosin, May said:
... the ist Bn 32nd during the assault on Seoul did not experience enough combat of a nature to prepare them for the type of combat action we encountered at the Chosin Reservoir.
In my opinion the men performed as well as could be expected under the circumstances.
As long as the men had leaders they performed without question orders from their officers; once the officer ranks were decimated it was impossible to maintain control. At times some of the men performed above and beyond the expected norm for troops with as little combat experience as they had....
Majors Miller, Curtis, and Jones. These officers were some of the most resourceful and efficient I ever served with. They were not afraid to lay their lives on the line in order to get the job done. They were among the best I ever served with in a combat situation. They set a very fine example for junior officers and E. M. The personal bravery of Col. Faith cannot be doubted as he placed himself in jeopardy on more than one occasion, he was an inspiration to both the officers and men who served with and under him.18
Lieutenant Mortrude's opinion of the plight of the 31st RCT and his analysis of some of its problems are perceptive:
Once the battle was joined with the overwhelming but unorganized Chinese forces, our withdrawals were unnecessarily precipitous and uncontrolled. Although we were lucky in the first lunge back to the 31st Regt'l perimeter, the subsequent Task Force withdrawal to Hagaru-ri was disastrous due to the lack of control. Even though the Chinese were never able to block the few infantrymen punching their way through at the head of the column, they, the Chinese, were eventually able to close in on the main body due to lack of flank protection and the failure to hold critical terrain until passage of the entire column.
East of Chosin Page 36