East of Chosin

by Roy Edgar Appleman

  Just how vulnerable was Hagaru-ri from November 27 through at least December 1, during the time the 31st RCT diverted the Both Division from its assigned mission and in the process consumed its major strength, thus thwarting the intentions of the Chinese Army Group Command? To place in proper perspective the sacrificial effort of the Army's 31st RCT east of Chosin, the situation at Hagaru-ri at this time must be sketched briefly.

  Three Chinese divisions were involved in the plan to capture Hagaru-ri the first night of their surprise attack at the Chosin Reservoir. The 8oth Division was to come down the east side of the reservoir from the vicinity of Kalchon-ni and attack Hagaru-ri from the north and east; the 58th Division of the loth Army was to attack the town from the southwest-it was already in place in its assembly areas in the hills only 5 miles away; the both Division, also from the loth Army, was to cut the road south of Hagaru-ri at the same time the other two divisions attacked it. Only the both Division carried out its mission the night of November 27-28. It cut the road in a dozen places all the way from Hagaru-ri to Chinhung-ni at the foot of Funchilin Pass. Why the 58th Division did not attack Hagaru-ri that night remains a mystery. The 8oth Division, approaching Hagaru-ri from the north along the east side of the reservoir, ran into the Army's 31st RCT troops and engaged them at the two infantry battalion areas along the road and cut them off from Hagaru-ri. If the Chinese plan had been carried out as conceived by the Chinese Army Group Command, the 8oth Division would have bypassed the 31st RCT and moved against Hagaru-ri that night. Hagaru-ri was vulnerable, and if it had been struck by a coordinated attack that night with the forces the Chinese had at hand and in position for that purpose, it could hardly have survived.

  The Marine defenses of Hagaru-ri were thin and incomplete on the night of November 27. After dark on November 26 Lt. Col. Thomas L. Ridge, commander of the 3rd Battalion, ist Marines, arrived from Majon-ni to relieve F Company, 7th Marines, at Hagaru-ri. Ridge did not have his entire battalion, however-only about three-fourths of it. He had two rifle companies, I and H, and two platoons of the Weapons Company, and there were two batteries of cos-mm howitzer artillery-Capt. Benjamin S. Read's H Battery of the 3rd Battalion, icth Marines, and Capt. Andrew J. Strohmenger's D Battery of the 2nd Battalion, cith Marines. Also at Hagaru-ri were miscellaneous units of X Corps and ist Marine Division service and supply troops and some Marine and Army Engineer troops. Capt. William E. Barber's F Company, 7th Marines, left Hagaru-ri the next morning, November 27, to take up its isolated position at Toktong Pass, about midway between Hagaru-ri and Yudam-ni, on the west side of the reservoir.

  Colonel Ridge and his staff made a reconnaissance of the Hagaru-ri area on the 27th, and Ridge estimated that two regiments were required to hold a suitable perimeter. Since he had less than one battalion of combat troops available, Ridge settled on a four-mile perimeter. Parts of that perimeter had no troops at all, and other parts were thinly held by service troops. During the night Ridge and his men learned of massive attacks by two Chinese divisions against the Marines at Yudam-ni, and they also knew of the heavy attacks against the Army troops north of them on the east side of the reservoir. Ridge and his staff expected an attack that night. But it never came.

  I asked Colonel Ridge much later if he knew why the Chinese did not attack Hagaru-ri the night of November 27. Ridge replied:

  I can only speculate on this question. I suspect that the planned (?) attacks (CCF) at Yudam-ni and Fox Hill on the one side and delays, as you commented on, incident to actions against elements of the 7th Inf. Div. on the other side contributed to delays in whatever plans they may have had. In addition to these, you should also note the recon. and minor actions south of Hagaru-ri. In the 195o's I had a better than average knowledge of CCF tactics over the prior decade, and recall then thinking of the CCF tendency to be rather certain of the exact situation prior to deciding on a major at- tack. Recall that the CCF had only patrol reporting or local civilian reports at the time. Also consider the probable confusion existent at CCF Hq at the time. 30

  General Smith at Hagaru-ri was so concerned about the enemy threat on November 28 and his slender means at hand to hold the place, that he ordered Col. Lewis B. Puller, commander of the ist Marine Regiment at Koto-ri, to get reinforcements to him on the 29th even if they had to take heavy losses in reaching Hagaru-ri. Task Force Drysdale was the result.

  From the Chinese point of view it was unfortunate-a disaster to them, eventually-that they did not attack Hagaru-ri on the night of November 27. If the CCF 8oth Division had launched its planned attack that night instead of stopping to attack the separated elements of the Army's 31st RCT on its way down the east side of the reservoir, it might very well have overrun the town and the Marine defenses there, especially if its arrival had prompted the CCF 58th Division to join in the attack from the opposite side of Hagaru-ri. The capture of Hagaru-ri would have been a disaster for the 1st Marine Division.

  On December 24, 1950, General Smith expressed himself on the importance of Hagaru-ri in the Chosin Reservoir Campaign to a New York Times reporter. On December 26, 195o, the Times printed the substance of Smith's remarks. "The Chinese," he said, "knew all about us all right, where we were and what we had.... Instead of hitting us with everything at one place, they kept hitting us at different places. Had the Chinese decided to knock out the small Marine garrison at Hagaru-ri, the task of regrouping forces would have been made immeasurably more difficult."

  In their ordeal east of Chosin the men of the 31st RCT would have no difficulty accepting Lieutenant May's words as expressing the substance of their own thoughts: "This [Chosin action] was by far the worst experience of my life. There was no comparable action I was in during WW II with the ferocity and the determination displayed during the Chosin action."31

  A noncommissioned officer, Sfc. Carrol D. Price, of Headquarters Battery, 57th Field Artillery, wounded twice at Chosin, was fortunate enough to reach Hagaru-ri, but, he said, "I lost all my friends":

  I thought and still do, that if the units had left a little earlier while we still had ammunition for our guns, if the air drops had been better, and if we had been better organized to fight as infantry, we might have gotten out. I feel strongly about it because of what happened to all my friends. We had an enormous amount of casualties. I was through the last war and I never saw anything like that before. I was in the "Bulge" and it was nothing like this at Chosin Reservoir. This was something. It was the first time I had ever seen enemy right in the gun positions. I have been in the artillery for 12 years and I never thought I would see the day when I would have to destroy guns. We smashed sights and took it apart. The weather was so bad the trucks couldn't start, they were frozen.32

  Another noncommissioned officer spoke in praise of the officers of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry. Sergeant Stephen F. Lewis, platoon leader of the 57-mm Recoilless Rifle Section, attached to C Company, stated: "I believe if it hadn't been for our officers there wouldn't be a man alive from this unit today. Our officers carried on although some of them were wounded 2 or 3 times. I believe they did everything in this world to get everybody out. I am proud I had such officers as my superiors and I would serve under them anywhere."33

  One must ask himself what he would have done, could have done, in similar circumstances, in that frigid wasteland after four days and five nights of constant exposure to bitter cold, almost constant enemy attack resulting in crippling casualties, little food, mental and physical exhaustion, little or no hope of help, little or no ammunition, and no communication with a higher headquarters. The Marines on the other side of Chosin were never in a completely similar situation or desperate to the same degree in all the aspects of battle. A true understanding of these factors would prompt a little humility in one's declaration of personal and unit bravery and some charity in expressing an indictment of these Army men.

  In the ultimate analysis of the Chosin Reservoir action, the 7th Infantry Division troops who fought on the east side of the reservoir prob
ably provided the narrow margin that enabled the ist Marine Division to hold Hagaruri, and this in turn made possible the completion there of an airstrip from which several thousand wounded troops were evacuated to the coast, the assembling of the Marine troops at Hagaru-ri from Yudam-ni, and thereafter the fighting escape to the coast.

  Credit earned and honor due is owed to those all-but-forgotten American men who for a brief period fought our nation's battles east of Chosin. Too many of our countrymen left their unmarked remains in that ancient land, poetically but mistakenly called the "Land of the Morning Calm."

  Like the Phoenix of mythology, a new military organization rose from its own ashes to fight another day some weeks and months after Chosin.

  When Maj. Robert E. Jones arrived at Hamhung at midnight, December io, 1g5o, at the end of withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir, the surviving members of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, were 3 officers, 18 enlisted men, and 4 KATUSA. Before the group moved out three days later in the great evacuation of X Corps to Pusan, in South Korea, about 3o additional survivors of the battalion joined the group. About ioo replacements were assigned to Jones on the Hungnam beach while he was waiting to load on ship. After debarking at Pusan, Jones and his men were sent north to Taegu to establish a command post in a schoolhouse on the south edge of the town. There Jones was to begin the reconstitution of the battalion. But his remnant of the ist Battalion was still attached to the 31st Infantry Regiment. His men had only individual weapons, sleeping bags, and the clothes on their backs.

  Jones's first task was to obtain stoves, vehicles, rations, clothing, and similar items for use until requisitions could be filled out and processed and a start made on obtaining prescribed equipment. During this initial period at Taegu the 31st Infantry went out of its way to assist the ist Battalion nucleus, providing the men with shelter and with food and cooks to prepare it.

  In the meantime, the 32nd Infantry Regiment levied on its other battalions for officers, noncommissioned officers, and key enlisted men to get the 1st Battalion functioning. This was a very busy and trying time for Jones, who continued to command the battalion. It meant organizing the new units as personnel arrived, starting training programs, and establishing personnel records. An erratic personnel system, unreliable supply, the great distance from the 32nd Infantry Regimental Headquarters, and the regrouping that had begun in Eighth Army under General Ridgway to get in readiness for a renewed UN attack added to the work and worry of men racing against time to achieve combat readiness.

  In all this turmoil of work there was also the matter of preparing the paperwork recommending awards and decorations for those at Chosin who had performed in a manner that merited them.' The first recommendation that Jones prepared was for the Medal of Honor, Posthumously, for Lt. Col. Don C. Faith, Jr.2 The only other participant in the events east of Chosin who was proposed for the Medal of Honor was Capt. Edward P. Stamford, the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, TACP leader. On January 23, 1951, Maj. Gen. Field Harris, USMC, commander of the 1st Marine Air Wing, Fleet Marine Force, wrote to Brig. Gen. Henry I. Hodes saying that Captain Stamford's performance east of Chosin "rated a top notch decoration and that it looked to me that it was pretty close to a Medal of Honor."3 The matter finally found its way to the adjutant general of the Department of the Army, who passed it on. At some point in the process the Department of the Navy became involved, and the award became snarled in red tape. The problem of getting action on it one way or another by two different services, the Army and the Navy, after being proposed by an Air Wing of the Marine Corps, apparently was too much for the mechanics of the award system. In the end Stamford received the Silver Star from Headquarters, X Corps, General Order No. 157, on July 22, 1951.

  Upon Hugh May's return to duty with the 32nd Infantry after recovery in the hospital, his battalion commander asked him to prepare an award citation for Major Jones, since he was familiar with Jones's role in the action east of Chosin. May readily complied, commenting, "... a job I gladly did as he surely deserved it."

  May himself did not receive an award deriving from action initiated by the 32nd Infantry, but months later when he was being rotated from Korea and was already in a truck at the 7th Division Headquarters waiting to go to the port of embarkation, he was taken off the truck, and Maj. Gen. Claude B. Ferenbaugh, commanding the 7th Division, awarded him a Silver Star for action at Chosin.4 The division chief of staff had apparently just told Ferenbaugh that May deserved a decoration.

  When they returned to the 32nd Infantry after recovering from their wounds in ajapanese hospital, Major Curtis and Captain Bigger were asked to write up Silver Star awards for each other. By mutual agreement they declined. These few examples of incidents attending the preparation of awards demonstrate the lack of uniformity in the procedures.

  In his efforts to obtain awards and decorations for deserving members of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, Jones met with general frustration. His account of the difficulties provides a good description of the problem of securing battle awards for soldiers who merited them. His problems were especially difficult because many of the men meriting awards had been killed in action or wounded and discharged from the service, and he had almost no staff to help him with the paperwork at the time the citations should have been prepared and submitted for approval. He comments:

  When we arrived at Taegu and became busily engaged in reforming a shattered unit, there were about three dozen survivors of the Chosin campaign. I gathered them together and discussed the submission of awards to members of the unit. Much to my surprise I found a great reluctance on the part of most of the survivors to provide statements of actions they witnessed or could corroborate! In some instances, lack of education, or limited capability to express themselves in writing, might have had an influence on this reluctance. However, it seemed much deeper to me than just that, for offers of help did not elicit any greater response. Most individuals disclaimed seeing anyone do anything that warranted a decoration, and were much more inclined to discuss what they did and how they acted throughout the operation. This is only natural for survivors to so act.

  First of all, they knew what they did better than anyone else, and had a clear, concise picture of what happened to them throughout the entire period. In addition, under the circumstances that prevailed, heroic acts were happening continuously, concurrently, endlessly and were in fact somewhat commonplace. Many heroic acts were made by people who later became casualties, and therefore some might question the necessity of submitting a recommendation for an award for someone who would never know about it. It was also possible that some of the survivors had done some things that in their eyes surpassed any other thing they witnessed, and thus felt they should be written up! Also, how do you separate those acts which were indeed heroic in the classic sense, which met the criteria of having been done to accomplish the unit's mission or saving other lives, and those acts done in the pure effort of self survival? How can one determine the dividing line? Many acts were not witnessed by the survivors who could record them. Much of what occurred was later learned from first person accounts which provide much of the history of what happened. However, first person ac counts understandably tend to be slightly biased, then, in some cases, to over emphasize individual acts, and run the risk of being self serving. It would be so much easier to write up recommendations for awards based on those first person accounts, but the system demands, and rightly so, that events be corroborated by witnesses. In our case those witnesses were hard to find as most had become casualties and were not available to help present a full picture. As a result there were many, many individuals who were not recognized with awards as they should have been. I remember feeling very frustrated trying to remember events to support the submission of recommendations, and trying to urge others to do the same. After a while the well runs dry. I'm afraid our efforts resulted in a pitifully few awards being made....

  I am in general agreement with you that the citations that finally accompany decorations
very often, if not mostly ... do not resemble reality nor do they necessarily reflect accurately what actually happened. As such, the narrative descriptions have never concerned me very much. However, I do believe in the value of decorations to recognize achievement and heroic acts, and feel that they are a necessary and valued part of military, if you can overlook, or at least bear with, the verbiage that accompany them....

  However, there were three [awards] that I remember were simple in their submission. They were the three previously mentioned Silver Stars awards made by Gen Almond to Faith, Smalley and Stanley. I visited the Division AG Section to determine if the General Orders for these three awards had ever been published. I was informed that they had not. So, I filled out three forms on the spot, and stated simply that they had been awarded by the Corps Commander on 28 Nov ig5o. No corroborating statements from witnesses were provided. These were the only recommendations that were not returned for rewrite or for additional information! I don't know that these recommendations actually culminated in the awards being approved, but I have always thought so.5

  Upon reaching Pusan in the course of returning to the 32nd Infantry in March, 1951, Lieutenant Campbell thought of his South Korean KATUSA platoon sergeant, Kim Chae Ku. He remembered the address of Kim's father, who operated a store in the city. Campbell did not know what had happened to Kim in the final hours of the breakout at Chosin Reservoir, and he wanted to tell Kim's family what he knew about their son. The South Koreans, when adequately trained and led by competent Korean officers, became outstanding soldiers. General Palk Sun Yup's ROK ist Division generally held its own alongside American divisions. Many KATUSA and regulars of the South Korean Army were brave and faithful and carried out their military duties unto death. Campbell's story illustrates this point: