Two more armies, the 50th and 66th, crossed the border about two weeks after the first four. They both crossed the Yalu from Antung to Sinuiju, completing the crossing by 31 October. The six CCF armies now in Korea constituted the CCF XIII Army Group of the Fourth Field Army. They totaled 18 divisions (or possibly 19, since the 50th Army may have had four divisions).
Not all these divisions were involved in combat during the last week of October and the first week of November. Some remained hidden in reserve. Five of the six armies were concentrated in front of Eighth Army in northwest Korea. Troops from three of these armies fought the CCF 1st Phase Offensive, which lasted from 25 October to 8 November.
There then took place a new and important movement of CCF troops into Korea that set the stage for the great 2nd Phase Offensive, which the CCF launched near the end of November. The IX Army Group of the Third Field Army moved by rail from Shantung Province in China, just west across the Yellow Sea from Korea, to the Korean border. Upon arrival there in the first half of November, two-thirds of it crossed immediately into Korea. The IX Army Group was composed of three armies-the 20th, 26th, and 27th-of three divisions each. Actually, each had four divisions, as all were reinforced from the 30th Army by a division. The IX Army Group, therefore, had a total of 12 divisions.
One army, the 20th, crossed the Yalu at Chian-Manpojin. Another, the 27th, crossed at Linchiang, 65 miles upstream from Manpojin. Linchiang was the farthest upstream crossing of the Yalu during the war. Both Chinese armies started at once for the Chosin Reservoir. The 26th Army remained in reserve at Linchiang on the north side of the border in Manchuria.
The 20th Army arrived in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir on 13 November and at once relieved the 42nd Army there. That army then started westward to join its parent organization, the XIII Army Group, in front of the Eighth Army.
Thus, by mid-November 1950, with a temporary lull settled over most of the front, there were a total of 30 or 31 Chinese divisions in Korea, together with supporting troops.
Much had happened in the course of a month. Starting with an estimate of only a few Chinese "Volunteers," mixed in with North Korean units that had escaped to far northern Korea toward the end of October, the UN command estimate of Chinese troops in North Korea had risen by 24 November to a total of 60,000 to 70,000. The heavy blows the Chinese had delivered north of the Chongchon in late October and in early November had forced this revised estimate. At the same time, the delaying action of the Chinese 124th Division against the ROK 26th Regiment, and subsequently against the US 7th Marine Regiment, on the road to the Chosin Reservoir, reinforced the conclusion that substantial Chinese forces had entered the war.
But suddenly the Chinese soldiers in front of Eighth Army in the west disappeared northward into the hills-out of contact with the UN forces everywhere. With their disappearance from the battlefield, confidence quickly returned to the UN command. General MacArthur reactivated plans for a resumption of the drive to the Yalu to end the war. At this juncture, there were in fact about 210,000 Chinese soldiers at predetermined points in the mountainous country north of the UN forces, waiting to assault them in surprise attack on their two main lines of advance. Another 30,000 Chinese soldiers were at the border ready to cross into Korea and join in the battle if they were needed."
The strangest and most ominous fact in the situation was the inability of United States intelligence, including UN air cover over the skies of North Korea, to discover the movement of any of the Chinese troops that had crossed from Manchuria and taken their battle positions. Their presence was not known until they revealed it in surprise attack.
The Chinese Army and Its Leaders
Why had not American intelligence, with complete command of the skies over the terrain where the Chinese concentrated south of the Yalu, discovered their movement and presence? A fundamental factor in the situation was that the Chinese troop movements during this period were nearly always made at night and therefore were not subject to aerial observation. Before dawn the troops were carefully hidden and camouflaged, and they remained undisclosed during the day. Troop discipline was complete, and harsh if necessary. But even so, by 24 November, when Eighth Army resumed its attack toward the Yalu, it had taken 96 CCF prisoners. These prisoners talked freely and disclosed extensive information, later proved generally correct, about the Chinese forces then in Korea. They identified six Chinese armies in Korea.'2
Korean civilian reports of heavy Chinese troop movements in front of the UN forces were not taken seriously, because they could not be confirmed from other sources, even though they supported the evidence given by Chinese prisoners. The UN military authorities had a strong inclination to believe what they wanted to, and they concluded that conditions were favorable for a quick ending of the war. The intelligence material for a different assessment of the situation was at hand, but it was erroneously interpreted. The strongest sentiment for what proved to be a faulty evaluation of the enemy situation was in the Far East Command in Tokyo, and especially in the Far East commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
CCF march discipline and capabilities were not generally understood in the American forces at this time. It was to be a critical factor not only in the events that unfolded at the end of November 1950 in Korea but also in those that continued on into the first months of 1951. The march performance of the Chinese infantry equaled the best of antiquity. Xenophon describes the retreat of 10,000 Greeks from Persia in 401 B.C. It is one of the classic military movements of all time, averaging a little under 24 miles a day. Roman legions set records seldom surpassed for disciplined and speedy marches. The routine Roman military pace covered 20 miles in five hours, the usual day's march for a legion. Normal training exercises required a legion to perform such marches at least three times a month. In one of Caesar's notable campaigns in Gaul, his troops marched 50 miles in 24 hours to begin the siege of Gergovia.13
The CCF performance in the Korean War compares favorably with these classic military performances of antiquity. A well-documented episode discloses that a Chinese army of three divisions in the winter of 1950-51 marched from Antung, in Manchuria, across the Yalu to its assigned combat assembly area 286 miles away in a period of between 16 and 19 days. One of the divisions, following a circuitous route over mountainous roads and trails, averaged 18 miles daily for 18 days in a march of 324 miles. For Chinese infantry in Korea, the day's march began in darkness after 7 P.M. and ended by 3 A.M. the next morning, a time period of between seven and eight hours of night march. Camouflage and defense measures against airplanes had to be completed before daylight. Every man, animal, and piece of equipment had to be concealed. During daylight hours only small scouting parties moved ahead to select the next night's bivouac area. If emergency factors required daylight movement, all CCF units were under standing orders to become immobile if aircraft approached. Officers were enpowered to shoot at once any man who disobeyed. It was this kind of march capability and discipline that put at least 210,000 Chinese soldiers into place in front of the UN forces in November, and they lay perfectly concealed while hostile aircraft overhead searched the ground below for signs of life. Aerial observers did not see the Chinese soldiers, nor did aerial photographs reveal their presence."'
The Chinese political and military leaders who launched and directed the massive offensive against American and UN forces in Korea at the end of 1950 and in 1951 were all experienced veterans of the Long March to Shensi Province, where they arrived 20 October 1935, one year and four days after breakout from Kiangsi Province in southeastern China. They had also witnessed the subsequent patient and persistent development of Communist military doctrine, power, and successes in the 15 years that followed.
At the head of the Chinese Communist government stood Mao Tse-tung, with Chou En-lai as his foreign minister. The top military command consisted of old-time leaders, nearly all of whom had been young men when they led the Long March from Kiangsi Province in southeast China to Yenan in Shensi Prov
ince in northwest China. At their head stood Chu Teh, commander in chief of the People's Liberation Army. This army was divided into four field armies, in which the might of the Chinese Communist armed forces was concentrated. There was also the North China Field Forces.
Peng Te-huai commanded the First Field Army, Lin Po-cheng the Second, Ch'en Yi the Third, and Lin Piao the Fourth. Peng Tc-huai's First Field Army normally was garrisoned in and responsible for northwestern China, a critical area adjacent to the Soviet border. Lin Piao's Fourth Field Army had been based in Manchuria and northeastern China, adjacent to Korea and eastern Siberia, until it moved south in the final phases of the Chinese civil war and came to rest on the East China Sea coast, opposite Formosa. But it had now moved back to its old base-Manchuria-and was concentrated along the Yalu River boundary with Korea.
In the Chinese intervention in Korea, overall military command of Korean operations was under Peng Te-huai. The first Chinese "Volunteers" that entered Korea were presumably under Kim IlSung's command in the west, opposite the Eighth Army. The Chinese troops of the Third Field Army that conducted the 2nd Phase Campaign in northeast Korea against the X Corps at Chosin Reservoir were under Chinese command exclusively. Since Peng Te-huai was the dominant commander in the Korean War for the Chinese and North Korean forces after late October 1950, a word about him is appropriate.
Peng Te-huai in youth had been a Hunan peasant. Poverty had led him into banditry. Later he became a soldier. He had his own guerrilla band in 1928 when he joined Mao Tse-tung in the Chinese Communist movement. In the 1930s he was second after Chu Teh as deputy commander in chief of the Chinese Communist forces. He helped to organize the First and Second field armies and took over personal command of the First Field Army. When China intervened in the Korean War, he became commander of the so-called Chinese "Volunteers." Peng was a heavily built man "with a body like a bull and the face of a bulldog," said one observer. He never overcame his peasant upbringing and even later in life read only haltingly. His military talent was not universally admitted, but he was impulsive and very aggressive by nature and thus had the potential for leadership. He was also quarrelsome and did not hesitate to dispute with Mao Tse-tung. Within the Chinese forces he was considered a soldier's soldier. He was stubborn and a rugged fighter, fully capable of en during any battlefield hardship. He was popular with his troops. He favored modernization of the Chinese army, with sophisticated weapons and tactics, a position that eventually brought him into conflict with Mao. He fell from grace in 1959, accused of collusion with the Soviets.
During the heavy fighting of the Korean War in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd phases of the Chinese Communist offensives in late 1950 and early 1951, no Chinese military leader figured larger in the American and UN intelligence reports and speculations as the mastermind of Chinese tactics than Lin Piao, commander of the famed Fourth Field Army. It was generally believed on the American side that he commanded the Chinese "Volunteers." There is frequent mention of his name in UN intelligence reports from November 1950 to March 1951, most of it speculative, but always with the assumption that, under Peng Tehuai, he in fact was the field commander of the Chinese troops in Korea. The fact that choice divisions of his Fourth Field Army fought the major part of the early campaigns in the intervention no doubt was a factor in establishing this belief in the minds of American and UN commanders. When General Ridgway arrived in the Far East to take command of Eighth Army, he was told that his opposite number in Korea was Lin Piao.'s And during the course of the MacArthur hearings before the Joint Military Affairs Committees of Congress in 1951, Pentagon officials made several references to Lin Piao as the Chinese commander.
The evidence is convincing not only that Lin Piao was not connected in any way with command of troops in Korea, but also that he was never in Korea during the several major Chinese offensives from November 1950 through June 1951. But since the American commanders thought at the time that he was the enemy commander, and since the crack troops of his Fourth Field Army, who reflected his tactics and training, did drive the Eighth Army out of North Korea, it is perhaps in order to say something about this man.
Lin Piao was one of the authentic heroes of the Long March, having led the advance guard of that historic fighting march. Lin Piao was bom about 1908 in the north of Hupei Province. His real name was Lin Yu-jung, and he was the son of a textile manufacturer. The name that he carried through adult lifeLin Piao-means "Tiger Cat." He was an early enrollee in the Whampoa Military Academy at Canton, then under Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists. When civil war broke out between the Nationalists and the Communists, Lin joined Chu Teh. Subsequently both joined Mao Tse-tung. Lin was a gifted military leader. Following the fame he gained as leader of the Advance Guard in the Long March, at age 28 in Yenan he became the commanding general of the 115th Division of the Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army. He was both courageous and daring. He was seriously wounded fighting the Japanese in Shensi Province in 1938 and went to Moscow for medical attention. A rumor, never fully documented, has him joining the Soviets in the defense of Leningrad in 1941-42.
At the end of the civil war in China, Lin returned to Moscow, possibly because of another wound, after the campaign that carried his Fourth Field Army from Manchuria to the Formosa Strait. His health from this time on was spotty (there is evidence he may have had tuberculosis), and poor health, as well as recent or old wounds, may have been a factor in his not taking a leading role in the Korean War. He was a rival of Peng Te-huai for military preferment. Some years after the end of the Korean War, he became for a period the publicly named heir to Mao Tse-tung. The importance of Lin Piao for us in the Korean War lies in the fact that the American military and political leaders thought that he commanded the best troops of the Chinese Liberation Army that struck the US Eighth Army in northwest Korea in late November 1950 and sent it southward in a massive retreat, without parallel in United States military history.
Intelligence gained later from documents and prisoner interrogations indicates that the XIII Army Group command staff crossed the Manchurian border into Korea on or about 19 November 1950 and arrived that night at what they called Sheng Fang Tung, about 15 miles south of Kanggye. There, in an old mine, the Chinese command staff in Korea, supposedly working under Kim Il Sung, directed the operations of the Chinese forces in Korea.16 This is the same place where Peng established his first headquarters in Korea, as stated earlier.
A few words are needed at this point to describe the nature of the weapons the Chinese "volunteer" forces carried when they intervened in the Korean War. These Chinese soldiers were the same army that had won the Chinese civil war. It was essentially a guerrilla army trained to endure long marches on small amounts of plain food and to fight with light infantry weapons-submachine guns, rifles, grenades, machine guns, and light mortars. Its weapons were not standardized. They were of Japanese, Soviet, and American manufacture. After they won the civil war in 1949, the Chinese Communists added to their arsenal a vast number of American weapons-M-1 rifles, Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs), Thompson submachine guns, light and heavy machine guns, and 60-mm and 81-mm mortars-taken from Chiang Kai-shek's two million Nationalist soldiers who surrendered to them. They also had some American 105-mm howitzers, but these were not at first brought to Korea. Great numbers of former Chinese Nationalist soldiers-sometimes entire divisions-were taken into the Communist armies. These former Nationalist soldiers were used in Korea, integrated into the Communist ranks and kept under the watchful eye of the Communist officers.
Transport and communication in the Chinese forces were primitive. Yet, their prowess as fast-moving light infantry, their numbers, and their use of classic tactics of combining frontal attack to fix the enemy and then sending equal or stronger forces in enveloping moves to attack the enemy flanks and to cut off a retreat route were formidable. These tactics proved almost totally effective against the South Koreans at first and often were equally effective against American units. These tactics were constant
features of Chinese Communist operations in Korea.
The fear that a nation of450 million people might throw into battle increasing numbers of readily available light infantry, even though poorly armed and supplied, was one of the imponderables that influenced the battle in Korea after the Chinese soldiers first appeared. The Chinese peasant was used to political indoctrination and accepted death as a matter of course. He was usually illiterate and therefore could not be trained quickly in the use of technical weapons and equipment, had they been available. His main strengths were superb abilities as a night fighter possessed of raw courage to do as ordered, great physical endurance on the march, and tenacity in attack. The Chinese soldier was or dinarily conscripted from the age of 15 years on up, on the basis of a quota given to each geographic area. Generally, conscription was camouflaged as a method of obtaining "volunteers."
The great variety of small-arms models, calibers, and diversity of manufacturers made for a shortage of ammunition for the Chinese army, except for those instances when large amounts of it had been captured along with the weapons. Perhaps not more than one-third of the Chinese infantry had shoulder arms and handguns; the rest were armed with grenades. The grenadiers often formed the first wave of attackers. They moved into enemy positions throwing grenades and often overran outposts and frequently the first main line of resistance. Other Chinese soldiers armed with automatic weapons (the familiar tommy gun or burp gun) and rifles followed them.
At the time of their intervention, the Chinese forces in Korea had no artillery with them. As a result, they seldom used anything larger than mortar fire in their assaults. Nearly all the larger weapons, such as a few antitank guns, were drawn by animal. Although there was artillery in the Chinese army tables of organization, those units that had any left it behind in China or Manchuria at first, since they then had no way of moving it rapidly and secretly to the Korean battle front. The Chinese also had no antiaircraft guns in Korea at first. They had to rely on infantry machine guns for what little defense they could improvise against air attack. Their best defense was concealment and camouflage, which they did use extensively. The Chinese possessed some Soviet truckmounted rocket launchers.
Disaster in Korea Page 3