The Chinese field army was organized in units called (in descending order) army groups, armies, divisions, regiments, battalions, companies, platoons, and squads, and often fire teams. Their organization below army level was triangular, similar to that of American forces below division level. A Chinese army usually had three divisions, a division had three regiments, a regiment had three battalions, a battalion had three companies (although sometimes companies seemed to be numbered on a regimental basis), a company had three platoons, and a platoon had three squads. A Chinese army would compare roughly in size with an American corps. A typical infantry company had a weapons platoon, which possessed light 60-mm mortars, 3.5-inch rocket launchers, and three light machine-gun squads. Great variation in the number and type of weapons existed among the Chinese units.
A typical regiment would have about 2,500 officers and men. But in such a regiment there might be no more than 400 rifles and carbines, 180 pistols, 200 submachine guns, 60 light machine guns, 18 heavy machine guns, 27 light 60-mm mortars, 12 medium 81-mm (or 82-mm) mortars, 4 heavy 120-mm mortars, 18 rocket launchers, a few small 70-mm howitzers, a few 57-mm recoilless rifles, probably no trucks, perhaps 150 horses and 30 carts, a few field telephones, and probably no radios. One must keep in mind that, in the initial campaigns in Korea, when the Chinese achieved their greatest successes, only one in three or four soldiers, on average, had a rifle, carbine, burp gun, or pistol. Most of the Chinese soldiers were simply grenade throwers."
The first four Chinese armies to cross into Korea were the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 42nd. They crossed the Yalu River between 14 and 20 October. The 50th and 66th armies crossed into Korea about ten days later, so that by the end of the month, the CCF XIII Army Group had six of its armies, with 19 divisions, in North Korea.
Of the five Chinese armies in northwestern Korea facing Eighth Army and the UN allies in the west, only three-the 38th, 39th, and 40th-took part in the fighting in the 1st Phase Offensive. Two others, the 50th and the 66th, were hidden in the hills to the west of the combat area and held in reserve. They were not committed.
The one army that had moved eastward to the Chosin Reservoir area-the 42nd-did not engage in heavy combat except for its 124th Division. That division fought the delaying battles on the road leading up to the reservoir, first against the 26th Regiment of the ROK 3rd Division in late October and early November, and subsequently against the 7th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division. The Chinese 126th Division remained in position around the Chosin Reservoir except for reconnaissance eastward to and beyond Fusen Reservoir. There, one of its regiments had some minor engagements and patrol actions with the 3rd Battalion of the US 31st Infantry Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division. The Chinese 125th Division took up a blocking position on the road leading south from Yudam-ni at the Chosin Reservoir and was not in action.
On 13 November, the 20th Army of the Chinese IX Army Group, Third Field Army, relieved the 125th Division in the vicinity of Yudam-ni. That division then started west and southwest, followed by the 124th and 126th divisions, to join their parent organization, the XIII Army Group of the Fourth Field Army, in front of the US Eighth Army. By the end of the third week of November, these three divisions of the 42nd Army were on the Chinese left (eastern) flank of the CCF XIII Army Group, in the vicinity of Huichon-Tokchon.1°
The Chinese 1st Phase Offensive
A short summary of the results of the Chinese 1st Phase Offensive between 25 October and 8 November 1950 will give the picture of the situation in Korea at the time General MacArthur opened his general attack on 24 November to reach the northern border of Korea. As the last week of October opened, the ROK II Corps, under Eighth Army control, advanced up the valley of the Chongchon River as far as Huichon. There the 7th Regiment of the ROK 6th Division turned northwest over cart tracks toward Chosan on the Yalu. Other parts of the division proceeded west toward Onjong. The Reconnaissance Platoon of the ROK 7th Regiment entered Chosan on 26 October. There they saw scurrying North Koreans cross the bridge into Manchuria. This ROK reconnaissance platoon was the only element of Eighth Army ever to reach the Yalu River and the border. Maj. Harry Fleming, Korean Military Advisor (KMAG) with the ROK 7th Regiment, who accompanied the reconnaissance platoon, was the only American (other than later prisoners of war) to sec the Yalu from the ground in the Eighth Army sector during the Korean War.
On the same day that this reconnaissance platoon moved into Chosan unopposed, 26 October, Chinese forces sprang a trap on the ROK 7th Regiment at Onjong and, during fighting that continued into the night, destroyed or dis persed it. At the same time, the battalion of the ROK 6th Division that had stopped just short of the Yalu below Chosan, while the reconnaissance platoon entered the town, was cut off and destroyed. Two more ROK regiments that hastened toward the scene from Huichon were similarly destroyed or dispersed on 29 October by the Chinese near Onjong. At the end of the month, therefore, the Chinese had destroyed four regiments of the ROK 6th and 8th divisions-the bulk of the ROK II Corps-as effective fighting units. The ROK 7th Division hurried into blocking positions in the valley of the Chongchon River above Kunu-ri and Won-ni to hold in check two Chinese divisions that now poured southwest down the valley from the Huichon area.
Farther west, the ROK 1st Division had advanced northward from the Chongchon valley at the same time the ROK II Corps advanced to its near destruction in the Huichon-Onjong area. It reached Unsan on 25 October. There, on that day, it was the first UN unit to meet Chinese in battle in the Korean War.
The ROK 1st Division commander, Gen. Palk Sun Yup, who had served with Japanese troops many years earlier in Manchuria and had often fought against Chinese, went forward and identified enemy dead and a few prisoners as Chinese. He was certain of it. That day the Chinese pushed back his 11th Regiment. The rest of his division held positions just north and east of Unsan.
At this juncture, the Eighth Army sent the 1st Cavalry Division toward Unsan to help the ROK 1st Division. The 8th Cavalry Regiment led the way. It arrived at Unsan on 30 October, behind the ROK troops, and there relieved two battalions of the ROK 12th Regiment in the line north of Unsan. As the newly arrived troops of the 8th Cavalry Regiment settled into their positions on 1 November just north of Unsan, great smoke clouds darkened the sky in all directions.
Under cover of the smoke haze, large elements of a Chinese division moved into positions to the north, west, and south of the 8th Cavalry. These Chinese cut the road six miles south of Unsan. They stubbornly held their roadblock positions against attacks by the 5th Cavalry Regiment, which came up behind the lead regiment, and prevented all assistance from reaching the latter. Only on the east, where the ROK 1st Division fought desperately to hold its ground, could the 8th Cavalry look for any help.
The night of 1-2 November was a dark and grim one for the American 8th Cavalry troops. The Chinese cut all escape roads and infiltrated the American positions, and organized resistance evaporated. Many of the 8th Cavalry escaped through the hills. On the regimental southern sector, however, the 3rd Battalion was surrounded, without hope of rescue, late in the afternoon of 2 November. Eastward from it, the ROK 1st Division took heavy casualties from Chinese attack and fell back.
Thus, by 4 November at Unsan, elements of the Chinese 115th and 116th divisions of the 39th Army, aided by some units of two other divisions of the Fourth Field Army near Onjong, about ten miles northeast of Unsan, had all but destroyed two ROK divisions and badly crippled another, and ominously for the Americans, Chinese soldiers from the 39th Army had effectively destroyed the 8th Cavalry Regiment. American tank and artillery losses were also heavy at Unsan.
By pulling back all of Eighth Army on the western flank, regrouping parts of I Corps, and rushing up its reserves, General Walker and his Eighth Army were able to hold the lower Chongchon valley from Won-ni and Kunu-ri westward to the Yellow Sea. The Chinese, following up their surprising victories at Onjong and Unsan, attacked Eighth Army in its bridgehead on the north side of the
Chongchon River, from Anju on the west to Kunu-ri on the east, in a series of bloody battles from 3 to 6 November. Driven back everywhere almost to the riverbank, Eighth Army held there. The Chinese troops at this point suddenly faded away northward into the hills.19
Coinciding with this 1st Phase Offensive, a new element entered the warin the air. On 31 October the first Soviet-built MiG-15 entered combat over Korean territory. From then on, the part of Korea bordering the lower Yalu and Manchurian territory near Antung and Sinuiju was to be contested by these planes when American bombers and fighter planes approached. On 8 November the first battle in aerial warfare between jets took place near the Yalu at Sinuiju. Lt. Russell Brown, piloting an American F-80, shot down in flames a MiG-15. F-80s flew escort cover for the first bomber strike against the Yalu River bridges at Sinuiju. Previously, these bridges had been forbidden targets to the bombers.
While the above-mentioned events were taking place on the Eighth Army front in northwestern Korea, the 1st Phase Offensive eastward in the X Corps area was primarily to protect the east flank of the Chinese attack against Eighth Army. It was of a reconnaissance-in-force type, and if necessary it could become a delaying action if enemy forces were encountered. Such an encounter was most likely to occur on the road leading north from Hungnam toward the Chosin Reservoir.
The first solid evidence the X Corps had that Chinese troops were in front of it below the Chosin Reservoir came on 29 October. On that day the ROK 26th Regiment of the 3rd Division, which was advancing toward the reservoir from Hungnam, captured 16 prisoners from the 370th Regiment of the Chinese 124th Division, 42nd Army. Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, the X Corps commander, went to the ROK I Corps headquarters in Hungnam to interview these prisoners. He was convinced from their story that large units of Chinese were in Korea. He reported this information immediately to General MacArthur in Tokyo.
The 7th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division relieved the ROK troops and took over the advance toward Chosin Reservoir. They were from the start opposed by the same Chinese troops the ROKs had encountered. In a series of sharp engagements the Marines learned that at least a Chinese regiment blocked their advance. Elsewhere, the 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry, of the 7th Infantry Division discovered that elements of another Chinese division, the 126th, had penetrated to the east side of the Fuscn Reservoir, some 20 miles east of Chosin Reservoir, in the X Corps zone. Prisoners from the 124th Division revealed that a third Chinese division, the 125th, was in the Chosin area.
Thus, three Chinese divisions, constituting the 42nd Army of the XIII Army Group of Lin Piao's Fourth Field Army, had moved to the Chosin Reservoir region from the main body of the army group, which was in front of Eighth Army in the west. The 125th Division engaged in no combat at this time, its mission being to guard the approaches to Yudam-ni and the reservoir area from the west and southwest.
The CCF 20th Army of the IX Army Group relieved the 125th Division and the 42nd Army on 13 November near Yudam-ni. The 125th Division thereupon started west and southwest to join, together with its two sister divisions that followed it, their parent organization, the XIII Army Group. They arrived before the Eighth Army resumed its advance toward the border on 24 November and took their position in the Tokchon-Huichon area on the left flank of the Chinese army group. Thus, by the beginning of the last week of Novembcr, the XIII Army Group was concentrated in front of Eighth Army in the west, and the larger part of the IX Army Group of the Third Field Army had entered Korea and was in position near the Chosin Reservoir to confront X Corps.
Through the 1st Phase Offensive and up to 24 November 1950, United States battle casualties in the Korean War had been 27,827-21,529 in Eighth Army and 6,298 in X Corps. Of the Eighth Army casualties, 4,157 had been killed in action, 391 more had died of wounds, and 4,834 were missing in action. As both sides prepared for a new offensive in late November 1950, neither Eighth Army nor X Corps knew the size and extent of the Chinese forces in their front. They were so poorly informed and simultaneously so confident of their capability to overcome the Chinese who might oppose them that, on 24 November, when the Eighth Army advance began in the west, and on 27 November, when the X Corps began its advance, the UN command expected a quick victory that would give them control of all Korea to the Chinese border -and end the war.
When President Truman questioned General MacArthur at their meeting on Wake Island on 15 October 1950 about the possibility of Chinese intervention, the general dismissed it as unlikely and said that, if the Chinese tried it, he could destroy them with his air force. In any event, he said, not more than 60,000 would ever get south of the Yalu. But when, a little more than a week later, Chinese in fact did spring out of the Korean hills in surprise attacks and drive the Eighth Army back to the Chongchon River, both MacArthur in Tokyo and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington were surprised. What no one had believed would happen had happened.
Confidence in Tokyo, however, quickly reasserted itself after the Chinese suddenly withdrew from contact on 6 November, and faded away northward into the hills. The Far East Command resumed plans to continue the Eighth Army drive to the Yalu and end the war.
The scare in Washington was not so easily dissipated. There was a running argument in telecommunications between MacArthur's headquarters and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as to the true state of affairs concerning Chinese intervention. What did the future hold? How far should the UN forces try to go northward? The United Nations allies of the United States and South Korea, particularly Great Britain, viewed with alarm and profound skepticism MacArthur's desire to resume the offensive to reach the border. They unflinchingly opposed his desire to bomb Chinese bases in Manchuria and to knock out the Yalu River bridges.
On 6 November MacArthur notified the Joint Chiefs that he intended to have B-29s knock out the bridges over the Yalu at Sinuiju and Antung to stop or slow Chinese reinforcements from entering Korea. American officials in Washington had promised the British government there would be no action that might involve Manchuria without informing them. The Joint Chiefs, acting on President Truman's orders, promptly directed MacArthur to call off these proposed bomber strikes. And they asked him to explain why he found the situation suddenly so dangerous, when previously he had not reported it to be so. He was directed not to bomb any targets within five miles of the Manchurian border. This order went to MacArthur only an hour and 20 minutes before the B-29s were to take off. This directive stung MacArthur to reply vehemently that his command was threatened with destruction. He asked for an immediate reconsideration of the order and that the president be informed of his request.'
This message surprised Washington officials. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, read MacArthur's message to the president over the telephone. After much debate among officials of the administration, Washington gave in to MacArthur in part. They told him he could bomb targets up to the border and that he could bomb the Knrean end of the bridges. In these exchanges on 6 and 7 November, MacArthur estimated for the Joint Chiefs of Staff that there were between 30,000 and 40,000 Chinese troops in Korea but that as many as 350,000 CCF ground troops could be sent into Korea to join the battle. MacArthur assured the Joint Chiefs that he would not violate Manchurian or Siberian territory and that he would not destroy the hydroelectric installations along the Yalu.
The rail and highway connections between China and Korea across the Yalu River were necessarily important in any major Chinese intervention. They would dictate the nature and volume of troop movements and of logistic supply of those troops once they were in Korea. In all, there were 12 railroad and highway bridges across the Yalu and Tumen rivers that separated Korea from Manchuria and Siberia. The most important were those between Antung in Manchuria and Sinuiju in Korea, near the mouth of the Yalu and the west coast of the peninsula. The bridges here were 3,000 feet long and very strong. The American Bridge Company had built the Sinuiju highway bridge in 1900. It was reputed to be as strong as any in the world. The Japane
se had built a sturdy double-track railroad bridge of 12 trusses across the Yalu at Sinuiju in 1934, only 350 yards north of the highway bridge. It was the largest rail bridge ever built by the Japanese. Upstream at Sakchu, a double-track railroad bridge crossed the Yalu, and still farther upstream at Manpojin both a rail bridge and a combination highway and footbridge crossed the river. There were six highway bridges at other locations on the Yalu-Ongondong, Chongsongiin, Linchiang, Hyesanjin, Samanko, and Hoeryong.
Argument over the question of "hot pursuit" was a related issue at this time. MacArthur ardently wanted to have his fighter planes follow the Chinese planes across the Yalu to their bases just north of the river, where they might be destroyed. Washington decided it would be too risky and denied MacArthur this authority.
The Joint Chiefs reacted with increasing caution to the Chinese intervention as November advanced. They suggested to MacArthur on 9 November that his mission, as stated in their previous instructions to him on 27 September-to destroy the North Korean forces-might have to be altered. The Joint Chiefs thought that it might be advisable to abandon his plan to drive to the Yalu and that his forces should go on the defensive and strive to hold what they already had gained.'
Disaster in Korea Page 4