Disaster in Korea

by Roy E Appleman

  On 3 December, when the army had broken contact with the Chinese, the executive officer of the 3rd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Division, wrote in his official journal a truth that characterized one of the American forces' weaknesses during all of 1950 in Korea, to be corrected only after General Ridgway assumed command of the army, and then only gradually as he insisted on the change. The officer wrote, "One error that stands out during and prior to the [Chinese] attack and was a proximate cause of the surprise effected upon us was the lack of ground reconnaissance to the front.."° After 3 December this condition became pronounced. There was virtually no American or UN patrol or other reconnaissance to the north of UN forces to learn the location and movements of the enemy. The Eighth Army was virtually blind for the next two weeks as to where the Chinese were and what they were doing. But in practical terms perhaps it made no difference-the UN forces moved south so rapidly the Chinese could not keep up with them, and they did not try to do so.

  As the Eighth Army retreat got under way and the troops approached Pyongyang, the Joint Chiefs of Staff queried General MacArthur whether he could establish and hold a defensive line across the waist of Korea, using both the X Corps and Eighth Army. General MacArthur replied on 3 December to this suggestion that it was not practicable to attempt to join the two forces and would not add to UN strength. He was already below the waist of Korea.

  On the third, the 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Division started on a long motorized movement to Munsan-ni, below the 38th Parallel. The men loaded on all vehicles available, including tanks, where they covered the decks. Jeeps often carried six men and three or four more on the trailers they pulled. The regiment closed at Munsan-ni at 3 A.M. the next day, covering the 121 road miles in 21 hours, an average of six miles an hour." Col. Charles C. Sloane, Jr., the regimental commander, was evacuated for medical reasons on 6 December, and Col. Edwin J. Messinger succeeded to command of the 9th Infantry. The regiment moved on to Ascom City, between Seoul and Inchon on 7 December, closing there at 10:20 P.M.

  Another major unit, the Turkish Brigade, left Pyongyang the same day for an assembly area far in the rear where it could reequip. It entrained on the south side of the Tacdong River, at Pyongyang, and started for Kaesong.

  At this time a report was finally available as to the strength of the ROK II Corps, which had been routed and disorganized, with an untold number killed, wounded, and missing the first night and day of the CCF 2nd Phase Offensive on 25-26 November. Stragglers from the corps had been assembled in the rear until now it seemed that all who would ever be recovered were on hand. In the ROK rout on the extreme cast flank, 300 troops of the ROK 8th Division, after having been cut off, had made their way on cast through the mountains into the US X Corps zone in northeastern Korea. They had crossed the famous gap. These ROKs were being returned to their division by water transport down the east coast of Korea to the Eighth Army area. The tabulation of the ROK II Corps strength on 3 December appears in table 71'

  Table 7. ROK II Corps Strength, 3 December 1950

  Sourer. Eighth Armv, Command Report, G-3 Sec., G-3 Journal File, 3 December 1950, Box 1136. 'Division Headquarters includes Artillery and special troops.

  General Walker issued the order on 3 December that Eighth Army would withdraw from Pyongyang, beginning at 8 A.M. the next morning. The Army Service Trains had already started for Seoul. Consistent with this order, the Eighth Army Advance CP at Pyongyang closed at noon, 3 December, and opened at the same time at Seoul. Army Operational Order 107 that day indicated an initial defense line would be established in an arc passing through Chunghwa, about 18 miles south of Pyongyang, with a secondary defense line extending from Haeju eastward through Sinmak and Singye to Ichon, 40 air miles south and southeast of Pyongyang. It was well understood in most Eighth Army commands that these two lines were merely phase lines in a general withdrawal to the Imjin River and the defenses of Seoul. The Fifth Air Force had anticipated this withdrawal on 27 November, a week earlier, when General Partridge informed General Stratemeyer that he was making plans for the possible evacuation of the airfields at Sinanju and Pyongyang and all air facilities there because of the course of ground action."

  We have noted that General Walker, on 3 December, ordered the evacuation of Pyongyang. The formal evacuation of the city was to begin the next moming, 4 December. But in fact, Eighth Army's withdrawal through the city and continuation of the movement south had been in progress from 1 December. The troops had not paused in Pyongyang but had continued on south in most cases. General Walker personally made the decision to abandon Pyongyang. Just when he reached this decision is not known, but the pattern of Eighth Army troop movements from 1 December on affords circumstantial evidence that he decided on or about 1 December. Only two days earlier he had assured General MacArthur that he could hold somewhere above Pyongyang.

  The inference that General Walker had decided by 1 December that he could not hold Pyongyang and must have informed General MacArthur that day or the next of his decision, probably in a radio telephone conversation, is given some support by the trip to Korea that Maj. Gen. Doyle Hickey, Far East Command acting chief of staff, and Brig. Gen. Edwin K. Wright, Far East Command G-3, made on 2 December. Apparently MacArthur sent these two staff officers and advisors to Korea to check the situation with General Walker and to judge whether there was any chance of holding the city. According to Maj. Gen. Leven Allen, Eighth Army chief of staff, they concurred in General Walker's decision to abandon Pyongyang.'

  According to Colonel Stebbins, General Walker made the decision because he thought it was necessary in order to save Eighth Army. Walker had witnessed the failure of the ROK 2nd and 5th divisions to drive out the strong North Korean reconstituted army units and guerrillas in Eighth Army's rear to the southeast in the Iron Triangle area. Also, he had realized the continuing menace of Chinese formations south and southeast of Sunchon and to the east of Pyongyang that were engaged in a sweep around the army's right flank and threatening to cut off Eighth Army in the Pyongyang area unless he withdrew the army rapidly. It would appear that General Walker also had some fear that further defeat would cause the ROK forces to crumble everywhere and to desert. He apparently did not have confidence that Eighth Army could confront the enemy and win a general battle against the CCF in the vicinity of Pyongyang. He was unwilling to accept a situation where some CCF units and the North Korean and guerrilla forces would be in the rear of Eighth Army during such a battle.

  General Walker must have known that the great bulk of the CCF in his front, now engaged in the pursuit phase of their victory along the Chongchon, were virtually without ammunition and food and that they were in no condition to meet the Eighth Army, which could select a perimeter defense or a series of such defense positions and which had an adequate supply (and resupply capability) of ammunition and food. With armor and air support, the Eighth Army should have been able to hold those positions and then destroy the CCF in detail, unless they were heavily reinforced quickly from Manchuria. Some commanders might have thought the chances good to win such a battle at Pyongyang. General Walker apparently did not. The examples of German success against vastly superior Soviet forces in World War II were either unknown to General Walker, or he chose not to equate them with his own situation.

  The failure of the UN forces to make a defensive stand at Pyongyang was probably one of the important tactical mistakes of the war. With its air power almost uncontested, with strong armor forces at hand against none for the CCF, with far superior artillery and mortar fire, with the nearby port of Chinnampo now open and the logistic support of Eighth Army, including a repaired railroad line reaching the Taedong River at Pyongyang, the best it had been thus far in the war, well-selected hedgehog-type defense perimeters should have given Eighth Army a good chance of turning back an attack by the CCF, whose logistic and resupply situation at this point must have been inadequate for a sustained assault.

  As Eighth Army G-4, Colonel Stebbins had the
staff responsibility to evacuate war material, food, and supplies of all kind from the depots around Pyongyang and north of the city, ahead of the troop withdrawal itself. He said he started clearing supply points on his own initiative when he sensed that Eighth Army was not going to stand at Pyongyang. He could not get information in advance of the dates the city would be given up, and as a result he estimated he lost two days' worth of army supplies at Pyongyang. Stebbins said he also did not get word later of the intent to evacuate Inchon.'

  After trying to evacuate supply points at Pyongyang for some days, Stebbins finally received word from Maj. Gen. Leven Allen, Eighth Army chief of staff at Seoul, to proceed with the evacuation of supplies of all kinds. After this, Colonel Stebbins said he endeavored to get the supply situation in hand so that, if Korea were to be evacuated, he would be able to get most of Eighth Army's supplies and equipment out of the country. General Walker wanted to destroy everything that might help the Chinese and the North Koreans supply themselves. Colonel Stebbins said that General Walker intended to do just what General Ridgway did later: withdraw Eighth Army south of the Han River to a defensive position based on what might be called the Pyongtaek-Ansong-Chungju line, 50 air miles south of Seoul. There, he said, General Walker intended to stand, or farther south, depending on how rapidly the CCF and North Koreans could pursue south of the Han River, and just when the X Corps could become an effective part of Eighth Army in an integrated battle position across the breadth of Korea.'

  The Stebbins view as stated above of General Walker's intentions is supported by verbal statements of Lieutenant Colonel Bullock of the Eighth Army G-3 Section, but it is not buttressed by documentary evidence. Some verbal test] mony, such as that of Col. Richard W. Stephens, commanding officer of the 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Division, goes to the contrary. He said General Walker came around to division and regimental commanders during the withdrawal and told them, "Don't worry, I am going to get Eighth Army out. Not going to lose more good men in this country." Stephens understood the Army would leave Korea.`

  The British 29th Brigade Covers the Evacuation of Pyongyang

  General Walker assigned the newly arrived British 29th Brigade to cover the evacuation of Pyongyang. The brigade took positions on the northern outskirts of the city on 3 December, with the mission of preventing enemy units from entering the city from the north and northeast until the city had been evacuated. It was then to withdraw south across the Taedong River bridges. The composition of this new and important reinforcement was as follows:

  HQ, 29th Independent Brigade Group-CO, Brigadier Thomas Brodie

  1st Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers-CO, Lt. Col. K. O. N. Foster

  1st Battalion, Royal Ulster Rifles-CO, Lt. Col. R. J. H. Carson

  1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regt.-CO, Lt. Col. J. P. Carne

  8th Royal Irish Hussars (two squadrons of Centurion tanks and C Squadron of the 7th Tank Regt.)-CO, Lt. Col. J. W. Phillips

  45th Field Regt., Royal Artillery-CO, Lt. Col. M. F. Young

  55th Field Squadron, Royal Engineers-CO, Maj. A. E. Younger-'

  Brigadier Brodie was a veteran of the Burma Campaign in World War II. He had the reputation of being a tough Scottish soldier.

  As the 29th Brigade arrived at Pyongyang, its sister brigade, the 27th, was passing south through the city in its withdrawal from covering the Taedong River crossings northeast of the city. There was camaraderie between the two British formations as they met, and the 29th Brigade had a chance to hear some of the 27th Brigade's comments about the Chinese enemy. On the very day the British 29th Brigade went into position north of Pyongyang, 3 December, a small detached group of soldiers from the 27th Brigade was trying to get a stalled weapons tamer started in their withdrawal column from one of their positions northeast of Pyongyang. Absorbed in this effort, they did not notice a group of Chinese infantry approach them. They came up to the working Englishmen unseen. One of them said in good English that they did not intend to hurt the British but wished they would leave Korea. The Chinese soldiers then pushed the weapons carrier free and helped to get it underway.' Such was one of the many quixotic and generous actions they were capable of during the war.

  In its mission as rear guard on the north edge of Pyongyang during 3-5 December, the British 29th Brigade had no combat or contact with the Chinese, as the enemy had not yet pressed that far south, although aerial reconnaissance reported them 20 miles north of the city on 4 December, and in both Yongju and Sunchon.

  The bridges across the Taedong River at Pyongyang were obviously bottle necks to the movement of troops and transport going south. All of them were temporary ones built by Army Engineers on the way north in the past six weeks. Prior to Eighth Army's capture of Pyongyang on 20 October, the Fifth Air Force had destroyed all the bridges across the river. In passing through the city, the Taedong River, generally flowing from northeast to southwest, changes course and runs almost due south, splitting the city into eastern and western parts. While one generally refers to the north and south banks of the Taedong River, to be exact within the city limits of Pyongyang, one would have to speak of the east and west banks. The main part of Pyongyang, with the important public buildings and the North Korean capitol building, where Eighth Army had its headquarters, lay on the north or west side of the river. A large, relatively new industrial suburb sprawled opposite on the south side.

  Two railroad bridges of the Pusan-Seoul-Mukden Railroad had crossed the Taedong, but they were in ruins now from American bombing earlier in the year. Immediately on the north side of the river the railroad bridges led into an extensive rail yard, with the main station adjacent. Upstream from the railroad bridges approximately one and a half miles was the main highway bridge. It, too, had been destroyed, but Army Engineers had constructed a timber bridge at the site, and it now served as the main north-south vehicular bridge across the Taedong. The I Corps had built other temporary bridges farther upstream (northeast) to help carry the heavy military traffic. The Taedong River averages about a quarter of a mile wide at Pyongyang and has a swift current.

  The two largest airfields in the Pyongyang vicinity were named on the Japanese maps then in use the Airport and the Military Air Base. They were adjacent to each other, the Airport being just east of the river at the northeastern edge of the city; the Military Air Base was immediately cast of the Airport. The Military Air Base became what the US Air Force called K-23. A rail spur ran to the Military Air Base, as did a good highway spur from a major road about half a mile south of it. On the south side of the Taedong in the new industrial section of the city, there were rail assembly yards and extensive warehouses and a good roadnet.'

  -As soon as all of Eighth Army had cleared to the south side of the Tacdong River, the British 29th Brigade was to give the signal for I Corps Engineer troops to destroy the three bridges within the city. At 2 A.M. on 5 December the Class-15 bridge was destroyed. The north span of I Corps's 50-ton bridge was destroyed at 6:55 A.M., and about 25 minutes later the south span over the Tacdong was blown. With its job completed, the leading elements of the British 29th Brigade Ieft Pyongyang at 7:32 A.M., and the remainder of the brigade followed. East of the city, the 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry, destroyed a bridge at 6:45 A.M. after the 1st Cavalry Division had crossed it. One of the last units to leave Pyongyang was D Battery, 865th AAA AW Battalion, which had been emplaced at the Military Air Base (K-23) and had provided antiaircraft defense for the field."

  After the British 29th Brigade crossed the Taedong, the demolition work within Pyongyang was actually carried out by I Corps Engineer units. The Engineer Section of I Corps reported to the I Corps commander on 5 December that all planned demolitions in Pyongyang had been completed by 8 A.M. that morning. These demolitions had been in progress since the morning of 4 December at least and covered scores of individual structures and military facilities. Some of these demolitions were in the southern part of the city.

  The Eighth Army demolition policy General
Walker ordered was to destroy everything that could be of military use to the enemy. As to bridges, the criterion was that demolition should be extensive enough that building a new bridge would be easier for the enemy than repairing the old one. Usually this meant the complete destruction of all spans, piers, and abutments, rather than dropping only one or two spans, which would have been adequate to accomplish a tactical delay in enemy movements.

  Initially, Eighth Army held to itself final authority on the execution of demolition targets except river crossings and railroads. On 3 December, however, the day General Walker ordered the evacuation of Pyongyang, the final authority was given to the commander of I Corps, who in turn delegated it to the I Corps Engineer, Col. Emerson C. Itschner. He in turn sent written instructions to all I Corps Engineer units."

  The Engineer demolition work took cognizance generally of the following principles:

  1. Keep at least one good route of withdrawal open for each corps (for practical purposes this meant the US I and IX corps).

  2. Execute any demolition that would delay the enemy.

  3. Destroy all military equipment and supplies that might fall into enemy hands.

  It is worth noting that one long railroad bridge nearing completion under UN forced labor one afternoon was destroyed the next afternoon (4 December).

  At the same time that demolition to delay the enemy was in full swing, construction was in progress farther south to allow the withdrawing army to cross the seven rivers that traversed its planned route of withdrawal. It was a rule that each river must have two bridges in a corps sector capable of carrying the heaviest military loads. One bridge would probably carry all the traffic, but a second bridge would provide assurance that a withdrawal would not be interrupted. At the beginning of the withdrawal, most of the rivers had only one bridgeeither a floating bridge of the modified treadway (or an M-4) type or a combination causeway-timber trestle bridge. Eighth Army Engineer units in rear areas, however, planked over two railroad bridges and built one trestle bridge to provide the second bridge for three rivers. Corps and division Engineers put bridges across two other rivers. At the time, there was only one heavy-capacity bridge across the Taedong River at Pyongyang. A pontoon bridge was built a few miles cast of this bridge to give the necessary back-up facility. In blowing bridges behind a retreating army, it was essential that the timing be carefully controlled. If a bridge was blown too soon, it would isolate friendly troops on the far shore and cut off their retreat; if it was delayed too long, it might allow the enemy to come up and seize it. A classic example of the latter was the Remagen Bridge across the Rhine River that the Allies seized in World War II.