Re: July 1950

["Gernilee Carter Gramling" <cartergramling@msn.com>]

Carl,
   According to Chief Wyrick, Don was in 'Mike' Company.  It appears he was 
with you in that battle midway between Chonui and Choch'iwon - 3d/21/Co M 
that gets the distinction of being called the most perfectly coordinated 
assult.....
    We had pictures of Don having a good time in Japan.  One day spoiled - - 
a few days later in Hell and dead!  18 years old.
    I am amazed, simply amazed.
           Gernilee



>From: <Cfbernard@aol.com>
>Reply-To: KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu
>To: KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu
>Subject: Re: July 1950
>Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 18:30:54 EDT
>
>Gernilee Gramming,
>
>My earlier note to you that cited Lacey Barnett bounced back.  I will try 
>to
>send it again.  Reading this letter brought this account of the Regiments
>first fights to mind.  Was your brother in Hqs or "Mike" Company?
>
>"Love" Company will be in Louisville, KY next weekend.  We can phone you 
>from
>there if you will send us a phone number.  I expect that several of us who
>were at Chochiwon will be there, and two of us from the company in Japan.
>You need contact with one of our officers who was taken prisoner during 
>this
>fight.  He may be in Louisville as well.
>
>He is Eli Culbertson.  His address will be on to you shortly.
>
>Best,
>
>Carl Bernard
>
>
>OSAN, CHONUI, AND CHOCHIWON,  THE 21st INFANTRY REGIMENT'S FIRST THREE
>BATTLES IN KOREA
>
>Who and What We Were
>
>To the Japanese people we were the victorious, occupying army astride their
>industrious, talented, martial nation.  We say ourselves committed and
>engaged in reorienting them to become a positive, but peaceful economic 
>force
>in Asia.  We even thought to raise the status of Japan's women by extending
>them voting and property rights.  Indulgent and overconfident in the 
>American
>nuclear umbrella, we seldom engaged in field exercises, involving ourselves
>chiefly with housekeeping and garrison duties.  All units were 
>under-strength.
>
>Our first fight in Korea was with 540 men who had to move up, locate, and
>prepare a defensive position in less than five days; naturally, we were
>roundly defeated. Compare this preparation and result with five months of
>preparation and the 400,000-plus troops involved in our Persian Gulf 
>conflict
>
>Many of the WWII weapons we took to Korea had been condemned by our own
>division ordnance inspectors as "unfit for combat."   For example, a 
>sergeant
>and I taught a class on flame-throwers the month before we embarked; but we
>had to cannibalize all eight weapons in the Regiment to get two that 
>worked.
>All had "503 PIR" stenciled on them by the 503rd Parachute Infantry 
>Regiment
>that had dropped onto Corregidor with them five years earlier.
>
>General Matthew Ridgway, the splendid soldier who brought us back from 
>being
>a beaten Army headed off the Korean Peninsula in a near-panic motorized
>retreat, said we had gone to Korea in a  "... state of shameful
>un-readiness," striking a forceful corrective theme
>
>Our national age-old tradition that we didn't need an Army once the enemy 
>at
>hand was beaten. Hiroshima and Nagasaki persuaded us that ground forces 
>were
>no longer relevant, so we slashed our defense budget and the size of our
>forces. We filled our intelligence services with incompetents, also
>traditional, and deliberately chose to assign our least qualified people to
>infantry units that would be first in combat.  As a final error, personnel 
>in
>Japan were constantly moved, destroying unit cohesion - the most beautiful
>word in the lexicon of soldiers. Combat units survive on personnel who know
>and trust each other.
>
>A capable fighting unit is NOT just a set of well-trained and competent
>individuals.  A brief illustration:  I was one of two lieutenants in the
>regiment trained as parachutists.  This got me sent to the airfield at 
>Kokura
>to load out TFS, to which I did not belong.  Colonel Smith said, "Stay on 
>the
>plane.  I've got work for you."  As my fourth platoon in eight months, this
>ensured me about the same close personal contacts as a hired gun.
>
>What We Did
>
>The official history is unkind about what happened to my platoon full of
>strangers in our first fight.  It says we failed to get the word to 
>withdraw
>and didn't know the rest of the outfit had left.  True, and most of the
>platoon was destroyed because we stayed too long in a losing fight
>
>The TFS Executive Officer, Major Floyd Martin attributed the reason that my
>new TFS platoon never received the withdrawal order at Osan to the company
>commander's telling Brad Smith that I was dead and my platoon gone. This
>misstatement left my platoon serving as a rear guard for a short time, 
>rather
>than the close-in combat outpost line (COPL) role originally required by 
>our
>location.
>
>Before the NK infantry ground attack began, I'd gone back with my bazooka
>gunner to the ditch that led to a road splitting our company positions,
>keeping me alive for the horror of Chochiwon six days later.  I had heard 
>the
>Bazookas firing and could see the tanks going on through anyway, making me
>believe our young gunners were missing their targets
>
>Another platoon leader, 2/Lt Jansen Cox (murdered as a POW) was there 
>already
>with his Bazooka team, and we worked from the relatively safe locale of the
>ditch.  2/Lt Ollie Connor, another platoon leader originally from I 
>Company,
>was on top of the hill-knob just south of us. (The T-34's coaxial MGs were
>Jan's and my only danger, and we were safe as soon as the big tube passed 
>us
>by.)  The eight hits I got myself with no discernible effect on the passing
>T-34s corrected my impression of gunners firing wide, and it taught me a
>valuable lesson for Love Company's fight the following week
>
>In his On To Berlin. General Gavin details burying parachutists in Sicily
>with bits of Bazookas ground up in their bodies.  The seats in Hell closest
>to the fire are for Army officers who knew the Bazooka didn't work and did
>not alert our soldiers to its inability to kill tanks, while keeping the
>larger, much more effective 3.5-inch rocket launcher back in the States.
>
>We could not bring one wounded sergeant with us. We left him with a Korean
>farmer with a wheelbarrow.  We gave him my rose gold Longines wristwatch
>(poker game) with a note asking the first American unit he met to give the
>farmer $100 cash for delivering the sergeant.  They arrived in Pusan on the
>8th, making it to the coast and down on a fishing boat!  I don't know if 
>the
>farmer got his money.  It took me and the stragglers I had gathered up 
>three
>days of prudent walking around North Korean units to reach our retreating
>forces.
>
>Our group was too large.  After the third time we were nearly caught, I
>detailed a very young first-rate soldier who had been walking scout for us 
>to
>take about five men with him and another trail south.  This was buried in 
>my
>memory until 1985 at a TFS reunion in Ohio when a tall old man came up to 
>ask
>if I remembered him.  It was the same guy; they got back a day before usI 
>met
>the 34th Infantry Regimental Commander very early in the morning three days
>later at Chonan.  We had broken into a schoolhouse near Ansong and torn a
>large map from a geography book that had the road south to Chonan on it.
>Scraps of a South Korean recon unit had been with us the day before, 
>helping
>with locations.  Their CO shot one of his men who wanted to surrender and
>turn us in as proof they were willing to become good communists.
>
>We had gone sharply east from Osan and were in hilly country until forced 
>to
>go west to regain the main road.  I had located all the NK tanks we had 
>seen
>(only tanks; we would not have been able to evade infantry) on my map, and
>explained their location to the Colonel. Some were just outside Chonan!  
>(The
>Colonel was killed fighting them later that morning.)  I described the 
>fight
>at Osan to him as well as I could, with a particular emphasis on the
>invulnerable tanks.  I was adamant about the impossibility of our Bazooka
>killing tanks, even from the flank where I had been shooting.  He asked
>whether I had pulled the rocket's safety clips before loading and firing, 
>and
>speculated that the fuses were possibly too old or had been badly stored,
>hence damaged in Japan.  The fragments I had in my face and hands helped me
>assure him that they were exploding.  I showed him how we were perfectly 
>safe
>firing from down in our ditch after the big gun with the co-axially mounted
>MG had dragged by
>
>I thought that some of our bazooka rounds had not exploded, and attributed
>this to the warhead not having time to arm because we were too close.  Jan
>had said something like this at the time. The Colonel had someone with him
>who knew these were T-34s, describing a slanting, hexagonal turret.  I had 
>no
>idea earlier what kind of tank it was.
>
>  My discussion with him was also about the artillery FO who had been with 
>me,
>and the fact that we had lost communication, hence had almost no support
>after the first tanks went through us. They tore up our wire while the rain
>was taking out our obsolete radios.  Combined arms training could have
>identified the problem of mixing tank treads and telephone wire; alas,
>housekeeping in Japan left little time for such things
>
>Artillery would have made a difference when the Korean infantry dismounted
>and moved in those long lines around us.  I mentioned that my platoon's .30
>caliber machine gun, and the BARs were not effective once the North Koreans
>first got off their trucks some 1000 yards out.  The .50 cal might have
>reached them (firing from a knob several hundred yards behind me) but the
>Koreans were well out of my range until dispersing just before their 
>assault.
>  This is almost the same story as at Chochiwon, particularly the long 
>columns
>walking around us.  We fired, and they kept going on their course
>
>I had thought I was on loan to "B" Company and went on back to "Love" after
>Doc Duerk had finished patching me up and dosing me with medicinal alcohol,
>thoughtfully keeping me overnight on one of his stretchers.  Captain Cox 
>had
>given away my platoon, but said there would be one available shortly; very
>true
>
>A and D Companies, the still usable elements of the 21st Infantry 
>Regiment's
>First Battalion, not committed at Osan, were in a blocking position at 
>Chonui
>when they were attacked early on 10 July by a force they could not contain.
>Their forced withdrawal caused a number of their men to be left in
>uncoordinated fragments on position; not a defense.  The Regiment's Third
>Battalion was directed to counterattack to recover the blocking position
>about noon on 10 July.  This well-done effort succeeded despite 
>considerable
>resistance by North Koreans who had not yet established a coherent defense 
>on
>the positions they had seized.  We rescued about ten men from A Company.  
>We
>found four men on the 4.2 heavy mortar position with their hands tied 
>behind
>them with telephone wire, each shot in the head.  One was a corporal in
>khaki, a reporter from the Stars and Stripes.
>
>Our night withdrawal back to our original positions north of Chochiwon was
>tightly controlled, despite the dislocations caused by the numbers we had
>killed, wounded  and evacuated during the counterattack.  K Company's
>positions were partially occupied by the North Korean soldiers able to 
>flank
>us when we were focused at Chonui.  They fought much of the night; K 
>Company
>was forced into locations slightly different from where they had prepared
>defenses on 9 July
>
>The Koreans attacked our just-evacuated positions at Chonui at first light,
>and moved on through them to our new locations in heavy fog.  One of their
>elements moved as close to our front as they could and kept us under 
>sporadic
>fire.  As the fog cleared, and we could see something over three hundred
>yards to our front, trotting formations were visible scurrying eastward
>parallel to our positions.  This was almost the same situation as at Osan 
>on
>the 5th.  My light machine gun and that of the third platoon were not able 
>to
>stop their flanking movement here either.  The company mortars were 
>shooting
>for first platoon. Our artillery, unknown to us, had already been taken out
>by infiltrators.  Our problematic ally, the USAF took out its own FAC 
>early.
>It was not the last time the magic pill of air power would fail us
>
>Love Company's idiotic "hold at all costs" order kept us in place.  We got
>relief from this at 1100 hours, and were authorized to pull back at 1130.
>Captain Cox gave me the artillery FO and instructions to stay on my 
>position
>until then. We were defending against what the official history later
>described as: "This attack on the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry was one of 
>the
>most perfectly coordinated assaults ever launched by North Koreans against
>American troops." Our defense was later described as "...the most 
>impressive
>performance yet of American troops in Korea"; small comfort to the 
>company's
>men who paid its costs.
>
>Unknown to us the Koreans had already flanked our positions and had machine
>guns on the ridge behind us before launching their "pinning" attack.  Our
>ammunition was already diminished by the previous day's fight, and the well
>installed North Korean roadblocks to the company's rear kept us from being
>resupplied.  Most survivors of this fight went due south in small groups 
>into
>the NK force behind us that had gotten there by going around our flanks.
>Twenty-seven of these men found they had no option but surrender.  A dozen 
>of
>these did not survive the stay in "Tiger's Camp." ('Johnny's list,' kept in
>his toothpaste tube by one of the 15, tells when, how, and where these and
>other POWs died.  See the Readers Digest of January, 1998
>
>The lucky handful with me who covered the final withdrawal went west
>immediately across the road from where the BN CP had been, crossed the
>railroad track and the river,  surviving to fight again.  The lessons: 
>first
>be lucky; then keep a clip of ammunition for the pullout you may have to
>make; and never willingly  take the desperate possibility of living as a 
>POW.
>  The official history intoned: "One officer of L Company [me] who came out
>with some men said that after he and others had removed an enemy machine 
>gun
>blocking their escape route, some uninjured men by the side of the road
>simply refused to try to go on.  One noncom said, 'Lieutenant, you will 
>have
>to go on, I'm too beat up.  They'll just have to take me.'" I never learned
>if he survived prison camp since he was not from Love Company, but the odds
>were grim
>
>Two months later I identified the bodies of a number of those still there 
>who
>had been KIA or wounded early in the fight.  All the wounded had been 
>killed,
>and also many who had surrendered.  Graves Registration led me by the hand,
>sobbing much too hard to see, through our abandoned positions and the
>battalion aid station to name the ones I could
>
>Almost all of the men captured from Love Company were taken after we had
>stayed much too long above Chochiwon because of the order that kept us in
>place. Captain Cox, some of our veteran NCOs, and the replacements we had
>received made a great difference, and the company fought surprisingly well.
>We delayed the North Koreans for two days, but at great cost
>
>What We Learned
>
>Regarding rifle companies, taking data still true today, almost 90 % of
>WWII's war casualties (killed, captured, and wounded) were in the Army.  Of
>these, about 90 % were in the infantry's rifle platoons.  I suspect that 90 
>%
>of the other casualties were Marine infantrymen.  Essentially, these 
>numbers
>say that being in an infantry rifle platoon in combat means you are going 
>to
>be killed or wounded; not if you will be hit, but when and how bad
>
>The most effective leader of fighters I've ever known was the sergeant who
>had deserted the 24th Infantry Division's headquarters to come forward to 
>our
>rifle company.  My watching everything he did, understanding why, and
>imitating him is likely why I'm alive today.  Even though he was younger 
>than
>I, his previous experience with Merrill's Marauders was far more relevant
>than my non-fighting role in the 7th Marines. You may never encounter such 
>an
>exemplar of military virtue when you need him most, but borrow the right
>things from each of the best you do come across.
>
>This sergeant burned the first tank we killed an hour after we had wasted 
>its
>crew.  He had poked a loaded carbine's muzzle through the pistol port they
>opened to shoot us off the back of their tank, and his ricochets took out 
>the
>crew.  I asked him later why he was burning it, as the crew was already 
>dead.
>  He answered: "I want them others to know where this one is, what happened 
>to
>it, and for them to be discouraged about the idea of coming where we are."
>
>The only flaw in his theory was the noxious brown trail of smoke that 
>helped
>US Air Force pilots see it.  They strafed it in the middle of our position
>for the next two hours!  We were dug in so well by then that none of us 
>were
>hit.  DOUBLE LESSON: dig yourself in if any aircraft overfly the area, as
>they do not discriminate well.  Do not count on your own planes to solve 
>your
>problem with dug-in enemy infantry.  This only happens in Hollywood 
>scripts.
>Note also, that much of the advantage we think our airplanes should provide
>disappears as the enemy quickly learns to dig in too.
>
>Simply stated: decorations for the infantry's fighters at platoon level are
>awarded in an erratic manner, and too few of those earned are ever granted.
>Most are not because men in rifle squads see a world few others do, and 
>many
>at these levels are often not able to describe what they have seen even if
>they are aware of its significance.  Also, there are few persons with whom
>they can talk
>
>S/Sgt. Hugh Brown had deserted forward from the Division's headquarters on
>July 1st  to join "Love" company.  We found this out when proposing a
>battlefield commission for him while we were still on the Naktong.  He left 
>a
>hospital without permission after his second wound in late September, 
>because
>being promoted required 30 days on the line; he did not want to return to
>Japan as the junior officer in the company (we innocents thought the war 
>was
>over after Seoul was retaken
>
>The backbone of the Army is its rifle squads and platoons.  Their 
>leadership
>is "absolutely critical."  The words: your team has to function after you 
>get
>hit. This means you must prepare all of them to lead it when you are gone.
>Few circumstances let men prepare their people for this, the ultimate
>responsibility of a leader
>
>My purpose is to tap my experience, exposure, and observations, to help
>soldiers and Marines better learn and prepare for the world in which they
>must work.  General Ridgeway called this "the aimed fire war," the focus of
>which is to help fighters think about what it takes to carry out their
>greatest responsibility, leading their fellows for some of what may be the
>last minutes of their lives.  By the circumstances of this work, fighter
>leaders are vulnerable, and often short lived.  The term "leader" is  a
>formal designation, but its affirmation is always in the hands of those who
>are led.
>
>Men fight for comrades, those with them in the battle; they do not fight 
>for
>larger and more glorious goals.  Note that the "fighting" I am speaking of 
>is
>an intimate horror to which only walking infantry are exposed and must
>endure.  My word picture of fighting: "Crawling on your belly like a 
>serpent
>close enough to throw a grenade at the hostile wretch with the noisy 
>machine
>gun."  This narrow view allows for one to throw the grenade and another to
>stand up and shoot the gunner when he swings his tube around to kill the
>grenadier.
>
>Machine gunners come with support crews who stay by knowing and countering
>your form of attack.  Being outfought comes at high cost, with no appeals!
>Such roles are ultimate unnatural acts that neither you nor the grenade guy
>may survive.  There are no other solutions, however; do not expect Rambo to
>come up to do it for you.  You and your team are the only sure resource you
>have for staying alive.  Fighting means moving in isolation with the rest 
>of
>your rifle squad into a lonesome, menacing void.  Your psychic or material
>resources may be few: what you have at hand, acquired, hoarded, and fully
>mastered.
>
>Your most valuable asset is earned confidence in yourself, bolstered by 
>what
>you know of your fellows.  The sound of a machine gun includes the screams 
>of
>the men it hits.  This makes your confidence transient at best, and subject
>to getting used up.  The role and responsibility of the leader in all this 
>is
>to earn, acquire, and share this critical confidence with all of his men.
>The operative word is earn.
>
>In a body of fighting men, be it a four-man fire-team, the remnants of a 12
>man squad, or even a large unit like the 22 men still left in your platoon,
>everyone is responsible for all the others.  Survival is mutually 
>dependent.
>Your role is taking care of yourself and each of them as you sort out how 
>to
>accomplish your mission, and then set about carrying it out.  A crucial
>phrase is mutual trust, and again, this must be earned.  Bobby Burns: "Wad 
>a
>gift the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us," is precisely what
>each leader must distill within himself: the burden and exultation in the
>eyes of the men responding.
>
>The attention a leader gives the mission and those responsible for 
>executing
>it is the first part of hostilities, indispensable mutual confidence
>building.  The building blocks must be both psychic and physical.  
>Mastering
>needed tools may including some as simple as treating blisters or wounds,
>clearing a jammed rifle, and hitting what one shoots at, but it must be
>automatic and done very well.  Observe everyone, but especially the most
>effective of the leaders in your outfit.  Imitate these gifted and/or
>experienced ones!  Put yourself in their shoes to better understand what 
>they
>do.  Think about how to orient yourself to do the same things.  Such men 
>may
>be above or below you in rank.  Relative status does not and should not 
>limit
>what you can learn from any of them
>
>Fighting that "distinguishes" soldiers from their fellows is too seldom
>recognized in the field.  This stems from the fact that those who fight, 
>the
>routine activities of rifle squads, often heroic, encounter those that far 
>up
>front who are not writers and may not  recognize what actions merit
>recognition.  Nevertheless, combat decorations have great importance; 
>nowhere
>is the strict truth about what has happened more important.
>
>Napoleon remarked to the effect that a man would go to the "...gates of 
>hell
>for a bit of ribbon to wear on his chest," a mystique of combat.  
>Infantrymen
>are the persons who earn these honors, yet these usually fail to be 
>awarded.
>That is the main reason the Combat Infantry Badge is so important and the
>reason why some qualified men wear it only.
>
>Being terrorized by the circumstances in which you find yourself in battle 
>is
>natural and wholly concentrates the mind, but it must not numb it.  Just
>knowing this may happen is the best protection from it you can muster.  
>Good
>enough, leave your shelter and as you crawl towards that tank, keep looking
>for an open port; and look hard for the infantry he may have deployed to
>protect his precious hardware from hard cases like you.
>
>Note that my focus on tanks is not incidental.  The most terrifying sound 
>you
>will ever hear is the crunching sound of tank tracks very close by.  Do not
>think that their crews have become evil by confinement in their steel 
>boxes,
>but they are looking to grind your body dead or alive under their treads.
>This is simply the most effective psychological warfare they can practice 
>on
>those infantrymen who survive.  A tanker's immediate intention is to lower
>the morale of those of you who are still able to watch and every man is a
>large sack of blood, alive or not.  This nasty fraud has been often known 
>to
>work
>
>Can such psychic shocks be overcome?  Yes, indeed.  Errant thoughts such as
>anticipating ones own sudden death can momentarily paralyze the mind, 
>making
>the outcome even more certain, or they may make it easier to throw down an
>empty rifle to plead for life; bad outcomes better avoided by thinking and
>planning in advance.
>
>A former Army Chief of Staff acknowledged a heartfelt theme our nation 
>needs
>to embrace:   "NO MORE TASK FORCE SMITHS."  The following quote is from the
>manual the troops in the Gulf used
>
>"History has shown that sometimes the troops are misinformed on the
>capabilities of a piece of equipment or a unit's capability to execute a
>mission in a specified time.  This misconception is enhanced by limits to
>training and shortcuts in training to meet mission goals.  As an example 
>Task
>Force Smith, which as a well-trained unit, was not told of the inability of
>the 2.36 inch rocket to penetrate the frontal armor of North Korean tanks,
>panic set in after rounds bounced off the front of the tanks
>
>One might well interpret this to mean that we shouldn't buy exotic Stealth
>bombers just to keep aerospace workers employed.  It certainly means that 
>our
>intelligence must take on new qualities and become adequate and timely.  It
>means that we must retain and assign our most competent leaders and 
>soldiers
>to man "first to fight" units.  And it means that our Senators and
>Congressmen must insist on fielding an Army that is well equipped and
>properly trained.  It is certain to be needed again one day
>
>Think about the wastebasket in your office catching fire from one careless
>person still smoking cigarettes; a cup of coffee puts it out with little
>fuss.  The garden hose is required  if the office is burning,  the fire
>department if the building itself begins to flame. You'll be dynamiting the
>buildings that are not burning to stop the conflagration if the whole block
>goes up.  The lesson for the Army in this: Prepare well and ahead of the
>crisis.
>
>A recent book on Korea by John Toland (In Mortal Combat) declares that the
>Korean War  "... may eventually turn out to have been the decisive conflict
>that started the collapse of communism.  In any case, those who fought and
>died in that war did not fight and die in vain."  This seems a reasonable
>historical assessment.
>
>
>

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