Kunu Ri Pass

OSAN, CHONUI, AND CHOCHIWON, THE 21st INFANTRY REGIMENT'S FIRST THREE BATTLES IN KOREA

Who and What We Were

Think first about what we were doing in Japan. We were an occupation Army controlling this industrious, talented and warlike people as they oriented themselves away from military conquest to becoming a positive force in their part of the world.

All our units were under-strength. Our primary jobs had been housekeeping and garrison duties. We were seldom together in the field. Our first fight in Korea was with 406 men who had to find, move up to, and prepare a fighting position in less than five days. We were roundly defeated. Compare this with the over 400,000 troops and five months of preparation in the Gulf conflict.

There are many gloomy things to say about the lack of preparedness of the units we took to Korea. Our weapons were relics from World War II; many had been condemned by our own division ordnance inspectors as "unfit for combat." This was a true evaluation; they were not. An aside, and an illustration of this: one sergeant and I taught a class on flame-throwers the month before we went to Korea. We had to cannibalize all eight of those in the Regiment to get two working models for our class. All eight had 503 PIR stenciled on them. The 503rd was the Parachute Infantry Regiment that had parachuted onto Corregidor five years earlier.

There is another quotation I want to use as a summary theme.
General Matthew Ridgway, the splendid soldier who brought us back from being a beaten Army headed off the Korean Peninsula in a motorized -- near panic -- retreat, said we went to Korea in a: '... state of shameful un-readiness.'

General Ridgway was correct. We were not ready. Why not? How did the victorious American Army of World War II become "shamefully" unready just five years later? Is this relevant for those of you who have sons of an age to replace us in a new war? Can this happen again? What is the role of we elder citizens in seeing that it does not?

What happened is easy to answer. We followed our age-old national tradition, believing we didn't need an Army anymore after the enemy we were fighting was beaten. Hiroshima and Nagasaki persuaded us that ground forces were no longer relevant now that we had nukes in hand. We slashed our defense budget and the size of our forces. We filled our intelligence services with incompetents continuing another enduring American tradition. And we chose to assign our least qualified people to units that would be first in combat.

One last horror: personnel moved constantly in Japan, and a
combat unit lives on people knowing and trusting one another. Cohesion, the most beautiful word in a soldier's lexicon and knowing an outfit takes a lot of it. A set of well-trained and competent individuals are NOT a competent fighting unit. A brief war story to illustrate this: I did not belong to Task Force Smith. I was one of the two lieutenants in the regiment trained as parachutists. This got me sent to the airfield at Kokura to load out TFS. Colonel Smith said: "stay on the plane. I've got work for you." This was my fourth platoon in eight months!

What We Did

The official history is unkind about what happened to me and my platoon of strangers in that first fight. It says we did not get the word to withdraw and did not know the rest of the outfit had left. True, and my platoon was destroyed because we stayed too long in a losing fight.

     The Task Force Executive Officer, Major Floyd Martin once told me the reason my TFS platoon never received the withdrawal order at Osan. (official history). He attributed this to the company commander telling Brad Smith I was dead (!) and my platoon gone. This left my platoon serving inadvertently as a rear guard for a short time, rather than the sort of "close-in" COPL (combat outpost line) role our location had given us originally.

My having gone back earlier-before their infantry ground attack began-with my "bazooka" gunner to the ditch (culvert?)that led to the road splitting our company positions, kept me alive at 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. Another platoon leader, 2/Lt Jansen Cox 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 just south of us. (The T-34's co-axial MGs were Jan and my's only danger; we were safe as soon as the big tube passed us by.)

     The eight hits I got myself with no discernible effect on their passing T-34s corrected my impression of gunners missing targets. It taught me a valuable lesson for Love Company's fight the following week.

     General Gavin talks of burying parachutists on Sicily with bits of this dreadfully insufficient weapon ground up in their bodies, in his On To Berlin. The seat in Hell closest to the fire is reserved for the Army officers who knew the Bazooka didn't work and never alerted our generation to its inability to kill tanks, while keeping the larger and much more effective 3.5-inch rocket launcher back in the States.

     We could not bring a wounded sergeant with us. We left him with a Korean farmer with a wheelbarrow. We gave him my rose gold Longines wristwatch (poker game on the way to Japan) and a note asking the first American unit to provide him $100 cash for delivering the sergeant. They arrived in Pusan on the 8th! They went to the coast and down on a fishing boat. I don't know whether he got his $l00. (My ability to put things out of my mind that are unpleasant or that I'm ashamed of included this until I was told in September 1950 that he got back.)

It took me and the stragglers I gathered up, three days of prudent walking through the-North Korean units to reach our retreating forces. Typical of my convenient memory: 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 road south. Our group was too large. 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 and they got back a dav before us.

I met the 34th Infantry Regimental Commander very early in the morning three days later at Chonan. We had broken into a school-house near Ansong and torn a large map from a geography book that had the branching of the two roads south to Chonan on it. Scraps of a South Korean unit (recon as I recall) had been with us the day before and had helped me with locations. Their CO shot one of their men who wanted to surrender and turn us in as proof they were willing to become good communists. We had gone sharply Eest from Osan and were in hilly country until we had focused on going West to regain the main road. I had located all the NK units 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!

I described the fight at Osan to him as well as I could, with a particular emphasis on the invulnerable tanks and the effort Jan and I had made down at the culvert while Ollie was shooting from the knob he was on. I was adamant about the impossibility of the bazooka killing tanks, even from the flank where I was 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 at least. I showed him how we were perfectly safe firing from down in our culvert after the big gun with the co-axially mounted MG had
dragged by.

I thought some of our bazooka rounds had not exploded but 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 and described a sort of slanting, hexagonal turret. I had no idea what kind of tank it was, of course.

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. The tore up our wire while the rain was taking out our obsolete radios. Having artillery would have made a difference when the Korean infantry was dismounted and moving in those long lines around us. I also told him that my platoon's machine gun, and the BARs we were firing at the NK infantry were not effective when the North Koreans first got off their trucks. The .50 cal might have reached them (it was firing from a knob several hundred yards behind me) but the Koreans were well out of my range until they were dispersed, i.e., 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 never understood that I was transferred officially to "B" Company. I thought I was "on loan," and went on back to "Love" after Doc Duerk had finished my patching, my "dosing" with medicinal alcohol, and keeping me for the night 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 21" 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. The largest group of men A Company we rescued was about ten. We found four men on the 4.2 in 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 withdrawal well after dark back to our original positions north of Chochiwon was tightly controlled, despite the dislocations caused by the numbers we had wounded, killed, 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. The fought much of the night; "K" Company was forced into slightly different locations than where they had prepared their defense on 9 July.

     The Koreans attacked our just-evacuated positions at Chonui at first light, and then moved on through them to our new locations. The fog was heavy! One of their echelons moved as close to our front as they could and kept us under sporadic fire. As the fog cleared and we could see as much as three hundred yards to our front, trotting formations were visible scurrying parallel to our positions (eastward). This was almost the same situation as at Osan on the 5th. My light machine guns and those of the third platoon were not able to stop their flanking movement here either. The company mortars were shooting for first platoon. Our artillery had already been taken out by other infiltrators. This was unknown to us. The USAF took out our FAC early with machine gun fire, making their support problematic at best.

    Love Company was given an idiotic 'hold at all costs' order to stay in place. We got a 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 said: "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 given its costs.

     Unknown to us, the Koreans had already flanked our positions and had machine guns on the ridge behind us before their "pinning" attack was launched. Ammunition was already diminished by the previous day's fight; the well installed North Korean road-blocks to the company's rear kept us from being re-supplied. Most survivors of this fight went due south in small groups into the force behind us that had gotten there by going around our flanks. 27 of these men found they had no option but surrender. Only 15 of these survived their stay in "Tiger's Camp." ('Johnny's list,' kept in his toothpaste tube by one of the 15 tells when, how, and where these 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; the railroad track; the river; and survived to fight another day. The lessons: first be lucky; then keep a clip of ammunition for the pull-out you may have to make; and never take the desperate possibility of living as a POW. Again the official history: "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 many 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.' " He was not from Love Company so I do not know if he survived prison camp, but the odds are pretty grim.

     I identified the bodies two months later of a number of those still there who had been KIA or wounded early in the fight. All the wounded were killed, and many of those 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 these.

     Almost all of the men captured from Love Company, after we had stayed much too long above Chochiwon, were caught because of the unreasonable order that kept us there. The company fought surprisingly well. Capt Cox, some of our veteran NCOs and the replacements we had received (legal as well as the fellow who deserted forward from Division Headquarters, S/Sgt Hugh Brown) made the difference. Their presence could not overcome the orders we had. We did cost the North Koreans two days at a horrible cost to ourselves.

What We Learned

     I want to say something else about rifle companies to set the tone for the rest of my remarks. My data is from World War II, but they hold for today. Almost 90 per cent of this war's casualties (killed, captured, and wounded) were in the Army. Of this 90 per cent, about 90 per cent were in the infantry's rifle platoons. I suspect that 90 per cent of the other casualties were Marine infantrymen. These numbers say that being in an infantry rifle platoon in combat means you are going to be killed or wounded. The question is not IF you are going to be hit. You are. The questions are 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 then imitating him is likely why I'm alive today. He was even younger than me! His previous experience with Merrill's Marauders was much more relevant than my non-fighting role in the 7th Marines.

     You may never find such an exemplar of military virtue as he was, but borrow the right things from each of the best men you come across. Example: 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. His answer: "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 weakness in his theory was the noxious brown trail of smoke that helped our 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 anyone's aircraft are in the area, as they do not discriminate very well; and do not ever believe your own airplanes will solve the problems with your enemies' dug-in infantry. This only happens in Hollywood. Note also, that their infantry's learning very quickly to dig in,neutralized much of the advantage we thought our airplanes were providing.

On reflection, 1/Lt Hugh Brown, "Love" Company, 21' Infantry surely earned the Medal of Honor for his heroic stand on "Sleeping Bag Hill" in February. Wounded early, he and the remnants of his platoon bold his flanking position when a hard charging Chinese regiment drove the two center platoons of the company back. They also forced the left flank rifle platoon up the ridge from its initial location, widening the gap.

    Hugh solidified his critical holding with the reluctant platoon sent him from "K" Company, and--wounded again used machine gun fire to keep the Chinese from a painless exploitation of the gap they had created in the center. The two center rifle platoons regrouped and crawled behind the closed battery sheaf adjusted by the 52nd FA's commander. They called for an "add five zero" each time they got 50 yards further up the hill and kept the platoons crawling to its' top. Brown and many of the 65 men of "Love" company wounded in this fight were evacuated later that day.

Simply stated: decorations for the infantry'$ flghters (and these are seldom above platoon level) are awarded in an erratic manner. Few of those earned are awarded. Most are not because men in rifle squads see a world few others do. And men at these levels do not know how to describe what they have seen, nor are even aware of its significance, and there are few persons with whom they can talk.

I was evacuated on 8 February from "Sleeping Bag Hill," probably the first time a rifle company had stopped a Chinese regiment after the battalion commander and his adjutant came up the day after the fight. Always polite to my elders, l put the heated c-ration I was eating on a part of the OP foxhole parapet to talk with him. He was sensitive, shaken that this "part" was a frozen Chinese body, and concluded that I needed a rest. (The site was so named because of what our artillery did to our sleeping bags, i.e., it scattered feathers.)

The platoon leader of the left platoon, Volney Warner (USMA 1950) showed both courage and solid tactical judgment in shifting his platoon along the ridge line we were holding. He did this despite failed communication to the company, and no orders. Four rifle platoons in a rifle company? Yes, our "Gimlets--the Koreans posted to us in August-were in a separate platoon that had some top U.S. NCOs assigned it.

S/Sgt Hugh Brown had deserted forward from the Division's headquarters on July I to join "Love" company. We found this out when we proposed 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 Army's backbone is its rifle squads and platoons. Their leadership is "absolutely critical," as I've always tried to say in language that can be followed by our young people. The critical 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 objective is not to tell war stories, but to use my experience, observations, and exposure to help soldiers and Marines understand and prepare for the world in which they may work. General Ridgway called this "the aimed fire war." My major issue is to help fighters think about what it takes to transform themselves for the greatest possible responsibility, i.e., leading their fellows for some of the last minutes of their lives. The nature of the work means that the leaders of fighters are themselves vulnerable, even short-lived. The formal designation of "leader" is available relatively often; the only ones acceding to this title are those who were being led.

Men fight for their comrades, the men who are with them where fighting is going on. They do not fight for the nation's larger and more glorious goals. N.B., the "fighting" that I am speaking of is the intimate horror to which only walking infantry are exposed and must endure. My definition of fighting is: "crawling on your belly like a reptile close enough to throw a grenade at some hostile wretch with a working machine gun." This narrow view includes one of you throwing the grenade, and the other standing up and shooting the gunner when he swings his tube around to kill the guy who threw it. Remember also that machine gunners come with crews and the reason they are still alive is they know and are prepared for your form of attack. And the price for being outfought is pretty high, and very conclusive!

Both actions are the ultimate unnatural acts that neither you nor the grenade pitcher may survive. There are no other solutions however, and do not believe that Rambo is coming up to do it for you. You and your team are the only sure resource you have that may keep you alive,

Fighting means moving in isolation, except for the rest of your rifle squad, into a lonesome void that you know seethes with menace. Your resources are few, essentially those, psychic or material, that you have acquired, learned to use, hoarded, and have in hand. The most valuable thing you have is your earned confidence in yourself, and what you know of your fellows. The sound of a machine gun, including, the screams of the men it hits, makes the possession of this 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. Earn is again the key word.

Everyone 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 30 men still left in your platoon, is responsible for all the others. Your and their survival are 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 word is trust. This must be mutual and, again it must be earned. Bobby Burns: "Wad a gift the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us." What each leader sees is the burden and exaltation in his men's eyes, and in their response to him. The attention leaders give their mission, and the men responsible for executing it, is the first part of their indispensable mutual confidence building,

The blocks used to build this fragile structure are both psychic and physical. Knowing your tools, including those as simple as treating blisters or wounds, clearing a jammed rifle, and hitting what you shoot at, are simple tasks. They must be automatic and very well done. Observe everyone, especially the most effective of the leaders in your outfit. Imitate these gifted and/or experienced ones! Put yourself in their shoes and understand what they have done. Think about how you must orient yourself to do the same things. These men may be above or below you in rank. This relative status does not limit what you can learn from any of them.

Fighting that "distinguishes" soldiers from their fellows is seldom actually recognized. This sad, but true situation stems from the fact that those who fight, i.e., those in committed rifle squad's routine activities, are often heroic, but the persons involved that far up front are neither writers nor recognize that their comrades' activities merit recognition. Nevertheless, combat decorations have enormous importance and nowhere is the strict truth about what has happened more important. Napoleon said something to the effect that a man would go to the "...gates of hell for a bit of ribbon to wear on his chest."

Infantrymen are the persons who earn combat honors. Sadly, being awarded these honors does not follow earning them. That is a part of the reason the Combat Infantry Badge is so important and the reason some qualified men wear it and nothing else. Being terrorized by the circumstances in which you find yourself is natural and will concentrate your mind. It must not numb it. Knowing this may happen is the best protection from it you can muster. Keep looking for an open port as you crawl towards that tank, and look hard for the infantry he may have deployed to protect his precious hardware from people like you. This does not mean staying immobile in some supposed shelter.

Note my focus on tanks. It is not a coincidence. The most terrifying sound you will ever hear is the crunching sound of tank tracks getting closer. I do not believe their crews have become evil by being confined in their iron box, but they are looking for one of your bodies to grind under their treads. This is the most effective psychological warfare that can be practiced on the infantrymen who survive. And a tanker's immediate target may already be dead. A man is a large sack of blood, however, whether he is alive or not, and their intention is to lower the morale of those of you who are still able to watch. And it works.

Can this shock be overcome? Yes, and it is why it is cited to you in such intimate terms. Another thought on terror. Knowing you are about to be killed can paralyze you and make this even easier for some heathen wretch to it done. It also makes it easier to throw down an empty rifle and plead for your life.

A former Army Chief of Staff took to heart a theme our nation needs to understand. "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."

     This probably means that we can't buy exotic Stealth bombers merely to keep aerospace workers employed. It certainly means our intelligence must become adequate and timely, i.e., new qualities. It means that we must retain and assign our most competent leaders and soldiers to man our "first to fight" units. And it means our Senators and our Congressmen must insist that our Army remain well equipped and properly trained. It is certain to be needed again one day.

     Think about the waste-basket in your office catching fire from one of the people who are still smoking cigarettes being careless. A cup of coffee will put it out with little fuss. The garden hose may be needed if the office is burning. You need the fire department if the building itself begins burning. And you'll be dynamiting the buildings not burning to stop the conflagration if the entire block begins to burn. The lesson for the Army from this? Be ready!

The following quote is from the most recent book on Korea, In Mortal Combat by John Toland. 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.'