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Re: Email about Turkish Brigade
This is the most objective report that I've found about who did what in the
Korean War. Of course, it's from the American point of view, and the
battles referred to speak only to general conditions and results. I still
find it impossible to compare any other country's effort in the Korean War with
what America contributed. America gave its wealth, honor, killed
and injured men, and though other countries did also none did it at the
level of the American selfless contribution. Every other comparison
pales by comparison, indeed, the American men who gave their lives and
suffered lifetime-lasting injuries can never be thanked properly. Evidence
of this:
America paid a heavy price for its noble crusade in Korea:
more than 90% of non-Korean UN combat dead were Americans, many of whom
died during the ?talking war.? U.S. forces suffered 62,200
casualties?including 12,300 KIA?in the war?s last two years in fixing the
DMZ at Line Kansas.
"Some 103,284 American servicemen were seriously wounded,
requiring hospitalization. Twenty-two percent of all wounded in action
died. Chances of surviving wounds were greatly improved in Korea, however,
once they reached the hospital. There only 2.5% died."
On the other hand, "In the three years of the Korean War, three
Turkish Brigades of 15.000 men participated in the fighting. Totally 724 Turkish
soldiers lost their lives and 2,147 wounded and 171 missing in
action."
The following description and most of the above is attributed
to:
WAR IN THE ?LAND THAT GOD
FORGOT?:
KOREA,
1950-1953
By Richard K.
Kolb
VFW
Magazine, December
1991
Reprinted from VFW
Magazine onto the Korean War Educator website
with permission from the
editors.
Greatest Trial of All
Though little heralded, the GIs who fought the nation?s
first major war of containment displayed tenacity after the war?s first few
months. A European observer remarked of the ?intelligence, physique,
doggedness and an amazing ability to endure adversity with grace? of the
Americans.
Army historian S.L.A. Marshall said, ?The men of the
Eighth Army are the hardest-hitting, most work-man-like soldiers I have yet seen
in our uniforms in the course of three wars.?
Famed correspondent Eric Sevareid, writing in 1953,
concluded the GI performance in Korea ?outmatches the behavior of those who
fought our wars of certainty and victory. This is something new in
American society. This is something to be recorded with respect and
humility.?
In his landmark history, The American
Fighting Man, author Victor Hicken called Korea ?the greatest of
all trials for the American fighting man.? He added, ?In some ways the
performance of the American fighting man in Korea was nothing short of
miraculous. Most of the men fought solely out of a sense of duty, and
possibly pride.
?They fought while politicians back home told them that
the war was useless, they sacrificed while friends back home enjoyed a general
prosperity brought on by the war, they fought under military and political
restraint, and they gave battle under some of the most miserable climatic
conditions ever faced by American warriors.?
Regulars, Reservists and ?Retreads?
To assemble an armed force with such sterling qualities,
the military had to tap every manpower source then at its disposal. At the
outset, the regular military establishment was combed worldwide to fill the
ranks of skeletonized units. Hundreds of National Guard and Organized
Reserve units were mobilized, and hundreds of thousands of individual reservists
called up.
Some 20% of Korean War era servicemen had served in
WWII. These ?retreads,? as they were known, proved invaluable among the
inexperienced ranks, especially in the critical first months of fighting.
The Army?s composition changed as the war
progressed. In December 1950, over 80% of soldiers were still
regulars. Recalled reservists soon replaced many regulars on the
line. And by the end of 1952, almost two-thirds of Army personnel in Korea
were draftees.
Korea was different in another way, too. Formerly
all-black units were eventually integrated and by war?s end, 13% of the entire
Far East Command was black. Also, the all-Spanish-speaking 65th Infantry
Regiment from Puerto Rico served there. Women played an indispensable role
in the medical field: 500-600 nurses served in Korea.
All personnel were grouped under the Far East Command,
comprising the various branches of the service. The Army component was
divided into the Army Forces, Far East; Eighth Army?I, IX, X and XVI (Japan)
Corps; and the 2nd and 3rd Logistical Commands.
The four corps encompassed eight divisions?1st Cavalry
and the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 24th, 25th, 40th (California N.G.) and the 45th (Oklahoma
N.G.) divisions.
Three regimental combat teams?5th, 29th and 187th
Airborne?were also deployed from Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, respectively.
The Marine Corps contributed its 1st Division (preceded
by the 1st Provisional Brigade) made up of the 1st, 5th and 7th Regiments as
well as the 11th Artillery Regiment. Also, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
(Marine Air Groups 12 and 33) was stationed in Korea.
Naval Forces, Far East, was the umbrella for the U.S.
Navy. United Nations sea power included 90 destroyers, 16 aircraft
carriers, 8 cruisers and 4 battleships. The Seventh Fleet put three major
task forces?77, 90 and 95 to sea. TF 77, the Striking Force, consisted of
the Carrier, Screening and Support Groups. The fast carriers had 24
Carrier Air Groups aboard.
TF90 was the Amphibious Force and TF 95 was the
Blockading & Escort Force which included a Special Bombardment Group.
Additionally, TF 96 was designated Naval Forces, Japan.
A particularly noteworthy Navy accomplishment was its
unprecedented, 861-day naval siege of Wonsan, North Korea?s principal
seaport. Incidentally, the only pure U.S. sea action of the war occurred
July 2, 1950, when three North Korean torpedo boats were destroyed off
Chumunjin.
Some 22 Coast Guard cutters along with 10 shore units
(one at Pusan) were based in the Far East during the war. It also
conducted weather patrols, and positioned air detachments throughout the Pacific
for search and rescue. Fifty men were ashore in Korea.
Korea was the first time the U.S. Air Force fought as a
separate service. USAF units were widely dispersed. Far East Air
Forces (FEAF) incorporated the 5th (Japan/Korea), 20th (Okinawa) and 13th
(Philippines). Subordinate units were the FEAF Bomber Command, FEAF
Logistical Forces and the 314th (Japan Air Defense Force) and 315th (Combat
Cargo Command) Air Divisions.
Air operations fell into three main categories: aerial
combat conducted by the 5th A.F.; aeromedical evacuation and tactical airlift;
and air transport. By the end of the war, FEAF included 69 squadrons with
1,536 aircraft and 112,188 men.
Korea also witnessed the first jet-to-jet aerial
combat. ?MiG Alley,? the area between the Yalu River and Pyongyang, became
famous for such battles. The Air Force chalked up 839 MiG-15 kills during
the war. A total of 341,269 sorties were flown by the ?boys in blue?
before the armistice took effect.
Communist Foes
Facing United Nations forces in Korea were two
determined and distinct armies. The North Korean People?s Army (NKPA), or
In Min Gun, began the war as a tough, mobile, fully equipped force of 10
divisions. Nearly a third of its personnel were veterans of the Chinese
communist armies that had fought Japan.
Virtually destroyed after Inchon, the NKPA was
eventually reconstituted, reaching a strength of 260,000 by July 15, 1953.
It earned an infamous reputation for committing atrocities. GIs were found
bound and shot, burned, clubbed and castrated.
NKPA?s ally, the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF), fielded
a formidable army. Once advance elements of the Eighth Army neared the
Yalu, Peking unleashed 300,000 men in November 1950. Though only 60,000
closed in combat with Marines and dogfaces in the initial fighting, the impact
was devastating.
Ordered to ?kill these Marines as you would snakes in
your homes,? the Chinese in Korea ultimately peaked at 780,000. Their
tactics were particularly nerve-wracking, to say the least. Human wave
assaults accompanied by blaring bugles, rolling drums, clashing cymbals and
ear-piercing whistles were the CCF?s trademark. Such strategy was costly:
CCF units suffered 64% of total communist casualties during the war.
The typical communist soldier lived an austere life,
with a private earning the equivalent of 30 cents per month. His diet was
meager, consisting only of a small allotment of rice, maize or kaoliang (a grain
similar to Indian corn). Yet he proved to be a stoical fighter.
Waging War Korean Style
Whatever the material weaknesses of the NKPA and CCF,
their men took everything that was thrown at them. Fighting in Korea was
divided into two distinct phases, each with its deadly attributes.
First was the Blitzkrieg, or war of maneuver, which
lasted from June 1950 until June 30, 1951, when truce talks were agreed
to. It consisted of the communist invasion, expulsion, UN invasion of the
North, Chinese intervention and the expulsion of the latter.
The final phase was the Sitzkrieg, a static, positional
warfare at or near the 38th parallel characterized by massive artillery duels
and infantry struggles. Static trench warfare?known as the ?frozen
war??reminiscent of WWI was the norm once a main line of resistance (MLR) was
established.
(A demarcation line established Nov. 27, 1951, ended all
offensive action.)
Wrote author Fehrenbach, a tank battalion captain in
Korea, ?A new pattern of Korean warfare was being set?one that resembled more
than anything the hideous stalemated slaughter on the Western Front in World War
I.?
Forward deployments called ?patrol bases? or ?outpost
lines of resistance (OPLRs)?self-contained bastions from which small infantry or
infantry-armor patrols probed enemy territory?became the mainstay of the
fighting.
Korea, at this point, became mostly a patrol war,
especially at night. This was euphemistically referred to as ?active
defense.? Fights for tactical hills typified the fighting in the war?s
last two years, a period largely ignored in most historical accounts.
James Brady, author of The Coldest
War and a Marine rifle platoon leader in Korea, has described the
situation best: ?The fighting was as primitive as Flanders Field
in 1917 or Grant?s siege lines before Petersburg, VA., in the Civil War.
?The artillery on both sides was too good, too
deadly by day, and so we fought by night?creeping out through the barbed wire
and the mine fields with grenades and automatic weapons, with shotguns and
knives, to lie shivering in the snow, waiting in ambush.
?We lived in crude bunkers of sandbags and logs,
and when we coughed, it came up black as soot. During shellings or thaws,
bunkers collapsed and buried men alive. And once, in winter, we went 46
days without washing. When we came off the line that time, they burned our
clothes.
?That was the kind of war it had become?tough,
murderous little brawls with men dying on barren ground. There were no
historic battles, only ambushes and raids and bloody dawns on hills like
Yoke.?
To be sure, a few battles?like the Pusan
Perimeter, Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir?of the Korean War gained
lasting notoriety, but countless others are virtually lost to history.
For instance, the eight days of combat between April 22
and 30, 1951, known as the CCF Spring Offensive, proved to be the single biggest
battle of the war. A magnificent victory for the U.S. Eighth army,
it repulsed the greatest Chinese offensive of the war, inflicting 70,000
casualties.
At Chipyong-ni in February 1951, four infantry
battalions of the 2nd Infantry Division?s 23rd Regiment (including a French
unit) made a valiant and inspiring stand against 18,000 Chinese, shattering
elements of four CCF divisions.
On the night of Feb. 7, 1951, Lewis W. Millett,
commander of Company E, 27th Infantry, a part of Task Force Fowler, led his
entire company in what was described as the ?greatest bayonet attack by
U.S. soldiers since Cold Harbor in the Civil War.? Some 47 of the
200 opposing Chinese were killed. Millett, who earned the Medal of Honor,
personally killed many of the enemy.
Then there was Pork Chop Hill in 1953. Wrote
S.L.A. Marshall: ?All of the heroism and all of the sacrifice, went
unreported. So the very fine victory at Pork Chop Hill deserves the
description of the Won-Lost Battle. It was won by the troops and lost to
sight by the people who had sent them forth.?
There were more than enough forgotten tragedies,
too. On July 30, 1950, 757 untrained recruits of the 29th Infantry
Regiment were ambushed at Hadong. After the NKPAs 6th Division was
finished, 313 Americans were dead and 100 taken captive.
Up North, the 3rd Bn., 8th Cavalry Regiment of the
1st Cavalry Division was decimated, losing 600 men near Unsan on Nov. 4-5, 1950,
in a battle with a CCF which was allegedly not even present. And though
little known, of the 3,200 men of the Army?s Task Force MacLean/Faith who fought
during the Chosin operation, only 385 survived.
And in the most concentrated loss of the war, 530 men
of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion and 38th Infantry were killed at Hoengsong
in February 1951.
One other especially cruel element of the fighting
was artillery. At one point, 24,000 artillery shells a day fell on U.S.
lines. A peak was reached in June 1953 when 2.7 million rounds were
expended by U.S. forces. Overall, more artillery was fired in Korea than
in all of World War II.
When the historian for the 2nd Infantry Division described the
situation at Bloody Ridge and Heartbreak Ridge?two battles waged in 1951?he
summed up the infantry experience for most Korean War vets who fought in that
capacity:
?Sweating, heart-pounding, heavy footed soldiers
dragged their throbbing legs up these torturous, vertical hills. Those who
succeeded in grasping their way close to the bunkers were greeted by the crump
and shower of black smoke, dirt and sharp steel as grenades were tossed on
them.
?Dirty, unshaven, miserable, they backed down,
tried again, circled, climbed, slid, suffered, ran, rolled, crouched and grabbed
upward only to meet again the murderous fire, the blast of mortar and whine of
bullets and jagged fragments. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like days,
and days like one long, terrible, dusty, blood-swirled nightmare.?
Wise Beyond Their Years
Besides battle, environmental conditions made life a
living hell for ground fighters. Movement for one, was stymied by climatic
factors. Monsoon-like torrents made roads ?bottomless rivers of
mud.? Foxholes and slit trenches filled to the brim. Swollen rivers
and streams washed out pontoon and treadway bridges.
The cold, miserable weather produced trenchfoot,
dysentery, ?the crud? (fungus) and frostbite. Pancakes froze before the
men could eat them; coffee cooled before it could be drunk.
Men became, as Marshall wrote, ?wise beyond
their years? and developed a ?toughened outlook toward the job far beyond
anything dreamed of in recent times.?
To help alleviate the emotional numbness of that job,
two measures were instituted: R&R and rotation.
Five-day R&Rs (Rest & Recuperation) to Japan
were begun in 1951. Otherwise known as I&I (intercourse and
intoxication), the trips were highly popular: between January 1951 and June 1953
some 800,000 GIs made it to Tokyo courtesy of the 315th Air Division.
In may 1951, the ?Big R??rotation to the States?was
inaugurated. A tour of duty in Korea depended upon proximity to the
fighting. Rear-echelon forces served 18 months; combat troops usually
fought for nine to 12 months.
Under the point system, a soldier had to earn 36 points
to go home. Infantrymen rated four points per month, artillerymen and
combat engineers three; those in support roles garnered two points a month or
rotated after 18 months.
Of course, there were variations. An infantryman
generally spent a year in Korea while tankers did 10 months in-country.
Draftees didn?t always reach 36 points before leaving, and men sometimes were
held past their rotation dates until a replacement actually arrived in the
unit.
Meanwhile, at home, the nation as a whole seemed unmoved
by what its sons were going through in Asia. ?Despite the negative
effects of home front disenchantment on morale,? observed British military
historian Edgar O?Ballance, ?the spirit and cheerfulness of American soldiers
remained amazingly high.?
Indeed, Gallup Polls showed only about 30% to 35% of
Americans consistently favored the war. The men themselves sensed this,
and so did the publications that represented them. A common theme emerged
early on that has carried over to this very day.
In 1952, a GI wrote: ?The men in Korea were the
forgotten men; the U.S. was aware of the conflict in Korea only in the sense
that taxes were higher. The soldiers in Korea envied those at home living
in a nation mentally at peace while physically at war.?
As early as January 1953, the Army Times editorialized:
?Certainly?in many respects?it (Korea) is the most ?forgotten war,? and
the men who fight it are lonesome symbols of a nation too busy or too
economically-minded to say thanks in a proper manner.?
Counting Casualties
America paid a heavy price for its noble crusade
in Korea: more than 90% of non-Korean UN combat dead were Americans, many of
whom died during the ?talking war.? U.S. forces suffered 62,200
casualties?including 12,300 KIA?in the war?s last two years in fixing the DMZ at
Line Kansas.
Some 103,284 American servicemen were seriously
wounded, requiring hospitalization. Twenty-two percent of all wounded in
action died. Chances of surviving wounds were greatly improved in Korea,
however, once they reached the hospital. There only 2.5% died.
RBMooney
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 3:39 PM
Subject: Re: Email about Turkish Brigade
> At 03:31 PM 1/6/2004, you wrote:
> >(snip)
>
>PS. I lived in Ankara, Turkey, in the late 1970s as a
>
>brat.
>
> Thanks, Mike. Forwarded to Douglas.
>
> Regards
>
> Ed
>
>