East of Chosin Read online

  The 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry, was not the only Army unit intended for MacLean's RCT that did not arrive. Captain Charles Peckham's B Company, 1st Battalion, 31st Infantry, was supposed to replace E Company, 2nd Battalion, as its third rifle company. On its way to Chosin it was in advance of Reidy's battalion and had arrived at Koto-ri in the evening of November 28, having traveled from Hamhung during the day. Unluckily, the next day B Company was made part of "Task Force Drysdale," named for Lt. Col. Douglas B. Drysdale, commanding officer of the British 41st Independent Commando, Royal Marines. This task force included the Royal Marines; Capt. Carl Sitter's G Company, 1st Marines; B Company, 31st Infantry; and a Marine tank company. It was formed when General Smith ordered Colonel Puller on the 28th to send him "desperately needed reinforcements" to hold Hagaru-ri. Smith wanted reinforcements, although it meant that they would suffer heavy casualties in reaching Hagaru-ri. Task Force Drysdale numbered more than goo men with armor support. Its mission was to cut through Chinese forces along the I1 miles of road between Koto-ri and Hagaru-ri. The Chinese ambushed Task Force Drysdale about halfway to Hagaru-ri in what became known as "Hell's Fire Valley" and cut it to pieces. Only a few of the commandos, Sitter's G Company, and the tanks fought their way into Hagaru-ri. Peckham's B Company was caught in the ambush and cut into segments. It lost heavily.

  During the night ist Lt. Alfred J. Anderson, of B Company, regrouped into a defensive perimeter all the men of B Company that he could find. Armed only with his .45 pistol, he set an example of leadership throughout the night. Twice he closed with enemy soldiers who entered his perimeter and killed them at arm's length, deflecting their weapons with one arm as he used his pistol in these close encounters. At 6:0o A.M. on November 30, Anderson received orders to withdraw that part of B Company under his control. He led them back safely through enemy opposition to Koto-ri. I

  B Company's losses were loo killed or missing in action and 1g wounded -a total of 11g battle casualties. This company, another of MacLean's intended units, never saw the waters of Chosin Reservoir, but it knew the same ferocity of battle that engulfed MacLean's men on the east side.8

  No matter what criticism might be made of X Corps's delays and confusions in handling the movement of the 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry, from Hamhung toward the reservoir or the ineptness in the command of the 2nd Battalion itself, it is clear that it would not have reached the reservoir and the 31st RCT if its movement had been a model of planning and expeditious execution. The reason is simple enough. The enemy controlled the road between Koto-ri and Hagaru-ri from November 28 on, and also the road up the pass from Chinhung-ni to Koto-ri to some degree after November 28. This meant that from Koto-ri neither B Company, 31st Infantry, nor the 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry, could have reached MacLean on the east side of the reservoir any time after the night of November 27. When General Hodes at Hagaru-ri sent a radio message to General Barr at 6:30 P.m. on the 28th urgently asking him to hasten forward the 2nd Battalion, it was already too late.

  Colonel MacLean and Lieutenant Colonel Faith knew nothing of this. For the Army troops east of the Chosin Reservoir the failure of higher command to establish and maintain communications with them from November 27 through December I, 1950 was of fatal importance.

  Hodes and Lynch Serve as 31st RCT Liaison at Hagaru-ri

  When General Hodes left Hudong-ni in one of Drake's tanks in the early afternoon of November 28 to go to Hagaru-ri to seek help, he found on arrival that Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith had just arrived to establish his 1st Marine Division CP. Hodes told him that the 7th Division battalions on the east side of the reservoir had 400 casualties and no way to get to safety.9 Smith, however, learned that he had only a few troops at Hagaru-ri to defend it against Chinese attack. They were certain to attack Hagaru-ri because it was the kingpin of the entire American deployment around Chosin Reservoir. Smith was startled at what he found at Hagaru-ri and told Colonel Puller at Koto-ri to rush reinforcements to him the next day at any cost. Task Force Drysdale was the result. Thus, Hodes learned that immediate help for the 31st RCT was out of the question.

  The next afternoon, November 29, Hodes sent a radio message to Hudong-ni ordering Major Lynch and his two sergeants to join him in Hagaru-ri. They made ready as quickly as possible and about 3 P.M. set out in Lynch's jeep for Hagaru-ri.

  As they moved along the twisting road southward, Lynch was amazed to see columns of Chinese moving in the same direction on the ridges Soo to I,ooo yards east of the road. He said: "The pucker-factor [tension] was quite high but we disturbed them not nor did they us. I recall meeting Gen. Hodes at the perimeter of the Marine defense which was under fire from Chinese coming from the E."'o Darkness had begun to fall when Lynch reached Hagaru-ri.

  Sergeant Cox busied himself finding places for General Hodes and Major Lynch to sleep. They finally slept in a tent occupied by two Marine lieutenants who were on duty that night. The tent was near the ist Marine Division G-3 van, the sole means of sending or receiving radio mes sages. Lynch said that he spent much of his time outside the van, trying to learn what was happening.

  The CCF attacked Hagaru-ri the first night Hodes and Smith were there (November 28-29), the night before Lynch arrived. The CCF first attacked from the southwest and during the latter part of the night from East Hill, which dominated the east side of the Hagaru-ri perimeter. The CCF and the Marines spent all of the 29th in sporadic fighting for control of East Hill. This situation continued into the evening of the 29th, with the Chinese in control. That evening, shortly after his arrival, Lynch was sitting with Hodes in the G-3 van when a bullet passed through the side of it, hit the metal rail, head high, and dropped between them. Hodes picked up the spent slug but said nothing."

  Hagaru-ri, as the Marine and Army men knew it at the end of November and early December, 1950, was a tent city. The native town had been reduced to rubble by UN air power. When General Smith indicated on November 28 that he was moving his division CP to Hagaru-ri, the Marines prepared for him one of the few huts still standing. Smith arrived about noon on the 28th and established his forward CP there. Lieutenant Colonel William J. McCaffrey, deputy chief of staff, X Corps, at the same time began setting up an X Corps Advance CP just outside the Marine perimeter, but it never became fully operational. 12

  When Major Lynch arrived at the Marine perimeter, General Hodes was there to meet him. They went directly to General Smith's covered "hootch." It was now dark. Smith and Hodes talked for about ten minutes, but Lynch did not hear what they said. It seemed clear, however, that Hodes informed Smith of conditions on the east side of the reservoir. Hodes and Lynch can be thought of as a 7th Infantry Division liaison group with the ist Marine Division at Hagaru-ri, a relationship that Hodes established to communicate with X Corps and through it with his own division. He would also have tried to obtain from the Marines any assistance they could provide for the Army troops cut off on the east side of the reservoir, including maximum Marine air support.

  According to Lynch, Hodes felt frustrated since there was little he could do. He believed that, as long as he lived, Hodes suffered from the knowledge that he was not able to save his men. Smith felt that he could not send a Marine infantry-tank force up the east side of the reservoir to help the 31st RCT without seriously endangering his own incompletely defended perimeter. In fact, the 31st RCT at first had about as many combat troops as Smith had. When Smith arrived at Hagaru-ri, his force consisted of two infantry companies and the Weapons Company of the 3rd Battalion, ist Marines. After the first Chinese attack on the Hagaru-ri perimeter during the night of November 28-29 it was under constant siege and in jeopardy. Any force from Hagaru-ri strong enough to fight its way through to the Army inlet perimeter would have left the vital Marine perimeter vulnerable.

  By the end of November General Barr had moved his 7th Division CP to the port city of Hungnam but later relocated it in Hamhung, closer to X Corps. For any communication with General Barr, Hodes had to go through the ist Marine to X Co
rps, which would relay any message he wanted to send. If Hodes wanted to communicate with the 31st Infantry Rear CP at Hudong-ni, his only means of doing so was by his tank radio to other tanks of the 31st Tank Company there. Hodes had no communications of any kind with the combat battalions and the artillery farther north. Nor could 31st Rear at Hudong-ni talk with these units. Communication from higher authority to the forward units east of Chosin was, therefore, nonexistent after November 28, except that from FAC Stamford with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry (and later Task Force Faith), to the Corsair fighter-bombers and the resupply-drop planes.14

  One cannot overemphasize the significance of the lack of communications from the battle area-from the forward perimeter and the inlet perimeter 4 miles farther south and with all points south of the inlet. Even the 31st Infantry Rear at Hudong-ni, approximately 4 miles south of the 3rd Battalion and the 57th Field Artillery, knew only in a general way that a fight was going on north of them during the first night of battle. Major Lynch, who was at Hudong-ni during this period, has written that after midday November 28 "information dwindled progressively to zero. Communications were never established with the 1st Marine Div CP."15 According to Lynch, about the only-and last-things that General Hodes did for Task Force Faith were to send a Marine medical evacuation helicopter to the inlet, which in two trips evacuated four wounded men, as mentioned above, and to have an L-5 liaison plane from Hagaru-ri drop a supply of morphine, both on November 29.

  By the afternoon of November 28, four days after he had confidently launched his attack to the Manchurian border to unify all of Korea, General MacArthur in Tokyo decided that a crisis existed in Korea. He and his staff had been reluctant to recognize that the Chinese XIII Army Group was defeating the Eighth Army in western North Korea. A long message that General MacArthur sent to the joint Chiefs of Staff on November a8 and a communique he issued late that afternoon in Tokyo indicated that he had reached a personal decision about the nature of the crisis. This was one day after the Chinese opened their attacks against X Corps in northeast Korea, but it was three days after the Chinese attacks first struck Eighth Army in the west. The issue might not yet be clear in the X Corps area and around the Chosin Reservoir, but it was becoming frighteningly clear in the west on the Chongchon River front.

  MacArthur's long radio message to the joint Chiefs of Staff struck officials in Washington, D.C., right up to the president, like a thunderbolt. It showed a clear about-face in MacArthur's opinion of the war and posed the possibility that the American and UN forces might have to evacuate Korea. The message said in part:

  All hope of localization of the Korean conflict to enemy forces composed of NK troops with alien token elements can now be completely abandoned. ... No pretext of minor support under the guise of volunteerism or other subterfuge now has the slighest validity. We face an entirely new war.... It is quite evident that our present strength of force is not sufficient to meet this undeclared war by the Chinese with the inherent advantages which accrue thereby to them.... This command has done everything humanly possible within its capabilities but is now faced with conditions beyond its control and its strength.'

  After sending his message, MacArthur issued his Communique No. 14 for worldwide consumption as his explanation of what was happening in Korea. It said that a major segment of the Chinese continental armed forces in army, corps, and division strength of more than 200,000 men were now committed against the United Nations in Korea. The communique continued: "Consequently we face an entirely new war. This has shattered the high hope we entertained that the intervention of the Chinese was only of token nature on a volunteer and individual basis as publicly announced."'

  At the same time MacArthur decided on a third step: to call Generals Walker and Almond, his field commanders in Korea, to Tokyo that same afternoon. But MacArthur had made up his mind about the situation in Korea before he met with them that night. When Almond arrived, the others were waiting. The conference got under way at the American embassy, MacArthur's residence, about 9:50 P.M. and lasted until 1:30 A.M., November 29.3 Walker's and Almond's flights to Tokyo had been kept secret. Those present at the conference were as follows:

  General MacArthur

  Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy, commander, Naval Forces Far East

  Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, commander, Far East Air Force

  Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, commander, Eighth Army

  Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, commander, X Corps

  Maj. Gen. Doyle 0. Hickey, Far East Command chief of staff

  Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, Far East Command G-2

  Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, Adviser on MacArthur's staff

  Brig. Gen. Edwin K. Wright, Far East Command G-34

  MacArthur asked many questions, mostly directed to Walker and Almond. Occasionally some of those present would offer a remark or a suggestion or ask a question. Wright seems to have been the most active participant in the conference, other than MacArthur, Walker, and Almond.

  The most surprising element was the optimism of both Walker and Almond concerning the military situation in Korea. Heavy fighting had been in progress in the Eighth Army zone since the evening of November 25 - three nights and three days-and one night and one day in the X Corps zone. The military situation had developed further and was clearer in Eighth Army than in X Corps. When MacArthur asked Walker what he thought of the situation on his front and where the Eighth Army could make a successful stand, he replied that he expected to hold Pyongyang and to establish a defense line north and east of the city.

  When MacArthur asked Almond a similar question relating to X Corps, Almond answered euphorically that he expected the ist Marine and 7th Infantry divisions to continue their attacks west and north from the Chosin Reservoir and cut the enemy line of communications in their rear, at or near Mupyong-ni, below Kanggje and the Yalu River. This was the main mission of X Corps in helping the Eighth Army. On the night of November 28-29 in the Tokyo conference Almond expressed the same view that he had expressed to Colonel MacLean and Colonel Faith that afternoon. s

  Almond's unrealistic belief that he could continue his attack is hard to explain. That day he had visited the 7th Division on the east side of the reservoir and the day before had visited the 1st Marine Division at Yudam-ni on the west side. At neither place was there any reason for optimism. He had badly misjudged the situation. MacArthur hoped that Walker could hold Pyongyang, but did not agree with Almond that he could continue to attack successfully to Mupyong-ni. He had already stated his view in his message to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that afternoon.

  General MacArthur expressed no decisions or orders to Walker or Almond during the conference. However, before they left Tokyo about noon on November 29 he gave them his instructions. He asked General Walker to hold the Pyongyang area if he could do so but to withdraw as needed to prevent Chinese forces from moving around his right flank and into his rear. He ordered Almond to end offensive action, withdraw, and concentrate the X Corps in the Hamhung-Hungnam area. Although he probably contemplated evacuating X Corps from northeast Korea and moving it by sea to join Eighth Army, he did not include that in his instructions to Almond.

  Almond left Tokyo at noon on the 29th to return to Korea. Lieutenant Colonel McCaffrey, Lieutenant Colonel Glass, and Major Ladd were on the plane with him. During the trip the men discussed the situation. Almond, acting on MacArthur's orders, told McCaffrey and Glass to prepare a X Corps order to concentrate the corps forces at Hamhung "and action against enemy wherever possible within good judgment."

  After arriving in Korea, Almond, accompanied by McCaffrey, flew to the X Corps CP. An hour later he conferred with his chief of staff, General Ruffner, and the rest of his staff. This resulted in Operational Order No. 8, which called for a discontinuance of the X Corps attack to the northwest and a withdrawal of its forces. This carried out MacArthur's instructions.'

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff on November 29 approved MacArthur's plan to pass from the
offensive to the defensive in Korea. They said, "Strategic and tactical considerations are now paramount." But they also asked, "What are your plans re the coordination of operations of the 8th Army and X Corps and the positioning of X Corps, the units of which appear to us to be exposed?"'

  None of the troop units east of Chosin knew anything about the fastchanging high-level decisions for the war. In any event, those decisions would not immediately change what was taking place on the battlefield.

  Contrary to expectations, the early hours of the night of November 29-30 proved to be relatively quiet at the inlet perimeter. From dark until nearly midnight silence reigned, except for the distant sound of artillery fire from the west, across the reservoir near the Marine perimeters at Yudam-ni, and occasional bugle sounds on the north. A bright moon illuminated the landscape, but as the night progressed, the sky clouded over and it began to snow.

  The tense quiet ended before midnight as artillery and mortars within the perimeter began to fire. Soon machine guns and rifles added their clamor, and fire from attacking Chinese passed overhead.

  The first attack came over the ridge and descending slope at the south side of the perimeter, where B and A companies held the line. Lieutenant May, Headquarters Company, helped repel one enemy attack that came down a ravine at the southeastern edge of the ridge. This clash lasted about an hour. If the Chinese wanted to test the newly arrived troops, they did so to their regret. They were harshly received, with many killed and wounded. They did not enter the perimeter and finally withdrew from contact with a lot of bugle blowing. Quiet settled over the area once again, with infrequent firing from outpost positions and an occasional mortar round at a suspected enemy position. All within the perimeter were surprised at the lack of a general enemy assault.'