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.
 

"Although not yet fully appreciated, the Korean War was one of the most significant wars of the 20th century," wrote distinguished author and decorated Korean War veteran Harry G. Summers. "It marked the acknowledgement by the Kremlin [Soviet government] that communism could no longer be spread by direct force of arms."

Until 1958, however, the war in Korea was not even officially dignified by that term. Today, after 40 years, the euphemisms "conflict" and "police action" still hold sway among the general public, in government circles and in media accounts.

Nevertheless, it was war in every respect and was a vital event in world history, despite years of historical neglect. The reasons for U.S. intervention may have initially been unclear, but some participants grasped its importance from the very start.

As one Marine put it, "I’m no hero, but if these people aren’t stopped here on their own ground, we will have to share the thing which so many have died to prevent their loved ones from sharing—the sight of death in our own backyards, of women and children being victims of these people [communists].

Unknown Entity

Few Americans could place Korea on a map when on June 25, 1950, 135,000 North Korean troops crashed across the 38th parallel, crushing South Korean defenses. Two authors have aptly described the physical features of the "land of the Morning Calm."

Clay Blair, in The Forgotten War, wrote: "Although the country was situated in a temperate zone, the climate was peculiarly inhospitable: jungle hot and steamy in the rainy season (June to September) and arctic cold in winter. The rice paddies, situated in the narrow valleys and draws among the endless hills and ridges were fertilized by stinking human feces."

That one particular feature—the smell that permeated the air because of the use of human wastes to grow crops—stands out in the memories of most veterans. T.R. Fehrenbach, in his monumental work, This Kind of War, provides a graphic description of the battleground:

"The hillsides of South Korea are steep; often slopes of 60 degrees are found on low ridges. Under the sullen sun the ridges shimmered like furnaces and there was almost no shade in the scrubby brush that covered them.

"And there is little drinking water, outside the brownish stuff in the fecal paddies…each paddy is a humid, stinking oven, and the bare hills are like broiler plates. Those who drank from the ditches and paddies developed searing dysentery. They sweated until their shirts and belts rotted, and their bellies turned shark-white."

At the other extreme was the brutal cold. The winter of 1950-51 turned out to be the coldest of the decade. Bitter winds from Siberia dropped the temperature so low that steaming turkey slices froze instantly. Frostbite took a severe toll among troops committed to North Korea early in the war.

GIs simply called Korea the "land that God forgot."

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.

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."

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.

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.

Perhaps the greatest lifesaver was evacuation by aircraft. Beginning in January 1951, helicopters—"flying ambulances"—were introduced for this purpose. Equally important was the first-time use of special medical units. As Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong, then U.S. Army surgeon general, said, "In Korea, Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) have been the big factor in lowering the mortality rate of the wounded."

Another category of U.S. casualties did not fare so well—7,140 American POWs. A tragic number—2,701, or 38%--died while in captivity because of inhumane conditions in North Korean prison camps. In addition, 8,194 GIs are still listed as missing in action or unidentified from Korea.

Return to the ZI

Not much was done to welcome home veterans of Korea to the Zone of the Interior (ZI), as the continental U.S. was officially designated in military jargon. On July 16, 1952, Public Law 550—Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act—created a new GI Bill of Rights, but there were few public shows of appreciation.

When the war inconclusively ended, in a truce still in effect today, "There were no celebrations. News of the armistice signing flickered across the news lights of Times Square; people stopped to read the announcement, shrugged, and walked on; no cheering throngs assembled," wrote Joseph Goulden in Korea: The Untold Story.

Fehrenbach wrote: "There was now very little of the heroes’ welcome for returnees of the Korean War. The American people did not quite know how to regard a war they had not won."

Little wonder, considering the pronouncements of some politicians. Sen. Lyndon Johnson (D-Tex.) declared that an armistice "that merely releases aggressive armies to attack elsewhere…is a fraud."

Others, however, have since recognized Korea for what it was—the turning point in the world struggle against communism and a testimony to the human spirit.

N.Y. Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin wrote: "But the deeds of those who fought, the men who died and those who lived, beget their own posterity—the human drama of life and death in the stinking valleys and denuded hills of a peninsula where wars have raged since man first raised fist to man."

At the war’s end, a GI, in a letter to his parents, wrote: "It is demanding on your body and morale, but when successfully completed will always remain a point of pride. I don’t want to be a ‘flag waver,’ but now that it is over…I’m not sorry I’ve been in Korea."

Thirty-seven years later, Edward Reeves, a vet of the 7th Infantry Division at the Chosin Reservoir and a quadruple amputee, offered eloquent testimony: "When I was over there for the Olympics (1988) and saw how far they had come, and had the people come out onto the street to thank an American vet in a wheelchair, it was worth it. If I had to do it all over again, yes, I would."

A Lasting Memorial

On June 25, 1991---the 41st anniversary of the war’s start—9,000 Korean War vets marched down Manhattan’s "Canyon of Heroes" on lower Broadway as 250,000 spectators looked on. The parade ended in Battery Park where a 20-foot, black granite monument was dedicated.

It was remarked that MacArthur’s parade on April 20, 1951, lasted four hours and drew 7.5 million spectators. But as Irwin R. Schwartz, executive director of the N.Y. Korean Veterans Memorial Commission, put it, "That had nothing to do with the troops."

Until vets of Korea have their own memorial in the nation’s capital, they will remain, as the biblical scripture in Ecclesiastics says, suspended in history: "And some there by which have no memorial: Who are perished, as though they had never been."

But as Harry Summers said, "Korean veterans, take heart. Your real memorial was the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of world communism, events that you set in motion by your defense of freedom so many years ago."