The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 14 The Outbreak of War (1)
In northern Asia, June marks the start of the monsoon season. On the morning of Sunday, June 6, 1950, in the predawn darkness, showers fell over much of North Korea.After months of false alarms, South Korean troops enjoyed a relaxing weekend break.The defense force on the border has 6 infantry divisions plus 25 regiment, theoretically speaking, there are almost 4 people.In fact, only a third of the men were holding the frontier fortifications, the rest were either in reserve 1 to 3.8 miles south of the 10th parallel, or were on vacation. On June 30, the South Korean Army Command authorized commanders to give soldiers from the countryside a 6-day holiday to work in rice fields.Another event that drew more South Korean officers away was the opening ceremony of a new officers' club at the army headquarters in Seoul.

Meanwhile, the North Korean People's Army has amassed an army of nearly 9 men, backed up with 150 T-34 tanks. The T-34 was a low-profile medium tank that was standard equipment for the Soviet Army until the end of World War II. The T-34 is powerful, equipped with an 85mm howitzer and two 7.62mm machine guns.The tank was undeniably powerful: it stopped the Germans from advancing to Moscow, and the Soviets have continued to use it as a basic piece of equipment ever since.

Brigadier General William Roberts retired as head of the U.S. Military Advisory Group in Korea two days before the war broke out.He has said that tank warfare is impossible in this country, where the roads are too narrow and the rice fields are too soft.Roberts mistakenly assumed that the North Koreans would come to similar conclusions, but they didn't.

The North Korean offensive was fired in the narrow part of the Korean peninsula, and no soldier or unit could accurately say that it heard the "first shot of anger."Jin Jinxue, a young lieutenant in South Korea's 1st Army Division, was stationed near the western city of Kaesong, one of the key lines of attack. "The war started with a sudden burst of artillery fire, creating a barrage of barrage along our side of the border on our lines. 1 minute ago it was raining and silence here, 1 minute later a nightmare of loud noises and explosions surrounded us ...I was sleeping in a bulletproof bunker dug into the side of the hillside and covered with sandbags. The impact of the first round of shelling knocked me off my camp bed, and sand and dust poured into the bunker. I managed to get dressed and run to Outside. A sergeant was moaning in the doorway, clutching his shoulder. I ran over to remove him, and his arm fell off, it was broken from the shoulder. He moaned again, and died."

The only American adviser on the 12th parallel that morning was Captain Joseph Darrigo, of the 5th ROK Army Regiment just northeast of Kaesong.At about [-] hours, Darigo was awakened by shelling, shortly after shrapnel and small arms bullets hit his house.He puts on his clothes and drives a jeep to Kaesong to see what's going on.

In the center of Kaicheng, he stopped the car suddenly.At the train station a few hundred yards away, North Korean soldiers were disembarking from a train of about 15 cars, a total of about 1 people, with no intention of taking cover.Under cover of darkness, the North Koreans had resurfaced the tracks that had been demolished earlier on their side of the 000th Parallel, and moved troops behind the South Korean soldiers closer to the north.Darigo shifted into gear abruptly and sped south.There was no doubt in his mind at this point: a war had begun.

News of what was happening on the 20th Parallel, just over [-] miles north of Seoul, was slow to penetrate the capital, however.In Seoul, it rained drearily early Sunday morning.In the early morning, the clouds were low and the sun could not be seen. It was a typical summer dawn in North Korea.

A few minutes before 7 o'clock, someone from the US military advisory group called Lieutenant Colonel Robert Edwards, the military attache to Ambassador Mucho, to report to him about the fighting on the border.However, because of the barrage of false alarms about the invasion in the previous months, he didn't know if the North Koreans were already at war, or just a new probe.In any case, he felt that he should report it to the embassy.

Shaking his head to clear himself, Edwards took a drag on his cigarette and decided to call Mucho's deputy, Everett Drumlet, so as not to disturb the ambassador.In the next hour, Drumlet himself called the South Korean military headquarters and the US military advisory group.At about 8 o'clock, he reported to Mucho.

"You're going to be surprised," began Drumlet, "the communists are attacking across the board!"

Another American was tossing around that morning.Jack James has been a Seoul correspondent for UPI for the past 11 months.He also attended a reception the night before, but he is a diligent and dedicated media person. That morning he wanted to go to the press office of the embassy and write a "letter" to the Associated Press.Such background information is often sent back by post rather than expensive telegrams.James had already drafted the lead paragraph in his mind: "Despite the intensified propaganda campaign by the North Koreans and their continued threat that the decisive moment will come on such and such a day, the majority of opinion does not believe there will be any invasion until at least the fall."

James wanted to finish his story, find a lost umbrella, and go to a picnic for the rest of the day.His South Korean aides monitored the usual developments over the weekend.

Like most Americans in Seoul, James had heard too many reports of an "imminent invasion," dozens of times during his tenure, to believe it.He'd actually heard rumors of an invasion earlier that day, and he asked G-2 about it, and got a negative answer.

A few minutes after 8:[-], James arrived at the embassy in a United Press jeep.He raced to the door in the rain, only to be met by an intelligence officer who came out distraught in search of his car and driver.James later recalled:
He thought I was here to report on it. "What did you hear from the border?" he asked me.

"Nothing yet. What did you hear?" I said.

"Damn it, they should have crossed the line everywhere except 8th division territory," he told me.

"I haven't heard of that yet," I said, and then I went to the press office and started making calls.

James spent 90 minutes frantically calling various sources (most of whom were still asleep and not sure what was going on) and staring at the report arriving at the embassy.He even encouraged an embassy press officer to ask him to find out if North Korean radio had anything to say about the outbreak of war. (The answer was no.) “The first reports were fragmentary and unverifiable,” James later recalled. “Most of them were police reports, and they were usually wildly exaggerated. I withheld all reports for an hour and a half."

James, a former naval pilot with long experience in Asia, was trusted by embassy officers and diplomat circles.The first secretary of the embassy, ​​Harold Noble, believed that James was an "honest and dedicated reporter" who did not engage in sensationalism.So James sat in the back room of the embassy and listened to the discussion of events.Finally, one officer on the military advisory group said to another: "I think we should let Washington know about this."

"If you think it's okay to post it, then I can do it too," James said.He hastily drafted an "urgent" press release, which meant it would be sent on the most expensive rates and received priority processing by the U.P. Press.James has handled reports of the attack with caution, stressing in his message that the information is "scattered."But "the reason why I issued it as an emergency level ... it shows that I think this matter is extremely important".James' telegram reads:
urgent news united press international new york
25095 James scattered reports from the 38th parallel that the North Koreans launched an attack along the full border on Sunday morning at [-]:[-] local time and another report that Kaesong, [-] miles northwest of Seoul, and the headquarters of the Korean First Division fell at [-]:[-] am The enemy is reported to be three to four kilometers south of the border. Ongjin peninsula. Tanks are believed to be used. Chuncheon, [-] miles northeast of Seoul, is reported from the sea. Twenty small boats have landed here, south of Ganglin on the east coast. Road cut off.
Notes should be emphasized that this is still fragmented and the situation is unclear James

James' telegram was picked up almost immediately by the U.P. office in San Francisco, from where it was relayed to New York.A rewriter in the International News Department turned James' condensed telegram language into a news report and sent it around the world.

Within an hour, James' press release was sent back to Seoul by cable from the U.P. Press, where the Korean-language papers rushed out afternoon specials reporting the invasion.

Ambassador Mucho's telegram announcing the breach was sent from Seoul about 10 minutes after the news was published.Diplomatic telegrams are slower than United Press telegrams, and Muccio's telegrams must be encrypted before being sent to Tokyo and forwarded to Washington.So the first news of the invasion that the U.S. government received came not from its embassy, ​​but from an old ticker at a news agency.

The telegram sent by Muccio carried the priority sign of "NIACT", which is the State Department's code, which means "night operation" and is only used in emergencies.The cable listed as NIACT required the Washington Secret Room to process it immediately, ahead of other communications, and report it to the appropriate officials.As far as this telegram was concerned, it was to be reported to Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs.

president on leave
The weekend the war broke out, Harry Truman left foreign affairs on the cloud.For almost 18 months, Republicans in Congress were at odds with him, and his famous temper was almost unbearable.At this moment, he plans to leave the sultry Washington and go to his hometown in Missouri to catch his breath.He has no specific schedule, intending to relax his mind, put aside his official duties, and have a few days of leisure.

But as a statesman, Truman always had to drop by for frivolous events, like the inauguration of Friendship Airfield near Baltimore.Before boarding the plane, he wrote a note to former State Department chief of protocol and new ambassador to Canada Stanley Woodward.He wrote: "I am going to Baltimore to attend an airport inauguration, and I don't know why I am going. My guess is that the governor of Maryland, the state's two senators, all representatives, and the mayor of Baltimore insisted. (sic) for the sake of my visit." He benignly invited Woodward to visit him at his villa in Key West, Florida, in the winter. "Don't think you're Mr. Ambassador now that the man in the White House can't bother you," said Truman, who in Missouri was going to "oversee building some fences—not political fences, but ordering a new one for the farm house." roof, and tell some politicians to go to hell. I hope this is a great visit, right?"

Maryland officials met with the president at Washington National Airport and arrived at Friendship after a short flight.Baltimore Mayor Thomas Dayaxandro, who was teased along the way, admitted that flying for the first time was "a little scary."The inauguration was over in less than an hour, and Truman spoke earnestly about the need for the federal government, state governments, and local authorities to work together to develop aviation and other transportation industries.He never let go of the opportunity to off-the-cuff taunt his Republican opponent: "If we had listened to the bigots . Still in Congress. But, God forbid, they don’t have a majority.” Ironically, Truman ended his speech with a string of words like “a peaceful future, a peaceful purpose, a peaceful world.”The time for the world to be peaceful is only a few hours.

At around 3:[-] ET on that hot Saturday afternoon, the peace ended.At that time, the president's plane was flying at cruising speed over the Mississippi River Valley, which was the last leg of the flight to Kansas City.

saturday night scares
Joseph Alsop, as a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, had a few trump cards that came in handy: he was a distant relative of the Roosevelts, educated at the Ivy League, and socially personable ( Nobody has to teach Joe Alsop the order of forks yet); what's more, he also has the energy and intelligence of a reporter, which puts him on a par in wit and wit with the people he interviews.Joseph Alsop co-chaired a column for the New York Herald Tribune with his brother Stewart, who was also a talented reporter and analytical commentator with less focus on the social vortex of Georgetown.

Joseph Alsop, on the contrary, was able to invite dignitaries to dinner and prided himself on his ability to control the atmosphere.Journalists in Washington have to negotiate with their aides and secretaries if they want to see these officials.The guest list for the evening was extraordinary.Alsop was, in the words of a douchebag at the National Press Club, "loud and deep."At this moment, he has just returned from an interview in Europe, and treats himself to clean up the dust for himself.The guests at the dinner were memorable: Justice Felix Frankfort, Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, Undersecretary of the Air Force John McCone and Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Dean Rusk.

The dinner was also described by Alsop: "It was a beautiful night. People talking on the terrace under the stars."

But a servant interrupted the conversation, announcing that there was a call for "Mr. Rush."Dean Rusk glanced at everyone, determined that he was the person he was looking for, and then stepped into the room to answer the phone.

A few minutes later, he returned to the patio, "white as paper" (as Alsop described it), beckoning Pace and McCone back inside.After a while, they came out together and said vaguely: "North Korea has a pretty serious border incident." They found a suitable excuse and went to the State Department.

According to Alsop, the party then "went quiet and there was a discussion about whether this was the case this time".

(End of this chapter)