The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 26: Showing off force (2)
speed up reinforcements
As Task Force Smith moved north, Major General William Dean, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, established headquarters at Daejeon to prepare for the arrival of his troops.In a few weeks, Dean, 51, is an unusual figure among Army generals. He was commissioned after training in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and skyrocketed to star general.He's 6 feet tall, massive, and weighs over 200 pounds.He commanded infantry units in Europe during World War II and was known for his discipline. From 1947 to 1948, he managed the US military and political affairs in South Korea, and then went to Japan to take over command of the 24th Division.His knowledge of North Korea was limited - he spoke only a few words of Korean and had little contact with anyone outside the government - and he didn't like the place much (on his first night back in July 1950, he slept in A warehouse in Busan. “There are far more bedbugs in the house than in any building I’ve ever seen or will ever see,” he said tartly.)
His first impression of the wartime South Korean army made him very worried.Less than two weeks into the war, the South Korean army already has a third chief of staff.The South Korean Army Command "was torn apart by internal squabbles, each accusing the other of being a 'communist,' each clearly willing to let me decide everything, especially for them".Each time Dean hoped that the South Koreans would fight back, the commanders came up with "a whole bunch of excuses for retreating": They were short of ammunition;But the vast majority of South Korean soldiers "clearly did not make any effort to resist and fight."Although the South Korean army repeatedly claimed that its troops were "fighting hard in the eastern mountains" and occasionally showed a captured armored vehicle, Dean couldn't even guess what the scene would be there.Dean will not be deceived.He's fought the battles and knows those iconic exponents.He found that while the South Korean troops talked about fighting, they didn't seem to be able to take any prisoners for interrogation.It is miraculous that, even in the heat of battle, some prisoners can always be taken.Dean can only conclude that the Koreans are lying.

Later on July 7, Dean was lucky enough to have the first substantial American advance force, 4 soldiers from the 34th Regiment, at his disposal.He ordered this force to move to the rear of Task Force Smith to take positions and block a road in Anseong and the main highway in Pyeongtaek.Dean wanted to make the most of the geography here.At Pyeongtaek, a branch of Asan Bay stretched inland almost to the road, providing a barrier against any attempt by the enemy to flee southwards around the city from the west.To the east of Ancheng, the mountains stretch to the edge of the city, forming a similar barrier.If the North Koreans break through these two vital cities, they can control the road network going south as they please.Task Force Smith was on standby, hoping to defeat the North Korean attack here.

Dean carefully explained the operational intent to Colonel Jay Lovelace, commander of the 34th regiment.If the North Koreans do bypass these blocking positions, delaying operations will become extremely difficult.The regiment's first task was to force the North Koreans to slow down their advance, buying time for MacArthur to send more troops to North Korea.Dean estimated the difficulties: the 34st Battalion of the 1th Regiment, which was about to enter the position, was not equipped with tanks, artillery, and anti-tank weapons; the battalion was poorly trained; and the surging North Korean troops had an absolute advantage.But the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Ayers, had fought bravely and tactically well in the Italian campaigns of World War II, so Dean thought he was up to the task.

Without saying a word, Ailes summoned his sergeants and said, "Okay, get in the car and let's go."

America's first battle
On Tuesday, the fourth day of Task Force Smith's march, the exhausted troops disembarked from the train at Osan, and boarded a conscripted assortment of wheezing North Korean trucks.The advance team of the 24nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 52th Division consisted of 108 soldiers, carrying 6 105mm howitzers and 73 vehicles. They rushed to North Korea in a small navy ship, and then went north by truck and train.Lieutenant Colonel Smith believed that now he finally had the power he needed.Brigadier General George Bath arrived with the artillery.Although his rank is higher, he is still under the unified command of Lieutenant Colonel Smith.

Lieutenant Colonel Smith put the soldiers in trucks and prepared to drive north at dusk, but the North Koreans who drove them backed off. "You idiots," one of the drivers said to Smith through an interpreter, "there's a war over there, we should go that way." He pointed to the direction.When Smith insisted on going, the drivers abandoned the truck and fled in the dark.A sergeant shouted: "Okay, let's find some volunteers who can drive." In this way, the task force continued to drive in trucks driven by American soldiers.

The further you go, the more trouble South Korean troops cause.At several bridges, Smith found South Korean soldiers busy laying explosives.They told him that they were "planning to cut off the road by drastic measures to stop the Communist tanks".Smith and Bath argued that blowing up bridges would also cripple their task force.They said they would leave the explosives where they were, and if the Americans had to pull back, they would promise to blow up the bridges.

Bath grew impatient when the argument went on.When a group of Korean soldiers still insisted on blowing up the bridge immediately, Bath picked up the explosive box and threw it into the river, and the Korean soldiers stopped talking.

At 7:5 am on Wednesday, July 3, Task Force Smith finally reached its destination.Counting from the moment they left Japan Wood Barracks, it took almost 5 full days.Although the soldiers were exhausted, they immediately built artillery positions, and they worked sadly.At this moment, even the newly recruited soldiers knew that the attack from the north along this road in a few days would be led by tanks.War veterans have a brilliant idea: Hit the tank's tracks to immobilize it; conversely, try your luck and shoot shells into the aiming holes.The unspoken conclusion was that the men of Task Force Smith had hit the worst errands, taking their troops out of occupation because their commanders were known for their tactical adeptness .Frankly, many people wish they were still in Japan.

In any case, the soldiers set to work.To explain the artillery positions built that night, it is best to use the shape of human hands as an analogy.On a flat surface, lower your right hand and spread your thumb, index and middle fingers.The Suwon-Osan Highway runs from the north to the south.The thumb is one hill, the joint of the index finger and middle finger is another hill.The artillery positions were placed just to the left of the wrist - 1 gun 400 yards back and 4 more about a mile away.

Company B spanned both sides of the road.On its right flank, Company C formed an L-shaped formation—one-third of its forces were facing the main axis of the North Korean army's advance, and the rest of its forces were deployed at a right angle of 90° (along the middle finger). A southbound railway track runs parallel.This was the only north-south passage through the rolling terrain, and it was here that Bradford Smith barricaded it.

Smith was shorthanded to take all the positions.He called up volunteers from headquarters to supplement the artillery.The volunteers who joined were enough to form four 4-caliber machine gun squads and four 0.5-inch anti-tank bazooka squads, and they were deployed on the forward positions of the infantry.

The artillerymen carefully counted the number of shells.While replenishing ammunition supplies in Sasebo, Japan, the battalion ordnance officer found only 18 HEAT rounds left.He distributed 6 of them to Group A, requesting that they should be used sparingly, and they would specialize in the Soviet-made T-34 tanks. More than 1200 rounds of other types of shells are conventional high-explosive (HE), and their effectiveness against Soviet-made armor is doubtful.

By dawn on Wednesday, 540 American soldiers were already in position in the blocking positions, and Smith's original task force was reinforced by artillery units.It was raining heavily, and the soldiers were either huddled up in the muddy narrow trenches, or hiding behind trees, chewing cold C-type breakfast rations, waiting for the North Koreans to come.

At around 7 o'clock, Smith first spotted the North Korean tank.A pile of dark gray things came along the road from the direction of Suwon, and although they were still a few miles away, they could still be discerned.In less than half an hour, a more specific situation was reported by the observation station ahead: a column of 8 tanks was slowly approaching the position.

在这以后令人窒息的30分钟里，史密斯盯着坦克慢悠悠地驶入105毫米榴弹炮的射程。8时左右，前方观察所用无线电向炮兵发出了开火命令：距离4 000码，离美军步兵的前沿阵地约2 000码。美国炮兵在朝鲜战争中第一次向北朝鲜坦克开火，当时巴思将军下意识地看了一下表：上午8时16分。

The first few shells missed, but the forward observation post quickly corrected the distance. The explosion of the shells set off thick smoke and mud among the advancing tanks, but it could not stop the enemy.Seeing such a scene, the American infantrymen were all terrified.Tanks still rumble along the road.Smith guessed that the enemy commander thought he was confronted with yet another trivial blocking operation by South Korea.

Because ammunition was limited, Smith ordered that the North Korean tanks be within 700 yards before firing the 75mm bazooka.The first few shells hit the leading tank, but failed to cause fatal damage.The North Korean tanks' 85mm cannons and 7.62mm machine guns fired non-stop while rumbling along the slopes to the top.

Lieutenant Ollie Connor was holding a rocket launcher in the ditch on the east side of the road. He let go of the first two tanks, and then fired 15 rockets at the tail of the tank with the weakest armor at a distance of 22 yards from a kneeling position. .At the same time, anti-tank high-explosive shells from the howitzer team set two tanks on fire.The wounded tank rushed to the side of the road to make way for the following tanks.

One of the tanks was on fire, and two crew members came out of the turret with their hands raised, followed by the No. 3 crew member who jumped out of the tank with a small submachine gun and fired at the nearby US machine gun positions.A machine gunner was shot—the No. 1 U.S. ground soldier killed since the start of the war, his name lost to oblivion in the chaos of the fighting.U.S. fire immediately killed the three North Koreans. (Smith, recalling the battle later, asserted that it was anti-tank HE rounds, not Connor's rockets, that knocked out the tanks. The rockets, he said, had expired.)
A few minutes later, the last anti-tank high-explosive bomb was fired.Conventional high-explosive shells bounce off the tank on contact and cannot cause any damage.The morale of the North Koreans was greatly boosted, and they continued to move forward.The tank column crossed the pass, but did not stop to destroy the American artillery positions, but just hit the infantry positions indiscriminately.Frustrated American soldiers occasionally fired at North Korean tanks with M-1 rifles.The significance of this battle is clear.The North Koreans raced past American positions with the ease of a Sunday motorist.

The first tanks rushed down the road to the artillery positions, their tracks crushed the field telephone lines that connected the howitzers to the infantry positions, and the radio stations were out of order due to damp.The U.S. military can only communicate with the radio on a jeep. Groups of 4 tanks came continuously, and no US firepower could stop them.By 9:33 a.m., 20 tanks had crossed the infantry positions, killing and wounding [-] American soldiers under their fire.

In the early hours of that morning, before the battle broke out, someone in the artillery positions asked an obvious question: What would happen to the artillery positions if North Korean tanks broke through the infantry positions?Sergeant Edwin Eversall of the Artillery joined some in thinking the question was unfounded. "People think that if the enemy finds out who they're fighting with, they'll turn around." That said, it's the Americans, not the Koreans.An infantryman reassured the artillerymen: "Don't worry, they will never come to you."

But the North Korean tanks came, and swaggered, much to the ire of Smith and the other officers.What's more, the North Koreans don't seem particularly interested in destroying American artillery positions.Again and again North Korean tanks with their hatches closed climbed over ravines and along roads past artillery emplacements.They also occasionally fired a few shots arrogantly.It seems to disdain the US artillery positions, and the muzzles of some tanks even face the other side of the road.The crew of a tank paused momentarily after spotting the emplacement of the American howitzer and drove off the road, appearing to run it over.But after a while, the tank turned back to the road and continued towards Osan.

Meanwhile, the 105mm howitzers took direct aim and fired round after round at a range of 150 to 300 yards.Although the shells shook the tank again and again, they bounced uselessly.

The defenders succeeded only once.Lieutenant Colonel Miller Perry and Sergeant Edwin Eversor of the Artillery Division led the bazooka team toward the road, intending to fire at the tanks at point-blank range.A tank takes aim at American soldiers in a rice field between a howitzer emplacement and the road.Kneeling on the ground, Eversol hurriedly fired a rocket, and the tank was so close that it "looked like a huge battleship".The tank's turret turned towards Eversor, and an 85mm cannon round knocked out a utility pole next to the road.Eversol jumped into a flooded gutter.The pole fell, but he was unharmed.Almost at the same moment, a 105 mm shell broke the track of the tank and it was immobilized.The rest of the tanks continued across the ravine.

After the fighting subsided, Lieutenant Colonel Perry immediately shouted into the damaged tank through an interpreter, asking the crew to surrender.They didn't answer.Perry ordered the tank to be destroyed with a 105mm howitzer.After they fired three rounds at the tank, two North Koreans jumped out of the tank and fled. A U.S. squad chased them down and killed them.

During the melee, a small arms bullet wounded Perry in the leg, but he refused to retreat, insisting on commanding the embattled artillery to meet the approaching and more North Korean tanks.A seemingly endless train of tanks rolls down the road—sometimes in groups of three, sometimes in singles.

Faced with this scene, some of the artillerymen lost their positions and, in Eversor's words, began to "move away."Perry and other officers and NCOs manned the abandoned cannon, which they hauled shells from nearby ammunition depots, loaded, and fired.However, most shots still don't work.This time, though, the tanks were less commonly accompanied by some infantry.Cannon fire at point-blank range knocked most of them off the tanks or killed them.The tanks continued to drive towards Osan, but the road was already full of corpses.

By 10:15 am, the last tank had crossed the artillery positions, and a total of 40 tanks had passed by this point.Smith counted the results, artillery and bazooka fire, or both, destroying or disabling four North Korean tanks and wounding three others but not taking them out of action.His unit suffered 4 casualties, in addition to losing a 3mm howitzer and most of its vehicles.

Later, Lieutenant Colonel Perry lamented the absence of anti-tank mines, which were not available in North Korea at the time.He believed that a small number of mines, properly placed, could stop an entire tank column.For the time being, however, the Far East Command had to continue fighting in a botched manner, relying on the bravery of its troops and improvised measures to buy time.

(End of this chapter)