The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 74
This intrigue was a prelude to a surprise attack by the Chinese from the side heights and rear.A grenade wounded Haggett, who insisted on standing, decided to abandon the tank and rushed to safety.Just as Hargett and 24 others began rushing to safety, the tank crew finally released the frozen brakes on the blocking tank, and it and two other tanks rumbled forward.One of the crew, Corporal Wright, had never driven a tank before, but he yelled, "I'll take this tank out or die!" go forward.

In the final minutes of the battle, an explosion knocked young Private Robert Dermot to the side of the road, and he rolled down a ravine.The other soldiers thought he had been killed and did not search for his body.After a few minutes, he regained his sanity and struggled back to the road, which was full of refugees.He quickly passed through the refugees and rushed to Zhenxingli.He was the last Marine to escape from the Changjin Reservoir.Now, the Marine Corps only needs to march a short distance across the plains to reach the safety of Heungnam-Wonsan.The toughest ordeal in Marine Corps history was finally over.

During these last few miles, the Marines had the energy to sing, imitating "Bless You All," an old British Army anthem in India:

Bless you all, bless you all,
Bless the Communist Party, bless America, bless all:

Those squinting Chinese soldiers attacking Xiajieyu,
Now experience the US Marine Corps.

But we bid them goodbye,
We are the Harry Police Force at your beck and call.

Put your pack on your back,

The next stop is Saigon,

Brace yourselves, brothers, and bless you all!
Last Stand

Before December 12, General Smith intended to establish a defensive position along the coast near Xingnan Harbor and hold an isolated area.However, MacArthur believes that this deployment is very dangerous.True, the Chinese had withdrawn from the main battle, and they had to follow an attack-pause-attack cycle because of supply problems.MacArthur has suffered twice.He knew the Chinese would attack again, and he was not about to risk confronting a few Chinese field armies in a narrow, air-vulnerable coastal defense.Therefore, MacArthur issued a new order: After the troops of the 9th Army arrived in Xingnan, they immediately boarded the transport ship and sailed south to Pusan.In the west, Walton Walker's Eighth Army was retreating to several southern fronts and trying to hold the Seoul-Incheon ring.If the Chinese army intends to bypass the 10th Army and attack south, MacArthur is sure to attack their overstretched supply lines.In the same order, MacArthur finally agreed to end the split command that had plagued Tenth and Eighth Armies since the Incheon landing.After the 8th Army withdrew to Pusan, it immediately came under the command of General Walker as part of the 8th Army.

What the Marines were about to do in Hungnam was a "reverse amphibious landing," with about 10 troops -- Marines, American soldiers, and South Korean soldiers -- coming from a gradually tightening ground covered by air strikes and a barrage of naval gunfire. Withdraw from the circular position.

The most worrying thing was that the Chinese would bring artillery units within striking distance of the ports and fire shells at the mountains of supplies.This did not happen.Although the Chinese fired a few rambling volleys of mortar shells, they appeared to be out of action.

Recognizing the futility of clearing quarter-mile warehouses full of food, soap, lard, coffee, and fruit juices, logistics officers left the doors open for people to eat as they pleased. Time reporter Dwight Martin was walking through the supply depot:

American soldiers and North Korean dockworkers eat all day long, nonchalantly opening six-pound cans of pork luncheon meat for a sandwich and gallon-heavy juice cans for a sip of juice.Outside the warehouse, a black-bearded U.S. sergeant dipped his plastic field food spoon into a 6-pound can of corned beef with the dismissive look of an overweight teenage girl. With a sumptuous buffet.

Teams of North Korean women carried 50-pound and 100-pound sacks over their shoulders and overhead through endless rows of rice and flour.In the wharf area there is a train of brand-new Japanese-made railroad freight wagons with the U.S. Army Transport Corps logo on the pristine white side panels.One officer saw the wagons and other large equipment and said, "My God, we just got most of this stuff up here. If the Easterners keep going, we're going to have to go to war and blow them all up. God bless Bless the taxpayers."

The loading of the troops went well, and they boarded the transport ship, which was about to sail the 400 miles to Pusan.All Marines were loaded by December 12, and the remaining Army units guarding the perimeter were to be loaded in the final days.After that, Smith allowed as many North Korean civilians as possible to be moved off the beachhead.Among them were old women with their loads on their backs; mothers with babies strapped in white cloth; curious teenagers, some of them parentless, eager to "take the big boat" to the south.In the swarm to board the ship, 14 people squeezed onto a LST, immobilizing it in the mud.South Korean soldiers fired their submachine guns into the air and drove everyone off the boat before the captain was able to steer the boat into deep water, where North Korean civilians re-boarded.Another large merchant ship took away 4 civilians. (Some South Koreans seem to fear their government as much as they fear the Communist Party. In the Seoul area, South Korean army execution squads killed more than 000 people suspected of collaborating with the North Koreans. Western priests protested that many of the executions were Not sanctioned by the trial, but the army commander replied that executions by firing squad were "more convenient" than hanging, and that he had no intention of stopping them.)
Then began the systematic destruction of supplies that could not be transported to Pusan.The Army's 175th Combat Engineer Battalion, with the help of Korean railway workers, filled a 2-yard railway bridge with locomotives and boxcars. "When the North Koreans learned they were going to destroy the railcars," said Lieutenant Carroll Gruth, "they were reluctant and had to be pushed to do the work. Instead, the engineers found the work interesting , which relieved their depressed mood.” After a bridge hole was blown up, the carriage and the front of the car squeezed into the fracture and rushed down to the bottom of the valley.Sappers filled some of the carriages with petrol cans in order to destroy them completely.Then they set fire to the wooden bridge, and the whole bridge burned down. "The fire was so intense that the front of a car was burning red and its siren was blowing," Gruth said.

圣诞节前夕，防御圈里的所有部队都已撤退完毕。美国军方不打算留给敌人任何东西。2艘巡洋舰、7艘驱逐舰和3艘火箭发射舰在距岸边仅数百码的地方排成一线，向这座被放弃的城市倾泻了猛烈的炮火——近34 000发炮弹和12 800枚火箭弹组成弹雨，其猛烈程度甚至超过进攻仁川前的炮火。最后一阵震天巨响来自引爆了的400吨凝固甘油炸药和500枚1 000磅炸弹。“整个兴南濒水区好像被一次火山喷发崩上了天，火焰、浓烟和碎石在空中形成了一个巨大的黑色蘑菇状烟云，笼罩在断壁残垣上空。”一位陆战队的目击者说。

On Christmas Day, General Smith recalled in desperation MacArthur's big words about letting the US military "go home for Christmas" a month ago.In contrast, the 1st Marine Division is now going to Pusan ​​to redeploy and prepare to start from scratch and fight again.The generals called each other to congratulate the clever escape from the Chinese army, but that didn't obscure the basic fact that had happened: the Chinese drove the 10th Army out of the battle.

However, the Chinese also paid a heavy price for this.From 10 October to 26 December, the 12st Marine Division's total combat casualties were 15 - 1 killed in action, 4 seriously wounded, 418 missing in action, and 604 in action In addition, there were 114 non-combat casualties, most of whom were mild frostbite or indigestion, and they all returned to the team soon; in addition, 192 Marine Corps pilots were killed, 3 were missing, and 508 were injured .

Chinese Army documents seized in subsequent battles admit that Chinese casualties in the face of the Marine Corps were 37, of which 500 were killed and 15 were injured by Marine Corps ground forces; People were killed and 000 were injured.Chinese army commanders were outspoken in their postwar analysis of the troops' performance.The 7th Army of the Chinese Communist Army complained that due to problems in transportation—

The troops were starving, they were eating cold food.They can't maintain their strength for the battle, the wounded... can't evacuate... our army's firepower is seriously insufficient.Cannons don't have shells when they're about to fire, and sometimes shells are duds...

The 20th Army of the Chinese Communist Army lamented that although "we succeeded in dividing and encircling the enemy ... we did not destroy the enemy one by one. ..." This analysis blamed senior officers for tactical rigidity, not giving full play to their strengths, and not allowing small units to attack when they hoped (Marines agree with this view that during the attack on Hagaru-ri, the Chinese attacked the strongest point of the American position for several nights, which made the Marine Battalion Withstood the attack of superior forces).The 27th Army of the Chinese Communist Army complained in particular about the harsh weather and the lack of warm clothing and shelters:

The troops didn't have enough food, they didn't have enough houses to live in, they couldn't stand the freezing cold, which was the reason for the massive non-combat attrition (more than 1 people), and the weapons couldn't be used effectively.

During combat, when soldiers camped in the snow, their feet, socks, and hands froze into balls of ice; The barrel shrinks, and 70% of the shells fail to fire; the skin on the hands is also glued off by the shells and the barrel.

The Chinese did drive the 10th Army out of "Changjin of Ice and Snow", but the price paid was enough to keep the Ninth Corps out of battle for a critical few weeks.Now, Smith has a chance to rally the Army in the relative comfort of the erstwhile Pusan ​​perimeter.

(End of this chapter)