The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 87
Li Qiwei did not exaggerate his success.He is probing, and his progress depends on the strength of the Chinese army he encounters.He doesn't care about the gains and losses of a city or a place, what he wants is to annihilate the Chinese.On the western front, he established a temporary forward front along the Han River; on the rugged, mountainous east, he would stay farther south of the Han River.He does not see any military value in crossing the Han River "unless China decides to withdraw north of the [-]th Parallel".As for this active attack, Li Qiwei was skeptical about the idea of ​​advancing as far as the [-]th parallel. He called this line "a line of defense that cannot be defended with existing forces."Recapturing Seoul would mean "taking an impassable river through or behind our defensible positions" unless there was a "sudden opportunity to encircle or destroy a large Chinese Communist force" Otherwise, he would still think that it is not advisable to recapture Seoul, but he did plan to recapture the city in the future.

MacArthur generally agreed with Ridgway's plan, although he was to advance north of the Han River until he came under resistance from Chinese Communist forces. "As far as Seoul is concerned," MacArthur telegraphed, "the reoccupation of Gimpo Airport . . . and Incheon . Valuable, but of little practical military utility." Ridgway stuck to his more conservative plan.

During the first week of the offensive on a wide front (9th Army in the West, 10th Army in the East), troops advanced at a rate of about 2 miles per day, although sudden warm rains turned the frozen ground 8 to 20 inches thick brown slimy mud.Ridgway parked his western flank on the Han River, and then concentrated on straightening the section of the central front that protruded southward from central Korea, with the 1st Marine Division at the forefront.In the first week, the daily casualties of the CCP troops reached as high as 2.

Then the Chinese resistance turned hard.The rout of a regiment in South Korea resulted in yet another massacre.At that time, an artillery company of the U.S. Army was heading north along a narrow road three miles northwest of Hengcheng under the cover of an infantry escort, apparently without any flank protection.The force went to support the ROK 8th Division a few miles to the north.They camped at night, the CCP counterattacked, the South Korean troops fled, and then the Chinese suddenly swarmed the American artillery, and only 500 of the more than 2 people survived.One of them, a corporal, recounted: "The Chinese came upon us at two o'clock in the morning. The place was full of bullets. I and 14 other infantrymen were ordered to protect the cannons. We helped get the cannons into the convoy, but we Only three came back alive."

The next day, the artillery managed to move south to escape the Chinese for a while, but they were ambushed again that night.Another surviving private said:
The Chinese hit the driver of the front car, and the entire convoy stopped, and everyone was in a hurry.As soon as a man fell, the Chinese immediately came to snatch his weapon.Someone yelled, "Here's one!" and I fired, but it was just a tree.Another yelled, "Let's get out of here!" I was dizzy, like the whole world exploded under my feet.There was blood everywhere.i know i'm screwed...

The Hengcheng ambush was the battle with the most concentrated loss of American personnel in the entire war: about 530 people were killed.The tragedy began with the rout of South Korean troops, combined with the tactical misuse of American troops.

Another bad fight was fought by the 2rd Regiment of the 23nd Division (commanded by Colonel Paul Freeman) with a French battalion.The French battalion was commanded by a very famous lieutenant colonel named Ralph Monclar.This man has experienced many battles and has a heroic demeanor. He wears various military medals awarded by France on his military uniform.He had been injured 17 times, and his leg was crippled quite badly.At the beginning of the war he was a lieutenant general and inspector general of the French Foreign Legion.But he hoped for the honor of leading a French detachment to Korea, so he voluntarily demoted to lieutenant colonel.Together, Monclar's battalion and Freeman's regiment attacked a site north of the Han River called the Twin Tunnels, named for the two parallel railway tunnels that passed through a mountain there. On February 2, the coalition forces advanced to a village called Toping at the intersection, which had been severely damaged by air and artillery.The small group of troops conducting reconnaissance encountered a strong counterattack from the Chinese. Freeman immediately decided to retreat out of caution.Almond and the commander of the division also agreed and asked Ridgway for approval.Li Qiwei's answer was just one word: "No!"

Freeman was unafraid.He called his battalion commanders to build up the fortifications and said, "We're going to hold up and fight."

The CCP troops attacked at 2 a.m. with a division-sized force, accompanied by the frantic sound of horns and whistles and the sound of political slogans.The French responded with a hand-cranked siren, whose shrill scream sounded like ghosts and wolves, resounding across the battlefield.The fighting intensified in the second half of the night and continued into the day.Freeman tried desperately to focus fire on the Chinese, who were stuck with his own troops.Perhaps to the great surprise of the Chinese, the French (most of whom, like their officers, were ex-Foreign Legionnaires) took off their steel helmets, wore red turbans, and shouted one of the glorious battle-cry of the Foreign Legion : "Camoloni!" (This is the name of a village in Mexico. In 1863, 65 foreign legionnaires died here resisting the attack of 2 Mexican soldiers.) Then they hacked and killed with bayonet butts, chasing Chinese.When a group of American artillerymen (who were acting as infantry as a last resort) broke down and fled, Captain Thomas Heath stopped them, punched them and shouted, "Go back to that hill, damn it! You're going to die in the Here, it is better to go up the hill and die!" Twice he forced them to return to the battle, and twice they retreated.The Chinese kept rushing over.Another captain, William Klutz, yelled loudly on the field phone: "Don't wait for them to approach us, let us kill these puppies first." victim of.In the end, Freeman had to use the Special Agent Company, which served as a reserve, to plug the widening gap in the defensive line.

When the spy company attacked, the killing noise was loud, and they stopped the Chinese.In the fierce melee, the Chinese and the secret service companies climbed to the top of the mountain, fighting bayonets, dodging thrown grenades, and occasionally firing rifles when they saw the opportunity.The U.S. troops were defeated by the Chinese, who outnumbered them three times, and the surviving U.S. troops began to break out from the mountains.Once they are down, the Chinese can open an exploitable gap in the American front.

At this point, Captain Robert Ellenze, the artillery liaison officer, single-handedly turned the tide.Wounded in previous battles, he still decided to return to the battlefield alone.He found an abandoned 0.5-inch quad-barreled machine gun mounted on a half-track on the side of the road.He called several nearby tank crews and made a concerted effort to turn their guns on the enemy.Ellenz started the engine, leveled the machine gun, aimed at the back of the fighting and retreating US troops, and knocked down the Chinese who were chasing after them.A group of Chinese bazooka men crawled over to take out the machine gun, and Ellenzhi slammed it dumb with a burst of fire.He stood there until morning.

At this time, three American tanks came, and the large and small guns fired together, and then a group of fighter jets flew over the sky, dropping napalm bombs and phosphorus bombs, which set the mountain on fire.Colonel Freeman, near the rear of the position, hurried to muster reserves to plug the gap.

The Chinese braved counterattack fire and held on to the top of the mountain for a whole day.By sunset their resistance was over and they retreated to the rear.

The next day, Li Qiwei came here, and he and Freeman went to the scene in person.Freeman was no new recruit. He had survived the 11nd Division's rout in North Korea last November and December and survived the heaviest Chinese attack yet.But he said of the day's fighting: "It was probably the most brutal battle I've fought in all of North Korea. We were lucky not to be crushed because we really fought to the death."

Counting enemy casualties is often estimated rather than accurately calculated, especially when the cause of enemy death is napalm and high-explosive bombs. However, American soldiers counted more than 4 Chinese dead in the double tunnel area.

This campaign is very important to Li Qiwei.Individual soldiers and detachments of the United Nations Army were crushed under superior fire and defied orders to return to combat, but the officers of the regiment, without exception, held fast to their duties, and the vast majority of soldiers remained strong.For the first time in the Korean War, an all-out Chinese attack was repulsed.

At the same time, the Chinese abruptly disengaged across their entire advance line.Ridgway knew that the road to forcibly cross the Han River east of Seoul had been opened, and he could cut off the Chinese supply lines and put the CCP troops assembled in the west in trouble.Although the 8th Army's performance was not perfect, it fought back the Chinese in hand-to-hand combat, and Ridgway was proud of what he had done in the six weeks he had been ordered.

MacArthur's fame
In Ridgway's first few weeks as commander, General MacArthur avoided North Korea.He has reason to do so.In the eyes of the public, the Korean War was a lost battle, and MacArthur did not want to further have anything to do with this inevitable defeat.Because the report of the battle situation was mostly not good, MacArthur even ordered the 8th Army Command in North Korea to issue a press communiqué instead of the First Building in Tokyo.Ridgway did not mind MacArthur's absence, so that he could go about his day-to-day business without a high-ranking official telling him what to do.

However, Ridgway's offensive success in late January revived MacArthur's interest.He can't help but to glorify himself with victory, especially when he's able to plunder the beauty of others.

An incident in February made Li Qiwei deeply understand the despicable vanity of his superior commander. On February 2, Li Qiwei drafted a plan he called "Operation Butcher", which was intended to expand the previous achievements.The Eighth Army was preparing to cross the Han River with two divisions.Four corps of the Chinese military are reported to be located in the area and south of Pyongyang. "Operation Butcher" was a test aimed at "causing as much damage as possible to the other side" while minimizing losses on the part of the United Nations Army.

On the morning of 2 February, Ridgway outlined the plan to the Eighth Army's key generals, who discussed the details of the plan, and by breakfast time, the plan had been finalized.In Ridgway's view, "Operation Butcher" was "the final implementation of a plan that has been brewing since I took over command of the Eighth Army, and in doing so it can also be said to be against the retreat that has dominated commanders from the top (MacArthur) to the bottom. psychologically."

On the same day, Li Qiwei invited reporters stationed at the Eighth Army Headquarters to attend a briefing that was not for publication. He wanted to explain the ins and outs of his campaign.He said that the Eighth Army had stopped the Chinese counterattack, "We have regained the initiative and will launch an offensive in two or three days."This background briefing tells reporters that they should be ready to go to the battlefield.These circumstances are not intended for publication, which would warn the Chinese of what is to come.

Much to the amazement of Eighth Army censors (and the press), on February 8, the eve of the offensive, MacArthur flew to North Korea and publicly told the same reporters: "I have just ordered the offensive to resume. "

MacArthur's remarks were a bolt from the blue to Ridgway. It not only told the Chinese that the 8th Army would start operations the next day, but also implied that this operation was conceived by MacArthur himself.In Li Qiwei's view, "the meaning of this is very clear: he just flew from Tokyo, he judged the situation, he discussed with his staff, and then he ordered the Eighth Army to attack".There was no such thing at all, and neither MacArthur nor his staff in Tokyo had anything to do with the campaign.Now Li Qiwei can be regarded as experiencing the level of MacArthur's conceit.

The episode dealt a blow to the army censors.As it happens, the day before, Major General Henry Hodes, the deputy chief of staff of the Eighth Army, had just given a lesson to the chief press officer, Lieutenant Colonel Melvin Wallers, and three of his senior aides. Meaning, it's about what to do if a general officer violates secrecy in press releases.The guidelines for censors are, "regardless of who is quoted, your job is to protect the safety and interests of our military," Hodes said.

In this way, when the press reports about MacArthur's press conference fell on the desks of the press censors, these officers were indeed faced with a dilemma.Wallers, a former newspaper executive, puts it in his words: "This is a piece of information that should be withheld for security reasons, even though it comes from an officer of general rank. Yet it comes from an officer who has with unquestionable authority to announce the military actions of his choice."

Wallers signed off the story for publication.He felt that MacArthur's press officer, Major General Courtney Whitney, scheduled the release of this news on the eve of Washington's birthday in the United States, with the purpose of making it a household name. "All good news agencies know that the time to get a front-page 'breaking story' in the daily papers is to send it out in the quiet hours before the holidays, when the editorial offices of every newspaper are looking for material Stuffing the page," Wallers remarked.

"The commander-in-chief spared no effort to maintain his consistent and glorious image in the public." Ridgway learned a harsh lesson from this: MacArthur's loose talk to the media endangered the lives of the soldiers who fought for him.Whenever a major offensive was launched, MacArthur came uninvited to inspect the attacking troops and fired a symbolic shot.Although this move can boost morale, it is also invaluable to the enemy's intelligence community.The pep talk to the troops, however, is best found elsewhere, without the fanfare of a public relations official in Tokyo.In a carefully worded telegram to Tokyo, Ridgway begged MacArthur to forego his visit to the front on the eve of the battle for security reasons.He didn't want to keep MacArthur out, nor did he want to offend MacArthur's authority as a commander, but the fact is that MacArthur's arrival was an obvious signal to the Chinese.MacArthur agreed that he would not be present at the campaigns until they were in full swing.

It was one thing to keep MacArthur from coming to the front before the offensive began, but quite another to keep him from speaking.To Ridgway's rage, MacArthur said something that hurt the morale of the Eighth Army.For example, on March 8 in Suwon he said that a mere stalemate would lead to war unless he was allowed to attack the Reds in the "Manchuria" sanctuary.The 3th Army Corps called his speech a "death to tie" speech. In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Wallers: "This speech has no inspiration for how the troops see the future." For several weeks, Ridgway had to devote considerable energy to convincing the troops that their operations were not futile.

(End of this chapter)