Naktong River/Pusan Perimeter Reconsidered
Naktong River/Pusan Perimeter Reconsidered
It looked a lot more and less dangerous than it was...and it was nothing like MASH
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The Japanese had occupied Korea—far-off-Korea, far from the centers of power in Washington and Moscow—since 1904. Its partition in 1945 had been an afterthought of convenience: the Soviets demobilized the Japanese north of the 38th parallel and the Americans demobilized the Japanese south of that line. The Soviets and Americans dug in with their clients, only the Soviets were a bit more…aggressive. On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea for no other good reason other than they could, believing no one could stop them. The South Koreans gave what they could, but it wasn’t much without substantial armor forces or artillery. After the UN Security Council denounced the invasion and South Korea asked for help, an ad hoc American unit of less than 600 combat troops, Task Force Smith made of the 24th Infantry Division stationed in Japan, met the North Korean KPA (Korean People’s Army) onslaught at Osan south of Seoul on 5 July, but with no weapons that could stop the KPA’s T-34 tanks, they delayed the invasion by perhaps twenty minutes. The US Navy shifted the American garrison divisions (five of them, including the 24th) into the port of Pusan (Busan) in the southwest corner of the peninsula in a big hurry.
But they were divisions in name only.
The Department of Defense, in their parsimonious wisdom and not foreseeing any hostilities in the Far East, considerably thinned out the Army garrison troops in Japan. They reduced the infantry regiments to two battalions, with each battalion having two companies, also stripping out most of their armor and artillery. Those divisions were at 66% rifle strength and were about the same in artillery and armor. Worse than that, these were not the combat vets of 1945, but their unblooded younger brothers who’d been sitting around Japan feasting on B-29 Burgers…
But they sallied forth in the finest American traditions…
The American Far Eastern Air Force (FEAF) covered the ground force initially from their bases in Korea itself, but soon most of them shifted to Japan. Those new ground reinforcements were no better equipped to stop the KPA’s armor than had TF Smith. At Taejon on 16-20 July, the 24th Division suffered over 6,000 dead, wounded and captured, including its division commander, rendering it combat ineffective after just sixteen days of action. The surviving Americans and South Koreans fell back as well as they could, delaying a few here, a few more there, relying on the Air Force and what artillery they had to stop the T-34s. Some of their stands made the Alamo look like a picnic…
But behind them, from near and far, came reinforcements.
While the UN called for troops and twenty-one countries would send them, it was up to the Americans to do the initial fighting. Operation VACUUM (don’t start looking for it; it was unofficial) sucked warm bodies in Army uniforms up out of their cushy garrisons, shoved them into units and then ships or airplanes, and dispatched them hence to Korea. By the end of July, the Army had pulled out nearly 10,000 men from Japan, the Philippines, and Hawaii. By mid-August, another 50,000 joined them from Europe and America. At the same time, the Army stripped Reserve and National Guard units stateside of men who could pull triggers and lanyards and packed them off to the Land of the Morning Calm. Not to be outdone, the Marines activated three regiments, dispatching every leatherneck they could spare to Korea immediately, forming a provisional brigade. The Air Force and Navy, too, moved every ship, man and plane that could be spared to East Asia.
The key phrase was “that could be spared.”
While Hell came to Korea, it had already visited Europe, which was still rebuilding after their devastating second conflict that ended barely five years before. And it was not quite five years since the Far Eastern branch of that related conflict had ended. The Soviets still occupied half of Europe, glaring at the American and British troops that occupied the other half. And while this “police action” was killing people in Korea, the Vietnamese were trying to throw off the French yoke, the former anti-Japanese Huks in the Philippines were still killing who they could, Greece was in civil war, and the fallout from the Berlin Airlift was still being…assessed.
The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.
Omar Bradley, May, 1951
He was talking about Korea, but more about the expansion of the conflict into China long after that hellish summer. However, it was appropriate even very early in the conflict. No one but North Korea really wanted this conflict; Stalin was said to have been surprised that it started at all. Given all of this, the Americans and the UN had to dig in somewhere and stop the onslaught.
This was where geography and American industrial might rescued the ground-pounders.
The Naktong River forms a rough loop around the southwestern port of Pusan, permitting the American and South Korean survivors to form a 140-mile line around the vital port city, enclosing Pohang-dong and Taegu, as well. This perimeter was entirely in range of the American’s only superior weapon: air power out of Japan and, soon, off American aircraft carriers.
It looked worse than it was, but it was still pretty lousy.
By mid-August, the Perimeter was stable, American supplies and reinforcements were flowing in, UN troops were gearing up, saddling up, and arriving in Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere in growing numbers. American naval supremacy and air superiority kept the KPA from breaking through the Perimeter, despite hellish conditions on the ground. At those latitudes, daylight conditions lasted nearly 20 hours in summer. More than that, Korea was experiencing its worst drought in generations. The river itself thus was not much of a barrier, but…
North Korea expected to have won by then.
Despite Soviet and Chinese support, the KPA was at the end of its tether. They had not designed their logistical arrangements for a war lasting more than perhaps four weeks. Their truck supply lines broke down quickly; their horse/mule-drawn logistics could not supply armor and modern artillery for more than a few days, or over fifty miles from a dump. No one in the communist world had expected the American/UN/Free World's reaction to have been so swift or decisive. Even less had they expected military help to arrive in South Korea so quickly. By early September, the KPA had lost all but a handful of its T-34 tanks that had been the weapons of decision thus far. Worse, by mid-August, recoilless rifles that could stop the Soviet tanks arrived in appreciable numbers in the Perimeter. While the Americans and South Koreans often desperately fought off mass-infiltration attacks that could last for three days, the KPA grew weaker and weaker every week. By September, the US forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000, and deployed 500 medium tanks.
And the Americans had this plan…
Douglas MacArthur, the American commander of the UN forces in the Far East, planned an amphibious end run around the main KPA forces in the south, landing at the port of Inchon and driving to Seoul. This would cut off the KPA from the main roads and the only railway still serviceable, and take advantage of UN naval supremacy. It was a risk, but it was one worthwhile. Merely forcing the Perimeter with the weary and somewhat disorganized troops in it would have, among other things, taken too long, if it could have been done at all. MacArthur’s gamble worked on 15 September, and the wearies in the Perimeter fought their way out of their pocket a week later…
So whither the Naktong River/Pusan Perimeter’s place in history?
While the Korean War might have been the wrong one, the Perimeter, I submit, was the right battle at this stage of the Cold War. The Soviet Bloc fully expected South Korea to fall easily into their orbit, and were puzzled, then alarmed, when it didn’t happen. They were even more alarmed at the fast and enthusiastic Western reaction; even beleaguered France, Columbia, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands and Ethiopia offered armed forces to shore up South Korea. On the heels of the Berlin Airlift, no one in the Soviet orbit expected the Americans to be as able to leap to another theater. Many Iron Curtain analysts believed the Americans and British had drawn down their forces beyond a point where they could be effective quickly. Also, many in the Free World believe the same. That the ragged and weary soldiers and Marines whisked from their homes and comfy billets and into a dusty maelstrom of battle could do what they did for that crucial month and a half rank with the Alamo and Bastogne…if only Korea were more than the Forgotten War.
Sergeant’s Business and Other Stories
Among the many gems in this collection, “Hold the Line” is one. The other is “To Rest With Long Ears.” Both are experiments in form. “Hold” is second-person; “Long Ears” is epistolic. Look ‘em up if you’re so inclined.
In “Hold the Line,” a Marine is in a hole on a ridgeline that gets…well, you’ll have to read it. In “To Rest with Long Ears,” a reporter tries to find the breadcrumbs of a story across decades and scores of documents to find out just what the man meant by “to rest with long ears.” There are other stories here, of course. Not all are literary experiments. Available from your favorite bookseller or from me if you want an autograph.
Coming Up…
The Problem of the Horse
Six Ways to Rewrite History III
And Finally...
On 17 August:
1945: Seeker and Warburg in London, England publishes George Orwell’s Animal Farm. By making his main characters animals that spoke, early reviewers made the mistake of thinking it was a children’s book, but they were soon disabused of that idea. By far Orwell’s most successful book to date, he had already begun work on his last book that, as yet, had no title but would come out as 1984.
1945: To facilitate the evacuation of the Japanese from the peninsula, the US and Soviet Union temporarily partition North and South Korea into Soviet and US zones, as embodied in President Truman’s General Order Number 1. The agreement was to be reconsidered after elections were held in both zones.
And today is NATIONAL THRIFT SHOP DAY. My grandkid’s father, Mike, relies on thrift shops to supply him with stuff he can refurbish and sell…and wear. I find it surprising what I often can and cannot find in such places.
As I recall, after the success of the Inchon landing, MacArthur took the offensive all the way to the Chinese border at the Yalu River and was speaking of continuing into China and even using nuclear weapons... This precipitated the entry, in massive numbers, of the Chinese into the conflict, driving US and UN forces all the way back to Seoul and extending the war by several very bloody years... I think we studied this with Mr. Bramble (C '64).