The Peoples Liberation Army’s communications were inferior in comparison to the UN forces. Radios were only issued down to regiments, who then used field telephones if available, to contact their battalions. Battalions then used bugles, whistles and runners to talk to each other and their subordinate companies.
Chinese reinforcements advancing into North Korea. The Chinese enjoyed a virtually unlimited supply of manpower. Note the foliage being carried by the soldiers; the concealment skills of the Chinese were legendary.
25 October – 24
December 1950
It should have come as no surprise to General MacArthur that
the Chinese decided to cross the border in order to protect their interests.
They certainly did not want a unified South Korea, backed by the United States,
across the Yalu River. They made it clear through diplomatic channels that they
would intervene if non-South Korean troops crossed the 38th Parallel.
It was not going to be easy. On 2 October Chairman Mao sent
a cable to Stalin outlining the problems that they would be facing. An American
Corps comprised two infantry divisions and a mechanized division with 1,500 guns
of 70mm to 240mm calibre, including tank guns and anti-aircraft guns. In
comparison each Chinese Army, comprising three divisions, had only thirty-six
such guns. The UN dominated the air, whereas the Chinese had only just started
training pilots and would not be able to deploy more than 300 aircraft in
combat until February 1951. To ensure the elimination of one US Corps, the
Chinese would need to assemble four times as many troops as the enemy – four
field armies to deal with one enemy Corps and requiring 2,200 to 3,000 guns of
more than 70mm calibre to deal with 1,500 enemy guns of the same calibre.
On 5 October 1950, the day after American troops crossed the
38th Parallel, Chairman Mao Zedong issued orders for the North East Frontier
Force of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army to move up to the Yalu River.
Premier Zhou Enlai was sent to Moscow to persuade Stalin to provide aid and it
was agreed that Russian Mig-15 fighters would be sent to airfields in China and
painted in Chinese Air Force markings, but flown by Soviet pilots. They would
not provide air-ground support to the Chinese forces, but would engage United
Nations aircraft south of the Yalu River.
Because of this short delay, Mao postponed the intervention
of Chinese troops from 13 October to 19 October. Four Armies and three
artillery divisions were mobilized. Many were experienced troops who had fought
the Japanese in the Second World War and defeated the Nationalist Army of
Chiang Kai Shek afterwards. In the meantime, on the 15th President Truman flew
to Wake Island to meet with General MacArthur. They discussed the possibility
of Chinese intervention and Truman’s desire to limit the scope of the war.
MacArthur reassured Truman that the Chinese would not intervene and if they did
they would be easily defeated.
On 19 October, United Nations forces entered the North
Korean capital P’yongyang and on the same day the first troops from the Chinese
‘Peoples Volunteer Army’ crossed the Yalu River under great secrecy. As the UN
forces fought their way across the North Korean countryside, General Peng
Dehuai deployed his 270,000 troops in the mountains and waited for the enemy to
fall into the trap.
As the South Korean troops moved into the valleys heading
for the Yalu River, the Chinese watched and on 25 October, made their move. The
Chinese First Phase Campaign began on the morning of 25 October when the 118th
Division of the 40th Army wiped out an infantry battalion of the ROK 6th
Division a mere dozen miles from the Yalu River. At the same time the 1st ROK
Division ran into the Chinese 39th Army, which was tasked with the capture of
Unsan. The 15th Regiment was leading the division and it ground to a halt under
enemy mortar fire. Soon reports came in from the 12th Regiment on the left and
the 11th Regiment in the rear – the Chinese were trying to surround the
division. Colonel Paik immediately withdrew his division to Unsan and
established a defensive perimeter around the town. A captured Chinese soldier
was brought into his headquarters. He was wearing a thick, quilted uniform that
was khaki on the outside and white on the inside and it could be worn inside
out, to facilitate camouflage in snowy terrain. He admitted that he was from
China’s Kwangtung Province and a member of the 39th Army, subordinate to the
13th Army Group. They had boarded trains in September and headed for Manchuria.
They had crossed the Yalu River into Korea in mid-October, moving only at night
and had gone to great efforts to conceal signs of their movement. He said that
tens of thousands of his comrades were in the mountains around the 1st ROK
Division.
The report was passed on to General Willoughby, MacArthur’s
chief of intelligence, but it was ignored. He considered that the South Koreans
had encountered Chinese volunteers fighting with the North Koreans or Korean
residents in China having returned to fight for their homeland. The 1st Cavalry
Division was ordered to bypass the 1st ROK Division and continue the advance.
After six days of fighting the Chinese, surviving only due
to US tank and artillery support the 1st ROK Division was ready to break apart.
The three ROK divisions on its right flank had already retreated and Colonel
Paik knew that time was running out. He recommended to General Milburn the
Corps Commander, that they withdraw to the Chongchon River. They had lost over
500 men, killed or missing in action. Milburn agreed and they began to pull out
as the US 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division moved past them to
cover the withdrawal.
Late in the evening of 1 November, with rocket artillery
support, four Chinese battalions from their 116th Division launched their
attack on two battalions of the 8th Cavalry. The sound of bugles echoed from
the surrounding hills and thousands of Chinese infantry began pouring down the
slopes towards the surprised cavalrymen. Throughout the night the Chinese
continued their attack, overrunning one position after another. Soon they were
so close that the artillery fire was no longer effective and the two battalions
tried to withdraw. However, by now the Chinese had got behind them and
established roadblocks on the main routes out of the town. The infantrymen
split up into small groups and took to the hills to try to find their way to
safety.
Early in the morning of 2 November the human wave of Chinese
fell upon the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry. They helped to seal their own
fate by allowing a company of Chinese commandos dressed in South Korean
uniforms to cross a bridge near the battalion command post, thinking that they
were ROK troops. Once across the bridge, the Chinese commander blew his bugle
and, throwing satchel charges and grenades, his men overran the command post
and killed many men still in their sleeping bags.
The 5th Cavalry Regiment tried to break through the Chinese
encircling the 8th Cavalry, but they were unable to cut their way through the
determined enemy and after suffering 350 casualties they withdrew, leaving the
survivors of the 8th Cavalry to fight their way to safety. Over 800 of them did
not make it, either dying on the battlefield or surrendering to the victorious
Chinese. It was the most devastating loss to the US forces so far in the war.
2 November was the day that the UN Offensive Campaign came
to a halt. The US-named Chinese Communist Forces Intervention Campaign began
the next day, 3 November and it would last until 24 January the following year.
The destruction of the 8th Cavalry heralded a change in the balance of power
and it began to shift in favour of the communists. They would refer to those fateful
eleven days, 25 October to 5 November as their Chinese First Offensive.
Other elements of the Eighth Army were also attacked and by
6 November the UN forces had pulled back to the line of the Chongchon River,
which runs from the west coast in a north-easterly direction towards the Chosin
Reservoir. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, the Chinese vanished into the
hills and valleys of the land stretching towards the border with China.
The Chinese had intended to push the UN forces back across
the Chongchon River and into P’yongyang, but they were running short of food
and ammunition and were forced to disengage on 5 November, thus ending the
Chinese First Phase Campaign. Apart from their victory at Unsan, they had also
destroyed the ROK 6th Infantry Division and one regiment from the 8th Division
at the battle of Onjong. In return, they had suffered nearly 11,000 casualties.
The Chinese victory at Unsan was a surprise to the Chinese
leadership and they intensely studied the performance of the 1st Cavalry
Division. It was noted that the American mechanized forces moved fast and
established defence works quickly. It was unfavourable to assault such defences
with massed infantry attacks.
General MacArthur could have halted the march to the Yalu
River after the heavy losses suffered by the Eighth Army at Unsan. It was clear
that the Chinese intended to defend the power stations supplying electricity to
Manchuria and that to continue advancing was to run the risk of full scale war
with China. He was undeterred and launched a ‘Home by Christmas’ offensive.
Historians still debate whether he had convinced himself that only a weak
Chinese force was present in Korea, or whether he wanted to deliberately
provoke war with China.
General Peng suggested to Mao that the UN forces might be
lured into preset ambushes as far north as possible, stretching their supply
lines and isolating them from each other. Mao approved the plan and Peng
instructed each CPVF Army to withdraw its main force further north, but leave
one division to lure the UN forces into the trap. They even released some 100
prisoners of war, including twenty-seven Americans, who were deliberately told
that they were being released because the Volunteers had to return to China due
to supply difficulties.
At this time the US-led United Nations Command comprised the
Eighth Army headquarters and the ROK Army headquarters, three US and three ROK
Corps headquarters, eighteen infantry divisions – ten ROK and seven US Army and
one US Marine, three Allied brigades and a separate airborne regiment. Total
ground forces came to 425,000 men, including 178,000 Americans, plus major air
and navy elements including aircraft carriers and fighters and bombers based in
South Korea and Japan.
Opposing them were the North Korean Army of eight Corps and
thirty divisions plus several brigades, although only two Corps of five
weakened divisions and two brigades were actually engaged in combat with UN
forces. The remainder of their forces had either withdrawn across the Yalu
River into Manchuria or were avoiding combat in the mountains along the border.
The main combat unit opposing the UN advance was the 300,000 strong Chinese
Peoples Volunteer Army. The hilly terrain on the northern bank of the Chongchon
River formed a defensive barrier that allowed the Chinese to hide their
presence, while the UN forces advanced. To make things worse, the battle was
also fought over one of the coldest winters in 100 years, with temperatures
falling as low as –30°F (–34°C).
With the disappearance of the Chinese forces, the UN advance
resumed on 24 November with General Walker’s Eighth Army moving up the west
coast and General Almond’s X Corps due to start moving up the east coast three
days later. The two forces were separated by the virtually impassable Taebaek
Mountains. The Eighth Army comprised the reconstituted ROK II Corps on the
right flank and leading the advance the US I Corps to the west with the US IX
Corps in the centre. They moved cautiously in line to prevent a repeat of the
earlier ambushes in the first Chinese campaign. Despite their lack of manpower,
the US Eighth Army had three and a half times the firepower of the opposing
Chinese forces. In addition the US Fifth Air Force providing the air support,
had little opposition due to the lack of Chinese anti-aircraft weapons.
Morale among the American troops was high, boosted by a
Thanksgiving feast with roast turkey on the eve of the advance. However, this
led to overconfidence and some of the men had discarded equipment and
ammunition before the advance. One rifle company from the US IX Corps began its
advance without carrying helmets or bayonets and there were less on average
than one grenade and fifty rounds of ammunition carried per man. In addition,
because the US planners did not foresee that the campaign would continue into
the winter, the men of Eighth Army started the advance with a shortage of
winter clothing.
What they did not know was that the 13th Peoples Volunteer
Army Group was hiding in the mountains, with the 50th and 66th Army to the
west, the 39th and 40th Army in the centre and the 38th and 42nd Army in the
east. General Peng’s plan was for the 38th and 42nd Army to first attack the
ROK II Corps and destroy the UN right flank, then cut behind the UN lines. At
the same time the 39th and 40th Army would hold the US IX Corps in place, so it
could not reinforce the ROK II Corps. The 50th and 66th Army would check the
advance of the US I Corps.
A Chinese Army was similar to a Corps in the American Army,
consisting of three divisions of around 10,000 men each, although actual
strength was usually 7,000–8,500. Each division had three 3,000-man regiments
of infantry, whereas an American division consisted of three regiments of
infantry, three battalions of 105mm artillery, one battalion of 155mm
artillery, an anti-aircraft battalion, a tank battalion and other supporting
units, totalling 20,000 men.
The Chinese forces were basically infantrymen, with almost
no heavy weapons other than mortars. There was also only one rifle available for
every three Chinese, mostly captured from Japanese during the Second World War
or the Chinese Nationalist forces during the civil war. Most were US made small
arms such as the Thompson sub-machine gun, M1 Garand Rifle, M1918 Browning
Automatic Rifle, the bazooka and the M2 mortar. They were encouraged to use
captured enemy weapons whenever possible and to take weapons from their dead
comrades. Because most of their artillery had been left behind in Manchuria,
mortars were the only heavy support available for the Chinese. For the coming
offensive the average soldier was issued with five days’ worth of rations and
ammunition. To compensate for these shortcomings, the Chinese relied
extensively on night attacks and infiltration to avoid the UN firepower. As
they had little mechanized transport they could avoid the roads and manoeuvre
over the hills, bypassing the UN defences and surrounding isolated UN
positions.
Four of the Chinese armies, the 38th, 40th, 50th and 66th,
struck the Eighth Army, on the night of 25 November. The 40th Army hit the
three regiments of the US 2nd Infantry Division at Kunu-ri on the Chongchon
River, as well as the US 25th Infantry Division on their left flank. Although
they suffered heavy casualties, the Chinese pressed on with their attack, tying
down the American units while a new offensive fell on the ROK II Corps on the
right hand side of the Eighth Army line. The 38th Army broke through the ROK
line in the gap between the 7th and 8th Divisions and established roadblocks to
their rear and by the end of 26 November the II ROK Corps front broke and the
South Koreans began to retreat, thus exposing the right flank of the Eighth
Army.
Heavy attacks on the US 25th Infantry Division and the ROK
1st Division soon followed and both units began to retreat under the pressure.
The village of Kunu-ri became a major bottleneck for the US IX Corps’ retreat
and in an effort to stabilize the front on 28 November, General Walker ordered
the US 2nd Infantry Division to withdraw and set up a new defensive line at
Kunu-ri. General Peng had also recognized the importance of the village and
ordered his 38th Army to cut the IX Corps line of retreat. Its 114th Division
was to capture Kunu-ri while the 112th Division would follow on a parallel
route through the hills north of the road.
By mid-afternoon on 28 November all US and ROK forces were
in retreat. The retreat was made even more difficult by the thousands of
refugees heading south away from the fighting. Amongst them were North Korean
and Chinese infiltrators, dressed in civilian clothes, who would pass the
American check points and then turn and open fire on them. Eventually the ROK
Police would try to route the columns of refugees away from the roads, while on
other occasions both US and ROK troops would open fire on refugees coming near
to their positions.
The US 2nd Infantry Division was positioned in the centre of
Eighth Army’s front, with the Turkish Brigade ten miles away on its right
flank. The Turkish Brigade was ordered to block the Chinese advance and
suffered heavy casualties before it broke out and joined up with the 2nd
Division on 29 November. This delaying action allowed the 2nd Division to
secure Kunu-ri on the night of 28 November.
On the night of 28 November General MacArthur gathered his
field commanders for a conference in Tokyo. He instructed Walker to withdraw
from the battle before the Chinese could surround the Eighth Army and retreat
to a new line at Sunchon, thirty miles south of Kunu-ri.
The full weight of the Chinese offensive now fell on
Lieutenant General Laurence B. Keiser’s 2nd Infantry Division as it prepared to
withdraw from Kunu-ri. The Chinese 113th Division had advanced forty-five miles
in fourteen hours and now occupied strategic points in the rear of the Division
where they established road blocks on the division’s withdrawal route south to
Sunchon.
General Keiser believed that the Chinese only had one
roadblock four miles from his position, but in fact they had constructed a
series of reinforced roadblocks throughout the length of the entire valley. As
the division began to withdraw on the morning of 30 November, it found itself
having to ‘run the gauntlet’ of the road blocks and the thousands of Chinese
occupying the high ground along the route. By the time the General realized his
mistake, it was too late to turn the division around and take the road to the
east and then south to Sinanju. The main Chinese advance was being held back by
the 23rd Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Freeman and he did not feel
that they could hold out long enough for the entire division to turn around and
return to the Sinanju road. The division would just have to run the gauntlet.
At 1300 hours a column of US tanks led the way through the
valley. They came under intense fire and had to stop twice to push aside
barricades of destroyed Turkish trucks set up by the Chinese. By 1400 hours
they were clear of the ambush and had linked up with British troops from the
29th Commonwealth Brigade sent to clear the road to the south. Unfortunately,
while the tankers had to stop to clear the barricades, the trucks following
them also had to halt. Then the soft-skinned vehicles became easy targets for
the Chinese machine guns and mortars. Their occupants would have to exit the
vehicles and take cover in the ditches at the side of the road and watch their
trucks being destroyed. When there was a lull in the firing, drivers would
scramble out of the ditches and back into their trucks and drive on, without
waiting for their passengers to climb back on board.
Lieutenant Colonel William Kelleher of the 1st Battalion,
38th Infantry Regiment later recalled: ‘For the next 500 yards the road was
temporarily impassable because of the numerous burning vehicles and the pile up
of the dead men, coupled with the rush of the wounded from the ditches,
struggling to get aboard anything that rolled … either there would be bodies in
our way, or we would be almost borne down by wounded men who literally threw
themselves upon us … I squeezed a wounded ROK soldier into our trailer, but as
I put him aboard, other wounded men piled on the trailer in such numbers that
the jeep couldn’t pull ahead. It was necessary to beat them off.’
The most dangerous part of the road leading south to Sunchon
was an area known simply as ‘The Pass’ where the hillside was steepest and the
road was at its most narrow point. Most of the casualties occurred in this
bottleneck. Soon the road was littered with dead and dying troops and by the
time General Yazici’s Turkish brigade came to take its turn, all road movement
had stopped because of the number of destroyed and abandoned trucks on the
road. Two companies of Turks fixed bayonets and charged up the eastern slope of
the mountains, while US air support strafed the Chinese positions. General
Keiser sent two of his remaining tanks to clear the wreckage on the route and
the following columns began to creep forward again.
In the meantime, Colonel Freeman realized what was happening
in the valley to his rear and very wisely decided to take his men down the road
to the east. In one of the last acts of the battle, the 23rd Infantry Regiment
fired off its stock of 3,206 artillery shells within twenty minutes and the
massive barrage shocked the Chinese troops from following the regiment. They
broke contact with the Chinese and the 23rd Infantry Regiment lived to fight
another day. The other units of 2nd Division would not be so lucky. As night
fell, General Keiser lost his air support and the Chinese infantry crawled down
the hillsides to swarm over the road. The brunt of their attack fell on the
38th and 503rd Field Artillery Battalions and the 2nd Engineer Combat
Battalion, who had to abandon their equipment and fight their way out on foot.
The majority of them would be killed or captured.
The commander of the 2nd Engineer Battalion, Colonel Alarich
Zacherle, had asked General Keiser days before the start of the Chinese
offensive, to redeploy his unit south to P’yongyang, as their bridging
equipment and bulldozers would not be needed in the mountains. He refused and
only 266 of the 900 men of the battalion survived. The Colonel would spend the
rest of the war in a Chinese prison camp.
With the road now blocked with the destroyed equipment of
the two artillery battalions, the rest of the division was forced to take to
the hills and find a way past the hordes of Chinese. The US 2nd Infantry
Division had ceased to exist as an effective fighting force; it was the greatest
US defeat of the whole war.
Most of the division’s transport was lost during the
retreat; the 37th Field Artillery Battalion for example, lost thirty-five men,
ten howitzers, fifty-three vehicles and thirty-nine trailers. Unit integrity
broke down and there were recriminations afterwards when it became clear that
the divisional commander and other ranking officers had escaped, leaving 4,500
men, almost a third of the division’s strength dead or in captivity. At that
time, a US infantry regiment was authorized 3,800 men and from the three
regiments in the division, the 9th Infantry lost 1,474 men, the 38th Infantry
lost 1,178 men and the 23rd Infantry 545 men. The division also lost sixty-four
artillery pieces, hundreds of trucks and nearly all of its engineer equipment.
The Chinese and North Koreans would make good use of their war booty over the
coming months, while columns of weary 2nd Division prisoners of war trudged
their way north to communist prison camps. It was estimated that 3,000 US POWs
were taken, the largest such group captured by the Chinese during the war.
The other US unit to report significant losses was the US
25th Infantry Division with 1,313 casualties. The Turkish Brigade was rendered
ineffective after losing 936 casualties, along with 90 per cent of its
equipment and vehicles and 50 per cent of its artillery. Chinese casualties
were estimated at 45,000 with half due to combat and the rest to the lack of
adequate winter clothing and the lack of food. For its role in establishing the
Gauntlet against the US 2nd Infantry Division the Chinese 38th Army was awarded
the title ‘Ten Thousand Years Army’ by General Peng on 1 December 1950.
The Eighth Army was now reduced to two Corps, composed of
four divisions and two brigades, so General Walker ordered his Army to abandon
North Korea on 3 December, much to the surprise of the Chinese commanders. The
following 120 mile withdrawal to the 38th Parallel is often referred to as the
longest retreat in US military history. Walker was unaware that the Chinese
13th Army Group was half-starved and incapable of further offensive operations.
The great ‘Bug Out’ had begun.
Across the other side of the peninsula, General Almond’s X
Corps had begun moving northwards on 27 November, with the two divisions of the
ROK I Corps following the coastal roads, the US 7th Infantry Division in the
centre and the 1st Marine Division on the left, all aiming for different points
on the Yalu River. The Marines were to pass along both sides of the Chosin
Reservoir, tie in with the right flank of Eighth Army and then press on a
further sixty miles to the Yalu. The commander of the 1st Marine Division,
Major General Oliver P. Smith, was wary of advancing too fast, despite the
insistence of the Corps commander. The terrain in that part of Korea consisted
of narrow roads, often cut by gullies and valleys with imposing ridgelines and
mountains surrounding them. Smith wanted his men to advance cautiously, in
contact with each other and maintaining unit integrity. He made the correct
decision.
General Almond then ordered the 31st Regimental Combat Team
of the 7th Division to relieve the 5th Marine Regiment on the east side of the
Chosin Reservoir, so the Marines could concentrate their forces in the west.
However, the 31st RCT as well as the rest of the 7th Division were widely
scattered and the units arrived at the east of the reservoir in bits and
pieces. They eventually formed themselves into Task Force Faith and Task Force
McLean, named after their commanders.
Late on 27 November, the Chinese Offensive began on the
eastern front with the 150,000 strong Ninth Army Group, comprising the 20th,
26th and 27th Armies advancing towards the 1st Marine Division and the US 7th
Infantry Division. The CPVF 79th and 89th Divisions fell on the 5th and 7th
Marine Regiments on the west side of the reservoir and the 80th Division
surrounded Task Force McLean on the east side. During heavy fighting Colonel
McLean was captured and Colonel Faith took over command. The 2,500 men of Task
Force Faith tried to break through to the Marines in the south, taking their
600 wounded men with them. The Chinese were too strong for them though and only
half would eventually make it through. The wounded Colonel Faith and all of the
wounded were left behind to their fate.
To the west of the reservoir, the 5th and 7th Marines began
a fighting withdrawal back to Hagaru-ri at the south end of the reservoir and
then a further fifty miles south-east to Hungnam, a port on the east coast from
where they would be withdrawn by sea. The epic retreat would see the 1st Marine
Division bring their dead and wounded with them as they fought their way slowly
to safety. During the day they could rely on close air support from their own
aircraft, but during the night they had to contend with the bitter cold and the
Chinese creeping closer and closer to their columns. Finally, 11,000 Marines
and 1,000 Infantry soldiers made it to Hungnam where they were taken off by the
Navy. They were followed by the ROK I Corps, the battered US 7th Infantry
Division and the newly arrived US 3rd Infantry Division: over 105,000 troops,
18,000 vehicles and 350,000 tons of bulk cargo, as well as 98,000 refugees. On
24 December the port was evacuated and all remaining stores in the warehouses
ashore destroyed in a massive series of explosions. The ships were heading for
Pusan in the South, where the troops would be refitted and redeployed to the
front to help Eighth Army hold the line.
Although the Chinese Ninth Army Group scored the CPVF’s only
major victory in three years of war when it wiped out the entire 32nd Regiment
of the 7th Division, it suffered terribly in the Korean winter. More than
30,000 officers and men, some 22 per cent of the entire Army Group, were
disabled by severe frostbite and over a thousand died.
In the meantime Eighth Army had pulled back from the
Chongchon River and was concentrating near P’yongyang. General Walker realized
that his forces were in no condition to hold a defensive line so far north and
approved a further withdrawal of almost a hundred miles to the Imjin River,
north of Seoul. By the end of December the UN line was established with the US
I and IX Corps and the ROK III, II and I Corps running from the west coast to
east. The Chinese did not pursue them; they needed to resupply and refit, as
did the UN forces now licking their wounds and digging new defensive positions
along the Imjin River. The Second Campaign represented the peak of CPVF
performance in the Korean War. From now on things would get harder. They were
hampered by their weak firepower compared to the UN forces and they would have
to follow them southwards to continue the battle, where the enemy’s superior
weapons and air power could be brought to bear on them. There were logistical
constraints as well; an overstretched supply line, bad roads, a shortage of
trucks and marauding UN aircraft combined to cause food shortages where some
CPVF units only had food for one week.
General Walker’s part in the war came to an end on the
morning of 23 December, while he was out on an inspection tour in his jeep. Ten
miles north of Seoul, a Korean truck driver pulled onto the wrong side of the
road and collided head on with his jeep, killing the General. He would be
replaced by Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway, a famed airborne commander
from the Second World War, whose first task would be to turn morale around and
improve the fighting ability of the Eighth Army.
