This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

as they went they destroyed Chinese and what was left of the towns and cities of Korea. They did not grow sick at the sight of blood.

By 7 March they stood on the Han. They went through Seoul, and reduced it block by block. When they were finished, the massive railway station had no roof, and thousands of buildings were pocked by tank fire. Of Seoul's original more than a million souls, less than two hundred thousand still lived in the ruins. In many of the lesser cities of Korea, built of wood and wattle, only the foundation, and the vault, of the old Japanese bank remained.

The people of Chosun, not Americans or Chinese, continued to lose the war.

At the end of March the Eighth Army was across the parallel.

General Ridgway wrote, 'The American flag never flew over a prouder, tougher, more spirited and more competent fighting force than was Eighth Army as it drove north.…'

Ridgway had no great interest in real estate. He did not strike for cities and towns, but to kill Chinese. The Eighth Army killed them, by the thousands, as its infantry drove them from the hills and as its air caught them fleeing in the valleys.

By April 1951, the Eighth Army had again proved Erwin Rommel's assertion that American troops knew less but learned faster than any fighting men he had opposed. The Chinese seemed not to learn at all, as they repeated Chipyong-ni again and again.

Americans had learned, and learned well. The tragedy of American arms, however, is that having an imperfect sense of history Americans sometimes forget as quickly as they learn.

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26

Gloster Hill

They will remember for a little while in England. The soldier does have his day. I want to remind you this afternoon that it is not enough to remember now. We've got to show what we think of their sacrifice in the way we conduct ourselves in the days ahead.

— The chaplain of the 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, at a memorial service in Korea, April 1951.

IN THE SUMMER of 1914 the nations of Europe sprang to arms in an uproar of popular hysteria. The French Republic raised a hundred divisions in ninety days. The German Empire had its reservists in Belgium within weeks, and the United Kingdom soon sent millions of men onto the battlefields of Flanders, where nine hundred thousand of them lie buried beside more than a million French comrades-in-arms.

In 1940, with less enthusiasm but with equal will, Europe again waged internecine war. The Third Republic lost half a million dead, and went down to humiliating defeat and captivity. The British Empire lived its finest hour, but put its manpower and resources to such strain that they would not soon recover.

Victory, each time, was a will-o'-the-wisp.

Americans, who were largely spared these bloodbaths, often cannot understand why, when the jaws of hell yawned once more in 1950, few Europeans showed much inclination to rush into them.

Twice in a generation Europeans had 'defended themselves,' and now, while America blew an urgent trumpet, urging them to prepare to defend themselves once more against the Bear, response was slower and much more uncertain than Americans desired.

The famous British Navy was a shell in 1950. France, which had levied a hundred divisions in a matter of days, could not raise twenty-five given a decade. It was as much as an alarmed United States could do to persuade these nations, with their smaller allies, partially to rearm in defense of their own homelands, under NATO.

Slowly, painfully, under the menace of overt Communist aggression, the armed forces of NATO became reality, but America's North Atlantic allies were not willing to fight in remote Korea. They were, actually, already fighting part of that struggle in other places.

The British had troubles in Malaya, and other areas.

In Vietnam, De Vigny's centurions, hamstrung by a weak and hesitant government that had neither the courage to support nor to withdraw them, were fighting the Communist Vietminh to the death.

Inevitably, illuminating the woes that America had fallen heir to, the burden of the fighting in Korea fell upon the United States and the Taehan Minkuk.

The maximum military support rendered by members of the United Nations to the Republic of Korea was as follows:

Nation

Armed Forces Committed

United States of America

7 Army divisions; 1 Marine division army and corps HQ's, almost all logistical and support forces.

1 tactical air force and supporting elements; 1 combat cargo command, air; 2 medium bombardment wings.

1 complete naval fleet, including a fast carrier task group, blockade and escort forces, reconnaissance and antisubmarine units,supply and repair units; military sea transport services.

United Kingdom

2 army brigades of 5 infantry battalions; 2 field artillery regiments; 1 armored regiment. 1 aircraft carrier, 2 cruisers, 8 destroyers, with Marine and support units.

Canada

1 army brigade of 3 infantry battalions; 1 artillery regiment; 1 armored regiment. 3 destroyers, 1 air transport squadron.

Turkey

1 army brigade of 6,000 men.

Australia

2 infantry battalions; 1 fighter squadron; 1 air transport squadron; 1 carrier, 2 destroyers, 1 frigate.

Thailand

1 regimental combat team of 4,000 men; 2 corvettes, 1 air transport squadron.

Philippines

1 regimental combat team.

France

1 infantry battalion; 1 gunboat.

Greece

1 infantry battalion; 1 air transport squadron.

New Zealand

1 artillery regiment; 2 frigates.