jumped into his jeep, and with the commanding officer of 10th Regiment, drove east to the sea north of Samch'ok.
Kessler stopped the jeep on a high hill overlooking the sea. Offshore, he and the regimental C.O. saw a vast flotilla of sampans and junks. Below them, on the beach, they saw a battalion-sized group of Inmun Gun coming ashore and spreading out. Kessler backed around and got out of there.
Driving south of Samch'ok, they saw approximately the same scene. ROK gunfire opened up and sank two boats offshore, but at least a thousand armed men came ashore. These men, mostly guerrilla cadres, did not engage the ROK forces, but slipped into the Taebaek Mountains and linked up with the guerrilla forces already fighting there.
And north, along the parallel, the NKPA 5th Division, supported by the 766th Independent Unit, crashed against the spread-out ROK 8th, driving it southward down the coast. The division commander informed the ROK chief of staff before withdrawing, in good order. No matter what happened, the campaign would not be won or lost in the remote east.
By midmorning on Sunday, General Chae Byong Duk and his principal advisers knew that the assault in progress was no rice raid.
In ROK Headquarters at Seoul there was confusion, but as yet no panic among the rank and file. After all, plans had been laid for just such an eventuality as this attack of the Inmun Gun.
In Seoul the officers knew that the key to the capital lay in the Uijongbu Corridor; any serious threat against Seoul must come that way, and if the enemy should get past Uijongbu, there was no feature, manmade or natural, that could hinder him short of the Han, on Seoul's south side. Obviously, and according to well-thought-out plan, the major ROK effort would be made in the Uijongbu Corridor, where now General Yu Hai Hyung's 7th Division was falling back under heavy pressure.
General Chae Byong Duk, Chief of Staff, began nervously to issue orders. All reserves of the ROK Army were to move north toward Seoul, and through the city into the Uijongbu Corridor.
The ROK 2nd Division was at Taejon, ninety miles south. The 5th was near Kwangfu far to the southwest, and the 3rd was across the peninsula at Taegu.
The ROK 2nd was the first to receive its orders, and to move. Its lead elements, accompanied by their American advisers, departed north by rail at 1430. By nightfall on 25 June parts of the 5th were on the road, and some units of the 3rd were also in motion.
The ROK divisions were not mechanized or mobile. Most of their transport was on deadline for lack of spare parts, and they were not organized for rapid movement. But they did the best they could, beginning to move north in piecemeal fashion.
As his orders went out, 'Fat' Chae grew more nervous. Accompanied by his American staff adviser, Captain Hausman, he made two trips up to the
In Seoul there was no more talk of rain and rice. As word of the Communist attack spread, the people rose in a spasm of patriotic fury. There was relief in their fervor, too—all Koreans had considered the division of their country unbearable; from cranky old Syngman Rhee in the government palace to the landless peasant in the south ran strong agreement on that issue.
Now the puppet state to the north had attacked, and it would soon be over. North Korea would be overrun by the victorious troops of the Taehan Minkuk. It would be united again. The people, fed on statements by their government and the broadcasts of the Voice of America, believed implicitly in their army. They believed implicitly in the mountains of military aid the Americans had promised, and in final victory.
At 0900 Kimpo Airport reported that it was under air attack, and at mid-morning Russian-built yak fighters screamed over Seoul's main avenue, strafing—but no one understood the significance of this. The only people in Seoul who were shaken by the appearance of the enemy aircraft were some members of the American colony—who knew the true status of the ROK forces where equipment was concerned.
By midday, ROK Army units were streaming north through Seoul. They came through in long columns of trucks, rail cars, jeeps, bicycles—and oxcarts. To the people of Seoul the oxcarts did not seem odd. Nor did they seem to notice that their army had no combat vehicles, such as tanks.
The soldiers sang as they poured through Seoul, and vast crowds of civilians gathered at every street corner, cheering them. From Taihan Mun to the solid stone of the railway station, Seoul went wild with emotion.
Peasants in traditional white, elderly
All day Sunday, the khaki columns rode, pedaled, or limped by, moving north.
But among the American colony of Seoul, which had its women and children far from home, men were growing nervous. A fish merchant named John Caldwell, who had once been attached to the embassy staff, called a high embassy official, asking for news, just after the yak fighters had been reported over Seoul.
The embassy man was very angry. He said: 'John, this thing is serious. They strafed an American plane at Kimpo. That's destruction of American property!'
At four o'clock on Sunday afternoon Ambassador John J. Muccio went on the air over the embassy radio station, WVTP, to reassure the American Uijongbu area, trying to hammer out a plan of action. Chae was certain that something had to be done very quickly, or it would be too late.
In that surmise he was correct—but what he would do was wrong. It would lose the war. colony. He stated that there was no reason for anyone to be afraid and that the ROK army had already contained the Communist offensive. There was to be no evacuation.
But KMAG officers, who were getting frantic reports by telephone from the length of the 38th parallel, were hardly so sanguine. They began to argue with the ambassador, who was still in command. At least the women and children should be flown out, many of them said.
All afternoon and far into the night, an argument raged. Ambassador Muccio cannot be blamed for his attitude. A diplomat, he was suddenly in command during a military disaster, with no instructions from home, no clear-cut policy, no idea of the course the United States should follow. Muccio felt he must continue to show confidence, and at the same time he sincerely believed the United States would not become involved, at least not directly.
At midnight, Muccio suddenly yielded to the pleading for evacuation. But he would not listen to a plan for removal of the American civilians by air; Communist planes were in the air, and if one of them should shoot down a plane loaded with refugees it would become an international incident.
There was a small Norwegian ship at Inch'on, and all 682 women and children would have to sail for Japan aboard this. The Norwegian ship carried a full load of fertilizer, and it had accommodations for only twelve passengers.
On this point Ambassador Muccio, a tall, dark, bespectacled man, given to wearing bow ties, was adamant. Generally, too, he was set against any evacuation, since he felt that even if the Inmun Gun should by some miracle capture Seoul, the Americans there would be granted diplomatic immunity by the Communists. The British, who had recognized Red China, also planned to keep their diplomatic staff in Seoul.
The British, some of whom would not live to see England again, also did not fully understand the nature of the Communist foe.
Radio Station WVTP ordered all dependent American women and children to assemble at certain designated locations to be picked up by embassy busses for the trip to Inch'on. From there the tiny freighter
Three days later, when the
On late Sunday, with the sound of the guns coming ominously closer to the vital center of Uijongbu, General Chae held a hurried conference with his major subordinate commanders. Chae had formed his plan of battle.
Yu Jai Hyung's 7thDivision, which was holding both approaches to Uijongbu, was to swing to the west, onto
