This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

Beyond doubt, the running dogs of the American imperialists, the South Koreans, suspected nothing.

The commander of the Inmun Gun, Chai Ung Jun, and his staff of veterans from the Manchurian wars, could take deep pride in their work. Since the meeting of high Soviet and Chinese Communist officials in Peiping in January to plan the invasion of the United Nations and American-backed Republic of Korea, the Inmun Gun had achieved prodigies for so small and so new an army.

There had been the dumps and depots to build near the parallel, to hold the mountains of arms and equipment shipped in by freighter from the Soviet Union. There had been the crews of the 105th Armored Brigade to train in the use of the Russian T-34, the main battle tank that had stopped panzer leader Guderian in front of Moscow, and young fliers to be accustomed to the intricacies of YAK fighters. And there had been the thousands of Korean-extraction veterans of the Chinese Communist Forces to reintegrate into the Inmun Gun. With Chiang Kai- shek defeated and his Nationalist remnants exiled to Taiwan, Red China could release her Korean-speaking soldiers; by June 1950, they made up 30 percent of the Inmun Gun.

On Friday, 23 June, shortly before midnight, 90,000 men stood ready in the misting rain. In addition to their 150 medium tanks and 200 aircraft, they had small arms and mortars in profusion, backed up by plentiful 122mm howitzers and 76mm self-propelled guns. They were seven infantry divisions, one armored brigade, a separate infantry regiment, a motorcycle regiment, and a brigade of the fanatical Bo An Dae, the Border Constabulary.

Beginning 18 June, Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku and his brother officers had seen to it that their orders went out.

First, Reconnaissance Order 1, in the Russian language, had come down from Intelligence, directing that information concerning South Korean defensive positions along each division's projected route of attack be obtained and verified no later than 24 June.

The Inmun Gun had hundreds of spies across the parallel, many of them working directly for the American advisers to the South Korean Army. The mysterious officers in Intelligence, who wrote in Russian script, received what they asked for.

By 22 June the divisions issued their operations orders, in Korean. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th divisions attacked down the Uijongbu Corridor toward Seoul, armored elements leading. Other divisions attacked in the east. Common soldiers were to be told they were on maneuvers. Officers were to know it was war.

Red-eyed, smoking too much, young Senior Colonel Lee waited now in his Operations Post, listening to the torrential showers of the beginning monsoon slash down into the green paddies outside, smelling the pungent odors of earth and fertilizer the rains released. He was tired, but he was also spring-tight with a disciplined excitement, waiting for the hours to pass. He looked at his cheap watch. He did not have long to wait.

The orders had gone out, and he knew they would be obeyed. Aside from its fanatical core of Russian-and Chinese-trained veterans, there were many conscripts, rice Communists, in the ranks of the Inmun Gun. But even these men would obey.

Hesitancy, in the Inmun Gun, was cured neatly, efficiently, and permanently by the application of a pistol to the back of the head.

As Saturday waned, Major General Chae Byong Duk, Deputy Commander—under Syngman Rhee—of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, was not content. For 'Fat' Chae, five foot five, two hundred and fifty pounds, darling of the Seoul cocktail set, was not completely a fool.

For years the Communists north of the parallel had been making trouble in the South. They made rice raids across the border; they fomented disorder and subversion in the cities. They incited and supplied the rebel guerrillas in the southern mountains, doing everything in their power to destroy the Republic of Korea. They kept a third of Fat Chae's Army tied down on constabulary work.

March, particularly, had been a bad month. But then, unaccountably, all activity had ceased. Fat Chae was worried.

Chae had talked to the Americans about it, but the Korean Military Advisory Group was not concerned. One officer told Chae that the Communists were becoming more sophisticated, settling down at last. The Americans seemed to feel that when Communists left you alone, it was all to the good. But Chae worried. He might be handier with a whiskey and soda than with command of the Army, but he was not completely a fool.

Chae had read Time, which three weeks before had printed a splendid article on the Korean Military Advisory Group and its work with the Korean Armed Forces. Like most people outside the United States, Chae Byong Dukknew that what Time printed was not only true, but official.

Time had said the Republic of Korea Army was the best outside the States. That was one thing that comforted him, as more and more reports reached Seoul from refugees from the northern regime, informers, and his own officers stationed along the parallel. Because General Chae Byong Duk had no great trust in Communists, despite the Americans.

But now the bright lights were coming on in Seoul, and, shrugging, Chae Byong Duk prepared for the evening's battle. As he got into his well-tailored American-style uniform, he knew that many of his officers from the border would be down this night, and before they departed their posts they would sign passes for many of their men, who also liked to get away now and then. The American advisers had been very persuasive with their discussions of troop morale.

It grew dark. General Chae prepared to go out. He could accomplish nothing by brooding, and he might accomplish a great deal drinking with the Americans.

As evening fell, among the teeming, raucous hordes of white-clad people thronging the streets and alleyways from North Gate to the massive railway station to the odorous reaches of 'Yongdungp'o, the talk was of rice and of rain. As always before the monsoon, the price of grain had skyrocketed; the green seedlings, already transplanted, were patching. Only the monsoon rains, with promise of a good crop, would bring ease to the people's mind.

Even now a great black cloud was forming over North Mountain, and toilers, shopkeepers, even yangban—those who did not work—watched it hopefully. There was prayer that a storm, indeed, was brewing.

Never far from the smell of the brown soil, or starvation, the desperately poor masses of Koreans talked of rain and rice.

But as the dark clouds soaked up the last of the fading daylight, the current of Seoul's social life quickened. It had been a hot and muggy day, with showers in the morning. At the Sobingo Gun Club on the banks of the Han, the KMAG officers and civilian members had worked up a fine sweat over the traps. With the last clay target shattered, they had eased their bodies with a short dip in the KMAG pool, followed by a long cool one at poolside.

Slowly, the American colony came to life. The largest American mission in the world was based in Seoul, two thousand strong, and they had had a busy week.

Foster Dulles had been in town. He'd got the usual tour, in VIP fashion: up to Uijongbu on the parallel, to be snapped staring across no man's land, surrounded by grinning ROK officials. The usual press release had to be handled smoothly: something about continuing American interest in South Korea, and the pride in its progress toward democracy and a vitalized economy. After that, Dulles got back on his plane at Kimpo, to his own and the American Mission's relief.

But from the roof gardens of the Naija to the lounge of the Traymore, in the carefully cordoned embassy bars where men and women gathered, there was no talk of crops. Over tax-free liquor, the colony laughed over Foster's visit, and over the official who had been caught keeping North Korea's Number One female spy. This man had even bought the woman a short-wave radio, and it was said the ROK's would shoot her.

In spite of American influence, the ROK's were still extremely brutal to leftist elements in their midst. Of course, they could not shoot the American official.

There had been a child, towheaded yet, the American wives in Seoul told each other. Some American couple would, of course, adopt it.

Now the embassy taxi service began to hum, ferrying couples from the Traymore to the Banto, and from the Banto to the Chisan. Two topflight cocktail parties were scheduled, and there was the regular Saturday night dance at that palatial symbol of midcentury Occidental culture, the KMAG Officers' Open Mess.

None of the Americans knew that Captain Vyvyan Holt of the British Legation had advised His Majesty's subjects to get out of town. Like Chae Byong Duk, Captain Vyvyan was uneasy. He had heard things.

American Intelligence, Seoul-bound, heard things, too. They reported them. But each report crashed headlong into a wall of belief that despite the recent takeover in Czechoslovakia, the unpleasantness in Berlin, and