Almost subconsciously, Americans had come to believe there would always be someone else to hold the line at first.
Once aroused, a democracy can match a totalitarian state in every facet of strength-it can be stronger, for totalitarianism has built-ill bureaucratic weaknesses. A Hitler can command, and men march—but a Hitler can go mad—and there is no one to say him nay.
But the abiding weakness of free peoples is that their governments can not or will not make them prepare or sacrifice before they are aroused.
The majority of the young men of the other divisions thrown into Korea now in late July were no more interested in being soldiers than the men of the 24th had been. They had enlisted for every reason known to man except to fight. They had no real antagonism for the enemy system, nor any desire to oppose it. They had no understanding of their nation's position in the world, or of the course their government must take. And their government was slow to waken to what its supposed legions had become.
Lacking professionalism, the men and junior officers did not have even the dash and pride of standard and outfit that men like De Vigny had been able to restore to the defeated French Army. With this pride of unit and profession, and with iron discipline, they would have fought differently.
The government, slow to understand, did nothing to remedy the situation. It did not seriously explain the world situation to the troops, or the United States' stake in it. Unquestionably, the government had hoped in the early days and weeks that the Korean conflict could be quickly contained, a hope the pitiful condition of its ground forces rendered forlorn from the start.
Soldiers fight from discipline and training, citizens from motivation and ideals. Lacking both, it is amazing that the American troops did even as well as they did. For as Colonel Dick Stephens of the 21st Infantry said, 'The men and officers had no interest in a fight which was not even dignified by being called a war. It was a bitter fight in which many lives were lost, and we could see no profit in it.…'
And once they were committed, the Pentagon seemed to be living in its own dream world of optimism. It should have been clear from the start that America was entering a very real, if limited, war, and in war the outcome is usually in doubt. Day after day, the official briefings gave neither the public and the troops at home a real picture of the actual situation.
Though a number of armchair strategists and second-year ROTC students with a map could figure it out, and did.
Among those sickened by the official releases, which sometimes approached the dream world of the Imperial Japanese Government while being hammered to pieces by American might in World War II, was the New York Times military writer, Major Hanson Baldwin, who wrote, '…the Pentagon … has too often disseminated a soothing syrup of cheer and sweetness and light since the fighting began.'
Nor were all the newsmen, particularly those writing from Korea, clear as to the real facts. Rarely has any conflict been so badly reported. Again and again in late July, dispatches referred to 'wave after wave of screaming North Koreans' crashing against American lines. Newspaper after newspaper printed the fact that 'we are still outnumbered at least four to one.' Some papers put the figure at ten to one. The
In actuality, the NKPA held a slight superiority in men on 20 July. By 22 July, U.N. and North Korean forces were on a par, and by the end of July United Nations forces actually outnumbered the Inmun Gun, an advantage they never again lost.
But men are not ciphers, nor do the battles always go to the big battalions.
The correspondents saw, and were often quick to report, the command failures—which were many. Stories did spread of ranking officers removed from command, or put on planes for Japan in states of nervousness and collapse. Since the occupation divisions had been at full peacetime stance, a certain number of officers with no aptitude for leading men in combat had been assigned to them, as is inevitable in any peacetime army.
But few correspondents saw that officers, giving crucial commands, could never be sure if their orders would be obeyed. A colonel who sends men to hold a vital hill, and who sees them again and again 'take a vote on it with their feet' by marching to the rear, is soon apt to be a straitjacket case.
One highly decorated colonel, known to his men as 'Cash Pays the Rent' Corley, wrote HQ: 'I want double the to of officers with each unit—one to lead and the other to drive.'
Or if they saw, their stories were not printed. A free press is equally free to print the truth or ignore it, as it chooses.
On 22 July, the 1st Cavalry Division (Infantry) went into action at Yongdong, east of Taejon. The 25th Infantry Division moved into line in the Sangju area, to the southeast.
Yongdong was lost. The 25th moved south.
The fighting was confused, hellish, and bloody. In the main, it repeated the actions earlier in the month. The new divisions repeated the same weaknesses of the 24th, and did no better.
The front continued to move south.
Many men and units, unprepared for combat, fought creditably and more than creditably when unexpectedly thrown into battle. But even these could not stem the tide. From Okinawa, two battalions of the 29th Infantry Regiment were diverted to Korea. Unready for combat, the 29th was promised six weeks of training in Japan in the middle of July. But the front kept moving south, and the promise could not be kept. On 25 July, the two battalions found themselves on the front line at Chinju. In their ranks were four hundred brand-new recruits. Their newly issued rifles were not zeroed; their mortars were yet untest-fired; their new machine guns still oozed cosmoline.
Lieutenant Colonel Harold W, Mott, commanding 3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry, received orders to move forward to seize the town of Hadong.
In Chinju was a ROK major general—Chae Byong Duk. Chae talked to the Americans about the deteriorating situation, and although he had only a few soldiers of his own, begged permission to join the Americans. They agreed to let him come along, but with the understanding that the ROK general was to serve only as interpreter and guide to Colonel Mott. The former chief of staff of the Republic of Korea agreed.
At Hadong Pass the next day, Chae and the American command group saw a group of soldiers approaching their newly prepared defensive positions. Many of these men seemed to be in American uniforms, though some wore the Communist mustard-brown. When the motley group was only one hundred yards away, Chae stepped forward and called to them.
'What unit?'
The group rushed into the ditches. The Americans along the pass opened fire with machine guns. And enemy fire blazed into the pass from the men in the ditches and some who had walked onto high ground to the north.
Chae Byong Duk, struck in the head, fell dead in a great pool of arterial blood. Two of his aides, loyal to the last, picked up his body under fire and took it to a truck. Chae Byong Duk, whatever his failings and whatever his mistakes, died a soldier.
In the same burst of fire Colonel Mott and several of his staff officers were wounded. Immediately, the battalion was under heavy fire, and heavy attack from two sides.
It fought well until enveloped by the enemy. Ordered to withdraw, the battalion experienced the same weakness of many American units; weakened by casualties, particularly among officers, it came apart.
Leaving more than three hundred dead behind it, a hundred prisoners, and most of its officers, the remnants of the battalion reached Chinju. Many men had retained only their boots and shorts by the time they reached safety.
Shortly afterward, the battalion was reorganized, and its companies sent to fill the gaps in the 19th Infantry, 24th Division.
The front continued to move south and cast.
Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker, with HQ at Taegu, was aware that Eighth Army was approaching crisis. He was unhappy with the performance of General Kean's 25th Division at Sangju, and he let Kean know about it.
