Little, stooped, wrinkled Syngman Rhee rose to speak. The man who had spent the greater part of his life in exile, now aging badly but still active and courageous, for a few seconds could not speak for emotion. He held out his hands in front of him, clenching and unclenching his fingers, and blew on their tips. Only those who knew Syngman Rhee well understood why his hands worked when he was under emotional strain—over fifty years before, Japanese officers had tortured him by lighting oil paper pushed up under his fingernails, and had finished by smashing his fingertips one by one.
Men who knew nothing of Syngman Rhee's harsh years in exile, or of the Japanese torments during the Protectorate, tended to be impatient with Rhee's stubborn anti-Japanese stand in relations between the two countries. But when Rhee merely considered the notion of Japanese fishing boats approaching Korean water, his fingers hurt.
Now Rhee turned toward the Americans in his audience, and said:
'How can I ever explain to you my own undying gratitude and that of the Korean people?'
The ceremony ended, MacArthur returned to Tokyo to receive plaudits from the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from all the non-Communist world.
In the ensuing days, Marines and Army pushed out from Seoul, establishing blocking positions south toward Suwon, and taking Uijongbu. On the high ground in front of Uijongbu the 1st Marine Division met its last organized resistance on 3 October.
Before abandoning the ROK capital, however, the NKPA and Communist officialdom had wreaked a frightful revenge on the helpless bodies of the old men, women, and children of the families of South Korean policemen, government employees, and soldiers. Thousands had been shot or otherwise executed. And from this time forward, learning what had been done in their captured cities and towns, the ROK Army and Government showed no mercy to any Communist, whether NKPA, guerrilla, or sympathizer. To a certain extent, Communist frightfulness was repaid in kind.
ROK officials were adamant in their determination never again to allow a Communist-sympathizing underground to exist in South Korea.
Meanwhile, the United States X Corps was in the enemy rear, seated firmly astride his lines of communications with his homeland. The anvil was in place. Now all that remained was for the hammer to fall.
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16
Revenge
— Song sung by members of the 24th Division attacking back into Taejon, 27 September 1950.
GENERAL MACARTHUR'S master plan for ending the Korean conflict envisioned a massive offensive by Eighth Army to coincide with the landings at Inch'on. The United Nations troops within the Pusan Perimeter would break out, drive north, and link up with X Corps in Seoul, while the enemy forces were smashed between the two friendly armies.
To take advantage of the morale boost word of the successful landing would bring to U.S. troops, Eighth Army's offensive was delayed until 0900 on 16 September 1950. It was also hoped by FECOM that the enemy would be demoralized by the news, but evidence indicates that the North Korean High Command concealed word of the landing from their men fighting on the Naktong.
On 15 September, most staff officers of Eighth Army were far from sanguine of their prospects. There was an ammunition shortage, especially critical in 105's. All units of Eighth Army had been fighting continually for many days, and there was no chance to concentrate a large offensive force for a breakout. And the Intelligence estimate of enemy strength was more than 100,000 combat troops, with 75 percent equipment.
The same estimate indicated that the enemy still held the initiative and was not likely to lose it in the immediate future. Eighth Army, however, had been on the defensive too long. Defense had become almost a state of mind with high officers; they found it hard to adjust to taking the offensive.
The NKPA was in far worse condition than American Intelligence dared guess. Enemy losses in early September had been enormous; they will never be known with complete accuracy. Some idea of what was left to the People's Army in middle September can be gleaned from a captured daily battle report that showed one battalion of the 7th Division at the following strength: 6 officers, 34 N.C.O.'s, 111 privates, armed with 3 pistols, 9 carbines, 57 rifles, and 13 automatic rifles. There were 92 grenades left to the battalion, and 6 light machine guns, with less than 300 rounds of ammunition for each.
All in all, the People's Army could not have numbered more than 70,000 officers and men by 15 September, of which less than 30 percent were the original veterans of Manchuria and Seoul. Morale among the new inductees was low—only the fact that anyone who showed open reluctance to fight was shot held the army together at all. Almost all divisions were suffering badly from hunger. But the fact that the men of the Inmun Gun knew that their own fanatic officers and N.C.O.'s would shoot them kept the South Korean conscripts from surrendering.
The thirteen divisions ringing Pusan retained no more than half their original guns and equipment.
The forces they ringed numbered now more than 150,000—60,000 of them heavily armed United States combat troops. However, these figures do not show a factor that continued to haunt American commanders throughout the war—the weakness of the rifle companies, the units that actually bore more than 90 percent of the fighting. While there were at least 10,000 men in or attached to the three new corps HQ's formed in early September, many rifle companies stood at 25 percent strength.
Throughout the war, the logistic tail. continued to wag the fighting dog. While certain commanders complained and warned, none ever took any effective steps to amend the front-to-rear ratio, which of course could not be done without drastically altering the logistical practices and standard of living of the United States Army. In fact, as the war progressed, the amount of supplies required to support the American troops increased. PX goods were assigned to every company, creating both a transport problem and a headache for some company officer who had better things to worry about.
Throughout the war, because of the continuing lack of motivation of U.S. personnel, every effort was made to raise morale by the supply of goods and luxuries to the troops. Unit PX's carried tons of soft drinks and candy bars from battle to battle; they sold watches, cameras, and radios at tax-free prices, though the demand for these always exceeded the supply.
Actually, it was impossible to support overseas combat troops at anything like a decent American standard of living. The very nature and necessities of war forbade it. But every effort was made. Discussing the dozens of ships carrying fresh meats, poultry, and other goods from the States to Korea, one FECOM commander later wrote, 'We can never again afford to support troops in battle with such logistic luxury.' But this commander took no steps to halt the trend.
Because of the large numbers of service troops required to support American forces, the odds at platoon level were not quite so disparate as they would seem. Many United States battalions had only a few hundred effective fighting men.
Combat losses in September 1950 had been heavy among United States troops—heavier than they would be at any other time in the war. Already American battle casualties totaled almost 20,000. And while 60,000 of the entire 70,000 men of the ROK Army were disposed on line, the ROK's were in about the same condition as the NKPA. Many of their trained men were gone, and the new recruits had no training or inclination for fighting.
Still, the United Nations had two-to-one superiority in manpower, and at least a five-to-one edge in firepower—the dominant factor in battle. They held the sea, and had complete control of the air, and could deliver the frightful combat power that control of the air implies.
All that was needed to break out of the Pusan Perimeter was a change of attitude.
The Eighth Army plan of attack was simple. It called for the Eighth and ROK armies to attack from their present bridgehead, with main effort along the Taegu-Kumch'on-Taejon-Suwon axis, to (1) destroy the enemy on the line of advance; (2) effect a junction with X Corps.
