This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History

The retreat became a slaughter.

The 13th Division, bled white in the hills by the 1st Cavalry, had already shown signs of internal distress. A regimental commander had surrendered voluntarily, claiming unfair treatment by the division commander. Faced with failure, the Communists were beginning to snap and bite at each other. Officers were being relieved; men were being summarily executed.

Pushing ahead, the 1st Cavalry Division units passed scenes of terror and devastation, burned-out tanks, dead and bloating animals, cannon pushed off the roads into ditches, tons of abandoned ammunition. Complete units of the enemy 1st, 3rd, and 13th divisions now fell prey to panic, and virtually disintegrated.

By 23 September the Inmun Gun was everywhere in full retreat. And on 22 September Walton Walker issued an order long awaited by the Eighth Army: Pursue and destroy the enemy. The time had come for revenge.

In the pre-daylight murk of the morning of 21 September, a senior colonel of the Inmun Gun walked down a narrow dirt road four miles south of the village of Tabu-dong. In full uniform, rank badges gleaming on his shoulder boards, a soft cap over his dark hair, the colonel quietly approached American lines and waited until daylight.

The colonel's name was Lee Hak Ku, and his exact motives this dawn of 21 September will never be completely known. But behind him the 13th Division, of which he was chief of staff, was in utter dissolution. It numbered only 1,500 men. Its HQ had lost communication and control over its regiments. The division held no line, and its survivors were now fleeing over the hills toward Sangju. It was sauve-qui-peut, and the men were no longer waiting to be shot down by their officers. The officers themselves were throwing away their guns.

The Koreans, North and South, are by any standard a brave people, but they are mercurial, rising one moment to extremes of exaltation, dropping quickly back into despair. They can be martyrs on any given day, and traitors the next. They have been called, not without reason, the Irish of the Orient. And in some cases, not even rigid Communist training, with its denial of basic human nature, can eradicate the nature of the Korean peasant.

When it became daylight, Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku walked softly up into a small village held by the 8th Cavalry Regiment. Ironically, he had to awaken two sleeping American soldiers carefully in order to surrender. When they took him to the rear, the young, hard, square-faced North Korean was very cooperative with his interrogators.

He supplied them with whatever information they desired about his division. It did not matter, whatever he told them, because the division had been destroyed as a fighting force. Other prisoners, though of lesser rank, had told the same story.

His surrender so impressed General Walker that, when he heard the news, he phoned Tokyo from Taegu. Senior Colonel Lee Hak Ku was the highest- ranking Communist prisoner to be taken by the U.N. during the Korean War.

And in captivity, he would do more damage to the U.N. cause than he had ever accomplished while serving in the Inmun Gun.

Opposite the old Naktong Bulge, three NKPA divisions, the 2nd, 4th, and 9th, streamed westward in retreat. And streaming after them, like hounds in full cry, came the United States 2nd Division.

On 23 September the 2nd Division reduced the stubborn roadblocks the fleeing enemy had thrown up about the town of Ch'ogye. And then, on 24 September, the 38th Regiment swept north, the 23rd circled south, and both regiments linked up beyond the old NKPA command post at Hyopch'on. Northeast of Hyopch'on, Peploe's infantrymen erected a roadblock while two enemy battalions still held the city. Then the 23rd fought into Hyopch'on from the south, driving the defenders out and north.

Running into Peploe's roadblock, the North Koreans met a storm of fire. That afternoon, after the killing ceased, Peploe's men counted more than 300 corpses along the road. The survivors, sloshing across the paddies in panic, were struck by American planes and shot to pieces. The few who got away ran into the hills without arms, ammunition, or food.

Now, in late September, it was North Koreans instead of Americans who straggled through the hills, broken, demoralized, shoeless, and hungry. And grimly, without exultation, American soldiers found the taste of revenge sweet and good.

On the 25th, on order, the 38th Infantry moved northwest toward Koch'ang. In a few hours it had broken through the thin defensive crust of the enemy 2nd Division and was in the NKPA artillery areas, overrunning guns, vehicles, and heavy equipment.

General Choe, commanding the enemy division, was sick and worn out. He ordered all his vehicles and artillery abandoned, and then, his men carrying him, Choe and the remnants of the NKPA 2nd melted into the hills, where they became guerrillas.

On 25 September the 38th Infantry killed more than 200 enemy soldiers, captured 450 more. They amassed a total of 10 motorcycles, nearly 20 trucks, 9 mortars, 14 AT guns, 4 howitzers, and 300 tons of ammunition.

At dusk, 2030, the regiment had advanced thirty miles.

The American forces, well supplied with vehicles, with many good roads in this part of Korea, were advancing faster than the enemy could flee. General Walker's orders for the pursuit and exploitation had instructed the divisions to forget about their flanks, to press ahead against a beaten enemy, and this tactic was paying off.

Tanks rolling ahead, moving over an open road, with encircling hills far to either side, the 38th again and again overran the now desperate enemy. At Koch'ang the regiment captured a North Korean field hospital. Now Peploe received orders to strike across the peninsula to Chonju, a town near the west coast.

The 2nd Battalion leading, the 38th entrucked at 0400 28 September. Nine and one half hours later, after advancing 72 miles, the regiment closed in on Chonju. Here there was a brief fight. One hundred North Koreans were killed, and twice as many surrendered.

Inside the town, Peploe threw up a perimeter defense. He was far inside enemy territory; thousands of North Koreans had been bypassed along the road.

But the enemy was also confused by the slashing American movements. During the evening a North Korean truck tried to pull into the town. It was loaded with crates, and seemed to carry about twenty soldiers.

An outpost of the 38th along the road fired a single bazooka round at the truck as it approached. Then the men of the outpost cowered in the ditches as the truck disappeared with a horrendous explosion, raining fire and fragments over a wide area. The crates had been filled with ammunition.

Concerned by the terrific detonation, Peploe came out to see what had happened. Viewing the reeking crater in the road, he could find no remnants of either the truck or the men who had been upon it.

Coming into Chonju, the regiment had exhausted its motor fuel. Fortunately, a far-ranging 2nd Division liaison plane passed over them before dark. The pilot was confused, and incredulous. 'Are you 2nd Division troops?' he kept asking over the radio.

'Yes, and we're out of gas,' he was told. The plane buzzed back to its field, and soon both Division HQ and IX Corps had fresh gasoline trucks on the road.

While Peploe marked time in Chonju, waiting for resupply, the assistant commander of the 24th Division flew in. He seemed disappointed at the sight of the Indianhead patches on the sleeves of the men holding the town; he had hoped to find the taro leaf of his own division in the vanguard. Rather unhappily, he asked permission for units of the 24th to pass through Peploe's lines.

The next day, gasoline trucks reached Chonju, and once again the 38th Infantry moved north and west.

This time they went to the south bank of the Han, in sight of Seoul.

The hammer had fallen. It had met the anvil, and what had been in between was no more.

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17

The Taste of Triumph