When he was fully manned again, one half of his company, including N.C.O.'s, had never seen combat. He had some new officers, some of them recallees. These men were not eager. They were patriotic men, with good records. But listening for the trumpet, they had received instead orders to Korea, telling them to go and serve, not saying why.
They had little interest in holding the far frontier. They were citizens, and each of them had better things to do.
South of Wonju, there was patrol action, and George Company got into more than one skirmish. Once, knocking, some Chinese off a hill, Munoz saw several of his EM run up to enemy dead, pause, searching, then move on.
Long, now made lieutenant in the field, smiled wryly at him, when Munoz asked what the hell they were doing. 'One old hand teaching two new ones how to loot, Captain.'
Fortunately, the old hands were teaching the new ones how to fight, too. The old hardness they had had after the Naktong returned. Again, all thoughts of going home soon had vanished; everybody realized that they were going to have to stay in Korea to fight. And the veterans of the early fights had forged in each company of the division a solid core of strength.
But there were still some problems. Thousands of Korean refugees in January 1951 were pouring southward, streaming through U.N. lines, and with them came disguised NKPA. Munoz, like all the old hands, had grown wary of infiltrators.
One day he ordered his roadblocks, 'Let no more civilians through.'
A sergeant, a recallee who had had to leave his new business and was understandably bitter about it, said, 'Captain, I'm not about to shoot civilians.'
Munoz put hard black eyes on this man. 'Sergeant, I realize you're new. We've had experience with this. Some of these 'civilians' have inflicted casualties on us, and unless you. want to be killed, you'd better watch it.'
One night, while on roadblock guard, the sergeant disappeared. Munoz figured some 'civilians' had probably thrown his body into the deep snows along the road. In spring, thousands of skeletons were found all over the roadsides of Korea, but few of them could be identified.
Then, in early January 1951, the 2nd Division was ordered to attack north. At the same time, Munoz was offered a job up at Battalion, but turned it down.
Wading in snow up to their waists at times, crossing ridges so high that they could clearly see the pilots of supporting aircraft in their cockpits, George Company attacked toward Wonju. They had sharp fights with enemy in the hills, and enemy interdicting the roads from deep railway tunnels. They took Wonju, and news photographers took their pictures in the square of the damaged, burning city.
But now Colonel Messenger, the new C.O. of 9th Infantry, had learned that Frank Munoz was the senior company commander of the regiment. He felt Munoz had had enough line time from the Naktong to the Ch'ongch'on to the hills about Wonju. And there was an opening on Division G-4—supply—staff.
Major Birmingham called Munoz in, offered him the job. 'Frank,' Pete Birmingham said, 'last night I had a dream that you were KIA—'
Young Munoz, normally not a superstitious man, was convinced. A man had only so much luck. On 17 January he reported to Division G-4, and was made supply liaison officer between that HQ and the regimental supply officers.
The Chinese hordes that had burst the U.N. Korean bubble did not number more than 300,000 at the time of their intervention, and of this number, probably not more than 60,000 actually went into close combat with the advance ROK and American divisions.
While in overall numbers the allied forces nearly matched the Chinese, at the point of impact the disparity was overwhelming. It had been the plan of maneuver of the U.N., plus the Chinese tactics—not the relative size of the two forces—that resulted in U.N. defeat.
At the crucial moment, only two American divisions had been in contact with the Chinese in the west, while in the east a large part of the combat power of six CCF divisions engulfed one Marine division.
Had the U.N. Command been able to employ the main body of the Eighth Army, or to throw the entire X Corps against the CCF IX Army Group, there is good reason to suppose the Chinese might have failed. But the terrain made it a series of Indian rights. While one American division was cut to pieces, others a few miles across the mountains enjoyed relative peace and quiet.
Understandably, American commanders were eager to get out of the horrible mountains and back to where they could fight once more in modern, civilized fashion.
The first withdrawal, to the 38th parallel, would have accomplished this. But the retreat once started was difficult to halt. The U.N. line, with X Corps redeployed in the center of South Korea, finally came to rest along the 37th parallel in January 1951.
Contact, except for scattered patrol actions, was broken. The mechanized U.N. forces had been able to move south faster than the footsore, ill-supplied, and badly coordinated CCF could follow.
Now geography began to exert its influence in reverse. In South Korea the terrain was still broken, but passable to vehicles. In a narrower part of the peninsula, Americans and ROK's could throw a continuous line from coast to coast, with a refused flank to either side. And while U.N. supply lines were shortened and improved, the CCF inherited a logistic nightmare.
The CCF's guns, ammunition, and supplies had to be brought down from the Yalu under constant air attack, over poor roads, and on a limited amount of transport. The CCF had manpower, including thousands of Korean laborers, and could live on very little, but there is a limit to the operations of an army that has to bear its ammunition hundreds of miles over mountains, principally by muscle power.
Now, rebuilt, reequipped, in maneuverable terrain, the U.N. forces needed more than anything else the will to fight. The means they had.
Matt Ridgway supplied the will.
By the end of January, as a result of firm and unmistakable orders from the new ground commander, the Eighth Army moved north to reestablish contact, and to bring the enemy to battle.
Everywhere Ridgway went, he talked of attack. Soon, nothing more was heard of the whispers that had been bruited about, over a gray-spirited army, that Korea might have to be evacuated.
And soon there was renewed battle.
The first United Nations counteroffensive, beginning 5 February 1951, was short-lived. On the night of 11 February, the CCF struck south again, this time in the center of the line, against Ned Almond's X Corps, which now contained the United States 2nd Division. The CCF attacked with two main columns pointed toward Hoengsong and Wonju. As usual, the Chinese first put pressure against the weaker firepower of the ROK's.
They slashed through two ROK divisions, forcing friendly lines southward from five to twenty miles.
Leading the U.N. offensive, Paul Freeman's 23rd Infantry had been well ahead of the van. On 3 February the regiment had moved into the road junction village of Chipyong-ni, already half destroyed by air and artillery, and in the small valley about the town Colonel Freeman threw up a tight mile-long perimeter. To the northwest of Chipyong-ni the 23rd dug in across a section of frozen rice paddies, and on the other sides of the valley the line lay across a series of low hills. Here the 23rd, including a French battalion, supported by the 37th Field Artillery, a battery of 155's from the 503rd, a Ranger company, and engineers, were still positioned when the CCF released the flood.
The front lines to either side of Chipyong-ni washed back, and Freeman, his patrols reporting Chinese on all sides of him, conferred with General Almond on 13 February. Freeman wanted to pull back fifteen miles to prevent encirclement; the 2nd Division commander approved.
Almond agreed, and submitted the request to the Eighth Army.
Matt Ridgway's comment can be summed up in one printable word: No.
The word went north to Freeman, who immediately strengthened his perimeter and called his various subordinate commanders in. He advised them, 'We're going to stay here and fight it out.'
That night, the fight began.
Soon after dark, there was skirmishing, and a few violent close-in brushes on the south of the perimeter, where 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, the French, and Battery B of the 503rd defended.
