Korean War - Allied Surge

Pyongyang Falls, UN Sweep to the Yalu, October 1950

Gerry van Tonder

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781526756930
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Cold War crescendo: in the author's first three volumes in a series on battles of the Korean War, North Korean forces cross the 38th Parallel, rolling back US and South Korean forces into a small corner of the Korean peninsula. Months later, commander of the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea, General Douglas MacArthur, launches a daring counteroffensive invasion at Inchon, enveloping North Korea. Despite a warning from Beijing that it will intervene if US forces cross the 38th, MacArthur uses the UN's conditional authorization to land elements of the US X Corps at Wonsan and Riwon in North Korea. The Eighth US Army and South Korean forces capture the North Korean capital, P'yngyang, while American paratroops make the first combat jump of the conflict at Sunch'n and Sukch'n, cutting the road to the Chinese border. While MacArthur's ground forces edge closer to the Yalu River, and the general having designs of chasing the retiring North Koreans across the river into China, in October 1950 the Chinese politburo immediately deploys 200, 000 members of the 13th Army Group of the newly titled People's Volunteer Army (PLA) on a pre-emptive 'defensive' operation into North Korea.

1. MACARTHUR’S RUBICON

‘There was at this fateful hour a feeling of elation and of high and successful purpose which the United Nations experienced only rarely.’

UN Secretary General Trygve Lie on the Korean War, early October 1950*

As September 1950 drew to a close, United Nations Command (UNC) forces, mostly comprised of American and South Korean troops, consolidated their dispositions along the full west–east axis of the 38th Parallel. UNC supremo General Douglas MacArthur believed that UN Security Council Resolution 83 of 27 June 1950 provided him with the mandate to restore international peace and security on the Korean peninsula by military means, which included the pursuit of the broken North Korean army north of the 38th.

Washington, however, insisted on seeking UN authority to legitimize any military incursions into North Korea, especially with the ever-present threat of Chinese or Soviet intervention in the war. But at Lake Success, the UN General Assembly’s temporary headquarters on New York’s Long Island, the Soviet delegation caused mayhem in the chamber by insisting that debate about political persecution in Greece had to take priority over the Korean crisis.

In Seoul, South Korean head of state, Syngman Rhee, ran out of patience. On 1 October, he ordered his troops to cross the 38th.

While MacArthur appealed directly to the North Koreans to surrender to avoid ‘the early and total defeat and complete destruction of your armed forces and war-making potential’, Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai was unequivocal in divulging the mood in Beijing. The Soviet TASS News Agency quoted the veteran Chinese doyen of international diplomacy, speaking at a formal function in Beijing to celebrate the first anniversary of the establishment of the establishment of the Chinese People’s Republic, as saying that China ‘will not stand aside should the Imperialists wantonly invade the territory of its neighbour [North Korea]’.

In a CIA confidential information report of 17 October, it was stated that the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party had predicted a long war in Korea ‘from which the Americans would not be able to extricate themselves’. The North Korean Army was undefeated and remained a large, powerful force united behind leader Kim Il-sung. The Beijing document added that American Far East forces were now fully committed, and that ‘neither the United States nor other United Nations countries involved in the war can send more troops to Korea; defeat is therefore inevitable’.

WHAT NOW IN KOREA?

This morning’s news of the ‘closing of the gap’ by the two main thrusting branches of the United Nations forces in Korea is as pregnant with interest as it is gratifying. Appreciation of General MacArthur’s strategy, which showed nice timing in his tactical withdrawals to the last safe limits while his counterattacks, on land and sea were being mounted, is now supplanted by admiration for the drive shown by the troops under his command.

These successes, it will readily be recognised, must beget serious and immediate problems to which it may be hoped earnest attention has already been given. Seoul is only 40 air miles (and the road, as it happens, is fairly straight) from the 38th Parallel, and the United Nations’ troops may well reach that crucial boundary within a matter of days. Where do they go from there?

It is devoutly to be hoped that they will stop just where they are!

The reactions of Soviet Russia, not to mention Communist China, have not been announced, but they can be reasonably foreseen and they might set the world ablaze. Moreover, by crossing the line the United Nations, who so far have unquestionably been repelling an invader and resisting aggression, would almost certainly lose that moral support which at present they quite properly command among all the truly democratic nations. The boot would be on the other foot with vengeance.

President Truman’s attitude to this has fortunately already been made clear. He regards the American troops and their commander in Korea as United Nations forces, and will leave it to the United Nations to decide their next move.

Western Daily Press, 27 September 1950

The CIA also estimated that, at the time, there were 39,500 ethnic Chinese resident throughout North Korea’s eight provinces, engaged primarily in vegetable production, operating restaurants and bakeries, trading and manual labour.

In late 1949, the Communist Chinese had established a military mission in the former Japanese Yi Pyong-hun Hospital in the North Korean capital P’yŏngyang. From early 1950, the mission adopted more of an embassy function, not only to effectively control the Chinese nationals in the city, but also a venue for what remained clandestine meetings with North Korean civilian and military leaders. Radio equipment was also installed to maintain close and regular communications with China.

An 8-inch howitzer of B Battery, 720th FAB, US X Corps, Korea. (Photo US Army)

At the Manchurian city of An-Tung (Dandong), facing Sinŭiju in North Korea across the Sino–Korean Friendship Bridge over the Yalu River, American intelligence revealed that elements of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) XL Corps—commonly referred to as the Mukden Unit—had been assembling. By October, the 354th Regiment of the 118th Infantry Division, CPVA XL Corps, commanded by the 40-year-old Mao Shihch’ang, had an estimated strength of 10,000, and was equipped with six 122mm mountain guns and twelve 122mm field pieces. Each battalion was armed with six heavy machine guns and three 120mm mortars, while each company had six light machine guns and three 82mm mortars. Each platoon was equipped with eight Soviet-made rifles and two light machine guns.

Beijing continued to mass her ‘volunteer’ armies along the Manchurian border with North Korea, such that by the end of October, CPVA Marshal Peng Dehuai would have six armies—eighteen divisions—in the high mountains of central North Korea.

In addition, General Lin Piao’s CPVA Fourth Army had returned to Manchuria following the cessation of operations against Hainan and Formosa, bringing the Chinese military strength in Manchuria to an estimated 450,000 by the end of September. At the start of October, American intelligence reported the presence of a total of thirty-eight Chinese divisions in Manchuria, with sixteen divisions along the Yalu River. However, Washington still maintained that Chinese intervention was improbable, a view that MacArthur subscribed to:

CHINA’S APPEAL

The Chinese delegate to the United Nations Assembly has spoken movingly on the “grave dangers to world peace and security” in the Far East. There was no need for him to mention Russia by name. But one wonders how many of his audience realise the enormous growth in recent years of Russia’s stake in Asia.

This stake directly and indirectly covers everything northwards of a 4,000-mile line from the borders of India to Vladivostok. Outer Mongolia is for practical purposes one of the constituent republics. Sinkiang (or Chinese Turkestan) has for many years been increasingly drawn into the Russian economy and away from China. Northern Korea is a puppet of Moscow’s, openly threatening the independence of the Republic in the South. Saghalien and the Kuriles, reaching down to Japan, are all Russia’s; and she now has stranglehold on Manchuria, which she has coveted for 50 years.

It is easier to see what has happened than what can now be done, apart from the obvious necessity of concentrating on the restoration of prosperity in other East Asian countries so that they may automatically become bulwarks against Communist expansion. In China nine-tenths of the Communists’ success was due to the general detestation of the Kuomintang. Nobody is going to waste equipment on the nationalist troops who obviously will not fight. At present the situation in China is so uncertain that there seems nothing to be done but mark time. One point deserves attention, namely Manchuria, which is particularly dear to Chinese pride. The recovery of all China’s sovereign rights first on the Communists’ programme; and with the railways and ports in Russia’s hands, Manchuria is more Russian than a Chinese possession. There are many who believe that Manchuria will eventually make China, if not less Communist in form, decidedly less pro-Russian in action.

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 24 September 1949

Had they [China] interfered in the first or second months it would have been decisive. We are no longer fearful of their intervention. We no longer stand hat in hand. The Chinese have 300,000 men in Manchuria. Of those probably not more than 100,000 to 125,000 are distributed along the Yalu River. Only 50,000 to 60,000 could be gotten across the Yalu River. They have no air force. Now that we have bases for our Air Force in Korea, if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be the greatest slaughter.*

The aftermath of a 356-ton B-29 Superfortress raid on the Northwest P’yŏngyang marshalling yard and repair centre. (Photo NARA)

In the immediate wake of the UNC counteroffensive at Inch’ŏn, there was considerable North Korean and Soviet activity on the east coast as the US Air Force (USAF) continued with its unrelenting campaign of interdiction bombing. US intelligence reported on Soviet vessels entering Ch’ŏngjin harbour every night to unload vehicles and munitions, while the families of some 200 Soviet advisors were evacuated north from the port city to Najin, 20 miles from the Soviet border and 60 miles from Vladivostok, home of the Soviet Pacific Fleet.

To the south, the area between Ch’ŏngjin and Nanam had been declared a no-go zone to civilians. Around 8,000 North Korean People’s Army (KPA) army recruits were undergoing training, while at Nanam airfield US intelligence had reported the presence of twenty-three unidentified fighter aircraft of which twenty sported Soviet markings.

North of Wŏnsan, the east-coast port city of Hŭngnam had been all but totally destroyed by successive FEAF Bomber Command sorties that had started late in July.

On the morning of 30 July, mission ‘Nannie Able’ saw forty-seven Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers from squadrons of the U...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Glossary
• Timeline
• Introduction
• 1. MacArthur’s Rubicon
• 2. Drive On Kŭmch’ŏn
• 3. Eastern Offensive
• 4. P’yŏngyang Falls
• 5. Attack of the Rakkasans
• 6. Red Invasion
• Sources
• Plate section