U.S. Marine Operations In Korea 1950-1953: Volume I - The Pusan Perimeter [Illustrated Edition]

Lynn Montross, Captain Nicholas A. Canzona USMC

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781786254269
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Includes over 50 photos and 23 maps.THIS IS THE first volume of a planned series dealing with United States Marine Operations in Korea during the period 2 August 1950 to 27 July 1953. Volume I is designed to give the military student and the casual reader an accurate and detailed account of the operations in which Marines of the 1st Provisional Brigade and Marine Air Group 33 participated during the fighting in the Pusan Perimeter, from the date of their landing on 2 August until their withdrawal on 13 September 1950, in preparation for the Inchon landing."AN ABILITY TO furnish skilled forces to meet emergency situations on short notice has long been a hallmark of the Marine Corps. When the call came for such a force to be dispatched to Korea on 2 July 1950, the Corps was handicapped by the strictures of a peacetime economy. Nevertheless, a composite brigade consisting of a regiment and an air group was made available within a week's time.With a reputation built largely on amphibious warfare, Marines of the 1st Brigade were called upon to prove their versatility in sustained ground action. On three separate occasions within the embattled Perimeter—south toward Sachon and twice along the Naktong River—these Marine units hurled the weight of their assault force at the enemy. All three attacks were successful, and at no point did Marines give ground except as ordered. The quality of their performance in the difficult days of the Pusan Perimeter fighting made them a valuable member of the United Nations team and earned new laurels for their Corps."- Gen. Lemuel Shepherd.

CHAPTER I — Korea, Doorstep of Strategy

The Historical Background—The Russo-Japanese War—Korea as a Japanese Colony—The Partition of Korea—Red Victory in China—Civil Strife in Korea

IT MEANT LITTLE to most Americans on 25 June 1950 to read in their Sunday newspapers that civil strife had broken out in Korea. They could hardly have suspected that this remote Asiatic peninsula was to become the scene of the fourth most costly military effort of American history, both in blood and money, before the end of the year. Yet the danger of an explosion had been present ever since the end of World War II, when the United States and the Soviet Union rushed into the political vacuum created in Korea by the defeat of Japan.

The Korean question came up officially for the first time at the Cairo Conference of December 1943. With Soviet Russia not yet being represented as a belligerent in the Far East, the United States, Great Britain and China agreed that “in due course Korea shall become free and independent.”{1}

Any discussion of this issue had to take into consideration Korea’s status as a Japanese possession since 1910. Government, industry, commerce, agriculture, transportation—every phase of Korean life had been administered by Japanese for the benefit of Japan. As a consequence, the 25,000,000 inhabitants of the peninsula were woefully lacking in experience to fit them for the responsibilities of independence.

Syngman Rhee, the elderly Korean patriot, had long been clamoring for recognition of his Korean government in exile. The United States hung back because of reluctance to offend Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, at a time when Russia was a powerful military ally. Moscow had a strong bargaining point, moreover, in the prospect of giving military aid to the United States in the fight against Japan. Such an alliance was particularly desirable from the American viewpoint early in 1945 because of the losses resulting from Japanese kamikaze tactics. In the belief that active Soviet participation might shorten the war and save thousands of American lives, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was disposed to compromise with Stalin.

The two agreed informally at the Yalta Conference of February 1945 that Korea should be independent “. . . and that if a transition period were necessary, a trusteeship should be established,” according to James F. Byrnes, United States Secretary of State. He added in his memoirs that “a desire to help the Koreans develop the skills and experience that would enable them to maintain their independence was the inspiration for President Roosevelt’s acquiescence in the trusteeship idea.” {2}

The Soviet dictator made a plea at Yalta for historical justice. Although Czar Nicholas II had been execrated as a tyrant and warmonger in Communist doctrine, Stalin demanded that the “wrongs” resulting from the Russo-Japanese War be righted 40 years later. The price of Soviet military aid against Japan, in short, was the restoration of Russian territory in the Far East that had been lost in the defeat of 1905.

The Historical Background

It was inevitable that the fate of Korea would be involved in any such readjustment. Korea is one of those tragic areas of the earth’s surface which are destined in all ages to be a doorstep of strategy. As the focal point of the China-Russia-Japan triangle, the peninsula offers each of these powers a threshold for aggression against either of the other two. Possession of Korea has been for centuries an aim of aspiring conquerors in the Far East, and all three rival nations have had a turn.

China was first. From ancient times down to the last quarter of the 19th century, the Chinese Empire held a loose suzerainty acknowledged by the Koreans. Japan won a brief foothold in the 16th century under the great war lord Hideyoshi, only to learn the painful lesson that control of the sea is requisite to a seaborne invasion of a peninsula. Naval victories by the Koreans cut Hideyoshi’s line of communications, and he withdrew after frightful devastations which left an enduring tradition of fear and hate. Both Japan and Korea then entered upon a period of self-imposed isolation lasting until their political hibernation was rudely interrupted by Western nations clamoring for trade.

The United States took the lead in inaugurating a new era in the Far East. Commodore Perry and his American warships opened up Japan to commerce in 1853. Several persuasive bombardments of coastal cities by American, British and French naval guns were required to end Japan’s seclusion; and in 1871 an American squadron was sent to Korea after the destruction of an American merchant ship and massacre of its crew. United States Marines and bluejackets stormed Korean river forts defended by cannon. All objectives were taken and heavy casualties inflicted, but it remained for Japan to open up the “Hermit Kingdom” to trade 4 years later with the threat of war.

Russia had not been a disinterested bystander during this era of cannon-ball diplomacy. Her participation in Far Eastern affairs dated back to the 17th century and had once extended to the North American mainland. The sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 indicated a renunciation of this phase of expansion, but Russia had no intention of abandoning her ambitions in the Far East. Shortly after Japan compelled Korea to sign a treaty of amity, the Russians offered to train Korean officers and lend military aid to the faction-ridden kingdom.

At this point China took a hand. Suspecting that the two rival nations were dabbling in Korean affairs for purposes of their own, the Celestial Empire attempted to restore her suzerainty.

This policy was bound to lead to a collision. Western nations were not surprised when Japan and China resorted to arms, but few observers expected the supposed dwarf to beat the giant with ease. Japan’s well led army, equipped with the best modern weapons, landed at Chemulpo (Inchon) and captured the Chinese fortress at Pyongyang in northwest Korea. Sweeping across the Yalu into Manchuria, the invaders overran the strategic Liaotung Peninsula, taking Port Arthur and Dairen.

It was all over in a few months. When the Empire proper was threatened with invasion, the Chinese government sued for peace in 1895.

The Japanese terms were more than severe, they were humiliating. They included: (1) a large indemnity; (2) the cession “in perpetuity” of the Liaotung Peninsula as well as Formosa and the Pescadores group; and (3) Chinese recognition of what the Japanese were pleased to call “Korean independence.”

But the victors had overdone it. Russia, Germany, and France formed the Triple Intervention which compelled Japan to relinquish the Liaotung Peninsula. The three European powers preferred that this strategic bastion remain in the possession of China, which was ripe for despoiling at the convenience of the Western nations.

Russia now assumed the role of a friend binding China’s wounds. The secret treaty of alliance signed by the two empires in 1896 was aimed like a pistol at Japan. In return for promises of support in the event of further Japanese aggressions, China gave Russia the right to extend the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok across Chinese territory in Manchuria.

The precept was not lost upon other European nations. England, Germany, and France also established spheres of influence in China after forcing the government to lease territory or grant special privileges. And Russia added to former gains by a 25-year lease of the Liaotung Peninsula.

China’s Boxer Rebellion of 1900 interrupted the march of events, but two treaties in 1902 indicated that Japan and Russia would soon be at each other’s throats. Japan acquired an ally in England, as a result of that nation’s alarms over Muscovite designs, so that the neutrality of European powers was practically assured. Russia and China drew closer meanwhile with a new treaty of alliance. The stage was set for a fight to the finish in the Far East.

Possession of the Philippine Islands had given the United States a new interest in Far Eastern affairs since the Spanish-American War of 1898. John Hay, Secretary of State, realized that the American “open door” policy was imperiled by the situation in Asia. {3} But he admitted in April 1903 that nothing short of the threat of armed force could have checked Russia’s encroachments.

The Russo-Japanese War

A candid comparison would reveal a striking similarity between the aggressions of Czarist Russia in the early 1900’s and those of Soviet Russia half a century later. The expression “cold war” was not current in 1903, but the account of Russia’s threats, seizures and violated agreements has a dismally familiar aspect to the modern reader. Rudyard Kipling paid a bitter tribute at the turn of the century to these techniques of the Russian Bear in his lines:

“When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;”

“When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,”

“When he veils the hate and cunning of his little swinish eyes;”

“When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer,”

“That is the time of peril—the time of the Truce of the Bear!”

Following the Sino-Japanese War, the truce between Russia and Japan in “independent” Korea was broken by both nations whenever a favorable opportunity arose. Both of them intrigued constantly at Seoul. For a time, indeed, the Korean government was directed from the Russian legation with the backing of Russian troops.

Twice, in 1896 and 1898, Russia and Japan signed agreements reaffirming Korea’s independence and promising anew to withdraw their forces. These pacts were promptly violated by both contestants for power, but Japan prepared more realistically for the forthcoming struggle. On a February night in 1904, without the formality of a declaration of war, a Japanese squadron attacked the Russian warships anchored at Port Arthur. This surprise blow was followed shortly by the landing of Japanese troops at Chemulpo. They advanced to the frontier and defeated the Russians in the battle of the Yalu—a victory that has been compared with the battle of Valmy in the French Revolution as a landmark of history.

Certainly the West was made aware that an Oriental nation had risen to the stature of a world power for the first time in modern history. The value of Korea as a strategic springboard was demonstrated when Japanese land and sea forces isolated the fortresses on the Liaotung Peninsula. Port Arthur fell after a bloody siege of 6 months. Next, the Japanese invaders of Manchuria defeated an army of 350,000 Russians and inflicted 150,000 casualties in the four-week battle of Mukden. This was the decisive clash on land; and in the one-sided naval battle of Tsushima, Admiral Togo annihilated the Baltic fleet which the Czar had ordered on the long voyage to the Pacific.

The end came abruptly in the summer of 1905. In the Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on 5 September, Russia ceded the southern part of Sakhalin Island to the victors while recognizing their “paramount” interests in Korea. All rights in the Liaotung Peninsula went to Japan as well as important concessions in Manchuria. Not much was left to Russia in the Far East except a precarious foothold in northern Manchuria.

Korea as a Japanese Colony

For 5 years Japan kept up a pretense of a protectorate in Korea. Then, in 1910, came outright annexation.

Europe’s “balanced antagonisms” soon flared up in World War I, leaving Japan free to exploit Korea as a colony. Western observers might have noted such evidences of modernization as new docks, railroads, factories and highways. But they were administered by Japanese overseers as Koreans sank to the level of coolies without a voice in the government.

Although Japan joined the fight against the Central Powers in World War I, her military efforts were made against allies as well as enemies. Using Korea as a beachhead, she attempted to enlarge her empire on the Asiatic mainland at the expense of Russia, then in the throes of revolution. Three years after the Armistice, a Japanese army still occupied the Vladivostok area; but the United States took such a firm diplomatic stand that Tokyo backed down.

This retreat was only a postponement. During ...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Preface
• Illustrations
• CHAPTER I - Korea, Doorstep of Strategy
• CHAPTER II - Red Aggression in Korea
• CHAPTER III - The Marine Brigade
• CHAPTER IV - The Advance Party
• CHAPTER V - Prelude to Battle
• CHAPTER VI - Action on Hill 342
• CHAPTER VII - Advance to Kosong
• CHAPTER VIII - Fight on Two Fronts
• CHAPTER IX - The Battle of the Naktong
• CHAPTER X - Obong-ni Ridge
• CHAPTER XI - Second Naktong
• CHAPTER XII - Mission Completed
• APPENDIX A - Glossary of Military and Aeronautical Terms
• APPENDIX B - Command and Staff List of the First Provisional Marine Brigade
• APPENDIX C - Citations and Commendations
• Bibliography