An Epic Attack "In Another Direction"

By DAVID F. WINKLER

Dr. David F. Winkler is the historian for the Naval Historical Foundation and its director of programs and development.

By late summer 1950 Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur’s masterful maneuver at Inchon had already cut off much of the North Korean Army south of Seoul. With the recapture of the South Korean capital, the U.N. commander, with Washington’s backing, sent Lt. Gen. Walton Walker’s Eighth Army into North Korea with the objective of quickly concluding the war and unifying the country under Syngman Rhee, president of the Republic of Korea (ROK—i.e., South Korea).

Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond’s X Corps, which had landed at Inchon and taken Seoul, was not part of the Eighth Army. MacArthur once again decided to capitalize on the strategic mobility offered through sea power and use Almond’s forces to flank the enemy at Wonsan, on the east coast of the Korean peninsula.

MacArthur had not counted, however, on the Communist deployment of 3,000 sea mines over a 400-square-mile area of ocean on the approaches to Wonsan. The sea mines destroyed four U.S. minesweepers in the frustrating and time-consuming clearing effort that cost U.S. naval forces dearly in time and blood. By the time the 1st Marine Division, the most combat-capable component of the X Corps, could be put ashore at Wonsan, South Korean soldiers already had occupied the city and were advancing north.

Once redeployed, Almond’s forces worked their way up the coast while Walker’s Eighth Army captured North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, and then headed toward the Yalu River, which marks North Korea’s border with China. The Taebeck mountains that form the spine of the Korean peninsula separated the two advancing U.N. forces and eventually proved fatal to MacArthur’s strategy. Throughout October and November, the Chinese army infiltrated 30 divisions—300,000 battle-hardened troops—through the mountains. Incredibly, that massive movement of troops was almost undetected; the few reports that reached MacArthur’s headquarters were dismissed as "unsubtantiated" and/or as "isolated incidents."

Deep in these mountains the troops of the U.S. Army’s 7th Division, Royal Marine commandos, and the U.S. Marine Corps’ 1st Division had been advancing in the area of the Changjin Reservoir—those serving in the campaign referred to it as the Chosin Reservoir, taking the name from the Japanese maps they were using. On 28 November 1950, with winter already setting in, the U.S./U.N. forces in and around the "frozen Chosin," as the troops called it, were suddenly attacked by six Chinese divisions. For two days the Marines fought off fierce attacks at Yudam-ni. As the scope of the Chinese intervention across the northern shoulder of the peninsula became increasingly apparent, Almond ordered Maj. Gen. Oliver Smith, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, to extract his forces. The division’s 5th and 7th Marine Regiments fought their way first to Hagaru-ri, suffering 1,500 casualties during the three-day trek. Close air support by Navy and Marine aviators and a heroic defense by a company of Marines to keep the Toktong Pass open facilitated the successful withdrawal. At Hagaru-ri, the Marines joined with remnants of the badly mauled U.S. Army and Royal Marine force.

There still were 30 miles of mountainous Chinese-occupied territory separating his troops from the coastal plain surrounding the port city of Hungnam, though. Smith analyzed the situation concisely—and accurately—when he told reporters, "Gentlemen, we are not retreating. We are merely attacking in another direction."

Fortunately. there was an airstrip at Hagaru-ri that enabled Smith to airlift out 4,300 of his wounded and bring in vitally needed ammunition and supplies. After two more days of fighting day and night in the freezing cold, Smith’s force of 14,000 weary troops was almost at the halfway mark when it arrived at Koto-ri. However, the most difficult leg of the epic "attack in another direction" was still ahead. A blown bridge span had to be replaced, and a hill dominating the Funchilin Pass had to be taken.

To bridge the gap in the road, Marine engineers built a bridge from spans parachuted to them from Air Force C-119 Boxcar aircraft while Marine ground troops fought in frigid weather to clear the heights overlooking the abutments. In below-zero blizzard conditions, one Marine battalion assaulted the "big hill" and drove the Chinese off, clearing the way to the sea and concluding one of the most heroic struggles in Marine Corps history.

It was not recognized as such at the time, however. Many contemporary press accounts described the Marine Corps withdrawal as a retreat. Today, though, with the benefit of hindsight, historians compare it with Thermopylae and see it as an epic campaign of unparalled heroism unlike any other in U.S. history.

Material extracted from James L. Stokesbury’s A Short History of the Korean War (William Morrow, 1988). The author also acknowledges assistance from Lt. Col. Jon T. Hoffman of the Marine Corps Historical Center.