Michael Hickey - The Korean War

First published in the United States in 2000 by

The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

Lewis Hollow Road

Woodstock, NY 12498

www.overlookpress.com

Copyright 1999 by Michael Hickey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

ISBN 978-1-46830-557-9

Out of the Sky: A History of Airborne Warfare

The Unforgettable Army: Slim and the 14th Army

Gallipoli

(between pages 78 and 79)

South Korean mounted troops depart for the front, Taegu, August 1950

A round-up of recruits to the Republic of Korea Army

South Korean political prisoners awaiting disposal at Pusan

Communist sympathizers being taken off to execution

A USAF Shooting Star takes off from an airfield in Japan

The landing at Inchon, September 1950

US Marines coming ashore at Inchon, September 1950

US Marines scaling the breakwater, Inchon, September 1950

General MacArthur tours the front, September 1950

An American Patton tank, following the breakout from Pusan

The Australians embark at Kure, Japan

The 56th US Army Port Band welcomes troops ashore

Officers of 27 Commonwealth Brigade confer in the field

General Sir John Harding, C-in-C Far East Land Forces, and Air Vice-Marshal Bouchier at HQ 27 Commonwealth Brigade

Refugees on the road south from Seoul, April 1951

Royal Marines commandos lay a demolition charge

41 Royal Marines commandos prepare covering fire

Men of the 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment on the cold march south, November 1950

The great bug-out: the retreat of the US 2nd Infantry Division, November 1950

Ground crew of the Flying Cheetah squadron de-icing a Mustang

The crew of HMS Charity on the foredeck, winter 1950-1

A Chaffee light tank and crew destroyed near Chipyong-ni, February 1951

US casualties overrun near Chipyong-ni, February 1951

The Australians evacuate their wounded, March 1951

A Vickers machine-gun in action during the battle of Kapyong, April 1951

De-lousing parade: 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment

The 187th US Airborne Division land near Seoul, March 1951

US infantrymen take action to avoid a Chinese communist minefield

(between pages 206 and 207)

General Lawton Collins visits 29 Brigade Group, early 1951

General MacArthur makes his official departure from Japan

A Centurion tank after the battle of the Imjin, April 1951

Inspecting landmine damage to an armoured car, summer 1951

A Chinese Peoples Army leaflet invites UN troops to surrender

A marshalling yard in North Korea attacked by USAF light bombers

F-86 Sabre fighters of the 5th US Air Force at dispersal

The capture of Hill 355 (Little Gibraltar)

The 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, in action, north of the Imjin

A Chinese prisoner receiving treatment at the Norwegian MASH

US Army helicopters evacuating casualties from the Indian Field Ambulance

Life Saver. The 8225th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, Korea, 1951

The light fleet carrier HMS Ocean en route to Korea

A Sea Fury crash-lands on the deck of HMS Ocean

Bridge-building on the Pukhan river, November 1951

78 Company RASC transports the Australians across a US pontoon bridge

A meeting of senior officers in the field, April 1952

The American 8-inch gun, The Persuader

An airstrike near the Hook

Defence positions on the Hook after bombardment by the Chinese

The author relaxing on the road from Seoul to Pusan, October 1951

The 60th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance near Suwon, spring 1951

A gun crew of the US Army artillery prepare to carry out a fire mission

Winter billets

General Lawton Collins with other senior officers on a visit to 1st Commonwealth Division, July 1952

RAF engine fitters at work in the field

North Korean prisoners of war at work on Koje Island

The Glosters being debriefed following Little Switch

The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Plates 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 19 and 56, Hulton Getty; 5, US Air Force; 8, 9, 27, 40, 43 and 46, US Army Military History Institute; 10 and 38, the late Revd Lorentz Pedersen; 11, 13, 18, 24 and 26, Australian War Memorial (Accession Nos. PO1813.576, PO1813.659, PO1813.865, PO1813.745, PO2201.125); 12, 45, 52 and 54, Museum of Army Flying, Middle Wallop; 14, 20, 21, 29, 30, 32, 34, 41, 42, 48, 50, 53 and 55, Imperial War Museum; 15, 22, 23, 25, 35 and 39, Lieutenant-Colonel Alf Argent; 16 and 17, Mr A.E. Hales; 28, US Army; 36, Lieutenant-Colonel Barney Henderson; 47, Colonel M. Farmer; 51, US Signal Corps. Plates 31, 33, 37, 44 (crown copyright) and 49 are from the authors collection.

C ommanding an RASC transport platoon as a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant I was an insignificant packhorse in the Korean War. Like my contemporaries I was ignorant of the higher strategy and politics that had brought us there. Our main preoccupation was survival through that first terrible winter of the war; great events such as the sacking of General MacArthur, our commander-in-chief, passed almost unnoticed, whilst few of us spared a charitable thought for that God-forsaken country and its unfortunate people. For young men who had never left the shores of the United Kingdom, Korea in 1950 came as a dreadful shock: a nation assaulted and raped, deprived of its very identity by forty years of Japanese occupation, now shattered by invasion from the north. Filthy, malodorous, its population reduced to beggary and totally demoralized, it presented an unlovely picture.

All those of us sent from Britain to Korea in 1950 were painfully aware of the parlous state of the British economy, and particularly of the armed forces; looking back over half a century it is astonishing that, from an army of several hundred thousand officers and men, it proved so difficult to assemble and equip a brigade to go to the other side of the world without resort to a call-up of reservists. Much of the forces equipment was of 193945 vintage, a lot of it much older. During that first winter we had to live mostly in the open in appalling weather conditions with inadequate winter clothing and tentage. Despite this, the performance of British and Commonwealth troops, sailors and airmen was in the highest traditions of their services. The youngest national servicemen who served there so admirably are now old age pensioners and it is hard to realize that all this happened nearly fifty years ago the same gap as separated us in 1950 from the Boer War. This account aims to show something of the British and Commonwealth contribution to that campaign, in relation to the far greater undertaking of the Americans and South Koreans. Its aim will have been achieved if the reader emerges at the end with a sense of what it was like to serve in MacArthurs curious Tokyo headquarters, shiver in a frozen slit trench, swelter in the baleful humidity of a Korean summer, endure captivity, fly combat missions in bombers and jet fighters against formidable opposition, fight the treacherous tides of Korean coastal waters under the fire of hostile batteries, or march over the northern mountains in the depth of winter with the Marines.