What happens if Macs intelligence staff had recognized & convinced him there was a Chinese army infiltrating south between the US Army columns heading north? In this Lt Gen 'Bulldog' Walker commander of 8th Army would be critical in the details of the operational and tactical changes, if any. & separately Corps commander Almond in north eastern Korea. How well does 8th Army deal with the situation if its recognized.
Korea. Chinese Intervention Not a Surprise
- Thread starter Carl Schwamberger
- Start date
Dave Shoup
Banned
Withdraw to the south and trade space for time against the CCF, presumably.
There's a pretty obvious place to draw a defensive line between Anju in the west and Hungnam in the east; failing that, there's another obvious line from Nampo in the west up to Pyongyng, east along the Namgang River, and east to Wonsan.
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/korea_north_rel_2005.pdf
The UN force amounted to a field army headquarters, three US corps headquarters, seven US divisions, 3-4 US and Allied brigade equivalents (with another and the divisional troops necessary to form the Commonwealth Division in the offing), and 6-9 ROK light infantry divisions; couple that with UN air and sea supremacy and the ability to draw on the US corps equivalent in Japan, and if the UN forces can withdraw in good order to a point where the terrain is in their favor, the Chinese will be stopped, and well north of the eventual (1953) Armistice line.
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I'm reminded the earliest warning, from the Chinese came before the UN forces crossed the former border. The Chinese made it clear the US Army was not welcome north of the 38th Paralle. However they were not concerned about the ROK army. Had the UN forces halted at the 38th Paralle, & supported the ROK with logistics & air support, maybe they could even get away with engineer brigades, some heavy artillery groups, ect... Could the RoK still defeat the remaining NKPA? If the Chinese intervene anyway then the 8th Army can move north to rescue the ROK army.
Dave Shoup
Banned
The ROKs seem to have done reasonably well against the NKPA during the advance northward, although having US corps and army troops in support made their part of the offensive possible. A little more pragmatism from MacArthur, and not allowing X Corps under Almond to function essentially as a detached army from 8th Army, would have made all the difference.
In terms of Macs goals the X Corps mission made sense. Unfortunately Almond was not the man for the job. Like Mac he failed to read the intel reports properly. Perhaps that was his aggrieve nature. As one of his peers put it 'Almond attacked when he should, and attacked when he should not have'. The commanders of the 7th Div & TF McLean protested Almonds orders at face to face meetings, but tried to carry on the advance north. Mag Gen Smith of the Marine Div protested the orders, then disobeyed them, ceasing to attack & preparing to withdraw south. Smith should have been charged with disobedience of orders, but he saved his command, attached UN soldiers, and several thousand Army, so I guess Almond & Mac let it slide.
Had Almond recognized the reality on the ground and directed both 7th ID & 1 MarDiv to contract to mutually supporting positions the Chinese left wing facing them would have repeated failures attacking.
Had Almond recognized the reality on the ground and directed both 7th ID & 1 MarDiv to contract to mutually supporting positions the Chinese left wing facing them would have repeated failures attacking.
What would China have done if the US had publicly stopped at 39th parallel to punish North Korea for starting it?
Nice and short neck to hold and still reasonably far from China proper?
I cant say. Have not studied the political and military situation closely enough. Beyond that is the question of what the Chinese do if the ROK army successfully defeats the NKPA & is advancing to the Yalu. Do they write off the Korean Communist state, or intervene anyway.
Dave Shoup
Banned
Writing off a proxy/satellite early in the Cold War did occur; the Soviets withdrew from Iran in 1946, after all. Strategic situation was different for the Soviets by 1950-53, but not for the Chinese. They didn't conduct a bomb test until 1964, after all.
Correct in part. He dismissed the early warnings & his syncophantic staff then interpreted the subsequent reports Macs way, painting a different picture than the division & corps commanders were given by their G2. Exactly why the US combat units of the 8th Army suffered so badly in the November/December battles has been examined by many historians. Like Macs staff some commanders, like Almond, adopted the official 'They Don't Exist' view. Others not so much. but this does not explain the entire battle outcome.
Ah. So this was a case of the staff cutting the shapes to please the boss.
Macs staff was famous for that. So much so they are considered guilty even when innocent. Echelberger, a long MacArthur favorite, had some nasty things to say about it. There was also a Master Sgt long on Macs staff who had some 'fly on the wall observations'.
They withdrew from Vienna too, and eventually wrote off the Greek Communists.
Macs intelligence staff got tons of intelligence that the Chinese were crossing the border, up to and including probing attacks on their spearheads that were identified as Chinese regiments, and Mac saw plenty of it. They deliberately ignored it, often reducing the numbers so as to make it look like it was just a small number of KPA soldiers who had served in the PLA and were returning home and relabeling the regiments as KPA remnants, because their orders from Washington were to suspend the advance and fall back and Mac didn’t want to do that because he wanted the glory of conquering North Korea.
What's more, he didn't take the Chinese seriously as a military threat, boasting that if they did come south he would "make of them the greatest slaughter the world has ever know". This underestimation was not solely his preserve: back in the 1940s, if you went up to a American military man and said "Chinese military effectiveness" he would have assumed you were revealing the punchline to a joke. And the Chinese military had been a joke for the past century, earning itself global derision and a near uninterrupted string of embarrassing defeats. When MacArthur during the Korean War dismissed the prospect of Chinese intervention being of any significance, he was speaking based on his experience with the armies of Chinese nationalist warlords. Unfortunately, since the China experts were in the process of being purged by rabid anti-communists who blamed them for "losing China" there was no one to tell him that the Chinese communists would be a very different beast indeed (although given it's MacArthur we're talking about, he probably wouldn't have believed them).
Surprise was half the explanation. The other half was that the bulk of the US Army's officer and NCO corps had forgotten many basic soldier skills. Rudimentary skills like maintaining a tight perimeter at night, constructing mutually supporting positions, and digging in when halted for any length of time. This was a consequence of the post-WW2 demobilization malaise and the effect it had on the American training regimen, but that MacArthur allowed it to continue even after the initial problem was exposed speaks to how unfit for command he had become by 1950. The effects of this lack of training and skill can be contrasted with the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, who because of their pride in their "elite" status hadn't allowed their training standards to lapse during the demob period, and were hence able to conduct an orderly withdraw.
When Ridgeway took over, one of the first things he found himself doing was (rightly) purging around 2/3rds of the officer ranks of the 8th Army as unfit for command.
According to the memos and minutes of meetings that have been released from the Chinese archives, the Chinese reaction to the Americans stopping at or south of the Taedong River Valley (which roughly coincides with the 39th parallel) would be to keep the PVA ready and training on the border but otherwise adopt a wait-and-see posture.
That's what Mac preferred from his staff, so ultimately it still was his responsibility and his fault.
What's more, he didn't take the Chinese seriously as a military threat, boasting that if they did come south he would "make of them the greatest slaughter the world has ever know". This underestimation was not solely his preserve: back in the 1940s, if you went up to a American military man and said "Chinese military effectiveness" he would have assumed you were revealing the punchline to a joke. And the Chinese military had been a joke for the past century, earning itself global derision and a near uninterrupted string of embarrassing defeats. When MacArthur during the Korean War dismissed the prospect of Chinese intervention being of any significance, he was speaking based on his experience with the armies of Chinese nationalist warlords. Unfortunately, since the China experts were in the process of being purged by rabid anti-communists who blamed them for "losing China" there was no one to tell him that the Chinese communists would be a very different beast indeed (although given it's MacArthur we're talking about, he probably wouldn't have believed them).
Surprise was half the explanation. The other half was that the bulk of the US Army's officer and NCO corps had forgotten many basic soldier skills. Rudimentary skills like maintaining a tight perimeter at night, constructing mutually supporting positions, and digging in when halted for any length of time. This was a consequence of the post-WW2 demobilization malaise and the effect it had on the American training regimen, but that MacArthur allowed it to continue even after the initial problem was exposed speaks to how unfit for command he had become by 1950. The effects of this lack of training and skill can be contrasted with the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, who because of their pride in their "elite" status hadn't allowed their training standards to lapse during the demob period, and were hence able to conduct an orderly withdraw.
When Ridgeway took over, one of the first things he found himself doing was (rightly) purging around 2/3rds of the officer ranks of the 8th Army as unfit for command.
According to the memos and minutes of meetings that have been released from the Chinese archives, the Chinese reaction to the Americans stopping at or south of the Taedong River Valley (which roughly coincides with the 39th parallel) would be to keep the PVA ready and training on the border but otherwise adopt a wait-and-see posture.
That's what Mac preferred from his staff, so ultimately it still was his responsibility and his fault.
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Feherenbach in his analysis of the US Army in the Korean War has little or nothing on mass reliefs. Ordinarily a 2/3 turnover in a year, from wounds, illness, promotion, ect.. could be considered normal.
Feherenbach repeatedly notes the lack of serious training in the US Army 1946-1950. The Captains, Lieutenants, & Sergeants in combat in 1950 we're busy doing a Corporals job because they & the privates were undertrained. Machine gunners who could not do more than spray bullets, or who could not deal with a malfunction. Mortar crew who could not identify the correct elevation, or load without numerous hangfires. Kids who carried a Bazooka, but could not correctly aim.
Feherenbach repeatedly notes the lack of serious training in the US Army 1946-1950. The Captains, Lieutenants, & Sergeants in combat in 1950 we're busy doing a Corporals job because they & the privates were undertrained. Machine gunners who could not do more than spray bullets, or who could not deal with a malfunction. Mortar crew who could not identify the correct elevation, or load without numerous hangfires. Kids who carried a Bazooka, but could not correctly aim.
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I can remember one British observer being shocked to see units digging in by the roadside when halted, even if they were in a valley.
Dave Shoup
Banned
Clay Blair goes into great detail - down to the battalion and battalion commander level - in his The Forgotten War, which was written at a time when he could still interview some of the participants. It's pretty exhaustive.