More war - sorry!

I am finding it difficult to choose exactly the right words to express the shock ... the dismay ... the anger ... even the anguish ... I am feeling as I delve into the history of the forgotten war - Korea 1950-1953.  Also, to be honest, the guilt because I really should have studied this long ago and learned the lessons.  However, I will leave all that for later but in the meantime, for those ignoramuses like me, I will continue to tell you the highlights.

In my last post on the subject I told you of MacArthur's stroke of military genius (and enormous luck!) in undertaking the highly risky Inchon landings far to the north, and due west of Seoul, whilst the remainder of his army was bottled up in the far south east corner of the country and in danger of being swept into the sea.  Inchon was a stunning success and vindicated the psychotic old brute in his far-away HQ in Japan.  The unutterable pity of it is that at this, the very pinnacle of his success, MacArthur threw it all away!  Virtually the entire North Korean army was in the south and by landing so far north, there was nothing to oppose him except rear echelon troops.  MacArthur with his army in Seoul could have raced eastwards and cut off the entire North Korean army.  Their leadership, true to style, failed to tell their front-line units that an enemy army had appeared behind them for four days!  Not that there was much they could do anyway because now it was their turn to be pressed backwards and being a 'peasant army' they had no trucks to aid their withdrawal, and anyway, American airpower made movement during daylight almost impossible.

Map courtesy of: http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war10.htm

So there was MacArthur's golden opportunity but instead, obsessed as he was with conquering the whole of Korea, and also with placing a powerful American army on the Chinese border, he ordered an advance to the north, in fact, an advance all the way to the Yalu River.  Even a lowly ex-corporal like me could have told him that the Chinese communist regime which had just won a long and bloody civil war in which the Americans had aided their enemies, were never going to allow that to happen.  The further north the Americans went the more convinced were the junior army intelligence officers and their battalion and regimental commanders in the field that something was not right.  The geography of northern Korea is mountainous and the American army rarely if ever left what roads they could find but up in 'them thar hills' literally tens of thousands of Chinese troops were hiding.  Camouflaged or crammed into caves which they dug during the night, they were invisible during the day to ground troops or even over-flying 'planes.  The junior commanders on the ground were aware of an eerie  feeling of being watched but they could not find hard evidence, and anyway, their intelligence assessments were firmly squashed by MacArthur's ghastly Chief of Intelligence, Charles Willoughby, who sounds as though he was from 'frightfully British' stock but was actually from Prussian lineage and even affected a monocle from time to time.  Willoughby, along with every officer in MacArthur's HQ simply worked on the premise that whatever 'the General' said was right and any information that contradicted it must be ignored or altered.  Truly, reading about MacArthur and his HQ, and bearing in mind the death and destruction that would emanate from his pronouncements, is enough to almost reduce me to tears.

MacArthur absolutely dismissed any notion that the Chinese would intervene and so colossal was his reputation and his political influence, via the Republican party and the MSM of the day, that no-one in Washington, not Truman, not the Chiefs of Staff, not Acheson, the Secretary of State, no-one, despite their doubts and their uncertainties, stood up to the stupid, old brute.  It was dereliction of duty on a mammoth scale and hundreds of thousands died for it.

In the first few days of November as the American army crossed the last big river before the Yalu there took place one of the strangest operations in modern military history.  Suddenly, from the (apparently empty) mountains surrounding the triumphant American (and SouthKorean) armies as they advanced up the roads leading north, tens of thousands of hitherto completely hidden Chinese troops descended on them.  Entire South Korea formations simply disappeared as did many American forces cut off, as they were, from any support because the Chinese had infiltrated round and behind them.  It was bloody carnage but - just as it had suddenly started - so, equally suddenly, after about six days, it ended.  The Chinese simply melted back into the mountains!  The battered, bashed and bewildered Americans were left to try and sort themselves out from the dangerous shambles in which they had been left.

In effect, the Chinese, realising that their diplomatic warnings had been ignored by the Americans, had decided to administer a bloody nose on their army in order to re-inforce the fact that under no circumstances would they allow an American army to be based next to their frontier.  And yet, despite this terrific and terrifying example of Chinese fighting power, still the American establishment ignored it!  Honestly, reading the two books I have on this subject, I cannot tell you how many times I have had to put the book down because I was so shocked and upset at what I was reading.  People rail at the WWI generals because of what they see as the useless slaughter but those men were caught in a technological time-trap between the invention of the machine-gun and the very late invention of the tank.  No-one at that time could work out how to get a man made of soft tissue across 250 yards of open ground against machine-guns firing 600 rounds a minute.  But here, we have some of the best political brains in America, a General Staff made up of officers experienced from WWII and a General who had helped defeat the Japanese, and all of them, absolutely all of them, could not recognise what the Chinese were signalling when they sent the American army reeling backwards  in early November 1950!

Instead, and it almost makes me weep, that evil, old fool, MacArthur, insisted that the enemy troops involved were not regular Chinese army but only volunteers(!) and whilst it had momentarily taken them by surpise, the advance to the Yalu could now begin again.  And Washington caved in - again!  They even allowed him to bomb the bridges over the Yalu river.  Thus, a massive and this time not a temporary intervention by the Chinese was certain.

Sorry to have bored on about this subject - and there will be more - but I cannot think of any history books which have produced such an emotional response in me.  I am all too aware of the folly of political leaders, our own British history is replete with examples, but I don't think I have ever read of an entire political and military establishment, with virtually no exceptions, taking leave of all commonsense and judgment even when provided in the bloodiest way possible with hundreds of body-bags as a warning.  Suddenly, Vietnam is beginning to make a sort of horrible sense.  I'm not sure I can bring myself to read the history of that war, at least, not until I have recovered from this one.  Anyway, thank you for letting me get it off my chest.  This blog is my therapy!

 

Comments

[JK]

"...but I cannot think of any history books which have produced such an emotional response in me."

So too David, it was at that period of time, not Viet Nam where was set the stage where a bunch of twenty-somethings began questioning (in every sense of the word) their elders. Your mention of the MSM of the day not having developed the wits to employ Historians (not even "Play-Ones" like our present day Newt) to explain the obvious differences between fighting on the European continent and that of Asia a "Sleeping Giant" if there ever was one!

And yet still, no one connected the dots (to borrow a phrase) - which in the time honored tradition of this blog makes a sort of awful sense - to Why in the hell has our youth so suddenly risen up in protest in the Sixties.

Run your hankies through the wash and dry 'em out thoroughly David - you're gonna need 'em.

(LBJ having personal experience in the Washington of the day not even able -willing- to acknowledge the seeds were planted not in Nam but earlier.)

[David Duff]

Well, JK, I never expect perfection from Washington (or London, or anywhere else for that matter) but such a flagrant disregard for the obvious, not just by a faction in the establishment but by virtually its entirety, leaves me gasping. And to do so after the Chinese, with surgical precision, sent them the bloodiest of 6-day warnings. It is beyond comprehensible. Only George Kennan saw through the myth that communism was one massive united bloc acting under Soviet leadership but his day was gone and he had been sidelined.

I tell you, JK, these two books have really shaken me up.

[JK]

What makes it all the worse - after Nam - America's draft was done away with guarenteeing our public-at-large would no longer have "skin in the game" - that 1% we're hearing so much about today isn't who our MSM (including FOX) makes it out to be.

And it's actually less than 1%. Walk up to 100 houses in the US today and ask, "Scuse me, do you have a son or a daughter in uniform?" (90% of the casualties in Afghanistan come from just 10 of our 50 states - so far as I'm aware - none have been a Washington politician's kid.)

What the US needs is a draft - not a Viet Nam kinda draft - an IDF draft. Yes. I know. Wouldn't want many of our current student crop anywhere near live ammunition but those kids are perfectly suited for shovel-ready projects related to war.

[David Duff]

Well, JK, a draft, or national service as we call it 'over here', might be good for instilling discipline in youngsters but I am not sure it s good for the armed services who have to waste professionals' time training them. Anyway, I'm more concerned with how an army is used irrespective of how it is formed.

[Bri]

testing comments

[JK]

Well then - an IDF style draft for all the Washington politician's kids. Those who'll be voting on supporting wars.

If one is "comfortable at the proposition of running a full office campaign for a Federal level seat" - and we all know to win such a seat, educating one's kids is cheaper than running for office...

PS - 'Lo Brianna, you the gorgeous typepad lady David's always on about?

[David Duff]

Well that would certainly concentrate minds, JK, but only if they were put in the infantry!

[ortega]

Something for those long winter days. What? No, nothing to do with any Sarah.

http://cdn.dce.harvard.edu/openlearning/hist1890/

[David Duff]

Gracias, Ortega, but Mrs Duff will not be pleased when I tell her that I will be spending even more time with my computer!

[Hank]

JK

Having served in the last of the Draft Army may I offer an opposing opinion?

One of the things that made Vietnam possible was the draft. The forces committed to Vietnam totaled between 500,000 and 600,000 during the peak years. Far more than we couldever get from a volunteer force. Basically, after the Golf of Tonkin Resolution gave him the authroty to fight a major war, Johnson did not have to get any additional authority to deploy that many troops because he had them. Congress already having bought in was not likely to object. Certaily the Democrats would not risk sabotaging Johnson's Great Society program on the issue.

Whatever the overrated virtues of an IDF draft it would never be approved by congress, and politicaans always see that their children get special tratment if want to. Remember Socialist (~ lance corporal in the commonwealth armies) Al Gore who was confined to the base camp with a body guard while others in the same unit went out with Infantry units in the field.

For a more probabal look at what would happen with a draft look up McNamara's 100,000.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n6_v27/ai_17040672/&sa=U&ei=psclT5aCMMngggfr9ampAg&ved=0CBgQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHfP2wLw7VuO1JeM1KVpkoTbereXQ">http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n6_v27/ai_17040672/&sa=U&ei=psclT5aCMMngggfr9ampAg&ved=0CBgQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHfP2wLw7VuO1JeM1KVpkoTbereXQ">http://www.google.com/url?q=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n6_v27/ai_17040672/&sa=U&ei=psclT5aCMMngggfr9ampAg&ved=0CBgQFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHfP2wLw7VuO1JeM1KVpkoTbereXQ

http://www.google.com/search?q=mcnamara%27s+100%2C000&hl=en&source=hp&gbv=2&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=5709l8507l0l9129l11l11l0l2l2l0l290l1947l0.3.6l9l0&oq=mcnamara%27s+100%2C000&aq=f&aqi=&aql=

http://eclecticmeanderings.blogspot.com/>Hank’s Eclectic MeanderingsPS: Of course that does not count maintaining moral and discipline in platoon with National Guardsman enliste to avoid the draft just before Nixon ended it early, and they never would have been called up. maybe I'm a tad prejudiced.

[JK]

I always take your observations enjoying your perspectives Hank. Respectfully so Sir.

But with my twist on the draft, I'm figuring in first Korea, then Viet Nam, - and then up to our recent imbroglio viz Iraq and continuing in Afghanistan. I note your sentence,

"One of the things that made Vietnam possible was the draft." I suspect what made Korea possible was the same for war weary America.

And the propensity for we in the US toward a shorter sort of memory perhaps colored somewhat by our supposed "Ideals" and our sense of duty (at least for our politicians) to spread those "Ideals." An argument can be made for at least South Korea and now how Vietnam seems to be headed -pretty good ideals at least for them.

But what's your best guess as to how our Ideals are gonna work out in Iraq and Afghanistan?