When the Korean War erupted on 25 June 1950, Captain Arleigh Burke was serving as the Navy Secretary at the Defense Department Research and Development Board in Washington. In late August, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Forrest Sherman, sent Burke, newly frocked to rear admiral, to Vice Admiral Turner Joy (at right with Burke in Korea), Commander, Naval Forces Far East, to serve at his head-quarters in Tokyo as deputy chief of staff. Arriving on 3 September, Burke worked to organize the rapidly ex panding headquarters to oversee combat operations. Burke also served as the CNO's eyes and ears in the Far East, sending Sherman regular "planning reports" on top-secret "Blue Flag" Navy radio channels.
Following the Inchon invasion on 15 September, U.N. forces made rapid progress up the peninsula and by early October were closing on the North Korean capital of Pyongyang with a final amphibious thrust planned into Wonsan on the east coast by the end of the month. Burke forecast to Sherman that "unless Chinese or Russians attack, believe United States combat operations over by 1 November." In that heady atmosphere of apparent vic tory, Burke sat down on 5 October to summarize the lessons of the conflict to date for Captain Alexander McDill, an old shipmate from Burke's days as an ensign on the battleship Arizona (BB-39) in the 1920s. McDill was special assistant for public relations to Navy Secretary Francis Matthews and had asked Burke for his views.
Though the war would continue more than 32 months longer, Admiral Burke's keen perception of the realities of modern naval and air warfare remain eerily relevant to this day.
The most welcomed lesson of the war to date has been the strategic enlightenment of many fine career officers in the Army and Air Force on the Navy's true role in National Defense: the expensive and somewhat painful discovery that naval power is an absolute necessity for successful projection of our military power across the seas. They have discovered that our own military forces in Japan could not have moved, except by sea, the short distance to Korea; that none of the supporting stateside ground elements, neither Army nor Marine Corps, could have come to South Korea's rescue without an ocean highway and naval transport; that our troops could not have been landed without the Navy's amphibians; that these same troops, once ashore, could have been neither protected nor supported without the tactical support of the naval air arm with its carriers standing offshore; [and] that the Navy's seagoing artillery, its destroyers, cruisers, and battleship were conveniently maneuvered offshore to turn the enemy's flank, disrupt his behind-the-lines communications, destroy his tanks and artillery, and diminish his will to resist. The Navy was able to do these things with a minimum force and with practically no casualties.
Another lesson of equal importance has come from the North Koreans themselves. On a battleground of smaller scale, but significantly similar to Europe's western peninsula, the Red troops were able to march 200 miles against overwhelming odds to within an unpleasant range of our last outpost, Pusan, before being stopped.
Against them was an angry populace conducting vicious guerrilla warfare. Against them was geography, rugged mountains, many rivers, [and] narrow, rough roads funneling through points vulnerable to both air and sea attack. Against them were countless strategic bombers hitting at their supplies and industrial potential, [and] tactical planes—although proportionately fewer in number—effectively spreading napa1m, shooting rockets and bullets, all with deadly accuracy. Besides all this, they were confronted with the omnipresent and omnipotent military problem of maintaining, with each day of advance, a longer and more tortuous line of communications. They had to support a large body of troops in a large area far from their source of supply. They had to bring up tanks and artillery to oppose our heavy supporting forces. They had virtually no sea force, no air force, little antiaircraft protection—and still they came.
Although it is regrettable that some of our own strategists had to learn the hard way that an army can advance against an overwhelmingly superior air force, it is even more regrettable that the Soviet leaders learned in advance the easy way. They were able to learn without sacrifice, and at our expense, a valuable lesson in the projection of military power.
Slowly, the senior Army and Air Force officers in this theater are realizing there is more to naval power than is apparent to the casual yachtsman, that the sea is a hard mistress to be treated with diffidence and respect. These officers seem to fear the sea, want no part of it, and yet deep down in their hearts think they would like to command seaborne operations.
We cannot hope for an overnight awakening. The principle of centralized control, issuing orders to the field commanders with no prior consultation, is almost sacred. Since the General Staff delegates no authority to its own organization, it cannot easily accustom itself to delegating authority to a subordinate naval command.
To maintain our present skills, naval officers must anticipate and actively seek a vigorous seagoing life. The service has no room for a man searching for a lush life in a soft billet. But, on the other hand, it has ample space for the individual seeking intellectual growth and attainment.
The shocking admission which follows is most embarrassing, but one which can better be faced with embarrassment now than tragedy later: It is an inescapable fact that some naval officers are looking for the easy way. They are leaning on their colleagues to do their thinking and their work, content to live in the past and enjoy the present. This trend, although not yet serious, if allowed to continue could become an epidemic, making us all weak in character and selfish in spirits. This mental lethargy must be checked in its early stages, for God help us if we should come down with it.
Although the Navy was mentioned first, this same disease has hit the Army and the Air Force as well, and, I fear, perhaps with greater impact. It is a fact that, against a strong, virile, aggressive opponent, our Army ground units were unable to advance while our Marine Corps, against the same kind of opposition, forced the enemy to take to his heels in full retreat.
What brings the big change for these young Americans in such a short period of time? The answer must be found in their indoctrination and training—from the bottom up as well as from the top down. [We must] fac[e] the issue squarely that combat forces must be trained for combat, that strategists are helpless without winning tacticians.
Distressing as it is, we must admit that many of our ground troops were inadequately trained or equipped for combat. A combatant force must be just that—confident, willing, fearless, and effective.
Training from the bottom up is fundamental to success. Close air support, an issue that will be batted around ad infinitum, is a good example of what I mean. The Marine concept of close air support begins with the leatherneck carrying the rifle. What can the airplane do to facilitate his swift movement against the enemy? Who knows best what he needs to advance? Who knows best when he needs it? The leatherneck on the ground, of course.
The Marine Corps places a control unit near this leatherneck on the ground, sometimes on company level so the ideas from the man on the ground can be instantly relayed to the pilot overhead; so the pilot, in turn, can reciprocate immediately before the target has disappeared or his colleagues on the ground have been killed. This system builds confidence and teamwork.
Can you imagine the effectiveness of a football team if the blockers depended on the coach for downfield blocking instructions after the ball is snapped? Yet this system is used by the Army and Air Force. The frontline control unit is told by the troops of a nearby target. This control unit relays the request for air support to a rear echelon, which supplies the plane which attacks the targets. Meanwhile, the target may have advanced, retreated, or have been bypassed. This difference of operational control may seem technical and inconsequential to the staff in rear echelon, but it is most important to the man on the firing line.
The Navy's and Marine Corps' superior air support reflects no discredit on young Air Force pilots who are equally as valiant and willing. It does reflect unfavorably on the doctrine of centralized control, for it is apparent that the system works from the top down. The end results eventually deprive the frontline troops of on-the-spot tactical control. The weakness of this system [is magnified] when these same frontline infantrymen have no voice in the development of suitable aircraft and armament.
Air strikes behind the enemy's lines are important, but close air support is invaluable. If close tactical support is not precise, it can do more harm than good. It is sure to destroy the confidence of the troops if it doesn't destroy the troops themselves.
If we have learned nothing else from Korea, we know now that pouring all our resources into one type of warfare is unsound, whether the single type be inter-continental bombing or amphibious warfare. We were fairly well prepared for strategic air warfare, but when a little bit of a country decided to fight another type of war, they not only scared us to death—[they] literally kicked the hell out of us. Sure, this little country was furnished [materiEl] by China and Russia, but it supplied its own troops.
An old cliché becomes increasingly appropriate—we need a balanced force.
If any unbalance is to be maintained, it should be in the direction of the most probably type of warfare, rather than the one we would like the enemy to pursue.
The present war has been more primitive in many respects than World War I. It was the type of war the enemy chose to fight. We must surely know by now that the aggressor chooses the time, the place, and the type of war. Unless we abandon our ideal, and we too become an aggressor, we shall necessarily be forced to counter the enemy's attack.
Proper intelligence can warn us in advance and it had better do so. For Russia is a big country with tremendous industrial and manpower resources. Supporting her also is the incalculable Army of Communist China. We cannot match Russia man for man on the battlefield. To compensate, we must concentrate on lethal tactical weapons combined with an unprecedented psychological warfare. We can, if we try hard enough, convince the Russians that their life would be better if they overthrew the present regime.
One point we must remember: Asiatics do not subdue easily. Japan proved that; Korea has demonstrated it again. The fear of death will not, in itself, force an Asiatic country to surrender. It is no different from America in that respect.
One of the things that caused some difficulty (but not nearly as much as if the enemy had had all types of weapons) was identification. This is the bugaboo of every war and sometimes in this one. Somehow, there must be developed a method of distinguishing friend from foe. This is important between aircraft. Modern high-speed aircraft have relative speeds so high that visual identification can no longer be relied upon to provide time for the decision to identify and pull the trigger. Our fleet unloading at Inchon frequently knocked off unloading and prepared for combat upon the appearance of planes which later turned out to be friendly. Time is one commodity over which we have no control, and wasted time, in war, is usually serious.
Perhaps one of the greatest and most striking aspects of this war is the elephantine logistic effort required to supply our forces. It is striking because the ROK [Republic of Korea] forces, against the same type of enemy, supply themselves much easier and with much less equipment than do we. Long truck columns, which pay no attention to the sign on each truck "keep 25-foot distance," are impressive, but they are expensive. They are expensive in money, of course, but they are more expensive because they require men who should be in the frontline troops. It takes equipment and lots of men to supply our small combat force. Any analysis comparing only service troops vs. combat troops won't tell the whole story. Integrated within the combat divisions themselves, there are large numbers of people who are, in effect, service troops. If we fight a big war, there is not going to be enough equipment nor enough men even to supply the luxurious logistic support with which we have now been blessed.
In connection with this logistic support, the contention of the Navy has been demonstrated again. Most of the logistic support had to come by sea with just a trickle by air. That trickle was noisy, important, and well published—but, after all, it was only a very small part of the total support. The support by sea was furnished with peacetime regularity and with just about peacetime hazards. Had we found it necessary to protect our sea lanes against an enemy with any kind of a navy, especially against submarines and air, the logistic support of our forces might have become most critical. The Air Force Cargo Command has done a remarkable job. But as forcibly as anybody knows how to present it, [it] should be [emphasized] that air transport is one of the most expensive methods of transportation there is, and it is limited in its capacity.
That brings up another subject. This subject of planning. It is amazing to see the difference between this war and the last one. Our plans in the last war were sometimes hurriedly conceived, but they were thorough. It was not necessary to continuously change plans as conditions changed, for all possible variables were considered in drawing up the plans, and all alternatives were discussed in the plans.
There are a good many reasons for the difference between this war and the last one insofar as planning is concerned. In the last war, the Navy operated with its own plans, at least in the Pacific. They understood such things as radio silence. They realized that amphibious operations require ships to start moving many days before D-day. They understood that plans had to be complete before the first ship commenced [landing]. They knew that the reason for this was the precise time and coordination necessary on D-day and subsequent days. This timing could [be] effected only if plans were prepared well in advance and if plans were complete.
In this war, the Navy has been, in effect, under Army command. The Army staff has had an unusually fine group of people, but they are used to handling armies. They have a tendency, which was natural enough, to handle the Navy the same way. They shove their own battalions around each morning. They evaluate the situation each day and they change their plans to fit the most recent evaluation. They have difficulty in understanding that such things cannot be done in any Navy. As a result, there had to be continual representation, all on a very friendly basis, to convince an Army staff that naval warfare is different from land warfare. This might have turned out to have been extremely serious had naval forces been directly under the control of an Army staff.
If the Navy wishes to survive, it must beware of the kindly efforts of our friendly sister services to force us to operate in the manner which is efficient for an Army—but would be deadly for a Navy. This is quite difficult when you are dealing with courteous Army officers who desire naval support so very much, and yet do not understand that they can obtain better naval support by telling the Navy what they need and letting an able Navy do it. Even this much gets dangerous at times, for there has been a tendency for Army commanders to treat the fleet as the waterborne corps of the Army. They slop [sic] over and tell us how to do our business frequently. They do the same things among themselves, so it isn't that they are treating the Navy any differently than they would treat their own organizations.
I can attest to one very good lesson myself. I flew all over North Korea in a reconnaissance B-29, which took off from Johnson Air Force Base near Tokyo. It was a 15-hour flight. We had to fly and fly and fly before we arrived over North Korea. Then we had a long trip back to our base after leaving North Korea. When you sit in the bombardier's seat for 15 hours, you have an aching realization of the desirability of bases close to your combat area. The Air Force has really done a superb job in trying to give air support to the Army. They were not equipped for this. One of the biggest difficulties in their way was the need to fly long distances before they could be effective.
Carriers did provide bases comparatively close to the enemy lines, and they could move these bases to fight the enemy lines. This was because Korea is a peninsula—[but] the same favorable conditions will not apply in many areas of possible warfare. Nevertheless, Navy planes operating from carriers close by the operating areas were able to support their brothers on the ground with more effective ammunition loads than did the hardworking Air Force. Even in the design of aircraft, the Air Force planes were designed to carry loads over a long distance and so, weight for weight, Navy aircraft types were able to carry much heavier loads, depending on carrier mobility to keep their bases close to the target. Another statistic, which is interesting, is the number of sorties per plane per day which is also a factor of distance of bases from their operating areas.
This base story can be applied equally well to the surface Navy too. Naval Operating Bases are expensive to maintain, but they are less expensive in the Far East than they are in the political atmosphere of the harbor cities of our own country. Even if this were not true, it's important to keep bases near a possible area of war. I hope that we shall be able to retain Yokosuka as a full-fledged operating base, capable of supporting a fleet. It could be operated in a reduced status or even a very reduced status, if necessary. A war in the Far East would prove its value. That little sideline is an important lesson, and it isn't the least one.
When this war started, the Navy had no intelligence organization here. It depended upon getting its intelligence from G-3 of the Army. G-3, along with all the other intelligence organizations, made an improper evaluation of the situation before the war. If the lack of duplication ever showed an ugly side to it, that was the incident. Had we had our own intelligence organization, it's possible that our evaluation would have been different. It might even have been correct and we might have been a little better prepared. When we have only one viewpoint, we have harmony and tranquility, but we also have the danger of a single viewpoint. The biggest danger is that the viewpoint will be wrong.
Intelligence is evaluated by fitting together many fragments of conflicting information. These fragments sometimes form a pattern. The trick is to know which fragments to use and which to discard. Most any preconceived pattern can be supported if only selected bits of information are used. Elimination of duplication is good at times, but when ideas or possibilities are eliminated under that guise, trouble is ahead. It is most desirable that different viewpoints, on intelligence matters especially, be laid out so that the top people can have the benefit of all the possibilities and act accordingly. The Navy [and] the nation should not again place complete reliance upon any single intelligence evaluation. It is one field in which much checking may provide better answers.
There were many minor lessons available for learning too. They are details--but some of them may turn out to be the mail, the loss of which makes a grand epitaph.
One such thing is the Navy's inability to supply trained teams for jobs which are bound to come up in war. We are [starting] to prepare [an organizational] manual for staffs, so that a commander who is faced with a rapid expansion problem can say, "Send me Staff 7X with two additional M-3 Units" and get people, equipment, etc., in one package—or at least the people back home would know what he wanted. We may be able to get a rough draft of a "Sears-Roebuck Staff Catalog" after this thing is over. The catalog, however, is only part of the solution. The other part is to provide small nucleus teams who do some training and know what is needed. Warm bodies are not enough. Warm, intelligent bodies are not enough either. Warm, intelligent, trained bodies are required.
Communications, the ever-present naval problem child since the days of the galleys, is still with us. Our increase in communication facilities does not keep up with [the] demands placed upon them. The increase required for Joint actions is colossal—and it's a right big increase. The other two services, with their point-by-point communication systems, and no necessity for coding and decoding, write long pages of op orders, summaries, and the like. Some of the data contained in them are necessary for the Navy. Any attempt to place them all on the communication system would cause the system to collapse at once.
More than this load though, is the two-way communication necessary because of the coordination which is essential. When the very considerable load of prospective changes in plans and suggestions to assist the other services is added to this, the volume of traffic is startling. When operating with other forces, especially under the general command of another service, naval communication load is increased—possibly as much as twice the normal wartime load—to get matters settled. Should the fleets have to maintain radio silence under such conditions, there would be a lot of consternation among the other services. A partial answer to this perplexing problem is education of ourselves and the other services. The problem must be attacked from both sides at once [in order] to cut down the amount of traffic necessary and to increase our capability for handling more traffic.
There are other major lessons, such as: the value of ship gunfire support; the effectiveness of naval carrier task forces; the technical aspects of new weapons (such as bazookas); the need for early evaluation of combat actions; and the necessity for a navy to conduct amphibious operations.
Cautions: Be most careful about drawing too-positive conclusions from this war. Lessons must be carefully evaluated against the background of this type of warfare. The enemy had a very small navy and air force. Many variables of warfare were not present. This may have been done purposely by the enemy to permit a careful testing of their theories of the use of one variable (i.e., the army) under controlled conditions. This could have been an experimental war, like Spain, and if so, Russia was conducting the experiment, while we—as laboratory assistants—contributed. [I]f we are wise, we will learn just as much.
Air had a field day: no air opposition, poor enemy anti-aircraft, and poor radar. If we draw too-firm conclusions, based on these conditions, the boys may have very unpleasant surprises when heavy opposition comes along.
The same thing applies to naval operations. Our amphibious landings were well conducted, but the Inchon landing was hazardous to the point where any one of several enemy possible courses of action might have meant disaster. I'll take those points up in the order of their probability:
- The enemy could have concealed their artillery until the landing was under way, and [could] have [had] a good chance of sinking transports and enfilading our boat waves. Fortunately, they had had no experience in repelling amphibious assaults. Maybe they have gained experience now.
- There was a delay in mining the approaches, which would have caused trouble—lots of trouble. The Russians know that now too.
- Air and submarine attacks were absent.
- The beach line was not heavily defended, which is different from the proper use of the defenses they did have available.
Many Army officers now believe amphibious assaults can be accomplished easily. They do not recognize the detailed planning, the careful training, and the many factors which must be considered to effect a successful landing against heavy, skillful opposition. Consequently, I foresee that the newly made converts will be too loud in their praise and have too much faith in our ability to produce success under all conditions. There will be a tendency to treat an amphibious assault as a simple water lift, and if it isn't quite that simple, the Navy will be able to overcome all obstacles as it has in the past. There is, at the present time, more adequate knowledge of what a navy can do when there is no navy to fight, just like there is more knowledge of what aircraft can do when there are no aircraft to fight. But, naval officers may mislead themselves. Bombardment against enemy strongholds, who have passive defenses of mines, is a different sort of a game than trying it against air and naval opposition.
The Air Force has a point along the same lines too, although I believe (many in the Air Force do not) that the effectiveness of strategic bombing on an enemy's capacity to conduct war has been grossly oversold. It does have an effect, but the effect is not immediate; it is not total; it is not the answer by itself; but it is expensive.