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THE WAR IN KOREA. Volume VI of the “Battle Report” Series. Prepared from official sources by Captain Walter Karig, U. S. Naval Reserve, Commander Malcolm W. Cagle, U. S. Navy, and Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Manson, U. S. Navy. New York: Rinehart and Company, Inc. 1952. 520 pages. $6 00.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Allan E.
Smith, U. S. Navy
(Admiral Smith was the first commander of Task Force P5, the “United Nations Blockading and Escort Force,” in the war in Korea.)
It was to be a push-button war, remember? —the next war was to be a remote, almost painless battle of wits between rival scientific teams. Instead, we find the Korean War breaking on an inadequately manned and unprepared Army, Navy, and U. S. Air Force. This Volume VI of the Battle Report series is seen mainly through the eyes and minds of the Navy and Marine fighting men in contact and combat with the enemy. There are four major parts in the relating.
Part I recounts the major events leading up to the outbreak of this Korean War, with brief but well-rounded statements setting the background for this international explosion. The President issued instructions for the Seventh Fleet to prevent any movement of the Chinese Communists toward Formosa, or any movement of the Nationalist troops toward the mainland of China, a rather complicated “military-politico” situation. The Navy transported the occupational troops (not combat-hardened veterans) from Japan to Korea, and also furnished such assistance as was required by the U. S. Air Force. With two major demobilizations since World War II, our Navy was just starting the slow curve upward in bringing its standard of training to the level attained at the outbreak of World War II; but even so, as soon as the Army and the U. S. Air Force needed it, the mobility of the Navy was ready once again.
Part II concerns “The Pusan Perimeter.” Driven back to this small thirty-mile beachhead, it looked indeed as if the North Korean Communist Army' would, as they boasted, drive our troops into the sea. Navy mobility once again came to the fore, when General MacArthur pulled the fighting Marines out of the front line and embarked them in Navy combat transports in the short space of ten days. You will ponder long on General MacArthur’s decision to go into Inchon. With almost daily reports of the enemy breaking through our front lines, the Inchon landing was a risk which few military men in history would have considered and accepted. Reinforced by Marine troops from the continental United States, the transports screened and escorted by as much of the Fleet as could be gathered, this end-running Task Force completely out-
flanked the enemy. After rounding the enemy’s western flank and proceeding high up into Korea, by means of that intricate operation known as the amphibious landing, the Navy put this splendid First Marine Division ashore in Inchon. The Marines, followed by the Army troops of the 10th Corps, cut the enemy’s main communication lines, and for the time being the war was completely reversed.
Part III, “Counterinvasion,” relates the story of the individual—the amphibious Marine, the Marine and Navy airman, the destroyerman; the parts of the amphibious landing team working hard and bravely at their assignments to accomplish the coordinated task. It must have been the record of such individuals that decided General MacArthur that Inchon would be successful.
Part IV is titled “Brief Victory,” wherein some units of the U. S. Army reached the Yalu; and then when the Chinese armies crossed over into Korea (or were already there), the 8th Army and the 10th Corps were driven back. In this near catastrophe, once again the mobility of the Navy came to the rescue. The First Marine Division drove and fought its way back down in a desperate and dramatic fight from the Chosin Reservoir to Hungnam. After the 10th Corps had come under the umbrella of the carrier planes and the cruiser, destroyer, and battleship guns that could range fifteen miles inland, it was there, in a reverse amphibious operation, that 105,000 troops, 95,000 refugees, 17,000 tanks, trucks, vehicles of all types, and 350,000 tons of stores, ammunition, supplies, and equipment for the troops were re-embarked. But, most important, after the 10th Corps came under the umbrella—this umbrella of carrier planes and ships’ guns that could range fifteen miles inland—we never lost a man. How different was it at Dunkirk in World War II!
Landed at far southern ports, the 10th Corps proceeded inland and northward, and once again formed a new front line; an efficient redeployment by means of Navy mobility and power. There ends Volume VI of “Battle Report.”
In the Appendix are found two of the major task organizations. There are eight maps and seventy-nine photographs, as well as a complete index. A number of officers and men known to you personally will be found speaking in Battle Report.
Battle Report does not tell of the planning, does not delve into deep concepts of naval warfare, does not record the struggle to reach the decision for the Inchon and Wonsan landings, nor the aftermath of Yalu in the retirement and redeployment. Battle Report is not an analysis and evaluation of strategy. It omits “Logistics,” which our Navy has now placed on the same level of importance as Strategy and Tactics. And by the way, the “Logistics” for our Navy in the Korean War have never been excelled—an accomplishment due to the leadership in that field developed in and since World War II.
I said that the Korean War was the same old war, a continuation of World War II— not the intercontinental war of the future. There is a difference, however, between the beginning of World War II and the Korean War—a most important difference. Navy leadership showed great flexibility of mind in adapting itself quickly to the needs of Strategy, Tactics,_ and Logistics of the Korean Campaign.
The Korean War caught our naval weapons and tactics halfway between World War II and World War III, if it comes, and is an example of the requirement that old weapons not be discarded until the new ones are ready and proved.
It is most important that Navy officers and men inform our civilians of the great accomplishments of our Navy in the Korean War. An evaluation of Battle Report would list the following:
The Navy has kept the Korean conflict on the fringes of the free areas of the world by:
a. Enforcing the blockade of the North Korean coast in conformity with the proclamation of the President of the United States on 4 July 1950.
b. Permitting the 8th Army to reduce its coastal flank strength, thus concentrating in the center in depth to absorb the massed laud attacks of the Communists.
c. Permitting the Army to break out of
the Pusan beachhead as a result of the naval amphibious operations at Inchon and Wonsan.
d. Successfully redeploying 105,000 United Nations troops, 17,000 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies from the Hungnam beachhead.
e. Providing, with its carrier aircraft, down-to-the-ground close support of ground forces every day planes can fly.
f. Giving mobile, heavy-calibre artillery support, with the guns of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, for the flanks of the 8th Army. This gunfire support ranges up to fifteen miles inshore and is instantly available day and night, in fair weather or foul, in response to requests from the ground forces.
g. Regaining control of the enemy’s mining capabilities.
h. Preventing the North Koreans from fishing for food (principal food item of the country), while permitting the South Koreans thus to seek food. This reduces the burden of support on the people of the United States.
i.Executing daily reconnaissance and weather flights to provide vital information for all land, sea, and air forces.
j. Maintaining control of the Pacific Ocean, thus assuring a constant flow of supplies and other support for the forces operating in Korea. The Navy has thus far transported more than one million personnel to and from Korea, as well as fifteen million tons of supplies, food, equipment for U. S. Marines, U. S. Army troops, the U. S. Air Force, and our own ships as well as the cooperating United Nations forces. It also transported fifty million barrels of gasoline and fuel oil for U. S. Air Force planes, our Navy planes, and U. S. Army tanks.
On the other side of the world, the Navy has been a stabilizing influence in the sensitive Middle East and Mediterranean areas.
The alert and progressive U. S. Navy is the most mobile element supporting the foreign policy of the United States. Although the people of the United States own only two per cent of the earth’s surface, our Navy can support the nation’s foreign policy over the seventy-six per cent of the earth’s surface which is water. International law permits our ships to go freely any place on the high seas, to within three miles of the coast of any land mass. Since some of our forces are now able to carry the atomic bomb, this mobility of the Navy is a vital factor in world events.
Early in World War II, Admiral of the Fleet E. J. King, U.S.N., Commander in Chief, U. S. Fleets, sent out an order impounding fifty per cent of all typewriters aboard ship. This was intended to cut down on paper work, a very desirable result. In a matter of two months, however, there was a demand from those in the rear and in the non-fighting areas for accounts of battle actions upon which to base realistic training. None of the yeomen had been impounded, so the fifty per cent of the remaining typewriters were operated one hundred per cent of the time, and soon every one of our officers and men “got the news.” Battle Report of the War in Korea gives you the news—earliest— and well done.
Battle Report, Volume VI, indicates that Volume VII, to be published, will pick up the narrative from the Hungnam redeployment.
ECONOMY IN THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. By Senator Paul H. Douglas.
Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press. 1952. 277 pages. $3.75.
Reviewed by Colonel George C.
Reinhardt, U. S. Army
(A frequent contributor to the U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Colonel Reinhardt is a member of the staff and faculty of the Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.)
When an avowed liberal demands retrenchment in government spending, an ardent advocate of national defense charges the military Services with wasting funds, or a skilful politician attacks a dozen “special interests” by name for their raids upon the Treasury, the result is news. To discover all three phenomena in a single small book is startling but more surprises lurk between its covers. Senator Douglas explains, in layman’s language, the confusing mysteries of the federal budgetary process in a single chapter; weighs the opposing, complex gold
standard and compensatory theories of that budget’s optimum relation to the business cycle in another; and suggests terms under which we could accept, as valid, Russian protestations of peaceful intent.
If the Senator points the finger of extravagance, or worse, at almost everyone, he chastises without anger the “human tendency to overspend the public’s money in their own interests.” Perhaps his sternest denunciation falls upon his peers with his “sure fire prescription for political success”: denounce inflation and champion economy, in speeches, while voting for all increases and against all reductions in Congress. Similarly vote against every tax bill, and make more speeches. This behavior Senator Douglas also labels “sure fire prescription for national disaster.”
Asserting that “at least 7J% of the military budget could be saved without detriment to our armed strength” through a five point program: staff of experts to advise Congress, military austerity, economy through unification, stern punishment of guilt, and better business ethics, the Senator still champions military virtues. “Public officials need to be deeply imbued with the qualities of soldiers” to resist pressure groups even at the cost of their political career. He is equally forthright regarding defense. “I believe we should arm ourselves and strengthen our allies” until the Soviets take definite actions, which he specifies, to demonstrate, not reiterate, their peaceful intentions.
Sounding one of his few wholly popular notes, Senator Douglas declares that preservation of the American economy in a sound condition is a necessary condition for successful opposition to aggression. But he abandons such uncontroversial truism immediately to face unpleasant facts. Unbalanced budgets which lead to “the genuine hells of inflation” are incompatible with sound economy and, he warns, “jeopardize our very democracy.” Consequently, the Senator insists, spending must be curbed, tax loopholes such as the three billions of dollars in corporate dividends and interest which were not reported on income tax forms, must be plugged. If those measures do not suffice; tax rates, already “at record levels,” must go still higher until the budget
is balanced. Altogether it is neither a pretty nor encouraging picture the Senator paints.
“Congress, civil administrators, military leaders, and various groups in the country must subordinate selfish interests to the national welfare,” yet to all skeptics he avers his “deep and abiding faith that it can be done.” But the brief, provocative little volume unsatisfied with sturdy preaching makes a valiant contribution to the doing by its utterly practical, concise recommendations to improve almost every circumstance criticised. That Senator Douglas’ detailed charges and suggestions will be widely opposed he would be among the first to admit but his book should be read with care by every citizen whether it pleases them by pinking some long time aversion or makes them blush at an unadmitted frailty of their own.
RED CHINA’S FIGHTING HORDES. By
Lieutenant Colonel Robert B. Rigg,
United States Army. Pennsylvania: The
Military Service Publishing Co., 1951.
378 pages. $3.75.
Reviewed by First Lieutenant David W. Walsh, U. S. Marine Corps
{Lieutenant Walsh served as Platoon Leader and Company Commander with the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, in Korea from August, 1950, to March 1951.
Though we have been engaging part of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) on the Korean peninsula for many months, our intelligence of the Red Chinese military machine, and of the men who run it, has been surprisingly limited, constantly cloaked and half-hidden behind the bamboo curtain of the strange and far distant Orient. That the Reds have long had dossiers, including even the minutest of details on all our weapons and on our command and staff officers, is taken for granted, but that we ourselves know so little about this enemy that our own military journals cannot even complete the full names of the Red leaders is a situation that may have serious consequences in any future evaluations of this foe.
Colonel Rigg, a man well qualified to evaluate the Chinese Communist Army because of his experiences during six years of recent service in Asia—as assistant Attache,
observer, and even as prisoner—presents here a vivid, realistic, and unbiased account of this enemy.
Where did this army come from? How do they fight? Why do they fight? How are they equipped? What are their tactics? How well led are they? How does China support this vast army? Is the Atomic Bomb the answer? What are the Chinese out to gain? What of these atrocities? These and many more questions are well answered in this book.
Some very enlightening information and views of the Chinese Communist professionals is given, and should serve to cast some much needed light on these new military leaders in Asia. In the Appendix we find a list of the more prominent Generals of the Chinese Red Army. Though most of these leaders have very divergent origins, their mutual experiences and compatible goals have made them assume the outward form of a single being, constantly walking the narrow, tortuous Communist Party line, which governs every phase of their political and military lives. Their years of political indoctrination and party membership have been a most necessary prerequisite to their present positions of command, and they well realize that, like all Communists, they must face the dilemma of rigidness in political thought and initiative in military action.
The communist leaders are a patient lot and they like to hold their enemies on the watchful- waiting edge of armed conflict.
“A communist war which lasts ten years may be surprising to other countries, but for us this is only the preface. Historical experience is written in blood and iron.”—Mao Tse-tung. Led by fanatics and corrected and guided by commissars, the PLA is rising from an ill-armed rabble to a fairly well-organized and formidable military machine. Elements of this army have been engaged in almost continous combat since 1 August 1927. The PLA is the only army of modern years that has completely equipped itself from captured material.
One of the more interesting highlights of this book is the account of the “capture” of General Lin Piao’s small book on SHORT ATTACK. Heretofore unpublished in English, Lin’s “Principles of Combat” serve here to give us some measure of the man who won over Manchuria and whose troops were the first to attack us in Korea. The following is an example of these “Principles”:
Mobile Warfare: Rapid strides with large forces . . . is an excellent form of warfare to which our leaders are accustomed. In this warfare the secret lies in discovering . . . enemy weak points and attacking them with superior forces (of 5 or 6 to 1). It calls for rapid disengagement and retreat when persistence in attack appears unprofitable, or to avoid an advancing enemy. A well-planned withdrawal . . . creates in an opponent overwhelming confidence in his superiority, a factor which makes him easy prey for sudden attack.
Was not the above principle followed almost to the letter by the Red Chinese in their first attack against the Eighth Army in Korea in October, 1950?
Why haven’t the Reds pushed us out of Korea? The answer is that we have applied part of the PLA’s own Rules of Warfare— “do not let the enemy have breathing space.”
Pictures and illustrations are deserving of special notice. The pictures support the text and convey a graphic description of the Red Chinese Soldier. This book is very well indexed.
Had the opportunity to read such an interesting account of this Red Army been the fortunate experience of those who have already fought the Chinese, many of the questions that entered their minds at first word of the approaching Chinese would have already been answered. This extraordinary book provides an equally extraordinary opportunity for all who have the faintest idea that some day they may find themselves up against the Red Chinese Army. A MUST for all members of the military.
★