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Overview
The outbreak of the Korean conflict caught America (and the Marine Corps) unprepared. The Corps' salvation was the existence of its Organized Reserve (an organization rich in veterans of the fighting in World War II), the availability of modern equipment in storage and, as always, the bravery, initiative, and adaptability of individual Marines.
In this follow-up to his enormously successful Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific, Oscar Gilbert presents an equally exhaustive and detailed account of the little-known Marine tank engagements in Korea, supported by forty-eight photographs, eight original maps, and dozens of survivor interviews.
Marine Corps Tank Battles in Korea details every action, from the valiant defense at Pusan and the bitter battles of the Chosin Reservoir, to the grinding and bloody stalemate along the Jamestown Line. Many of these stories are presented here for the first time, such as the unique role played by tanks in the destruction of the ill-fated Task Force Drysdale, how Marine armor played a key role in the defense of Hagaru, and how a lone tank made it to Yudamni and then led the breakout across the high Toktong Pass.
Marine tankers—individually and as an organization—met every challenge posed by this vicious, protracted, and forgotten war. It is a story of bravery and fortitude you will never forget.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504025072 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Casemate Publishers |
| Publication date: | 11/24/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 315 |
| Sales rank: | 361,589 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Marine Corps Tank Battles in Korea
By Oscar E. Gilbert
Casemate Publishing
Copyright © 2003 Oscar E. GilbertAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2507-2
CHAPTER 1
Repeating History
The Unexpected War
After the end of World War I, it took the world two decades to plunge itself into another cycle of destruction. In the aftermath of World War II, it took less than five years, and the chaos and destruction that flowed from it is still felt today.
The collapse of the Japanese Empire in August 1945 virtually assured the eventual collapse of European colonialism in Asia. Debilitated European colonial armies faced not only pre-war nationalist movements, but well-armed and organized Communist groups and resistance movements that the Allies had sponsored in the fight against Japan. The Japanese had been merciless colonial masters, but the peoples of Asia had seen European armies humbled by fellow Asians. The European powers launched protracted and ultimately futile struggles to reestablish their dominance.
America tried to preserve the peace (and the ante-bellum Nationalist government) in northern China and to extricate itself from the remnant of its own empire in the Philippines. In China, the primary tasks of the Marine Corps were to disarm and repatriate the enormous Japanese army in northern China and provide minimal security for non-Chinese in the region. Unfortunately, both the Nationalist and Communist Chinese factions were determined to resume the civil war placed on hiatus while they fought the Japanese. As the power struggle escalated into full-scale warfare, the American presence in China withered. Most Marine Corps ground elements had left by 1947, and the last air units were withdrawn by 1949. The most forward-based Marine presence in the Asia-Pacific region, a single brigade based on Guam, was disbanded in 1947.
The legacy of Asian colonialism, as practiced by imperial Japan, also posed an intractable problem. The strategically located Korean peninsula had been fought over for centuries. Unbeknownst to most people, in 1882 the United States entered into a trade and protection treaty with the "Hermit Kingdom" (Korea), but later stood by as the armies of China, Russia, and finally, Japan, marched across the hapless country.
Japan annexed Korea as a "protectorate" after the Russo-Japanese War and ruled it as a colony from 1910 until 1945. Japan was a harsh ruler, and neither dissent nor nationalist sympathies were tolerated. In March 1919, a fledgling Korean nationalist movement promulgated a non-violent declaration of independence, and Japanese police slaughtered thousands in the months that followed.
Japanese dominance in Korea ended in August 1945 when the Soviet Union invaded the peninsula from Siberia. The Soviets leapfrogged along the northeastern coast in a series of amphibious assaults and overland marches against disorganized Japanese resistance. As had been previously agreed, the United States occupied the southern part of the peninsula up to an arbitrary line on a map — the 38th parallel. Both sides installed a local government, an aggressive Communist "democratic republic" in the north, and a squabbling and intractable "strong man democracy" in the south. The United States and the Soviets withdrew from Korea in 1948. The Soviets, however, left behind an entrenched dictatorship, arms sufficient to equip a powerful army, and a large cadre of combat-trained Koreans. Many North Koreans had been educated in the USSR or had fought either with the Communist forces in the Chinese civil wars, or in the Soviet Army in World War II.
The thankless presence in war-torn China was not the only problem faced by the Marine Corps from 1945 through 1949. The deadliest threat came from the halls of Congress, where a speedy movement was underway to disassemble America's massive wartime naval and military establishments. Each of the larger services fought to preserve its manpower and programs. Once again the small Marine Corps appeared the obvious target for massive budget cuts. Just as their predecessors had once argued that the machine gun and massed artillery made amphibious assaults impossible, a new generation of theorists argued that atomic bombs, targeted against shipping and the troops crowded into a beachhead, made amphibious assaults impossible. In other words, there was no longer a need for amphibious specialists, and the Marine Corps was deemed by many in Congress as an unnecessary luxury.
A War Department-Congressional alliance, with the sympathy of President Harry Truman's administration, wanted to streamline defense functions by absorbing land-based air assets into the newly independent Air Force, and by having the Army assume all significant ground combat functions. The Marine Corps, if it still existed, would once more be a small naval security force, and would fill the old role of "colonial infantry." Radicall air power enthusiasts argue that the Air Force would become the nation's means of projecting its might around the world. Long-range bombers would be able to reach any spot on the globe and A-bomb any enemy into submission.
The potential dissolution of the Navy was never a serious threat, but the admirals still found themselves strategically disadvantaged. Just as in the 1920s, the Army's generals were preparing to replay its role in the last war, earnestly preparing for a conventional and nuclear struggle in central Europe. They were not interested in allocating resources to aid the Navy by capturing advanced bases.
Elements in the leadership of the Marine Corps were quick to perceive a threat to their existence and launched a massive publicity campaign in an effort to blunt Congressional tactics. The result was codified in the National Security Act of 1947, which not only assigned the Corps specific missions as amphibious specialists and the nation's "force in readiness," but also specified minimum force levels. Ironically, the Marine Corps found itself with more missions than it could reasonably carry out, including the capture of advanced bases intended for Air Force use. Another mission, in tacit acknowledgment of the new global strategic situation, was the protection of American interests in the Persian Gulf.
Not content with simple survival, planners again sought to reinvent the Corps along more modern lines. One promising new technology was the helicopter, which would allow assault troops to be inserted into enemy territory from ships standing far out to sea, where they were less vulnerable to attack. Diffusion of the support ships over a larger area would also make them an uninviting target for nuclear attack. By1948, a Marine Corps Special Board speculated on the potential role of the helicopter for air assaults in support of amphibious operations, although the Corps had only acquired its first helicopter in January of that year.
If the Corps had a visionary in matters of armored doctrine, it was Lt. Col. Arthur J. ("Jeb") Stuart, the commanding officer of the 1st Tank Battalion in the bitter battles on Peleliu and Okinawa. Assessing war plans focusing on potential conflicts around the periphery of Europe and Asia, Stuart advocated the development of better anti-tank weapons and doctrine for the infantry to counter Soviet-style mechanized assaults, as well as more effective utilization of the tank in amphibious assaults. Stuart's vision also extended to the development of amphibian tractors capable of providing more protection against hostile fire, and specialized engineer vehicles for breaching minefields and defensive works.
Unfortunately, neither the fresh ideas nor the new missions came with money attached. Despite the provisions of the National Security Act, by 1950 shrinking budgets had reduced the two surviving active duty divisions to skeletal proportions. The entire Corps consisted of eleven under-strength rifle battalions in two divisions, when each division should have fielded nine. Further plans were afoot to reduce the Fleet Marine Force to six rifle battalions. There were also two active duty tank battalions, the 1st and 2nd, supported by two Reserve tank battalions, the 10th and 11th. The 1st Tank Battalion, which consisted of only a single company of obsolete M4A3 tanks, supported the 1st Marine Division.
Training suffered as school units were reduced or eliminated. The tank and amphibian tractor schools were merged into a single Tracked Vehicle School Company in 1947. Tank crewmen were trained "on the job," within active field units.
The strong suit of the Corps was its Reserve system, an outstanding 127,000-man reservoir. Its members trained weekly while pursuing civilian careers. Of this number, 98% of the officers and 25% of the enlisted personnel were wartime veterans. Limited funds and facilities, however, handicapped effective training. Unfortunately, the Reserve was ill-equipped. The Reserve 10th Tank Battalion, for example, had only four worn-out M4A3s tanks, and a single VTR. Both active-duty and Reserve tank units used late-war versions of the M4A3 medium tank with improved suspension, armor protection, and armament. The improved POA-CWS-H5 flame tank version of the M4A3 replaced the older vehicles used in World War II. The H5 mounted the long-range flame gun alongside either a 75mm. gun or 105mm. howitzer. By 1950, the Marine Corps had standardized all their vehicles to the more powerful 105mm. howitzer. Not every tank, however, was actually fitted with the larger weapon, and most remained in storage.
The newer M26 "General Pershing" tank was not yet in common use. In 1945, the Corps Commandant authorized purchase of the M26, and by late 1949 the Corps had 102 of these tanks on hand. Most were in storage, and the two active-duty tank battalions had only five each, to be used for "... training purposes limited to special exercises, experiments, and demonstrations." The most operating experience with this new tank was vested in the 2nd Tank Battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The battalion eventually received ten of the new tanks, but requests for additional vehicles were refused. The 2nd Division routinely deployed a tank platoon to accompany the Battalion Landing Team aboard ship in the Mediterranean. In 1948, Lt. Col. Robert Denig requested a sufficient stock of vehicles to equip this platoon with five M26s, but the old M4A3s were used on all or most of these deployments.
Although designed and constructed to counter the monstrous German Panther and Tiger tanks in World War II, the M26 only saw limited service in the waning days of the war in Europe. With thicker armor, improved mobility, and a powerful 90mm. main cannon, it was one of the most formidable tanks in the world. It was also one of the most expensive to operate, and was significantly heavier than the old M4A3s, which also made it harder to transport and land. There was another drawback: the explosive power of the 90mm. shell was not as effective as its 75mm. counterpart in the older tanks, which made the M26 less desirable as an infantry support tank — and infantry support was still the primary role of Marine Corps armor.
In addition to the main gun, the M26 carried two 30-caliber machine guns, one coaxial (mounted to fire parallel to the main cannon), the other low on the right side of the front of the hull. The latter gun was hard to aim without tracer bullets. According to Nik Frye, a talkative and naturally outgoing tank crewman, "The secret was to shoot at the ground, and then track it [onto the target]." Most of these vehicles were stored at the Barstow Depot in the California desert. Marine Corps doctrine also provided for an anti-tank platoon equipped with five tanks as part of each rifle regiment, but these units existed only on paper.
Warrant Officer "Willie" Koontz and Sgt. A. J. Selinsky had a platoon of M26 tanks in Headquarters Company of the 1st Tank Battalion. Basilo Chavarria, a quiet young man with a subtle sense of humor, was raised in Texas and served for three years before he was assigned to this platoon. "Before the Korean deal," he recalled, "they decided that they were going to Barstow and pick up a platoon of M26s in Headquarters and Service [Company]. Sort of a training [platoon]. Alternate guys went through. ... June comes around, and here we are with one platoon of M26s, and all the others with them old tanks."
Many of the tankers never saw the M26s. Bill Robinson was a strong stocky man who had enlisted in 1946. By 1950, he was a technical sergeant and tank commander in the 2nd Platoon of A Company. His experience with the M26 tank before the war in Korea was all but nonexistent. "I think they ran one school through to train a few men on the new tanks," was about all he could say of that model.
The new and much smaller Marine Corps offered a chance for more realistic training, but the opportunity passed by unrealized. Captain Gearl M. "Max" English, a thin man with a strong east-Texas accent and cackling laugh, was a veteran of the tank fighting on Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima with the 4th Tank Battalion. In 1950, Captain English was in Headquarters and Services Company of the stunted 1st Tank Battalion. "Things were happening," he said. "Somebody knew that something was going to take place. We had an awful lot of maneuvers. We only had the Fifth Marines. We were out night and day training with the Fifth."
Tankers always emphasized tank-infantry training. We broke our asses to do something for them. We would play-fight all day long. We would try to get them to stay in a foxhole and run a tank over them, and oh, no, they wouldn't do that. We would take a couple of crew members out of another tank, and put them in the same place and run over it to show the infantry that it wouldn't hurt them. Then we would tell the infantry to lay down like you're wounded, and let us come pick them up. Oh, no, no! We lay our own troops down there, and we would pick them up.
We trained to where they had confidence in us. That damn tank can come over you without killing you. They can pick you up and pull you in the escape hatch, and get you out.
A natural leader, English would put his experience to work in Korea, where his ability to make quick battlefield decisions would be repeatedly tested.
Another tanker, Joe Sleger, lamented that the new generation of infantrymen were not very well informed about the power of tanks: "They also took some of the tanks and went around to the infantry units for indoctrination. Koontz went out one day, and he was giving the lecture on the twenty-six [M26]. Some infantry guy there asked him if he threw a grenade in the track, if that would hurt it." Sleger paused a moment with a smile. "Old Willie said, 'I could stand here and I could piss on that track, and it would rust through before it [a grenade] would do any damage.'"
The tall and quiet C. J. 'Boogah' Moss enlisted in 1940 and served as an infantryman in a Division Scout Company in World War II and in the 1st Tank Battalion in China. According to Moss, the infantry had the same attitude toward tanks in 1950 held in World War II. "The infantry is always reluctant," he explained. "Their argument is that the tanks draw fire. Of course, my rebuttal is, 'So does a utility uniform.'"
The leader of Communist North Korea, a Soviet-educated officer named Kim Il Sung, was determined to reunite the peninsula, by force if necessary. To that end, he organized and launched a series of incursions into South Korea. The last in a series of well publicized "peace proposals" was being floated by the Communists on June 10, 1950 — even as their commandos were infiltrating into South Korea.
Washington, meanwhile, watched with growing concern but refused to directly intervene, wishing to avoid an Asian entanglement. Mixed signals were presented by Secretary of State Dean Acheson in a speech to the Washington press corps in January 1950 that seemed to imply Korea lay outside America's sphere of interests. The speech may have led the Communists to believe that the United States would not go to war to protect South Korea. Matthew Ridgeway went so far as to state that Acheson was "merely voicing an already accepted United States policy." Other historians have concluded that the assumption was groundless: Kim, now beyond the effective control of his Soviet patrons, would have invaded the southern peninsula regardless of the political situation in America. Any uncertainty was resolved at 0400 hours local time in Korea on June 25, 1950, when 135,000 battle-hardened North Korean soldiers, including mechanized units supported by waves of tactical aircraft, swept across the border into the South.
The invasion should not have come as a complete surprise. Central Intelligence Agency reports had indicated the movement of North Korean troops into the border area, the evacuation of North Korean civilians, and the accumulation of extensive stockpiles of ammunition and other war supplies along the border. The North Korean People's Army (NKPA) was the most lavishly equipped and heavily mechanized army in eastern Asia.. Each of the seven NKPA Rifl Divisions in the initial assault included three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment, and supporting formations. Each rifle regiment included its own artillery battalion, an anti-tank formation, and an additional battalion of self-propelled artillery artillery equipped with sixteen SU-76s, 76.2mm. field guns mounted on a light tank chassis.
Spearheading the assault on the South was the 105 Tank Division, a powerful combined arms force. Although called a division, it was similar to an American regiment in strength. It included the 107, 109, and 203 Medium Tank Regiments, each with forty T-34/85 tanks organized into three battalions. Other organic units included the 206 Mechanized Infantry Regiment (with its own artillery, heavy mortar, and anti-tank battalions), the 308 Armored Artillery Battalion with sixteen SU-76 guns, and the 849 Anti-Tank Regiment with 45mm. anti-tank guns. The 105 Tank Division did not fight as a unit, but the three Tank Regiments were parceled out to support the infantry divisions.23
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Marine Corps Tank Battles in Korea by Oscar E. Gilbert. Copyright © 2003 Oscar E. Gilbert. Excerpted by permission of Casemate Publishing.
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Table of Contents
- Dedication Page
- FrontMatter Page
- Contents
- Map and Illustrations
- Preface
- A Note on Language and Attitudes
- Prologue
- Chapter 1 Repeating History
- Chapter 2 One Company’s War
- Chapter 3 The Masterstroke
- Chapter 4 The Lowest Circle of Hell
- Chapter 5 Deliverance
- Chapter 6 Lives for Real Estate
- Chapter 7 Backs to the River
- Chapter 8 The Warriors Depart
- Epilogue
- Chapter Notes
- Select References