By The Joong Ang Ilbo is continuing its excellent series of interviews with the legendary South Korean General Paik Sun-yup. This time they interview the General about the opening days of the Chinese intervention in the Korean War. Read the whole thing, but I found his memories about the destruction of the 8th Cavalry Regiment during the war of interest:
Nevertheless, the situation surrounding the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment, especially that of the 3rd battalion, was desperate. The communist forces mixed frontal attacks with flanking movements, a classic Chinese tactic. It puts direct pressure on the enemy’s front line, while other elements encircle the enemy from behind. A reconnaissance team of soldiers from Pyongyang who were former soccer players and belonged to the ROK 12th Regiment was put into action to rescue as many of the trapped U.S. troops as possible. They were the best in search and rescue missions, but even this elite unit was only able to get three or four American soldiers out and had to retreat before the Chinese onslaught.
At the end, out of a total strength of 800, the 8th Cav. Regiment lost 600, either killed or missing. For the U.S. military the battle was especially shameful. General Gay, the commanding officer of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, had used the entire 5th Cav. Regiment to rescue the 8th, but they failed. The Chinese forces created a smoke screen during the day by setting hills on fire and remained in their trenches. Gay couldn’t identify targets and on Nov. 2 finally gave the order to withdraw. It was the first time U.S. forces had abandoned rescue efforts for fellow units that had been encircled by the enemy. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The reputation of the 1st Cavalry Division during the Korean War never really recovered from this fiasco. The popular belief at the time was that the 1st Cavalry Division had lost their colors during this battle and this is why the division was picked to stay in Korea to guard the DMZ after the war. The popular belief also was that if a US military unit lost their colors they could not get them restored until showing bravery in a subsequent battle, which the 1st Cavalry Division was able to do during the Vietnam War to get their colors restored. However, according to this 1st Cavalry Division veterans site this supposed urban legend is untrue.
3:13 am on March 2nd, 2010 1
Then they lost them again in Iraq. Go figure.
6:35 am on March 2nd, 2010 2
Well… if they did lose their colors, you had better be sure that the Chinese would proudly display it in THEIR Korean War museum.
7:29 am on March 2nd, 2010 3
How does a unit lose its colours?
If they are captured by the enemy.
No one captured any American or coalition units' colours in Iraq.
7:33 am on March 2nd, 2010 4
Thanks for the link which destroys the urban legend. That one ranks up with "ya can't use a .50 cal on personnel 'cause it's against the Geneva Convention".
1:41 pm on March 2nd, 2010 5
"A reconnaissance team of soldiers from Pyongyang who were former soccer players and belonged to the ROK 12th Regiment was put into action to rescue as many of the trapped U.S. troops as possible."
That's a really interesting fact. It's certainly something Korean movie producers should look into, if they haven't already.
2:05 pm on March 2nd, 2010 6
The reputation of the 1st Cav should never have been an issue. They were 'massivly' outnumbered and told there were 'no chinese' to worry about by MacArthur and his band of syncophants. In other words they were completely unaware of what was about to happen.
"The troops will be home by Christmas", was MacArthurs victory speech, before the bubble burst and reality came home to the 'higher ups' who denied every report to the contrary of MacArthurs belief.
The troops were poorly clothed for the coming winter, poorly dispersed, in order to reach the Yalu quickly, and unaware of the impending massive attack by the Chinese.
MacArthur was the only person that should have lost any 'colors' along with his synchophants at higher headquarters.
The thousands who died at Unsan and the subsequant withdrawel to south of Seoul should have been given presidential unit citations for surviving such stupidity.
6:33 pm on March 2nd, 2010 7
I was alluding to 1st Cav's performance in Iraq, which was poor and caused a ton of issues. They did the best the could under the circumstances in Korea.
11:24 pm on March 2nd, 2010 8
Where and when? The ENTIRE division? Who were you with?
10:40 am on March 3rd, 2010 9
They seemed to do well in the relief of Kha San in 1968,(operation pegasus), along with the subsequent move into the Ah Shaw valley, (Operation delaware) with no break inbetween. Perhaps the battle of the Ia Drang two years earlier, would be as good an example of redemption as any I can think of.
3:20 pm on March 3rd, 2010 10
The 1st Cav has yet to find a conflict that they couldn’t figure out a way to lose.
12:57 am on February 8th, 2011 11
I believe the points to be made here are two. First, the 8th Cav didn't perform as the 1st MarDiv did during the Korean Conflict. The 2nd is even more simple. Unless you were there, you're only getting a viewpoint, not necessarily facts about a very difficult situation.
Having served in Korea, I can only imagine what it must have been like.
1:38 pm on February 8th, 2011 12
A friend, whose father was a staff officer with the 7th Infantry tells the story that they were directed by Corps level staff not to send any more Chines prisoners back for interrogation as the General's mind was made up.
Anyone who expects Cavalry to fight like Regular Infantry (much less Marines) is not really firing on all cylinders. Cavalry is not trained or equipped the same way. And everyone knows you can use a hammer to drive screws but it isn't the right tool.
I was in the USAF; but I never heard any Korean War vet talk bad about the First Cav–except for the No Gun Ri crowd who (as it turns out) were none of 'em actually there…
1:45 pm on March 1st, 2011 13
Well my grandfather was in one of the battalions at Unsan. I am not sure which one, I have gotten very interested in it and have been reading a lot about the battle the last few days. Of course he wouldn't ever talk about it much but little from snippets here and there I can piece some of it together. Like when I would complain about being uncomfortable or something while we were hunting he would chuckle and say, "Well you spend 24hrs in a fox hole with a dead Chinese and live Chinese jumping over you then you can tell me you ain't comphy." Which leads me to believe he was in the 1st or 2nd, because everything Ive read says they scattered and he talked about having to escape kinda like that. However, he also talked about waking up to Chinese in their camp, which sounds like 3rd battalion. When he would talk about it (on hunting trips he would tend to open up) he always said "We had them north Ko-reans on the run, pushed em back all the way to the yalu river, we set up there at Unsan, we got into a fire fight that lasted for a long time, then the South Ko-reans, they were holding our right flank, they started pulling out, we didnt know why really cause those North Ko-reans werent that good. Next thing we knew them Chinese started pouring through where the South pulled out." After that it gets sketchy. He has a picture he took of the South pulling out, just looks like a huge landscape with no trees or what used to be trees and lots of men moving, has mountains in the background. Ill try to talk with him about it soon as I can, weve always been touchy about the deal cause he has issues. One time we watched a documentary on it and it gave the number of 8th cav survivors and he didnt realize that so few had survived, he woke up hollering all night. He seemed to be under the impression that they had "lost colors" I guess because I had heard my mom talk about that before but Im not sure. Either way, reading the account of what happened, whether he was in 1st, 2nd or 3rd thats still pretty dang hard core to make it through something like that. Also the Chinese over took em but from the numbers I read on Wiki we lost around 1100 total and est casualties for CCP was 2k. Sounds like they stacked em pretty high. I will see if I can get him talkin about it though this weekend and report back.