T.R. Fehrenbach - This Kind of War - The Classic Korean War History

They were Task Force Smith, which MacArthur termed an arrogant display of strength, sent ahead into Korea to give the Communists pause. General Dean had been ordered to move his entire 24th Division to the peninsula, but it was scattered the length and breadth of Japan, near six separate ports, and there were no ships immediately available. It would have to go in bits and pieces, of which Task Force Smith was the first.

Five days later, Task Force Smith was dug in along the main highway between Suwon and Osan, which lay a few miles south. Two understrength infantry companies, with headquarters and communication personnel, it had, in addition to its rifles, two 75mm recoilless rifles, two 4.2-inch mortars, six 2.36-inch rocket launchers, and four 60mm mortars. A battery of six light howitzers from the 52nd Field had joined them, and these went into place two thousand yards behind the infantry.

They dug in on low rolling hills, on a ridge that ran at right angles to the road, commanding it. The weather was rainy, and cold, but from the highest point of the ridge, some three hundred feet above the highway, Smith could see almost into Suwon.

Brigadier General Church, of ADCOM, had told him: "We have a little action up here. All we need is some men up there who won't run when they see tanks. We're going to move you up to support the ROK's and give them moral support."

Now, waiting confidently at dawn on 5 July, Task Force Smith covered approximately one mile of front. As soon as the light was good, the riflemen test fired each of their weapons, and the artillery registered on the surrounding hills. Then everyone went to breakfast, which consisted of cold C rations.

One of the artillerymen was worried. He knew the battery had only six rounds of antitank ammunition—one-third of all that could be found in Japan—and he asked, "What will happen to the guns if the North Korean tanks get through the infantry up there?"

One of the infantry officers told him smiling, "Don't worry; they'll never get that far."

It was generally agreed that the North Koreans, when they found out who they were fighting, would turn around and go back. The young soldiers of Task Force Smith were quite confident; at this point none of them felt fear. At Pusan, when they had boarded the train, the Koreans had unfurled gay banners and bands had played in the station yard.

They had been told that this was a police action, and that they'd soon be home in Japan. It was a happy thought—life in Japan was very good. Almost every man had his own shoeshine boy and his own musame; in a country where an American lieutenant made as much as a cabinet minister, even a PFC could make out. And the training wasn't bad. There were no real training areas in crowded Nippon, so there wasn't much even General Walker of Eighth Army could do about that, though he made noises.

The young men of Task Force Smith carried Regular Army serial numbers, but they were the new breed of American regular, who, not liking the service, had insisted, with public support, that the Army be made as much like civilian life and home as possible. Discipline had galled them, and their congressmen had seen to it that it did not become too onerous. They had grown fat.

They were probably as contented a group of American soldiery as had ever existed. They were like American youth everywhere. They believed the things their society had taught them to believe. They were cool, and confident, and figured that the world was no sweat.

It was not their fault that no one had told them that the real function of an army is to fight and that a soldier's destiny—which few escape—is to suffer, and if need be, to die.

At about 0700, through the sweeping rain, Colonel Smith saw movement on the road in the direction of Suwon. By 0730, he could clearly see a tank column, eight in all, grinding toward his ridge.

At 0800, or thereabouts, the forward observer with the infantry along the road picked up his field phone and called, "Fire Mission!"

The rounds went into the stubby 105's; breechblocks clicked home. Gunners set their sights, leveled the bubble, and section chiefs' arms went up. At 0816, Number 2 howitzer spat flame into the murky sky, one round, two. All guns joined in the barking chorus.

The tanks were now about two thousand yards in front of the infantry holes, and still coming. Bursting HE shells walked into the tank column, spattering the advancing armor with flame and steel and mud.

"Jesus Christ, they're still coming!" an infantryman shouted.

Colonel Smith knew that the 75mm recoilless rifles he had placed covering the highway had very little ammunition; he now ordered them to hold their fire until the tanks got within 700 yards.

The NKPA tanks, dark and wicked and low-slung on the road, advanced arrogantly, seeming unconcerned by the exploding HE shells about them.

Antitank mines placed in the road would have stopped them. But there was not a single antitank mine in Korea. Air support might have stopped them, but because of the rain the planes could not fly.

Now the troops dug in along the ridge could count more than thirty tanks strung out on the road.

At 700 yards, both recoilless rifles slammed at the tanks. Round after round burst against the T-34 turrets, with no apparent effect. But with this opposition, the tanks stopped and turned their 85mm cannon on the ridge. They fired, and their 7.62mm coaxial machine guns clawed the hillsides. Suddenly, American soldiers pulled their heads down.

Lieutenant Ollie Connor, watching, grabbed a bazooka and ran down to the ditch alongside the road. Steadying the 2.36-inch rocket launcher on the nearest tank, only fifteen yards away, Connor let fly. The small shaped charge burned out against the thick Russian armor without penetrating. Angrily, Connor fired again, this time at the rear of the tank where the armor protection was supposed to be thinnest.

He fired twenty-two rockets, none of which did any damage. Some of the rounds were so old they did not explode properly. The tankers, thinking they were up against only a small roadblock, made no real attempt to engage Task Force Smith, but continued down the road.

The enlisted men of Task Force Smith stuck their heads out of their holes and watched them disappear around the bend, heading for the artillery positions.

There was nothing mysterious about the Russian T-34, as some newspapers later claimed. Of obsolescent design, it had been used against the German panzers in front of Moscow in the early forties; perhaps it was the best all-around tank developed in World War II, with very high mobility, a good low silhouette, and very heavy armor plating. It could be stopped—but not with the ancient equipment in the hands of the ROK's—or Task Force Smith.

The American Army had developed improved 3.5-inch rocket launchers, which would penetrate the T-34. But happy with having designed them, it hadn't thought to place them in the hands of the troops, or of its allies. There just hadn't been enough money for long-range bombers, nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers, and bazookas too. Now, painfully, at the cost of blood, the United States found that while long-range bombers and aircraft carriers are absolutely vital to its security, it had not understood in 1945 the shape of future warfare.

To remain a great power, the United States had to provide the best in nuclear delivery systems. But to properly exercise that power with any effect in the world—short of blowing it up—the United States had also to provide the bread-and-butter weapons that would permit her ground troops to live in battle.

If it did not want to do so, it had no moral right to send its troops into battle.

The two lead tanks rumbling down on the howitzer positions were struck head on by HEAT rounds, damaging them. They pulled off the road, so the others could get around them. One of the damaged tanks burst into flames. Two of its crew leaped from the turret with their hands up; the third came out holding a burp gun.