Chapters:

1. To Korea by Sea
2. Policy and its Instruments
3. War Begins
4. Help on the Way
5. Into the Perimeter
6. Holding the Line
7. Back to the Parallel
8. On to the Border
9. Retreat to the South
10. The Second Six Months
11. Problems of a Policeman
12. Two More Years

A Note on Source Material

Glossary of Naval Abbreviations

• Part 1. February 1951: Back to the Han
• Part 2. March- April 1951: On to the Parallel
• Part 3. April-May 1951: the Communist Spring Offensive
• Part 4. June-July 1951: North to Kaesong
• Source Notes

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Part 4. June–July 1951: North to Kaesong

          By the 1st of June the ground forces had regained the line of the Hwachon Reservoir. Only in the eastern mountains, where the desired front turned sharply northward, were the Marines still fighting hard for their objectives, and there the drive up the valley of the Soyang was completed in mid-month. Since instructions from the Joint Chiefs had by now limited the advance to the neighborhood of this line, although permitting local action to gain more commanding terrain, General Van Fleet prepared to fortify his positions while at the same time pushing forward I and IX Corps into the Iron Triangle.

          This operation continued throughout the first half of June. By the 11th both Chorwon and Kumwha at the base of the triangle had been taken, and two days later Eighth Army briefly entered Pyonggang at the northern apex. Northeast of Kumwha IX Corps units moved up to Kumsong, where the enemy was attempting to establish defensive positions, and in mid-month attempted to outflank the town on the east, a move which in the absence of JCS limitations might have opened the Wonsan road and liquidated enemy forces to the eastward. Given these restraints, however, the effort was not pressed, and Kumsong remained in enemy hands. Except on the shores of the Sea of Japan, where ROK divisions moved onward to the outskirts of Kosong, this June advance to Pyonggang and Kumsong marked the farthest north for the remainder of the war.

          As before, operations on the east coast were assisted from the sea. As the forward movement of the ROK I Corps took it into the difficult hill country at the mouth of the Nam River, gunfire support became extremely active. On 4 and 5 June the heavy cruiser Los Angeles, a recent arrival in the theater, provided support at the bombline; on the 6th, joined by New Jersey, she bombarded enemy positions in the vicinity of Kosong; on the 7th, as the result of an emergency call from the KMAG party ashore, received while she was replenishing, she had the interesting experience of loading 8-inch ammunition from an AKA over one side while unloading it out the guns over the other.

          In the east as in the west, the long Korean coastline invited efforts to make trouble in the enemy rear. For some time the APD Begor had been putting agents ashore by night along the northeastern coast, and while security was imperfect–on one occasion the ship’s departure from Pusan was announced by the North Korean radio the same evening–all the landings were successful. These nocturnal enterprises ranged from Chongjin in the north to Kojo, south of Wonsan, where on the night of 2–3 June Begor and her UDT complement landed 235 ROK guerrillas on an islet less than half a mile from the northern arm of the harbor. But this cloak and dagger business was a two-way street: 30 miles back down the coast, at the same time that the guerrillas were going in at Kojo, an ROK intelligence team, surrounded and hard-pressed by the enemy, was departing Kosong under cover of gunfire from an ROK PC and the destroyer Rush.

          As the end of the U.N. offensive approached and the intensity of ground action diminished, the attentions of the gunnery forces shifted northward and fire support again gave way to bombardment. The communications centers of Wonsan and Songjin remained daily on the receiving end of gunfire from everything from LSMRs up to the battleship New Jersey. Far in the north the blockade of Chongjin was maintained, and the road and rail bridges leading south from that city subjected to frequent bombardment. On 8 June the efforts of the light ships were supplemented as Task Force 77 sent in Helena, now on her second tour of Korean duty, for three days work on transportation targets in the Songjin, Iwon, and Kyongsong Man areas, and ten days later Toledo gave Songjin a repeat performance.

          In the operations of Task Force 77, where Bon Homme Richard had relieved Philippine Sea on the 1st of the month, a similar shift was apparent. Although support continued to be provided for the Marines east of the reservoir and for Army forces in the Iron Triangle, interdiction again became the primary task. A sufficient effort was committed to the northeastern rail bridges to keep them broken down, and an ambitious new inter-service effort, Operation Strangle, was begun.

          Admiral Ofstie’s spring campaign had pretty well stopped the eastern railroad. But despite the efforts of Navy, Air Force, and Marines alike, truck traffic had continued to increase, and the daily average of North Korean vehicle sightings had risen spectacularly from 236 in January to 1,760 in May. Analysis of these sightings indicated that the enemy possessed some 20,000 trucks, a tenth of which arrived nightly in the combat zone, and suggested the difficulty of interdicting this logistic effort; it also brought a request from General Van Fleet to Fifth Air Force and to Task Force 77 to make the attempt. The importance of the problem was emphasized in early June by a GHQ announcement of the record vehicle sightings of the preceding month and, despite some skepticism within the Air Force as to its feasibility, the program was accepted on an experimental basis.

          In the planning for "Strangle" the main north-south road routes behind the enemy lines were identified and parcelled out among the services. Three routes south and southeast of Pyongyang were taken by the Air Force; the two central routes, from Yangdok down the upper Nam and from Majon-ni south along the upper Imjin, went to Task Force 77; the Marines were assigned the roads running down from Wonsan and Kojo. Where defiles or watercourses made bypassing difficult, "Strangle Areas" were set up for cratering and for seeding with delayed-action and antipersonnel bombs.

          From the very start the task was difficult, owing to the greater ease of bypassing by truck than by train, and to the fact that while almost all enemy movement was now night movement, all services were very limited in night capability. All hands nevertheless did their best, although the force requirements to keep the "Strangle Areas" strangled turned out to be somewhere between twice and five times those necessary to maintain an equal number of rail cuts. Dawn and dusk sorties were flown by the carriers, in addition to their normal daytime load, and the Air Force kept its B-26 intruders busily on the job. Best of all, perhaps, was the ingenious system evolved by the Marines, which teamed their night fighters with flare-dropping Navy patrol planes, and although these operations were extremely hazardous, owing to the restricted maneuvering room inside Korean valleys and the effect of the flares on night vision, good work was done. But in mid-June, after 13 days of "Strangle," a preliminary Air Force assessment indicated that while movement past the cut-points had been almost entirely stopped, and the enemy inconvenienced by being forced onto secondary roads, total north-south vehicle sightings remained about the same and arrivals in the front line area showed little ascertainable change. The conclusions were hardly encouraging, but as no obvious alternative presented itself "Strangle" was continued on into the summer.

          Naval operations during the period of the enemy spring offensive and the United Nations advance to the north had not been without cost. The increasing strength of enemy antiaircraft was being felt: combat losses from April through June totalled 3 F9Fs, 8 ADs, and 19 Corsairs, and on 18 May Task Force 77 had its worst day of the war thus far when 6 planes failed to return. Enemy coastal batteries were also increasing in number, and not only in Wonsan. On 7 May the frigate Hoquiam was hit off Songjin, and on 14 June the DMS Thompson met trouble in the same area: having closed to 40-millimeter range of the beach and slowed to search for targets, Thompson was surprised when the enemy suddenly wheeled four guns out from under cover, opened fire, and scored 13 hits before the ship got clear.

          The continuous efforts of the sweepers had by now largely conquered the minefields, but the threat remained, and on 5 May the first loss since February took place when the ROK JML 306 was sunk off Sok To. More serious than the anchored fields was the problem of drifting mines: not only were the Russian moored mines fused to remain armed after breaking loose, but many had apparently been launched as drifters, to take advantage of prevailing southerly currents. Increasing reports of floating mines came in from the Sea of Japan and from the North Pacific; in June the destroyer Walke, steaming some 60 miles offshore as part of the carrier task force screen, ran upon a floater which exploded on the port side aft, inflicting serious damage and killing 25; by autumn more than 300 mines would have been recovered on Japanese shores.

          For the U.N. divisions in Korea the bill had of course been higher, although ground force casualties in April and May were less than half those of November and December, less even than those of January and February. But for the armies of Communist China the spring offensive had proved disastrous. United Nations’ estimates of casualties inflicted on the enemy claimed 70,000 for the April push, 90,000 for the week ending 23 May, and 147,000 for the two-week period from 20 May to 3 June; GHQ intelligence summaries estimated a total for April and May of 283,000, with 72,000 more in June. Figures like these do not, perhaps, inspire complete confidence, but unquestionably Communist losses were extremely severe, and while the impact of this bloody attrition on the manpower of China was minimal, its impact on the available total of trained military personnel was not. There was also a perceptible effect on morale, and prisoners began to surrender in unprecedented numbers: 3,000 Chinese were taken between 16 and 22 May and another 10,000 in the following week.

          As the defeated Communists retired northward, with Van Fleet’s armies hard on their heels, command changes continued throughout the forces of the U.N. Subsequent to the attack on the Hwachon Dam, Admiral Ofstie had been relieved of command of Task Force 77 by Admiral Henderson, and on 17 May had taken over as Chief of Staff to ComNavFE. In April Major General Gerald C. Thomas, USMC, had relieved General Smith in command of the Marine Division; late in May General Cushman, who had come out with the brigade, succeeded General Harris in command of the Aircraft Wing, to be himself relieved two months later. With the ending of the threat to Inchon Admiral Thackrey went home; in June, Task Force 95 got a new commander in the person of Rear Admiral George C. Dyer. In the other services the same was true: the Army command had changed in April; in June command of FEAF was assumed by Lieutenant General Otto P. Weyland, USAF, previously vice-commander for operations; at Fifth Air Force, General Partridge was replaced by Major General Frank P. Everest, USAF. Of major force commanders present in the Far East when the troubles began, only Admiral Joy remained, and he was shortly to receive some temporary additional duty which would occupy his whole attention.

          At home, meanwhile, the United States had resumed its peculiar custom of conducting foreign policy by congressional hearing. In 1949 the unification investigation had demonstrated, through its exposition of military capability and strategic intent, that the only war contemplated by the United States was a big war in defense of Europe, and had opened the door to aggression by proxy in Asia. Now in the MacArthur hearings the details of strategic planning were again spread upon the public record, to reaffirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that the United States, unwilling to become fixed in a secondary theater, neither intended to expand the war in Asia nor to attempt the forcible unification of Korea. This separation of the political aim of Korean unification from the military objective of repelling aggression was reaffirmed by the President in May, and by the Secretary of State and the Secretary General of the United Nations in early June.

          Since the United States did not propose to advance farther into North Korea, and since the Communists were in no condition to advance southward, an agreement to disagree seemed possible, which, while leaving the world and Korea divided much as before, would at least liquidate the fighting. On 23 June the Russian representative at the Security Council, whose fortuitous absence a year before had permitted U.N. action, made a radio address in which he indicated that the chief string-pullers would look favorably upon negotiations for an armistice.

          Soundings in Moscow confirmed the official nature of these views, and the offer was taken up. General Ridgway was instructed to invite the Communists to meet with U.N. delegates on board the Danish hospital ship Jutlandia in Wonsan harbor for discussion of an armistice. With the selection of Admiral Joy as senior delegate for the United Nations, Admiral Ofstie took over in Tokyo as acting ComNavFE, and Naval Forces Far East were alerted to support the armistice discussions. On 30 June the invitation was broadcast to the enemy.

          The reply came the next day: while agreeing to meet for talks, the Communists suggested that the location be changed to the city of Kaesong, 35 miles northwest of Seoul. This counterproposal doubtless reflected the symbolic difference between a meeting in one of Korea’s historic cities, within Communist lines yet south of the 38th parallel, and one at sea on board a United Nations ship. Since the progress of negotiations would impede military action in the immediate neighborhood, it may also have indicated a desire to block the main road to Pyongyang. Possibly the Communists merely wanted the last word. The suggestion was quickly accepted, presumably in anticipation of an expeditious settlement, but in time the U.N. Command would regret this easy complaisance. On 8 July, following further communications, there was a meeting of liaison officers, and on the 10th, ComNavFE and his delegation confronted the Communists at Kaesong.

          To the peoples of the non-Communist world the commencement of armistice discussions was heartening. Although Syngman Rhee went at once on record against all compromise, and demanded a continuation of the war for unification, elsewhere the hope that rational solutions would be quickly found produced a lifting of the spirit. These hopes were doubtless highest among the Americans, with their inbred belief in the value of the spoken and written word and their congenital distrust of the gloomy lessons of history. But even in the United States there were perhaps some whose experience encompassed negotiations with the Communists, and who could see the omens in the meeting at Kaesong.

          The presence at the conference table of Chinese generals and an American naval officer called to mind the earlier discussions between Shufeldt and Li Hung-chang concerning the future of Korea, a future which intervening decades had done little to clarify. The antiquity of American concern with the welfare of the Koreans was recalled in the persons of the American interpreters, Lieutenants Horace G. Underwood, USNR, and Richard Underwood, AUS, grandsons of that Underwood who 66 years before had founded the Presbyterian mission to Korea. If these echoes of the past did not sufficiently suggest the intractability of the Korean question, and a likelihood that no speedy settlement would be reached, a contemporary incident, passing almost unnoticed, could have served as evidence that wars do not end all at once. On 30 June, on a little island in the northern Marianas, 19 Japanese soldiers and sailors, who for six years had refused to believe that their war was over, finally surrendered to the USS Cocopa.