Substitute for Victory
General Ridgway, like his predecessor,
considered the joint Chiefs of Staff directives governing his duties as
Commander in Chief, U.N. Command, and as Commander in Chief, Far East, to be
deficient in important respects. Within a week of replacing General MacArthur,
Ridgway had attempted to change one provision that he believed diminished his
ability to carry out his overriding mission of defending Japan, specifically of
defending the islands against an attack by the Soviet Union. Since intelligence
estimates accorded the Soviets the capability of launching an attack with little
or no warning, he asked the joint Chiefs for independent authority to withdraw
his forces from Korea to Japan should the Soviets attack. It was not that
Ridgway expected an attack but that he considered it just as urgent to be
prepared to deal with what the Soviets could do as with what they might
do.1
An ongoing review of U.S. objectives and
courses of action in Korea partially conditioned the joint Chiefs' response to
Ridgway's request. Although General MacArthur's
pronouncement of late March had spoiled President Truman's initiative to open
armistice negotiations, examination of the pros and cons of a cease-fire and of
other steps that should be or might have to be taken to settle the Korean
situation continued. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in submitting recommendations to
the National Security Council on 5 April, had for the first time declared that
the war, let alone the whole of the Korean problem, could not be resolved
satisfactorily by military action alone. In their estimation, the best course
for the United Nations Command depended upon the future action of the Soviet
Union. If the Soviets did not start a general war, the U.N. Command should
remain in Korea and maintain pressure on enemy forces with a view to a
satisfactory armistice; if the Soviets did open a general war or intervene in
Korea, the U.N. Command should withdraw from the peninsula.
Because these recommendations were under
review at the time of Ridgway's request, the joint Chiefs preferred to retain
control of any withdrawal from Korea. On 1 May they sent Ridgway new
instructions governing combat operations in which they also restricted the depth
of any Eighth Army general advance. Ridgway was to make no general move beyond
the combined trace of lines Kansas and Wyoming without prior approval. He could go
farther north on his own, but only in limited operations designed to keep enemy
forces off balance, to maintain contact, to insure the safety of his command.
Ridgway himself had similarly restricted general advances in his initial
instructions to General Van Fleet. But the Joint Chiefs preferred to assume
control, in part because their recommendations were still under study and in
part because they believed that potential armistice negotiations could develop
more easily if the general Eighth Army drive into North Korea was kept so
shallow that Chinese and North Korean authorities could see advantages in
accepting a line of demarcation along the main line of contact.2
Ridgway complained to the joint Chiefs that
their instructions seriously abridged "the authority and freedom of action I
believe you intend me to have in order to discharge assigned responsibilities."
Since his military objective in Korea as stated in the 1 May directive was to
destroy the Chinese and North Korean forces operating "within the geographic
boundaries of Korea and waters adjacent thereto," he believed he should be the
one who held authority over a general advance above the Kansas-Wyoming trace.
And since his mission as Commander in Chief, Far East, of defending Japan had
priority over his objective as Commander in Chief, U.N. Command, in Korea, he
believed he should be the one who decided when his forces would withdraw from
Korea to take up the defense of Japan. The Joint Chiefs replied that strategic
considerations (without stating precisely what these considerations were)
required that they themselves control any withdrawal from Korea, that Ridgway's
instructions were in keeping with existing national objectives, and that,
consequently, the instructions would not be altered. The Joint Chiefs did
emphasize, though, that these objectives were currently under review and that
Ridgway's mission would be made to accord with President Truman's action on
forthcoming recommendations of the National Security Council.3
The security council first met to consider
the joint Chiefs' April recommendations on 2 May. On the following day the
Senate Committees on Armed Services and on Foreign Relations convened jointly to
inquire into the military situation in the Far East and the relief of General
MacArthur. Invited earlier to speak to a joint session of the Congress,
MacArthur had made an eloquent and dramatic statement of his convictions. He
again had proposed the retaliatory measures- now softened somewhat- against
China first recommended to the joint Chiefs in December and again had insisted,
as in his March letter to Congressman Martin, that there was "no substitute for
victory." First to speak at the Senate hearings, he forcefully elaborated on the
points he had made before the full Congress, and, in urging decisive steps to
end the war, he explained that there was at the present "no policy-there is
nothing, I tell you, no plan, or anything."4
Media reports of MacArthur's speech and
testimony generated considerable public interest in the issues involved.
That interest, in turn, spurred the National Security Council to develop a clear
and practicable statement of military and political policy in Korea. Concluding
its deliberations on 16 May, the security council produced a statement evolved
from the recommendations of the joint Chiefs of Staff and other advisory bodies,
including allies. On the following day President Truman approved the statement,
which introduced no new concepts but did at last firmly and officially declare
that the United States would seek to conclude the fighting in Korea under
suitable armistice arrangements. General MacArthur's protests notwithstanding,
there was to be at least an attempt to produce a substitute for victory.
General Ridgway meanwhile continued trying
to clarify his directives, sending two members of his staff to Washington to
present his views on what he considered to be points of ambiguity and conflict.
Their consultations coincided with the establishment of the new policy. While
the policy had little effect on revisions made to clarify Ridgway's
responsibilities and authorities as Commander in Chief, Far East, it brought
about a major redefinition of his mission as Commander in Chief, U.N. Command.
In new instructions sent on 1 June, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed Ridgway:
you will, consistent with the security of
your forces, inflict maximum personnel and materiel losses on the forces of
North Korea and Communist China operating within the geographic boundaries of
Korea and adjacent waters, in order to create conditions favorable to a
settlement of the Korean conflict which would as a minimum:
a. Terminate hostilities under
appropriate armistice arrangements.
b. Establish authority of the ROK
over all Korea south of a northern boundary so located as to facilitate, to the
maximum extent possible, both administration and military defense, and in no
case south of the 38th Parallel.
c. Provide for withdrawal by stages
of non-Korean armed forces from Korea.
d. Permit the building of
sufficient ROK military power to deter or repel a renewed North Korean
aggression.5
Retaining the authority they had assumed
over general Eighth Army advances, the joint Chiefs further instructed Ridgway:
With regard to ground
operations you will obtain approval of JCS prior to undertaking any general
advance beyond some line passing through the Hwachon Reservoir area. You are,
however, authorized to conduct such tactical operations as may be necessary or
desirable to insure safety of your command, to maintain contact, and to continue to harass the enemy. This
includes guerrilla operations and limited amphibious and airborne operations in
enemy rear areas.6
Although the Joint Chiefs had previously
issued similar instructions to govern the operations of the Eighth Army after it
reached the Kansas and Wyoming lines, the latest directive at least gave the
underlying objective of those operations more definite shape. Their future
course, in the main, was to be designed to support a negotiated end to
hositilities.
Not yet in possession of his new
instructions but informed of their development and essential content by his
staff officers in Washington, General Ridgway in assessing the results of recent
operations for the joint Chiefs on 30 May indicated that conditions in
Korea already were favorable, at least on a
short term basis, for seeking to open armistice negotiations. Enemy forces, he
reported, had suffered a defeat so costly that without reinforcement from China
they would not again be capable of attacks as strong as those launched in April
and May; even assuming- as some prisoner and agent reports indicated- that a new
Chinese army group arrived in Korea, the Eighth Army within the next two months
could face enemy forces no stronger than those it had already soundly defeated.
Thus, for the next sixty days, he predicted, "the United States Government
should be able to count with reasonable assurance upon a military situation in
Korea offering optimum advantages in support of its diplomatic
negotiations."7 Predicting further that as an immediate course enemy forces would
attempt to put up strong defenses below the Iron Triangle and in the ground
flanking the triangle on the east and west, he outlined General Van Fleet's
preparations to advance through these defenses toward line Wyoming and toward
the altered segment of line Kansas east of the Hwach'on Reservoir. Barring the
arrival and rapid deployment of sizable Chinese reinforcements, Ridgway expected
the Eighth Army to reach these lines within two weeks. If the attack progressed
as he expected, he told the Joint Chiefs, he would within a few days give his
recommendations for operations to follow the Eighth Army's seizure of its
KansasWyoming objectives.8
Operation Piledriver
For advancing the I Corps right to line
Wyoming, General Milburn on 28 May laid out an attack by three divisions, the
1st Cavalry Division moving along the west side of Route 33 to occupy the
segment of the line slanting southwest of Ch'orwon to the Imjin River, the 3d
Division advancing on the Route 33 axis to take the Ch'orwon base of the Iron
Triangle, and the 25th Division attacking astride Route 3 to seize the
triangle's eastern base at Kumhwa. In the IX Corps zone, General Hoge also
organized a threedivision attack to occupy the Wyoming trace reaching
southeastward from Kumhwa to the Hwach'on Reservoir. Nearest Kumhwa, the ROK 2d
Division and the 7th Division were to seize Wyoming objectives along and above
the stretch of Route 17 leading northwest into the Iron Triangle from Hwach'on
town. On the right, the ROK 6th Division was to advance above the western half
of the Hwach'on Reservoir between Route 17 and the Pukhan
River.9
While Milburn and Hoge organized fullblown
attacks to start on 3 June in the I Corps zone and 5 June in the IX Corps zone,
forces edging above line Kansas in preliminary advances in both corps zones
encountered stiff opposition. As General Ridgway had predicted, the Chinese were
determined to hold the Iron Triangle and adjacent ground as long as possible.
Then drenching rains during the last two days of May began to turn roads into
boggy tracks and, along with low clouds and fog, limited close air support and both air
and ground observation. Two clear days followed, but as the full attacks got
under way on 3 June rainstorms returned to hamper operations through the
5th.10
Engineers Search For Mines
Aided by the bad weather, Chinese delaying
forces fighting doggedly from dug-in regimental positions arranged in depth held
the advance to a crawl through 8 June, then finally gave way under the pressure
and began a phased withdrawal, moving north in what air observers estimated as
battalion-size groups. Against declining resistance
and in drier weather, the assault divisions occupied their line Wyoming
objectives between 9 and 11 June. In the I Corps zone, General Milburn sent
tank-infantry patrols up each side of the Iron Triangle on 13 June to
investigate P'yonggang at its apex. The patrols met no resistance en route and
found P'yonggang deserted. The Chinese defenders of the triangle had taken up
positions in commanding ground northeast and northwest of the town. IX Corps
forces reconnoitering northeast of Kumhwa located Chinese defenses below the
town of Kumsong. Rimmed on the north by Chinese and on the south by the I and IX
Corps, the coveted road complex in the Iron Triangle
area now lay largely unusable in no-man'sland.11
East of the Hwach'on Reservoir, North
Korean forces opposing the X Corps advance gage ground even more grudgingly than
the Chinese in the Iron Triangle. It was the end of May before the 1st Marine
Division captured Yanggu and longer before other corps forces completed mop-up
operations in the ground east of Inje and Hyon-ni. Two regiments of marines
moved north of Yanggu on 1 June, but only on the 4th could General Almond open a
coordinated attack by the 1st Marine Division and ROK 5th Division toward line
Kansas and the Punchbowl some six miles above the corps front. By that date the
ROK I Corps, advancing three divisions abreast along the east coast, had driven
through spotty resistance and occupied its line Kansas segment slanting across
the first high ridge above Route 24. Having far outdistanced the X Corps,
General Paik was obliged to refuse his inland flank in strength against the
possibility of enemy attacks from the direction of the
Punchbowl.12
The six-mile attack to the Punchbowl
involved General Almond's forces in some of the most difficult conditions of
combat. In some areas, sharply pitched axial ridges limited advances to
extremely narrow fronts; in others, repetitions of steep transverse ridges
forced assault troops to make arduous climbs and
descents over and over again. The two main arterial roads, through the Sochon
River valley in the west and the Soyang River valley in the east, were heavily
mined. Other access roads-the few that existed-winding through the mountains
were narrow and required substantial engineering work before supply trucks could
use them. Spates of rain frequently caused landslides that blocked the roads or
so slickened them that trucks skidded off at hairpin turns. From time to time
the rain and fog limited air support and observation. Most difficult of all were
the North Korean defenders. They were in well organized fortified positions on
every ridge; they gave no ground voluntarily; and, after losing a position, they
counterattacked quickly in an attempt to regain it.13
On 8 June General Almond widened his
attack, inserting a regiment of the ROK 7th Division on the left to clear the
ground above the eastern half of the Hwach'on Reservoir while the 1st Marine
Division concentrated on taking the lower lip of the Punchbowl and the segment
of line Kansas astride the Sochon River valley to the southwest. Accordingly,
General Thomas, the Marine division commander, committed his reserves on the 9th
so that he had four regiments in the attack. First to slug through the bitter
North Korean resistance was the regiment of the ROK 7th Division, which reached
line Kansas on 10 June. The marines and ROK 5th Division took a week longer to
gain full possession of their objectives.14
Marines Advance in the Yanggu Area
With the seizure of line Wyoming and the
adjusted segment of line Kansas in the east, the Eighth Army had reached its
allowed limit of general advance in support of efforts to open cease-fire
negotiations. As yet there had been no clear sign that Chinese and North Korean
authorities favored that kind of resolution, but there had been a search for a
way to open armistice talks, and with some result.
Armistice Negotiations
The Search for a Beginning
When, in mid-May, President Truman
formalized the policy of ending hostilities under appropriate cease-fire
arrangements, he and his advisers eschewed any
attempt to open negotiations through a direct appeal to Chinese and North Korean
authorities lest they interpret the initiative as indicating weakness and refuse
to talk. Enemy forces, after all, were then on the offensive and beginning to
make inroads through Eighth Army lines in the east central sector. The chosen
approach was to try to draw an offer to negotiate from the other side by keeping
sufficient pressure on enemy forces to convince their leaders that they could
not win and by indicating U.S. and U.N. willingness to end hostilities near the
prewar border between North and South Korea. Secretary of Defense Marshall, testifying on 8 and 9 May during
the MacArthur hearings, had been asked how he visualized the war would be ended.
"If it goes on in the manner that it has for the last 2 months, and particularly
in the last two weeks," he replied, with reference to losses suffered by enemy
forces during April offensive, "it would appear that the trained fabric of the
Chinese Communist forces will be pretty well torn to pieces . . . if we destroy
their best-trained armies as we have been in the process of doing, then, it
seems to me, you develop the best probability of reaching a satisfactory
negotiatory basis with those Chinese Communist forces."15 While not specifically designed
for the purpose, the Eighth Army's stand against the enemy's May offensive and
its subsequent counteroffensive had suited the approach adopted to get armistice
negotiations under way.
By both coincidence and design, indications
of U.S. and U.N. willingness to negotiate came from officials in several forums.
On the day President Truman approved the new policy, Senator Edwin C. Johnson,
Democrat of Colorado, proposed to the Senate that it ask the United Nations to
call on all belligerent nations to declare a cease-fire at 0400 on 25 June, the
exact hour and date of the war's anniversary. He also proposed that U.N. forces
withdraw south of the 38th parallel beforehand. The Senate took no action, but
the Indian delegate to the United Nations, Sir Bengal N. Rau, spoke to the
General Assembly the following day in response to Senator Johnson's proposal. He
urged his colleagues to consider General Ridgway's 12
March statement that it would be a victory for the United Nations if the war
ended with U.N. forces in control of all territory in Korea up to the 38th
parallel. In Moscow, Pravda on 20 May played up Senator Johnson's
recommendations as a sign that the United States was growing tired of the
war.16
Lester B. Pearson, Canada's secretary of
state for external affairs, defined the U.N. objective in Korea in a speech
broadcast on 26 May during the U.N. radio program, "The Price of Peace." The
objective, Pearson emphasized, was not the complete capitulation of the enemy
but solely the defeat of aggression against South Korea. U.N. Secretary General
Trygve Lie reinforced Pearson's point while speaking to the U.N. Association of
Canada in Ottawa on 1 June. "If a cease-fire could be arranged approximately
along the 38th parallel," Lie asserted, "then the main purpose of the security
council resolutions of June 25th and 27th and July 7th will be fulfilled,
provided that a cease-fire is followed by the restoration of peace and security
in the area." On the same day and the one following, Secretary of State Dean
Acheson authoritatively stated the U.S. position in testimony at the MacArthur
hearings. A cease-fire at or near the 38th parallel, provided its arrangements
supplied reliable assurances that hostilities would not be resumed, he said,
would "accomplish the military purposes in Korea."17
Seeking a response to the indications being
given, State Department officials meanwhile "cast about like a pack of hounds
searching for a scent."18
Contacts with Soviet figures at the United
Nations and in Paris proved fruitless. Another official made himself available
for contacts in Hong Kong, but with no success. Sweden's delegate to the United
Nations announced on 23 May that a Soviet source two weeks earlier had indicated
the war might be ended if the prewar border between North and South Korea was
reestablished; but Jacob Malik, the Soviet delegate to the United Nations,
declared that the report was completely groundless.19
Still, it was Malik who provided the first
positive response. At Secretary Acheson's request and with President Truman's
approval, George F. Kennan, a State Department official with a profound
background in U.S.-Soviet relations, although at the time on leave of absence
from the department, succeeded in arranging a private meeting with Malik at the
latter's summer home on Long Island. Kennan's purposes were to make sure that
the U.S. desire for a cease-fire as soon as possible was absolutely clear to the
Soviets and to obtain Moscow's views and suggestions. As Kennan prepared to meet
with Malik on 31 May, Secretary Acheson sent word of the coming event through
the joint Chiefs of Staff to General Ridgway so that he could prepare to advise
on relevant military matters and to take any required action in Korea. In
response to both Acheson's message and the 1 June directive from the joint
Chiefs, Ridgway asked General Van Fleet to recommend the best location for the
Eighth Army during a cease-fire, based not on
political implications but on purely military
considerations."20
When Kennan raised the cease-fire subject
at the 31 May meeting, Malik predictably avoided answering but agreed to meet
again after he had considered the matter; that is, after he had checked with
Moscow. The two met again on 5 June. The Soviet government, Malik said, wanted a
peaceful solution in Korea as soon as possible but could not appropriately take
part in cease-fire negotiations. His personal advice to Kennan was that American
authorities should approach their Chinese and North Korean
counterparts.21
On the day of the second Kennan-Malik
meeting, representatives of all U.N. countries with forces in Korea met in
Washington to consider the U.S. position. Giving some thought to offering
another cease-fire proposal to enemy authorities, they elected instead to make
the American position known to Premier Mao Tse-tung and Foreign Minister Chou
En-lai through neutral diplomats in Peking. This the diplomats did in mid June,
but there was no direct response. Reaching London from Peking were reports that
Chinese publications were reviving Mao's 1937 statement that "a true
revolutionary leader must be adept at making himself and his followers advance
and change their views according to changing circumstances." Some Britons
interpreted this revival as evidence of Chinese preparations for a truce in
Korea, but no other Chinese behavior supported such an interpretation. For
example, when the departing Swedish ambassador to Peking made
a farewell call on Chou En-lai and asked if there was
anything he could report to his government or the United Nations about Korea,
the Chinese foreign minister "replied with an irrelevancy about the
weather."22
Thus, by mid June, the only positive
development in the search for a beginning was Malik's answer to Kennan.
U. S. officials had no doubt that Malik's statement
was authentic, but, in the words of Secretary Acheson, it had "a sibylline
quality which left us wondering what portended and what we should do
next."23
The Question
of Future Operations
In a different, yet related, context, what
to do next had also become a large question for General Van Fleet as the Eighth
Army moved to its limit of advance along lines Kansas and Wyoming. Although he
said nothing publicly until much later, he was particularly displeased by
General Ridgway's disapproval of the T'ongch'on operation. Before the Senate
Committee on Armed Services after his return to the
United States for retirement in early 1953, he testified that enemy forces in
June 1951 were badly hurt, out of supplies, and in a panic and that he believed
he could have won a decisive, if not complete, victory had he been permitted to
continue his offensive.24
But within the limits that had been imposed
on him by General Ridgway, Van Fleet saw distinct advantages in conducting
future operations along and from the Kansas and Wyoming lines. In a 9 June reply
to Ridgway's earlier request for an estimate of the
situation and recommendations for operations over the next sixty days, he stated
his belief that, despite the severe punishment enemy forces had absorbed during
April and May, they would recover sufficiently during the next two months to
launch at least one major offensive. This probability made a strong defense
mandatory, and the best place to develop it, in Van Fleet's judgment, was along
the Kansas-Wyoming trace. To begin with, even if he was authorized to occupy a
more northern line, the next terrain permitting a strong line of resistance
across the entire peninsula and allowing the Eighth Army to man it in sufficient
strength lay as much as seventy-five miles above the 38th parallel. Advancing
that far could cost the Eighth Army considerable casualties. Using a more
northern line also would shorten enemy lines of communication, robbing U.N. air
forces of time and opportunity to attack enemy supply movements from distant
depots. Further, Van Fleet's engineers would face monumental reconstruction work
since U.N. air and naval forces had destroyed or damaged important bridges, rail
lines, roads, and communications centers throughout North Korea. In any case,
the ground along lines Kansas and Wyoming was well suited for defense and was
backed up by a road net that would allow adequate logistical
support.25
Van Fleet
offered General Ridgway several plans for limited offensive action to keep enemy
forces off balance, three of which he proposed to execute immediately after the
Eighth Army reached the Kansas and Wyoming lines. Each of the three called for a
raid on enemy troops and supplies within a specific area. In the west, a
division was to hit Kaesong, the ancient capital of Korea on Route 1 some ten
miles above the Imjin. In the central region, an armored task force was to
attack P'yonggang at the apex of the Iron Triangle. In a more ambitious move,
the 1st Marine Division was to make an amphibious landing at T'ongch'on and
attack southwest over Route 17 to regain Eighth Army lines at Kumhwa. Ridgway
agreed with Van Fleet's concept of holding the Eighth Army along the
Kansas-Wyoming front and punishing enemy forces with limited attacks but turned
down the 1st Marine Division operation, presumably for the same reasons he had
refused Van Fleet's earlier T'ongch'on landing proposal. He approved the other
attack plans, but they were to be executed only if intelligence confirmed that
remunerative targets existed in the Kaesong and P'yonggang
areas.26
In responding on the same day to Ridgway's
subsequent request for recommendations on the best location for the Eighth Army
during a cease-fire, Van Fleet assumed that enemy forces would violate the terms
of an armistice by improving their offensive capability and renewing operations
without warning. On the basis of this assumption, he recommended line Kansas because of its suitability for a strong
defense. Besides the other disadvantages he foresaw in establishing a defense
line farther north, he anticipated that during a cease-fire the Eighth Army
would inherit immense problems of civil relief and military government in areas
the enemy had denuded of food and young manpower. In recommending line Kansas to
Ridgway, however, he pointed out that since a cease-fire agreement might require
opposing forces to withdraw several miles from the line of contact to create a
buffer zone, the Eighth Army must be well forward of Kansas at the time an
agreement was reached.27
Ridgway agreed that line Kansas would be
the best location for the Eighth Army if armistice negotiations started soon and
assured Van Fleet that if possible he would advise him of forthcoming
negotiations in time to allow him to move at least part of his forces to a line
of contact twenty miles above Kansas. At the same time, since remaining behind a
self-imposed line could prove exceedingly costly if enemy authorities refused to
negotiate or if they protracted negotiations while they prepared a major
offensive, Ridgway directed his own planning staff to explore, as a long range
matter, the feasibility and possible profits of penetrating more deeply into
North Korea. The staff considered various schemes of maneuver, selecting
objective lines on the basis of whether they could be held as cease-fire lines
and weighing in particular the logistical problems that would attend advancing
to them. Of several concepts developed, Ridgway favored one posing a three-phase offensive
to occupy the P'yongyang-Wonsan line. The first phase called for an advance on
Wonsan in two columns, one moving up the east coast road, the other over the
Seoul-Wonsan axis. In the second step, an amphibious force was to land at Wonsan
to assist the overland advance. In the finale, Eighth Army forces were to drive
northwestward and seize P'yongyang. Ridgway passed the outline to Van Fleet and
instructed him to submit detailed plans for the operation by 10
July.28
The Joint Chiefs of Staff meanwhile had
taken Ridgway's recent evaluations of enemy forces as reason to consider
revising their 1 June directive. Two weeks after telling them that the Chinese
and North Koreans over the next two months could assemble no force greater than
that which the Eighth Army already had defeated twice, Ridgway on 14 June
reported that "enemy lines of communications are overextended [and] his supply
situation is aggravated by heavy rainfall and air interdiction." These and other
encouraging reports convinced the joint Chiefs that it might be wise to remove
all restrictions on Ridgway's freedom to exploit these conditions.29
Wanting further justification before taking
this step, the joint Chiefs on 20 June asked Ridgway to inform them how an
advance into North Korea would affect U.N. Command air operations, whether such
an advance would increase the effectiveness of enemy
air operations, and how logistics would be affected if his lines of
communication were lengthened. Ridgway agreed immediately to the proposed
removal of restrictions but deferred commenting on the effects of a general
offensive until General Van Fleet had completed plans for advancing to the
P'yongyang-Wonsan line.30
Negotiations Begin
On 22 June the U.S. State Department's
Voice of America urged Jacob Malik to heed Trygvy Lie's appeal made in Ottawa at
the beginning of the month and "say the one word the whole world is waiting
for." The next day Malik said the word during a fifteen-minute recorded speech
broadcast on the U.N. "Price of Peace" program. After spending most of his time
blaming the United States for the war, Malik closed with the announcement that
the Soviets believed the conflict could be settled and that, as a first step,
the belligerents should start discussions to arrange a cease-fire and an
armistice that provided for the mutual withdrawal of forces from the 38th
parallel. He refused to elaborate on his speech thereafter, even claiming
illness on 25 June when Nasrollah Entezam, the Iranian president of the U.N.
General Assembly, attempted to see him to get more details. On 4 July Malik
sailed from New York for home.31
The immediate American reaction to Malik's
statement was largely skeptical. State Department officials advised General Ridgway
that the proposal might be only an attempt to get UNC troops away from the 38th
parallel and, further, that intelligence reports in Washington gave no
indication of Chinese and North Korean readiness to stop fighting, but quite the
contrary. Ridgway himself reminded his principal subordinates of "the
well-earned reputation for duplicity and dishonesty possessed by the USSR" and
of "the slowness with which deliberative bodies such as the security council
produce positive action" and insisted that they ward off any relaxation by their
commands.32
Following the joint decision of
Generals Ridgway and Van Fleet that line Kansas would be the best location for the Eighth Army during a cease-fire, Ridgway had had his planning staff plot an outpost line ten miles above Kansas and a "cease-fire" line another ten miles forward. By occupying the deeper line the Eighth Army would be able to make a
ten-mile withdrawal from the line of contact- a
withdrawal that an armistice agreement might require-
and still retain its Kansas positions and a suitable
outpost line of resistance. Although somewhat skeptical of the Malik proposal, Ridgway on 25 June sent a staff officer to Korea to get Van Fleet's views on seizing the proposed cease-fire line. Van Fleet some two weeks earlier had considered such an Eighth Army advance
essential, but now, in view of the recent hard
fighting to reach the Iron Triangle and the
Punchbowl, he voted against the deeper move as
potentially too costly. On the following day
Ridgway went to Korea, where after further discussing
the matter with Van Fleet he agreed that while a deep advance was tactically and
logistically feasible, the price would not be worth the results.33
In Moscow, Pravda and Izvestia, the party and
government newspapers, respectively, put an official stamp on Malik's statement
by publishing its full text on 24 June. In China, the authoritative Peking paper
Jen Min Jih Pao (People's Daily) endorsed the proposal on the 25th, and Peking radio followed suit
the next day, but with conditions. Although "the Chinese people fully endorse"
the Malik statement, Peking radio announced, the United States had to accept the
peace proposals "repeatedly" made by China and the Soviet Union, proposals which
included the withdrawal of all UNC troops from Korea, the return of Formosa to
Red China, and the seating of Red China in the United Nations.
Malik had included no such demands in his
proposal, but the question arose whether the Soviet position was indeed the same
as that reported by Peking radio. On 27 June, Alan G. Kirk, U.S. ambassador to
Moscow, sought out Duputy Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko for an answer.
Gromyko asserted that the Soviet government had no knowledge of Peking's view of
the Malik proposal but advised that the armistice envisaged by the Soviets would
include a cease-fire and would be limited to strictly military questions and not
deal with political or territoral matters. Further, military representatives of
the United Nations and South Korean commands on the one hand and of the North
Korean command and "Chinese volunteer units" on the other should negotiate the
armistice. Subsequent special arrangements, Gromyko added, should be made for a
political and territorial settlement.35
By 30 June there had been no further
comment from the Chinese, and the only North Korean "response" had been a 27
June P'yongyang radio change of propaganda slogan from "drive the enemy into the
sea" to "drive the enemy to the 38th parallel." But after Gromyko's confirmation
and explanation of the Malik proposal, the U.N. legal counsel quickly ruled that
the United States could conclude an armistice without further authorization or
instructions from the U.N. Security Council or General Assembly. With the
ambassadors of all U.N. nations with forces in Korea giving him their approval
to proceed, President Truman authorized General Ridgway to tender a direct offer
to negotiations. U.S. military authorities were not enthusiastic about being
given responsibility for conducting armistice discussions, but there were strong
reasons for doing so: (1) the United States did not officially recognize Chinese
or North Korean authorities, (2) the talks were to shun political matters, (3)
the prospect of negotiations was directly related to conditions on the
battlefield, and (4) China accepted no responsibility for the Chinese "volunteer" forces in Korea, but their commander could
speak for them.36
As instructed by the joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Ridgway broadcast the offer from Tokyo at 0800 on 30 June, addressing it
to the "Commander in Chief, Communist Forces in Korea" and using a prescribed
text:
As Commander in Chief of the
United Nations Command I have been instructed to communicate to you the
following:
I am informed that you may wish a
meeting to discuss an armistice providing for the cessation of hostilities and
all acts of armed force in Korea, with adequate guarantees for. the maintenance
of such armistice.
Upon the receipt of word from you
that such a meeting is desired I shall be prepared to name my representative. I
would also at that time suggest a date at which he could meet with your
representative. I propose that such a meeting could take pace aboard a Danish
hospital ship in Wonsan Harbor.
(Signed) M B Ridgway, General, U.S.
Army
Commander in Chief
United Nations Command
Both Peking radio and P'yongyang radio
broke into regular broadcasts late on the following day with a joint reply from
Premier Kim Il Sung as supreme commander of the North Korean People's Army and
Peng Teh-huai as commander of the Chinese volunteer forces. They agreed to a
meeting of representatives for "talks concerning cessation of military action
and establishment of peace" but preferred to meet at Kaesong and proposed that the talks begin between 10
and 15 July. Ridgway accepted Kaesong as the meeting site but urged an earlier
start so as not to "prolong the fighting and increase the losses" and offered to
send a three-man liaison team to Kaesong on 5 July or soon thereafter to arrange
for the actual negotiations. He agreed to a return proposal for an 8 July
preliminary meeting. Conducting themselves with strict formality when they met
on the 8th, the two liaison teams had no serious difficulty in reaching
agreement to open negotiations on 10 July.37
The New Dimensions of Battle
As armistice negotiations opened on the
10th, the opposing ground forces were almost even in numbers, the Eighth Army
totaling about 554,500, the Chinese People's
Volunteers and North Korean People's Army some
569,200. New units had recently joined each side. Now a part of the Eighth Army
was an infantry battalion from Colombia which had arrived in Korea on 15 June
and was training at the U.N. Reception Center. Colombia would be the last U.N.
member nation to contribute ground combat forces to the U.N.
Command.38 With the addition of the Colombian unit, the Eighth Army
consisted of four corps, seventeen divisions, four brigades, one separate
regiment, and nine separate battalions. Among enemy
formations, periodic inactivations of units to obtain replacements for others
had reduced the North Korean Army to seven corps, twentythree divisions, and two
brigades, while reinforcements had raised Chinese forces to five army groups,
seventeen armies, and fifty-one divisions. As Eighth Army intelligence suspected
but had not yet confirmed, the Chinese XX Army Group with two armies, the 67th
and 68th,
had entered Korea in May and June and assembled
for further training at Yangdok, the centrally located town on the lateral
P'yongyangWonsan road. In addition, the 50th Army,
which had returned to Manchuria for
reorganization in March, reentered Korea during the first week of July. That
army, too, remained deep in North Korea.39
3d Infantry Division Troops in the Sobang Hills
Chinese and North Korean casualties by 10 July had reached an enormous figure.
Estimates of the total varied, but all were
close to 1 million. Of these, Eighth Army prisoner of war compounds held about
163,000, more than 85 percent of whom were North Koreans. The remaining
casualties were almost evenly divided between Chinese and North Koreans. U.N.
Command losses after a year of fighting stood near 294,000. South Korean
casualties had mounted to 212,500, American losses to around 77,000, and losses
among other U.N. units to about 4,500. Army forces had suffered by far most of
the American casualties: 11,327 killed outright; 42,925 wounded or injured in action,
of whom 1,075 later died; 6,088 captured, of whom 2,583 eventually died in
captivity; and 3,979 recorded as missing in action, of whom 3,323 later were declared dead either on direct evidence or under
the provisions of the Missing Persons Act of 1942. Thus, out of a total of
64,319 Army casualties chargeable to the first year of the war, deaths numbered
18,308.40
As the first armistice conference convened,
combat operations continued as the diminished pace
that had set in after the Eighth Army ended its
general advance at lines Kansas and Wyoming. Since that time, Eighth Army forces
had conducted only extensive patrolling and a few limited attacks, the two
largest an unsuccessful attempt in the X Corps sector to establish an outpost on
the western rim of the Punchbowl and a successful attempt in the I Corps sector
to clear the Iron Triangle of Chinese who after mid June had crept back into the
Sobang Hills, an island of mountains within the triangle. Otherwise, Eighth Army
was preoccupied with developing defenses along the Kansas and Wyoming lines. (See Map 37.) As directed by General Van
Fleet on 1 June, line Kansas was being organized
as the main line of resistance with defensive positions arranged in depth and
elaborately fortified. Forces deployed on the looping Wyoming line were
developing hasty field fortifications from which to delay and blunt the force of
enemy attacks before withdrawing to assigned main line positions. To deepen the
defense further, patrol bases were being established ahead of the KansasWyoming
front on terrain features dominating logical enemy approach routes. To prevent
enemy agents reconnoitering Eighth Army defenses from mingling with local farm
folk, the battle area was being cleared of Korean civilians from five miles
behind line Kansas northward to the line of patrol bases.41
Lending haste to the preparation of
defenses was an expectation that the Chinese and North Koreans would use the
respite from Eighth Army pressure to rehabilitate their units and reconstitute
an attack force quickly. Familiar signs of enemy attack preparations had
appeared: main forces were off the line for refitting; screening forces on the
periphery of the Kansas-Wyoming trace vigorously opposed the Eighth Army's
ground reconnaissance; supplies were moved into forward dumps; and some captives
mentioned a forthcoming "Sixth Phase Offensive." By early July the Eighth Army
intelligence officer was predicting an enemy offensive anytime after midmonth.
He revised his estimate after armistice negotiations started, predicting then
that there would be no enemy attack unless the negotiations failed, but he expected a continuation of enemy
offensive preparations.42
The Eighth Army estimate overrated the
ability of enemy forces to recover from their recent defeat. As armistice
negotiations began, both the Chinese and North Koreans- especially the Chinese-
remained occupied with restoring units shattered over the past three months,
most of which had moved far to the north to reorganize, and reequip. The
immensity of the problem of refitting them was indicated in estimates placing
enemy casualties suffered in April, May, and June above two hundred thousand and
in visible battlefield evidence of tremendous losses in weapons and equipment.
The size of the problem was also implicit in the 1 July response of Kim Il Sung
and Peng Teh-huai to General Ridgway's offer to negotiate: "We agree to suspend
military activities [during the course of negotiations]." Indeed, the Chinese
and North Koreans needed only to consider the failures and heavy costs of their
April and May attacks to realize that they could no longer conduct offensive
operations successfully against the Eighth Army. This realization became evident
when they agreed to enter into armistice negotiations without mentioning the
conditions that Chinese authorities earlier had insisted
upon.43
From a purely tactical standpoint, the
ceasefire during negotiations proposed by Kim Il Sung and Peng Teh-huai was
unacceptable to General Ridgway because he would not be able to employ air and
ground reconnaissance to check on enemy activity, in particular on any
preparation for major offensive operations. Beyond that, Ridgway had his 1 June
instructions from the joint Chiefs, confirmed on 10 July, to conduct operations
primarily designed to create conditions favorable to concluding an armistice. As
Army Chief of Staff Collins wrote later, the main purpose of U.N. Command
operations was "to keep pressure on the enemy . . . in order to force an
agreement that would end the fighting."44 Admiral C. Turner
Joy, commander of Naval Forces, Far East, whom Ridgway appointed as chief of the
U.N. Command armistice delegation, set the matter straight at the first conference
when he announced that hostilities would
continue until an armistice agreement was reached. Given the prospect of a
unilateral ceasefire, the enemy delegation had no choice but to
agree.45
The Kaesong Armistice Conference Site
In applying pressure, U.N. naval surface
forces would continue to blockade both North Korean coasts and keep enemy shore
installations under bombardment. U.N. air forces already were engaged in Operation STRANGLE, a campaign of concentrated
interdictory attacks on major roads in a one-degree latitudinal belt across the
peninsula just above the battle line, and on 13 July General Ridgway directed
General Otto P. Weyland, the new Far East Air Forces commander, to exploit the
full capacity of his command to punish the enemy.46 General Weyland
ordered the Fifth Air Force to increase fighter and light bomber attacks on
enemy troops, vehicles, supplies, and installations. Within a week Weyland's
staff developed plans for a massive air attack on P'yongyang to destroy troops
and supply stocks concentrated in the North Korean capital city area and to
impress upon the North Korean government the prudence of concluding an armistice
quickly.47
As of 10 July General Ridgway was free to
continue ground operations as he saw fit: on that date the joint Chiefs of Staff
lifted both the limit of general advance previously placed on the Eighth Army
and the requirement that major offensive action have their prior approval.
Ridgway had in hand at the time the plan he had asked General Van Fleet to
prepare for an advance to the PyongyangWonsan line. In Plan OVERWHELMING, Van Fleet tentatively set
1 September as the date for opening the operation. But in forwarding the plan to
Ridgway he repeated his earlier conclusion that he could best accomplish his
mission of inflicting losses on enemy forces from his Kansas-Wyoming positions and recommended that the Eighth Army not carry
out the plan unless by 1 September there had been a major deterioration of enemy
forces, a change in mission requiring the seizure of territorial objectives, or
an allocation of additional forces to the Eighth Army sufficient to ensure the
success of the offensive.48
Ridgway shelved the plan, not because of
Van Fleet's recommendations but out of the possibility that the two armistice
delegations would reach agreement in the near future. He and "ground commanders
of all ranks," he wrote later, "hesitated to fight for ground that an early
armistice might require them to relinquish" in order to conform to an
agreed-upon line of demarcation. But more than that, he said, "it seemed to me,
with a cease-fire faintly visible on the horizon, that I should do all I could
to keep our losses at a justifiable minimum." He consequently elected to conduct
no major offensive but to "retain the initiative through the use of strong
patrols and local attacks."49
Thus, there was to be no great ground
pressure to help persuade enemy authorities to conclude an early armistice. And
without that pressure, neither would there be an early armistice.50
Ridgway's decision, in any case, set the tempo of future U.N. Command ground
operations. Indeed, the ebb and flow of battle had already subsided, and the
fighting would not again take on the scale and momentum of the war's first year.
Notes
1 For more detailed coverage of events described in this
section, see Schnabel, Policy and Direction, pp. 382-85, 390-93; Collins, War in Peacetime, pp.
298, 302-05; Ridgway, The Korean War, pp.
168-69; Rees, Korea: The Limited War, pp.
223-27, 264-83; Truman, Years of Trial and
Hope, p. 456. Unless otherwise noted, this
section is based on the above sources.
2 Rads, JCS 88950 and JCS
90000, JCS to CINCFE, 19 Apr and 1 May 51, respectively.
3 Rad, C 62088, CINCFE to DA
for JCS, 9 May 51; Rad, JCS 90999, JCS to CINCFE, 12 May 51.
4 MacArthur Hearings, p. 68.
5 Rad, JCS 92831, JCS to
CINCFE, 1 Jun 51.
6 Ibid.
7 Rad, C 63744, CINCFE for
JCS, 30 May 51.
8 Ibid.
9 I Corps Opn O 7, 28 May 51;
IX Corps Opn O 22, 28 May 51.
10 I Corps Comd Rpt, Nar, May
51; IX Corps Comd Rpt, Nar, May 51; Tech Rpt, Weather Effect on Army Operations: Weather in the Korean
Conflict, vol. II, ch. XIV, "Operation
Piledriver."
11 I Corps Comd Rpt, Nar, Jun
51; IX Corps Comd Rpt, Nar, Jun 51.
12 X Corps Special Rpt, "Battle of the Soyang River";
Montross, Kuokka, and Hicks, The East-Central Front, pp. 133, 141; Rad, X
19979, CG X Corps to CG Eighth Army, 3 Jun 51; Rads F747 and F521, ROK I Corps
to Eihth Army, 28 May and 4 Jun 51, respectively; Eighth Army Comd Rpt, Nar, Jun
51.
13 See Montross, Kuokka, and Hicks, The East-Central
Front, ch. VII, "Advance to the Punchbowl."
14 Ibid.; X Corps Comd Rpt, Nar, Jun 51; Eighth Army Comd
Rpt, Nar, Jun 51.
15 MacArthur Hearings, pp. 365, 430.
16 New York Times Index, 1951, p. 565;
Facts on File, 1951, p. 162.
17 Rees, Korea: The Limited
War, pp. 261-62; United Nations
Bulletin, vol. 10 (15 June 1951), p. 559; MacArthur Hearings, p. 1782.
18 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 532.
19 Ibid.; Facts on File,
1951, pp. 162, 169.
20 Acheson, Present at the
Creation, pp. 532-33; Ltr, Gen Van Fleet to CINCUNC, 9 Jun 51, sub:
Location of EUSAK During a CEASEFIRE (Military viewpoint).
21 Acheson, Present at the
Creation, p. 533.
22 Leckie, Conflict: The History of the Korean War, 1950-1953, p. 293; Poats, Decision in Korea, pp. 200-201; Facts on
File, 1951, pp. 185, 193-94.
23 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 533.
24 U.S. Congress, Senate,
Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services:
Ammunition Supplies in the Far East, 83d Cong.,
1st sess., 5 March 1953, pp. 31-32 (hereafter cited as Van Fleet Hearings).
25 Ltr, Gen Van Fleet to
CINCFE, 9 Jun 51, sub: EUSAK Operations During Period 10 June-10 August 1951;
Eighth Army G3 SS Rpt, Jun 51.
26 Ltr, Gen Van Fleet to
CINCFE, 9 Jun 51, sub: EUSAK Operations During Period 10 Jun-10 Aug 51; Rad, CX
64976, CINCFE to DA for JCS, 14 Jun 51.
27 Ltr, Gen Van Fleet to
CINCUNC, 9 Jun 51, sub: Location of EUSAK During a CEASE-FIRE (Military
viewpoint); Eighth Army G3 SS Rpt, Jun 51.
28 GHQ, FEC JCPOG Staff Study
9 Jun 51 ; GHQ FEC, Memo, SGS for CofS, 13 Jun 51; Ltr, CINCFE to CG Eighth
Army, 19 Jun 51, sub: Planning Directive; Ltr, Gen Ridgway to Gen Van Fleet, 22
Jun 51, sub: Location of EUSAK During a Cease-Fire.
29 Rads, C 63744 and CX 64976,
CINCFE to DA for JCS, 30 May and 14 Jun 51, respectively; Rad, JCS 94501, JCS to
CINCFE, 20 Jun 51.
30 Rad, JCS 94501, JCS to
CINCFE, 20 Jun 51; Rad, C 65529, CINCFE to JCS, 22 Jun 51.
31 Poats, Decision in
Korea, p. 201; Facts on File, 1951, pp. 201-02, 218.
32 Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 533; Facts on File, 1951, p. 202; Rad, CX 65667, CINCFE
to CG Eighth Army, 24 Jun 51.
33 Ltr, Gen Ridgway to Gen Van
Fleet, 22 Jun 51, sub: Location of EUSAK During a
Cease-Fire; Ridgway, The Korean War,
pp. 181-82; Collins, War in
Peacetime, p. 309; Schnabel, Policy
and Direction, p. 403; Van Fleet Hearings, p. 651.
34 Facts on File,
1951, pp. 201-02; Leckie, Conflict: The
History of the Korean War, 1950-53, p. 294.
35 Poats, Decision in
Korea, p. 202; Acheson, Present at the
Creation, p. 533; Facts on File,
1951, p. 202; Dept of State Bulletin, 9 July
1951, p. 45.
36 Facts on File,
1951, p. 202; Goodrich, Korea: A Study
of U. S. Policy in
the United Nations, pp. 183-84; Acheson,
Present at the Creation, pp. 533-34.
37 Facts on File, 1951,
pp. 209-10; Goodrich, Korea: A Study of U. S. Policy in the United Nations,
p. 184; Schnabel, Policy and Direction,
pp. 403-04; Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front, pp. 15-21.
38 Also arriving in June from
the United Kingdom were the headquarters and service units of what would be the
1st Commonwealth Division. When eventually formed in late July 1951, the
division would include the Canadian 25th, British Commonwealth 28th, and British
29th Brigades.
39 Summary, ROK and U.N.
Ground Forces Strength in Korea, 31 Jul 50-31 Jul 53; Eighth Army G2 Estimate of
Enemy Strength and Locations, 1 Jul 51; Fox, "Inter-Allied Co-operation During
Combat Operations"; Hq, USAFFE, Intel Dig, no. 96, 16-28 Feb 53, and no. 115,
1-15 Feb 53.
40 Facts on File,
1951, pp. 193, 202-03, 218, 234; Mono, Hq, USARPAC, Military History
Office, "The Handling of Prisoners of War," Jun 60; Battle Casualties of the
Army, Office, Asst Chief of Staff, G1, DA, 31 Mar 54.
41 LOI, Gen Van Fleet to CGs
I, IX, and X Corps and to CG ROK I Corps, both 1 Jun 51; Eighth Army Comd Rpts,
Nar, Jun and Jul 51.
42 Rad, CX 65365, CINCUNC to
DEPTAR, 4 Jul 51; Eighth Army G2 SS Rpt, Jul 51.
43 Hq, USAFFE, Intel Dig, no.
1, 1-31 Dec 52, no. 96, 16-28 Feb 53, no. 99, 16-31 Jan 53, and no. 115, 1-15
Feb 53; Hq, FEC, History of the North Korean Army, 31 Jul 52; Rees, Korea:
The Limited War, p. 258; Rad, CX 66183, CINCFE to DA for JCS, 1 Jul
51.
44 Collins, War in
Peacetime, p. 306.
45 Rad, CX 66188, CINCFE to DA for JCS, 2 Jul 51; Rad, JCS 92831, JCS to
CINCUNC, 1 Jun 51; Rad, JCS 95977, JCS to CINCFE, 10 Jul 51; Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front, p. 23.
46 General Weyland replaced General Stratemeyer in June
after the latter suffered a heart attack and, following hospitalization,
returned to the United States.
47 Field, History of United
States Naval Operations, Korea, pp. 35058; Cagle and Manson, The Sea War
in Korea, p. 241; Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, pp. 400,
403.
48 Rad, JCS 59577, JCS to
CINCUNC, 10 Jul 51; Ltr, Gen Van Fleet to CINCFE, 5 Jul 51, sub: Advance Beyond
KANSAS-WYOMING Line.
49 Ridgway, The Korean War,
pp. 182-93, 187.
50 For an analysis dealing in
part with this possibility, see MS, Edwin Augustus Deagle, Jr., The Agony of
Restraint: Korea, 1951-1953, copy in CMH.
Causes of the Korean Tragedy ... Failure of Leadership, Intelligence and Preparation
