“The Forgotten War”
The Partition of Korea
A Brief Primer on Infantry Units (Optional)
NKPA Blitzkrieg
Initial American Response
The Pusan Perimeter
The 1st MarDiv Is Reconstituted
“The Forgotten War”
The Korean War is nearly forgotten now. I believe that if you were to ask an average American to name our most traumatic wars of the 20th Century, most would omit Korea. I think there are three main reasons for this.
The first reason is that the Korean War was relatively short. The war began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. Fighting ceased on July 27, 1953, when an armistice agreement was signed at Panmunjom. The most active warfare was finished by May 1951, however, after which the war essentially became a stalemate. Stalemate does not generate a lot of newspaper headlines or exciting events for newsreel footage.
The Korean War was not even called a “war” at the time. At a news conference on June 29, 1950, President Truman labeled it a “police action,” as it was “an undeclared military action (*), conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.” To me, this means that the politicians – persons worthy of suspicion then as now – considered North Korean invasion of South Korea not be an act of war – which it clearly was – but merely some sort of criminal act requiring “police action.” This diminishes the value the service of the veterans who served there. War is existential, police action is administrative. The Department of Veterans Affairs still does not call it a “war.” To qualify for certain Veteran’s benefits, one must have served during a period of wartime, as defined by Federal law. World War I, World War II, and the Gulf War are such wartime periods. But the Korean War, while it is also considered to be wartime, is referred to as the “Korean Conflict.” Similarly, the Vietnam war is referred to as the “Vietnam Era.” As a Vietnam Era veteran, I sure feel valued.
(* – the first of many. The United States has not declared war against anyone since December 8, 1941, although it has fought in many wars since then.)
Second, the Korean War closely followed World War 2. It started just under five years after VJ Day. A significant number of American military men who fought in Korea were WW2 veterans. The tactics we used were largely the same as the ones used in WW2. In many ways, the Korean War seemed a bit old-fashioned. In contrast, WW2, particularly during the dark days of 1942 and 1943, was a true existential threat to much of the world.
As WW2 has receded farther back in time, it has developed an almost mythic reputation. Studs Terkel won a Pulitzer Prize with his book “The Good War.” The title of his book has become a sort of nostalgic touchstone. WW2, the last “good war” is the standard by which all subsequent wars are compared – and found lacking. Additionally, as a “good war,” the “goodness” has rubbed off on the soldiers who fought it and the men and women who managed the home front and who materially and decisively contributed to the war effort. Tom Brokaw also wrote a book, about these people, called “The Greatest Generation.” The Good War, fought by The Greatest Generation – how could any war that followed ever measure up, all things being equal? As it turned out, they never have.
The Korean War suffered in comparison with WW2. It wasn’t “impressive.” The popular myth in the United States was that we had “won” WW2. According to this myth, America had nearly singlehandedly beaten the axis powers. Eisenhower in Europe; MacArthur and Nimitz and Halsey in the Pacific. It was a heroic war of vast, dramatic battles, on an enormous canvas. In contrast, Korea was a small country in Asia. Many people then or, probably, now couldn’t locate it on a map.
The first six months of the Korean War nearly brought two huge military disasters to the United States. In the early days of the war in the summer of 1950, American troops suffered heavy losses and were very nearly driven off the Korean peninsula entirely. In December 1950, General MacArthur’s invasion of North Korea collapsed under Chinese pressure and all United Nation troops – some 200,000 in all, about 85% of which were American – had to evacuate the country. After some meaningful battles in northern South Korea drove the Chinese back in early 1951 – China had reinvaded South Korea after the collapse of MacArthur’s invasion – the war from then on was a stalemate. No one could win. After the triumph of WW2 and all the resultant good feeling and hubris, this was not appealing to Americans.
Another problem with the perception of the Korean War was that it was not technically an American war. We were one nation of about 20 or so which had troops there, legally under United Nations command. The fact that the UN delegated operational command to American generals, and that American troops comprised a very large majority of the UN forces, did not ameliorate this internationalist aspect. Remember that the early 1950s were the height of the anti-communist witchhunts, McCarthyism, and the blacklist. The UN was not viewed very favorably by wide segments of American society.
The third reason was that within less than a decade of the Panmunjom armistice, Americans were fighting and dying, admittedly in small numbers at first, in a country called Vietnam, which was even more obscure at the time than Korea had been. By 1965, the Vietnam war was raging, and the nation was watching on TV. Television was a new invention in 1950 and not many homes had them. By 1965, they were ubiquitous. The latest footage of wounded and dead American soldiers being carried off to the helicopters and the hideous “body count” numbers which expressed each day’s action in slaughterhouse statistics were viewed in nearly every home over the dinner table. (Not ours, though; my father wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t watch MASH either, when it was on years later.)
An immense and vigorous antiwar movement which opposed the draft and the war in every way sprang up. There was, if not a war, then certainly a profound struggle between the young and the old for the soul of America. This too was seen on the TV news every night. This movement got louder and stronger until the last American troop was withdrawn in 1973. Everyone who was there during that time remembers both the war and the demonstrations against it vividly, and most still have strong opinions about it.
The Korean war was almost the opposite. As I mentioned, it was not even presented as a war, but as some sort of monstrous exercise in law enforcement. People on the home front were certainly aware of it, but it was not covered in the news the way that WW2 or Vietnam were, particularly after mid-1951 when the warfare shifted from invasions and arduous battles to a stalemate situation along an increasingly immobile line. By 1952 and 1953, it became background noise. My father told me that Korean War veterans were not greeted as heroes in the same way that returning WW2 veterans had been, with parades and hometown celebrations. What recognition they got was token and pro-forma. They and their service were forgotten as fast as the war had been.
Despite being forgettable, the Korean War was brutal and costly. Approximately 36,500 Americans died there, of whom 33,700 died from combat. (Some of the rest froze to death.) Approximately 92,100 Americans were wounded and 4,800 were, and still are, missing in action. (The number killed in action has increased and the MIA number has decreased slightly over the years as bodies are still occasionally found. At rare intervals, the North Koreans will let a few westerners in to look for bodies, the last time being, I think, in 2002.) Many of the returning combatants suffered from unrecognized PTSD, my father among them. But whereas the WW2 veterans were cheered, eased back into society, and helped in so many ways – they were after all, heroes – the Korean War veterans were just expected to cope, to sink or swim. They had less of a safety net.
The war itself was murky. First of all, it never technically “ended.” The Panmunjom armistice was just that. The shooting stopped, more or less – it has never stopped entirely – but no peace agreement was ever signed. A state of war still exists on the Korean peninsula. The North Koreans in particular make a big issue about this – consider their well-publicized attempts to make reliable nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles with which to deliver them against both South Korea and the US. Even the Vietnam War ended with a peace agreement, and today relations between the two countries are normalized. But not so in Korea.
Secondly, nothing really changed on the Korean peninsula. The two separate countries are still there, each with essentially the same government they had before the war. North Korea has perhaps the most “Stalinist” regime on the planet. The “demilitarized zone” between North and South Korea, which was agreed upon as part of the armistice negotiations, was not significantly different from the old border along the 38th parallel - a few miles further north on one side, a few miles further south on the other. In effect, the Korean War accomplished nothing. The soldiers who fought there may or may not have been explicitly aware of this, but I am sure they felt it in their bones. They would feel haunted by their memories, and would have no motivation to preserve them. There were many reasons to forget; not so many to remember.
One final thought. Most modern Americans’ sole reference to the Korean War is the movie “MASH.” This was made during the Vietnam War and its sly antiwar (and antimilitary) theme very definitely applies to that war and its time. The subsequent TV series toned down on the politics but left the humor intact. It was a humorous war. Neither the movie or the series gives any real impression of what that war meant to Americans at the time – initial American defeats, then stalemate, then cessation of hostilities without victory, all with high casualty counts with no gain. “MASH” bears about as much resemblance to this brutal and ultimately purposeless war as “Hogan’s Heroes” did to real allied POWs held prisoner in Nazi POW camps.
David Halberstam, the late historian, wrote that when he was researching his book on the Korean War, “The Coldest Winter,” that he went into a public library in a town he was visiting while on a trip to Florida. On a whim, he counted the number of books about the Vietnam War. There were nearly 300. He then counted the number of books about the Korean War. There were six. It truly is “The Forgotten War.” It is also “The Misunderstood War.”
The Partition of Korea
It could be said that a primary cause of the Korean War was WW2. Japan had occupied Korea since 1910. This occupation continued until Japan’s surrender in August, 1945. Before then, during the war, at the Allied conferences at Tehran and Yalta, the Soviet Union had agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months of the German surrender. The Germans surrendered on May 8, 1945 and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945. (This was, perhaps coincidentally, the date the second atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki.) The Soviets sensed that the war was within days of ending, with or without their participation, so they invaded and began to occupy northern Korea on August 10. They wanted their piece.
Under the terms decided at these conferences, Korea was to be divided into Soviet and American occupation zones. The proposed border between zones was the 38th parallel. This kept Seoul in the American zone, but there was some doubt that the Soviets would honor it. They already had Red Army troops rapidly moving south into Korea; it would be several weeks before the Americans could get any troops there at all. Nevertheless, Stalin stayed within the agreement and halted his troops at the 38th parallel on August 16. Three weeks later, American troops met them there.
South Korea (Republic of Korea – ROK) and North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – DPRK) both came into existence as independent countries in 1948. The border between the two countries remained the 38th parallel. Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, and neither one accepted the border as permanent, nor the existence of the other as legitimate. The Soviet Union withdrew its troops from North Korea in 1948. The United States did the same from South Korea in 1949. At the outset of the Korean War, the only American military presence in South Korea was the U.S. Korean Military Assistance Group which was made up of about 500 soldiers whose job it was to train ROK troops. (Sound familiar?)
Throughout 1949 and early 1950 the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent the People’s Republic of China both participated in arming North Korea. The Soviets furnished tanks, artillery, and aircraft, and provided rigorous training. The tanks were T-34s, the same type as those which drove the best of the German panzers back 1700 miles from Stalingrad to Berlin – and destroyed most of them in the process – from 1943 through 1945. The Russian trainers were the men who drove and fought with those tanks and the men who commanded them.
During the Chinese Civil War (which ended in 1949 with Communist victory) North Korean army units had fought on the Communists’ side, becoming seasoned combat veterans themselves in the process. After the civil war ended, these units returned to North Korea and became the backbone for the North Korean army. By 1950, North Korea was militarily far superior to South Korea, both in training and in armaments. All that the ROK army had were small arms. They had no heavy weaponry, such as tanks, and few aircraft.
A Brief Primer On Infantry Units (Optional)
This is for the benefit for those here who find military terminology baffling, such as non-veterans and others who have never encountered military arcana. If you have a military background, you can skip it safely (unless you want to laugh at my hastily covered-up ignorance.)
Military unit structure is by necessity rigidly hierarchical. There is a chain of command from the leader of the smallest unit up through the most senior commander. Since the events covered in these diaries concerns infantry actions – soldiers on the ground fighting with others soldiers on the ground – this discussion pertains to infantry units. Also, the organization and structure apply to infantry units at the time of the Korean War. There may have been subsequent changes that I may be unaware of.
Company – The smallest infantry unit which has an administratively separate identity is a company. A company is the basic unit for close infantry combat. There are generally about 200 to 250 troops in an infantry company. The company commander is usually a captain, or less commonly, a first lieutenant. Companies are divided into platoons (and platoons further divided into squads) but these are not administratively separate units.
Company names consist of a word followed by two numbers. The words are short, one or two syllables, one for each letter of the alphabet. They are chosen for easy understanding over the radio or in noisy environments. (During the Korean War, the words came from the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. A different phonetic alphabet came into use a few years later.) The numbers refer to the battalion and regiment to which the company belongs. Lieutenant Owen usually referred to his company as Baker-One-Seven. Baker Company of the 1st Battalion of the 7th Regiment. I will use numerics instead to keep things a little shorter – Baker/1/ 7 or B/1/7. Company names are not repeated within a regiment. For example, 1st Battalion had Able, Baker, and Charlie Companies, 2nd Battalion had Dog, Easy, and Fox Companies, and so on.
One more thing, the Marines refer to their infantry companies as “rifle companies.”
Battalion – several companies, usually three or four, are combined together into a battalion, which generally has about 1,000 to 1,250 troops. In addition to the companies themselves, there are also battalion-level support units – engineers, logistics, administrative, and so forth. All the Marines assigned to these support units were fully-trained combat infantrymen in addition to their specialties, but these units weren’t generally involved in ground combat actions. But they can be, as we shall see at Hagaru-ri on November 28, when everyone – cooks, clerks, mechanics, whatever; every single marine – was issued a rifle and put on the perimeter to help fight off a Chinese division. Only the chaplains and the corpsmen (medics) were exempt.
Battalions are referred to by two numbers, their own and the regiment to which they belong. Baker Company was in the 1st Battalion, which was in turn in the 7th Regiment. I will refer to battalions by their numbers – for example, Baker Company is in the 1/7 Battalion. (Sometimes, I will just use the numbers when the context is clear.)
The battalion commander is usually a major or a lieutenant colonel.
Regiment – Several battalions, again usually three or four, form a regiment, which generally has 3,500 to 4,000 troops. Each regiment has a unique number. The USMC’s one and only 7th Regiment is in the 1st Marine Division (1st MarDiv.) There is no other 7th Regiment in the Marine Corps. The Marines have a unique way of referring to their regiments. The 7th Regiment is called the 7th Marines, for example.
A regimental commander is usually a colonel.
Division – Several regiments, usually three, form a division, which generally had about 20,000 troops. A division commander is usually a brigadier general (one star) or a major general (two stars.)
Corps – Two or more divisions can be combined to form a corps (pronounced “core.”) By tradition, corps are numbered with Roman numerals. (I don’t do this with the Chinese corps. If I did, it would be unintelligible – for example, 42nd Corps vs. XLII Corps.) Later we will meet the US X Corps, which included the 1st MarDiv as one of its constituent units. The highest level of organization within the Marine Corps itself is the division, of which they had – and still have – several. The entire Marine Corps is, in effect, a corps. A corps commander is usually a major general or a lieutenant general (three stars.)
Army – Several corps are combined an Army (sometimes referred to as a “Field Army.”) By tradition, armies are numbered by spelling out the number as a word. In this diary, we mention the US Eighth Army and the PVA Ninth Army. An army commander is usually a general (four stars.)
The Chinese essentially used the same organization, although an accurate translation of their names for “corps” and “army” levels of organization would be misleading. I will keep it simple and just use “corps” and “army” for them as well.)
NKPA Blitzkrieg
At dawn on Sunday, June 25, 1950, the North Korean People's Army (NKPA) crossed the 38th parallel behind heavy artillery fire, starting at the western end, near Seoul. Within the first hour, the NKPA was attacking all along the 38th parallel. The exact strength they had in the initial invasion isn’t clear, but within a few days, NKPA forces in the South numbered between 150,000 and 200,000 troops, organized into 10 infantry divisions, one air force division, and one tank division, with 210 fighter planes and 280 tanks, as well as about 200 artillery pieces.
To counter this invasion, the ROK army had out 98,000 troops, of whom 65,000 were soldiers and 33,000 were support personnel. They did not have any tanks, anti-tank weapons, or heavy artillery. And they were ineptly commanded. The ROK typically committed their forces in small units, which were promptly ground to pieces by much superior NKPA forces. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, fell on June 27th. By June 30th , the ROK forces were down to less than 22,000 men. In early July, when U.S. forces began arriving, what was left of the ROK army had abandoned their weapons and were fleeing south in full retreat. These survivors were ultimately placed under the United Nations Command.
Initial American Response
The initial American response was paltry. After WW2, the entire US military had been down-sized to the point where it was merely a shadow of itself. One of the first actions that President Truman wanted was a naval blockade of North Korea. He was shocked to learn that there was insufficient naval strength available in the area to do this right away. There were some naval and air forces available in Japan, and they became involved very quickly. It was soon clear that American ground forces would have to be committed.
The US Eighth Army, which was then part of the post-WW2 occupation forces in Japan, was ordered to intervene in Korea and drive the invaders back across the 38th parallel. They were the nearest large force to Korea. Their commander was General Walton Walker. They had been on garrison duty for nearly five years. Garrison duty was very easy – the Japanese gave them no trouble – but the troops were not at all ready for war, either physically or mentally. The Eighth Army had only four lightly equipped and poorly trained divisions. Walton began landing his divisions in southeastern Korea. The first division into Korea was the 24th Infantry, which would be first US Army unit to engage the NKPA. Elements of the 24th Infantry Division (including the ill-fated Task Force Smith, which was virtually destroyed) were engaged in a few days of furious fighting between Osan and Taejon. They were no match for the NKPA. In the process these elements suffered significant casualties – killed, wounded, and captured.
The survivors fell back along with the retreating remnants of the ROK army, fighting rearguard skirmishes against the advancing NKPA as they went. They were unable to halt the NKPA advance, but they did slow it just enough. Walker realized his assigned mission was impossible and went on the defensive. Pushed steadily back towards the southeast by the North Korean advance, Walker's forces suffered heavy losses and for a time were unable to form a defensible front. There was a problem – South Korea was a peninsula. Eventually one runs out of places to which to retreat. In South Korea, the last place was Pusan, a port city at the very southern tip of South Korea.
The Pusan Perimeter
As the NKPA was fighting its way down the peninsula, its supply train was elongating and becoming increasingly vulnerable. It was being attacked and seriously disrupted by the US Air Force and the US Navy. During July, the USAF destroyed more than thirty bridges and halted most daytime road and rail traffic. NKPA troops were forced to hide in the daytime – often in tunnels – and move only at night. Even so, they took heavy casualties. The USAF and the Naval Aviation destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, harbors, and transport hubs. All of this made it impossible for the over-extended NKPA to be adequately supplied by the it reached the vicinity of Pusan.
During July, while the NKPA was coming south, General MacArthur was rapidly building up UN Forces in Pusan. Walker’s Eighth Army was augmented with three new infantry divisions. Later, the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade arrived (What this was will be further discussed below.) It also became part of Walker’s Eighth Army. By August 1, there was a force of about 180,000 UN troops – primarily US and UK – and about 60,000 ROK troops, organized into two corps (ROK I Corps and ROK II Corps) in the Pusan area. There were also about 500 US tanks there. A firm perimeter was set up, known as the Pusan perimeter. It enclosed about 10% of South Korean territory behind good defenses. It was essentially a fortress.
When the NKPA finally arrived, in early August, its numbers had diminished to about 100.000 troops. For about six weeks, from August 4 through September 18 the NKPA repeatedly threw itself against the perimeter in four major battles and countless skirmishes, but failed to break it.
On September 15, General MacArthur formed an invasion force, X Corps, and sent it into South Korea at Inchon. Inchon was on South Korea’s northwest coast, west of Seoul. This was far behind the extended NKPA forces down at Pusan. MacArthur had two principle aims, to relieve pressure on Pusan and to cut off the NKPA from both escape and reinforcements. The invasion was a success. The NKPA commanders recognized their danger, so they began a rapid retreat of what was left of their invading force back to the north, as fast as it could go.
Simultaneously, the rested and rearmed UN forces broke out from the Pusan perimeter and began chasing and attacking the withdrawing NKPA. At first the NKPA’s withdrawal was orderly and controlled. Increasing pressure from the UN troops chasing them from the south and constant American air raids caused heavy damage to the NKPA, destroying most of its tanks and artillery. The NKPA’s orderly withdrawal began to disintegrate.
By September 18, it became a general rout – every man for himself. In the end, only 25,000 to 30,000 NKPA soldiers managed to return to North Korea, minus virtually all of their equipment. After the breakout, the Eighth Army headed for Seoul, to join with X Corps. ROK I Corps and II Corps, headed straight north along the eastern coast toward the 38th Parallel, right on the heels of the NKPA.
The NKPA was entirely gone from South Korea by the end of September. The success it had enjoyed in July was nullified. Still, its success in July was a psychic shock to America. The NKPA’s rapid advance to the south in July had come very close to driving the UN forces out of Korea entirely.
The 1st MarDiv Is Reconstituted
After the draw-down of forces after the close of WW2, the 1st MarDiv was a shrunken shadow of what it had been in 1945. Now that war was on again, General MacArthur needed the division brought to full strength as soon as possible. He had definite plans for it.
At that time, had it been at full strength, the 1st MarDiv would had had about 25,000 men. It was (and still is) primarily comprised of four regiments, the First, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Regiments, along with several support battalions (tank, reconnaissance, combat engineer, etc.) The Eleventh Regiment held the Division’s artillery. The other three regiments were infantry – ground troops with light arms.
The three Infantry regiments each had three battalions, the 1st , 2nd , and 3rd Battalions. Each battalion in turn had three rifle companies. 1st Battalion had Able, Baker, and Charlie Companies. 2nd Battalion had Dog, Easy, and Fox Companies. 3rd Battalion had George, How, and Item. Every unit specified in these diaries belonged to the 1st MarDiv, so there is no need to specify the division when discussing unit designations.
The Army used the same nomenclature for their companies and battalions. Two Army battalions we will encounter later will be the 3/31 Infantry and the 1/32 Infantry, referring to 3rd Battalion, 31st Regiment and 1st Battalion, 32nd Regiment, respectively; both of the 7th Infantry Division. We will also encounter an Army company, George/2/65, referring to George Company, 2nd Battalion, 65th Regiment, of the 3rd Infantry Division. These three units would all play an extremely vital role in the 1st MarDiv’s survival.
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I need to mention an Army unit designation at this point – Regimental Combat Team, abbreviated RCT. This term was applied to regiments, especially regiments augmented with additional units, and to ad-hoc regiment-sized combinations of units from diverse sources. We will encounter RCT-31. It was made up from battalions – including the 3/31 and the 1/32 mentioned above – from different regiments and other units scrounged up from various sources within the 7th Division.
When the 1st MarDiv arrived in North Korea, some artillery and artillerymen from the 11th Marines and tanks from division, among other things, were attached to the three infantry regiments, creating augmented regiments. The Army referred to these regiments as RTC-1, RTC-5, and RTC-7. So did General Smith. As is clear from Lieutenant Owen’s book, the Marines in front still called their units 1st Marines and so forth – none of this RCT stuff for them. Marines are Marines, after all.
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The basic unit of a Marine division, its heart, its business end, was the rifle company. They did most of the actual face-to-face combat with the enemy. At the time of the Korean War, a Marine rifle company at full strength had about 225 enlisted troops and 7 officers. It was organized into three rifle platoons, each consisting of nine fire teams, a machine-gun platoon with three machine gun teams, and a mortar section with three mortar teams. The 1st MarDiv had 27 rifle companies – a little over 6,000 Marines. According to Lieutenant Owen, there were 21 rifle companies with the 1st MarDiv at Chosin. (Two battalions from the 1st Marines did not directly participate at the reservoir, thus the difference.) The diagram shows the typical composition of a Marine rifle company in WW2. This didn’t significantly change in Korea.
The tactical air controllers were assigned on paper to the regiment, but were physically attached to the various rifle companies.
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In the early summer of 1950, the 1st MarDiv had this same structure, but with only a skeleton staff assigned to the various units. There were only enough combat troops to form a single fully-staffed infantry regiment. The 5th Marines were brought to full strength by pulling men from the other regiments. It was combined with the 1st Battalion of the 11th Marines (an artillery battalion) to form the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade. This Brigade was sent to Pusan in early August to aid in the defense of the perimeter, where it took part in several battles – usually when the NKPA threatened to break through the Pusan perimeter.
Back at Camp Pendleton in southern California, the 1st and 7th Marines were brought to full strength. The 1st Marines were ready first and and shipped out to Korea, along with the rest of 1st MarDiv. The 7th Marines stayed behind for awhile. The reconstitution process took a little longer with them. Personnel for the 7th Marines came from a number of sources. The nucleus for the newly reformed unit came from Marines who had transferred from the 2nd MarDiv at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. My father was probably one of these. The rest of the unit consisted of regular Marines from various posts and stations, and reservists. The 7th Marines received the largest proportion of reservists of any major unit in the 1st Marine Division – about 50 percent. Many of these reservists had no combat experience; many had very little experience with the various weapons used by a Marine rifle company. Of course, some were WW2 veterans who had considerable combat experience. They furnished many of the NCOs which are the backbone of any military unit. Overall, the 1st and 7th Marines needed training, lots of it, and they needed it quickly.
When the bulk of the 1st MarDiv arrived in Korea waters in early September, the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade was withdrawn from Pusan, deactivated, and its constituent units reunited with the rest of the division. The division was to be a key element in General MacArthur’s operation to drive the NKPA out of South Korea and to invade North Korea. The first step would be an amphibious invasion of South Korea far behind enemy lines at Inchon.
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