Korean Studies

Book Reviews Disaster in Korea: The Chinese Confront MacArthur, by Roy E. Appleman. College Station, Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1989. 464 pp. $35.00. Escaping the Trap: The U.S. Army X Corps in Northeastern Korea, by Roy E. Appleman. College Station, Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1990. 432 pp. $35.00. Ridgway Duelsfor Korea by Roy E. Appleman. College Station , Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1990. 681 pp. $39.50. "Hear the pitter-patter of little feet, It's the First Cav Division in full retreat, They're movin' on, to Old Pusan." The origins of that derisive little song are obscure. This reviewer first heard it sung by a Canadian Liaison Officer to the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea who, on late evenings in the mid-70s after having absorbed several whiskeys, would lean against the bar of the UNC Officers ' Mess and give voice. He had presumably learned it from older Canadians who had picked it up from other Commonwealth forces during the Korean War. But if the origins of the song are unclear, there is no doubt about the episode to which it refers: "The Big Bugout" in which Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker's Eighth U.S. Army, attacked by Chinese forces shortly after Thanksgiving Day of 1950, retreated 120 118BOOK REVIEWS miles, leaving a trail of devastation and abandoned equipment. The Chinese offensive ushered in a six-month long period of mobile warfare in which the contending armies pushed each other back and forth across the Korean peninsula. Two months earlier, in September of 1950, Eighth Army had broken out of the Pusan Perimeter and pushed north to link up with Major General Edward M. Almond's X Corps, which had landed at Inch'ön and recaptured Seoul. Rather than placing X Corps under Eighth Army command, General MacArthur, then Commander in Chief of the United Nations Command, withdrew it from the west and ordered it to move by ship to the northeast coast of Korea. Republic of Korea (ROK) and other United Nations Command forces had already crossed the 38th parallel and MacArthur's intention was to have X Corps capture the port of Wönsan as part of a general advance. However, before Almond's troops were able to make the landing, fast moving South Korean forces of ROK I Corps had captured Wönsan and were continuing the drive north. Under MacArthur's revised plan, General Almond took command of all UNC forces east of the T'aebaek Mountain watershed (two U.S. Army divisions, one U.S. Marine division, the British 41st Royal Marine Commando and the two divisions of ROK I Corps). Walker's Eighth Army (consisting of ROK, U.S. Army, British, Australian and Turkish forces) would advance to the YaIu (Amnok) River in the west. In the east, the U.S. 1st Marine Division would advance to the Changjin Reservoir (which would be known forever to U.S. veterans of the war as the "Chosin Reservoir" because of the Japanese name on the maps available at the time). They would then move west to link up with Eighth Army. The U.S. 7th Infantry Division would push to the YaIu while ROK I Corps continued its drive north along the coast toward the Chinese and Soviet borders. The objectives were the destruction of remaining North Korean People's Army (KPA) forces and the reunification of the Korean peninsula under Syngman Rhee's ROK Government. In late October, Chinese forces hit Eighth Army in the west and fought skirmishes with X Corps in the east, temporarily halting the advance. Then the Chinese seemed to vanish and MacArthur ordered his forces forward. By 25 November 1950, the day the attack was to resume, the UNC troops were scattered across the Korean peninsula. Eighth Army stretched out north of Pyongyang and generally along the Ch'öngch 'ön River. X Corps was separated from Eighth Army by about fifty miles of inhospitable terrain. The 1st Marine Division and a task force of the 7th Infantry Division were in the vicinity of the Changjin Reservoir; the remainder of the 7th Infantry Division was far north and east, its lead BOOK...