Latest / Marine Operations in Korea The Chosin Reservoir Campaign / 011 - Chapter 5 Part 2 - Red China to the Rescue

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011 - Chapter 5 Part 2 - Red China to the Rescue · Marine Operations in Korea The Chosin Reservoir Campaign

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, Part two of US Marine Operations in Korea
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty three, Volume three, The Chosen
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  Speaker 1: Reservoir Campaign by Lynn Montross and Nicholas Canzona. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain Red China to the
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  Speaker 1: Rescue the Chinese Peasant as a soldier. Perhaps the most
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  Speaker 1: distinctive feature of the CCF from the viewpoint of a
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  Speaker 1: Western observer, was the lack of any official provision for
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  Speaker 1: the honorable discharge of a soldier once he became a
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  Speaker 1: cog in the CCF military machine. A man remained in
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  Speaker 1: the ranks until he was killed, captured, became a deserter,
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  Speaker 1: or was incapacitated for active service by reason of wounds, disease,
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  Speaker 1: or old age. Theoretically, depending on a volunteer system. The
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  Speaker 1: recruiting officers of the CCF knew how to apply political
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  Speaker 1: or economic pressure so that a man found it prudent
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  Speaker 1: to become a soldier. After putting on a uniform, he
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  Speaker 1: was vigorously indoctrinated in political as well as military subjects.
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  Speaker 1: Both self criticism and criticism of comrades were encouraged that
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  Speaker 1: platoon meetings held for that purpose every recruit was subjected
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  Speaker 1: to a course of psychological mass coercion, known to the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese as snow and to the non communist world as brainwashing.
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  Speaker 1: Spine on comrades and reporting political or military deviations was
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  Speaker 1: a soldier's duty inwder to hardships from birth. The peasant
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  Speaker 1: in the ranks did not find that the military service
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  Speaker 1: demanded many unwonted privations, and he could make long daily
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  Speaker 1: marches on a diet which the American soldier would have
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  Speaker 1: regarded as both insufficient and monotonous. It would appear, however,
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  Speaker 1: that some of the Western legends about Oriental stoicism and
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  Speaker 1: contempt for death were are a little far fetched. At
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  Speaker 1: any rate, the CCF had to deal with the problem
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  Speaker 1: of straggling from the battlefield, and US marines in Korea
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  Speaker 1: could attest that on occasion the Chinese soldiers showed evidences
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  Speaker 1: of fear and low morale. Nor was he as much
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  Speaker 1: of a fanatic as might have been expected considering the
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  Speaker 1: extent of his political indoctrination. Although the CCF departed in
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  Speaker 1: most respects from the Chinese military past, the policy of
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  Speaker 1: organizing units along ethnic lines was retained. Men from the
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  Speaker 1: same village were formed into a company, companies from the
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  Speaker 1: same area into battalions, and battalions from the same province
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  Speaker 1: into regiments or divisions. Replacements were drawn from the localities
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  Speaker 1: where the unit was originally recruited. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese reads broke with nationalists and communist traditions in
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  Speaker 1: their policy of avoiding a permanent rank system. Officers in Korea,
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  Speaker 1: denoted by red dad piping on their sleeves, were divided
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  Speaker 1: into company, field and general groups. The company commander and
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  Speaker 1: a political officer held about equal authority in an infantry unit,
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  Speaker 1: and the only NCOs mentioned in CCF field reports are
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  Speaker 1: sergeants and squad leaders. CCF arms and equipment. The CCF
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  Speaker 1: depended on a wide assortment of weapons, so that it
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  Speaker 1: was not uncommon to find several different kinds of rifles
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  Speaker 1: of varying calibers in the same regiment. Japanese arms acquired
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  Speaker 1: after the surrender of nineteen forty five, Russian arms furnished
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  Speaker 1: by the Soviets, and American, German, Czech, British and Canadian
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  Speaker 1: arms taken from the Chinese nationalists. These were some of
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  Speaker 1: the diverse sources, and it is a tribute to the
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  Speaker 1: adaptability of the Chinese reds that they managed to utilize
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  Speaker 1: such military hand me downs without disastrous confusion. Paperwork was
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  Speaker 1: at a minimum in a force which kept few records
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  Speaker 1: and numb a great many illiterates. As for logistics, each
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  Speaker 1: soldier was given a four day food supply in the
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  Speaker 1: winner of nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty one when he
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  Speaker 1: crossed the Yalu, usually rice, millet, or soybeans carried in
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  Speaker 1: his pack. Afterwards, food was to be procured locally by
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  Speaker 1: extortion or confiscation, though the Communists were fond of using
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  Speaker 1: such euphemisms as purchase or donation to denote those processes.
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  Speaker 1: The CCF soldiers who fought in Korea during the winter
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty one wore a two
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  Speaker 1: piece reversible mustard yellow and white uniform of quilted cotton
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  Speaker 1: and a heavy cotton cap with fur lined earflaps, issued
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  Speaker 1: to the troops just before crossing the Yalu. The quilted
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  Speaker 1: cotton blouse and trousers were worn over the standard summer
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  Speaker 1: uniform and any other layers of clothing the soldier may
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  Speaker 1: have acquired. The first CCF units in enact had canvas
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  Speaker 1: shoes with crepe rubber soles. Later arrivals were issued a
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  Speaker 1: half leather shoe or even a full leather boot. Chinese
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  Speaker 1: footwear was of poor quality, and few of the troops
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  Speaker 1: wore gloves in cold weather. The consequence was a high
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  Speaker 1: rate of frostbitten hands and feet. The CCF soldier usually
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  Speaker 1: carried a shawl like blanket in addition to the small
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  Speaker 1: pack containing his food as well as personal belongings. These
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  Speaker 1: were few and simple, for it could never be said
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  Speaker 1: that the Chinese Reds pampered their soldiers China's Hate America campaign,
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  Speaker 1: it was essentially an asiatic guerrilla army which came to
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  Speaker 1: the rescue of beaten Red Korea in the autumn of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty. CCFS strategic aims had been summed up years
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  Speaker 1: before by Matse Tung himself. We are against guerrillaism of
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  Speaker 1: the Red Army, yet we must admit its gorilla character.
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  Speaker 1: We are opposed to protracted campaigns in a strategy of
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  Speaker 1: quick decision, while we believe in a strategy of protracted
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  Speaker 1: war and campaigns of quick decision. As we are opposed
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  Speaker 1: to fixed operational fronts and positional warfare. We believe in
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  Speaker 1: unfixed operational fronts and a war of maneuvers. We are
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  Speaker 1: against simply routing the enemy and believe in a war
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  Speaker 1: of annihilation. We are against two fistism and strategic directions,
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  Speaker 1: and believe in one feistism. We are against the institution
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  Speaker 1: of a big rear and believe in a small rear.
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  Speaker 1: We are against absolute centralized command and believe in a
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  Speaker 1: relatively centralized command. Mao was held in such reverence as
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  Speaker 1: a veteran Chinese communist leader that long passages of his
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  Speaker 1: writings were committed to memory. His strategic ideas therefore deserve
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  Speaker 1: more than passing consideration. In the first place, his concept
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  Speaker 1: of war itself differ from that of Western nations. There
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  Speaker 1: are only two kinds of war and history, revolutionary and
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  Speaker 1: counter revolutionary, he wrote. We support the former and oppose
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  Speaker 1: the latter. Only a revolutionary war is holy from the
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  Speaker 1: western viewpoint. Mao's followers had fought four different wars in
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  Speaker 1: close succession against the Chinese Nationalists from nineteen twenty seven
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  Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty six, against the Japanese from nineteen thirty
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  Speaker 1: seven to nineteen forty five, against the Nationals in a
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  Speaker 1: second war from nineteen forty six to nineteen forty nine,
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  Speaker 1: and against the United Nations beginning in nineteen fifty. But
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  Speaker 1: Mao and his colleagues saw this period as one prolonged
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  Speaker 1: war in which revolutionists were pitted against counter revolutionary adversaries.
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  Speaker 1: The fact that the conflict had lasted for a generation
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  Speaker 1: did not disturb Communist leaders, who envisioned a continual state
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  Speaker 1: of war to save mankind and show from destruction. The
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  Speaker 1: greatest and most ruthless counter revolutionary war is pressing on us,
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  Speaker 1: continued Mao. If we do not hoist the banner of
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  Speaker 1: revolutionary war, a greater part of the human race will
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  Speaker 1: face extinction. Early in December nineteen forty nine, following Red
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  Speaker 1: China's victory over the Nationalists, Mao arrived in Moscow for
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  Speaker 1: a series of talks with Stalin which lasted until four
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  Speaker 1: March nineteen fifty. The decisions reached in those conferences are
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  Speaker 1: not known, but it was probably no coincidence that the
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  Speaker 1: communist puppet state in North Korea violated the world's peace
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  Speaker 1: a few months later. It is perhaps also significant that
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  Speaker 1: the head of the Soviet military mission in Tokyo, Lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: General Cosma Durrivyenko was absent from Tokyo during the same
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  Speaker 1: period and reported in Moscow. It was the year of
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  Speaker 1: the Tiger in the Chinese calendar, and a Resist America
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  Speaker 1: Aid Korea movement was launched in Red China when the
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  Speaker 1: United States came to the aid of the Republic of Korea.
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  Speaker 1: Every dictatorship must have some object of mass hatred and
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  Speaker 1: malfound the United States ideal for the purpose, a hate
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  Speaker 1: America campaign was inaugurated after the CCF intervention, with the
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  Speaker 1: following serving as an example of anti American propaganda. This
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  Speaker 1: the United States is the paradise of gangsters, swindlers, rascals,
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  Speaker 1: special agents, fascist germs, speculators, debauchers, and all of the
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  Speaker 1: dregs of mankind. This is the world's manufactory and source
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  Speaker 1: of such crimes as reaction, darkness, cruelty, decadence, corruption, debauchery,
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  Speaker 1: oppression of man by man, and cannibalism. This is the
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  Speaker 1: exhibition ground of all the crimes which can possibly be
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  Speaker 1: committed by mankind. This as a living hell ten times
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  Speaker 1: one hundred times one thousand times worse than can possibly
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  Speaker 1: be depicted by the most sanguinary of writers. Here the
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  Speaker 1: criminal phenomena that issue forth defy the imagination of human brains.
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  Speaker 1: Conscientious persons can only wonder how the spiritual civilization of
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  Speaker 1: mankind can be depraved to such an extent. Communist doctrine
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  Speaker 1: held that people must be incited by such propaganda to
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  Speaker 1: a constant high pitch of emotional intensity for the sacrifices
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  Speaker 1: demanded by total war. The prevalence of illiteracy made it
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  Speaker 1: necessary to depend largely on street corner loudspeakers blaring forth,
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  Speaker 1: radio harangues. Realistic broadcasts of the torture and execution of
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  Speaker 1: political deviates were also heard at times, and such spectacles
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  Speaker 1: were exhibited for the edification of the public. CCIF Strategy
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  Speaker 1: and Tactics. CCF's strategy was so rudimentary at first that
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  Speaker 1: its basic tenets could be summed up in a sixteen
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  Speaker 1: word principle adopted by the Central Committee. Enemy advancing, we retreat,
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  Speaker 1: enemy entrenched. We harass, enemy exhausted, We attack, enemy retreating,
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  Speaker 1: we pursue. But as time went on, other principles were added.
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  Speaker 1: MAO favored a planned defensive offensive as the only valid
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  Speaker 1: strategy against superior enemy numbers. He made it plain, however,
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  Speaker 1: that any withdraw was to be merely temporary as the
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  Speaker 1: preliminary to advancing and striking at the first advantageous opportunity,
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  Speaker 1: and he reiterated that annihilation of the enemy must always
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  Speaker 1: be the final goal of strategy. It was in the
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  Speaker 1: field of tactics that the essentially gorilla character of the
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  Speaker 1: CCF was most fully revealed. Since communist dialectics in insisted
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  Speaker 1: that there was a correct Marxist and an incorrect petty
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  Speaker 1: bourgeois or opportunist or reactionary way of doing everything, CCF
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  Speaker 1: tactics were reduced to principles whenever possible. A generation of
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  Speaker 1: warfare against material odds had established a pattern of attack
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  Speaker 1: which proved effective against armies possessing an advantage in arms
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  Speaker 1: and equipment. One marine officer has aptly defined a Chinese
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  Speaker 1: attack as assembly on the objective, the Kouli and the
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  Speaker 1: CCF ranks had no superior in the world at making
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  Speaker 1: long approach marches by night and hiding by day with
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  Speaker 1: as many as fifty men sharing a hut or cave,
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  Speaker 1: and subsisting on a few handfuls of rice a peace.
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  Speaker 1: Night attacks were so much the rule that any exception
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  Speaker 1: came as a surprise. The advancing columns took such natural
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  Speaker 1: routes as draws or stream beds, deploying as soon as
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  Speaker 1: they met resistance. Combat groups then peeled off from the
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  Speaker 1: tactical columns one at a time, enclosed with rifles, submachine
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  Speaker 1: guns and grenades. Once engaged in under fire, the attackers
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  Speaker 1: hit the ground, rising at any lull They came on
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  Speaker 1: until engaged again, but when fully committed, they did not
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  Speaker 1: relinquish the attack, even when riddled with casualties. Other Chinese
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  Speaker 1: came forward to take their places, and the build up
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  Speaker 1: continued until a penetration was made, usually on the front
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  Speaker 1: of one or two platoons. After consolidating the ground, the
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  Speaker 1: combat troops then crept or wriggled forward against the open
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  Speaker 1: flank of the next platoon position. Each step of the
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  Speaker 1: assault was executed with practice, stealth and boldness, and the
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  Speaker 1: results of several such penetrations on a battalion front could
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  Speaker 1: be devastating. The pattern of attack was varied somewhat to
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  Speaker 1: suit different occasions. As an example of an action in
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  Speaker 1: which the CCF used mortars, the following is quoted from
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  Speaker 1: a marine field report. Five to nine men CCF patrols
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  Speaker 1: were sent out forward of the main body in an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to locate or establish our front lines and flanks.
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  Speaker 1: After these patrols had withdrawn or been beaten off, white
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  Speaker 1: phosphorus mortar shells were dropped about the area in an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to inflict casualties. By closely watching the area for
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  Speaker 1: movement and removing these casualties, they attempted to establish the
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  Speaker 1: location of our front lines. After establishing what they believed
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  Speaker 1: were the front lines, white phosphorus shells were dropped in
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  Speaker 1: the lines and used as markers. While this was taking place,
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  Speaker 1: the assault troops crawled forward to distances as close as
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  Speaker 1: possible to the front lines and attacked at a given signal.
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  Speaker 1: The signal in this particular instance was three blasts of
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  Speaker 1: a police whistle. The attacking troops then rose and in
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  Speaker 1: a perfect skirmish formation, rushed the front line. It might
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  Speaker 1: be added that this attack resulted in a CCF penetration
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  Speaker 1: on a platoon front. Friendly lines were restored only by
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  Speaker 1: dawn counter attacks. The ambush was a favorite resort of
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  Speaker 1: Chinese commanders. Whatever the form of attack, the object was
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  Speaker 1: usually fractionalization of an opposing force, so that the segments
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  Speaker 1: could be beaten in detail by a local superiority. In numbers,
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  Speaker 1: CCF attacking forces ranged, as a rule from a platoon
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  Speaker 1: to a company, in size being continually built up as
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  Speaker 1: casualties thinned the ranks. Reports by newspaper correspondents of hordes
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  Speaker 1: and human sea assaults were so unrealistic as to inspire
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  Speaker 1: a derisive marine comment, how many hordes are there in
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  Speaker 1: a Chinese platoon? After giving CCF tactics due credit for
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  Speaker 1: their mats, Some serious weaknesses were also apparent. The primitive
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  Speaker 1: logistical system put such restrictions on ammunition supplies, particularly artillery
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  Speaker 1: and mortar shells, that a Chinese battalion sometimes had to
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  Speaker 1: be pulled back to wait for replenishments if the first
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  Speaker 1: night's attack failed. At best, the infantry received little help
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  Speaker 1: from supporting arms. POW interrogations revealed that in many instances,
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  Speaker 1: each soldier was issued eighty rounds of small arms ammunition
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  Speaker 1: upon crossing the Yalu. This was his total supply. The
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  Speaker 1: artillery and mortars were so limited that they must reserve
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  Speaker 1: their fire for the front line while passing up lucrative
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  Speaker 1: targets in the rear areas. Some attempts were made to
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  Speaker 1: bring reserve stocks up to forward supply dumps about thirty
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  Speaker 1: miles behind the front, but not much could be accomplished
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  Speaker 1: with animal and human transport. A primitive communications system also
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  Speaker 1: accounted for sin shortcomings. The radionet extended only down to
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  Speaker 1: the regimental level, and telephones only to battalions or occasionally companies.
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  Speaker 1: Below the battalion communication depended on runners or such signaling
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  Speaker 1: devices as bugles, whistles, flares, and flashlights. The consequence was
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  Speaker 1: a tactical rigidity, which at times was fatal. Apparently, CCF
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  Speaker 1: commanding officers had little or no option below the battalion level.
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  Speaker 1: A battalion, once committed to the attack, often kept on
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  Speaker 1: as long as its ammunition lasted, even if events indicated
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  Speaker 1: that it was beating out its brains against the strongest
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  Speaker 1: part of the opposing line. The result in many such
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  Speaker 1: instances was tactical suicide. After these defects are taken into
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  Speaker 1: full account, however, the Chinese soldier and the Korean terrain
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  Speaker 1: made a formidable combination. Ironically, Americans fighting the first War
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  Speaker 1: of the New Atomic Age were encountering conditions reminiscent of
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  Speaker 1: the border warfare waged by their pioneer forefathers against the Indians.
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  Speaker 1: These Aborigines, too were outweighed in terms of weapons and equipment.
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  Speaker 1: But from time immemorial, the night has always been the
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  Speaker 1: ally of the primitive fighter, and surprise his best weapon. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: the Americans in Korea, like their ancestors on the Western Plains,
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  Speaker 1: could never be sure when the darkness would erupt into flame,
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  Speaker 1: as stealthy foes seemed to spring from the very earth.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter five, Part two read by Aaron Bennett,