Scorched earth, black snow : Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950

435 Pages·2011·3.1 MB·English

by  Salmon

Praise for Andrew Salmon’s To the Last Round
‘In a list of very strong military books, this is an excellent book, which well-
deserves the winning award’ Professor Richard Holmes, awarding To the Last
Round the Hampshire Libraries inaugural ‘Best Military Book of the Year’ prize
for 2009

‘Gripping … exhaustively researched and expertly written’
Saul David, The Times

‘An enthralling, action-packed book [that] relives every moment of this
astonishing battle’ David Hardman, Daily Mail
‘War porn at its finest, all the more delicious for being totally true’
James Delingpole, The Spectator

‘One of the most interesting books about Korea, 2010’
Wall Street Journal

‘Salmon’s vivid use of recollections and dramatic quotes brings alive an unjustly
forgotten conflict’
Tim Newark, Time Out

‘Over a thousand British servicemen lost their lives in the Korean War and here,
at last, is a compelling account of a defining moment in the conflict’
Good Book Guide

‘Filled with detail enough to win the attention even of those for whom military
histories may seem irrelevant when stacked against social and political analysis’
Don Kirk, Far Eastern Economic Review
‘A superb book which showcases British courage during a now almost forgotten
last stand’
Soldier magazine
I see black snow! This must be modern warfare …
Marshal Peng Te-huai, Korea, 1950

At the frontier
They say the soil now
Is more bones than earth …
Wei Chuang, Tang Dynasty, ninth century
And it’s War! ‘Orderly, hold the light.
You can lay him down on the table; so.
Easily – gently! Thanks – you may go.’
And it’s War! But the part that is not for show …
Edgar Wallace
Contents
Title Page
Praise Page
Dedication
Introduction
Note to the Reader

Part One Triumph

Prologue: Strangers in the Night

1 Thunder in the East
2 Under Korean Skies
3 Into the Inferno
4 Turned Tide and New Allies
5 Behind Enemy Lines
6 Dust Clouds and Burning Towns
7 At the Tip of the Spear

Part Two Tragedy

8 North Wind
9 Scorched Earth
10 White Hell
11 Black Snow
12 Dark Christmas

Appendix: Where are They Now?
Acknowledgements and sources
Glossary
Notes
Index
About the Author
Copyright
Introduction
Distant Holocaust,
Forgotten Men
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold,
Dominion over palm and pine,
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!
Rudyard Kipling
Since the turn of the millennium, the British public has been forced to relearn a
painful lesson: Soldiers die in war.
While this might seem self-evident, the events of the 1980s and ’90s – bar that
oddly old-fashioned conflagration, the Falklands War – seemed to prove it
invalid. In peace-keeping operations in Africa and the Balkans,
counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland and the one-sided adventure of Desert
Storm, Britons suffered a reassuringly gentle trickle of casualties. The armed
forces, it seemed, were so well trained and equipped that they could operate,
either independently in low-level conflicts, or in alliance with their mighty
American allies in larger ones, at minimal risk.
That shibboleth now lies shattered. In interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan,
the army met a foe who, though lightly armed, fought skilfully, using guerilla
tactics fired by religious zeal. Not only did he not collapse, he inflicted losses
that soon exceeded a trickle, though have not (yet) reached a flood.
These conflicts are the best-covered wars the UK has ever fought, blazing
across TV reports, video-sharing websites and the print of innumerable articles
and books. Perhaps it is this firestorm of coverage that has led some
commentators to suggest that the intensity of combat, the losses incurred and the
perils faced, are unprecedented in the British Army’s post-1945 experience.
Nonsense. A conflict that received scant attention at the time, and which is
today almost unknown in the UK, remains far and away the biggest, bloodiest,
most brutal war fought by British troops since the Second World War: Korea.
The biggest: A war of advances and retreats of hundreds of miles, fought
against the army of the world’s most populous nation. The bloodiest: 1,087
British servicemen fell in Korea in barely three years of fighting, a number
greater than the total killed in the Falklands (255), Iraq (179) and Afghanistan
(349) combined – 783.1 And the most brutal: A sampling of incidents in this
book should make that clear.
The military’s ability to fight operations of scale and intensity rests upon
national will, but twenty-first century Britain is casualty sensitive and cost-
conscious. The slipped discs in today’s national spine – epitomised in 2007’s
humiliating retreat from Basra – contrast with the solid backbone Britain
exhibited in 1950. Then, the UK was bankrupt from the Second World War,
abandoning empire and suffering military overstretch. But London had
obligations: As a charter member of the UN, as an ally of the United States and
as the defender of a state facing aggression. Even when China surged into the
war, even when casualties soared, even though it meant lengthening National
Service and raising the defence budget – Britain stayed the course. This was
honourable conduct.
In 1950, an under-equipped, under-gunned British brigade was deployed into a
high-risk conflict in a distant, primitive theatre against an unknown, alien enemy
at ludicrously short notice. As in Afghanistan, they were fighting alongside US
troops, though in the early months of the Korean War, the American Army was
at a nadir. The scratch 27th Brigade – a good, but hardly elite formation – proved
so effective, that despite lacking transport, armour and artillery, it was tasked
with key missions. Meanwhile, the crack 41 Commando – a unit that did not
even exist at the outbreak of hostilities – was embedded with America’s finest
troops, the 1st US Marine Division. In the most harrowing campaign of the war,
the commandos won a US Presidential Unit Citation and plaudits from their
comrades that still echo six decades later.
*
This book is not a full history of the war – Sir Max Hastings’ The Korean War is
recommended for casual readers, Dr Allen Millet’s The War in Korea trilogy is
the best for the specialist. Nor does it detail the featured units’ full participation
in Korea: All continued operations well into 1951.* What it is, is a narrative
history of those formations during the war’s most dramatic period: summer to
the end of the ‘Year of the Tiger’, 1950.
Those months cover the defence of South Korea and the charge into North
Korea; the shock Chinese intervention and the catastrophic defeat of UN forces;
the hellish retreat and the tragedy of a nation put to the sword. Even the weather
mirrored the drama, as the seasons transitioned from summer to autumn to
winter. This period has been covered by American historians, but this book
features a group of actors whose experiences have gone largely unrecorded: the
Australians and Britons who made up the UN Command’s first non-Korean,
non-American ground troops.
Episodes include the worst ‘friendly fire’ disaster suffered by the British Army
since the Second World War; a barely believable ‘mistaken identity’ action
fought at handshake range; a desperate breakout to escape entrapment; and a
harrowing fighting retreat amid Siberian temperatures. The units covered are
large enough to encompass a broad range of experience, but small enough for
individual characters to stand out. How, then, to tell their tale?
There are, essentially, three approaches to writing military history. The first is
military science: the general’s art, the strategic picture, the broad sweep of arrow
on map. The second is technical: The weapons of the combatants, their
capabilities and drawbacks. The third is the human story: What actually happens
to men in war? What do they see, do, think, feel?
For context, I have sketched in the broad background as it unfolded in the
politicians’ chamber and across the generals’ maps, and included information on
weapons and equipment, but my preferred approach is the third. War is – like all
history – a jigsaw of biographies. While I have referenced books, articles, letters,
unit diaries and personal notebooks, the meat of this story is oral, allowing the
reader, I hope, to ‘meet’ these men, to witness the war through their eyes.
*
While conducting the interviews that are the heart of this book, I was surprised
at how old soldiers opened up and told stories that, in many cases, nobody had
ever asked them about before. There was emotion. One veteran choked back
tears as he recalled the inspirational leadership of his platoon commander in their
first battle. A commando, describing one desperate moment, flung his arm out,
sending coffee flying over his carpet. His wife made no complaint, but confided
that her husband would struggle in bed that night: Discussing the war would