Clay Blair: “The Turks, commanded by Brigadier General Tahsin Yazici, had arrived in Korea like the Marines, in a blaze of publicity. With their colorful, flowing mustaches, swarthly complexions, and fierce demeanors, they gave war correspondents and others the impression they were very tough soldiers. The reality was that they were ill trained, ill led, and green to combat”.
Mike Michaelis, CO of the US 27th Infantry Regiment who fought in Korea, described in an elegant style the average Turkish soldier that arrived in Korea to fight: “The Turks were commanded by an aged brigadier who had been a division commander at Gallipoli in 1916 fighting the British! He was highly respected, high up in the Turkish military establishment, and took a bust to brigadier to command the brigade. The average Turk soldier in the brigade came from the steppe country of Turkey, near Russia, had probably had only three or four years of school, was uprooted, moved to western Turkey, given a uniform, [a] rifle, and a little smattering of training, stuck on a ship, sailed ten thousand miles, then dumped off on a peninsula – ‘Korea, where’s that?’ – and told the enemy was up there someplace, go get him! The Turk soldier scratches his head and says, ‘What’s he done to me?’”
Raymond Cartier is more caustic, describing the facts with an undisguised ironical manner: “For the Turks is their first appearance they make in Korea. It was preceded by a bright reputation for their bravery, and even for their fierceness. The first news from their battles are shaking the press offices of the American newspapers. The Turks assaulted using the bayonets, they created a massacre and arrested hundreds of prisoners... Their only mistake is that they picked up the wrong enemy: They considered as Chinese the South Koreans that were retreating. When they meet the real Chinese is their turn to get slaughtered. The remaining of the brigade took refuge at the positions of the 38th Infantry Regiment”
Robert Leckie (whose WWII reminiscences were chronicled in the HBO series "The Pacific") clarifies in a straight manner the purpose for which that Turkish “victory” was treated with so much publicity: “The Turks moved out, and then, after reaching the village of Wawon about seven miles east, were brought to the battle which American newsmen, eager for a victory to report (especially, it seems, if it could be about those “Terrible Turks” of whom Americans knew so little), proclaimed around the globe. No small fight ever won more impressive headlines around the world. The word was flashed that the Turks, meeting the Chinese for the first time, had dealt them a bloody repulse at bayonet point; it was the first stirring bit of news from the November battle. But what precisely happened in the first few hours at Wawon is still an open question. The brigade also boasted the capture of several hundred enemy prisoners from among these first “Chinese” waves. The word gave a lift to the neighbors. Lt. Sukio Oji, a Nisei interpreter, was sent by the 2nd Division to interview the prisoners. Instead of Chinese, he found 200 forlorn ROKs who had blundered into the Turkish column while beating their way back from the fight at Tokcon”.
Clay Blair notes with clarity: “Like the war correspondents, Coulter apparently was mesmerized by the Turks and continued to regard them as superhuman fighters rather than the poorly led green troops that they were. Coulter’s misplaced confidence in the Turks led to disastrous consequences”
Clay Blair reports: “But the truth was that these overrated, poorly led green troops broke and bugged out, again leaving the entire right flank of Eight Army exposed”
The CO of the Porto Rican 65th Regiment later on expressed, using obviously disparaging words, his opinion for the Turkish presence in the battle: “On our left flank we had that reliable, unflappable British Brigade and they really caught hell. [On our right] the Turkish Brigade had fallen back some ten or twelve miles. […] As long as the Turks were on the offensive and the Chinese were running, the Turks were pretty good. But when the going was tough, they were hard to find”.
NATO trained Turks vs disorganized Soviet-trained Syrians. My money would be on the Turks.
At least that once they fought (and fought well), and I would likely not be here had they not.