Task Force Smith
‘What we carried was all we had.’
On July 5, 1950, the morning dawned rainy and windswept in the bleak hills of Korea between Suwan and Osan. Atop three of those hills that straddled the road between the two towns, 406 soldiers of Companies B and C of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, 24th Infantry Division were arrayed in a mile-long position astride the main road and railway connecting Seoul and Pusan. They had spent a miserable, rain-soaked night in the hills, after previously arriving on a hasty night flight from Japan followed by four days of truck and train travel from Pusan.
As the soldiers roused, some opened their C-Rations while others attempted to dry out themselves and their equipment. They soon found their radios inoperative because of the rain. Some of their equipment, most notably their ammunition, was still stacked by the side of the road at the bottom of the hills. About a mile to their rear, similarly wet and miserable soldiers in Battery A of the 52d Artillery Battalion were supporting with six 105-millimeter (mm) howitzers.
Under the command of LTC Charles "Brad" Smith, these US Army units, dubbed "Task Force Smith," represented the farthest forward US ground combat force on the Korean Peninsula. To their rear, the rest of the 24th Infantry Division was hurriedly organizing a defensive line to stop the North Korean attack.
Aside from the 105-mm artillery, the commander had two of his four 75-mm recoilless rifles that few of his soldiers knew how to use, six obsolete 2.36-inch "bazooka" rocket launchers (none of the newer, more effective 3.5-inch launchers in the Army inventory had been issued to Far East units), and two mortar platoons armed with four 60-mm and two 4.2-inch mortars. Because of weight constraints on the C-54 aircraft, the rest of the 4.2-inch mortar platoon was left behind for later shipment. Somewhere to the northwest, in the direction of Seoul was the North Korean People’s Army.
The North Korean People’s Army was on a roll. The North Korean People’s Army had invaded the Republic of Korea in South Korea only 11 days earlier and overwhelmed the ill-equipped Republic of Korea armed forces. The North Korean People’s Army steamrolled into Seoul, driving refugees and regrouping Republic of Korea Army units before it, clogging roads and throwing the countryside into a panic.
Their invasion caught General Douglas MacArthur and his Far East Command and Eighth Army by surprise, despite recent intelligence reports that North Korea was planning for an attack on the Republic of Korea. General MacArthur had disregarded the reports, saying he did not believe war with North Korea was imminent. In fact, both the Far East Command analysis and the US National Security Council analysis did not include Korea as one of the US Far East interests. Earlier, in 1947, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had declared Korea "a military liability" and directed withdrawal of all US troops by June 1950. By June 1949, the only US military presence in Korea was the 472-man US Korean Military Advisory Group. The Far East Command was responsible only for support to the US Korean Military Advisory Group.
The Republic of Korea Army of 1950 was a 64,600-man force advised by the US Korean Military Advisory Group and equipped with US surplus equipment, mostly small arms and light artillery. No tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft or ships were allocated the Republic of Korea by the US because of the Republic of Korea military’s "peaceful purpose." A US Korean Military Advisory Group advisor observed: "It (Republic of Korea Army) could have been the American Army of 1775." Also, the Far East Command assessed Korea as "not tank country."
In contrast, the North Korean People’s Army had over 130,000 soldiers and 3,000 Soviet advisors with the Soviets providing a full array of heavy weapons, aircraft and, notably, the formidable T-34/85, arguably the best tank to come out of World War II. On the morning of July 5, 1950, the North Korean People’s Army was a proven, battle-tried combat force.
On the US side, the nation’s military was still in the throes of the post-World War II drawdown, going from a force of 12 million to a congressionally mandated force strength of 1,070,000 from 1945 to 1947. The Far East Command’s US Army Command, Eighth Army, had four divisions - 1st Cavalry, 7th Infantry, 24th Infantry and 25th Infantry - totaling 50,000 soldiers. These divisions were all based in Japan on constabulary duty as occupation forces. Though this looked good on paper, these units were manned with poorly trained draftees and a cadre that put little emphasis on training or readiness during what one observer called the "unabashed sloth" of occupation duty. Of these soldiers, only one in six had seen combat duty in World War II. In fact, by June 1950, unit strengths for combat units had fallen to 48.8 percent, and combat service support units had sunk to 25.9 percent. For combat service support units, this meant an increasing dependence on local civilian labor and facilities for routine combat service support activities and total unpreparedness for wartime mobilization.
Postwar budget cuts had severely shrunk the key logistics capabilities of the other services too. The US Air Force maintained only two dozen C-54 aircraft in Japan. At the time of Task Force Smith’s deployment, several were undergoing maintenance and only six were available. The US Navy’s sealift was also a victim of budget cuts that left the 24th Division "scrounging" for ships in which to deploy. The rest of the 1/21 Infantry, for example, had to commandeer civilian freighters and some US Navy LSTs (landing ships, tank) that were on loan to the Japanese Self Defense Force in order to sail to Korea to link up with Task Force Smith. As one commander put it: "It was a hell of a way to go to war."
In The Korean War, author Max Hastings writes that General MacArthur’s "absolute lack of attention to the combat training of the divisions in Japan can be explained by his conviction that they would not be called upon to fight." The general’s staff also had a condescending attitude toward what General MacArthur called "a barefoot Asian army." Ordered to counter the North Korean invasion, General MacArthur thought sending the 24th Infantry Division - as, in his words, an "arrogant display of strength" - would suffice to intimidate and ultimately stop their advance.
General MacArthur ordered the 24th Infantry Division to mobilize and prepare to move to Korea. Its mission was to secure the port of Pusan and insert a delaying force by air north of the port. The 1/21 Infantry was the designated delaying force and was hastily loaded on six C-54 transport aircraft. Only enough aircraft were available to load out two Infantry companies and some selected equipment. The rest of the battalion, Companies A and D, along with other heavy equipment and weapons, were left behind in Japan to follow-on by sealift. The rest of the division with its organic tank battalion would also deploy by sea.
Task Force Smith landed at Pusan on July 1-2 and began a three-day journey by truck and train to its battle position. The roads were clogged with refugees and retreating Republic of Korea units, and the road surfaces were churned to a quagmire by the rain and traffic. Troops slept in sidings and school houses along the way. Some became sick from drinking from local water supplies. As they neared the front, the civilian drivers refused to proceed, and the soldiers drove the trucks the rest of the way. When they arrived at the position on July 4 in the darkness and rain, the Republic of Korea Army unit that was supposed to link up with Task Force Smith was not there. Supplies were offloaded but not all moved uphill into the battle positions.
While Task Force Smith was moving into position, Pusan was struggling to transform itself into a major supply base. At the southeastern corner of the Korean Peninsula, Pusan was 185 miles southeast of Task Force Smith and 275 road miles away, separated by two mountain ranges. The Pusan Logistics Command was still organizing, finding the port facilities underdeveloped and the rail and motor transport systems in a state of confusion. Many of the networks had been damaged by air strikes from both sides. There was no centralized system of asset management, and no one was quite sure of supplies on hand. By July 5, 7,600 tons of Class V (ammunition), and 3,200 tons of general supplies had been offloaded, but there was still no coherent system to move the supplies forward.
Back at the Far East Command, the staff was acting as the combat service support staff, trying to mobilize the available forces without a theater logistics plan. The staff had neither identified a communications zone (COMMZ) nor organized support architecture. There was no plan to synchronize the deployment of combat service support units with the combat units. Because of the perceived superiority of the US forces, no preparations had been made for the retrograde, resupply or reinforcement of Task Force Smith.
The soldiers of Task Force Smith were minimally supplied, also based on the anticipation of their mission as a short "police action." They had been issued two days’ C-Rations and about the same amount of ammunition (120 rounds per man). According to LTC Smith, "What we carried was all we had." There were no barrier materials or mines available. Many of their 2.36-inch rockets were deteriorated and old, as were the mortar rounds.
At 0700 on July 5, 1950, the North Korean People’s Army attacked Task Force Smith with a lead element of eight T-34/85 tanks. The tanks moved through an initial barrage of A/52 Artillery unfazed. The 75-mm recoilless rifle gunners engaged the tanks, but did not score a single kill despite many hits. Task Force Smith bazooka gunners also fired many rounds at the tanks, likewise with little effect. One gunner fired over 20 rockets at the tanks at close range without managing to inflict any serious damage. A 105-mm howitzer, firing in direct fire mode, managed to knock out one tank. By 0900, more than 30 tanks had driven through Task Force Smith’s position, cutting the single communications line between the task force and A/52 Artillery. At 1100, two regiments of North Korean People’s Army infantry assaulted Task Force Smith. With LTC Smith’s radios inoperative as a result of the rain, he had to use runners between his elements.
Faced with being overrun and caught between the North Korean troops and tanks in the rear, LTC Smith ordered a phased withdrawal beginning with Company C on the right flank. Company B, holding the left flank position and straddling the main road through which the tank attack came, saw the withdrawal of Company C and began to fall back on its own. The withdrawal turned into a rout with soldiers stumbling through the rice paddies and abandoning weapons and equipment. Of the 406 Task Force Smith soldiers who started the battle, only 185 could be mustered a week later after reaching friendly lines.
Task Force Smith’s mission was doomed to failure for many reasons, but foremost was the failure by General MacArthur’s Far East Command and Eighth Army to anticipate the threat. Given the proximity of communist and Soviet influences in the theater of operations, leaders should have had contingency plans in case hostilities erupted. These plans should have also contained logistics support to include prepositioned reserve equipment. Anticipating the threat also would have prompted the staff to develop training that supported contingency plans instead of allowing the deterioration of both combat and combat service support forces.
On the plus side, the decision to secure Pusan was crucial to establishing a support base for reinforcing the Republic of Korea Army and ultimately deploying heavy ground forces and attendant combat service support. Having "friendly" port of entry into the theater was better than forcing a lodgment on hostile shores.
After Task Force Smith was committed, no plan for its continuous support was evident. Given the state of training and readiness in Eighth Army, effective execution of a combat service support plan was questionable, even if such a plan had existed. This must have been obvious to the soldiers of Task Force Smith, after their experiences just before the battle. Their lack of training, frantic deployment and poor outfitting, followed by their sporadic and haphazard movement into position could only have been viewed as harbingers of the future, hammered home by North Korean People’s Army on the morning of July 5, 1950.
The events that unfolded on the Korean peninsula some 45 years ago offer a telling reminder of what happens when a force goes to war unprepared. Disaster lurks around every bend. There are lessons here especially pertinent to the logistics community.
The Army either learns from its history or runs the risk of repeating past mistakes on some future battlefield. This is what General (Retired) Gordon R. Sullivan meant when he said repeatedly throughout his tour as Army Chief of Staff: "No more Task Force Smiths."
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