Chapter 81 Section VII

On September 15th, under the cover of 1,000 aircraft, 50,000 United Nations troops landed in Incheon on 300 ships using a large number of Japanese transport personnel.In the face of such huge military and material strength, the North Korean army defending Incheon could not resist and finally retreated.The U.S. troops who landed advanced all the way to Seoul. Yozo Wakatake, author of the book "America Has Been Lost," wrote: "However, in the Battle of Incheon Landing, the defense force of the North Korean army was too weak. In the subsequent defensive battle of Seoul, they showed extremely tenacious resistance. Therefore, this is even more incredible. For this The reasons for the unexpected weakness of the North Korean army’s defense force need to be further explored.”

According to this author, the weakness of the North Korean army is mainly due to its inexperience in positional warfare, despite its great field capabilities.It is extremely weak in the preparations necessary for positional warfare-building fortifications, formations, and tactics.He believes that fighting positional warfare requires quite different military knowledge and experience from fighting field warfare. In addition, as Kim Il Sung recalled, the defensive positions at Incheon were filled with "undertrained recruits", which was one of the reasons for the defeat.Some people say that the landing in Incheon was a "surprise attack", but judging from the battle situation, anyone would have expected the landing of the United Nations army in Incheon. Needless to say, the Russo-Japanese War goes back a little further, and there is also a landing in Incheon. This is already common sense in the history of warfare. ".It should be pointed out that the North Korean army was completely defenseless and unprepared for such an obvious situation.It can also be pointed out that during this period, the North Korean army has completely lost its air supremacy.

Under the onslaught of the United Nations Army, Seoul finally fell.On the other hand, due to the landing of the United Nations Army in Incheon, the North Korean army began to retreat from the Nakdong River front.The U.S. and South Korean troops pursued from the south, and the 1st Cavalry Division of the Vanguard 8th Army contacted the 10th Army, which went south from the Incheon and Seoul areas and echoed it, near Suwon, thus forming a situation where the North Korean army on the southern line was pinched. . So was the North Korean army intercepted and annihilated by the United Nations Army's north-south attack?absolutely not.They disappeared like a puff of smoke in front of the US military.

"How did the North Korean troops on the southern front escape the pursuit of the United Nations forces? This is a mystery in the battle situation. They disappeared like a puff of smoke, almost overnight. The U.S. military reconnaissance The planes found no traces of the movement of the North Korean army on the road, nor did they find any activities by the North Korean army to transfer the army to the northern line. The big question is: where are these North Korean troops with their equipment?" (Associated Press Reporter Whitehead) "Where did the North Korean troops go? On the night of the 30th, U.S. military intelligence officers were desperately looking for an answer to this major puzzle. During these four days, most of the North Korean troops, about ten Thousands of people, at least, have disappeared from the presence of the United Nations forces." (Reuters reporter Ballantyne)

One hundred thousand troops disappeared in front of the enemy - this is unprecedented in the history of warfare.But the answer to the riddle is actually this. These 100,000 soldiers were not so much retreated as they were almost disbanded.Infantry units, for example, are instructed to muster at designated places within a period as long as one month or forty days.They slathered their rifles and other small arms with ointment and each managed to bury them.The location of the burial is only known to the person who buried it, or at most one of his most trusted civilians.The common people will probably be able to use this weapon to engage in guerrilla warfare in the future.In this way, the disarmed soldiers, relying on their unique amazing tenacity and indomitable will, climbed one after another of the mountains, without sleeping or resting, without eating or drinking, and rushed towards the assembly point.So it's not so much a retreat as a near dissolution.The fact that the North Korean army has not been reduced to the point of disbanding just shows the difference between it and the armies of capitalist countries.Those who failed to return presumably formed guerrillas on the hills they could reach.I am afraid some of them also fell on the march.In any case, soldiers must have the full spiritual support of the common people, and the soldiers themselves must have firm political consciousness.Such a retreat is only possible if these two factors are in place.

Unlike the disappearance of infantry units, how did heavy artillery and heavy tanks retreat?It's still a mystery.But one fact is clear, that is, they have never fallen into the hands of the US military. ("America Has Lost") The soldiers ran into the homes of ordinary people, took off their military uniforms, and put on white clothes.In this way, they are completely indistinguishable from the common people nearby.They immediately wore white clothes and became a so-called plainclothes team, crossing the mountains and running northward.In short, if it is not for the local people's goodwill towards the North Korean army, this cannot be done.Favorability refers to the common people's sympathy and sympathy for the revolutionary beliefs of North Korean soldiers.The 100,000 soldiers did not suffer any losses and safely returned to North Korea to "assemble" entirely because they had the support of the South Korean people.This is not so much the South Korean people's aversion to the Rhee regime, but rather because they hate the US troops who came to kill their compatriots.

On September 29, Syngman Rhee returned to Seoul.On October 1, MacArthur distributed 2.5 million leaflets calling for North Korea to surrender immediately. In this way, within about a month after the U.S. and South Korean troops broke through the 38th parallel and moved northward on October 1, they captured Wonsan and Pyongyang and continued to smoothly attack the Sino-North Korean border.Kim Il Sung's majestic army seemed to have vanished into thin air at this moment. At that time, the United Nations Army expected that China might intervene, but it also took chances.Although the United States estimated the danger of its actions, it still pushed its troops to the border and launched a new offensive, as if entering no one's land.But the danger did come.MacArthur had to announce on November 7 that he had encountered the intervention of foreign communist forces.According to the intelligence of the United Nations Army, it was initially estimated that there were 60,000 Chinese troops intervening, and it was finally confirmed that there were 200,000 Chinese troops.MacArthur had just announced on October 25 that the U.S. troops could return home before Christmas. Once upon a time, the situation changed completely.On November 26, 200,000 U.S. troops and 200,000 Chinese troops began to clash head-on.

This head-on conflict ended with the "accidental" overall defeat of the US military.On the Western Front alone, the Chinese army wiped out 23,000 enemy troops within a week, seized 2,000 intact cars and 55 tanks, and drove all the way to Pyongyang.On the Eastern Front, the Chinese army also went south to track down the U.S. and South Korean troops fleeing from the mountainous areas. With the momentum of "sweeping the fallen leaves with the autumn wind", they wiped out 12,000 people from the First Division of the U.S. Marine Corps in one fell swoop. Kaesong escaped.This battle has been called "the largest defeat in the history of the U.S. Army."

At this time, Truman issued a statement saying: "The possibility of using an atomic bomb in North Korea is not ruled out." Therefore, people worried that the Third World War would break out and watched the development of the situation with nervousness.The fleeing U.S. troops fell into an astonishing state of chaos, and there was even a strange incident in which the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Wacker, was run over to death by his tanks. At this time, guerrillas continued to dispatch in the rear area controlled by the US military to harass the rear of the US and South Korean troops.As mentioned earlier, when the 100,000 North Korean soldiers disappeared like phantoms, they buried small arms, tanks, and heavy artillery.The weapons used by these guerrillas are probably dug out from the ground.

Besides, the overwhelming Chinese army, together with the reorganized North Korean army, turned to the offensive on the front line, chasing the US and South Korean troops who had no time to regroup.They broke through the 38th parallel, recaptured Seoul on January 4, and advanced to Suwon and Osan; on the central front, they captured Chuncheon and Hongcheon, and advanced to Jecheon; The U.S. and South Korean troops forced into Samcheok.The North Korean side announced that it had wiped out 13,000 enemy troops during this week. In order to restore this defeated situation, the U.S. military invested a huge amount of supplies and turned to counterattack.Although the North Korean army continued to launch offensives with flexible tactics, they retreated to the line from Wenshan to Inje.American forces took Seoul again, but fighting continued in this strip until a cease-fire was instituted in June 1951, following a truce proposed by the Soviet Union's Malik.

According to an estimate published by the "Asahi Shimbun" on June 24 of the same year, the troops invested by both sides in the Korean War were: 800,000 United Nations troops (including 350,000 U.S. troops, 400,000 South Korean troops, and 50,000 troops from other countries). ); in terms of the communist army, China and North Korea have a total of one million people.So many armies have fought a tug of war on that peninsula.Judging from the mobilized forces, the Korean War can be listed as one of the five major wars in modern military history, the other four being the Two World Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Russo-Japanese War. The exact number of casualties is unknown.According to the announcement of the United Nations Army, in the first year after the war began, the United Nations Army suffered 292,000 casualties, and the Communist Army suffered 1,620,000 casualties.According to the Communist Party's announcement, the United Nations Army killed or injured 598,000 people, but it did not announce its own number of casualties. In the year after China's entry into the war, the United Nations announced that the number of casualties was 235,000, while the Communist Party said that the number of casualties of the United Nations was 387,000.Neither side has stated the number of Communist casualties.All in all, even without knowing the exact figures, the damage can be estimated to be quite severe. Also, within a month after the start of the war, the front-line commander Major General Dean was captured, the Australian army commander Lieutenant Colonel Green was killed, and the front-line commander-in-chief Lieutenant General Wacker was killed.In 1951, Major General Brian E. Moore, commander of the U.S. Ninth Army, was killed in action.In North Korea, Park Sung-seok, the commander of the Fourth Division, was killed in battle, and Jiang Jian, the chief of the general staff, was killed in battle. In addition, there was an incident like the front-line commander-in-chief of the US military, Wack, who was run over to death by his own tank. Although this was an accident during the retreat, it can also be seen how fierce the battle was and how chaotic the situation was.And in the end, it also led to the episode where the commander-in-chief of the Far East Army was dismissed by Truman. Since the start of the war, the loss of the Air Force has been: the loss of more than 900 U.S. aircraft and 532 communist aircraft (according to figures released by the Far East Air Force Command).This loss is limited to the airspace over the Korean Peninsula. Compared with the vast airspace during World War II, it can be seen that the bloodshed and sacrifice of the US Air Force is unprecedented.

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