Success
at war is made up of three parts: brains, brawn and assets.
One of the Signal Corps’ jobs is to make sure that when it
comes to communications at least, we have the brains to
figure out what assets are needed, the brawn to put them in
place and the ability to add to the assets as required to
keep the lines of communication open. In the Korean war one
of the assets that needed to be taken care of and kept
operating was the Mukden Cable, a communications link that
stretched from Mukden (known as Shenyang in Chinese) in
China, down the Korean Peninsula and then across the Korean
Strait/Sea of Japan to Japan.
As most know today, the Mukden Cable provided the backbone
needed to link Japan to Korea and China during that time
when Japan occupied both Korea (1910 – 1945) and
northeastern China (then called Manchukuo, or “Manchu
country”). The Mukden Cable was designed to provide the key
communication link between Japan and these fledgling members
of its new empire, so that she could maintain both economic,
military and political control over these newly occupied
territories.
Originally built by the Japanese through slave labor from
both Korea and China, on its opening on September 30, 1939,
it was the longest communication cable in the world,
stretching some 2,700 kilometers along its full length.
Interestingly, it took the Japanese only 4 years to lay the
cable, install the repeater stations, and make the whole
thing operational. To honor their accomplishment the cable
was put into service with a celebration hosted by Japan’s
Minister of Communications, Nagai Ryutaro. Speaking from the
terminus of the cable in Tokyo, he described the
accomplishment as a “revolutionary invention” and went on to
say:
“As the longest cable in the world, completion of the
Japan–Manchukuo connection telephone cable has become the
focus of all the countries. This cable is not an imitation
of the West but was completed with the unique technology on
the basis of the Ministry of Communications’ research and
invention; it is significant as the pride of a scientific
Japan. In today’s world, full of uncertainties, I believe
that as the only leading country of colored people firmly
established in the corner of East Asia, Japan has a cultural
mission that is both real and grave. Considering the great
mission of building the new East Asia that has now fallen on
the shoulders of the Japanese people, we are more acutely
aware of the responsibility of constructing an East Asian
telecommunication network as the first step.”[1]
The reader can see that as far as Japan was concerned, the
Mukden Cable was to play an important part in helping Japan
create its much heralded East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere,
and was destined to support Japan’s efforts to mimic
British, French and German imperialism as it took control of
China and Korea. As Japan so clearly said, it was time that
it, as the leading nation of the “colored people… of East
Asia” got on with making East Asia as powerful as the
countries of the West.
When
the Korean War got underway it became equally as clear to
the U.S. that this link had to be kept operational.
Functionally, the link depended on repeater stations that
were built and operated by the Japanese, back when they were
in charge. At the time of the break out of the Korean War,
the Japanese by then being long gone, the cable and the
repeater stations were being maintained and operated by the
Ministry of Communications of the Republic of Korea.
The cable itself was a different story. Constructed of ten
quad-pairs that in turn were made up of two twisted-pairs of
wire each, in most places the cable was buried little more
than a meter underground. To make it easy to find, the
Japanese had obligingly buried it along the length of the
Pusan–Mukden highway. Thus, anyone wanting to could simply
walk along the highway… which stretched from Mukden in
northeastern China to Pyongyang and then on to Seoul and
Pusan… walk one meter in from the edge of the highway, and
start digging. By the time they got down to a depth of one
meter they would have found it. Imagine that: one meter in,
and one meter down for 2,700 kilometers. It appears that
even back then the Japanese were ahead of the world in terms
of quality control standards.
Ease of location aside, the cable depended on repeater
stations at Miryang, Taegu, Kumchon, Yusong, Chonan, and
Osan to keep its signal strength up. Six repeater stations
in six of the toughest fighting areas of the Korean War.
To
keep this marvel of engineering running MacArthur called on
the boys of the 71st Signal Service Battalion. And while the
3 Officers and 19 enlisted men that would initially have the
privilege of providing the brains, brawn and assets
required to keep this beast humming may not have known how
important they were to the war effort, the stars did, as
they aligned to alter time so that the men arrived on the
4th of July, in 1950. They also aligned to see that
Capt. Wayne A.
Striley,[2] a U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS graduate of
Class 43-19, went along in command.
When Striley and his men arrived in Pusan they found that
the cable was operating as far as the front lines. Since the rear echelon sections
of the cable seemed to be in operational order, they focused
on keeping the forward area working. Bedded down in Pusan,
they made day trips to the front line area, following the
highway and checking every step along the way on the
condition of the cable, repairing any breaks they found.
Students of the Korean War know that the U.S.’ position in
July of 1950 was not too good, and that MacArthur’s troops
were about to be driven back. It was no wonder then that in
one of his first efforts to survey the cable at the front
Captain Striley
was only able to get as far as Yusong before encountering
the meat grinder that was the Korean War. Seeing little
chance for the wire foreman and a cable splicer he had
brought along to get any work done, Striley sent the men
back to the rear, thinking he would simply wait until the
front line moved a bit further before continuing. Instead,
as July wore on, the line was driven back.
With a sense of humor, Striley reported that the fall back
made things easier for him, as he now had less cable to
maintain. His only concern was that if the U.S. and ROK
troops kept falling back he would work himself out of a
job, as there would be nothing left to keep operating.
In a
more reflective mood, and believing of course that the Army
would prevail in its fight with the North Koreans, he
ordered that neither the cable nor its repeater stations be
destroyed as troops fell back, as they would surely be needed
again when the infantry boys decided to march forward
instead of backwards.
The war dragged on through the summer
of 1950, and it wasn’t until September that the U.S. made
its push to breakout from the Naktong perimeter. During
that breakout Captain Striley’s men were supplemented with
men from other communication groups in the area, each taking
on a separate responsibility for bringing the Mukden Cable
back on line as the front line advanced.
As the war slowly began to go our way, Captain Striley’s
detachment was assigned to move in lock step with the
infantry—and he did that—all the way back to Yusong where
he had been just a few months earlier.
As the battle
progressed the cable proved easy to repair, and it only
took the men a few days to get everything humming again once
an area was recaptured… or at least that was the case up to Yusong. After Yusong the infantry got its breath back and
really picked up the tempo. From that point forward the
fighting not only became more fierce, but the Infantry more
determined to push the North Koreans back, by greater
amounts each day.
Day after day Captain Striley saw the
front line move forward, faster than his men could keep up,
even though they worked around the clock to repair the
cable. And once the Infantry linked up with the U.S. forces
coming down from Inchon and Seoul, the race was on and the
Infantry simply disappeared into the haze of war that sat on
the horizon. With no chance of keeping up with the front
line as it went north, Captain Striley and his men set about
doing what they did best… repairing a cable system and
bringing in online as fast as they could.
With each step
along the road the men of the 71st Signal Service Battalion
found that the cable seemed in worse condition than the day
before. Looking today at the reports they submitted back
then, it’s clear that the damage they were seeing was
localized to those spots where the fighting was heaviest. In
those places the cuts and breaks to the cable were almost
too numerous to splice. This makes perfect sense, as the
average artillery shell usually dug a hole deeper than the
one meter depth that the cable was buried at. Fortunately,
tone locating devices allowed cable operators to pinpoint
cuts to the cable pairs within two miles of the actual
damage, which made it easier for Striley’s men to find the
damage. All they had to do was follow the cable and look for
artillery shell damage, or other destruction from tanks,
mortars or aircraft bombs. When they found a place with lots
of holes and trees down, they usually found the break they
were looking for.
Fixing broken pairs was one thing, that
was doable with ease. What was more of a challenge was
figuring out where the North Koreans had tapped into the
cable to pick up a pair of wires to serve their own local
communication needs, and where they had broken out of it at
the other end. This sort of piggybacking of North Korean
communication links on top of the cable’s links caused
innumerable short circuits, many of which couldn’t be fixed.
The result was that cable pairs often had to be reassigned
at each station and point along the entire length of the
cable. The problem of short circuits also forced the men to
track each cable pair and what condition it was in, so that
if a cable pair was abandoned and further up the road
someone was able to find the exit point of a tapped pair
that caused it to be abandoned in the first place, then a
cable splicer could be sent back down the road to the point
where the pair was abandoned, to reset the cable pair
configuration back to its ‘natural’ order. Adding to all of
this was the problem of some pairs simply not being strong
enough to carry a carrier wave. Since testing each cable
pair after repairs were made would slow down progress and
keep the men from ever catching up with the Infantry, it was
decided that when the cable was found to be cut only a
temporary splice would be made. Later, when the time
allowed or more men were available, others would be sent back to finish the job and clean
up the splice. While different than how splices were made in
World War II, this approach sufficed in Korea because there
was a real need to get the cable working all the way up to
where the Infantry was fighting as fast as possible, and the
destruction that was found along the way was so extensive
that if everything was brought back to A1 condition before
the Signal boys moved on, the
Infantry would never be seen again.
Looking from today’s
perspective, it seems evident that there weren’t enough
cable splicers or line men to get the job done in the time
required. But then again, that was the case with Infantrymen
too. The difference with the Signal Corps was that they were
able to bring civilians in from the States and pay them high
wages to fill in the blanks and get the job done… the
Infantry couldn’t do that.
As for the repeater stations
themselves, except for the lack of electricity to keep them
running, it was generally found that the North Koreans left
them alone. Because of this, when the 71st arrived most
repeater stations were found in good shape if not
operational. That is, all except for the one at Kumchon. At
Kumchon the entire station had been leveled by artillery
fire. Fortunately, someone in the Signal Corps, realizing
that Japan had built the repeater stations to begin with,
took the time to contract the Japanese to build a few more…
but this time using U.S. equipment and a U.S. design, and in
Army vans and trailers located back in Japan. Since this
work began almost as soon as the war itself began, when
Kumchon was found out of action there was a replacement
already waiting to be slotted into position, sitting back
behind the Infantry, only a few miles in the rear of the
front line.[3]
How did they do this? Going back to our trifecta of brains, brawn and assets, as soon as each
Japanese repeater van/trailer was completed and tested it
was airlifted to Korea, where it was brought up the road and
positioned only a few clicks behind the line. This allowed
the assets to be where they were needed, when they were
needed. In terms of what a 'repeater station van' held in the way of equipment,
they came in three versions, known as CF-1, CF-2 and CF-3.
The CF-1 van held telephone terminals, CF-2 held telegraph
terminals, and CF-3 held the repeaters themselves.
Overall,
what the Signal Corps and Captain Striley—a U.S. Army Signal
Corps OCS graduate—did was keep the absolutely essential
Mukden Cable online, operating and working… right there, on
the heels of the advancing Infantry.
Our salute to Captain Striley and his men… HOOAH!
Footnotes
[1]
Japanese publication: Nichi-Man renraku denwa koji
shunkosu; TKZ 375, November 1939, pages 120-126.To return to your place in the
text click here:
[2] Captain Striley was from Indiana. He passed away in
January 2009.
- To return to your place in the text click here:
[3] The only loss in capability between the Japanese design
and the U.S. design was that the U.S. repeaters were only
able to provide four circuits from each quad instead of six.
In the end however, this was because of the type of circuit
design employed so that standard U.S. equipment could be
used.
- To return to your place in the text click here:
Additional Sources
Technology of Empire:
Telecommunications and Japanese
Expansion in Asia, 1883-1945, Daqing Yang
Various online published remberances of Captain Wayne A. Striley
.
Watching the Sun
Rise: Australian Reporting of Japan, 1931 to the Fall of
Singapore, Jacqui Murray
Military Communications: From
Ancient Times to the 21st Century, Christopher H. Sterling.
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