How Two Signal OCS Men
Helped Win The Battle Of The Pusan Perimeter
Signal
Corps Successes
Get It Straight: It's Communicate, Move, Shoot Not Shoot, Move, Communicate
The glory jobs in the Signal Corps
during the Korean War were few and far between. Most of the
work that had to be done was grunt work… setting up
communication links, running wire and trying to keep the
circuits open while incoming fire ripped up cables along the
road, as well as the men laying them. If you were part of a
Signal Construction Company your job was especially
difficult, as you moved with the flow of the war and often
that flow moved without you. That is, it was usually the
Signal boys in the Signal Construction Companies that were
the last to find out that a unit had moved, and was now in
desperate need of communication.
Lieutenant David S. Howard,
a graduate of Army Signal Corps OCS
Class 44-40 was the Commanding
Officer of just such a company. Assigned to the
532nd Signal Construction Company, he spent his waking hours
trying desperately to meet the needs of Staff Officers
literally crying for communication service. During his
sleeping hours, he fought his way through nightmare after
nightmare, trying to find solutions that would meet
everyone’s needs.
The unit he was assigned to, the 532nd,
arrived in Korea on July 10, 1950. As we tell this story
further we will speak of the 532nd Signal Construction
Company as though it was the only Signal Construction
Company that served during the entire Korean War. Clearly,
that was not the case. In fact there were 2 Signal
Construction Battalions and at least 3 other Signal
Construction Companies that served, not to mention a total
of 62 Signal Corps units of one form or another.
Yet the 532nd was
unique. It was unique because of its early arrival in the
war, and its association with Eighth Army Headquarters.
Because of this it was often looked to as the first source
for help by Eighth Army when things needed to be done. And
as a result, as you will see in this article, it played an
important role in not only helping win the Korean War but
also defining a new form of tactical combat that theretofore
had never existed. With this in mind, we ask the reader to
forgive us if we speak in this article of the 532nd as
though it was the only Signal Construction Company in the
Korean War. It wasn't... it was just one of the best damned
Signal Companies to fight that war.[1]
We begin then with the 532nd Signal
Construction Company, and its Company Commander, Lieutenant
Howard. Considering that the war started on June 25, 1950,
Lt. Howard’s unit was Johnny On The Spot when it came to
being among the first to get in country, set up shop and
begin supporting the troops. Being a HQ Support Company, as
can be imagined, as soon as they arrived they began getting
calls for phones to be installed in Eighth Army
Headquarters… calls from frantic, frustrated Staff Officers,
every one of which
claimed a priority need to have a phone installed so that he
could do his job.
Normally, stringing wire and hooking
up phones would have been child’s play for Lt. Howard’s men.
However, since only a few of the 532nd’s switchboards had
arrived in country along with the men, the number of drops
(lines) available to connect to phones was less than the
demand Eighth Army HQ was creating. That being the case, all
the men could do was string wire and hope for the best.
To try and keep the peace and make
everyone think that phone service would soon be available,
they strung the wire they had and then connected phones to
these same dead ended wires. But that didn’t work. When
Officers came along and saw a phone with a wire connected to
it, they tried to use it. Finding no one on the other end of
the line, they filled out a service order. All that did was
add to the work Lt. Howard’s men did, as they ran around
double checking whether the phone that was reported as being
inoperative was or wasn’t one of the dead ended wire drops.
To get around this problem, and having more wire than
phones, Lt. Howard’s Signaleers decided instead to simply
string the wire to where it was needed, drop it on the floor
next to the desk or spot where the phone would eventually be
set, and move on. That way, when they got a call about a
bare ended piece of wire missing a phone, they were pretty
sure it was that way because it was supposed to be that way…
and it would stay that way until more switchboards arrived.
Strangely, this tactic worked to
their favor, as once the Staff
Officers of the Eighth Army
figured out that the 532nd’s
missing switchboards was the
reason they had no phone
service, they pulled out all
stops to get them brought over
to Korea. In the mean time, Lt.
Howard spent his time running
between Staff Officers,
explaining the situation, asking
for their help in getting his
switchboards sent over as soon
as possible, and suggesting that
in the interim they work it out
among themselves as to who would
get access to the limited phone
lines that were available.
To some extent this took the
pressure off, but as time passed
and the switchboards still
failed to arrive another
solution was needed. To meet the
needs of all of the HQ Staff
Officers a rotation schedule was
set up whereby one Officer would
receive phone service one day,
and another the next. A smooth
system from an operational
standpoint, this process of
connecting phones one day,
disconnecting them the next and
connecting another phone in its
place, doubled the men’s
workload.
With nary a complaint Lt. Howard
set his men to connecting the
phones and circuits in
accordance with the priority
schedules the Eighth Amy Staff
Officers gave him… connecting a
phone for a few hours today,
pulling the line from it
tomorrow and putting it
somewhere else, and on, and on.
A stopgap routine that fit the
occasion, while this played
havoc with the Signaleer’s work
schedule, everyone heaved to,
abandoned their normal shift
schedule and simply worked as
long as was needed to get the
job done. Simply put, the day
ended when the work ended, at
which time the men would bunk in
for an hour or two of sleep and
then get up and do it all over
again.
Across the Company the Officers
and men of the 532nd worked
without regard for their own
comfort, realizing that a war
was on and there was no time for
niceties. Soon their work ethic
began to be recognized. So hard
did the men of Lt. Howard’s unit
work that after a week at this
level of intense activity the
Staff Officers of the Eighth
Army began complimenting them
for a job well done. The report
of the men’s efforts soon went
up the chain of command, until
it reached Lieutenant
Colonel Thomas A. Pitcher,
the Signal Officer of Eighth
Army. A former Army Signal Corps
OCS instructor himself
(Instructor for Army SignalOCS Class 41-01,
the very first Army
Signal OCS Class), to show
his appreciation he abandoned
his desk and headed out to work
with the wire crews himself,
helping to string wire and
connect phones along with the
rest of the men.[2]
Over time the 532nd’s equipment
began to arrive, and the panic
of the early days subsided.
Routine work then set in, based
on an approach little changed
from WWII. Overall, the wire
that was strung, equipment that
was used and methods employed
followed textbook processes as
had been taught in Fort
Monmouth’s Signal Schools, with
one exception. The exception had
to do with the use of spiral 4
cable. As our readers know,
spiral 4 wire worked more
effectively as a telephone cable
than non-spiral wire because the
twisting of the wires helped
reduce electromagnetic
interference… either from other
phone cables in close proximity
to a wire line, or other sources
such as spurious radio waves.
Spiral 4 cable also reduced
electromagnetic transmissions
from the wire itself, helping to
reduce noise and interference
being instilled into nearby
circuits, equipment and cables
running parallel to it.
Because of this, especially in
Korea, where distances between a
phone and its switchboard tended
to be longer than that found in
Europe in WWII, everyone wanted
to be connected with the new
wire because its higher signal
to noise ratio meant that
conversations were more
intelligible. So great was the
demand for spiral 4 cable that
Division level Communication
Officers even got into the
picture, demanding that their
circuits use this wondrous new
wire too.
The result was easy to predict:
spiral 4 cable soon became in
very short supply, creating more
nightmares for the 532nd. Yet
problematic as it was finding
enough cable to meet everyone’s
needs, the men didn’t complain
because using spiral 4 greatly
reduced the amount of signal
maintenance they had to do,
reducing the number of times
they had to run new cables, and
therein reducing the number of
times they found themselves in
the field, exposed to enemy
fire.
Technical
and supply problems aside, it
didn’t take long for the pace
and pulse of the Korean War to set in.
During the early days of the
war much of the work the
532nd did was in the vicinity of
the Naktong River (낙동강). This
was because the North Korean
People’s Army (NKPA) had driven
their way down, across the
entire length of South Korea, to
the very river’s edge, and was
pressing on the few U.S. troops
then trying to hold onto Pusan.
In effect, this made the Naktong
River the western boundary for
the infamous Pusan Perimeter.
The result was that the NKPA
mounted attack after attack
along its length, trying to
dislodge the U.S. and Republic
of Korea Army (ROKA) troops
along it, cross it, and rout
the Eighth Army.[3]
The spot where
some of the most fierce battles took
place became known as the Naktong Bulge, and the first
battle between U.S. and North
Korean forces took
place at this spot between
August 5th and 19th, 1950. Occurring in the
vicinity of Yongsan (Yeongsan,
Changnyeong county), right
beside the Naktong River,
controlling this important piece
of ground meant that both sides
fought hard to hold their
positions along the Naktong
Bulge during those early days.
Because this was a key point the
U.S. had to hold in order to
save Pusan, the fighting that
took place here led to the
skirmishes taking place both
here and along the rest of the
front becoming known as the
Battle of The Pusan Perimeter.
Though if you had asked our Army
Signal OCS graduate, Lieutenant
Howard, he would have told you
that while a hot spot of
fighting, the battles that took
place in the Naktong Bulge were only
one of several large engagements
around Pusan, all fought nearly
simultaneously, and all
supported by his Signaleers.
To
get a sense of what these men
went through, it is useful to
look at some of the engagements
they experienced. On August
5, the 4th Infantry Division of
the NKPA moved south and crossed the Naktong
River, attempting to cut US
supply lines that ran in that
area as
well as gain a bridgehead into
the Pusan Perimeter. Opposing it
was the 24th Infantry
Division of the Eighth Army,
being supported by Signaleers
from the 532nd.
Over the next
two weeks, American and North
Korean forces fought a bloody
series of engagements inflicting
heavy casualties on one another
in a confusing series of attacks
and counterattacks. Neither side
was able to gain an upper hand
over the other, and the front
line shifted constantly back and
forth throughout the engagement.
As was expected, Lieutenant
Howard's men strung and restrung
cable in every direction
imaginable, in an attempt to
keep commanders in touch with
those US forces then streaming
into the fight. Without the
telephone links the men of the
532nd set up, field commanders
would not have been able to
direct reinforcements to where
they were needed, coordinate air
support or call in heavy weapons
fire on the North Koreans.
As a
key part of the overall Battle
of The Pusan Perimeter, the Naktong River Perimeter battle
received the full attention of
Lieutenant General Walton H.
Walker. Otherwise known as
"Bulldog", Walker was the
Commander of the Eighth Army.
Every bit as good a General as
he was difficult to get along
with, as a short, fat, heavy
drinking man with a never ending
pugnacious scowl his men loved
him. He epitomized what American
soldiers thought in those days a
fighting man should be. No
intellectual strategist with a
tendency to dally with women
writers that interviewed him,
like David Petraeus, Walker was
all fight all the time.
When he
arrived in Korea U.S. forces
were being pushed back mile by
mile, every day. To sort things
out and put his forces on the
front foot instead of the back
foot, Walker established the
Eighth U.S. Army in Korea
(EUSAK) as a Command Post and
located it in Taegu, some 60
miles northwest of Pusan on the
southeast corner of the
peninsula. Not being able to
mount a serious offensive
because of the slow manner in
which American forces dribbled
into Korea, Walker watched as
the NKPA pushed his men further
and further down the peninsula.
The rout began on July 5 when
Task Force Smith suffered a
crushing defeat near Osan. Two
days later, on July 7, the NKPA
pushed their way through Ch'onan.
On July 10 they took Ch'ongju,
then Choch'iwon on July 11–12,
and finally crossed the Kum
River on July 15–16.
On July 17
Walker, in an attempt to better
coordinate all available troops
in the field, added operational control
of the Republic of Korea Army to
his own forces, noting that they
were badly battered and poorly
equipped for the fight ahead,
but still full of spirit and
determination. However, spirit and
determination was not enough.
Three days later, the NKPA
pushed the 24th Infantry
Division out of the city of
Taejon, and in the process
actually captured Divisional
Commander Major General William
Dean.
Yet the rout continued. On
July 25 the newly arrived 1st
Cavalry Division found
themselves being driven out of Yongdong. Throughout this
period, Lieutenant Howard’s men
ran cable everywhere they were
asked, taking fire and fixing
damaged wires even as U.S.
Infantry troops moved about
them, trying to consolidate the
few lines they held.
So bad was
the situation that Walker did
something he had never done
before. He addressed the men in
a manner designed to grab them,
shake them up, get their
attention, and rally them for a
second effort.
Little did he
know that his talk to the men
would also place his name in the
pantheon of American heroes,
forever. On July 29 he issued to
Division Commanders what has
become known as his "Stand or
Die" order. It read:
We are
fighting a battle against time.
There will be no more
retreating, withdrawal or
readjustment of the lines or any
other term you choose. There is
no line behind us to which we
can retreat.…There will be no
Dunkirk, there will be no
Bataan. A retreat to Pusan would
be one of the greatest
butcheries in history. We must
fight until the end.…We will
fight as a team. If some of us
must die, we will die fighting
together.…I want everybody to
understand we are going to hold
this line. We are going to win.
Rallying though his call to arms
was, the men had their work cut
out for them. Few knew that the
forces under Walker’s command
included little more than 5
badly mauled ROKA divisions and
3 still under strength U.S.
Divisions: the U.S. 24th and
25th Infantry Divisions and the 1st
Cavalry Division. Yet weak as
they were, the men held on and
waited for reinforcements to
arrive.
As the battle
progressed, other units began to
appear along the front. As
quickly as they arrived in Pusan
units like the 5th Regimental
Combat Team (5th RCT), the 1st
Marine Provisional Brigade (1st
Marine Bde.), the 2nd Infantry
Division (2nd ID) and the
British 27th Infantry Brigade
(27th Inf. Bde.) were sent to
the line.
To help consolidate
their front and close openings
that the NKPA would certainly
exploit, Walker ordered his
besieged and harassed forces to
withdraw behind the natural
barrier of the Naktong River.
Slowly, the “front” became
distinguishable from what had
previously been little more than
numerous small but fierce battle
areas only lightly connected to
each other. By August 1 what
became known as the Pusan
Perimeter finally emerged. It
comprised a rectangle about 100
miles wide by-50 miles high, set
into the Southeast corner of
Korea. Along the west side of
the rectangle was the main line
of resistance. It ran along the Naktong River, from the mountain
town of Naktong-ni south for
about 80 miles. At that point
where the Naktong met the Nam
River, the waterway jogged
sharply to the east. At this
point the defensive line left
the river and continued instead
some 20 miles due south, until
it reached the coast.
The
northern boundary of the Pusan
Perimeter ran through the
mountains from Naktong-ni to the
town of Yongdok, on the east
coast. There the sea stepped in
to save the day, bounding the
eastern and southern sides of
the Perimeter. If the NKPA
wanted to breach the line in
this area, Walker could depend
on the U.S. Navy to anchor this
point, as well as the one to the
southwest.
Walker’s
repositioning of his units had
the effect of making the
perimeter he had to defend
smaller. This of course had an
impact on the 532nd’s efforts to
support the units Walker was
repositioning. For one thing, as
the Naktong Perimeter became
smaller the number of telephone
lines that had to be run to each
unit rapidly increased. Normally
one sees this occur when an army
builds for itself a stable
defensive position. Walker
though wasn’t aiming for a war
of defense, he was merely
repositioning his men to a) stop
the NKPA’s advance until b) he
could loose elements of his
front line to go on the
offensive… launching their
gambit from the very lines they
had been defending a day
earlier. Thus Walker envisioned
some units launching offensive
actions while others… their
neighbors in the trenches, if
you will… stayed behind and
maintained the defensive line
protecting Pusan.
The impact of
this on Lieutenant Howard’s
Signal Construction men was that
along the perimeter he was
trying to support this
"defensive stability" ended up
applying to only certain units.
In other words, some of the
units his men ran cable to
barely moved from one day to the
next, as their task was to
maintain a defensive line.
Others on the other hand, while
acting like they were filling a
defensive hole in the Naktong
Perimeter and therein
maintaining a defensive line,
were in reality looking for any
opportunity to move laterally one way or the other, or even
scoot over the line, to attack
the enemy and make a
breakthrough that would allow
them to mount an enveloping
action.
For those units that
held their ground, Howard’s men
of the 532nd had it easy… the
phones they put in stayed in.
But for the others, keeping lines
of communication open to them
proved a nightmare. Some, like
the 24th Infantry Division,
seemed to Howard to “shift too
often.” Long after the war he
commented in talking about the Naktong Perimeter battle that
the 24th was the one that moved
the most, saying “we had a hard
time keeping wire in to them. At
one time the 24th was west of
Kochang and we were ordered to
tie them into the Mukden cable
at Miryang, about forty road
miles away. So we sent out two
crews and started laying two
spiral 4 cables from each end
toward the middle. But by the
time these crews met and ran
their test calls, the 24th had
moved.”
For those of our readers that
lived through Vietnam, stringing
spiral 4 cable that had to be
moved with Infantry that moved
laterally, backwards and
forwards, hour by hour,
throughout the day, every day,
seems unthinkable. One wonders
how it could have been done at all. Thinking
back on OCS training, it's easy to
remember being taught how to
supervise a platoon of men
stringing cable and wiring phone
service in the field, but it’s
hard to recall a class on how to
logistically glue your men to
the Infantry men most in need of
the phone your Signaleer was
carrying in his knapsack. It’s
hard to imagine a Signaleer
running along beside some
Infantry Lieutenant waiting for
him to say “put the phone here…
this will be my fighting
position for the next 3 hours…”, all while uncoiling wire with every step he takes.
What we know is this, Lieutenant
Howard, of OCS Class 44-40 got his men to do it, and do it with style.
As
for Bulldog Walker, he proved a
genius at operating along
interior lines. With the help of
the U.S. Fifth Air Force keeping
the enemy at bay, Walker was
able to move his forces along
the inner edge of the perimeter
even during daylight hours,
without fear of detection.
Helping him with this was a
stroke of good luck in the form
of a well placed rail loop that
the Japanese had built back when
Korea was one of their colonies.
The line in question ran close
to the Pusan Perimeter and
connected Pusan with Miryang,
Taegu and P'ohang-dong. This
allowed Walker to quickly bring
both men and materials up from
the port on the Tsushima Strait.
It being able to handle up to 30
oceangoing ships at any one
time, Walker was thus able to
bring to bear, within short
order, serious men and materials
almost anywhere along the
Perimeter where the NKPA might
chose to raise their head.[4]
With the economic and military
might of the U.S. of A. behind
him, General Walker was thus
able to build a line of assault
able to provide defensive
capabilities where needed, while
at other places along that same
line put men to work
preparing for offensive action.
To assure that all of the units
were integrated along the length
of the Pusan Perimeter he
initially positioned his three
Divisions (24th, 25th and 1st
Cav.) along the Naktong River,
from Waegwan south to the coast.
Tactically, the 24th Infantry
Division held the center among
the group, with the 1st Cavalry
Division on the right and the
25th Infantry Division on the
left edge. To add defense in
depth, north of the 1st Cavalry
Division General Walker ordered
that the ROKA 1st Division sit
along the edge of the Naktong
itself, occupying its edges up
to the northwest corner of the
Perimeter. To round this defense
in depth, Walker then placed the
ROKA 8th and Capital Divisions
in the center of the line, and
the 6th Division to their west.
For added measure he assigned
the ROKA 3rd Division the task
of defending the far northeast
corner, all the way up to and
through Yongdok, and from there
on to the coast.
While Walker
was busy preparing to do serious battle, the
North Koreans did not sit idly
by. Seeing the strength of
Walker’s defenses unfolding they
acted quickly and threw 6
infantry divisions against the
western flank of the Pusan
Perimeter. For good measure,
they threw another 4 against the
northern flank. Backing these
foot soldiers up was the NKPA’s
105th Armored Division, which
was held in reserve.
From a
fighting power standpoint the
NKPA force looked solid and
steady. But the truth behind the
scene of so much manpower and
hardware suggested that a
different story was unfolding.
Although the 105th was armed
with the highly capable Soviet
T-34 tank, the unit had suffered
heavy losses during its advance
and was down to only about 40
operational tanks. This
suggested that rather than it
being a solid tactical move on
the NKPA’s part to hold their
tanks in reserve… waiting for an
opportunity to send them through
a break in the line… it was more
likely that they were being held
in reserve to help protect the
infantry, in case a rout ensued
and the NKPA had to fall back
in disarray.
The other side of
the coin however was that while
the 105th’s tanks might have
been little more than a show
piece placed on the chess board,
the men of the NKPA were in fine
shape and ready for a fight.
More worrisome than this, every
day there seemed to be more and
more of them pouring into the
battle lines. This was because
the North Koreans continued to
send fresh forces down the
peninsula, such that by late
August they were able to commit
3 additional relatively fresh
divisions, 2 against the center
of the Naktong defense line and
1 south, at a point just
opposite the southern end
along the coast.
Despite this,
Walker's force held a slight
numerical advantage… at least in
the first week of August it did,
when his lines held some 92,000
troops to about 70,000 for the
NKPA’s side. In this case
however, Walker worried that his
numerical advantage might be for
naught, as the majority of the
NPKA soldiers were not only
already combat hardened, they
were in fact combat troops.
Because of the close proximity
of the defensive lines to
Walker’s Headquarters, Walker’s
92,000 soldiers, on the other
hand, consisted mainly of the
kind of men normally found in a
Headquarters area… support
troops of the type needed to
provide, operate and maintain
the logistics infrastructure an
army requires. Lieutenant
Howard’s 532nd men were among
them… support men soon to find
their ability to fire a weapon
as important as their ability to
tell “tip” from “ring.”
To break
out of the pocket the NKPA had
him sewed up in, Walker devised
a strategy around conducting
what he called a "Mobile
Defense." The plan was that a
small portion of his defending
force would hold a thin screen
of forward positions, each
centered on a strong point. The
bulk of his force he would hold
in reserve as a counterattacking
element. Some of our readers may
have read our article on the
October 2014 Home Page,
where we discussed tactical
warfare from the perspective of
a Signal Site in Vietnam (see:
Tactical Warfare On A Signal
Site). If you did, you are
already familiar with the 5
basic forms of battle tactics:
Envelopment, Turning Movement,
Infiltration, Penetration and
Frontal Attack.
These forms obviously existed during the
Korean War too, but Walker’s
concept of a Mobile Defense did
not. At that time there was no
such thing as a Mobile Defense.
Not until Walker perfected it
did this form of tactical
doctrine join the U.S. Army’s
compendium of standard elements
of maneuver that can be used to
win a battle. Thanks to Walker
however, by 1950 his new Mobile Defense strategy was not only
part of the U.S. Army’s
repertoire of battle tactics,
it had been written into the U.S.
Army's primary operations manual
as an accepted and proven form of combat to
be taught to all military
leaders.
What Walker did when he
devised his approach was modify
the tactic then known as a
"defense on a wide front" to
suit the situation he found
himself in along the Naktong and
Puson Perimeters. Even this
however—the Defense on a Wide
Front—was considered a risky
form of tactics, being
considered by most as little
more than a theoretical exercise
worthy of college classroom
exploration, but not actual
field use. Highly experimental
at best, Walker saw value in the
concept and decided to marry it
with another form of tactics
known as the “positional
defense.” In Positional Defense
the bulk of one's forces are
deployed along a continuous line
of fixed positions, with small,
mobile reserve forces placed at
key points in the rear. By
integrating these two tactical
forms Walker was able to take
the best of each and create an
impregnable defensive position
along which were spotted strong
points able to mount offensive
actions intended to break
through the enemy’s lines, after
which anything from an
envelopment to a turning
movement could be mounted to
press the case to victory. Yet
at the same time, if the enemy
mounted an opportunistic frontal
attack either without warning or
in response to a breakout by
Walker, he could just as easily
move his “Strong Point” units
just as he would reserves, to
fill any hole or void in danger
of seeing his line give way to the enemy.
As
things actually unfolded on the
ground in the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, Walker assigned to each
of his Divisions along the bulk
of the Perimeter a
positional front line defense
involving a length of about six
to eight miles each. By
contrast, each of the Divisions
Lieutenant Howard’s men of the
532nd supported covered a length
of line along the Naktong River
of 25 to 35 miles. There being 4
Divisions in this group, that
meant that Lieutenant Howard’s
men were trying to keep some 100
– 140 miles of front line units
in communication with Eighth
Army HQ.
As the reader can
imagine, Strong Points or no
Strong Points, the line of
defense was so long and thinly
spread that Walker lacked
sufficient troops to form the
key large mobile reserve he
intended to have at his disposal
via his newly developed Mobile
Defense strategy. But he was
nothing if he was not both
stubborn and determined, and so
to remedy this situation he
cobbled together a number of ad
hoc “counterattack forces” from
troops in those sectors where he
expected little to no fighting
to occur. This, plus a few extra
men from the newly arriving
units, gave him a supplemental
reserve that he could throw at
any NKPA attempt to penetrate
the weak line he held along the
Naktong River.
For those of you
readers beginning to feel “this man
is taking far too many chances…
first inventing a new form of
battle tactics, then putting in
place an emergency support
strategy dependent on pulling
men from low friction points
along his front and piecing them
together with new arrivals
to the field, men hardly even aware of where they are…” you must remember that Walker was on the ground… he was there, and he knew what he was up against.
Even today, some 64 years later, it's hard to look at what he did and find logic in it... but it worked.
What Walker knew that analysts even today fail to realize is that he had two important
things on his side: 1) a solid
network of roads and railroads
within the perimeter, which he
could use to move his "fire
brigades" around wherever he
needed them, and 2) a superb
team of Signaleers in the form
of Lieutenant Howard’s 532nd
Signal Construction Company,
able to build and maintain fully
effective lines of communication
along his entire front, no matter how fluid that front became. With
communication in hand, men at
the ready, and the means to move
those men, Walker had exactly
what his Mobile Defense strategy
called for.
Sitting here today
looking back on General Walker’s
approach to his predicament, one
can see how precisely his
actions fit within the kind of
Infantry training tactics we are
all familiar with. It couldn’t
be any more simple, Walker was
applying the old saw of shoot,
move and communicate—except
that if one looks closely enough at what he was doing, what
one will see is that he had reversed the order. The way Walker applied this rule of thumb was in the form of communicate,
move, shoot, not move, shoot, communicate. That is, he used
the superb but harried
communication network Lieutenant
Howard’s 532nd set up to
“communicate” along the full length of his thinly held line... treating it in the manner of an upside down triangular communication network that allowed him to move his men where needed when needed, with the dual purpose of defending his line "here" while he broke through the enemy's line "there".
The graphic at right shows how simple the concept was. It is shown for a situation where one of the points along the front line, Unit A, comes under attack and requires reinforcements. With Lieutenant Howard's excellent communication network in place, this unit is able to notify Walker at HQ that they need support. Walker can then, using the same communication network Lt. Howard set up, direct Unit B to move some of it's troops to support Unit A. Of importance in this case, Unit B represents one of Walker's "Strong Points", and so has troops prepared to do any one of three things: defend their position, go to the aid of another line unit, or if possible take the offensive, break through the line and roll up the enemy's position.
In the scenario at right, with Unit B under orders Walker can notify the logistics personnel running the transportation links along the front line to pick up and move Unit B's men to Unit A.
Today this kind of coordination is what one would expect from front line units. But it must be remembered that during the Korean War a commander having at his disposal a fully functional front line communication network layered on top of an ideally situated transportation network simply did not exist. It wasn't until the mobile communication systems of the Vietnam War allowed commanders to use their access to helicopters to provide a transport system that mobile defense, and especially offense, became possible. In Korea, General Walker was trying to create, before its time, a concept that one day the entire U.S. Army would come to rely on.
And so it was—in 1950—an American
General had formulated with clarity
and exactness a better way for the Infantry to operate. By using the excellent communication network Lieutenant Howard and his men had given him, along with the local transportation links at his disposal, he was able to develop a new battlefield tactic based on the simple concept of communicate, move, shoot. Notshoot, move and communicate, but
communicate, move and shoot. And
note further, the way Walker
used the concept he had his men
communicate three times before any
moving or shooting took place.
It’s enough to make a grown
Signal Officer cry: communicate,
move, shoot.
For General Walker then, with this new tactic, it didn't matter if the battle was defensive or offensive in nature, he could react and win either way. If the NKPA
ruled the day and took it to the
Eighth Army, pressing the lines
until they broke and the NKPA
could overtake Pusan… he could use his tactics to move men from Strong Points to weak points. On the other hand, if Walker had his way
and he was able to find a place where his men could
break through the encirclement
the NKPA had him in, then he could reverse his Mobile Defense strategy and make it a Mobile Offense strategy. Either way, the
order of the day was still to
communicate, move, shoot.
For all of this, credit goes to not only General Walker, but also former Army
Signal OCS Class 41-01
Instructor Lieutenant Colonel
Thomas A. Pitcher, who organized
activities back at HQ, as well as his
erstwhile Army Signal OCS Class
44-40 graduate Lieutenant Howard... who acted as the field leader on the spot... hop
scotching the men of his 532nd
Signal Construction Company along the full length of the 140 mile long Naktong Perimeter front
line. Without these two men, General Walker would have
been in a world of hurt.
Without being too maudlin, it is important to say that as the
battle unfolded the means by
which these three men commanded the
field portrayed grace itself.
General Walker, lacking a
subordinate corps headquarters,
felt he could get a better feel
for the battle if he was with
the men, along the lines.
Because of this he took to his
jeep, alternating between it and
an L-19 Bird Dog to check
firsthand what was happening at
each Strong Point. As he moved
men and materials he kept
Lieutenant Colonel Pitcher, back
at HQ, in the picture. Pitcher
in turn gave a heads up to
Lieutenant Howard, who in turn
moved his men to run new cables
and lines wherever needed. Their
coordination was so good that
often Lt. Howard’s men had phone
lines in place before the men
General Walker dispatched even
arrived.
While it is a little outside the scope of this article, we will digress here to tell you of one of the other men who supported General Walker in this effort to apply his new Mobile
Defense strategy. His name was Colonel
Eugene M. Landrum, he was the
EUSAK Chief of Staff, and we bring him up because back
during WWII Landrum was the
Commanding Officer in charge of
the American forces that
recaptured the Aleutian island
of Attu, from the Japanese. More to the point, this
author has particular interest
in him as it was under his
command that this author’s Uncle
died in combat. A Signaleer, the
behind the lines attack that
took his life never should have
happened, but did in great
measure because of the ineptness
with which then General
Landrum managed that battle with
the Japanese. For those readers
interested, you can find the
story of the 4 men of this
author’s family that served in
the Signal Corps in an article
we penned called Signalmen Are
Tough, posted back in January 2012. In that story you will learn of our Uncle Steve, a Private performing Signal Corps duties in a Coast Artillery Unit in the Battle of Attu… a Signalman who died in a knife fight with a Japanese Sapper, in the middle of the night.
After gaining some combat
experience at Attu, Landrum was
shipped to Europe, was promoted
to Major General and led the
90th Infantry Division during
the brutal hedgerow fighting in
Normandy, in July 1944. He did
as well as he was able, but much like the needless slaughter that took place under his command on Attu, things didn't turn out as Eisenhower planned. The result was that he found himself
relieved of that command and
reverted back to the level of
Colonel. The records do not
indicate why he was relieved,
but one can assume that it
wasn’t because there were too
many Major General’s in Ike’s
Army back then.
In the Korean War Landrum popped up again, this time being assigned to General Walker’s staff. Unlike how he was perceived in WWII, in Korea Walker found him a much better soldier and more reliable than many of the other Colonel’s on his staff. Walker valued him highly, even to the point of publicly demonstrating the value and respect he placed on Landrum by always referring to him as "General" Landrum.
This author’s personal views aside, by the time of his appearance in the Korean War Colonel Landrum exuded a calm, unflappable air of professionalism. All of his colleagues found him to be a consummate team player. For Walker this proved to be a benefit, as since a U.S. field army in 1950 was not authorized an Assistant Commanding General, Walker turned to Landrum and made him his de facto deputy. This brought him into close contact with Lieutenant Colonel Pitcher, the Eighth’s Signal Officer, and through him on numerous occasions Lieutenant Howard. With the primary task of keeping track of all forces in Korea and summoning up reserves to plug any holes, Landrum became a key part of the battles that followed.
With all of this in place it was just a matter of time until the NKPA acted. From August 4th to 24th the NKPA attacked the Pusan Perimeter along multiple lines of thrust. Coordinating each route of attack, the North Koreans were essentially able to combine these efforts such that they formed 4 major, widely separated but nevertheless converging axis. Adding to this, in the southwest one NKPA division and one armored regiment advanced along the Chinju-Masan-Pusan axis, seeking to envelop the left of Walker's line.
This is what Walker had been waiting for, and the reason he had developed his Mobile Defense. On August 7 he gave the word and the combined Army–Marine force launched the first ever American counterattack of the Korean War, hitting the NKPA 6th Division at Chinju.
As a test of strength the tactics worked, but accomplished little more. The truth be told, what Walker had loosed was more of a counterattack than an attempt to break through the NKPA lines. Worse, it was poorly coordinated and while it stopped the North Koreans it had little impact on their strength. After 5 days of hesitant fighting, Walker, having heard through Lieutenant Howard’s communication link that things were getting hot farther north, sensibly suspended the operation.
While a seemingly redundant point, the reader should reflect on the significance of the importance of speedy, reliable communication in a situation such as this. Without Lt. Howard’s vast and functional network of spiral 4 linked telephone lines Walker would not have known that his northern flank was receiving more pressure than it should have been. If he had continued with his vacillating combat action in the southwest near Chinju, he could have found himself being forced, too late into the game, to pull reserves from other places to shore up what was a poorly run local campaign at Chinju. If he had done this, it might have served to weaken his lines in the north to the extent that the pressure the NKPA was putting in that area breached those lines. Thus it was that the telephone network built by a lowly First Lieutenant nearly fresh out of Army Signal OCS again provided the key tool needed to allow General Walker to sense the situation in real time and react within a heartbeat to the pulse of the battle.
The southwest and north
battles aside, the NKPA was not
about to let General Walker off
of the hook. In chorus with
their southern thrust, the North
Koreans punched at the center of
Walker's line, sending 5
infantry divisions echeloned in
depth at Walker’s men. To make
sure they had the impact needed
to break through Walker’s lines,
the NKPA supported these units
with elements of the 105th
Armored Division. In terms of
battle tactics, the form of
attack the NKPA was attempting
to mount mimicked a
double-pincer movement. While
the attack originated in the
vicinity of Sangju, it’s purpose
was clearly to envelop Taegu.
The double pincer element took
its form from attacks bearing on
Taegu, from both the north and
south.
Here we revert back to a
point we made earlier, where we
commented that Walker had two
critical strengths supporting
his proceedings, and that
without these he not only would
have been flying blind,
but likely risk losing any
battles he might have launched.
Those two strengths were:
1) A
solid network of roads and
railroads within the perimeter,
which he could use to move his
"fire brigades" around wherever
he needed them, and
2) A superb
team of Signaleers in the form
of Lieutenant Howard’s 532nd
Signal Construction Company,
able to build and maintain fully
effective lines of communication
along his entire front.
We reiterate this point, because in the end it is the existence of these two strengths that enables the Mobile Defense concept to work. Much like the tactical approach air mobile operations took in Vietnam, without communication and transportation Walker's tactical approach would have broken down.
When
Walker saw the double pincer
movement unfolding he instantly
recognized that if it succeeded
he would lose both of these two assets. That is, if the NKPA broke through what he termed the Naktong Bulge they
would be able to destroy the
integrity of Lieutenant Howard’s
spiral 4 network of telephone
lines, effectively putting his
communication network out of
service, as well as sever the
critical Taegu–Pusan rail loop
that he depend on to move men.
Without a communication backbone
and a means of moving his men
from Strong Point to weak point,
Walker’s Mobile Defense would
collapse. In the time it took
for these thoughts to gel in
Walker’s mind, the Naktong Bulge
went from being an interesting
line on the map to the greatest
threat he faced.
In battle good
leadership almost always trumps
better training, equipment and
manpower, and so it was with the
first two battles the North
Korean’s launched. Poorly
coordinated (dare we say, the
North Koreans didn’t have
Lieutenant Walker on their side,
and so were without effective
means of communication?), the
extra time it took for the NKPA
to respond to Walker’s movements
allowed General Walker to shift
his reserves between the two
attack points as required. This
befuddled the North Koreans, who
thought they were on their way
to taking the day. Instead, when
Walker moved the 1st Marine
Brigade and elements of the 27th
Infantry Regiment north and
attached them to the 24th
Infantry Division, and then
ordered the combined force to
counterattack the NKPA 4th
Division (August 17), the NKPA
collapsed. The result was that
the 24th Infantry Division was
able to clear the “bulge” by the
following night and hold the
ground from that point on.
Little did the NKPA know how
close they came to succeeding;
and little too did they know how
tenuous the hold was that the
24th ID had on the property they
were occupying. It wasn’t until
later, on August 24, when
Colonel Landrum picked up one of
Lieutenant Howards field phones,
called General Walker, and told
him that the 2nd Infantry
Division had disembarked and was
on the ground ready for action
that Walker was able to heave a
sigh of relief. He ordered
Colonel Landrum to get the 2nd
ID on trains as fast as
possible, get them up to the
line, have them step into the
bulge the 24th ID was occupying,
and then have the 24th ID pulled
back and placed into reserve
again.
Poor coordination though
the NKPA might have been
displaying, they were not
without determination. Even
while their attacks in the
center and south were failing
they ordered another 2 NKPA
Divisions just north of Taegu to
attempt to force their way
across the Naktong River. Here
they succeeded, causing the U.S.
lines—being held by the ROKA 1st
and 6th Divisions—to collapse
along the northwest corner of
the Naktong Perimeter. As the
ROKA Divisions withdrew they
fell back on the 1st Cavalry
Division, which had the
unenviable task of defending the
city of Taegu itself. With all
of the city of Taegu under
threat, General Walker smartly
ordered his EUSAK headquarters
to evacuate and relocate to
Pusan.
Again, Lieutenant Colonel
Pitcher turned to First
Lieutenant Howard and asked him
to rally his Signaleers and set
up a new HQ level communication
infrastructure in Pusan. This
time however our OCS graduate
was ahead of the curve.
Expecting just such an event,
Howard had earlier instructed
his Signaleers to pre-wire
Pusan, in their spare time, so
that if push came to shove all
they would need to do was grab
the telephones off of the desks
in Taegu, run them down to
Pusan, and reattach them there.
Well, push did come to shove,
and thanks to Lieutenant
Howard’s men the Signal Corps
came through again.
Meanwhile,
along the front, General Walker
sensed an opportunity finally
coming his way. Finally, he
thought, it was time to squeeze
out of the Mobile Defense
strategy the benefits he knew
lay within it. Ordering that the
27th Infantry Regiment be
shifted back to the north, from
whence it had originally come…
along with the ROKA 1st
Division… he instructed them to
counterattack the NKPA. Again
the dual strength of an
effective field telephone
network backed up with a road
and railroad system just to the
rear of the front line allowed
General Walker to work his
magic. In short order these two
units moved to relocate, and by
August 18 the Americans and
South Koreans from these 2 units
had established defensive
positions overlooking a long,
flat, narrow valley that became
known as the "Bowling Alley."
The following day, Walker
committed elements of the 23rd
Infantry Regiment to reinforce
the 27th, and with that he had
the strength he needed to press
his enemy. The battle coursed
for a full six days and nights,
and while the 13th NKPA Division
tried as they could to push the
Americans back, they failed to
succeed.
While General Walker
savored this small little
victory, things were turning
against him in other quarters.
Along the length of the Naktong
Perimeter battles were raging.
On August 9th the NKPA launched
a combined infiltration and
envelopment action, along
Walker’s northern line of
defense. To support this
operation they threw 3 Divisions
into the mix. Their objective
was to push their way down the
east coast, from Yongdok,
through P'ohang-dong to Pusan.
Earlier General Walker had
placed the northern flank of his
perimeter under the tactical
control of the ROKA 1st Corps.
Now he decided to provide
support for them by sending them
a small task force of U.S.
artillery and armor that they
could turn to if needed. Again
Lieutenant Howard’s Signaleers
rose to the occasion and made
certain that telephone lines
were in place by rapidly
stringing spiral 4 cable up to
the ROKA 1st Corps field HQ. To
assure that their extreme
eastern flank, along the sea,
did not give way, Walker ordered
that massive FEC air and naval
support be provided to them. As
it turned out, this did the
trick as Naval gunfire
compensated for the ROKA 3rd
Division's artillery shortfall,
forcing the NKPA to withdraw far
inland where they could be safe
from the shelling.
Even so, the
NKPA managed to push the South
Koreans down the coast to Toksong-ni. Recognizing a
tactical defeat when he saw one,
General Walker ordered the U.S.
Navy to pick up the ROKA troops
and evacuate them on the nights
of August 16th and 17th. During
all of this time the 532nd
Signal Construction Company
busily tried to pull out the
cable it had just installed a
few days earlier, police-up the
phones and equipment it could
find, and prepare to support the
ROKA troops wherever they were
put ashore.
The next day the
Navy set them ashore near P'ohang-dong, where some 25
miles south of where they had
originally been they then
proceeded to set up a defensive
position. While in point of fact
the ROKA 3rd Division had
suffered a tactical retreat,
thanks to the communications
infrastructure the 532nd had set
up, and the Navy’s
transportation, the speed with
which it was executed allowed
them to remain in the fight, and
that was to General Walker’s
benefit. Even so, when the dust
settled it was clear that the
along the northeast edge the
Pusan Perimeter had collapsed
southward, and was now little
more than half of its original
size.
If General Walker had sat
back at this point of the
battle, put his feet up on his
desk, and pondered the situation
he would have seen that the
North Koreans had in fact
executed a massive frontal
attack all along his lines.
Normally this basic element of
military tactics would have
spelled his doom. The reason it
didn’t in this case was because
Walker was able to execute his
Mobile Defense strategy with
precision… thanks again to
excellent Signal Corps provided
communication backed up with a
superb in-the-rear-of-the-lines
transportation structure.
Historians that have reviewed
this battle say that the fault
lie with the North Koreans, in
that they executed their frontal
attack in a piecemeal fashion.
We disagree. We posit that
piecemeal or not, if Walker was
unable to hear with precision,
via the telephone network First
Lieutenant Howard and others had
set up, what was going on and
where, he would have fallen
victim to a weakness in his
line… somewhere along the front…
that weak point would have
collapsed and it would have
been all over. America’s Army
would have been routed by the
North Koreans in the very
earliest of days of the war.
But
his lines didn’t collapse, his
communications kept him
informed, and he was able to
move his men where he needed
them, when he needed them, such
that the battle of the Pusan
Perimeter, and the Naktong
Perimeter in particular, kept
on.
On August 27 the NKPA
commenced yet one more series of
attacks against the same
objectives they had been
pressing since the first battle
ensued. This time they had
learned their lessons and the
attacks were much better
coordinated. With some 98,000
troops in the field, they were
able to simultaneously press
forward such that by September 3
General Walker found himself
facing attacks in 5 separate
locations. It was only a matter
of time until the North Koreans
had a stroke of luck, and so 3
days after their attacks began
they managed to cut one of the
roads Walker had depended on to
move his troops.
Running just
west of Taegu, the North Korean
success in cutting this road
forced the ROKA 3rd Division to
one more time pack up and move.
Leaving the town of P'ohang-dong
behind them, they left the door
open for the NKPA to take on the
1st Cavalry Division, who the
reader will remember was
defending Taegu. Fighting a
tough battle, the NKPA came
within inches of forcing the 1st
Cavalry out of Taegu, but they
failed. On September 10 however
they managed to drive the 2nd
Infantry Division deeper into
the Naktong Bulge, pushing them
back almost to Yongsan. Adding
insult to injury, to the far
south the NKPA broke through the
25th Infantry Division and began
an advancing movement toward
Masan.
Recognizing the
possibility that Taegu might be
lost, Walker focused his
attention on the security of
Pusan. Using the 532nd’s
communication network, he
shifted his reserves among
danger points within what was
clearly an ever shrinking
perimeter. Seeing the Naktong
Bulge as an important piece of
ground to hold, if only to keep
the NKPA at bay, he sent the 1st
Marine Brigade up to support the
2nd Infantry Division, placing
them under the 2nd ID’s command,
and instructed that the combined
force be used to clear the
Naktong Bulge… for the second
time.
At the same time, he
ordered that the 24th Infantry
Regiment be moved to a more
central position within the Naktong Bulge. His intent was
that it be available to quickly
move laterally, if needed, to
reinforce the 25th Infantry
Division, the 2nd Infantry
Division or even the ROKA units
north of these two units. Thus
again, his Mobile Defense
tactics were coming to bear.
Luckily for him, his tactical
gambit was based on sound
reasoning, as by September 7 he
was forced to commit the entire
24th Infantry Division to
support the ROKA Divisions to
the north of the 25th and 2nd
IDs… just as he had envisioned.
For the next 5 days the fighting
was harsh, hostile in the
extreme with neither side giving
an inch and the NKPA pressing at
every opportunity. Yet Walker's
defenses held on until finally,
on September 12, the NKPA
offensive peaked. By this time
Walker’s men had reduced the
NKPA forces through slow
attrition from some 98,000 to
fewer than 70,000 effectives,
with the result that the NKPA
campaign had stalled along the
full length of the Pusan
Perimeter.
Off balance and
overextended, the North Koreans
suffered more from one thing
than any other: they didn’t have
Lieutenant Howard and his men of
the 532nd Signal Construction
Company on their team; and so
the never ending bombardment by
the U.S. Navy and Air Force of
the NKPA began to take its toll
on their lines of communication.
With all seriousness, we can say
that in the end one of the major
contributing factors to the
failure of the NKPA to win the
battle of the Pusan and Naktong
Perimeters was the breakdown of
the NKPA’s communication
infrastructure. It doomed their
campaign. With little doubt, the
fight was still in the NKPA
soldiers in the field, and while
reduced in number, they were
still strong enough to persevere
and win, but their inability to
communicate effectively enough
to react to unfolding events
destined them to failure.
Unable
to communicate, coordinate, and
therefore move their men where
they were needed—as General
Walker was via his Mobile
Defense strategy—the North
Korean offensive broke down. In
the end, just as communicate,
move and shoot pushed General
Walker to success, the inability
of the North Koreans to
communicate, move and shoot
doomed them to failure.
As the
battle came to a slow close the
Eighth Army was able to field
some 84,500 troops. The ROKA had
over 72,000 men in the field.
The massive logistics push that
the U.S. military mounted
through Pusan resulted in more
than 500 medium tanks finding
their way to the front, giving
General Walker a greater than
5-to-1 advantage in armor. While
of little use during the actual
battle of the Pusan and Naktong
Perimeters, they would come in
handy when Walker finally broke
out of his lines on September
15 and headed north.
As to how Walker was finally able to break out of his lines and
head north,
with little doubt General Walker
knew of General MacArthur's plan
to conduct a massive turning
movement by landing an Army and
Marine Division deep in the
enemy's rear, at Inchon. Knowing
what was coming, he was able to
conduct what in the end was
little more than a holding
action along his perimeter… a
frantic and dangerous holding
action, but a holding action
nevertheless.
While this was
happening General Walker’s EUSAK
staff worked on plans for his
men to break out of the
perimeter, force the North
Koreans off to the side, drive
north and link up with
MacArthur’s Inchon landing
force. MacArthur designated his
force the X Corps. Somewhat
belatedly recognizing that the
North Koreans were better
fighters than he had thought, he
realized that Walker needed more
strength of his own, and so he
assigned him subordinate corps
headquarters, in the form of the
I Corps and IX Corps.
Technically, MacArthur did this
towards the end of August, but
since the necessary support
organizations failed to reach
the Eighth Army until the Pusan
and Naktong Perimeter campaign
was in its mopping up phase,
little benefit ensued to Walker.
Eventually, when he finally
received the required support
organizations, his burdens
eased.
As we all know, the X
Corps landed at Inchon on
September 15. On the next day
Walker’s Eighth Army launched
its breakout. The coordination
was masterful, as units of EUSAK
held the perimeter that existed
and pinned the North Koreans in
place, the newly established I
Corps broke out just north of
Taegu. Lieutenant Colonel
Pitcher organized Signal support
for the Eighth Army, and First
Lieutenant Howard and his men
heaved to also. This time though
they were backed by multiple
Signal Construction Companies
that were at the ready, having
come ashore at various stages of
the campaign that had just been
fought.
Overall, while the plan
General Walker put together was
simple and easily executed, as
everyone knew at that point the
NKPA was not going to prove a
pushover. As it stood, the joint
Walker–EUSAK plan called for the
5th Regimental Combat Team and
the 1st Cavalry Division to
seize a bridgehead over the Naktong River, near Waegwan. The
24th Infantry Division would
then cross the river, with the
ROKA 1st Division and the
British 27th Infantry Brigade in
tow. The combined force was to
then drive up the Kimch'on-Taejon-Suwon
axis to link up with General
MacArthur’s X Corps.
A clean and
simple plan, the truth was that
Walker's forces were exhausted
after nearly 2 months of
constant fighting, and they had
a tough time pushing the NKPA
troops off of the ground they
held. Tired, with ammo in short
supply, and without the
necessary river-crossing
equipment that one would expect
for an action like this, the
slog was hard. For a full week
the men fought on… tired,
bedraggled, almost without
ammunition, but determined.
Finally on September 22 North
Korean resistance broke. By the
next day it was obvious, the
North Koreans were in
withdrawal. From there it was a
horse race to see who could get
to MacArthur’s men first. Five
days later Task Force Lynch—a
group formed around the 3rd
Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment
of the 1st Cavalry
Division—finally linked up with
the 31st Infantry Regiment of
the 7th Infantry Division, of
MacArthur’s X Corps, in a place
just north of Osan, early on
September 27.
Thus it ended. The
Battle of the Pusan and Naktong
Perimeters was over. Fourteen
NKPA divisions had been taken on
and for all practical purposes
annihilated. As September 1950
came to a close and October
began, only 20,000 to 30,000 of
the original 98,000 NKPA troops
that had dared to besiege Pusan
were able to make their way back
to North Korea.
Yet General
Walker’s men paid a high price
too. During the period July 5 to
September 16, Eighth Army
casualties totaled 4,280 KIA,
12,377 wounded, 2,107 missing
and 401 confirmed captured. We
have looked but can find no
concise record as to how many of
these men were Signal Corps men,
even less so Army Signal Corps
OCS graduates or instructors.
But this we do know, Lieutenant
Colonel Pitcher and First
Lieutenant Howard were in the
thick of the battle, and may
have, singlehandedly had more to
do with not just the successful
outcome of the campaign, but
also the proving of an
important and new form of
tactical warfare—the Mobile
Defense—than anyone knew.
Walker’s success in battle
depended on them, and the men of
the 532nd Signal Construction
Company, who without question
proved the theorem communicate,
move, shoot a foundamental
element of modern warfare. These
wonderful men embodied everything the U.S. Signal
Corps stands for. We doff our
hat to them and take a knee in
honor of them.[5]
Thank Youk You
Footnotes:
[1] About the 532nd: Constituted and activated in England as
the 3251st Signal Service Company on 27 April 1944, the
Company participated in the Normandy, Northern France,
Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe campaigns
receiving a Meritorious Unit Commendation. In 1948 while
serving in Austria the Company was redesignated as the 532nd
Signal Service Company. During the Korean War the 532nd
was redesignated again, this time as a Signal Construction
Company. It served in six Korean campaigns receiving a
Meritorious Unit Commendation. The Company then went through
a series of activations and inactivations serving in the
U.S., France and Germany from 1952-1967. By the time of the
Vietnam War it was known as the 532nd Signal Company, and
arrived in Vietnam on 1 October 1968. Stationed at Tan Son
Nhut, it provided secure voice communications. It was
inactivated in Vietnam on 1 March 1970. When the 25th
Division departed Vietnam the 2nd Brigade remained and was
transferred to Long Binh where it operated under II Field
Force. On 10 February 1971 the 532nd Signal Company was
reactivated and reorganized as a combat support Signal
Company and assigned to the 2nd Brigade and stationed at
Long Binh. The Company was inactivated in Vietnam on 25
April 1971, upon the departure of the 2nd Brigade. The 532nd
was reactivated in 1973 and served in Germany and the
Netherlands until inactivated one more time on 15 September
1994. The Company still exists today, as it was activated
once more as the 532nd Signal Company, on 16 January 2011 at
Fort Bliss, Texas, and assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat
Team, 1st Armored Division. In all of this time the Company
was never authorized a distinctive unit patch of its own.
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text click here:
[2] As we said at the beginning of this article, this story is
written as though the 532nd Signal Construction Company
was the only Signal Corps unit to serve in the Korean War.
Obviously, it was not. Click
here
for a full list of the Signal Corps units that fought in the
Korean War. Our apologies to them for writing this story as
though they did not exist.
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[3]
The Naktong River is the longest river in South
Korea, and passes through major cities such as Daegu and Busan.
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[4] Although Pusan
had a daily discharge capacity of up to 45,000 tons,
personnel and transportation shortfalls during the battle
limited the average daily tonnage to about 28,000.
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[5] Biographical data:
► Lieutenant Colonel Thomas A. Pitcher,
Ohio, died in May, 1987.
► First Lieutenant David S. Howard,
Rhode Island, died in July 2000.
► General Walton Walker was born in
Texas and schooled in warfare at West Point. He first went
to war during the 1914 Vera Cruz Expedition, going on to
fight in both World Wars I and II. In World War II he was
known as General George S. Patton's most aggressive Corps
Commander. Assigned to the XX Corps, he earned the nickname
for his unit of "Ghost Corps," for the lightning speed with
which his men mounted armored thrusts across Europe. After
WWII he was assigned to head the U.S. Eighth Army in postwar
occupied Japan. Arriving in September 1948, he assumed
command of the army forces under General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur's Far East Command (FEC). Originally the Eighth
Army's four Divisions formed the backbone of the occupation
force, but since their ole was essentially constabulary
their TOE quickly began to be picked apart. By the tome of
the start of the Korean War the Eighth Army had degraded
into a hollow force. Most Regiments had shrunk from three to
two Battalions while Divisional Armored Battalions found
themselves operating light tanks where previously they had
been fielding medium tanks. Similarly, few of the Divisional
Artillery units could lay claim to a full complements of
guns. To top all of this off, the men were poorly trained
and out of shape, with only about 10 percent of Walker's
troops being combat veterans. This is what Walker started
his campaign in Korea with.
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Additional Sources:
Stand or Die - 1950 Defense of
Korea’s Pusan Perimeter; David T.
Zabecki
The Forgotten War, by Clay
Blair
South to the Naktong, North to the
Yalu, by Roy E. Appleman
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