Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, 1950: the Chinese counterstroke in Korea

On 24 November 1950 the US Eighth Army attacked north from the Ch'ongch'on River toward the Chinese border. There was even speculation, the Army's official history records, that UN forces would reach the border and end the war by Christmas. Within a week the Eighth Army was in full retreat. The fight along the Ch'ongch'on and the ambush of the 2nd Infantry Division south of Kunu-ri turned the war around.²

The last push to the Yalu

General Walton Walker expected to meet Chinese troops, but he did not know where they were. His intelligence officer traced two possible defense lines and estimated that the Eighth Army would meet some 48,000 Chinese and several North Korean units. Walker spread his forces evenly: the I Corps in the west, the IX Corps in the center with the 25th and 2nd Infantry Divisions and the Turkish brigade, and the South Korean II Corps on the right, in the mountains around Tokch'on.³

The first two days went well. Chongju was found empty, resistance was light, and casualties were not heavy in any corps. Four miles from Unsan, an American task force even recovered thirty soldiers of the 8th Cavalry whom the Chinese had captured earlier in November and released, most of them wounded and frostbitten.⁴

The night of 25 November

That night the Chinese struck. The commander of the XIII Army Group, Li Tianyu, aimed his main blow at the IX Corps and above all the 2nd Division, using his 39th and 40th Armies. Chinese infantry waded the cold Ch'ongch'on to hit a battalion of the 23rd Infantry and an artillery battalion; along the 9th Infantry's front, rifle companies were surrounded and fought their way out in pieces.⁵

The heaviest blow fell farther east. On 26 November the South Korean II Corps gave way, its regiments pulling back in confusion as broken communications defeated every attempt to form a new line. That left the 2nd Division's right flank open, and the Chinese 38th Army began to swing west toward it. Walker sent the Turkish brigade east from Kunu-ri to close the gap; it fought the 38th Army at Wawon and Sinnim-ni and was badly mauled.⁶

Retreat

By 28 November, with Chinese attacks all along his line, Walker had ordered his corps back. That morning General MacArthur had told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they faced an entirely new war, and that night he summoned Walker and the X Corps commander to Tokyo to plan the shift to the defensive; the Navy's historian later judged the statement correct except for the word entirely. On 29 November Walker called a general withdrawal to a line from Sukch'on to Sunch'on and Songch'on, twenty miles south of Kunu-ri.⁷

The 2nd Division was the last to go. Its main road south ran from Kunu-ri to Sunch'on through a quarter-mile pass, and the Chinese had already put a fire block across it. On the morning of 30 November its general decided to rush the column down that road, believing the block was small.⁸

The gauntlet south of Kunu-ri

It was not small. Chinese troops on the hills above the road, with perhaps thirty or forty machine guns and about ten mortars, raked the column for miles. Wrecked vehicles blocked the road, and every truck that stalled held up those behind it. Fighter-bombers answered the division's call for air support and struck the hills around the pass with napalm and machine-gun fire; the Navy's history notes that Navy and Marine aircraft were among those sent to help. Some units got through in order; others, including the rear of the 9th Infantry, abandoned their guns and vehicles and made for Sunch'on across country. One artillery battalion, Mossman records, cleared the far end with the loss of 35 men and with 10 howitzers and 53 vehicles left strewn along the road behind it.⁹

On 1 December the division counted its losses. Its battle casualties for the last half of November came to 4,940, about 4,500 of them since 25 November, one third of the 15,000 men it had on 15 November. It had lost 64 artillery pieces, hundreds of trucks and nearly all its engineer equipment, and it was sent south of Pyongyang to rebuild.¹⁰

What the Ch'ongch'on decided

The fight on the Ch'ongch'on ended the hope of reaching the Yalu. As December opened the remnants of the 2nd Division had reached Sunch'on and the Eighth Army was disengaging toward Pyongyang; by Christmas, the Navy's history notes, it was almost clear of North Korea. In the east, at the same moment, the Marines and soldiers of X Corps were fighting their own battle at the Chosin Reservoir.¹¹