Chapter XII: Korean Reflection (1)

_Marine Corps Role and Contributions to the Korean War: Ground, Air, Helicopter--FMF and Readiness Posture--Problems Peculiar to the Korean War--Korean Lessons_

_Marine Corps Role and Contribution to the Korean War: Ground_[691]

[691] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: U.S. Dept. of Defense, Semiannual Reports
of the Secretary of Defense, 1951–1954, hereafter _Rpt
of SecDef_; _PacFlt EvalRpts_, No. 6, Chaps. 9, 10, No.
5, Chaps. 8, 9, No. 4, Chaps. 9, 10; Marine Corps Board
Study, An Evaluation of the Influence of Marine Corps
Forces on the Course of the Korean War (4 Aug 50–15 Dec
50), vs. I and II, hereafter _USMC Board Rpt_, held in
James C. Breckinridge Library, MCDEC, Quantico, Va; A
Summary of the General Officers’ Conference, HQMC, 19–21
Aug 53, hereafter _Generals’ Summary_, at Breckinridge
Library; 1stMarDiv ComdD, May 53, App. IX, Summary of
USMC Action in Korean War; _USMC Ops Korea_, vs. I, II,
III, IV, _passim_; Cagle and Manson, _Sea War, Korea_;
Robert D. Heinl, Jr., _Soldiers of the Sea: The United
States Marine Corps, 1775–1962_ (Annapolis, Md.: United
States Naval Institute, 1962), hereafter Heinl, _Soldiers
of Sea_; Release “1st Marine Division ‘The Old Breed’”
from 1st MarDiv folder, HRB RefFile; Release “Outline
of the First Two Years of the 1st Marine Division in
Korea,” HistBr, G-3 Div, HRS Folder; _CheVron_, MCRD, San
Diego, Calif., V. 27, no. 31 (2 Aug 68), p. 4–5, “From
Camp Pendleton to Inchon--18 Years Later, LtGen E. A.
Craig, 1st Provisional Brigade CG, Recalls Experiences in
Korea,” Cpl C. N. Damopoulos, hereafter _CheVron_.

Ground operations of the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War can be divided into six periods. These are the Pusan Perimeter defense (August-September 1950), Inchon-Seoul assault (September-October 1950), the Chosin Reservoir campaign (October-December 1950), East-Central Korea (January 1951-March 1952), West Korea (March 1952-July 1953), and the post-armistice period (July 1953-February 1955).

Marine Corps traditional concepts of readiness and fast, effective deployment were never better illustrated than in the hectic weeks following 25 June 1950. The NKPA invasion of South Korea came at a time when U.S. military forces were in the final stages of a cutback to peacetime size. Ships and planes were being “mothballed”; personnel of all the Armed Services were being reduced in number to the lowest possible effective manpower levels.

From the peak of its six-division, five-wing wartime strength of 475,600 in 1944–1945, the Marine Corps at the outbreak of the Korean emergency had only two skeletal divisions and two air wings. There were but 74,279 Marines on active duty, 97 percent of the Marine Corps authorized strength. Although a ceiling of 100,000 had been established for the Corps by law, it was a period of tight purse strings for all defense components. Fiscal austerity in the post-World War II period had whittled Corps numbers from 85,000 in FY 1947 to what was projected at 67,000 by the end of FY 1950.

This critically reduced strength found the normal Marine triangular infantry organization cut back to two companies per battalion, two battalions per regiment, and two regiments per division. The 1st Marine Division, at Camp Pendleton, and 2d Marine Division, at Camp Lejeune, were structured along the regular peacetime T/O of 10,232 USMC/USN vice the wartime minimum T/O of 22,355. No Marine units of any size were located in the Far East.

Despite its lean numbers in late June 1950, the Marine Corps once again would be in the forefront of American military response to the Communist aggression 6,000 miles across the Pacific. As hard-pressed South Korean forces and understrength U.S. occupation troops from Japan attempted to halt the Communist invaders, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, on 2 July, requested the JCS to send immediately a Marine RCT with supporting air to the Far East. On 7 July, the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was formed at Camp Pendleton from units of the 1st Division. Major components of the brigade--a balanced force of ground, service, and aviation elements--were the 5th Marines and MAG-33. Five days later, the 6,534-man brigade had mounted out from San Diego to answer the CinCFE plea for Marines to help turn the Communist tide engulfing Korea.

The brigade buttressed the faltering UNC defense in the Pusan Perimeter. Employed as a mobile reserve it helped prevent three enemy breakthroughs--at Chinju and the two Naktong River battles. On 7 August, a month after its activation, the brigade launched an attack toward Chinju. The Marine brigade was the first unit sent from CONUS to see combat in what was then considered a short-term police action. Later, in leading the way to destruction of an enemy bridgehead at the Naktong, the Marine brigade gave the defending Eighth Army its first victory against the NKPA in the Korean conflict.

Even before the brigade had been dispatched to the Far East, as the Korean situation continued to deteriorate, MacArthur had requested the JCS to expand the brigade to a full war-strength division. Between 10–21 July MacArthur, now CinCUNC, had made three separate requests for a Marine division. This persistence was reinforced by his growing determination to conduct a tactical amphibious operation to the rear of the overextended NKPA lines and thereby seize the initiative from the enemy.

In the States, meanwhile, authorization was received to bring the badly understrength 1st and 2d Marine Divisions up to full 22,000-man war levels. By stripping posts and stations, reassignment and rerouting of units, and callup of additional reserve personnel, major elements of the 1st Marine Division were on their way to Korea by mid-August. Timing was critical in order to meet the projected D-Day target date of 15 September.

Pulled out of the Pusan line on 12 September, the brigade was absorbed by the newly arrived 1st Marine Division in preparation for the coming Inchon invasion. As the brigade commander, Lieutenant General Edward A. Craig, USMC, later reminisced:

Although the 1st Provisional Brigade and the 1st MarDiv had never
actually trained or worked together, they still combined and
executed a successful landing. To me, this simply emphasized the
fine training and techniques laid down for amphibious landings by
the Marines.[692]

[692] _CheVron_, pp. 4–5.

Organized as a unit less than four months, the brigade left behind it a reputation for mobility, effectiveness, and rapid deployment in the face of national emergency. Although Marine air and ground forces had operated together since 1919 in Haiti, formation of the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade “marked the first time that the air and ground elements, task organized under a single commander, had engaged in combat.”[693]

[693] _Ibid._ Even though Marine air and ground forces had
on occasion operated jointly ever since the 1920s, air
support in the early days was considered a subsidiary
rather than integral part of the team. The doctrine of
Marine close air support was formulated in WW II but not
fully employed before the end of hostilities.

In the brilliant Inchon landing of 15 September 1950, Major General Oliver P. Smith’s 1st Division Marines led the X Corps attack in the first major counterstroke by United Nations forces on Communist-held territory. This maneuver was closely timed against enormous odds of personnel, logistics, and hydrography (tidal fluctuations of 31 feet) which made 15 September the only suitable assault date until mid-October. When outlined in earlier planning sessions by General MacArthur, the mammoth difficulties of the operation had been so unsettling that the designated Attack Force Commander for the landing, Rear Admiral James H. Doyle, expressed the view that “the best I can say is that Inchon is not impossible.”[694]

[694] Quoted in _USMC Ops Korea_, v. II, p. 46. Admiral Doyle
was Commander of Amphibious Forces for the Pacific Fleet.

Despite all the difficulties, the landing at Inchon and recapture of Seoul, the South Korean Capital, and its adjacent Kimpo airfield by the Marines was a stunning tactical blow by the UNC that broke the backbone of the North Korean People’s Army 1950 offensive. The 1st Marine Division, in its successfully executed amphibious landing, had offered UNC forces an opportunity to defeat the enemy decisively before a Siberian-like Korean winter set in. Accomplished under the most adverse weather and geographic conditions, the assault proved anew the decisive power of amphibious forces employed at a critical time and place. This capability and readiness of the Marine Corps had totally reversed the military situation, and a battered enemy was on the run. The subsequent routing of the NKPA divisions in the Inchon-Seoul campaign by X Corps and the Eighth U.S. Army forces would have led to an early UN victory had not the Chinese Communists intervened to support their Korean counterparts. The operation had validated Far East Commander General MacArthur’s early premise that:

... air and naval action alone could not be decisive, and that
nothing short of the intervention of U.S. ground forces could
give any assurance of stopping the Communists and of later
regaining the lost ground.[695]

[695] _Ibid._, p. 3.

The Inchon operation, moreover, had been planned in record time--approximately 20 days. This was one of the shortest periods ever allotted to a major amphibious assault, involving the planning, assembly of shipping, and mounting out of a combined force of 29,000 Marines and support personnel.

With the Inchon-Seoul operation ended, the 1st Marine Division (including the 7th Marines which had reached Inchon in time for the liberation of Seoul) reembarked on 12 October for deployment to the east coast of Korea. A new military operation was envisioned north of the 38th Parallel against Pyongyang, the North Korean Capital. As part of the drive, X Corps was to make an amphibious envelopment on the east coast, in the area of the enemy-held port of Wonsan. From here X Corps would advance westward toward Pyongyang, to link up with Eighth Army troops and trap NKPA forces withdrawing from the south.

While the Marines were en route to the objective, word was received that ROK troops had overrun Wonsan and were pushing north. The revised X Corps plan of operation called for a three-pronged attack towards the Yalu. The Marine division would advance on the left, the U.S. Army 7th Division in the center, and 1st ROK Division on the right flank. This drive to the north and subsequent action at the Chosin Reservoir would rank as one of the most rigorous campaigns in the entire history of the Marine Corps.

Fighting as part of EUSAK, by this time fanned out throughout North Korea, the 1st Marine Division did not meet the expected NKPA resistance. Instead, large-scale Chinese Communist Forces had entered the war. As X Corps swept north toward the Yalu River in November 1950, the Marines became the first United States troops to defeat the Chinese Communists in battle. At Sudong, after four days of savage fighting, the Marine RCT-7 so badly crippled major elements of the 124th CCF Division that it was never again committed as an organic unit.

When the Chinese forces struck in full force at the Chosin Reservoir, X Corps units were forced back. Elements of a nine-division assault force, the CCF 9th Army Group, which had been sent into Korea with the specific mission of annihilating the 1st Marine Division, began to attack. On 27 November, the Chinese directed a massive frontal assault against 5th and 7th Marines positions at Yudam-ni, west of the reservoir. Another CCF division, moving up from the south, cut the MSR held by the 1st Marines so that the division at Yudam-ni, west of the reservoir, was completely encircled by Communist forces. Many experts considered the 1st Marine Division as lost. Others thought the only way to save it was to airlift it out, leaving its equipment behind. Instead, the Marines seized the initiative at Yudam-ni and cut a path through CCF units blocking a route to Hagaru. The division battled its way out in 20-degree-below-zero weather 78 miles over icy, winding mountain roads from the reservoir to the Hamhung-Hungnam area where, on 15 December, it redeployed to South Korea.

Integrated ground and air action enabled the 10,000 Marines and attached 4,000 Army-Royal Marine troops to break out of the entrapment and move south. During 13 tortuous days the Marines had withstood hostile strength representing elements of six to eight CCF divisions. The major result, from the military view, was that the Marine division properly evacuated its dead and wounded, brought out all operable equipment, and completed the retrograde movement with tactical integrity.

Not only had the Chinese (with a total of 60,000 men in assault or reserve) failed to accomplish their mission, destruction of the division, but the Marine defenders had dealt a savage blow to the enemy in return. POW debriefings later revealed that assault units of the CCF 9th Army Group had been rendered so militarily ineffective that nearly three months were required for its replacement, re-equipment, and reorganization.

Early in 1951, the 1st Marine Division was reassigned to IX Corps for Operation KILLER, a limited offensive ordered by the EUSAK Commander, General Matthew B. Ridgway. In Operation RIPPER, in March, the division led another IX Corps advance as it drove toward the 38th Parallel on the east-central front. When the Chinese struck back with their spring offensive on 22 April, the Marines were transferred to operational control of X Corps and counterattacked to restore the UNC defensive position in the far eastern sector. During May and June, the 1st Marine Division continued to punish the enemy in the Punchbowl area of eastern Korea, driving the CCF back to Yanggu and the Soyang River corridor.

Activity all along the UNC front came to an uncertain halt in July 1951 when Allied and Communist negotiators met at Kaesong for truce talks initiated by the enemy. In August the MLR flared into action again, and the Marine Division was engaged in new counterthrusts in the Punchbowl area. Fighting during the next three weeks involved the division in some of its hardest offensive operations in Korea. It also developed that this would be the last offensive for the Marines. In November 1951, as a result of the truce talks and possibility of ending hostilities, General Ridgway, now UNC Commander, ordered the Eighth Army to cease offensive operations and begin an active defense of the front.

The war of fire and movement had turned into one of positional warfare, a defensive posture by UN forces that would continue for the last 21 months of the three-year conflict. Throughout the winter of 1951–1952, the Marines conducted vigorous patrol activities in their sector of X Corps. Although it was a lackluster period of trench warfare for the average infantryman, major tactical innovations were being pioneered by the division with its use of the transport helicopter for logistical and resupply missions.

In March 1952, the 1st Marine Division was transferred from the eastern X Corps line 140 miles west to strengthen the far end of the Eighth Army MLR in the I Corps sector. The division was relocated in the path of the enemy’s invasion route to Seoul, where weak defenses in the Kimpo coastal area had threatened the security of the UNC front. Here the division’s four infantry regiments (including the 1st Korean Marine Corps RCT) held nearly 35 miles of front line in the critical Panmunjom-Munsan area. The demilitarized route for the United Nations negotiators led through the Marine lines. It was the most active sector of the UN front for the next 16 months. This key position guarded the best routes of advance from North Korea to Seoul and indicated the high regard in which General James A. Van Fleet, EUSAK commander, held the Marines.

West Korean terrain was rugged, hilly, and friendly to the CCF who had the advantage of high ground positions as well as considerably more manpower. Although cast in an unaccustomed defensive warfare role, rather than a true attack mission, the Marines repelled an almost continuous series of enemy probes. While truce talks went on at nearby Panmunjom, fighting as furious as at any time earlier in the war flared up intermittently as the CCF tried to gain additional terrain for bargaining purposes. During 1952–1953, the Marine division beat off determined CCF limited objective attacks on Bunker Hill, the Hook, Vegas, and Boulder City outposts up until--literally--the final day of the war, 27 July 1953.

In reviewing Marine actions during this period, the Secretary of the Navy commented:

Marines in Korea have established an enviable record of success
in carrying out their assigned missions. The First Marine
Division began its third year in Korea holding an active sector
of the United Nations front guarding the enemy’s invasion route
to Seoul. It was frequently subjected to fanatical Chinese
attacks supported by intensive artillery fire. Some of the
heaviest fighting during the year took place along the front
held by this Division. Enemy attacks were well coordinated and
numerically strong. Continued patrol activity to keep the enemy
off balance frequently resulted in bitter hand-to-hand fighting
with numerous casualties on both sides.[696]

[696] Semianl Rpt of SecNav (1 Jan-30 Jun) 1953, p. 185.

This type of prolonged static warfare gave little real satisfaction to Marines accustomed to waging a war of movement and a more tangible “mission accomplished.” The year of positional warfare in western Korea was costly, too. Total U.S. casualties in the Korean War numbered approximately 137,000 men killed, missing, or wounded. The Marine Corps toll was 30,544. Of this number, 4,262 were KIA, an additional 244 were listed as non-battle deaths, and 26,038 were wounded. During this last part of the war, Marine casualties (both ground and air) totaled 13,087, plus an additional 2,529 for the attached 1st KMC/RCT. Astonishingly, 1,586 Marines or 39.6 percent[697] of the infantry Marines killed in the entire war were victims of the “static,” outpost warfare in the west. Another 11,244 were listed WIA during this period--representing 43.9 percent of the total number of ground Marines wounded during the three years of conflict.

[697] See Appendix E. Percentages represent Marine ground only;
air casualties have been deducted. Of 1st MAW casualties
of 432 (258 KIA, 174 WIA) during the entire war, 103 were
KIA and 41 WIA during the April 1952-July 1953 period
cited above.

* * * * *

Conditions varied widely during the 1950–1952 and 1952–1953 periods of the war. The enemy’s improved capability in artillery during the latter period of positional warfare largely accounts for the high casualty rate at this time. It has been noted that:

Prior to February 1952, with a warfare of mobility prevailing,
the enemy was inferior in artillery, the causative agent of most
personnel losses. Afterwards, during the outpost warfare of
western Korea, the front remained more or less static, and the
Chinese Reds had as much artillery support as the Marines.[698]

[698] Lynn Montross, “Development of Our Body Armor,” _Marine
Corps Gazette_, v. 39, no. 6 (Jun 55), p. 16.

It might be valid to question the use of Marine Corps specialists in amphibious warfare in an Army-type conventional land war. The protracted land campaign that characterized the latter stages of the Korean conflict actually was waged for the majority of the war period--from September 1951 to July 1953, or nearly two years. In terms of economy of manpower it could be considered an inefficient, though not ineffective use of Marines. On the other hand, the history of warfare down through the ages makes it repeatedly clear that a nation fights the pitched battle against its opponent with the arsenal of weapons and personnel at hand.

As an Eighth U.S. Army component (attached variously to the X, IX, and I Corps), the 1st Marine Division (one of nearly 20 divisions representing U.S. Army, British Commonwealth, and ROK troops) performed its assigned mission--to repulse and punish the enemy. It contributed heavily to maintaining the integrity of the EUSAK front and was considered one of the two crack EUSAK divisions--the other being the Marines’ neighbor to the right, the British Commonwealth Division. With the attached KMCs, the 1st Marine Division, moreover, was also the biggest and strongest division in EUSAK.

Most importantly, fast deployment of the Marine division had made possible the brilliant tactical maneuver at Inchon. Many military experts, following World War II, had envisioned future conflicts only in terms of atomic warfare and massive strategic air assaults. Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “had predicted publicly, hardly six months before, that the world would never again see a large-scale amphibious landing.”[699] In contradiction to new atomic-age tactics, however, the United Nations commander in September 1950 had turned the tide of the battle by his use of a conventional maneuver--envelopment by amphibious assault. The performance of the Marine Corps was thus responsible, in part, for changing post-Korean War military doctrine from total reliance on new tactics and weaponry to a more balanced concept that combined both sophisticated innovations and viable, established procedures.

[699] Statement by Gen Omar N. Bradley, USA, as quoted by Gen
G. C. Thomas, Col R. D. Heinl, Jr. and RAdm A. A. Ageton,
_The Marine Officer’s Guide_ (Annapolis: United States
Naval Institute, 1956), p. 130.

Although unemployed in its primary amphibious role after late 1950, the 1st Marine Division had originally been positioned on the eastern front because of this capability. It was the UN commander’s desire to have EUSAK’s only amphibious trained and equipped division near the coast in the event that an amphibious maneuver was required for offensive or defensive purposes. Again, in the division’s 1952 move to the western coastal front in the Kimpo area, this fighting capability was a major consideration.

To a large extent, U.S. forces in Korea fought the early part of the Korean War with weapons from the preceding war--only five years removed. Three tactical innovations employed by the Marine Corps during the Korean War were highly successful and largely adopted by the other services. These were the thermal boot, individual body armor, and the helicopter. All were first combat tested in 1951.

Frostbite casualties during the first winter in Korea resulting from inadequate footwear made it necessary to provide combat troops with specially insulated footgear. The new thermal boot virtually eliminated frostbite for both Marine infantrymen and aviators. Armored utility jackets had been developed toward the end of World War II but were not actually battle tested. The Marine Corps had renewed the experimentation in 1947. First combat use of the plastic, light-weight body armor was made in July 1951 by Marines while fighting in the Punchbowl and Inje areas of X Corps. Improvements were made to the prototypes and by the following summer the Marine Corps, following a request made by the Army Quartermaster General, furnished some 4,000 vests to frontline Army troops. By 1953 the 1st Marine Division had received its authorized quota of 24,000 vests and new lower torso body armor had also been put into production.

Medical experts reported that the effectiveness of enemy low-velocity missile weapons striking a man wearing body armor was reduced from 30–80 percent. Chest and abdominal wounds decreased from 90–95 percent after issuance of the armored vests. Overall battle casualties were estimated to have been cut by 30 percent. By the time of the cease-fire, the protection offered by the Marine body armor had been extended to some 93,000 Marine and Army wearers. Hardly anywhere could the U.S. taxpayer or fighting man have found a better buy for the money: mass production had reduced the per unit cost of the Marine armored vest to just $37.50.

_Air_[700]

[700] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpts_ No. 6, Chap. 9, No. 5,
Chap. 8, No. 4, Chap. 10; _USMC Board Rpts_, vs. 1-11;
_Generals’ Summary_; AnlRpt SecNav 1952–1953; _USMC Ops
Korea_ vs. I-IV, _passim_; Monograph, _A Brief History of
Marine Corps Aviation_, (HistBr, G-3 Div, HQMC, 1960);
Cagle and Manson, _Sea War, Korea_; Sherrod, _Marine
Aviation_; LtCol C. A. Phillips and Maj H. D. Kuokka,
“1st MAW in Korea, Part I, Pusan to the Reservoir: The
Acid Test,” _Marine Corps Gazette_, v. 41, no. 5 (May
57), pp. 22–27; LtCol C. A. Phillips and Maj H. D.
Kuokka, “1st MAW in Korea, Part II, January 1951 to the
Armistice,” _Marine Corps Gazette_, v. 41, no. 6 (Jun
57), pp. 22–26; Brochure, Change of Command Ceremonies,
11 Jul 56, First Marine Aircraft Wing, FMF, 1st MAW
folder, HRB ref. file.

On 3 August 1950, eight VMF-214 Corsairs led by squadron executive officer, Major Robert P. Keller, catapulted from the deck of the USS _Sicily_ to launch the first Marine air strikes in the Korean action. From then until 27 July 1953, units of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing flew 127,496 combat sorties in the Korean War, considerably in excess of the 80,000-odd sorties for all Marine aviation during World War II. Of this Korean number nearly a third, more than 39,500, represented the Marine Corps close air support specialty, even though 1st MAW pilots were heavily engaged in other assignments from Fifth Air Force. These included interdiction, general support, air defense patrols, air rescue operations, photo and armed reconnaissance, and related tasks to insure Allied air superiority.

With the outbreak of Korean hostilities, Stateside Marine air units were alerted for combat duty by 5 July. At Major General Field Harris’ 1st MAW headquarters, El Toro, MAG-33 elements were quickly readied for deployment to Japanese bases and thence to Korea. Commanded by Brigadier General Thomas J. Cushman, MAG-33 comprised Headquarters and Service Squadron 33, fighter squadrons VMF-214 and -323, an echelon of nightfighters from VMF(N)-513, two radar units (Marine Ground Control Intercept Squadron 1 and Marine Tactical Air Control Squadron 2), plus the observation squadron, VMO-6. Forward elements were quickly on their way, arriving in Japan on 19 July, while the rear echelon reached the Korean Theater on 31 July. Twenty R5Ds from Marine Transport Squadrons 152 and 352 were already providing logistical support for Pacific lift operations.

After practicing some last minute carrier landing approaches, the fighter pilots got into combat almost at once. Following -214 into the war, VMF-323 started operations on 6 August, flying from USS _Badoeng Strait_ in support of the Pusan ground defenders. When the brigade mounted out on 7 August on its drive to Chinju, the two MAG-33 carrier squadrons were there with their 5-inch HVARs, napalm, 100- to 500-pound bombs, and 20mm cannon. VMF(N)-513 began its regularly-scheduled night tours over the Korean perimeter that same date, lashing at enemy supply and transportation centers in the Sachon-Chinju area of southern Korea. VMO-6 had already started evacuating casualties from the Pusan area three days earlier.

Many Army ground commanders witnessed the Marine system of close air support for the first time during the Pusan fighting. After the second Naktong battle, when air strikes had silenced enemy guns and 300 troops near Obong-ni, the commander of the 23rd Regiment to the right of the brigade wrote General Ridgway in Washington:

Infantry and artillery is a good team, but only by adding
adequate and efficient air support can we succeed without
devastating losses ... The Marines on our left were a sight to
behold. Not only was their equipment superior or equal to ours,
but they had squadrons of air in direct support. They used it
like artillery. It was, ‘Hey, Joe, this is Smitty, knock the
left of that ridge in from Item Company.’ They had it _day and
night_.[701]

[701] Quoted in Andrew Geer, _The New Breed--The Story of the
U.S. Marines in Korea_ (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1952), pp. 94–95, quoted with permission of the publisher.

And while Marine, Army, and Navy staffs were completing plans for the forthcoming Inchon assault, MAG-33’s little aerial Photo Unit (part of Headquarters Squadron) took a series of reconnaissance photographs of the landing beaches in preparation for the closely coordinated maneuver.

During Inchon-Seoul operations, MAG-33 was joined by three MAG-12 fighter squadrons: VMF-212, VMF-312, and VMF(N)-542. After the capture of Kimpo airfield, 212’s “Devilcats” and 542’s nightfighters transferred from Itami to Kimpo. Flying out of 2d MAW headquarters, Cherry Point, N.C., on 18 August, the Devilcats had climaxed a hurried dash halfway around the world to get into action. The squadron flew its first combat mission from Kimpo a month after its departure from the East Coast. While the MAG-12 land-based squadrons and the carrier pilots functioned as the division’s flying artillery, MGCIS-1 set up a radar warning system and MTACS-2 established a Tactical Air Direction Center to direct all aircraft in the X Corps zone of action.

With the conclusion of the Inchon operation on 8 October, VMF-312 and VMF(N)-542 remained at Kimpo. Other Marine squadrons (VMF-212, VMF(N)-513, VMO-6, HqSq-12, and carrier-based VMF-323) shifted to the Korean east coast in readiness for the Wonsan landing and subsequent deployment north of the Marine infantry regiments. Wing elements began arriving at the port city’s airfield on 13 October. Division Marines, meanwhile, on board ship in the Wonsan harbor while more than 3,000 expertly laid Communist mines were being removed, did not land until 26 October. For the men who fought the vertical war in Korea, it was “one of the rare times in the air-ground association, the 1st MAW had landed ahead of the 1st Marine Division. The aviators didn’t miss putting up a big sign-board “_Welcome, 1st Division!_”[702]

[702] LtCol C. A. Phillips and Maj H. D. Kuokka, “1st MAW in
Korea,” Part I, _Marine Corps Gazette_, May 1957, p. 45.

As 30 CCF divisions slammed into UNC forces all across the fighting front in late November to change the nature of ground operations (and the future of the war), so did the onset of the first Korean winter test 1st MAW aerial skills and ingenuity. Low hanging ceilings, icing conditions, and three-inch snows on the carrier decks were common operating hazards. For the shore-based pilots, the bad weather often caused changed flight plans as they were forced to land at alternate fields or on Navy carriers. Nonetheless, Marine RD4s flew up to the southern tip of the Chosin Reservoir, at Hagaru, to air-drop ammunition and supplies and evacuate casualties from the entrapment. Logistical support to this tiny frozen makeshift air strip was also provided by Air Force C-47s and C-119s. Later on, during the first step of the grinding movement south, Air Force pilots paradropped a sectionalized steel bridge vitally needed at Koto-ri to replace a destroyed span over a chasm.

Beginning with the load-out for Wonsan in early October, the 1st MAW was placed under operational control of the Seoul-based Fifth Air Force.[703] Echelons of FAF air command and control initially slowed operational orders anywhere from 4 to 36 hours. Simplified interservice communications and command liaison between 1st MAW and FAF helped improve the situation. With a verbal agreement, on 1 December, for CG, 1st MAW to receive full control over X Corps area aircraft, problems eased substantially. To a large degree the close coordination of Marine aviation and ground forces during the Chosin campaign was due to the use of flexible, simplified, and fast battle-tested Marine Corps-Navy CAS techniques and to having increased the number of pilot FACs from one to two per battalion.

[703] Technically, FAF had also been the controlling agency
for air support during Pusan operations. Marine aviation
units, as a component of an integrated Fleet Marine
Force, however, were directed to fly support for 1st
ProvMarBrig as their highest priority. Except for the
formality of checking in with the FAF Tactical Air
Control Center (TACC) at JOC, 1st MAW units operated
under the Marine Corps-Navy CAS doctrine. During the
Seoul-Inchon campaign, control of air operations came
under ComNavFE, since it was an amphibious operation, and
the air system followed Marine-Navy doctrine. USMC Board
Rpt, v. I, p. IV-B-9, 14.

The Marine movement south from Hagaru was protected by one of the greatest concentrations of aircraft during the entire war. Twenty-four CAS aircraft covered the breakout column, while attack planes assaulted enemy forces in adjacent ridge approaches. Marine planes on station at Yonpo (south of the Hamhung-Hungnam axis) and carrier-based VMF-323 flew some 130 sorties daily. Another 100 attack sorties were flown daily by Navy carrier-based planes, while FAF flew interdiction missions beyond the bombline. Marine Panther jets of VMF-311, operating with the Air Force from the Pusan area, got into the action at Yonpo. It was also at this time that an airborne TADC (tactical air direction center) was first improvised when the radio jeeps moving south with the column had communication failures. For six days, a VMR-152 R5D transport orbited 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the Marine units to control air support between Hagaru and Chinhung-ni as a flying radio nerve center.

From late November to early December, as the division battled its way from Chosin to Hamhung, Marine, Navy, and Air Force aircraft evacuated more than 5,000 Marine, Army, and ROK casualties. And during the most critical period, the little OY spotter planes and HO3S-1 helicopters from VMO-6 provided the only physical contact between units separated by enemy action. Marine tactical squadrons in these three early major offensives of the war, from 3 August to 14 December, flew 7,822 sorties, 5,305 of them CAS for the battered UNC ground units.

From 1951–1953, 1st MAW pilots and planes came under direct control of FAF. They alternated between principal missions of interdiction raids to harass and destroy Communist supply lines north of the battlefront, general support sorties outside the bombline, and CAS flights to support infantry forces threatened by enemy penetration. Typical of FAF focus on massive aerial assaults were the following assignments that Marine flyers participated in:

In January 1951 (prior to Operation KILLER), the 1st MAW
undertook a series of interdiction raids against the Communist
supply net located in the Korean waist between the 38th and 39th
Parallels, to disrupt the CCF transport-truck system.

On 9 May 1951, 75 1st MAW Corsairs and Panther jets were part of
the 300-plane raid staged by FAF against Communist airfields at
Sinuiju, on the Korean side of the Yalu.

Operation STRANGLE, a major Fifth Air Force all-out interdiction effort to cripple the enemy supply life line, was undertaken 20 May. When the Chinese Communist spring offensive broke shortly thereafter, MAG-12 Corsairs and -33 Panther jets delivered maximum support to the MLR regiments, the 1st and 7th Marines. When the truce talks began in Kaesong, in July 1951, 1st MAW planes and the radar searches of MACG-2 stood guard. Batteries of the Marine 1st 90mm AAA Gun Battalion, attached to the wing, were also alerted to keep under surveillance the approaches to key military ports.

New tactical developments pioneered by 1st MAW during the Korean War advanced the UNC air effort and added to the 1st MAW reputation for versatility. Several major steps forward were taken toward Marine aviation’s primary goal of providing real operational 24-hour CAS, regardless of foul weather conditions. The new MPQ-14 radar-controlled bombing equipment, developed between 1946 and 1950, was employed by MASRT-1, as a device to control night fighter sorties of a general support nature flown by day attack aircraft. By means of height-finding and directional radars, it enabled a pilot to leave his base, drop a bomb load on target, and return to home field without ever having seen the ground. It offered major practical improvement in blind bombing methods. MPQ was limited, however, in its use in sudden, moving battle situations because of some of its sophisticated, hand-built ABC components. A real tactical breakthrough in night CAS came in April 1953 when VMF(N)-513 and the VMO-6 spotter planes evolved the new searchlight beam control system which made possible 24-hour coverage for 1st Marine Division ground units.

In other innovations, it will be remembered that the Air Force in late 1952 had requested escort by VMF(N)-513’s new two-place jet-intruder F3D Skyknights on Air Force B-29 night bombing missions. During a four-month period from 1952–1953, the Marine night fighters downed one enemy plane or more a month while escorting the B-29s. Once the F3Ds began their night escort role, Air Force bomber losses became negligible.

A unique capability of the long-range, jet-intruder night-fighter was that the F3D carried a radar operator who replaced the ground controller, thereby extending air-defense radar range to the aircraft. It could thus operate independently and effectively at great distance from its base. Without GCI (ground control intercept) aid, VMF(N)-513 direct escort to bombers at night was so successful that the squadron’s planes were used as exclusive escort of the Bomber Command B-29s. In November 1952, the Marine squadron’s two night kills were the first ever recorded by airborne intercept radar-equipped jet fighters. At the end of the war, Skyknights and -513 pilots (flying F3Ds as well as the earlier F7Fs) had destroyed more enemy aircraft than any other Marine or Navy day or night fighter plane. Tactics employed by VMF(N)-513 were original in concept and required a high-level of training and individual pilot-AIO (airborne intercept operator) proficiency. It was noted that:

The enthusiasm with which this Marine aid to the Air Force has
been received by FEAF Bomber Command indicates that VMF(N)-513
had successfully adapted its equipment and personnel to a
mission usually associated with Air Force operations, making an
important contribution to interservice cooperation, but even more
important, to tactical progress in the night escort of bomber
formations.[704]

[704] _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 5, p. 9-82.

An operation somewhat in reverse of the nightfighters was that of VMJ-1, the Marine photographic squadron, which had its own Air Force escort. Formerly the Wing Photo Unit, VMJ-1 was commissioned in February 1952 and flew a total of 5,025 combat flights. Under FAF operational control until late in the war, the squadron’s 550-mph F2H-2P twin-jet Banshees flew unarmed deep into enemy country--even as far as the MIG-guarded Yalu--photographing positions, airfields, power plants, and other targets. An escort plane flew cover while the photo ship took pictures. Photo missions to the Suiho Reservoir were rated so important that “24 Air Force F-86 jets flew an umbrella.”[705] Introduction of the squadron’s jet Banshee early in 1952 was a major step in improved aerial photography. The Banshee was the superior photographic aircraft in the combat theater, because of its new advanced-design view finder and operating range.

[705] “1st MAW in Korea,” _op. cit._, Part II, Jun 57, p. 23.

Coverage from VMJ-1’s gross wartime output of 793,012 feet of processed prints was equal to a continuous photographic strip six and half times around the earth at the equator. The Marine photo squadron contributed a third to the entire UN photo reconnaissance effort and at times flew as much as 50 percent of all FAF intelligence missions.

Throughout the war the four attack squadrons of MAG-12 (VMAs-212, -251, -121; and -332 at the end of the war) had dumped seemingly endless bomb loads on CCF installations, while MAG-33’s two jet-fighter squadrons (VMF-115 and -311) had provided the Marine exchange pilots who scoured the lower side of the Yalu with the Air Force F-86s on fighter sweeps.

During Korea the Marine CVE/CVL squadrons (VMAs-214, -233, -312, and -251) flew more than 25,000 sorties, experimenting with improved techniques for carrier landings. The carrier qualification program of Marine air units, a regular part of their training, also proved its value in combat. In the earliest days of the war, VMF-214 and -323[706] had operated from two CVEs based off the south coast of Korea, thereby providing close support to the brigade and other Eighth Army elements at a time when all shore-based aircraft were forced to operate from Japan.

[706] With phaseout of the Corsairs in 1952, the VMF squadrons
were subsequently redesignated as attack units.

In other tactical refinements, the 1st MAW had employed an airborne tactical air control center in combat for the first time. In July 1952, when the static ground situation led to a build-up of enemy flak along the front lines that interfered with effective CAS delivery, the 11th Marines had instituted a flak suppression program in front of the division sector. Later that year, CG Eighth Army had ordered a similar program used by all other Eighth Army commands. By December, apparently because of lack of success with their own methods, EUSAK had adopted the system developed by the Marine artillery regiment. The antiaircraft program, together with a reduction in the number of runs per aircraft per mission,[707] had measurably decreased casualties for CAS missions conducted within artillery range. During 1952–1953 this loss rate for pilots and planes had dropped by a third, with no corresponding reduction in the sortie rate.

[707] In August 1952, FAF had introduced a new policy limiting
pilots to one pass on general support or interdiction
missions and two passes on CAS flights.

Stabilized warfare and enemy AA build-up had also led to an increasing use of enemy radars. Passive electronics countermeasures (ECM) were instituted by FAF. This program was enhanced in September 1952 by the commissioning of VMC-1 (Marine Composite Squadron 1), administratively assigned to MACG-2. The squadron possessed the only Fifth Air Force ECM capability to locate enemy radars and was the primary source of ECM intercept equipment in FAF squadrons for early warning and radar control monitoring. Throughout the duration of hostilities, VMC-1 remained the only Navy-Marine unit in the Korean theater with ECM as its prime function.

For its combat action, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing was awarded two Korean Presidential Unit Citations and the Army Distinguished Unit Citation for the Wonsan operation. Wing pilots were responsible for downing 35 enemy planes, including the first night kill made by a United Nations aircraft. Participation of the 1st MAW in the war could also be measured in a different way. On the inevitable red side of the ledger: 258 air Marines had been killed (including 65 MIA and presumed dead) and 174 WIA. A total of 436 aircraft were also lost in combat or operational accidents.

From the command level, Korean operations marked the first time the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had functioned for an extended period as a component in a broad, unified command structure such as FAF. Despite the weak links initially inherent in such a situation, the command structure did work. Marine-Navy and Air Force-Army differing aerial doctrines and tactics of close tactical air support, however, were never fully reconciled. The Marine wing made a notable contribution in providing really effective close, speedy tactical support during the sudden fluid battle situation that erupted in mid-July 1953. Simplified Marine TACP control, request procedures, and fast radio net system enabled 1st MAW pilots to reach the target area quickly. During this final month of the war--and indicative of the enormous amount of coordination involved in the FAF administrative apparatus--1st MAW planes flew 1,500 CAS sorties for the 19 different EUSAK frontline divisions.

CG, 1st MAW noted in General Order No. 153 issued the last day of the war, that “the Wing’s association with the Eighth Army, the Fifth Air Force and the Seventh U.S. Fleet in combined operations had been a professionally broadening experience--teaching tolerance, teamwork, and flexibility of operations.”[708]

[708] MajGen V. E. Megee, GO 153, dtd 27 Jul 53, quoted in 1st
MAW, Part II, _op. cit._, p. 26.

Besides the FAF interdiction work and support missions for frontline units, new 1st MAW tactics and equipment had diversified the wing’s skills and capabilities in its primary role of providing CAS for Marine ground units. Of new tactical air support developments in the Korean action none had a more revolutionary effect than those created by the helicopter--which dramatically reshaped battlefield logistics and pointed the way to a new era in Marine Corps air-ground teamwork.

_Helicopter_[709]

[709] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section
is derived from _PacFlt EvalRpts_ No. 4, Chap. 9,
No. 5, Chap. 8, No. 6, Chap. 9; _USMC Board Rpt_, v.
I; Generals’ _Summary_; _USMC Ops Korea_, vs. I-IV,
_passim_; Montross, _SkyCav_.

A promising newcomer on the Marine aviation scene was the helicopter, whose tactical employment in Korea was to far exceed all expectations. A few helicopters had been used experimentally in the European and Pacific theaters toward the end of World War II, too late to evaluate their performance. But it was the Marine Corps, beginning in 1947, that had pioneered the development of combat techniques utilizing the rotor-driven aircraft as a means of enhancing its capability for the amphibious assault. When the Korean incident erupted in June 1950, the Marine Corps was in a position to assign four HO3S-1 Sikorsky two-place helicopters and flight personnel from its Quantico test unit, HMX-1, together with fixed-wing planes and pilots to form the brigade observation squadron, VMO-6. These Marines had the distinction of being the first helicopter pilots of any U.S. service to be formed into a unit for overseas duty.

Further, the Marine Corps also had 31 months’ experience with the strange looking, pot-bellied, ungainly aircraft in diverse battlefield tasks. These included casualty evacuation, reconnaissance, wire-laying, liaison, and administrative missions. But promising test exercises at Quantico and Camp Lejeune were hardly enough. The real test would come at the front. There, the helicopter’s military value would reflect and “depend to a large extent on how well the Marine Corps had worked out combat doctrines and techniques where none had existed before.”[710]

[710] Montross, _SkyCav_, p. 108.

Landing with the brigade in August 1950, the choppers performed invaluable service from the earliest days of Pusan, Inchon, Seoul, and the Reservoir. During the most critical phase of the Chosin operation, the helicopters provided the only liaison between isolated commands. Wire-laying by air was first employed by VMO-6 during the second battle of the Naktong River, in September 1950. The ground had changed hands several times and control was uncertain. Using makeshift communication rigs, VMO-6 pilots unreeled telephone wire at a mile a minute. This method of putting telephone lines across Korean mountains became routine through the rest of the war, and Marine choppers strung miles of lines in rain and wind with the enemy blasting away at them. Wire was laid over terrain in a matter of hours where it would have taken men on foot weeks--if it could have been done.

Perhaps the greatest innovation of VMO-6, however, was its night casualty evacuation techniques first employed at Pusan. Darting in and out at treetop level around the Korean mountains, the light, easily maneuverable craft could land on a tiny patch of earth to evacuate injured men or bring in supplies. Once, during the early part of the war, when the aeronautical pioneer Igor Sikorsky was asked how his revolutionary vehicles were performing in combat, Mr. Sikorsky, bowing from the waist in his Old World manner, replied:

Thank you. Our things go very well in Korea. The helicopter has
already saved the lives of several thousands of our boys in Korea
and the score is still mounting.[711]

[711] _Marine Corps Gazette_, v. 39, no. 10 (Oct 55), p. 61
quoting Eugene E. Wilson, _Wings of the Dawn_ (Hartford,
Conn.: Connecticut Printers, Inc., 1955).

With the advent of the helicopter, as little as 43 minutes elapsed between the time a Marine was hit and the time he was on board the USS _Repose_ or other hospital ships. Later on when the Marine transport copters arrived in Korea, HMR-161 pilots felt a new record had been set when only 30 minutes[712] intervened between the time a frontline Marine was hit and delivered to a hospital facility 17 miles from the zone of action. The _Consolation_ had been outfitted with a helicopter loading platform in July 1951, and eventually all hospital ships had such landing platforms. In Korea the flying ambulances could make the trip from rear area aid station to ship in five minutes and unload the wounded and clear the deck in 45 seconds flat.

[712] By contrast, in 1945 World War II campaigns the Secretary
of the Navy James V. Forrestal had visited hospital
ships and praised the air evacuation methods then in use
when he commented, “I went aboard the _Samaritan_, where
Navy surgeons and corpsmen were already dealing with the
casualties from the day and night before.” Capt Clifford
P. Morehouse, _The Iwo Jima Campaign_, (Washington:
HistDiv, HQMC, 1946), p. 139.

Throughout the war nearly 10,000 wounded Marines were evacuated by helicopter; more than 1,000 such missions were carried out at night. Records indicate that VMO-6 flew out 7,067 casualties and that another 2,748 medical evacuations were made by HMR-161, for which the task ranked as a secondary mission. Although these humanitarian gains were important, major tactical innovations made by the helicopter were even more significant.

In the fall of 1951, HMR-161 successfully executed the first combat troop resupply mission in history. At this time while the division was deployed in the jagged razorback-ridge Punchbowl area, “a glimpse of future warfare was provided when Marine helicopter lifts on a company scale led to the lift of an entire battalion and its organic equipment.”[713] Arriving in Korea on 31 August, the squadron had a complement of 15 new 10-place HRS-1 transport vehicles, with cruising speed of 60–85 knots. Developed specifically to meet Marine Corps combat requirements, the HRS marked a new era in Marine airborne support to ground troops. Both VMO-6 and HMR-161 came under operational control of the division. (With 1st Division and Wing headquarters separated geographically by more than 200 miles, it was particularly expedient to have the two squadrons under division control.)

[713] HistBr outline, p. 4.

The first step toward using the rotor-blade aircraft in the mission most closely related to the USMC basic helicopter concept--that of transporting troops and supplies by vertical envelopment--was accomplished 13 September 1951. In Operation WINDMILL I, HRS choppers carried out the first Marine mass helicopter combat resupply operation in history. A lift of one day’s supplies was made to 2/1 in the Soyang River vicinity. A total of 28 flights were executed in overall time of 2½ hours (a total flight time of 14.1 hours) to transport 18,848 pounds of gear and 74 Marines a distance of seven miles.

HMR-161 first applied the Corps’ new concept of vertical envelopment on 21 September when, despite heavy fog, it transported 224 fully equipped Marines and 17,772 pounds of cargo from the reserve area to the MLR. This was the first helicopter lift of a combat unit in history. Company-size troop lifts inevitably led to more complicated battalion-size transfers. In the 11 November Operation SWITCH, HMR-161 effected the relief of a frontline battalion, involving the lift of nearly 2,000 troops. Twelve of the 3½-ton aircraft made 262 flights in overall time of 10 hours (95.6 hours flight time).

The tactical and logistical possibilities of the multi-purpose rotor craft attracted considerable attention. So impressed, in fact, were Eighth Army officers by the mobility and utility displayed by Marine helicopters that in November 1951 General Ridgway had asked the Army to provide four Army helicopter transport battalions, each with 280 helicopters. Korea, Ridgway said, had “conclusively demonstrated that the Army vitally needed helicopters,”[714] and he recommended that the typical field army of the future have 10 helicopter transportation battalions.

[714] Futrell, _USAF, Korea_, pp. 533–534.

Ridgway was thereby renewing requests for helicopters made in the early days of the war by both the Army (through General MacArthur) and the Air Force (by General Barcus). But the UNC Commander’s enthusiasm, although understandable, turned out to be the undoing for substantial Army use of the rotary-blade aircraft in Korea. The scale of operations[715] envisioned by Ridgway unwittingly led to a “jurisdictional controversy”[716] about possible duplication of aerial functions not reconciled by the two services until a year later. Although both services had helicopters in limited use, “hostilities were in their last stages before either the Army or the Air Force began to receive the cargo helicopters which they had put on order in 1950 and 1951.”[717]

[715] Hermes, _Truce Tent_, p. 184, comments: “In order to
insure a steady flow of replacement craft, he [Ridgway]
suggested that procurement be started on a scale
that would permit manufacturers to expand production
immediately.”

[716] Futrell, _USAF, Korea_, p. 534.

[717] _Ibid._

A successful three-day Army regimental supply exercise in May 1953 and a combat maneuver the following month in which the choppers formed an air bridge to a heavily attacked, isolated ROK unit caused General Taylor, then CG, EUSAK, to observe: “The cargo helicopter, employed in mass, can extend the tactical mobility of the Army far beyond its normal capability.” He strongly recommended that the Army make “ample provisions for the full exploitation of the helicopter in the future.”[718]

[718] _Ibid._, p. 535.

Pioneering developments by the Marine Corps had, of course, continued meanwhile. Logistical operations had grown increasingly complex and diversified. In Operation HAYLIFT II, 23–27 February 1953, Marine helicopters set an all time cargo-carrying record when they lifted 1,612,306 pounds of cargo to completely supply two JAMESTOWN regiments with daily requirements for the five-day period. This represented a total of 1,633 lifts and 583.4 flying hours for the operation. The record day’s lift was 200 tons, whereas plans had called for lifting a maximum 130 tons per day. Experience gained during the operation indicated that similar tactical maneuvers in warmer weather would be even more successful when troop fuel oil requirements were reduced.

Other Marine innovations by HMR-161 included supplying ammunition from the rear area ASP to the MLR and redeployment of 1st 4.5-inch Rocket Battery personnel and guns from one firing area to another. And although VMO-6 executed most of the mercy missions, the transport squadron performed an unusual assignment in July 1952. Flood conditions throughout Korea brought an urgent request from the Army for use of HMR-161. On 30 July, the Marine squadron evacuated 1,172 Army troops from their positions in the Chunchon area where they had been trapped by the heavy rains.