Passing the Test: Combat in Korea, April-June 1951

NOTES

NOTES 1. The War before the Communist Spring Offensive of 1951 1. Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu. U.S. Army in the Korean War (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1960), passim. Appleman’s volume is the beginning of the U.S. Army’s official history of the war. It has detailed terrain maps and sketches of the major battles for most of 1950, all of which are necessary for a serious student of the war. For more detail on the events covered in this chapter and the rest of the book, see the bibliographical essay. 2. James F. Schnabel, Policy and Direction: The First Year (Washington , D.C.: U.S. Center of Military History, 1972), chaps. 11–14, passim; Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, vol. 1, A Distant Objective (London: HMSO, 1990), chaps. 12, 13; Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby and John Chamberlain, MacArthur, 1941–1951 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), pp. 378–409; Maj. Gen. Courtney Whitney, MacArthur: His Rendezvous with History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955), pp. 396–427. MacArthur’s G-2 (intelligence officer), Willoughby, and his primary assistant, Whitney, used excerpts of message traffic and reproduced intelligence reports to make MacArthur’s case concerning his pursuit to the Yalu River. 3. Eighth Army War Diary, November 1950, United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Record Group (RG) 407, Records of the U.S. Army Adjutant General’s Office (hereafter cited as NARA, RG 407), entry 429, box 1122, sec. 1, pp. 70–114. Appleman, South to the Naktong, chap. 39 and passim. 4. Eighth Army War Diary, Section I Summary, November 1950, 384 NOTES NARA, RG 407, pp. 70–114, passim. MacArthur’s views are in his Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964). This issue and others were explored extensively in U.S. Senate hearings by the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, 82d Congress, 1st sess., Military Situation in the Far East. Hearings before the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), pt. 1, pp. 1–320, passim. 5. Billy C. Mossman, Ebb and Flow, November 1950–July 1951 (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1990), chaps. 1–5. As Appleman did earlier, Mossman misidentified the CCF commander as Lin Biao. In reality, the Chinese Field Commander was Marshal Peng Dehuai (Peng Te-huai). See Spencer C. Tucker, ed., Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History (New York: Checkmark Books/Facts on File, 2002), s.v. Lin Biao, p. 387, and Peng Dehuai (Peng Te-huai), pp. 516–17. See also Matthew Ridgway’s manuscript, “Korea: The First Year,” in U.S. Army Center of Military History (USACMH), Special Collections (hereafter Ridgway MS Korea) or its revised commercial version, The Korean War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), chaps. 3, 4. The manuscript version is superior for its military detail; its final form is more critical of personalities and events, often to Ridgway’s advantage. Ridgway ignores Walker’s problems and massive contributions, always against great odds. See also Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees , Military Situation in the Far East. For a comprehensive account of Ridgway and his actions from December 1950 to July 1951, see Roy E. Appleman, Ridgway Duels for Korea (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990). 6. Charles R. Schrader, Communist Logistics in the Korean War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995), chap. 7. The generally accepted view was that about ten days to two weeks of intense fighting and movement would halt the CCF for lack of supplies. 7. These operations and more combat actions are covered in the first two volumes in this series, William T. Bowers, ed., The Line: Combat in Korea: January–February 1951 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky , 2008) and Striking Back: Combat in Korea, March–April 1951 Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010). During this period the Chinese called their repetitive attacks First Offensive to Fourth Offensive , ending in March. 8. Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, Military Situation in the Far East. 385 NOTES 9. Paul Braim, The Will to Win: The Life of General James A. Van Fleet (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2001), chaps. 10, 11. 10. Ridgway MS Korea, pp. 368, 404–15. 11. Ibid., p. 401. 12. Ibid., p...