Cold Days in Hell: American POWs in Korea

6. The Reservoir

6 The Reservoir Kill the marines as you would snakes in your homes. Gen. Sung Shih-lun, commander, Ninth Army, CCF While Walker’s Eighth Army narrowly escaped destruction along the Chongchon River in late November, the Chinese Ninth Army Group waited patiently in the snow-covered mountains surrounding the Chosin Reservoir. Advancing toward them was Maj. Gen. O. P. Smith’s well-trained and wellequipped st Marine Division, with experienced leaders and a full complement of artillery, armor, and close air support. Despite their robust combat power, the marine position at the reservoir was exceptionally vulnerable. The division’s right flank was guarded by two understrength infantry battalions from the th Infantry Division. The division’s left flank, meanwhile, was completely unprotected. Worst of all, the army and marine units at Chosin relied on a single dirt road for reinforcements and resupply. The Chinese plan called for several divisions to infiltrate south through the eighty-mile gap between the marines and the Eighth Army, cut the marines’ supply line, then turn east and complete the destruction of Maj. Gen. Ned Almond’s X Corps. Race to the Yalu The mission of X Corps had changed significantly since capturing Seoul six weeks earlier. First, the marines and the th Infantry Division were directed to land at Wonsan, a major port on North Korea’s east coast. After the landing , these forces would drive west toward Pyongyang and cut off the remnants of the North Korean People’s Army in the center of the peninsula. Before the landings took place, however, Walker’s Eighth Army captured Pyongyang, thereby precluding the need for Almond’s assistance. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War, . 98 chapter 6 With the North Korean forces apparently defeated, MacArthur had thrown caution to the wind and directed both Almond and Walker to continue to the Yalu. On the east side of the peninsula, South Korean forces continued their progress north along the coastal road. The marines finally came ashore at Wonsan on October , and the th Infantry Division landed at Iwon,  miles farther north. Both the marines and the th Infantry Division began pushing north into the mountains. At Sudong, the th Marine Regiment met significant Chinese resistance during the first week of November, but the Chinese forces vanished on November  and  in concert with a similar disappearance on the Eighth Army front. Following this withdrawal, Col. Homer Litzenberg’s th Marine Regiment climbed a narrow trail through the Funchilin Pass to Koto-ri, eleven miles south of the Chosin Reservoir. During their withdrawal, the Chinese had neglected to destroy a bridge spanning a critical portion of this mountain road. Its destruction would have delayed the marines’ advance, and the Chinese failure to do so led Smith and his staff to suspect a trap. Litzenberg ’s regiment reached the nearly abandoned village on November  and was greeted by a Siberian cold front. That afternoon, temperatures plunged from  degrees to – degrees Fahrenheit, while thirty-five-mile-per-hour winds amplified the misery. The arctic conditions temporarily disabled two hundred marines with cold-weather injuries. Aware that marine pilots had reported convoys of Chinese trucks crossing the Yalu, Smith had already recommended that X Corps postpone offensive operations to the spring. Almond rejected Smith’s advice but did acknowledge the importance of consolidating forces, perhaps mindful of the th Cavalry’s fate at Unsan. Moreover, he agreed with Smith that operations north of the Chosin Reservoir would need an airfield to deliver supplies and evacuate casualties. Airfield construction required bulldozers, but these would not arrive until improvements were made to the mountain road leading to the reservoir. This road quickly became known simply as “the MSR” (main supply route). Its twisting path from the reservoir back down to the sea became a critical battleground. As November progressed, Almond’s support for the consolidation of Smith’s division seemed an empty promise. With MacArthur intent on reaching the Yalu before the onset of winter, Almond’s forces continued to advance on a wide front. In the st Marine Division sector, the th Regiment established a forward base at Koto-ri, but the rest of Smith’s division guarded the supply lines, manned blocking positions, and conducted patrols across a broad swath of territory to the south and east. Unhappy with the dispersion the reservoir 99 of his forces, General Smith finally wrote a private...