The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951

EPILOGUE

189 Epilogue Tom Brodie, the commander of 29th Brigade, was visiblydistraughtashewatchedhistornandbloodiedmenstumbleback to safety.3 In a letter to his parents written on 26 April, a bandaged Lieutenant Malcolm Cubiss of X Company reported that four-fifths of the Glosters, half the Fusiliers, and half the Rifles had been lost during the Imjin battle, an estimate that reflected the widespread sense that casualties had been very high indeed.4 Thankfully the initial tallies were a little off, as small numbers of stragglers from all three battalions made their way back to U.N. lines over the next few days. The final casualty figures, though, were shocking enough. The Belgians had gotten off comparatively lightly, with twelve of their number killed, six taken prisoner, and thirty wounded. The Ulsters had lost ten officers and 180 men killed, wounded,orcaptured;whiletheNorthumberlandsandattachedpersonnelhadsuffered32killed ,96wounded,and38officersandmencaptured. As for the unfortunate Glosters and those artillerymen and others with them, 63 had been killed, 106 wounded, and–because they had effectively run out of ammunition and were deep behind enemy lines–610 captured in varying degrees of poor health. 29th Brigade as a whole had lost 1,091 men, about a quarter of its strength.5 Not surprisingly, in view of these figures, there was no shortage of behind-the-scenes finger-pointing in the aftermath of the Imjin battle, particularly with reference to the fate of the Glosters. Within the U.N. forces command structure there was a good deal of embarrassment and a consequent search for scapegoats. 190 The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951 As already noted, Tom Brodie thought the primary blame lay with the divisional commander, Major General Robert H. Soule, for ordering the Glosters to stand their ground despite repeated warnings from Brigade HQ about the deteriorating situation. Brodie did not, however, makehisviewspublic,confininghimselfbywayofexplanationtostressing that it was “a case of the Brigade being in the stickiest place” in the divisional line. Moreover, unlike some senior officers, the brigade commander knew that ultimately he was responsible for the fate of those under his command. When questioned by an American combat historian sixmonthslater,Brodieacceptedhalftheblameforthedestructionofthe battalion on the grounds that he had not managed to effectively convey the seriousness of the battalion’s predicament to division HQ in time to allowforasuccessfulextraction.Someofhissubordinatesagreed.Major Charles Mitchell of the Fusiliers was happy to see the brigade later being integrated into a new Commonwealth Division under the command of Major-General James “Gentleman Jim” Cassels, “a first class chap who canreallyhandleAmericans!”Asheaddedinalettertohismother,dated June 3rd, “Tom Brodie I often felt didn’t stand up to them enough–not really surprising as he was usually junior in rank–American Generals sometimes have a funny idea of what can and what cannot be done.”6 As commander-in-chief of U.N. operations in Korea, General MatthewB .RidgwaytendedtosuspectthattheblameforthelossoftheGlosters went higher than just brigade or divisional headquarters. “I cannot but feel a certain disquiet that down through the channel of command,” he wrote the Eighth Army commander on 9 May, “the full responsibility for realizing the danger to which this unit was exposed, then for extricating it when that danger became grave, was not recognized nor implemented.” There are times, as I’m sure your experience in battle will bear out, when it is not sufficient to accept the judgment of a subordinate commander that a threatened unit can care for itself, or that a threat situation can be handled locally. The responsibility in each case goes straight up the command chain, through regiment, Div., Corps, to Army. Each commander should search his soul and by personal verification, satisfy himself that adequate action has been taken. It may be that such was the case with the Gloucesters. I have the feeling that it was not; that neither the Div., or Corps Commanders [Robert H. Soule of 3rd Division and Frank W. Milburn of I Corps] was fully aware by direct personal presence, as near the critical spot as he could have gotten, of what the actual situation was. Epilogue 191 If that had in fact been the case, Ridgway added, “I feel sure that instant vigorous action would have been taken to extricate the unit.”7 To paraphrase a famous saying, while victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan, and those fingered by Ridgway from bottom to top proved keen to avoid taking any major responsibility for what had happened . The commander of one of the largest...