In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

C h a p t e r  Matthew Ridgway and a New War The job of the commander was to be up where the crisis of action was taking place. In time of battle, I wanted division commanders to be up with their forward battalion, and I wanted corps commanders up with the regiment that was in the hottest action. If they had paper work to do, they could do it at night. By day their place was up there where the shooting was going on. I held to the old-fashioned idea that it helped the spirits of the men to see the Old Man up there, in the snow and sleet and the mud, sharing the same cold, miserable existence they had to endure. —Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway The real reason why I succeeded in my own campaigns is because I was always on the spot. —Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington W hen Lt. Gen. Walton Walker was killed in a vehicle accident just before Christmas, , Lt. Gen. Matthew Bunker Ridgway flew to Korea to take command. On the way to the Eighth Army in Korea, he stopped in Tokyo to be briefed by General MacArthur. While there, he asked whether he could go on the offensive if the opportunity arose. MacArthur, in a remarkable display of confidence in Ridgway’s abilities, told him, “The Eighth Army is yours, Matt. Do what you think best.”1 When he arrived in Korea at the end of December, Ridgway began touring the frontline units. He found a defeated and dispirited army, one that he immediately began rebuilding. He did not blame the soldiers for their condition, for they were not responsible for their predicament or their leadership. He held the leaders responsible for the road-bound army he found, an army that had, in large part, forgotten how to soldier. Ridgway began by stressing the elements of basic soldiering through the chain of command. He wanted the army off its vehicles and on the hills. He wanted the troops to construct tight defensive perimeters for night fighting, while expanding the perimeters during daylight. Although the United Nations Command had total air superiority and a strong advantage in tanks and artillery, he did not think his commanders were using the tools available to them efficiently. For example, Ridgway wanted his units to defend themselves at night, destroying the attackers with artillery and flak wagons, and using tanks to support the infantry, then call in air strikes during daylight hours. He particularly wanted to punish the Chinese by killing as many as possible, not just fighting for real estate. There would be no more “bug outs.”2 Units would stay in position and fight surrounded if need be, holding out until a relief force could get to them the next day. He ordered commanders to leave no unit to be overwhelmed and destroyed, and promised to send as much force as necessary to relieve an encircled unit. Ridgway found that many commanders in Korea believed the United Nations Command was in danger of being driven from the peninsula. He did not believe this, but he fully understood that political factors might require UN forces to be withdrawn. For this reason, he asked that if the situation required such a decision, that it be kept secret long enough to plan for an orderly withdrawal. President Truman had always been resolute in upholding the principle that the United States would leave the peninsula only if forced out by military necessity. In the first week of December, just after the Chinese intervention, Truman told Prime Minister Clement Atlee of Great Britain: “We did not get into this fight with the intention of getting licked. We will fight to the finish to stop this aggression.” Whatever happened, UN forces would not voluntarily withdraw from the peninsula . “I don’t want to get out if there is any chance that we can stay.”3 In spite of this, however, MacArthur continued to warn that his forces might not be able to hold the line in Korea. Finally, in a message to MacArthur, Truman made his position clear: “We recognize, of course, that continued resistance might not be militarily possible with the limited forces with which you are being called upon to meet large Chinese armies. Further, in the present world situation, your forces must be preserved as an effective instrument for the defense of Japan and elsewhere. . . . In the worst case, it would be important that...

Share