Leadership in the Crucible: The Korean War Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-ni

Chapter 1 The 23d Infantry Regiment and Col. Paul Freeman

There is one cardinal principle which must always be remembered: one must never make a show of false emotions to one’s men. The ordinary soldier has a surprisingly good nose for what is true and what false. —Field Marshal Erwin Rommel He makes a great mistake . . . who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection. —Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) Discipline must be imposed, but loyalty must be earned—yet the highest form of discipline exists only when there is mutual loyalty, up and down. —Maj. Gen. Aubrey “Red” Newman I n the summer of , the soldiers of the d Infantry Regiment had no inkling of the destiny that awaited them in the Korean War. The regiment would earn two Presidential Unit Citations, the U.S. Army’s highest award for achievement in combat by a unit. Individual soldiers would receive the full array of decorations that the nation awards its heroes . Unfortunately, many would be posthumous. The war’s horrors and glories would forever change the lives of every soldier in the regiment. The d Infantry Regiment After the Second World War ended in Europe, the d Infantry Regiment returned to the United States and its new station at Camp Swift, Texas, C h a p t e r  The 23d Infantry Regiment and Col. Paul Freeman LEADERSHIP IN THE CRUCIBLE  about forty miles east of Austin. The regiment stayed there until its move to Fort Lewis, Washington, in . The regiment was a part of the d Infantry Division, the U.S. Army’s first division to be reorganized after World War II. Nonetheless, the d Regiment wrestled with the same problems that plagued every other infantry regiment in the post World War II army. It was understrength and had equipment left over from the war, much of it in need of rehabilitation. It had the normal “post support ” and menial labor details that caused entire companies frequently to have only a few men left for training. It had the postwar army’s emphasis on unit athletic competition, which reached semiprofessional standards. To all appearances, it might have been a typical infantry regiment in June, . Nonetheless, its appearance hid some features that made it atypical in many ways.1 The regiment resided at North Fort Lewis, remote from Fort Lewis proper. There the troops lived in wooden mobilization-type barracks, avoiding the daily scrutiny of the d Division staff, which inhabited new brick buildings on the main post. In army slang, the soldiers were “away from the flagpole,” meaning they could conduct their daily activities with a certain degree of autonomy. This separation built esprit de corps by making it seem to the men that they were different from the rest of the division . North Fort Lewis, for example, had its own officer, noncommissioned officer (NCO), and enlisted clubs, all of which were noted for their high-quality food and entertainment. The one element that most set the d apart from the “average” U.S. infantry regiment was that it was a part of the d Infantry Division, the only infantry division in the continental United States (CONUS) that functioned as a regular infantry division. Other CONUS outfits were “training divisions” used only to train recruits, as the d itself had been until . During World War II, the army had created special organizations outside the combat elements of the force to give basic military training to recruits. In the shrinking postwar army, however, units in excess of its tactical requirements were seen as a costly luxury, and using active army divisions to train recruits was an attractive, if inefficient, solution to the basic training problem. The soldiers in such training divisions provided instruction in close-order drill, individual and crew-served weapons, and other basic soldier skills. Organizations performing training missions did not get to train soldiers to become part of cohesive fighting units ready for war, and it was not a particularly satisfying assignment for the average soldier. Many career NCOs returning from the armies of occupation in Europe and Japan sought to avoid duty in training divisions by requesting assignment to the d Division. Most soldiers preferred to be in a unit that trained together, where soldiers built bonds of camaraderie through shared stressful advanced training. An additional difference in the d Regiment was its high number of seasoned NCOs, many...