Cold Days in Hell: American POWs in Korea

7. The Deadly Winter

7 The Deadly Winter We have no obligation to keep alive those who do not adhere to the side of truth and righteousness. Colonel Han, North Korean People’s Army, November  The first week of December  marked a dramatic turning point in the war. This was the week that Chinese forces overwhelmed LTG Walton J. Walker’s Eighth Army along the Chongchon River Valley, nearly destroying the nd Infantry Division on the road from Kunu-ri. The subsequent withdrawal came to be known derisively as “the big bugout.” Walker’s forces retreated  miles in ten days, all of the way south past the th parallel, leaving a trail of abandoned supplies and equipment in their wake. Supply officers, meanwhile, destroyed thousands of tons of supplies and equipment in the Pyongyang rail yards, where they had finally arrived, too late to help those units destroyed by the Chinese. This chaotic retreat in December remains one of the most embarrassing chapters in US military history. Nevertheless , the speed of Walker’s withdrawal enabled his forces to break contact and regroup below the Imjin River, thus preventing a UN evacuation of the peninsula. On the eastern side of the peninsula, this was also the week that isolated marine units finally broke through Chinese resistance to consolidate their forces at Hagaru, while other elements of X Corps began their own withdrawal toward the coast—and safety. In Tokyo, Gen. Douglas MacArthur railed against restrictions that gave the Chinese a “privileged sanctuary.” Warning that his forces were now fighting “a new war against an entirely new power of great military strength,” MacArthur threatened a complete abandonment of the Korean peninsula if he were not heavily reinforced. In Washington, however, MacArthur’s rhetoric fell on dubious ears. His imperious conduct during the previous six weeks had alienated the Joint Chiefs Testimony of Lt. Col. Paul V. Liles, transcript of court martial of Maj. Ambrose Nugent, Fort Sill, Okla., February . 116 chapter 7 and permanently destroyed his credibility. When MacArthur claimed that nobody had questioned the wisdom of pushing forward to the Yalu, Undersecretary of Defense Robert Lovett characterized the statement as “false and mendacious.” Though reluctant to relieve MacArthur in the moment of crisis, President Truman and his advisors assumed a far more active role in managing the war. Marching North Amid North Korea’s frozen valleys, hundreds of captured Americans huddled for warmth in temporary internment camps. At least two thousand more trudged north in pathetic columns. The first of these groups, the US soldiers captured in July and August of , had endured the deadly march from Manpo in early November. The survivors of that ordeal now suffered from the Tiger’s continuing mistreatment at Chungang-ni, a camp in the “Apex” area, so named for its location at the northern tip of North Korea (see appendix). As December progressed, three other large groups of American prisoners struggled to stay alive. The second large group—soldiers of the st Cavalry and th Infantry Divisions captured in early November—had just arrived at the village of Sombakol, where they would spend the next six weeks. The third group consisted of US, British, and South Korean troops captured near the Chosin Reservoir. The Chinese gathered these prisoners at a temporary holding area in the Taebaek Mountains before marching them farther north to Kanggye, a few miles south of the Yalu. The fourth and largest group of American prisoners consisted almost entirely of soldiers from the nd and th Infantry Divisions captured at the battle of the Chongchon River. In the first week of December, these prisoners were just beginning their march into the northern mountains of Korea. Other, smaller groups of Americans were being held or transported across North Korea in early December of , but these prisoners eventually made their way to larger compounds—if they survived. The one notable exception to this rule was Maj. Gen. William Dean. Dean was the highestranking prisoner captured and thus the North Koreans’ prize possession. The North Koreans kept him in solitary confinement throughout the war and refused to transfer him to Chinese control. Most American prisoners had assumed they would be shot upon capture . Those taken by the Chinese, however, were initially promised food, shelter, medical treatment, and a brief period of political education before the deadly winter 117 repatriation. It is hard to gauge the sincerity of these promises. During the Chinese civil...