Yet if the December semi-truce was an error by the UN, throughout this period its military commander remained undeceived by and unyielding towards the communist strategy. The secret communications between Washington and Matthew Ridgway which have now been released for historical scrutiny underline the American general’s qualities. Unlike MacArthur, Ridgway never allowed his private rhetoric to escape into public bombast. But he displayed a commitment and sense of purpose of the highest order, at a moment when the will of the United States was being visibly sapped by the frustration of stalemate.
Already in the press and radio [he wrote to the Joint Chiefs in July 1951], such expressions as the following are beginning to appear: ‘Let’s Get the Boys Back Home’ and ‘The War-Weary Troops’. I can hardly imagine a greater tragedy for America and the free world than a repetition of the disgraceful debacle of [running down] our Armed Forces following their victorious effort in World War II. We can never efface that blot on the record of the American people on whom the responsibility squarely rests. Within my authority and in the light of common sense and my best judgement, I shall seek to the limit of my ability to eliminate among all US military personnel in this theatre the type of thinking indicated by the use of such expressions. If this be ‘Thought Control’, then I am for it, heart and soul. To condone it would be a cowardly surrender of everything for which we have fought and plan to fight. It would coincide completely with the line the Communists would wish us to take.
7
But if Washington’s patience and resolve were being tested by events at Panmunjom, in Tokyo, Ridgway remained certain that there must be no indication of weakening will. ‘I have a strong inner conviction,’ he wrote in September, ‘admittedly based on the Korean as contrasted with the world situation, that more steel and less silk, more forthright American insistence on the unchallengeable logic of our position, will yield the objectives for which we honorably contend . . . With all my conscience I urge that we stand firm.’
8
Between July and the end of November 1951, the United Nations Command suffered almost 60,000 casualties, more than 22,000 of these American. Communist resistance in the air was strengthening, with the appearance of the first Tu-2 light bombers. The war in Korea had entered its longest and most frustrating period – of stalemate on the ground and sterile attrition at the negotiating table. The United Nations Command had renounced any military objective beyond the defence of the MLR, and spasmodic local operations, designed to sustain morale and demonstrate its army’s continuing
will to fight. For many months, the airmen had been urging the Chiefs of Staff in Washington – as airmen so often urged commanders throughout the twentieth century – that they could pursue the Allies’ strategic objectives at far lower cost in lives by a sustained bombing campaign. From the last months of 1951 until the end of 1952, while the negotiations at Panmunjom dragged interminably on, the USAF waged a massive campaign to bring pressure upon the communists by bombing, of which more will be said below. Yet by December 1952, the communists had been able to increase and supply forces in Korea that numbered 1,200,000 men of seven Chinese armies and two North Korean corps. And through all those weary months, on the mountains of Korea the UN armies alternately baked and froze, fought fierce little local actions, whiled away the weeks in their foxholes and bunkers – in the name of a cause whose meaning and purpose had long been forgotten by most of those ‘at the sharp end’, if they had ever understood it.
3. The Cause
From beginning to end of the Korean conflict, most United Nations soldiers found considerable difficulty in reconciling the ideals that they were alleged to be fighting for with the unattractive conduct of the regime of Syngman Rhee. As early as 18 July 1950, the British chargé d’affaires in Korea, Henry Sawbridge, wrote to the Foreign Office from Pusan:
It appears from here that this war is being fought
inter alia
to make Korea safe for Syngman Rhee and his entourage. I had hoped that I might find it otherwise. I may be wrong, but I fancy that the inexperience, incompetence, and possibly corruption of the present regime are in some measure responsible for this crisis.
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‘Nor is there any real soul to this war,’ the Australian Richard Hughes wrote in the London
Sunday Times
on 5 September. ‘No powerful sympathy or even warm liking exists between the Americans and the South Koreans. The soldiers of the United States and Britain notoriously have little abstract opinion or articulate comment on why they are fighting, but they can usually detect in any war a menace to their country or their homes. They can perceive nothing of that sort in this war.’
Through the months that followed, American and British soldiers constantly witnessed dreadful acts of brutality by the South Koreans towards their own people. In the early stages of the war, Washington and London sought to brush aside disturbing reports from Seoul. ‘Newspaper reports of atrocities,’ noted a disdainful Foreign Office hand, ‘have usually been based upon “spot” observations, and some have been written by inexperienced, biassed, or apparently highly emotional reporters.’
10
But what was the Foreign Office to make of such a cable as this, from their Minister in Korea on 8 January 1951?
Besides two instances of mass executions reported in my telegram No 197, a third occurred near Seoul on the evening of 20 December, within half a mile of 29 Brigade Headquarters. It was stopped by British troops on orders from Brigade Headquarters when 20 persons had already been shot, but the execution of 38 more was prevented, and they were sent back to the gaol whence they came. It transpired afterwards that the South Korean military authorities were responsible in this case . . . As the threat to Seoul developed, and owing to the destruction of the death house, the authorities resorted to these hurried mass executions by shooting in order to avoid the transfer of condemned prisoners south, or leaving them behind to be liberated by the Communists. However deplorable their methods, one can readily grasp their problem . . . The ordinary Korean finds it hard to understand our logic in this matter. He sees that the UN have sent troops to fight the Communists in Korea, and is therefore bewildered at the violent reaction evoked when South Koreans themselves give practical proof of their anti-Communist sentiment by publicly eliminating persons who are, in their eyes, traitors convicted by law of helping the Communists in one way or another. As for the methods used, what we regard as brutality is only normal treatment expected from those in authority, I should say.
11
But others would not say. Many British soldiers were repelled by the behaviour of the regime for which they were alleged to be fighting. One man, a Private Duncan, wrote to his MP after the 20 December incident:
40 emaciated and subdued Koreans were taken about a mile from where I was stationed and shot while their hands were tied, and also beaten unnecessarily by rifles. The executioners were South Korean military police. The whole incident has caused a great stir and ill-feeling among the men of my unit. We have heard of lots of other occasions of the same happening. I write to tell you this, as we are led to believe that we are fighting against such actions, and I sincerely believe that our troops are wondering which side in Korea is right or wrong.
12
John Ellis of the Gloucesters was talking one day to Ronnie Littlewood, the Transport Officer, about an incident he had witnessed, in which retreating ROK troops systematically mowed down refugees in their path. ‘What the hell are we doing here, propping up this old bandit Syngman Rhee,’ asked Littlewood, ‘if they’re doing things like this?’
13
Ellis, the younger man, like many junior officers merely brushed aside higher moral issues. He was there, in the long tradition of British soldiers fighting far-flung campaigns, because he was there. But very many UN soldiers asked themselves the same question as Littlewood. ‘The locals so plainly didn’t want us there,’ said Lieutenant Chris Snider of the Canadian Brigade. ‘They didn’t want outsiders of any kind. When you were very close to the front line, the locals would smile at you and bring you water. But further back, behind the front, Koreans made it plain you were just a nuisance, an intrusion.’
14
Lieutenant Stan Muir of 45 Field
Regiment, RA, found it chronically difficult to harden his heart to the need to turn back refugees appearing in front of the British positions, lest they be masking infiltrators. ‘Sometimes, one could hear them out there in no man’s land, howling in the night. Everything we saw of the Korean people was sad.’
15
In the spring of 1951, a wave of outrage swept through the ranks of the British 29 Brigade, following the publication in the London
Sunday Times
of a statement by Syngman Rhee, denouncing the alleged British role in the dismissal of MacArthur, and declaring: ‘The British troops have outlived their welcome in my country.’ This was one of Rhee’s notorious tantrums. He told an Australian Embassy official: ‘They are not wanted here any longer. Tell that to your government. The Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British troops all represent a government which is now sabotaging the brave American effort to liberate fully and unify my unhappy nation.’
16
The publication of these remarks, within weeks of the bloody battle on the Imjin, was too much for British soldiers yearning above all to shake off the dust of Rhee’s terrible country from their feet. Bombardier A. Humphreys of C Troop, 170 Independent Mortar Battery, wrote to the Foreign Office:
Dear Sir,
A few hours ago
The Sunday Times
dated 6 May 1951 arrived at the battery, and the first article that was read by myself was headed ‘South Korean President Denounces Britain’. I take it, Sir, that you have read this article, and ask you to put yourself in my position. I am a reservist, called back to the armed forces, parted from my family, to take part in a conflict which my whole train of thought said was wrong when the UN forces crossed the Parallel for the first time. The stand of the 29th British Brigade is so very fresh in my mind. Am I to go into the next conflict, and possibly become a battle casualty, for a cause one is not in full agreement with? Knowing that President Syngman Rhee decries the efforts we have made, tells the world that the British are unwelcome, and the sacrifices made thought so very little of . . . My own personal opinion: bring the British forces back, and use them where their efforts would be fully appreciated.
Yours Faithfully,
Humphreys
A Foreign Office hand annotated the soldier’s scrawl: ‘This a very moving and sane letter, and deserves a good reply.’ Other letters in the same vein reached Britain, either direct to Ministers, or through soldiers’ Members of Parliament. British diplomats in Korea sighed, and sought to take refuge in an urbane view of Syngman Rhee’s deficiencies. After the British Minister in Korea had seen the President, he wrote to London on 16 June:
The South Koreans – as is perhaps to be expected at their stage of national development – are going through one of the more acute stages of the ‘awkward age’. It is their misfortune, and their allies’, that this should coincide with the obligation to fight for the survival of their newly acquired independence. When they show themselves, as they often do, uncomprehending and intolerant of other people’s views, their extreme inexperience is an extenuating circumstance that has to be taken into account when evaluating the irresponsible statements made by people in prominent positions. Chief among these is the President himself.
17
This line of reasoning, of course, offered little consolation to the men on the line, such as Bombardier Humphreys. And even some UN officials took a far less sanguine view than the British Minister of the South Korean government’s behaviour. ‘At least many hundreds [of alleged communists] have been shot,’ reported the Australian delegate to the UN Commission for Korea, James Plimsoll, on 17 February 1951. He described how the prisoners had been compelled to dig their own graves, then ‘rather clumsily and inexpertly shot before the eyes of others waiting their own turn’. In fairness to the Seoul regime, Plimsoll pointed out the immense bitterness and yearning for revenge among South Koreans for the dreadful atrocities committed by the communists during their occupation:
‘The members of the Korean government and the Korean police are literally fighting for their lives. Any one of them or of their families who fell into enemy hands would be killed. They therefore do not take quite the detached view of the situation that persons overseas can take . . . Even allowing for all this, the executions remain shocking. The picture is not a pretty one, even when due weight is given to the special conditions of war and of a relatively primitive country.’
18