Battlefield Korea

Beyond the Beachhead

The USS Bataan, Iwo Jima and Makin Island amphibious assault ships had finally moved to within a couple of miles from the shoreline of Hamhung as the Navy and Marine airwings continued to pound the beach areas and any visible troop concentrations they spotted. The North Koreans knew the Americans might attempt a landing in this area, and had gone to great lengths to ensure the beach had been heavily-laced with concertina wire and landmines. The KPA’s objective was to bleed the Americans dry on the beach and then contest every inch of ground they tried to secure.

As the amphibious assault ship slowly rocked with the waves of the ocean, Sergeant Tim Long placed his final thirty-round magazine in his front ammo pouch on his body armor. He then grabbed a bandolier that held another eight more thirty-round magazines, and slung it over his shoulder.

“I think we are going to need all the ammo we can carry,” he thought.

Tim grabbed four hand grenades from the crate nearby, placing two of them on each side of his ammunition pouches on his body armor. As he finished getting his own personal gear and weapons ready, he turned to make sure the rest of his squad members were ready as well. He especially wanted to make sure the two machine gun teams had their extra barrels and gloves with them, as well as the extra ammunition. As he walked down the line, each machine gun crew was carrying four 100-round belts, just like he had planned. Six other members of the squad carried an additional 100-round belt to help supply them. In addition to the extra ammo, four of his squad members were bringing four anti-tank rockets, in case they encountered a fixed machine gun bunker that needed blowing up.

After nearly an hour of getting themselves ready, their lieutenant walked by and said, “It’s time to start loading up in the vehicles, Marines. This is happening, so get psyched up! This is what we live for! NCOs, move your squads to the vehicles, and let’s get rolling!” he shouted, adrenalin clearly pumping through his veins as he tried to whip up his platoon into a fury.

Sergeant Long echoed that sentiment. “Grab your gear and let’s go Marines! It’s time to earn our keep and go kick those communists where it hurts.”

The Marines from his squad began to place their individual body armor on and grabbed their patrol packs, which were also fully loaded with ammunition and two days’ worth of food and water, and threw them on their backs as well. In a somewhat orderly process, they headed down to the lower well deck, where they would load up into the Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) that would carry them to the beach.

The AAV had a crew of three Marines to drive it and man its various weapon systems. In the rear, 21 Marines were crammed into quarters so tight it would make a person with claustrophobia hyperventilate. As they sat in anticipation, they could smell diesel fumes wafting into their compartment, along with the overwhelming scent of sweat; sea water seeped in through the seals. This uncomfortable journey somehow filled the men with adrenaline. When they arrived, they would be ready to hit the beach and advance to contact as soon as the rear ramp had been dropped.

Because of the number of Marines involved in the landing operation, and the fact that this would be an opposed landing, the AAVs would be needed to transport more than a few waves of Marines, so once the first load exited, the vehicles would return to the ships to bring in the next load of Marines. Fortunately, some of the LCACs (which are essentially large hovercrafts) would be accompanying them, but they would hold off on hitting the beach for 30 minutes to give the initial batch of Marines some time to get things cleared. When they landed, the LCACs would be bringing a number of Abrams main battle tanks and their light armored tactical vehicles for armored support.

As everyone settled into the vehicle they had been assigned too, they began to do a final once-over on the weapons and equipment. While this was being done, the loading deck began to move slowly, and the conveyor belt moved the vehicles to the back of the deck to be dropped into the water and begin their watery drive to the beach. Sergeant Long’s driver slowly revved the engine, making sure they were ready as their vehicle got closer to the water’s edge. Then, the vehicle slipped off the loading deck, and for a brief moment, went beneath the waves until the buoyancy of the vehicle forced them to pop up to the surface like a buoy.

As their vehicle broke the surface of the water, the driver revved the engine and began to build up speed, joining the formation of other AAV’s now heading towards the beach. As the first wave of AAVs began to approach the coast, enemy artillery rounds began to land in the water around them, throwing up geysers of water intermixed with shrapnel. From time to time, the scraps of metal would ping or clang off their armored shell.

Several missiles began streaking out from various positions on shore towards some of the AAVs. One missile smashed into the front of a vehicle as it was cresting a wave, exploding in spectacular fashion and killing everyone on board. They were now less than 50 yards from the shore. Bullets bounced harmlessly off their armor as the turret gunner fired back.

In minutes, Sergeant long felt the treads of the vehicle start to catch on the gravel floor of the beach and begin to move quickly up the sandy coast. Prior to leaving the troop ships, the AAV Commander had determined that the vehicles would drive just far enough up the shore to create a hole through the concertina wire before backing out to head back for their next load. This would save the Marines on the beach a lot of time in trying to breach the wire while potentially being under a lot of heavy fire.

“We are coming up on the wire now!” yelled the vehicle commander to Long’s team. “Get ready to disembark and then get away from the vehicle. We are going to start backing up once you guys are all out!”

“You heard the man!” shouted Sergeant Long. “I want Alpha Team to break right and advance to cover. Bravo Team, you break left and advance to cover as well. Once we are on the beach, look for targets and engage them. Remember, controlled shots-do not blow through all your ammo! Fire team leaders, remember fire discipline!”

Seconds later, they could hear the vehicle grind through a bunch of barbed wire. A landmine went off, but their vehicle shrugged it right off. Then, the back hatch opened, and they began to disembark as quickly as possible. Once out of the vehicle, the deafening roar of war was almost overwhelming to their senses. There were thunderous explosions from artillery and mortar rounds going off all around them, and shrapnel flying everywhere. Then there was the constant chattering of machine guns from all directions, and of course, the screams of agony from the wounded as the shrapnel and bullets began to slap against the soft human flesh of the Marines assaulting the beach.

Within seconds of exiting the vehicle and getting away from behind it, Sergeant Long saw the vehicle lurch backwards as it tried to get back into the water to go pick up the next set of Marines. He then turned his attention to his squad and saw most of them had found shelter against a small sea wall at the edge of the beach where the grass and beach met.

One of his soldiers was laying on his back, dead. After taking several bullets to the neck and face, Sergeant Long couldn’t even recognize his fellow Marine without seeing his name tape; he was reduced to a torn and bloody mess of bone and muscle chunks.

A second marine was lying on the ground a dozen feet away from him, screaming in pain as he reached down to the ragged remnants of his left leg, blood squirting with each pulse. Sergeant Long didn’t waste a moment and quickly ran to the man, dropping down next to him. Bullets were whipping past his head and kicking up dirt, rocks and sand all around him and his wounded comrade. He immediately grabbed the man’s belt buckle, undoing it and pulling it out from his trousers. He then wrapped it just above the wound and tightened it as hard as he could to stop his friend from bleeding out. Then, he reached under the wounded Marine’s left armpit, and in one strong oomph, he threw him over his shoulder and began to run towards the break wall. Shots were whizzing past him like crazy, but he knew he needed to get his friend to safety so that a corpsman could start working on trying to patch him up.

When he made it to the break wall, he placed the Marine up against it just as a corpsman ran up to them and began to apply a proper tourniquet just above the wound to try and stem the bleeding.

Tim just laid there for a minute, trying to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. He grabbed at his camelback hose and took a couple of long drinks of water from it as his heart was racing out of control.

“Sergeant Long, there’s a machine gun position in that house, near those resort buildings,” one of his Marines said, pointing in the direction of where the enemy fire was coming from.

Tim inched his head slightly above the wall they were hiding behind, and saw the house with the machine gun. Green tracers were flying towards their position, raking the beach behind them. The building itself was a single-story house with a front door and three forward-facing windows. The windows had sandbags built up around them, and several heavy machine guns could be seen with their barrels sticking out, shooting flame and death at his fellow Marines.

Turning back to face his friend, he yelled to be heard above the sounds of war. “Get one of the guys with an anti-tank rocket to put a round in there, and see if that solves the problem.”

Then he turned to look at the corpsman working on the wounded lance corporal he had carried to the seawall. “How’s he doing?”

The corpsman had tied off the leg a couple of inches above the wound, and began to apply a pressure bandage. Then he pulled a small bag of plasma out of his aid bag and began to start an IV. “It’s a pretty bad wound,” the corpsman explained, “although if we could get him back to the ship, he might still keep his leg. He needs a medivac. What are the chances of that happening?”

Tim looked back towards the beach. In the distance he saw another wave of AAVs heading towards them. Then he had an idea. “See if you can get some volunteers to help you with the wounded. I’ll try to have the squad give you as much covering fire as possible.”

The corpsman nodded and responded, “I’ll do my best to get as many of the wounded Marines loaded into the vehicles as possible.”

One of Long’s heavy machine gunners let loose a long burst of automatic fire at the house that had been converted into an enemy bunker, while another Marine rose above the seawall slightly. He aimed the anti-tank rocket and fired it off at the house. In seconds, he heard the loud popping noise and then the sudden SWOOSH as the rocket began to head right for the building. From their spot behind the seawall, they still heard the loud explosion and a splattering of sparks. Then they waited… silence.

With the machine gun neutralized, Sergeant Long yelled at the top of his lungs, “Alpha Team, assault forward and secure that building!”

Then he turned to his left and looked in the direction of his other fire team. “Bravo Team, lay down covering fire now!”

Both teams immediately reacted to his orders and began to assault the building. Sergeant Long stood up quickly and climbed over the seawall, advancing towards the cluster of buildings where the enemy was held up. As he ran forward, he raised his M4 to his shoulder and fired off a series of controlled shots into the enemy positions in hopes of keeping their heads down or maybe getting a lucky shot and killing one them. The rest of Alpha team also rose up and followed him forward; it was a mad dash to the buildings being used by the enemy. Alpha and Bravo team unleashed a hail of bullets as they ran forward; they had to move quickly as they were rather exposed. It was several hundred yards from the seawall to the enemy positions, with little in the way of cover.

His fire team moved quickly and methodically, pouring accurate fire into the enemy while they charged. Hundreds of other Marines saw their charge and joined in, adding their own firepower to the mix. As the American soldiers advanced, a pair of AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters banked in towards the shoreline and raked several of the buildings with 70mm anti-personnel rockets, exploding multiple vehicles that Sergeant Long’s men had not spotted lying in wait behind the buildings.

As the helicopters flew low over the enemy, the Koreans launched several MANPADs (shoulder-launched surface-to-air-missiles) at them, and began using their anti-aircraft guns. The choppers immediately began to swerve from one side to the other in an effort to duck and dodge the enemy missiles and gun fire. One of the helicopters took multiple hits from one of the anti-aircraft guns, and immediately began to spew heavy black smoke from its main engine. Although the pilot did his best, the chopper began to lose control as he attempted to aim back towards the beach area and friendly lines.

Another pair of Cobras flew in and unloaded their rockets on the enemy lines, and then they began to fire their own heavy machine guns on the anti-aircraft guns. The assistance was unfortunately short-lived; within only a few minutes, both of the new choppers exploded when multiple surface-to-air missiles were fired at them from farther behind the enemy lines.

It took nearly five minutes and several short starts and stops before Sergeant Long’s squad made it to the first series of buildings overlooking the beach. They each threw in a handful of grenades, making sure everyone was dead before they burst into the nearby buildings to clear and secure them. While they did this, the rest of their platoon double-timed it to his position and began to set up a new perimeter. Other platoons arriving on the beach began to move forward as they now focused their efforts on securing more and more of the city, expanding the beachhead so additional Marines and heavy equipment could begin to be offloaded.

Tim paused for a moment to catch his breath, and looked back at the beach. He saw several of the LCACs make their way up the shore, dropping their front gates. Now that some of the beach had been secured, Sergeant Long could see the occasional Abram’s battle tank roll off onto the sand, or a few light-armored vehicles.

“Finally,” he thought, “those vehicles are exactly what we need to expand the beachhead.”

Within the first hour of the invasion, the Marines had moved off the beach and secured nearly a quarter mile inland, along with most of the coastal villages nearby. Dozens of tanks and other armored vehicles were now being brought ashore as additional waves of Marines continued to join them. It would not be long until they were able to secure the entire surrounding valley and other key objectives.

Fourteen hours later, as the Marines tightened their grip on the city of Hamhung, several North Korean soldiers began to wave a white flag out of one of the government buildings they had been trying to assault for hours.

Sergeant Long yelled at his men. “Hold your fire!”

As the other platoons also began to stop shooting, a slight sense of calm began to envelop the area. Gun battles continued to rage on in other parts of the city, but in the bubble around Sergeant Long’s position, the cacophony of war and death had been paused.

Three enemy soldiers emerged from the building, holding a white flag. They began to walk towards the American positions, shouting something Korean that none of them could understand. As they approached Sergeant Long’s position, he and a couple of his Marines stood up and motioned for them to stop. Once they had stopped, his Marines moved forward and began to search them for weapons or booby traps.

One of the Koreans, who appeared to be a high-ranking officer, spoke in barely intelligible English. “I want to speak with the Marine commander to discuss terms of surrender,” he requested.

Their company commander, Captain Dwayne Pepper, came up to them and began to talk with the Koreans. They repeated their request to speak with the marine commander to discuss terms of surrender. Captain Pepper, along with several additional Marines, escorted the enemy soldiers further back behind the line while they sent a message to battalion HQ that they had some Korean officers who wanted to request terms of surrender.

It took a few minutes, but eventually, they were able to speak with the brigade commander, who arranged for the officers to be brought to the beachhead, where Lieutenant General Roy Cutter had just landed and was establishing his new headquarters.

Cutter was caught by surprise, but he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth either. If a local commander wanted to discuss terms of surrender, and he could possibly save the lives of more Marines, then he was more than willing to talk with them. As the enemy soldiers arrived, his executive officer joined him, along with an interpreter.

The senior Korean officer introduced himself. “I am Colonel General Ryu Shin, and I am the senior ranking military member left alive. In the absence of other military commanders from Pyongyang or the other major military headquarters, I have assumed overall command of North Korean forces. I want to discuss terms of surrender with the Marine Commander and find a way to put an end to the killing.”

This speech caught General Cutter by surprise; he had not expected to be talking with someone who was now implying that he was the overall commander of North Korea. He invited them to sit down, and had some of his aides bring in some hot coffee, tea, and whatever grub they could muster together. The Korean officers gladly accepted the hot drinks, and ate the warm food like men who had not eaten a meal in days.

While the officers were ravenously chowing down, Cutter excused himself to go make contact with General Bennet and the PACOM Commander. Once General Cutter had explained the situation, Bennet asked, “Can you find out if this man is legit? And can we verify if his claim to be the new overall commander is true? Because if it is, then we might be able to put an end to this conflict sooner rather than later.”

Over the next couple of hours, the intelligence community, along with the South Koreans, confirmed that they had made a number of signal intercepts that indicated that Colonel General Ryu Shin was, in fact, the new leader of North Korea, or at least he had been asserting himself as such. The South Koreans sent over their terms for what they would accept for surrender, and so did General Bennet and the US PACOM Commander. President Gates and SecDef Castle were also made aware of the development.

It was determined that these gentlemen should be flown out to the Theodore Roosevelt Supercarrier, where they could meet with senior representatives from the South Korean government and the US Government. By the early hours of the following day, a deal had been reached.

The North Koreans were set to announce their unconditional surrender, and would make a formal request to the United Nations to have the Chinese withdraw their military forces from North Korea and end the fighting in their country. As hostilities ended between the two Koreas, a transition period would occur, and UN observers would help to disarm the Korean People’s Army. After a three-month period, and full disarmament, the two Koreas would once again be united.

It was determined that a formal cease-fire and peace agreement would be signed later; it was imperative to get Colonel General Ryu Shin back to his forces, so he could begin to issue the ceasefire orders. While he could not control what the Chinese did, he would do his utmost to have his forces lay down their arms and end the hostilities.

Within an hour of General Ryu returning to his lines, allied forces intercepted a transmission of him issuing ceasefire and surrender orders to the North Korean People’s Army.

“The war is lost,” he told his people. “It is now time to start taking care of your families, if they are still alive. The U.S. and South Korean soldiers will begin to bring us food, medicine, and water, but you have to lay down your arms. You cannot fire on them. I hereby order you to surrender and return to your homes.”

While this order was being carried out, the Chinese government issued a stern warning to the North Korean Army, telling General Ryu that he did not have the authority to surrender to the allies, and that they would shoot any North Korean soldiers who surrendered or abandoned their posts. They also began to pour more of their own soldiers across the border, in an attempt to hold the country together while they worked on pushing the Americans back across the DMZ.

As the war now dragged on into its 18th day, dozens upon dozens of North Korean military units began to surrender in droves, many of them trying to capitulate before the Chinese army was able to assume control of them. It was a crazy 48 hours as nearly 300,000 Korean soldiers tried to surrender while the Chinese Army raced to get its own military commanders to take charge.

With nearly half of the Korean People’s Army killed during the short 18 days of fighting, close to half of the forces that had survived surrendered before the Chinese assumed control. However, China made it much farther south than the Americans anticipated to be possible.

The rest of the North Korean soldiers ended up being rounded up by the People’s Liberation Army. Although there were many North Korean soldiers in terms of sheer numbers, the vast majority of them were hungry, demoralized, and lacked adequate weapons to be considered combat effective. As the Chinese moved farther into North Korean territory, these ragged soldiers were marched back towards the Chinese border, where they would be re-equipped, and reorganized into new units with Chinese officers and NCOs before they would be thrown back into the fighting.