Hold At All Costs
I caught a very good documentary on PBS the other day about one of the forgotten battles of the Forgotten War, the Battle of Outpost Harry called “Hold At All Costs”.
War had raged up and down the Korean Peninsula for three years by June of 1953. First North Korean, then UN, then Communist Chinese, then again UN forces swept across the 684 mile Peninsula only to be halted again. Both sides had fought themselvesto near exhaustion and a bloody stalemate set in with WWI-style trench lines running across the rugged hills and ridges of central Korea. In the South were the UN forces, mostly Americans, but reinforced with contingents from a whole host of other countries. To the north, holding a parallel line, were the forces of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. Between was a no-man’s land of barbed wire, booby traps, land mines, and a few isolated UN positions.
Because the Main Line of Resistance (MLR) ran along a fairly contiguous route it could not always incorporate certain geographic features, the occupation of which would provide a certain tactical advantage. Typically this would be a tall hill or ridge that overlooked the lines of one side or the other, offering a good vantage for artillery observation or even for direct, plunging, fire down into the exposed enemy defensive network. One of these hills, out a few hundred yards from the main defense line, was OP Harry, the southern peak of a much larger hill that was occupied by the Chinese.
OP Harry was deemed vital because it guarded the direct road to Seoul and because if the Chinese could take it, it offered perfect observation over UN positions and the valley beyond. Chinese artillery could then hammer UN forces and interdict their supply lines in the area, forcing the entire UN Army to step back to the next defensible line a few miles to the South. The Chinese knew this and, with negotiations on-going determined to seize the hill, both to test American resolve and as leverage in the negotiations. Over 8 nights thousands of Chinese launched wave attacks on the outpost which was guarded by a single company rotated out regularly. The fighting was a nightmare of steel and fire. Each night the Chinese would surge up over the American positions, trampling the bodies of their own dead and fighting hand to hand in trenches and bunkers only to be beaten back by American artillery and napalm. In the morning the American survivors would walk out to find the hill literally covered in bodies and parts of bodies. On the final night a company from the elite Greek Battalion arrived to relieve the Americans holding the hill. When the Chinese attacked the Greeks counterattacked, surrounded the Chinese, and killed them all.
Over a hundred US and Greek soldiers died defending OP Harry and hundreds more were wounded. Chinese losses were horrific with at least 1500 dead though almost certainly many many more. The entire Chinese 74th Division (about 14,000 men) was rendered incapable of further combat by the time the battle was over.
A couple things I noted was first: the suicidal tactics of the Chinese, using mass wave attacks in an effort to overwhelm the position with sheer numbers. This kind of mind-blowing disregard for individual human life was a pretty common tactic used by communist armies which gives you a bit of insight into just how evil communism really is. Second I was puzzled by how the Chinese disposed of their dead. They literally flattened the bodies of their dead by running over them with tanks, then hammered them unto the ground of rice paddies with wooden stakes. What was the idea of that and how did the Chinese soldiers feel about crushing the corpses of their fallen?
Also I noticed that on the American side that it was Divisional Headquarters that gave a lot of the orders for moving companies in and out of OP Harry. This is kind of weird because normally a division level HQ shouldn’t be concerning itself with company-level matters. I think a lot of the bloodiness of the outpost battles of the Korean war is the result of too much micromanagement. A very similar battle, made famous by a film of the same name, Pork Chop Hill was marked by continual interference and misjudgement by a Divisional HQ that cost many Americans their lives. Excessive micromanagement is a hallmark of the Army, and US government in general and something to be consciously avoided.
PBS will probably be showing the documentary again over Memorial Day Weekend or some time soon, so if anyone is interested check your local listings if you are interested.
