The Darkest Summer Read online

  ALSO BY BILL SLOAN

  The Ultimate Battle:

  Okinawa 1945—The Last Epic Struggle of World War II

  Brotherhood of Heroes:

  The Marines at Peleliu, 1944—The Bloodiest Battle

  of the Pacific War

  Given Up for Dead:

  America’s Heroic Stand at Wake Island

  JFK: Breaking the Silence

  JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness

  Elvis, Hank, and Me:

  Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride

  (with Horace Logan)

  The Other Assassin (fiction)

  The Mafia Candidate (fiction)

  THE DARKEST SUMMER

  PUSAN AND INCHON 1950:

  THE BATTLES THAT SAVED SOUTH KOREA—

  AND THE MARINES—FROM EXTINCTION

  BILL SLOAN

  Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2009 by Bill Sloan

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition November 2009

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Dana Sloan

  Maps by Jeff Ward

  Illustration credits follow the Index.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sloan, Bill.

  The darkest summer: Pusan and Inchon 1950: the battles that saved South Korea—and the Marines—from extinction / Bill Sloan. — 1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  1. Korean War, 1950–1953—Campaigns—Korea (South)—Pusan Region. 2. Inchon Landing, Inch’on, Korea, 1950. 3. United States. Marine Corps—History—Korean War, 1950–1953. 4. Pusan Region (Korea)—History, Military—20th century. 5. Inch’on (Korea)—History, Military—20th century. I. Title.

  DS918.2.P87S56 2009

  951.904’24—dc22 2009015329

  ISBN 978-1-4165-7174-2

  ISBN 978-1-4165-7593-1 (ebook)

  To Alana Alyeene Henderson Sloan—

  my anchor, my armor, my compass, and the love of my life.

  Thanks for being there.

  CONTENTS

  1. Suddenly, a Not-So-Sudden War

  2. An Army in Disarray

  3. A Proud Corps in Peril

  4. Missions Impossible

  5. Enter the “Fire Brigade”

  6. A Melee of Confusion and Chaos

  7. Triumph, Tragedy, Traps, and Tears

  8. Nightmare on the Naktong

  9. Commanders in Conflict

  10. The Enemy Goes for Broke

  11. A 5,000-to-One “Sure Thing”

  12. Turning the Tide at Inchon

  13. The Bloody Road to Seoul

  14. A “Terrible Liberation”

  15. Taking the Hard Way Home

  Epilogue: The Rest of the Story

  Sources and Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  THE DARKEST SUMMER

  CHAPTER 1

  SUDDENLY, A NOT-SO-SUDDEN WAR

  AS DARKNESS FELL on Saturday, June 24, 1950, it was “party time” in Seoul, capital of the fledgling Republic of South Korea. The afternoon had been oppressively hot and humid, but by dusk, storm clouds were gathering above the mountains to the north, and a celebratory mood, nurtured by hopes of rain, blossomed among the ancient city’s 1.5 million residents.

  A bountiful rice harvest depended on the torrential downpours of the summer monsoon season. Without them, famine would sweep like a plague across the Korean peninsula, one of the poorest and most primitive areas of Asia. The spring had been unseasonably dry, but now it appeared certain that the indispensable rains were on their way.

  In anticipation, Republic of Korea Army headquarters had authorized fifteen-day leaves for thousands of enlisted men to allow them to help their families in the rice paddies. Many other troops in the ROK defensive force stationed at the 38th Parallel—the line, just over thirty-five miles north of Seoul, that divided South Korea and the Communist North—had been given the weekend off as a reward for serving through months of hostile incidents and false alarms along the frontier. These were comforting, perhaps necessary, gestures toward the troops, but their effect was to leave fewer than a third of the 38,000-man ROK force assigned to border defense on duty at the parallel.

  The Republic of Korea Army brass, meanwhile, were celebrating the opening of a new officers’ club in Seoul, where they were joined by virtually all the American officers of the 500-member Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG), charged with helping the ROKs achieve combat readiness. Later in the evening, the Americans would return the favor by hosting the South Koreans at the regular Saturday night dance at the lavish KMAG officers’ open mess. Having completed his tour of duty, Brigadier General William L. Roberts, retiring commander of the KMAG, had sailed for the States that very afternoon. Otherwise, he doubtlessly would have been at the center of the festivities.

  In embassy bars and other elite venues, the 2,000 members of the American diplomatic mission in Seoul also came out to play. Since the arrival of the first Americans in South Korea in 1945, the mission had grown into the largest such U.S. contingent in the world, but only a handful of the staff was involved in military matters. Most were there to support the struggling economic and political systems of a nation that, after generations of outside control, had virtually no experience in administering its own affairs.

  The diplomats’ cocktail conversations focused on the recent visit to Seoul and the 38th Parallel by John Foster Dulles, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. They joked about Dulles’s remarks on South Korea’s progress toward “responsible representative government” and a “vitalized economy,” both still distant goals. There was almost no mention of rice harvests or monsoons, much less the possibility of a North Korean invasion.

  On the eve of his retirement as head of the KMAG, General Roberts had boasted in an interview with Time magazine of his group’s success in molding the ROK military into a force capable of meeting any threat posed by the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA). “The South Koreans have the best damn army outside the United States,” Roberts had said flatly. He also maintained that tank warfare was impossible among the narrow roads and boggy rice paddies of Korea. His superiors in Washington and Tokyo took the general at his word, despite damning evidence to the contrary. He could not have been more wrong.

  In terms of sheer numbers, the ROK Army was actually a bit larger than its northern counterpart, with total manpower of about 145,000—nearly 50 percent of whom would become casualties within the first six weeks of the war. It encompassed eight divisions, half of them clustered along the 38th Parallel or in the vicinity of Seoul, but most ROK infantry units were armed with nothing more formidable than M-1 rifles, light machine guns, and small-caliber mortars. Backing the infantry were five battalions of field artillery, but they were equipped on
ly with obsolete, short-range 105-millimeter howitzers of a type the U.S. Army had scrapped several years earlier.

  The ROKs didn’t have a single tank or combat aircraft. They had no heavy artillery, large-bore 4.2-inch mortars, recoilless rifles for antitank warfare, or spare parts for their vehicles. Up-to-date weaponry had been withheld from the South Koreans on orders from Washington for fear that overzealous ROK officers might use it to attack North Korea. Nevertheless, U.S. Ambassador John Muccio’s first secretary, Harold Noble, had confidently assured the powers at home that “The ROKs can not only stop an attack but move north and capture the Communist capital in two weeks.”

  Washington apparently took Noble at his word, and on this last night of peace on the Korean peninsula, almost no one in Washington was very interested in the ROK Army anyway. That was about to change with heart-stopping suddenness.

  Steady rain began falling after midnight, saturating parched rice paddies across the countryside and gaining steadily in intensity until it was cascading down in endless sheets. Wet but happy workers sang in the early morning as they splashed across the bridge over the Han River, grateful for the reviving downpour. For American and ROK officers, soldiers on leave, and minor diplomats, the festive atmosphere began to fade. Last call came at the embassy bars and the KMAG officers’ open mess, and weary or inebriated celebrants toddled off to their beds (or to someone else’s).

  What had been a fine night for a party became a fine predawn for a refreshing sleep. Soon, most of Seoul joined in, oblivious to what was happening just over thirty-five miles to the north.

  Poised within a few dozen yards of the 38th Parallel on that rainy Sunday morning stood 90,000 North Korean troops—seven infantry divisions, plus another infantry regiment; an armored brigade; a motorcycle regiment; and a brigade of border guards. Despite their exceptionally large numbers, they were apparently unnoticed by the ROKs or the KMAG—possibly because the attention of the South Korean and American officers was focused elsewhere. The NKPA troops were supported by 150 Soviet T-34 medium tanks, 200 combat aircraft, numerous 122-millimeter howitzers, 76-millimeter self-propelled guns, and heavy mortars. They’d been standing by ever since Friday, June 23, awaiting final orders to invade South Korea at five key points along the frontier. Their officers were mostly young but experienced veterans of combat against the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalists, and now they were tense and eager as the moment neared to surge across the parallel. Three of the massed infantry divisions, led by tanks, would strike directly toward Seoul.

  The smell of diesel fumes rose in the murky darkness as the Soviet T-34s began cranking their engines. They were heavily armored, battle-proven, and formidably armed, each mounting an 85-millimeter cannon and two heavy machine guns. These were the same kind of tanks that had halted the Nazi assault on Moscow, and they had been the standard of Soviet armored divisions ever since. There was nothing in the thinly manned, ill-equipped ROK lines to the south that could possibly slow them down, much less stop them.

  Captain Joseph Darrigo, the only member of the Korean Military Advisory Group who hadn’t joined the Saturday night revelry in Seoul—and therefore the lone remaining U.S. officer at the 38th Parallel on Sunday morning, June 25, 1950—awoke with a start at about 4:00 AM to the thunder of heavy artillery. Darrigo’s housemate, Lieutenant William Hamilton, was spending the weekend in the capital city, along with the rest of the KMAG.

  As Darrigo sat up in bed, listening intently, the young captain from Darien, Connecticut, felt very much alone.

  At first, he thought the firing might be merely another in an ongoing series of border incidents involving rival patrols and gunners on opposite sides of the parallel; dozens of such incidents had flared along the frontier in recent weeks. But as the sounds intensified and the ground shuddered beneath the stone house where he and Hamilton were quartered, Darrigo realized he was witnessing something much larger—and ominously close.

  Darrigo had been stationed at the parallel for six months, a near record for members of the high-turnover KMAG. During that time, he’d become increasingly convinced that the 135,000-man North Korean People’s Army was planning a blatant attack on the South, aimed at reuniting the two Koreas by force. In Darrigo’s mind, the only remaining question was when the NKPA would strike.

  He bounded out of bed and grabbed his trousers, pulling them on as he raced outside for a better look and wondering, Is this it? Is this the start of the war I’ve been expecting?

  The answer was soon obvious. Darrigo saw scores of artillery muzzle flashes reflecting off low-hanging clouds to the north. Even more alarming, he heard the distinctive clatter of automatic weapons fire nearby and getting closer. By the time he could run back to snatch up his shoes and shirt, jump into his jeep, and careen down a dusty road toward the town of Kaesong, a few hundred yards away, machine-gun and small-arms rounds were pinging off the stone walls of the house.

  At a traffic circle in the center of the town, he jerked the jeep to a halt and stared in amazement as a train packed with a full regiment of North Korean infantry pulled into the railway station, and the soldiers poured off the cars and into the streets. They spotted Darrigo almost immediately, and it seemed to him as if every one of them began firing in his direction at once. With bullets whining past him, Darrigo floor-boarded the jeep and streaked south toward the headquarters compound of the ROK First Division to sound the alarm.

  As far as can be documented today, Joe Darrigo had just become the only American military eyewitness to the invasion of South Korea by massive forces from the Communist North. He would always consider it a miracle that he survived to tell about it.

  • • •

  To Lieutenant Jin Hak Kim, a young officer of the ROK First Division, also stationed near Kaesong and a short distance from Captain Darrigo, the blitzkrieg-style attack by the NKPA seemed to come as abruptly as a flash of lightning. As he slept in a dugout carved into the side of a hill and topped with sandbags, the force of the first enemy shells knocked Jin out of his cot and sent dirt and debris pouring down on him.

  “The war began with a sudden eruption of artillery fire,” he recalled years later, “a barrage laid onto our lines all along our sector of the frontier. One minute there was rain and silence; the next, a hellish din and explosions all around us.”

  Jin struggled into his clothes and ran outside. The first thing he saw was one of his sergeants sprawled near the door of the dugout and groaning in agony. When the stunned lieutenant reached down and tried to move the wounded man out of his path, the sergeant’s whole right arm fell off. “It had been severed near the shoulder,” Jin said. “He groaned again and was dead.”

  Despite the shock felt by Jin and countless others, there was nothing sudden about the invasion. Storm clouds of war had been gathering over the Korean peninsula for well over a year, and Joe Darrigo was far from alone in expecting the Communist North to launch a full-scale assault against its southern neighbor.

  Many other on-site observers had watched and listened uneasily for months as ominous warnings, bellicose threats, and border incursions by both sides inflamed relations between the two Koreas. In May 1949, ROK forces had been guilty of one of the most inflammatory border incidents when they crossed the parallel, advanced more than two miles into North Korea, and attacked several villages. By December 1949, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Major J. R. Ferguson, a British military attaché in Seoul, reported his grave concern to the Foreign Office in London.

  “On the question of aggression by the North,” Ferguson warned, “there can be no doubt whatever that their ultimate objective is to overrun the South; and I think in the long term there is no doubt that they will do so.” He went on to add, however, that subversion by Communist sympathizers in the South seemed a likelier vehicle for a takeover than open aggression by the NKPA.

  There were, in fact, many in the South who wished to unify Korea by embracing communism and joining the North, and they played a key role
in laying the groundwork for the invasion through sabotage and harassing guerrilla actions. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union and the new Communist rulers of China, who had recently ousted Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists from the Asian mainland, were also pouring military equipment and expertise into North Korea. The equipment was plainly offensive in nature, and 3,000 tough, seasoned Soviet officers were busily teaching the NKPA to use it to maximum advantage.

  Only hours before the invasion, Captain Vyvyan Holt of the British Legation had advised British civilians to leave Seoul for safer areas to the south. For weeks, U.S. Intelligence had also heard, and duly reported, ongoing rumors of impending conflict, but Washington had paid little heed. High-ranking officials in the State Department—and the Truman administration in general—as well as top American military commanders in the Far East continued to turn blind eyes and deaf ears to increasingly volatile signals.

  In his memoirs, published in 1956, Truman utilized the advantages of hindsight to excuse his administration’s failure to heed those signals. He acknowledged receiving warnings from the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the spring of 1950 that North Korea might “attack at any time.” But there was nothing in the information to provide any clue, Truman wrote, “as to whether an attack was certain or when it was likely to come.” Furthermore, he added, Korea was merely one among “any number of other spots in the world” where the Soviets or their allies were capable of launching an attack.

  Rather than reacting to increasingly obvious threats from the north by beefing up the ROK Army and U.S. combat forces in the region, Washington’s major concern was that the South Korean military might itself resort to aggressive force. Published remarks such as those of the KMAG’s General Roberts only added to this concern and reinforced the Pentagon’s decision to withhold up-to-date weaponry from the ROK Army.

  Hence, even if South Korea’s border defense force had been at full strength, it would have been no match for the NKPA and its tanks. For the Soviets’ part, they had scant reason to fear interference in Korea from the same U.S. government that had meekly stood by the previous year as Nationalist China, a principal American ally in World War II, was overrun by Mao Zedong’s Communist armies.