Equally sudden was the reversal of this trend.
In September 1950, when the United Nations and the United States came to the ROK’s aid, a massive counterattack not only liberated the ROK’s entire area from North Korean invaders, but pushed into the DPRK until only a thin sliver of it remained under North Korean control at the beginning of November 1950.
Yet again the direction of the war’s momentum changed suddenly.
At the end of November, with the help of China and the Soviet Union, the DPRK pushed southward, eventually reclaiming all of the North Korean territory and advancing once again into the ROK. By January 1951, North Korea had established a front behind which lay not only all of its land, but approximately 25% of the ROK.
Counteractions by the ROK, the United Nations, and the United States in February, March, and April of 1951 pushed the front northward, back to the original 38th parallel border, and then further north. From May 1951 until the eventual Armistice in July 1953, there was little movement in the front.
With each swing of the pendulum — one side or the other gaining or losing a definitive upper hand — the command structures of the military operations on both sides merit attention.
When North Korea successfully advanced southward in December 1950, General Douglas MacArthur was the commander of the United Nations forces assisting the ROK. When the South was making its strong northward advance in the autumn of 1950, MacArthur had been optimistic, and believed that the ROK’s victory was inevitable. When Chinese and Soviet assistance enabled the DPRK to push the United Nations entirely out of North Korea, MacArthur reversed his mood, and saw the ground war as hopeless. He toyed with the idea that the only way to rescue the ROK was to use nuclear weapons. His flirtation with atomic war raised concerns among US and UN leadership. MacArthur also wanted to strike Northward beyond the DPRK’s borders, into China, another wildly unpopular idea.
Under MacArthur’s supervision, General Walton Walker had been commanding the Eighth US Army in Korea starting in July 1950. Walker died suddenly in December 1950 from non-combat injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. The new leader of the Eighth Army, still under MacArthur’s umbrella of UN command, was Matthew Ridgway.
Ridgway’s installation as leader of the Eighth Army marked — or caused — one of the war’s inflection points.
MacArthur expected that the combined ROK/UN/US forces would be able to use airpower to disrupt the DPRK’s supply lines. This did not happen, as Russell Weigley writes:
The battlefield was not sealed off from enemy reinforcement and supply as MacArthur had counted on, and large Chinese forces threw MacArthur’s troops into a retreat which did not halt until the armies were again south of the thirty-eighth parallel and the Communists had again captured Seoul. In the face of this unanticipated disaster, MacArthur’s attitude changed abruptly from complacent optimism to the despairing belief that none of Korea could be saved unless the war were widened to include aerial attacks, employing the atomic bomb, against the sources of Chinese power and a naval blockade of China. Fortunately, a new commander of the Eighth Army under MacArthur, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway, thought otherwise. Under Ridgway’s ubiquitous battlefield leadership the Eighth Army stiffened, recaptured Seoul, and slowly pushed the enemy northward toward the thirty-eighth parallel, while Mac Arthur’s excessive pessimism on the heels of his earlier excess of optimism set events in motion toward his recall from command.
Some historians attribute Ridgway’s ability to energize the Eighth United States Army in Korea (EUSAK) to his leadership style, as historian Victor Davis Hanson writes:
When Ridgway arrived at Korea, he quickly discovered, contrary to the general consensus, that an invincible Chinese enemy had not crushed the outnumbered and outgunned Americans led by the once brilliant Douglas MacArthur. The American army was not so much beaten militarily by Chinese and Korean forces, as poorly equipped for winter weather, panicked, terribly led in the field, and without confidence in the nature of its mission. Thus in less than 100 days, Ridgway went on to address those issues, and ended up back across the 38th Parallel, with the Chinese invaders as exhausted and over-extended as the Americans had been in the north during November 1950.Ridway did what MacArthur thought to be impossible. EUSAK solidified its defense, and then switched to offense, working its way northward parallel to the X Corps, another US Army unit which was moving in the same direction. X Corps would eventually become part of EUSAK.
The rest of the United Nations Command (UNC) harmonized its efforts with EUSAK. The forces of fifteen or more nations joined the ROK against the DPRK. Together they had learned how the North Korean forces, as well as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), operated, and were more able to anticipate North Korea’s moves and weak spots.
Under Ridgway’s leadership, EUSAK effectively coordinated both with UNC and with X Corps. This resulted in battlefield successes, as historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write:
Despite MacArthur’s dire predictions, EUSAK stabilized the front south of the 38th Parallel in January 1951 and even mounted limited counterattacks. Rebounding under the firm leadership of a new commander, General Matthew B. Ridgway, EUSAK pulled itself together. X Corps, fighting its way to the coast and evacuated by ship, returned to the front, and Ridgway soon commanded a true international army, with professional troops from the British Commonwealth, Turkey, Greece, Colombia, the Philippines, Ethiopia, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Thailand. Harassed by UN air strikes, the PLA had increasing difficulty mounting sustained offensives, for it suffered serious supply shortages that its coolie-carrier logistics system could not meet. In addition, EUSAK soldiers now understood Chinese night attacks and mass-infiltration tactics and could defend against them in depth and with massive firepower. When the PLA launched its last grand offensive in April–May 1951, EUSAK fell back in good order, fighting hard, and halted the attack without the crisis of the preceding winter. EUSAK then counterattacked with deliberate advances and awesome artillery and air support, and the PLA began to fall apart, with Chinese soldiers surrendering by the thousands. Despite MacArthur’s pessimism, the soldiers of UNC had proved they could hold South Korea.
Ridgway orchestrated tactical and strategic successes while yet reporting to MacArthur. It was not until April 1951 that MacArthur would be relieved of command. Ridgway needed political instincts to survive under MacArthur, as historian Victor Davis Hanson explains, “Ridgway praised those whose ideas were ensuring defeat, even as” he “quietly proceeded to reject them.”
From mid 1951 onward, the war exhibited fewer dramatic swings. While the front was not entirely static, many books refer to the war from this point onward as a type of “stalemate.” Neither side made major advances or major retreats.
The strategy involved, in part but certainly not in whole, attrition. Resource management was crucial. For the DPRK, China, and the Soviet Socialists, this was the case because they were perpetually operating at the limit of their economic abilities to field armies. For the UN, the ROK, and the US, this was the case because they were simultaneously upholding their NATO obligations to provide a credible defense for Europe against the possibility of Soviet attack.
To reduce the US and UN commitment in Korea, and thereby free up troops for the defense of Europe, some American leaders wanted to help the ROK build up its own military. This is a foreshadowing of Nixon’s strategy of Vietnamization, but it worked better in Korea than in Vietnam. Ridgway was not enthusiastic about it, but it seems to have been effective in the long run.
It was, in part, an economic consideration which finally moved American leaders to embrace the strategy of helping the ROK to build up its own military defenses. Not only would it free up US troops to defend Europe, but it would reduce the financial cost of the Korean war. Eisenhower’s campaign pledge to end the Korean war was fueled not only by a desire for peace, but rather also by a desire to lower the expense of defending South Korea, as William Donnelly writes:
Eighth Army also sought to conserve American manpower by expanding the ROK Army. During 1952, General Van Fleet pressed repeatedly for the United States to support an expansion of the ROK Army from ten to twenty divisions. Initially, Washington and General Matthew B. Ridgway, Commander-in-Chief, Far East Command, rejected these proposals. They believed that supporting such an expansion would consume resources in short supply, such as artillery weapons and ammunition, needed to support the defense of Europe and maintain a strategic reserve. They also argued, pointing to the collapse of several ROK divisions during the Chinese spring 1951 offensives, that the ROK Army’s professional competence and leadership were too immature to support such an expansion. General Van Fleet’s proposals had more success after Mark Clark replaced Ridgway in May 1952. Clark strongly supported expanding the ROK Army, and this support together with several other developments led to a reversal in American policy. Objections on the grounds of the ROK Army’s competence lessened after the performance of ROK units during several successful hard-fought outpost battles in the autumn of 1952. The South Korean government maintained a high level of conscription, which together with casualty rates lower than those of the war’s first year, led to a growing overstrength in existing ROK units that could be tapped to form new divisions. Finally, American leaders wished to end what they saw as an expensive commitment to a secondary area; building up the ROK Army would allow the redeployment of American units. The authorized size of the ROK Army increased to twelve divisions in October 1952, to fourteen in January 1953, and to twenty in May 1953. This change in policy did not lead to a reduction in the number of American divisions in Korea before the armistice because of the time required to form new ROK units and because of lingering doubts about the ROK Army’s competence. From December 1952 to the end of the war, an average of ten ROK divisions were on Eighth Army’s front line; this allowed Eighth Army to keep more of its American infantry in reserve and thus lower the American casualty rate.
In hindsight, the move to help the ROK build up its own defensive forces, and thereby reduce US involvement in Korea, seems to be, if not the right thing to do, at least the necessary thing to do. Ridgway, who’d so brilliantly rejuvenated the EUSAK, opposed it. Why? “Ridgway was not an easy figure to know, or at times, even to be around,” as Victor Davis Hanson explains. Ridgway might have been a genius, but he wasn’t perfect, and he was sometimes inscrutable.
Ridgway bestowed benefits on the EUSAK which outlasted his command. At a moment in history when MacArthur’s pessimism might have become contagious, “Ridgway going on the offensive in Korea,” as Hanson puts it, might not only have saved the day, but saved many days thereafter, creating a psychological momentum and a positive self-concept for the EUSAK.
One of Ridgway’s uplifting tactics was to frequently visit the front lines, and when doing so, to be in the situation of his men, not above them, as Hanson explains:
Ridgway, with live grenade[s] and medical pack hung on his chest, appeared indistinguishable from a sergeant.
One factor which affected the EUSAK’s effectiveness was the frequency and patterns with which individual soldiers were “rotated” out of combat units. A high turnover rate among soldiers in a frontline unit reduces that unit’s cohesion.
The Army Field Forces (AFF) was responsible for training soldiers and providing them to commanders. Korea was one of several destinations for the troops which the AFF supplied. The AFF has since been reorganized and renamed several times; it is currently known as United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). Officers from the AFF needed to see Korea in person and learn about conditions there, given that Korea was the destination for many of the soldiers whom they were training.
Not only the rotation of individuals or entire units, but rather also a general manpower shortage, disrupted effectiveness. General James Van Fleet succeeded Ridgway as commander of both the EUSAK and the UNC. Van Fleet contemplated various actions to mitigate the manpower shortage, including experiments with placing ROK soldiers into EUSAK units to bring those units up to strength.
The disadvantages of individual rotation were clear. On the other hand, rotating entire units in and out of combat zones also has disadvantages. American military leaders faced this dilemma, and as they did so, their hands were sometimes forced by domestic politics — especially budget-related considerations — back in the United States, as William Donnelly writes:
In Korea, commanders at the regimental level and above reported that their units often could not maintain the proper level of proficiency. An AFF inspection team in autumn 1952 listed the major problems as “fast rotation, lack of trained officers and non-commissioned officers, lack of continuity of knowledge, with the ensuing lack of team spirit.” General Van Fleet agreed, writing, “it is a damn hard job to keep an army ever fit, ready, and eager to fight — especially when they go home faster than we can train them. It is a real challenge to every commander in Korea,” and “[W]e simply don’t have the leaders and the skills in the lower grades, or sufficient hard combat to produce an outfit fully combat effective.” Some senior officers in Korea argued that the answer to this problem was to change from individual to unit rotation, but the 1,552,000 limit on the Army’s authorized active strength left the service unable to either build new units or mobilize Guard units to support a unit rotation system. (Other senior officers, most notably General Ridgway, opposed unit rotation, arguing that infusing individual replacements into units better maintained Eighth Army’s combat effectiveness than swapping those units for green units.)
After Ridgway left Korea, he was appointed in May 1952 to be Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) for NATO. His work in this role was generally praised; he took NATO from an idea to a physical reality.
In May 1953, Eisenhower appointed Ridgway to be Chief of Staff of the United States Army (CSA). While this was a promotion and an honor, it brought Ridgway into some tense political conflicts. A complex constellation of civilian politicians and military officers discussed various potential courses of action regarding the situation in Vietnam. There were also decisions made about the size of the Army, decisions based on strategic doctrines about the need for substantial ground forces in the era of nuclear weapons. Ridgway at times criticized Eisenhower. He retired from his role as CSA and from the US Army in June 1955.
The last two years of his career were not pleasant ones, as Victor Davis Hanson writes:
National laurels and a quiet retirement did not meet a triumphant Matthew Ridgway when he returned from Asia. A forced retirement and endless controversies instead marked the next four decades of Ridgway’s long life.
After retirement, Ridgway was active, writing articles and advising presidents. He was part of a group which advised President Johnson on Vietnam. Johnson did not always follow the counsel of the group. Ridgway later worked with President Reagan.
Neither the Korean War nor Ridgway’s military career followed a straight trajectory. The vagaries of both were dramatic.
