HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
STAFF OPERATIONS: X CORPS IN KOREA, AUG-DEC 1950
A UNIQUE CORPS
X Corps in Korea was an unusual, one of a kind, organization. All corps are, of course, uniquely configured for their missions and thus tend to break many organizational rules, but X Corps was unusual even by "normal" corps standards.1 The Corps was activated on 26 August, barely in time for the Inchon landings it was supposedly responsible for planning. Its Commanding General, Major General Edward M. (Ned) Almond, retained his position as MacArthur's Chief of Staff and thus was forced to juggle the responsibilities of two critical jobs. Under X Corps initially were the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division, followed by the 3rd Infantry Division late in November 1950.
LANDING AT INCHON
The Corps staff had never operated together before. As a result, according to one contemporary observer, X Corps was a "hasty throwing together of a provisional Corps headquarters" and was "at best only a half-baked affair". 2 The 1st Marine Division did most of the planning for and execution of the INCHON landings since X Corps was neither fully formed nor experienced enough in amphibious operations.
SEOUL
The confusion and coordination problems within X Corps lasted beyond the INCHON landings on 15 September. The capture of SEOUL proceeded slowly. The Corps staff did not help when it coordinated directly with battalions and regiments without informing the intermediate headquarters. Only the overwhelming power of the UN forces prevented serious consequences of poor coordination at the corps level.3
NEW MISSION: TO THE YALU
After the capture of SEOUL and the link-up with Eighth Army forces, X Corps was withdrawn over the INCHON beachhead (causing massive confusion and supply bottlenecks) and landed on the other coast of Korea at WONSAN and IWON.4 These landings established the U.S. and ROK forces in northeast Korea but the Corps was virtually isolated from the remainder of the UN forces. The Corps, now including the 3rd Infantry Division, was set for a "race to the Yalu" against crumbling North Korean opposition. (See Map)
HOME BY CHRISTMAS
The heady optimism of October and November 1950 (the "home for Christmas" offensive) soon disappeared as the Siberian winds and massive Chinese intervention crippled and threw back X Corps units from the YALU and isolated several major Marine and Army formations near the CHOSIN Reservoir. General Almond and his staff followed the guidance of the supremely optimistic Far Eastern Command and seemed to ignore or discount sign after sign of massive Chinese intervention. Units were directed to race to the YALU without regard to flanks or enemy forces. The corps did not coordinate or synchronize their divisions nor did they allow the divisions to coordinate their subordinate units. Division staffs who attempted to plan careful, conservative troops concentrations discovered their subordinate units taken away from them by X Corps' orders in the headlong rush to be the first to reach the YALU.
As a result, the X Corp forces were spread out and extremely vulnerable to enemy counterattacks.
CHINESE INTERVENTION
The intelligence prejudices of MacArthur's Far Eastern Command, insisting that Chinese intervention was not possible and would result in massive Chinese casualties by UN airpower even if it did occur, colored the plans and ideas of all subordinate commands.
CONFUSION AT THE CORPS
At the start of massive Chinese intervention, the Corps staff at first tried to ignore it. Then, attempting to react to the rapidly changing situation to which none of their contingency plans applied, the X Corps staff prepared a series of orders, each outlining vastly different types of operations. They then proceeded to publish these orders in rapid succession, changing the plans each time before the subordinate divisions could do more than begin to react. As at INCHON, the Corps specified missions for regiments and even battalions without even coordinating the changes with their respective divisions.
The result was chaos.
"A NIAGARA OF ORDERS"
"For several days the harassed and overburdened X Corps staff had been issuing a Niagara of orders to far-flung units. These orders came down to the divisions and then to the regiments in a steady stream. The recipients remembered them as a series of conflicting 'march and countermarch' orders that were consistently overtaken by events and that seemed to make little sense and gave the impression that X Corps had lost all control of the situation." 5
REACTING, NOT ACTING
Planning, coordination and shaping the battlefield are not possible if the staff cannot anticipate the battle 48-72 hours in advance. The result in this situation was that the entire Corps was caught off balance, several small units were cut off, and only luck and hard fighting allowed the others to fall back before the Chinese onslaught. The thousands of casualties and prisoners lost to the enemy were a direct result of faulty staff planning, coordination and anticipation of events.
LESSONS LEARNED
- A Corps must have the intelligence and the foresight to anticipate the battlefield. Corps orders and plans require at least 48-72 hours of warning before major shifts can occur. A Corps which is reacting has lost the initiative.
- A Corps does its job best when it synchronizes divisions without interfering in the internal tactical maneuvering of the division or its subordinate elements.
- A Corps staff, just as any other Army team, needs time to work together and learn how to function together.
1. Special Problems in the Korean Conflict, HQ EUSAK, 1952, Ch.II.:X Corps, pp.43-47, 51. Back
2. Robert Heinl, Victory at High Tide, Annapolis: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co., 1979, pp. 53-54. Comments of MG Hickey, G3 of the Far Eastern Command. Back
3. For a detailed account of 1MD and 7 ID coordination problems with X Corps during the capture of Seoul, see Roy Appleman, South to the Naktong: North to theYalu, Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1961, pp. 515-541. Back
4. Special Problems in the Korean Conflict, p. 38. Back
5. Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea 1950-53, New York: Times Books, 1987, p. 509. Back
Table
of Contents
Bulletin
Purpose/Structure
Intelligence
BOS
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
