September 1950: The Pusan Perimeter Breakout

The Inch’on landing was a classic hammer and anvil tactic, designed to demoralize and cut of the North Korean Army troops putting so much pressure on the perimeter at Pusan. The mission of the 25th Division was to engage and tie up the North Korean 6th Division in its zone at the left flank. From there she would drive west and north, destroying the enemy caught between themselves and the forces at Seoul.

Essentially, the Eighth Army offensive constituted more of a holding attack, allowing the X Corps to make the main effort. Walker’s forces would then need to link up quickly with the X Corps to cut off a large body of North Koreans in the southwestern part of the peninsula. Walker anticipated that the news of the Inch’on landing would have a demoralizing effect on the North Koreans while boosting the spirits of his troops. For that reason, he requested that the Eighth Army delay its attack until the day after the Inch’on landing.

The initial forward movement in the general offensive to break out of the "Pusan Perimeter" was begun on 16 September. The enemy was credited with some of the most stubborn resistance yet encountered. Flame-throwers, grenades and bayonets were required to dislodge him from well-prepared entrenchments. Fighting continued at a steady rate until 18 September. The 35th RCT soon gained ground. Northeast of Chungam-ni resistance began to stiffen.

On 19 September the 35th Infantry on the right, or northern, flank met light resistance until it reached the high ground in front of Chungam-ni. There, in cleverly hidden spider holes, enemy troops fired on 1st Battalion soldiers from the rear.

The 35th’s 1st Battalion pushed on to a point two miles north of Chungam-ni, while its Company C was ordered to clear out a pocket of Reds in dug-in positions on a ridgeline. It was during this attack that Sergeant William R Jacelin was posthumously awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor.

Sergeant William R. Jacelin, Company "C", 35th Infantry Regiment, United States Army, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidy above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy near Saga, Korea, on 19 September 1950. His company was ordered to secure a prominent, saw-toothed ridge from well-entrenched and heavily armed forces. Unable to capture the objective on the first attempt, a frontal and flanking assault was launched. Sergeant Jacelin led his platoon through heavy enemy fire and bursting shells, across the rice fields and rocky terrain, in direct frontal attack on the ridge in order to draw fire away from the flanks. The unit advanced to the base of the cliff, where intense hostile fire stopped the attack. Realizing that an assault was the only solution, Sergeant Jacelin rose from his position, firing his rifle and throwing grenades as he called on his men to follow him. Despite the intense enemy fire, this attack carried to the crest of the ridge, where the men were forced to take cover. Again he rallied his men and stormed the enemy strongpoint. With fixed bayonets, they charged into the face of strong anti-tank fire and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. After clubbing and slashing this force into submission, the platoon was forced to take cover from direct frontal attack by a self-propelled gun. Refusing to be stopped, Sergeant Jacelin leaped to his feet, and through sheer personal courage and fierce determination, led his men in a new attack. At this instant, a well-camouflaged enemy soldier threw a grenade at the remaining members of the platoon. He immediately lunged and covered the explosion with his body to save those around him. This incredible courage and willingness to sacrifice himself for his comrades so imbued them with fury that they completely eliminated the enemy force."

The next day the 1st Battalion captured Chungam-ni, and the 2d Battalion took the long ridgeline running northwest from Chungam-ni to the Nam River. To the south, heavy fighting on the 25th Division’s left flank kept the 27th Infantry busy as it tried to move forward.

On the twenty-first, three miles southwest of Chungam-ni, the 35th Infantry captured the well-known Notch. She then moved rapidly west eight air miles without resistance to the high ground at the Chinju pass, only to be blocked by 6th Division elements protecting the unit’s withdrawal across the Nam River and through Chinju some six miles to the west.

In a move to reposition the 27th Regiment from the 25th Division's south flank to its north flank, General Kean formed Task Force Torman, a special task force under Capt. Charles J. Torman, commanding officer of the 25th Reconnaissance Company. The task force moved through the 27th Infantry on the southern coastal road at Paedun-ni the evening of the 23d. The 27th Regiment then began its move from that place to the division's north flank at Chungam-ni. The 27th Infantry was to establish a bridgehead across the Nam River and attack through Uiryong toward Chinju.

On the morning of 24 September Task Force Torman attacked along the coastal road toward Chinju. North of Sach'on the task force engaged and dispersed about 200 enemy soldiers of the 3d Battalion, 104th Security Regiment. By evening it had seized the high ground at the road juncture three miles south of Chinju. The next morning the task force moved up to the Nam River Bridge, which crossed into Chinju. In doing so one of the tanks hit a mine and fragments from the explosion seriously wounded Captain Torman, who had to be evacuated.

Meanwhile, on the main inland road to Chinju the N.K. 6th Division delayed the 35th Infantry at the Chinju pass until the evening of 23 September, when enemy covering units withdrew. The next day the 35th Infantry consolidated its position at the pass. That night a patrol reported that enemy demolitions had rendered the highway bridge over the Nam at Chinju unusable.

On the strength of this information the 35th Regiment made plans to cross the Nam downstream from the bridge. Under cover of darkness at 0200, 25 September, the 2d Battalion crossed the river two and a half miles southeast of Chinju. It then attacked and seized Chinju, supported by tank fire from Task Force Torman across the river. About 300 enemy troops, using mortar and artillery fire, served as a delaying force in defending the town. The 3d and 1st Battalions crossed the river into Chinju in the afternoon, and that evening Task Force Torman crossed on an underwater sandbag ford that the 65th Engineer Combat Battalion built 200 yards east of the damaged highway bridge. Working all night, the engineers repaired the highway bridge so that vehicular traffic began crossing it at noon the next day, 26 September.

On 24 September Eighth Army had altered its earlier operational order and directed IX Corps to execute unlimited objective attacks to seize Chonju and Kanggyong. To carry out his part of the order, General Kean organized two main task forces with armored support centered about the 24th and 35th Infantry Regiments. The leading elements of these two task forces were known respectively as Task Force Matthews, formerly Task Force Torman, and Task Force Dolvin. Both forces were to start their drives from Chinju. Task Force Matthews, the left-hand column, was to proceed west toward Hadong and there turn northwest to Kurye, Namwon, Sunch'ang, Kumje, Iri, and Kunsan on the Kum River estuary. Taking off at the same time, Task Force Dolvin, the right-hand column, was to drive north out of Chinju toward Hamyang, there turn west to Namwon, and proceed northwest to Chonju, Iri, and Kanggyong on the Kum River.

Three blown bridges west of Chinju delayed the departure of Task Force Matthews (formerly Task Force Torman) until 1000, 27 September. The task force, made up of A Company, 79th Tank Battalion and the 25th Reconnaissance Company, was followed by the 3d Battalion, 24th Infantry, with the rest of the regiment behind it. Matthews reached Hadong at 1730.

In a sense, the advance of Task Force Matthews became a chase to rescue a group of U.S. prisoners that the North Koreans moved just ahead of the pursuers. Korean civilians and bypassed enemy soldiers kept telling of them being four hours ahead, two hours ahead-but always ahead. At Hadong the column learned that some of the prisoners were only thirty minutes ahead. From Hadong, in bright moonlight, the attack turned northwest toward Kurye. About ten miles above Hadong at the little village of Komdu the advanced elements of the task force liberated eleven American prisoners. They had belonged to the 3d Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment. Most of them were unable to walk and some had open wounds.

The next day, 28 September, the task force rescued 86 American prisoners in Namwon from their Korean captors. Bearded and haggard, most were bare-footed and in tatters, and all were obviously half starved. They had caught up with the American prisoners.

Task Forces Matthews and Blair cleared Namwon of enemy soldiers. In midafternoon Task Force Dolvin arrived there from the east. Task Force Matthews remained overnight in Namwon, but Task Force Blair, the main 24th Infantry group, continued on toward Chongup, which was secured at noon the next day, 29 September. That evening Blair's force secured Iri. There, with the bridge across the river destroyed, Blair stopped for the night and Task Force Matthews joined it. Kunsan, the port city on the Kum River estuary, fell to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, without opposition at 1300, 30 September.

Meanwhile, eastward of and generally parallel to the course of Task Force Matthews and the 24th Infantry, Task Force Dolvin and the 35th Infantry moved around the eastern and northern sides of the all but impenetrable Chiri-san area, just as the 24th Infantry had passed around its southern and western sides. This almost trackless waste of 750 square miles of 6,000 to 7,000-foot-high forested mountains forms a rough rectangle northwest of Chinju about thirty by twenty-five miles in dimension, with Chinju, Hadong, Namwon, and Hamyang at its four corners. This inaccessible area had long been a hideout for Communist agents and guerrillas in South Korea. Now, as the North Korean forces retreated from southwest Korea, many enemy stragglers and some organized units with as many as 200 to 400 men went into the Chiri Mountain fastnesses. There they planned to carry on guerrilla activities.

Lt. Col. Welborn G. Dolvin, commanding officer of the 88th Tank Battalion, led Task Force Dolvin out of Chinju at 0600, 26 September, on the road northwest toward Hamyang, the retreat route taken by the main body of the N.K. 6th Division. The tank-infantry task force included as its main elements A and B Companies, 89th Medium Tank Battalion, and B and C Companies, 35th Infantry. It had two teams, A and B, each formed of an infantry company and a tank company. The infantry rode the rear decks of the tanks. The tank company commanders commanded the teams.

Three miles out of Chinju the lead M26 tank struck a mine. While the column waited, engineers removed eleven more from the road. Half a mile farther on, a second tank was damaged in another minefield. Still farther along the road a third minefield, covered by an enemy platoon, stopped the column again. After the task force dispersed the enemy soldiers and cleared the road of mines, it found 6 antitank guns, 9 vehicles, and an estimated 7 truckloads of ammunition in the vicinity abandoned by the enemy. At dusk, the enemy blew a bridge three miles north of Hajon-ni just half an hour before the task force reached it. During the night the task force constructed a bypass.

The next morning, 27 September, a mine explosion damaged and stopped the lead tank. Enemy mortar and small arms fire from the ridges near the road struck the advanced tank-infantry team. Tank fire cleared the left side of the road, but an infantry attack on the right failed. The column halted, and radioed for an air strike. Sixteen F-51 fighter-bombers came in strafing and striking the enemy-held high ground with napalm, fragmentation bombs, and rockets. General Kean, who had come forward, watched the strike and then ordered the task force to press the attack and break through the enemy positions. The task force broke through on the road, bypassing an estimated 600 enemy soldiers. Another blown bridge halted the column for the night while engineers constructed a bypass.

Continuing its advance at first tight on the 28th, Task Force Dolvin an hour before noon met elements of the 23d Infantry, U.S. 2d Division, advancing from the east, at the road junction just east of Hamyang. There it halted three hours while engineers and 280 Korean laborers constructed a bypass around another blown bridge. Ever since leaving Chinju, Task Force Dolvin had encountered minefields and blown bridges, the principal delaying efforts of the retreating N.K. 6th Division.

When it was approaching Hamyang the task force received a liaison plane report that enemy forces were preparing to blow a bridge in the town. On Colonel Dolvin's orders the lead tanks sped ahead, machine-gunned enemy troops who were placing demolition charges, and seized the bridge intact. This success upset the enemy's delaying plans. The rest of the afternoon the task force dashed ahead at a speed of twenty miles an hour. It caught up with numerous enemy groups, killing some of the soldiers, capturing others, and dispersing the rest. At mid-afternoon Task Force Dolvin entered Namwon to find that Task Force Matthews and elements of the 24th Infantry were already there.

Refueling in Namwon, Task Force Dolvin just after midnight continued northward and in the morning reached Chonju, already occupied by elements of the 38th Infantry Regiment, and continued on through Iri to the Kum River. The next day at 1500, 30 September, its mission accomplished, Task Force Dolvin was dissolved. It had captured or destroyed 16 antitank guns, 19 vehicles, 65 tons of ammunition, 250 mines, captured 750 enemy soldiers, and killed an estimated 350 more. It lost 3 tanks disabled by mines and 1 officer and 45 enlisted men were wounded in action.

In crossing southwest Korea from Chinju to the Kum River, Task Force Matthews had traveled 220 miles and Task Force Dolvin, 138 miles. In the wake of Task Force Dolvin the 27th Regiment moved north from Chinju to Hamyang and Namwon on 29 September and maintained security on the supply road. This same day, 29 September, ROK marines captured Yosu on the south coast.

Now, the ticklish and unspectacular task of destroying enemy pockets must be accomplished. As the units swept in zones of responsibility, they also assisted in the screening of the local populace, and bolstered the local Korean civilian authorities. The new mission was begun with self-confidence and determination. The "Cacti" started its fourth mission along with the rest of the Tropic Lightning Division, mopping up in the Kunsan-Taejon Areas.

As MacArthur had anticipated, the North Korean Army was cut off and in retreat. By 23 September the enemy cordon around the Pusan Perimeter had been destroyed. The North Korean soldiers in the south had disintegrated as an effective military force; while some escaped to the north and others became guerrillas in the south, most were casualties. The breakout from the Pusan Perimeter cost the Eighth Army 790 killed and 3,544 wounded. But X Corps and Eighth Army soldiers had captured 23,000 enemy personnel and killed thousands more.