Prologue

Cor, they can have this country . . .

ROYAL MILITARY POLICEMAN, January 19511

Korea? What’s the matter with Korea? I like it . . .

BRIGADIER TOM BRODIE, December 1950²

On the face of things neither great britain nor any other British Commonwealth country had any obvious interests to protect in Korea in the middle of the twentieth century. The peninsula had been a part of the Japanese rather than the British empire prior to 1945, and subsequently had been divided into Soviet and American occupation zones that by the end of the decade had evolved into competing independent regimes north and south of the 38th Parallel, each claiming suzerainty over Korea as a whole. In late June 1950 the communists under Kim Il-sung in the north sought to resolve the issue definitively by launching a full-scale invasion of the south. Anxious to contain communist expansion, the Truman administration in the United States quickly and successfully convinced the Security Council of the United Nations – thanks to the absence of the representative of the Soviet Union, who was boycotting proceedings at the time – to authorize collective military action under U.S. command in support of the besieged Republic of Korea. Yet, though the United Kingdom had no direct stake in Korean affairs and was overburdened with other overseas commitments, it was accepted in London that as a Great Power and an ally of the United States, Great Britain was obliged not only to support resolutions at the U.N. but also do what it could to back up the ground forces immediately committed by Washington. As allies the governments of Australia, New Zealand, and then Canada, among others, also announced that they would send forces in support of the U.N. resolution.³

In 1950 the British Army was not in a position to commit men to Korea on any great scale. In the context of peace and a fragile economy over the previous five years, military spending had been severely curtailed. Arms and equipment for the most part dated from World War II and even with manpower needs being partially met through the introduction of National Service the force was overstretched by imperial policing and other overseas roles around the globe at the start of the new decade.4 The armies of Commonwealth countries had all been drastically reduced in both size and capability in the war’s aftermath, and it would take weeks or months to either build up an existing unit, such as the Third Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), or create entirely new ones, like the three special force infantry battalions raised in Canada or the “Kayforce” field artillery regiment from New Zealand.⁵

There did already exist on paper, however, a modest British imperial strategic reserve, 29th Independent Infantry Brigade Group. In late July 1950 the brigade headquarters at Colchester was put on notice that the brigade would be strengthened for deployment to Korea as quickly as possible. When the call to arms arrived, the designated fighting and support units were spread around the country and sadly lacking in a variety of essentials. Formations ranging from the infantry – the first battalions of the Royal Ulster Rifles (1RUR), the Royal Northumberland [5th] Fusiliers (1RNF), and the Gloucestershire Regiment (1GLOS) – to the tank squadrons of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars (8RIH), the crews of 45 Field Regiment (45FR), 170 Mortar Battery, and 11 (Sphinx) Light Anti-Aircraft Battery of the Royal Artillery, as well as component sub-units of the signals squadron, a mobile bath and laundry unit from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and 57 Company Royal Army Service Corps, had to be brought together, greatly strengthened, and trained for war within three months.⁶

Time, indeed, was at a premium. In the weeks following the initial decision to mobilize 29th Brigade the situation in Korea deteriorated sharply, and additional emergency measures were taken. Two infantry battalions from the Hong Kong garrison were given a week’s notice that they would be shipped to Pusan in late August 1950. A month later 3RAR, sent over from Japan, would join up with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (1A&SH) and Middlesex Regiment (1MX) to form what was henceforth known as 27th British Commonwealth Brigade (27BCB). In early 1951 the brigade was significantly strengthened through the arrival and attachment of 16 Field Regiment, Royal New Zealand Artillery (16FR), and then the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI).7

In some ways the fact that the Korean War had broken out only five years after World War II had ended was a blessing for the units comprising the two brigades. Still largely organized, armed and equipped in the manner of the British Army, Commonwealth units, as had been the case in the previous war, could still operate alongside British units and within British-led formations with relative ease. As the contented British commander of a formation that included Australians, Canadians, Englishmen, New Zealanders, and Scots put it a few days before the Kapyong battle, 27th British Commonwealth Brigade was akin to a “miniature British Eighth Army of the last war.”⁸

The proximity of World War II also meant that most of the senior officers had field leadership experience. Though the platoon subalterns were generally young and necessarily inexperienced, the commanding officers, like the brigade and battalion staffs and indeed most company commanders, had all led men against Axis forces and often been decorated for their services.⁹ Deputy commander of 29th Brigade in Korea prior to taking over 27th Brigade in March 1951, Brian Burke had in the previous war led 25th Indian Brigade in Italy.¹⁰ Tom Brodie, who commanded 29th Brigade, had among other things led a Chindit brigade into the jungles of Burma.¹¹ The battalion commanders also had plenty of honored wartime leadership experience. C. H. Nicholson, who took command of the Middlesex in early March 1951, had won an MC; Kingsley Foster of the Northumberlands had been mentioned twice in dispatches while leading the 7th Manchesters in Northwest Europe; J. P. “Fred” Carne of the Glosters had commanded a battalion of the King’s African Rifles fighting the Japanese; and Gerald Rickord, who was in charge of the Ulsters when the Chinese struck in the third week of April, had led the battalion as part of a glider-borne force during the crossing of the Rhine.¹²

The supporting arms were also well served in terms of wartime experience. Most of the armor attached to 29th Brigade came from 8RIH, for example, the regiment in which the commanding officer and the second-in-command, J. W. “Jumbo” Phillips and Sir William Guy Lowther, along with subordinates such as Henry Huth and Peter Ormrod – the latter two respectively the commander and second-in-command of the tank squadron that would take part in the Imjin battle – had been promoted within the regiment as it had fought its way across Northwest Europe.13

The commanders of the Commonwealth units, mostly men who had gone back into civilian life but were specifically chosen to lead in Korea on the basis of their wartime record, were if anything even more experienced combat leaders. John Moodie, CO of 16 Field Regiment, had during World War II worked his way up in the Royal New Zealand Artillery to command 4 Field Regiment.¹⁴ J. R. “Big Jim” Stone, leading 2PPCLI, had risen through the ranks to command the Loyal Edmonton Regiment during the hard-fought campaign in Italy, wining an MC and two DSOs in the process.¹⁵ Bruce Ferguson, first 2i/c and then commander of 3RAR, also had a fine war record, having served on the staff and in the field – where he won an MC – with the AIF in the Middle East and New Guinea.¹⁶ In addition, in most cases the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealander company commanders, all volunteers for Korea, possessed a good deal of combat experience.¹⁷

The officers at the top were often admired by those with whom they interacted. Brian Burke only led 27th Brigade for a matter of a month in Korea prior to its replacement by 28th Brigade, but quickly earned the respect of his battalion commanders.¹⁸ In 29th Brigade, Tom Brodie, “a smallish, slim, very good looking man,” according to a war correspondent, “immaculately turned out in any weather or situation,” sometimes taciturn but with a fine memory for faces, made himself recognizable to regimental officers and the rank and file as he energetically visited units wearing his red-banded peaked service cap in all conditions, gesticulating with either a swagger stick, polo mallet, or tennis-racquet handle for emphasis. Exuding self-assurance – “I never knew him to show anything but supreme confidence in his own ability and that of his troops,” a captain in the Ulsters remembered – he in turn inspired respect. Though he could be tolerant of war correspondents, Brodie was known for almost invariably bringing conversations with his subordinates to a decisive conclusion by barking out “ALL RIGHT, then.” Even those who were in retrospect less than enthusiastic about his performance on the Imjin could admit, like another captain in the Ulsters, that “he was a nice guy”; or that, as one brigade staff officer grudgingly conceded, as a brigadier “he wasn’t too bad.”19

For the ordinary soldier, to be sure, the officer who mattered most was often the unit CO. Given their depth and breadth of wartime experience, it is not surprising to find that most commanding officers garnered a satisfactory degree of respect and, at least sometimes, personal loyalty.

The cavalry officers leading the Hussars in Korea, for instance, made a positive impression. They were, according to the reservist MO posted to the regiment prior to embarkation, “all very likeable people.” More to the point, as a young troop officer explained, in spite of their huntin’-shootin’-fishin’ mannerisms, “the squadron leaders, adjutant and colonel were all highly professional soldiers.” Even a trooper who was far from happy at being recalled from civilian life to go to Korea with the regiment had to concede that in professional terms the officers “were all good regular army people.”²⁰

Some of the infantry battalion COs inspired great affection among their men. C. H. Nicholson, though coming from outside the regimental family, earned the respect of the Middlesex in the weeks prior to the Kapyong battle. “I like Nicholson,” one of his subordinates wrote his predecessor, “we all do; and your Bn. appear to have accepted him.”²¹ Kingsley Foster was fondly described by one of his fusiliers as a “benevolent father” figure, someone whom the young men of the battalion were always keen to impress.²² Though extremely taciturn – “one of the most silent individuals I have ever met,” commented the senior Royal Engineers officer in the brigade²³ – the unflappable, pipe-smoking “Fred” Carne was well liked by the Glosters. “He was a very popular CO,” remembered Private “Nick” Carter, “one of the old school, a very, very nice chap.”²⁴

Other battalion commanders produced more mixed reactions. “Big Jim” Stone, for instance, was known as a tough disciplinarian among the Other Ranks, and to the junior officers of 2PPCLI as unforgiving of mistakes. According to one disgruntled private, the CO “didn’t give a shit” about the comfort of his men, while a subaltern found him “imperious and brusque.”²⁵ There was, however, a method behind this tough approach to special-force soldiers who were tempted to behave in ways that were of no help to anybody. When in March 1951 several Canadian soldiers died after drinking the methyl alcohol compound used for heating ration cans, for instance, the CO had the entire battalion parade past the contorted bodies, to great inhibiting effect. “I had no sympathy for the mutterings of a few sensitive souls who chose to interpret Big Jim’s dramatics as heartless,” a corporal later reflected, noting that the “stark lesson would never be forgotten.”26

Ferguson of 3RAR also gave some the impression of a rather aloof and harsh CO who “drove his subalterns mercilessly” and was seen as “a hard man” by the ordinary Digger; “we all hated his guts,” a junior NCO later explained.²⁷ Again, though, a deep concern for the welfare of his men underlay this cold exterior. “I was immediately struck by how devoted he was to the battalion; absolutely devoted,” remembered the MO. “It was almost as if he was hard, and harsh, and critical in an effort to teach you something,” reflected a platoon commander.²⁸ Both COs were acknowledged, even by those who disliked them, to be skilled professionals. A lieutenant who did not get on well with Stone on a personal level nevertheless acknowledged that his CO “possessed a sterling reputation, and was a ‘soldier’s soldier,’ brave beyond words in battle.” Even the junior NCO in 3RAR who admitted to hating Ferguson conceded that “we knew that he knew what he was doing.”²⁹

The depth of combat leadership arising out of the recent global conflict that could be applied in Korea was matched by the amount of wartime kit – most of it of British design – that could be used to equip the two brigades. The effectiveness of some of the arms and equipment initially taken to the Land of the Morning Calm, however, was less clear-cut than was the case with command experience.

The troops of 27BCB, self-dubbed the Cinderella Brigade, were paupers in terms of vehicles and kit compared to 29th Infantry Brigade Group, known enviously as the Rolls Royce Brigade. Sent from Hong Kong as an emergency stopgap force, and initially consisting of only two understrength infantry battalions, the former had very little in the way of transport beyond used and soon-to-be worn-out Universal carriers – “absolutely hopeless” according to an Australian mortar platoon sergeant in the wake of 3RAR joining the brigade³⁰ – and the occasional elderly 15cwt truck or Land Rover.³¹ The Cinderella Brigade had neither armor of its own, nor artillery until the arrival of the New Zealanders in January 1951 and occasionally thereafter when 16FR was detached for other duties. 27BCB therefore not only usually had to rely on the U.S. Army to assign transport units to move infantry over any distances, but also much of the time to attach tank and artillery units to provide supporting fire during battles.32

American trucks, half-tracks, artillery pieces, and tanks, to be sure, were more mechanically reliable and in certain aspects generally superior to their British counterparts – especially with respect to the provision of multiple machine-guns on armored vehicles. The Canadians, indeed, were fortunate in having been able to dispense with the small Universal carrier, better known as the Bren carrier (“an unreliable vehicle” in the words of a 2PPCLI captain³³), in favor of the bigger and much more heavily armed M3 half-track courtesy of the U.S. Army shortly after they arrived in Korea in November 1950.³⁴

Particular U.S. Army units sent at various points to assist the Commonwealth Brigade, such as Charlie Company of the 3rd Chemical Mortar Battalion attached to the Argylls, could become close at an individual level and militarily quite effective.³⁵ However, as troops in the brigade found to their discomfort, American firepower and transport were not always forthcoming when needed. Attached U.S. artillery observers, for example, might find themselves suddenly recalled to HQ even while a battle was in progress.³⁶ American armor also might abruptly be sent off on another mission, leaving British infantry without tank support.³⁷ Moreover, during the great retreat from North Korea after the Chinese intervened, it became uncomfortably apparent that at least some U.S. units, especially if they possessed vehicles, were liable to panic and “bug out” from the battle zone without regard for allied units.³⁸ By the spring of 1951, as the Kapyong battle would reveal, American servicemen were capable of both selfless heroism in support of allies and recklessly selfish behavior that put Commonwealth forces at considerable risk.

The 29th Brigade was, everyone agreed, much better equipped than 27th Brigade, insofar as it possessed its own fully integrated complement of British transport, artillery, and tanks. Yet even in the Rolls Royce Brigade not all equipment proved to be as flawless in design and operation as those whose lives could depend on it might have hoped.³⁹

The most up-to-date fighting vehicles brought to Korea by 29th Brigade were the brand-new Centurion III tanks of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars. These were the most advanced tanks in the British arsenal, well armored and equipped with a very accurate 20-pounder gun and highly advanced gun stabilizer. Though never used in its intended role as a means of foiling enemy armor – by the time the brigade arrived the North Korean force of T-34/85s supplied by the Soviet Union had been virtually wiped out and the newly emerging threat from the Chinese People’s Volunteers did not include tanks – the Centurion would, especially during the later static phase of the war, prove immensely useful as a means of delivering accurate fire on precise targets across no-man’s-land.40

During the more mobile phase that encompassed the April 1951 battles, however, the Centurion proved to have a number of drawbacks. Much of Korea was poor tank country, with paddy fields in the valleys that were, perforce, soft ground except in the dead of winter, bracketed all year round by hills with plenty of steep inclines. Roads were very few in number, badly maintained, and mostly narrow dirt tracks. The Centurion was eighteen feet wide and weighed over fifty tons, which meant that it was liable to get bogged down when traversing un-reconnoitered valley ground, to skid off the narrow roads when moving at any speed, throw tracks when climbing, get stuck in drainage ditches, and have difficulty negotiating tight turns (especially when the ground on either side – as was often the case – was either higher or lower than the pathway). “The Centurions fought in terrain for which they were never built,” as the designated historian of the 8th Hussars put it. Crews eventually learned to tighten tracks and negotiate surprisingly steep angles, and the supporting fire offered by Centurions to infantry companies was always welcome, but there were still plenty of accidents in moments of high tension. Perhaps most problematic was the fact that the Centurion proved quite vulnerable to close-in infantry assault in the fluid phase of the war; it had a machine-gun mounted next to the main gun in the turret, but unlike the U.S. tanks supporting 27th Brigade, no hull-mounted machine-gun and, rather more significantly, no machine-gun on a swivel mount atop the turret of the kind that could be used to defeat infantrymen closing in with anti-tank explosive devices. “One machine gun on the Centurion was not enough,” Lieutenant J. C. Butler complained to the War Office. Though some crews acquired more effective personal weapons, according to regulations all that tank commanders – who mostly operated with their hatches open so as to get a clearer idea of what was happening around them – had in the way of individual protection was a .38 caliber revolver and nine rounds of ammunition. These factors would create difficulties during the Imjin battle.41

For off-road work behind and in the combat zone, the 29th Brigade infantry battalions possessed two tracked vehicles. The first was the Bren carrier, which proved no more popular in 29th Brigade than in 27th Brigade. Designed in the 1930s, it could safely transport only a handful of men and with its narrow tracks proved unsuitable to the terrain in Korea. “It bogged down in mud,” Brodie would later complain, “skidded on icy roads, and had insufficient clearance.”⁴² On the other hand, 29th Brigade, unlike 27th Brigade, did have the bigger and better Oxford carrier, designed to tow 17-pounder anti-tank guns. Powered by a 90 hp engine, it had fair cross-country performance, and could carry ten armed men at up to thirty miles per hour. Brodie liked the Oxfords, noting that compared to the Bren carriers they “were vastly superior in clearance and general mobility.”⁴³ Little wonder that the Ulsters should use other vehicles to tow anti-tank guns and convert their Oxfords into personnel carriers. There were, however, relatively few Oxfords to spare; even the Ulsters could only muster about eight of them to equip their newly formed battle patrol, and Brodie stated at one point that he had a grand total of six at his disposal. Neither the Universal carrier nor the Oxford, moreover, came equipped with the standard swing-mount .30 and .50 caliber machine-guns of American design or the high armored compartment common to the half-tracks in both U.S. and Canadian service in Korea. Though the Fusiliers managed to mount either two Bren light machine-guns or a Vickers medium machine-gun on some of their Oxfords, and the Ulsters acquired some U.S. Browning medium machine-guns for the same purpose through unofficial channels, such upgrading was by no means universal and both British carriers remained comparatively underprotected against infantry assault. This too would become uncomfortably apparent at various stages in the Imjin battle.⁴⁴

The 45 Field Regiment was equipped with a slightly more modern version of the 25-pounder field gun with which 16 Field Regiment went to war. In the hands of skilled crews this reliable artillery piece could attain a very high rate of fire and was easy to swing round to engage different lateral targets. This was definitely a good thing given the rather light shell the 25-pounder delivered when compared to other pieces of medium artillery such as the U.S. 105-mm howitzer.45 For truly heavy supporting fire, both brigades would be dependent on the availability of American guns, especially the big 155-mm “Long Toms” and 8-inch howitzers. Like other U.S. support, heavy artillery fire was not always available, as would become apparent in April 1951.⁴⁶

The six 17-pounder anti-tank guns with which 3RAR in 27th Brigade and all three British infantry battalions in 29th Brigade came equipped proved to be redundant in their primary role of defending against enemy armor. Though one of them, in service with the Glosters, did prove useful in killing a Chinese sniper during the Imjin battle, on the whole it might have been better if the Glosters and Northumberlands had followed the example of the Ulsters and ditched their anti-tank guns so as to free up more Oxford carriers for troop transport purposes. The large, long-barreled guns were heavy to manhandle and difficult to site among the steep hills of Korea. As an Australian NCO put it, the 17-pounder “really wasn’t much good because of the conditions.”⁴⁷

The 11 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, meanwhile, though also superfluous in its intended function due to the near total command of the skies the U.S. Air Force had established by the time 29th Brigade arrived in Korea, made itself useful on occasion by using its 40-mm Bofors guns in a direct-fire role in support of attacks or to provide additional defensive fire during ground operations. Unfortunately, due to a gross overestimation of the enemy air threat to the Han bridges, only a single troop of guns was near enough to the front to bolster the firepower available to the brigade during the Battle of the Imjin.⁴⁸

The infantry battalions of 29th Brigade (as well as 2PPCLI and 3RAR in 27th Brigade) were also hastily trained in the use of the American 3.5-inch M20 “Super Bazooka” rocket launcher either before or after arriving in Korea. Though few in number and redundant in their anti-tank role, these were occasionally used with mixed results as anti-personnel weapons both on the Imjin and at Kapyong.⁴⁹

Much more prevalent and useful for the infantry in early 1951 were the mortars which sent bombs against the enemy in parabolic arcs. The small 2-inch mortars with which most infantry companies in the two brigades were equipped “gave a big bang but weren’t terribly effective” according to one officer, and were used primarily for flares.⁵⁰ Most support companies had six 3-inch mortars, but while able to give infantry a fair amount of much-appreciated close support, the maximum range of these mortars – 2,800 yards – was as much as 2,000 yards short of the enemy equivalent and the bombs were often poorly manufactured. There were also those who thought that given the wide frontages companies were routinely tasked with covering, six 3-inch tubes per battalion was insufficient.51 Once again 2PPCLI was better off, having been issued with the American 60-mm mortar to replace the 2-inch type and 81-mm mortars to take the place of the 3-inch variety. The 81-mm, though weighing over a hundred pounds, could hurl a 7.5-lb bomb over a thousand yards farther than the 3-inch mortar.⁵² Luckily, the infantry battalions in 29th Brigade could also call for support from the 4.2-inch mortars of 170 Battery, Royal Artillery, which could send 20-lb bombs up to 4,000 yards. “It was considered a close support weapon,” a gunner in B Troop explained, “most appreciated by the infantry battalions to whom it was attached.” The brigadier certainly valued them highly.⁵³

Soldiers in both brigades would also rely on hand grenades. The No. 88 type was primarily used for generating smoke but contained phosphorous and could thereby burn skin on contact. More common was the tried-and-true No. 36 fragmentation grenade. Though comparatively heavy and therefore more limited in range than the lighter Russian-type stick grenades used by the Chinese in considerable quantity in Korea, the No. 36, when bursting, was far more lethal than enemy grenades (which relied primarily on their concussive effect). In grenade exchanges occurring when patrols bumped into the Chinese in open country the comparative weights could put British and Commonwealth soldiers at a disadvantage in terms of hurling distance; but the No. 36, either thrown or simply rolled, would prove extremely useful in dealing with massed Chinese infantry assaults as the enemy closed in on hill positions at the Imjin and Kapyong.⁵⁴

The firearms used by British and Commonwealth infantry in Korea varied in quality and utility. Some types were as good as any in the world. Others possessed distinct shortcomings, especially in the Korean context.

The accurate and reliable Vickers .303 medium machine-gun, though antique in basic design, a bit heavy to manhandle, and lacking the punch of a heavy machine-gun, was nevertheless worth its weight in gold to British and Commonwealth battalions. Apart from its poundage when carried the only trouble with the Vickers was that, in view of the vast number of Chinese infantry in Korea, the number allotted – three two-gun sections in each battalion organized as a medium machine-gun platoon – proved to be on the low side.55 The infantry’s standard light machine-gun, the Bren, issued on a scale of one per section, was also reliable and very well liked even though it had a comparatively slow rate of fire. “They never seized up,” one 2PPCLI veteran remembered; “as long as you had rounds in it, you could fire it,” recalled another. More of them, though, would have been useful than the standard single weapon per section, particularly given the controversial nature of both the submachine-gun and rifle.⁵⁶

The submachine-gun that British and Canadian sections were issued for the Korean War was the 9-mm Sten with a 32-round magazine. Even though the infantry sections were equipped with the latest model of this simple weapon, first designed for cheap mass production during World War II, the Sten became awfully hot to handle if fired for very long and had a nasty tendency to jam when needed most. Though it had its defenders in relation to rifles and pistols, other soldiers described it as a “cumbersome,” “useless,” and “bloody hopeless” weapon, one Gloster going so far as to call it “a load of absolute rubbish.”⁵⁷ The weaknesses of the Sten, which included a relatively slow rate of fire (550 rounds per minute), were highlighted by the uncomfortable fact that by the time of the April battles the Chinese had plenty of the superior “burp gun” (900 rounds per minute from a 50-round drum magazine).⁵⁸ Only the Diggers of 3RAR had a standard-issue alternative to the Sten. Also designed and manufactured during World War II, the Australian 9-mm Owen Gun, which held the same number of rounds in its magazine, was a bit bulkier but much more reliable than the British weapon. As with the Sten, however, users noticed that beyond a certain range the round-nosed bullets seemed to glance off the padded clothing the Chinese wore. Little wonder that soldiers should individually seek to obtain instead, by various means, a submachine-gun such as the U.S. Thompson: “a great personal weapon” in the opinion of Corporal Ken Campbell of 2PPCLI. “When you hit someone with a .45 slug, they stay down.”⁵⁹

Most prevalent of all was the standard-issue personal weapon of every British and Commonwealth infantryman, the .303 caliber Lee-Enfield rifle.60 There were those who thought this bolt-action weapon, variants of which had equipped armies for nearly fifty years, was still a good weapon for Korea. Unlike automatic and semi-automatic weapons, its simple manual mechanism meant that it did not tend to jam even amid the dirt or snow of the Korean hills. “They served us well – extremely well,” a regular from the Glosters later opined, stressing that the rifle was very accurate and that in trained hands the bullets in its ten-round magazine could be loosed off in very quick succession despite the user having to open and close the bolt each time.⁶¹ There were also those, though, who after facing large numbers of Chinese at close quarters, thought the Lee-Enfield to have a too-sedate rate of fire even in the most experienced hands. Private “Lofty” Large let off steam about the comparative inadequacies of the Lee-Enfield in his war memoirs:

The British Army had for many years been the victims of one of the greatest cons of all time. We were told time and again that well aimed single shots with bolt action rifles would beat “all comers.” An enemy with automatic weapons could not sustain an attack because they would obviously run out of more ammunition than they could carry, etc.

Large continued:

Before arriving in Korea we were told not to worry about mass attacks by the Chinese, as only one in ten had a rifle. This was basically true enough, but the other nine had Tommy guns, “Burp” guns or light machine guns. . . . The difference in fire power was such that I, personally, felt it was almost like trying to spit in someone’s eye when he’s spraying you with a fire hose.⁶²

“We had no firepower compared to them,” a third Gloster concurred.⁶³ Even his former comrade-in-arms who defended the Lee-Enfield had to concede that it might have been better on the Imjin if the battalion had possessed more automatic and semi-automatic weapons of the kind with which American units were equipped.⁶⁴

Though the risk of jamming was greater, there were those who did their best through barter or even theft to acquire U.S. semi-automatics to fight with instead of the Lee-Enfield. According to Lieutenant-Colonel Stone, “a considerable number” soon began to appear in the hands of 2PPCLI soldiers. Edmund Ions, a junior officer with the Ulsters, acquired a .30 caliber M1 Carbine and happily confirmed that it was “lighter, handier, and almost as accurate” as the .303 and had a higher rate of fire. “I fell in love with it,” David Green, a private in the Glosters, remembered of his own stolen M1 Carbine. “What a weapon it was!”65

Infantry officers, like tank commanders, were equipped with pistols as a last line of personal defense. The standard-issue six-shot Webley IV.38 caliber service revolver, with its trigger-finger operated mechanism, had an uncomfortably slow rate of fire, as an Australian officer discovered when it took him six pulls to loose off two shots at an approaching enemy soldier.⁶⁶ Only the officers of 2PPCLI were universally issued with an automatic, the excellent 9-mm Browning complete with a 13-round magazine.⁶⁷ Many infantry officers of all the Commonwealth contingents, though, eventually opted to carry a rifle or submachine-gun since even semi-automatic pistols were, as one company commander admitted, “virtually useless” in firefights where both accuracy and volume of fire counted.⁶⁸

Whatever the comparative strengths and weaknesses of their various personal weapons, the officers and men of the two brigades seem to have been united in thinking that the steel helmet, whether the 1914 or the improved 1944 pattern, was superfluous. These were either carried on packs or discarded but almost never worn. As Lofty Large put it, “only one man in the Glosters wore a steel helmet,” adding “don’t know who he was, but I heard he existed.”⁶⁹ In encounters with the enemy from the autumn of 1950 through into the spring of 1951 companies did not come under serious artillery, mortar, or even grenade fire, making the anti-shrapnel helmet seem pretty much redundant, something that could be discarded as excess weight or only used for other purposes such as holding shaving water. Second-Lieutenant Guy Temple of the Glosters commented later that “tin hats were unfashionable” among British troops in Korea because they were uncomfortable. The senior Royal Engineers officer remembered that “American regulations strictly enforced the wearing of this awkward headgear, but for the British troops the decision was left to each commander. We always opted for the more comfortable alternative.” According to a corporal in the PPCLI “we threw away our helmets,” while among the Australians sporting one on the head was viewed as a sign of virtual cowardice.⁷⁰

The end result was that the vast majority of soldiers went into battle in April 1951 wearing an assortment of soft pieces of headgear that offered no protection from enemy mortar bomb splinters, not to speak of bullets ricocheting off rocks. Though one study suggested that wearing a helmet would not have done much to prevent the kind of head wounds sustained in the Korean fighting, a British private arriving six months after the spring battles was probably justified in commenting that it was “ridiculous” to discard them.71

Just as important as weapons and vehicles was radio communication within each brigade. Perhaps inevitably in terrain dominated by steep, rocky hills and narrow valleys, the available wireless sets did not always perform well. In the British and Australian battalions radio communication between sub-units was mainly by 88 Set. These, though they were comparatively light and portable, had a maximum range of only a few miles and had batteries that wore down quickly (and were sometimes difficult to replace in a timely fashion – so much so that 2PPCLI was forced to switch to the American walkie-talkie). According to a major in the Glosters, the 88 Set was “useless except under very favourable conditions and over very short distances.”⁷²

The 31 Set, used for communication between company and battalion headquarters, theoretically had about double the range of the 88 Set, but was also almost three times as heavy and, as a 27th Brigade report stated, “sometimes failed over ranges as small as one-quarter mile.” Eric Hill, who operated the radio for A Company, 1GLOS, found that “you had to get in good positions to get any reception at all”; while John Bishop, a corporal in A Company, 2PPCLI, later commented that it “seldom worked when needed.”⁷³ Hence, according to another private in the Glosters, during the Imjin battle “our radios were very unreliable.” A lieutenant from the Ulsters agreed; during the fighting “they never bloody well worked.”⁷⁴ The Canadians were somewhat better off than the other battalions in communication between battalion and company headquarters in that 2PPCLI had discarded the 31 Set in favor of the American SCR 300 with its greater range and operating capability. According to the CO, “all worked well” and there was “no major problem in communications.”⁷⁵

Even the best weapons and equipment, of course, are only as good as the men using them. There exists in some quarters a belief that disgruntled recalled reservists and conscripted national servicemen in the ranks of British regiments significantly degraded the fighting quality of these units compared to Australian and Canadian battalions filled with volunteers.76 It is therefore necessary to examine the composition of the British Commonwealth units concerned and the consequences in terms of discipline and morale before and after departure for Korea.

It was true enough that there were national servicemen among the first British troops sent to Korea. When David Wilson assumed command of A Company of the Argylls, for instance, he found that around half the Other Ranks were conscripts, something that appears to have been true for the rest of 1A&SH and 1MX as well.⁷⁷

Some of the Middlesex national servicemen were, according to a couple of accounts, psychologically unprepared to risk their lives when the battalion departed from Hong Kong for Korea. Later there arrived casualty replacements who were disgruntled regulars or older reservists who were clearly unhappy at having been recalled to the colors.⁷⁸ On the other hand, to try to build up and then keep up the strength of the battalion, the Middlesex, like the Argylls, took in a fair number of eager volunteers from other regiments to add to the core of regular soldiers keen to show what they could do.⁷⁹ The national servicemen, moreover, were not necessarily reluctant warriors.⁸⁰ On arrival at Pusan in the latter part of August 1950 the men of both battalions certainly gave the impression that they were ready. “One felt that these two hard and professional battalions,” remembered Alan Whicker, a British war correspondent depressed by the poor performance of the GI thus far, “their men lean and brown and cheerful after Hong Kong training, could see off the whole North Korean army on their own.”⁸¹ And while by no means able to accomplish the latter feat over the following months, they did win the respect of the hard men of 3RAR . The Argylls, as an Australian NCO put it, “were good to have alongside,” adding “and so were the Middlesex.”⁸²

If the fighting spirit of 27th Brigade was not undermined by British national servicemen and recalled reservists, there remains the question of the effect of such men on the units of 29th Brigade. Did “the British at the Imjin have a morale problem” that severely compromised their fighting capacity?⁸³

As in 27th Brigade, there were plenty of young soldiers and subalterns in 29th Brigade without combat experience who were keen to get some: “We couldn’t wait to get out there,” remembered Rifleman John Shaw, for example.84 When the call came to prepare to go to Korea, though, the various components of the brigade were almost all seriously under strength for wartime conditions. Some soldiers – albeit some more willingly than others⁸⁵ – could be transferred from units outside the brigade. Others would be added through men whose service commitment had expired but who were willing to volunteer. However, the vast majority of the men brought into the brigade to bring it up to a war footing – in total seventy-five percent of strength⁸⁶ – were recalled reservists; that is, those who had served in the army and though now in civilian life could still be called up for an emergency.⁸⁷

Some recalled servicemen, to be sure, quietly accepted their fate, and a few secretly were happy to rejoin an army from which absence had made the heart grow fonder.⁸⁸ Many, however, were seriously disgruntled. In some cases they were only weeks or even days away from the end of their reserve obligation when the call-up notice arrived on their doorstep. Going back into the army might mean giving up the relatively well-paid jobs that supported a wife and offspring, perhaps putting a mortgage or business in jeopardy, and certainly causing untold personal upheaval. In particular, men who had served in World War II often felt that they had already done their bit for King and Country. “We were right annoyed about it, really,” as Private Sam Forward, sent to the Glosters only eleven weeks shy of the end of his reserve commitment and with two children to look after, bitterly remembered.⁸⁹ A significant number of those recalled to the colors were quickly released on medical or compassionate grounds – the Royal Engineers squadron, for example, processed 450 recalled reservists, of whom only 150 went to Korea⁹⁰ – but there were still plenty of men who felt that they were being treated unfairly.⁹¹

As a result reservists, on average in their late twenties according to the brigade major,⁹² were often at first in a fractious, “Bolshie” frame of mind, resenting being back in the army in general and in particular being ordered about by comparatively inexperienced young regular officers and NCOs. As a private in the Glosters put it, “they all had a massive chip on their shoulder.”⁹³ This could and did cause sporadic disciplinary problems as 29th Brigade prepared to go to Korea. A junior officer in the Ulsters, for instance, observed plenty of reservists who were “difficult to handle” and indeed “almost mutinous.”94 They could also be poor mentors to the younger soldiers. Frank Cottam, a regular platoon sergeant in the Glosters, remembered that “some of the reservists were so disillusioned with ever being called back that they were not necessarily a good example to anyone.”⁹⁵ Other regulars agreed. “We revered the reservists when they first came,” Vic Wear, a young soldier in the Northumberlands remembered, “but it turned out they were not as professional as we were.”⁹⁶

Moreover, it was not for nothing that the 29th became known as “the old man’s brigade” or “the grandfathers’ brigade,” with its soldiers over the winter of 1950–51 in Korea “preoccupied with their varicose veins and other minor weaknesses,” as one journalist put it.⁹⁷ Even after the most obviously unfit reservists had been weeded out before departure, the health of the some of the older men broke down in the harsh Korean winter.⁹⁸

Recalled reservists certainly did not feel much affinity for the cause in which they were being required to fight. Very few soldiers even knew where Korea was, let alone cared about who controlled it. “Nothing; nothing whatsoever” was how Jack Arnall described his knowledge of the place and the U.N. cause when called up again to serve with 45 Field Regiment. “Quite candidly,” Frank Brodie, sent as a reservist to bolster the ranks of the Ulsters, later explained, “I didn’t think it was right that I should go out there to fight someone else’s war.”⁹⁹

The sights of the Land of the Morning Calm did nothing to increase enthusiasm for the war after 29th Brigade disembarked from troopships at Pusan in November 1950. As units landed and moved northward by road and rail, the men of the brigade passed through a poverty-stricken, war-ravaged landscape. The towns and villages were ramshackle and dilapidated, the countryside desolate and dauntingly rugged, the weather a mixture of extremes. “It’s the most terrible place I’ve ever seen in my life,” exclaimed a reservist in the Glosters.¹⁰⁰ The smells of Korea were even worse. Pusan and other towns were rank with sewage, and hanging over everything in the countryside, except in the depths of winter, was a noxious and pervasive odor resulting from the universal practice of using human waste as manure in paddy fields.¹⁰¹ As for the common people of Korea encountered, while there might be a good deal of sympathy for the plight of refugees fleeing southward, their clothing, language, customs, and habits were distinctly alien to insular Englishmen and Irishmen and likely did nothing to make the presence of the brigade appear more worthwhile. In a report to the Chiefs of Staff in the wake of a visit to Korea in early 1951, a senior general wrote that British soldiers, “although sympathetic to the South Koreans in their adversity, despise them and are not interested in this civil war.”102

Though they were essential in fleshing out 29th Brigade, it would seem the reservists lacked motivation and might therefore prove as much a liability as an asset. “Morale was very low,” a young lieutenant, whose platoon in D Company of the Glosters was composed almost entirely of such men, reflected on the situation the month before the Imjin battle, “and the mood was fairly bolshie.”¹⁰³ Not at all keen to be sent back to war in the first place, reservists once in Korea could prove less than eager to put themselves in harm’s way, sometimes even quietly disobeying orders which they thought too dangerous.¹⁰⁴ Between December 1950 and April 1951 almost two dozen soldiers drawn from the three infantry battalions were court-martialed for offenses ranging from disobedience and insubordination to outright desertion.¹⁰⁵

There are, however, several factors that need to be taken into consideration before concluding, as claimed, that low morale among men dragooned into their units, in contrast to the high motivation of volunteers like the Australians and Canadians, lies at the root of the differences between the Imjin and Kapyong battles. By their very nature the reservists possessed valuable skills and experience, and once in the field there is evidence to suggest that they grumbled but still did what was necessary. Moreover, much of what is held against the reservists of 29th Brigade in terms of their outlook also applied to volunteers and indeed regulars in both brigades.

Only on very rare occasions did volunteers or regulars, any more than reservists or conscripts, want to go to Korea in order to turn back the communist tide. “I never met a soldier who cared a damn about the ideological aspect of the war,” BBC war correspondent René Cutforth remarked.¹⁰⁶ As for the land over which the fighting was taking place, almost no one had heard of it or knew where it was, let alone the issues involved, when elements of the two brigades were first put on notice for shipment to Korea.107 This was as true for Australian and Canadian volunteers as it was for the British (volunteer, regular, and conscript alike). Though some efforts were made before arrival to explain the need for the U.N. to defend against aggression, these occurred after men had joined up and seem to have had little impact. “The private soldiers I encountered in Korea had no real understanding of why they were there,” Canadian journalist Pierre Berton later wrote of his visits to 2PPCLI.¹⁰⁸

Many of the motives for enlisting among those who volunteered from civilian life to serve in Korea were common to men from Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. Most had to do with personal fulfillment rather than philosophical commitment. Some men who had been demobilized somewhere between 1945 and 1950 found civilian life not all that they had hoped it might be either professionally or personally. Tommy Prince, for example, a Native Canadian who had served with distinction in the Devil’s Brigade in Italy, had seen his small business venture fail and volunteered for the Special Force and a familiar place in 2PPCLI. “Maybe it’s just because I like a certain amount of excitement,” explained the half-aboriginal Reg Saunders, who had seen more than his fair share of fighting the Japanese in New Guinea, reflecting on his decision to volunteer for K Force and thereby join 3RAR . John Martin, who was “bored to tears” in civilian life, liked the thought of a special gratuity for signing on again, but was especially attracted to the idea of getting back to the “shots of adrenalin and comradeship” he had experienced as a paratrooper, and ended up in the Northumberlands. “My first marriage had broken up,” explained Alfred Holdham, who had served with SOE in the war, “so I volunteered for Korea”; he found himself among the Glosters. Len Opie, who had fought in New Guinea and signed on for the new war, remembered others in 3RAR “who were fleeing from alimony and angry wives.”¹⁰⁹

For the younger men there was the opportunity to escape a boring job, travel to an exotic land, and undertake the kind of adventure which every male a few years older seemed to have experienced but which they themselves had been denied. “Like most other volunteers for the Korean War,” John Bishop, who left work at a logging camp and found himself in the ranks of 2PPCLI, later admitted, “I joined the Canadian Army’s Special Force for reasons no nobler than the prospect of adventure and perhaps a chance to find a direction in my life.”110 A member of 3RAR recorded that there were young Australians aplenty who “wanted adventure” and were “sick of their civilian jobs.” There was also the ANZAC tradition to live up to. K Force volunteers, as a senior Australian officer put it, were often “patriotic and adventurous young men” drawn by “stories of the Second World War.”¹¹¹

None of these volunteers were inspired by what they saw of Korea and its people any more than the conscripts were. Tom Muggleton of 3RAR doubtless summed up the feelings of many others when he described it as “a rotten place” to be. By the standards of the industrialized world “it was an incredibly backward country,” wrote Hub Gray of 2PPCLI, adding feelingly, “frequently we wondered why the hell we had come to this Godforsaken country!”¹¹²

The motives of volunteers, in short, were usually personal in nature, and the mere fact of signing on did not guarantee a better soldier than a reservist or conscript. Australian and Canadian veterans at times lied about relevant prior experience when joining up, tended to think they knew more about soldiering than inexperienced postwar officers and NCOs, and sometimes disobeyed orders they did not like. “They feared neither God nor the Devil,” as a young 3RAR subaltern put it.¹¹³ More problematic were volunteers who were physically or mentally unfit to fight but who still found their way into the ranks of 2PPCLI due to a rushed processing procedure for the Special Force. There were petty criminals as well as “social misfits and drunkards,” a few of whom stole, raped, and even committed murder while in Korea.¹¹⁴

It was true that the Commonwealth volunteers brought a good deal of relevant experience with them to 27th Brigade. Forty-two percent of 16 Field Regiment, for example, had been in the army while half of 2PPCLI soldiers had served in the world war; “they knew what the score was, they knew a lot more than we would ever learn,” Canadian volunteer Stuart Reitsma observed. “These blokes we brought in off the street were magnificent men,” Ben O’Dowd, a 3RAR officer, later wrote, explaining that this meant in effect that “training for Korea was done in World War Two.”¹¹⁵

Experience, though, was something that the reservists of 29th Brigade also brought with them. They were veteran soldiers who knew their trades and could impart useful knowledge and skills to callow young men who had never heard a shot fired in anger. Major Patrick “Sam” Weller, for instance, in command of the Glosters’ support company, thought that the reservists “were absolutely first class, because they had experience in the ’39–’45 war and were able to give a lead and encouragement to the younger members of the battalion.”116 Tom Cunningham-Booth, the senior NCO in charge of the Fusiliers’ command post in Korea, agreed: “I think we benefited from having reservists; they taught us things about survival that were helpful.”¹¹⁷

It should also be borne in mind that most of the unfit, whether they had signed on or been compelled to go to Korea, were winnowed out before leaving for the war or in the first months in theater. Constant hill climbing and the extreme winter cold in Korea meant that those who by reason of age or health lacked the stamina to serve in the field were sent back. “Bad legs, wheezy lungs and faint and weak hearts were exposed and many sorry specimens of manhood were returned to Canada,” as the CO of the Patricias explained.¹¹⁸ Reservists could and did continue to grumble, the Ulsters, for example, taking to singing The Red Flag, but, just like everyone else, they eventually tended to knuckle down to the job at hand in Korea. As war correspondent René Cutforth observed:

British soldiers, mostly Reservists dragged back for foreign service from civvy street in the most abrupt fashion (there was hardly a man in 29 Brigade who did not have some really complicated home problem concerned with his new lower standard of income), filled the air with complaints of the unfairness of life in general, the cold, the country and the horrors of war, expressed in a language of raucous obscenity, but they kept their fighting spirit, it seemed, in another compartment in their minds, and looked upon their job as soldiers with a professional eye. They soldiered well, no matter what.¹¹⁹

Morale in 3RAR, by most accounts, remained strong in Korea;¹²⁰ but this was true, for example, for many of the “Gloomy Glosters” also. “Morale was always very good,” commented an RAMC corporal attached to A Company: “Always.”¹²¹

It is thus incorrect to assume there was a simple dichotomy between colonial and metropolitan troops in terms of levels of motivation and kinds of behavior. The reality was rather more complex. Whatever the ratio of volunteers to conscripts, no battalion simply broke and ran in battle, and as we shall see, there would be isolated instances of cowardice even among the Diggers at Kapyong, just as there would be individual acts of extraordinary bravery by reservists at the Imjin.

It is safe to say that, in the rush to get fighting formations to Korea, no unit in either brigade was as prepared as it might have been. Though some of the officers and men might have a lot of relevant experience, opportunities for large-scale training were limited, not least because so much time and effort had to be devoted to bringing units up to strength and preparing for departure.122 Memories of World War II aside, much of what all ranks in both brigades learned about fighting was acquired as a result of operational experience in Korea between the autumn of 1950 and the spring of 1951. First in the advance northward and then in the winter retreat southward, individual battalions and companies fought a succession of offensive, encounter, and defensive engagements with elements of either the North Korean or Chinese armies. Though events did not always play out as hoped and there were occasional mishaps, on the whole British and Commonwealth forces acquitted themselves well and significant lessons were learned. Some of the conclusions reached would prove useful; others were ignored or would create difficulties at Kapyong and the Imjin.¹²³

Intelligence on the capabilities of the North Korean forces passed on before arrival in Korea was somewhat rudimentary at best and grossly inaccurate at worst.¹²⁴ By the time 29th Brigade arrived at Pusan the “Chinese People’s Volunteers,” in reality the battle-hardened People’s Liberation Army, had intervened en masse to save the regime of Kim Il-sung. Unfortunately, intelligence on Chinese strength and capabilities was even sketchier than on the North Koreans, with British official assessments making sometimes dubious comparisons with the former Japanese foe and officers in the field confidently assuming that a mechanized British force was inherently superior to an Asiatic peasant army. As the senior Royal Engineers officer, Major Tony Younger, later put it, “we did not really believe that this [Chinese] intervention would be any problem.” After all, Lieutenant Gordon Potts of the Ulsters later admitted somewhat ruefully, the general feeling among the officers was that the Chinese “were nowhere near as good as we were.”¹²⁵

Experience in the field did, to be sure, lead to some modification of opinion. As a company commander in the Argylls noted of the North Korean soldier, “he can fight very bravely indeed.”¹²⁶ In significant encounters with the Chinese, such as parts of 27th Brigade experienced in the first days of November 1950 and elements of 29th Brigade underwent at the start of January 1951, it was clear that the CPV had the human resources and willpower to press home attacks at night and en masse. “I think our people in the companies were impressed with their tenacity,” opined a 3RAR platoon commander. A company commander in the Middlesex agreed; the Chinese “proved to be both tough and resolute.”127 The ability of the enemy to infiltrate behind fixed positions by moving quickly on foot over unoccupied high ground was particularly impressive. An NCO in the Northumberlands admitted in the wake of the January encounter that he and others had underestimated the Chinese, who were in fact “very hardy” and “incredibly efficient” at infiltration; “they taught us a trick or two, I can tell you.”¹²⁸ The full impact was felt by the Ulsters in the same period when they conducted a retreat at night down a valley floor and found themselves in a running fight with large numbers of Chinese who had got behind the forward positions. Charging down en masse from the high ground, the enemy managed to kill or capture well over a hundred soldiers. The Ulsters fought back fiercely, but the Chinese, directed by bugle calls and whistles, came on regardless. Mervyn McCord, a subaltern who survived the encounter, commented that “we must have killed and wounded hundreds of them – but it didn’t stop them.”¹²⁹

For those willing to adjust, there were important lessons to be learned from these early encounters. At this stage in the war the Chinese had little in the way of field artillery and were at times even short of infantry weapons. If their huge numerical superiority and bravery in the attack were to be successfully countered, then defending troops would have to concentrate on the high features and prepare all-round defensive positions. Forces were too thin on the ground to hold a continuous front across hills and valleys alike – both brigades were routinely tasked by American corps and divisional commanders with covering frontages that, if it were not for manpower shortages and doubts about the reliability of other units, would have gone to an entire division, something which became almost a point of pride¹³⁰ – so the Chinese would inevitably get in behind. If the defenders were concentrated on the high ground, though, they would still dominate the valley floors; the CPV would be forced to assault rather than entirely bypass them, and superior U.N. firepower could prevail. Among those who developed a healthy respect for the Chinese and thought through the tactical implications was Brigadier Brodie, as Colonel Stone recorded in reference to a lunchtime conversation they had together shortly after the arrival of 2PPCLI in Korea. “It seems apparent that resolute men, dug in, in proper islands of defence can kill, at will, the hordes that rush the positions,” he wrote. Infiltration between and behind hilltop positions had to be expected, but once all-round defense was prepared, “a defender’s paradise” should result from the ensuing encounter as long as defending troops “realize that if they run, they will certainly die.”131

At least one of the lessons drawn would, though, limit future effectiveness. In the same fighting retreat in which the Ulsters had been mauled a group of reconnaissance and artillery observation tanks dubbed “Cooperforce” had been overwhelmed and destroyed by Chinese infantry closing in with grenades and pole charges.¹³² These vehicles were out-of-date Cromwells, but their loss appears to have augmented fears about the possibility of the state-of-the-art gun stabilizers of the new Centurions falling into the hands of an advancing enemy, and on instructions from London the Centurions were all ordered withdrawn from Korea. Thankfully this order was rescinded, but subsequent instructions were issued that only one squadron should be present in the front-line area at any one time once the brigade moved north of the Han. Thus when 29th Brigade joined the U.S. 3rd Division prior to the Imjin battle it was “with the restriction that two squadrons of the 8th Hussars could not be brought north of the HAN river.”¹³³ This meant that only C Squadron would be available to support the infantry during the Imjin battle.

Moreover, in those units that had not faced large-scale assaults but instead met small units of the CPV when it was retreating between its fourth and fifth offensives and leaving only rear guards to delay the U.N. follow-up advance, the Chinese might not appear particularly formidable. It was true that they defended the hill features that battalions from the two brigades were tasked with taking, but the tendency seemed to be to break and run once British and Commonwealth forces had reached a certain point. As a private in 2PPCLI put it, “as soon as you hit ’em hard, they just disappeared.”¹³⁴

It is noteworthy that the first major encounter between the Glosters and the Chinese was of this kind. On 16 February 1951, Colonel Carne set in motion a set-piece attack on Hill 327 involving his C and D companies with plenty of fire support from USAF fighter-bombers firing rockets, three batteries of 45 Field Regiment, 11th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, three mortar troops from 170 Battery, and the guns of the eighteen Centurion tanks of C Squadron, 8th Hussars. The Chinese defenders, operating from their well-camouflaged fortifications, at first fought fiercely, but then melted away or surrendered. The officers and men of Glosters thought they now had the full measure of the enemy. “We proved, I think, man for man,” one private remembered, “[that] we were the equal of these Chinese.”135 This kind of action, however, was not a good predictor for CPV behavior during a full-scale offensive. Carne himself, who was heard to dismiss the enemy as “only little people, rabble,”¹³⁶ was confident enough to deploy his companies on widely separated secondary hills near the mouth of a valley rather than concentrating them on the main feature after 29th Brigade moved up to the Imjin in March.¹³⁷

More generally, and even in the RUR, there was a sense that the Chinese, many of whom seemed to depend on picking up the weapons of those killed in front for personal armament and were directed in battle by such antiquated means as bugles and whistles, were, as a subaltern put it, just “unpleasant peasants” and that, as the adjutant claimed, “in a straight fight we felt we should always win.” Many other ranks probably felt like the private in the Glosters who opined that “a first-class British infantry battalion” could never be defeated by “a rag, tag, and bobtail bunch of slope-headed slant-eyed sods from Shanghai.”¹³⁸

On the whole, British and Commonwealth soldiers were no more admiring of the “Gooks” – the local word for “man” but used generically and usually contemptuously to refer to all Koreans – than of the “Chinks”; indeed usually far less so.¹³⁹ On the other hand units did informally adopt a variety of orphans and other strays to help with everything from first aid to laundry, and there was appreciation for those whom Canadian troops, with a level of cultural insensitivity that was not unusual for the time and place, dubbed “rice burners”; that is, members of the Civil Transportation Corps. In a country with so few roads, many hills, and lots of displaced persons, it was practicable to use humans as pack animals in bringing supplies up from the valleys to the troops occupying the high ground. The companies of the CTC were made up of men too old or too young to fight in the South Korean army, and around the New Year each battalion received a company of roughly one hundred porters, which worked out to about nine Koreans per platoon. Wearing whatever clothing they brought or could scrounge, these porters, identified only by a numbered company disc and speaking little or no English, could carry heavy loads on A-frames strapped to their backs up steep hill slopes. As an officer from the Ulsters put it, “they became very much part and parcel of our operations.”140 On unfamiliar ground they might occasionally get lost, and not surprisingly some had an aversion to putting themselves directly in harm’s way during engagements. Their efforts, though, were generally appreciated, since without them the other ranks would once more be doing the heavy lifting themselves. “I will take my hat off to the Korean porters,” a private in the Glosters later commented; “they were fantastic . . . they were hard-working, they never complained.” As a junior NCO in 2PPCLI explained, such men could carry loads “that would challenge most fit Canadian twenty-year-olds,” adding, “I can’t emphasize enough my respect for these unsung heroes.”¹⁴¹

As U.N. forces in the west moved northward, a further foreign contingent was sent to 29th Brigade at the start of April 1951. This was the Corps de Volontaires de la Corée, the first national contingent from Belgium. These “bearded, wild-looking men,” as an Ulsters subaltern put it, were in the words of a senior Glosters officer “some of the toughest soldiers we met in Korea.” Wearing brown berets and somewhat piratical in appearance and manner, the men of the Belgian battalion (including a platoon from Luxembourg) were mostly equipped with British-style weapons and kit at this stage and were all enthusiastic volunteers led by experienced officers and NCOs. Though perhaps a little high-spirited – the distinguished commander of one company deciding to mortar with smoke bombs a party of Ulster officers on their way back to their positions after they had paid him a social call – the Belgians were in British eyes, as the senior Royal Engineers officer put it, “a robust and likeable bunch.”¹⁴² Their only drawback was relative lack of manpower; the Belgian battalion was only about half the size of any of the three British infantry battalions.¹⁴³

As winter gave way to spring things seemed to be going quite well for the Eighth Army as it cautiously pushed northward past the 38th Parallel, with enemy resistance remaining limited and patchy. In the first weeks of April the military consensus in London was that the Chinese were unlikely to attack and that if this was indeed their intention then they would not be ready before the end of May.144 There was, however, plenty of intelligence gleaned from aerial surveillance of roads and rail lines that the enemy was preparing to launch a new offensive. This was why Matthew Ridgway, the general in overall command, had issued orders for the preparation of a series of defense-in-depth lines of resistance behind the front; preparations continued under a new army commander, Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet, after General Douglas McArthur was fired as supreme commander in the second week of April and Ridgway took his place in Tokyo.¹⁴⁵

Exactly when and where the enemy would strike, however, remained unknown, and forward movement continued. By the middle of April, coming under the control of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Division in I Corps, 29th Brigade had moved up to the Imjin River and established a battalion position on the opposite bank beyond Line Kansas (near the 38th Parallel) without too much difficulty. Meanwhile, twenty-odd miles to the east, 27th Brigade, under the direct command of IX Corps, had advanced to Line Kansas and a mile or so beyond before being relieved by elements of 6th ROK Division and sent seven miles back to the Kapyong area to rest and refit. In neither brigade was there much inkling that a major defensive battle was in the offing.

The 27th Brigade, for one thing, except for 16 Field Regiment which was detached to support the 6th ROK Division, was no longer in the line but in corps reserve, while at the front itself reconnaissance patrols sent out by the ROKs revealed no enemy activity. Once out of the line the brigade was at once caught in the throes of a major reorganization, the original British battalions scheduled to exchange places with two other battalions of the Hong Kong garrison, the latter going in the near future along with 3RAR to form 28th Brigade while 2PPCLI was to join a new 25th Canadian Brigade. Indeed when the Chinese struck on 22 April the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were on their way to embark a day before the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were due to arrive.¹⁴⁶

As for 29th Brigade, though it was still in the front line, the enemy appeared to have vanished. A couple of nights after the Ulsters established themselves on the north bank of the Imjin an enemy company attacked and was repulsed by D Company, but this seemed to be an isolated incident; local patrolling north of the river in the following days produced little or no contact. The Chinese seemed to have disappeared, lulling men into what would turn out to be a false sense of security. As the adjutant of the Glosters explained, “there was no sign of the enemy,” adding, “and this was in many ways a comfort.”147

The brigade commander was less complacent, knowing that a Chinese offensive was in the offing. But like higher command he did not know when or where the enemy would attack, or indeed if, in the absence of the enemy, the advance in his sector would be resumed. Though his brigade covered a traditional invasion route, Brodie doubtless knew that the 3rd Division commander, Major General Robert H. “Shorty” Soule, believed that the enemy would most likely launch a thrust against the division slightly farther east so as to drive down Route 33, the Main Supply Route leading more directly to Uijongbu and thence to Seoul.¹⁴⁸ In the event that the Chinese in fact struck hard a bit farther west, the brigadier anticipated that he would be authorized to issue the code word “Foxhound” to his most exposed units, thereby allowing them to withdraw and conform to Line Kansas behind the Imjin as part of an orderly fighting retreat.¹⁴⁹ Yet with other Eighth Army formations in I Corps still advancing northward as part of Operation Dauntless, and in the absence of the enemy for miles in front, it remained unclear when, where, and to what extent 29th Brigade would be involved in a defensive battle rather than a renewed advance. The positioning and posture of brigade units was therefore somewhat ambiguous, neither poised for a general advance nor arrayed for a full-scale defensive battle.

The 29th Brigade was on the left flank of the divisional front, situated between the 1st ROK Division to the west and the 65th Infantry Regiment to the northeast. The battalion farthest forward, initially the Ulsters, occupied what became a comparatively well-fortified hill position, 196 meters high in the bend of the Imjin a mile or so north of where the river met a tributary, the Hantan. This position was connected with the positions of the rest of the brigade and the 65th by a couple of engineer constructed vehicle and foot bridges over the Imjin and Hantan. More or less due south of the Hill 196 position, on the south side of the Imjin, lay the Northumberland positions. The four fusilier companies each occupied a hill feature over 200 meters in height, a distance of a mile or two between them, with battalion HQ located below the westernmost feature near the road designated as Route 11. Behind and in support lay the gun batteries of 45 Field Regiment – one battery per battalion150 – and the tanks of C Squadron, 8th Hussars. About three miles farther south down Route 11, as the distant heights on either side grew to several hundred meters, Brigade HQ was established; and nearly two miles behind that the Belgians were resting in brigade reserve. Situated on the left flank, a mile or two south of the Imjin and separated from the Northumberlands by a distance of three or four miles and an imposing massif known as Kamak-san rising to 675 meters, were the Glosters. As with the 5th Fusiliers, the four infantry companies of the Glosters were spread out over the local terrain features (none more than 182 meters in height), each separated from one another by a mile or so of open ground and together supported by a troop of 4.2-inch mortars from 170 Battery.¹⁵¹ The Glosters were covering a ford across the Imjin, known as Gloster Crossing, a mile or two to the north, and Route 57 (or 5Y, also known as Five Yankee) which ran south from it through the villages of Choksong and Solma-ri. Route 57, which was essentially just a track, eventually linked up with Route 11, a slightly more substantial track, a few miles south of Kamak-san.

The way in which 29th Brigade was deployed at the battalion and company level left much to be desired if the Chinese chose to launch a major assault across the Imjin along the brigade front. The battalions were miles apart, the three forwardmost separated from one another by either a river or a small mountain, and hence unable to offer each other immediate aid. Moreover, within the two forward battalions immediately south of the river, the Northumberlands and the Glosters, the infantry companies were themselves widely dispersed and not in a position to offer each other much fire support beyond mortar and medium machine-gun fire in the forward positions. The danger was particularly acute for the Glosters, essentially cut off from the rest of the brigade by the Kamak-san massif. As a U.S. combat historian who investigated the Imjin battle shortly after it took place later noted: “The rifle companies were located on separate hills . . . and were not mutually supporting, thus lending themselves to enemy attack separately and to the danger of being overrun separately.”152

There was a reason why the battalions, if not the companies, were so dispersed across the brigade front – the sheer amount of territory they were collectively required to cover. The amount of front line that 29th Brigade was responsible for between the 1st ROK Division and the rest of 3rd Division was huge. Even after Brigadier Brodie had managed to persuade I Corps to extend the territory covered by the South Koreans eastward, his brigade was responsible for fourteen miles of front. Once again a British brigade was being asked to take on something really meant for a division-sized formation, and once again Brodie, perhaps thinking that there would be time to withdraw and consolidate if push came to shove, and eager to preserve the idea that British troops could collectively do what Americans or South Koreans had apparently not been capable of during the great bug-out, accepted the challenge. As an army circular on the campaign thus far had noted proudly the previous month, “defence of wide fronts against infiltration or heavy odds is nothing new to us.”¹⁵³

It was not at all certain to the men in the field, moreover, that 29th Brigade would be fighting a defensive battle along the Imjin at all. The Chinese had broken contact, and it seemed entirely possible to everyone, from war correspondents to battalion officers and ordinary soldiers, that the brigade as a whole would be at any moment ordered to advance north of the river. “On the Imjin we checked [stopped],” the second in command of the Glosters explained, “took up defensive positions and patrolled hard and prepared for the next move forward.” As the chronicler of 45 Field Regiment put it: “We were still mentally in forward gear.”¹⁵⁴

This expectation would have serious consequences in relation to prepared positions. On the north side of the Imjin the Ulsters, with the companies in close contact with one another, made a serious effort to dig deep slit trenches and lay wire around what some dubbed “Fort Nixon” in honor of company commander Christopher Nixon, expecting as they did that the Chinese might try to pinch out this exposed, single-battalion bridgehead at some point. On the south side of the Imjin, however, officers and men tended to be much more complacent. “We asked about [building wire defenses] when we first occupied the position,” remembered the CO of the Glosters, “but were told not to, as the advance north of the river was to be continued.” And quite apart from the expectation that another northward movement would soon be in the offing, anyone thinking about a Chinese attack might take comfort from the fact that Imjin lay between them and the enemy. “The river itself was thought to be a good defensive barrier against possible assault by the enemy,” a sergeant in the Glosters remembered. At a certain time of year this would have been true, but from the middle of the month after the spring rains had passed the water level began to drop, and as it turned out the Chinese knew of crossing points that the British were not watching. “We didn’t really know where the fords were,” Malcolm Cubiss, a Northumberlands platoon commander, conceded decades later. “We knew about one, we didn’t know about the others.” The presence of this apparent water barrier, though, in combination with the stone-laden, hard ground on the hills and the expectation of imminent movement, meant there was little effort expended on digging deep slit trenches or bunkers, and little or no wire or mines were laid in front of company positions. There were, to be sure, shortages of defensive stores. “It took eight days to get the first truck load of barbed wire,” the Glosters’ adjutant complained, “and the second did not reach the battalion until it had been in position for 17 days.” But there was also no sense of urgency about obtaining them in light of the factors already mentioned. The end result, as a Gloster private recalled, was that by the time of the battle “nothing elaborate had been prepared in the way of defences, obstacles, minefields or wire.”155

There were those in the brigade who still thought it likely the Chinese would attack in April, including Brodie himself. The brigadier asked for U.S. units from 3rd Division to be shifted to support his sector, but in light of other divisional commitments none were made available. Rightly suspicious of enemy intentions, Brodie insisted on vigorous local patrolling across the Imjin, and sent out large-scale, deep-penetration armor-plus-infantry sweeps in the third week of April.¹⁵⁶

The Chinese, though, seemed to have vanished. Apart from occasional brushes with small enemy parties which immediately withdrew, there was no contact, even when sweeps penetrated many miles into no-man’s-land. Only two days before the Imjin battle began, “Lowtherforce,” consisting of Centurions led by Lieutenant-Colonel William Lowther working in conjunction with two companies from the Glosters, had gone an estimated twelve miles northward beyond the Imjin without encountering anyone but the odd fleeing individual. “We never found a bloody Chinaman,” a Gloster private recalled, “never found one.”157

Field commanders dislike knowing virtually nothing about the location and strength of the enemy, and Brodie was no exception. “But they must be there!” he exclaimed after being told that the reconnaissance sweep of 20 April had failed to find the Chinese, nervously banging his tennis racquet handle against his thigh. The deliberate breaking of contact by the Chinese People’s Volunteers was to him an ominous sign. Well out of artillery range, the enemy could be – and according to intelligence reports was – building up for a new offensive.¹⁵⁸

Brodie, though, evidently still believed he would have time to marshal his forces when the enemy finally chose to strike southward. He may have thought that aerial reconnaissance and patrolling would reveal the presence of significant Chinese formations in advance of their arrival on the Imjin in force, and that enemy movement would be confined to the hours of darkness in order to avoid air strikes and observed artillery fire. The brigadier also seems to have assumed that any major offensive would be in any case heralded by tell-tale reconnaissance probes in order to give Chinese unit commanders a clear picture of the location and strength of British defenses. This, after all, was what had happened in earlier encounters. Unfortunately the enemy would behave very differently on the Imjin. “All previous Chinese offensives had started with strong probing patrols,” a war correspondent working from brigade headquarters in the fourth week of April later explained, adding; “and there had been none of these.”¹⁵⁹

The belief that there would be time to make adjustments, indeed to put “Foxhound” into effect – that is, withdraw exposed forces – may explain why four days before the battle began Brodie ordered the Ulsters and the Belgians to exchange positions. On 20 April the Belgian battalion moved forward to relieve the Ulsters on the north side of the Imjin, the latter taking the place of the former as brigade reserve. The hill position the Belgians found themselves occupying was comparatively well fortified, but they themselves mustered only about half the strength of the battalion they were replacing. In light of what was shortly to come this has struck Belgian observers as an extremely odd move. The brigadier, however, seems to have thought that there would be enough advance warning to withdraw the Belgians across the Imjin before the main attack began. After all, the day after the Belgians moved in, two of their officers were allowed to reconnoiter no-man’s-land in a U.S. light plane, and could find no signs of the enemy to a depth of fifteen miles.160

Meanwhile, the failure of long-range patrols to bump into the Chinese in any force that seems to have concerned Brodie only added to the complacency of many junior officers and men. As the chronicler of 45 Field Regiment noted, the fact that Lowtherforce returned unscathed “seemed to give the lie to intelligence warnings of an imminent offensive.” Captain Mike Harvey later admitted that neither he nor his D Company commander in the Glosters, Major “Lakri” Wood, had “the remotest idea” that an enemy attack was imminent, while to men of other companies the fact that the Chinese had not been found in the sweep of 20 April signaled that there was no imminent danger of an assault. They were not alone. “At our level, the troops, nobody knew about an attack on the Imjin” recalled Armand Philips of Platoon B, Company C of the Belgian battalion. “Nobody was expecting the Chinese to attack,” remembered a C Squadron trooper of the 8th Hussars. “Nobody had got any impression at all that the enemy was going to put this attack on,” agreed a Hussar captain. The mood continued to be one of comparative relaxation, men sunning themselves on the reverse slopes of the scrub-covered hills their companies occupied and no attempt being made to improve defenses by, for example, enlisting the Korean porters to deepen slit trenches.¹⁶¹

In both brigades the spring weather added to the sense of peacefulness and ease, the temperature “not too hot, just nice and comfortable,” as Gunner Eric Stowe of 45 Field Regiment reported to his sweetheart.¹⁶² For practically the first time since they had landed in Korea, British and Commonwealth soldiers did not feel assaulted by the climate. After a good deal of rain the sun came out, trees and shrubs sprouted leaves, flowers bloomed, and grass grew. “The weather had warmed,” a corporal in the Patricias recalled, “and I was looking forward to idle days. . . .”¹⁶³ 3RAR was enjoying hot baths, a beer ration, football, open-air cinema screenings, and the preparations to mark ANZAC day with a full-scale remembrance parade on 25 April to which representatives of the Turkish brigade as well as the New Zealanders were invited.164 At the same time in the nominal front line some twenty miles to the west the infantrymen of 29th Brigade acted as if they too were on holiday. “People moved about in shirts and trousers and the cook sang in the sunshine as he peeled the potatoes,” as a British war correspondent put it. “With the end of winter, half the horror of the war vanished, and for a few weeks Korea was a lovely land: its ancient poetic name, ‘Chosin’ – The Land of the Morning Calm – was no longer a wry joke but something delicately appropriate to the country’s mood.” Even those with no aesthetic sense for the place could appreciate the spring. With the temperature now quite balmy, Rifleman Henry O’Kane remembered, “we sun bathed in the hot sun outside our dugouts.”¹⁶⁵

As it happened, the long-range patrols on the eve of the offensive had missed a few tell-tale signs that something was afoot. The noise of the tanks and the fact that the infantry accompanying them made no effort to keep out of sight and took pot-shots at the local wildlife made it easy for the many Chinese already in no-man’s-land to quietly withdraw or exercise their considerable powers of concealment. A feeling that one was being watched could be simply dismissed. Nevertheless there were still indicators that might have been picked up on but were not, such as freshly dug trenches and caches of rice and grain found by the men. Everyone came back, however, convinced that the enemy, as Lieutenant Sam Phillips of the Northumberlands put it, “just weren’t there.”¹⁶⁶

Perhaps lulled by the fact that right up until the day of the attack American aerial reconnaissance reports arriving at brigade HQ indicated there were no Chinese within a dozen miles of the Imjin, Brodie himself contributed to the general sense of complacency within the brigade by continuing to allow officers and men to go on leave to Japan. This meant that when the Chinese attacked, the absentees would include a company commander from the Glosters, the CO of the Ulsters, and the brigade’s senior operations officer, the brigade major. Meanwhile, no attempt was apparently made to beef up the formation’s infantry-support firepower in the event of an attack by recalling the rest of 11 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery from positions around Seoul to augment the single troop of 40-mm Bofors guns present on the Imjin, nor – just as importantly – to prevent the American artillery liaison officer from departing the brigade. Subsequently there would be no U.S. heavy artillery support available on call. The Ulsters and Northumberlands, meanwhile, were preparing to exchange their positions, something that could have made a bad situation worse if the switch had been in progress when the Chinese attacked. As Major Guy Ward, then in command of the 25-pounder battery supporting the Glosters, recalled of the time, the atmosphere was “relaxed.” With the advantage of hindsight he commented: “Too relaxed.”167

All seemed quiet on the I Corps front on 21st April, local patrols as usual making no contact with the enemy. There was, however, one small encounter in the 29th Brigade sector after the moon rose. A three-man listening post consisting of Private G. N. Hunter and Drummer A. P. Eagles under the command of Corporal G. H. Cooke had been established overlooking the ford known as Gloster Crossing, in front of the battalion position. An hour or so before midnight Tony Eagles thought he saw something move on the other side of the Imjin. “So I said to Scouse [Hunter], who was from Liverpool, ‘Scouse, I think there’s someone over there.’” Hunter agreed, and Corporal Cooke reported the sighting to battalion HQ using the field telephone with which the listening party had been equipped. The adjutant, Captain Tony Farrar-Hockley, ordered illumination flares to be fired over the position by the mortars of 170 Battery operating in support of the Glosters. Fourteen Chinese were revealed moving toward the crossing on the opposite bank. After the flares had died, the party began to wade across the Imjin. This was reported to Farrar-Hockley, who ordered the listening patrol to stop them: “I don’t want them crossing.” The three soldiers opened up with their rifles, seeing several Chinese go down and the rest retreat. Though it would not become fully apparent for more than twenty-four hours, the first shots in the Battle of the Imjin had been fired.¹⁶⁸