Latimer, Jon
Military
History (FMLH), v17 n4, p58-64, p.7 Oct
2000
ABSTRACT: When the British 27th Brigade entered combat
on the Naktong River 50 years ago, the men arrived without transport and
artillery. But they had tradition--and soon the North Koreans would find out
what that meant.
TEXT:
When the British 27th Brigade entered
combat on the Naktong River 50 years ago, the men arrived without transport and
artillery But they had tradition-and soon the North Koreans would find out what
that meant. A piper of the Ist Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,
calls the troops to dinner in Korea during September 1950. The Korean War started badly for the U.S.
Army, whose troops were ill-prepared and underequipped despite the short
interval that had elapsed since World War II. By September 1950, however, men
of the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, could claim a wealth of recently
acquired combat experience. Nevertheless, even old hands who had fought in
World War II were surprised at the musical manner in which reinforcements came
to relieve them along the Pusan Perimeter on September 4.
GIs with Scottish ancestry might have
explained that the strange sound came from bagpipes playing the melody
"Hielan' Laddie." As described by the Saturday Evening Post in
August, the bagpipe players were members of a "kilt-wearing, proud
Scottish regular army organization," the first of a small but militarily
significant Commonwealth contingent-the 1 st Battalion of the Argyll and
Southern Highlanders (Princess Louise's).
Across the Korean Peninsula and in the
United States, American soldiers had been wondering, "How long have we got
to go this war alone?" It was a fair question to ask of other
members of the United Nations, in its first real military test of the Cold War.
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India,
France, Turkey and other
nations had
come forward and promised support. In the British House of
Commons on
July 5, Prime Minister Clement Atlee assured, "With the history
of the last
twenty years fresh in our minds, no one can doubt that it is
vitally
important that aggression should be halted at the outset." With a
few
exceptions, even many socialists inside and outside European
governments
agreed with the justice of the American cause in Korea.
Britain, however, had problems committing
her troops to Korea. World
War II had
ended in an era of unprecedented economic growth in the United
States,
where in Britain the cost of the war had been enormous, and imports
vastly
outstripped exports. Wartime rationing would last for 10 years after
1945. These
straitened circumstances affected the military budget as well
as the rest
of society.
In spite of its postwar withdrawal from
India, the British empire was
still
extensive and required garrisoning. The so-called Malayan Emergency-a
military
struggle against Communist insurgents in the British colony of
Malaya-had
begun, and the stresses it created were compounded by the
success of
Mao Tse-tung's Communists in China in 1949, an event that
required the
garrison of Hong Kong to be rapidly enlarged. Major General
Geoffrey
Evans was sent there to command the newly formed 40th Division. A
veteran of
Burma, Evans soon had his force in shape and felt confident in
the men. One
element, the 27th Brigade under the command of Brigadier Basil
Aubrey Coad,
was designated the United Kingdom Strategic Reserve, which
meant that
it was supposed to be ready to move anywhere in the world at 10
days'
notice.
Coad had no illusions about the
grandiosity of the title or about
service in
the peacetime British army. The manpower demands of the early
Cold War
period for Britain meant that wartime conscription continued after
World War II
with the National Service Act, which formally instituted
peacetime
conscription for the first time in British history. Largely
thanks to
Evans' demanding regime, however, the men of the 40th Division
quickly
reached a higher level of training and efficiency than that of
British army
troops who had faced the Japanese less than a decade before.
The National Service conscripts were from
every conceivable
background-blue
collar, white collar, the sons of earls. Some had no desire
to be there,
others found military life surprisingly agreeable, and some
asked to be
selected for elevation to junior officer rank. Although the
character of
the army had changed, it retained something of the wartime
spirit of
everyone pulling together to get the job done, and this went a
long way to
make up for material deficiencies.
Deficiencies were painfully obvious. In
August 1950, Coad was suddenly
ordered to
take a weakened brigade to Korea, consisting of the Ist
Battalion,
the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) and the
Argylls.
Instead of 10 days to prepare, he had one week. The arrival of his
orders on a
Friday gave him still less time, since most of his men were
enjoying the
fleshpots of Hong Kong after an arduous exercise, and it would
be hard work
indeed to recall them to barracks over a weekend. Since both
battalions
were understrength, it was necessary to augment their numbers
from the
other units in Hong Kong. Working with his brigade major (chief of
staff),
Douglas Reith, Coad tried to get some sense out of Headquarters,
Land Forces.
He asked about artillery support and was told, "You're not
taking any--
they say the Yank gunners are pretty good." Regarding
transport,
he was informed, "You're not taking that either. Won't need
any-the
Yanks have got a vehicle to about every five men." He asked about
rations and
was told that "you'll be all right there-turkey for every
meal."
"Sounds to me like a Woolworth
Brigade," Coad remarked.
"That's just about what it is. Damned
good luck to you, Aubre ..."
A clamor had begun in Britain and
Parliament when the public learned
that
19-year-olds would be fighting in Korea. As a result, the War Office
issued an
order banning soldiers under 19 from the war zone. This left the
Middlesex
understrength by some 150 men. Some of the youngsters ignored
King's
Regulations and beseeched the CO, Lt. Col.
Andrew Man , to be
allowed to
go. Man recalled the line of one young pup: "I'm pretty sure I
am 19,
sir!" But orders were orders. Some 250 men were needed from other
units, and
there was no shortage of volunteers from the Royal Leicesters,
South
Staffords and others-the lst Battalion, King's Own Scottish
Borderers,
volunteered to a man.
During a North Korean assault on
September 23, 1950, Major Kenneth
Muir,
second-in-- command of the Ist Argyll and Sutherland, nuns a 2-inch
mortar
against charging North Koreans while his company commander, Major
Alastair
Gordon-- Ingram, serves as loader, in Hill 282, by Peter Archer.
A regiment with a fine tradition from the
west of Scotland, the
Argylls had
a particularly prickly esprit de corps. They were the original
"thin
red line tipped with steel" at Balaclava in 1854. They had fought the
Germans to a
standstill at Le Cateau in 1914, and their 2nd Battalion was
the only
British unit to fight with distinction in Malaya in 1941. The
number of
conscripted servicemen varied from unit to unit in the British
army up to
50 percent (as with the Middlesex), but Argylls were
predominately
Regulars, which suited their CO, Lt. Col. Leslie Neilson. His
adjutant,
Captain John Slim, had an illustrious name to uphold-his father,
Field
Marshal Sir William Slim, having led the Allied forces to victory in
Burma just
five years before. So it was in the finest traditions of the
British
army, though preparations were hurried and improvised, that 27th
Brigade went
to war.
On August 29, Britain's "Fire
Brigade"labeled by its men the
"Something
for God's Sake Brigade"-landed at Pusan. They were greeted with
a flurry of
flags and bands. A comely American nurse, who had never seen
kilted men
before, turned to her neighbor and said, "Now, isn't that the
cutest thing
you ever saw? Then, after a difficult journey by rail and
road, the
brigade made camp at Kyongsang, where life settled down to being
comfortable
and dull. The U.S. Quartermaster Branch was generous with
rations, as
well as Lucky Strike, Chesterfield and Camel cigarettes. Asked
if they had
any complaints about rations, one Argyll replied to his
officer,
"Aye, surr, too much f-ing turkey!" British soldiers have long
regarded
their only privilege as being allowed to moan-regardless of
whether
there is anything to moan about.
The American commander of the Eighth
Army, Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker,
was under
pressure and anxious to plug his sagging line with the British
troops.
Despite the lack of transport, Coad was assigned to the U.S. Ist
Cavalry
Division's southern flank along the Naktong River southwest of
Taegu. His
frontage was some 16 kilometers with a gap of three kilometers
to his left.
The gap grew to eight kilometers, large enough for a North
Korean
division to easily slip through. Therefore, reconnaissance, fighting
and standing
(or ambush) patrols became essential. During a patrol on
September 6,
the Middlesex lost Private Reginald Streeter, a 19-year-old
plumber's
mate from Guildford, the first British soldier to die in Korea.
That same
day, the Argylls also suffered their first losses, Captain Neil
Buchanan and
his batman, Private "Tam" Taylor. Buchanan had been a popular
officer, and
his death provoked the Scots to a cold fury. After two weeks
of this
steady work, lst Platoon of the Argylls' A Company ambushed a
strong enemy
force at dawn as it was returning from a nocturnal incursion,
killing 10
North Koreans before the survivors were able to disengage.
"Enemy
patrol, sir," reported Sergeant John Robertson simply, "they were
not liking
it, so they left."
Thus far, the British had been only bit
players in a much larger
drama, but
the war was about to enter Act II. While the U.N. invasion at
Inchon was
turning the flank of the North Korean People's Army (NKPA), on
September 16
Walker's forces assaulted North Korean positions on the Pusan
Perimeter in
a bid to break out and join up with the Marines, the 7th
Infantry
Division and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops to the north. The
crossing of
the Naktong was the first major operation undertaken by Coad's
brigade and
was, in the words of one American officer, "a rugged
assignment."
The U.N. forces expected the North Koreans to crumble, but
instead they
put up stout resistance. Only after Walker committed his
reserve, the
24th Division, did the offensive begin to gain momentum. Coad
was now
attached to that formation, and on September 22, 27th Brigade
crossed the
Naktong on the heels of the retiring NPKA 10th Division.
Top: The Argylls arrive at Pusan on
August 29, 1950. Above: Brigadier
Basil Aubrey
Coal, commander of the British 27th Brigade, meets US. Army
Pfcs Jesse
J. Hall (left) and Wilfred Jalbert during a visit to the front
lines.
On the far side of the river, along the
road to Songju, was high
ground. As
directed by the commander of the 24th Division, Maj. Gen. John
Church, Coad
ordered the Middlesex to secure two elevated areas to the
right of the
road, one known as Plum Pudding Hill and the other, some 900
feet high,
later to be called Middlesex Hill. The Argylls would take a
similar
area, called Hill 282, on the left side of the road. The only
crossing
point was a rickety bridge hastily erected by American engineers,
passable
only in single file. Under continuous fire from mortars and a
self-propelled
gun known as "the Bastard," the Middlesex went across first,
led by Colonel Man. Middlesex veterans, who had
fought in North Africa,
Italy and
France, agreed that the battalion had never performed more
coolly.
Attached to 2nd Lt. Christopher
Lawrence's platoon were two American
tanks. Their
commander, sporting a red baseball cap, cheerfully informed
Lawrence,
"We'll be in there slugging with you, Mac," and fired a burst of
machine-gun
fire at the top of Plum Pudding Hill for no apparent reason.
Lawrence's
platoon was in the forefront, just as his father's had been in
1916. Man described the assault as "a most gallant
affair" and "one of the
most
heartening sights of the entire campaign." A bayonet charge carried
the crest, a
few agonized squeals were heard as the steel was pressed home
and the rest
of the defenders fled down the far slope pursued by bullets
and verbal
abuse. Meanwhile, A and D companies, supported by the tanks,
found the
North Koreans on Middlesex Hill in no mood to make a concerted
defense. As
they also fled down the reverse slope, an American artillery
observation
officer exclaimed, "Boy, ain't that a honey of a target," and
soon shells
were landing among the enemy. The Middlesex lost one officer
and six men
killed, with seven men wounded. The officer was 2nd Lt. George
White,
seconded from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to obtain experience
with an
infantry battalion before being posted to his unit. Instead of
spending the
war dealing with the usual ordnance-related routine of stores
and endless
paperwork, he was killed while recklessly exposing himself to
fire at the
moment of victory. He was posthumously awarded the U.S. Army
Silver Star.
With the first two objectives secured by
the Middlesex, it was now the
Argylls'
turn. Hill 282 was to be assaulted by two companies, while a third
would occupy
another nearby hill from which they would provide support. The
commander of
the third company, Major David Wilson, could clearly see North
Koreans on
the summit of the hill he planned to occupy. Three American
tanks
unexpectedly joined Wilson and his Company A. He waved them down and
asked if
they could help. "Man, you just got
yourself some tank support,"
said the
American sergeant major, and promptly proceeded to plaster the
hill with
fire. The North Koreans quickly gave it up. "Nice job," said
Wilson,
"thank you very much," and the tanks roared off around the bend.
Wilson's
company was able to walk into the position unopposed and dig in.
In the
meantime, B and C companies were awaiting their H-hour: 5:20 a.m. on
September
23.
Scrambling up hills covered with fir
trees and loose rocks was
precisely
the sort of training the Scots were given in the New Territories
of Hong
Kong, and it took just under an hour to bring them to within 50
meters of
the NKPA position. A foul smell of fish cooking for breakfast
assailed the
Scotsmen-one well known to veterans of Burma-but no breakfast
was ever
served. A wild charge brought the grenades, bayonets, rifle butts
and
hobnailed boots of the Highlanders within striking distance of the
defenders.
Fifteen NKPA troops were killed during the charge and another 15
were cut
down as the defenders raced down the opposite slope.
Number 2 Section of the Ist Argyll and
Sutherland digs defensive
positions on
newly seized Hill 282 in anticipation of a North Korean
counterattack.
One Scot was killed and six
wounded-including both platoon leaders-in
the initial
assault, but in their eagerness to seize the summit, the
Argylls had
bypassed a small party of NKPA, who fired on the command post
party and
the 5th Platoon as they made their way up the hill. A swift
charge led
by 2nd Lt. David Buchanan drove those North Koreans from their
entrenched
position. For a total of 12 casualties the "Jocks" had secured
Hill 282,
and they now began digging in.
Soon afterward, the NKPA 10th Division's
response began with a mortar
bombardment,
killing four more Argylls and wounding nine. More serious,
there was a
higher position on Hill 282 still held by the North Koreans.
Second
Lieutenant J.R.R. Edington's 7th Platoon of C Company was dug in
closest to
it. The company commanders, Major Jim Gillies of C Company and
Major
Alastair Gordon-Ingram of B Company, knew that the enemy would soon
try to
retake the key position they occupied. They also knew the value of
shrewdly directed
artillery fire for breaking up enemy concentrations
before they
got the chance to counterattack. At 8:45 a.m., as "Jock"
Edington
reported increased activity to his front, the two American
artillery
observation officers assigned to the Argylls received orders to
return to
their regiments. Protests were lodged all the way back to General
Walker, but
for the time being, the Jocks were on the hill alone. As the
company
commanders had expected, North Korean shelling and mortar fire
increased,
inflicting another dozen casualties. Now, deprived of much
needed
artillery, Gordon-- Ingram remarked that "it's a great shame that
the genius
who gave that order isn't up here with us."
Soon North Korean infantry began to
advance. Thick vegetation made
infiltration
to within a few yards of the British position easy, and a
steady
stream of accurate fire engulfed the defense. Edington's platoon was
reduced to
seven effectives in just half an hour. Buchanan's platoon came
up to
reinforce it, but by 11 a.m. it, too, was riddled with casualties. In
imminent
danger of being overrun, the survivors, including a wounded
Edington,
withdrew into the main perimeter. Everywhere the situation
deteriorated,
but Gillies and Gordon-Ingram remained confident that the
position would
be held. The order had been given that it would be "to the
last man and
the last round."
The most urgent problem was the
evacuation of the wounded. The only
route was
down a 900-foot slope. Directing that effort was Company Sgt.
Maj. Tom
Collet. The return journey took at least an hour, and every man
who helped
to ferry the injured was thus not in the firing line, where
manpower was
desperately needed. But Collet was feared at least as much as
the enemy,
and he grimly informed his charges that he was timing them with
a stopwatch.
There will be, he said, "no stopping at the bottom of the hill
and lighting
a fag, got it?" No man did, and Gillies later said that
Collet's
presence in the thick of the fighting had made up for the lack of
artillery support.
The situation was helped when
stretcher-bearers from the Corps of
Pipes and
Drums arrived, led by the battalion second-in-command, Major
Kenneth
Muir. Like so many others in this "family" regiment, his father had
served as an
Argyll before him. He now disregarded the routine requirement
that
seconds-in-command concern themselves with purely administrative
matters;
instead, he began to analyze the battle and to note problems.
These he
communicated to Neilson, who demanded to know what he was doing
there, in
the midst of the fighting. "Just keeping in touch, sir," he
replied, for
which Neilson was grateful as the battle grew increasingly
confused.
The two companies had become hopelessly intermixed, so Muir
reorganized
them as a single force under his command and centralized
ammunition
resupply and casualty evacuation.
His calm and decisive intervention gave
all the men around him a
renewed
sense of confidence.
Obeying orders that Hill 282 would be
held "to the last man and the
last round,"
two Argylls man a .303-inch Vickers machine gun as elements of
the North
Korean 10th Division try to retake the position.
They needed that reassurance as they had
been assaulted from the front
and on the
flanks. Kenny Muir's grip was sure, and the enemy seemed to be
losing
momentum. Some 1,500 meters to the left of their position, however,
a large body
of NKPA troops could be seen forming along a ridge for a fresh
attempt.
Lacking effective fire support with which to break up that
concentration,
Muir asked Neilson for an airstrike. Quickly, the news
spread among
the men of the two battered companies that North American F-5
ID Mustangs
were on their way. "That'll fix 'em," CSM Collet told his men,
"but it
doesn't mean that you lot can sit on your arses looking at the sky.
Watch your
front!"
White recognition panels were laid out,
and at 12:15 p.m., three
Mustangs of
No. 2 Squadron, South African Air Force (SAAF), attached to the
U.S. Air
Force's 18th Fighter Bomber Wing, circled the position. Some of
the Jocks
stood up, waving their arms in greeting as each fighter swept in.
Then things
went horribly wrong: Napalm fell on the British positions,
followed by
machine-gun fire. Some Jocks were shot down before the
welcoming
cheers had left their throats, while others were roasted by the
frightful
petroleum jelly. The reserve ammunition also exploded among them.
Unknown to the Scots, the North Koreans
had noticed their
identification
panels and had quickly laid out white panels of their own.
The
resulting confusion had been worth-it from the NKPA viewpoint: Within
two minutes,
the whole of Hill 282 had been reduced to a fiery shambles.
As the shock began to wear off, the
survivors who huddled on the ridge
realized
that they had lost their precious ground-something the Argylls
considered a
cause for shame despite the appalling events that had unfolded
above them.
Neilson was amazed that anyone had survived, but Muir and
Gordon-Ingram
were with them. Permission was given to withdraw, but Muir
recognized
that the effect of the airstrike had been at least as severe on
the North
Koreans in the vicinity as upon his own beloved Jocks. The hill
was
therefore unoccupied.
Three privates of the Ist Argyll and
Sutherland, joined by a volunteer
from the
nearby Ist Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (at right rear),
evacuate 2nd
Lt. J.R.R. Edington, who had been seriously wounded in the
upper leg,
from Hill 282.
Then came the unmistakable rattle of a
Bren gun from the top of the
hill.
Incredibly, there were men still holding out. This made it all the
more
imperative to regain the summit and save the wounded. Muir managed to
round up 30
soldiers fit to return to the fray and gave them a stem talking
to.
"Right, we're going in," he announced, and set off at a trot, leading
from the
front and cheering his boys as they climbed the hill through a
withering
fire. Just 14 Jocks reached the crest, where they discovered five
more led by
Private William Watts-who explained that nobody had told him to
leave and he
still had two magazines for his Bren.
As the NKPA closed in from three sides,
Muir helped hold them back
until his
Sten gun ran out of ammunition. He then fired a 2-inch mortar at
them, with
Gordon-Ingram acting as his loader, until he was hit by two
bursts of
machine-gun fire in the stomach and thigh. Still shouting to his
men, he was
carried down the hill. When he could not shout, he whispered,
and when he
could not whisper, he died. His last words were: "The gooks
will never
drive the Argylls off this hill." Muir was posthumously awarded
the Victoria
Cross.
Gordon-Ingram took command, but found
only 10 men in B Company left
who could
fight-and some of them were wounded. Worse, they were almost out
of
ammunition, and C Company was in little better condition. Neilson sent a
new order:
"Damned well done, now get out of it." Having witnessed the
misdirected
airstrike, men of the Middlesex rushed from the neighboring
hill to
assist. Strictly speaking, they were guilty of deserting their own
posts, but
no one could censure them. Their officers were forced to order
"Stand
fast."
Using the last of their ammunition to
cover one another in an orderly
retreat, the
Argylls left behind only six rifles and two Bren guns. Their
casualties
totaled two officers and 11 enlisted men dead, four officers and
70 enlisted
wounded, and two soldiers missing-almost half of those who had
defended the
hill. Their names read like a roll call from Balaclava:
McNaughton,
McDonald, McPherson, Ewan and Campbell. The last man down was
Collet,
carrying a wounded lance corporal who remarked on the incongruity
of their
situation. "Blimey," he said, "I never thought I'd have my arm
around your
neck." To which Collet replied grimly, "It's going to cost you
a
pint."
Which it did.
The U.S. Air Force felt deep remorse over
the tragic airstrike, which
caused 40
percent of the Argylls' casualties. The 93rd Bombardment Wing
donated a
check for the families of those killed and wounded. In response,
the
regiment's colonel, Lt. Gen. Sir Gordon MacMillan, stated: "The
Regiment's
friendship with the United States Air Force can never be
impaired by
having suffered on one occasion from the risks that are
inseparable
from operations in modem war. Every report I have received from
the
Battalion.. has spoken in glowing terms of wonderful co-operation, and
no hard
feelings must arise from this incident." Private Peter Sinclair
summed it up
from his stretcher. "It couldn't be helped," he said, "it was
just one of
those things."
The retaking of Hill 282 stiffened the
NKPAs resistance to the 24th
Division's
advance from the Naktong, but only briefly. General Church
ordered Lt.
Col. Morris Naudt to lead his 1st Battalion, 19th U.S.
Infantry,
south toward Songju and join up with the British. The battalion
launched its
attack on the night of September 23 and captured Songju at 2
a.m. on
September 24. Upon meeting the 1/19th outside the town, 27th
Brigade
helped the Americans secure the area before being withdrawn from
the 24th
Division and returned to Eighth Army control. Still ahead lay the
advance to
the Yalu River and contact with a new enemy, the Chinese, in
November
1950. But in all the battles to come, the British U.N. contingent
would fight
with the same professionalism and valor they displayed on Hill
282. o
Brigadier Coad receives a citation from
Maj. Gen. Frank W Milburn,
commander of
the U.S. Army I Corps, in December 1950. Plum Pudding Hill and
Hill 282
marked only the beginning of the British Commonwealth's
contribution
to the United Nations' effort in Korea.
For further reading, Jon Latimer, who
writes from Cardiff, Wales,
recommends: Korea:
The Commonwealth at War, by Tim Carew; The Korean War,
by Max
Hastings; and Fighting Highlanders! The Korean War, by of the Argyll
and
Sutherland Highlanders! The History of the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders,
by PJ.R. Mileham.
Copyright Cowles Enthusiast Media Oct
2000