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Bradley, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked about the Korean War in his memoirs, devoting a considerable amount of space to the events that took place from November 2 to 9, 1950.
This time period began with the wounding of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division at Unshan and ended with the 8th Army's retreat to the south of the Cheongchon River. It was also during this period that the Volunteer Army began the end of the previous campaign and the planning of the next campaign, while the US military was considering what to do next after retreating from the previous offensive.
1. MacArthur's "victory"
Bradley argues that the importance of what happened these days has been overlooked by researchers of the war, and it was this critical week that Washington policymakers, misled by MacArthur, began to lose control of the Korean War, setting the stage for the subsequent defeat.
On Nov. 2, Willoughby sent information to Washington about the entry of Chinese troops into the war in Korea. On 4 July, MacArthur sent a telegram to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claiming that sufficient information on the Chinese army's participation in the war could only be obtained after the actual battle with the Chinese army.
Army Chief of Staff Collins felt that something was not quite right with MacArthur's statement. He had a vague sense of confidence in MacArthur's words, and whenever he spoke in that tone, it was often a sign of what he was about to do. Collins thought that MacArthur had done this many times before, and he didn't know what he was going to do this time.
Collins's fears are not unfounded.
At this time, MacArthur was indeed planning a new operation with the aim of driving back all the Chinese troops who had crossed the Yalu River. To this end, he decided to take a big move first: the Far East Air Force will be dispatched to destroy all the bridges on the Yalu River and cut off the passage into North Korea in northeastern China with the greatest air strike intensity.
In MacArthur's view, as long as the Chinese follow-up troops were effectively prevented from entering Korea, the US military could be assured of control of the war situation, so as to bring the development of the war into the orbit he had set. However, his important strategic plan was not "submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for approval in its entirety and formally."
On November 6, MacArthur issued an order to Strattmeyer, commander of the Far East Air Force, to immediately dispatch B-29 bombers to destroy the Yalu River Bridge between Andong and Sinuiju.
Strattmeyer felt that the matter was not trivial, and secretly communicated with Vandenberg, the chief of staff of the Air Force, who was at the Pentagon.
Vandenberg was "stunned when he heard the news," and Secretary of State Acheson was also "shocked" when he heard the news, because it was contrary to the directive that the United States and troops should not be used in areas close to China's borders, and "would cause strong opposition from Britain and other allies, and would probably provoke retaliatory measures from China, and even trigger the Soviet Union to enter the war."
Truman, Acheson, and Secretary of Defense Marshall deliberated and decided to instruct MacArthur to immediately cease operations through the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
At this time, it was only 1 hour and 20 minutes before the bomber took off from the Japanese airfield.
At 8 o'clock that night, MacArthur called the Pentagon, angry and vehement, and the telegram was addressed to Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Faced with MacArthur, the "Caesar of the army", Bradley himself was frightened. He immediately called Truman and read the message from MacArthur to Truman word by word.
When Truman heard this, he only said: Let him go.
In this way, MacArthur won another meaningful victory in the contest with the Pentagon.
2. MacArthur's misdirection
Joseph Gordon, an American expert on the Korean War, commented:
The Pentagon's main sin was cowardice, and they trembled in front of MacArthur like a little boy at school in front of a bully in town.
Bradley also said:
"He treated the Joint Chiefs of Staff like a child. ”
MacArthur's confrontation with the Pentagon continues. Bradley later analyzed that the differences between the two sides mainly lie in the different heights and angles of looking at the problem.
As theater commander, MacArthur was concerned about his own theater of operations, and he simply wanted the Pentagon to devote more resources to support him in winning the war he commanded, while the Pentagon wanted to "think about the problem from a higher and broader perspective."
In the Pentagon's view, in the event of a possible global war, North Korea is "a relatively minor problem" and the United States "the sooner it gets out, the better", at least not to expand the war, so as not to drain the valuable strategic resources of the United States on this secondary battlefield.
In a word, for the Korean War, the Pentagon intended to avoid a full-scale military confrontation with China, but MacArthur did not hesitate to burn the flames of war to China's borders, and even to China's borders.
After receiving MacArthur's telegram on 6 November, the Pentagon held an overnight meeting, at which Marshall, Acheson, Bradley, and other senior military and political officials were present.
Bradley called the meeting "one of the most important meetings of the Korean War."
The participants studied the "worst-case scenario" and "what to do in the event of a large-scale entry of Chinese troops into North Korea," and then discussed the feasibility of withdrawing American troops to the "bee waist" of the peninsula, and for the first time proposed: "Roughly along the line from Pyongyang to Wonsan (to go on the defensive), while negotiating a ceasefire through diplomatic means." ”
According to Bradley's account, although the participants agreed on the above issues, no resolution was reached, but a separate telegram was drafted authorizing MacArthur to carry out "the planned bombing of Sinuiju targets and the Yalu River bridge near the Korean front."
The meeting ended at 11:35 p.m., "everyone was exhausted."
Bradley wrote in his memoirs: "I later discovered that the decision we made that night was probably one of the worst of all. ”
On 7 November, MacArthur sent several more telegrams in succession.
The first telegram stated:
The Pentagon has imposed a "relentless pursuit" restriction on US planes not allowing them to enter China, thus "providing a complete shelter" for enemy planes taking off from across the Yalu River. This abnormal state of affairs has a serious impact on the morale and combat effectiveness of both our Air Force and ground forces".
This "somewhat hysterical" telegram had an immediate effect, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately "allowed MacArthur's planes to enter Manchuria 'six to eight miles' in pursuit of enemy planes."
The other two cables were "less hysterical", one of which declared:
MacArthur's previous optimistic assessment of the situation was "confirmed"; the Chinese's actions were "more of a small-scale sneak attack than a large-scale, overt military intervention."
The Far East Command then reported that the Chinese troops had completely disengaged with the 8th Army "in a strange way" - "they had retreated and were missing."
Bradley believes the situation is "confusing, but somewhat comforting."
It seems to confirm MacArthur's estimate:
"China has only entered the war on a small scale, and these small forces seem to have lost the courage to fight after hitting a wall. ”
As a result, only one day later, the Pentagon abandoned its previous "consensus" on withdrawing US troops to the "waist of the bee" on the peninsula.
In Bradley's words, the "favorable situation" at this time seems to have surpassed the unfavorable situations enumerated in previous discussions, and the actual threat to the US military "has diminished dramatically, at least for the time being, the threat is not as great as it was at the beginning, and it seems that the probability of victory in the war is very high." This possibility should not be given up by Washington's 'timidity'. We should still support the command on the battlefield ahead."
However, compared with MacArthur, the Joint Chiefs of Staff still retains some "caution." On November 8, the Joint Chiefs of Staff called MacArthur and asked him to submit a "final assessment of the situation" to the National Security Council.
The telegram said:
China's intervention has created new problems, and the mandate of the "United Nations Force" should be "re-examined" by the National Security Council; "We must discuss how to take further political action to address the new problems that are currently emerging".
Unexpectedly, this proposal would cause "MacArthur's anger to finally burst out like a volcanic eruption."
3. The decision is left to MacArthur
On 9 November, MacArthur sent a strongly worded telegram to the Pentagon, pointing the finger at the Joint Chiefs of Staff's proposal to "re-examine the mandate of the United Nations forces."
He writes:
I cannot agree with you, because the basic policy of the United Nations regarding the Korean War was the creation of a "united free nation," and any wavering in that goal would have "fatal consequences."
He claimed:
"I plan to begin this attack on or around November 15 in order to push the front back to the border area and take all of North Korea. Any plan that runs counter to this goal will completely demoralize our army, and the resulting psychological impact will be incalculable."
MacArthur also lashed out at the British's recent proposal to establish a buffer zone near the border between China and North Korea, denouncing it as "appeasing the Chinese communists" and repeating the mistakes of the "Munich Agreement" that would "sow the seeds for their own eventual destruction."
Hours after receiving MacArthur's telegram, the National Security Council met at the White House to discuss "China's countermeasures for sending troops to North Korea and the United States." President Truman, chairman of the National Security Council, did not attend, and the meeting was chaired by Acheson.
At the meeting, Bradley elaborated on the Joint Chiefs of Staff's analysis of China's intention to intervene in North Korea, pointing out that the military purpose of China's entry into the Korean war has not yet been finalized, and its objectives may be threefold:
One is to protect power facilities on the Yalu River and create a "buffer zone" in North Korea;
the second is to fight a war of attrition with the United States according to the strategic needs of the Soviet Union and attract American power to Korea;
The third is to drive the "United Nations Army" into the sea. And the last goal, relying only on the strength of the Chinese themselves, must have the participation of the Soviet Union, which may provoke a third world war.
As for the actions on the Korean battlefield, Bradley believed that the decision should be left to MacArthur, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff should make the necessary inspections.
At this meeting, there was no longer any concern among the officials involved in the decision-making and the sense of urgency and crisis that came with China's dispatch of troops to North Korea, but only the repetition of some empty demands in a big way. The only decision made at the meeting was that the National Security Council would take no action to change MacArthur's "mission" and allow him to "act on camera" militarily.
Bradley later reflected that in those days, "we read documents, sat down to analyze them, discussed them, but in the end we were unfortunate enough to rush to the wrong conclusions and decisions."
4. Bombing the Yalu River Bridge
There are five main crossings on the Yalu River, which is the boundary river between China and North Korea, from north to south: Baeksan-Hyesan, Linjiang-Chunggang, Ji'an-Manpo, Changdian estuary-Cheongseong, and Andong-Sinuiju. Among them, the three ferries located in the middle and lower reaches are the most important, and they are the main passages for the volunteers to enter North Korea. In addition, there is a Shuifeng dam across the Yalu River, which is 7 kilometers east of the mouth of the Changdian River, and is used both for power generation and as a channel connecting the two sides of the river.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, in order to protect the safety of the Jiangqiao and Shuifeng power station on the ferry, the Central Military Commission urgently transferred the 1st Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment of the Central South Military Region and the 4th, 17th, and 18th Antiaircraft Artillery Regiments of the East China Military Region to the Yalu River, where they were to undertake air defense tasks under the command of the Northeast Military Region.
After the first battle, the bridge over the Yalu River, which served as a passage for the entry of volunteer troops and logistical supplies into Korea, became MacArthur's number one target.
On November 6, at MacArthur's urging, the Pentagon approved the bombing of the Yalu River bridge to "destroy all international bridges on the Manchurian border on the 'Korean side'."
According to U.S. military statistics, there were 17 international bridges on the Yalu River at that time, and the focus of this bombing was to destroy six of the most valuable of them, and the two bridges between Sinuiju and Andong were the top priority.
The two bridges, one is a highway bridge with a curved string structure with a total length of 944.2 meters, a total of 12 piers, 6 piers on each side of China and North Korea, and the other is a double-track railway bridge parallel to it, with a total length of 946.2 meters, with flat beams on one side and hanging beams on the Chinese side. Both bridges were designed and built by the Japanese, and they are heavy-duty bridges with strong bridges. In addition, the bridges located in Qingcheng, Manpu, Huishan and Jiangkou are also included in the key targets of destruction.
The U.S. Far East Air Force defines the word "destruction" as "the first section of the bridge that has been erected on the water from the shore on the North Korean side."
The bombing also included:
"From the Manchurian border to the south to the front, except for the dams of Luojin and Shuifeng, and other power plants...... destroy all means of transport, military installations, factories, cities and villages".
Carrying out the bombing mission was the Far Eastern Air Force Bomber Command.
After World War II, the United States established its air force and placed all medium-range and long-range bomber units under the jurisdiction of the Strategic Air Command, but only the strategic bomber group in the Pacific theater, that is, the 19th bomber group equipped with the B-29A "Super Air Fortress," was still under MacArthur's control, and was called "MacArthur's descendant air force" at the time.
After the outbreak of the Korean War, the day before the US Air Force openly entered the war, the B-29 bombers belonging to the group flew over North Korea to carry out bombing missions. Since then, the U.S. Air Force has sent four strategic bomber groups equipped with B-29s (the 22nd, 92nd, 98th, and 307th bomber groups) to the Korean theater, with a total of 95 B-29 bombers, which has greatly increased the offensive strength of the Far East Air Force.
Immediately afterwards, the Far East Air Force Bomber Command was established in Tokyo, with Air Force Major General Emer Oendol Jr. as commander, to exercise unified command over all strategic bombing forces.
Strattmeyer, commander of the Far East Air Force, reported the bombing plan to MacArthur.
MacArthur instructed him that all pilots involved in the war should fly until they ran out of fuel if necessary.
5. How difficult is it to bomb the Yalu River Bridge?
Using B-29 bombers to blow up bridges faced two problems.
The first problem was that the bridges were close to China's northeastern border, and Soviet-made MiGs deployed across the Yalu River could cross the river at any time to meet the B-29s. The B-29 bomber was large and slow, and the fire control system was not adapted to confront advanced jet fighters. Once encountering a MiG fighter with a maximum speed of up to 1,120 kilometers per hour, it is difficult for the B-29, which flies as fast as 640 kilometers per hour, to escape the attack.
The second difficulty is that the location and direction of the Yalu River bridge are not conducive to an air attack.
The Yalu River runs from the northeast to the southwest from the northeast to the southwest. The cross-river bridges in Ji'an, Changdian estuary and Andong are all in the southeast-northwest direction. This means that if the river bridge is bombed from the North Korean side, if the route is not carefully designed, the planes carrying out the bombing mission will fly into Chinese territory.
In the summer of 1950, the B-29 of the 19th Bomber Group crossed the river to bomb the railway shunting yard in Anton.
Take, for example, the Yalu River Bridge in Sinuiju. The northwest bank of the bridge is China's Andong, in order to avoid flying into the territory of China, the B-29 can only enter from the northeast when attacking the bridge, attacking the bridge from the side along the horizontal axis, and according to the convention, the effective way to destroy the bridge is to enter from the longitudinal axis along the direction of the bridge body, in order to maximize the attack surface of the bridge.
Due to the constraints of the direction of attack, coupled with the threat of Chinese ground anti-aircraft artillery fire and Soviet-made MiG fighters in the air, as well as the influence of strong crosswinds (wind speed of 145~160 km/h) that often occur over the target, the B-29 aircraft has to drop bombs on the 12~18-meter-wide bridge at an altitude of 7,000 meters, especially directly on the bridge piers, which cannot but be said to be an extremely difficult task.
Strattmeyer, having studied the difficulties that would inevitably be encountered in bombing the Yalu River Bridge with B-29 aircraft, said to MacArthur: "This is something that cannot be done. ”
The bombing of the two river bridges from Sinuiju to Andong was supposed to begin on November 7. Due to bad weather that day, the operation was postponed to the next day. On 8 November, the Far Eastern Air Force went out in full force to carry out bombing missions.
At 11:40 a.m., 70 B-29 bombers flew over Sinuiju and poured a large number of incendiary bombs on the ground at an altitude of 6,000 meters, turning Sinuiju into a sea of flames; at the same time, another nine B-29s took advantage of the skyrocketing flames to attack two river bridges, and a row of drainage columns was suddenly blown out of the water surface of the Yalu River.
Since the bombing of the first day did not receive the desired results, MacArthur decided to strengthen the carrier-based aircraft of the naval aviation and blow up the bridge together with the bomber units of the Air Force.
The tasks of the Air Force and the Naval Air Force are divided as follows: the Jiangqiao from Andong to Sinuiju is destroyed by the carrier-based aviation of the Navy's Task Force 77, and the Jiangqiao from Ji'an to Manpo and from the mouth of the Changdian River to Cheongsangsu is to be destroyed by the Air Force.
MacArthur gave naval aviation the task of bombing the Anton River Bridge because carrier-based aircraft could carry out dive bombing, which might be more effective than the high-altitude horizontal bombing of the B-29.
On the morning of 9 November, the F-4U "Corsair" and AD "Air Raider" planes of the US Naval Air Force took off from the three aircraft carriers "Valley Fuge," "Philippine Sea," and "Reithai," which were anchored in the Sea of Japan, and crossed the entire northern part of the peninsula from the east coast to bomb the Andong-Sinuiju River Bridge near the west coast.
The bombing was resolutely resisted by the antiaircraft artillery units of the Chinese People's Volunteers on both sides of the Yalu River.
On the first day, the two sides fought to a draw, and the antiaircraft artillery units of the Chinese Volunteers did not shoot down the US plane, and the US planes failed to blow up the river bridge.
On the second and third days, the US Navy's carrier-based planes were dispatched in succession, and the antiaircraft artillery units of the Chinese People's Volunteers resolutely confronted them, damaging many US planes, and the carrier-based planes only blew up two newly erected light pontoon bridges from Andong to Sinuiju, and the cross-river railway bridge was still not blown up. The U.S. military war history says: "The bridge is too strong for the Navy's existing weapons to destroy it." ”
MacArthur had no choice but to withdraw naval aviation from the battle and let the B-29s go into battle again.
6. New tactics and new weapons
According to the history of the U.S. military, the B-29 tried some new bombing tactics and new bombs in the later bombing of the Yalu River Bridge.
The most striking was the use of radio-guided bombs codenamed "Razon" and "Tazon". The "Lasson" bomb weighed 1,000 pounds, and the "Tasson" bomb weighed 12,000 pounds.
The 19th Bomber Group experimented with both "dexterous" bombs. The so-called "dexterity" refers to a simple guidance device installed on the tail or wing of these two bombs, that is, a radio-controlled elevator and rudder, the elevator controls the bomb's falling attitude to change the range, and the rudder controls the direction.
After dropping the bomb, the bomber on the bomber visually tracks the bomb's fall, and at the same time issues a radio command to control the deflection of the bomb wings, correcting the trajectory of the bomb's fall until the bomb hits the target.
To drop bombs in this way, the sky needs to be clear and easy to observe. The bomb bay of any B-29 bomber can be loaded with "Lasong" bombs, but the "Tasson" bomb body is huge and cannot be loaded into the bomb bay, and later after modification, the front and rear bomb bays are opened, and the "Tasson" bomb is barely loaded in, but two-thirds of the bomb body is still exposed, so that the bomb bay door can not be completely closed, increasing the flight resistance.
From the beginning of October to December, the 19th Bomber Group dropped a total of 498 "Lason" bombs. It is said that the reliability of the bomb is relatively high, but the power is small, and it often requires several "Lasong" shells to hit at the same time to cause damage to the bridge. And the heavy "Tasson" shells were not delivered to the 19th Bomber Group until December.
According to MacArthur's instructions, the bombing was to be carried out "with maximum force for two weeks, and if necessary, all combat pilots should be dispatched, and as many sorties as possible."
During this period, the US military flew more than 1,000 sorties of various types of aircraft every day. The three river bridges of Ji'an, Changdian estuary, and Andong were under the greatest pressure of air raids, especially Andong, which attacked at least one or three times a day by large aircraft groups.
Throughout November, the US Air Force and Navy Air Force flew a total of 2,560 sorties to bomb the river bridges at these three ferry crossings, and the antiaircraft artillery units of the Chinese People's Volunteers fought 168 times along the river, shooting down 11 planes and damaging 69 planes.
In the Sinanju-Andong direction, the steel beam of the eighth hole on the North Korean side of the highway bridge was blown up, and the railway bridge on the left side was also seriously damaged. Later, three piers on the facing side of the highway bridge were blown up, and many sections of steel rails fell into the river, causing the bridge to be completely paralyzed.
During the U.S. air raid campaign, the Soviet Air Force MiG-15s stationed on the Chinese side of the Yalu River began to fight. Although there are different statistics on the results of the Soviet Air Force, there is no doubt that the appearance of the MiG-15 put American bombers on bombing missions under unprecedented threat.
The first Soviet air force unit to enter northeast China to assist in air defense was a fighter (then called interceptor) division led by General Belov, which arrived at Beiling Airport in Shenyang on August 3 and began to assume air defense tasks in late September.
On October 9, the Soviets agreed to send MiG fighters to fight in Anton, which could fly several miles beyond the Chinese border. On 1 November, Soviet pilots flew MiG-15s from Liaoyang to meet the US planes invading Anton, and shot down two planes.
On 8 November, the day when US planes bombed Sinuiju, an air battle broke out between the MiG-15 and the US Air Force F-80C over the Yalu River, which was the first air battle between jet planes in the history of the US Air Force.
Soon after, the two Soviet fighter divisions stationed in the Shenyang area were expanded into the 64th Separate Fighter Air Corps, which was tasked with protecting bridges, power stations, and dams on the Yalu River, as well as North Korean communication lines and airfields within 75 kilometers south of the Sino-North Korean border. This powerful air force with considerable combat effectiveness was transferred from Shenyang and Anshan to Andong on the Yalu River. In the first half of November, it achieved an excellent record of shooting down 23 US planes.
The indiscriminate bombing of the Yalu River Bridge and the northern border of the DPRK by the US military has caused a large number of casualties and property damage to the DPRK. Most of the road bridges over the Yalu River were blown up, and almost all of the important towns in northern North Korea were razed to the ground.
However, this bombing did not cut off communications between China and North Korea, nor did it prevent the second batch of volunteers from entering the territory of North Korea. In the course of the US air blockade campaign, Song Shilun led three corps of the 9th Corps into Korea from the Linjiang ferry, and because the troops were tightly camouflaged and marched covertly, the movement of the 150,000-strong army was not only not stopped by the US aerial bombardment, but also was not detected by aerial reconnaissance, and it cannot but be said to be a major defeat for the Americans.
After entering December, the Yalu River was completely frozen, and the ice thickness was enough for trucks, and it was no longer meaningful to continue to bomb the river bridge. MacArthur had no choice but to agree to the advice of the Far East Air Force Command and stop the bombing campaign.
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