Sam Spade
11-26-2020, 09:24 PM
November 27 marks the beginning of the Battle of Wawon, which ran from 27-29 November, 1950. Kunu-Ri was a little place just off to the side of it.
MacArthur essentially believed his own advertising and fell victim to confirmation bias. Since he just *knew* that the Chinese wouldn't dare go toe to toe with American might, he ignored anything that said otherwise. And when a million screaming "volunteers" came pouring over the border, we were in the suck.
2ID ended up being the rear guard for 8th Army, and their engineer battalion ended up being the rear guard for the division. From the army.mil official site, "By the end of the battle, the battalion was down to only 266 out of 977 men authorized." That's just over 72% casualties. The Battalion S2 was acting as the Battalion Commander and filling all the roles of the Battalion staff; the CO, XO, S1, S3, S4 and all the company commanders were gone.
Ahead of the Engineers in the withdrawl was Division Artillery, but not all of them made it out of the encirclement before dark. One battalion got cut off and over-run, losing all of its guns and suffering 50%+ killed. A private first class named Charlie Rangel (yes, him) found himself leading the escape and evasion of 40 or so refugees from the unit cross-country back to US lines. He was wounded and later received the Bronze Star with V for his work.
Anyway, that's part of the story of part of the quote in my sig line. The long version of the quote from Jerry Pounelle is: "To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you’re all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary." I think it's one of the things that those following this path should remember.
For the history of 2CEB: https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Historical-Vignettes/Military-Construction-Combat/017-2d-ECB/
MacArthur essentially believed his own advertising and fell victim to confirmation bias. Since he just *knew* that the Chinese wouldn't dare go toe to toe with American might, he ignored anything that said otherwise. And when a million screaming "volunteers" came pouring over the border, we were in the suck.
2ID ended up being the rear guard for 8th Army, and their engineer battalion ended up being the rear guard for the division. From the army.mil official site, "By the end of the battle, the battalion was down to only 266 out of 977 men authorized." That's just over 72% casualties. The Battalion S2 was acting as the Battalion Commander and filling all the roles of the Battalion staff; the CO, XO, S1, S3, S4 and all the company commanders were gone.
Ahead of the Engineers in the withdrawl was Division Artillery, but not all of them made it out of the encirclement before dark. One battalion got cut off and over-run, losing all of its guns and suffering 50%+ killed. A private first class named Charlie Rangel (yes, him) found himself leading the escape and evasion of 40 or so refugees from the unit cross-country back to US lines. He was wounded and later received the Bronze Star with V for his work.
Anyway, that's part of the story of part of the quote in my sig line. The long version of the quote from Jerry Pounelle is: "To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you’re all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary." I think it's one of the things that those following this path should remember.
For the history of 2CEB: https://www.usace.army.mil/About/History/Historical-Vignettes/Military-Construction-Combat/017-2d-ECB/