795.00/1–1951
Memorandum by Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
After his return from Cabinet meeting today, the Secretary told Mr. Jessup, Mr. Matthews, Mr. Nitze, Mr. Merchant and me about the report which General Collins and General Vandenberg had made on their recent trip to the Far East.1
He said that General Collins visited all Corps Headquarters. He saw and talked to the Commanders of most divisions, including the Turks and the British. One of the General’s primary missions was to get an idea of the morale of the forces and of General Ridgway’s plan for action.
General Collins reported that the morale of the troops was pretty good. He said there was considerable fight in the Eighth Army and the concern felt back here for them was unjustified. The General reported that the morale of all the troops except the South Koreans was pretty good. He said the French were doing an excellent job and the British and others were in fine shape. He said that the South Koreans were in better shape than anticipated. He said they were not very reliable fighting people, however, and were terrified of the Chinese. He said that they simply broke and ran when the Chinese Communists attacked and were in absolute terror of them. The General said that they were all right in engagements with the North Koreans but had a great psychological fear of the Chinese.
The General said that the South Koreans were beginning to wonder and question what would happen to them if the UN withdrew. He said that they had a dread of being left behind if the UN troops withdrew. The General said that if there were moves to evacuate, we must make a very clear statement that we intend to take South Koreans out also. He stressed that a mere statement was not sufficient but that we must also do something and do it immediately. We must evacuate some ROK troops first and not leave any until the last, which might give them the impression of being abandoned by their allies.
The General said that the morale of our troops was satisfactory and the trend was toward improvement rather than a worsening of morale. While this applied largely to the US forces, it was true to some extent of the others.
The General reported that General Ridgway has taken over with [Page 103] great confidence and energy. He said that General Ridgway was doing a magnificient job and was seen at the Front by his men in difficult times, etc. General Collins felt this had contributed to the morale of our forces.
With regard to the military situation, General Collins said that our position on the west end of the line was very strong. He said that a reconnaissance in force had been made to find out who was where, and how determined they were. No resistance was encountered until they reached the crossroad between Suwon and Wonju. There were brushes there but no indication that the enemy wanted to fight it out there. Apparently the enemy is massing in the center of the line. So far only North Koreans have come at us.
The General reported that the west end of the line was the best tank country in Korea. This contributes to our strength in that position.
The General said they did not look for much trouble at the extreme eastern end of the line. The only roadway on the coast is subject to air attack. It was not believed that this area would be a major source of trouble.
General Ridgway thinks that the Chinese Communists could not force us on the West, and could only flank us in the center which he is doing his best to prevent. He has selected several successive points to which our forces could be withdrawn. In General Ridgway’s opinion there will be no need for an evacuation for three months. General MacArthur has pointed out that if General Ridgway is right, it will require all of our forces to hold and that we cannot ask him to hold subject to his responsibility for defending Japan. In order to do [so?] it is necessary that he be reenforced in Japan. It was indicated that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are working on this.
The General said that the lines to which it was proposed we retreat were not in the valley where originally planned. General Ridgway thought this a more disadvantageous place for us to operate than for the Chinese Communists to operate. He prefers coming further back and setting a series of points which he would hold with North [non-] Korean troops. The South Korean troops would then be used as fillers between these points. The General favors keeping the forces in these command positions at specific points rather than stringing them along a line. If there is a break-through between the points, we would then try to consolidate around the break-through.
Mr. Acheson asked, in the present situation of the Eighth Army, to what extent we were handicapping the army in not letting them attack beyond Korean borders. Mr. Acheson asked that both General Collins and General Vandenberg reply to this question.
[Page 104]General Collins said that this was not a limitation of any importance.
General Vandenberg agreed and said that the line of communications was long enough for us to “work over” and that we were causing serious logistic trouble to the Chinese Communists, as evidenced by the present lull. General Vandenberg said that it would be good to go to the source of the supplies but that going to Manchuria alone would not be sufficient. He said we would have to go to Russian territory and mentioned Vladivostok particularly. He said he was not in any sense urging that we do this.
General Vandenberg said he wanted to talk about reconnaissance in the north. He said that Dean Rusk had asked whether the dams in the north could be knocked out. He said he had flown over the dam in the extreme north and had seen it from fairly close range. He said it was an enormous solid concrete structure. It was approximately 200 feet in width at the top and much wider at the base. He said the Air Force had dropped one bomb on the dam (Mr. Acheson thought the bomb was a 10,000 [lb.] type) and that it had had practically no effect. The General said that any operation against these dams would be very difficult.
He said that he had flown over the area from Wonju north. It had snowed three days before his trip but had not snowed since that time; nevertheless, there was no sign of any life, any footprints, any wheel-prints, or any sign of movement. The roads which he saw were secondary roads and there was no traffic of any kind on them. The General thought this meant that the troops had taken to the hills, although he saw no signs of smoke from chimneys or any signs of life anywhere in the area, which is the central part of Korea going north.
With regard to possible evacuation, General Ridgway stressed the importance of having absolutely no talk about it. He said it would be very embarrassing to have any effort to move out or prepare to move out prior to the time that any such decision was made.
The Secretary said either General Ridgway or General MacArthur (he could not remember which) had talked about the Republic of Korea forces. The General had pointed out that if you want to maintain the morale of the ROK forces, it was essential that their dependents be moved if the forces were evacuated. It was estimated that if you move the forces, the Government, the police, and some civilians, you had over 300,000 people. You might get up as high as 800,000 to one million by evacuating dependents. General MacArthur feels that this should be a UN job. However, since it is impossible to talk about any evacuation, it is difficult to see how it can be lined up at this time.
With regard to the island south of Korea which has been the subject of some consideration as a possible evacuation point, it was pointed out that there was a serious problem with the water supply on the [Page 105] island. There are already 250,000 people on the island and it would be impossible to take anything like 800,000 more. It was also pointed out that in any evacuation of this size, there would have to be a staging operation, due to the shipping shortage, and that the evacuees probably would have to be taken to Japan for onward movement.
With regard to prisoners of war, General MacArthur considers it a sign of weakness not to return them to the US. The Secretary said this was a sign of weakness which, if it got to the point of evacuation, we would have to show. He said the thought now was to take the prisoners of war to an island near the shore and then, if we withdrew, simply leave them there and notify the Koreans of the action. They could then move back into Korea but not soon enough to be a threat to our security there.
In their report General Collins and General Vandenberg said the roads were crowded with refugees to an almost unbelievable extent. They said that we may have as many as two million in our bridgehead if we should withdraw. They said that the refugees were coming down into our area at an ever-increasing rate. Some effort was being made to direct them to the southwest, but without much luck. The refugees feared the Chinese Communists and were equally afraid of the bombing which they expected the US to do as retreat came near. Some of the refugees are probably dependents of the troops and would be included in the estimate of 800,000. Many others are not, and it is difficult to separate them.
The Secretary suggested that a meeting be arranged with General Collins and General Vandenberg to go into all these matters in more detail.
- For an account by General Collins of the trip, see J. Lawton Collins. War in Peacetime: The History and Lessons of Korea (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), pp. 253–255.↩