Korea--The Forgotten War: A Son Remembers. Post by Brian Flora.

US Troops, Korea. 

Brian Flora and his wife Kay retired to Oak Park in 2009 after serving at U.S. Embassies around the world during their thirty-plus year Foreign Service careers.  Brian, an Army brat who also served in the Army in Vietnam, quickly became involved in the planning and organization of Oak Park’s Veterans and Memorial Day ceremonies.  These are relatively small events but offer a traditional, thoughtful approach to the ceremonies with patriotic music provided by my husband John and I (aka the History Singers), meaningful historical commentary to honor our veterans, the Oak Park Police Honor Guard posting the Colors, prayers by a uniformed military chaplain, Taps played as wreaths are laid, etc.  In his remarks at the 2023 Veterans Day ceremony, Brian honored our Korean War veterans by describing the service of his father, Marvin Flora.  Marvin fought in Korea for three years with the Second Infantry Division, also known as the Indian Head Division.  In Korea it became the most bloodied U.S. Division since the Civil War era.  I found his comments poignant and felt they should be posted here:

“This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.  Actually, it was technically not a war, but “just” a United Nations police action. On June 25, 1950, the United Nations authorized military action to, quote: “Repel the North Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea and to restore peace and security to the area.” 

 Twenty-one United Nations members contributed combat forces and 55 others contributed non-lethal aid and assistance.  The United States provided by far the largest number of troops and was assigned operational command of the effort.  This “little” police action lasted three years and was a nasty, ugly affair for the 1.8 million U.S. service members who served there.  Around 33,000 were killed in action, another 7,500 have never been accounted for and are presumed to have been killed in action, and over 100,000 were wounded badly enough to require hospitalization. 

 The Korean conflict receives little attention these days and is viewed in contemporary history books more as a Cold War footnote than as a war in which major U.S. military units fought for three years. It is often called the America’s “Forgotten War” or the “Unknown War.” Forgotten, except by those who fought in Korea.  And their families. 

 In the Second World War my father served with distinction for three years with the First Infantry Division, the Big Red One. He made three amphibious landings, including with the first wave onto Omaha Beach.  He had dropped out of his junior year at the University of Illinois after Pearl Harbor so he could serve in the military, and after the war, he decided to stay in the Army and make it his career.  In the summer of 1950, he was an artillery captain stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  Following the North Korean invasion, he was assigned to the Second Infantry Division, the first stateside unit deployed to Korea.  He commanded an artillery battalion n the Division artillery. 

 I was just shy of my fifth birthday, but I still remember the tearful departure from our home in Lawton, Oklahoma.  Mom and Dad and three little children cried.  For three years my Mom was left alone at home with three small children, and she took great care of us.  I was the oldest, aged five, and the man of the family.  

 My Father didn’t want to leave his family, but duty called, and he responded.  In my remarks today, I would like to remember his Korean War service as a way to honor our Korean War veterans, and, more broadly, the service of all our veterans.    

 A little background on Korea in 1950.  At the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union liberated it from Japanese occupation.  It had been one country but was then divided into two occupation zones at the 38^th parallel.  The U.S. helped establish the Republic of Korea in the south, and the Soviets set up the communist Peoples Republic of Korea in the north.

 In June, 1950, the North Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel and attacked South Korea. Their plan was simple: to unify the Korean Peninsula under the communist rule of Kim Il Sung, grandfather of our current Kim.  As noted, the UN authorized the dispatch of forces to clear the North Korean army out of the south.  Korea had become the first hot battleground of the Cold War.  

United Nations forces under American command faced off against more than three million North Korean and Chinese troops, armed and backed by Soviet Russia.  It was a desperate, gruesome back-and-forth border war under terrible conditions, especially in winter.  The brutal weather inspired a book titled “America’s Coldest War.”  Soldiers froze to death in their foxholes.  Those who fought there would vividly remember the cold and the horror of the war for the rest of their lives.

Now, my Dad’s story.  As I said, hostilities began in June 1950 when the North Korean People’s Army launched a fierce invasion of the South.  They took the South Korean capital Seoul and quickly crushed the South Korean Army, which fled southward.  My Dad’s Second Infantry Division shipped out in July landed at Pusan, a besieged enclave on the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula.  It was the only part of South Korea still controlled by UN forces. The Second Division was first American unit to reach Korea directly from the United States and was committed piecemeal to the defense of the shrinking Pusan perimeter. There was a good chance that they would be driven into the sea.

The Division’s first big test came when the North Korean People’s Army began a series of sixteen successive human wave night attacks in August. These attacks stretched the outnumbered Second Division to its limits. Dad said the Division’s cooks, clerks, band members and technical and supply personnel picked up M-1 rifles and joined in the fight to defend against the human wave assaults.    

He remembered that enemy would announce their attacks, which usually began around midnight, with eerie, spine-chilling noises.  The night erupted in a weird, crazy din of bugle calls, drums, whistles, gongs, and wild screaming as the North Koreans sought to unnerve the UN forces and disguise the target of their thrusts.  Dad admitted that he and his soldiers were definitely unnerved by the noise as they awaited the inevitable attacks. Nobody got a good night’s sleep, to say the least.

Anyway, in late September the reinforced UN forces counterattacked. The Second Division spearheaded the UN breakout from the Pusan Perimeter and headed north.  This was to support General Douglas MacArthur’s daring amphibious landing behind enemy lines at Inchon, on the northwest coast of Korea.  The Second Division led the Eighth Army’s general offensive all the way up the Korean Peninsula.  The North Korean army, hit from the north and south, crumbled. 

The UN offensive took back Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and continued across the 38th Parallel deep into North Korea.  It captured the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and closed in on the Chinese border.  This proved to be a major strategic miscalculation on the part of the supreme allied commander, General Douglas MacArthur.  The advance toward the Chinese border provoked a massive, but undetected, Chinese military build-up along its border with North Korea.

Things began to go very wrong.  As fall segued into winter, North Korean army resistance unexpectedly stiffened, thanks to the growing, but somehow undetected, involvement of the Chinese People’s Army.  Finally, the Chinese launched a massive and very well implemented surprise attack in late November, and the outnumbered UN forces retreated in desperation toward South Korea. 

The Second Division was assigned the "mission impossible" of protecting the rear and flank of the Eighth Army as it retreated south in what is known as the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River.  It was the last major unit to pull out of the line. To make matters worse, the battle was fought during one of the coldest Korean winters on record, with temperatures frequently dropping to as low as minus 30 F.  Because the UN planners had optimistically believed that the war would be over before winter, there was a severe shortage of winter clothing. The Division was hit from all sides. 

In what Dad said was his most harrowing memory of the war, they had to fight their way south through what came to be known as "The Gauntlet," a series of Chinese roadblocks, six miles long, where they were constantly mortared and machine-gunned from both sides of the withdrawal route.  Dad was a battalion commander in the Division’s 38th Field Artillery Regiment which was assigned to hold the line and cover the Division's pull-out with a massive barrage of artillery.  Surrounded on three sides, it suffered heavy casualties.  Some elements were overrun.  It was the last unit to try to break out through the Gauntlet and was butchered in the process.  One battalion lost every one of its guns and vehicles.  Survivors went out on foot.  In the process, the 38^th Field Artillery lost most of its guns and vehicles. Several batteries had all their gunners killed or captured.  But their sacrifices allowed the Second Division, and the rest of the Eighth Army to continue the retreat, during which the Second Division lost over 4,000 men, a full third of the force they had started with.  My Dad made it through the ordeal rattled, but unwounded. Many of his friends didn’t.

The Division, which was declared “unfit for combat,” received replacements and was refitted and re-equipped.  Meanwhile, the Chinese pressed their attack and recaptured Seoul.  The Second Division played a key role in blunting their advance.  The UN established a defensive line and counterattacked to reclaim lost South Korean territory and the capital.  Fighting raged throughout the winter and spring of 1951. 

In August, the Second Division was ordered to attack a series of ridges that were needed to consolidate the UN line. These actions would devolve into the furious battles, now largely forgotten, of Bloody Ridge, the Iron Triangle, Pork Chop Hill, Heartbreak Ridge, and Baldy Hill.  The Division again suffered heavy losses, but the ridges were taken.  An armed and bloody stalemate ensued for the next two years as cease-fire talks, which had begun in July 1950, dragged on.  Fighting continued, and the stalemate was constantly punctuated by aggressive patrols, surprise attacks, and counterattacks. 

Finally, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July, 27 1953, and the Second Infantry Division withdrew to positions south of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.  It was redeployed to the United States in early 1954, more than three years after it had arrived.

For the record, at the beginning of its deployment to Korea, the Division started with around 16,000 effectives.  It suffered 7,094 combat deaths, the highest total among any U.S. Division since the Civil War.  No U.S. Infantry Division in either of the two World Wars suffered as many casualties.

For Dad, the Korean War was a tough, miserable, emotionally draining three years.  It took him away from Mom, me and my brother and sister.  During the war, I remember my mother crying at night when she didn’t think we were watching. It was a hard time for the whole family, including Dad.

On this Veterans Day, I lift my hat to our Korean War veterans, and to all of our veterans.  And their families.  Thank you for your service.” 

Brian Flora

"My dad being promoted to Major in Korea."