Retrospect on The Battle of Taejon with Regret for The Sacrifice of 24th U.S. Army Division

Here I would like to review the battle progress generally acquired on internet and retrospectively comment my tactic or action different from the one General Dean or his subordinate commander for the situation, based on the leadership perspectives. But my comment is idealistically figured out without any limitation and life threatening pressure just on my desk.

If past practice including Osan, Cheonan, Pyongtaek & Kum River Battles signified anything for the future, the North Koreans would advance against Taejon frontally with a one or two divisional force strong enough to pin down the defenders and attack first with tanks in an effort to demoralize the defenders. Thus far, their tanks had led every advance, and nothing had been able to stop them. While this frontal action developed, strong flanking forces would be moving to the rear to cut off the main escape routes. This North Korean maneuver had been standard in every major action.

In any deployment of his forces against the North Koreans in front of Taejon, the 24^th US Army Divisional Commander, General Dean, faced the fact that he had only a battalion size of remnants of three defeated regiments of 21st Infantry, 34th Infantry and 19th Infantry. In addition to numerical weakness, all the troops were tired, and their morale was not the best. General Dean braced himself for the task ahead. He himself was as worn as his troops for the past two weeks he had faced daily crises and had pushed himself to the limit.

General Walker spoke General Dean of the 1st Cavalry Division landing which had started that morning at Pohang-dong on the southeast coast. Walker said he would like to hold Taejon until the 1st Cavalry Division could move up to help in its defense at the mountain passes of southeast of Taejon. He said General Dean he needed two more days to accomplish this tactic. The General Walker addressed General Dean of his Battle Purpose and Mission in terms of Place and Time Importance. He commissioned the authority to carry out his mission to General Dean. Now the implementation of his tactic and its result was entirely dependent on Dean’s shoulder. 

This conference changed Dean's plan to withdraw from Taejon on the next day, 19 July 1950. Shortly after noon, Dean informed the headquarters of the 21st Infantry that the withdrawal from Taejon planned for the 19th would be delayed for 24 hours. The regiment passed this information on to the engineer demolition teams standing by at the Secheon tunnels at the outlet of the city. General Dean instructed, without hesitation, of the most urgent target with priority and he addressed of the mission changed toward his forces.   

The highway net can be visualized readily if one imagines Taejon as being the center of a clock dial. Five main routes of approach came into the city. The main rail line and a secondary road ran almost due south from the Kum River to it. On this approach, 3 miles north of the city, a platoon of I Company, 34th Infantry, established a road and rail block. From the east at 4 o'clock, the main Pusan highway entered the city, and astride it at some 6 miles eastward, the 21st Infantry held a defensive blocking position in front of Okch'on with the regimental command post in that town. There were two railroad and two highway tunnels(Secheon & Jeungyak) between Taejon and Okch'on. One of each of them was between Taejon and the 21st Infantry position. From the south, the Kumsan road(present National Road 5) entered Taejon at 5 o'clock. General Dean had the Reconnaissance Company at Kumsan to protect and warn the division of any enemy movement from that direction in its rear. At 8 o'clock, the Nonsan road(present National Road 4) from the southwest slanted into the Seoul-Pusan highway a mile west of the city. Astride this road at 3 miles southwest of Taejon, a platoon of L Company, 34th Infantry, held a roadblock at the bridge over the Kap-ch'on River(present Gasuwon Bridge near Jeongrim Dike) at the southern end of the 34th Infantry defense position. The Seoul highway slanted toward the city from the northwest at 10 o'clock, and of all approaches it had to be considered the most important. At the western edge of Taejon (700 yards from the densely built-up section) where the Nonsan road joined it(present West Taejon Station), the highway(present National Road 32) turned east to enter the city. The Taejon airstrip lay on a little plateau north of the road two miles from the city. A mile in front of the airstrip the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, was in battle position astride the highway at Hill 138(present Wolpyong Park) just east of the Kapch'on River. A mile farther west, B Company occupied an advanced position. In regard of his determination of defense periphery, he had to consider size of enemy forces and strength. He had to fight off, at minimum, two(2) divisions of North Korean Forces with his regimental size of weakened division. If he dispatched his forces into the Okchon mountain ridges rather than wide city boundary of Taejon, he could advantageously utilize geographical barrier of Madal mountain ridge and valley to hinder North Korean tanks movement and maintain radio communication well in his forces closely linked. In comparison with the battle of Jipyong-ni where one American Regiment fought off six(6) divisions of Chinese Army in Feb. 1951, the periphery of Taejon Defense looks too big to defend.     

Behind the 1st Battalion, a mile and a half away, the 3d Battalion, 34th Infantry, held a ridge(near present Namseon Park) east of the airfield and between it and the city. The composite battalion of artillery supporting the infantry was emplaced at the airfield where it could fire on the expected avenues of enemy approach. This defense of the airfield was meaningless to hold because of vulnerable location and logistic purpose. Consequently, it was too risky to dispatch his artillery and automatic weapons and reserve battalion near it vulnerable to be overwhelmed by enemy tanks.

In the afternoon of 18 July, General Dean went to the 24th Division command post at Yongdong and there in the evening, he took steps to bolster the defense of Taejon for an extra day as desired by General Walker. He ordered the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, to move back to Taejon from Yongdong and B Battery of the 13th Field Artillery Battalion to return to the Taejon airstrip from the vicinity of Okch'on. At the same time, he ordered the Reconnaissance Company to be released from division control and attached to the 34th Infantry Regiment. Up to this time, the Reconnaissance Company had been based at Kumsan. The division ordered the Reconnaissance Company being released to regimental control, to move to Taejon on the next day. His purpose in releasing it to Colonel Beauchamp's command, was to ensure the 34th Infantry getting direct and immediate information as to conditions on its southern flank. He reinforced Taejon defense to call one Battalion of 19 Regiment & one Battery of 13 Field Artillery just pulled back to Regiment Command Post in Okchon. But it’s questionable to bring the artillery battery into a downtown of Taejon in regard of safety of heavy equipment and fire range that could fully cover Taejon Boundary from Okchon. Though General Dean tried to strengthen intelligence of the 34^th Regiment, releasing his Reconnaissance Company stationed southward in Kumsan to the Regimental Commander in the city. Consequently it should be stationed Okchon as before under General Command to monitor the enemy infiltration through the southern city passage.    

General Dean also discussed again with Colonel Stephens, the role of the 21st Infantry in the next few days. It was to keep open the withdrawal road out of Taejon. Stephens pointed out that his troops were astride that road(present national Road 4) and on the hills between Taejon and Okch'on and asked if he should change their disposition. General Dean answered no that he did not want that done as he also feared an enemy penetration behind his Taejon position from the east through the ROK Army area there and he had to guard against it. Dean decided that the 21st Infantry should stay where it was but patrol the terrain north of the Taejon-Okch'on road and send patrols periodically up the road into Taejon. General intended to secure safety of supply and retreat route between Taejon and Okchon, ordering the rear battalion to patrol the road from Okchon to Taejon South, but he could not effectively address the task and critical area of the battalion and the importance of their role. The 21^st Infantry should approach more northward to the Sechon Tunnel which was easily blocked by enemy. 

General Dean had left Taejon on that morning in 19 July 1950 intending to go briefly to Yongdong Divisional Command Post. On the way, he stopped at the 21st Infantry Command Post at Okch'on. There, he said suddenly at about 1000 that he was worried about the disposition of the 34th Infantry and was going back to Taejon. When he arrived there, action already had started at the L Company(34^th Infantry Regiment) roadblock on the Nonsan road. The battle of Taejon had begun. Dean stayed in Taejon during the battle on all day long 19 Jul 1950. General Dean tried to lead his forces by a courageous example in time of encountering enemy tanks demonstrated himself at the battlefield. But he should did pull off from the battle front, considering the overall battle progress and possible risk of overrun of the defense line of 34^th Infantry.  

After completing its crossing at Kongju, the N.K. 4th Division split its forces for a two-pronged attack on Taejon. The bulk of the division, comprising the 16th and 18th Infantry Regiments, the Artillery Regiment, and most of the tanks, went south to Nonsan and there turned east toward Taejon. Some of the infantry of these regiments may have moved south out of Nonsan in a wheeling movement through Kumsan to the rear of Taejon. Others apparently moved across back country trails to strike the Kumsan road south of and below Taejon. The 5th Infantry Regiment, supported by one tank company, left Kongju on the secondary road, running southeast through a mountainous area to Yusong, and apparently was the first enemy unit to arrive at the outskirts of Taejon. The intelligence of these enemy movements might not be available at that time due to absence of the intelligence unit on the south inlet, but they should fully consider North Korean tactics to cut off and surround preferable at the most critical point as like Sechon Tunnel of Okchon Hill.  If North Korean’s coordinated attack could be targeted on the Okchon Hill, the defense periphery could be adjusted to be decreased, abandoning the city and following Cholla-do Provice, to preserve the force and to delay the North Korean Advance, though General Walker wished him to resist in the city.

At 1000, after the 24th Reconnaissance Company had arrived at Taejon, Colonel Beauchamp sent its 2d Platoon consisting of thirty-nine men to the southwest along the Nonsan road. Half an hour later, three miles west of the Kap-ch'on River(present Jinjam-dong near West Taejon IC), enemy fire struck the patrol from both sides of the road. It withdrew to the river and there joined the platoon of L Company on the east bank of the stream. The remainder of L Company arrived and deployed.

The 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, arrived at Taejon from Yongdong about this time, just after noon. By 1300, Colonel McGrail, the battalion commander, had the unit ready to move out at the railroad station. There, he received an order saying the North Koreans were breaking through L Company's blocking position at the Kap-ch'on River and he was to attack there immediately and restore the position(near hills of Dosol Mountain). When he arrived at the scene of fighting, McGrail found General Dean there with two tanks, directing fire.

McGrail's battalion attacked immediately with two companies abreast astride the Nonsan road, E on the left (south) and F on the right (north). On the right, an enemy force was in the act of enveloping the north flank of L Company, 34th Infantry. F Company raced this enemy force for possession of critical high ground, taking and holding it in the ensuing fight. On the left, E Company moved up at south of the road, and G Company occupied a hill position(near the present Kubong Mountain around the present West Taegu IC) in a mile behind it. Even, with the newly arrived battalion now deployed covering the Nonsan road, there was still a mile-wide gap of high ground between it and the left of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, to the north(present Wolpyung Park).

Co-ordinated with the North Korean advance along the Nonsan was an enemy approach on the main Seoul highway. There, in the Yusong area(around the present Kaeryong Hot Spa Station), B Company of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, came under heavy attack. Enemy flanking parties cut off two platoons half a mile north of Yusong. In the fighting, there both platoon leaders were wounded and several men killed. Colonel Ayres from his observation post at east of the Kapch'on River could see large groups of North Koreans assembling and artillery going into position in the little valley northwest of Yusong. He directed artillery fire and called in air strikes on these concentrations. In the afternoon, he requested and received authority from Colonel Beauchamp to withdraw B Company from its exposed position at Yusong to the main battalion position back of the Kap-ch'on River(present Galma-dong near Wolpyung Park). The company successfully withdrew in the evening.

Meanwhile, just before noon, the North Koreans began shelling the Taejon airstrip(in the present Dunsan-dong) with counterbattery fire. This fire coming from the north and northwest built up to great intensity during the afternoon. It should be noticed North Korean utilized their artillery regiment far powerful than 24^th US Army Division, so it should be identified and eliminated by superior air fire in the initial phase at far north. This North Korean artillery power might impact greatly to terrorize psychologically the 21st US Infantry Battalion Troopers along the hills and enabled their huge infantry forces to overrun the US line.    

By early afternoon, Colonel Ayres was convinced that a major enemy attack was impending. At 1400, he recommended to Colonel Beauchamp that the regiment withdraw that night. Beauchamp rejected this, thinking they could hold the enemy out of Taejon another day and he so told by General Dean. After dark, however, Beauchamp moved his 34th Infantry command post from the airfield into Taejon(near present Chungmu Stadium between West Daejon Crossroad and Indong Crossroad on Kaeryong Road). At the same time, all the supporting artillery displaced from the airfield to positions on the south edge of the city. If Regiment Commander felt the risk as his 1st Battalion couldn’t resist when the 1^st Battalion Commander reported him to wish withdrawing, he had to identify enemy power developed around the 1^st Battalion and sought any measure immediately to reinforce the battalion defense line if not permitted to retreat. He could utilize the reserve battalion closely displaced by the air strip and increase artillery fires toward enemy approach. But at that critical time, he ordered to move the artillery to the south edge of the city that no supporting fires were given to the 1st Battalion.  The Battalion Commander, otherwise, might ask strongly Regimental Commander to reinforce his defense line with the enemy information or justified with urgent harm to retreat for the next stage resistance.      

As darkness fell, Colonel Ayres ordered his motor officer to move the 1st Battalion vehicles into Taejon. He did not want to run the risk of losing them during a night attack.

On the left of the defense position(presumably near the present Medical College of Keonyang University), F Company of the 19th Infantry had been under attack all afternoon. After dark, men, there, heard noises on their right flank and it became apparent that enemy soldiers were moving into and possibly through the mile-wide gap between them and the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry.

At his command post, Colonel Ayres at about 2200 heard the rumble of tanks on his right. He sent a patrol out to investigate. It never reported back. Ayres telephoned Beauchamp and told him he thought enemy troops were moving around the city and again recommended him of withdrawal.

Before midnight, a report came into the 34th Infantry command post that an enemy unit was six miles south of Taejon on the Kumsan road. With nine members of the 24th Reconnaissance Company, 1st Lt. George W. Kristanoff started down the road on a jeep patrol to investigate. Six miles below Taejon(near the present Sangseo-dong), an enemy roadblock stopped them. Kristanoff reported the beginning of the action by radio. At 0300, 20 July, a platoon of the Reconnaissance Company drove cautiously out of Taejon down the same road to check on security. Enemy fire stopped the platoon at the same roadblock. There platoon members saw the bodies of several men of the earlier patrol and their four destroyed jeeps. A little earlier at 0300, word had come into Taejon that a jeep had been ambushed on the Okch'on road(presumably at the present Sangseo-dong on the present National Road 17).

It would seem clear from these incidents that enemy units were moving around to the rear of Taejon during the night-in just what strength might only be guessed. But for reasons that cannot now be determined, these events were not so evaluated at the time of their occurrence. General Dean did learn of the jeep incidents on the Okch'on road but dismissed it as the work of a few infiltrators and of no special importance because the road subsequently seemed to be clear. It could be a critical mistake, though no body could not easily blame for in midst of battle confusion, by General Dean and General Beauchamp to deal with the enemy presence along the rear of Taejon South Outlet in terms of the imminent threat of enemy encirclement. If one of the generals could acknowledge its development significance and take action to protect the Okchon road and rearrange the defense line up to the Sechon Tunnel, the decimation of his division could be minimized at least.

Shortly after 0300, 20 July, the S-2 of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, who since dark had remained in the battalion forward observation post, ran into Colonel Ayres' command post and said that the North Koreans had overrun the observation post and penetrated the battalion main line of resistance. Ayres has said that this was his first knowledge of the enemy's general attack. He could now hear small arms fire to the front and right and see flares bursting at many points over the battalion position. There seemed to be no action on the battalion left in C Company's position.

The enemy attack, infantry and armor, came down both sides of the highway and rolled up the battalion right flank. Other enemy infantry attacked from the north against this flank. The North Koreans penetrated to the 81-mm. and 4.2-inch mortar positions behind the rifle companies and then struck Headquarters Company(in Galma-dong). It should be shame for the frontline rifle infantry not to protect or to inform, at least, the mortar comrades of evacuation request. 

About 0400, small arms fire hit the Korean house in which the 1st Battalion command post was located and riflemen from the overrun front line began coming into the Headquarters Company area. Ayres tried and failed to communicate with his front line companies. He sent a message to the regimental headquarters that tanks had penetrated his position and were headed toward the city. There is some evidence that the infantry bazooka teams abandoned their positions along the road when the attack began and rifle companies certainly did not fight long in place. It should be emphasized that how important is the leadership of a battalion commander in that urgent situation. If he addressed every company commanders of the importance to hold the resisting lines, addressed bazooka teams of keep fighting off tanks until the next order. He could encourage them not to fear of isolation or of abandonment but to keep resisting with the hope to be reinforced with friendly reinforcements he was asking. He could, also, instruct any contingency plan for his men to assemble or retreat orderly.       

In the growing confusion that spread rapidly, Ayres decided to evacuate the command post. Maj. Leland R. Dunham, the battalion executive officer, led about 200 men from the Heavy Mortar Company, the Heavy Weapons Company, and the 1st Battalion Headquarters southward from the Yudong valley away from the sound of enemy fire. Colonel Ayres and his S-3 followed behind the others. Day was dawning.

Major Dunham, on reaching the road with this group, met and talked briefly there with Colonel McGrail(19th Infantry) who told him he had had reports that enemy tanks had cut that road into Taejon. Upon hearing this, Dunham led his party across the road into the mountains. When Ayres reached the road, enemy machine gun fire was raking it and the bridge over the Yudung.  Ayres led his party under the bridge, waded the shallow stream, and followed the main group into the mountains(presumably Bomun Mountain) southward. These two parties of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, united on high ground south of Taejon about an hour before noon. Even earlier, the rifle companies of the battalion, for the most part, had scattered into these mountains.

What had happened at the command post of the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry. Simply this, believing that the enemy had cut him off from Taejon, Colonel McGrail decided to move his command post to high ground south of the Nonsan road. He instructed E Company to fall back and then his radio failed. McGrail and his battalion staff thereupon abandoned the command post shortly before noon and climbed the mountain south of Taejon(presumably the present Bomun Mountain). Already F Company had given way and was withdrawing into the hills.

Soon not a single unit of the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, was in its battle position west of Taejon. Nearest to the city, G Company was the last to leave its place. From his hill position, Captain Barszcz, the company commander, had seen enemy tanks two and a half miles away enter Taejon just after daylight and had reported this by radio to Colonel McGrail's headquarters. Later in the morning, he lost radio communication with McGrail. Shortly after noon, Capt. Kenneth Y. Woods, S-3, 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, arrived at G Company's position and gave Captain Barszcz instructions to join the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry group, that had passed him in the morning and headed south, and to withdraw with it. The G Company 60-mm mortars were firing at this time. About 1300, Barszcz issued his orders for the withdrawal. The 3d Platoon was to follow the Weapons Section and bring up the rear.

Except for the small group at the road junction at half a mile west of the city, all the infantry and supporting weapons units of the two battalions in the battle positions west of Taejon had been driven from or had left those positions by 1300. All of them could have come into Taejon on the Nonsan road. Instead, nearly all of them crossed this road approximately two miles west of the city and went south into the mountains(presumably to the side of Taejon Memorial Park of Bomun Mountain).

     Taejon District Battle and the monument of the UN for Taejon Battle

In Taejon, Colonel Beauchamp received Ayres' report that enemy tanks were in the 1st Battalion position. Later, telephone communication to the 1st Battalion ended and Beauchamp sent linemen out to check the wires. They came back and said they could not get through because enemy infantry were on the road near the airfield. The regimental S-3 did not believe this report. Beauchamp went to his jeep and started down the road toward the 1st Battalion command post to find out for himself just what the situation was. At the road junction(the present West Taejon Cross Road near West Taejon Station) at half a mile west of Taejon, where the main Seoul highway comes in from the northwest to join the Nonsan road, an enemy tank suddenly loomed up out of the darkness. The tank fired its machine gun just as Beauchamp jumped from his jeep; one bullet grazed him, others set the vehicle afire. Beauchamp crawled back some hundreds of yards until he found a 3.5-inch bazooka team. He guided it back to the road junction. This bazooka team from C Company, 3d Engineer Combat Battalion, set the enemy tank on fire with rockets and captured the crew members.

When Beauchamp returned to his command post after his encounter with the enemy tanks, he found that there was still no communication with the 1st Battalion. A little later, however, a regimental staff officer told him radio communication with the battalion had been re-established and that it reported its condition as good. It was learned afterward that the 1st Battalion had no communication with the regiment after Ayres reported the enemy penetration of his position. The only plausible explanation of this incident is that North Koreans used Colonel Ayres' captured radio jeep to send a false report to the regiment. While the Regiment Commander was spending time to connect the communication line with the 1^st Battalion Command Post and struggling to fight against the infiltrating North Korean Tanks in the morning of July 20, 1950, the west and north main defense lines were completely penetrated, and this situation was not identified or reported. In the early dawn at around 4 a.m., any action to support the falling 1^st Battalion could not be organized by the commander. If he ordered the 3^rd Reserve Battalion to reinforce the line, the results of battle could be different.  After 4 a.m., most of survived troopers fled unorderly southward as a wholesale withdraw into the mountainous area.    

Disturbed by reports of enemy penetrations of the regimental defense position, Colonel Beauchamp, after daylight, ordered the 3d Battalion to attack into the gap between the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry. On the road leading to the airfield, it had a sharp encounter with an enemy force. Six T34 tanks and an estimated battalion of enemy infantry scattered part of the troops. The entire force withdrew to its former 3d Battalion position(present Namseon-dong Park). It was too late and wrong for the Colonel Beauchamp to order the 3^rd Battalion attacking the gap actually not existed as the 1^st Battalion was already collapsed. 

A peculiar incident had occurred, however, which no one in the battalion could explain. The battalion commander, Major Lantron, disappeared. Lantron got into his jeep about 0930, drove off from his command post and simply did not return. Colonel Wadlington learned of Lantron's disappearance about 1100 when he visited the 3d Battalion. In Lantron's absence, Wadlington ordered Capt. Jack E. Smith to assume command of the battalion. Some weeks later it was learned that Lantron was a prisoner in North Korea. It was unacceptable too for the battalion commander to be out of his position without any communication or emergency contact.   

The pre-dawn attack against the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, the first tank approaches to the edge of Taejon, and the subsequent North Korean repulse of the K and M Companies'(3^rd Battalion) attack force near the airfield apparently were carried out by the 5th Regiment, N.K. 4th Division, together with its attached armored support. This regiment claims to have captured the Taejon airfield by 0400, 20 July. But after these spectacular successes which started the wholesale withdrawal of the 1st Battalion from its positions west of the city, the enemy force apparently halted and waited for certain developments elsewhere. This probably included completion of the enveloping maneuver to the rear of the city.

Neither Colonel Beauchamp nor his executive officer, at the time, knew of the North Korean repulse of the K and M Company attack force that was supposed to close the gap between the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry.

About the time when this event was taking place near the airfield, Colonel Beauchamp told General Dean of his early morning experience with tanks at the edge of the city, and Dean also was informed erroneously that the 1st Battalion was holding in its original battle positions.  General Dean was reported of the wrong battle intelligence by the Regimental Commander in charge of the fighting forces so he could not make right decision and instruct orders to tackle with the changed situations.

General Dean and his aide, Lieutenant Clarke, had awakened about 0530 to the sound of small arms fire. As Clarke made the bed rolls, he remarked to General Dean, "I don't think we'll sleep here again tonight." The general agreed. Sometime later, an enemy tank passed close to the 34th Infantry command post(in the present Willow Apartment in Yuchon-dong) and headed west out of the city. General Dean immediately started in pursuit of this tank accompanied by two 2.36-inch rocket launcher teams.

General Dean's personal pursuit of enemy tanks in Taejon was calculated to inspire his men to become tank killers. He was trying to sell to his shaky troops, the idea that "an unescorted tank in a city defended by infantry with 3.5-inch bazookas should be a dead duck."

The movements of large bodies of men on the Kumsan road toward Taejon in the early afternoon of 20 July actually were seen at close hand by Colonel Ayres, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, but he could not get the information to the men in the city. Just before noon, on the mountain(Bomun) southwest of Taejon, he had turned over command of the approximately 150 men of the battalion with him to the executive officer, Major Dunham, with instructions to take them down to the Kumsan road three miles south of Taejon(near present Seongbul Temple in Daebyul-dong) and there establish a blocking position to protect the rear of Taejon. If Colonel Ayres tried to communicate with General Deans or Regimental Commander Beauchamp, and to dispatch a messenger down to  downtown to search for the Generals, then the last chance could be given to General Dean and his forces could prevent or mitigate the massacre taken placed in Okchon Road. But the battalion commander retreated in mountain did not challenge to communicate with his commander for the frontline progress very critical to his division safety.    

About 400 yards short of the Kumsan road Ayres' party encountered North Korean soldiers on the hillside. They also saw an estimated battalion of enemy troops march north toward Taejon along the Kumsan road below them. That night the group escaped.

When he returned to the 34th Infantry command post after stalking and destroying the tank in the center of Taejon, General Dean joined Colonel Beauchamp for a lunch of cooked C ration. They discussed the situation, which did not seem particularly alarming to them at the time. It would be difficult to find a parallel to the bizarre situation that the two commanders quietly eating their late lunch in the belief that their combat forces were still in battle position a mile or two west of the city, while actually the two battalions were scattered in the hills, completely ineffective for any defense of Taejon. Except for a few scattered enemy infiltrators, snipers in Taejon, the city was quiet. During the conversation, Dean told Beauchamp that instead of waiting for dark as they had planned earlier, he wanted him to initiate a daylight withdrawal because the chances would be better of getting the transportation out safely.  The time of this instruction was about 1400.

Colonel Beauchamp immediately set about implementing the order. He instructed Maj. William T. McDaniel, the regimental operations officer, to send messages by radio or telephone to all units to prepare to withdraw. He then wrote out on paper duplicate orders and sent them by runners to the three infantry battalions. There was then no telephone or radio communication with the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, or the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry. The runners, of course, never reached these two battalions. But it appears that neither Dean nor Beauchamp received any report on this. If General Dean could be reminded to order the 21^st Battalion to move further northward to Secheon Tunnel and to set up its firm resistance line for the safe evacuation of the retreating units before North Korean reached, the loss of retreating forces could be mitigated substantially. There were many troopers without any action in the mountains behind Secheon Tunnel. While this disaster was taking place during the evening and night of 20 July just east of Taejon, the 21st Infantry Regiment did not rapidly move from its initial defense positions to remove the Chinese blocks three or four miles away. It was too late then for the 21st Infantry to act in relief of the situation. To have accomplished this, the regiment would have needed an order during the morning to move up to the eastern exit of Taejon and secure it. It was the time when the 34 Regimental Commander did not initiate any reinforcing action or adjusting defense line in situation of the upper part of west defense line of Taejon was falling down,  and the 1^st Battalion Commander could not report of any status hiding in the south mountain. It was also time the 24 Division Commander General Dean was searching for NK tanks, not staying his commanding post.       

The 3d Battalion, 34th Infantry, did receive the withdrawal order. It and the other miscellaneous units in and about the city received the withdrawal instructions about 1500. The planned march order for the movement out of Taejon, gave the 3d Battalion, 34th Infantry to be the lead, followed by the artillery; the Medical Company; the 34th regimental command group; 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry; and last, the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry

About this time a young lieutenant of the 1st Cavalry Division Tank Company arrived in Taejon with P platoon of tanks. Dean expressed, to him, his surprise at seeing him there and asked what had brought him. He replied that he had come in response to his request received at Yongdong from the 34th Infantry for tank escort out of Taejon for administrative vehicles

Several incidents took place shortly after noon that, properly interpreted, should have caused deep alarm in Taejon. There was the urgent telephone call from an artillery observer who insisted on talking to the senior commander present. Beauchamp took the call. The observer reported a large column of troops approaching Taejon from the east. He said he was positive they were enemy soldiers. Now, receiving the report of the artillery observer, Beauchamp, with the erroneous concept in mind, thought the column was the 21st Infantry approaching Taejon to protect the exit from the city. He told the observer the troops were friendly and not to direct fire on them. Events proved that this column of troops almost certainly was not on the Okch'on road but on the Kumsan road southeast of Taejon and was an enemy force.

Later in the afternoon, just after the 1st Cavalry Division platoon of tanks led the first vehicles out toward Yongdong, General Dean received an aerial report through the TACP of a truck column of about twenty vehicles moving north toward Taejon on the Kumsan road. Dean inquired of the 34th Infantry operations officer if they could be friendly and received the reply that they were the 24th Reconnaissance Company and not to direct an air strike on them.

Herbert watched them for a while and decided that they were enemy troops. He then moved his men to a knoll south of the road and into defensive positions already dug there. The enemy force, which Herbert estimated to be in battalion strength, stopped and in turn watched Herbert's force from a distance of about 600 yards. Back of Herbert's knoll position at the southwestern edge of the city was a battery of 155-mm. howitzers. A runner from the battery arrived to ask Herbert about the situation, and Herbert went back with him to talk with the battery commander. At the artillery position, he found howitzers pointing in three different directions but none toward the southwest, where the enemy force had just appeared. Herbert asked that the pieces be changed to fire on the enemy in front of him. The battery commander said he could not change the howitzers without authority from the battalion operations officer. Herbert talked to this officer on the field, telephone but failed to secure his approval to change the howitzers. This fire killed several artillerymen and caused casualties in the infantry group. Herbert sent a runner into Taejon to report and ask for instructions. At the 34th Infantry command post, a group of fifty men was assembled from Headquarters Company and sent back under Lt. William Wygal, S-2 of the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, with instructions to Herbert to hold where he was until the artillery could be evacuated. So Herbert's augmented force exchanged fire with the North Koreans and held them to their ridge position.

General Dean observed this fire fight from the command post and thought it was going well for the American troops. He mistakenly thought, however, that it was McGrail's 2d Battalion troops that were engaged. About this time, Dean walked back from the TACP to the 34th Infantry command post and asked for Colonel Beauchamp. It was about 1700. To his surprise, he was told that no one had seen Beauchamp since about 1500.

What had happened to Beauchamp? About the time the first of the vehicles started to form into convoy at the command post and the tanks from Yongdong led the first of them out of Taejon, Colonel Beauchamp got into his jeep and drove to the southeast edge of the city along the withdrawal route. There he came upon four light tanks of the 24th Reconnaissance Company and ordered the tankers to defend the southeast side of the city and the Okch'on road exit(at Indong Crossroad). Starting back into Taejon, Beauchamp discovered on glancing back that the tanks were leaving their positions. He turned around and caught up with them on the Okch'on road.  But in running after the tanks, he came under enemy small arms fire. After stopping the tanks, Beauchamp decided to climb a nearby knoll and reconnoiter the situation. From this eminence, he saw numerous groups of enemy troops moving across country south of Taejon(around Gao-dong) toward the Okch'on road. Because he had been under fire on the road, he knew that some of them had already arrived there. Knowing that the convoys for the withdrawal were forming and that the first vehicles already had gone through, Beauchamp decided to go on with the two tanks he had with him to the pass four miles east of the city and to organize there a defensive force to hold that critical point on the withdrawal road. At the pass, Beauchamp put the tanks in position and stopped some antiaircraft half-track vehicles mounting quad .50-caliber machine guns as they arrived in the early phase of the withdrawal. Some artillery passed through, and then a company of infantry. Beauchamp tried to flag down the infantry commander's vehicle, intending to stop the company and keep it at the pass. But the officer misunderstood his intent, waved back, and kept on going.

Beauchamp decided that the best thing he could do would be to hurry up its arrival. He drove eastward to the command post of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, and from there, telephoned the 21st Infantry regimental command post in Okch'on. It chanced that General Menoher was there. He instructed Beauchamp to come on into Okch'on and give a detailed report. [54] But again, none of these happenings were known in Taejon.

About 1700 in the afternoon when he discovered that Colonel Beauchamp was not at the command post and that no one there knew where he was, General Dean turned to Colonel Wadlington, the regimental executive officer, and told him to get the withdrawal under way in earnest. Wadlington called in the 3d Platoon of the 24th Reconnaissance Company which had held a position(in Sanso-dong, Chubu-myun) a few miles down the Kumsan road on the north side of the enemy roadblock that had been discovered during the night.

In response to the earlier withdrawal order, Capt. Jack Smith had brought the 3d Battalion, 34th Infantry, in trucks to the designated initial point at the street corner in front of the regimental command post. When he arrived there, Major McDaniel told him that General Dean wanted a perimeter defense established to protect the initial point and to support an attempt to recover a battery of 155-mm. howitzers. Smith unloaded L Company for the perimeter defense and sent the rest of the battalion on to join the convoy that was forming.

By this time, word came back to the command post that enemy small arms fire had knocked out and set afire two or three trucks at the tail end of the first group of vehicles to leave the city, and that they blocked the street at the southeast edge of Taejon. Flames could be seen in that corner of the city, and the sound of small arms fire came from there. Dean then rewrote a radio message to be sent to the 24th Division. It said in effect, "Send armor. Enemy roadblock eastern edge City of Taejon. Signed Dean." Dean directed that the message be sent in the clear.

Dean looked at his watch as he drove out the gate of the command post. It was 1755. Outside in the street, he talked briefly with Wadlington and the senior officers riding the lead vehicles. He told them that very likely they would get sniper fire in the city, but that once outside he thought they would be all right. He instructed that if sniper fire was encountered and the column stopped for any reason, everyone was to dismount and clean out the snipers. It was a few minutes after 1800 when the large, main convoy started to move.

Then the first part of the convoy took a wrong turn through an underpass of the railroad and wound up in the same dead-end schoolyard as had Colonel Wadlington.

After the first part of the convoy took the wrong turn, the remainder kept on the street leading to the Okch'on road. Just outside the city on the Okch'on highway, the convoy encountered enemy mortar fire. A shell hit the lead vehicle and it began to burn. A half-track pushed it out of the way. The convoy started again. Enemy fire now struck the half-track, killed the driver, and started the vehicle burning. Machine gun fire swept the road. Everyone left the vehicles and sought cover in the roadside ditches.

Here at this point of the current Taejon Girl Highschool, the American troopers

gave up their vehicles and fled into the nearby mountain, evacuating on walk to Ock-chon in groups.

Just after dark, an effort was made to break the roadblock from the Okch'on side. When Colonel Beauchamp reached the 21st Infantry command post that afternoon, he told General Menoher of the threatened roadblock. Menoher directed him to take the rifle company that had come through the pass and a platoon of light tanks at the 21st Infantry command post and go back and hold the pass open. Beauchamp took the five tanks and, on the way, picked up approximately sixty men of I Company, 34th Infantry. It was getting dark when the group passed through the lines of the 21st Infantry.

Short of the pass, one of the tanks hit an enemy mine. Then a hidden enemy soldier detonated electrically a string of mines. The riflemen moved cautiously forward. From a position near the pass, they could see enemy mortars firing from both sides of the road, but mostly from the western side. Some of the riflemen worked their way as far forward as the highway tunnel, but they never got control of the pass or any part of the highway west of it. In about two hours, the tankers and the men of I Company had expended(consumed) their ammunition and withdrawn.

While this disaster was taking place during the evening and night of 20 July just east of Taejon, the 21st Infantry Regiment held its defense positions undisturbed only three or four miles away. Only when Beauchamp telephoned the regimental command post at Okch'on and talked with General Menoher there and later, in person, reported in detail, did Colonel Stephens and his staff know of the serious trouble developing in Taejon and on the escape road eastward. It would have taken several hours to get the 21st Infantry troops down from their hill positions for any effort to clear the Taejon exit road. And it was well after dark before it was known definitely at Okch'on that the enemy had, in fact, successfully established a roadblock and that the Taejon troops were being decimated. It was too late then for the 21st Infantry to act in relief of the situation. To have accomplished this, the regiment would have needed an order during the morning to move up to the eastern exit of Taejon and secure it.

 

The Death Valley of The 24th U.S. Army Division from Present Panam IC and Saechon Park Watched Down from Sickjang-san Top  

Closing to review the battle situation, I would like to imagine in the following sequence:

-        On the early dawn when NK started to attack on the Defense line of the 1^st Battalion, the Battalion         Commander was ensured the regimental Commander to be reinforced with the Reserve Troopers.

-        He assembled all Company Commanders to address of that appointed reinforcement and that vision could be addressed down to each rifle trooper.

-        The fighting unit could be full of fighting spirit and not fall down themselves with fear.

-        Evacuation plan was established, based on the battle development and carried out as planned.

-        All divisional troopers were informed of their roles for the fighting retreat.

-        The 1^st Battalion joined in the fighting retreat, out of the mountain, coordinating with the 21^st Battalion of 19^th Infantry, around Okcheon hills.

-        USAF supported the action with Bombing Operation toward approaching KN enemies.      

-        North Korean could not dare to imagine capturing an US Army Divisional Commander and be hesitating to attack in their accustomed tactic.  

General Dean had been a very brave warrior not only in the 2^nd World War but also Korean War. He had done his best to complete his mission ordered by General Walker. He had survived through from the brutal NK prison camp for three(3) years. He never cooperated with NK propaganda in series of torture. He was a great contributor to defend freedom and human rights from the brutal communist regime in the most darkest time of Korea.

 But if he utilized the information gathered from the frontlines about enemy size, purpose and tactics and updated himself to establish his strategy and tactics, considering strength and weakness of his division and threats and opportunities, he could surely stand firmly on his command post to boost his subordinate officers, sergeants and privates and direct explicitly to attack or retreat with strong military principles.