Lost at Yongdong - The 71st (Heavy) Tank Battalion 1st Cavalry Division

By John C. Garbinski

This is the story of the 71st (Heavy) Tank Battalion. They left Japan with 22 tanks, one officer and 157 men. They arrived in Korea, at the very beginning of the Korean War.
In less than 90 days, they lost 85% of their men and equipment. 125 men were missing in action, killed in action, or wounded. This is their incredible story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359278558

Book preview

Lost at Yongdong - The 71st (Heavy) Tank Battalion 1st Cavalry Division

LOST AT YONGDONG - The 71st (Heavy) Tank Battalion 1st Cavalry Division

By John C. Garbinski

Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-359-27855-8

Published by Lulu

Notice

This book is a fictional novel based on historical fact. Some characters portrayed in this novel have been fictionalized. The opinions, views, and accounts expressed in this book are strictly the authors, and do not represent those of the United States Army, or the United States Government.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the men of the 71st (Heavy) Tank Battalion and to all the veterans of the Korean War.

It is also dedicated to the memory of my father, Command Sergeant Major Stephen J. Garbinski, U.S. Army Reserve.

CSM Stephen J. Garbinski – (1930 – 1997)

INTRODUCTION

Nearly every book that has ever been written about the Korean War refers to the conflict as The Forgotten War.  What exactly does the forgotten war really mean?  I have researched this term and could not find one all-encompassing definition.  There is no single definition because the term Forgotten War does not have the same meaning for everyone.  If the people of South Korea were told that Americans think of the Korean War as the forgotten war, they wouldn’t understand.  For many of the people of South Korea the war will never be forgotten.  To this day, all South Koreans over the age of 50 understand that their very existence as a free people is only because of the efforts of the United States and the other United Nations forces that fought a desperate war to prevent at least half of the country from becoming another communist regime.  A fragile peace exists along the 38th parallel today, and it is only because of the strength of the American presence there, that the peace has been maintained.  The people of South Korea know this, and it is a part of their everyday lives in South Korea.

It is only America that knows the Korean War as the forgotten war.  How does a nation forget a war that killed almost four million people, more than 54,000 of them Americans?  The Korean War is remembered mainly as a no win, no lose, odd conflict, sandwiched between the good war [World War II] and the bad war [Vietnam].  Perhaps the Korean War is forgotten because Americans want it to be forgotten.  The written history of the Korean War so far, seems to indicate a general feeling existed between the politicians, the generals, and even with the men and women, who fought, were wounded, and somehow survived, that this was a war to be forgotten.  Most Korean War veterans will not talk about their experiences in Korea.  Some historians when writing about the war claim that it should not have been fought at all, and that the war was an embarrassment, a shame, and should be forgotten.

This idea of the forgotten war is supported by the fact that the Vietnam War was fought between 1955 and 1975 and that a memorial was erected in Washington D.C. in 1982.  While the Korean War, which was fought between 1950 and 1953, did not have a memorial for the Korean Veterans until 1995.  And while the Vietnam memorial lists the more than 58,000 names of those who died, the Korean War memorial lists no names at all.  The Korean War memorial in Washington D.C. has the following inscription on one of its granite walls:  Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.  A further granite wall bears the simple message, inlaid in silver: Freedom Is Not Free.

More than 8,000 Americans are still listed as missing from the Korean War.  They are still waiting for someone to bring them home.  They are still waiting for their names to be displayed somewhere so that they can be recognized too.  And for so many of their families, there can never be closure as long as they remain missing.  For the veterans who returned from the Korean War, they wait in silence.  Not wanting to talk about their experiences.  It’s hard to talk about it when no one cares to remember what everyone wants to forget.  Someday there must be a full accounting for all those who fought and died in the Korean War.  Like Vietnam and other conflicts of the Cold War, the war is never really over until all of our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are brought home.

John C. Garbinski

PREFACE

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even into death.

If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt, kind hearted but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder, then your soldiers must be likened to spoiled children; they are useless for any practical purpose.

-- Sun Tzu -- The Art of War

_____________________________________

The definitive history of the Korean War has not yet been written.  It may not be written for many years to come.  This is just one story of the Korean War.  Many have already been written and many more will be.  The Korean War was the first shooting war of the Cold War.  Like Vietnam, the Korean War was a battle ground for two super powers to engage each other without a direct head-to-head conflict.  Many mistakes were made on both sides in this first attempt at limited war.  The war clearly demonstrated that the West had misjudged the ambition and intent of the Communist leadership, and clearly revealed the Soviet’s intense hostility toward the West.  It also proved that the Communists badly underestimated the response its aggression would bring.[1] As with Vietnam, the real losers in the war were the people of both of those countries.  But unlike Vietnam [when the U.S. left]; and Germany (including Berlin) after the Cold War ended; the re-unification of a divided Korea still has not taken place.  It is the only country divided by the Cold War that remains so to this day.

The Korean War, although inconclusive, resulted in both sides learning some valuable lessons. The Communists would come to understand that the free world--in particular the United States--had the will to react quickly and practically and without panic in a new situation.  The American public learned that after World War II, the world was not the pleasant place they hoped it would be, that it could not be neatly policed by bombers and carrier aircraft and nuclear warheads, and that the Communist menace could be disregarded only at extreme peril to our way of life.[2]

The people of the United States have always been divided when it comes to our unique American way of life, and more importantly, what it takes to keep our way of life ours. The civilian and the soldier will always be at odds in this way.  The civilian liberal and the soldier see things differently.  The civilian sociologists are concerned with people living together in peace and amiability and justice; the soldier’s task is to suffer and fight, kill and even to die to preserve this unique way of life.  Ironically, even in the twenty-first century American society demands both of its citizenry.  Perhaps the values that comprise a decent civilization and those needed to defend it will always be at odds.  I firmly believe that a complete triumph for either faction would probably result in disaster, not only for this nation, but for the rest of the free world.[3]

---

[1] This Kind of War, T.R. Fehrenbach, Copyright © 1963, Copyright © 2008 by Potomac Books, Inc.

[2] This Kind of War, T.R. Fehrenbach, Copyright © 1963, Copyright © 2008 by Potomac Books, Inc.

[3] This Kind of War, T.R. Fehrenbach, Copyright © 1963, Copyright © 2008 by Potomac Books, Inc.

Chapter 1 - Experimental

The first-time tanks were used by any Army in the world was during World War I.  As Camp Knox was opening its gates, the American Expeditionary Force, in the midst of its vast buildup in France, established a Tank Corps to support it in battle against the German trench lines. In the beginning, the American tankers used British and French armored vehicles and took their tactics from the British, the pioneers of tank warfare. One of the first American soldiers to distinguish him self in this revolutionary form of warfare was a 33-year old cavalry captain named George S. Patton.  Patton commanded the first American armored forces to see combat. Following the Armistice, however, Congress reviewed Tank Corps operations during the war, and it concluded that the tank was an infantry weapon. Consequently, the National Defense Act of 1920 abolished the Tank Corps as an independent organization and subordinated tank development to the infantry.[4]

Captain George S. Patton – France – 1918

The British Army, which had introduced tank warfare to the world at the Battle of Cambrai in 1916, continued to develop and employ mechanized forces following WWI. The British commitment to armored warfare spurred the Americans to develop and build their own mechanized forces. In the late 1920s, the U.S. Army's mechanized forces consisted of several battalions of infantry support tanks and some separate armored car companies.  In response to the widely publicized experiments of British tanks during the 1920s, the War Department established the Experimental Mechanized Force in 1928 to test the viability of employing tanks in missions beyond that of infantry support. Although their Experimental Mechanized Force was disbanded after less than three months, analysis of its activities provided sufficient justification for Congress to authorize the creation of the Mechanized Force in 1930.[5]

This organization combined elements from nine combat and service arms and served as a tactical laboratory, testing new ideas governing the integrated operation of different combat units. Although not intended to be dominated by cavalry ideas, cavalry concepts heavily influenced the Mechanized Force, and they were embodied in the appointment of Col. Daniel Van Voorhis as commander and Lt. Col. Adna R. Chaffee Jr., as his executive officer. These officers ensured that Cavalry operations became a primary focus of the new organization.[6]

General Daniel Van Voorhis             General Adna R. Chaffee Jr.

The Mechanized Force was first assembled at Fort Eustis, Va., in the fall of 1930. It was organized as a combined arms force which included armored cars, truck-drawn artillery, engineers, anti-aircraft artillery, and infantry tanks. The tank company assigned to the force - Company A, 1st Tank Regiment is today Company A, 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment. It is the oldest tank unit in the U.S. Army. The Mechanized Force; however, became too closely associated with cavalry operations, and in 1931, the War Department disbanded it. No reason seemed to exist to maintain an organization whose mission appeared similar to that of an existing combat arm. Instead, in a new policy regarding mechanization, all combat arms were directed to develop their own mechanized programs. This policy permitted the creation of the Mechanized Cavalry, based upon a cadre from the Mechanized Force.[7]

66th Armor Regiment Coat of Arms

To permit effective development of the Mechanized Cavalry, Chaffee and Van Voorhis sought a larger post with more varied terrain than available at Fort Eustis. Both felt that Camp Knox's larger size and varied terrain were more suited for the development of armored tactics. Consequently, a small remnant of the now defunct Mechanized Force relocated to Camp Knox in November 1931 to begin organizing the Mechanized Cavalry.  Congress designated Camp Knox as a permanent garrison on January 1, 1932 and changed the name to Fort Knox.[8]

On January 16, 1932 the 1st Cavalry Regiment -- the Army's oldest mounted unit -- arrived