The Battle of Hoengsong, also known as the Hoengsong counteroffensive (Chinese: 橫城反擊戰) was a battle during the Korean War that took place between 11 and 15 February 1951. It was part of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) Fourth Phase Offensive and was fought between the PVA and United Nations forces. After being pushed back northward by the UN's Operation Thunderbolt counteroffensive, the PVA was victorious in this battle, inflicting heavy casualties on the UN forces in the two days of fighting and temporarily regaining the initiative.
The initial PVA assault fell on the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) 8th Infantry Division which disintegrated after several hours of attacks by three PVA divisions. When the US armored and artillery forces supporting the 8th Division found their infantry screen evaporating, they began to withdraw down the single road through the twisting valley north of Hoengsong; but they were soon outflanked by PVA infiltrating cross-country. Hundreds of US soldiers were killed by PVA forces, which resulted in one of the most lopsided defeats suffered by the US military in the Korean War.
Background
Given continued reports of eastward PVA shifts and taking them as clear signs of an imminent PVA offensive in the west-central region, Eighth Army commander General Matthew Ridgway late on February 11 instructed X Corps commander General Edward Almond to patrol but not to attempt further advances toward Route 24 in either the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division or ROKA 8th Infantry Division zones under Operation Roundup until U.S. IX Corps had reduced the PVA's Han River bridgehead below Yangp'yong. To move forward while IX Corps was still held up could isolate and overextend Almond's leftmost units in the area where the PVA 39th, 40th, 42nd and 66th Armies were obviously massing.
At the time Ridgway called Almond's leftmost units to a halt, he had in hand one of the better intelligence estimates prepared by his headquarters since he assumed command. Always seeking to improve intelligence, he had directed the preparation of this analysis, stipulating that it contains a survey of enemy strategic capabilities as well as tactical courses of action. Stimulating Ridgway's unusual demand for a strategic estimate at field army level was the yet unexplained lull in PVA offensive operations that had set in on January 4 after the Eighth Army gave up Seoul and that had now gone on for a month. The question was whether the lull represented a change in strategy from destroying UN forces to a new strategy of containing them, or was merely the result of logistical problems. Colonel Robert G. Fergusson, the acting intelligence officer who prepared the estimate, told Ridgway that the long lull was purely the consequence of Chinese resupply, transportation and reinforcement difficulties. The slogan repeatedly given in statements by Chinese government officials continued to be to drive UN forces out of Korea. Fergusson predicted that once the logistical problems were sufficiently relieved and that time appeared to be near the campaign to push the United Nations forces off the peninsula would be resumed with full acceptance of any further heavy personnel losses and supply problems that might occur.
The concentration of Chinese forces, Fergusson pointed out, was in the area bordered on the northwest by the Pukhan River and on the southeast by Route 24 between Yangp'yong and Hongcheon. From southwest to northeast, the concentration included the 42nd, 39th, 40th and 66th Armies, whose total strength was around 110,000. He was not sure that all of these units had completed their shifts to the west-central region. But with the enemy mass centering there, the most likely paths of the next enemy advance were down the Han River valley toward Yoju and down Route 29 toward Wonju, with both paths then turning toward the same deep objective, Ch'ungju. The advance might include deep sweeps to the southwest to envelop US I and IX Corps. Because the PVA's problem of resupply would progressively worsen as supply lines lengthened during an advance, Fergusson judged that a sustained PVA drive was unlikely. More probable was a series of shallow enveloping maneuvers interspersed with halts for reorganization and resupply. He believed that the Chinese would not open an offensive until major units of the IX Army Group moved down from the Wonsan area within reinforcing range. These, he estimated, could reach the central region no sooner than 15 February. Fergusson was wrong in considering the arrival of IX Army Group units as a necessary condition and so was in error on the nearest date of a Chinese attack. But in measuring all other probabilities, he came remarkably close.
Battle
As predicted, the XIII Army Group commander opened an attack on the night of 11 February toward Hoengsong. In shifting forces eastward he had moved the 66th Army from Kapyong to Hongcheon, whence one division struck south along Route 29. From start points near Route 24 between Hongcheon and Chip'yong-ni, a division of the 40th Army and one of the 39th Army joined the push on Hoengsong by attacking southeast. In the path of these initial attacks lay the ROKA 8th Infantry Division.
Collapse of the ROKA 8th Infantry Division
Moving below Hongchon astride Route 29, the 198th Division, 66th Army, hit the front of the ROKA 21st Regiment about 20:30, then sent forces around the regiment's flanks, mainly on the west through the gap between the 21st and 10th Regiments. While the 198th swung behind the 21st, the 120th Division, 40th Army, penetrated the line of the 10th Regiment and the 117th Division, 39th Army, pushed through the left flank of the 16th Regiment. When word of the opening attack reached 8th Division headquarters in Hoengsong, division commander Brigadier general Choi Hong-hi ordered the 21st Regiment to make a short withdrawal and instructed Support Team B to move back down Route 29 and join Support Force 21 at Ch'angbongni. The armored team reached the artillery force about 22:00. Some of the 198th Division forces who had swept around the 21st Regiment meanwhile raced down both sides of Route 29, bypassed the American position at Ch'angbong-ni, and blocked the road near a bridge 3 miles (4.8 km) farther south. The 120th Division, about the same time, pushed through the 10th Regiment, some troops turning in behind both the 10th and 16th Regiments, others striking southeast toward the mountain road leading west from Route 29. Around midnight the latter overran the command posts of the 10th and 16th Regiments on the mountain road and cut off the ROKA 20th and 50th Field Artillery Battalions and Support Team A, also on the road, by establishing strong blocks between the support units and Route 29. Below the 120th, the 117th Division reinforced its frontal attack on the 16th Regiment and deepened its penetration of the regiment's left flank, sending forces eastward through the ground below the mountain road directly toward Hoengsong.
By 01:00 on 12 February, communications were out between 8th Division headquarters and all regiments as well as between each regiment and its subordinates. Boxed between frontal pressure and to the rear, the three regiments had started to withdraw; but with the main threads of control broken and the better routes of withdrawal blocked, units became separated and divided, and most were surrounded. The rearward move of those not trapped steadily disintegrated into individual efforts to escape. Members of the 21st Regiment straggled into the Support Force 21 perimeter at Ch'angbong-ni about 01:15. The support force commander, Lieutenant colonel John W. Keith, Jr., reported the ROKA withdrawal to Brigadier general Loyal M. Haynes, the 2nd Infantry Division artillery commander, and asked permission to withdraw a little over 3 miles (4.8 km) to a position he formerly had occupied just above the 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, at the junction of Route 29 and the mountain road leading west. He also requested that Haynes ask the 8th Division commander to stop the 21st Regiment's withdrawal until Keith got Support Force 21 and Support Team B in march order. Members of Keith's own infantry protection, Lieutenant colonel William P. Keleher's 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry, were at the time trying to collect the South Koreans and deploy them on the American perimeter, but with little success. Haynes contacted Choi, but Choi was no longer in communication with the 21st Regiment and was, besides, under the impression that the 21st was making only the short withdrawal he had called for earlier. He did nothing. Haynes meanwhile hesitated to clear Keith's withdrawal without 2nd Infantry Division commander General Clark L. Ruffner's approval. When he asked Ruffner he told him to check with the X Corps' artillery commander. As a matter of orders, and as an eventual matter of practice in controlling the artillery support forces, unity of command in Operation Roundup was vested in Corps' headquarters, not lower. The arrangement worked well enough during the advance. But after the Chinese engineered the collapse of the 8th Division, Corps' control inhibited the American commanders of support forces and of units on the line of departure in reacting rapidly. Delays and piecemeal movements among the smaller American units nevertheless colored the course of withdrawal operations.
In one instance, Captain Sherman D. Jones, the commander of Support Team A, scorned any need to get permission to withdraw and fought east over the blocked mountain road toward the 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry. He withdrew a little after midnight amid uncontrolled ROKA vehicles, guns and troops and under heavy fire from Chinese small arms, machine guns, rocket launchers and mortars. The last A team troops to survive the move reached the 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry, about dawn. Losses included two tanks, Jones, the tank platoon leader, and five others were wounded and nearly 150 men were missing. Similarly, few 8th Division troops found their way to safety. Most remained encircled in the mountains and were eventually killed or captured. On 13 February, after straggler lines were set and after Almond moved the division into Corps' reserve at Chup'o-ri, west of Chech'on, the division strength stood at 263 officers and slightly over 3,000 men, of whom about half were division service troops. Casualties, either dead or missing, stood at 323 officers (among them the commander and entire staff of the 10th Regiment, the executive officer of the 16th Regiment, seven battalion commanders and thirty company commanders) and 7,142 men. Division equipment losses included 14 artillery pieces, five antitank guns, 68 trucks, 249 radios, 87 mortars, 137 rocket launchers, 164 machine guns, 102 automatic rifles, 2,389 carbines and 4,096 rifles.
Support Force 21
Earlier, as the 8th Division began to fall back after midnight on 11 February, the 66th Army commander widened his advance below Hongcheon, sending the 197th Division south through the ground 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Route 29 against the ROKA 3rd Infantry Division. In the mold of the attacks along and west of Route 29, infiltrating PVA attacked the command post of the 23rd Regiment and of one battalion of the 22nd after engaging the South Koreans with heavy frontal assaults. Before the PVA could get a trap fully set, the two regiments withdrew to a position about 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Hoengsong.
A group of about 300 soldiers of the 197th, thrust southwest toward Ch'angbong-ni during the attack and around 02:30 on the 12th hit Company A, 38th Infantry, holding the northeast sector of Support Force 21's perimeter. The company stood its ground but remained under fire. Though still waiting for permission to withdraw, Keith meanwhile began to put his artillery units in march order. Keith received clearance to move back about 02:45, an hour and a half after he asked for it, good time considering the route his request and its answer had taken. Haynes, after Ruffner instructed him to check with Corps, consulted Colonel William P. Ennis, the Corps' artillery commander, around 01:30. Ennis, in turn, spoke to Colonel William J. McCaffrey of the Corps' chief of staff's office, who asked Almond himself. Almond approved the withdrawal, and his word passed back from McCaffrey to Ennis to Haynes to Keith. Almond was under the impression, however, perhaps because of the several hands through which Keith's request had passed, that Support Force 21 would withdraw to Hoengsong, not just to a position near the 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry.