The Battle of Sangju (Korean: 상주 전투) was an engagement between the United Nations and North Korean forces, occurring on July 20–31, 1950, in the village of Sangju in southern South Korea, early in the Korean War. It ended in a victory for the North Korean forces after they were able to push troops of the United States and South Korea out of the area.
Republic of Korea Army (ROK) units had been unsuccessfully resisting advances by the North Korean Korean People's Army (KPA) in the region when they were reinforced by the United States Army's 25th Infantry Division, newly arrived in the country. In the subsequent fight, the 25th Infantry Division was able to inflict substantial casualties on the advancing KPA 15th Infantry Division but was not able to hold its positions. In 11 days of fighting, the UN forces performed poorly and were forced to withdraw from Yechon County, the city of Sangju, and the surrounding areas.
The 24th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division was ineffective in its first showing. The regiment, composed mostly of African-American troops, was criticized by the Army for being quick to panic and retreat. Some historians have described the Army's statements as biased, downplaying the regiment's successes and overstating its failures.
Background
Outbreak of war
Following the invasion of the South Korea by North Korea, the United Nations decided to commit troops to the conflict in support of South Korea. The United States subsequently sent ground forces to the Korean peninsula with the goal of fighting back the North Korean invasion and to prevent South Korea from collapsing. However, US forces in the Far East had been steadily decreasing since the end of World War II in 1945, and at the time the closest forces were the 24th Infantry Division of the Eighth United States Army, which was headquartered in Japan. The division was understrength, and most of its equipment was antiquated due to reductions in military spending. Regardless, the 24th Infantry Division was ordered into South Korea.
The 24th Infantry Division was the first US unit sent into Korea with the mission to take the initial "shock" of North Korean advances, fighting alone and outnumbered for several weeks They delayed much larger KPA units while additional UN forces arrived and moved into position: the 7th Infantry Division, 25th Infantry Division, 1st Cavalry Division and other Eighth Army supporting units. ROK forces in the meantime were systematically defeated and forced south along Korea's east coast, with entire divisions being overrun by the KPA's superior firepower and equipment. Advance elements of the 24th Infantry Division were badly defeated in the Battle of Osan on July 5, during the first battle between American and North Korean forces. For the first month after the defeat at Osan, 24th Infantry Division soldiers were repeatedly defeated and forced south by the KPA's superior numbers and equipment. The regiments of the 24th Infantry Division were systematically pushed south in battles around Chochiwon, Chonan, and Pyongtaek. The 24th Infantry Division made a final stand in the Battle of Taejon, being almost completely destroyed but delaying KPA forces from advancing until July 20. By that time, the Eighth Army's force of combat troops were roughly equal to North Korean forces attacking the region at around 70,000 for each side, with new UN units arriving every day.
US 25th Infantry Division arrives
At the same time, on the east coast, the KPA 12th Division was resting from its heavy battles north of the town of Sangju, a crossroads center for all the mountain roads in that part of Korea. Situated south of the Mun'gyong plateau and the dividing watershed between the Han River and the Naktong River, Sangju had a commanding position in the valley of the Naktong, 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Taegu. There was a large amount of confused activity around Sangju during the end of July, as refugees and stragglers from the defeated ROK poured south through the town. Many ROK units were retreating to Sangju and some had passed south through it. Isolated fighting had already begun between KPA and ROK forces for control of the Mun'gyong plateau when the 25th Infantry Division under Major General William B. Kean, newly arrived in Korea on July 10–15, received orders from Eighth Army Commander Lieutenant General Walton Walker to concentrate there to bolster ROK defenses of the central mountain corridors. General Walker looked to the 25th Division to help the ROK forces in central Korea prevent a major KPA movement into the valley of the upper Naktong. The division stood at a strength of 13,059 as of July 19.
Battle
Capture of Yechon
The first action between elements of the 25th Division and the KPA took place at Yechon on July 20. Company K, 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, led by First Lieutenant Jasper R. Johnson, entered the town during the afternoon. When other units of the 3rd Battalion failed to take a ridge overlooking the town on the left, he requested and received permission to withdraw from the town for the night.
Meeting at the battalion command post, the commanders of the US units planned a renewed assault for 05:00 the next morning. Artillery and mortars fired on the town ahead of the infantry advance, and soon the town was on fire from the shells. By this time, however, Yechon had likely been abandoned by the North Koreans. At Hamch'ang, Colonel Henry G. Fisher, commanding the 35th Infantry Regiment, received an erroneous message early that morning stating that the KPA had driven the 24th Infantry from Yechon. He immediately left for Yechon. He found the battalion commander about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of the town, but was dissatisfied with the information that he received from him. Fisher and a small party then drove on into Yechon, which was still burning. He encountered no North Korean troops or South Korean civilians. The 3rd Platoon, 77th Engineer Combat Company, attached to Company K, entered the town with the infantrymen and attempted to halt the spread of flames but were unable to do so because of high, shifting winds. The 24th Infantry then met light resistance from North Korean troops counterattacking the town, but drove them off, securing the town after several hours of fighting at a cost of 2 killed and 12 wounded. North Korean casualties at the fight could not be estimated. However, the US Army, preoccupied by the Battle of Taejon, took little notice and credited the victory to the South Koreans. News of the capture was picked up by the US media as the first fight won by black soldiers of the mostly black unit. By 13:00 Yechon was secured, and 3rd Battalion turned over control of the town to the ROK 18th Regiment of the Capital Division. The Capital Division then concentrated the bulk of its forces there, and opposed the KPA 8th Division in that vicinity the remainder of the month.
Drawing battle lines
Major General Kean and his 25th Division had to guard two main approaches to Sangju to keep the town from falling to the North Koreans. The main road crossed the Mun'gyong plateau and passed through Hamch'ang at the base of the plateau about 15 miles (24 km) north of Sangju. Next, there was a secondary mountain road that crossed the plateau farther west and, once through the mountains, turned east toward Sangju.
On the main road, the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry, held a blocking position northwest of Hamch'ang, supported by a platoon of tanks from A Company, 78th Tank Battalion, and A Battery, 90th Field Artillery Battalion. The 1st Battalion was emplaced with the 2nd Battalion but stayed less than 24 hours before it was sent to reinforce the US 27th Infantry Regiment on the next north–south line of communications westward. Thus, in effect, one battalion of US troops stood behind ROK units on the Hamch'ang approach. On the second road, that leading into Sangju from the west, the 24th Infantry Regiment assembled two, and later all three, of its battalions.
The 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry took up a hill position northwest of Hamch'ang and south of Mun'gyong on the south side of a stream that flowed past Sangju to the Naktong. On the north side of the stream an ROK battalion held the front line. Brigadier General Vennard Wilson, the 25th's Assistant Division Commander, ordered F Company of the battalion to be inserted in the center of the ROK line north of the stream, and this was done over the strong protests of the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel John L. Wilkins. Wilson thought the American troops would strengthen the ROK defense, but Wilkins did not want the untried company to be dependent on ROK stability in its first engagement. Behind the ROK and F Company positions the ground rose to another hill within small arms range. Heavy rains had swollen the stream behind the ROK and F Company positions to a torrent that was rolling large boulders along its channel. In the meantime, the ROK 2nd Battalion, 17th Regiment, ambushed a battalion of North Korean troops near Tongkwanri, forcing it to withdraw.
North Korean attack on Sangju
On July 22 the North Koreans attacked. The ROK troops resisted briefly, but withdrew from their positions on either side of F Company without communicating their intentions. The withdrawal had been a part of the plan for reorganizing the line to incorporate the US troops, but F Company expected them to send a message before doing so, and did not adjust their defenses to compensate. North Korean troops quickly flanked F Company and began attacking it from the rear. This precipitated an unorganized withdrawal. The swollen stream prevented F Company from crossing to the south side and the 2nd Battalion positions. Walking wounded crowded along the stream where an effort to get them across failed. Two officers and two noncommissioned officers tied a pair of twisted telephone wires about their bodies and tried to swim to the other bank and fasten a line, but each in turn was swept downstream where they floundered ashore on the same bank where they had started. Some men drowned trying to cross the swollen river. The covering fire of a platoon of tanks on the south side held off the North Koreans and allowed most of the survivors to eventually escape. F Company lost 37 men: 6 killed, 10 wounded, and 21 missing.
The next morning five North Korean T-34 tanks crossed the river and moved toward Hamch'ang. Artillery fire from A Battery of the 90th Field Artillery Battalion knocked out four of the tanks immediately. The fifth moved back across the river, where an air strike later destroyed it.
UN consolidates around Sangju
The 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry, was still in its position when it received orders to withdraw to a point 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Sangju on July 23. On July 28 the battalion fell back 2 miles (3.2 km) further, and the next day it moved to a position south of Sangju. On the last day of July, the 35th Infantry was ordered to a blocking position on a line of hills 8 miles (13 km) south of Sangju on the Kumch'on road. In 11 days it had fallen back about 30 miles (48 km) on the Sangju front without encountering strong resistance, only North Korean patrols. During the battle, the 35th Infantry merely executed a series of withdrawals on division orders as the front around it collapsed, and was not heavily involved in the fighting.
The ROK 6th Division continued its hard-fought action on the road through the mountains from Mun'gyong, but gradually it fell back from in front of the KPA 1st Division. In the mountains above Hamch'ang the ROK 6th Division on July 24 destroyed seven North Korean T-34 tanks. Three days later the ROK 1st Division, now relieved northwest of Sangju by the US 24th Infantry and redeployed on the Hamch'ang front, destroyed four more tanks there with 2.36-inch bazookas and captured one tank intact. The remnants of the ROK 2nd Division, relieved by the 27th Infantry Regiment on the Hwanggan–Poun road, were incorporated into the ROK 1st Division. Thus, by July 24 the US 25th Division had taken over from the ROK 1st and 2nd Divisions the sector from Sangju westward to the Seoul–Taegu highway, and these ROK troops were moving into the line eastward and northward from Sangju on the Hamch'ang front.
By July 27 all the Mun'gyong divide was in North Korean possession and their units were moving into the valley of the upper Naktong in the vicinity of Hamch'ang. Prisoners taken at the time and others captured later said that the KPA 1st Division suffered 5,000 casualties in the struggle for control of the divide, including the division commander who was wounded and replaced. The KPA 13th Division, following the 1st, suffered about 500 casualties below Mun'gyong, but otherwise it was not engaged during this period. The KPA 15th Division, one of North Korea's weaker divisions which consisted mostly of inexperienced youth, moved on Sangju. It was part of a concentrated attack by the KPA aiming to push the UN forces south before they had time to organize an effective defensive line.