COMMAND: The Airborne Grenadier

(4 of 6)

At 11:15 on the night of Dec. 22, while the Ridgways were attending a party next door to their house, the general was called to the telephone. He talked briefly to Lawton Collins, then rejoined the party. Next morning, over coffee in their second-floor study, he said gently, "Penny, I've got something to tell you. I'm going to Korea to replace Johnny Walker, who's been hurt."

Packing was no problem for Ridgway. He keeps a list of every article in all his 20-odd suitcases and trunks, as well as a master list of every item of clothing, furniture, etc., that he owns.

No More Bugout. When Matt Ridgway stepped off the plane in Korea, he lost no time stating his objectives. To President Syngman Rhee, worried by evacuation rumors, he said, "I aim to stay."

In some respects Eighth Army was not badly off. It had not lost much heavy equipment in the retreat from the north. Most of its troops were veterans who had learned how to fight in Asia.

But neither supplies nor training could raise the morale of a discouraged army. "Bugout fever"—a habitual desire to break contact and head southward—was epidemic. The men, retreating over ground they had once captured, thought moodily of another Pusan perimeter.

Basically, Eighth Army's defeatism was the result of a mistaken premise. Most of the troops still thought of the war in terms of a police action, with a definite beginning and end. They had not realized that the intervention of the Chinese Communists, while it defeated the police action, did not mean the end of the war.

Ridgway, who saw that the new U.N. objective in Korea was the attrition, if not the destruction, of the Chinese Red armies, set his troops right. The one hope was to kill as many Communists as possible. "Real estate," he declared, "is, here, incidental."

The general stumped every command post in Korea with his new slogan. Some men were skeptical. A captain sneered, "I was energetic like that when I came here first, too." But most Eighth Army commanders thought their new boss sounded good. Said one colonel, "I got the idea that here is a man who is not going to stand for any foolishness. We had talked about getting to the Yalu and getting home by Christmas . . . Well, I decided to quit thinking about a set time limit on this and decided we are here to fight. I don't like it in Korea, but I don't like to go away whipped, either."

After he took command, Ridgway fought a careful delaying action until he got his divisions regrouped to his satisfaction. Then he started the slow-moving northward movement.

The Long Bitter Lesson. The tactics of the new Eighth Army advance were far different from the heedlessness of last November's dash toward the Yalu. Ridgway worked his divisions ahead very slowly, sent armored spearheads in front to keep constant contact with the Reds. His offensive moved like a cautious driver going down a hill in second, careful not to lose control and anxious to avoid being hit at an intersection.