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His defects were many, serious—and understandable. Unless he was in an extremely well-trained outfit, he was prone to inner panic at the opening of a night attack. On several occasions, Red units had broken up American units by night charges accompanied by shouting and bugle calls. Old soldiers, aware that the Army needs sterner training before it goes to battle, said that the answer to this was more night training. A more typically American answer was in practice last week around the Hungnam beachhead: lavish use of star shells, which changed night to day. Another defect was that the U.S. Army was roadbound by its enormous supply train, a defect that grew out of the very strength of U.S. technology. The relative security of American life had dulled the U.S. fighting-man's caution, made him unwary about taking cover in the presence of the enemy. Said a sergeant instructing new arrivals in Korea: "If you see anyone on the skyline, don't shoot. He's probably one of our guys."
These were explainable demerits. More surprising—and disgraceful—was the fact that the American fighting-man in Korea, despite his country's vaunted industrial superiority, found that his government had not given him weapons as numerous or as good as he needed and had a right to expect.
The Men. More important than the weapons in 1950, as in 1066, were the men who used them. What were they like? Better trained, more experienced and older than the G.I.s of World War II, the
U.S. Army in battle in Korea was the nearest approach to a professional army that the U.S. had ever sent into war. The men in it did not lend themselves to easy characterization. Nobody could find a typical U.S. soldier of 1950. There was no one type; there were as many types as there were men. Here are some of the men:
PRIVATE KENNETH SHADRICK, 19, of Skin Fork, W.Va., the first U.S. infantryman reported killed in Korea, fired his bazooka at a Red tank on July 5, looked up to check his aim, and was cut down by machine-gun fire.
MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM F. DEAN, trapped with his 24th Infantry Division in Taejon, sent his men out of the besieged, burning city while he went after Red tanks with a bazooka; he is listed as missing in action.
CORP. HIDEO HASHIMOTO, a Japanese-American who had been interned in the U.S. during World War II, kept hurling hand grenades at the storming Reds; after he ran out of grenades, he threw rocks.
2ND LIEUT. JOHN CHARLES TRENT, of Memphis, captain of West Point's 1949 football team, was killed by a rifle bullet at Wonsan, while he was walking from foxhole to foxhole to see that his men—fighting for three days & nights—had not fallen asleep.
PFC. DONALD PATTON, who in his frontline foxhole slept through the bloodiest night attack which the Reds hurled against the U.S.'s position on the famed "Bowling Alley" near Taegu, woke up the next morning, looked at the smoking, knocked-out Red tanks and cried in a frightened voice: "Holy Cow! What happened?"
PFC. JOHN D. LASHARE, 17, of Moundsville, W.Va., went around reciting the 23rd Psalm ("Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .".).
PFC. JOHN A. PALMA, of Brooklyn, was captured by the Chinese Reds and later released. Said he: "We prayed like hell all the time."