I read with great interest the article “Winter of the YaIu” (December 1982). At that time I was S-2 for the Marine Air Group supporting units on the east coast. One morning when the Chinese attack was first developing, I was over the reservoir in a Corsair, alone, as I had simply gone out in a staff aircraft to see what was happening. It had snowed the night before, leaving the surface one large expanse of white.
I picked up a call from a forward air controller, “Boyhood 14,” over whom I happened to be flying. Upon observation I found a column of vehicles stopped on a road on the northeastern edge of the reservoir. There were a number of trucks, some tanks, and a considerable body of troops in the vicinity of the vehicles. All the green paint and green uniforms were etched against the white background. Boyhood 14 advised me that these troops were pinned down by the enemy on the ridgeline directly above the road. I skimmed over the ridge at minimum level and saw the Chinese. They blended into the snow from any distance.
Working with Boyhood 14 I expended my bombs, rockets, and gun ammo in repeated runs and was finally reduced to trying to keep the ridgeline troops down by buzzing their heads. It was useless; a single file of Chinese simply walked down the ridgeline to the south, swinging in and cutting off the road below the American unit.
I could not raise any other aircraft on my radio, there was no help. It was the most heartbreaking and frustrating few moments of my life. Usually an airman is divorced from immediate surface activity. In this case I could see it all. At one point I tried to prop down one ridgeline soldier, who stolidly walked through it all with a tripod across his shoulders. I was that close. The American unit broke while I was there—with numbers taking off on foot across the frozen reservoir.
I would be most appreciative of any further detail about this unit.
Samuel B. Folsom New York, N.Y.
Yalu: An Aerial View
The author of the original article, James H. Dill, replies: Task Force MacLean, named for Col. Alan MacLean of the 31st Infantry, included, among other units, one battalion of the 31st Infantry and one battalion of the 32d Infantry. At the start of the Chinese attack, the battalion from the 32d was some distance north of the remainder of the Task Force. Colonel MacLean himself happened to be with this battalion. The Chinese quickly occupied the ground between the two elements, and the 32d first had to fight its way south to the main body.
As I recall a long conversation with one of the forward observers who was with the 32d, they had to fight every foot of the way, but eventually they reached the north side of a wide and frozen inlet. The rest of the Task Force was perimetered just to the south of the inlet and was under constant attack. At this point the Chinese had their main blocking position. Your remark about the convoy being pinned down between a ridge and the Chosin Reservoir jogged my memory of that long-ago talk. Colonel MacLean ordered my observer’s company to take the ridge at all costs so the rest of the battalion could pass around the inlet. Colonel MacLean had no infantry officer available and gave the artillery lieutenant command of the company with positive orders to start the attack at once. The observer did take the ridgeline and held it long enough for the vehicles to resume the movement south. I told him he deserved the Distinguished Service Cross at least, but he said everyone who knew anything about the affair was dead except himself.
Colonel MacLean was killed a few minutes later by Chinese firing across the inlet from the south shore. Lieutenant Colonel Faith of the 32d then led a charge across the ice. Most of his men made it, and they cleared the south bank after heavy fighting. It was one of those rare instances in modern war in which bayonets were used. The two elements were then able to unite.
I believe from your account that your sorties took place immediately before the two attacks just described. It is not too much to believe that you distracted the Chinese long enough to enable both assaults to succeed, and so you enabled the 32d to rejoin the main force.
Arguable Points
I would like to point out an error in the interview with Captain Beach (April/ May). He claims that radar was totally a U.S. invention, which is not quite right. While I’m not an authority on this, I believe the United States had radar before World War II; in fact, it was used to detect oncoming Japanese planes during the Pearl Harbor attack. However, this primitive radar used relatively long wavelengths, which gave only a broad picture of what was happening. The British during the war developed a new type of tube, called a magnetron, which was capable of producing very high power at very short wavelengths. This gave the radar high definition, so that it could actually indicate the size, et cetera, of the object. The older type of tubes, as used in the radios of the era, could not do this. So it was the development of the magnetron that really produced radar as we know it today. I think Captain Beach shortchanged our British friends.
Carl Davis Westville, Ill.
Arguable Points
Captain Beach replies: Mr. Davis and I are both right, depending on what we’re using for criteria. While the U.S. Navy was the first to realize something was happening to certain high-frequency radio waves when ships approached—in 1922—real research into the causes and possible applications of the phenomenon did not begin until about 1930. Great Britain began actively to work on it around the same time—1934, according to some sources. As scientists of the two nations made progress, the obvious military value of RAdio Detection And Ranging caused both governments to impose a very high security classification.
Thus the countries developed radar essentially independently. But it’s now generally accepted that, when the first official exchange of information about it took place, in 1940, England was ahead of us and gave us more (principally the magnetron) than we gave them. I’m sorry now that I said, “We gave radar to them,” for our being “first” is small potatoes compared with the extraordinary development that came afterward. Too many smart people made too many advances in it for anyone, or any nation, to lay claim to it all.
Packet vs. Clipper
In the article in your April/May issue on the merchant marine by Robert UhI, there are three points that I believe give a false picture. Mr. UhI has characterized the packet-ship era by the features of its decadent years after about 1840, when steam was beginning to threaten the cream of the business and the packet ship had to turn to the immigrant and other less desirable trades. From 1816 to about 1840 the packets carried very profitably the cream of the Atlantic trade. They were the luxury liners of their day. Fortunes were being made in the shipping business, and the training to become a merchant was either in the countinghouse or at sea. The shipmasters were the finest and they carried in their crews promising young men working their way up. Of course there was some trash among the crews, but it did not predominate until after about 1840. During this period American seamen were the highest paid in the world, but they earned their money and did the best job.
The suggestion that the shipping fortunes were made by the clipper ships is misleading. While a few made some highly profitable voyages during the five-year-long clipper-ship era, they were generally not good money-makers after the gold rush was over. Other vessels before, during, and after the clipper-ship era were more profitable.
A serious omission is proper mention of the coastal trades. Especially after the Civil War, this is where most of the merchant marine operated. Not only were most ships in these trades, but many were the finest of vessels—for instance, those operated during the 1920s and 1930s by such lines as Grace, Matson, Panama Pacific, Eastern Steamship, et cetera.
H. Hobart Holly Braintree, Mass.
Packet vs. Clipper
Mr. Uhl replies: Mr. Holly, obviously knowledgeable, believes I undervalued the packet, exaggerated the clipper, minimized coastal trade. But my primary focus was on the education of the deep-water master mariner, and the evolution of ships was included only as it affected that training. The sailingpacket-ship era extended decades beyond his 1840 date; my comments on crews are correct for most of that period. A law limiting noncitizen crews was passed in 1817, a year before the first packet. Clippers did make fantastic profits at first. Uneconomic when speed became less important than capacity, their heydey lasted ten years, not five. As for coastal traffic, while vital to our economy, it was mostly in smaller vessels. I sailed myself as a cadet on the Clyde-Mallory and Grace lines.
Why the White
Only after seeing “The Old Ball Game,” my portfolio of early baseball photographs (June/July), in print did I realize that some confusion might surround the lovely tinted photo of the splendif erously garbed Cincinnati Reds of 1882. Readers might wonder why two players in the middle row—third baseman Hick Carpenter, on the left, and left fielder Joe Sommer, on the right—are both portrayed in white jerseys; this would seem to contradict my statement in the caption that jerseys were designated by position.
The colors are accurate: on the day the photograph was taken, Sommer was attired in the white jersey designated by management for his position, but Carpenter did not show up for the photo session in the gray-and-white striped shirt he was obliged to wear on the ball field. It was a uniform that he detested and that the press, the fans, and the opposing players found comical. A Cincinnati paper in the spring of ’82 wrote of the “clown” shirts of Carpenter and second baseman Bid McPhee (in yellow and black at the right of the back row): “When Carpenter and McPhee shed their striped shirts they will have the appearance of long-termers just pardoned out of the penetentiary.”
It seems Carpenter did not wish posterity to regard him as a jailbird.
