The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece to Iraq (47 page)

63.
Simpson and Berlin,
Sherman’s Civil War,
3. For the full transcript of this famous purported conversation, see Lewis,
Sherman,
138—taken from Boyd’s later written recollections of the conversation on the news of South Carolina’s secession.

64.
On the respective resources of North and South by 1864, see Carter,
Siege of Atlanta,
3.

65.
Sherman,
Memoirs,
895; cf. 888–89. Shiloh had a profound effect on Sherman’s growing reluctance to engage in a similar bloodbath like that at Pittsburg Landing. Cf. Hanson,
Ripples of Battle,
87–94.

66.
One reason that Sherman was especially critical of the press (“the sickly sycophantic meddling of newspaper men”) was that he, better than any Civil War general, grasped the critical interplay between public perceptions of success and continued support for the war—and especially the great damage yellow journalism could do to the Union cause. Cf. Marszalek,
Sherman,
263, and especially Sherman,
Memoirs,
889.

67.
Fellman,
Citizen Sherman,
172–75. In a largely unsympathetic treatment of Sherman, Fellman attempts to sort out the many psychological contradictions in Sherman’s makeup, though perhaps without much appreciation of
his revolutionary views on the art of war. For his desire to be unpopular, cf. Simpson and Berlin,
Sherman’s Civil War,
692.

68.
On Sherman’s sense of the larger purpose of armies that transcended decisive battle, cf. Marszalek,
Sherman,
266–68. Cf. Sherman,
Memoirs,
535, and Liddell Hart,
Sherman,
34: “He perceived that the resisting power of a modern democracy depends more on the strength of the popular will than on the strength of his armies, and that this will in turn depends largely upon economic and social security.”

69.
Marszalek,
Sherman,
262. Battle could be incidental, not always essential, to ultimate victory, in Sherman’s view. Modern war, whether the deadlock in Korea or the inconclusive Gulf War I, often bears out Sherman’s views.

70.
Sherman,
Memoirs,
594–95. And for the quote about relative courage, see Simpson and Berlin,
Sherman’s Civil War,
688.

71.
McDonough and Jones,
War So Terrible,
23–25, provide a good review of the Sherman genius for capturing in prose his radically new ideas of modern warfare—as a way of exciting public opinion and the attention of superiors and fellow officers.

1.
On the marines’ unheralded victories, see Millett,
War for Korea,
348–49.

2.
Bowers,
The Line: Combat in Korea,
33–34. Americans still had not appreciated that many of the weapons that the Soviet Union had developed on the eastern front against the Wehrmacht—especially tanks and field rockets—were far superior to their own, and were now finding their way into Chinese and North Korean units.

3.
B. Cummings,
The Origins of the Korean War,
746–51; cf. Millett,
War for Korea,
356–58. MacArthur’s idea was to hit Chinese troops as they were grouping and being supplied in Manchuria—although he never quite spelled out why nuclear weapons were felt necessary, given the huge conventional U.S. arsenal of high-explosive and incendiary bombs.

4.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
54. Most rear units assumed they were heading northward as garrison and occupation troops to hold conquered ground where the enemy had fled and the civilian population was friendly.

5.
See
http://www.gallup.com/poll/7741/gallup-brain-americans-korean-war.aspx
; S. Whitfield,
Culture of the Cold War,
5.

6.
Wainstock,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
75–79. Americans still had not fully accustomed themselves to the notion that their former allies, the Russians and Chinese, were now their enemies; their former enemies, the Germans and the Japanese, now their allies.

7.
Ridgway,
Soldier,
199. Yet it was not clear either in Washington or Korea what “victory” actually entailed—a cease-fire at the 38th Parallel, reconquest of the north, or a South Korean state with boundaries somewhat to the north or south of the 38th Parallel. For the nature of the Communist forces, see Millett,
War for Korea,
380–83.

8.
Soffer,
General Matthew Ridgway,
114. “Criminal neglect,” Ridgway termed the inability of the administration to come up with a coherent strategy to thwart both conventional and nuclear enemies.

9.
Ridgway apparently did not learn of the actual order of succession, or that he was next up after Walker, until nearly a quarter century later, at a 1975 symposium at the Truman Library in Kansas. On the circumstances and politics of his appointment, see Appleman,
Ridgway Duels for Korea,
4.

10.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
44. For the Custer references, see Ridgway,
Korean War,
63, 76–77.

11.
Rees,
The Limited War,
145–46. The Europeans probably went to Korea initially on two premises: that such solidarity was needed to ensure American support in resisting Soviet designs on Europe; and that after the sudden American turnabout, most expeditionary forces would probably be garrison troops sent in after the fighting was over.

12.
In fact, MacArthur’s audacity in heading north was encouraged from the very beginning by many within the Truman State Department who favored rollback; see Whelan,
Drawing the Line: The Korean War, 1950–1953,
199–200.

13.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
42. But Ridgway himself, back in Washington, supported the Joint Chiefs’ authorization to proceed northward beyond the 38th Parallel.

14.
See the discussion in Appleman,
Disaster in Korea,
56.

15.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
74. Cf. “And how could the Commander in Chief not have realized that his forces were too meager, and too thinly supplied, to have held the line of the Yalu and the Tyumen—even had he reached it—against an enemy known to be concentrated there in great numbers?” (75).

16.
On the entire tragic saga surrounding MacArthur’s contradictory but shrill communiqués to the Pentagon between October and December 1950, see Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
250–53.

17.
Weintraub,
MacArthur’s War,
297. The degree to which MacArthur was genuinely panicked or sought to convey hopelessness to garner more troops and strategic latitude is still hard to fathom.

18.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
91. To be fair to MacArthur, directions from Secretary of Defense Marshall and others (e.g., “We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed North of the 38th Parallel”) seemed to be worded in such a way that final success could be shared, while
unexpected defeat would be MacArthur’s alone. Cf. Wainwright,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
60–61.

19.
On the postwar politics of the joint-power occupation of Korea, see Stueck,
Rethinking the Korean War,
11–60.

20.
Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
114–15.

21.
See Wainstock,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
10–14; 169–72 on the pathetic status of U.S. forces in the Asian theater following the Second World War.

22.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
11. Nuclear weapons had stopped all conventional fighting against Japan, and in the late 1940s, there was not yet the revisionist criticism against using the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In some sense both attacks were seen as humanely precluding bloodbaths like that on Okinawa just a few months earlier.

23.
Sandler,
Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished,
36–38. No doubt cutting back the army, the navy, and the marines, while investing in strategic nuclear bombers, was seen by Truman as one way of diverting scarce budget dollars to domestic expenditures while preserving U.S. security.

24.
For the quotes, see Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
27; and cf. 50. The effect of Acheson’s seemingly inadvertent remark still is vigorously debated. Ridgway in his memoirs both criticizes it as encouraging the enemy, and yet suggests that ipso facto the slip did not trigger the outbreak of the war. Cf. Collins,
War in Peacetime,
28–29; Blair,
Forgotten War,
53–55. See also, Stueck,
Rethinking the Korean War,
80–82.

25.
Collins,
War in Peacetime,
42–43. Stalin’s sudden declaration of war against Japan, and rapid entry into Manchuria in August 1945 had reminded Americans of the audacity and capability of the Red Army that had just a few years earlier crushed more than 200 Nazi divisions on the eastern front.

26.
See Ridgway,
Korean War,
12; Wainstock,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
67–69.

27.
Ridgway,
Korean War,
62. Both of Ridgway’s memoirs treat MacArthur carefully, given that the latter had both publicly lauded Ridgway but just as often in private criticized him. In any case, there was as much to praise at Inchon as there was to criticize at the Yalu.

28.
See the general remarks of Wainstock,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
1–14.

29.
See Blair,
Forgotten War,
97–98. Both apparently thought that the mere possession of nuclear weapons translated into some sort of conventional deterrence—a fallacy that Ridgway appreciated from the very beginning, due to both the general reluctance of the United States to again use such horrific weapons and the growing fear of mutually assured destruction with the appearance of a nuclear Russia.

30.
Why did the Chinese cross the Yalu? An entire scholarly industry has explored that question, citing the usual human impulses of Chinese fear, self-interest, and honor. No doubt Mao feared that an American victory would discredit Chinese Communism at home and abroad. He wished to support the North Koreans to whom he owed allegiance. And by November 1950—given the increasing exposure of American troops, lengthening supply lines, and bad weather—Mao felt an intervention would have a very good chance of success. See Stueck,
Rethinking the Korean War,
108–11. It may be that the Chinese feared American airstrikes into Manchuria rather than the likelihood of a land invasion (e.g. Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
238–39). For the Communist Chinese perspective, see Li,
Mao’s Generals,
3–60, on the long-term and short-term goals for such an intervention.

31.
There were many throughout the Pentagon who wanted to remove MacArthur long before Truman acted; in any case, the Joint Chiefs sent a unanimous recommendation on April 5, 1950, to Secretary of Defense George Marshall to fire the now isolated MacArthur; cf. Collins,
War in Peacetime,
282–83.

32.
Appleman,
Disaster in Korea,
22. On the poor status of the South Korean army in 1950, see Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
109–10. For Chinese advantages in airpower at the outset of the war, cf. Roe,
Dragon Strikes,
322–24.

33.
Appleman,
Ridgway Duels for Korea,
50–52.

34.
On Chinese propaganda and battle tactics, cf. Weintraub,
MacArthur’s War,
238–39. For a firsthand description from the Communist side, cf. Li,
Mao’s Generals,
114–18; Roe,
Dragon Strikes,
432–37.

35.
Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
152–55. There was a larger percentage of allied troops in the American coalition in Iraq (2003–2008) than during the Korean War, albeit the same hardball tactics were once again used to enlist many allies.

36.
Rees,
Korea—The Limited War,
151. There is still controversy over how far MacArthur should have advanced after Inchon, how far the United States later had to retreat, and whether in 1951 a resurgent United Nations force should have recrossed the 38th Parallel—yet almost no argument that in autumn 1950, stopping at the 39th Parallel would have precluded many of the problems and disagreements of the next two years.

37.
Soffer,
General Matthew Ridgway,
118. MacArthur refused Ridgway’s request, although he himself had wanted the option to employ nuclear weapons.

38.
On Attlee’s early December 1950 mission to Washington, see Whelan,
Drawing the Line,
270–74; and cf. Roe,
Dragon Strikes,
372–73, and especially Millett,
War for Korea,
63–65.

39.
Wainstock,
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War,
101.

40.
Sandler,
The Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished,
11–12.

41.
Appleman,
Disaster in Korea,
8, 353. Appleman cites the problems of morale and leadership as the primary culprits in the near American collapse. Cf. Millett,
Korean War,
291–320; 411–12 on Walker’s retreat, and the Chinese growing problems. The horrific losses and problems in supply suffered by the Chinese are also discussed in Li,
Mao’s Generals,
especially 124–27.