이것이 전쟁이다! and final. AUGUST : August 7 was important. It marked the eighth anniversary of the Marines' landing on Guadalcanal the first American ground offensive of World War II. Now, again, it was an ink-encircled date. It had been chosen as the kick-off day for the first United Nations large-scale infantry attack of the Korean War, with the Marines, who had been in the country less than a week, spearheading the drive toward Chinju on the extreme southern flank. For weeks the soldiers of Lieutenant General Walton Walker’s Eighth Army had been holding heroically to the desolate sweep of mountains, rivers and rice paddies proudly called the Pusan Perimeter by GHQ in Tokyo. From Masan in the south, through Waegwan in the heart of the peninsula, to the obscure port of Pohang Dong on the east coast, the Perimeter protected the arterial port of Pusan, without which the United Nations' effort in Korea would have died. Many Americans perished while fighting to keep Pusan alive, for although General Walker's command was called an “Army,” it was, in truth, little more than a patchwork handful of inexperienced, untrained, understrength divisions whose men had been catapulted from the soft touch of Occupation life in Japan into the nightmare of retreat—hold; retreat—hold; retreat— retreat—retreat—hold; wounded, missing . . . the dead. Each time the Communists slashed into the Perimeter, always with superiority of weapons and manpower, Walker's soldiers were stunned and dropped by the blows, yet they staggered back to their feet, reestablished their positions and held again. If the war in Korea was enjoined in order that freedom survive on earth, then, like the airmen who saved Britain in her time of greatest peril, Walker's men of that early Eighth Army won the right of being proudly remembered by Americans for as long as the history of their country is known. Yet, should it be that freedom was not on test in Korea, and later people speak of the war only in criticism, then let them not forget that those Ⅲ. Korea 1950 l 45
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNzcxNA==