Word: 7th
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Nobody, apparently, remembered Churchill's sage advice as the operational order was drawn for a routine, company-size raid by the U.S. 7th Division on the Korean front near Chorwon. The focus of attack was a knob called Spud Hill, in the T-Bone mountain area. Air and artillery were to plaster the enemy position, then tank-supported infantry was to move up, grab prisoners, finish destroying Communist bunkers and tunnels. Code word: Operation Smack...
...7th's diligent press officer invited correspondents to watch the raid as it was unleashed last week. At a forward observation post, where visiting brass was also on hand, the newsmen received printed timetables for the operation. The paper work was standard except for a fancy cover, decked with a two-color reproduction of the division's insigne. Inside, newsmen spotted the word "scenario...
...couple of correspondents were green hands at the front. They saw the Communists hold fast to Spud Hill despite terrific bombardment, the 7th's men repulsed, the stretcher-bearers bringing down the casualties (three killed, 61 wounded, of whom many were stunned or scratched and returned to duty the next day). Their report home made Operation Smack seem like a staged show, bloody and purposeless. In Washington, Michigan's Republican Congressman Clare Hoffman, never one to shun a headline, sounded off loudly. The Army, he trumpeted, must explain "whether these invited guests were witnessing a spectacle similar...
Alongside its totals for dead and wounded from October's battles for the Kumwha ridges, the Eighth Army in Korea was checking another figure last week: manpower losses caused by mental illness. From just behind the front, Psychiatrist Robert J. Lavin sent in an encouraging report on the 7th Division. Of 250 men who had shambled into his tent during the month, said Captain Lavin, he had been able to send no fewer than 247 back to duty. The great majority went back to combat within four or five days, and most of the others got service...
...from the Midwest, was checking off on a pocket calendar the days before he would go home. Then the Communists struck. Tom was not hurt, but he got sick. He vomited, ached all over and shook like a leaf. He was soon passed back to Psychiatrist Lavin of the 7th Division...