Customer Reviews

From Pusan to Panmunjom: Wartime Memoirs of the Republic of Korea's First Four-Star General (Memories of War)

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I'm glad I found this gem of a book. I've read more then a few Korean War books and they take a decidedly American point of view. It's not to say that this is wrong, but it's certainly unbalanced. Many of these other books go on to describe the ROK army as cowardly, unreliable and prone to breaking. Finally there is a Korean commander that puts the record straight.

Yes, it was true that the ROK army at the time were not up to American Army standards, but it's not fair to put the same expectations on them. It doesn't take a genius to know what happens when militia goes against a heavily equipped professional army head-to-head in the open field. Militia loses every time, just look at how the British man handled continental armies in the first few years of the Revolutionary War. In 1950 the ROK army was the equivalent of a militia as it was very much under equipped, with no armor, air force and very little artillery (some 60mm and 80mm mortars and a few light 105mm pieces).

The U.S. had purposely left the ROK army under equipped and it was designed from the ground up as a lightly armed anti-guerilla force. The ROK army had a very poor junior officer corps, there was not school to train junior officers. The U.S. was too preoccupied in rebuilding Japan and sent very limited funds to South Korea. Proper equipment was not sent, no school for junior officers was established. Anyone who knows something about military matters knows that the backbone of an effective army are the junior officers, the lieutenants, captains and majors that lead the troops into the teeth of enemy fire. The North Korean Army (NKA), on the other hand, had an effective junior officer corps because many of the veterans were anti-Japanese guerilla fighters. Furthermore, the Russians supplied NKA with T-34 tanks, YAK fighter bombers, 155mm artillery, etc. Heavy artillery, tanks and close air support gave the NKA heavy offensive power.

It is not mentioned very often, but American trooped faired NO BETTER against the NKA during the first few months of the war. 24th ID troops ran from their positions when their antiquated WWII era bazookas just scratched the paint off NKA T-34s. It was carrier based air power that saved the Americans from being overrun.

General Paik tells stories of desperate battles, where ROK soldiers wrapped satchel charges around their bodies and threw themselves in suicide missions onto NKA tanks. ROK soldiers did the best they could with the weapons and training they had on hand. General Paik provides a fair and often underappreciated reason for why ROK units faired badly in the early part of the Korean War. As far as I'm concerned, any student of the Korean War cannot consider himself a expert unless he's read Paik's book. It is wrong to not put into consideration the viewpoint of the nation that contributed the most manpower and had the most casualties of all the UN forces. No Korean War library can be considered complete without this book (how many Korea War books have a glowing foreword by Mathew B. Ridgeway himself, huh?).

General Paik Sun Yup was the 29 year old commander of the ROK 1st division. The 1st ROK division had the distinction of the only ROK unit that never retreated from their positions without orders. It was also the only ROK unit that was attached to a U.S. Army Corp for the duration of the war and given tasks expected of a regular U.S. infantry division. General Paik was adamant about the fact that given the proper artillery, armor and air support, the 1st ROK division always performed as well, if not better then any regular U.S. infantry division. The 1st ROK also had the distinction of being the first UN unit to enter Pyongyang, beating several better equipped U.S. units in the race to the NK capital.

General Paik's work stands out among the many works on the Korean War because of his focus on the operations of the Republic of Korea (ROK) forces. Highly recommended to readers looking for information that goes beyond the American contributions to the struggle. The operational details and accounts of the interaction of American and ROK commanders are fascinating. The book suffers slightly from a lack of detailed maps that assist readers in following the movements of the oppossing forces.

This is a fairly important book to anyone interested in the Korean War. General Yup was South Korea's first four star general and was a field commander of various units during the war.

What makes this book important is that it covers the same war as many other books, but that it is written not from an American viewpoint but from the view of a soldier whose country was being attacked. This has made the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) through its Institute for Land Warfare put this title on their list of books that should be kept in print for study by AUSA members and others concerned about important issues.

This book was first published in 1992, the copies being sold by Amazon are reprints of the original book.

This is an excellent autobiography. The General's career and development is amazing to have reached 4-Stars at such a young age. His modesty and emphasis on the South Korean Army's development into a complete military organization while at war is remarkable.
What makes this book sobering is when the General describes how thousands of South Koreans volunteered and were sent straight into combat with little training, only to quickly become casualties themselves, sacrificing their lives for their country. Another key item from the General's writing is how only after having the time to fully train, equip, and organize into Divisions with adequate firepower, were they able to successfully conduct offensive operations.
Bravery and courage helped them hold against the North Korean Communist attack along the desperate Pusan perimeter, but it was the firepower of the attached US artillery units that were supporting his South Korean Division that allowed them to counterattack successfully and reach Panmunjom.
The personal family dangers in war is also brought out where he writes about his family, who had to be left behind in Seoul, unable to flee when the North Koreans captured the city. The additional suffering of the civilian populace is also described in this book, caught trying to flee the Communist Army.
Highly recommended reading for the South Korean view of the war. Excellent insight into how important it is to have trained and properly equipped soldiers when fighting a war rather than relying on conscripted soldiers after war has started as the conscripted soldiers will suffer excessive casualties and deaths when fighting against a motivated, trained, and fully armed enemy.

I absolutely love this book. This is a decorated General's first hand account of the Korean War from start to finish and it is fascinating. I read this book for the first time when I was deployed to Iraq but my copy was destroyed in an attack and when I saw it for sale on Amazon I absolutely had to buy another copy for my war library. If you are interested in the Korean war (or any war really)this book is a must have. 5 Stars all the way!

Gen. Paik's book is much overdue and I feel that it gives much overdue credit to the ROK Army that history seems to have passed by or omited. I served in Korea in 1957-58 with a helicopter company. Not to long after I joined the company we recieved about 50 KATUSA (Korean Augmintation To the US Army). This group was commanded by a Captain who had several NCOs and the rest were raw troops. Our job was to include them into our company by teaching various jobs such as refueling aircraft. While most of them had never been around vehicles let alone helicopters they learned fast and became a very important part of the company. Based on what Gen. Paik says I now understand how this came about.

I know that the ROK Army at the start of the Korean war was on the short end of a very long stick militarly. This book opened my eyes on how this force progressed to the point that when ROK troops were sent to Vietnam they performed outstanding service. In Vietnam I again had the a chance to work with ROK troops and they were great.

I think that one important point needs to be made in comparing the South Vietnames Army with that of ROK. We tried to do much the same thing in Vietnam as we did in Korea, develope, train and fight a army during combat that for the most part had to start from scratch, we made it in Korea but not in Vietnam. The fact that when he was Chief of Staff Gen. Paik seems to have kept an open mind on how to improve his Army, I am not so sure that was always the case in Vietnam.

As a old soldier myself, Gen. Paik come across not only as a good commander but as one hell of a soldier.

In most histories of the Korean War, the Korean army tends to be overlooked except with respect to their combat abilities, or lack thereof. However, this is a harsh assessment, and it should be noted that the Korean army put more troops in the field than the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada combined. So while it could be considered that as a whole, the Korean army did not perform particularly well in combat, they did bear their fair share of the fighting, and this is reflected in their losses. However, there were units of the ROK army that were militarily capable, and these obviously tended to be units led by the competent officers of the ROK army. Paik was one such individual, who is regarded by Max Hastings in his book "The Korean War" as being the "ablest South Korean commander". "From Pusan to Panmunjom" is the story of Paik's war, which stretched from the beginning of the war as a field commander to its conclusion, just over three years later, at which time Paik was Army Chief of Staff, and a four star general.

General Paik Sun-yup was commander of the 1st ROK Division at the time of the North Korean invasion of the South, which commenced in June 1950, and it is these early days of the war which form the initial portion of the book. Paik remained in command during the counteroffensive, and led the 1st ROK division into Pyongyang. This was significant for Paik, who had been forced to flee the city in late 1945 when communists threatened. Paik then proceeded onto the Yalu. Of course, the course of the war was quickly reversed upon entry of the Chinese into the theatre of war, and following the retreat of the allied forces, the war settled into a stalemate. Paik, being involved as a field commander throughout the entire war, is ideally placed to comment and provide his views and experiences on all the major actions and phases of the Korean War. Paik provides a mixture of command and field level experiences - ranging from interrogating Chinese POWs to having a telephone conversation with a frightened North Korean soldier defending Pyongyang as the 1st ROK Division approached from one direction while the US 1st CAV approached from another. There are also interesting accounts of the interaction with American forces. The great value in this book is the Korean perspective of the Korean/US relationship. It seems that, contrary to the generally accepted view, there was a great deal of respect between the American units that supported the 1st ROK Division (which admittedly was one of the most, if not the most, capable Korean unit). Nonetheless, there were difficulties in the Korean/US relationship, and Paik does tend to tiptoe through these carefully.

Unlike some memoirs, there are a few (large scale) maps interspersed throughout the text that assist the reader in understanding the movement of various units. There is also a selection of black & white photographs. Generals Ridgway and van Fleet (Ridgway's successor as commander of the US 8th Army), both of whom worked with Paik, contributed a foreword. At times, the language tends to be relatively formal - but every now and then Paik breaks into a more casual turn of phrase.

"From Pusan to Panmunjom" is recommended for all those interested in the Korean War - this book offers a Korean perspective on the events of the war, a perspective which is in contrast to the multitude of US-centric books on the Korean War that are available.

I really enjoyed reading this book by probably the most celebrated Korean General of all time. While it is true that the Korean Army wasn't usually up to the standards of the American Army, Paik's units always seemed to be pretty close in every history of the war. Highly recommended book for anyone that wants to learn more about the Korean War.