Battle of Chip’yong-ni remembered

Rick Wood/Northwest Guardian

Nearly six decades ago, the fate of free Koreans lay in the hands of cold and battered forces facing staggering odds.

Korean War veterans, civilians and Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment remembered the Battle of Chip’yong-ni during a wreath-laying ceremony Feb. 18 on Joint Base Lewis-McChord Lewis Main.

Veterans of the battle assisted two 23rd Infantry Regiment Soldiers, dressed in authentic Korean War uniforms, in placing a commemorative wreath on a monument to that battle.

A force of 4,500 allied troops, mostly made up of members of the 23rd Inf. Regt., squared off against Chinese Communist Forces numbering more than 25,000.

The battle of Chip’yong-ni was a turning point for allied forces during the Korean War.

Up until that point, United Nations troops would withdraw when opposed by Chinese forces.

A directive issued by 8th Army Commander General Matthew Ridgeway changed that.

When commanders at Chip’yong-ni asked for orders, Ridgeway said to stand and fight.

For veterans of the battle, the wreath laying held a very special significance.

Retired Command Sergeant Major Jim Steinthal said he remembers the battle as if it had happened yesterday. Another deadly enemy was the cold.

“The weather was horrible,” Steinthal said. “It was cold.”

Freezing temperatures froze the ground rock hard; even digging foxholes became a difficult task, he said. Nearly as many men would die from the cold as from enemy bullets and mortars.

Chinese forces quickly enveloped the 23rd and a French battalion.

“They soon found themselves cut off and completely surrounded,” Steinthal said.

On Feb. 13, 1951, French forces made a full-scale charge with fixed bayonets that broke the Chinese stranglehold by its sheer audacity, he said.

“The fighting was fierce and more often then not, hand to hand,” Steinthal said.

Although he was an artillery Soldier, Steinthal remembers the battle from an infantryman’s perspective, he said.

“Everybody was together,” Steinthal said. “Everybody was infantry.”

One substantial turning point in the battle almost spelled doom for allied forces, he said. Air assets were called in to drop ordnance on the Chinese positions — but the pilots missed their target.

“They released the napalm over our position,” Steinthal said.

The Americans held out, however, until more effective support arrived. The battle broke with the Chinese retreat shortly after the close-air support. In its aftermath 51 U.N. Soldiers lay dead and 250 more were wounded.

Chinese confirmed losses were more than 3,000.

The laying of the commemorative wreath is an annual event Steinthal said he looks forward to.

“We can’t let the sacrifice be forgotten,” he said.