War: Like a Fire Drill

TIME Correspondent Dwight Martin was in Hungnam to view the lurid spectacle of allied evacuation. Martin’s report:

IN a briefing room in a former Japanese housing development a mile or so from the harbor, a U.S. major went up to a tactical map and pointed to a series of diminishing arcs around the Hungnam area. Said he: “If they get to this first arc, they’ll be able to hit us here with artillery if they have any real long-range stuff. We don’t think they have.” Then he indicated another arc closer to the port and said, “If they get to here, they’ll be able to hit us with regular Chinese artillery.” Somebody indicated a still smaller arc on the map and asked: “What happens when they get here?” The major cocked an eyebrow at his questioner, shrugged and replied, with an air of finality: “Then, we’ve had it.” As it turned out, the Chinese had nothing heavier than mortars.

No Panic. While the infantrymen in the line drew back slowly before the Chinese assault, the evacuation at the dockside went on apace. There was no panic, no disorder. But the tempo of the operation stepped up sharply. At the docks themselves, U.S., Norwegian and Japanese merchant ships took on load after load of trucks, tanks, gasoline, rations, dismantled aircraft, jeeps, tents and kitchen stoves. The black, mud-choked roads within the dock area were jammed bumper to bumper with mud-spattered supply trains grinding and slithering down to the ships. The supply convoys passed acres of gasoline drums, quarter-mile-long warehouses piled high with C-rations, soap, lard, coffee and fruit juices. G.I. and Korean stevedores ate steadily all day long, casually hacked open 6-lb. tins of pork luncheon meat to make one sandwich, gallon tins of fruit juice for one swallow. Outside one warehouse, a black-bearded U.S. sergeant dug his plastic C-ration spoon into a 10-lb. tin of corned beef with the delicate disdain of an overweight debutante at a smörgasbord.

At another warehouse a steady stream of Korean women threaded their way through huge stacks of flour, rice and millet, emerged with 50 to 100-lb. sacks strapped to their backs or carefully balanced on their heads. There would be some later disappointment. Some of the women had taken their sacks from the wrong part of the warehouse and were heading jubilantly home to the kitchen loaded down with fertilizer.

Ruin & Rubble. The Hungnam dock area itself was already a torn and twisted slag heap of rubble and debris left earlier by U.S. strategic bombing attacks. The concrete warehouses at the dockside had somehow escaped major damage, but most of the rest of the port facilities were in complete ruin—huge gas storage tanks crumpled up like discarded beer cans, power plants stripped of their heavy, concrete walls, their generators rusting slowly away beneath alternate snow and freezing rain. Here & there stood long lines of brand-new, Japanese-made freight cars, their gleaming white sides neatly marked with the insignia of the U.S. Army’s Transportation Corps. An officer stared blackly out over the rubble, waved at the freight cars, tanks and stacks of other heavy equipment and said, “God, we just got most of this stuff in here. If the gooks keep on coming, we’re going to have to turn right the hell around and blow it all up again. God help the taxpayers.”

A few miles away at Yonpo airfield, U.S. troops went grimly about the business of burning or blowing up barracks, buildings and other installations which the Chinese, whether they arrived in the morning or next week, might find useful. Similar demolitions went on at the same time in other parts of the U.S. perimeter. Withdrawing 3rd Division infantrymen blew their rail and motor bridges behind them. Near Hungnam X Corps engineers blew up another railroad bridge along with almost 400 freight cars and 30 locomotives. They said they definitely weren’t going to blow up the new 1950 Japanese cars. At least they had had no orders to do so—yet.

Free Boat Ride. In the harbor meanwhile, the loading booms creaked and strained from dock to deck, and LCVPs (Landing Craft—”Vehicle, Personnel) churned busily from the beach out to an armada of U.S. Navy ships waiting to take out the troops. The South Korean navy sent one LST in to the beach to pick up several thousand R.O.K. troops, nurses and South Korean civilians. The Koreans wasted no time getting aboard. When they finally stopped getting aboard, the LST was crammed to the gunwales with over 4,000 passengers, including a fair share of the remaining civilian population of Hungnam—elderly men & women with their belongings wrapped in white cloth, young mothers with their kids strapped papoose style to their backs, and every older kid for miles around who had heard about the big free boat ride. As the LST settled slowly into the mud under the weight of its load, R.O.K. troops herded all the passengers off by shooting bursts of burp gunfire over their heads. The 4,000 Koreans scrambled blithely ashore and stood around grinning amiably, while the R.O.K. officers and the ship’s crew argued furiously over the snafu and the skipper strained vainly to get his craft out of the mud.

The Colonel’s Troubles. We drove up the main road from Hungnam to Hamhung, a distance of about eight miles. U.N. forces had officially evacuated the city that morning, amid some of the most spectacular demolitions of the retreat, but more were still to come.

A lieutenant colonel of engineers, some demolition men and a reconnaissance platoon stood in the middle of the muddy road 100 yards from the edge of the town. The town itself was completely quiet except for a band of several hundred Koreans who stood disconsolately around holding aloft several South Korean flags. The colonel wanted to blow up a railroad bridge that crossed the road a few yards from where he stood, but he was having his troubles.

The colonel glanced down the peaceful no man’s land that separated him from the friendly Koreans and saw them marching in the direction of the railroad bridge. He jumped in a jeep, swung himself behind a 30-caliber machine gun and drove up to stop them. Meanwhile, the reconnaissance platoon went off for one last swing through the town to make sure all the U.N. troops were out. When the colonel finally was forced to dismount and turn them back at carbine point, the Koreans seemed hurt and puzzled.

Up with a Bang. Back down the road to the port of Hungnam, thousands of bewildered refugees watched as the retreating U.N. army destroyed trains, tents, unsalvageable vehicles and more bridges. A young engineer lieutenant pointed pridefully to the underside of a 600-ft. highway bridge; he had packed in a series of charges totaling three tons of explosives and thought that this one should really go up with a bang; 30 minutes later it did, and the bang shook most of Hungnam. That night Hungnam rocked to still more violent and ever-increasing explosions around the U.S. perimeter. Great orange masses of flame swirled brilliantly up into the skies and then subsided again. The perimeter shrank slowly but steadily. The evacuation went on like an orderly, well-rehearsed fire drill.