French battalion played key role in thwarting Chinese offensives

By Jung Sung-ki

Staff reporter

This is the second in a series of articles to mark the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. A reenactment of the Battle of Jipyeongri, a key battle that helped turn the tide in favor of U.N. forces against Chinese troops, took place last month. ― ED.

Deafening sounds of explosions, bugles, whistles and bells were heard. Hundreds of Chinese troops clad in dusty tan battle dress uniforms and raising red flags thronged the fields of Jipyeongri in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province.

The communist forces finally met the defensive line of U.S. and French troops, and about a thousand soldiers from both sides were tangled up together and engaged in fierce and bloody hand-to-hand fighting.

The massive Chinese forces apparently appeared scared by the U.N. forces' brave and desperate bayonet attack and begun retreating.

These scenes were part of the reenactment of the Battle of Jipyeongri of the 1950-53 Korean War, that took place from Feb. 13 to 16, 1951, in which a French battalion under the command of the U.S. 23rd Infantry Regiment inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).

The reenactment was staged by the ROK Army's 20th Mechanized Infantry Division on May 26 as part of the Korean War veterans' invitation program on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.

About 130 U.S. and French Korean War veterans attended the reenactment ceremony in which 1,000 soldiers and 12 tanks were mobilized.

"It was bitterly cold. We blew down the enemy forces again and again, but they were also popping up again and again," Jacques Grisolet, 82, who participated in the battle as a first lieutenant of the French battalion, said, recalling four days of fierce combat in the village of Jipyeongri.

After Chinese forces entered Korea in November 1950, U.S.-led United Nations coalition forces backing South Korea drew back behind the 38th parallel in the wake of multi-phase offensives by the numerically superior troops of the PVA and the (North) Korean People's Army (KPA).

Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgeway, who replaced Lt. Gen. Walton Walker as commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, decided to make a stand at Jipyeongri and also at Wonju in Gangwon Province.

Ridgeway recognized that the Chinese had overstretched their supply lines and would not be able to keep up their advance much longer. He intended to use the 23rd Regiment Combat Team, led by Col. Paul L. Freeman, in the 2nd Infantry Division to blunt the Chinese attack, so that his Eighth Army could carry out a counterattack before the Chinese had a chance to consolidate their forces.

By Feb. 13, Freeman had 4,500 men under his command, including 2,500 frontline infantrymen. But his forces were entirely encircled by about 30,000 Chinese troops from three PVA divisions under the command of the 39th Army.

The French battalion led by Lt. Col. Ralph Moclar was, in particular, outstanding in resisting the Chinese incursion, allowing the Eighth U.S. Army to score a victorious counteroffensive.

Monclar, who had participated both in World War I and II and retired with the rank of lieutenant general, volunteered to join the French forces fighting in Korea. He took a voluntary demotion to lieutenant colonel to command the Battalion de Coree.

Monclar's troops were dug in and prepared for the Chinese attack against the defense perimeter the French battalion manned.

The Chinese often blew horns and banged drums to command troops and also for psychological impact against the U.N. forces. When the Chinese began their bugle calls and drumming to start their attack, the French soldiers began blowing their own horns and yelling back at them.

When a Chinese platoon attacked the French line, a squad of French soldiers fixed bayonets and charged them. The Chinese platoon had the French squad outnumbered 3-1 but they turned and ran after seeing the French squad charge them with bayonets, screaming a battle cry.

After three days of bloody battles, Chinese troops finally retreated when the U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment, the Task Force Crombez, was deployed to Jipyeongri to support the U.N. forces.

Nearly 2,000 Chinese troops were killed, 3,000 wounded and 79 others were captured as prisoners of war (POWs). But casualties on the U.N. side of the conflict numbered 51 killed, 250 injured, and 42 missing in action.

Military strategists have assessed that the battle of Jipyeongri, in particular the heroic French defense, shaped the tactics that would replay throughout both Korea and Vietnam whereby well equipped isolated firebases, in communication by air and radio with regional divisional forces, held out against numerically superior light infantry formations.

Eventually, such tactics turned around the U.N.'s disastrous retreat from the north into a stalemate that led to an armistice agreement two years later, according to them.

French action

After the battle at Jipyeongri, the French battalion went on to fight in other pivotal battles in the Korean War including Hongchon and Heartbreak Ridge. In the weeks following Jipyeongri, many of those wild French soldiers that held the line Jipyeongri would perish in the hills of Hongchon.

The French had 40 soldiers killed and 200 wounded in the capturing of a 1,000-meter-high Chinese fortified hill in -30C temperatures that would eventually open the road for the Eighth Army across the 38th parallel.

At Heartbreak Ridge in the fall of 1951, another 60 of these brave Frenchmen would die in one month of fighting on the isolated ridgeline though they won fame again during a night attack.

In the fall of 1952, after a lethal war of positions, the battalion put a halt to a Chinese offensive toward Seoul in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province. The resistance resulted in 47 dead and 144 wounded. The total Chinese losses against the French battalion were estimated at 2,000.

In the winter and the spring of 1953, the battalion took part in combat which kept the North Korean and Chinese forces from reaching Seoul.

After the signing of the armistice in July 1953, the French Battalion left Korea with five French Citations to the Order of the Army; the French Fourragere in the colors of the Military Medal; two Korean Presidential Citation and three American Distinguished Unit Citations.

During the Korean War, the French dispatched about 3,400 army and navy personnel between Dec. 12, 1950 and Nov. 6, 1953 according to the ROK Army.

The French battalion had 262 soldiers killed in action, 1,008 wounded, seven missing in action, and 12 became POWs, it said in a news release.