Reply With QuoteDamn good post, hard to believe though.
Tae Kwon Do is the martial art all NCO's in the ROK Marines have to have a black belt in, but that doesn't make them great infantrymen.
Elite Korean Units during the Vietnam war
With their own version of karate, and without many scruples, the Koreans imposed their iron control
over Dinh Binh Province. In February 1967, a large force of NVA made the fatal error of engaging a
company of Koreans at close quarters. In the bloodbath that followed they lost 243 KIA and were
forced into chaotic withdrawal. That was the first major collision between North Vietnamese and Korean
forces. It would be a good while before there was another.
The first Koreans troops arrived in-country in February 1965, and although they were officially assigned
to non-combat duties, they first came under fire on 3 April of that year. By this time there were 200 ROK’s
in-country and their numbers would eventually rise until there were 44,829 superbly trained Koreans stationed
in Vietnam. Most of them were in II Corps, on the central coastal plain around Qui Khon and Na Trang. Binh
Dihn Province was somewhat hidden from the mainstream of the war, and the Koreans there were reduced to
a sideshow-but an effective one.
Besides the American effort, South Korea’s was the second largest fighting force in Vietnam, and the last out,
leaving in March 1973. The South Korean President at the time Chung Lee Park, proudly explained that fighting
in Vietnam would not only solidify their national security, but also contribute towards strengthening the anti-
communist front of the free world.
They had vivid memories of their own vicious fight against communists just over a decade before to remind them
what communism meant, and it made them fanatics. In general terms, Korean fighting methods were identical to those
of the Americans. Using the same basic weapons and tactical doctrines, ROK units were expected to carry out village
searches, ambushes, and cordon operations, contributing to the general strategy of search and destroy. But there were
differences of detail. On the positive side, most ROK actions involved more careful planning than those of their allies,
with greater fire discipline and better co-ordination of sub-units.
During village searches, ROK soldiers would subject the settlement to a series of detailed sweeps while interrogating
subjects on the spot. By comparison, American units tended to favor a single sweep followed by a removal of all
civilians for screening. Such a painstaking approach certainly paid dividends in terms of weapons seizures and reduced
VC activity in ROK areas.
But ROK soldiers were renowned for carrying out brutal interrogations and for silent killing techniques involving the
garrote or karate. This struck fear into the hearts of the enemy, but it went far beyond the norm of Western warfare.
The three main units deployed to Vietnam were the Capital (Tiger) Division, the ROK Marine Corps’ 2nd (Blue Dragon)
Brigade and the 9th (White Horse) Division. Various ROK special forces units were also deployed.
British photographer Tim Page spent time with the ROK’s at Hui An, I Corps, and in Binh Dinh Province, II Corp in
1967. The following quoted text is that of Tim Page:
“It was surprising to walk into the officer’s mess at the ROK Blue Dragon Brigade and, prior to being seated, hear a
very fierce sounding, totally unintelligible grace. The only words I could understand were, Westmoreland, America,
and Viet Cong. An escort officer explained that the prayer was to give the Dragons and their allies strength to kill
VC. The detached Marine brigade based at Hui An, near Quang Ngai in I Corps, was the model of military propriety.
Their camp was enhanced by the debris of war: shell casings lined the graveled walkways, flattened C-ration cartons
shingled and lined the buildings, and ammo cases became hootches.
There was no scarp of litter anywhere, and they had even planted flowerbeds and Kentucky blue grass borders.
Lurking sentries, spotlessly turned out even in the worst of conditions, would snap to attention as I slouched past.
My escort told me it was a greeting, though every evening at their Tae Kwon Do exercise they screamed it before
they bisected a brick with bare head or hand. Every trooper was trained in this deadly form of karate.
My batman woke me before five. The same unit I had patrolled with the day before had gotten hit in a night laager
in a cemetery. I rode a beat up H-34 out to the battle. We dropped in a combat spiral from 1500 feet into a tight
defensive perimeter around an ancient Viet cemetery, with foxholes dug into graves. A few wide-eyed, disheveled
Korean Marines ran up to the bird and threw in a body wrapped in a poncho. Two walking wounded followed.
Everywhere there were bodies, mostly in black pajamas, some in green NVA uniforms.
I stopped counting after 50, that was just inside the perimeter, and they were still bringing in the kills from the bamboo
tree line. I found the Marines I had buddied up with, and they told me the story. They knew they were going to be hit-
maybe it takes an Asian to know what another Asian is going to do- so their ambush patrols were some way out.
They had gone unarmed except for garrotes and knives, and the first VC hadn’t known what zapped them.
The ambush patrols pulled back, ****y-trapping the KIA’s, arming the trip wires and calling artillery onto the tree
line 50 meters away. Some of the bodies hardly had a scratch on them. I flipped one over to get the already gone
belt buckle, the neck flopped like a broken doll, the sergeant giggled and made hand-chopping signs.
The Koreans did not have to exaggerate their body counts for the computers in the Pentagon: in that one action
they had 85 confirmed VC, whilst taking three of their own KIA and 10 wounded. The trees around the cemetery
were splattered with bits of once-human beings, and blood trails ran everywhere”.
Another company unit of 150 men working up on the Cambodian border with the US 4th Infantry Division got
ambushed by the NVA 101st Regiment. When the action was finished, the NVA withdrew, leaving 182 KIA-
the ROK’s had seven. Captured VC documents showed the respect they were treated with, stipulating contact
with the Koreans is to be avoided at all costs unless a victory is 100 per cent certain.
The Koreans learned a bastardized version of the Vietnamese language, freed themselves of unnecessary inter-
preters, and discovered a lot of their assigned ARVN translators were deep cover VC. They took them out
and executed them. Korean intelligence was hard and new.
The text by Tim Page continues:
“After a rare chopper assault ferrying in two companies (rare because the US could ill afford choppers for their
seconded allies), the Tigers flushed out a dozen VC suspects while I was with them. The suspects were wizened
old men, too old for military service, probably VC sympathizer farmers. However, the LZ had been hot with sniper
rounds. Terrified woman and children were flushed from the corn breaks claiming “no VC”, but everywhere we
found fighting holes and bunkers.
As the CO took a couple of suspects aside to get some updated information, the US forward artillery observer
and his radioman drifted off. In bad Vietnamese, the captain barked questions at the cringing suspect. I hardly saw
his hands move, and the VC was doubled over, a vivid mark on his neck. Still no answer. Next time, I saw the
hand move and heard the forearm break. Writhing now, but still not talking, he was led over to kneel on the edge
of one of the fighting holes.
The CO backed up a couple of paces, brought up his M-2 carbine and, with great pantomime, jacked one up the
snout and snicked the safety off. At 15 yards he put a burst of automatic fire a millimeter to the side of the VC’s
head”. The Koreans didn’t allow Page to photograph the incident. “I slumped off to join the Americans while the
VC spilled his story. Minutes later, when I was taking a leak, he was led down the hill by three ROK’s. There was
a single pistol shot and the troopers plodded back alone. The ROK’s did not believe you could reeducate a
communist”.
South Korea’s devotion was not cheap: the US paid the $1 billion of their budget from 1965-70, besides another
$150 million in development loans. The Koreans also cleaned up to the tune of $650 million for military procurements.
Regards & Thanks,
Hist2004
Damn good post, hard to believe though.
Tae Kwon Do is the martial art all NCO's in the ROK Marines have to have a black belt in, but that doesn't make them great infantrymen.
a little change
Good post, their version of "Karate" (actually it's a mix of Judo, Tae Kwon Do and Karate") is called tuek gong mu sool, literally meaning "Specialized Hand to hand combat".
not all NCOs in the ROKMC "black-belt" tae kwon do or tuek gong mu sool. there's a specialized "hand to hand combat demonstration team" that does that.
all in all, i agree with Ringo, learning hand to hand combat doesnt make them great infantrymen, but strictly as an observer, they're great troops. im glad they're on our side (ROK is sending a large force very soon)
Great article. ROK has been a great ally for decades. Not many people realize how much they appreciate the US. Even with the South Korean students and young people showing obstenance to the US troops, they are still a great ally. I have heard of more than a couple stories of punk students giving US GI's a hard time in public, followed shortly by an ROK Vet beating them like some bastard children. Also, the ROK treats our Korean War vets better than we treat them.
Thanks to the forum members for your comments. Here are some links
which provide additional info on the ROK's involvement in Vietnam.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vie...llied/ch06.htm
http://orbat.com/site/history/histor...invietnam.html
http://www.polkcounty.org/vn/Kwon/korean_units.html
Regards & Thanks,
Hist2004
In terms of protesting, Korea's a funny place. Actually, I think it's great. It's countries like Korea that really utilize and cherish their right to protest and actively voice their opinions. But funny as in those protestors later become the police/army that has to firehose the next batch of protestors.
Most of the Koreans are grateful for the US presence in their country, but they are getting a bit chaffed by the way the US conducts itself down there. Most of the older generation remembers what the US did. But the younger generation only see the US servicemen really livin' it up. Hell, their Seoul base used to be a PARADISE.
As for the ROK in Vietnam.. yeah. Not only were they forged by the Korean "Conflict," but also a lot of their generals and top brass were Japanese trained as well.
I found this information on the Korean Marines at specialoperations.com. As good as
these guys were, the numbers for the marines involved in the battle didn’t add up- 13 against a regiment???? The follow-up information is a little more believable.
Republic of Korea Marine Corps
The ROKMC was created in 1949. The ROKMC is the largest Special Operation force in South Korea. They first saw action in the Korean War. One during the Korean conflict, a squad of ROKMC wiped out an entire battalion of Communist forces. As a result to this, they were acclaimed by foreign media and were dubbed the "Invincible Marines." They and also saw action during the Vietnam War. In Vietnam they were stationed in Danang. There they sometimes fought alongside with the USMC or the Navy SEAL's. Their most notable operations were "Operation Van Buren" and the Battle of Hoi An. During "Operation Van Buren," a ROKMC platoon of about 13 people wiped out an elite North Vietnamese Army regiment. There were only 2 Koreans dead and more than 400 NVA soldiers dead. It was first a gun battle but it broke down into hand-to-hand combat. The ROKMC had an overall kill ratio of 25:1.
The below post from StrategyPage.com helps clarify the numbers involved.
The web page is probably talking about the battle at Tra Bihn Dong between the ROK
Marines of 11th Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade (aka Blue Dragons) and a regimental
sized NVA force. I believe the web page is off by ONLY one order of magnitude. It was around 300 Korean marines defending a company OP rather than 13. There were around 15 KIA on the Korean side with many more wounded. The NVA suffered at least 240
confirmed KIA with possibly 60 more KIA, and 2 NVA were captured. The marines
captured scores of enemy weaponry, including 3 Czech-made flamethrowers, several RPG's and machine guns and assorted small arms. The NVA goals were to overrun the company
and with follow on forces attack the ROK artillery units and an American airbase at nearby Chu Lai.
During the 4-hour night battle, the NVA penetrated the barbwire multiple times and had artillery support. NVA artillery hit the ammunition support. NVA artillery hit the ammunition stores for the ROK’s 4.2” mortars but the collapsing sandbags prevented secondary explosions, which would have been devastating. The ROK marines disassembled their own heavy machine guns, mortars and recoilless rifle to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Squads and fire teams moved behind the NVA that had
penetrated the base along the trenches the NVA had previously overrun to counter
attack. In these counter attacks, the ROK marines captured the flamethrowers and machine guns the NVA had used to break through on the ROK. There were many instances of hand-to-hand combat with trenching tools. The presence of mind and combat skills displayed by the ROK marines that night is truly amazing.
Regards & Thanks,
Hist2004
The mental and physical tuffness that is trained into these ROK units still creates tales of lore today. Many US soldiers that have the opportunity to train with ROK commandos will tell you that doing pushups and being scolded by a burly NCO is the least of your worries in the ROK ARMY. Getting he Kimchee kicked out of you is however. The ability to take an asswhoopin and smile is still a measure of a soldier there. As much as I respect that ..(being of Korean heritage myself).. I'll stick with my own unit.
I have family in South Korea and my uncle, who joined the ROK Army in 1979, he joined one of the Airborne units in the ROK Army, I don't remember what unit he was in but i've seen pictures of him. He would tell me during basic training, they would run at least two miles in the morning, do training during the middle of the day (Rifle, formations, tactics, hand-to-hand combat, your name it.) then finish the day off with two more miles. They would do this for 12 weeks and this was their basic training.
During his airborne training, he said they would run anywhere from 2-5 miles aday and go though the same training our paratroopers in the united states would do. He said this lasted about 3 weeks.
After his airborne training, he said they would go though an another 40-52 weeks of training in AIT, MORE Infantry tactics (Ambushing, Urban, etc), Then was put into a Combat unit, reenlistment was every 4 years and he said they would go though 3 weeks of war games every year. He said he gotten his black belt and NCO training during this time.
He does tell me some stories about the American troops based on ROK and really liked the people he meant. He spent little more then 14 years in the ROK Army before breaking his leg on a jump, he told me that he ****ed up when landing.
He wouldn't tell me that much about any personal stories that he had, and I do sometimes talk to him over the phone. Funny thing is, for the pass 10 years or so, he always said the North Koreans had nukes...
I'll see if he can share one of his stories at the DMZ with us and I'll post it up, if he does me of course.
ROKs are tough ass mofos. I read in a marines auto bio that if a ROK was being shot at from a village, they would simply obliterate the village.
Well, look who the the South Koreans have for neighbors.
They have N. Korea with a big mother-fudgin' army just miles from their Capital. A little bit beyond that they have China. Below them is Japan, and we know they all have FOND memories of what Japan did (right, all communist propoganda and lies). Is it any wonder they take their business seriously, if not brutally?
The two times I trained with ROK Marines they only impressed me with their fitness... They were the epitome of "squared away" in our book as far as gear and uniforms, but as far as "tactics" goes they left much to be desired. I never witnessed any hazing or physical abuse by NCO's (of course sh*t happens when you're not looking) even a Vietnam vet that was the cheif instructor at their Mountain Warfare school seemed to have more restraint than some of our lance corporals.
A key point to their readiness nowadays is that they're forced to serve 2 years in one of the branches modeled after our own services. Just two!
I don't want to sound negative on the soundness of the ROK armed forces, they are living a much, MUCH, more spartan military life than American servicemen and I do sleep better knowing they are on our side.
I don't know what their current status is (ROK Marines, Army) but in Vietnam their "tactics" spoke for themselves. Thanks for your input.Originally Posted by Johnnyringo
Regards & Thanks,
Hist2004
interesting stuff
If any of you have the chance to travel to Korea in the near future try to see a new movie, "Silmi-Do". It's about a 1968 plan to build up an assasination squad to eliminate the North Korean dictator Kim. The men chosen for the training are all criminals and misfits serving long jail terms and are subjected to a cruel training regime on Silmi island ("Silmi-Do"). It's based on a real story after North Korean spys murdered the back-then ROK President's wife at his Seoul residence ("The Blue House"). I believe the real-life trainers were ROK marine NCOs and Officers.
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