Augmented by Irene L. Mandra

On Nov. 27, 1950, X Corps, in what has been called “the most ill-advised and unfortunate operation of the Korean War,” ordered the First Marine Division and the Army’s Task Force MacLean to attack north from their positions west and east of the Chosen Reservoir. The operation was designed to take pressure off Eighth U.S. Army units 50-air-miles to the west, which was under heavy attack from the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) 130,000 man Thirteenth Army Group, which had just entered the war. Unbeknownst to those ordering the attack, the 120,000-man CCF Ninth Army Group was lying in wait.

Task Force MacLean, named for the commander of the U.S. Seventh Infantry Division’s 31st Infantry Regiment, Colonel Allan D. “Mac” MacLean, had been formed in mid-November, 1950, to relieve First Marine Division elements east of the Chosin Reservoir. It consisted of the Second and Third Battalions, 31st Infantry Regiment (2/31 and 3/31), and the M-26 Pershing tanks of the regiment’s heavy tank company; the First Battalion, 32d Infantry Regiment (1/32), under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Don C. Faith; the 105-mm dusters from D Battery, 15^th Antiaircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion.

By Nov. 27, 1950, the task force had relieved the Fifth Marine Regiment, which joined the rest of the First Marine Division farther north to the west of the reservoir. The force had taken up positions east of the reservoir with Faith’s 1/32 to the north, the 3/31 and two 105-mm batteries farther south and still further south at the village of Hudong, the rear command post and the tank company. The 2/31 and one battery of 105-mm howitzers was lagging far behind and had yet to arrive. Counting 700 attached Republic of Korea (ROK) troops; Task Force MacLean was some 3,200 men strong.

Soon after arriving at Hudong, MacLean had sent his I&R (Intelligence and Reconnaissance) platoon out to scout enemy locations. It disappeared without a trace. That night three CCF divisions struck the Marines west of the reservoir, and the CCF 80^th Division struck Task Force MacLean. The battle of Chosin Reservoir had begun. Usually portrayed as a Marine epic, the travail of the Army’s Task Force MacLean has been largely ignored.

“Finally reaching Hudong, they

found that the regimental tank

company, which they believed

would prove to be their salvation,

had already been withdrawn

to Hagaru.”

With his task force strung out north to south along the east bank of the reservoir and vulnerable to defeat in detail (having his battalions picked off one at a time), MacLean was hard pressed from the start. The 1/32 had suffered 100 casualties, and the 3/31 had also taken severe losses. The next day, when his tanks attempted to move up in support, they were attacked by Chinese gunners using American 3.5-inch antitank rocket launchers and were forced to retreat. When the CCF resumed the attack on the night of Nov. 28-29, MacLean withdrew 1/32 south into the 3/31 perimeters. In the process MacLean was gunned down and captured (he later died in captivity); and with the 3/31 commander, Lieutenant Colonel William R. Reilly severely wounded, Faith assumed command. Task Force MacLean had become Task Force Faith.

Again the regiment’s tank company at Hudong four miles to the south tried to break through, and again they were repulsed. On Nov. 30, 1950, Faith was ordered to fight his way south to the perimeter at Hagaru at the southern tip of the Chosin Reservoir, then under the command of the First Marine Regiment’s Colonel Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller. Hampered by some 500 wounded and by temperatures that at times reached 35-degrees-below-zero, Faith found his task force surrounded and abandoned. Transferred from Seventh Division to First Marine Division control, they were told by the hard-pressed Marines that they would have to fend for themselves. Under heavy CCF attack again on the night of Nov. 30, Task Force Faith suffered another 100 casualties. Knowing he could not survive another such attack, Faith put his 600 wounded on trucks and began to move south. Attacked not only by CCF mortars and small arms fire, but also by U.S. aircraft that mistakenly dropped napalm on his lead elements, Faith’s column was stopped by a series of CCF roadblocks and Faith himself severely wounded by a Chinese grenade. Finally reaching Hudong, they found that the regimental tank company, which they believed would prove to be their salvation, had already been withdrawn to Hagaru. It was the end of Task Force Faith. In the

CCF final assault on the column, Colonel Faith (who was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions during the withdrawal) was killed, as were most of the other wounded. Only 385 of the task force’s 3,200-man force survived.

“The fate that overtook Task Force Faith,” wrote Army historian Roy E. Appleman, “was one of the worst disasters for American soldiers in the Korean War.”