Korean War: Forgotten 24th and 34th Infantry Regiments

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Elements of the 34th Infantry, remnants of the division’s artillery battalions, the division recon company, engineer battalion and part of the 19th Infantry tried to defend Taejon, but they were overwhelmed and forced to withdraw through enemy fire. It was a rout. Company L, 34th Infantry, which remained in the city as a rear guard, lost 107 out of 153 men.

The 34th lost at least 530 men out of its total strength of 1,549 present at Taejon. Leadership losses in the regiment since entering combat included four regimental commanders and two operations officers in just over two weeks. The 1st Battalion lost its executive officer on July 20, and the 3/34th lost two battalion commanders (Lantron was taken prisoner on July 20) and its operations officer. The division commander, General Dean, was also missing in action. It was later learned that he, too, had been taken prisoner.

On July 29, the 34th was dug in near Kochang. The regiment had no switchboard and was short of mortars, rocket launchers and machine guns. Its commander, Colonel Charles E. Beauchamp (appointed just before the struggle for Taejon), wanted to pull his regiment back three miles, but the new division commander, Brig. Gen. John H. Church, ordered him to stand fast. Two NKPA attacks at 5 a.m. cut off Company I of the 3/34th and pushed the 1/34th out of position. Beauchamp halted the battalion on the road. The 1st Battalion later rescued all but one platoon of the cut-off unit. That same afternoon the 34th withdrew some 15 miles to the east.

At the beginning of August, the 24th Division deployed behind the Naktong River on a 40-mile front, with the 34th, 21st and ROK (Republic of Korea) 17th Infantry regiments on line from south to north. The 34th’s sector was some 34,000 yards, along which were deployed the 493 remaining troops of the 3rd Battalion. The 515 troops of the 1/34th waited in reserve at Kang-ni, about two miles from the river. The 34th numbered 1,402 men, less than half the authorized regimental strength. All three rifle companies of the 3/34th were scattered in small enclaves and outposts along the river. The regiment was critically short of vehicles, 4.2-inch mortars and Browning automatic rifles, the mainstays of Korean War­era rifle squads.

On August 4, elements of the North Korean 16th Infantry Regiment staged an assault across the Naktong between Companies I and L, 3/34 Infantry, and overwhelmed most of their positions. NKPA troops drove about five miles into the 24th Division sector, precipitating the First Battle of the Naktong Bulge, which eventually involved the entire 24th Division, the U.S. 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, the newly arrived 9th Infantry Regiment and 1/23rd Infantry (both from the 2nd Infantry Division) and the 2/27th Infantry. The struggle lasted until August 19.

The 34th Infantry gave its all. Company K stayed on its 7,500-yard front along the Naktong alone until ordered out on about August 14. At the outset, the 1/34th launched a counterattack, but part of Company C was trapped in a grist mill, where the men valiantly held out until rescued. Captain Albert F. Alfonso, with remnants of Companies A, C and L, held a small perimeter at the nose of the bulge until ordered out on the night of August 8-9. Elements of the regiment took part in a number of counterattacks between August 6 and 18.

The 34th made its last attack on the 18th, during which Company C was reduced to 37 men and Company A to 61. Company L lost more than 20 men in a few minutes to a counterattack. When it was relieved by the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division on August 25, the 24th Division numbered 10,600 men–8,000 short of full strength. Only 184 of the original regimental strength of 1,898 men remained in the 34th Infantry.

On August 27, Lt. Gen. Walton Walker, U.S. Eighth Army commander in Korea, dissolved the 34th, converting the 1/34th into the 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry, and the 3/34th into the 2nd Battalion, 21st Infantry. The 5th Regimental Combat Team (RCT) became the 2nd Division’s third regiment. General Church preferred having the 5th fully manned to rebuilding the 34th. He then reassigned the men of the 34th to give his other two regiments their authorized third battalions. The 34th was reconstituted in Japan and later served again in Korea.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Korean War

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