Bloody Gulch massacre
[4] The 24th made a final stand in the Battle of Taejon, where it was almost completely destroyed but delayed KPA forces until July 20.
[8] Lieutenant General Walton Walker and the Eighth Army began preparing a counteroffensive, the first conducted by the UN in the war, for August.
It would commence with an attack by the US reserve units on the Masan area to secure Chinju from the KPA 6th Division, followed by a larger general push to the Kum River in the middle of the month.
[11] The plan of attack required the force to move west from positions held near Masan, seize the Chinju Pass, and secure the line as far as the Nam River.
[20] The task force, aided by air power, initially advanced quickly though KPA resistance was heavy.
F4U Corsairs from the 1st Marine Air Wing strafed the retreating column repeatedly, inflicting 200 casualties and destroying about 100 of the regiment's equipment vehicles.
[26] However, Eighth Army requested several of its units to redeploy to Taegu to be used elsewhere on the front, particularly at the Naktong Bulge[25][27] As the Marine brigade maneuvered around the southern coastal loop toward Chinju, the 5th Regimental Combat Team planned a simultaneous attack in the center of the line toward Much'on-ni, its planned junction point with the 35th Infantry.
The main road ran westward along its base and climbed out of the valley at a pass where this ridge joined the other slanting in from the north.
During this fight, Lieutenant Colonel John H. Daly, the 555th Field Artillery Battalion commander, lost communication with his A Battery.
The artillery and all available weapons of the 2nd Battalion supported the attack, and before dusk B Company had gained and occupied the commanding ground north of the pass.
That afternoon, however, General Kean wanted the division to move forward rapidly, and said that a battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment would come up and protect its right, north flank.
General Kean apparently did not believe any considerable force of enemy troops was in the vicinity of Pongam-ni, despite representations to the contrary.
[30] While these events were taking place at Pongam-ni during daylight and the evening of August 11, the main supply road back toward Chindong-ni was under sniper fire probing attacks.
[30] Sometime after 01:00, 12 August, 2nd Battalion lost contact with C Company on the ridge northward and sounds of combat could be heard coming from that area.
When further efforts to reach the company by telephone and radio failed, the battalion commander sent runners and a wire crew out to try to re-establish contact.
One of the factors creating this situation was caused when the Medical Company tried to move into the column from its position near the 1st Battalion command post.
Troops in the column spotted two tanks and several self-propelled guns on the dirt trail in the valley north of Pongam-ni, firing into the village and the artillery positions.
[32] The withdrawal of the section of tanks and the A Company infantry platoon from its roadblock position had permitted this KPA armor force to approach undetected and unopposed, almost to point-blank range, and with completely disastrous effects.
Early in the pre-dawn attack, the KPA scored direct hits on two 155 mm howitzers and several ammunition trucks of A Battery.
Only by fighting resolutely as infantrymen, manning the machine guns on the perimeter and occupying foxholes as riflemen, were the battalion troops able to repel the KPA attack.
Then, with the uninjured giving covering fire and US Air Force (USAF) F-51 Mustang fighter planes strafing the KPA, the battalion withdrew on foot.
[34] At "Bloody Gulch", the name given by the troops to the scene of the successful enemy attack, the 555th Field Artillery on August 12 lost all eight of its howitzers in the two firing batteries there.
[36] With the swift attack, KPA troops had surrounded and virtually destroyed four artillery batteries in the village, now known as "Bloody Gulch".
[36] The deaths at Bloody Gulch, combined with the subsequent Hill 303 massacre led UN commander General Douglas MacArthur to broadcast to the KPA on August 20, denouncing the atrocities.
MacArthur warned that he would hold North Korea's senior military leaders responsible for the event, and any other war crimes.
[43][44] Historians agree there is no evidence that the KPA High Command sanctioned the shooting of prisoners during the early phase of the war.
[40] The Hill 303 massacre and similar atrocities are believed to have been conducted by "uncontrolled small units, by vindictive individuals, or because of unfavorable and increasingly desperate situations confronting the captors.
[45] On July 28, 1950, General Lee Yong Ho, commander of the KPA 3rd Division, had transmitted an order pertaining to the treatment of prisoners of war, signed by Kim Chaek, commander-in-chief, and Choi Yong-kun, commander of the KPA Advanced General Headquarters, which stated killing prisoners of war was "strictly prohibited".
An order issued by the Cultural Section of the KPA 2nd Division dated August 16 said, in part, "Some of us are still slaughtering enemy troops that come to surrender.
Therefore, the responsibility of teaching the soldiers to take prisoners of war and to treat them kindly rests on the Political Section of each unit.
