Battle of Yongdong

The KPA quickly advanced after the Battle of Taejon, with four of their divisions attacking south from the city along four different roads.^[7][19] The KPA 3rd Division departed the city on July 22, advancing down the main highway toward Taegu and Yongdong, to where the 1st Cavalry Division was emplaced.^[16][20] The next morning, July 23, the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, in front of Yongdong, reported it had destroyed three KPA T-34 tanks with 3.5-inch rocket launchers in its first use of that weapon.^[19][21]

On July 23 the 7th and 9th Regiments of the KPA 3rd Division began their attack on the Yongdong defensive positions held by the 1st Cavalry Division.^[19] They made their first penetration southwest of Yongdong, establishing a roadblock behind the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, and at the same time other KPA units heavily engaged the 1st Battalion northwest of Yongdong in frontal attack.^[21]

The next day, American M24 tanks attacked the roadblock behind the 2nd Battalion four times in an attempt to break it, but all were unsuccessful, and Lieutenant Colonel Eugene J. Field, the 2nd Battalion commander, was wounded at the roadblock. Palmer sent the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment and the 16th Reconnaissance Company toward the cut-off battalion. By 12:00, KPA troops were attacking the 99th and 61st Field Artillery Battalions which were supporting the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, indicating that the KPA infiltration had been extensive by that point.^[21]

On the other main approach to Yongdong, a road northwest of the city, heavy machine gun fire and 37-mm fire from A Battery of the 92nd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, and artillery fire from the 77th Field Artillery Battalion helped the 1st Battalion there to repel KPA attacks.^[22] However, the large numbers of civilian refugees crowding the Yongdong area trying to move south helped the KPA infiltrate the 1st Cavalry Division's positions.^[19] Eighth Army tried to control the refugee movement through the Korean National Police, permitting it only during daylight hours and along predetermined routes.^[22] Rumors continued to spread of civilian-clad North Korean infiltrators, and orders came down to fire on approaching refugees.^[23] Seven miles east of Yongdong, 7th Cavalry Regiment troops opened fire on a large refugee group, killing many in what became known as the No Gun Ri massacre. The South Korean government-funded No Gun Ri Peace Foundation estimated in 2011 that 250–300 were killed in the three-day-long slaughter, mostly women and children.^[24][25]

By the morning of July 25 KPA forces had infiltrated the positions of the 1st Cavalry Division so thoroughly that they were disrupting its lines of supply, and Gay ordered the division to withdrawal and re-form its lines further south.^[19] Northwest of Yongdong, 1st Battalion executed an orderly withdrawal, covered by the fire of the Heavy Mortar Company and the two batteries of the 77th Field Artillery Battalion. The mortar operators fought as infantry in the withdrawal.^[22] During these retreats KPA troops disguised themselves as refugees and would form roadblocks in the UN troops' rear areas, or used hidden communications equipment to inform higher commands of UN concentrations so those concentrations could be attacked when they were most vulnerable.^[26]

Meanwhile, the KPA intensified their attack on the 2nd Battalion on the road southwest of Yongdong. Concentrated artillery support, with the shells falling so close to the 2nd Battalion positions that they wounded four US troops, together with an attack by the 2nd Battalion, briefly opened the KPA roadblock at 04:30 July 25, and the bulk of the battalion escaped to Yongdong. However, F Company of the 8th Cavalry, the 16th Reconnaissance Company, and the 1st Platoon of A Company, 71st Tank Battalion, at the rear of the column were cut off. Only four of 11 light tanks broke through the KPA positions. Crews abandoned the other seven tanks and walked over the hills in a two days' journey as part of a group of 219 men, most of them from F Company. All equipment except individual arms was abandoned by this group. Other groups of US troops escaped in the same manner.^[19][22] The KPA had flanked the 1st Cavalry Division in a double envelopment and forced them to withdraw. In the process, the division lost much of its equipment in its quick withdrawal actions.^[27]

On this same road, closer to Yongdong, the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, which was trying to help the cutoff units of the 8th Cavalry, was itself attacked by strong KPA units. Through some error, the US battalion's F Company advanced to the wrong hill and stumbled into a concentration of KPA soldiers. Only 26 men from F Company returned, the rest were killed or captured in the subsequent ambush. Altogether, the 5th Cavalry Regiment suffered 275 casualties on July 25.^[22]

The KPA 3rd Division used essentially the same tactics it employed against the 24th Infantry Division at Taejon against the 1st Cavalry Division at Yongdong. In both fights, the KPA opened with a direct frontal attack to hold the US division's elements in combat, and then the bulk of the KPA force enveloped the American left flank and established strongly held roadblocks behind the front positions and forced the Americans in them to retreat from the untenable positions.^[27] The KPA 3rd Division entered Yongdong the night of July 25. At least one KPA unit was in the town by 20:00. The KPA expected a counterattack and immediately took up defensive positions at the eastern edge of the town. However, the US troops had withdrawn.^[22] The 1st Cavalry Division troops set up another delaying action around Hwanggan and hit the KPA advance a second time in the Battle of Hwanggan several days later.^[7][28]

North Korean prisoners of war captured by the US troops during the battle reported that the KPA 3rd Division suffered about 2,000 casualties, mostly from artillery fire, in the attack on Yongdong on July 24–25. This brought it down to a strength of about 5,000 men, approximately half the strength it had when the war began.^[22] The 1st Cavalry Division's actions were able to delay the KPA advance for several days, giving the UN forces valuable time to set up the Pusan Perimeter.^[26] The UN losses after this battle and the subsequent fight at Hwanggan cost the 1st Cavalry Division 916 casualties.^[29] The defeat was a poor showing for the division, but its record quickly improved with experience and it became a more reliable fighting unit by the time it was placed on Pusan Perimeter.^[30]

36°10′30″N 127°46′35″E / 36.1750°N 127.7764°E / 36.1750; 127.7764