 to Germany, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. All over the world, the United States Army is on the alert to defend our country, you, the American people, against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. The guns are quiet again in Korea. There was no victory in the usual sense of the word, but there was something else. Men fighting under the flag of the United Nations proved for the first time that they were willing to stand and die to halt aggression. The aggressors learned that they can't spread out over the earth without paying a terrible price. The armed forces of the United States, together with our allies in the UN, stopped the march of armed communism cold in Korea. They did it against tremendous odds in manpower and in a land half around the earth from their own. This is a report from the now silent front and how they did it. This is the hill. It doesn't really matter what hill, they were all pretty much the same. A desolate hunk of rugged, sharp-rising terrain in Korea where our men lived too long or maybe died too soon. What was it like toward the end? The same as it had been for months, more than two years. It was a holding operation, probably the last spot on earth they wanted to be, that hill, but nobody was going to push them off it. It was danger, patrol, 9, 10, 20 men going out to contact the enemy, 9, 10, 20 men coming back, because the deal was you all came back or none of you did, whichever way the ball bounced. It was boredom, digging the trenches deeper, piling the sandbags higher, thicker. It was just about the biggest thing in a man's life. Mail call, a letter from home, whether it announced the birth of a new baby son or the death of an old cow, it was bigger news to the address C than the rise or fall of an empire. But mostly toward the end, it was waiting, not too much happening, killing time maybe, but trying to make sure time didn't kill you. A big-picture reporter checked into that at a hill command post. Lieutenant. Lieutenant. Lieutenant. Lieutenant. How's things going out there, Tony? Ain't had no arms instance this morning, huh? No, it had to get them through supply. Okay, then keep your eyes open and keep your eyes out. Right there out. No, they should be in some... Pretty good communications here, though. Tomorrow, the next day, though. Lieutenant, that's pretty good communication. Right, first class. Is that go-off to the squads and platoons? Yeah, the artillery up, oh, French machine over there. OP, OP for our third platoon, OP for our second platoon, and our CP direct line here. The radio communication direct to all rifle platoons and OP, and telephone communications directly to all rifle platoons. Pretty busy up here last night. Oh, they had us going a little bit, but pretty quiet. How much sleep did you get? About four hours sleep. Is that an average? About an average. How do you stay awake? Just keep drinking coffee, I guess. How many cups of coffee do you average a night up here? How many would you say, Sergeant? Oh, I'd say about... Eight or ten? Eight or ten cups of coffee a night. These large cups. What's that up on the wall there right in front of us? This right here. This establishes our MLR approximately, and we have our coordinated fire plans with our support fires. I noticed something else here in the room, a picture over here. What about that picture, Sergeant? That's my girl. 87 days left. That's when I'm going home. You got another picture up there on the wall, too. Who's that? That's Marilyn Monroe. You boys have got some beauties here in the CP. Oh, they keep it alive. What? Anything in particular, any action in particular last night up here? Well, we had a contact patrol out, but no contact, so the enemies stayed awake. But, uh, we hope to, in the future, to contact them so we get more information. Okay, thanks a lot. And then the truce negotiations that had dragged on through two years of communist stalling bore fruit. The enemy finally agreed to a ceasefire. July 27th, 1953, General Mark Clark signed for the United Nations. We have stopped the shooting. That means much to the fighting man and their families. And it will allow some of the grievous wounds of Korea to heal. Therefore, I am thankful. It is, however, only a step toward what must yet be done. The task now is to put the ceasefire agreement into full effect as quickly as we can and get down to working out an enduring settlement of the Korean problem. I cannot find it in me to exalt in this hour. Rather, it is a time for prayer that we may succeed in our difficult endeavor to turn this armistice to the advantage of mankind. If we extract hope from this occasion, it must be diluted with recognition that our salvation requires unrelaxing, vigilant, and effort. And there wasn't much of a celebration with the coming of the truce, unless you'd call Operation Big Switch that the liberation of thousands of United Nations personnel would become prisoners of the enemy. Maybe you found some exaltation there in the tired eyes and drawn faces and sometimes tortured minds and bodies of the men who were freed. A lot of them told their stories before going on to medical treatment and home. In the roadblock at Coonaree on the night of November 30th, there was a sharp engagement and I was to bring in the administrative train and we never did get through and after we abandoned vehicles we started out on foot to walk through. My name is Major John Dowager. I'm from California. I was captured on 1st of January, 1951. When were you captured then, Sergeant? December 1st, 1950. What unit were you at that time? C-Battery, Favol 3rd, feel out here at Baccax. What division was that? 2nd Division. Where were you at the time? Just north of Coonaree. My name is 1st of Dwight E. Cox, Fresno, California. I was captured on December 1st, 1950 near Coonaree. Could you tell us where you were captured and how it happened? Well, the place I don't know. It wasn't a patrol. Wonsan, Taishan, Bloody Ridge, Seoul, Hamhong, Incheon, the Yellow, piece together their stories and you have the war. We got in there first. Same day the U.N. called for help in South Korea. Together with bombers stationed in Japan we helped slow them down a bit till ground troops could hustle over to Korea. I was with one of the first U.S. Army combat outfits to arrive in Korea. The 1st of July, 1950. We hardly took time out for coffee before we were on the road headed for action. It didn't take long to catch up with it. The front was moving our way. It didn't take us long either to find who had armed the Reds. Captured tanks, vehicles, guns, made in Russia. We just didn't have enough stuff in Korea yet to stop the advance. But after they overran us at Osan to reinforce the key city, Taishan, to try to hold its defenses, stall for time, took a terrible beating. We were forced to withdraw. Almost back to Busan. With a small beachhead left around Busan and the whole North Korean Army pressing hard, American forces staged a major maneuver. The amphibious assault at Incheon. The Navy gave it to them good and assured so much left to argue with. We caught the enemy there almost completely by surprise. And then we hit the road for Seoul, the captured capital of South Korea. The whole idea was to hit hard and fast. Keep moving so the North Korean Army couldn't readjust itself to the Incheon and run. Nine days after the first landing, we were at the Han River just outside Seoul and crossing in force against rough resistance. We approached the city from three sides. The closer we came, the more fanatical the resistance. Then we fought our way through the suburbs and on into the streets of Seoul itself. Battle for Seoul was about as tough as street fighting comes. We had to blast them out in barricades, the tops of roofs and basements. But just 11 days after we landed at Incheon, we finished up the liberation of Seoul. After Seoul, we linked up with forces that pushed all the way from Busan. It was hard going at first. The enemy was stubborn. Then we slammed across the 38th parallel and started to pick up speed. We were moving so fast by the time we hit the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Part of our supplies had to come by air. Communist Army that had driven across the 38th parallel, less than five months before, was just about smashed and we shoved right onto the Yalu River. Borderline between Red North Korea and Manchuria in Red China. Yeah, on the banks of the Yalu we figured the war was over. A little mopping up and that would be it. The Korean prisoners we rounded up seemed to think so too. The fight was all gone out of them. Yeah, we even had a Thanksgiving dinner flown up to us. And we're wondering if we'd eat Christmas dinner at home. A whole new war started. The Chinese struck from Manchuria about a quarter of a million of them. Withdrawal, we had to pull out. The troops on the eastern flank around the Changchun Reservoir headed back for the seaport of Hongnam. Even though six Chinese divisions were trying to bust it up, the withdrawal rolled right along. One Marine Corps commander kind of set up for all of us when he commented, retreat hell, we're just attacking in the opposite direction. And the evacuation at Ham Hong went off like clockwork. With an iron ring holding off the enemy around the perimeter of the port, 105,000 troops and 91,000 civilian refugees were taken off. We saved more than 17,000 vehicles and 350,000 tons of equipment. And while we were at it, there was nothing usable to the enemy. Fuse is set and the last man out. And that was the end of Hongnam. The back of the 8th Army from the western sector of the front was another masterpiece of withdrawal. Pressed by six full Chinese communist armies with four more in reserve, UN troops pulled back a full 150 miles, protecting its own flanks and fighting a rear-guard action most of the way. Across the Chongchon River, from Unsan to Kunuri, a lot of heartbreaking miles and going the wrong way. Puck Chong to Sun Chong, Sun Chong to Pyongyang, falling back past the red Korean capital over hard-won ground. An exhausted army, but an unbeaten one, it held together through one of the longest sustained withdrawals in history. An orderly pullback was managing to move faster than the pursuers, fighting them off when they came too close, costing the enemy huge casualties, holding them up when necessary to allow a reserve to build in back for a stand. And they burned their bridges behind them, the hardest pill of all to take. Back across the 38th parallel, the line the aggressor had violated to plunge the United Nations into an unwanted, ruinous war. Seoul, the capital of a free Korea, evacuated in the path of the enemy, bringing further tragedy to a stricken people who only wanted their liberty and peace. On back, south of Seoul, and then with the threat of being swept from all of Korea, the UN forces faced around at Wonju. The long withdrawal was over. The enemy had failed to turn it into a rout, and our army had escaped from the trap in fighting shape. Guns, armor to make a stand. They took everything the enemy had to throw at them, and then they were ready to hit back. The middle of February, 1951. Counter-offensive. I was in on that. We punched forward. It was only then we got some idea of what our withdrawal had cost the enemy in the way of losses of men in materiel and overextended lines. Not that it was easy, but we found that a lot of the sock had gone out of them, and I don't mind admitting it was a lot better feeling going the other way due north. Everybody felt it, and the attack moved up, coordinated like it was a maneuver and training camp. They used to call this back in the training manuals. The team on the ground calls the shots. The Air Force delivers it, and it worked just fine. The artillery gave it to them round the clock, blasting the reds where the observers thought it would hurt worse, and clearing the path in tight spots for the infantry. By the end of March, 51, we were back across the parallel and retaking our positions in the hills north of Seoul. The Chinese were to make one more real try. Their biggest of the war. April 22, 1951. 21 red armies hit the UN positions. 630,000 men against our 230,000. They had announced on the radio that they were going to take Seoul back, and in the face-saving way of the Orient, that literally meant to do it or die. They came at our troops with blaring bugles in human waves regardless of cost. No force on earth could have withstood that initial shock. But at Seoul, we held. Our defense position in the battle had the code name Golden Line. It was 24 karat. The capital had been taken for the last time. The UN command mounted its own offensive a few days later. Army was again forced back across the 38th parallel. We hid into the hills again, this time to stay. On 10 July 1951, red officials met with the United Nations representatives to talk about a truce. With the same senseless disdain for sacrifice of lives that started the war, the communists stalled through two years of bloody deadlock before extinguishing the holocaust they let. The men of the UN command broke down their fortifications and moved back, back from the positions where they never wanted to be, but from which they wouldn't be pushed. General Clark had spoken for all of them. We have stopped the shooting. That means much to the fighting man and their families. And it will allow some of the grievous wounds of Korea to heal. Therefore, I am thankful. It is, however, only a step toward what must yet be done. The task now is to put the ceasefire agreement into full effect as quickly as we can and get down to working out an enduring settlement of the Korean problem. I cannot find it in me to exalt in this hour. Rather, it is a time for prayer that we may succeed in our difficult endeavor to turn this armistice to the advantage of mankind. If we extract hope from this occasion, it must be diluted with recognition that our salvation requires unrelaxing, vigilant, and effort. You have seen how our own armed forces and our allies of the United Nations have answered aggression in Korea. Maybe the aggressor will take the lesson to heart. Maybe not. But at least now he should know that there will never be another Munich. Maybe they'll recognize the fact that though the free peoples of the world want to live in peace, they are ready to fight where freedom is threatened. Now, this is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us next week for another story in The Big Picture. The Big Picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the Army at home and overseas, produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center, presented by the U.S. Army in cooperation with this station. You can be an important part of The Big Picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.