 The latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stand ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. View 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 army on horseback that once was the United States cavalry is no more, for our army today is a mechanized force. But cavalry is a proud word in military terminology, and no one displays that pride more than the men of the first cavalry division. They call themselves troopers, like their tough forebears who a century ago rode against the Indian tribes of the West. They still like to sing the rousing songs of those spirited days. And more important, they keep alive the cavalry's legendary tradition of bravery, by fighting when they are called upon to fight, with courage and an indomitable will to win. The Big Picture brings you today the story of the first cavalry division in Korea, a story as illustrious as any in the cavalry's magnificent history. Out of the enduring history of early America, Echo the Hoof beats of the United States cavalry, riding against the enemies of a vigorous young nation in the lusty, troubled, glorious days of its growth. Three magnificent cavalry regiments, the 5th, the 7th and the 8th, drove their steeds through a spectacular century of American adventure, a century that spanned the winning and development of the Western Plains and the birth of the scientific age. The airplane was already casting its shadow over the military future of the horse when these historic regiments were assembled together under the colors of the first cavalry division shortly after the First World War. A new chapter in military history awaited the cavalry trooper. For the men of the First Cavalry Division, this new battle role began with World War II, the era of amphibious invasion and jungle warfare, the symbols of war on a global scale had replaced a spectacular era of great cavalry charges on the open plains. The division's spirited troopers defeated the Japanese in a succession of vital and bitterly fought campaigns in the Pacific. Los Negros, Leyte, Luzon. With victory came the division's last assignment of the war, and it was a great one. In early September 1945, the First Cavalry moved into the capital city of the strongest and most fanatical enemy the division had ever faced, the first to enter Tokyo. It was a proud and momentous climax to a brave and brilliant performance on battlefields tougher than any in cavalry lore. Victory was sweet indeed in the golden September of 1945. War was over, the most cruel and costly war in human history, but that was not all. Victory was the sweeter because it was charged with hope. For the men of the First Cavalry Division, standing as victors in the heart of the defeated enemy's homeland, there was nothing in the splendid triumph of this day to suggest that the world could not now be a place of peace and peaceful development. For the brave troopers who had come to Tokyo via the long route through Manila and the beaches of Leyte and the jungles of Luzon, this was not the end of the arduous journey, but ahead lay only the tasks of occupation, the challenge of impressing upon the Japanese nation, the virtues and rewards, and the strength of a democratic way of life. It was a time for reaping the rewards of past bravery, a time of confidence that that bravery of the past had bought a world at peace. But lasting peace was only a hope and less than five years after its triumphal entry into Tokyo, the First Cavalry Division was on the move again to defend the invaded land of South Korea. Less than a month after the North Korean Communists began their aggressive war in June of 1950, the First Cavalry landed at Pohang Don on the east coast of Korea. It was an unopposed landing for the enemy in his fierce drive south along the peninsula had not yet reached these beaches. The division pushed inland toward Taejeon, where the beleaguered 24th Infantry Division was fighting for time. Their mission? To make contact with the enemy and stop him in his effort to reach the port city of Busan. First taste of battle in Korea was a bitter one. The enemy was strong and well equipped. Front lines as such did not exist. This was stop gap warfare with one clear objective to stand and face an oncoming enemy and in whatever way possible to break the back of his momentous drive. For a week of desperate fighting, the division was able to maintain generally the positions it had reached in its push inland from Pohang Don. In early August, the men of the First Cavalry withdrew to positions behind the Naktong River, along the now famed Busan Perimeter, which had to be held at all costs. Here they were able to build up their defenses while air power provided them with protection. Once their positions were consolidated, they pounded the enemy with everything they had. The perimeter held. While the entire free world watched and waited in the summer of 1950, the defenses around Busan were secured and the young nation of South Korea continued to live. By September, the division had built up its own strength and in a series of hard fought contests, it slowly grappled the initiative away from the enemy. There are names which belong to this period of history, which no one but a cavalryman may remember, but there are cavalrymen who will remember them forever. Weigwan, Wald City, Hill 314, these are some of them. They are the places where the First Cavalry Division fought with a courage that was almost unbelievable in September of 1950 to win finally from the enemy the priceless advantage of superiority. The Busan Perimeter was breaking at its seams. It had nations forces who had held firm for so long, broke out of their defensive positions, and took the offensive. Offensive was supported by heavy aerial bombardment, for the Busan Perimeter coincided with a spectacular invasion of the Port of Incheon, on the west coast of Korea below the capital city of Seoul by the U.S. 10th Corps. This invasion, one of the most daring and imaginative feats of modern warfare, placed the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry Division in a commanding strategic position. The successful landings at Incheon also signaled another military adventure of legendary quality, for after the landings, a task force of the 1st Cavalry Division sped north 102 miles, covering that distance in 21 hours to link up with the 7th Division at Osan. It was, as the Division Commander put it, the most rapid advance ever made in the history of American arms. The drive north was through land the enemy held, and the troopers had to overcome resistance as they went. During its travel, the task force destroyed 13 enemy tanks had met on the way and killed or captured more than 200 enemy soldiers. At Osan, the 7th Division was waiting. The link up of the two divisions provided one of the most triumphant hours of the war. Now the enemy was split right down the middle. Because of the enormous distance of the Division's advance, supply was its chief problem, as it consolidated south of Seoul. The supply railhead was 165 miles to the rear, so great amounts of supplies had to be brought by plane to the nearest air base and then hauled 65 miles by truck. All such problems were solved, however, and while the UN deliberated whether to continue the advance, the Division waited. By the middle of October 1950, the Division was crossing the 38th parallel. These were days of momentous victory. The bitter and frustrating defeats of the summer were well behind now. The enemy was really. He would continue to put up resistance, but most of the spirit had gone out of him as the UN forces crossed the line into his own homeland. The first calves road now led straight to Pyongyang, the communist capital of North Korea. To take it, the troopers had first to capture a number of towns and villages that guarded it. But on October 19th, having overcome the most serious resistance put up by the Reds, they crossed the Taedong River flowing through the city and the prize was there. First in Manila, first in Tokyo, now the men of the First Cavalry Division had another capital city for their record, first in Pyongyang. The people who had long suffered under communist rule gave them an enthusiastic welcome. 50 miles to the north, the 187th airborne regimental combat team made an invasion from the air. While the First Cavalry Division was in Pyongyang, the Division had a new link up assignment. Their mission was to make a juncture with the paratroopers who had landed in the very heart of the enemy's land and who would be stranded until the men of the First Cav could reach them. The final defeat of the North Koreans in this sector depended heavily on this juncture of the two army units. Another mission successfully completed, another triumph scored. The road to victory led deeper and deeper into the north, bringing liberation to the people who had lived under the communist yoke and destruction to the still resisting enemy. They at Unsan in the mountains of North Korea troopers saw the total victory so close at hand die in the early winter of 1950. At Unsan, the communist troops of Red China first entered the war and struck in force against the First Cavalry Division, and the free world's hope for complete victory over communist aggression was mortally wounded. Under the impact of the blow against them by the strong and well-equipped Chinese Reds, the First Cav was forced to withdraw. This was the beginning of the entirely new war, which came with the full-scale invasion from Manchuria of the Chinese communist forces in late November. Elements of the First Cavalry Division cut off from their parent unit and surrounded by the enemy south of the Chongchon River had to be supplied from the air. Food and ammunition lost in the confusing action came as gifts from heaven. The long road back over land so dearly won was a bitter one to travel. You remember those months when the hope for peace at long last turned to ashes and the world could see fully the defiant intentions of communist China. If you had been a cavalryman traveling the long roads back to Seoul and beyond, you would never forget them. The road was clogged not only with the withdrawing United Nations forces, but with Korean refugees uprooted from their homes and fleeing south to escape the communist invaders. Finally, south of the Han River, the United Nations took its stand. Once more, as in the days of the defense of Busan, allied guns would be used to stop the enemy's drive until the United Nations could build the strength for a new offensive. In the spring, this new offensive began. The First Cavalry pushed once again through villages and towns they had held a few months before, reduced to rubble now. They recrossed the thawing rivers before the enemy could strengthen his position sufficiently to hold them for the natural protection they would give. These much-traveled roads they found intact, messages inducing the enemy to surrender, which they had written in the flusher victory months before. The roads had to be used carefully, for the enemy and his withdrawal had had time to seed them with mines and other explosives. By mid-April, the UN offensive was going strong and the men of the First Cavalry Division were north of the 38th parallel once more. With the warm spring weather, the division's weary soldiers who for months had been fighting unrelieved went into reserve and had a brief holiday from battle while in the hills beyond them the war continued to rage. For soldiers in reserve, peace is a relative thing. In the midst of war it can mean simply a chance to read and rest and remember other springs. It can mean the silence of your own guns, always poised, always ready, but quiet for a few days because they're out of the enemy's range. It can mean a chance to make new friends and the troopers of the First Cav did a lot of that in Korea, bringing a touch of warmth and hope into lives that had been blighted by war. For the resting cavalrymen being in reserve offered an opportunity for spiritual re-strengthening for the tough days they knew would be ahead. The expected Communist offensive came in the late spring. It was a big one and it drove the United Nations back, but the UN forces rallied in time and buried the enemy offensive with a mass of firepower. Early summer the First Cav was launching a new offensive of its own, which took it 40 miles to the north into positions it would hold until the following autumn. For the third time it crossed the 38th parallel near the site of the war's beginning and it marked the spot with a monument. In October 1951 came the division's last big action, a sustained assault on a series of steep hills including the now-famed Old Baldy. It was mostly entrenched in these hills, which commanded the railroad running north of Seoul and they had to be blasted out. It was a slow and painful job for the enemy was literally dug into the rock with a tremendous store of weapons to defend him. The allied pounding went on for 16 days. When it was over the division had taken Old Baldy and the vital hills around it and the United Nations supply line was saved, but the cost had been very great. Sailing back to Japan at the end of 1951 after a year and a half of war the men of the First Cavalry Division took with them a new record of combat greatness. Like the old troopers who had ridden to glory before them these modern cavalrymen had fought with bravery and devotion for their nation's security and for the integrity of the entire free world. In the contribution they had made to the history of a proud old service the conditions of cavalry fighting had changed but the cavalry's tradition of valor endures. And that is the story of the First Cavalry Division in Korea. Now there's a sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us next week for another look at your United States Army in action on 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 United States Army in cooperation with this station. You too 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.