laststandonzombieisland

Some 35 years ago this week.

A very well bundled General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 71, is shown inspecting troops of the 24th Infantry on his arrival at the recently recaptured Kimpo airfield, Republic of Korea, for a tour of the battlefront. 21 February 1951.

NARA FILE #: 306-PS-51-10432

At the time, the world’s most famous corncob pipe enjoyer was the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in the Pacific, a post he had held since August 1945; Commander of the Far East Command (FECOM), a post he had held since January 1947; was Commander of the United Nations Command, Korea, a job he held since 7 July 1950; and was Governor of the Ryukyu Islands (USAR), an office he held since December 1950.

In early 1951, MacArthur was the senior soldier in the American army — “senior,” quipped one junior officer, “to everyone but God” — and the next president, Eisenhower, had served under “Mac” for seven years in the 1930s.

Old “Dugout Doug” was only about six weeks away from being replaced in all of those posts by Gen. Matthew Ridgway on orders of Harry Truman, capping MacArthur’s epic military career, one that unofficially started at his birth in 1880 at Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, son of a regular Army captain.

The KMT’s second front(s) in the Korean War

It was as the unofficial Field Marshal of the Philippine Army in the mid-1930s that MacArthur became aware of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of KMT China. This acquaintance that became an active friendship once MacArthur was recalled to active service as  U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Pearl Harbor.

The two men, the exiled 63-year-old generalissimo and the most powerful man in the hemisphere, only met once, at Taipei, Formosa (Taiwan), on 31 July 1950– just weeks after the North Koreans marched across the 38th Parallel and kicked off the biggest war of the decade.

Chiang offered MacArthur 73,000 troops —three full infantry divisions and support troops —for use in Korea, as well as 20 of the C-47s he had on Taiwan to help move them.

The White House immediately torpedoed the idea, but MacArthur continued to ask Truman to allow his use of KMT troops in South Korea until just a few weeks before he was sacked. Ridgeway did not entertain such a fantasy.

Chiang saw it as just an extension of the Civil War, which he had been fighting against the Chinese Reds since 1927.

Keep in mind that at the time he met with MacArthur, Chiang’s forces were still actively fighting an insurgency war under General Ma Hushan in mainland China’s northwest and Yunnan region that would last until 1958. Further, his exiled 93rd Nationalist Division– with a few mysterious but well-connected American “civilian” advisers among them– was conducting a low-key border conflict under General Li Mi in Burma. 

Chiang was also effectively tying down Chicom General Chen Yi’s 3rd Field Army and Piao’s 4th Army along the Fukien coast across from Taiwan, where the Reds were “massing 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.”

And the KMT, having lost the bulk of their heavy weaponry on the evacuation from mainland China to Taiwan, had in late 1949-early 1950 (before Korea kicked off) been greatly bolstered by surplus American hardware– signed off on by MacArthur– to allow them to keep holding. Most of it was unwanted and had been warehoused in the Western Pacific, destined for scrap, so it made sense.

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 75mm pack howitzers

KMT exile army Formosa Taiwan 1950 M5A1 tank

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

KMT Chiayi air base, Taiwan Formosa, on January 13, 1950, P-51s and C-46s. LIFE Carl Mydans 

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

February 1950 M5A1 tanks unloaded in Formosa, Taiwan, for the KMT Chinese LIFE Carl Maydans

Going past fighting off a planned Chicom invasion of Taiwan, Chiang was actively planning to invade the mainland, prepping a 270,000-man force.

Check out these images from the Taiwan-based KMT’s October 1950 Pingtung landing exercises:

M3 half track, M5 Stuart, October 1950, Pingtung exercise, ROC Taiwan KMT

The deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in a series of “naval parades” in the Taiwan Straits during the Korean War effectively halted the KMT plans for a major, direct invasion from Taiwan, while likewise spoiling (but not releasing) the bulk of the 300,000 Chicom fighters assembled along the Fukien coast.

To help keep them there, the KMT’s irregular Anti-Communist Salvation Army — trained by the CIA as “civilian” employees of the Agency-run Western Enterprises — raided the Chinese coast from ROC-controlled islands near the mainland from 1951-54, encompassing most of the Korean War period. This low-key conflict carried on well into the 1960s.

Meanwhile, General Ma’s forces in Burma (at least those that didn’t want to stay behind in the Golden Triangle and become warlords) would only be repatriated to Taiwan with U.S. assistance in November 1953, once the Korean war had ceased, while unreconstructed KMT holdouts there would keep fighting the Reds as late as 1961.

ROC KMT Chinese troops, Burma, 93rd Division of the 6th Army, going to their “new” home in November 1953.