2nd Infantry Division - 50 Years in Korea - 1965 to 2015

I was at Casey from 90-91 as a 74F20 attached to Personnel.

I just joined the Korean War Veterans Association. Our local chapter in Vancouver, Washington is a great group.

I was in Alpha Co., 2nd Tank, Camp Casey(Grim Reapers). May 91- May 92. We were the top Armor/Cav unit on the Peninsula that year.

SGT(P) Jennifer Brande I was the 01-02 1-9 Inf. camp Hovey.

"hooah" "2nd to None"

This should give you "Indianheads" some pride. This is taken from a book that belonged to my dad titled "HISTORY - 2ND INFANTRY DIVISION - KOREA 1950-51 - SECOND TO NONE". The 2d Division had fought the entire length of the Korean peninsula from the Pusan perimeter breakout in September 1950 all the way to the Yalu River on the border of China in North Korea by late November. Then the Chinese hordes struck....

KUNU-RI

No story of the withdrawal from Kunu-ri will ever be complete. Records of many of the units were either lost or not kept at all. Many of the men who could tell the story have not returned. There were countless instances of individual and unit heroism which will forever go unrecognized but without which many thousands more lives would [have] been lost. No one single unit should be singled out for to do so would be an injustice to the others but special mention must be made of the elements of the 2d Engineer Combat Battalion and “A” Battery, 503d who held the hills near the Division CP while other units moved out. Not a man escaped from the northernmost of the two hills. The men of “A” Battery fired their massive 155 guns point blank at the onrushing enemy until they were completely overwhelmed. They stayed to the death so that others might escape.

No account of the withdrawal could ever tell of the suffering endured by the heroic men of the Division. The wounded suffered ten fold. Only those who were there can know of the cold, the hunger, the unutterable misery and heartsickness of defeat.

The losses in men were tragic; the losses in equipment disastrous. More than 5,000 casualties were suffered by the Division in November with 95 percent of that total inflicted in the last five days of the month. Equipment losses ran from the 95 percent suffered by the 2d Engineers to lesser rates by other units. Artillery units were particularly hard hit with entire battalions losing all their field pieces and the big majority of their vehicles.

The 2d Division had met the full impact of an overwhelming Chinese force. Although it was battered and forced to fight its way out of a trap it successfully slowed an attack which threatened to destroy the entire Eighth Army. If it had not made the magnificent stand which it did, the lives of tens of thousands of other troops would have been in jeopardy. Even in defeat, the “Indianhead” Division proved to be a rock which held fast, giving other units an opportunity for survival.

Gradually the battered ranks of the 2d Division moved southward out of contact with the enemy and destined for a period of rest, reorganization and resupply. Its basic organization was intact, and from the remnants of the riddled columns was to emerge an outfit which would make the CCF pay twentyfold for its victory.; a Division which was destined to be described as “the most perfect fighting organization in the world”, “Second to None”.

Part 2: Indianheads get their revenge.....in what was later to be called the "May Massacre", from early May to the first few days of June 1951 the Soldiers of the 2d Infantry Division exact a terrible toll on the communist forces during the PVA's second deliberate attempt to surround and annihilate the Indianhead Division. The following excerpt is taken from "HISTORY - 2ND INFANTRY DIVISION - KOREA 1950-51 - SECOND TO NONE".

MAY MASSACRE

".....This latest flurry brought to a close the most notable period of the 2d Division’s actions in the campaign. It brought forth, for the first time, a powerful counter-attack which followed on the heels of one of the most spectacular defensive stands of the war. It was a counter-attack which not only killed thousands of enemy troops, caught completely off balance, but proved that the 2d Division could absorb the pounding of overwhelming numbers of enemy forces only to turn and cut them to ribbons. In the twenty day period preceding the conclusion of the final attack the Indianhead Division had killed more than 65,000 enemy soldiers, the cream of the armies of Red China. Ten enemy divisions had been committed against the 2d Division with soldiers from an additional 2 communist divisions identified among the thousands of dead who littered the battlefield. It was a major defeat for the Chinese and North Korean forces. Their ranks were decimated, entire divisions rendered useless. They had flung themselves in an all-out attempt to annihilate the 2d Division and had failed under the merciless pounding of hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery, tons of bombs and millions of rounds of small arms ammunition thrown at them by the determined, steadfast and victorious men of the 2d Infantry Division."