The Korean War, fought between 1950 and 1953, often slips from public memory, wedged between the enormity of the Second World War and the trauma of Vietnam. But in April 1951, on the banks of the Imjin River in South Korea, a British battalion fought a stand that became one of the most extraordinary defensive actions in modern military history. The Gloucestershire Regiment, outnumbered twenty-five to one, held its ground for three days against a massive Chinese offensive, and in doing so helped prevent the fall of Seoul and changed the course of the war. Korea had been under Japanese occupation since the early twentieth century.
When Japan was defeated in 1945, the peninsula was divided into two zones of occupation, with the United States and the Soviet Union each installing a friendly regime. The superpowers withdrew, leaving the two Koreas facing each other across an increasingly tense border. On 25 June 1950, North Korean communist forces launched a full-scale invasion of the South, rapidly seizing Seoul and driving the South Korean army back to the far southeastern corner of the peninsula around Pusan. South Korea appealed to the United Nations, and twenty-three nations responded with military support.
The United States contributed the largest contingent, but substantial forces also came from Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ethiopia, and the Philippines, among others. Among this international army was the British 29th Infantry Brigade, a force of about 4,500 men. British involvement would eventually grow to some 60,000 troops over the course of the war. After stabilizing the defensive perimeter around Pusan, UN forces launched a daring amphibious counterattack at Incheon in September 1950.
The assault became a devastating rout, pushing the North Koreans back across their border and then through all of North Korea, until UN troops were within sight of the Chinese border. At that point, communist China intervened in support of its ally, sending enormous numbers of troops across the frontier. The UN and South Korean forces were now forced back, losing Seoul for a second time. This was the situation facing the 29th Brigade when it arrived in Korea in December 1950.
By early 1951, UN forces had regained control of the South Korean capital, but the initiative still seemed to lie with the Chinese, who prepared a massive spring offensive with the aim of conquering the peninsula once and for all. The two armies faced each other across the Imjin River, a major natural barrier. It was along this line that the 29th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Tom Brodie, took up defensive positions on the southern bank near a village called Solma-ri, which controlled the main road leading back to Seoul. The brigade comprised the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Ulster Rifles, the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, and the 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, supported by C Squadron of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment, the 45th Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery with their 25-pounder guns, and a heavy mortar battery.
For operational purposes, a Belgian infantry unit of about 900 men was also attached. The men of the brigade were a mixture of regular soldiers, reservists who had been recalled to service, volunteers from other regiments who had offered to serve in Korea, and national servicemen. The Gloucestershire Regiment, for example, was made up of about 34 percent regulars, 43 percent reservists, many of them Second World War veterans, 14 percent national servicemen, and 9 percent volunteers for Korea. Despite this blend of backgrounds and experience, they would prove to possess extraordinary courage.
On 22 April 1951, the Chinese launched their spring offensive. The objective was again to seize Seoul and then annihilate UN forces in Korea. Some 300,000 Chinese troops attacked along a 40-mile front. Brodie’s 29th Brigade held a 12-mile front on the Imjin River alongside the American 3rd Infantry Division, facing the entire Chinese 63rd Army.
That amounted to roughly 27,000 men against Brodie’s 4,000. The heaviest weight of the assault fell on the 800 men of the Gloucestershire Regiment, who would have to withstand attacks by nearly 10,000 Chinese soldiers over the next three days. The offensive in this sector began with waves of Chinese troops wading across the wide Imjin River. A small patrol from a company of the Gloucesters met them with heavy fire from their Bren guns, inflicting severe casualties.
But the enemy kept coming, and by 11:30 that morning the patrol had run out of ammunition and was forced to withdraw. The Chinese were now able to cross the river unopposed, and their attack was properly underway. To the east of the Gloucesters, the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers were also under constant attack, while the Belgians were fighting a desperate withdrawal from their exposed positions on the northern bank. As the British fell back, the guns of the 45th Field Regiment opened fire, providing valuable covering fire for the retreating troops.
Darkness allowed the Chinese to pour across the river and mass against the 29th Brigade. By 3:00 in the morning on 23 April, a company of Gloucesters on a hill called Castle Hill was under heavy assault, as was D Company on their right. An hour later, B Company, positioned to the right of D Company, engaged the enemy at a numerical disadvantage of roughly twenty-five to one. The Gloucesters were forced to use their Bren guns alone to prevent their positions from falling.
Shortly before dawn, A Company was finally compelled to abandon its position on Castle Hill under the weight of the Chinese attacks. Even then, the Gloucesters refused to surrender, launching a determined attempt to retake the hill against overwhelming numbers. It was during this ultimately unsuccessful counterattack that Lieutenant Curtis was killed while leading an assault on a strongpoint, an act for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. As the day wore on, D Company was forced to withdraw from its positions, and by nightfall it was the turn of B and C Companies to face the brunt of the Chinese offensive.
B Company of the 1st Battalion was reduced to just one officer and twenty-one men. On 24 April, Lieutenant Colonel James Carne, the 45-year-old commander of the Gloucesters, received orders to gather what remained of his battalion on a rugged height known as Hill 235. It was there that he received a direct order from General Soule, commander of the American 3rd Division, to hold his position at all costs. General Soule had been party to one of the great misunderstandings of the war.
When he had asked Brigadier Brodie early in the battle how things were going, the British officer, in classic understated style, had replied that the situation was “a bit sticky. ” The American commander took this to mean that things were essentially under control, perhaps a little hot but manageable. He did not realize that he was receiving a British coded message that effectively meant disaster was imminent. Had Brodie been more blunt, Soule might have made entirely different tactical decisions.
It was Churchill who famously remarked that the British and Americans were divided by a common language. The British stand had surprised the Chinese, but the British quickly became victims of their own success. The overwhelming Chinese numerical superiority allowed enemy forces to bypass British positions and begin infiltrating behind the lines. This in turn began to pressure the flanks of UN forces on either side of the 29th Brigade, requiring the UN command to fall back to more defensible positions.
The brigade was now in real danger of being surrounded, and on 24 April that prospect became a concrete reality. Two relief columns attempting to reinforce the forward British positions came under continuous attack before they even reached the British and were forced to withdraw after coming within 2,000 yards of the Gloucesters’ positions. They could not break through the Chinese masses surrounding the battalion. Carne and his men were now alone, surrounded, outnumbered twenty-five to one, running low on ammunition, food, and medical supplies, and at least five miles from any friendly forces.
In the early hours of 25 April, the Chinese launched a ferocious assault on the remaining British positions, particularly Hill 235. Through that long night, the Chinese coordinated their attacks with bugle calls. The darkness was filled with the racket of gunfire and Chinese war cries intended to demoralize the British defenders. Then came a surreal moment: the Gloucesters’ own bugler, known as Buggy, began playing his bugle to draw the Chinese attention and to show that the British were still holding.
He played the long reveille call all night on that hill in Korea. Lieutenant Colonel Carne personally led two counterattacks against the Chinese lines, armed with his rifle and grenades. Finally, at nine in the morning, an American air strike halted the communist assaults, and Carne received a radio message from Brigadier Brodie informing him that his mission was complete and it was time to withdraw. Unfortunately, the UN lines were now seven miles behind the British units, with thousands of Chinese soldiers in between.
What followed was a brutal and terrifying dash for safety. The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and the Royal Ulster Rifles retreated through a gap bravely held by the Belgian soldiers while the Chinese surged forward. One veteran later recalled looking at the surrounding hills and comparing them to ants pouring out of a nest, there were so many Chinese troops. Chinese soldiers threw themselves at the tanks that were carrying British survivors to safety in suicidal attacks.
Another soldier remembered seeing the tank tracks covered in blood after reaching safety, with the limbs of Chinese soldiers protruding from the wheels and machinery. But for the most advanced British unit, the Gloucesters on Hill 235, it was already too late. With food and ammunition exhausted, they received orders to let every man fend for himself. In small groups, they attempted to fight their way back to safety.
Fewer than seventy of them made it. Of the 750 men of the Gloucestershire Regiment who fought at the Battle of the Imjin River, 59 were killed and more than 520 were captured by the Chinese. They were held in horrific prisoner-of-war camps in North Korea, where they were subjected to re-education programs. A further 34 men of the regiment died in captivity.
Among the prisoners was Lieutenant Colonel Carne, who was held in solitary confinement for eight long months. During that time, he used a nail to carve a five-inch Celtic cross from a piece of volcanic rock he found in the camp. Despite the grim fate of the British prisoners, the stand at the Imjin River had blunted the planned Chinese breakthrough. While the British suffered more than a thousand casualties, killed, wounded, and captured, and overall Allied losses totaled around 11,000, the Chinese were estimated to have suffered more than 70,000 casualties in the battle.
An estimated 10,000 of those were inflicted by the Gloucestershire Regiment alone. The defense decisively frustrated the Chinese offensive. The last stand of the Gloucesters, along with the actions of the rest of the 29th Brigade, enabled the UN army to withdraw and secure a defensive line that withstood the continuing Chinese assault and saved Seoul from falling. In fact, the Chinese never attempted such an ambitious offensive again during the Korean War.
The Battle of the Imjin River remains the bloodiest military action fought by the British Army since the Second World War. The Gloucestershire Regiment, which became known as the Glorious Glosters, was awarded the American Presidential Unit Citation. In the presentation ceremony, UN commander General Van Fleet described their actions at the Imjin as the most outstanding example of unit bravery in modern warfare. The citation read: “Without thought of defeat or surrender, this heroic force displayed superb courage and discipline on the battlefield.
The 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment displayed such valor, determination, and morale in accomplishing its mission as to set it apart and above other units participating in the same battle. ” The Queen granted the regiment special permission to wear the American decoration on their uniforms. In 1994, the Gloucestershire Regiment was merged into the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, which was itself reorganized in 2007 as part of The Rifles. Lieutenant Colonel James Carne was released from his two-year captivity in September 1953 and received the Victoria Cross for his bravery at the Imjin River.
He died in 1986. In 2015, he was honored on a South Korean postage stamp marking the sixty-fifth anniversary of the war. The small stone cross he carved in captivity is now displayed in Gloucester Cathedral, where a stained-glass window also commemorates the men who did not return. And on a hillside in South Korea, just south of the Imjin River, stands another memorial to the men of the Glorious Glosters at the base of Hill 235, which is now called Gloucester Hill.
The war itself never technically ended. In 1953, an armistice was finally agreed, creating a ceasefire line along the 38th parallel, and the two sides have lived in an uneasy truce ever since. The Korean War claimed the lives of more than three million people. Over 60,000 British troops served in the conflict, and British casualties were higher than in any other war involving British forces since the Second World War.
Ultimately, however, the UN effort helped establish the prosperous democracy that South Korea is today.