"It Was Mighty Little for Anyone to Do"

Roy E. Appleman and South to the Naktong North to the Yalu

By William M. Donnelly

Article published on: April 1, 2024 in the Army History Spring 2024 issue

Read Time: < 35 mins

Major Appleman, shown here in Korea, ca. 1951 (U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

In 1961, the Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH) published Roy E. Appleman’s South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, the first volume in its United States Army in the Korean War series, covering combat operations from June to November 1950. Twenty-four years later, Appleman wrote a friend:

I have received many letters from students of the war that have told me that South to the Naktong is the only reliable book on the subject thus far in print. Because of the nature of the material available and the manner in which the vol. was written, I myself, believe that it will never be superseded.¹

Appleman’s reasons for this certainty, even though it contradicted OCMH’s position that its publications were not “the final and definitive version of events,” lay in a combination of personality and circumstances that produced a most unusual volume of official history.²

Roy E. Appleman

General Ward (U.S. Army)

Born on 10 April 1904, Roy E. Appleman lived in Columbus, Ohio, until he was 10, and later on a farm in southeastern Ohio. After high school, he did not have enough money for college; instead, he went to a normal school and qualified as a teacher. After a year teaching in a one-room school, he entered Ohio State University. After graduating in 1928, he wanted to attend Yale Law School, but could not afford the fees. He taught at high schools for four years to earn the necessary money. During his first semester at Yale, Appleman became disillusioned, concluding “that it was an intellectual game of chess in which the pursuit of justice was a subordinate part.” He left after a year for the history PhD program at Columbia University.³

By 1935, Appleman had begun his dissertation. At this time, Columbia required publication of a dissertation before it would grant the doctorate. To pay for that, Appleman took a job with the National Park Service as a site survey historian based in New York City. The next year, he transferred to the service’s Region I headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. There he completed his dissertation and one article, but he never published the dissertation and so Columbia never awarded him a doctoral degree.⁴

In October 1942, Appleman was drafted. Commissioned into the infantry from officer candidate school, in 1944 he joined the 1st Information and Historical Service in Hawai’i. There he wrote his first military history, a study of Army tank battalions in the Saipan campaign. During the battle for Okinawa, he transferred to the XXIV Corps to serve as its historian. After Japan surrendered, XXIV Corps deployed to southern Korea, where Appleman remained until late 1945, working on a history of the corps in the Okinawa campaign. He then moved to Hawai’i, where he completed the history by March 1946. Now eligible for release, he instead volunteered to remain on active duty as part of the team completing the Army’s history of the Okinawa campaign. They finished their draft in June 1946 and Appleman left active duty as a major, returning to his position with the National Park Service.⁵

Arthur S. Champeny, shown here as a colonel (National Archives)

Appleman’s experiences during the war created a strong identity as a “combat historian,” which he defined as a historian who “was assigned to and lived with combat forces.” A combat historian, he believed, must study closely the relevant terrain to understand its effects on a unit’s actions; on Okinawa, he went to the front “to see enough of it to get the feel.” Enemy fire once killed the man next to him. Soldiers who had fought in an engagement were the best sources because “it’s impossible to write accurate combat history from the records because the records never have the story.” Appleman “always felt so sorry for the infantrymen.... It was a hell of a life, I’ll tell you, not even counting the fighting. You can’t get close to these infantrymen without having the greatest of sympathy for them and also admiration.”⁶

As a writer, Appleman did not strive for a “style.” Rather, he sought “to be clear so that the reader may be said to be looking through a clear glass—free of frostings, bubbles, and grit.”⁷ For historians, “it is not a good idea to make judgments right and left.” Instead, “nearly always one can let the facts reflect and bring out an obvious judgment from the reader.” Nevertheless, “on occasion I do have some passions about a situation and do not hesitate to make a clear judgment that reflects my personal feeling.”⁸ This approach to his writing reflected how Appleman lived his life; in the National Park Service he was known for his “outspoken honesty.”⁹

Starting the Book

In December 1950 Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward, the Chief of Military History, recommended the Army prepare a five-volume series titled The U S. Army in the Korean Conflict. After receiving approval for the project from General J. Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army, in February 1951, Ward decided that to continue work on the United States Army in World War II series, OCMH would use mobilized reserve officers, many with experience in the Army’s World War II history program, to prepare the Korean War series. In early 1951, the office requested Major Appleman’s recall to active duty to research and write the combat operations volume.¹⁰

Stetson Conn (National Archives)

Appleman’s active duty began on 30 April 1951, but he did not start on the book. Instead, he assisted in preparing the secretary of defense’s report for the president on the conduct of the Korean War.¹¹ For the next six weeks, Appleman worked twelve-hour days, producing a draft of about 35,000 words that covered the war up to the Inch’on landing in September 1950. Although frustrating, the delay did familiarize him with the course of the war’s first months and he developed a relationship with General Ward, one that deepened after Appleman returned from Korea. He especially appreciated the charge Ward gave him in October 1951 to “pull no punches but to write the truth as supported by the facts.”¹²

In June 1951, Appleman received his project directive. Supporting instruction at the Command and General Staff College was the book’s primary purpose, but it also should “have subject matter of interest to the Army as a whole.” Because the war had not ended, OCMH could not set an end date for the time span he was to cover, but he was told to plan for a book of no more than 350 pages. Appleman would travel to Korea as soon as possible to collect records, examine where possible the terrain of combat actions, and interview soldiers. Once he returned to Washington, Appleman would prepare an outline “at the earliest practicable date.” The Chief of Military History added a postscript to the memo: “Don’t get lost in an isolated fight. Beg, borrow, and steal from others. Get others to work for you. Don’t start the critical battle of the war just so you can be there.”¹³

Appleman traveled by train to Washington state and from there flew to Japan. During his trip across the continent, he met soldiers returning from Korea. Among those he spoke with were a young enlisted soldier who had survived Task Force MacLean/Faith’s destruction at the Changjin (Chosin) Reservoir and a sergeant who had been with 2d Infantry Division at the Kunu-ri gauntlet. A master sergeant from the 24th Infantry Division told him that on the Pusan Perimeter, North Korean troops murdered any prisoners they took from the division because they blamed it for denying them a quick victory.¹⁴ Appleman arrived in Japan on 11 July, where he remained for seven days, interviewing officers as he waited for a flight to Korea.¹⁵

Appleman spent his first days in Korea with Eighth Army in Taegu and Pusan, interviewing officers about both the current situation and their earlier experiences in the war. One of these was Brig. Gen. Arthur S. Champeny, who in 1950 had commanded the 24th Infantry Regiment, the only Black regiment in Korea. Its performance under Champeny became a matter of controversy both in Eighth Army and back home, with stories of poor performance and cowardice in the regiment. Appleman described their conversation as a “very fruitful interview.”¹⁶

General Dean (U.S. Army)

On 23 July, he arrived at Eighth Army’s advance command post in Seoul. Once forward, he met with military history detachments, interviewed soldiers, reviewed records, and walked the terrain of several battles. On 1 August, he spoke with three 21st Infantry Regiment soldiers who had been with Task Force Smith in July 1950. Driving back to Taegu on 16 September, Appleman stopped at the Task Force Smith battlefield. There he found several fighting positions which contained the bones of American soldiers, a discovery that left him “quite indignant.” Two days later, he spent four hours flying over battle sites from August and September 1950. Two days after that, he left Korea for Japan.¹⁷

Back in Japan, he interviewed officers, arranged for aerial photographs of terrain in Korea, had a long lunch with a war correspondent who had accompanied American troops the previous year, and spent several days as a tourist. On 11 October, he left Japan. After another train trip across the United States and leave in Richmond, Appleman returned to OCMH on 22 October.¹⁸

Writing the First Draft

While in Korea, Appleman had received a letter from General Ward, who wrote “the more I see of our current endeavor, the more important I think it is to write contemporary history and publish it before it becomes ancient.”¹⁹ The day after his return to OCMH, Appleman estimated it would take two years to produce a first draft.²⁰ As he wrote, he continued researching, and in accordance with the lessons he had drawn from Okinawa, he initiated a wide-ranging correspondence with soldiers who had served in Korea during the war’s first six months.²¹ Appleman also interviewed Korean veterans now stationed in the Washington area, and several times he traveled further afield for interviews.²²

General Stephens (U.S. Army)

After nearly a year of work and with the first nine chapters drafted, Appleman in September 1952 recommended splitting the combat history into two books. When it seemed an armistice might be signed in November 1951, he had submitted a revised outline ending with the battle for Heartbreak Ridge in October 1951. Ten months later, there was no armistice and Appleman argued that compressing the 1950–1951 period into one book would require “treating the various actions in such a generalized manner that the history would have little value.” He thought the best break point was late September 1950, with South Korea liberated and Eighth Army ready to cross the 38th Parallel. Appleman volunteered to extend his active duty and complete the first draft of both books. Lt. Col. Joseph Rockis, the chief of OCMH’s Current Branch, concurred, but he thought 24 November 1950, the day before Eighth Army launched its attack toward the Yalu River, made a better break point. On 20 October 1952, Ward approved the proposal to divide the combat history and accepted Rockis’s suggestion on the end date for the first book.²³ By June 1953, Appleman—now promoted to lieutenant colonel—had drafted sixteen of the twenty-three chapters for the first book, covering the start of the war to just before the Inch’on landing. The manuscript totaled 1,503 triple-spaced typewritten legal-sized pages.²⁴

At this point, Appleman’s writing had its first review. Stetson Conn, the Deputy Chief Historian, identified strengths and weaknesses that would appear in later revisions and in the published version. The research gave the work a “general ring of authenticity.” The narrative was “readable and generally clear.” Appleman’s sympathy for infantrymen had left little room for the other arms and services. The viewpoint rarely lifted above that of infantry regimental commanders, which sometimes left unclear the course of actions and movements.²⁵

Conn detected “a high correlation” in the detail accorded to units based on the number of interviews and correspondence with officers in a unit. He acknowledged that in cases where insufficient written records survived, such as the 24th Infantry Division’s operations in July 1950, Appleman had to rely mostly on participants’ accounts. Conn, though, saw two problems with this method. One was that “rather frequently the author relies on a single uncorroborated source.” The other was that Appleman “tends to deal more tolerantly with the conduct of officers whom he has interviewed than with many others.”²⁶

Louis Morton (National Archives)

Regarding the 24th Infantry Regiment, Conn warned that Appleman “may be open to some charge of prejudice on this subject.” Appleman used “colored” instead of the Army’s then standard term “Negro,” and when discussing the unit’s poor performance, he used comments from White officers on the supposed characteristics of Black soldiers that made them inferior soldiers. Conn noted these comments “are duplicated in most instances by WWII commanders,” but at the same time the forthcoming OCMH book on Black soldiers in that war “shows that there are many other qualifying factors that are needed for an understanding of the problem of employing Negro troops in combat.”²⁷

The “really serious difficulty” was length. Conn predicted a completed manuscript of 1,800 double-spaced letter-sized pages which, after the addition of maps and photographs, would be “a bulging volume that few will read.” Conversely, he did not see any way to reduce it to a manageable size “without radically changing its viewpoint and level of treatment—which I do not think he should do.” To get a final draft ready before the author’s release from active duty, Conn recommended that the first book’s endpoint be changed to the liberation of South Korea. He estimated Appleman could complete the remaining chapters to that point by 1 November, which would allow sufficient time for a revision reduced by 15 percent, leaving a manuscript of about 1,200 pages.²⁸

Like other World War II veterans recalled for the Korean War, Appleman wanted to remain on active duty in the career category reservist program, but his wife, Irene Appleman, reminded him they had three children just coming into school age. Furthermore, if he remained on active duty, he would be transferred from OCMH and quite possibly to an overseas posting. Appleman reluctantly agreed with her and extended his active duty only to 31 July 1954, with the expectation that by 31 January 1954 he would complete the remaining chapters in the first volume, giving him six months to revise the manuscript.²⁹ OCMH did not accept Conn’s suggested change in the book’s endpoint and assigned the second volume to another historian.³⁰

Appleman missed his completion date by three and a half months, in part because he continued interviewing and corresponding with officers who had served in Korea.³¹ On 14 May 1954, he noted in his journal that at 1530 he completed the draft for what was now titled From the Naktong to the Yalu.³² The manuscript had 2,550 triple-spaced letter-sized pages—equal to about 730 printed pages before adding photos and maps.³³ Appleman considered the manuscript, and especially its early chapters, “seriously defective, not only for fact, in many instances, but also in organization, emphasis, and clear writing.”³⁴

His supervisors agreed with OCMH’s chief editor that “Long books are not read and are too expensive for most readers to buy.” Lt. Col. Eugene J. White, the chief of OCMH’s Current Branch, directed a 30 percent cut in the text. During June and July, Appleman revised ten chapters. He and OCMH agreed he would complete the revision after returning to the National Park Service, working nights, weekends, and during his annual two weeks of active duty. OCMH would provide him a desk, file space, and a typist. Just before leaving active duty, Appleman estimated he could finish by the spring of 1955, but he expected this version would not meet the targeted length and that further trimming would come after OCMH reviewed the manuscript.³⁵

“It Was Mighty Little for Anyone to Do”

Kent Roberts Greenfield (Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University)

The revised manuscript arrived at OCMH in November 1956. Appleman had a heavy workload at the Park Service; it had transferred him to its headquarters where he covered all matters related to post-Civil War history.³⁶ Believing that “there were many unanswered questions, many puzzles that I had not been able to unravel,” especially concerning the 24th Infantry Division in July 1950, he “continued to work and write, correspond and interview.”³⁷ The project consumed his life outside the Park Service, so much so that he “did not give my small children the family attention I should have.”³⁸ Nevertheless, “it was mighty little for anyone to do who has enjoyed good health and is still living when one reflects on the many fine young men who dropped in death on the Korean hills and paddies. In a sense I have tried to write a tribute to them.”³⁹

OCMH asked officers who served in Korea during 1950 to comment on the manuscript and almost all responded favorably. In 1954, Appleman had sent the 24th Infantry Division’s commander in the July 1950 battles, Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, the relevant draft chapters. The North Koreans captured Dean after the fall of Taejong and he later received the Medal of Honor for his leadership during that battle. In 1954, Dean thought the manuscript “so far misses the pulse of the operation that mere correction of its many errors of fact would not suffice.”⁴⁰

Maj. Gen. Richard W. Stephens, the Chief of Military History in 1957, had commanded a regiment in the 24th Infantry Division during July 1950 and he sent the revised manuscript to Dean. In a cover letter to his former subordinate, Dean wrote that as he prepared his comments he realized “that I was writing a defense of my own actions.” As “it is very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback,” in his formal response to Stephens he limited himself to few minor points because the manuscript “is a good account” of the battles he fought in Korea.⁴¹

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur had abundant criticisms of the manuscript. Appleman, although praising the general’s amphibious assault at Inch’on, concluded that the former head of Far East Command made grave mistakes after the arrival of Chinese troops on the battlefield in October 1950. MacArthur responded in kind: the manuscript had “errors of fact,” “doubtful strategic analysis,” and was “unduly weighted by innumerable alleged incidents of individual and organizational cowardice.” As written, “the volume constitutes a damming [sic] indictment of the courage and reliability of our national security forces.” He advised General Stephens that if the manuscript was “published in its present form it will do an irreparable disservice to the American Army and to the nation it is created to defend.” Appleman recalled that MacArthur’s critique “was all self-justification, but he didn’t succeed in getting a single word changed in the text.”⁴²

General Walker (U.S. Army)

A more important and perceptive critic was OCMH historian Dr. Louis Morton, who reported his assessment in December 1957. He began by recognizing the sacrifices the author had made to complete this “labor of love.” Although the manuscript “is a remarkable achievement” that was “painstakingly researched,” it “has a formlessness, a lack of discipline that denies the greatness of the theme.” Appleman had “just missed writing a great book, but it is not too late.”⁴³

The revision left intact the strengths and weaknesses Stetson Conn identified in 1953. “Appleman understands the front-line soldier as few historians do, and he is keenly concerned with their leadership as well. He writes about them with understanding and sympathy, but he is critical also and honest to the point of bluntness.” This bluntness, though, was “tempered too often with impatience and indignation.” He had “a sort of moralistic and didactic tone in some of his judgements that is inappropriate in historical writing.” Along with this tone, the “author’s style could hardly be described as felicitous, or polished, or lean.”⁴⁴

Morton had three major criticisms of this draft’s coverage. First, it slighted the actions of headquarters above the regimental level. Second, “in essence, this manuscript is a series of separate stories, many of them superbly told, most of them interesting and important, but not always adding to an integrated cohesive story whose parts are fully related to the whole.” Third, there was unequal coverage of units and individuals. Like Conn, Morton called out Appleman’s treatment of the 24th Infantry Regiment: “The facts as given are probably correct; the author’s judgement of these facts is open to question, for he does not, it seems to me, consider other factors that may affect this judgment.”⁴⁵

As the author of OCMH’s volume on the fall of the Philippines in 1942, Morton was familiar with the problem of reconstructing events when records were scanty, and the historian had to rely on participants’ accounts. This reliance risked a loss of objectivity from subjective reactions to participants formed during research. Morton believed Appleman “had fallen into this trap” on a few occasions.⁴⁶

S. L. A. Marshall, shown here as a brigadier general (National Archives)

The “major problem” was length. This draft in published form would be about 700 pages, to which front and back matter, maps, and photos would add at least another 100 pages. Morton recommended cutting the manuscript by 25 percent. Although “a difficult assignment,” he thought it possible if the author condensed and generalized much of the small unit actions described in detail.⁴⁷

Morton concluded that, even with its flaws, Appleman had “written one of the finest combat narratives” produced by the Army. Therefore, “every effort should be made to facilitate its revision and to speed it through the editorial and publication process.” Additionally, the Army should give him an “appropriate award or commendation” in recognition of the author “giving so much of his own time during the last three years to the work of this Office.”⁴⁸

In January 1958, OCMH convened its review panel for the manuscript. These panels brought together participants in the subject covered by a book’s topic, outside historians, and OCMH staff for a final assessment. On this panel were retired Maj. Gen. Leven C. Allen, Eighth Army’s chief of staff in 1950–1951; Professor William R. Emerson of Yale University; Col. S. W. Foote, chief of OCMH’s Histories Division; and Louis Morton. Kent Roberts Greenfield, OCMH’s chief historian, chaired the panel.

ArchivesColonel Corley (National Archives)

Greenfield’s memo to Appleman on the panel’s findings began by praising his “herculean work of reconstruction” that was “written with candor, admiration, pity, and indignation, from a knowledge acquired by observation and by research that seem all but exhaustive.” The book, however, departed from the principle used in the Army’s World War II combat narratives of selecting one echelon as the point of view for the volume, dipping into lower ones only when an action there had “a decisive effect on the outcome.” Instead, Appleman moved frequently among the company, battalion, and regimental levels, with some visits to higher headquarters, leaving the impression his guiding principle was “to relate everything that you could extract from your admirably resourceful search for information.”⁴⁹

Professor Emerson had highlighted the key to the manuscript’s organization: 67 percent of it concerned the period before the Inch’on landing. The author’s intense interest in the summer 1950 engagements produced so many accounts of small unit actions that at times it overwhelmed any narrative storyline and impaired the work’s value as a basis for analytical study. Greenfield shared Appleman’s belief that these actions were important but believed his presentation had created a “formlessness” in the manuscript that made it unclear why the reader “is asked to absorb so much detail.” Nevertheless, the panel did not advise heavily cutting these accounts to give more attention to higher headquarters because during that summer “so much turned on what small units did.”⁵⁰

The panel decided against a “maximum prescription” for revising the draft like the World War II combat histories because it “would take more time than we can expect you to put into this revision of your manuscript and impose a delay in getting it published that the OCMH is unwilling to accept.” Instead, the panel prescribed a “minimum” approach for producing a book of manageable size and more effective presentation, along with improving “your reader’s confidence in your use of evidence and statements of the fact, even when his emotional bias is different from yours.”⁵¹

Soldiers aid a wounded comrade of the 24th Infantry Regiment after a battle 10 miles south of Chorwon, Korea, 22 April 1951. (National Archives)

The panel thought that a reduction to 1,200 pages would preserve the book’s “value as an epic story of the American soldier (and his leaders) under the ordeal of battle.” The biggest cut suggested was to end with the liberation of Seoul, but “this is your book, and the Panel wished to have the final decision left to you.” In the sections on the Pusan Perimeter, much of the detail was repetitive; concentrating on illustrative actions would yield considerable savings. Greater reliance on maps would permit briefer descriptions in the text.⁵²

A more effective presentation would require a better balance between small units and higher headquarters. General Allen clearly influenced the panel’s recommendation here, especially with regard to illustrating the difficult tactical problems confronting Eighth Army’s commander, Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, during the war’s first three months. The South Korean army’s performance, especially on the Pusan Perimeter, also would require more balanced coverage. A third suggestion concerned chapter length; some were too long and should be divided into two.

There were two major suggestions for improving the reader’s confidence. The first concerned Appleman’s “preoccupation with the behavior of the 24th Infantry.” Greenfield thought that in “the special, all but massive attention, you give to the behavior of this outfit, I guess that you were moved by soldierly indignation, by your interest in military ‘integration,’ and by the abundance of testimony about Negro troops.” The panel advised limiting the discussion to what the regiment did and how that affected battles’ outcomes. “The rest, and it is a great deal, belong in a special study of Negro troops.” The second suggestion was removing the partiality shown toward those who had contributed significantly to the research, especially when writing about the battle for Taejon. Also, the panel highlighted Appleman’s tendency to refight contemporary controversies, particularly in his footnotes, leading him into “dogfights in which you as a historian do not need to become involved.”⁵³

In his response to the panel report, Appleman set the endpoint for the book after the first intervention of Chinese troops on the battlefield but before the final drive toward the Yalu River. This would make it difficult to reach the 1,200-page limit, but he agreed to try, even though it would “result in the loss of much valuable combat and military information.” Appleman thanked Greenfield for “the latitude you and others on panel [sic] have given me in bringing the manuscript to acceptable form” and promised to “give all the time I can possibly find” to finish the revision by early 1959.⁵⁴

Lacy C. Barnett (Courtesy of Christopher Russell)

Colonel Foote thought Appleman unduly optimistic in setting that date and he was proved correct: Appleman delivered the final revision in October 1959.⁵⁵ He did not make major cuts to the manuscript; when published in 1961, the book had 813 pages, about what Morton had estimated. OCMH’s recommendation that Appleman receive the Department of the Army Distinguished Civilian Service Medal was not approved; instead, he received the Secretary of the Army’s Certificate of Appreciation for Patriotic Civilian Service.⁵⁶

Initial Reception

S. L. A. Marshall, a key figure in the Army’s World War II historical program and an influential postwar analyst, reviewed the book for the New York Times. He had visited Korea twice during the war and published two books about battles that occurred after the period covered by South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu.⁵⁷ Appleman had given Marshall’s first book, The River and the Gauntlet (William Morrow, 1953), a negative review: it “must not be considered as a well reasoned and well studied military history of the episode with which it deals.”⁵⁸

Marshall found that “for length, for diligence of research by its tireless author, for beauty of illustrations and for controversial content,” South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu “sets itself apart.” Appleman “is not a command apologist or yet a strictly objective chronicler. He loves to draw lessons.” Unlike OCMH reviewers, Marshall complained that Appleman did not have enough “analysis of the blow-by-blow ordeal of men on the fire line.” Given the difficulties Appleman faced in reconstructing much of what happened during the summer of 1950 from just participants’ accounts, the author’s “noteworthy achievement” in using these sources produced a narrative with “as even balance as his manifest handicaps permitted.” Marshall did not agree with the book’s end point: “A less ambitious author” would have stopped earlier because including the decision-making for an advance to the Yalu, but not “the lost battles” that followed, left the reader in suspense. His overall appraisal was “Appleman’s strength is his diligence in research,” but the “writing is not spellbinding, and the pace is often tedious. His editors might have done better by him.”⁵⁹

Although Professor Theodore Ropp, one of America’s leading military historians, praised the book’s “fine combat narrative,” his interest was in questions “more important to civilian scholars”: the Chinese intervention into the war and MacArthur’s relationship with President Harry S. Truman. Ropp concluded Appleman had added “depth and detail” in two areas: that misconceptions about the Chinese usually attributed just to MacArthur’s headquarters “were shared by all other intelligence agencies,” and “the extent to which the United Nations forces were tactically surprised by the Chinese armies.”⁶⁰

General Stofft (U.S. Army)

The historian Richard D. Challener wrote that South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu “is fully up to the standards established by” the United States Army in World War II series. Although he criticized the book’s “sheer bulk” and the decision to end it just before the Chinese offensive, he found “there is much to reward the persistent reader.” Challener, awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge in World War II, found the book’s depictions of infantry actions “outstanding.” At the same time, he appreciated that it did pay “careful attention to logistical problems” and did not ignore strategic and political issues. He also appreciated that it was not “an uncritical narrative.” Among the examples he cited were that Appleman “observes, with fairness but without apologies” the 24th Infantry Regiment’s performance and that “criticism of the high command is less direct but no less present.”⁶¹

Michael E. Howard, historian and a British veteran of infantry combat in World War II, appreciated “a brutal frankness and a vividness which are highly welcome and most unusual in official histories.” The “poor performance of certain U.S. units is described with an explicitness which makes the complimentary accounts of heroism and success entirely credible.” The book was “a work which is not only—as inevitably it must be—the main authority on the military aspects of the Korean campaign, but one of the most readable and convincing works of military history that the present writer has ever encouraged.”⁶²

General Nelson (U.S. Army)

Two veterans of the summer 1950 battles reviewed the book. Col. John T. Corley had commanded a battalion in the 24th Infantry Regiment and later the whole regiment. Appleman interviewed him twice and sent him draft chapters concerning his regiment. Corley was one of the officers asked to review the manuscript in 1957: he “was impressed with the excellent job that has been done. It is the first time that I have seen battle on battalion level brought alive.” Appleman described him in the book as “energetic” and “highly regarded.”⁶³ He also wrote about Corley’s appointment as a battalion commander in August 1950 that “although Eighth Army sent some of the very best unit commanders in the United States Army to the 24th Regiment to give it superior leadership, the regiment remained unreliable and performed poorly.”⁶⁴

In his review, Corley again praised Appleman’s skill in illuminating the battalion level of combat. The book provided “an unbiased picture of the defeats and successes of UN [United Nations] forces during the first five months.” He spent two paragraphs on the author’s “thorough job of research,” and the attention Appleman paid to the difficult tactical problems General Walker had faced. As for his superior, the reviewer only noted the “over-all conduct of the war by Gen. MacArthur is not neglected.” The 24th Infantry Regiment’s former commander did not address the book’s depiction of the regiment.⁶⁵

ARMOR magazine published the longest review of South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, written by Forrest K. Kleinman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. He had been the 24th Infantry Division’s public information officer at the start of the war and later served as an infantry battalion operations officer. After the war, he published several articles based on his experiences in Korea.⁶⁶ In 1954, Kleinman, at General Dean’s request, reviewed the chapters in the first draft concerning the 24th Infantry Division’s actions during July 1950. He provided Dean a detailed critique, which the general forwarded to Appleman; the chapters had “Undue Assumption of Editorial Omniscience,” “Unsound military deductions,” and a “lack of objectivity.”⁶⁷

David K. Carlisle, shown here as a West Point cadet in 1950 (U.S. Military Academy Library)

Now, Kleinman “was favorably impressed by the painstaking reconstruction” of the division’s battles. After mentioning that he had read Appleman’s first draft, he could “appreciate how much effort he has devoted since then to further research and rewrite.” Kleinman acknowledged that gaps in written records required the author to rely heavily on “the memories of eye witnesses,” but “some passages read as if written by the individual cited as the source.”⁶⁸

In addition, he did not like Appleman’s “disproportionate treatment” of the 24th Infantry Regiment. Kleinman felt that the volume’s criticism of the regiment was warranted because Corley had been a major source of information on its conduct, but he was troubled by Appleman’s failure to mention Black infantrymen’s commendable performance in integrated units. If the regiment’s misconduct merited the space given it, Appleman should have given equal attention to “the praiseworthy performance of the same race in integrated units.” Otherwise, the book could be “cited by bigots” as proof of Black soldiers’ “poor fighting qualities.” Kleinman argued that what the 24th Infantry Regiment’s record actually showed was “discriminatory segregation of any American minority in combat is as psychologically unsound as it is un-American.”⁶⁹

Veterans Versus the Historian

Two veterans took issue with the way Appleman portrayed their regiment’s performance. Both demanded the Army either revise the book or publish a new one exonerating their unit. One had his demand rejected. The other’s led to an unprecedented reexamination that did not produce the result he desired.

Lacy C. Barnett, a medic, deployed with the 34th Infantry Regiment to Korea. He survived the regiment’s costly defeats in July 1950 and its subsequent battles along the Pusan Perimeter. After he retired, Barnett began researching the regiment’s actions during that summer, visiting the National Archives and contacting veterans of the regiment for their accounts of what happened.⁷⁰

He also wrote Appleman. In a 1984 letter, he implied that Col. Charles E. Beauchamp, the 34th’s commander, was a coward who left his soldiers to die at Taejon, and he criticized Dean’s decisions. Appleman did not agree: “I think you have let your imagination engage in too much speculation,” and ended his reply with “I am always aware that I myself have not been able to find out all the facts of importance. Truth is never wholly complete in any inquiry.”⁷¹

Secretary West (Department of Defense)

By 1987, Barnett had concluded South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, “contains many errors in interpretations of events and actions” regarding the 34th Infantry. In a draft article about the Battle of Taejon he sent Appleman, Barnett faulted him for contacting “only a few of the survivors” of the regiment despite having eight years and “unlimited resources.” Additionally, some of those he did contact “could have had reasons to make self-serving statements.” Nevertheless, he was not making “an attack on the professional abilities of Roy E. Appleman.” Rather, it was “an example of how an official U.S. Army version of actions can be wrong and can stand for such a long period of time without challenge.” Barnett had read the correspondence between Appleman and Stephens from 1952 in which the latter stated the cause of the 34th Infantry’s defeats was ineffective officer leadership, not the quality of its enlisted troops. Because Stephens at Taejon had commanded the 21st Infantry Regiment, Barnett believed he had been “in no position to make such statements.”⁷² Appleman rejected this critique. He had had “no animosity against the 34th Infantry,” Barnett made “too many accusations against me without proof that I erred in what I wrote,” and had not proved the statements by those at Taejon used by Appleman “were untrustworthy and wrong.”⁷³

In 1989, Barnett wrote the Chief of Military History requesting the Army revise the portions of South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, regarding the 34th Infantry. Based on his experience at Taejon in 1950 and his research since 1985, Barnett believed Appleman’s portrayal of the regiment was “not to be in accordance with the facts.” To support this conclusion, he sent copies of his research to the Center of Military History (CMH).⁷⁴ Barnett thought he had been “stonewalled” when the Center did not agree with this request, so he asked two members of Congress and a retired lieutenant general who had been a 34th Infantry platoon leader at Taejon to intervene on his behalf.⁷⁵

Barnett also reached out one more time to Appleman. In a November 1992 letter, he alleged that Colonel Stephens had been drinking at Taejon, leaving him unable “to act in a rational and competent manner.” He was a coward who had “wanted to avoid any and all contact with enemy forces on 20 July.” Then Barnett showed he did not know Appleman. After noting that Stephens had been the Chief of Military History when the OCMH panel reviewed the manuscript, “I can understand why there would have been certain things that you would not have written in your manuscript. If this was the case, I would hope that you will be willing to disclose those things now.”⁷⁶

Secretary Marsh (U.S. Army)

Appleman, now 88 years old, replied he could “neither affirm nor deny” Barnett’s statements about what happened at Taejon because of the “lapse of time” and because he did not have copies of his research. Regarding Barnett’s accusation about omitting negative material on Stephens, Appleman wrote “there is no basis in fact for this suspicion as I neither then nor latter did so.” To make this clear to Barnett, he closed his letter with “Col. Stephens in no way influenced what I wrote about the battle of Taejon.”⁷⁷

Four days after Barnett sent his letter to Appleman, Brig. Gen. Harold W. Nelson, the Chief of Military History, wrote Representative Les Aspin, chair of the House Committee on Armed Services, about revising the portrayal of the 34th Infantry in South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu: “The policy of the Center of Military History is to not revise its published works.” Factual errors would be corrected in subsequent reprints of a book. “We will not, however, make changes based on different interpretations of essentially the same facts or new facts which are not germane. It is the work of succeeding scholars to undertake revisions and new interpretations by writing new books and perhaps commenting in the new books on the deficiencies of the old ones.”⁷⁸

Nelson’s predecessor, Brig. Gen. William A. Stofft, made a similar stand in regard to the 24th Infantry Regiment, but David K. Carlisle brought enough pressure to bear that CMH was ordered to write a new book with a new interpretation of the regiment’s performance. Carlisle graduated from West Point in 1950. Like many in his class, he shipped to Korea as a replacement that summer, but as a Black officer in a segregated Army, his assignment options were limited. In August 1950 he joined the 77th Engineer Combat Company, a Black unit that supported the 24th Infantry Regiment, where Carlisle served successively as a platoon leader, the executive officer, and the commander. He contracted bronchial asthma while in Korea, a condition that eventually forced him to leave the Army in 1958.⁷⁹ In the 1970s, Carlisle and his first commander in Korea, Charles M. Bussey, prepared a history of their company in the war. Their research included reading South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, for the first time. Carlisle found its portrayal of the 24th Infantry “seriously-flawed and grossly misleading.”⁸⁰ He soon began a campaign for revisions to the book that would portray the 24th Infantry’s performance as having been at least equal to that of any White regiment in Korea.⁸¹

David Carlisle had two advantages over Lacy Barnett. The first was his military credentials: as a West Point graduate who had commanded in combat, his criticisms had a creditability that Barnett could not match. Carlisle referred to them often in mobilizing support for his campaign and in his extensive correspondence with Army offices.⁸² The second advantage was the Army’s continued reckoning with the racism in its history during an era when keeping the all-volunteer force viable relied on recruiting Black people.⁸³

Carlisle, like Barnett, examined unit records and reached out to veterans. Also like Barnett, he shared his research with Uzal W. Ent and Clay D. Blair, who were working on books about the Pusan Perimeter and the war’s first year, respectively. These books would portray the 24th and 34th Infantry Regiments in a more favorable light than Appleman’s did, and they criticized his depiction of the units’ performance.⁸⁴

Carlisle’s first success concerned the regiment’s first battle, the fight to take Yechon in July 1950. In response to a 1984 congressional inquiry, CMH reviewed the relevant records and contacted Appleman, who saw no reason to change what he had written. Although the review found Appleman’s scholarship to be “sound,” it recommended changes in future reprints “in the interest of clarity and sound scholarship.”⁸⁵

Soldiers of the 24th Infantry Regiment move up to the firing line in Korea, ca. 1950–1951. (National Archives)

Appleman doubted anything of note happened at Yechon, beginning his book’s section on the action with the aside “if indeed it was an action at all,” and concluding with “whether there were North Koreans in the town on 20 July is something of a question.” A key source for Appleman was Col. Henry G. Fisher, commander of the 35th Infantry Regiment, who had gone to the town on 21 July after receiving a message that the North Koreans “had driven the 3d Battalion, 24th Infantry, from Yech’on.” Appleman used Fisher’s 1957 comments on the manuscript to dismiss in a footnote a reporter who had written a story praising the 24th Infantry at Yechon. The revised text in reprints deleted the aside, the conclusion about what happened on 20 July, and Appleman’s comment in the footnote. It described the message Fisher received as “erroneous” and added a sentence on soldiers from the 77th Engineer Combat Company entering the town on 21 July to fight fires started by American shelling.⁸⁶

In 1988, Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh Jr. directed a review of the regiment’s performance from its deployment in 1950 to its inactivation in 1951.⁸⁷ Appleman declined interview requests about this decision, but he wrote a friend that the book “is well documented, so I have to be contended with letting it stand on its own merits.” He believed that Clay Blair, “savvy about Washington publicity channels, is behind Carlisle’s efforts this time.”⁸⁸ In 1989, Appleman published Disaster in Korea (Texas A&M University Press), which examined the Chinese defeat of Eighth Army in North Korea. He again stressed that the 24th Infantry functioned poorly despite receiving White officers who “were handpicked from among the top performers in the U.S. Army.” Appleman emphasized the regiment’s “ineptness” and that it was “a cause of concern to friendly units on its flanks.”⁸⁹ That same year, Irene Appleman told a reporter that his portrayal of the regiment was not racially motivated and that his research supported these conclusions. As to revising the book, she said that Appleman “would hate to see it done. You don’t rewrite history 30 years later.”⁹⁰

In 1996, almost three years after Appleman’s death, CMH published Black Soldier, White Army.⁹¹ The book did not critique the 24th Infantry Regiment’s portrayal in South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, and made no mention of the criticisms within OCMH about how Appleman treated the unit. It did describe the book as “the most thorough and authoritative source for combat operations during the early period of the war.”⁹²

Instead, Black Soldier, White Army analyzed the regiment’s performance using the lens Stetson Conn had recommended in 1953: the “many other qualifying factors that are needed for an understanding of the problem of employing Negro troops in combat.” It concluded that the regiment’s “record in Korea reveals an undue number of military failures, particularly during the early months of the war.” The cause of these failures was mainly “a lack of unit cohesion brought on by racial prejudice and the poor leadership it engendered at all levels.”⁹³ One of those prejudiced poor leaders was the 24th Infantry’s second commander in Korea, Colonel Champeny, who had been the first person Appleman interviewed about the unit.⁹⁴ Another important source for Appleman, Colonel Corley, may have been prejudiced, but Black Soldier, White Army made it clear that if so, it did not prevent him from providing effective leadership.⁹⁵

Major Appleman in Korea, ca. 1951 (U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center)

Although Carlisle had succeeded in getting the Army to produce a new book, he rejected its new interpretation. After reading the final draft, he told a reporter that “even in 1996, Army historians continue misleadingly and insultingly to characterize the regiment’s combat performance.”⁹⁶ In response, the Army convened a review panel with Clay Blair among its members, and acting on the panel’s recommendation, Secretary of the Army Togo D. West Jr. approved publication of Black Soldier, White Army.⁹⁷ Its interpretation of essentially the same facts did not lead to any further revisions of South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu.

Conclusion

Although both OCMH and Appleman believed that “historians who were thorough in their research had no need to interpret the events they were describing,”⁹⁸ the latter’s experiences and personality created a “moralistic and didactic tone” extraordinary for an Army official history volume. His intense admiration of American soldiers who risked their life in battle predisposed him to praise those who did their duty and condemn those who did not.⁹⁹ The charge by General Ward “to pull no punches,” which aligned with Appleman’s commitment to outspoken honesty, only reenforced this tendency in his writing. OCMH had identified this tone as a significant problem in 1953 and it remained one six years later. The office could have responded in one of three ways: continue the unorthodox process of the author revising on his own time, start over with another historian, or accept the manuscript Appleman delivered in October 1959. Because the office decided against the significant delays the first two options would produce, much of Appleman’s interpretation made it into the published volume.

This decision also meant that Appleman’s belief that South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu would never be superseded was in one sense correct. The book retained most of his detail on small unit actions, which exceeded that found in OCMH’s World War II combat volumes. This detail, and the material Appleman collected to produce it, created the historiographical foundation about the battles covered by his book, especially for the events of July 1950. All who write about this subject, even those who decades later solicited other veterans’ accounts, rely on this foundation and are in dialogue with Appleman’s interpretation.

The book was superseded in one important area. Black Soldier, White Army confirmed Appleman’s conclusion that the 24th Infantry Regiment had an undue number of military failures, but it showed he was wrong about the reason for them. In both South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu and Disaster in Korea, he offers no explicit explanation for the regiment’s performance.¹⁰⁰ The available sources do not reveal to what extent racism influenced Appleman’s conclusion and how much it was based on his contempt for shirkers who endangered others. Racism, though, clearly did have some effect on his portrayal of the regiment. The first draft of South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu included comments from White officers on the supposed nature of Black troops that made them poor soldiers. Although OCMH removed these, it did retain Appleman’s insistence that the Army had supplied the regiment with some of its “very best unit commanders,” thereby implying the unit’s failures resulted from inherent characteristics of Black soldiers. Black Soldier, White Army, however, showed that it was racial prejudice that undermined the cohesion essential to effective combat units, and that, with the exception of Colonel Corley, the 24th Infantry Regiment did not receive the “very best” either before or after deploying to Korea.¹⁰¹

South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu accomplished an official history’s mission of providing the Army’s account of what it did in battle and giving others a base from which to develop their own narratives and interpretations. But because of its path to publication, the book is unusual in that Appleman’s voice and his quest to honor his fellow soldiers can be heard clearly. The result is a hybrid unique in the U.S. Army’s official history program.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This article is a revision of a presentation made to the Military Classics Seminar in 2019. My thanks go to the seminar members for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes