The Great North Korean Tank Offensive | Greatest Tank Battles | War Stories

june 1950 hundreds of north korean tanks storm across the 38th parallel in a surprise attack against south korea the north koreans were totally vicious they just kept on coming in a bid to stem the invasion a small ill-equipped us force is quickly thrown into the fight it's like customers lay a stand you know and you've got to fight like hell to get out of there it is just the beginning of what will become one of the most vicious conflicts of the 20th century all of a sudden all hell broke loose [Music] they were swarming all over us we was killing north koreans left and right this is the battle for korea one of history's forgotten tank battles i can remember how oh hell this is it [Music] [Music] [Music] korea this small village is situated on the 38th parallel the de facto border that bisects the korean peninsula it's a place of hair trigger tension where north and south korean soldiers stand face to face and where one wrong move could reignite a war that started more than 60 years ago june 25th 1950 120 000 north korean soldiers led by masses of soviet-made tanks swarm across the border into south korea since the end of the second world war korea has been a nation divided with a u.s backed republic controlling the south while communists supported by the soviet union rule in the north determined to see the two koreas united into a single communist state the soviet union has provided the north koreans with military advisers training and most importantly weapons for the invasion north korea has amassed more than 1100 heavy guns 120 000 troops and 250 t-34 tanks easily outnumbering the south koreans were able to field less than 230 heavy guns 68 000 troops and no tanks the south korean army was relatively untrained for conventional war certainly not well armed to fight an artillery and tank-heavy north korean army the north korean plan is to punch through south korea's weak border defenses seize the capital of seoul and rush south the invaders are relying on surprise overwhelming force and speed the basic concept was for the north koreans to plow right through the infantry and then create a mess behind the lines in a sense i suppose you call many blitzkriegs the mini blitzkrieg works north korean tanks and infantry quickly overwhelm south korean defenses along the 38th parallel by june 28th they're in seoul and they seem unstoppable the united nations intervenes and the u.s immediately deploys a few hundred soldiers from their garrison in nearby japan their mission halt the north koreans and buy time for reinforcements to arrive on july 5th the lightly armed gis of task force smith take up defensive positions near osan directly in the path of the advancing north koreans i think most of the gis who deployed really believed that because this was an asian army that somehow it was inferior well i found out of course that the north koreans were pretty tough we got there about five o'clock in the morning seven o'clock to hit us so every man start to try to hold a hill they had trucks in the back of the tank saw a load of troops somebody said there was two divisions behind them tanks that we didn't know they were outnumbered there were 406 guys trying to fight two divisions northern tanks north korea's main battle tank is the soviet t-34 85 outfitted with 45 millimeters of sloped frontal armor and armed with an millimeter main cannon the t-3485 is considered by many to be the greatest tank of the second world war first guy run down the hill open a hatch to a grenade and the first tank blew it up kind of like sit on the hatch for it so they couldn't jump out and it blew up so another guy kept hitting with the old bazooka we thought that bazooka would knock her out but we didn't it looked like if he had a tennis ball that's how it bounce stops this one guy put 20 in one tank [Music] didn't he knock it out [Music] circle around you and then you gotta it's like custer's lay a stand you know and you gotta fight like hell to get out of there [Applause] they get on the hill a little bit like that just like fire artillery i lost a lot of my buddies somewhere digging down in the front there i lost a lot of them i stood to see their faces sometime [Music] we're fighting to stay alive and it just just didn't work we're pulling a rear guard we start trying to you know make a position to to hold them back because we got nothing knocked out they had a tunnel and i see these engineers drilling holes and putting dynamite all over the place then they had the plunger you know we're trying to get them right inside so that i blocked the tunnel and when it blows all that ammo would be blowing all over the place but this sergeant he got kind of nervous he just blow it now get out of here the old man says let's start moving back and we all get cut off they were coming like say 20 to 1. after holding the line for seven desperate hours the american gis are forced into a fighting retreat and by the next day half the men of task force smith are killed wounded or captured the north koreans continue their advance and u.s commanders scramble to get reinforcements into the battle soon thousands more american troops arrive including an under-strength battalion of light m24 reconnaissance tanks the m24 is designed more for speed than for armored battle its hull is equipped with only 25 millimeters of armor and its main cannon is a low velocity 75 millimeter gun not designed to take on heavier tanks like the t-34 but despite their shortcomings the m24s rush to meet the advancing north korean tanks retaking this ground and we were at the top of a hill getting ready to go down and out in the valley there was two t-34s the air force was coming in shooting rockets at them they hit the footage and save on fire there was two jets and they took off i think they had opened up on the other one and they may have thought they had him because he quit moving but after they left that first one started moving and he was on fire [Music] tank command said well he moving on his own and he started looking he says the second one's pushing him out the road he pushed him right out the boat the second one's coming on up the tank commander gave the range 200 yards where you're taking you get your weapon down to 200 yards and you get that tank when you saw him in the crosshair and you'd fire the first shot hit right over the way the driver he had his hatch up and i hit right above it and it's just bounced off like i was shooting that elephant with a bb gun entertain commander says fire will second shot hit him they shot him cause all three just bounced off then people in that tank must have been laughing at me 85 millimeter you better believe it look like a telephone pole a pair of diamonds i can remember how oh hell this is it i said that's all i got out you already hit we're very lucky that he hit where he hit because that was the thickest part of the thing the shield on the 75 millimeter if you'd hit bluetooth shield at all 75 he would have penetrated without a doubt we'd all been killed it wasn't too long to every tank we had was wiped out in our company [Music] by the end of july the north koreans have pushed over 400 kilometers south and have the americans and south koreans bottled up in a defensive perimeter around the seaport of busan we were scared as hell because we didn't know what was going to happen we thought we'd be pushed out into the ocean because until we got help over there we were really in big trouble very big trouble june 25th 1950 hundreds of soviet-made t-34 tanks lead 120 000 north korean soldiers across the 38th parallel and invade south korea the united nations condemns the attack and a small advanced guard of american forces rushes to the korean peninsula to bolster the weak south korean army but u.s and south korean troops are outnumbered and outgunned by the north koreans by the end of july they're bottled up in a defensive perimeter around the seaport of busan and are on the brink of defeat the situation is desperate and u.s commanders scramble to muster more troops and equipment especially tanks finally arrived there and i think just in time to be able to to stop the north korea we had just enough tanks to be able to let them think that we had tanks all over the front but it wasn't that way so our m4a3 e8 we could go 30 miles an hour from one position to another the easy-8 sherman is the main battle tank of u.s forces in the korean theater it made its debut during the second world war but what sets it apart from earlier sherman models is its high velocity 76 millimeter gun adding a powerful punch to this quick and agile tank [Music] and we were on the east side of the neck tongue river the enemy being on the other side of that river our second battalion had a mission to move on up to high ground on the left of the road in my tank section we moved to the right facing the river searching for any movement out there we couldn't see anything we were just there watchful to see what would develop and something did develop to my left front and and across the the road where they i believe it was f company moving up on that on that hill an enemy tank opened fire on them i could see the rounds were hitting at you know causing some casualty so i immediately uh checked to see where that tank was firing from and i was able to to locate it by the blast of the its gun and we were in definitely positioned behind this hill and we moved on up and engaged that tank then pulled back and go up and fire my primary mission was to draw the fire to me and keep that tank from firing at those fellas that were out there in the open then that tank opened fired on me and we exchange rounds [Music] there's one particular one that went right and over almost had it at that time [Music] in any case i was glad that that that the enemy tank had ceased firing evidently it caught some damage on him so i did my job before we had jet fighters to come in and drop napalm everything was quiet after that although u.n forces are outnumbered north korea's attempts to breach the busan perimeter fails daytime strikes by u.s warplanes cause chaos and the north koreans begin operating at night when american tanks are vulnerable to attack [Music] i knew we were going to have a night attack the enemy had already crossed the river onto our side and if they were there that afternoon they were going to hit us at night tanks at night if you don't watch what you're doing you can lose your tank in no time at all if they don't know where you are at night the enemy is going to want to draw your fire so that they can have a better idea of where you fire it from because then their line companies they can move in on your tank and that's the reason we don't fire at night on which we absolutely have to [Music] so we had had a an outpost out there the outpost has set up booger traps when that is set off it has to be somebody out there so when i heard that boogie trap explosion i'm right away looking and then i see movement coming and i see them coming they opened fire one of the rounds that hit my front slope all of a sudden there's a huge explosion on my face you know and i it knocked me out that's when i realized we got a direct hit on our team i had a headache for a long time so then i instructed my other tank commander i said when i opened fire you opened fire and then i'll be aiming to the right you aiming to the left and then we give them this you know the crossfire so we're going to have people running in away from where the tracers are going in the same way over here so when they do that then we can't catch them and that's the idea right after we got through firing all we could hear was an enemy wounded out there but anyway we won that night by early august the steam has gone out of the north korean attack after six weeks of fighting they've lost almost 30 percent of their initial strength and every day the un forces hold the busan perimeter they get stronger as reinforcements pour into the port city the north koreans must act quickly they prepare to throw everything they have left into one last armored assault hoping to take busan and complete their invasion of korea [Music] july after 1950 week of desperate fighting the outnumbered and outgunned united nations forces managed to keep their foothold on the korean peninsula buying time for the arrival of more men ammunition and tanks and while u.n forces grow stronger the north koreans are suffering significant losses and by august their once mighty invasion force has lost most of its punch with time quickly running out the north koreans mount one last offensive a two-pronged armored assault aimed at penetrating the u.n line at misson and across the naktong river near the city of taegu that's where we saw our first action at was when the t-34 was trying to come across the naktong and bust the busan perimeter but they never progressed against the m26s we would camouflage they didn't know we was up there and the platoon leader told us don't fire till i give the word [Music] he assigned each of our tanks a tank to fire ant we knew the range we had everything down pat and then all of a sudden he said fire [Music] the m-26 perishing is designed for tank to tank combat its hull is protected by 76 millimeters of armor and armed with a 90 millimeter main cannon more than powerful enough to take on a t34 and we had a armored piercing cap and the muscle velocity was 4 850 feet per second and when that round hit that time i mean he just lifted the turret right off of it and it was gone and it just breaks that gas metal up i think that they were shocked they never fired around at us they was trying to get away them tanks flew apart all around them we fired at them and knocked out four more we had no fear of them after a while we didn't fear the t-34s north korea's last big push fizzles and u.n forces go on the offensive the plan u.s marines will land at inchon and advance east while u.n forces break out of the busan perimeter and push north the aim is to cut off and destroy the retreating north korean army we ran into retreating t-34 tanks one popped out of a side road or out of a rice patty you know within a thousand yards fire move fire move because you didn't want to stay in one spot rounds are going over us around us and they shouldn't have missed but they did we had around it glanced off the turret but it hit a glancing blow so it didn't explode it's kind of hard to hit with the m4 a moving target so we're boresighted you know opened the breach and just looked down the barrel of the gun you know she was that close and then put a round in and fire the gunner put one right down the muzzle of the t-34 peeled it back like a banana they must had a round in chamber because the turret just erupted which was spectacular they said that 34 was a good tank back during the second world war but the russians knew how to use their tanks the north koreans didn't know how to use them they were not tank people so we didn't have too much problem with the tanks now the infantry oh boy they raise all kinds act [Music] i mean they could sneak up on you where they would swarm over your tanks and throw grenades down in into your uh engine compartment the rear tank he's always with his turret backwards covering our back the second guy he was to the left third guy was to the right front guy was to the front and that's where you covered each other if you get a bunch of north koreans swarming on the tanks you just fire on them and start shooting off the north koreans just didn't seem to give a rip when he was coming at you they were like the japanese when they had bonsai charred in one skirmish i remember that uh the uh north koreans was crawling all over our tanks well the gunner he just swung the uh the barrel of the turret around knocked them all off and the guys in front of us seen what was going on so they just turned their turret back towards us started shooting them off [Music] they were swarming all over us we was killing north koreans left and right [Music] i can remember a couple times that we get into a firefight and they were shooting their small arms at us well it wasn't just like somebody throwing popcorn against the side of a tin can despite desperate resistance from the retreating north koreans macarthur's forces advanced steadily and by october they've driven the north koreans back across the 38th parallel american soldiers begin talking about being home for christmas but they are about to learn the korean war is far from over general macarthur said take it all away [Music] october 7th 1950 four weeks after fighting their way out of the busan perimeter united nations forces pushed north forcing the tattered north korean army back across the 38th parallel we were under the impression that everything was over with we'll be home for christmas and general macarthur decided different well they didn't think that we was going to cross the 38th parallel and then general macarthur said take it all the way that 70 thank me time bee company was the first unit to enter pyongyang the north korean capital and they had tanks dug in in the streets so what we did we skirted the city and we come in from the north and they couldn't traverse their their guns around the fire they say they dug them in and before they could get them out and turn them around we don't wipe them out by mid-october u.s forces occupy pyongyang but the war is still not over general macarthur determined to pursue and destroy the entire communist army sends infantry and tanks deep into the mountainous north korean interior by the last week of november they approached the yalo river the border between north korea and communist china the night of the 25th of november we went further north into the tungtong river valley what happened that night it always went into a circle you know just like you see a cowboy movie where you have covered wagons in the circle and then the indians are attacking you i told my time crew you all go ahead and go to sleep i said i'll take the first watch by that time it was uh about nine o'clock in the evening i looked down the valley and i could see two or three uh small bonfires nothing moving everything was quiet [Music] and i'm just sitting there and then i start thinking about you know going home for christmas and what it's going to be and we're going to be happy you know and all of a sudden all hell broke loose the company got the worst there it was plunging fire coming out down from from that high ground and i said oh god almighty crank up and we're going to turn the tank around instinctively you know that once they stopped then we would get hit from this side with the same volume of fire and that's what you call the double development maneuver well i was ready for them i'm checking the area and sure enough i saw this enemy coming up from the river and when they did we were already prepared to engage them because had to prepare five at delay 76 millimeter rounds we're raided fire then i started i stopped the enemy and stopped who goes there and they still didn't stop and i said fire see he fired that round hit like this and bounced and exploded right over this guy's head knocked them all down got them all and as soon as i begin to get daylight one individual came running up to my tank and said uh jordan arena can i go out there and and check for souvenirs i said no there's going to be some live enemy troops out there he went anyway and he went no further than the heck i'd say 35 yards out and turn around it ran just as fast as he could back to me he said turn right now there so there's a chinese out there [Music] what sergeant reina has just encountered is the beginning of a massive chinese offensive a 300 000 man strong invasion force intent on driving u.n forces out of korea after a seven week long advance through north korea u.n forces reached the yalu river on the chinese border the north korean army seems beaten at last but on the night of november 25th the americans and south koreans come under attack but this time it is not the north koreans but the chinese threatened by the american advance towards their border the people's republic of china launches an invasion force 300 000 strong to attack u.n positions the chinese have really had figured out because they didn't have much artillery had no air support to speak of that they were going to have to fight us an entirely different way to get into the rear areas disrupt the artillery infantry team and to take tanks out of the combat equation it's like a foot blitz creek when they were given a mission the chinese they did not divert from that mission they kept on coming no matter how many got killed it's fearful because they have no no respect for their life why would they respect your life u.s and south korean forces are shocked by the magnitude and ferocity of the chinese attack and all along the front u.n forces are easily overwhelmed we looked at the mountain path where we came up three days before that and they mined the road over there there was no way down except down the side of this mountain i mean it was a steep mountain sergeant man said hey we stay up there and we get killed and we're not gonna get killed we're gonna we're gonna get out of here sergeant man says billy what do you think and i said well let's try her you can only wind up at the bottom down inside that mountain he had gravel stones shale uh like going down the side of a gravel pit we slid probably halfway down in dumb thing with tracks locked we slid quite a ways i'd say maybe 500 yards down that steep mountain off that long pass but billy tap it right straight downhill we got down to bottom down into the valley [Music] there was three of us tanks got out of there at that time the rest of them was still up there and that's when the second division just got about an island it wasn't well set up ambush very well set up and we got caught in kunri what they call the gauntlet they didn't realize how many chinese were in north korea at the time and then they just started coming and coming that caught it was 17 miles and they murdered and i mean they just caught heck you get all this equipment trying to come down out of crewry paths well the chinese had it covered on both sides of that gauntlet and it was just nothing but uh blowing up some vehicles all over the road we lost probably 3 800 men i guess what they told us [Music] wounded killed and prisoners by it was just just a big mess just like it looked like a junkyard but it was a scary experience in just a few days the chinese wipe out almost half of a second infantry division it's the same grim story all along the front and by november 28th un forces are in full retreat we kept withdrawing we went back south of the south korean capital back south of seoul and you know the ground that you fight for and people die for and you start withdrawing now that really gets to your heart believe me it does november 25th 1950 a chinese army of 300 000 crosses the yalu river into north korea the korean war which u.n forces thought they were winning takes a lethal new turn in just three days u.n forces are in full retreat by december 15th the chinese have pushed them back across the 38 parallel we kept withdrawing which we went back south to the south korean capital back south of seoul and we reorganized and started to push back north we got up here just north of uh sewell and it was kind of raining drizzle and a miserable day and we went up on this mountain we're going across that night fog set in and like the old saying is it was thick enough you could cut it with a knife i've never saw fog that heavy in my life and we heard these enemy tanks [Music] and we knew they was moving they got to be on the road and we knew that but we couldn't distinguish where the road was at and we waited and listened well they pull my tank right up where the road dips over and goes down the other side of the mountain and we sit there and i couldn't see nothing nobody could and the first thing we knew this tank hit us boom and we never saw that tank until it hit us absolutely hit us and then he fired the gun and that upset everything inside the tank we could put our gun over but we couldn't put it on the tank because it had hit the side of the tank and he couldn't get his gun over to knock us out what i was afraid he'd do is back up and jerk loose and then blow us away it would have been like the quick draw whoever got the round there first now we firing the machine guns this went on for a while and we had to get somebody to come over and go around where they could get a shot inside the tank we turned our headlights on and in the midst of the headlights he said he still couldn't really see the tank but he could see what he thought was the tank so when he farted it was the tank for the next eight months the battlefront shifts back and forth across the 38th parallel with u.n forces gaining ground only to lose it to chinese and north korean counter-attacks by the summer of 1951 a year after it began with fast mobile tank battles the korean war grinds down into a bloody stalemate tanks so important in the early fighting are now used mainly as mobile artillery in july 1953 both sides sign a ceasefire and take up heavily armed positions along the 38th parallel and now this heavily occupied border remains a tinderbox more than one and a half million troops over fifteen thousand artillery pieces and six thousand tanks are poised on both sides ready to reignite the decades-old conflict there is no question that if this should happen tanks will once again play a critical role on the korean battlefield armor is a combat arm of decision they're decisive fast and they carry our wallet the introduction of u.s armor onto the korean battlefield helped to turn the tide of war against the north koreans but these battles proved costly for both sides in just the first six months of the war over 60 000 north koreans are killed or wounded and u.s forces suffer more than 25 000 casualties it was an experience that a young kid should never have to go through there's a lot of guys that died there a lot of guys that have taken prisoner there i did the best of my ability and tried to stay alive a lot of it you go through you try to forget it but it's hard to forget a lot of it you just live up with it that's all you can do you

Channel: War Stories

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Rating: 4.8113918 out of 5

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, tank battles, greatest tank battles, korean war, north korean war, communist korea, korean tank battles

Id: j0fiCeIPCTU

Length: 44min 28sec (2668 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020