No air support?
I was surprised to see the lack of any sort of air support in the assault on a heavily defended hill. A few well-timed sorties of strafing/bombing runs would have greatly reduced casualties on the attacker's side.
It would have helped to some degree, but the confused nature of the fighting would have made location of enemy positions by ground spotters (unless they were on the Hill itself with the troops) or Mosquito FAC aircraft quite difficult and then having them pinpoint the enemy locations for fighter bombers to bomb or strafe would be just as difficult.
I have read SLA Marshall's Pork Chop Hill and can point out that like the movie, the battle started as a two company effort to regain the hilltop positions lost by Easy Company. At least one of the attacking companies believed that they were going to support and relieve Easy Company. They did not expect to be attacking an entrenched enemy position. Also the attack started at 04:30 so any air strikes before the attack would be in the dark. So 1. this was not regarded as a major or difficult attack that would warrant air support, 2. the hour of the attack (before dawn) would have made close air support difficult. As you can also see the the movie, communication between HQ and Company level was tenuous at best and mistaken assumptions were made by HQ as to the success of the effort by K and L Companies. So after the attack started, there was no feeling that air support was needed and later the confused nature of the fighting meant that the location of enemy and friendly positions were not known. Witness the unexpected finding of Easy Company survivors in the bunker.
I am a former member of the USAF but it pains me to say that reading US Army histories, one finds that the soldiers on the ground were often less than complimentary of the efforts of the USAF to lend air support. The USMC was held in higher regard. In effect, the grunts say that if you call them,(USAF) they can't come, if they come, they can't find you, if they find you, they can't see the target, if they do, they will unload everything in one pass as they don't have enough gas to stay around. In saying this, there were many brave AF pilots and airmen who gave their best and then some, but air support may be a mixed blessing, and impromptu air support for local attacks, may not have been so common, unless you were lucky and had a Mosquito FAC in the area and had a competent controller on the ground, too. The hilly terrain with a lack of distinctive landmarks may have made precise attacks difficult. The troops were ably supported by artillery, in quantity, if not in accuracy. SLA Marshall said that the artillery support at Pork Chop was more concentrated than in heaviest WWII action. (Kwajalein, in his words)
Grant
"...The USMC was held in higher regard..."
I have heard anecdotes RE: Marine Tac Air: one is that when they come in, you pull in your radio antenna because, yeah, they ARE coming in THAT low; the other says that if they could, Marine Tac Air would attach bayonets on the wings of their planes.
What you say is very insightful and informative, but it still seems to me that the lack of any evident use of air was a massive screw-up. Sure, close support air on the hilltop may have been beyond the effective state of the art at the time, but there were clearly huge concentrations of enemy troops in the area feeding the fight. They could have annihilated those masses from the air.
Also, why was there apparently no armored support?
fnj2002, thank you for your comments. Yes, there was a screw up, but I think that you are being too hard on the 7th Division or regiment commanders. If you have a chance, read Pork Chop Hill and even better Clay Blair's The Forgotten War, as well as Lee Ballenger's The Outpost War. Communication between the on site commanders and the rear HQ was tenuous and intermittent at best. By this stage of the war, the Chicom soldiers were very combat wise, often much better that the rotational/replacement US infantrymen. It hurts me to say that. They were very proficient at camouflage and most of their soldiers were in hard to see underground bunkers/tunnels behind the MLR. (main line of resistance) So air support would find it very difficult to find and strike them in their staging areas, nor would they be very visible moving up to the battle as they had good discipline that would mean that at the sound of aircraft, they would go to ground and freeze. One important point to remember, was that the casualties so far accrued by the US was much greater than expected from a so called 'Police Action.' At this stage in the war, with the truce negotiations in progress, no one wanted to have more Americans killed unnecessarily. So the ground commanders were under some pressure to limit US casualties. Had the commanders known of the true situation at the start of the battle, they probably would have withdrawn from that hill as they did from several others later on. As for armour support, had the original intention been an attack rather than relief of troops not in contact, some might have been provided. But the hilly terrain and the excellent Chinese artillery support would limited their usefulness. It was a tough battle for the troops and considering the handicaps self inflicted, they came out better than expected.
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