Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

200 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
Throughout the war, a major weakness of the Eighth Army artillery was an
insufficient number of nondivisional artillery units. The 150-mile (241.4-kilometer)
five-corps front that existed in Korea during the last two years of the war could
have justified between fifty and sixty corps artillery battalions, using the ratios of
the European theater during World War II. Instead, by June 1953, there were only
twenty nondivisional field artillery battalions in all of Korea. The lack of field artillery
groups resulted in corps artillery battalions being controlled directly by the corps
artil lery headquarters in addition to their usual duties. Efforts made in the spring of
1951 to obtain six more group headquarters failed because of stringent troop ceilings.
Yet, although the corps artil lery battalions received less than normal control and
supervision, the lack of group headquarters posed no serious problem as long as the
tactical situation remained stable. Eighth Army felt the shortage briefly, however,
when mobile warfare returned to the battlefield just before the armistice. 24
During the war, the 5th Field Artillery Group, the only one in Korea, acted as
a corps artillery headquarters for the ROK II Corps. It also controlled ROK field
artillery groups being trained as division artillery headquarters. Although the makeshift
arrange ment was satisfactory in static periods, the group lacked the necessary
personnel and communications equipment needed to control the up to nineteen
battalions under its supervision during fluid tactical situations.
During the final two years of the war, deployment of corps artillery battalions
was based on the width of the front, the most likely avenues of enemy approach,
and the estimated amount of artillery opposing each corps. The ROK I Corps,
operating in a comparatively inactive sector on the east coast, had no attached
field artillery battalions but depended on naval gunfire support furnished by the
U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. The ROK II Corps had three U.S. field artillery battalions
attached—two 105-mm. howitzer armored (self-propelled) battalions and
one 8-inch howitzer battalion. The remaining corps artillery battalions (seventeen
in June 1953) were allotted to the American I, IX, and X Corps. Because there
was never more than one 155-mm. gun battalion in a corps, the battalion was deployed
by battery across the corps front. For most of the war, the same was true
of the 8-inch howitzer battalions (Table 21). 25 Until January 1953, the 1st Field
Artillery Observation Battalion, the only observation unit in Korea at the time,
was deployed by battery, one each to the three American corps. Topographical
and meteorological detachments reinforced the two batteries separated from
their battalion headquarters. Later, when the 235th Field Artillery Observation
Battalion arrived, the I and IX Corps each received a battalion less one battery.
The two detached batteries went to the X Corps and the ROK II Corps. A third
24 Ibid., pp. 3, 13, 14, copy in CMH files. Of the corps, three were U.S. Army and two were ROK
Army. On 27 July 1953, eighteen divisions—ten ROK Army, six U.S. Army, one U.S. Marines, and one
British Commonwealth—were on the front.
25 Ibid., pp. 3–4, copy in CMH files. This study counts only nineteen nondivisional field artillery
cannon battalions as of the end of the war. It omits the 555th Field Artillery Battalion serving with the
5th Regimental Combat Team, probably because it was employed more like division artillery than corps
artillery.