Roughstuff's Korean War Archive
book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
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Breuer, William B. Shadow Warriors
The Covert War in Korea DS 921.5 S7 B74 1996

The well published Mr. Breuer--he boasts 23 other war-related texts-- has quite a talent for writing gripping text. Readers will find alot about the Korean War here not described in other books. There is a detailed description of the myriad of deceptive tactics employed by the North Koreans to distract attention from their imminent attack in the Seoul Corridor. Several chapters describe the preparations for the Inchon landing. Operation Trudy Jackson, using surveillance garnered from the small island of Yonghung, twelve miles south of Inchon, gathered vital data on troop strength, tidal ranges, placement of enemy mines, etc. I am eternally grateful to Breuer for finally translating Wolmi-Do as 'moon tip island'. (By the way, sunset and moonset over the Yellow Sea are a joy to behold...roughstuff)
Breuer is a bit confusing when he talks simultaneously about Inchon being a 'secret', while soldiers in Pusan, Japan, and the US referred to it as Operation Common Knowledge. Not only had the Chinese wargamed an Inchon landing as a possibility (and never informed the North Koreans they had done so), but the NY Times itself ran an article suggesting the idea in its September 14, 1950 edition. Breuer acknowledges this, but then shifts his focus to the disinformation campaign designed to fool the North Koreans the landing would be at Kunsan. I think his point should be to make clear that secrets are hard to keep and it is best to sew confusion to obscure your true intentions.

Breuer says the damage done by the Philby/Maclean/Burgess spy ring was primarily leaks of UN battle plans in North Korea, especially the restrictions placed on MacArthur. The Chinese knew they did not have to worry about another amphibious landing, for example. (Even when Van Fleet wanted a series of amphibious assaults up Korea's east coast, it was shot down-- the US had decided on a limited war.) Although the spies did their best to hide evidence of planned Chinese intervention, enough evidence was available from Commanders on the ground, and through other channels (such as the Indian Ambassador).

Other intelligence operations had a mixed outcome. The Li-mi project, an attempt to distract and tie down Chinese Communist armies in Yunan Province, was largely a failure. The US missed a major propoganda coup when they failed to publicize that smallpox raged in the devastated Chinese/North Korean territory. Ironically, it was the US that later suffered a barrage of Communist accusations about 'biological warfare.' The North Koreans constantly deceived US aerial reconnaisance into thinking major damage had been inflicted on roads, bridges, tunnels, and supply convoys.
The authors' references to spy operations in Manchuria are interesting but sketchy and incomplete. Readers looking for cloak-and-dagger intrigue in Manchuria might want to read Lawrence Gardella's Sing a Song to Jenny Next, instead. And the elaborate preparations to kidnap Syngman Rhee--who was dismayed at the US's willingness to accept a permanent division of the Peninsula-- make amusing reading for those aware of the crosscurrents of loyalty vs. pragmatism in the Cold War era.

Some spy operations pay off in ways that are unanticipated. Such was the outcome of operation Moolah, which offered a hundred grand to any communist who landed a MIG-15 at Kimpo airport. Two months after the War was over, North Korean Air Force Captain Ro Kum Suk did exactly that. I review his book, A MiG15 to Freedom, elsewhere on this site.



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