This Military Service Page was created/owned by
SGM Mike Vining
to remember
Beckwith, Charles Alvin (Chargin' Charlie), COL USA(Ret).
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Contact Info
Last Address Atlanta
Date of Passing Jun 13, 1994
Location of Interment Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery (VA) - San Antonio, Texas
Why is a Distinguished Service Cross medal not listed? Colonel Beckwith was not awarded a Distinguished Service Cross. Wikipedia and other sources erroneously list him as having received the award. This fact has been verified by his family.
His awards and decorations included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Army Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit with two Oak Leafs Clusters, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star with V device (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), Purple Heart Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal with Numeral 4, Army Commendation Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, National Defense Service Medal with one Bronze Star, Korea Service Medal with one Bronze Star, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal with three Bronze Stars, Vietnam Service Medal with six Campaign Stars, Humanitarian Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Silver Star Individual Citation, , United Nations Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, Republic of Korea War Service Medal, Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Individual Citation, Army Presidential Unit Citation, Joint Meritorious Unit Award, Valorous Unit Award, Army Meritorious Award, Korean Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation, Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation, Combat Infantry Badge 2nd Award, Master Parachutist Badge, and British SAS Parachute Wings.
Col Beckwith has been inducted into the USSOCOM Bull Simons Award 2001, Commando Hall of Honor 2010, Distinguished Member of the Special Forces Regiment 2012, Ranger Hall of Fame 2001,
Colonel Charlie A. “Chargin’ Charlie” Beckwith was a career United States Army Infantry and Special Forces officer best remembered for creating Delta Force, the premier counterterrorism and asymmetrical warfare unit of the United States Army, based on his experience serving with the British Special Air Service. He served in the Indonesian Confrontation and the Vietnam War and attained the rank of colonel before his retirement. During the Korean War, Second Lieutenant Beckwith served as a platoon leader with Charlie Company, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division in South Korea. In 1955, COL Beckwith was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as the commander of the combat support company of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. In 1958, after completing Ranger School, COL Beckwith joined the Special Forces and was assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group. In 1960, then-Captain Beckwith was an advisor to operations conducted in Laos called Operation Hotfoot.
In 1962, COL Beckwith was sent as an exchange officer to the British 22 Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) where he commanded 3 Troop, A Squadron. He conducted wartime guerrilla operations with the SAS during the Indonesian Confrontation in Malaya. In the jungle, he contracted a case of leptospirosis so severe that doctors did not expect him to survive. However, he made a full recovery within months. The lessons he learned there about organization, selection and assessment of personnel, and tough, realistic training would become the model he would later use to activate Delta Force, the U. S. Army’s counter-terrorist unit on 19 November 1977. Other Special Operations assignments such as Commander, Detachment B-52 “Project Delta”, 5th SFG in South Vietnam, and Commandant of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School provided COL Beckwith the additional background and experience to be selected as Delta Force’s first Commander, and the man who would land the ground force to execute Operation EAGLE CLAW, the mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Iran in 1980.
He was the epitome of a Ranger while assigned to the Florida Ranger Camp. His outstanding abilities were widely recognized throughout the Ranger and Special Operations communities. In 1965, he led a 250-man force that reinforced a besieged Green Beret compound at Plei Me. After that, he went on to solidify his place in history as the "founder" of Delta Force. His initiative and tenacity resulted in the creation, implementation, and utilization of the finest anti-terrorist unit in the world. Colonel Beckwith's insight and firsthand experiences at Desert One were instrumental in the creation of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Colonel Beckwith is the classic example of a warrior and the epitome of a United States Army Ranger.
Charles Alvin Beckwith (January 22, 1929 - June 13, 1994), known as "Chargin' Charlie", was a career United States Army soldier and Vietnam veteran, credited with the creation of Delta Force, a branch of the U.S. Army. Although he is held in high regard by various members of the military special Operations Forces, the public know him best due to the ill-fated Operation EAGLE CLAW in Iran, 1980.
RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!!!
Early life
Beckwith was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, and was an all-state football player for his high school team. Charlie Beckwith attended Tech High in the 1940s. He was a great lineman at Tech High. Coach "Shorty" Doyle at Boy's High "rival school" convinced Charlie to transfer to Boy's High. The move created ill will between the two football teams. The first game between the two schools found Charlie being held out on the bench. The Tech High fans began chanting "We want Beckwith" until Coach Doyle put Charlie in. On his first play, Charlie stood straight up from his stance and punched the defensive lineman in the face. He had broken and bloodied the defensive lineman's nose and knocked him out cold on the field. In only four seconds, Charlie had managed to be ejected from the game to the delight of his teammates, who went on to win the game.
He later enrolled at the University of Georgia, where he played football for the Dawgs. He joined the university's Army ROTC program and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1952. He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1952 as well, but turned it down to stay in the army.
Military career
In 1955, Beckwith joined the 82nd Airborne Division as commander of Support Company, 504tj Infantry Regiment. Two years later, Beckwith transferred to the Green Berets and in 1960 was deployed to South Vietnam and Laos as a military advisor.
Beckwith served as an exchange officer with the British Special Air Service (22 SAS Regiment) in the early 1960s, and came away very impressed with the unit. US Army Special Forces in that period focused on unconventional warfare, but Beckwith was highly impressed with the SAS direct-action and counter-terrorism capabilities.
Beckwith commanded a Special Forces unit code-named Project Delta in Vietnam. He was critically wounded in early 1966 (he took a .50 caliber bullet through his abdomen), so badly that medical personnel initially triaged him as beyond help. In triage, after surgeons had pushed him to one side, a hopeless case. Beckwith survived mainly due to his superb conditioning and iron determination. After recovery, he took over the Florida Phase of the US Army's Ranger School, transforming it from a scripted exercise based upon the Army's World War II experience, into a Vietnam-oriented training regimen. He was known as an extremely tough trainer, even by military standards.
In the late 1960s, Beckwith returned to Vietnam, where he commanded a battalion. In the 1970s he was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, (today called Fort Liberty) where he commanded training operations.
Delta Force
Beckwith was the driving force for the founding of Delta Force in November 1977 as an overseas counter-terrorist unit whose main mission is hostage rescue, barricade operations and specialized reconnaissance. He was the Unit's first commander, serving in that position from 1977 to 1980. The Unit's first public recognized mission (the aforementioned Operation EAGLE CLAW) ended in spectacular failure, not because of any unit shortcomings but due to a malfunction in several of the helicopters and lack of pilots trained in such operations. After the "debacle in the desert," the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) was formed specifically to provide transport for Delta Force, and eventually other Special Operations Forces, worldwide. Delta Force has since grown to become one of many counter-terrorist units recognized worldwide (such as the British SAS Regiment, Canada's Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), Australian SAS, France's GIGN, Germany's Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (GSG9) and the Kommando Speziakrafle (KSK), and the Israeli Sayeret Matkal. After the failed Iran Hostage Rescue Mission (Operation EAGLE CLAW), Beckwith recommended the forming of the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC), at Pope Field, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with was formed in 1980.
Later life
Following his disappointment at the failure of the Iranian operation, Beckwith retired from the army. He started a consulting firm and wrote a book about Delta Force. He died at his home of natural causes.
Charles Beckwith was married to Katherine Beckwith, and they had three daughters.
Charles Beckwith's remains are interred in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, San Antonio, Texas.
Quotes
"My men and I have decided that our boss, the President of the United States, is as tough as woodpecker lips. "
"I was not about to be party to half-assed loading on a bunch of aircraft and going up and murdering a bunch of the finest soldiers in the world."
"I learned that Murphy is alive and well. He's in every drawer, under every rock and on top of every hill."
Story about the Army Chief of Staff
In 1979, Charlie was in a meeting with GEN Bernie Rogers and several other generals. Charlie got mad and left the room. GEN Rogers told a young Sergeant to go get Charlie. He found Beckwith on the back of the loading dock at the original Delta compound pissing off the dock. He said, "Charlie, GEN Rogers wants you to come back in." Beckwith said, "You go tell Bernie that Charlie is takin a piss. And when I get through takin a piss, I MIGHT come back in there!" The SGT went back into the conference and said, "Sir, COL Beckwith said to tell you that he will be right with you." Not many guys had the balls to tell the Chief of Staff of the Army what Charlie would have told him. Fortunately, the young E-5 didn't have the balls to pass the message on.
In 1981 COL Beckwith retired from the Army and formed a security consulting firm in Austin, Texas.
Other Comments:
CHARLES BECKWITH DIES; LED MISSION FOR IRAN HOSTAGES
By Tom Bennett
Charles Beckwith, a retired Army colonel and Atlanta native who led the abortive 1980 mission to free American hostages in Iran, died Monday at his home in Austin, Texas. He was 65.
His wife, Katherine, called police after finding Beckwith dead in his bedroom. Police said he apparently died of natural causes.
Beckwith led Delta Force, a 130-man anti-terrorist unit that flew to Iran on April 24-25, 1980, and tried but failed to rescue 52 Americans held hostage.
Three of eight helicopters on the mission failed; six was a minimum needed, and Beckwith scrubbed the mission. During the retreat, tragedy struck when a helicopter moving to re-fuel from a C-130 cargo plane struck it and both burst into flames. Eight servicemen died.
Iran held the Americans for 444 days before Ayatollah Khomeini ordered them released in January 1981 as President Carter left office, and while Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, stood on the inaugural stand.
"Chargin' Charlie," as Beckwith was known, was a 6-foot-3 Green Beret officer and decorated hero of the Vietnam War.
At Atlanta's Brown High, Beckwith was an all-state football player and went on to become a three-year starter at guard for the University of Georgia.
A student ROTC leader, he received an Army commission in 1952. He became a maverick officer who bucked the establishment at every turn. After a year's training with a British anti-terrorist unit, Beckwith campaigned for 14 years in the Army hierarchy to create a U.S.A. anti-terrorist unit. The result was "Delta Force."
The Iran mission effectively ended Beckwith's military career. Back in the United States, he was ordered to hold a press conference, at which he said he had canceled the mission because "I'm not going to be a party to a halfway loading of a bunch of aircraft and going up and murdering a bunch of fine soldiers. I'm not that kind of man." He retired from the Army in 1981 and formed an Austin consulting firm, Security Assistance Services.
He wrote a 1983 book, "Delta Force," with Donald Knox in which Beckwith blamed the helicopters and their Marine pilots for the failure of the rescue mission.
Charles Alvin Beckwith was born Jan. 22, 1929, in southwest Atlanta, one of three children of an independent oil dealer.
He grew up near Atlanta's Fort McPherson. He went there on Sundays to watch polo matches and dreamed of having an Army career, his mother recalled.
At Brown high, Beckwith was a football teammate of Pepper Rodgers, later a college and pro coach, and at Georgia, Beckwith teamed with Marion Campbell and Zeke Bratkowski, later NFL players and coaches.
Three years into his Army career, in 1955, Beckwith joined the 82nd Airborne Division. (NOTE: Charlie started out in the 82d as commander of Support Company, 504th Airborne Infantry Regiment.) He was pissing people off even back then. I remember him telling a member of the Regimental Staff, "I'm a company commander, not a God Dam football player". In 1958, he moved to the Special Forces, or Green Berets, "because they needed officers," he recalled. In 1960, Beckwith was an American adviser in Vietnam and Laos, and 1962-63 he trained with the British 22nd Special Air Services Regiment.
Back in Vietnam in 1965, (NOTE: This was Charlie's assignment as commander of Special Forces Detachment B-52, Project Delta.) Beckwith led a 250-man force that rescued a Green Beret garrison at Plei Me. He and the other rescuers stayed and fought another eight days until the enemy departed. Beckwith later learned he had faced regular North Vietnamese troops and told the press: "Give me a battalion of them and I'll take over the whole darned country." The remark was taken as a slap at the Americans' South Vietnamese allies, and after that Beckwith avoided the press.
On a 1966 mission while flying in a helicopter, Beckwith was hit by a .50-caliber bullet. (NOTE: This was the operation that later became a best-selling book, and the movie, "We were soldiers once, and Young.") According to the Chicago Tribune, Beckwith at various times criticized the Special Forces command and air cavalrymen in charge of ferrying his Green Beret troops into action.
His superiors now heeded his suggestion for a U.S. anti-terrorist unit, and in 1974 Beckwith was told to implement his plan. "Delta Force" was officially born at a meeting of high-ranking officers at Fort Benning in 1976. Beckwith won promotion to colonel. He located his unit in an unlikely place - the stockade at Fort Bragg, N.C. Its high fence afforded the security they wanted for secret training. The post's prisoners were transferred to a jail in a nearby town.
(NOTE: This writer omits Charlie's return to Vietnam after his recovery from the GSW, and his assignment to a conventional unit. He also overlooks Charlie's tenure as Commandant of Special Forces Schools at Fort Bragg.)
Beckwith's unit scaled a significant hurdle in 1977, receiving the endorsement of Gen. Frederick "Fritz" Kroesen, then commander of FORSCOM at Fort McPherson and in charge of all ground troops in the continental United States. An aide to Kroesen had campaigned in the Army establishment to transfer Delta Force's anti-terrorism activities to other units. In June 1977, Beckwith won a bureaucratic struggle when Delta Force was placed under the direct operational control of the Department of the Army, bypassing other commands.
U.S.-Iranian relations worsened after Carter permitted the country's ailing shah to enter the United States. In October 1979, Delta Force went through a "validation exercise," a simulated anti-terrorist action watched by experts from NATO countries. Beckwith was returning home when he received a call that the embassy in Tehran had been seized and orders that he go on alert.
He stepped up training. Delta Force built a mockup of the embassy and practiced assaults. They rehearsed breaking down doors and storming into darkened rooms.
He took part in a White House briefing on the rescue mission, and was surprised when Carter gave a go-ahead.
"I didn't think he had the guts to do it," Beckwith wrote later. He had not voted for Carter and had been angered when Carter had given amnesty to U.S. draft dodgers in Canada.
After the mission, Beckwith returned to the White House. Carter thanked him for "going public" by holding a press conference. Beckwith asked if he could tell the president something.
"Of course, colonel," Carter replied.
"Mr. President, me and my boys think that you are tough as a woodpecker's lips."
Surviving besides his wife are his three daughters, Connie, Charlotte, and Pegg.
This remembrance profile is maintained by Mike R. Vining, SGM USA (Retired).
Email: sgmmvining@gmail.com
Korean War/UN Defensive (1950)
From Month/Year
June / 1950
To Month/Year
September / 1950
Description
June to September 1950. Communist efforts to divide the South Koreans against themselves having failed, the North Koreans decided to attempt their subjugation by military force. At 0400, Sunday, 25 June 1950 (Korean Time), North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel into the Republic and launched their main effort toward the South Korean capital city of Seoul, down the P'och'on-Uijongbu and Yonch'on-Uijongbu corridors. Strong attacks were also directed through Kaesong toward Munsan on the right, and toward Ch'unch'on on the left. On the west coast the Ongjin Peninsula was quickly captured. On the east coast a land column and a small seaborne detachment met near Kangnung.
By 28 June Seoul had fallen, the North Koreans had closed up along the Han River to a point about 20 miles east of Seoul, and had advanced as far as Samchok on the meat coast. By 4 July enemy forces were along the line Suwon-Wonju-Samchok. In withdrawing, the Republic of Korea ("ROK") forces had suffered such serious losses that their attempts to regroup and retain order were almost futile.
On 25 June 1950 the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling "for immediate cessation of hostilities" and "upon the authorities of North Korea to withdraw forthwith their armed forces to the thirty-eighth parallel." When the North Koreans failed to accede to these demands, the Security Council passed a second resolution recommending "that the Members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and restore the international peace and security in the area."
President Truman announced on 27 June 1950 the t he had ordered American air and naval forces to give cover and support to the South Korean troops (UN Defensive-27 June to 15 September 1950). On the 28th he authorized the Commander in Chief Far East to use certain supporting ground units in Korea, and authorized the U.S. Air Force to conduct missions on specific targets in North Korea. On the 30th the President further authorized the C. in C. Far East to use all forces available to him to repel the invasion, and ordered a naval blockade of the entire coast of Korea.
A Security Council resolution of 7 July 1950 recommended the establishment of a unified command in Korea and requested the United States to designate a commander of these forces. On 8 July President Truman announced the appointment of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as Commander in Chief, United Nations Command (CINCUNC). On 14 July President Rhee placed all ROK security forces under the United Nations commander, an act which consolidated the anti-Communist forces under the United Nations Commend for the purpose of repelling the Communist aggression.
The U.S. forces at MacArthur's disposal included the four divisions in Japan-the 1st Cavalry Division and the 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divisions-and the 29th Regimental Combat Team in Okinawa. The divisions were lacking a third of their infantry and artillery units and almost all their armor units. Existing units were far under strength. Weapons and equipment were war-worn relics of World War II, and ammunition reserves amounted to only a 45-day supply. None of the divisions had reached full combat efficiency, since intensive training had been largely neglected because of occupation duties.
Initial U.S. strategy, dictated by the speed of the North Korean drive and the state of American unpreparedness, was one of trading space for time. On 2 July 1950 Task Force Smith, composed of two rifle companies and a few supporting units of the 24th Division, was flown from Japan to Pusan and moved by train and truck to defensive positions near Osan, 30 miles south of Seoul. Its mission was to fight a delaying action to gain time for the movement of more troops from Japan. On 5 July this small force was attacked by a North Korean division supported by 30 tanks and compelled to withdraw, after a stubborn defense, with heavy losses of men and equipment.
By this time the remaining elements of the 24th Division had reached Korea and were in defensive positions along the Kum River, north of Taejon and 60 miles south of Osan. ROK elements held positions to the east, some 50 miles above Taegu. By 15 July the 25th Division had arrived in Korea and was positioned east of the 24th Division. The 1st Cavalry Division arrived and closed in the P'chang-dong area on 18-19 July. Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, Commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, had been placed in command of all U.S. ground troops in Korea on 13 July, and, at the request of President Rhee, of the South Korean Army as well. As the ground troops of other U.N. members reached Korea, they also were placed under Walker's command.
North Korean forces crossed the Kum River and captured Taejon, an important communications center, on 20 July. U.S. and ROK troops continued to withdraw steadily to the southeast under constant North Korean pressure. During the withdrawal our Army's 3.5-inch rocket launcher was used (for the first time on a battlefield) with highly successful results against North Korean tanks. It was in this period that the 24th Division commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, was reported missing when North Korean tanks broke through the forward unite of his division. It was learned later that he had been captured about 35 miles south of Taejon on 25 August.
The final days of July 1950 witnessed a series of hard-fought battles all along the 200-mile front of the United Nations perimeter. The northern front, a line running inland from Yongdok through Andong, Yech'on, Hamch'ong, and Hwanggan to Kumch'on, was defended at critical points by ROK troops and the U.S. 25th Division. The 1st Cavalry Division was battling on the west flank to keep the Yongdong-Kumch'on-Taegu rail line open. To block the southwestern approaches to Pusan, which the enemy was threatening, the 29th RCT advanced to Chinju, but was ambushed by a North Korean division and suffered heavy losses. Enemy pressure continued from Yosu and Chinju in the southwest to Kwan-ni on the Taejon-Taegu railroad, thence northeast through Yech'on to Yongdok on the Sea of Japan.
By the beginning of August the U.S. and ROK forces had withdrawn behind the Naktong River, a position which the U.N. Command was determined to hold. The area held in southeastern Korea resembled a rectangle, the southwestern side of which was guarded by the 24th and 25th Divisions to prevent a breakthrough to Masan. The 1st Cavalry Division was deployed on the western front to guard the Taegu railroad approaches. The northern front was defended by ROK divisions from a point south of Hamch'ang to a point just south of Yongdok on the east coast.
Early in August General Walker declared the strategy of trading space for time to be at an end, and ordered a final stand along this 140-mile perimeter around the port of Pusan, which had become a well-stocked Eighth Army supply base and the hub of a rail and road net leading to the battle front. By now the enemy's lengthened supply lines were under constant air attack, enemy naval opposition had been wiped out, and the blockade of the Korean coast had been clamped tight.
During the next month and a half, fourteen North Korean divisions dissipated their strength in piecemeal attacks against the Pusan perimeter. Walker, by rapidly shuttling his forces to meet the greatest threats, inflicted heavy casualties on the North Koreans and prevented serious penetrations. The enemy, determined to annihilate the Eighth Army and take Taegu and Pusan, massed for a two-pronged attack across the Naktong, one prong from the west and the other from the southwest. The principal actions were fought along the river from Waegwan south through Song-dong and Ch'irhyon-ni to the junction of the Naktong and Nam Rivers, and southwest toward Haman and Chinju.
While U.S. troops were fighting along the banks of the Naktong, other battles took place in the southwest. A veteran North Korean division, which had been concentrated for an assault upon Susan and Pusan, was hit by Task Force Kean. Named for the 25th Division Commander, the Task Force was composed of the 5th RCT, the 35th RCT of the 25th Division, the 1st Marine Brigade, and a ROK battalion. It opened a strong counteroffensive on 7 August 1950 to secure the left funk of the perimeter and prevent the enemy from driving on Pusan. Overcoming initial heavy resistance, it defeated the North Koreans and by 11 August commanded the high ground to the east of Chinju.
On the eastern flank of the perimeter the town of Yongdok was lost by ROK units, some of which then had to be evacuated by sea. On 12 August the port of P'chang-dong was attacked by enemy forces led by tanks which mounted screaming sirens. This force poured through a break in the R0K lines and linked up with North Korean advance agents in the port. These agents, disguised as innocent-looking refugees, carried mortars, machineguns, and other weapons in oxcarts, on A-frames and on their persons. While a force of North Koreans took P'chang-dong, the adjoining airstrip, of great importance to the U.N. forces as a base for tactical aircraft. On 13 August the danger was so pressing that all aircraft were evacuated. Within the next five days, however, ROK troops and a small U.S. task force recaptured P'chang-dong and returned it to U.N. control.
During this time a much larger force of North Koreans breached the U.N. positions at some paints in the Naktong River sector, but failed in their attempt to capture the rail junctions at Taegu. To hold a line near the river, Walker rearranged the defensive positions of the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 1st Marine Brigade, deploying them in a manner which assigned combat zones of 15-30 miles to each division.
The enemy, continuing his efforts to crack the perimeter, massed several divisions above Waegwan to assault Taegu from the north. Despite a bombing raid in which U.N. air forces dropped 850 tons of bombs on the suspected enemy concentration area, the North Koreans launched a powerful attack which carried through the ROK positions and threatened Taegu. Stalwart defense and swift countermeasures in this area on 19 August saved Taegu from almost certain capture, parried the enemy 's three-pronged thrust at the city, and stopped the momentum of the North Korean offensive.
Shortly before midnight on 31 August enemy forces again attacked the Naktong River Line, this time in tremendous force. Disregarding very heavy casualties from U.N. air force bombing and strafing, they mounted a strong offensive against the entire Pusan beachhead from Haman in the south to P'chang-dong in the northern sector. The port of P'chang-dong was captured on 6 September, but again the Communists failed to capture the airfield. Waegwan and the "walled city" of Kasan were lost as the U.N. defenders fell back for a last ditch stand at Taegu. Between 4 and 11 September the enemy made important gains along the Naktong in some of the heaviest fighting of the war; but U.N. forces blunted the drive on Taegu and began to show slow progress of their own against very strong enemy resistance.
On the southern front the North Korean offensive, which opened with a massive artillery barrage near Haman, struck the 25th Division with tanks and waves of infantry, imperiling its forward positions. However, although the enemy had made impressive gains along the U.N. perimeter and General Walker still had to shuttle his units from one critical area to another, a strong beachhead remained in the hands of the U.N. Command.
By mid-August the offensive capability of the Eighth Army had been augmented by the arrival of the U.S. 2d Division, the 1st Marine Brigade, four battalions of medium tanks from the United States, and the 5th RCT from Hawaii. Before the month was out, five ROK divisions were restored to some semblance of order, and Great Britain committed the 27th Brigade from Hong Kong. With the arrival of these reinforcements an attempt could now be made to end the U.N. withdrawal and to begin a U.N. offensive in southeastern Korea.