Walton Walker

During World War I, Walker deployed to France with the 13th Machine Gun Company, 5th Machine Gun Battalion, 5th Division in April 1918, and served as company commander and then battalion commander to July 1919.[1] He was awarded two Silver Stars for gallantry in action.[2]

After the war, Walker rotated through a variety of assignments at Camp Benning, Georgia, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and served as a company commander and instructor at West Point from August 1923 to June 1925. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from September 1925 to June 1926. He then served at Fort Monroe, Virginia, from June 1926 to July 1930. He next commanded the 2nd Battalion, 15th Infantry at Camp Burrowes, Chinwangtao (Qinhuangdao) and American Barracks, Tientsin, China, from September 1930 to March 1933. He served as post executive officer and then brigade executive officer with the 5th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Division, from August 1936 to June 1937; the brigade was commanded by George Marshall, the future Army Chief of Staff.[3]

Walker served as a staff officer in the War Plans Division with the General Staff Corps in Washington, D.C. from August 1937 to April 1941. He next served as commanding officer of the 36th Infantry Regiment, which was activated April 15, 1941, as the 36th Infantry (Armored) and assigned to the 3rd Armored Division, June 1941; on January 1, 1942, it was redesignated the 36th Armored Infantry.[4]

When Marshall (now Chief of Staff) assigned George Patton to organize America's armored forces, Walker successfully lobbied Marshall for a post as one of Patton's subordinate commanders, gaining promotion to brigadier general in the process. Promoted to major general in 1942; he commanded the 3rd Armored Division from August 1941 to August 1942. After being succeeded by Leroy H. Watson, Walker became commanding general of IV Corps and then XX Corps (IV Armored Corps became XX Corps), taking the latter to England in February 1944 and leading it into combat in Normandy in July as part of Patton's Third Army. He was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry in action on July 7, 1944.[2]

Walker's XX Corps played a role in Patton's dash across France in August and early September 1944, earning the sobriquet "Ghost Corps" for the speed of its advance. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism on August 23, 1944.[2] Walker's troops saw heavy fighting in France and Germany during the remainder of the war, especially at Metz, the Battle of the Bulge, and in the invasion of Germany. In the spring of 1945, XX Corps liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, then pushed south and east, eventually reaching Linz, Austria by May. Walker received his third star at this time, making him a lieutenant general.[5]

Walker received the unconditional surrender of Generaloberst Lothar Rendulic, commander of German Army Group South, on 7 May 1945.

In May 1945, Walker returned to the United States. He was given command of the 8th Service Command, headquartered in Dallas, from May 1945 to May 1946. He was assigned as the commander of the 6th Service Command and the Fifth Army, headquartered in Chicago, from May 1946 to September 1948, and then became commanding general of the U.S. Eighth Army, the American occupation force in Japan. Walker was ordered by General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander in Japan, to restore the peacetime Eighth Army to combat-ready condition.

Lt. Gen. Walker (left) confers with Maj. Gen. William F. Dean, Commander of the 24th Infantry Division, on July 7, 1950

At the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into North Korea and South Korea, with North Korea (assisted by the Soviet Union)[6] becoming a communist state after 1946, known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, followed by South Korea becoming the Republic of Korea (ROK).[7] China became the communist People's Republic of China in 1949. In 1950, the Soviet Union backed North Korea while the United States backed South Korea, and China allied with the Soviet Union in what was to become the first military action of the Cold War.[7][8]

Shortly after 75,000 North Korean troops with tanks invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950,[7][9] American air and sea forces were ordered by President Harry S. Truman to give South Korean troops support.[10] The U.S. Eighth Army was ordered to intervene and drive the invaders back across the 38th parallel, the border between the two countries. With only four lightly equipped and poorly trained divisions, Walker began landing troops on the southeast side of the Korean peninsula in July. After his lead units, elements of the 24th Infantry Division (including the ill-fated Task Force Smith), were virtually destroyed in a few days of furious fighting between Osan and Taejon, Walker realized his assigned mission was impossible and went on the defensive. Pushed steadily back towards the southeast by the North Korean advance, Walker's forces suffered heavy losses and for a time were unable to form a defensible front, even after bringing the 1st Cavalry Division and 25th Infantry Division into the fight.

Walker's situation was not helped by MacArthur's unrealistic demands from Tokyo for him not to retreat an inch. Attempting to obey, Walker gave a bombastic "not a step back" speech to his staff and subordinate commanders which did not go over well. Nor did it stop the North Korean troops from pushing back American and South Korea troops, which had been badly mauled in the opening days of the invasion, even further. As American and South Korean forces retreated further east and south, they finally arrived at a defensible line on the Nakdong River. They took advantage of shortened supply routes and a relatively good road network to exploit the advantages of interior lines. Walker was able to quickly shift his units from point to point, stopping North Korean attacks before they could be reinforced.

A critical advantage Walker had was that U.S. military intelligence had cracked the North Korean radio codes, enabling Walker to know every major North Korean Army movement prior to the event. Walker kept his main units deployed on the front lines, while retaining other U.S. Army and Marine Corps units as a mobile reserve; with his ability to read North Korean intentions, he could rush in reinforcements to plug any local breaks in the line on short notice. His new knowledge of enemy movements now allowed him to employ artillery and airpower to great effect.

American military forces gradually solidified this defensive position on the southeast side of the Korean peninsula, dubbed the "Pusan Perimeter". Walker received reinforcements, including the Provisional Marine Brigade, which he used along with the Army's 27th Infantry Regiment as "fire brigades," reliable troops who specialized in counterattacking and wiping out enemy penetrations. As more reinforcements arrived, the combat advantage shifted toward the United Nations forces. North Korean forces had suffered terribly and their supply lines were under constant aerial bombardment. Almost all of their Russian-made T-34 tanks, which had spearheaded the invasion, had been destroyed. Walker ordered local counterattacks, while planning for a large-scale breakout in conjunction with MacArthur's Inchon landing in September.

With MacArthur's amphibious flanking move, the North Koreans seemed trapped, but Walker's rapid advance northwest towards Inchon and Seoul emphasized speed over maneuver and made no attempt to encircle and destroy the North Koreans after punching through their lines. Although thousands of prisoners were taken, many North Korean units successfully disengaged from the fighting, melting away into the interior of South Korea, where they would conduct a guerrilla war for two years. Others escaped all the way back to North Korea. Walker was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism from July 14 to September 28, 1950.[11]

With the war apparently won, Walker's Eighth Army quickly moved north and, with the independent X Corps on its right, crossed the 38th parallel to occupy North Korea. Fighting tapered off to sporadic, sharp clashes with remnants of North Korean forces. By late October 1950, the Eighth Army was nearing the Yalu River, on the border between North Korea and China. MacArthur's headquarters had assured Walker that the Chinese would not intervene, so Walker's troops did not maintain watchful security. A gap opened between Eighth Army and X Corps as they advanced close to the Chinese border due to a lack of coordination between Walker, General Edward Almond, Commander of the X Corps, and MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo. Eventually, the weather turned extremely cold, and most American units had no training and inadequate equipment for these bitter temperatures.

Contrary to MacArthur's expectations, the Chinese intervened in force on November 25, first in a series of ambushes, then in sporadic night attacks, and finally in an all-out offensive in which three Chinese armies infiltrated the lines,[12] taking advantage of the American failure to take basic security measures, and the large gaps between American and South Korean units and between the Eighth Army and the X Corps. From late October until the beginning of December in 1950, the Chinese killed or captured thousands of American and ROK soldiers, decimating the 2nd Infantry Division and forcing Walker into a desperate retreat.

By early December, using his superior mobility, Walker successfully broke contact with the Chinese, withdrawing south to a position around Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Without instructions from MacArthur's headquarters, Walker decided that the Eighth Army was too battered to defend Pyongyang and ordered the retreat to resume to below the 38th parallel, saving most of the Eighth Army.[13]

Walker was killed in a traffic accident on December 23, 1950, in Dobong District,[14] Seoul (near Uijeongbu), South Korea, when his north-bound command jeep collided with a south-bound weapons carrier from a South Korean army division that had swung out of its lane.[15] His body was escorted back to the United States by his son Sam Sims Walker, then a battalion commander with the 19th Infantry Regiment, who was also serving in Korea. On January 2, 1951, he was posthumously promoted to full general[16] and his body was interred in Section 34 of Arlington National Cemetery.[17]