Killer and Ripper

As the new year began, some semblance of order emerged from the chaos. Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway had come out to take command, replacing Walton Walker who had been killed in a vehicle accident. The Eighth Army had succeeded in establishing a line south of Seoul. The 1st Marine Division was given a sector in the rear stretching from Pohang on the east coast northwest to Andong and spent an easy month, from 12 January to 15 February, in antiguerrilla operations, experimenting with such things as inserting reconnaissance patrols by helicopter.

Ridgway had planned a buttoned-up shoulder-to-shoulder United Nations counteroffensive (unlike Walker's freewheeling, hell-for-leather operations) called Operation Killer. The 1st Marine Division was moved to the center of the line, under IX Corps, far from blue water. They jumped off from Wonju on 21 February and with the 1st and 5th Marines in the assault took their objective, Hoengsong, eight miles to the north, three days later. That same day, the IX Corps commander died of a heart attack and 0. P. Smith, by seniority and with Ridgway's endorsement, became Corps commander. Puller, now a brigadier general, moved up to temporary command of the Division. But the press inevitably confused the quiet and courtly 0. P. Smith with the sulphurous H. M. Smith. Saipan was remembered, and 0. P. Smith remained in command of IX Corps only as long as it took the Army to get a more senior major general to Korea.

Operation Killer was succeeded by Operation Ripper on 7 March. In the Marines' zone of action, the attack was led off by the 1st Marines (now commanded by Colonel Francis M. McAlister) and the 7th Marines (also with a new commander, Colonel Herman ["Herman the Ger man"] Nickerson, Jr.). The Marines liked Ridgway's way of fighting. By April the Eighth Army's line was generally north of the 38th Parallel. Political considerations outweighed military momentum and there now came a pause.