The 5th Rct in Korea

"The 5th RCT in Korea; The Pusan Perimeter Battles, 1950." documents the combat operations of the US Army's 5th Infantry Regimental Combat Team from its deployment to the frontlines of the Korean War's Pusan Perimeter Campaign. The 5th RCT reached Korea at the close of July, 1950, just as UN forces were prepared to make their last ditch stand against the Communist invasion of South around the port of Pusan. The 5th was immediately engaged in defensive operations near Masan, engaging in the battle for "Fox Hill" through the first week of August. Thereafter, the RCT participated in the ill-fated "Task Force Kean" counteroffensive, culminating in the disasterous action at "Bloody Gulch" in which the RCT's trains and attached artillery were overrun. The 5th RCT was subsequently reorganized, and with new leadership, conducted a successful defense of positions on Sobuk-San Mountain, the "Battle Mountain," from which they repelled the last efforts of the North Koreans to overwhelm the southern portion of the UN Perimeter. This work is based on the regimental war diary of the 5th RCT, long thought lost by official historians, and contributions by veterans of the actions of this period. The actions of the 5th RCT demonstrate the successful, though difficult and at times bloody, transition of a peacetime military unit into one hardened for combat.