1st Provisional Marine Brigade

The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, a formation of United States Marines hastily put together at the outset of the Korean War, fought with great distinction at the Pusan Perimeter, the most important early battle in that conflict.

Reduced in size after World War II, the small U.S. Marine Corps was suddenly ordered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in mid-summer 1950, to send a division-sized force (approximately 15,000 men), to help stem the communist North Korean invasion of South Korea. To create the unit in a hurry, the Marines were forced to sweep through the entire active-duty Corps, call up reservists, and bring in recruits who had not finished their training.

The first large part of this force, dubbed the Provisional Marine Brigade (later redesignated 5th Marine Brigade), commanded by Brigadier General Edward Craig, was assembled by early July and was built around the 5th Marine Regiment and Marine Aircraft Group 33. Numbering approximately 6,000 men, it consisted of several infantry battalions, field artillery and support units. A Marine air group of fighter-bombers was attached to provide air support.

On July 31, the brigade arrived in the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula, the only part of South Korea not overrun by communist forces. Here it joined the hard-pressed U.S. Eighth Army, which was desperately defending this area, also known as the Pusan Perimeter, against superior North Korean forces. Almost immediately, the brigade was thrown into battle by Lieutenant General Walton Walker, Eighth Army commander, in an attempt to stop several dangerous North Korean breakthroughs, which threatened to drive the Eighth Army into the sea.

Despite its raw, untested condition, with many of its troops only partially trained and many strangers to one another, the Marines rose to the occasion. In savage fighting, they blunted a number of enemy attacks, successfully counterattacking and restoring the line, inflicting heavy casualties on the North Koreans, although suffering heavily themselves.

Impressed by the brigade's fighting spirit and effectiveness, for the next few weeks Walker employed it as a "fire-brigade," which, along with several Army units such as the 27th Infantry Regiment, he rushed from point to point, counterattacking and sealing off threatened enemy penetrations. In this role, the Marines again performed admirably.

In early September, the Pusan Perimeter was judged secure enough for the unit, now the 5th Marine Brigade, to be transferred to the 1st Marine Division, forming off Japan to spearhead General Douglas MacArthur's Inchon landing later that month.

References

*Blair, Clay, "The Unknown War", New York:Times Books, 1987.
*Fehrenbach, T.R., "This Kind of War", New York:Macmillan, 1963.