U.S. Eighth Army

The US Eighth Army is the commanding formation of all US Army troops in South Korea.

It was first activated on 10 June, 1944 in the United States, being commanded by Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger. The Eighth Army took part in many of the great amphibious assaults in the Pacific during World War II, eventually participating in no less than sixty. The first mission of the Army, in September 1944, was to take over from the Sixth Army in New Guinea, New Britain, the Admiralties and Morotai, in order to free up Sixth Army for operations in the Philippines.

December saw Eighth Army again following in the wake of Sixth Army, when it took over control of operations on Leyte on December 26. In January, the Eighth Army entered combat on Luzon, landing the XI Corps on 29 January near San Antonio and the 11th Airborne Division on the other side of Manila Bay two days later. Combining with I Corps and XIV Corps of Sixth Army, the forces of Eighth Army then enveloped Manila in a great pincer movement. Eighth Army's final operation of the Pacific War was the clearance of the southern Philippines, including the major island of Mindanao. It was occupied with these operations for the rest of the war.

Eighth Army was to have participated in Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. It would have taken part in Operation Coronet, the second phase of the invasion, which would have seen the occupation of the Tokyo Plain on Honshu. However, instead of invading Japan, Eighth Army found itself in charge of occupying Japan peacefully. Occupation forces landed on 30 August 1945, and Eighth Army assumed responsibility for the occupation of the whole of Japan at the beginning of 1946. Four quiet years then followed, Walton H. Walker taking over in 1948, and the training and equipment of the American units in Japan began to deteriorate. This was to have disastrous consequences.

The peace of occupied Japan was shattered in June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. American naval and air forces quickly became involved in combat operations, and it was soon clear that American ground forces would have to be committed. The occupation forces in Japan were thus shipped off to South Korea as fast as possible to stem the North Korean advance. The lack of training and equipment told when many of the initial American units were destroyed after being little more than speed bumps for the North Koreans. However, the stage was eventually reached where enough units of Eighth Army had arrived in Korea to make a firm front. The North Koreans threw themselves against that front, the Pusan Perimeter and failed to break it. In the meantime, Eighth Army had reorganised, since it had too many divisions under its command for it to exercise effective control directly. I Corps and US IX Corps had been reactivated in the United States and then shipped over to Korea to control the subordinate divisions of Eighth Army.

The stalemate was broken in quite spectacular fashion by the Inchon landings of X Corps. The North Korean forces, when confronted with this enormous threat to their supplies, combined with a breakout operation at Pusan, broke and fled. South Korea was liberated, and North Korea was almost entirely occupied. However, once American units had reached the Yalu River, the frontier between North Korea and China, the Chinese intervened, and changed the whole character of the war. The huge manpower reserves of China meant that they quickly began to push the American forces back. Although not pushed back to anything like the Pusan perimeter, US forces still lost control of Seoul, the South Korean capital again.

Walker died in an automobile accident in December 1950, and Matthew Ridgway took over; he is credited with re-energizing a defeated and demoralized Eighth Army. After the war of movement during the first stages, the Korean War settled down to one of attrition. Ceasefire negotiations were begun at the village of Panmunjeom in the summer of 1951 and dragged on for two years. When the ceasefire was finally agreed, Eighth Army had succeeded in its mission of liberating South Korea, but the realities of limited war in a world of nuclear weapons had become obvious. North Korea still survived as a state and the pattern of the next 35 years had been set.

In the aftermath of the Korean War, Eighth Army remained in Korea, but the forces under its control were steadily reduced as the demands of first Europe and then Vietnam increased. By the 1960s, only I Corps, controlling the 7th and 2nd Infantry Divisions remained under Eighth Army. In 1971 further reductions occurred. 7th Division was withdrawn, along with I Corps, leaving only 2nd Division to watch the frontier.

The occasional armed clash aside, relations between the two Koreas remained as stable as could be expected. The US forces in South Korea were by the end of the Cold War regarded as a tripwire force, not so much deployed for their military, but their political value. An attack on South Korea by North Korea would mean an attack on the US as well. However, in 2003, plans were announced to move almost all of Eighth Army back from the border. It would mean that the US forces would be more able to operate in a militarily correct fashion, but it would reduce their political value greatly. This provoked a heated debate in South Korea, where the future of Eighth Army is a contentious topic.

The Headquarters of the 8th Army is currently Yongsan Garrison but it will be moving south near Osan Air Base around 2007.

It is unclear how long US forces will remain in South Korea, but it is likely that for as long as they do, Eighth Army will as well.

External link

• Eighth Army website (http://8tharmy.korea.army.mil/)ja:米第8軍