The 23rd Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment in the United States Army. A unit with the same name was formed on 26 June 1812 and saw action in 14 battles during the War of 1812.
In 1815 it was consolidated with the 6th, 16th, 22nd, and 32nd Regiments of Infantry into what is at present the 2nd Infantry Regiment.Lt. Thompson, J.K The Twenty Third Regiment of Infantry in The Army of the United States, Historical Sketches of Staff and Line With Portraits of Generals-In-Chief. BG Theo F Rodenbough and Maj William S Haskin Ed. by 1896 p. 692
The modern 23rd Infantry regiment was formed during the American Civil War. The regiment saw action in wars up to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. It included a battalion of volunteers made up of active and reserve French military personnel who had been sent to the Korean Peninsula as part of the United Nations force fighting in the Korean War.
War of 1812
Twenty-five regiments of infantry were approved by Act of Congress on June 26, 1812. After the war in 1815, the 23rd was consolidated with the 6th, 16th, 22nd, and 32nd Regiments of Infantry into what is at present the 2nd Infantry Regiment which inherited its honors.
By reckoning at the time, there were 14 battles and engagements in which a part or the whole of the 23rd Infantry was engaged during the War of 1812-15, which amounts to most of the battles of the Niagara Frontier Campaign. In particular, these include Queenston Heights on October 13, 1812; Black Rock, November 28, 1812; Fort George in Upper Canada, May 27, 1813; Defense of Sacketts Harbor, N. Y., 1813; Stony Creek, Upper Canada, June 6, 1813; Beaver Dams, Upper Canada, June 24, 1813; Fort Erie, Upper Canada, July 3, 1814; Chippewa, Upper Canada, July 5, 1814; Lundy's Lane (Niagara Falls), July 25, 1814; Siege of Fort Erie, Upper Canada, August 15 to September 17, 1814.
Korean War
Battle of Pusan Perimeter (4 August - 18 September 1950)
On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army invaded South Korea, beginning of the Korean War. By August 1950, the 23rd Infantry Regiment had deployed at the narrow valley called "Bowling Alley", which was near the city of Taegu in defense on the Pusan Perimeter and aid the South Korean troops in the battle.
Battle of Chipyong-ni (13-15 February 1951)
Chipyong-ni was defended because the commanding general of Eighth Army (Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgway) decided to make a stand there against the Chinese Communists.
In the chronology of Korean battles, the fighting for Chipyong-ni followed the withdrawal from northern Korea at the end of 1950, a brief Eighth Army offensive that began on 5 February 1951, and a full-scale Chinese counteroffensive that struck a week later.
The 23rd Regimental Combat Team made the decisive defense of Chipyong-ni on 13–14 February 1951. This action followed the patrol ambush and the subsequent Battle of the Twin Tunnels area some high ground three miles southeast of Chipyong-ni. After the Twin Tunnels operation, the 23rd Infantry Regiment (2nd Infantry Division) proceeded on the afternoon of 3 February to the town of Chipyong-ni and set up a perimeter defense. Chipyong-ni was a small crossroads town half a mile long and several blocks wide, situated on a single-track railroad. Besides the railway station there were several other brick or frame buildings in the center of the town, but most of the buildings were constructed of the usual mud, sticks, and straw. At least half of them were already reduced to rubble as the result of previous fighting in the town.
Encircling Chipyong-ni were eight prominent hills that rose to an average height of 850 feet above the rice paddies and buildings in the valley. These hills provided excellent defensive positions, but to have occupied them would have stretched the front-line defensive positions along 12 miles of ridgelines and formed a perimeter with a 3 to 4-mile diameter. Instead, the regimental commander (Colonel Paul L. Freeman), stationed his infantrymen on lower ground around a tight perimeter about a mile in diameter. On three sides of the town the line followed small hills; on the northwest section the infantrymen dug their holes across a half-mile strip of rice paddies.
During the ten days after going into position at Chipyong-ni, Col. Freeman's regiment dug in and strengthened its positions. The 37th Field Artillery Battalion (attached to the regiment), arrived on 5 February. Battery B, 82nd Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, joined the regiment, adding six M16 Half-Tracks and four M19 Multiple Gun Motor Carriages to the defense of the town. Several days later Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion (a 155-mm howitzer unit), was attached to reinforce the 37th Field Artillery Battalion.
The infantry companies dug in their machine guns, registered their mortars, laid antipersonnel mines, and operated daily patrols to the encompassing high ground. The regimental Heavy-Mortar Company divided the fire of its platoons and sections among the sectors of the perimeter, the artillery registered on all probable avenues of enemy approach and all units established good communication lines. There was time to coordinate the infantry, artillery and air support into an effective combat team.
Company G The following narrative describes the fighting for Chipyong-ni that occurred in that sector of the 2nd Battalion's perimeter defended by Company G, 23rd Infantry. The howitzers of Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, were in position at the bottom of Company G's hill so that the artillerymen were drawn into the same battle. The commander of the 2nd Battalion (Lt.Col. James W. Edwards) placed all three of his rifle companies on the front line to cover the sector assigned to his battalion. This was the southern rim of the perimeter. Within the companies, two company commanders committed their three rifle platoons. The other company (F), to which Col. Edwards assigned the center and smallest sector, manned its part of the line with only two platoons, leaving its support platoon as the battalion reserve.
The narrow supply road leading southwest from Chipyong-ni went under the railroad on the southern edge of the town and then, within a third of a mile, passed two embankments of red clay where the road cut through the two ends of a U-shaped hill. Company G started at the second of these two road cuts and extended left (east) along the southern side of the U. It was not much of a hill, only a couple of contour lines on the map. Infantrymen could climb the smooth hump of earth in a few minutes. The 1st Platoon of Company G held the right end of the hill next to the road cut. The 3rd Platoon had the center position (the highest part of the hill) and extended its line left to the bend of the U. The 2nd Platoon was down in the rice paddies between the 3rd Platoon and Company F.
Men from the two platoons on the hill dug their holes just over the top of the forward slope. The positions restricted the fields of fire somewhat but provided good observation, especially for the 3rd Platoon, which could see all areas to the south except for a dead spot in a dry creek bed just in front of its right flank.
There were two other significant features near the 3d Platoon's area. At the foot of the hill and just beyond the dry creek bed was a cluster of 15 or 20 buildings that made up the village of Masan. The second feature was a narrow spur of ground that formed a link between the 3rd Platoon's hill and a large hill mass to the south. The 2nd Platoon in the rice paddies lacked satisfactory observation but had good fields of fire across the flat land to its immediate front.
In addition to its own Weapons Platoon, Company G's supporting weapons included a section of 75-mm recoilless rifles, a section of heavy machine guns from Company H, and a platoon of 81-mm mortars under command of Lt. James Whitaker which was dug in near the edge of the town and had a forward observer (Lt.Whitaker) stationed with Company G. There were also forward observers from the regimental Heavy-Mortar Company and from the 37th Field Artillery Battalion with Company G. During the daytime men from the 75-mm recoilless rifle section manned their weapons, but at night they replaced them with two .50 caliber machine guns to prevent having their positions disclosed by the back-blasts of the recoilless rifles.
The Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon set up two fougasses (drums of napalm), the first on the road just south of the road cut, the second in the rice paddies in front of the 2nd Platoon. The 1st Platoon, which was next to the road, also strung barbed wire across the road and in front of its position. There was not enough wire available to reach across the company front. Colonel Edwards supervised the siting of all weapons, and the digging of the holes which he insisted be of the standing type and deep enough for good cover.
When Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, arrived, its 155-mm howitzers went into position in the small bowl formed by the U-shaped ridge of which Company G occupied one side. The howitzers were laid by platoon to support the east, north and west sectors of the regimental perimeter. To the rear of the howitzers, the artillerymen set up a tent for the fire direction center (FDC) personnel. Behind that, near the bottom of Company G's hill, were several other tents for the mess and supply sections. A liaison officer from the 37th Field Artillery Battalion to Battery B (Captain John A. Elledge), and the commander of Company G (Lieutenant Thomas Heath) worked out a plan for the joint defense of the sector. This plan provided for the use of the artillery's machine guns in the front line and, if necessary, the use of some artillerymen as riflemen while skeleton crews manned the howitzers. The two officers also set up an infantry-artillery machine-gun post in the road cut with a six-man crew to operate two weapons, one .50 caliber and one .30 caliber. This road cut was also the dividing line between Col. Edwards's 2nd Battalion sector and that of the French battalion (a regular battalion of the 23rd Infantry).
Offensive and counter-offensive While the 23rd RCT built up its defenses, an Eighth Army general offensive got under way on 5 February with X Corps, in the center of the line, attacking to make a double envelopment of the town of Hongch'on, an important enemy build-up area. The attack moved slowly until the night of 11 February, when the Chinese launched a full-scale counteroffensive with two columns driving south, aimed at the towns of Hoengseong and Wonju in X Corps' sector. The vigorous enemy attack drove through two ROK divisions and turned the United Nations' attack into a withdrawal that rolled the front lines south between 5 and 20 miles. Before the Chinese attack, the front lines of X Corps were well ahead of Col. Freeman's Chipyong-ni perimeter, but as the units went south, sometimes fighting through enemy roadblocks, Chipyong-ni became a conspicuous bulge on the left of the corps' line. Eventually the bulge was cut off from X Corps and the 23rd was completely surrounded.
Day 1 of the battle
At the 23rd Infantry's perimeter, the usual patrols for the daylight hours of 13 February reported increased enemy activity crowding close to Chipyong-ni on three sides, north, east and west. The Air Force observation plane operating with the RCT reported enemy groups moving toward the perimeter from the north and east. Observers called for artillery fire against those enemy columns within reach, while the tactical air control party directed forty flights of aircraft against other enemy groups beyond artillery range. Beginning about 22:00, the Chinese launched a series of probes and attacks designed to locate and drive the 23rd Infantry out of their defensive positions. These ceased shortly after sunrise due to the threat of American air control.
Day 2 of the battle