The 555th Field Artillery

[mcmike]

Does anyone have any info regarding the 555th Field Artillery, Korean Ware era, part of the 5th Infantry Division of the 5th Regimental Combat Team? I have found a couple of books that are over $300, and a little on the internet, but not much. My Father-in-Law was in the 555th during the Korean War.

Thanks,

Mike

[oldflagswanted]

555th FAB in Korea ???

Does anyone have any info regarding the 555th Field Artillery,
Korean Ware era... My Father-in-Law was in the 555th during the Korean War.
Thanks, Mike

Mike:
The 555th FAB was overrun during the Korean War, as such their silk HQ Guidon is
on display in the North Korean War Museum, and likely the battalion eagle color too.
These flags were shown in a PBS multi-part series back a couple decades ago now,
which I would like to find a copy of myself. Program had interviews from both sides.
More on the 555th in Korea can be found online at
---> http://unitpages.military.com/unitpages/unit.do?id=103045

PS/ And more info is contained in... Hills of Sacrifice: The 5th RCT in Korea, by Donald
W. Boose Jr. "The 5th RCT was a unique outfit. Normally, a 3,700-man infantry regiment
would be part of an infantry division, but the 5th was one of a small number of separate
RCTs. Composed of the 5th Infantry Regiment (a unit that traced its heritage back to the
War of 1812), the 555th Field Artillery Battalion, and the 72d Engineer Combat Company,
the 5th RCT was the last U.S. combat unit occupying Korea after World War II ended. It
was withdrawn to O'ahu in 1949 and stationed at Schofield Barracks, where it settled into
the peacetime routine of training and exercises.

The 5th RCT also conducted basic training for local recruits, many of whom stayed on to
serve in the 5th, giving it a strong Hawaiian character and an ethnic mix that was unusual
in the pre-Korean War Army. That character was reinforced when the war broke out and
the 5th RCT was brought up to full strength with mobilized Reserve and National Guard
soldiers, many of them from the highly decorated Japanese-American 100th Battalion and
442d Regimental Combat Team. The people of Hawai'i looked on the 5th as their own,
sending packages and letters and following the fortunes of "their" RCT in Korea. The 5th
gloried in its Hawaiian connection. The Regimental Tank Company named their tanks "Hula
Girl," "Leilani," and "Hawaii Calls." Soldiers from the Mainland adopted Island slang and
442d RCT battle cries, going into the attack shouting, "Banzai!" and "Go for broke!"

In the segregated Army of 1950, the Mainland press sometimes referred to the 555th
"Triple Nickel" Field Artillery Battalion as a "black" outfit, confusing it with a World War II
African American parachute infantry battalion with the same number. In fact, there were
no African American soldiers in the 5th RCT at the start of the war, although every other
ethnic group found in Hawai'i was represented. Because of its heterogeneous mixture of
European and Asian and Pacific Island American soldiers, the Army leadership believed the
5th was more likely to accept black soldiers smoothly, and so it was one of the first "white"
units in Korea to be desegregated.

The 5th RCT was one of the most cohesive and well-trained units in the U.S. peacetime
Army and contained a heavy leavening of combat veterans. Nonetheless, its early days in
Korea were tough and tragic. Thrown into combat in early August 1950 alongside the 5th
Marine Regiment in the first counteroffensive of the war, the 5th RCT took heavy casualties
and the 555th Field Artillery Battalion was ambushed and overrun by a North Korean attack.
But under a new regimental commander, the hard peacetime training, the high proportion
of experienced soldiers, and the cohesiveness that comes from the sense of being a unique
and tough outfit paid off, and the 5th earned a reputation as one of the best Army units in
Korea. It spearheaded an attack north in September 1950 and played key roles in the
defense against the Chinese intervention and in the renewed United Nations counteroffensive
in the spring of 1951..."

[mcmike]

Thanks!

OFW - Thanks a lot! I sincerely appreciate all of the info and the newspaper clipping. My father-in-law told my wife he got the Purple Heart because he burned his hands severely firing a 105mm in a serious attack. Probably when they got overrun, although I do not think he was a POW.

Thanks again!

Mike