19501776 Club
Task Force Smith breaks at Osan; 540 Americans scatter before North Korean tanks their bazookas cannot stop
Lt. Col. Smith's men held a rainy hillside 25 miles south of Seoul for seven hours against a column of 5,000 before the line gave way.
Ten days after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, the first American soldiers of the Korean War took position on a rainy hillside 25 miles south of Seoul. On July 5, 1950, Task Force Smith, 540 men under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bradford Smith, faced a North Korean column nearly 5,000 strong backed by Soviet T-34 tanks their bazookas could not stop. The Americans broke and scattered within hours, but the fight bought seven hours the retreating South Korean and American lines badly needed…
