Talk:Battle of the Samichon River

Clarification about Chinese orbat...

The Chinese records indicated that the Chinese 46th Army attacked the US 1st Marine Division until the July 27 while the 47th Army was not mentioned at all...did Australian sources explicitly identified the Chinese unit as the 47th Army? Jim101 (talk) 07:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I cannot resolve this problem easily. The Australian official history specifically says 47th Army, while a passing look at some of my sources finds this formation mentioned in a history of Canadian operations in Korea as well (although not at Samichon). See O'Neill 1985, p. 260 and Johnston 2003, p. 134-135. I have reverted for now but am of course will to try to reword to incorporate chinese sources. Any suggestions? Anotherclown (talk) 07:19, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Let me check, it is possible that the 47th was later relieved by 46th during early 1953 and nobody on the UN side got any wiser. Anyway, this is sort of a minor point, except I'm trying to pin down the name of Chinese commanders. Jim101 (talk) 07:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, this is frustrating. The responsibility of facing off against the entire US I Corps belonged to the Chinese 19th Army Group, and 47th Army was not part of the group. But the fly in the soup is that although the 47th did not served on the line, it did acted as strategic reserved unit, so I can't rule it out for not being present either. All I can say is that the Australian sources is wrong on the fact that 39th Army was relieved by the 47th Army in late 1952, and the Chinese sources explicitly stated that only the 1st, 46th and 65th Army served on the line in the US I Corps sector. Maybe we can reworded it like "By May 1953, the US I Corps was faced with the Chinese 1st, 46th and 65th Army of the 19th Army Group.[Ref Chinese Military Science Academy pp. 575–576 ]"? I just don't know how much weight should we give to the Australian sources given that it "just" might be correct even with all the inaccurate intels. Jim101 (talk) 08:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Cheers Jim, I have decided to reword to include both the Chinese and Australian sources. I think it makes sense. Please have a look at tweak as required. Anotherclown (talk) 20:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I just added a little more details on the Chinese claim and changed the Chinese commander name to the 19th Army Group commander. I think this is the best we can do without breaching WP:OR. Jim101 (talk) 21:45, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Cheers again Jim, looks good. Anotherclown (talk) 02:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello again Jim. I did some more digging on this and found that the New Zealand official history (1996) by Ian McGibbon supports your thesis and directly contradicts what is written in the Australian official history (1985). From page 343: "This sector included the Hook, the other key point on the Commonwealth front, on which the two Australian batalions were deployed, with 2RAR on the left and 3RAR on the right. Here they confronted 137 Division of the Chinese 46th Army, which had been in the line since February 1953." As such I think there is more than enough evidence to go with this and confine the 47th Army stuff to a footnote or something without risking OR. What do you think? Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 22:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Jim. PS I have gone ahead and made these changes but if you can have a look and make any tweaks you think are required that would be great. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 22:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice research. Although this didn't rule out the possibility that both 46th and the 47th could be present, if both official New Zealand and Chinese sources only IDed the attacking Chinese unit as the 46th Army, then the weight definitely tilted towards the Chinese POV. Unless some Australian sources actually stated they interrogated some Chinese POWs that identified themselves from the 47th Army, I guess official Australian POV is sort of minority view right now. I'll update the commander name of the 46th Army Commander in the article then. Jim101 (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers Jim, yes I agree and thanks again for the changes. The NZ official history by McGibbon seems to base its assessment (i.e. that it was 46th Army) on an 1st Commonwealth Division intelligence report for that period (covering 1953–1954). I have checked O'Neill again and there is nothing to indicate any reports at the time of the battle (i.e. July 1953) which indicate the identity of the Chinese unit in the Australian offical history. The Australian official history only talks about 47th Army taking over in late Oct 1952 but then is silent after that, so its possible it just missed a change that occurred later (e.g. possibly Feb to Mar 1953?), or is simply wrong. Either way I think given that we now have both a Chinese source (which IMO we can accept as being faithful) and a western source (NZ official history) that support each other we can safely place more weight on it being the 46th Army, and just confine the 47th army ref to a footnote for completeness (as we have done). Anotherclown (talk) 23:19, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a small note on historiography...most of the Chinese documents on Korean War was declassified around 89/90, with most Commonwealth authors gained access to those documents via Hong Kong publishers, so books published around or after that point tend to have a clearer idea on Chinese actions during the Korean War. Jim101 (talk) 03:09, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Anti Chinese sentiment

I want to bring up some bias against the Chinese during this confrontation. Using the word "communist" and the picture of a dead Chinese soldier does not go with Wiki's policy of 'objectivity' and offering sides from all perspectives. For the people who are involved in this article, you should be aware of this issue. I'm not going to jump in and fix it all- I'll leave that to you guys, since this is your work- but I wanted to put it out there. Thanks and much appreciated, Jdanbeck (talk) 17:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, I tried to fixed that except:

1. Chinese Armed Force's technically pledge their full allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party, not China.
2. Chinese source never published any photos related to the Battle of the Samichon River or mentioned the event in their histories.

If you believe those two issues are resolved on the Chinese side, then I would be glad to resolve the NPOV issue using my Chinese language skill. Jim101 (talk) 22:45, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Gday Jdanbeck - like Jim101 I don't see any major issue with either the language or the image either, although I did made a few minor changes here [1] to the language for clarification of the identity of the forces involved. Where the terms "communist" or "anti-communist" remain it seems relevant to the context of the article to me, rather than being used pejoratively. In regards to the image I don't see how showing an image of the dead of any side to a conflict is POV. Soldiers being killed is an inescapable consequence of war. No other images of Chinese forces involved in this battle seem to be available (that I'm aware of at least), while if you can point me in the direction of a relevant free image of UN dead then I will include that also. Anotherclown (talk) 02:36, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The article mentions twice of the 'eagerness' of the PVA for a last-minute victory. I am wondering if 'inclined' would not be more neutral language than 'eager', and thus more appropriate?

Sorry for the necro. AntColony.555 (talk) 07:36, 26 July 2022 (UTC)