The Hungnam evacuation or Heungnam redeploymentUN Forces used this title in action report (), also known as the Miracle of Christmas, was the evacuation of United Nations (UN) forces and North Korean civilians from the port of Hungnam, Hamhung, North Korea, between 15 and 24 December 1950, during the Korean War. As part of the fighting withdrawal of UN forces against the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir (27 November to 13 December), they abandoned some 59,000 square kilometers of North Korean territory to enemy forces and retreated to Hungnam, from where they were evacuated to South Korea.
Background On 8 December 1950, US X Corps commander General Edward Almond received UN Commander General Douglas MacArthur’s order to evacuate X Corps through Hungnam. Following the earlier decision to concentrate X Corps forces at Hungnam, the evacuation of Wonsan had begun on 3 December. In a week’s time, without interference from PVA or Korean People's Army (KPA) forces, the Regimental Combat Team 31 (RCT 31), US 3rd Infantry Division and a US 1st Marine Division shore party group totaling some 3,800 troops loaded themselves, 1,100 vehicles, 10,000 tons of other cargo, and 7,000 refugees aboard transport ships and LSTs provided by Admiral James H. Doyle’s Task Force 90.
One LST sailed north on the 9th to Hungnam, where its Marine shore party passengers were to take part in the forthcoming sealift. The remaining ships steamed for Pusan on the 9th and 10th. The Task Force 90 ships dispatched to Songjin on 5 December to pick up the tail-end troops of ROK I Corps meanwhile had reached their destination and by noon on 9 December had taken aboard the ROK 3rd Infantry Division (less the 26th Regiment, which withdrew to Hungnam as rearguard for the ROK 7th Infantry Division; the division headquarters, division artillery, and 18th Regiment of the ROK Capital Division; and some 4300 refugees. This sealift originally had been designed to assist X Corps’ concentration at Hungnam, but the intervening order to evacuate Hungnam changed the destination for most of the South Koreans to Pusan. On 10 and 11 December the convoy from Songjin anchored at Hungnam only long enough to unload the Capital Division's headquarters and artillery for employment in the perimeter and to take aboard an advance party of the ROK I Corps headquarters before proceeding to its new destination.
On the 11th, as the ROK from Songjin as well as the Marine and Army troops from the Chosin Reservoir came into Hungnam, the perimeter around the port consisted of a series of battalion and regimental strongpoints astride the likely avenues of PVA/KPA approach some outside the city. The US 3rd Infantry Division still held the large sector assigned to it when Almond first shaped the perimeter, from positions below Yonpo Airfield southwest of Hungnam to defenses astride the Chosin Reservoir road at Oro-ri () northwest of the port. Battalions of the US 7th Infantry Division stood in breadth and depth along the Pujon Reservoir () road north of Hungnam, and three regiments of ROK I Corps guarded approaches near and at the coast northeast of the port.
Although Almond had begun to pull these units into defenses around Hungnam at the beginning of December, PVA/KPA forces as of the 11th had not yet made any significant attempt to establish contact with the perimeter units. But Almond expected his beachhead defenses would be tested by PVA/KPA units approaching Hungnam along the coast from the northeast, from the Wonsan area to the south, and especially from the direction of the Chosin Reservoir. The likelihood that PVA/KPA forces pushing to the coast to reoccupy Wonsan would block the routes south of Hungnam had prompted Almond to discard any thought of an overland withdrawal to southern Korea (nor had MacArthur ordered such a move). Almond also considered the roads inadequate to permit the timely movement of large forces. His warning order, issued 9 December, alerted his forces for a "withdrawal by water and air without delay from Hungnam area to Pusan-Pohang-dong area." The larger exodus was to be by sea, with the Hungnam defenses contracting as Corps' forces were loaded, but airlift was to be employed for as long as Yonpo Airfield remained within the shrinking perimeter.
Evacuation Planning In deciding how to evacuate his forces and still successfully defend his perimeter, Almond considered two alternatives. He could place all divisions on the perimeter and then withdraw portions of each simultaneously, or he could pull out one division at a time and spread his remaining forces to cover the vacated sector on a shorter front. Since some units were more battle worn than others, especially the 1st Marine Division, he elected the latter method and intended to ship the Marines first. They were to be followed by the 7th Division, then the 3rd Division. Almond planned to phase out ROK I Corps, X Corps' support units, bulk supplies and heavy equipment simultaneously with the US Army divisions. This was to be done carefully enough to keep a proper balance between combat and support troops and to ensure adequate logistical support. To maintain this balance yet guarantee that the evacuation proceeded as rapidly as possible, he established three points of control. From X Corps headquarters, his G-3 and G-4 together guided the dispatch of units to the beach. To supervise the actual loading of troops and materiel at water's edge, he organized a control group under Colonel Edward H. Forney, a Marine officer serving as Almond's deputy chief of staff. Under Forney's direction, the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade was to operate dock facilities, a reinforced Marine shore party company was to operate the LST and small craft beaches and control the lighterage for ships to be loaded in the harbor anchorages, and some five thousand Korean civilians were to work as stevedores. On the Navy's end of the out-loading procedure, Doyle, through a control unit aboard his flagship , was to coordinate all shipments, assign anchorages, and issue docking and sailing instructions. Direct liaison was established between Almond's control group ashore and Doyle's control group at sea to match outgoing troops, supplies, and equipment with available ships. Almond also dispatched a control group under Lieutenant colonel Arthur M. Murray from Corps' headquarters to Pusan to receive troops, supplies, and equipment arriving by sea and air and to move them as rapidly as possible to assembly areas. Including the troops and materiel outloaded at Wonsan and Songjin, Almond needed shipping space for 105,000 troops, 18,422 vehicles, and some 350,000 tons of bulk cargo. Although Doyle commanded a transport group of over 125 ships, some would have to make more than one trip to meet Almond's needs. The Far East Air Forces’ Combat Cargo Command flying out of Yonpo Airfield was to fulfill airlift requirements. Tactical air support during the evacuation would be a Navy and Marine responsibility, the Fifth Air Force fighters previously located in northeastern Korea having flown out to Pusan on 3 December. The 1st Marine Air Wing, based at Yonpo and aboard escort carriers, was to devote its full effort to supporting the corps operation. In addition, Doyle was to arrange both naval air and naval gunfire support. Reinforced by ships supplied by Admiral Arthur Dewey Struble, the Seventh Fleet commander, Doyle eventually was able to employ seven carriers in throwing a canopy of aircraft over the Corps area and to deploy one battleship, two cruisers, seven destroyers, and three rocket ships in a maneuver area reaching north and south of Hungnam to answer Almond’s requests for gunfire support.
To begin an orderly contraction of defenses as X Corps’ strength ashore diminished, the units on the perimeter were to withdraw deliberately as the 1st Marine Division embarked toward the first of three phase lines that Almond drew around Hungnam. In the southwest this first line rested generally along the Yowi-ch’on River, just below Yonpo Airfield and elsewhere traced an arc about from the heart of Hungnam. The second line differed from the first only in the southwest in the US 3rd Division sector where it followed the upper bank of the Songch’on River close by Hungnam. The 3rd Division's withdrawal to this second line, which would mean the abandonment of Yonpo Airfield, was scheduled to take place as the US 7th Division began its embarkation. The third and final line was a tight arc about outside the limits of Hungnam to be occupied by the 3rd Division as that division itself prepared to outload. During this final phase of the evacuation 3rd Division units were to use rearguard tactics to cover their own embarkation.
Almond published his formal evacuation order on 11 December, the date on which MacArthur visited Korea and flew into Yonpo Airfield for a conference with him. After briefing MacArthur on Corps' dispositions and the plan of evacuation, Almond predicted that the evacuation would be orderly, that no supplies or equipment would be destroyed or abandoned and that PVA/KPA forces would not interfere seriously. The redeployment of X Corps to southern Korea, he estimated, would be complete by 27 December.
The evacuation (12–24 December)
The 1st Marine Division, as it came into Hungnam from the Chosin Reservoir on 11 December, assembled between the port and Yonpo Airfield. The division loaded over the following three days and sailed for Pusan at mid-morning on the 15th. Almond the day before had designated Masan, west of Pusan, as the division's assembly area. Following the voyage to Pusan and a motor march to Masan, the Marines passed to Eighth Army control on 18 December. Some bulk cargo was shipped out during the Marine loading, but the heavier evacuation of material began after the Marines sailed. From 15 December onwards service units gradually moved depots and supply points into the port area proper and the bulk supplies and heavy equipment were either loaded aboard ships double-banked at the docks or lightered to ships in the harbor. To save time, ammunition was loaded at the docks instead of well out into open water according to usual precautionary practice. This constant outward flow of material paralleled unit embarkations through the final day of the evacuation.