USS Floyd B. Parks (DD-884) fires a 5"/38 gun of mount 52, while bombarding Wonsan, North Korea, during the seige of Wonsan, 25 September 1951.Official U.S. Navy Photograph

Seige of Wonsan, 1951-1953 Smoke rises from the Kalma Gak peninsula, near Wonsan, North Korea, during a bombardment by USS Floyd B. Parks (DD-884). This photograph was released by Commander Naval Forces Far East under date of 25 September 1951. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the "All Hands" collection at the Naval Historical Center.

The Communists' shore batteries were placed so as to cover both the ship operating areas and to sweep the potential landing sites: heavy machine guns and mortars were positioned near the probable landing beaches, and /G-mm. batteries in the nearby hills. The harbor's heavy guns (122-mm. and 155-mm.) were located farther back from the shoreline and positioned to take the ship operating area under fire.

In the early months of the siege, the enemy's batteries were located as follows:
All harbor guns were of the field artillery type, as distinguished from naval or regular fixed shore defense guns. With few exceptions, these guns were hidden in caves or tunnels, cleverly camouflaged, and were rolled out for firing and rolled back inside for protection, for the Communists soon learned that an exposed gun was certain to be destroyed.

In the early months of the war a great many empty gun emplacements, caves, and tunnels were in evidence. Two reasons are likely. First, in case one position became too hot, a gun could be moved to a new position. Second, empty gun positions often attracted fire from planes and ships. 13y the end of the second year of the siege, however, there were few empty gun positions, as more guns were brought into the area.

Most of the low, near-to-the-water gun positions in the Wonsan area had a single entrance," said LT James S. Lampe, the intelligence officer assigned to Yo-do. "This entrance was for the gun itself, and it was always as small --as possible. Only a few of the gun caves-usually the big ones-had a personnel entrance. These came in from -the back side of the hills, permitting the crews to man their guns without being exposed to our fire.

Most of the heavy gun positions had large rooms for ammunition storage as well as crew's quarters. The Communists did not seem concerned about having their ammunition and gun crews in the same hole.

In addition to the field artillery pieces, there were two other types of guns used against our siege ships: tanks and rail-mounted guns.

Tanks were positioned at several points around the bay, but were most prominent at certain positions on 'Sugar Loaf', a small hill on Kalma Gak, plus other tanks on Kalma Gak proper. Two of these tank positions were

next page