Midway through the summer of 1950, nine uniquely-equipped M4A3E8 Sherman tanks, each with main armament of a 105 millimeter howitzer cannon and POA-CWS H5 napalm-firing flame gun, were being organized as a military unit for the first time in the long history of the United States Marine Corps. Officially, they were listed in the Marine Corps table of organization as Flame Platoon, Headquarters Company, First Tank Battalion, First Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force. At that time, the Flame Platoon was little known and untested in battle. But it didn’t take long before those nine tanks became very much a part of the historic battle to blunt the first hot confrontation of a Cold War that had begun to show signs of frost after the end of World War II.
It was the Korean War!
The Flame Platoon never got a lot of notice outside of Korea, and often its scrimmages were relegated to a terse clipped notation about one of them in the official after-action reports sent down to Division, and on to EUSAK (Eighth U.S. Army Korea).
The Korean War was a deadly game to say the least, but Flame Tankers proved they could stand up with the best of them when they got their first at-bat on Wolmi-do Island during the pre-invasion operation of the Inchon Landing. Yongdong-Po, then Seoul, were anything but a playground, but Flame Tanks made things hot there, too. Then came the saga of the Chosin Reservoir, and they helped their big brothers from the First Tank Battalion’s letter companies slug it out with Chinese Communist Forces as the First Marine Division battled its way down from Yudam-ni, through Hagaru and Koto-ri to Hamhung and Hungnam.
These Flame Tankers would help turn back the 1951 Chinese winter and spring offensives, know the frustration in one of the many attempts to dislodge Luke the Gook from his Castle on Hill 1052 in the East Central Mountains during the winter of ’52. After the First Marine Division returned to the Western Front that March, the Flame Tanks really got into it. They paid dearly in Operation Clambake, a deadly mission designed to destroy enemy positions and take prisoners at Kum gok.
Like many of our Korean War comrades, Flame Tankers have had very little to say in the past. Following the example of our predecessors from World War II, we just tried to do our jobs. We came home without any fanfare to reunite with loved ones, go back to work, marry and raise families. Even to those closest to us, most of us never talked much, if at all, about our experiences in Korea. Maybe that’s why it quickly became The Forgotten War.
Now, through Flame Dragons of the Korean War, most of us -- well into our 70s — we think it’s about time our Flame Platoon claims its proud niche in history. It’s time we talked — about the combat, the fear, the death of fellow tankers, the havoc we caused, and what we survived.
Though it has been some 50 years past the fact, Flame Dragons of the Korean War is our story — as memory best serves us and others who helped remind us. Hopefully, the half-century has not clouded recollections of the most important details, or that time has embellished beyond actuality what happened to us in the Land of the Morning Calm from 15 September 1950 until 27 July 1953.
Unfortunately, there are many stories missing – either taken to eternity by those who could have told us more, or still bound in personal memory banks which we could not unlock. Time and attrition have exacted a toll on the full story of the Flame Platoon, but we have plenty to offer on behalf of one of the most unique combat units in Marine Corps history.
We rode as tall and as proud as any tanker, in any war.