World War II The unit first activated on 10 June 1944 in the United States, under the command of Lieutenant General
Robert L. Eichelberger. The Eighth Army took part in many of the
amphibious landings in the
Southwest Pacific Theater of
World War II, eventually participating in no less than sixty of them. The first mission of the Eighth Army, in September 1944, was to take over from the
U.S. Sixth Army in
New Guinea,
New Britain, the
Admiralty Islands and on
Morotai, in order to free up the Sixth Army to engage in the
Philippines Campaign (1944–45). The Eighth Army again followed in the wake of the Sixth Army in December 1944, when it took over control of operations on
Leyte Island on 26 December. In January, the Eighth Army entered combat on
Luzon, landing the
XI Corps on 29 January near
San Antonio and the
11th Airborne Division on the other side of
Manila Bay two days later. Combining with
I Corps and
XIV Corps of Sixth Army, the forces of Eighth Army next enveloped
Manila in a great double-
pincer movement. Eighth Army's final operation of the
Pacific War was that of clearing out the southern Philippines of the
Japanese Army, including on the major island of
Mindanao, an effort that occupied the soldiers of the Eighth Army for the rest of the war. It would have taken part in
Operation Coronet, the second phase of the invasion, which would have seen the invasion of the
Kantō Plain on eastern
Honshū. However, the Japanese surrender cancelled the invasion, and the Eighth Army found itself in charge of a peaceful
occupation.
Occupation forces landed on 30 August 1945, with its headquarters in
Yokohama, then the HQ moved to the
Dai-Ichi building in
Tokyo. At the beginning of 1946, Eighth Army assumed responsibility for occupying all of Japan. Four quiet years then followed, during which the Eighth Army gradually transitioned from a combat-ready fighting force into a constabulary. Lieutenant General
Walton H. Walker took command in September 1948, and he tried to re-invigorate the Army's training, with mixed success.
Korean War In June 1950 75,000
North Korean
Korean People's Army (KPA) troops with
Soviet made tanks invaded South Korea, igniting the
Korean War. U.S. naval and air forces quickly became involved in combat operations, and it was soon clear that U.S. ground forces would have to be committed. To stem the North Korean advance, the occupation forces in Japan were thus shipped off to South Korea as quickly as possible, but their lack of training and equipment was telling, as some of the
initial U.S. units were destroyed by the KPA. However, the stage was eventually reached as enough units of Eighth Army arrived in Korea to make a firm front. The KPA threw themselves against that front, the
Pusan Perimeter, and failed to break it. In the meantime, Eighth Army had reorganized, since it had too many divisions under its command for it to exercise effective control directly. The
I Corps and the
IX Corps were reactivated in the United States and then shipped to Korea to assume command of Eighth Army's subordinate divisions. The stalemate was broken by the
Inchon landings of the
X Corps (consisting of soldiers and Marines). The KPA, confronted with this threat to their rear areas, combined with a breakout operation at Pusan, broke away and hastily retired north. , Commander of 8th Army (left) confers with Maj. Gen.
William F. Dean, Commander Ground Forces in Korea, on 7 July 1950 Both South and North Korea were almost entirely occupied by United Nations forces. However, once U.S. units neared the
Yalu River and the frontier between North Korea and
China, the Chinese
People's Volunteer Army (PVA) intervened and drastically changed the character of the war. Eighth Army was decisively defeated at the
Battle of the Chongchon River and forced to retreat back into South Korea, the longest retreat of any U.S. military unit in history. General Walker was killed in a jeep accident on 23 December 1950, and replaced by Lieutenant general
Matthew Ridgway. The overstretched Eighth Army suffered heavily with the Chinese offensive, who were able to benefit from shorter lines of communication and with rather casually deployed enemy forces. The Chinese broke through the U.S. defenses despite U.S.
air supremacy and the Eighth Army and U.N. forces retreated hastily to avoid encirclement. The Chinese offensive continued pressing U.S. forces, which lost
Seoul, the South Korean capital. Eighth Army's morale and
esprit de corps hit rock bottom, to where it was widely regarded as a broken, defeated rabble. Ridgway forcefully restored Eighth Army to combat effectiveness over several months. Eighth Army slowed and ultimately halted the Chinese advance at the battles of
Chipyong-ni and
Wonju. It then counter-attacked the Chinese, re-took Seoul, and drove to the
38th parallel, where the front stabilized. When Ridgway replaced
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as the overall U.N. commander, Lieutenant general
James Van Fleet assumed command of Eighth Army. After the war of movement during the first stages, the fighting in Korea settled down to a war of attrition. Ceasefire negotiations were begun at the village of
Panmunjom in the summer of 1951, and they dragged on for two years. During the final combat operation of the war, Lieutenant general
Maxwell D. Taylor (promoted to general 23 June 1953) commanded the Eighth Army. When the
Military Demarcation Line was finally agreed to by the
Korean Armistice Agreement, South Korea and North Korea continued on as separate states.
Guarding Korea During the
aftermath of the Korean War, the Eighth Army remained in South Korea. By the 1960s, I Corps, consisting of the
7th Infantry Division and the
2nd Infantry Division, remained as part of the Eighth Army. Then, in 1971, the 7th Infantry Division was withdrawn, along with the command units of I Corps, which were moved across the Pacific Ocean to
Fort Lewis,
Washington. Later, in March 1977, a memo from President Jimmy Carter said "...American forces will be withdrawn. Air cover will be continued." Bureaucratic resistance from the Executive Branch, with support in Congress, eventually saw the proposal watered down. Eventually one combat battalion and about 2,600 non-combat troops were withdrawn. This left the 2nd Infantry Division at the
Korean Demilitarized Zone to assist the
South Korean Army. Besides forming a trip-wire against another North Korean invasion, the 2nd Infantry Division remained there as the only Army unit in South Korea armed with
tactical nuclear weapons. (Otherwise, there is only the
U.S. Air Force in South Korea and on
Okinawa.) All nuclear weapons were taken from the Army to be under Air Force control. Later, in 1991, all U.S. nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea.
Structure 1989 At the end of the
Cold War Eighth Army consisted of the following units: •
Eighth Army,
Yongsan Garrison,
South Korea • Headquarters & Headquarters Company •
2nd Infantry Division,
Camp Casey • Headquarters & Headquarters Company • 4th Battalion,
58th Aviation (Air Traffic Control), Camp Coiner • 2nd Battalion, 501st Aviation (Medium Lift), Camp Coiner (
CH-47D Chinook helicopters) • 4th Battalion, 501st Aviation (Attack),
Camp Page (
AH-1F Cobra &
OH-58C Kiowa helicopters) • Headquarters & Headquarters Company • 36th Signal Battalion • 41st Signal Battalion • 304th Signal Battalion,
Camp Colbern • 307th Signal Battalion • 257th Signal Company, Camp Humphreys •
8th Military Police Brigade (Provisional), Camp Coiner •
728th Military Police Battalion •
501st Military Intelligence Brigade (Provisional), Yongsan Garrison • Headquarters & Headquarters Detachment • 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion (Aerial Exploitation), Camp Humphreys • 532nd Military Intelligence Battalion (Intelligence & Electronic Warfare) • 751st Military Intelligence Battalion (Counterintelligence), Camp Humphreys • Company A, 3rd Battalion, 501st Aviation (Aviation Intermediate Maintenance), Camp Humphreys • 46th Transportation Company, Camp Carroll • 34th Area Support Group, Seoul • 516th Personnel Service Company • 175th Finance Center • 176th Finance Support Unit • 177th Finance Support Unit • 23rd Chemical Battalion • 44th Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy),
Camp Mercer • 8th Army Band
Recent times In 2003, plans were announced to move the 2nd Infantry Division southward. The division, with 15 bases north of the Han River and just south of the DMZ, was to be the most important formation to be moved south of the Han River in two phases "over the next few years" a joint statement between the South Korean and U.S. governments said on June 5, 2003. As of 2015, it appears that one brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division will remain at
Camp Casey, near
Dongducheon. The headquarters of the Eighth Army was
Yongsan Garrison, but moved southward to
Camp Humphreys by 2019. == Organization ==