It was during a Sunday School lesson, taught by Jeff McMullin, in which I first heard the story of the miracle at Gapyeong. His father was part of the 213th Armored Field Artillery Batallion, a Utah National Guard unit, with soldiers from Beaver, Fillmore, Richfield, Delta, Parowan, Cedar City, Saint George, and other towns in Southern Utah, that was activated during the Korean War. He related the story of these faithful Latter-day Saint young men who found themselves at the front lines and outnumbered, and yet were preserved by the hand of God. It was a modern-day miracle just like the preservation of the young men in the army of Helaman in the Book of Mormon:
… I numbered those young men who had fought with me, fearing lest there were many of them slain.
But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength…
–Alma 56:55-56–
In May 1951, the 213th Armored Field Artillery Battalion found itself cut off and alone in the Gapyeong valley of Korea. When Chinese forces broke through the front lines that night, the battalion’s gun crews suddenly faced roughly 4,000 enemy soldiers bearing down on their position. By every measure of conventional warfare, the men of the 213th should have been overrun. They were outnumbered sixteen to one. Instead, after a night of fierce fighting, the Chinese assault broke. Hundreds of enemy soldiers lay dead and hundreds more were captured — and not a single Utah guardsman was killed. Every one of the original members of the 213th came home alive. Seven months later, President Truman awarded the battalion the Presidential Unit Citation for its “unshakable determination and gallantry.”
Like the stripling warriors of Helaman’s army, these were young men raised in homes of faith, who carried that faith with them into battle. Their commander, Lt. Col. Frank Dalley, said that his thoughts turned to God during the fighting, and that he knew their safety was in the hands of their Maker. Decades later, President Dallin H. Oaks — who trained with the 213th in the Utah National Guard, though he did not serve with them in Korea — helped preserve their story by collecting the soldiers’ own accounts and documents over many years.
President Oaks has taught that “desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions” — and that it is through our righteous desires, sustained and acted upon, that we become what God would have us become. The men of the 213th had been taught from childhood to desire righteousness, and that desire shaped the choices that prepared them, long before the night at Gapyeong ever came. Their preservation is a modern witness that when faithful young men go forward trusting in God, He is able to deliver them — just as He delivered the army of Helaman, and just as He is willing to deliver us, if we will first desire it.
The faithful service of these young men, and willing sacrifice and service of so many others that have fought for freedom and liberty across the world have made our country what it is today. I salute such faith, courage, bravery, and sacrifice for the cause of freedom and liberty.
Here is an Instagram post about this story: https://www.instagram.com/p/DY0PFjFgckr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
And here is a downloadable PDF from the Utah National Guard about this story: https://guard.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/1950_FAB.pdf
Cedar City native and WWII veteran, Frank Dalley, was a commander of the 213th Field Artillery Battalion through the 1951 Battle of Kapyong and “The Miracle at Gapyeong,” where his unit took nearly 1,000 prisoners and inflicted heavy enemy casualties while losing none of their own men. https://www.swhchs.org/stories-admin/public/view_story.php?story_id=77
This is the home page of SUTV’s documentary on this event: https://sutvdocumentaries.wordpress.com/miracle-at-kapyong-the-story-of-the-213th/. There you can purchase the DVD of this documentary. This video is also linked there: