The ROK army, as might be supposed, was badly battered and much in need of reorganization. At the end of the first week of invasion, the ROK missing in action had reached a total of about 34,000. Whole battalions had been scattered like chaff, yet it speaks well for the spirit of the troops that most of the missing eventually returned to their units.[56] The odds against them had made it a hopeless fight, but these Korean soldiers would give a good account of themselves when they had better training and equipment. [56] Appleman, _op. cit._ The United States forces were finding it hard sledding, for that matter. The remaining units of the 24th Infantry Division were in action by 7 July, having arrived by sea from Japan. They were followed by the 25th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General William B. Kean, which completed the movement to Korea on 14 July. These first outweighed United States forces had no choice except to trade space for time in a series of delaying actions. Although the units had to be employed piecemeal at first, they slowed up the main thrust of the enemy--the advance of three NKPA divisions, well supported by armor, down the Seoul-Taejon axis. Seldom in history have American forces ever endured a worse ordeal by fire. Unprepared morally as well as materially, snatched from soft occupation duties in Japan, they were suddenly plunged into battle against heavier battalions. The “Land of the Morning Calm” was to them a nightmare land of sullen mountains and stinking rice paddies. There was not even the momentary lift of band music and flag waving for these occupation troops, and they were not upheld by the discipline which stiffens the spines of old regulars. Considering what they were up against, the soldiers of the 24th and 25th have an abiding claim to a salute from their countrymen. They fought the good fight, even though they could keep militarily solvent only by withdrawals between delaying actions. Officers as well as men were expendables in this Thermopylae of the rice paddies. Because of the large proportion of green troops, colonels and even generals literally led some of the counterattacks in the 18th-century manner. Colonel Robert R. Martin, commanding the 34th Infantry of the 24th Division, fell in the thick of the fighting while rallying his troops. General Dean stayed with his forward units, personally firing one of the new 3.5″ bazookas until the enemy broke through. He was reported missing for months, but turned up later as the highest ranking United States military prisoner of the conflict in Korea. American light tanks could not cope with the enemy’s T-34’s; and even when the first few medium tanks arrived, they were equipped only with 75-mm. guns against the heavier NKPA armament. Not until the third week of ground force operations, moreover, did the United States artillery units receive 155-mm. howitzers to supplement their 105’s.