The 3rd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was a Ranger light infantry company of the United States Army active during the Korean War. As a small special forces unit, it specialized in irregular warfare.
Four Airborne Ranger Companies were formed in the fall of 1950. They were trained and graduated on November 15. By the end of 1950, the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Companies had deployed early for combat in Korea. The 3rd Ranger Company had been drawn upon heavily to replace training losses of the deploying companies. It received 80 trainees and completed a second cycle of Ranger training at the Ranger Training Center at Fort Benning, Georgia. The company deployed to South Korea in March 1951 and was assigned to the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division for four months, where it was used as a reconnaissance and scouting unit, probing North Korean People's Volunteer Army positions. The company is known for its "Battle of Bloody Ridge" on 11 April where, on its first mission, it was able to push back the opposing force. The company later supported the 3rd Infantry Division at the Battle of the Imjin River.
Later in the summer, the company was used as a stealth "target acquisition" force, infiltrating Chinese positions and spotting concentrations of troops and equipment for artillery attack. The company was deactivated on 1 August 1951, and was merged with the U.S. 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team alongside all other Ranger units.
Origins
With the 25 June 1950 outbreak of the Korean War, the North Korean People's Army had invaded the Republic of Korea (ROK) with 90,000 well-trained and equipped troops who had easily overrun the smaller and more poorly equipped Republic of Korea Army. The United States (U.S.) and United Nations (UN) began an intervention campaign to prevent South Korea from collapsing. The U.S. troops engaged the North Koreans first at the Battle of Osan, being badly defeated on 5 July by the better-trained North Koreans. From then on, the U.S. and UN saw a steady stream of defeats until they had been pushed back to the tip of the peninsula, into a -long fortification dubbed Pusan Perimeter by August. At the same time, North Korean agents began to infiltrate behind UN lines and attack military targets and cities.
UN units, spread out along the Pusan Perimeter, were having a difficult time repelling these units as they were untrained in combating guerrilla warfare. North Korean special forces units such as the NK 766th Independent Infantry Regiment had defeated ROK troops and used irregular warfare tactics effectively, prompting Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins to order the creation of an elite force which could "infiltrate through enemy lines and attack command posts, artillery, tank parks, and key communications centers or facilities." All U.S. Army Ranger units had been disbanded after World War II because they required time-consuming training, specialization, and expensive equipment.
With the defeat of the NK 766th Regiment at the Battle of P'ohang-dong, and the strength of U.S. infantry units in question, U.S. commanders felt recreating Ranger units was essential. In early August, as the Battle of Pusan Perimeter was beginning, the Eighth United States Army, in command of all US forces in Korea, ordered Lieutenant Colonel John H. McGee, the head of its G-3 Operations miscellaneous division, to create a new experimental Army Ranger unit, the Eighth Army Ranger Company. In the meantime, the Ranger Training Center was established at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Organization
With the successful development of the Eighth Army Ranger Company as a "test" unit for the United States Army to bring back Army Ranger units, additional Ranger companies were ordered. The companies were small light infantry special forces units which specialized in infiltration and irregular warfare.