Julie MacKnyght, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, center, tours the Chipyong-ni battle memorial in South Korea with Korea Military Academy professor Seo Dong-ha, left, and members of United Nations Command, Nov. 4, 2025.
(Yoojin Lee/Stars and Stripes)
The great-granddaughter of U.S. Army Gen. Matthew Ridgway recently visited South Korea to see the place where United Nations troops waged a desperate fight to finally halt a Chinese counteroffensive nearly 75 years ago.
Julie MacKnyght, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, toured Chipyong-ni, where U.S. and French troops under the United Nations Command held off waves of Chinese attacks Feb. 13-15, 1951.
Her great-grandfather, at the time commander of Eighth Army, ordered the U.S. 23rd Regimental Combat Team, along with the French, to hold the vital crossroads village and halt the Chinese army advance. U.N. troops, surrounded and outnumbered five to one, held on for three days, according to a U.S. Army account of the fight.
“It’s been amazing to be able to come here,” MacKnyght said Tuesday during a tour of the Chipyong-ni battle memorial about 40 miles east of Seoul. “I’ve been fascinated by my great-grandfather since I was a little girl. So, it’s really cool to see firsthand his impacts here in Korea.”
Julie MacKnyght, with her daughter, Aubrey Ruth Ridgway MacKnyght, accepts the Korean-American Friendship Award on behalf of her great-grandfather, Gen. Matthew Ridgway, from Korea-America Association Chairman Choi Joong-Kyung in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 5, 2025. (Korea-America Association)
Julie MacKnyght, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, and her daughter, Aubrey Ruth Ridgway MacKnyght, pose Nov. 4, 2025, at Chipyong-ni, where U.N. troops under her great-grandfather, Gen. Matthew Ridgway, fought Chinese troops to a standstill during the Korean War. (Yoojin Lee/Stars and Stripes)
MacKnyght the following day in Seoul accepted the Korean-American Friendship Award from the Korea-America Association, given posthumously to her great-grandfather.
“It is because of Gen. Ridgway’s legacy that I am standing here today as an Army veteran myself, having completed just shy of 21 years active duty when I retired a few months ago,” she said at the gathering inside the Plaza Hotel. “I don’t think the idea of Army service ever would have entered my head, had I not been so fascinated with him as a child.”
Chipyong-ni marked the first time U.N. troops managed to stop the Chinese advance into South Korea since Oct. 19, 1950, when the Chinese crossed the Yalu River boundary and overwhelmed U.N. forces.
Two months after Chipyong-ni, Ridgway succeeded Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved by President Harry Truman, as commander of the U.N. forces. In the following spring of 1952, he replaced Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme allied commander in Europe, followed by his appointment as Army chief of staff from August 1953 to June 1955. He died in July 1993 at age 98.
“He was a leader who cared about his troops — someone who led from the front,” MacKnyght said during her award speech. “May the friendship cemented between our peoples continue to grow over the next 75 years and beyond.”
Gen. Matthew Ridgway, left, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, steps out of the North American L-17B Navion aircraft in which he and Gen. Thomas T. Handy, right, EUCOM commander-in-chief, have just arrived at Rhein-Main in Frankfurt, West Germany in June of 1952. They traveled from Baumholder at the end a three-day inspection tour of U.S., French and British troops in Germany. (Stars and Stripes)
Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Matthew Ridgway, center, and his wife prepare for a bobsled ride in January of 1953 with members of the U.S. team during the International Winter Sports Week in Garmisch, Germany. (Ted Rohde/Stars and Stripes)
Gen. Matthew Ridgway, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Gen. George C. Marshall, former Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense and then-chairman of the U.S. Battle Monuments Commission, arrive at the dedication ceremony for the first memorial in an overseas cemetery to fallen World War II U.S. servicemembers at Suresnes, France, on Sept. 13, 1952. (Red Grandy /Stars and Stripes)
MacKnyght was 11 when her great-grandfather died, and she never got to meet him, she said at the ceremony.
“One of my favorite things to do in grade school whenever I visited a library was to pull up the “R” volume of the encyclopedia and find his name,” she said. “Back then, the internet a decade or more away, research required diligence. If you were in the encyclopedia, it was a really big deal.”
