Korean War....

[Lucky13]

Lieutenant Curtis, with the platoon from Company F and the Ranger platoon, reached Company G about 0330. [18] Lieutenant Curtis took command of the two platoons but immediately encountered trouble from the commander of the Ranger company. The latter officer had come with the platoon from his company. He claimed that the platoon, being a part of regimental reserve, was to take orders only from the regimental commander. Curtis immediately called his battalion headquarters to explain the situation to Colonel Edwards, who solved the problem by putting another staff officer this time a captain in command of the composite force.

It was between 0345 and 0400, 15 February, when Capt. John H. Ramsburg left the long, tin-roofed building that housed the battalion's command post and set out for Company G's area. Except for Company G's sector where there was brisk firing, the regimental perimeter was relatively quiet at the time. A quarter of a mile beyond the railroad tracks Ramsburg turned left, following a trail that led from the road to the house where Lieutenant Heath had established his command post.

Along the trail there was a quad caliber .so halftrack. An hour or two before the crew with the vehicle had accidentally run into a ditch, nearly tipping the halftrack over. Unable to get it into firing position, the crew had abandoned the weapon and vehicle. Lieutenant Curtis was standing near he halftrack. There was enough light in the area for Captain Ramsburg to recognize him at a distance of ten or fifteen feet.

"Christ, John," Lieutenant Curtis said, "but I'm glad to see you here! Can't do anything with these Rangers."

He went on to explain that the commander of the Ranger company objected to having a platoon from his company attached to another unit, to having it participate in a counterattack, and that he refused to take orders from anyone but the regimental commander.

Captain Ramsburg went first to Lieutenant Heath's command post where he called Colonel Edwards in order to report that he and both platoons were at the position. He then talked with the commander of the Ranger company to establish his position as commander of the infantry units in that sector.

At the time the few men left from Company G and those from the platoons from Company F and the Ranger company were all mixed together just a line of bodies on the ground firing against the hill to discourage the enemy from attempting a further advance. Captain Ramsburg had the platoon leaders separate their units and sort out the artillerymen whom he sent across the road where most men from the battery had assembled. Since none of Company G's communications facilities was working at the time, Captain Ramsburg asked Lieutenant Curtis to send men to Chipyongni for more radios. He then asked Lieutenant McGee to have the mortars moved closer to the line of departure so that he could call out orders to the crew.

In the meantime, the two platoon leaders re-formed their men. There were 36 men in the platoon from the Ranger company, 28 in the platoon from Company F. In addition, there were 6 or 7 mortarmen, 2 machinegun crews, and 4 or 5 men left from Company G. To the two platoon leaders he outlined his plan: following a short mortar concentration, the two machine guns would commence firing at the top of the ridge and over the heads of the attacking men who were to move on Captain Ramsburg's signal. The Ranger platoon, on the right, was to attack the hill formerly held by the 1st Platoon of Company G, while the platoon from Company F was to assault Lieutenant McGee's former position.

It was still dark when a man returned with three SCR-536 radios one each for Captain Ramsburg and his two platoon leaders. The enemy was fairly quiet at the time and had not interfered with organizing the attack. After testing the radios and getting all men in position on the line of departure, Captain Ramsburg called for mortar fire. The first round, fired from a range of not more than 150 yards, landed squarely on the crest of the ridge.

"That where you want 'em?" one of the mortarmen asked.

"That's exactly right," Captain Ramsburg yelled back. "Now go ahead and sweep the hill in both directions."

He asked for a five-minute concentration. The mortarmen doubted that their ammunition would last that long. After two or three minutes, Captain Ramsburg signaled for machine-gun fire. The two guns went into action, but after a few bursts enemy mortar rounds landed nearby, and both the friendly mortars and the machine guns had to cease firing. Eight or ten rounds landed between the line of departure and the mortar crews about twenty yards behind it. The explosions wounded at least six men, including the leader of the platoon from Company F.

The commander of the Ranger company, thinking that friendly rounds were falling short, called for the mortar crews to cease firing. The shouting interfered with efforts to get the attack under way. Captain Ramsburg became angry. He ordered the Ranger commander to gather up and evacuate his wounded men, hoping thereby to get rid of the commander as well as the wounded men.

The platoon sergeant took command of the platoon from Company F, the machine guns opened fire again, and Captain Ramsburg signaled for the jumpoff.

"OK, let's go!" he shouted.

The men stood up, commenced firing, and walked forward through crusted snow which, in the low ground in front of the hill, was knee-deep in places. In a minute or two the advancing line, with Captain Ramsburg moving in the center, started up the hillside, the Rangers in the lead since men from that platoon, all yelling loudly, pushed their attack fast.

Several enemy mortar rounds and a few grenades exploded on the slope of the hill. In the middle of the attack, two guns located near the French Battalion's hill fired into the Ranger platoon. The guns appeared to be either automatic rifles or light machine guns, but Captain Ramsburg could not tell if the French were firing by mistake, or if Chinese soldiers had set up guns in that area. Nor did he later learn who was firing. The first burst was a long, steady one a solid string of light from the gun to the Ranger platoon. After that there were short bursts for a minute or longer while Captain Ramsburg and several other men, believing this to be friendly fire, screamed to have it stopped. Several Rangers were wounded by this fire.

Just before the attack jumped off, Lieutenant Curtis had gone to each of the three tanks in that area to tell the tankers of the counterattack plans, and to warn them not to fire without orders. He had just returned when the machine gun fired into the Ranger platoon. One of the tank crews, having apparently decided the machine gun firing from the French Battalion's hill was friendly and the Rangers were enemy, disregarded orders and also opened fire, aiming the tank's caliber .50 machine gun at the Ranger platoon. While Captain Ramsburg yelled at the tankers, Lieutenant Curtis raced back and halted the machine gun, which had fired for 20 or 30 seconds, only long enough to sweep across the hill once. Besides creating more confusion, this caused additional casualties among the Rangers, the remaining ones of whom, by this time, were near the top of their hill still yelling among themselves.

 

[Lucky13]

Another gun this one definitely manned by the Chinese had meanwhile opened fire into the left flank of the platoon from Company F, causing serious damage in that area. The gun was in the rice paddies near the place where the 2d Platoon of Company G had been, and gave the attacking force its first indication that friendly troops had vacated that position. The commander of Company F spotted the tracers from this enemy gun and directed mortar fire at it but was unable to knock it out. As he afterward learned, the Chinese crew had been there long enough to dig in and provide overhead protection for the gun.

Captain Ramsburg, occupied with the machine-gun fire hitting the right flank of his line, did not know of the trouble the platoon from Company F was experiencing on the opposite end. Lieutenant Curtis succeeded in silencing the tank's fire. Several men from the Ranger platoon were already on top of their objective shouting for help.

"We're on top!" they yelled. "Come on up! Get some men up here!"

Other members of that platoon were still climbing the hill, but a third or more were casualties by this time, the result of either friendly or enemy fire.

A grenade exploded beside Captain Ramsburg just as the tank's fire ended and he turned to go on up the hill. A fragment struck him in the foot. At the moment he was holding a caliber .45 submachine gun in his right hand and at first he thought that, in his anger and excitement over the machine-gun fire from his own tanks, he had squeezed too hard on the trigger and shot himself through the foot. He wondered how he would explain the accident to Colonel Edwards. He then realized his gun was on full automatic and, had he pulled the trigger, it would have fired several times. He also recalled seeing a flash and decided he had been hit by a grenade fragment. He removed his glove and sat down to examine his foot. The two machine-gun crews came by on their way to the top of the hill where they were to relocate their guns. A little later Lieutenant Heath came up the hill and stopped where Ramsburg was sitting.

Permission to fire from the infantrymen. At the command post, Captain Ramsburg had just given the order to pull out.

"Go ahead and fire," he told Captain Elledge. "No one's left up there."

Captain Elledge returned to the quad .50 and swept the length of the enemy-held hill. The tank commander (MSgt. Andrew Reyna) appeared at that time to ask for help in recovering sixteen wounded men artillerymen and infantrymen who had been left at Battery B's supply tent near the foot of the hill and directly under the enemy's guns. While Captain Elledge kept pounding the enemy hilltop with fire from his four machine guns, Sergeant Reyna and his crew drove the tank under the fire to the base of the hill, carried the wounded men from the tent, piled them on the tank, and returned.

Captain Elledge had been firing so steadily that, in the first gray light of the morning, artillerymen across the road could see heat waves shimmering above the four guns. Elledge scanned the area, looking for targets. He noticed several enemy soldiers standing on the hill between the saddle and the road cut, and suddenly realized they were preparing to fire a 75-mm recoilless rifle that the 1st Platoon of Company G had left there. It was aimed directly at him. Captain Elledge could see daylight through the tube. He watched as the Chinese shoved a round into the breech, then he quickly turned his machine guns in that direction and destroyed the enemy crew.

Two wounded men had been left under a blanket in the fire direction center tent. While one tank, firing from the road, covered the rescue, PFC Thomas S. Allison and PFC Isaiah W. Williams (both members of the artillery wire section) drove a 3/4-ton truck to the tent, loaded the two wounded men onto it, and backed out again.

Lieutenant Curtis urged the remaining wounded men to start walking toward Chipyong-ni, then ran to the road to tell the artillerymen that the infantrymen were pulling back.

"You're the front line now," he told them.

The artillerymen, concerned about the safety of their howitzers, decided to stay behind the road embankment where, by fire, they could keep the Chinese out of their battery's position. Two tanks on the road separating the artillerymen from their howitzers regularly fired short machine-gun bursts into the blackened, chewed-up top of the hill.

At the command post only nine wounded men were left not counting Captain Ramsburg, who stayed behind to supervise the withdrawal. All nine were seriously wounded and waiting for litters and a vehicle to carry them to the battalion's aid station. They were lying on the ground near the straw-roofed buildings. As Lieutenant Curtis returned to the command post, a bugle sounded and he saw 10 or 12 Chinese soldiers coming down the highest hill the one originally defended by Lieutenant McGee's platoon. Curtis pointed out the enemy to the wounded men.

"If you fellows don't leave now," he told them, "you'll never leave. There aren't enough men left to protect you."

All nine men left, somehow or other moving with only the help they could give one another or get from Lieutenant Curtis, who followed them, heading back to the new defensive position.

Only two men both sergeants remained at the command post with Captain Ramsburg. The sergeants pulled out the telephones and the three men started toward Chipyong-ni, moving across the frozen rice paddies. Before they had gone far, however, an enemy machine-gunner fired at them. They broke into a run. Captain Ramsburg, disregarding his broken ankle which was now stiff and sore, sprinted the entire distance to the new hilltop.

The quad .50 still manned by Captain Elledge and the three tanks pounded the enemy hill with machine-gun fire. One of the artillery officers yelled for a gun crew to man a howitzer, and half a dozen men scrambled over the road embankment and dashed to one of the 155-mm howitzers. Turning it around, they fired six white phosphorus shells that blossomed into white streamers of smoke and fire along the hillside. At such close range, the sound of the propelling charge and the sound of the shell burst were barely separated.

At the new position, Captain Ramsburg joined the survivors of the tenhour enemy attack, as well as the remaining two platoons of the Ranger company attached to Colonel Edwards's battalion. All of the men experienced a feeling of relief when daylight came on 15 February, because the enemy soldiers usually withdrew then. This time, however, the Chinese did not withdraw. They conducted a determined defense against an attack made by the Ranger company and Company B, supported by air strikes, artillery, and tanks, and directed by Colonel Edwards. It was evening before the enemy was defeated and withdrew.

Several inches of snow fell during the night of 15-16 February, covering several hundred Chinese bodies on the hill originally defended by Lieutenant Heath's Company G. At Chipyong-ni the Chinese suffered their first defeat since entering the Korean war.

 

[Matt308]

This is great. Perhaps I missed it, but did you credit the author?

 

[comiso90]

Are we posting entire books now?

 

[Lucky13]

Not yet, I'll do so when finished, the credits that is... and no, we don't post entire books....

 

[Lucky13]

Task Force Crombez

While the 23d Regimental Combat Team, surrounded by Chinese Communists at Chipyong-ni, braced itself for the second night of the siege, a regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division set out on a sort of rescue mission: to drive through enemy lines, join the encircled unit and give it all possible assistance. Specifically, it was to open the road for supply vehicles and ambulances.

On 14 February 1951, the 5th Cavalry Regiment was in corps reserve when the commanding general of U.S. IX Corps (Maj.Gen. Bryant E. Moore) alerted it for possible action. It was midafternoon when he first telephoned the regimental commander (Col. Marcel G. Crombez) warning him to make plans for an attack along the road running from Yoju to Koksu-ri and then northeast into Chipyong-ni a road distance of fifteen miles. Another force, attacking along the better and more direct road to Chipyong-ni, had been unable to make fast enough progress because of heavily entrenched enemy forces along its route.

Immediately relaying the warning order to subordinate units, Colonel Crombez organized a task force.

In addition to the three organic infantry battalions of the 5th Cavalry, he included a medical company, a company of combat engineers, two battalions of field artillery of which one was equipped with selfpropelled howitzers, two platoons of medium tanks, and an attached company of medium tanks. [4] The last named Company D, 6th Tank Battalion was not a part of the 1st Cavalry Division, but happened to be located closer than any other available tank company. General Moore attached Company D to the 5th Cavalry and ordered it to get under way within thirty minutes to join that unit. Company D was on the road twenty-eight minutes later. At 1700 that afternoon, the corps commander again called.:

"You'll have to move out tonight," he told Colonel Crombez, "and I know you'll do it."

In the darkness, trucks and vehicles formed a column along the narrow, rutted road, snow covered and patched with ice. Moving under black-out conditions and in enemy territory, all units except the two artillery battalions crossed the Han River and advanced approximately half of the distance to Chipyong-ni. About midnight the regimental column halted at a destroyed bridge where units formed defensive perimeters while combat engineers rebuilt the structure.

At daylight on 15 February, the 1t Battalion jumped off again this time on foot. Its mission was to seize a terrain feature on the right which dominated the road for several miles to the north. When the battalion was engaged after moving a hundred or two hundred yards, Colonel Crombez sent the 2d Battalion to attack north on the left side of the road. Within an hour or two a full-scale regimental attack was in progress. Two artillery battalions supported the action, lifting their fire only for air strikes. Chinese resistance was firm. Observers in airplanes reported large enemy forces north of the attacking battalions.

The advance lagged throughout the morning. Sensing that the enemy offered too much opposition for the infantry battalions to be able to reach Chipyong-ni by evening, Colonel Crombez decided that only an armored task force would be able to penetrate the enemy-held territory. With corps and division headquarters pressing for progress, Colonel Crombez separated the tanks a total of twenty-three from his regimental column, and organized an armored task force. The tanks came from Company D, 6th Tank Battalion, and Company A, 70th Tank Battalion. He also ordered a company of infantrymen to accompany the tanks in order to protect them from fanatic enemy troops who might attempt to knock out the tanks at close range. This task fell to Company L, 5th Cavalry Regiment. In addition, four combat engineer soldiers were ordered to go along to lift any antitank mines that might be discovered. The engineers and the infantrymen were to ride on top of the tanks.

While the tanks maneuvered into position, Colonel Crombez reconnoitered the road to Chipyong-ni by helicopter. It was a secondary road even by Korean standards: narrow, with mountain slopes on the left side and flat rice paddies on the right, except at a deep roadcut a mile south of Chipyong-ni where, for a short distance, steep cliffs walled both sides of the road.

Meanwhile, the Company L commander (Capt. John C. Barrett) and the commander of Company D, 6th Tank Battalion (Capt. Johnnie M. Hiers), worked out the plans at company level. The two officers agreed that when the tanks stopped, the troopers would dismount, deploy on both sides of the road, and protect the tanks and the engineers who might be lifting mines. When the tank column was ready to proceed, Captain Hiers would inform the tankers by radio; the tankers, in turn, would signal the troopers to remount.

The M46 tanks of the 6th Tank Battalion were placed to lead the 70th Tank Battalion's M4A3 tanks because the M46s mounted 90-mm guns, could turn completely around in place (an important consideration in the mountainous terrain traversed by a single and narrow road), and had better armor protection than the M4A3 tanks, which mounted only 76-mm guns.

Original plans called for a separate column of supply trucks and ambulances to follow the tanks. Colonel Crombez, however, doubted if such a column could get through. He decided to proceed with only the armored vehicles. When the road was clear and suitable for wheeled traffic, he would radio instructions to the supply vehicles and ambulances. By radio he informed the commanding officer of the 23d RCT that he was coming, but without the supply trains.

"Come on," the commander of the encircled force answered; "trains or no trains."

Just before the task force left, the commander of the 3d Battalion, 5th Cavalry (Lt.Col. Edgar J. Treacy, Jr.) arranged for a 2 1/2-ton truck to follow the rear of the tank column and pick up any wounded men from Company L. The Company L commander (Captain Barrett) issued instructions that any troopers who became separated from the tank column were to make their way back to friendly lines if possible, or wait near the road, utilizing the best available defensive positions, until the tanks returned from Chipyong-ni later in the day.

About 1500 Captain Barrett mounted his company on the tanks in the center of the column, leaving four tanks at each end of the column bare. The four engineer soldiers rode on the second tank in the column. Thus, 15 tanks carried 160 Company L infantrymen. The infantry platoon leaders selected one man on each tank to fire the caliber .50 machine gun mounted on its deck. Captain Barrett rode on the sixth tank in line, along with ten enlisted men and Colonel Treacy who, at the last minute, decided to accompany the task force.

Planes strafed and bombed enemy positions along the route of march before the armored column took off. The two infantry battalions maintained strong pressure to keep the Chinese occupied and to prevent them from drawing off any strength to throw against the task force. With Colonel Crombez riding in the fifth tank, the mile-long column got under way at 1545 on 15 February. Liaison planes circled overhead, maintaining contact with the advancing tanks.

The task force, with fifty-yard intervals between tanks, proceeded about two miles until the lead tank approached the village of Koksu-ri.

All of a sudden, enemy mortar shells began exploding near the tanks, and enemy riflemen and machine gunners opened fire on the troopers exposed on the decks. Just then the lead tank stopped at a bridge bypass on the south edge of Koksu-ri, and the entire column came to a halt. The tankers turned their guns toward Chinese whom they could see clearly on nearby hills and opened fire with their machine guns and cannons. Several troopers, wounded by the first bursts of enemy fire, fell or were knocked from the tanks. Others left the tanks, not so much to protect them as to take cover themselves. Colonel Crombez directed the tank fire.

"We're killing hundreds of them!" he shouted over the intertank communications.

After a few minutes, however, feeling that the success of the task force depended upon the ability of the tanks to keep moving, Colonel Crombez directed them to continue.

 

[Lucky13]

Without warning, the tanks moved forward. The troopers raced after the moving tanks but, in the scramble, thirty or more men, including two officers of Company L, were left behind. The truck following the tanks picked up three wounded men who had been left lying near the road. This truck, however, was drawing so much enemy fire that other wounded men preferred to stay where they were. After both officers in the group were wounded by mortar fire, MSgt. Lloyd L. Jones organized the stranded men and led them back toward their own lines.

There was another halt just after the column passed through Koksu-ri, and again the infantrymen deployed. Against the intense enemy fire the tankers and infantrymen fired furiously to hold the enemy soldiers at some distance. For the second time, the tanks began moving without notifying the infantrymen, and again many Company L men were unable to remount. Some troopers were deployed 50 or 75 yards from the road and the tanks were going too fast to remount by the time the men got back to the road. Less than seventy men were left on the tanks when Task Force Crombez moved out after the second halt. Another large group of men was left to seek cover or to attempt to rejoin friendly units south of Koksu-ri. Several men from this group, including the commander of the 3d Battalion (Colonel Treacy) are known to have become prisoners of the Chinese.

Captain Barrett was unable to remount the tank upon which he had been riding, but he did manage to climb on the fifth or sixth tank behind it.

During the next three or three and a half miles there were several brief halts and almost continuous enemy fire directed against the column whether it was halted or moving. Several times, in the face of heavy enemy fire, tank commanders inquired if they should slow down or stop long enough to shell and silence the Chinese guns. Although enemy fire was causing many casualties among the troopers who remained on the tanks, Colonel Crombez, speaking in a calm and cool voice over the radio network, each time directed the column to continue forward.

Task Force Crombez, in turn, maintained a volume of rifle, machinegun, and cannon fire that, throughout the six-mile attack, could be heard by members of the infantry battalions still in position at the task force point of departure. Much of this fire was directed only against the bordering hills, but there were also definite targets at which to aim enemy machine guns, bazooka teams, and individual Chinese carrying pole or satchel charges. Even though it was difficult to aim from moving tanks, the remaining troopers kept firing at Chinese soldiers who several times were within fifty yards of the road. On one occasion Captain Barrett shot and killed three enemy soldiers who, trotting across a rice field toward the tanks, were carrying a bangalore torpedo.

Because of the intense enemy fire on the road, Colonel Crombez decided that wheeled traffic would be unable to get through. When he had gone about two thirds of the way to Chipyong-ni, he radioed back instructions to hold up the supply trucks and ambulances and await further orders.

The Chinese made an all-out effort to halt Task Force Crombez when the leading tanks entered the deep roadcut south of Chipyong-ni. For a distance of about 150 yards the road passed between steep embankments that were between 30 and so feet high. And on each side of the road at that point were dominating hills, the one on the right (east) side of the road being Hill 397 from which the Chinese had launched several of their attacks against the Chipyong-ni perimeter. There was a sudden flare-up of enemy fire as the point tank (commanded by Lt. Lawrence L. DeSchweinitz) approached the cut. Mortar rounds exploded on and near the road. SFC James Maxwell (in the second tank) spotted an enemy soldier carrying a bazooka along the top of the embankment at the roadcut. He immediately radioed a warning to Lieutenant DeSchweinitz, but before he got the call through a bazooka round struck the point tank, hitting the top of the turret and wounding DeSchweinitz, the gunner (Cpl. Donald P. Harrell), and the loader (Pvt. Joseph Galard). The tank continued but without communication since the explosion also destroyed its radio.
The four members of the engineer mine-detector team rode on the next tank in line (Sergeant Maxwell's). They clung to the tank as it entered the zone of intense enemy fire. An antitank rocket or pole charge exploded on each side of Maxwell's tank as it entered the pass and one of the engineers was shot from the deck, but the vehicle continued, as did the next tank in the column.

Captain Hiers (tank company commander) rode in the fourth tank that entered the road cut. Striking the turret, a bazooka round penetrated the armor and exploded the ammunition in the ready racks inside. The tank started to burn. The men in the fighting compartment, including Captain Hiers, were killed. Although severely burned, the driver of the tank (Cpl. John A. Calhoun) gunned the engine and drove through the cut and off the road, thus permitting the remainder of the column to advance. [32] It was later learned that this tank was destroyed by an American 3.5inch bazooka which had fallen into enemy hands.

With the enemy located at the top of the cliffs directly overlooking the task force column and throwing satchel charges and firing rockets down at the tanks, close teamwork among the tankers became particularly necessary for mutual protection. As each of the remaining tanks rammed through the cut, crews from the tanks that followed and those already beyond the danger area fired a heavy blast at the embankments on both sides of the road. This cut down enemy activity during the minute or less required for each tank to run the cut. The enemy fire did, however, thin out the infantrymen riding on the tanks and, at the tail of the task force, flattened a tire on the 2 1/2-ton truck that had been gathering up the wounded infantrymen who had either fallen or been knocked from the tanks. The driver had been hit near Koksu-ri as he was putting a wounded infantryman on the truck. Another wounded man (SFC George A. Krizan) drove after that and, although he was wounded a second time, continued driving until the truck was disabled at the roadcut. A few of the wounded men managed to get to one of the last tanks in the column, which carried them on into Chipyong-ni. The others, surrounded by the enemy, became missing in action.

Meanwhile, within the perimeter of the 23d RCT at Chipyong-ni, the 2d Battalion was fighting off stubborn and persistent enemy attempts to overrun the sector shared by Company G, 23d Infantry, and Battery A, 503d Field Artillery Battalion, on the south rim of the perimeter. Late in the afternoon of 15 February, after twenty hours of uninterrupted fighting, the battalion commander managed to send four tanks a short distance down the road leading south beyond the regimental defense perimeter with the mission of getting behind the Chinese and firing into their exposed flank and rear. Ten or fifteen minutes of firing by the four tanks appeared to have suddenly disrupted the Chinese organization. Enemy soldiers began running.

 

[Lucky13]

Just at that moment, tanks of Task Force Crombez appeared from the south. Sergeant Maxwell, in the second tank, saw the four tanks on the road ahead and was just about to open fire when he recognized them as friendly. The leading tanks stopped. For about a minute everyone waited, then Sergeant Maxwell dismounted and walked forward to make contact with the 23d Infantry's tanks. He asked them to withdraw and allow Task Force Crombez to get through.

By this time the Chinese were in the process of abandoning their positions south of Chipyong-ni and many were attempting to escape. Enemy opposition dwindled. With enemy soldiers moving in the open, targets were plentiful for a short time and Colonel Crombez halted his force long enough to take the Chinese under fire.

At 1700 Task Force Crombez entered the Chipyong-ni perimeter. It had required an hour and fifteen minutes for the tanks to break through a little more than six miles of enemy territory. Even though there were neither supply trucks nor ambulances with the column, and although the task force itself was low on ammunition, infantrymen were cheered by the sight of reinforcements.

Of 160 Company L infantrymen plus the 4 engineers who had started out riding the tank decks, only 23 remained. Of these, 13 were wounded, of whom 1 died of wounds that evening. Some members of that company already had returned to join the remainder of the 3d Battalion near the point of departure; a few wounded men lay scattered along the road between Koksuri and Chipyong-ni. While crossing the six miles of drab and barren country between those two villages, Company L lost about 70 men nearly half of its strength. Twelve men were dead, 19 were missing in action, and about 40 were wounded.

With only an hour of daylight remaining, Colonel Crombez had to choose between returning at once to his regiment, or spending the night at Chipyong-ni. Any enemy opposition encountered on a return trip that evening would probably delay into darkness the contact with friendly forces, and unprotected tanks operating in the darkness, he reasoned, could be ambushed easily by enemy groups.

On the other hand, the 23d RCT was dangerously low on small-caliber ammunition, airdrops that day having contained only artillery shells. Task Force Crombez had fired most of its ammunition during the action. Officers inside the perimeter wondered if there were enough small-arms ammunition to beat off another Chinese attack.

There was another reason for returning. Seriously wounded infantry-men within the perimeter urgently needed to be evacuated. It was also probable that men from Company L who had been wounded or stranded during the attack by Task Force Crombez were waiting near the road, according to their instructions, hoping to be picked up again as the tanks made the return trip. However, weighing the two risks, Colonel Crombez chose to stay. He arranged to station his tanks around the perimeter to strengthen the defense, but no attack came. Except for a few flares that appeared over enemy territory, the night passed quietly. Toward morning it began to snow.

At 0900, 16 February, the scheduled time for return to the regiment, Colonel Crombez informed his assembled force that the return trip would be postponed because the snow, reducing visibility at times to less than a hundred yards, prevented air cover. It was 1100 before the weather cleared and the task force was reassembled. This time Colonel Crombez stated that only volunteers from the infantrymen and the engineer minedetecting crew would ride on the tanks. None volunteered. Instead, an artillery liaison plane hovered over the column as it moved south. The observer in the plane had instructions to adjust proximity-fuzed shells directly on the column if the enemy attempted to destroy any of the tanks. On the return trip not a single enemy was seen, nor a shot fired. [40]

Immediately upon his return Colonel Crombez ordered the assembled supply train to proceed to Chipyong-ni. Escorted by tanks, twenty-eight 2l/2ton trucks and nineteen ambulances pulled out in the middle of the afternoon. For his part, Captain Barrett (the Company L commander), having returned with the task force because he wanted to find out what had happened to the rest of his company, set out in a jeep to retrace the route and search for wounded men who might still be lying along the road. He found four whom he turned over to the evacuation train at Chipyong-ni. The ambulances and seven 2 1/2-ton trucks, all loaded with wounded men from the 23d Regimental Combat Team, left Chipyong-ni that evening. The siege was ended.

 

[Lucky13]

A Rifle Company as a Covering Force

Toward the end of April 1951, Communist forces in North Korea launched an offensive against the peninsula-wide United Nations line. Except near Kaesong, at the west end, Eighth Army troops were ten or more miles north of the 38th parallel when the enemy attack began on the 22d day of the month. Although the attack was general in both plan and scope, North Korean units fighting on the east end of the front made only scant efforts and small advances. Chinese Communist forces concentrated on the west half of the line, aiming the heavy punch at the city of Seoul, thirty-five miles south of existing lines. The Chinese called the attack the "First Step, Fifth Phase Offensive."

This enemy activity interrupted an Eighth Army limited offensive that contemplated seizing the Chorwon-Kumhwa-Pyonggang area, an important communication and supply area commonly called "The Iron Triangle." The 3d Infantry Division was attacking north toward Chorwon and Pyonggang along the road running from Seoul through these towns and then north to the eastern port city of Wonsan. Units of the 3d were within ten miles of Chorwon and about the same distance north of the Imjin River.

As usual, the Chinese waited until after dark before launching their big attack. By morning on the following day (Z3 April) they had penetrated United Nations' lines at widely scattered points and, under orders, units of Eighth Army began falling back. The 3d Division gave up ten miles of territory, returned to the south bank of the Imjin River, and there, by the evening of the 23d, took up previously prepared positions on an established Eighth Army fortified defense line. The 7th Infantry (3d Division) was placed on a ridge overlooking the important Seoul-ChorwonWonsan road and the single-track railroad that parallels it. The position was especially important since it guarded the crossing site of the Imjin River. This was the same road and river crossing the North Koreans had used when they first invaded South Korean territory during the summer of 1950.

The 7th Infantry positions were not more than a thousand yards south of the 38th parallel, the former boundary between North and South Korea. The 1st Battalion occupied the east end of the regimental sector. Company B manned the bunkers and foxholes on Hill 283 and those along the ridgeline that slanted down toward the road. Company A's sector extended from Company B, southwest across a long, brush-covered saddle, then west along the top of Hill 287 a company front of 1,400 yards. Beyond Company A there was a gap of about 500 yards between its leftflank position and the right flank of the 3d Battalion, which occupied another ridgeline to the north and west.

To cover the wide Company A front, its commander (Lt. Harley F. Mooney) committed his three rifle platoons on his front line, leaving as his reserve a force of only eight men including himself, his executive officer, and his Weapons Platoon leader. Except for being thinly manned, however, Mooney's defensive positions were good. In most places the north side of the hill was too steep to permit the enemy to maneuver in front of the company.

The Weapons Platoon leader (Lt. John N. Middlemas) covered the critical areas with his weapons. He "fired-in" mortar concentrations in front of each platoon and located his mortar position near the center of the company front and only a few yards behind it so that the mortar crews would immediately be available if needed for front-line action.

Lieutenant Mooney considered his left flank the weakest section of the line since the best approach for the Chinese was at that end. In addition, the existing gap between the two battalions made that area more vulnerable. He stationed the 1st Platoon (MSgt. Joseph J. Lock) at that end. To cover the gap between the two battalions, Sergeant Lock sent his second-in-command (SFC Thomas R. Teti) with nine other men to establish an out-post on a small hill between the two battalions. Mooney then instructed Teti to make physical contact with the adjoining unit of the 3d Battalion once an hour. Company I agreed to send a patrol to contact Teti's outpost on alternate half-hour periods.

This was the position of troops when Chinese Communists renewed their attack on the morning of 24 April. Within the defensive position of the 7th Infantry, the heaviest enemy pressure was against the 3d Battalion, which was engaged throughout the day and the following night. Another enemy force struck Company B's end of the line and started a heavy fire fight that lasted from midnight until first light on 25 April. Men from company A waited quietly and tensely between these areas of activity, watching and listening. They were not disturbed.

At 0700 on 25 April a large enemy force attacked an observation post that the 3d Battalion had established on a hill about four hundred yards south of Lieutenant Mooney's company. Since this hill was over three hundred feet higher than front-line positions of either the 1st or 3d Battalions, it afforded observation of both battalions. The enemy force, after having penetrated the lines during the night, made a sudden and strong assault against the observation-post hill, forcing the battalion commander and his group to abandon it hurriedly. In enemy hands, this hill threatened both battalions.

Sergeant Lock, in charge of the left-flank platoon, watched this enemy action and, as soon as he realized what had happened, turned his machine gun toward the Chinese to restrict their movement and help the members of the observation-post party who were escaping toward the south and the north in order to rejoin Company A. Sergeant Lock also called Mooney, who immediately had his Weapons Platoon leader (Lieutenant Middlemas) shift his 57-mm recoilless rifle to the west flank from where it could be fired more effectively against the Chinese.

Meanwhile, the S-3 of the 1st Battalion called Mooney to tell him the regiment had orders to move to a fortified Eighth Army line just north of Seoul.

"You and Baker Company are to cover the withdrawal of the 3d Battalion and then be prepared to move Able Company out at 1000."

The S-3 designated Lieutenant Mooney's company as rear guard for the move because there was a trail from the center of Company A's position that went southwest down the hill to the road to Seoul. This was the only easily accessible route by which the three companies of the 3d Battalion and the two companies of the 1st Battalion could get down with their equipment and wounded men. The plan outlined to Mooney was for the three companies of the 3d Battalion to move through Company A in column of companies. Company B then would pass through the right flank of Company A. This action was to begin immediately. Lieutenant Mooney called his platoon leaders to tell them of the orders, then walked over to the top of Hill 283 to coordinate plans with the commander of Company B (Capt. Ray W. Blandin, Jr.). The time was about 0800.

At the opposite end of the line Sergeant Lock's platoon was still busy firing at the Chinese, who were now in full possession of the 3d Battalion's OP hill. On the north side of this hill there was a trail that the Chinese followed, and near the top the trail curved around a large rock. Sergeant Lock's machine gunner (Cpl. Pedro Colon Rodriguez) zeroed his light machine gun in on that point on the trail a range of about three hundred yards-and fired cautiously, usually squeezing off one round at a time, throughout the morning. He did not fire at every Chinese who passed the point, but after hitting one, would allow one or several others to pass unmolested before firing again. Because he was not greedy the Chinese kept using the trail and Rodriguez hit a total of fifty-nine enemy soldiers during several hours of firing.

After returning from Company B's position, Lieutenant Mooney and his executive officer (Lt. Leonard Haley) briefed the platoon leaders on the plan for moving Company A after the other units had started down the trail. To better cover his route of withdrawal Mooney decided to peel off his line from the left. Sergeant Teti's outpost between the two battalions would follow the last element of the 3d Battalion. Sergeant Lock's platoon would follow Teti; next, the 2d Platoon would follow and move through the 3d which would hold the right flank until the rest of the company was on the trail; then it would move out.

By the time Mooney had thoroughly briefed his platoon leaders it was 0900. There were still heavy exchanges of fire between the Chinese on the OP hill and Lock's left-flank platoon. Mooney, believing that the next action would be against this platoon, went to the west end of his line where he could best observe that situation. He was also anxious to learn what was happening to the 3d Battalion, knowing that the commander had lost control at the time his group was forced to leave the observation post. Even though an hour and a half had gone by since the order to leave had been issued, none of the men from 3d Battalion had yet reached the outpost position manned by Sergeant Teti, who had orders to call Mooney as soon as the first men appeared. Teti could see only an increase of enemy activity in the zone of the 3d Battalion. At the same time, the volume of rifle and machine-gun fire from the OP hill had increased steadily.

 

[Lucky13]

It was about 0915 when the first of the 3d Battalion men from Company K came through Lieutenant Mooney's area. They were tired from the activity during the previous night and day, and walked slowly along the narrow trail. They sat down if there was any delay along the single-file column. Mooney urged them to hurry. This made little impression on the weary men, however, and the column moved haltingly. It required fortyfive minutes for Company K to clear, and by the time men from the next company appeared it was after 1000. This was the hour scheduled for Company A to begin moving but Mooney, now that this was no longer possible, called his battalion headquarters again for further orders. He was told to wait until everyone else was off the ridgeline before moving his own company.

At the opposite end of the battalion front, however, Company B's commander (Captain Blandin) started his company down the trail at 1000 according to plan, unaware that the plan had broken down. Lieutenant Mooney received the information by telephone from his executive officer (Lieutenant Haley). This posed a new threat on the east flank although Mooney still believed the Chinese were most likely to strike Sergeant Lock's platoon at the west end of the line. He told Haley to send a few men to outpost the top of Hill 283, which had been Company B's left flank, and to bend the right flank of the company line south and refuse it. Haley sent a sergeant with four men to outpost Hill 283.

While these events were taking place, four planes made a strike with napalm and rockets on the OP hill causing a sudden drop in enemy fire from that area. A brief and relatively calm period followed while men from the 3d Battalion filed along the path. At 1100 the last men from Company I, still moving slowly, reached the spot where Lieutenant Mooney was waiting. Mooney urged the officers of the company to hurry, but they explained they needed litters and that the men were very tired. Mooney offered to furnish the litters, adding, "You'd better hurry or all of us will be up here and we'll be damned tired."

It had taken about two hours for two of the three companies to clear through Company A's area. In the meantime, Captain Blandin's Company B had reached the bottom of the hill where he reported to his battalion commander (Lt.Col. Fred D. Weyand). Colonel Weyand, realizing that the plans had miscarried, told him to get one platoon back on the top of the hill as quickly as possible to help Mooney hold his right flank.

Lt. Eugene C. May (a Company B officer) turned his platoon around and started back up the hill. He was near the top of the trail at 1130. When he arrived the last company of the 3d Battalion was strung out along the ridge top, and the entire company front was suddenly quiet. From the west end of the line Mooney called Lieutenant Middlemas who was now watching the east end of the line. Mooney explained that all the firing at his end of the line had stopped, and asked what was happening on the opposite flank.

"It's so quiet here," said Middlemas, "I'm just about ready to read some adventure stories for excitement."

At that instant there was the sound of scattered rifle fire from the top of Hill 283 where a sergeant and four men had been sent to outpost the right flank after Company B had vacated its sector. Hill 283 was just a large knob on the east end of the ridgeline. Between the knob and the right-flank position of Company A there was another smaller mound about forty yards beyond the last foxhole occupied by Lieutenant Mooney's men, and about seventy yards west of Hill 283.

Within a minute or two the sergeant in charge of the outpost appeared, running from the intermediate mound and yelling in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire 3d Platoon: "They're coming! They're coming! Millions of them! They'll banzai us!"

Middlemas was near the center of the company line when he heard and saw what was happening. He took off running as hard as he could go toward the sergeant. The two men met near the right flank, and Middlemas lunged, bringing the sergeant to the ground with a football tackle. The other four members of the sergeant's outpost were following him, "just as goslings follow along after a mother goose." At the same time, three of the infantrymen at that end of the line started to abandon their holes, fearing that the right flank was crumbling.

Lieutenant Middlemas was yelling loudly and pounding several of the men on their helmets. "Get the hell back in your positions! Get up on that damned hill!"

He shoved the three men back in their holes, called to the 3d Platoon to send up one squad immediately, and then started off chasing the sergeant from the outpost and his four men back to the intermediate brush-covered knoll. They arrived there just in time to shoot one Chinese who was racing up the opposite side. There were 10 or 15 more enemy soldiers running from Hill 283 toward them. If the Chinese took this intermediate knoll they could fire down onto the top of the trail, severing the only route of withdrawal and evacuation. Lieutenant Middlemas knew he would have to hold off the Chinese for at least a half hour, or suffer heavy losses. He also knew they would probably either win or lose the battle within the next few minutes.

"Get to firing. Get to firing!" Middlemas shouted.

The action on this end of the line developed fast. There was considerable enemy fire coming from Hill 283 and a few Chinese crept within grenade range before they were killed. Within another minute or two, however, an eight-man squad from the 3d Platoon reached the knoll, making a total of fourteen men there, including Middlemas. All of them were firing rapidly.

A platoon leader of Company D in charge of the two heavy machine guns with Company A saw the critical situation as it developed and rushed the heavy machine gun from the 3d Platoon to the knoll. Then he sent for both the light caliber .30 and the heavy machine gun that were with the 2d Platoon. All of this action had taken place within five minutes after the sergeant in charge of the outpost signaled the alarm.

The platoon from Company B, meanwhile, reached the top of the trail soon after the shooting started and hurried into position. This platoon had one light machine gun. Then crews with two machine guns from the 2d Platoon arrived so that, in less than ten minutes, Lieutenant Middlemas had four machine guns firing and approximately forty-five riflemen in position. The firing swelled into a noisy roar and even the sound of the clips coming out of the rifles made considerable noise. The Chinese, who had been trying to wriggle around both sides of Hill 283 and reach Middlemas's knoll, backed away to the protection of the reverse slope.

At the opposite end of the company line, Lieutenant Mooney heard the storm of activity and realized he had allowed himself to be drawn away from the center of his company front. He was now more than a thousand
yards away from the main action. He started east along the trail, but it as clogged with men from the 3d Battalion who had squatted there as soon as the fire fight flared up at the east end. Mooney hurried along the ail telling the men to keep going and looking for their officers, one of whom he found also sitting by the trail resting.

"For Christ's sake," he said, "get up and get these men moving."

 

[Lucky13]

Farther along the trail he met Lieutenant Haley whom he instructed strip all ammunition from the 3d Battalion men as they turned down the trail.

Up on the knoll the sergeant who had been in charge of the outpost ad recovered his composure and was now reassuring his men. "We're holding them! By God, we're holding them!"

Gradually, after the strength and fire power increased and the men realized they could hold the small hill, they overcame their fear and their anxiety changed to bravado. One of the men started yelling, "Come and get it!" and the other men took it up, either firing or screaming at the Chinese. Once, when their rate of fire dropped noticeably, there was a sudden increase in the amount of fire received from the Chinese. After that experience the Americans kept up a heavy volume of fire, and although Lieutenant Middlemas believed it was this sudden and heavy base of fire hat was built up in the first ten minutes of the action that saved the flank, he was now concerned with making the ammunition last until everyone was off the hill. He went back and forth across his short line cautioning he men to fire aimed shots and hold down their rate of firing. In addition to its basic load of ammunition and that taken from the 3d Battalion, Company A had 300 bandoleers of rifle ammunition that were still intact when his action commenced. Mooney had this carried up to the knoll on the right lank. Even so, there was danger of running out.

About 1145 Mooney reached the area of activity. At that time the last of the 3d Battalion was passing through Company A's area followed by Sergeant Teti's outpost, and then the rest of Sergeant Lock's platoon. Lieutenant Mooney got in touch with his battalion commander (Colonel Weyand) to tell him of the situation and that he desperately needed some artillery support. As it happened, the artillery forward observer with Company A had been shot in the leg just before this action started, and Mooney now had no map of the area. He explained to Colonel Weyand that he wanted the artillery to fall on the hill which Company B had occupied that morning.

"Put a round out somewhere," he said, "and maybe I can hear it."

Colonel Weyand had been over this terrain and was well acquainted with it. He called the artillery, gave them the general area, and asked for one round. Mooney reported that he could neither see nor hear this round, especially through the heavy firing going on where he was standing. Weyand then asked for a shift "right 200, drop 200" and within a minute this round fell squarely on the enemy, exploding on the far side of the mound where there was apparently a concentration of Chinese troops. In any event, there were loud screams from the Chinese.

Mooney yelled over the radio, "That's beautiful! That's beautiful! Fire for effect! Throw out some more!"

The troops around him commenced yelling with renewed enthusiasm. More shells landed in battery volleys, relieving the pressure against Lieutenant Middlemas and his crew.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Mooney revised his plan for moving his company from the hill. The 1st and 2d Platoons on the west end of his line were already moving and were not affected, but the remainder of his forcewhich now had become a mixture of the 3d Platoon, his headquarters group, and the platoon from Company B could not be moved as a unit. He ordered these men to move out one at a time, Indian fashion, with the men farthest from the trail moving first so that he would be able to keep men along the trail to protect it. This plan would also release the men in the order that they became least valuable.

The two heavy machine guns, having fired twenty-six boxes of ammunition, ran out and Mooney ordered them to leave. The other ammunition was running low and Colonel Weyand kept urging Mooney to hurry since the artillery battery firing for him was almost out of shells too. Weyand arranged for an air strike and the planes soon appeared circling overhead until called in. These could not be employed until after the artillery fire stopped, and Lieutenant Mooney asked for the artillery to continue as long as the ammunition lasted.

Shortly after 1200 Colonel Weyand again called, urging Mooney to "move fast and get down from there." Except for those men still firing at the Chinese, all men from Company A had cleared the top of the trail. Mooney asked for smoke to screen the movement of these men as they broke contact. With smoke and a mixture of explosive shells to replace the machine-gun and rifle fire, men from the last group started to leavethey needed no urging. Less than five minutes elapsed from the time the first of the forty-five left their position until the last was on the trail. As the last man left, the artillery fire stopped and the planes commenced the air strike.

The entire action on the right flank had lasted from 1130 until approximately 1215. During this time two men had been killed by enemy rifle fire. When the tail of the column had gone about seventy-five yards down the trail, a single mortar round landed on the trail, killing one man and wounding four others, including Lieutenants Middlemas and Mooney, both of whom were hit in the leg by mortar fragments. By the time this happened a few Chinese were at the top of the trail and began firing down upon the withdrawing column. The last men in the column turned to fire up at the top of the trail, backing down the hill as they did so.

 

[Lucky13]

Artillery in Perimeter Defense

The U.S. IX Corps, near the center of the Korean peninsula, renewed an attack on 21 April 1951 to seize a line running generally from Kumhwa to Hwachon Reservoir. The corps included only two divisions at the time the U.S. 1st Marine Division and a ROK division. The attack went well. Both divisions, meeting no enemy opposition, gained about three miles. They encountered only scant resistance after they jumped off again on the morning of 22 April.

Front-line units advanced two more miles on the 22d. The enemy made little effort to interfere although, late in the afternoon, artillery and air observers reported an unusual amount of enemy movement north of the line.

That night the Chinese struck back with their own 1951 spring offensive, a full-scale attack, which they labeled the "First Step, Fifth Phase Offensive." The Chinese limited their offensive to the western half of the front lines, the eastern prong of which pointed directly at the IX Corps' ROK division. It appeared that the Chinese had made it easy for IX Corps troops to advance so that they, in turn, could launch their own attack when friendly forces were extended and before they had a chance to dig in securely again. By 2000 enemy soldiers were several thousand yards behind friendly lines and were firing on artillery units that had displaced forward only that afternoon. Front lines crumbled within an hour or two. Infantrymen poured back on the double. Artillery units were forced to withdraw.

The liaison officer from the 92d Armored Field Artillery Battalion to one of the ROK regiments (Capt. Floyd C. Hines) radioed his battalion. "Someone's pushed the panic button up here," he warned.

The battalion commander (Lt.Col. Leon F. Lavoie) received this message on his jeep radio as he was on the way to Corps Artillery headquarters where he intended to seek immediate engineer help to repair and maintain the precariously narrow supply road. From other messages it was soon evident to Colonel Lavoie that the Chinese had made a serious penetration of the lines. Stopping at the first military installation he came to, he called IX Corps Artillery to report the information he had on the front-line situation, and then, because the emphasis had suddenly shifted from repairing the supply road to defending it, he turned back to his own battalion.

The 92d Armored Field Artillery Battalion, reinforcing the fires of both divisions of the corps, had moved forward that afternoon to a point near the boundary between the ROKs and marines, a little less than half way from Chichon-ni to Sachang-ni. The road between these two villages, following a deep river gorge, was exceedingly narrow. By 2130, when Colonel Lavoie got back to his battalion, the road was jammed with vehicles and ROK infantrymen were moving back pell-mell along both sides of it. Putting his entire battalion on a man-battle-stations basis, Colonel Lavoie and his staff officers tried desperately to collect stragglers and stop the withdrawal, but the momentum was too great by the time the soldiers reached Colonel Lavoie's battalion and most of them continued determinedly on.

When morning came on 23 April the Chinese, in possession of a threemile-deep corridor west of the 1st Marine Division, turned to attack the Marine left flank. They completely overran one ROK artillery battalion and the 2d Rocket Field Artillery Battery, both of which lost all equipment. The 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, partially overrun, lost some.

Colonel Lavoie's 92d Field Artillery Battalion (a self-propelled 155-mm howitzer unit) moved back battery by battery to a new position near the Pukhan River south of Chichon-ni. Batteries registered as soon as they were laid.

Battery C, in position north of a trail-size road through the new battalion position, placed its howitzers on the reverse slope of an incline that offered defilade. Battery A and Headquarters Battery were in a rice paddy south of the road with Battery A, 17th Field Artillery Battalion. Battery A of the 17th was an 8-inch howitzer outfit temporarily attached to the 92d Field Artillery Battalion to replace its own Battery B which, in turn, was attached to the 17th Field Artillery Battalion. (The lower half of the map on page 165 shows the batteries' positions in detail.)

Late in the afternoon the last howitzer was laid and ready to fire. The general military situation was tense. The artillerymen, having had little sleep during the past thirty-six hours, were tired, but immediately went to work establishing their usual perimeter for the night. Colonel Lavoie tall,
and gentle almost to the point of shyness insisted upon always having a well-fortified perimeter. Even when smiling, as he usually was, he had a way of being obdurately firm about the condition of the battalion perimeter, as he also was about standards of performance. Convinced that his responsibility as an artillery commander was to insure continuous artillery support to the infantry, he also reasoned that the very time when the infantrymen would most urgently need supporting artillery might well coincide with an enemy attack on his own perimeter. Colonel Lavoie had therefore developed a standard defensive perimeter that, from the outside toward the gun batteries in the center, consisted of patrols covering neighboring terrain; outposts, usually centered around a halftrack, for warning and delaying; a dug-in and fully manned main battle line just beyond grenade range of the battalion's critical installations; and a highly mobile reserve in the center. This reserve force usually was made up of two or three halftracks with 8 or 10 men for each vehicle.

Colonel Lavoie's acting executive officer (Major Roy A. Tucker) set up the perimeter on the afternoon of 23 April. Because of the limited time before darkness, which came about 1745, the perimeter was not as elaborately developed as usual, nor was there time to patrol nearby terrain. However, Major Tucker did establish a complete system of security outposts with trip flares ahead of the outposts, a complete telephone communication system, and a radio net as an alternate means of communication. He had laid out the main battle line but only a few positions were dug in at darkness. There was no defensive wire, demolitions were not out, nor had the men dug in and sandbagged such critical installations as the fire direction center and the communications center. These tasks had a lower priority and usually waited until the second or third day of the process of developing the battalion perimeter.

Members of outpost detachments ate chow early and went to their halftracks or ground-mounted machine-gun positions before dusk in order to be familiar with their sectors of responsibility, fields of fire, and to check their communications. Thereafter, except for relief detachments, no traffic was allowed to the outposts or beyond the battalion perimeter. Colonel Lavoie wanted security guards to heed and challenge all movement or activity. Four to eight men manned each security outpost, half of them being on duty at a time. Colonel Lavoie inspected the perimeter defenses just before dark, pointing out to his men the Marine positions on the hill to the front.

That night the battalion reinforced the fires of the 1st Marine Division. Corps Artillery headquarters called about 2100 with instructions for the 92d Field Artillery Battalion to prepare to remain in its present positions for several days. Colonel Lavoie promptly called the 11th Marine Regiment (an artillery unit) he was to reinforce and asked for further instructions. Wire sections laid telephone lines to the 11th Marines, completing the job at 2300. Midnight passed and all was quiet. At 0115 the Marine regiment telephoned asking Colonel Lavoie to report immediately to its headquarters. When Lavoie arrived there, the Marine commander outlined a new plan. The 1st Marine Division, its entire left flank exposed, planned to withdraw soon after daylight on 24 April. Colonel Lavoie was to keep his howitzers in firing position until the last moment, but to be prepared to move at 0530. Battery A, 17th Field Artillery Battalion, with its heavy, towed howitzers, was to leave at 0400.

At 0230 Colonel Lavoie returned to his command post. Although he was very tired, he could not sleep and scarcely had time for it anyway. He reviewed the displacement plan, being particularly concerned about getting the 8-inch howitzers on the road at 0400. Battery commanders were called at 0315, and Colonel Lavoie gave them the complete plan and order for the move. He instructed his commanders to serve a hot breakfast.

The heavy howitzers moved out on schedule. At the same time guards were going through the battalion area waking all personnel. Within a few minutes there was the sound of trucks moving about and the usual commotion that goes with the job of getting up, packing equipment, striking tents, and loading trucks all in the dark.

Gun sections still manned the howitzers, firing harassing and interdiction missions. The range had decreased during the night and the cannoneers were aware of increased machine-gun activity on the hill mass in front of the battalion.

Breakfast was ready at 0445. Chow lines formed in all batteries.

First sign of daylight appeared ten or fifteen minutes after 0500. Most of the men had finished breakfast. Most of the pyramidal tents, used because of cool weather, were down. In Headquarters Battery only the command post and kitchen tents were standing. In Battery A the kitchen tent was still up. The communications system was still intact but commanders had pulled in most of their outlying security installations. Equipment and personnel were just about ready for march order.

 

[Lucky13]

Colonel Lavoie, having eaten an early breakfast, had just returned to the mess tent where an attendant was pouring him a cup of coffee. Major Raymond F. Hotopp (battalion S-3) prepared to leave on reconnaissance at 0530, placed his personal belongings in his jeep and walked over to see whether the battalion commander was ready. Capt. John F. Gerrity (commanding Battery A) was getting into his jeep to join Colonel Lavoie on reconnaissance.

An unidentified artilleryman from Battery C, with a roll of toilet paper in his hand, walked toward the cemetery in front of the howitzers. As he approached the mounds in the graveyard, he saw several Chinese crawling on their bellies toward his battery. Startled, he yelled, threw the toilet paper at an enemy soldier, turned, and ran. The Chinese soldier ducked involuntarily. At that moment, someone tripped a flare outside the perimeter. Capt. Bernard G. Raftery (commanding Battery C) looked at his watch. It was 0520.


Machine guns opened fire. At first many thought someone had accidentally tripped a machine gun, since the marines were supposed to be in front of the artillery positions. But when the firing increased there was no more doubt. Men in the mess line scattered for cover. Major Hotopp dropped to the ground and dived under a halftrack. SFC Charles R. Linder (chief of section), warming his feet over the running "tank" motor, jumped off and took cover behind the vehicle. Most of the men took cover wherever it was most quickly available.

Colonel Lavoie saw a bullet hole suddenly appear in the side of the mess tent. He ran outside. "Man battle stations!" he yelled, "Man battle stations!" and headed for his command post tent to get into communication with his battery commanders.

Captain Raftery looked at Lt. Joseph N. Hearin (Battery C executive). "This is it!" he said, scrambling to his feet. "Let's go!" He and Hearin got out of their command post tent at the same time.

SFC George T. Powell (Battery C chief of detail), anxious about some new men who had never seen combat, took off toward their section of the main battle line. When he arrived at the nearest halftracks, he found his men already manning the machine guns. Several others were setting up a machine gun on a ground mount. No longer anxious, Powell relaxed and began to enjoy the battle. Several other friendly machine guns were already in action.

SFC Willis V. Ruble, Jr. (Headquarters Battery motor sergeant), who at first thought the noise was caused by someone throwing wads of ammunition into the fire, ran for a halftrack and unzipped the canvas cover on a caliber .50 machine gun while several slugs whistled past, and he then looked about for a target. He saw four or five persons in the field in front of Battery A's positions. They were wearing dirty white civilian clothes and Ruble thought they were South Koreans until he saw one of them carrying a rifle. He fired three short bursts, knocked one of them down, spun another one around. Just then he noticed flashes on the hill in front. Figuring that the small-arms fire could take care of the enemy troops close in, Ruble turned his machine gun toward the distant flashes.

SFC James R. White (Battery A) remembered only being at a machine gun on a halftrack but did not know how he got there. By this time, a minute or two after the first shot had been fired, enemy fire was so intense that tracer bullets formed a thin red arch between the battalion's position and Hill 200, from which most of the enemy long-range fire came. The ammunition belt in White's machine gun was crossed. White was shaking so badly that he could not get it straightened, and he was afraid to expose himself above the ring mount. After a bit, he stood up, straightened the belt, and began firing.

The battalion executive officer (Major Tucker), who had started out to inspect the perimeter soon after the firing commenced, opened the rear door of White's halftrack and cautioned him and several other men in the vehicle to pick targets before firing. White then waited until he saw the location of the enemy machine guns before he fired. Visually following the tracers back toward the hill, White was able to locate an enemy emplacement. He opened fire again. He could see his own tracers hitting the hill, so he walked his fire in on the enemy position, then held it there until his belt gave out. White then reloaded his gun with a fresh belt (105 rounds) but did not fire at once. The man firing the caliber .30 machine gun on the same halftrack was playing it cool; he was firing in short bursts at enemy in a field across the road.

Within ten minutes or less the exchange of fire had become a noisy roar. Enemy bullets cut up the telephone wires that were strung overhead, forcing the battalion to rely on its radios.

Captain Raftery stood in the middle of Battery C's area trying to determine enemy intentions. The bulk of enemy fire against the battery appeared to be coming from Hill 200, where Raftery estimated there were six machine-gun emplacements, which the Chinese had reached by old communication trenches. As these entrenched troops acted as a base of fire, enemy riflemen took concealed positions in the cemetery while others, armed only with hand grenades, crawled toward the howitzers. Captain Raftery thought the Chinese were concentrating on his No. 5 howitzer the most vulnerable because of its forward position. Enemy fire in that area was so intense that the artillerymen could not man the machine guns on the nearest halftrack. Deciding that the enemy was trying to knock out one howitzer and blow up the powder and ammunition for psychological effect, he called the chief of No. 5 howitzer section and instructed him to pull his "tank" back into defilade and on line with Nos. 4 and 6.

Behind the No. 4 howitzer, Lieutenant Hearin tried to see what the men were shooting at. Flashes on the hill were 600 to 1,000 yards away, and it seemed unusual that the enemy would attack from so far. He looked for enemy elements coming in under the base of fire. Suddenly he noticed men of the battery running from the No. 5 to the No. 6 howitzer. Several feet behind them, grenades were bursting.

Jumping on a halftrack, Hearin swung the caliber .so machine gun around and shot a Chinese grenadier who was crawling up on the No. 5 piece. A couple of other machine-gunners swung their guns to help Hearin and, among them, they shot a half dozen enemy attempting to destroy the No. 5 howitzer.

Under cover of this fire, Sgt. Theral J. Hatley (chief of section) ran forward and backed his vehicle out of immediate reach of the enemy grenadiers, crushing one who lay concealed underneath.

After the initial scramble to their positions, Colonel Lavoie's men settled down to returning the fire with enthusiasm. Having staged so many "dry runs," the battalion commander was pleased to see the results of the practice. The firing, however, was getting out of hand and although there was plenty of ammunition and more at Service Battery's position three miles away, Colonel Lavoie feared that they were experiencing only an initial attack calculated to pin them down while a larger force maneuvered from the west to seal the river defile and destroy the only bridge over the Pukhan. As soon as his executive officer returned from checking defensive positions, Colonel Lavoie changed places with him and set out to inspect the battle line. He wanted to see for himself the positions and the trend of the action, to be seen by the men for whatever effect that might have upon their morale, and to persuade the men to stop aimless and unnecessary firing. He sought out his three battery commanders.

"You must control and limit your fire to specific targets," Lavoie told them. "Make every bullet count."

Captain Raftery, who thought his Battery C was under the heaviest enemy fire, defended his men and their volume of fire. "Sir," he answered, "Battery C has Chinks all through its area"

"Are they dead or alive?"

"Both," said Raftery.

"Well, don't worry about the dead ones," Colonel Lavoie told him; "just take care of the live ones and make every bullet count."

Lavoie continued around the perimeter. He opened the rear doors on the halftracks and crawled up to talk with the machine gunners to ask them to cooperate in firing only at specific targets, and to tell them how successfully the battalion was holding off the Chinese.

One man told him he'd better get down. "It's dangerous up here," he explained. Others, reassured, only grinned.

On two occasions Lavoie found groups of two or three men huddled in the bed of a halftrack. He told them to get out and help: "I'm scared too. There's nothing wrong with being scared as long as you do your part." Ashamed, they promptly returned to their proper positions.

 

[Lucky13]

In Battery A's area, enemy fire was coming in from Hill 454 on the leftfront as well as from Hill 200. Enemy snipers behind piles of rubble and rock were also firing from the field directly in front of Battery A. There was no haze and the artillerymen could clearly see enemy soldiers on the hills a thousand yards away.

Returning to his command post, Colonel Lavoie received a radio message from the Marine regimental headquarters objecting to excessive firing and ordering the artillerymen to cease fire.

"You're firing on friendly troops," the officer complained.

"Those friendly troops," Colonel Lavoie argued, "are inflicting casualties on my battalion."

While Lavoie was explaining the situation to the Marine commander, Major Tucker made another round of the defensive position, rallying the men. The exchange of fire was still brisk, but the artillerymen appeared to be holding their own well and had recovered from their impulse to fire just to make noise.

Having persuaded the marines that his artillerymen had not been seized by panic, Colonel Lavoie called Battery A by radio and said he wanted to talk with Captain Gerrity. When the latter reached the command post tent, Colonel Lavoie instructed him to shift his battery howitzer by howitzer several hundred yards to the east, thereby reducing the size of the perimeter. When the battery of 8-inch howitzers had pulled out at 0400 it left a gap in the perimeter and also left Gerrity's battery vulnerable to an attack from the west, from which direction the battalion commander still thought the Chinese would probably make a larger attack designed to overrun his position. Gerrity called his battery by radio and gave it the code word for "close station and march order."

While the two officers, both of them lying on the ground near the radio and in front of the tent, were still talking, Colonel Lavoie spotted two enemy machine guns that were firing a high ratio of tracer bullets into the battalion's position. Pointing them out to Captain Gerrity, he asked him to take them under direct fire with his 155-mm howitzers. Gerrity took off toward his battery position.

Bullets were still ricocheting against the "tanks" and halftracks when the close-station order reached Battery A. Captain Gerrity had given the order only to alert his men for the 300- or 400-yard shift. The artillerymen were reluctant to move and expose themselves to enemy fire while they cranked up the spades and prepared to move. Sergeant White, firing a machine gun from a halftrack, stood up, exposing himself completely, and shouted instructions at the men. Every man jumped to his job, and within a few minutes the battery was ready to move. It was about 0545 twenty-five minutes after the enemy first attacked.

Captain Gerrity, out of breath from running, returned to his battery just as the vehicles were ready to move. He shouted orders for the firing mission, the artillerymen dropped trails again and opened fire on the machine guns Colonel Lavoie had seen. The range was a thousand yards or less. After a few rounds one howitzer made a direct hit. Colonel Lavoie saw fragments of Chinese soldiers thrown twenty feet or higher in the air. Eight or ten Chinese soldiers suddenly appeared running from a trench about a hundred yards away from the last explosion. Several machine guns immediately swung toward them and killed three or four. Having destroyed the two machine guns, Battery A completed its displacement, tightening up the perimeter.

MSgt. John D. Elder appeared at the command post tent to get instructions for moving ammunition trucks from Service Battery. He wanted to know if Colonel Lavoie still planned to move.

"We were going to move," answered the Colonel, "but now we'll wait until we secure this position."

Colonel Lavoie set out to make another round of his defensive positions. His indifference to the enemy fire was a steadying influence. As he walked through the area, talking with the men and cautioning them to conserve ammunition, he noticed a great change in his troops. Over their initial scare, they now appeared to be enjoying themselves. A great deal of enemy fire continued to come into the area even though Chinese machine guns seemed subdued by this time, but the men no longer hesitated to expose themselves in order to fire their weapons effectively. Realizing that they were holding their own and winning, they had lost the fear and uneasiness Colonel Lavoie had seen on his first trip around the area. It had been replaced by a cocky sort of confidence.

A young artilleryman, usually shy, spotted a small group of Chinese crawling through weeds toward the fire direction center tent. "Look at them sons of bitches," he said. "They think they're going to make it." Standing up he aimed and fired. "I got one!" he exclaimed. Several other men began firing at the same group and soon destroyed it.

Several Marine tanks rumbled down the road. No one had asked for help but the Marine commander sent them over to clean out the area in front of the battalion. Taking up positions north of the road and in front of Battery A, they blasted the hills and raked the field with machine-gun fire. Several artillerymen left their positions and set out "looking for Chinks."

Sgt. Austin E. Roberts (machine-gun sergeant) organized ten men and walked across the road toward the northwest. After they had gone only a few yards, a Chinese jumped up in front of them. One of Roberts's men fired, hitting an American Thompson submachine gun the enemy was carrying. The Chinese dropped it and held up his hand.

Roberts shouted "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" and then sent his prisoner, guarded by two artillerymen, to battalion headquarters.

The remaining eight men, working with the tanks, went on across the field examining each hole and clearing the area for four hundred yards. They found no more enemy soldiers.

In the meantime, the Marine regiment that the 92d Field Artillery Battalion was supporting called a fire mission. Colonel Lavoie assigned it to Battery C, instructing the battery to transfer its radio to the Marine channel so it could receive the mission direct.

Captain Raftery's howitzers were engaged in delivering direct fire against nearby hills. Leaving one to continue with that mission, he relaid the other five howitzers to support the marines. This was the first "live" mission that morning, although the entire battalion had been firing harassing and interdiction missions before the enemy attack. Raftery then organized about twenty men into a skirmish line to cross the battery front. Moving through the cemetery and beyond, the force killed seven Chinese and captured one who had to be pulled out of his hole. The Marine tanks killed several others who attempted to escape back to the high ground.

Capt. Albert D. Bessler (S-2), annoyed by persistent small-arms fire striking near the fire direction center tent, decided a sniper with scope must be firing from behind a pile of stones in a nearby field. He took a halftrack and investigated. Several minutes later he returned with two M1 rifles fitted with scopes. "Got two of them," he boasted.

A light aircraft overhead reported into the battalion radio net and asked if it could be of assistance. Colonel Lavoie, still apprehensive of an enemy attack from the west, requested the pilot to check the valley in that direction. The aircraft pilot reported that he saw no enemy build-up, but that two groups of 25 or 30 enemy each were in a draw near the base of the hills. Lavoie destroyed these groups with artillery fire.

By 0730 the situation permitted displacement of the batteries. The battalion suffered 4 men killed and 11 wounded during the action. It lost no equipment. Marine units later reported finding 179 enemy dead in the area around the battalion perimeter, all presumedly killed during the attack.

Colonel Lavoie was pleased with the performance of his men. The artillerymen shared a new feeling of confidence and pride. They had proved they could defend themselves.

"Artillery," the Colonel said, "if it makes up its mind, will set itself up so that it can defend itself from enemy infantry action."

 

[Lucky13]

Hill 800 (Bunker Hill)

On the night of 16 May 1951 Chinese and North Korean Communists launched another major attack against United Nations forces. To the enemy, it was "Second Step, Fifth Phase Offensive." To soldiers of the United Nations it became known as "Second Spring Offensive," or, especially to members of U.S. X Corps, "The Battle of the Soyang River."

The First Step of the enemy's Fifth Phase Offensive had been at the west end of Eighth Army's line on 22 April. Its mission was the capture of Seoul and the encirclement of UN troops in that area. Although this offensive failed to gain its announced objective, it did force a major withdrawal at the west end of the UN line and, because of the necessity of shifting troops for the defense of Seoul, a readjustment of front lines everywhere. Near the center of the peninsula, X Corps gave up a little ground, dropping back to dominating ground just beyond, and protecting, the southwest-northeast main supply road between Hongchon and Inje.

The First Step lasted eight days. By the night of 30 April, with the force of the attack exhausted, enemy troops turned north, and activity across the Korean front dropped sharply. At once the Chinese turned to preparations for the Second Step. Eighth Army, nevertheless, continued in a defensive role. In the center, X Corps proceeded to organize, occupy, and defend its new position along what it called "Noname Line."

From the beginning of May Americans had reason to expect another attack, but it was several days before movement of enemy troops and supplies, reported by aerial observers, indicated the attack would be aimed at X Corps' center. Intelligence officers accumulated other substantiating evidence including information from a captured Chinese officer who stated the next offensive would strike the U.S. 2d Infantry Division and the ROK divisions to the east.

The 2d Infantry Division (Maj.Gen. Clark L. Ruffner) occupied the center position on X Corps' Noname Line, generally situated along the crest of a great, rugged hill mass separating two rivers the Hongchon and the Soyang. The air-line distance across General Ruffner's sector was about sixteen miles. However, following barbed wire stretched from one bunker to another along the front, up and down the steep hills, and around the bends in the ridges, the distance was twice as great. Within his division, General Ruffner assigned the right half of his sector to a tank-infantry task force; the left (southwest) end, to the 38th Infantry Regiment. In turn, the commander of the 38th Infantry (Col. John C. Coughlin) stationed his 1st and 3d Battalions on Noname Line, the 3d Battalion being on the left. Each of these battalions anchored its defense to a prominent hill mass: the 1st Battalion to Hill 1051 on the right of the regimental sector and, later, the 3d Battalion (on the left), to Hill 800. The initial defense sector given the 3d Battalion was about five and a half miles wide, later reduced to approximately four miles when the 9th Infantry was committed to a defense sector to the left of the 38th Infantry.

Hill 800 was typical of the terrain selected as a battle site by units of X Corps. It was ten miles or more from the main supply road and was accessible only by a single-lane dirt road that followed the curves of a small tributary of the Hongchon River. At the base of the sprawling hill mass, where the stream narrowed to a foot or two even during the spring rains, the road ended abruptly. The pointed peak of the hill was 1,600 feet above the end of the road and, for the average infantryman, more than an hour's climb away. All the tools, supplies, and equipment of war had to be carried over footpaths to the top of Hill 800.

The commander of the 3d Battalion, 38th Infantry (Lt.Col. Wallace M. Hanes) committed all three of his rifle companies to front-line defense, with Company K on the bald top of Hill 800 in the center of the battalion sector. Both horizontally and vertically, Hill 800 was the apex of the battalion's line. Having a defensive mission, Colonel Hanes gave first priority to clearing fields of fire and constructing bunkers, ordering all companies to build covered positions, one for every two or three men. Most of the men, thinking in terms of concealment and protection from heavy spring rains, dug their holes in the usual fashion, covering them with branches and ponchos, and then quit.

Colonel Hanes returned next day to inspect the positions. "That's concealment?" he complained to his company officers. "Dammit, I want bunkers with cover to protect you from artillery fire!"

Each day he returned and climbed the ridgelines to supervise the job of building fortifications. He made the men cut down more trees, dig more
trenches, and pile more dirt on the bunkers. One company commander, when Colonel Hanes insisted on more earth over the bunkers in his area, asked for sand bags, saying he would need about five thousand.

"Five thousand!" stormed Hanes. "My God, man! You don't want five thousand sand bags. You want twenty thousand!" Even that number was later found to be inadequate. After a number of shifts in the battalion's sector and after laboring for a week to get the infantrymen to strengthen their positions with heavy logs and bags of earth, Colonel Hanes explained to his company commanders that if the enemy attacked in the numbers he expected, it might be necessary to fire friendly artillery on their (the Americans') own positions, using proximity fuze for air-burst effect. "If it is necessary," he said, "I don't want you to worry about calling in the fire. I'll do that. All you have to do is fix up your bunkers so that you will have a clear field of fire to your front and to your neighbors' bunkers and won't get hit by your own shell fragments when I call down the fire."

After that, men of the 3d Battalion worked diligently. When the bunkers were completed to Hanes's satisfaction, he planned to string barbed wire and sow mines across the battalion's front. Because of the distance and the difficult terrain over which all supplies had to be carried, the infantrymen at first thought he was only joking when he talked of putting in wire. They believed him only when the Korean civilians began carrying rolls of barbed wire onto the hill and the men from the battalion's Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon arrived to supervise the work.

Seven hundred of these civilians carried supplies to the 3d Battalion. During the period of preparation, they moved 237,000 sand bags to the top of the hill; 385 rolls of barbed wire; almost 2,000 long steel pickets for installing wire aprons, and nearly 4,000 short ones; and 39 55-gallon fougasse drums. (A fougasse is a sort of dug-in, improved flame-thrower made with a drum of napalm-thickened gasoline, an explosive charge of a couple of pounds of TNT or white phosphorus mortar shells, and a detonator. When detonated, the fougasse bursts into a mass of flame about 10 yards wide and 25 to 40 yards long.) This equipment was in addition to the normal supplies rations, cans of water, and ammunition. It required eight Korean men to carry one fougasse drum up the hill; one man could carry a roll of barbed wire or a box of rations. A round trip took three or four hours. At the base of the hill were several buildings where members of the carrying parties were fed.

In addition to the laborers, the battalion used a herd of thirty-two oxen to transport a section of the heavy 4.2-inch mortars and to stockpile mortar ammunition. Because of dominant terrain features to the front of the battalion's positions, a special mountain trail was cut in the reverse slope of a mountain finger of the north-south ridgeline of which Hill 800 was a part, so as to permit the uninterrupted supply of Companies K and L and the heavy 4.2-inch mortars.

The most probable routes of enemy attack were blocked by two or more double-apron wire barriers; most of the battalion's front had at least one. As the wire situation improved, Colonel Hanes stressed other improvements antipersonnel mine fields, trip flares, fougasse drums, buried telephone wires, and communication trenches.

On 10 May the commander of Eighth Army (Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet) and the commander of X Corps (Lt. Gen. E. M. Almond) landed by helicopter on Hill 800 and declared the 3d Battalion's preparations to be the most formidable in X Corps' sector.

By 12 May, when the bunkers were completed and most of the front wired in, there were many indications that the enemy also had nearly completed preparations for his own attack.

While Colonel Hanes's battalion constructed its defenses, other units of the 2d Division sent out patrols daily to locate and engage the enemy. At the beginning of the month, patrols had made few contacts with the enemy, and none of the Chinese encountered displayed an inclination to stay and fight. Accordingly, General Ruffner ordered units to establish patrol bases several thousand yards to the front. From these bases they pushed patrols as far north as the Soyang River a line distance of six or more miles away and parallel to the main line of resistance. Eighth Army directed that patrols be large enough to face a major attack and still fight their way back to the patrol base. Within the sector of the 38th Infantry, the 2d Battalion established a patrol base in front of Hanes's 3d Battalion.

 

[Lucky13]

After 8 May stronger enemy patrols appeared, showing a sudden reluctance to withdraw. It became apparent that the enemy had set up a counterreconnaissance screen and was becoming as assiduous in his attempts to locate 2d Division defensive strongpoints as were the friendly patrols in their search for enemy strength. By 10 May the enemy's build-up was in full swing. Enemy vehicular traffic was heavier, patrols more numerous and more aggressive, new bridges appeared on the enemy's side, and there was a sudden flow of civilian refugees from the enemy's area.

By 14 May men of Colonel Hanes's battalion had the strongest positions they had ever occupied, although they had taken a few enemy positions they considered as good. The confidence the men had in their ability to withstand an enemy attack confidence that had increased with each log and sand bag, antipersonnel mine and roll of wire that had gone into their structure for defense was equally strong.

General Ruffner lent his helicopter to Colonel Hanes so he could inspect the positions from the air.

"There's only one thing that worries me now, General," said Hanes when he returned. "I'm afraid those bastards won't hit us. If they've seen what I've seen today, and if they are smart, they won't even give us a nibble."

General Ruffner agreed.

If the enemy was going to attack the 3d Battalion, however, it appeared that one of his most suitable routes of approach would lead him squarely into Company K on the top of Hill 800 (by now the men who held Hill 800 had styled it Bunker Hill) . Twelve hundred yards in front of Company K, and three hundred feet higher, was Hill 916. Instead of the usual steep ravine, a smooth saddle connected the two hills.

Hill 916 was a squat mass covered with patches of grass and scattered clumps of trees. There were enough trees on the south slopes to conceal the movement and assembly of enemy troops, especially at dusk. They would then be within easy range having only to cross the connecting saddle before making the final assault on Company K's dome-shaped hill, or move down the ridge to attack Company L, which was holding the right flank of the battalion and was astride a ridge similarly connected to Hill 916.

Company K put two barbed-wire aprons across its end of the saddle. One stretched along three sides at the base of Hill 800. The other was approximately two hundred yards beyond. Members of Company K fastened trip flares and explosive charges to the wire, and planted antipersonnel mines between the aprons. This, they figured, would slow the attack when it came.

Twenty-three bunkers were located on the small but prominent top of Hill 800. Other positions of Company K were stretched along the ridgelines that slanted down to the southwest and southeast. The only apparent weakness in the defense position of Company K was its extensive front and the uncompleted prearranged close-support artillery concentrations conditions that applied equally to the remainder of the 3d Battalion. Because of the 2d Battalion's patrol base located in front of Hanes's battalion, and because of the extensive patrolling conducted during the build-up period, firing of desired prearranged artillery concentrations was exceedingly difficult. Later, because of the numerous patrols and long-range observation posts dispatched and maintained by the 3d Battalion, artillery forward observers were unable to register all close-support fires.

The first fifteen days of May had passed without an enemy offensive. On the 16th there was a low, heavy overcast that prevented the use of observation or fighter aircraft. The Second Step of the Fifth Phase Offensive commenced that afternoon when probing patrols opened fire on United Nations positions. Stronger attacks struck both the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 38th Infantry that night. Before daylight on 17 May, the 2d Battalion was ordered to withdraw from its patrol base to positions in rear of the regimental main line of resistance. To the northeast, Chinese penetrated the lines of the 1st Battalion and seized the top of Hill 1051.

Colonel Hanes's 3d Battalion, however, spent an uneventful night. The next day (17 May) men of that battalion strung more wire and prepared additional fougasses that they emplaced along probable enemy avenues of approach. They were to be set off by plunger-type detonator during the attack that everyone expected would come that night. A final adjustment was made on the left of the battalion's sector when its area was reduced by moving a unit of the 9th Infantry into line. After the long period of waiting and planning for the big attack, the suspense was over. Most of the men, confident of their positions, welcomed the attack. Morale was high. The day was hot and sultry.

Late in the afternoon, Company K's support platoon patrolled to Hill 916. It met heavy opposition where there had been no enemy before. From Hill 800 the commander of Company K (Capt. George R. Brownell) watched the progress of the patrol. He could see some Chinese troops following it back and others moving on the forward slope of Hill 916. He placed artillery and mortar fire on the enemy. The Chinese began registering their mortar and artillery fire. Enemy troops crowded against the front line across the battalion's entire sector. The battalion had numerous artillery missions fired and a number of effective air strikes were made. All patrols of the battalion were actively engaged.

With the attack imminent, Company K squared away. Captain Brownell, having previously located his command post too far to the rear, took his position at the very point of the defense in a bunker that was the battalion's observation post. His runner, an observer for the 81-mm mortars, and two intelligence observers from the battalion's Headquarters Company, shared the bunker with him. Through error, his artillery forward observer was not with him. In other bunkers men rechecked their rifles and grenades each man had twenty grenades and waited quietly as the dusk deepened into darkness. A light fog formed and the air became damp and noticeably cold after the sultry day.

Everyone expected the attack to commence with a rapid succession of explosions from trip flares and mines. The mines would kill a lot of the enemy, they thought, and slacken the attack. But it didn't work out that way.

At about 2130 there was the sound of whistles and of a bugle or two. Nothing else happened for half an hour until the enemy troops reached the first wire barrier a hundred yards away. A flare or two appeared. Several minutes later a few of the antipersonnel mines exploded. At the same time, the Chinese opened fire. Captain Brownell's men could see none of the enemy yet, but from the steady sound of the enemy's fire, Brownell could measure the Chinese advance. Another half hour passed. The enemy's fire increased gradually. Finally the Americans could hear the Chinese soldiers talking, although they could see none of them. They wondered why more of the antipersonnel mines had not exploded.

Company K held its fire until the enemy reached the second wire barrier. Instead of moving frontally, the leading Chinese had slipped around to the west, cut the barbed wire in front of the 1st Platoon, and crawled up the steep part of the hill. At the point of first contact, the Americans opened fire with rifles and machine guns, and tossed grenades down the hill. Quickly Company K came to life, the action spreading in both directions like a grass fire.

Captain Brownell tried to get artillery fire. The artillery forward observer, however, was at a different observation post and, within a few minutes after the firing began, the telephone line went out between Captain Brownell's command post and the artillery observer's bunker. Unable to reach the observer, Brownell relayed his request to battalion headquarters, experiencing difficulties with communications in the process. In rapid succession, the lines to the 1st Platoon and to the battalion failed, apparently having been cut either by the Chinese or by their mortar and artillery fire. Company K had failed to bury all of its telephone lines.

Attached to and integrated with the defense of Company K were men from Company M manning machine guns and recoilless rifles. The lieutenant in charge was a replacement who had been recalled to active duty recently without a refresher course. He and some of his men occupied several bunkers near the point of first enemy contact. By the time the exchange of fire had increased to thunderous volume, the platoon leader left his bunker and ran a short distance to an adjoining one.

"It's getting pretty hot here," he said as he entered. After a few moments, he added, "It's getting too hot around here for me! Let's get out!"

He left and, in the darkness and through heavy enemy fire, headed toward the rear. Between 15 and 20 men followed him those from the bunker he had just left and other men from several nearby positions.

 

[Lucky13]

This original break occurred near the limiting point between the two platoons on line the 1st and the 3d. Cpl. James H. Kantner (runner from the 1st Platoon) ran to the point of the hill to tell Captain Brownell that the line's broken." Captain Brownell gave up his attempt to adjust artillery fire and tried to get in touch with the 1st Platoon in order to determine the extent of the break. The line to the 1st Platoon was out. He sent Corporal Kantner back with instructions to tell everyone to hold where he was until Brownell had a chance to find out what happened. The runner left.

Within a minute or two, an enemy shell landed squarely on top of the command-post bunker. The explosion damaged the radio by which Captain Brownell had communicated with battalion headquarters. Thus, within fifteen minutes or less, Captain Brownell had lost communication with his platoons, his artillery forward observer, and battalion headquarters.

Leaving the battalion personnel in the bunker, Captain Brownell started toward the bunkers the men of Company M had occupied on the top of the hill. Chinese soldiers were wandering freely over the 200-yard-long point of Hill 800 the key terrain in Company K's defense. Without communication, Brownell's positions on this important part of Hill 800 crumbled quickly. Hearing the firing from the adjoining position suddenly end, the men from one bunker after another learned that the line was falling back. Chinese and Americans walked around together in the darkness.

PFC George C. Hipp, PFC Clarence E. Ricki and PFC Rodney R. Rowe occupied the northernmost bunker, guarding the approach to the hill. Not realizing the adjoining positions were abandoned, these men remained until it was too late to leave. Meanwhile, the battalion intelligence men, left in the bunker that Captain Brownell had recently occupied, moved to the bunker recently vacated by the lieutenant from Company M, and got in telephone communication with Colonel Hanes. Hanes immediately instructed his artillery liaison officer to place artillery fire in front of Company K. The first half hour of the enemy attack had created complete confusion at the very top of Hill 800.

Two men manning a 75-mm recoilless-rifle position on the left side of the high point of the hill and just left of the steep ridge along which the Chinese had crawled up to Company K's position were miraculously able to make contact with the battalion's forward relay switchboard by sound-powered telephone. From their bunker they calmly reported the situation as they saw it to Colonel Hanes who, in turn, informed them of the situation known to the battalion. Hanes asked them if they could adjust artillery where they knew or suspected the enemy to be, bearing in mind that because of the confused situation and conflicting reports great care must be used so that no rounds fell on the battle positions. For a considerable time these men effectively adjusted fire as close to their bunker as was possible. Communications to this position remained effective during the entire night. With no previous experience in the adjustment of artillery, the two men helped seal off the battle position from further enemy reinforcements.

Unable to find the men of Company M at their bunkers, Captain Brownell hurried on back to the command post of the 3d Platoon. This platoon had telephone communication with battalion headquarters. He called Colonel Hanes to report the loss of the point of his hill, to request permission to use his support platoon in a counterattack (Colonel Hanes had placed restrictions on the use of this platoon), and to ask for artillery fire.

A few of the men who had abandoned their positions walked on down the trail that led south to Colonel Hanes's battalion headquarters. Most of them went back only a short distance where the leader of the 3d Platoon (Lt. Blair W. Price) stopped them and began forming a new line between the open flanks of Company K's line. Although this was soon done, Captain Brownell's defense was vulnerable since he had lost the highest and most important area of his sector, and about a third of his line was hastily formed and lacked protection of even a foxhole. Fortunately, enemy activity temporarily dropped off.

Having obtained permission to use the 2d Platoon and having moved it into position for the attack, Captain Brownell tried to precede his counter-attack by placing artillery fire on his former position. A long delay followed, partly because of faulty communications, partly because Brownell was out of touch with his forward observer and was unable to adjust the desired fire properly, but primarily because Captain Brownell's situation report was in conflict with the information Hanes was receiving from the battalion's intelligence men and from the 75-mm recoilless-rifle team who were adjusting artillery fire for him. Until a more accurate picture could be received, Colonel Hanes considered it advisable to seal the penetration with available artillery fire while the remainder of the 38th Field Artillery Battalion, which was in direct support of the 3d Battalion, supported Company L, which was under tremendous pressure at the time.

Meanwhile, Lieutenants Price and Herbert E. Clark (leader of the 2d Platoon) and SFC Thomas K. Whitten lined up approximately thirty-five men who were to make the counterattack. They also arranged for 2 machine-gun crews, 2 BAR men, and 6 riflemen to fire onto the point of the hill when Clark's platoon moved forward.

At the same time, a few of the men including the lieutenant from Company M who started the movement to abandon the position had reached the bottom of the hill. Colonel Hanes met them.

"Get back on the hill," he told them. "We don't give up a position until we're beaten. And dammit, we're not beaten and won't be if every man does his share!"

They turned around and started the long climb up the hill. The lieutenant from Company M returned to his unit in due time although he was wounded in the side, arms, and leg before again reaching the protection of his bunker.

After waiting more than an hour for artillery fire, which could not be properly adjusted because of his faulty communications, Captain Brownell and his platoon leaders decided to launch the attack without support.

"To hell with it!" said Lieutenant Price. "We can take the damned hill ourselves."

Although he expected considerable trouble, Captain Brownell was afraid that if he delayed the attack any longer the Chinese would discover the weakly held gap in his line, break through in force, and threaten or possibly destroy the battalion's entire defensive position.

With Captain Brownell, two platoon leaders, and Sergeant Whitten guiding, the 35-man skirmish line started forward, the men firing steadily and walking erect under the supporting rifle and machine-gun fire. The enemy fired back with two machine guns one of their own and one Company K had abandoned on the top of the hill. Both sides used American white phosphorus grenades of which there was an abundant supply on the hill. As Company K's attack progressed, the men threw one or two grenades into each bunker they passed; otherwise they and the Chinese used them for illumination. At the moment of a grenade burst the hill and the line of infantrymen stood out prominently in the eerie white light. In the alternate periods of darkness, the men could see nothing. The first white phosphorus grenade thrown by the enemy landed at one end of the skirmish line. The entire line stopped momentarily. One man fell dead with a bullet through his neck. A burning streamer from another grenade hit Cpl. Virgil J. Penwell's rifle, setting the stock on fire and burning Penwell's sleeve.

Captain Brownell's counterattack progressed steadily, moving a yard or two with each grenade-burst. As the line reached the highest part of the
hill, a grenade-burst revealed See Chinese 15 or 20 feet ahead, kneeling side by side in firing position.

Sgt. Virgil E. Butler, who had thrown the grenade, yelled, "Get them where you can see them!"

Half a dozen men fired at once. At the same time, a Chinese whistle sounded and when the next grenade exploded two of the Chinese had disappeared. The third, still kneeling, was dead. A rifle left by one of his comrades leaned against his body. Enemy opposition diminished suddenly and then, except for a few rifle shots, ended.

 

[Lucky13]

By 0130, 18 May, Captain Brownell's counterattacking force had spread out to occupy the rest of Hill 800. Eight men had been wounded during the attack; only one had been killed. It had been easier than any of the men expected. Captain Brownell immediately reorganized the highest portion of his company's sector. The men set up machine guns again, reallocated the supply of ammunition and grenades, and reoccupied all of the bunkers except the one farthest north. This bunker was still occupied by Hipp, Ricki and Rowe, who had remained in it throughout the enemy occupancy of the hill. They had heard enemy soldiers talking and moving nearby, but did nothing to cause a disturbance. Nor did anyone bother them. They heard the American counterattack approaching, saw the Chinese soldiers falling back, and then one of them commenced to fire a BAR to let the other men of Company K know they were still there. Men in the nearby bunkers, however, assuming that these three men were dead and taking no unnecessary chances, fired upon the bunker the rest of the night. It was not until daylight that Hipp, Ricki and Rowe were able to identify themselves.

Communications were restored, and artillery and 4.2-inch mortar fire was concentrated on the saddle leading to Hill 916. Nothing else happened on Hill 800 for the rest of the night. The men pulled blankets around themselves and sat shivering in the cold, damp bunkers while the night dragged out. About two hundred enemy had infiltrated Company K's positions through and around the battalion's right flank, and had sniped at supply and communications personnel.

While Hill 800 was secure for the rest of the night, increasing pressure was placed on the extreme left flank of Company K's front and on Company I, to its left. Preceded by heavy artillery and mortar fire, at 0415 the Chinese overran Company I's right flank and the left flank of Company K.

The reserve platoon of Company I, which had been given the mission of clearing enemy snipers from the ridge recently occupied by the reserve platoon of Company K, was immediately withdrawn in order to seal the gap between the two companies and restore the line. The reserve platoon of Company K was ordered to continue its screening mission from Hill 800 south along the ridge to Hill 754.

When morning came on 18 May, the men on Hill 800 scouted the area. They found 2 live Chinese, 28 bodies on top of the hill and in bunkers, and 40 or so more along the barbed wire in front of the position. Besides bodies, the enemy had left a previously captured American machine gun, fourteen burp guns, rifles, packs, and food. There were also many unexploded American grenades scattered over the hill. The Chinese had failed to pull the pins and had thrown them after only bending the handles.

Company K went to work rebuilding its defenses, replacing barbed wire the enemy had cut the night before, repairing telephone wires andequally important burying the wire under eight inches of earth as the men had originally been told to do. The forward observer from the 38th Field Artillery Battalion registered in artillery in a solid semicircle around the area in front of Company K.

Colonel Hanes set out to make a personal reconnaissance and inspect his defenses. He found the line intact with the exception of the one penetration between Companies K and I, and this break was larger than previously reported. He estimated that several hundred Chinese had crowded into bunkers formerly occupied by members of the two companies. With such a large break in his line, Hanes realized he would have to restore these positions before dark or his battalion would be unable to prevent a major breakthrough the next night.

Assembling the support platoons from both companies, Hanes organized a counterattacking force and quickly briefed the men on the situation. Although they were exhausted from their arduous activity during the previous night, Hanes exhorted them to make every effort to restore the line before darkness fell again. He prepared for the attack by firing more than a thousand 4.2-inch mortar shells.

As the counterattack got under way Colonel Hanes intensified the mortar fire. Under this fire the heaviest ever observed by members of the attacking platoons the Chinese abandoned the bunkers and broke in full retreat. Before launching his attack Colonel Hanes had instructed the mortar observers to register concentrations along the only route by which the enemy could escape. When the enemy "bugout" started, the observers yelled for more fire, shifting the concentrations to keep up with the retreating Chinese. There were two halftracks near the bottom of the hill in Company I's sector, and crews manning the quad caliber .50 machine guns on these halftracks poured enfilade fire into the Chinese as they scrambled through the double-apron wire fences through which they had crawled during the night. The mortar men fired so rapidly that they burned their tubes and bent the base plates. The attacking infantrymen, moving closely behind the well-coordinated mortar and machine-gun fire, shouted jubilantly. It was a most successful attack. Enemy losses were high and Colonel Hanes's force restored the 3d Battalion's positions without suffering any casualties.

By the end of the day, Company K had rebuilt its defenses and corrected the weaknesses of the previous night. Artillery observers had fired on suspected enemy movement and assembly areas throughout the day and the regimental commander had given Hanes's battalion priority on air support. Planes made several strikes against Hill 916. Nevertheless, toward evening Chinese began moving on the southern slope of Hill 916, indicating that another attack was in the making.

 

[Lucky13]

East of the 3d Battalion, the enemy had dislodged two ROK divisions and parts of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division from the Noname Line. The entire right flank of X Corps was in process of falling back and turning its line to prevent an enemy envelopment. The new line, anchored on Company L, extended in a southeast direction to the town of Hangye on the Hongchon River.

When darkness came on 18 May, Captain Brownell and his men crawled into their bunkers to wait. An hour or two passed. Beyond the barbed wire there were the sounds of whistles and horns, and the usual commotion as the enemy formed to attack. After waiting and listening for several minutes, Brownell requested artillery fire. It came promptly, interrupting the enemy attack, or at least delaying it for twenty or thirty minutes. When it was re-formed, the forward observer signaled for another concentration.

Several attacks were held off in this fashion before any enemy succeeded in reaching Company K's line. When they did, the company commander warned his platoon leaders of what he was going to do, and then asked for the artillery to drop proximity-fuzed shells squarely on top of his company. The first shell burst overhead within a minute. Two thousand 105-mm shells fell during the next eight minutes. It was the heaviest concentration of artillery fire any of his men had experienced. They sat in the rear of their bunkers, staying well clear of the openings.

"You think we'll ever get out of this alive?" one of the men asked his bunker companion. At the time few men thought they would.

The artillery fire ended and a sudden quiet settled over the area. It remained quiet for twenty minutes or longer before more shells this time from the enemy fell in preparation for the next enemy attack. Again Company K waited until the Chinese were upon its position, then asked for another concentration. In the midst of the firing, Captain Brownell reported to Colonel Hanes.

"The position is completely covered with fire," he told his battalion commander. "Nothing could live above ground in this."

Men of Company K did little fighting themselves that night. They just sat in their earth-covered bunkers and waited for the enemy. When they heard enemy activity the men would notify Captain Brownell of the location, and the forward observer would shift the artillery's airbursts to that area. The 38th Field Artillery Battalion alone fired more than ten thousand rounds in support of the 3d Battalion during the night. It was a record for that artillery battalion. Most of the shells fell between 2200 and 0400 the following morning (19 May) when the Chinese abruptly broke off their attack.

When daylight came the enemy had disappeared, this time taking all supplies and equipment from his side of the barbed wire. Emerging from their bunkers, men of Company K were in full possession of the hill. The left-wing company of the battalion (Company I) was also in its original position, but Colonel Hanes had withdrawn Company L a short distance during the night in order to refuse his right flank.

Across the Korean peninsula Hanes's battalion was the northernmost unit on the United Nations' line. Before the enemy attack, the United Nations' front lines had extended northeast from a point just north of Seoul. The east end of this line, turning on Company K's Hill 800, had fallen back during the three-day battle to a defense line that slanted southeast and became known as Modified Noname Line. Situation maps at X Corps and 2d Division headquarters, on the morning of 19 May, showed the 3d Battalion, 38th Infantry, holding the northern point of a deep bulge in the front lines.

The commanding generals of X Corps (General Almond) and the 2d Division (General Ruffner) met in mid-morning and decided it would be necessary to abandon this bulge and withdraw the 38th Infantry in order to straighten and consolidate the corps' line.

When advised of this decision, Colonel Hanes protested. His defensive position, he argued, was still solid and could withstand any attack the enemy could throw against him. He preferred to stay where he was. General Ruffner ordered him to take up new positions to the south.

Colonel Hanes passed the order down to his commanders who, like himself, hated to give up a position upon which they had worked hard. Hanes told his commanders to explain to all members of their companies that they were giving up their positions not because they had been beaten by the enemy, but because they had been ordered to withdraw. He ordered them to gather up all equipment and supplies in their company sectors, and march down by companies.

The regimental commander (Col. John C. Coughlin) was at the bottom of the hill when the 3d Battalion came down that afternoon. He watched the infantrymen march past. Their horseshoe packs were rolled tight, their heads were high, their shoulders were thrown back. They had proved they could beat an all-out enemy attack, and they looked proud and cocky and confident.

 

[Lucky13]

Task Force Gerhardt

Beginning on 16 May, the Chinese launched their second spring offensive, aiming the main effort at U.S. X Corps. They made impressive gains at first, especially on the east flank of the corps' sector, but the vigor of the attack slackened noticeably after several days. At the end of a week, the enemy units were overextended, short of supplies, and weakened by serious personnel losses. While his troops were absorbing this enemy thrust, General Almond (X Corps commander) successfully bargained with Eighth Army for an additional infantry division as well as for the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. Having thus reinforced his corps, General Almond laid plans for a counteroffensive.

On the evening of 22 May, realizing that his corps had contained the enemy force and that opportunity for exploitation was at hand, General Almond attached the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment to the 2d Infantry Division. At the same time, he ordered the division commander to send the 187th on a rapid and strong thrust north along the road running from Hongchon to Inje. Attacking on 23 May with two battalions, the 187th Airborne gained four miles while, across the corps front, the initiative passed to the United Nations forces as they shifted from defensive to offensive warfare. Anxious to speed up his offensive operation, General Almond at 0940, 24 May, ordered the 2d Division to send a task force from the 187th Airborne to seize the bridge site on the Soyang River and, incidentally, to kill as many Chinese as possible. He ordered the task force, not yet formed, to jump off at 1200 two hours twenty minutes later.

Col. William Gerhardt (executive officer of the 187th Airborne),

Colonel Brubaker turned over to Major Spann with instructions to wait for the rest of the tank battalion and guide it forward to the starting point at Puchaetul. With Major Newman, Brubaker started forward in the other jeep to meet Captain Ross at the initial point.

"I want you to organize this point," he told Newman, "and you'll probably have to go with it."

About 1230 the two officers reached Puchaetul, where the task force was forming. Colonel Gerhardt arrived soon afterward and gave his final instructions. He already had sent the engineer platoon and the I&R squad forward to search for mines on the road, and he had obtained from the 3d Infantry Division a company of tanks that would be ready to move out with the main body of the task force. After reviewing the mission, the general situation, and advising all commanders that they could get air support simply by firing white phosphorus shells at any target, he ordered the lead tanks to get under way. It was about 1300.

The four tanks started north with the platoon leader (Lt. Douglas L. Gardiner) riding in the first tank and Major Newman in the second tank. Each of the medium tanks (M4A3E8) was armed with a 76-mm cannon, a caliber .30 bow machine gun, and a caliber .50 antiaircraft machine gun. In addition to 71 rounds of ammunition for its cannon, each tank carried 49 boxes of caliber .30 ammunition and 31 boxes for its antiaircraft machine gun.

Two miles beyond the point of departure the tanks came upon the other two elements of the point the engineer platoon and the 187th Airborne's I&R Platoon. The latter unit consisted of eleven men riding in three jeeps. Each jeep mounted a caliber .30 machine gun. The engineer platoon had two 2 1/2-ton trucks. Major Newman re-formed his column in the following order: two tanks, a jeep, two tanks, a jeep, and then the two trucks, followed by the third jeep. In this order the column advanced another mile to a friendly advance outpost at Koritwi-ri, where it halted while engineer mine detector squads went forward to probe the road.

A helicopter descended and from it stepped General Almond (X Corps commander). He asked Major Newman the cause of the halt. Newman explained that the column had stopped temporarily to permit a check of the road by mine detectors, and to establish communications between the tanks and the squad from the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon. General Almond was impatient.

"I don't care about communications!" he said, emphasizing this assertion by shaking his swagger stick at Major Newman. "You get those tanks on the road and keep going until you hit a mine. I want you to keep going at twenty miles an hour."

Newman ordered the column to move forward, instructing the tank commanders to shift to fifth gear, which would be equal to about twentytwo miles an hour.

General Almond flew back to the command post of the 187th Airborne. Standing in front of the command-post tent was Major Spann (the 72d Tank Battalion's S-3) whom Colonel Brubaker had left behind to contact and guide forward the rest of the battalion. Spann reported to General Almond who, in rapid succession, asked to what outfit he belonged, why the tanks weren't moving, and the name of the commander of the 72d Tank Battalion.

"You tell Brubaker," General Almond replied when Spann had answered these questions, "to get that tank column moving whether the tanks have infantry support or not."

At this moment the 187th Airborne's S-3 emerged from the tent. While General Almond was repeating his instructions to this officer, Spann left to deliver the general's message to Colonel Brubaker.

Colonel Gerhardt, in the meantime, had formed the elements of his task force in their relative positions in the column and had moved the column onto the road. Before Major Spann could relay General Almond's order through Colonel Brubaker, it had reached Colonel Gerhardt through his own staff. Gerhardt rushed up to the commander of Company B, 72d Tank Battalion, and told him to disregard the organization of Task Force Gerhardt and to get the tanks up the road to the Sovang River as fast as possible. The tank platoons, however, were intermingled with the task force column, the road was clogged with supply trucks, and it was not possible to immediately separate the tanks from the rest of the column.

After spending considerable time jockeying tanks and other vehicles around in the column, Ross succeeded in separating the tanks of the 1st Platoon which he sent along to join the leading platoon. As these tanks left the point of departure, Newman reported that he and the 3d Platoon were more than halfway to the Sovang River, having just cleared Oron-ni. He asked to have more tanks join him as quickly as possible.

When the point of the column moved out in fifth gear after encountering General Almond, the tanks reconnoitered four or five suspected enemy positions by firing at them either with the turret machine guns or the tank cannons. After advancing about a mile, the tank-platoon commander noticed two men manning a 3.5-inch bazooka near a destroyed bridge. As the tanks rolled forward, the men dropped their weapon and ran up the river bed to the northwest. Lieutenant Gardiner killed both of them with the caliber .50 machine gun. There was some enemy fire in response from rifles and from a light machine gun which fired short bursts from about seven hundred yards away.

In the second tank in the column, the mechanic had his cap knocked off by a bullet from the machine gun. SFC Roy Goff (commander of the tank) turned his caliber .50 machine gun toward the Chinese, the other tank commanders Joined him, and together they killed the enemy gunner as he attempted to change firing positions.

Since the tanks were still attracting light small-arms fire, the tankers directed the fire from all their weapons at suspected positions within a range of three hundred to five hundred yards. Eight or ten enemy soldiers then jumped out of foxholes near the bank of the Hongchon River which paralleled the road. The tankers killed 5 or 6 of them, but several escaped. The entire action lasted about five minutes.

The point of the task force column moved forward, again firing on all suspected enemy positions. (A soldier, hunting for souvenirs on the morning of 25 May, found seven dead Chinese in a cave into which the tanks had fired.) About a mile farther north, the crew of the lead tank noticed a group of 15 or 20 enemy soldiers on the road ahead. The Chinese waved their hands in a friendly manner at the tanks. Opening fire with the caliber .30 bow machine gun, the tank crew dispersed the enemy soldiers, but at the same time other groups of 4 or 5 men appeared on hills to the left of the road. These soldiers, drawing fire from all of the tanks, scampered first one way and then another as though they were uncertain about the direction in which to go.

Ahead was a mountain pass where Major Newman and the other tankers expected trouble. When Lieutenant Gardiner's lead tank reached the foot of the pass, he could see two houses at a bend commanding the road. Halting his tank, he reported this on the intertank radio. Newman told him to fire into the houses. Gardiner's fire set them ablaze, but he saw no one leave the houses.