about the author · 2011. 7. 10. · about the author e dwin howard simmons, a retired marine...

About the Author

Edwin Howard Simmons, aretired Marine brigadier gen-

eral, was, as a major, the com-manding officer of WeaponsCompany, 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, throughout the ChosinReservoir campaign. His activeMarine Corps service spanned 30years—1942 to 1972—duringwhich, as he likes to boast, suc-cessively in World War II, Korea,and Vietnam he had command oracting command in combat of every size unit from platoonto division. A writer and historian all his adult life, he wasthe Director of Marine Corps History and Museums from1972 until 1996 and is now the Director Emeritus.

Born in 1921 in Billingsport, New Jersey, the site of aRevolutionary War battle, he received his commission in theMarine Corps in 1942 through the Army ROTC at LehighUniversity. He also holds a master’s degree from Ohio StateUniversity and is a graduate of the National War College. Aone-time managing editor of the Marine Corps Gazette(1945-1949), he has been widely published, including morethan 300 articles and essays. His most recent books are TheUnited States Marine: A History (1998), The Marines (1998),and a Korean War novel, Dog Company Six. He is theauthor of an earlier pamphlet in this series, Over theSeawall: U.S. Marines at Inchon.

He is married, has four grown children, and lives withhis wife, Frances, at their residence, “Dunmarchin,” twomiles up the Potomac from Mount Vernon.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marinesin the Korean War era, is published for the education and training ofMarines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S.Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department ofDefense observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. Editorial costshave been defrayed in part by contributions from members of theMarine Corps Heritage Foundation. To plan and coordinate the KoreanWar commemorative events and activities of the Sea Services, the Navy,Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have formed the Sea Services KoreanWar Commemoration Committee, chaired by the Director, Navy Staff.For more information about the Sea Services’ commemorative effort,please contact the Navy-Marine Corps Korean War CommemorationCoordinator at (202) 433-4223/3085, FAX 433-7265 (DSN288-7265), E-Mail: [email protected], Website: www.histo-ry.usmc.mil.

KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR, KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Charles R. Smith

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION

W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist

Catherine A. Kerns, Visual Information Specialist

NAVY-MARINE CORPS KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATION

Lieutenant Colonel Ward E. Scott II, USMCR, Coordinator

U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center1254 Charles Morris Street SE

Washington Navy Yard DC 20374-50402002

PCN 190 00041 0000

SourcesThe official history, The Chosin Reservoir

Campaign by Lynn Montross and CaptNicholas A. Canzona, volume three in thefive-volume series U.S. Marine Operationsin Korea, 1950-1953, provided a startingplace for this account. However, in the nearhalf-century since this volume was pub-lished in 1957, there has been a great dealof new scholarship as well as release ofclassified records, particularly with respectto Chinese forces. This pamphlet attemptsto benefit from these later sources.

With respect to Chinese forces, TheDragon Strikes by Maj Patrick C. Roe hasbeen especially useful as have various arti-cles by both Chinese and Western scholarsthat have appeared in academic journals.The Changjin Journal, the electronicnewsletter edited by Col George A. Rasula,USA (Ret), has provided thought-provokingdetail on the role of U.S. Army forces, par-ticularly RCT-31, at the reservoir. The as-yetuncompleted work on the Hungnam evacu-ation by Professor Donald Chisholm hasyielded new insights on that critical culmi-nating event.

Books, some new, some old, that havebeen most useful include—listed alphabeti-cally and not necessarily by worth, which

varies widely—Roy E. Appleman, East ofChosin and South to the Naktong, North tothe Yalu; Clay Blair, The Forgotten War;Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson,The Sea War in Korea; T. R. Fehrenbach,This Kind of War; Andrew Geer, The NewBreed; D. M. Giangreco, War in Korea,1950-1953; Richard P. Hallion, The NavalAir War in Korea; Max Hastings, TheKorean War; Robert Leckie, The March toGlory; Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences;Francis Fox Parry, Three War Marine;Russell Spurr, Enter the Dragon; Shelby L.Stanton, America’s Tenth Legion; JohnToland, In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950-1953; Rudy Tomedi, No Bugles, No Drums;and Harry Truman, Memoirs.

The official reports that proved mosthelpful were the Far East Command’sCommand Report, December 1950; the 1stMarine Division’s Historical Diary forNovember 1950; the Commander, TaskForce 90’s Hungnam Redeployment, 9-25December 1950; and the Headquarters, XCorps, Special Report on Chosin Reservoir,17 November to 10 December 1950.

Oral histories, diaries, memoirs (pub-lished and unpublished), and personal cor-respondence were extremely useful, espe-cially those papers originating withGenerals Almond, Bowser, Craig, Litzen-berg, Murray, Shepherd, and Smith.

Resort was made to scores of biographi-cal and subject files held by the ReferenceSection of the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter.

The author also unabashedly put to usehis own recollections of events and recycledmaterials that he had first developed onChosin Reservoir in various essays, articles,and lectures during the past half-century.

As is invariably the case, the author hadthe unstinting and enthusiastic support andcooperation of the staff at the Marine CorpsHistorical Center.

The text has benefited greatly from thecritical reviews by the editorial ladder with-in the Marine Corps Historical Center—Mr.Charles R. “Rich” Smith, Mr. Charles D.Melson, LtCol Jon Hoffman—and externallyby Col Joseph Alexander, Col Thomas G.Ferguson, USA (Ret), BGen James F.Lawrence, Col Allan R. Millett, Mr. J. RobertMoskin, Col George A. Rasula, USA (Ret),and Maj Patrick C. Roe. The author, ofcourse, remains responsible for any defectsremaining in the book.

A fully annotated draft manuscript is ondeposit at the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter. Virtually all of the reference materi-als published and unpublished, used can befound at the Marine Corps Historical Centerin Washington, D.C., or at the Marine CorpsResearch Center at Quantico, Virginia.

he race to the Yaluwas on. General ofthe Army DouglasMacArthur’s strategictriumph at Inchon

and the subsequent breakout ofthe U.S. Eighth Army from thePusan Perimeter and the recaptureof Seoul had changed the directionof the war. Only the finishingtouches needed to be done tocomplete the destruction of theNorth Korean People’s Army.Moving up the east coast was theindependent X Corps, command-ed by Major General Edward M.Almond, USA. The 1st MarineDivision, under Major GeneralOliver P. Smith, was part of XCorps and had been so since the 15September 1950 landing at Inchon.

After Seoul the 1st MarineDivision had reloaded into itsamphibious ships and had swungaround the Korean peninsula toland at Wonsan on the east coast.The landing on 26 October 1950met no opposition; the port hadbeen taken from the land side bythe resurgent South Korean army.The date was General Smith’s 57thbirthday, but he let it pass unno-ticed. Two days later he ordered

Colonel Homer L. Litzenberg, Jr.,47, to move his 7th MarineRegimental Combat Team northfrom Wonsan to Hamhung. Smithwas then to prepare for anadvance to the Manchurian border,135 miles distant. And so beganone of the Marine Corps’ greatestbattles—or, as the Corps wouldcall it, the “Chosin ReservoirCampaign.” The Marines called itthe “Chosin” Reservoir becausethat is what their Japanese-basedmaps called it. The South Koreans,nationalistic sensibilities disturbed,preferred—and, indeed, wouldcome to insist—that it be calledthe “Changjin” Reservoir.

General Smith, commander ofthe Marines—a quiet man andinveterate pipe-smoker (his fa-vorite brand of tobacco was SirWalter Raleigh)—was not the sort ofpersonality to attract a nickname.His contemporaries sometimesreferred to him as “the Professor”but, for the most part, to distin-guish him from two more seniorand better known General Smiths inthe World War II Marine Corps—Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smithof famous temper and mild-man-nered Julian C. Smith of Tarawa—he was known by his initials “O. P.”

Across the Taebaek (Nangnim)Mountains, the Eighth Army,under Lieutenant General WaltonH. Walker, was advancing up thewest coast of the Korean peninsu-la. Walker, a short, stubby man,was “Johnnie” to his friends,“Bulldog” to the press. In WorldWar II he had commanded XXCorps in General George S.

Patton’s Third Army and had beena Patton favorite. But these cre-dentials held little weight withGeneral Douglas MacArthur. Hehad come close to relievingWalker in August during the worstof the situation in the PusanPerimeter. Relations betweenAlmond and Walker were cool atbest.

MacArthur had given Almondcommand of X Corps for theInchon landing while he contin-ued, at least in name, asMacArthur’s chief of staff at FarEast Command. Almond, an ener-

1

FROZEN CHOSINU.S. Marines at the Changjin Reservoir

by Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)

ON THE COVER: In this poignant pho-tograph by the peerless Marine andLife photographer, David DouglasDuncan, the dead ride in trucks, legsbound together with pack straps.Photo by David Douglas DuncanAT LEFT: A cold and exhaustedMarine light machine gunnerclimbs resolutely toward a ridgeline.National Archives Photo (USAF)342-FH-37885

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A88898

MajGen Oliver P. “O.P.” Smith com-manded the 1st Marine Divisionthroughout the Chosin Reservoir cam-paign. A studious man, his quietdemeanor belied his extensive combatexperience. His seemingly cautiousstyle of leadership brought him intofrequent conflict with MajGenEdward M. Almond, USA, the impetu-ous commanding general of X Corps.

getic, ambitious, and abrasiveman, still nominally wore bothhats although his X Corps com-mand post in Korea was a longdistance from MacArthur’s head-quarters in Tokyo.

“General Almond in 1950 and1951 in Korea had several nick-names,” wrote Roy E. Appleman inhis Escaping the Trap: The U.S.Army X Corps in Northeast Korea.

“Generally, he was known to hisfriends and close associates asNed. Other names were ‘Ned, theAnointed,’ which meant he was afavorite of General MacArthur’s,and ‘Ned, the Dread,’ whichreferred to his power, his brusquemanner, and sometimes arbitraryactions.”

Many persons, both then andlater, thought that X Corps should

have now been subordinated tothe Eighth Army. But on the 28th ofOctober, “O. P.” Smith was lessconcerned with these higher-levelcommand considerations than hewas with events closer to his head-quarters at Wonsan. The 1stBattalion, 1st Marines, sent south ofWonsan to the coastal town ofKojo-ri, at the direction of XCorps, to protect a Republic ofKorea supply dump had beenroughly handled by a surprisinglystrong North Korean attack. Smiththought that the battalion com-mander “was in a funk and itwould be wise for Puller to godown and take charge.” ColonelLewis B. “Chesty” Puller, the regi-mental commander of the 1stMarines, left late that afternoon byrail with the 2d Battalion, 1stMarines, “to clear up the situa-tion.”

On the following day, Smithwas annoyed by an order fromAlmond that removed the 1stKorean Marine Corps (KMC)Regiment from his operationalcontrol. The two commandersconferred on Monday, 30 October.Almond agreed to the return ofone KMC battalion in order toexpedite the move of the 5th and7th Marines to Hamhung. Aftermeeting with Almond, Smith flewby helicopter down to Kojo-ri andfound that Puller indeed had the sit-uation well in hand.

Tensions and differences be-tween Almond and O. P. Smithwere no secret. Almond had firstmet the Marine commander onSmith’s arrival in Japan on 22August 1950. As Almond stillasserted a quarter-century later: “Igot the impression initially (and itwas fortified constantly later) thatGeneral Smith always had excusesfor not performing at the requiredtime the tasks he was requested todo.”

With the 1st Marine Division

2

assigned as part of X Corps,Almond was Smith’s operationalcommander. Smith’s administrativecommander continued to beLieutenant General Lemuel C.Shepherd, Jr., commanding gener-al of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific,with headquarters in Hawaii.While not in the operational chain-of-command, Shepherd was re-sponsible for the personnel andlogistical support of the 1st MarineDivision. This gave Shepherd, anold war-horse, an excuse for fre-quent visits to the battlefield.Fifty-four-year-old Shepherd and57-year-old Almond got alongwell, perhaps because they wereboth Virginians and both gradu-ates of close-knit Virginia MilitaryInstitute—Almond, Class of 1915and Shepherd, Class of 1917. “Iliked him,” said Shepherd of

3

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 421392

Six weeks after the successful assault of Inchon, the 1st Marine Division made adelayed but unopposed landing at Wonsan on 26 October 1950. Heavy miningof the sea approaches with Soviet-made mines caused the delay.

After landing at Wonsan, the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was sent south to thecoastal town of Kojo-ri. Here it was savaged by an unexpectedly strong NorthKorean attack. MajGen Smith sent Col Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller south with the 2dBattalion, 1st Marines, to “take charge.”

Photo by Cpl W T. Wolfe, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4323LtGen Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., left,arrives at Wonsan Airfield on 31October for one of his frequent visitsand is greeted by MajGen Edward M.Almond. The two generals got alongvery well, perhaps because they wereboth Virginia Military Institute grad-uates. Both are wearing cuffed Armycombat boots, a footgear favored byall those who could obtain them.

Photo by Cpl Jack Nash, National ArchivesPhoto (USA) 111-SC351739

4

Almond at VMI, “but I really can’tsay he was one of my closerfriends.” Shepherd had had reasonto expect command of X Corps forthe Inchon landing, but MacArthurhad given command to his chief ofstaff, Almond. Shepherd exhibitedno visible grudge and Almond, inturn, always made Shepherd wel-come on his visits and he oftenstayed with Almond in his mess.Years later, Shepherd, who consid-ered Almond an excellent corpscommander, said of him: “He wasenergetic, forceful, brave, and inmany ways did a good job undermost difficult conditions.”

Concerning Almond’s relationswith Smith, Shepherd said: “Heand O. P. just didn’t get along,from the very first. They’re twoentirely different personalities. . . .O. P. [was] a cautious individual, afine staff officer who consideredevery contingency before takingaction. On the other hand Almondwas aggressive and anxious for the

X Corps to push ahead faster thanSmith thought his division should.Smith wisely took every precau-tion to protect his flanks during hisdivision’s advance into NorthKorea, which slowed him downconsiderably. I’m sure Almond gotinto Smith’s hair—just like I’m surethat I did too.”

As a glance at a map will con-firm, North Korea is shaped like afunnel, with a narrow neck—roughly a line from Wonsan west toPyongyang—and a very widemouth, the boundary with RedChina and a bit with the SovietUnion on the north, formed by theYalu and Tumen Rivers. Becauseof this geographic conformation,any force moving from the north tosouth had the advantage of a con-verging action. Conversely, forcesmoving from south to north mustdiverge. As Walker and Almondadvanced to the north, the gapbetween Eighth Army and X Corpswould grow wider and wider. This

may have concerned Walker, but itdoes not seem to have botheredAlmond—nor their common com-mander, General Douglas Mac-Arthur, many miles away in Tokyoin what he liked to call his “GHQ.”

General Shepherd arrived atWonsan for one of his periodic vis-its on Tuesday, 31 October. Nextmorning Shepherd flew down toKojo-ri to visit Puller and on hisreturn to Wonsan he and Smithflew to Hamhung to see Litzen-berg. That night Smith entered inhis log:

Litzenberg is concernedover the situation. He hasmoved up behind the 26th

Photo by Cpl Jack Nash, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC351740

Using a map spread out on the hood of a jeep, MajGen Edward M. Almond briefsLtGen Lemuel C. Shepherd on his arrival at Wonsan on 31 October. At theextreme left is MajGen William J. Wallace, Director of Aviation at HeadquartersU. S. Marine Corps, who accompanied Shepherd. MajGen Oliver P. Smithstands behind Shepherd and Almond. MajGen Field Harris is on the extreme right.

Col Homer L. Litzenberg, Jr., com-manding officer of the 7th Marines,was known to his troops as “Litz theBlitz,” more for the alliteration than hiscommand style. At the outbreak of thewar, Litzenberg was in command of the6th Marines at Camp Lejeune. InAugust 1950, the 7th Marines washurriedly re-activated at CampPendleton using cadres drawn fromthe 6th Marines.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4719

ROK Regiment and willrelieve them tomorrow. TwoChinese regiments have beenidentified to the front. TheROK regiment is very glad tobe relieved by the Marines.The ROKs apparently haveno stomach for fightingChinese.

China Enters the War

Most Chinese historians nowassert, and most Western histori-ans are now ready to believe, thatChina entered the Korean Warreluctantly.

In 1948, Kim Il Sung, then 37,had emerged under the patronageof the Soviet occupation as theleader of the so-called DemocraticPeople’s Republic of Korea with itscapital in Pyongyang. In the Westhe remained a shadowy figure.Reputedly he had been a success-ful guerrilla fighter against theJapanese. He had returned toNorth Korea at World War II’s endas a hero.

With the civil war against theChinese Nationalists at a successfulclose, Mao in late 1949 and early1950 released four divisions madeup of soldiers of Korean origin toreturn to Korea. These Kim, underSoviet tutelage, reorganized intomirror images of Soviet rifle divi-sions in equipment and training.Early on Kim Il Sung learned howto play Mao Tse-tung againstStalin. For more than a year, Kim IlSung zigzagged back and forthbetween Moscow and Peiping (notyet known in the West as“Beijing”) seeking Stalin’s and thenMao’s support for an overt inva-sion of the South.

Both Stalin and Mao were atfirst skeptical of Kim’s ambitions.Stalin cautioned Kim that heshould cross the 38th Parallel onlyin a counteroffensive to a SouthKorea invasion of the north. Mao

advised Kim to be prepared forprotracted guerrilla warfare andnot to attempt to reunify Korea byforce.

For Mao, Kim’s ambitious planswere a distraction. He was muchmore interested in completing hisvictory against the ChineseNationalists by “liberating” Xing-jiang, Tibet, and, most importantly,Taiwan. But in the spring of 1950Stalin, playing his own game, gave

Kim a qualified promise of Sovietsupport with the proviso that theNorth Korean leader consult withMao. Accordingly, Kim went againto Peiping in mid-May 1950, puton a bold front and told Mao thatStalin had agreed with his plan toinvade South Korea. A cautiousMao asked the Soviet ambassadorto confirm Kim’s assertion. A slyStalin replied that while heapproved Kim’s plans, the deci-

5

6

sion to invade South Korea was adecision to be made by China andNorth Korea. Until then Mao’sposition had been that Taiwan’sliberation must have priority overKorea’s unification. Reluctantly,Mao reversed these priorities butcautioned Kim on the strong pos-sibility of intervention by theUnited States on the side of SouthKorea. Mao had almost no regulartroops in northeast China. He toldKim that he would move troopsinto Manchuria, poised to crossinto Korea, but that they wouldnot enter the war unless Americantroops crossed the 38th Parallel.

The concentration of Chineseforces along the Yalu did not real-ly begin until mid-July 1950 with theformation of the Northeast ChinaBorder Defense Force, about260,000 troops. By mid-AugustMao was certain that the UnitedNations forces would land at

Inchon. On 23 August, the sameday that MacArthur was wrestingfinal approval for Inchon at a con-ference in Tokyo, Mao was meetingwith his political and military lead-ers in Peiping. They were orderedto complete all preparations by theNortheast China Border DefenseForce for war. The Ninth ArmyGroup, which had been poisednear Shanghai for the invasion ofTaiwan (still known to the Westernworld as “Formosa”), was one ofthe major units ordered to movenorth.

The Inchon landing gaveurgency to Chinese preparationsto enter the war. Two days afterthe landing on 15 September 1950,a liaison party was sent toPyongyang. Meanwhile, Kim IlSung had asked Stalin for help,including putting pressure onChina to send troops. Stalin con-sidered the most acceptable assis-

tance by Chinese armed forceswould be in the form of “people’svolunteers.” In a telegram to Maoon 1 October, Stalin advised: “TheChinese soldiers may be consid-ered as volunteers and of coursewill be commanded by theChinese.” Mao responded the nextday that this was his intention.

For many years Western histori-ans supposed that Lin Piao, a leg-endary Chinese Communist leader,commanded Chinese forces inKorea. They were wrong. At a 4October conference in Peiping, LinPiao argued strongly against send-ing troops into Korea to fight theAmericans and refused to lead theintervention, using the subterfuge ofpoor health. Lin went off toMoscow for medical treatment andMao named Peng Dehuai, a toughold revolutionary, to take hisplace. Peng, born in Hunanprovince of peasant stock, hademerged as a senior commanderin Mao Tse-tung’s famed LongMarch in 1934-1935. Peng arrived inPeiping too late for the 4 Octobermeeting but met the next day withMao who directed him to be readyto enter Korea by 15 October. On8 October, Mao officially orderedthe creation of the ChinesePeople’s Volunteers, which wouldbe the expeditionary element ofthe Northeast China BorderDefense Force, with Peng as bothmilitary commander and politicalcommissar.

That same day, 8 October, Maosent his adroit vice-chairman andforeign minister, Zhou Enlai, to theSoviet Union to discuss with Stalinthe provision of air assistance andmilitary equipment. Zhou met withStalin at his Black Sea resort. Stalinwas noncommittal and said that hewas not yet ready to provide airsupport. In Manchuria, PengDehuai was furious when helearned this. He stormed back toPeiping to meet again with Mao.

Marine Corps Historical Center Photo Collection

Peng Dehuai, left, commander of the Chinese Communist Forces meets withKim Il Sung, premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Peng later wasChina’s Minister of National Defense but because of his criticism of the Great LeapForward he was dismissed. During the Cultural Revolution he was arrested,imprisoned, tortured, and died in 1974 from a lack of medical care. He was posthu-mously rehabilitated as a “great revolutionary fighter” and loyal party member.

7

Meanwhile Kim Il Sung was press-ing for immediate Chinese help.

In early October, Zhou Enlaiinformed the Indian ambassador inPeiping, Kavalam M. Panikkar, thatif the United Nations forcescrossed the 38th Parallel, Chinawould send troops to defendNorth Korea. This warning reachedWashington through diplomaticchannels in New Delhi and Lon-don. Substantiating reports camethrough Moscow and Stockholm.The warnings were forwarded toMacArthur’s GHQ in Tokyo.

On 15 October, the famousWake Island meeting of PresidentHarry S. Truman with GeneralMacArthur took place. Truman’slater blunt, but inadequate, expla-nation for the conference was “Iwanted to have a personal talkwith the General.” A waryMacArthur perceived the meetingas a presidential ambush primarilydesigned to reinforce theDemocratic Party’s chances of suc-cess in the upcoming congression-al elections. According toMacArthur, the possibility ofChinese intervention came upalmost casually. He stated in hisReminiscences that the generalconsensus was that China had nointention of intervening. Trumanwould later say in his Memoirs thatthe threatened intervention inKorea was a prime reason for themeeting. He wanted MacArthur’s“firsthand information and judg-ment.”

What Truman took away fromWake Island was that the war inKorea was won and that theChinese Communists would notattack. Asked about the chances ofChinese intervention, MacArthur,according to Truman, replied thatthere was very little chance thatthe Chinese would come in. At themost they might be able to get fiftyor sixty thousand men into Korea,but since they had no air force, “if

the Chinese tried to get down toPyongyang, there would be thegreatest slaughter.”

MacArthur remembered the con-versation quite differently. Hewould later say that it was a “pre-varication” that he had predicted,“that under no circumstanceswould Chinese Communists enterthe war.” He characterized hisWake Island view on the possibili-ty of Chinese intervention as“speculative.” His own local intelli-gence, filtered through to him by hislong-time G-2, Major GeneralCharles A. Willoughby, USA, toldhim that large numbers of Chinesetroops were massed across theYalu, but his estimate was thatAmerica’s virtually unopposed airpower would make large-scaleintervention impossible.

Four nights after the WakeIsland meeting, on 19 October, theChinese in massive numbers begancrossing the Yalu.

General Almond’s Ambitions

The entry of Chinese troops inforce into North Korea was notpicked up by United Nations intel-ligence, neither visually by aerialreconnaissance nor audibly byintercepts of radio signals. Innortheast Korea, Almond contin-ued his advance with great confi-dence. Almond’s over-ridingambition was to beat his rival,General Walker, to the Yalu. His XCorps included two strong U.S.divisions—the 1st Marine and the7th Infantry—and two Republic ofKorea or “ROK” divisions—theCapital and 3d—and there weremore troops on the way. With theexpected arrival of the U.S. 3dInfantry Division the total wouldcome up to 102,000, about two-thirds as many troops as Walkerhad in his Eighth Army.

The two ROK divisions, orga-nized into the ROK I Corps, could

From left to right: MajGen David G. Barr, Commanding General, 7th InfantryDivision; MajGen Edward M. Almond, Commanding General, X Corps; and ColHerbert B. Powell, Commanding Officer, 17th Infantry. After Barr’s division madean unopposed landing at Iwon on 29 October, Almond pushed Barr to get to theYalu. Powell’s regiment was the spearhead for the advance.

Photo by Cpl Alex Klein, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC351957

8

best be described as light infantry.They had no tanks and their onlyartillery were obsolescent 75mmhowitzers. Almond’s optimisticassessment of the ROK corps’fighting capabilities was “that theywere a good deal better than thepeople they were chasing, the dis-organized, disabled North Koreanforce.”

“I realized,” said Almond yearslater, “that we were scattered allover the landscape, but the gener-al deployment was controlled bythe terrain of the area in which the[X] corps was to operate.” Almondshould also have realized thatthere were strings tied to hisemployment of the 1st MarineDivision and its companion 1stMarine Aircraft Wing. Shepherd, inHawaii, was watching the use ofthe Marines very closely and sowas the Commandant of theMarine Corps, General Clifton B.Cates, in Washington.

Army Major General David G.“Dave” Barr’s 7th Division hadloaded out from Pusan on 19October as a follow-on to the 1stMarine Division at Wonsan. Barrhad been the chief of staff of severalcommands in Europe during WorldWar II. After the war he had head-ed the Army Advisory Mission inNanking. At the war’s beginninghis 7th Division had been strippedto provide fillers for the 24th and25th Divisions, the first divisions tobe deployed to Korea. The 7thDivision, before following theMarines ashore at Inchon, hadbeen hurriedly brought to warstrength with untrained SouthKorean recruits—the so-calledKATUSA or “Korean Augmenteesto the United States Army.”

Now, when the Marine landing atWonsan was delayed, Barr’s desti-nation was changed to Iwon, 75miles northeast of Hungnam. Iwonwas still theoretically in “enemy”

territory, but it had good beachesand was known to be free ofmines. Barr reloaded the 17thRegimental Combat Team underColonel Herbert B. Powell intoseven LSTs (tank landing ships) tobe used in an amphibious assault inthe event that the beaches weredefended. They were not. As atWonsan, the South Koreans hadalready taken the port from theland side. Powell’s RCT-17 landedunopposed on 29 October andplunged ahead in a dash forHyesanjin on the Yalu River. Bythe end of the month Powell’s leadbattalion was in a bitter four-dayfight with the beaten, but still stub-born, North Koreans at Pungsan.In the days that followed, theremainder of the 7th Division cameashore. The 31st Infantry beganlanding on 3 November with themission of moving in on the leftflank of the 17th Infantry. The 32dInfantry followed on 4 November

and went into bivouac northeastof Hungnam. On 8 November, the31st Infantry ran into Chinesetroops on the slopes of Paek-san, a7,700-foot peak. In what was the7th Division’s first contact with theChinese, the regiment reported atleast 50 enemy killed.

Almond considered his controlover the ROK I Corps to be no dif-ferent than that he had over the1st Marine Division and the 7thInfantry Division. Not all wouldagree, then or now, that his com-mand of the ROK units was thatcomplete. Their more bindingorders came from President Syng-man Rhee. While the landings atWonsan and Iwon were still inprospect, the ROK Capital Divisionhad marched steadily up the coastroad to Iwon. The ROK 3dDivision, meanwhile, had movednorthwest from Hamhung towardthe Chosin Reservoir.

On the Eighth Army front, theChinese, whose presence in Koreahad been doggedly denied atGHQ Tokyo, had by late Octobersuddenly surfaced in formidablenumbers. By the end of themonth, the Chinese had defeatedthe ROK II Corps on the rightflank of the Eighth Army to thepoint of disintegration, exposingthe next unit to the left, the U.S. ICorps. General Walker ordered ageneral withdrawal to theChungchon River. The Chinese didnot pursue but broke off theiroffensive as suddenly as it began.

Separating the right flank ofEighth Army from X Corps was theTaebaek mountain range, thespine of the Korean peninsula andsupposedly impassable to any sig-nificant number of troops. East ofthe Taebaek Mountains thingsseemed to continue to go well forGeneral Almond and his X Corps.Almond did not appear to be per-turbed by General Walker’s prob-lems.

Smith’s Commanders and Staff

Because of the widely dispersedmissions assigned his 1st MarineDivision, General Smith had divid-ed his command into regimentalcombat teams built around histhree infantry regiments. RCT-5,under Lieutenant Colonel Ray-mond L. Murray, was assigned azone behind Litzenberg’s RCT-7.RCT-1, commanded by the leg-endary “Chesty” Puller, already theholder of four Navy Crosses,would remain for the time being inthe vicinity of Wonsan fighting theremnants of one or more brokenNorth Korean divisions struggling toget north.

All three regimental comman-ders had been successful battalioncommanders in World War II.Moreover, Puller had commandedthe 1st Marines at Peleliu. Now inthis new war, Murray, 37, hadbrought the 5th Marines to Korea ina pell-mell rush to play a fire-brigade role in the defense of thePusan Perimeter. Puller, 52, hadarrived from Camp Pendleton withthe 1st Marines in time for theInchon landing. Litzenberg hadformed the 7th Marines at CampPendleton, California, in a matter ofdays and had gotten to Korea intime to join in the battle for Seoul.Litzenberg was called “Litz theBlitz” by some, but this was morean alliteration—and maybe a littlederisive at that—rather than adescription of his command style,which tended to be cautious andbuttoned-up. Because of his close-ly cropped prematurely white hair,some of his irreverent young lieu-tenants, and perhaps a few of hiscaptains and majors often referredhim to, as the “Great WhiteFather.”

Murray, the junior regimentalcommander, was simply known as“Ray.” Among Marines, who like toargue over such things, Murray’s

5th Marines, with the highest per-centage of regulars and thelongest time in the fight, wouldprobably have rated highest incombat effectiveness. The 1stMarines, with Chesty Puller as itscommander, most likely wouldhave rated second. The 7thMarines, last to arrive and with thehighest percentage of reserves,still had to prove itself and wouldhave come in third.

Smith had a strong divisionstaff: some members were alreadyserving with the division when hetook command and some that hehad subsequently asked for. At theoutbreak of the war Colonel AlphaL. Bowser, Jr., 40, had just beenassigned as Force Inspector, FleetMarine Force, Pacific. GeneralSmith asked General Shepherd forhis services as G-3 of the division.Shepherd assented and Bowserhad become Smith’s operationalright-hand man. Bowser, NavalAcademy 1932, had an enviablereputation in the Corps as aQuantico instructor, staff officer,expert in naval gunfire, andartillery battalion commander atIwo Jima. He said later: “One ofthe major problems of the entireoperation to the north of Wonsanwas our open flank to the west.We never established contact withthe right flank of the Eighth Army,and we had a great void out therewhich I at one time estimated to besomewhere in the neighborhoodof 85 to 100 miles.”

In a 1971 interview by D.Clayton James, noted historian andbiographer of MacArthur, Bowsergave his considered opinion ofAlmond’s leadership:

General Almond was prob-ably one of the most aggres-sive corps commanders Ihave ever seen in action. Hewas aggressive almost to afault in my estimation. From

9

10

the standpoint of his ownpersonal comfort and safety,he never gave it a thought.He was up at the front a greatdeal. He was what wereferred to as a “hard charger.”

However, Bowser went on tosay:

I questioned his judgmenton many occasions. . . . Ithink that General Almondpictured this [campaign] in hismind’s eye as a sweeping vic-tory that was in his grasp. Buthe gambled and he lost. . . . Arather vain man in manyways. Ambitious. Could be avery warm personality as apersonal friend. If he had oneglaring fault, I would say itwas inconsistency.

Bowser was not the only starplayer on Smith’s team. Virtuallyall of the senior members ofSmith’s general and special staff

were combat-tested veterans ofconsiderable reputation.

Brigadier General Edward A.Craig, Smith’s assistant divisioncommander, now 54, had beencommissioned in 1917, the sameyear as Shepherd and Smith.During the World War I years,while Smith was in garrison onGuam and Shepherd was winninglaurels in France, Craig was fightinga kind of “cowboys and Indians”bush war against bandits in Haitiand Santo Domingo. In World WarII he commanded the 9th Marines,first in training on Guadalcanaland then in combat on Bougain-ville and Guam—for the last hehad a Navy Cross. He left the divi-sion in the summer of 1950 tocommand the 1st ProvisionalMarine Brigade in its adventures inthe Pusan Perimeter, but rejoinedthe parent division in time for theInchon landing. Like Smith, Craigwas tall, slim, and prematurelywhite-haired. Smith, perhaps re-calling his own troubled period as

the division’s assistant divisioncommander at Peleliu and beingvirtually ignored by the divisioncommander, Major GeneralWilliam H. Rupertus, used Craig’sservices wisely and well, particu-larly as a roaming extension of hisown eyes and ears. But Craigwould be at home on emergencyleave at a critical time in the cam-paign.

Smith’s chief of staff, ColonelGregon A. Williams, 54, had joinedthe division at Camp Pendleton inJuly. Before that he had been chiefof staff of Fleet Marine Force,Pacific. A short, erect man,Williams had the reputation ofbeing a “mean SOB.” He had hada remarkable—but not unique foran officer of his vintage—career.He had enlisted in San Diego atthe outbreak of World War I, but didnot get to France, serving, in duetime, in Santo Domingo, China,

National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5895

For his brilliant staff work as division G-3, Col Alpha L. Bowser would later receivea Legion of Merit from MajGen Smith. Standing to Bowser’s right is Col BanksonT. Holcomb, Jr., the division G-2, who received a similar decoration. Theseawards were made in January 1951.

Col Gregon A. Williams, shown here asa brigadier general, was Smith’s chiefof staff. Seldom seen in the field by thetroops, Williams ran the division staffand headquarters with an iron hand.Like many senior Marine officers, hehad had considerable service inChina, both before and during WorldWar II.Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A42833

11

Haiti, and Nicaragua. As a sergeanthe had been in the DominicanGuardia Nacional as a local lieu-tenant. A young Dominican lieu-tenant, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo,who would be the country’s long-time dictator, became Williams’life-long friend. (The writer recallsthat at the 1959 New Years recep-tion at the presidential palace, inwhat was then Ciudad Trujillo, thesingle ornament on the grandpiano in the ballroom was a silver-framed photograph of ColonelWilliams.) Service in Nicaraguabrought him a Navy Cross. At thebeginning of the Pacific War, as anassistant naval attaché in Shang-hai, he was taken into custody bythe Japanese and held as a prison-er until August 1942 when he wasrepatriated because of his diplo-matic status. Undaunted, hereturned to China to the newNationalist capital in Chungkingwhere he became involved in thesupport of guerrilla operations. Inthe summer of 1944 he was sent tothe Pacific to take command of the6th Marines, then involved inmopping-up on Saipan. He was aconsummate chief of staff al-though not much loved by thosewho had to work for him. He gotalong famously with contempo-raries such as Craig, but he terrifiedjunior officers. Bowser, after somerough spells, said that, “He and Icame to a perfect relationship.”According to Bowser, Williams“took no guff” from Almond orAlmond’s chief of staff. Williamsstayed close to the command post.Murray recalled seeing him onlyfive or six times during theirrespective tours in Korea and thenonly at the division headquarters.

Much more visible to the com-mand than Williams—and muchbetter liked—was the deputy chiefof staff, Colonel Edward W.Snedeker, 47. By training a com-munications officer, Snedeker had

been Craig’s chief of staff during thefighting by the 1st ProvisionalMarine Brigade in the PusanPerimeter. Snedeker, Naval Acad-emy 1926, had distinguished him-self in World War II with a SilverStar from Guadalcanal and a NavyCross from Okinawa where hecommanded the 7th Marines.Smith’s personal relationship withSnedeker was much closer than itwas with Williams.

The G-1 (Personnel), LieutenantColonel Harvey S. Walseth, 39,Naval Academy 1935, had served inChina before World War II andwas a tank officer at Guadalcanaland Iwo Jima.

The G-2 (Intelligence), ColonelBankson T. Holcomb, Jr., 42,movie-star handsome with histhin, clipped mustache and some-thing of a bon vivant, was an oldChina hand. The cousin ofThomas Holcomb, who was the

Commandant of the Marine Corpsduring World War II and the firstMarine to reach the grade of four-star general, Bankson T. Holcomb,Jr., had graduated from highschool in Peiping in 1925 andserved two years as an enlistedman before going to the NavalAcademy, Class of 1931. Hereturned to China in 1934 as anassistant to the naval attaché andChinese language student, fol-lowed by two years as a Japaneselanguage student in Tokyo. Hisspeaking and reading ability inboth Chinese and Japanese wasrated as “excellent.” He was atPearl Harbor as an intelligenceofficer in December 1941 whenthe Japanese struck. In 1943 hereturned to China once again, thistime to operate out of theNationalist capital of Chungkingwith Chinese guerrillas.

The G-4 (Logistics) Colonel

In January 1951, Col Edward W. Snedeker would receive a second Legion of Meritfrom MajGen Smith for his outstanding performance of duty as the division’sdeputy chief of staff. Earlier, in the Pusan Perimeter, he had been chief of staffof the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade.


Francis M. McAlister, 45 and NavalAcademy 1927, had fought as anengineer at Bougainville, Guam,and Okinawa. Like most Marineofficers of his generation, he hadserved in Nicaragua and China.

Walseth, Holcomb, Bowser, andMcAlister were the four pillars ofthe division’s general staff. Bow-ser, the operations officer, andMcAlister, the logistics chief, had aparticularly close working partner-ship.

The much larger special staffranged in grade from second lieu-tenant to colonel, from SecondLieutenant John M. Patrick, thehistorical officer, to Colonel JamesH. Brower, the division artilleryofficer. Most of the special staffwere double-hatted; they alsocommanded the unit composed oftheir specialty. Brower commandedthe division’s artillery regiment,the 11th Marines, with threeorganic battalions of 105mm how-itzers, a battalion of 155mm how-itzers, and a battery of 4.5-inch

multiple rockets. Brower, 42, was aVirginia Military Institute graduate,Class of 1931, who trained as anartilleryman at Fort Sill. DuringWorld War II he served as a staffofficer with amphibious forces inthe invasions of Sicily and Italy,but arrived in the Pacific in time forOkinawa.

Forty-four-year old LieutenantColonel John H. Partridge, as thecommander of the 1st Engineer

Battalion, was the division engi-neer. His engineers would workprodigies during the campaign.Partridge, Naval Academy 1936,had been with the 4th MarineDivision at Roi-Namur, Saipan,Tinian, and Iwo Jima.

Smith and his staff, and his sub-ordinate commanders and theirrespective staffs, worked their waythrough new sets of maps, analyz-ing the terrain and divining lines of

12

Col James H. Brower was the divisionartillery officer and commandingofficer of the 11th Marines. He fell ill atHagaru-ri and was replaced in com-mand by his executive officer, LtColCarl A. Youngdale.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4696

13

communication. Hamhung andHungnam, then and now, areoften confused. Hungnam is theport; it lies on the north side of theSongchon River where it emptiesinto the Japanese Sea. Yonpo, withits airfield, which would provecritical, is on the south side of theestuary. Hamhung is the inlandrail and highway nexus, straddlingthe main rail line from Wonsannorth. A narrow-gauge (2’ 6”) linealso started at Hamhung toChinhung-ni. From there itclimbed by cable car, now inoper-ative, to a plateau in the shadow ofthe Taebek Mountains. A road par-alleled the narrow-gauge line. Thiswould be the main supply routeor “MSR” for the Marines’ advance.The dirt-and-gravel road stretched78 miles from Hamhung toYudam-ni, which, as yet, was just aname on a map. “In only a fewweeks,” says the Corps’ officialhistory, “it would be known tothousands of Marines as the MSR, asif there never had been another.”

RCT-7—with the 1st MotorTransport Battalion and DivisionReconnaissance Company attach-ed—received a partial issue ofcold weather clothing before mak-ing the move north by truck and railduring the last three days ofOctober.

Major Henry J. Woessner, 30,

Naval Academy 1941, and opera-tions officer of the 7th Marines,was at X Corps command post inWonsan on 30 October whenGeneral Almond, standing beforethe Corps situation map, briefedGeneral Barr on the upcomingoperation. Barr’s division was topush north to Hyesanjin on theYalu. The 1st Marine Division wasto reach the border by way ofChinhung-ni, Koto-ri, and Hagaru-ri. After describing this twin-pronged thrust to the Yalu,Almond again turned to the situa-tion map. “When we have clearedall this out,” he said with a broadsweep of his hand, “the ROKs willtake over, and we will pull ourdivisions out of Korea.”

Before leaving the commandpost, Woessner talked to an Armyliaison officer who had justreturned from the ROK 26thRegiment up near Sudong. TheArmy officer told him that theROKs had collided with a Chineseforce and had been driven back.Colonel Edward H. Forney,Almond’s Marine Corps deputychief of staff, arranged forWoessner to fly over the objectivearea in an Air Force NorthAmerican T-6 Texan. Woessner sawno enemy on the flight to and overHagaru-ri, but the rugged nature ofthe terrain impressed him.

Woessner, on his return thatafternoon to the 7th Marines com-mand post, made his report toColonel Litzenberg who in turncalled in his officers and noncom-missioned officers and told themthat they might soon be fightingthe first battle of World War III.“We can expect to meet ChineseCommunist troops,” he said, “and itis important that we win the firstbattle.”

Tuesday, 31 October

RCT-7 was scheduled to relievethe ROK 26th Regiment, 3dDivision, in the vicinity of Sudongon 2 November. Litzenberg on 31October cautiously sent out recon-naissance patrols from Hamhungto explore the route northward.One of the patrols from the 1stBattalion, 7th Marines—CaptainMyron E. Wilcox, Jr., two lieu-tenants, three jeeps, and a fireteam—reached the command postof the 26th Regiment near Sudong.Wilcox reported to Litzenberg thatwhile there they had seen aChinese prisoner. The SouthKoreans told Wilcox and his patrolthat they had taken 16 Chineseprisoners and had identified themas belonging to the 124th ChineseCommunist Force (CCF) Division.The prisoners said they hadcrossed the Yalu in mid-October.

Further interrogation of the 16prisoners had yielded that theywere members of the 370thRegiment of the 124th CCFDivision, which along with the125th and 126th Divisions, madeup the 42d CCF Army. Roughlyspeaking, a Chinese army was theequivalent of a U.S. corps. Onarriving from the Yalu, the 124thhad deployed in the center todefend the Chosin Reservoir, the126th had moved east to the vicin-ity of the Fusen Reservoir, and the125th to the western flank on the

Distances in Road Miles

Hungnam to Hamhung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Hamhung to Oro-ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8Oro-ri to Majon-dong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Majon-dong to Sudong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Sudong to Chinhung-ni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Chinhung-ni to Koto-ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11Hagaru-ri to Yudam-ni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

TOTAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78

right of the 124th Division.Continuing the northward

movement of his division fromWonsan, Smith ordered Murray toadvance a battalion of the 5thMarines to Chigyong, eight milessouthwest of Hamhung. Murraysent his 1st Battalion underLieutenant Colonel George R.Newton. Newton, 35, NavalAcademy 1938, had been a com-pany commander in the EmbassyGuard at Peiping in 1941 andspent World War II as a prisoner ofwar. Now, as a battalion comman-der, he had done well at Pusanand Inchon. One of Newton’scompanies was detached torelieve a company of the 7thMarines that was guarding Yonpo

Airfield, five miles southwest ofHungnam.

Wednesday, 1 November

As yet the Marines had encoun-tered no enemy anywhere alongthe MSR from Wonsan north toHamhung; but Litzenberg was cer-tain that he soon would be facingChinese adversaries. On the fol-lowing day, 1 November, he sent astronger patrol from the attacheddivision Reconnaissance Companyto reconnoiter the Huksu-ri areaabout 45 miles northwest ofHungnam. This patrol, mounted in21 jeeps and under FirstLieutenant Ralph B. Crossman,after running into a small NorthKorean guerrilla force about threemiles short of its objective, dug infor the night.

Meanwhile, the Marines beganhearing rumors that the EighthArmy’s 1st Cavalry Division—which they had last seen when the1st Cavalry passed through theMarine lines north of Seoul headedfor the successful capture ofPyongyang, the North Korean cap-ital—was in serious trouble. Ifdivision headquarters had more

14


Marines on 31 October saw for themselves the first Chinese prisoners taken by ROKI Corps. These prisoners, identified as belonging to the 124th CCF Division, arewearing padded winter uniforms that offered little or no protection for the feetand hands, and the weather was about to turn cold.

A 3.5-inch rocket section with Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, holds aposition outside Hamhung on 31 October. The next day the 7th Marines wouldbegin its march northward to relieve the 26th ROK Regiment near Sudong-ni.

Photo by Cpl Peter W. McDonald, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5129

15

definitive information, it did notfilter down to the troops. Some 60miles to the Marines’ west in theEighth Army zone of action, theChinese had roughly handled the8th U.S. Cavalry Regiment and theROK 6th Division during the lastdays of October, but this had littleor no effect on Almond’s plans.Litzenberg’s orders to advanceremained unchanged. His firstobjective was to be Koto-ri.

During the day on 1 November,the 7th Marines made a motormarch from Hungnam to anassembly area behind the ROK26th Regiment, midway betweenOro-ri and Majon-dong, withoutincident. Nevertheless, a cautiousLitzenberg ordered LieutenantColonel Raymond G. Davis, 35,Georgia Tech 1938, to make areconnaissance-in-force to SouthKorean positions north of Majon-dong with his 1st Battalion, 7thMarines. In World War II, Davishad commanded a heavy weaponscompany at Guadalcanal and an

infantry battalion at Peleliu. Thelatter battle brought him a NavyCross.

Late in the afternoon the regi-mental combat team curled upinto a tight perimeter for the night.As part of RCT-7, Litzenberg hadMajor Francis F. “Fox” Parry’s 3dBattalion, 11th Marines; the divi-sion Reconnaissance Companyunder Lieutenant Crossman; Com-pany D, 1st Engineer Battalion,Captain Byron C, Turner; Com-pany E, 1st Medical Battalion,under Lieutenant CommanderCharles K. Holloway; detachmentsfrom the division’s Signal Battal-ion, Service Battalion, and MilitaryPolice Company; and most of the1st Motor Transport Battalion,Lieutenant Colonel Olin L. Beall.

Thursday, 2 November

The ROK 26th Regiment, await-ing relief, had withdrawn to aposition about four miles south ofSudong. Early on the morning of 2

November, the South Koreanswere probed by a CCF combatpatrol estimated to be about twoplatoons in strength. Later thatmorning, Davis’ 1st Battalion ledthe way out of the 7th Marines’perimeter toward the ROK lines atMajon-dong. Major Webb D.“Buzz” Sawyer, 32, followed withthe 2d Battalion. A graduate of theUniversity of Toledo, Sawyer hadbeen commissioned in 1941.During World War II, as a captainand major he served with the 4thMarine Division at Roi-Namur,Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima.Afterward, as an instructor atQuantico, he was known as anexpert in the reduction of fortifiedpositions.

Corsairs from Marine fightersquadron VMF-312 flew cover forwhat was essentially a paradenorthward. The passage of lineswith the ROKs was over by 1030.The point, Company A, underCaptain David W. Banks, tooksome scattered long-range fire andsuffered a few casualties. Resis-tance thickened.

Major “Fox” Parry, 32, com-manding the 3d Battalion, 11thMarines, was a Naval Academygraduate, Class of 1941. He hadbeen the executive officer of anartillery battalion during Okinawaand immediately before Korea hehad taken the yearlong AdvancedArtillery Course at Fort Sill. Atnoon Battery I of Parry’s artillerybattalion fired the first of 26 firemissions covering the advance thatwould be shot during the day.

VMF-312, commanded by Lieu-tenant Colonel J. Frank Cole, flew12 close air support missions and,as the light failed, night-fightersquadron VMF(N)-513, underMajor J. Hunter Reinburg, deliv-ered a few more.

Both Cole and Reinburg wereexperienced squadron comman-ders. Cole, 35, had entered the

Photo by Cpl Peter W. McDonald, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4525

The 7th Marines began its motor march north from Hungnam on 1 November.A cautious Col Homer Litzenberg ordered LtCol Raymond G. Davis, command-ing officer of the 1st Battalion, to reconnoiter to his front. Davis’ Marines movedforward on foot. A crackle of small arms fire caused the column to halt momen-tarily. A full issue of cold-weather clothing has not yet been received. Only oneMarine is wearing a parka.

16

Marine Corps from the University ofNebraska in 1939 and had com-manded fighter squadron VMF-111in the Central Pacific and VMF-312at Okinawa. Reinburg, 32, was thestepson of Marine Corps aviationgreat Lieutenant General ClaytonC. Jerome. Reinburg had enlisted inthe Naval Reserve in 1936 andtransferred to the Marine Corps asan aviation cadet in 1940. Flying asa captain in the Solomons hebecame an ace, shooting downseven Japanese planes anddestroying seven more on theground. Before taking commandof VMF(N)-513 he had spent ayear as an exchange pilot flyingnight fighters with the BritishRoyal Air Force. Technically,Marine fighter-bomber squadronsdesignated as “VMF(N)” were all-weather squadrons, but the “N”universally caused them to becalled “night fighters.” Reinburg’ssquadron flew twin-engine Grum-man F7F-3Ns Tigercats

The main body of RCT-7, movingalong the road in what Litzenbergcalled a “walking perimeter,” hadadvanced just short of a mile bynightfall. Davis’ 1st Battalion’snighttime positions were less than

a mile south of Sudong, stretchingacross the valley from high groundto high ground. Behind him wasSawyer ‘s battalion similarly dis-posed. Sawyer was responsible forthe high ground on both sides ofthe line of march. Captain Milton A.Hull, 30, commanding CompanyD, had some problems going upHill 698 on the left hand side of theroad. (Hills and mountains—bothalways called “hills”—were desig-nated by their height in metersabove sea level. Thus Hill 698would be 698 meters or 2,290 feetin height.) A ROK company hadprecipitously given up its hillsideposition. The South Koreans, asthey passed hurriedly southward,pointed back over their shouldersexclaiming “Chinese!”

Hull, a University of Floridagraduate, had been commissionedin 1942 and had spent a good partof the war in China with the guer-rillas, possibly with some of thesame Chinese soldiers he was nowfighting. Easy Company, underCaptain Walter D. Phillips, Jr.,passed through Hull’s DogCompany to complete the fight,getting almost to the crest just

Photo by Cpl Peter W. McDonald, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4549

Guns of Maj Francis F. “Fox” Parry’s 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, covered theadvance of the 7th Marines to Sudong. Here a 105mm howitzer from CaptSamuel A. Hannah’s Battery G, laid for high-angle fire, awaits a fire mission. Firstartillery missions, shot on 2 November, alternated with close air support strikesby Marine Corsairs.

Col Homer Litzenberg called his road march a “walking perimeter.” Here a partof the column pauses off the road, while Marine artillery and air pound the hillsahead. At nightfall on 2 November, LtCol Ramond Davis’ 1st Battalion, lead ele-ment of the main body, halted one mile short of Sudong.


17

before midnight. (Rifle companieswere almost invariably called bytheir name in the phonetic alphabetof the time: “Dog,” “Easy,” “Fox,”and so on.) Farther to the rear wasMajor Maurice E. Roach’s 3dBattalion, in a perimeter of itsown, protecting the regimentaltrain.

That morning, 2 November,Smith had met again with Almond.The 2d and 3d Battalions of the5th Marines were moving by trainto Hamhung. The 1st Battalion hadalready gone northward. Smithpointed out that the main supplyroute from Wonsan would be leftexposed to guerrilla attack.Almond was not disturbed. Hesaid that patrols could handle theguerrilla situation. Puller’s 1stMarines, supported by elements ofthe 1st Tank Battalion, was giventhe responsibility from Wonsannorthward to as far as Munchon.Murray’s 5th Marines would patrolsouth from Hungnam to Chigyong.This left 54 miles from Chigyongsouth to Munchon uncoveredexcept for light patrolling by

Almond’s Special OperationsCompany and a handful of SouthKorean counterintelligence agents.

Puller returned to Wonsan at

midday on 2 November with his1st Battalion. The 2d Battalioncame back from Kojo-ri the fol-lowing day. The 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, was still heavily engagedat Majon-ni, 26 miles west ofWonsan.

Friday, 3 November

Litzenberg did not know it, buthe was two-thirds surrounded bythe 124th CCF Division. The 371stRegiment was in the hills to hisnorth and west. The 370th Reg-iment was to his east. Somewherebehind these assault regiments,the 372d Regiment stood ready inreserve.

By midnight on 2 November the1st and 2d Battalions of the 7thMarines were being probed. Anhour later both battalions werebending back from the weight ofassaults on their flanks andMarines became acquainted withthe Chinese habit of using flares

Photo by Sgt Frank C. Kerr, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4438

These Marines are members of Company D, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines. By 2November, LtCol Raymond L. Murray’s regiment had moved up by train toHamhung with orders to patrol between Hamhung and Chigyong. Two days laterthe 3d Battalion was positioned near Oro-ri and the 2d Battalion was sent intoSinhung Valley. The 1st Battalion remained at Chigyong.

By 3 November, the 7th Marines was surrounded on three sides by the Chinese124th Division. Fighting grew fierce and casualties mounted. A sturdy mason-ry building in the shadow of high-tension lines coming down from the hydroelectricplant on the Changjin plateau became a battalion aid station.


and bugle calls to signal theirattacks.

On the MSR, the roadblock infront of Able Company let a T-34tank go by, thinking it was afriendly bulldozer. The single tankpushed through the companyheadquarters area and on throughthe battalion’s 81mm mortar posi-tion, reaching Davis’ commandpost. The startled Marines engagedthe tank with rocket launchers andrecoilless rifles; the tank took oneor two hits and then turnedaround and headed north.

All three of Davis’ rifle compa-nies suffered heavy casualties asthe night went on. The Chineseattackers got down to the road andwedged their way between the 2dand 3d Battalions. The regiment’s4.2-inch Mortar Company wasoverrun and lost one of its tubes.When morning came a confusedsituation faced the Marines. TheChinese were still in the valley.

Getting rid of them would be an all-day effort. At first light Cole’sVMF-312 came overhead with itsCorsairs and was joined in mid-morning by Reinburg’s Tigercats,pounding away with rockets, frag-mentation bombs, and cannonfire. Parry’s howitzers renderedyeoman service; before the end ofthe day his 18 guns had fired 49missions delivering 1,431 105mmrounds. At closer range, Marineriflemen flushed out the Chineseenemy, fragmented now into indi-viduals and small groups.

This would be Reinburg’s lastshow. On 4 November he relin-quished command of VMF(N)-513to Ohio-born Lieutenant ColonelDavid C. Wolfe, 33, Naval Acad-emy, Class of 1940. A big, athleticman, Wolfe had taken flight trainingas a captain and had commandedscout-bomber squadron VMB-433in the Southwest Pacific duringWorld War II.

The 1st Battalion counted 662

enemy dead in its zone of action.The 2d Battalion did not make aprecise count but could not havebeen far behind. When Marinetrucks came up with resupply,they carried back to Hungnamabout 100 wounded Marines.Total Marine casualties for the twodays—2 and 3 November—were44 killed, 5 died of wounds, 1missing, and 162 wounded, most ofthem in the 7th Marines.

As recorded in the official histo-ry by Lynn Montross and NicholasA. Canzona, a tactical principlewas emerging: “To nullify Chinesenight attacks, regardless of large-scale penetrations and infiltration,defending units had only to main-tain position until daybreak. Withobservation restored, Marine fire-power invariably would meltdown the Chinese mass to impo-tency.” It was a principle thatwould serve the Marines well, timeafter time, in the coming severalweeks.

18


MajGen Smith used his assistant divi-sion commander, BGen Edward A.Craig, as his roving eyes and ears.Here, on 3 November, Craig, left,checks with Col Litzenberg whose 7thMarines had just made its first solidcontact with the Chinese. Litzenberg isdigging away at a half-size can of C-ration, probably canned fruit, afavorite.


Chinese prisoners, taken by Col Litzenberg’s 7th Marines in the 3-4 November fight-ing, were identified as being members of the 370th and 371st Regiments of the124th Division. Chinese Communist “volunteers” fought well, but were surpris-ingly docile and uncomplaining once captured.

19

Saturday, 4 November

The 7th Marines’ positionsremained essentially the same dur-

ing the night of 3-4 November.The perimeters were pepperedlightly, but there were no furtherChinese assaults. Later it was

learned that the 370th and 371stCCF Regiments were withdrawing toa defensive line, established by the372d Regiment about two milesnorth of Chinhung-ni, stretchingfrom Hill 987 to Hill 891.

Litzenberg ordered increasedpatrolling to the north to begin atdawn on 4 November. Marinesfrom Davis’ 1st Battalion patrolledto the edge of Sudong, met noresistance, and returned to theirperimeter. Crossman’s Reconnais-sance Company moved out in itsjeeps at 0800. First LieutenantErnest C. Hargett took the pointinto Sudong and met a party ofChinese in the middle of the town.Hargett’s men killed three andtook 20 more as willing prisoners.Crossman now put Second Lieu-tenant Donald W. Sharon’s 2d pla-toon into the point with the 1stBattalion coming behind them intoSudong.

The North Korean People’sArmy (NKPA) skeleton 344th TankRegiment, down to five Soviet-built T-34 tanks and apparentlyunable to negotiate Funchilin Pass,had been left on the low ground tofend for itself. One T-34 was aban-doned after being damaged in itswild one-tank attack against the7th Marines command post. Theremaining four tanks took coveredpositions off the road. Sharonpassed by the first hidden T-34 butbumped into the second. He andtwo of his Marines damaged thetank with hand grenades. CharlieCompany, 7th Marines, with itsown 3.5-inch rockets and rein-forced with a section of 75mmrecoilless rifles, came on the sceneand finished off the second tank. Athird tank emerged from athatched hut. Engaged by bothrocket launchers and recoillessrifles, the tank continued to moveuntil stopped by the 5-inch rocketsof a flight of Corsairs. The Marinesnow found the bypassed first tank.

Photo by Cpl L. B. Snyder, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4463

BGen Edward Craig, on the left and wearing a Marine “fore-and-aft” cap, andMajGen Edward Almond, on the right with map case and wearing an Army cap,went forward to the 7th Marines command post to see for themselves the Chineseprisoners that had been taken. Col Homer Litzenberg, the regimental comman-der, is talking with BGen Craig.

Wounded Marines arrive at the battalion aid station of Maj Webb D. “Buzz”Sawyer’s 2d Battalion, 7th Marines. Helicopter evacuation was still the exceptionrather than the rule. Most wounded Marines were hand-carried down to the clos-est road and then moved by jeep to the nearest aid station. Here they would besorted out (“triage”) and sent to the rear for more definitive treatment.


20

After receiving fire, the crew sur-rendered their tank and them-selves. The fourth tank, nowalone, surrendered without a fight.The 344th NKPA Tank Regimentwas no more. Litzenberg, havingadvanced almost four miles bymid-afternoon, ordered his regi-ment to halt for the night in a tightperimeter at Chinhung-ni.

For the first 43 miles north fromHungnam the 1st Marine Di-vision’s MSR was a two-lane high-way passing through relatively flatterrain. At Chinhung-ni the roadnarrowed to one lane as it wentup Funchilin Pass, climbing 2,500feet in eight miles of zigzaggingsingle-lane road clinging to thesides of the mountains; “a cliff onone side and a chasm on theother” as the official historydescribed it. The narrow gaugerailroad was operable as far asChinhung-ni and it was decided toestablish a railhead there.

The division ReconnaissanceCompany was ordered to move

forward another mile, on up intoFunchilin Pass, and outpost thesouthern tip of Hill 891. With

Second Lieutenant Charles R.Puckett’s 3d Platoon out in front,the reconnaissance Marinesmoved almost into the saddle sep-arating Hills 987 and 891, alreadyinconveniently occupied by theChinese. A firefight developed.The company held its ground butlost two Marines killed, fivewounded, and two jeeps des-troyed.

On 4 November, Smith shiftedhis command post from Wonsan toHungnam, occupying an aban-doned engineering college on theoutskirts of the city. In reconnoi-tering for the site, Smith’s assistantdivision commander, BrigadierGeneral Craig had been treated tothe sight of 200 dead Koreans laidout in a row, executed by theCommunists for no apparent rea-son. Smith flew to Hungnam byhelicopter and occupied the newcommand post at about 1100. Mostof his headquarters arrived by railthat evening, an uneventful tripexcept for a few scattered rifle

Photo by Cpl Peter W. McDonald National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4496

Bodies of dead Marines, covered with ponchos and shelter halves, await furtherdisposition. The 7th Marines fight at Sudong lasted three days, 2-4 November.Division casualties for the period, nearly all of them in the 7th Marines, totaled61 killed in action, 9 died of wounds, 162 wounded, and 1 missing in action.

The 7th Marines entered Sudong on 4 November. Beyond Sudong the main sup-ply route began its climb into Funchilin Pass. Here, a Marine patrol, troubled bya sniper, searches out a hamlet of thatched-roofed, mud-wattle huts.


21

shots. The larger part of his head-quarters would remain in place inHungnam for the duration of theoperation.

To the south of the 7th Marines,the battalions of Murray’s RCT-5were having their own adventures.“Our first assignment was to go tothe east side of the reservoir,”remembered Murray. “I wondered,why are they splitting us up likethis?” By 4 November, the 1stBattalion (Lieutenant ColonelGeorge R. Newton) had been leftbehind at Chigyong and detachedto division control. The 3dBattalion (Lieutenant ColonelRobert D. “Tap” Taplett) was posi-tioned near Oro-ri. The 2dBattalion (Lieutenant ColonelHarold S. Roise) had been sentinto Sinhung Valley, five milesnorth and 15 miles east of the 7thMarines, to relieve the ROK 18thRegiment. The relief was accom-plished without incident. Roise,34, from Idaho, had spent World

War II in the battleships Maryland(BB 46) and Alabama (BB 60).The 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, washis first infantry command and hehad done well with it at Pusan,Inchon, and Seoul. His missionnow was to block the Sinhung cor-ridor and to find a northerly routeto either the Chosin Reservoir or tothe reservoir known to theMarines by its Japanese name“Fusen.” The Korean name was“Pujon.” Roise’s mission carriedhim away from 1st MarineDivision’s axis of advance and intothe zone of the 7th InfantryDivision.

With 7th Marines,5-6 November

Early on Sunday morning, 5November, the Major Roach’s 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, passedthrough the 1st Battalion to con-

Sketch by Sgt Ralph Schofield, USMCR

A Marine sniper draws a bead on a distant Chinese enemy. This sketch, andnumerous others that follow, are by Cpl (later Sgt) Ralph H. Schofield, a talent-ed Marine Corps reservist from Salt Lake City, who served as a Leatherneck mag-azine combat artist. A seasoned veteran of World War II, Schofield had foughtas an infantryman in the South Pacific.

SSgt Meyer Rossum triumphantly displays a poster of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalinfound in a by-passed Chinese bunker in the vicinity of Funchilin Pass. Marineswould learn that the Chinese, despite problems of weather and terrain, were aviddiggers and experts at field fortification.


22

tinue the advance up FunchilinPass. Hargett’s reconnaissance pla-toon led the way. Rounding a hair-pin turn, Hargett ran into Chinesefire and had four more Marineswounded. The 3d Battalion movedinto the attack. Item Company wasgiven Hill 987 and George Com-pany Hill 891 as their objectives.Both were stopped by mid-morningby heavy small arms and machinegun fire. For the rest of the day thebattle continued as a duel betweenParry’s 105mm howitzers andChinese 120mm heavy mortars.From overhead, the Corsairs ofVMF-312 delivered 37 close airsupport sorties.

At the top of the pass the roadflattened onto a plateau and ranfor two miles until it reached the vil-lage of Koto-ri where it rejoinedthe now-abandoned narrow gaugerailroad. During the day GeneralSmith gave Litzenberg the objec-tive of reaching Koto-ri.

Roach’s 3d Battalion continuedthe attack the next morning. HowCompany, under First LieutenantHoward H. Harris, was to passthrough George Company andmove up the southern tip of Hill891. Item Company, under FirstLieutenant William E. Johnson,was to continue its attack againstHill 987. Both attacks went slowly,with the assaults not gettingunderway until mid-afternoon.

Second Lieutenant Robert D.Reem, leading one of How Com-pany’s platoons in the final assault,threw himself on a Chinesegrenade and was killed. Harrisradioed Roach that his companywas exhausted. Roach relayed thereport to Litzenberg who orderedthe company to disengage andwithdraw. Next morning, 7November, Roach’s battalion againmoved up the slopes of both Hills891 and 987, and this time foundthem empty of enemy. TheChinese had disappeared during

the night. For most of the nextthree weeks traffic northward onthe MSR would be unimpeded.

Operations North of Wonsan,4-9 November

Meanwhile, in accordance withAlmond’s decision on 3 Novem-ber, X Corps troops and the 1stMarine Division continued toshare the responsibility for theWonsan-Hungnam MSR. Ope-ration of the Wonsan-Hamhungrail line came under X CorpsRailway Transportation Section.The division began sending sup-ply trains north daily fromWonsan. For two days they gotthrough unmolested, but on thethird day, 6 November, the trainwas halted at Kowan by torn-uprails. North Korean guerrillas thenattacked the train, which wasguarded by 39 Marines fromCharlie Company of the 1stAmphibian Tractor Battalion. Ta-ken by surprise, eight Marineswere killed, two wounded, at theoutset. Six more Marines werewounded in the ensuing firefight.The guard then broke off actionand found protection within theperimeter of an Army artillery bat-talion.

Smith was promised the use ofthe Army’s newly arrived 65thRegimental Combat Team to guardbridges and other key points alongthe route. Rail service fromWonsan to Hamhung was resumedon 9 November with the cautionthat passengers were to ride only inopen gondola cars. Their steelsides promised some order of pro-tection from small arms fire andmortar fragments. While Marinesrattled northward in gondola cars,MacArthur on 9 November in-formed the Joint Chiefs of Staffthat complete victory was still pos-sible and reiterated his belief thatU.S. air power would prevent the

Chinese from crossing the Yalu indecisive numbers.

Arrival of 3d Infantry Division

The Army’s 3d Infantry Division,its ranks hastily filled out withSouth Koreans, began arriving atWonsan in early November. MajorGeneral Robert H. “Shorty” Soule,the division commander, was aparatrooper who had fought withthe 11th Airborne Division underMacArthur in the Southwest Pa-cific. The first regiment of Soule’sdivision to land was the 65thInfantry, made up largely ofPuerto Ricans, on 5 November.Almond came, looked, and said he“didn’t have much confidence inthese colored troops.”

During World War II, Almondhad commanded the U.S. 92dInfantry Division which hadalmost all white officers but blackrank-and-file. The division hadturned in a mixed performance inItaly. Almond’s prejudices weretypical of his generation andSouthern background. The regi-mental commander, Colonel Wil-liam W. Harris, West Point 1930,protested that most of his menwere not “colored,” but “white.”Almond, unconvinced of the 65thRCT’s reliability, told Harris that hewas going to send the regimentnorth to Yonghung and then westacross the mountains to make con-tact with the Eighth Army’s rightflank. Harris was appalled bythese orders.

The 1st Shore Party Battalion,under command of legendaryLieutenant Colonel Henry P. “Jim”Crowe, 51, stayed behind atWonsan to help the 3d InfantryDivision land and unload. Crowehad enlisted during World War Iand had a fabled career as footballplayer, team shot, and bandit fight-er, reaching the highly prized war-rant grade of Marine gunner in

23

1934. He had a Silver Star fromGuadalcanal and a Navy Crossfrom Tarawa where he command-ed a battalion as a major. Hethought Soule “one of the finestmen” he ever met, but he foundAlmond “haughty.”

5th Marines Operations,5-8 November

There was now clear evidencethat the Chinese, and some NorthKoreans, were out in front ofRoise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, inSinhung Valley but keeping theirdistance. Northwest of Sinhungitself and about 10 miles due east ofKoto-ri, Dog Company captured astray Chinese soldier found sleep-ing in a house. He proved to be awealth of information. He said thathe belonged to the 126th CCFDivision. He asserted that six CCFarmies had arrived in North Koreaand that a total of 24 divisions hadbeen committed to the interven-tion. He had learned this in aseries of lectures given by politicalofficers to his regiment after it hadcrossed the border.

Smith conferred with Almondon the afternoon of 7 November.“He apparently has been some-what sobered by the situation onthe 8th Army front, which is notvery good,” Smith entered into hislog. Almond promised Smith that hewould let him concentrate the 1stMarine Division.

The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines,remained at Chigyong. On 7November, Major Merlin R. Olson,32, the battalion’s executive offi-cer, with Companies A and Breconnoitered in force west ofOro-ri to Huksu-ri. On the 8th, stillshort of his objective, Olson raninto a North Korean force, estimat-ed at 2,000, and was recalled.

Meanwhile, Roise’s patrols hadfound no useable road to eitherChosin or Fusen Reservoirs but

had learned that the road leadingnortheast to the Manchurian border,into the zone assigned to the U.S.7th Infantry Division, could bearmilitary traffic. One of his patrolstouched a patrol from the 31stInfantry on 8 November. Smithhad an understanding withAlmond that if the 5th Marinescould not get to the FusenReservoir by road, Barr’s 7thInfantry Division would attempt toreach it from the east.

7th Marines Operations, 8-11 November

On 8 November General Al-mond visited the 7th Marines. Onlearning that Captain Thomas E.Cooney, commander of GeorgeCompany, had been twice slightlywounded on Hill 891, he awardedCooney an on-the-spot Silver Star.His aide was caught without asupply of medals. Almond scrib-bled a note on a piece of paper—”Silver Star for Gallantry inAction”—and pinned it to Coon-ey’s jacket.

A patrol of 15 Marines under

First Lieutenant William F. Gogginof the 2d Battalion left Chinhung-niat noon on 8 November, reachedKoto-ri, and next evening returnedunscathed to the lines of the 3dBattalion. Next day, 10 Novemberand the Marine Corps Birthday,the 1st Battalion passed throughthe 3d Battalion and an hour-and-a-half later entered Koto-ri.

X Corps issued an order attach-ing the 65th Infantry and the ROK26th Regiment to the 1st MarineDivision. Two battalions of SouthKorean Marines were also to beattached. On receiving the orderSmith learned that he was respon-sible for making contact with theEighth Army. He gave orders tothat effect to the 65th Infantry andwas annoyed to find that Almondhad already given the regiment’scommander, Colonel Harris,detailed instructions down to thecompany level as to what to do.Something of the same happenedwith regards to the mission of theROK 26th Regiment. “Such a pro-cedure, of course, only createsconfusion,” Smith fussed in hislog. “It was this type of procedure


LtCol Raymond Davis’ 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, occupied Koto-ri on theMarine Corps Birthday, 10 November, against no resistance. A day later need-ed replacements arrived. One or two battalion-sized replacement drafts arrivedin Korea each month to keep the division’s ranks—particularly the infantryunits—at fighting strength.

24

which I protested to GeneralAlmond in connection with directorders given to my regiments.” ToSmith’s further annoyance, he wasordered to provide a rifle companyto guard X Corps command post atHamhung. The order was passed tothe 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, forexecution. Taplett received it with“surprise and disgust,” not under-standing why a headquarters withabout 2,000 troops needed extrasecurity so far behind the lines ofadvance. He detailed Item Com-pany under Captain Harold G.Schrier to do the job—the sameSchrier who as a lieutenant hadtaken his platoon up MountSuribachi on Iwo Jima to raise thefirst flag.

That evening there was aMarine Corps Birthday party inGeneral Smith’s mess attended byhis staff. Punch and cake wereserved. Smith entered in his log: “Iread the paragraphs from theMarine Corps Manual and then cutthe cake with a Korean sword.”

The weather had turned terrifi-

cally cold up on the plateau, wellbelow zero at night. Platoonwarming tents were set up in

Koto-ri, a hapless little hamlet. Asthe official history observed, thecold seemed “to numb the spirit aswell as the flesh.” On the 11th,Company C, 1st Battalion, 7thMarines, had a fight in which itlost four Marines killed, fourwounded, and claimed 40 enemycasualties. Otherwise the enemyseemed to have vanished.

5th Marines Operations, 9-13 November

Murray received orders on 9November to concentrate his regi-ment on the MSR leading toChosin Reservoir. Newton’s 1stBattalion, coming out of Chigyongon 10 November, was to move toMajon-dong. A patrol sent forwardfrom Newton’s battalion wasambushed and had to be rescuedwith a battalion-sized attackbefore the battalion could get tothe village. On the 13th, anotherpatrol from the 1st Battalion, 5th

Col “Chesty” Puller cuts the Marine Corps Birthday cake on 10 November at his1st Marines regimental headquarters outside Wonsan where the weather was stillpleasant. Far to the north, on the Chosin plateau, the 7th Marines was alreadyencountering sub-zero temperatures.

Photo by Cpl W. T. Wolfe, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4571

Photo by Sgt John Babyak, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4562

At division headquarters at Hamhung, MajGen Smith observed the Marine CorpsBirthday in traditional fashion. He read the birthday message from the MarineCorps Manual and then cut the somewhat meager cake with a Korean sword. Astradition prescribes, the first slice went to the oldest Marine present, BGen Craig.

25

Marines, ran into a company-sizedgroup of Chinese that killed sevenMarines and wounded three morebefore withdrawing.

Roise’s 2d Battalion came out ofSinhung Valley on 13 Novemberwith orders to relieve the 7thMarines of the responsibility ofdefending Koto-ri. Along the wayRoise’s Marines picked up oneChinese and 12 North Korean pris-oners. An airstrip capable of han-dling light aircraft was opened atKoto-ri that same day. Taplett’s 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, was now atChinhung-ni. Taplett, 32, fromSouth Dakota, had spent most ofWorld War II on sea duty with thecruiser Salt Lake City (CL 25). The 3dBattalion was his first infantrycommand. He was not always aneasy personality, but his perfor-mance at Pusan, Inchon (where hehad led this battalion ashore in thesuccessful seizure of Wolmi-do inthe opening phase of the landing),and Seoul had been outstanding.Still stiffer fights were ahead ofhim.

Smith, making his own road

reconnaissance of Funchilin Pass,took a helicopter as far asChinhung-ni. Helicopters at thattime, because of the cold and alti-tude, were not going farther north;there being problems with gear

boxes freezing up. Smith bor-rowed a jeep from Taplett anddrove on up to Koto-ri.

MacArthur Reassesses Situation

By now MacArthur had toaccept that the Chinese were inKorea in strength, perhaps asmany as 100,000 of them, but hewas still of the opinion that Chinawould not make a full-scale inter-vention.

Almond had moved his head-quarters on 11 November fromWonsan to Hamhung with plans tomove his command post farthernorth to Hagaru-ri. Almond musthave reflected that 11 Novemberwas Armistice Day from the FirstWorld War. Many of the seniorleaders in Korea had fought in thatwar, including MacArthur as abrigadier general and Almond as amajor. Almond had served withdistinction in the U.S. 4th InfantryDivision as commander of the 12thMachine Gun Battalion. Armistice

The wreath with “Merry Christmas,” perhaps some Marine’s idea of humor, is mis-leading. The photo was probably taken at Chinhung-ni in mid-November. At leftis LtCol Robert D. Taplett, Commanding Officer, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, andat right is his executive officer, Maj John J. Canny, who would die at Yudam-nitwo weeks later.

Photo by Sgt Frank C. Kerr, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A7349

(Continued on page 34)


On 12 November the villagers at Koto-ri were informed that they have been “lib-erated” and were now free to elect their own village officials. The large numberof Korean civilians, who would later crowd into the Marines’ defensive perime-ters, would become a huge problem.

26

How cold was it at the reservoir? MostMarines “knew” that the temperature wentdown to about 25 degrees below zero at

night, but how many Marines had a thermometer intheir pack?

The cold was no great surprise, unless, perhaps,you were like one Marine from Samoa who hadnever seen snow before. The division staff knew bylate October or early November that Hagaru-ri hadthe reputation of being the coldest place in NorthKorea, with a recorded temperature of 35 degreesbelow zero. The climate is roughly like that ofMinnesota or North Dakota. The winter of 1950was a cold one, but not unusually so. The powersthat be had adequate warning that it was coming andconsiderable preparations had been made.

Those at the top, and some at other levels in the1st Marine Division, had had some experience withcold weather operations, if not by participation, atleast by observation and a bit of training.

The division’s commanding general, MajorGeneral Oliver P. Smith, had gone with the 1stProvisional Marine Brigade to Iceland in August1941 to relieve the British garrison, as a major in

command of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines. Heremembered Iceland as a “bleak and ruggedisland—mountains, cliffs, no trees—not a tree” andmost of all the violent, never ceasing wind.

There were others, besides Smith, in the divisionwho had also been in the Iceland expedition. Oneof them was Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L.Murray, commander of the 5th Marines. In Icelandhe had been a captain and commander of amachine gun company. He had also served inPeiping in North China before World War II. He didnot find Iceland as rugged as Korea: “It was not ter-ribly cold. I don’t think it ever got much below 10above zero.”

The Marines suddenly on their way to Iceland didnot, at first, have any specialized winter clothing.They wore their wool kersey winter service uniformsincluding their woolen overcoats, supplemented bysome items bought on the open market, notablysome short, sheepskin-lined, canvas coats pur-chased from Sears Roebuck and carried as organi-zational property. Another much-favored additionwere pile-lined hats with ear flaps, such as Marineshad worn in North China.

The Marines in Iceland did not live in tents or in

Coping with the Cold

Cold was all-pervasive, even at Hamhung, which with itsnear sea-level elevation was much milder than up on theChangjin plateau. Here Marines at Hamhung, probablymembers of a combat service unit, cook bacon andbeans on top of a stove made from a gasoline drum.


National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-424584

These Marines, looking very fresh, pause enroute toYudam-ni on 27 November to heat their C-rations over anopen fire. They are wearing the newly issued shoe-pacs withboot socks folded neatly over the tops. At the far left theMarine appears to be wearing old-fashioned galoshesover field shoes or boots, a better combination against thecold than the shoe-pacs.

27

the open. They were billeted in Nissen huts, “anelongated igloo covered with corrugated iron roof-ing and lined with beaver board,” the flimsy Britishequivalent of the more substantial AmericanQuonset huts. Marines piled sod on the sides of theNissen huts to improve insulation. Each battalion hada different camp in a different part of the island.

In many ways the deployment, as an opportuni-ty for winter training, was a disappointment.Finnish success with ski troops in the Winter Warwith the Soviet Union in 1939 had been much pub-licized (and romanticized). But it did not get ascold in Iceland as it was supposed to get and therewas not much snow, seldom as much as a foot.

Marine experiments with skis and more work-a-day snowshoes did not come to much. Nine yearslater, the Marines at Chosin Reservoir did not haveskis or snowshoes and it was just as well. Theywould not have been useful.

The brigade came back in February and March1942 wearing the British Polar Bear shoulderpatch—and were ordered to take it off. Most of theMarines would soon be on their way toGuadalcanal, and beyond that to Tarawa, andwould earn another shoulder patch, either that of the1st Marine Division or 2d Marine Division.

A larger percentage of Marines in the division thanthose few who had been in Iceland were thosewho had served in North China after the end ofWorld War II, a now almost forgotten episode. Itbegan with the 55,000-man deployment of the IIIAmphibious Corps at the end of September 1945 thatincluded both the 1st and 6th Marine Division andthe 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, and ended with thewithdrawal of the last battalion in 1949, just a yearbefore the Marines went to Korea. Like Iceland, itwas largely a garrison experience, but the ChinaMarines learned about the sub-zero temperatures andthe arctic winds that came out of Manchuria andacross the Gobi Desert. Marines guarding supplypoints or critical bridges or riding the coal trainsknew how cold it could get.

The clothing they wore, including the Navyparka, was not much different than that whichwould be worn in Korea. Officially designated as theMarine Corps’ 1943 cold weather uniform, it waspredicated largely on the Iceland experience andconsisted primarily, except for the parka, of U.S.Army components.

Other, older Marines in the division, including thechief of staff, Colonel Gregon A. Williams, the G-2,

Colonel Bankson T. Holcomb, Jr., and the com-manding officer of the 1st Marines, Colonel Lewis“Chesty” Puller, had had substantial service in pre-World War II China, including a chance to observeoperations by Chinese Communist forces in thecold. They knew about the padded Chinese winteruniforms. Some, including Chesty Puller who wasmuch better read and more of a student of militaryhistory than his flamboyant reputation would sug-gest, had studied Japanese winter operations innorthern Korea and Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

The Quartermaster General of the Marine Corps,Major General William P. T. Hill, himself an oldChina hand and an explorer of the Gobi Desert,began shipping out cold-weather clothing, includ-ing Navy parkas, to Korea in October 1950.Beginning in November, the battalion-sizedreplacement drafts being sent to restore combatlosses received rudimentary cold weather training,at least in the wearing of cold-weather clothing.

The Marines, and, for that matter, the U.S. Army,used the “layer principle” for winter clothing,which simply meant that the Marine or soldier piledon as many layers of clothing as he could find.From the skin out he might have on cotton under-pants and shirt or “skivvies,” winter underwear or“long johns,” mustard-colored flannel shirt, utilitytrousers or green kersey service trousers if he hadthem, sweater, green sateen winter trousers, alpacavest, utility coat, a woolen muffler, and perhaps anM1943 field jacket, all crammed under a long,hooded, pile-lined Navy parka. The parka waswarm but heavy and clumsy. Some Marines managedto find the shorter anorak-type parka worn by theArmy and liked it better. Also popular, when theycould be found, were the Army’s “trooper” stylepile-lined winter hats with earflaps. Several styles ofgloves were issued. The most common had aleather and fabric outer shell and an inner mitten ofknitted wool.

On their feet, Marines, unless they could find asubstitute, wore “shoe-pacs”—waterproof rubberbottoms with laced leather uppers. They wereissued with two sets each of felt innersoles andheavy woolen boot socks. The Marines were told tokeep one set of the socks and innersoles insidetheir clothing next to their body and to changethem frequently. These instructions were good in the-ory but difficult to follow in practice. Excessive per-spiration, generated by marching, soaked the

28

innersoles and socks. When the Marine halted, thefelt innersoles and stockings quickly froze and so didthe wearer’s feet.

The shoe-pacs were hated, but the sleepingbags that the Marines had carried ashore atInchon, now had a heavier lining and were muchloved and, indeed, were indispensable. Marinesfound the bags, which could be rolled and tied tothe bottom of their haversacks, good for sleeping,for warming feet, and for keeping casualties fromfreezing to death. There was a problem, though, ofMarines standing watch in foxholes being allowedto pull their sleeping bags up to their knees orwaists, and then, giving into temptation, slipping fur-ther into the bag and falling asleep. A Chinese sol-dier suddenly upon him killed more than oneMarine, caught in his sleeping bag.

In fighting the cold, the Marines learned orrelearned certain principles including the impor-

tance of keeping moving to generate body heat. Thedrawback to this was, of course, the sweat-soakedshoe-pacs that invited frostbite. The digging in of afoxhole, which could require six to eight hours ofeffort, often at the end of a long march, also gen-erated heat, sometimes presenting the paradoxicalsight of a Marine, stripped almost to the waist,hacking away at the frozen earth. In last analysis, theimposition of cold weather discipline dependedupon the small-unit leadership of lieutenants,sergeants, and corporals. All things considered,they did amazingly well.

The Marines were still using their World War IIpack; a well designed but complicated piece ofequipment with a haversack, knapsack, a beddingroll, and many straps and buckles. Ordinarily, aMarine in combat carried nothing but his haver-sack and sleeping bag, and, of course, his rifle beltwith its load of canteens, bayonet, first aid packet,

When possible, as here at Koto-ri, sleeping holes weredug behind fighting holes and frequently covered withponchos or shelter halves. In this case, the occupants

have managed to incorporate a stove. Most often the onlyrelief from the cold for the infantry was in the form ofwarming tents set up to the rear of their position.


29

ammunition, and possibly a few grenades. MostMarines preferred a pack board whenever theycould get one.

A Marine also had to find a place for his daily C-ration when it was issued. It came in a clumsycardboard box about the size of a shoe box, sixcylindrical cans in all, three “heavies” and three“lights,” plus an assortment of packets that includ-ed a day’s supply of toilet paper and a neat little boxwith four cigarettes. The “heavies” were the meatcomponents, much improved and with a muchwider variety of items than the disliked World WarII C-ration. The Army’s Quartermaster Corps hadworked hard on the improvements, basing themon regional favorites. Among the offerings werehamburgers (highly prized), chicken with vegetables,ham and lima beans, meat and beans, and sausagepatties (the least favorite). The “lights” included atleast one half-sized can of some kind of fruit, easi-ly the best-liked element in the ration and one ormore “bread units” which were biscuits of one sortor another, descended from Civil War hardtack, andsomething that passed for cake. Also to be foundwere different sorts of candy (disks of chocolatewere preferred), salt, pepper, and packets of solu-ble coffee and cocoa. Most often a Marine took outwhat he liked or could trade and threw the restaway. What he retained he would fit into variouspockets. He wondered why the ration could not bepacked in flat cans that he could pocket more eas-ily. His largest problem, though, was heating themeat component. Best method was to heat it in abucket or GI can of boiling water, but these were sel-dom available. Cooking fires made with availablewood usually did more burning than cooking.Unused mortar increments and bits of C-3 plasticexplosive, when they could be found, burned witha quick hot heat. Dirt in a larger can, doused withgasoline, gave an improvised stove. But such openfires did not do well, tending to scorch the meat clos-est to the can and leaving the interior still frozen.Jeep and truck drivers could wire a can to theirengine and when their run was finished, have a hotmeal.

C-ration meat components would begin tofreeze as soon as their cans were removed from theheat. Drinking coffee from an aluminum mess cupcould be a dangerous process, the drinker’s lip ortongue freezing to the cup. On the march it wasoften impossible to heat the meat component.Consequently the bread unit and fruit component

were the first to be consumed.Marines soon learned that keeping a thin coat of

oil on their weapons, as taught to them emphaticallyby their drill instructors at boot camp, was not a goodidea in sub-zero temperatures. Even a thin coat ofoil tended to congeal and freeze the weapon’saction. The word went out to wipe all weapons dryof oil. There was some argument over this. SomeMarines thought that an infinitesimally thin coat ofoil was best. There were arguments, pro and con,on the advisability of keeping personal weapons insleeping bags or taking them into warming tents, orleaving them out in the cold.

By and large the weapons of the Marinesworked well. A notable exception was the caliber .30M1 and M2 carbine. Already suspect in World WarII, it proved to be a miserable failure in sub-zeroweather. Its weak action failed to feed rounds intothe chamber, the bolt failed to close, and the pieceoften failed to fire. The release for its box magazinewas a fraction of an inch from the safety. Mittenedor cold-stiffened fingers sometimes pressed both,dropping the magazine into the snow. Even whena carbine did fire, the round had no stoppingpower. Most Marines carrying carbines replacedthem as quickly as they could (and most ofteninformally) with the prized M1 “Garand” rifle.

The Browning automatic rifle, M1918A2, contin-ued to be a favorite Marine weapon. It functionedin proportion to the care it was given. Ice tended toform in the buffer group and inside the receiver.

As with all weapons with a recoil mechanism,machine guns, in general, were sluggish in their rateof fire. The old reliable Browning water-cooledM1917A1 fired well as long as there was antifreeze(not always easy to get) in the water jacket.Without liquid, the barrels quickly overheated. Thebarrels of the M1919A4 light machine gun tended toburn out and there were not enough spares. The60mm and 81mm mortars fired reliably althoughthere was considerable breakage of base plates andoptical sights. It was remarked that the 81mm mor-tar shells looping across the sky left fiery tails morelike rockets.

As to the cold, some units did claim nighttime tem-peratures of 35 degrees and even 40 degrees belowzero. Best-documented temperatures, though, are therecords kept by the battalions of the 11th Marines,the artillery regiment, that had to factor in the tem-perature as an element of gunnery. These battalionsroutinely recorded temperatures of 20 and 25

30

below zero. Snow showers were frequent but notmuch snow accumulated. The winds of 35 and 40miles per hour tended to blow the rock and frozenearth free of the thin snow. When morning camethere would be ice crystals in the air, glinting in thesun like “diamond dust.”

Water in five-gallon “Jerry” cans and individualcanteens turned into blocks of ice. Some Marines car-ried a canteen inside their clothing to keep itthawed. Since World War II and the thirst of thePacific War it had been the Marine Corps habit ofhaving each man carry two canteens. This continuedin the Korean War. Some Marine officers and seniornoncommissioned officers carried whiskey in theirleft or “port side” canteen, which they doled out totheir subordinates on a most-needed basis. Thesurgeons also had a carefully controlled supply of

two-ounce bottles of medicinal brandy. Thoselucky enough to get a bottle might use it to thaw outa C-ration can of fruit and then comment wryly onthe luxury of “dining on brandied peaches.”

Immersion heaters seldom provided enoughwarmth to thaw the contents of a water trailer. Allvalves and piping froze solid. Fires built beneath thetrailers were a sometime effective expedient. Somemen ate snow. The favorite beverages, when thewater for them could be heated, were the solublecoffee and cocoa to be found in the C-ration, or bet-ter yet, the more generous allowance in largerrations.

A-rations, the full garrison ration with fresh orfrozen meat, fruits, and vegetables, was, of course,unavailable except in an extraordinary set of cir-cumstances such as the celebrated Thanksgiving

As shown in this photo of Marines marching out of Koto-ri on 8 December, each Marine carried what he consid-ered necessary to live and fight, a considerable load ofupwards of 60 pounds. Some got along with just their sleep-

ing bag slung below their haversack. More carried ahorseshoe-shaped bedding roll that could contain asmuch as a sleeping bag, a blanket, a poncho, and a shel-ter half.


31

dinner. B-rations, where canned items replaced thefresh or frozen items, were available but hard to use.Indeed, most of them were wasted, as theyrequired a field kitchen for preparation. Effortswere made in the defensive perimeters to set up con-solidated field messes serving hot chow, but this sel-dom benefited the men actually serving in thefrontline. An exception were the flapjacks or pan-cakes made around the clock by a battalion mess atHagaru-ri and served to thousands of Marines andsoldiers. Artillery batteries sometimes managed to setup their own small messes. Captain AndrewStrohmenger’s battery, also at Hagaru-ri, wasknown for its doughnuts.

Big square cans of ground coffee were a com-ponent of the B-ration. These, where space in a jeeptrailer could be found, would be kept hoardeduntil circumstances permitted the boiling up of abatch of real coffee in a can or pail. Oatmeal, alsoto be found in the B-ration with the cooperation ofa friendly mess sergeant, boiled in similar mannerand flavored with sugar and powdered milk, wasanother favorite that riflemen, unfortunately, sel-dom enjoyed. Canned peanut butter, passed fromMarine to Marine and dug out of the can by grimyfingers, was popular and more portable.

As a variant to the C-rations, there were sometimesthe larger “five-in-ones” and “ten-in-ones,” much

As the march continued south from Koto-ri, the Marinestook an increasing number of Chinese prisoners. TheChinese, who had padded uniforms, but little protection

for their hands and feet, and no tentage, suffered muchmore from the cold than did the Americans.


the same in content but with a more varied menuand intended for group consumption by a fire teamor squad. For some reason these always seemed tobe more available at the higher echelons and seldomat the rifle company level.

Post exchange supplies—cigarettes, candy, writ-ing paper, and such—nominally there to be sold tothe Marines, were given to them at no cost in theforward areas. Not many letters were being written,but the candy was a great favorite, particularly thechocolates and hard candies that gave quick ener-gy. Brand-name choices were Tootsie Rolls andCharms.

An enormous advantage that the Marines hadover the Chinese was the availability of tentage. Thestandard tent was the same as used in World War II,four-sided or pyramidal in shape, 16 feet on a side,and with a center pole. A practiced crew coulderect one in 15 or 20 minutes even in the cold. Heatwas provided by an M1941 stove or space heater thesize and shape of a quarter keg of beer. Diesel oilwas the preferred fuel, but it thickened in the coldand was frequently—if dangerously—thinned withgasoline to make it flow through the stove’s carbu-retor. The stove stood at the base of the centerpole and was good for many things besides heating

32


Amidst a snowstorm, a 60mm mortar squad rests by theside of the road south of Koto-ri on 8 December. In gen-eral, the Marines’ winter clothing was cumbersome but

effective—except for the shoe-pac. The two Marines inthe foreground manage a grin for the cameraman. Notethe mittens worn by these Marines.

at least the center portion of the tent; the sidewallsof which were usually, despite the stove, rimedwith frost.

General practice was one warming tent per pla-toon, even rifle platoons. This was possible withinthe perimeters. Marines were cycled through thetents in relays as frequently as the situation wouldpermit, usually not more than six at a time nor forlonger than 20 minutes. They were not a place tosleep. Exact practices varied with location and unit.The warming tents had odd psychological effects.The canvas sidewalls seemed to shut off the war,offering a non-existent protection. Too manyMarines could not be clustered together at onetime in a tent that might be hit by a mortar shell ormachine gun fire. One common practice was tohave a communal pot—one company headquar-ters, as its most prized possession, had a stainlesssteel pail it used as such, rescued months beforefrom a hospital in Seoul—filled with stew or “slum”constantly simmering on the stove. A Marine,entering the tent, would take his share of the heat-ed slum and then replace it with the contents of oneof his C-ration cans. A favorite condiment to makethe stew palatable was Tabasco red-pepper sauce,a bottle of which always seemed to materialize.Short sections of wood were often nailed as crosstrees to the tent pole as a drying place for sweat-soaked socks and felt shoe-pac liners.

On the march there was some attempt, not verysuccessful, at having warming tents as way sta-tions. Within the perimeters other tents, protectedwith sandbags, were designated as commandposts, usual for regiment and battalion and some-times, but not often, at the company level. Eachperimeter had a field hospital of sorts, using a con-venient schoolhouse or some such building. A bat-talion surgeon might have a cluster of tents, andthere was such a thing as a hospital tent, consider-ably larger than the pyramidal tent. Company-levelcorpsmen often had a pyramidal tent to use as a sickbay for a few sick, lightly wounded, or exhaustedMarines, and as a place to stash their stretchersand medical supplies. Life-saving plasma neededwarmth in order to flow. Corpsmen working in thefield during a firefight commonly carried morphineSyrettes in their mouths to keep them warmenough for injection.

Elimination of body waste was an unendingproblem. Within the defensive perimeters atYudam-ni, Hagaru-ri, Koto-ri, and Chinhung-ni

there were certain niceties of expeditionary plumb-ing available to the headquarters, artillery, and ser-vice units if not to the infantry. Packing tubes frommortar and artillery shells provided al fresco urinals.“Four-holers,” collapsible plywood “heads” or“shitters,” reportedly a Marine Corps invention dat-ing back to the Banana War days, were set up inwarming tents. These conveniences, almost never athand for the rifle units, were not available to any-one on the march out. A much-repeated dark jokeinvolved the problem of finding one’s cold-shriveledpenis through the many layers of clothing. Urinefroze immediately on hitting the cold ground.Defecation was such a difficult procedure thatsome Marines simply stopped defecating. Later bat-talion surgeons and company hospital corpsmenwould have to contend with impacted colons.

By the time the Marines, after their rehabilitationat Masan, began to move north at the beginning of1951, some things had gotten better. A smallmountain-type gasoline camp stove, about the sizeand shape of a quart oilcan, was issued on thebasis of one stove to every four Marines. It largelysolved the task of heating C-rations and at thesame time produced boiling water for soluble cof-fee or cocoa. Inflatable rubber mattresses, to be usedas insulation under the much-treasured sleepingbags, also began to appear. They worked best ona canvas cot, but riflemen seldom had the luxury ofa cot even when in reserve. Not until the next year,however, would a thermal “Mickey Mouse” bootreplace the hated shoe-pac.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the MarineCorps sought a cold-weather training site inCalifornia. Big Bear was tried, but serious trainingdid not mix with a ski resort. General Smith, afterarriving at Camp Pendleton in May 1951 to be thebase commander, took an active personal interest infinding a suitable location. Reconnaissance partieswere sent out and by late summer a site was found450 miles north of Camp Pendleton in the ToiyabeNational Forest in the High Sierras. With a valleyfloor at 6,800 feet, elevations went up to more than11,000 feet. Weather records promised winter tem-peratures of 20 below zero and 20 feet of snow.Marines called it “Pickle” Meadow, but it was real-ly Pickel Meadow, named for Frank Pickel, a trap-per who had built a cabin there in the 1860s. By fall1951 all replacement drafts and other units headedfor Korea would have a week’s in-the-field trainingat Pickel Meadow.

33

34

Day 1950 was marked in X Corps bythe landing at Wonsan of the 15thInfantry, largely schools troopsfrom Fort Benning. The regiment,under Colonel Dennis M. “Dinty”Moore, was to relieve Puller’s 1stMarines in and around Wonsan.Almond was not pleased to learnthat the 3d Battalion, 15th Infantry,was a “Negro” unit and therefore, inhis mind, not completely trustwor-thy. The 3d Division’s third andlast regiment, the 7th Infantry,commanded by Colonel John S.Guthrie, came from Fort Devens,Massachusetts, by way of Japanand would disembark at Wonsanon 17 November.

Almond celebrated ArmisticeDay with an order at midnight call-ing for an advance to the border, the

ROK I Corps on the right, the 7thInfantry Division in the center, andthe 1st Marine Division on the left.The Marines were allotted a 40-mile stretch along the Yalu as theirultimate objective. That same dayMacArthur indirectly orderedAlmond, by way of a personal let-ter from his G-3, Major GeneralEdwin K. “Pinky” Wright, to doeverything he could to assist theEighth Army in its drive to theYalu.

Almond had his staff prepare ananalysis of the Eighth Army’s situa-tion. It credited Walker with having120,000 troops with which tooppose 100,000 of the enemy andhaving the advantages of airsupremacy and superior artillerysupport. Almond’s study concludedthat the severing of the enemy’s

MSR at Mupyong-ni by X Corpswould greatly assist Eighth Army’sadvance. Almond, in his reply toWright on 14 November, proposedthat he attack north and then westto link-up with the Eighth Army.

As the Chinese Saw It

Peng Dehuai’s chief of staff, XieFang, at about this time made hisown assessment of the situation:

Our 9th Army Group mainforces have successivelyentered Korea from J’ian andLinjiang to assume easternfront operations. . . . We haveover 150,000 men on the east-ern front, the enemy over90,000, giving us a 1.66 advan-tage over him. We have250,000 men on the westernfront, the enemy 130,000, givingus a 1.75 advantage over him.Our forces are superior on theeastern and western fronts.

On 16 November, Xie Fangreported: “Our forces on the easternfront abandoned Hwangch’o[Funchilin] Pass on the 7th. On the10th. . . the enemy on the easternfront continued advancing north-ward along three separate routes:From Hwangch’o Pass, P’unsan[Pungsan], and Myongchon . . . stillfar from our pre-selected killingzones.”

Monday, 13 November

Meanwhile, in a division orderdated 13 November, Smith directedRCT-1 to take Huksu-ri, RCT-7 toseize Hagaru-ri and on orderadvance on Yudam-ni, and RCT-5to protect the MSR from positions atMajon-dong, Chinhung-ni, andKoto-ri, and to be prepared to passthrough RCT-7 at Hagaru-ri andadvance to Changjin 40 miles to thenorth.

Members of the 7th Marines “answer up” at a mail call at Koto-ri on 15November. A large amount of mail had accumulated, some of it intended forChristmas. Airmail arrived in a prompt five or six days; packages could take fiveto six weeks or longer. The tall Marine with a letter in his hand is carrying a car-bine, a weapon that would prove worthless in the cold weather ahead.


(Continued from page 25)

The road leading north fromKoto-ri to Hagaru-ri followed avalley formed by the ChangjinRiver. As Litzenberg’s Marinesmoved on toward Hagaru-ri, 11miles north of Koto-ri and at thesouthern tip of the ChosinReservoir, they could see parties ofChinese in the distance.

On 15 November Rear AdmiralAlbert K. Morehouse, chief of staffof U.S. Naval Forces, Far East, vis-ited Smith. Smith, feeling he wasspeaking within the naval family,outlined for Morehouse, to bepassed on to Vice Admiral C.Turner Joy, the Commander, NavalForces, Far East, his concern overwhat he considered Almond’sunrealistic planning and tendencyto ignore enemy capabilities.Smith may or may not have shownMorehouse a letter he had justdrafted to General Cates.

Alarmed at the prospect ofattacking simultaneously in twodifferent directions, Smith hadstepped out of the chain-of-com-mand to write a personal letter tothe Commandant of the MarineCorps. In it he said:

Someone in high authoritywill have to make up hismind as to what is our goal.My mission is still to advanceto the border. The EighthArmy, 80 miles to the south-west, will not attack until the20th. Manifestly, we shouldnot push on without regardto the Eighth Army. Wewould simply get further outon a limb. If the Eighth Armypush does not go, then thedecision will have to be madeas to what to do next. Ibelieve a winter campaign inthe mountains of North Koreais too much to ask of theAmerican soldier or marine,and I doubt the feasibility ofsupplying troops in this area

during the winter or providingfor the evacuation of sick andwounded.

In conclusion, Smith under-scored his concern over “theprospects of stringing out a Marinedivision along a single mountainroad for 120 air miles fromHamhung to the border.”

Asked years later to commenton this extraordinary action bySmith, Almond said tartly: “Mygeneral comment is that GeneralSmith, ever since the beginning ofthe Inchon landing and the prepa-ration phase, was overly cautious ofexecuting any order that he everreceived.”

In 1952, General Shepherd, bythen Commandant, would reportto the Secretary of the Navy: “Byorders of higher authority the divi-sion was placed in a situation,which, when the Chinese struck inforce on 28 November 1950,resulted in the division being ineffect deployed in column for a

distance of 35 miles within enemyterritory. . . . The wide separationof elements of the Tenth Corps ofwhich the First Marine Divisionwas a part, and the gap existingbetween the Tenth Corps and theEighth Army had permitted theChinese to flow around the FirstMarine Division preparatory to anall-out attack.”

MacArthur, responding toAlmond’s 15 November proposal,asked Almond for an alternateplan giving priority to taking offthe pressure confronting theEighth Army. Accordingly, Almondnow visualized an attack by the 1stMarine Division on the Hagaru-ri—Mupyong-ni axis with a regi-mental combat team from the 7thDivision protecting the division’sright flank by taking Changjin.This became the operative plan.Almond recognized that extrememinimum temperatures of from 30to 40 degrees below zero wouldseverely restrict both friendly andenemy operations.

35


Marines found the 75mm recoilless rifle, shown here in action near Koto-ri in mid-November, of increasing use in the mountains. It gave them a direct-fire weaponof great accuracy and lethality. But the shells were heavy and difficult to lug upinto the hills in any great number.

36

7th Marines Reach Hagaru-ri

While the commanders ex-changed proposals and plans, the7th Marines occupied Hagaru-ri on15 November. The nighttime tem-perature had dropped to fourdegrees below zero. Hagaru-ri wasa medium-sized town, fairly wellflattened by bombing. Just northof Hagaru-ri in the hamlet of Sasu-ri there was a sawmill and a greatdeal of fresh-cut lumber. Oncetents began to spring up, the townreminded at least one Marine offi-cer of an Alaskan gold camp withits mud-and-snow streets, its tents,and rough construction with rawlumber. General Craig visitedHagaru-ri and recommended it toSmith as a forward base.

By then RCT-5 had its 2dBattalion at Koto-ri, its 3dBattalion at Chinhung-ni—alongwith much of the remainder of thedivision—and its 1st Battalion atMajon-dong. As Murray, the regi-mental commander, remembered:

We’d been highly successfulin the south, and we had a lot

of this carry over as we wentnorth. There wasn’t anybodyany better than we were, thatwas the general feeling in theregiment. . . the hills seemedto be a lot steeper than they

were in the south. . . . And insome cases, on the roadbetween, I guess it was justbelow Hagaru-ri a ways,there was a power plant builtright into the side of themountain, and the road ranover a part of this thing. Veryeasy to blow it up, which wasdone, done twice as a matterof fact by the Chinese lateron.

Smith again visited the Chosinplateau on 16 November, this timedriving up in a heated stationwagon. At Chinhung-ni he met, bycoincidence rather than design,Major General Field Harris, 55, thecommanding general of the 1stMarine Aircraft Wing. Harris hadflown as far as Chinhung-ni in ahelicopter and had planned to gothe rest of the way by open jeep.Smith offered him a ride in his sta-tion wagon. They drove comfort-ably to Hagaru-ri with Smith in arare burst of jocularity promising

Photo by TSgt J. W. Helms, Jr., Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A155763

A Marine squad trudges through the snow-encrusted streets of Hagaru-ri. The 7thMarines occupied the town on 15 November. By then the weather had turned cold.Weather records indicated that Hagaru-ri could be the coldest spot in North Korea.

A tent camp sprang up at Hagaru-ri. On 18 November there was time for a briefawards ceremony. Col Homer Litzenberg, right, and LtCol Raymond G. Davis, left,Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, congratulates Cpl Earle R. Seifert, whoreceived a Bronze Star, and SSgt Earle E. Payne, a Navy Commendation Ribbon,for earlier heroism.

Photo by Cpl L. B. Snyder, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N- A4641

37

Harris a station wagon of his ownin exchange for continued closeair support.

Almond had asked Field Harris toreconnoiter Hagaru-ri for a site foran airstrip long enough to handletwo-engine transports. Smith andHarris walked the ground andfound a stretch just south of thetown that seemed suitable. “Thereis plenty of room, but the soil con-sists of a thick, black loam,” Smithentered in his log. “If the groundfreezes it will probably be all rightfor a strip.”

Regiments Get New Orders

On 17 November Smith modi-fied his orders to his regimentalcombat teams. RCT-7 was to protectthe left flank of the divisionbetween Hagaru-ni and Yudam-ni.RCT-5 was to pass a battalionthrough RCT-7 at Hagaru-ri and

move up the east side of the reser-voir and seize Sinhung-ni, aboutseven miles northeast of Hagaru-ri.(Sinhung-ni, just east of ChosinReservoir should not be confusedwith Sinhung in Sinhung Valleypreviously visited by the 5thMarines.)

Murray had been told to nomi-nate a battalion commander forreturn to the United States. Hepicked George Newton, comman-der of the 1st Battalion. Murraysaid of Newton: “He was a verycompetent battalion commander,but he was, I felt, almost killinghimself trying to be a good battal-ion commander. He seemed tostay awake most of the time.”

“George left [on 17 November]before we went all the way up,”said Murray. “Anyway, GeorgeNewton was relieved by a prettygood leader [Lieutenant ColonelJohn W. Stevens II]. But I did havegood battalion commanders. Wehad an excellent staff. The mainthing, as I say, is that we had been


VAdm C. Turner Joy, left, is greeted at Wonsan on 19 October by MajGen FieldHarris, commanding general of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. Joy, asCommander, Naval Forces, Far East, was MacArthur’s naval component com-mander. No direct command line linked Harris and the wing to O. P. Smith andthe 1st Marine Division.

An M-4A3 Sherman tank from the 1st Tank Battalion travels along a well-grad-ed but narrow road coming up Funchilin Pass on 19 November. Tanks gave theMarines enormous firepower and were useful in crushing enemy roadblocks, butweather and terrain tended to keep them road-bound.

Photo by TSgt J. W. Helms, Jr., National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5343

38

successful in the south, and all thatwas needed was to keep thisgoing.” Stevens was a knownquantity. He had been the executiveofficer of the 2d Battalion, 5thMarines, from Pusan on throughInchon and Seoul.

That evening Smith dined onboard the amphibious commandship Mount McKinley (AGC 7) withRear Admiral James H. “Jimmy”Doyle. Describing Doyle as “a typ-ical Irishman,” Colonel Bowser,Smith’s G-3, said: “He is a realfighter when it comes to theclutches. A fun guy to know—always a laugh or a joke.” Smithand Doyle, alone in the admiral’scabin, in Smith’s words, “let ourhair down.”

Vice Admiral Arthur D. Struble,commander of the Seventh Fleet,had been superimposed overDoyle’s Task Force 90 during theInchon and Wonsan landings.Doyle disliked Struble and, dubiousof his competence, was deter-mined to keep the Seventh Fleet

out of direct control of futureamphibious operations. After theWonsan landing, Doyle had com-plained to his old friend ViceAdmiral Joy, commander of NavalForces, Far East, that he could notand would not come under Strubleagain. He was successful in hisarguments. As commander, TaskForce 90, at Hungnam he wouldreport direct to Admiral Joy.

By now engineers hadimproved the MSR to a pointwhere armor could be sent for-ward to join Litzenberg. A tankplatoon reached Hagaru-ri on 18November. That same day Smithvisited Puller at his command postjust west of Chigyong. Smith notedthat there was snow on the moun-tains but that the road was stillopen. He was resisting an orderfrom Almond to send a battalion toHuksu-ri, about 20 miles to thenorthwest, to occupy a blockingposition. “There is no truck roadto take,” said Smith in his log. “I donot intend to put Puller out on a

limb where he cannot be supplied.Also I would like to close him upbehind the regiments movingtoward the Chosin Reservoir. The26th ROK Regiment is attackingtoward Huksu-ri. Possibly this willrelieve me of concern regardingthat place.”

Construction of the airstrip atHagaru-ri began. Smith asked for XCorps engineers, but could getnone. The job was given toLieutenant Colonel John Part-ridge’s 1st Engineer Battalion.Wind-blown Hagaru-ri was at anelevation of about 4,000 feet. Forthat altitude the engineer manualsprescribed a minimum runway of3,900 feet for C-47 transport oper-ations. The engineers crossed theirfingers and hoped that a strip asshort as 3,000 feet might do. Oncestarted, construction of the airstripproceeded 24 hours a day, withwork at night under floodlights.

Marine observation squadron,VMO-6, although part of the 1stMarine Aircraft Wing, was underSmith’s operational control. Smithregarded the squadron as his ownprivate air force. On the 19th, hevisited the squadron’s commander,Major Vincent J. Gottschalk, atYonpo airfield to discuss the prob-lems of operating helicopters andlight aircraft in the cold at high alti-tudes. Gottschalk, 31, promised toprovide solutions. He had comeinto the Corps in 1941 after gradu-ating from the University ofMichigan. For much of World War IIhe had served as Marine detach-ment commander in the light aircraftcarrier Langley (CVL 27)—after thewar came two years of flight train-ing.

Early in November, Admiral Joyhad asked Smith if he could usethe Royal Marines’ 41 IndependentCommando—14 officers and 221enlisted men, commanded byLieutenant Colonel Douglas B.Drysdale. Smith replied he would


MajGen O. P. Smith and RAdm James H. Doyle, shown here at the time of theInchon landing, were long-time friends. Both were highly experienced inamphibious warfare. They formed an effective and compatible partnership notonly at Inchon, but also in both the Wonsan landing and the ultimate evacua-tion from Hungnam.

39

be glad to get these fine troops,foreseeing 41 Commando operatingwith the division ReconnaissanceCompany in screening the flanks ofthe Marine advance. The BritishMarines arrived at Hungnam on 20November, the same day thatAlmond passed on instructionsfrom higher headquarters that“damage, destruction or disruptionof service of power plants will beavoided.” In the larger scheme ofthings, the intention was to leavethe hydroelectric generators intact.Marines would wonder why.

On 21 November the division’ssouthern boundary was adjustedto give the responsibility forHuksu-ri to the 3d Infantry Di-vision. Puller’s regiment was nowavailable to fill in behind Murrayand Litzenberg.

Secretary of the Navy Visits

Wednesday morning, 22 Nov-ember, found O. P. Smith and Field

Harris on the Yonpo airfield await-ing the arrival of the Secretary of theNavy, Francis P. Matthews. Behindhis back, Matthews was known as

“Rowboat” because of his lack ofknowledge of naval matters.Accompanying the secretary wasAdmiral Joy and Senator ClaudePepper of Florida. Arriving at theairfield at the same time wasPresident Syngman Rhee. Mat-thews had wanted to call on Rheein Seoul but could not get clearancefrom the Secretary of State, DeanAcheson, to do so. This left Smithand Harris with the ticklish problemof keeping the two high-level par-ties apart. They whisked Matthewsaway from the field before hecould learn of Rhee’s presence,taking him to the division hospital.There were very few woundedMarines to visit, but Matthewsfound the Chinese and NorthKorean prisoner of war patients ofgreat interest. He seemed to havedifficulty understanding why Navypersonnel were running a Marinehospital. It was a picture-takingopportunity for the secretary fol-lowed by another picture-takingopportunity at the division ceme-tery. Next the division staff gavethe visitors a briefing followed by

LtCol Douglas B. Drysdale, RM, and his 41 Independent Commando, RoyalMarines, were billeted briefly with the 1st Engineer Battalion in Hamhungbefore moving up to the Chosin Reservoir. Drysdale’s command, largely made upof volunteers, had assembled in Japan where it was re-equipped with Americaninfantry weapons.

Photo by TSgt J. W. Helms, Jr., National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5322

Photo by Sgt John Babyak, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4683

The well-meaning, but bumbling Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews,greeted here by BGen Craig, visited the division’s rear area at Hamhung on 22November. At the division hospital he was surprised to learn that Navy person-nel met the Marine Corps’ medical needs. Another politician accompanied him,Senator Claude Pepper of Florida.

40

lunch in the commanding gener-al’s mess. The cooks had embell-ished the standard ration withbiscuits and cookies. SecretaryMatthews and Senator Pepperseemed to enjoy these immensely.Secretary Matthews was thenescorted back to Yonpo airfield.Smith again managed to keep himunaware of President Rhee whowas departing at the same time.Senator Pepper stayed on for therest of the day. He wanted to visitwith some Marines from Florida.Smith found 15 of these. He had notbeen able to find any Marinesfrom Nebraska for SecretaryMatthews.

Thanksgiving, 23 November

Thanksgiving fell on Thursday,23 November. The holiday menu,accomplished by strenuous efforton the part of many hands, includ-ed shrimp cocktail, stuffed olives,roast young tom turkey with cran-berry sauce, candied sweet pota-toes, fruit salad, fruit cake,mincemeat pie, and coffee. Eventhe Marine infantry units got atleast the turkey.

Admiral Doyle sent in a cookedturkey for General Smith’s mess,but Smith himself had been invitedto dinner by Almond. As Smithsaid in his log: “The dinner wascomplete with cocktails servedfrom a cocktail bar, tablecloths,napkins, Japanese chinaware, reg-ular silverware, place cards, etc.Admiral Struble and GeneralsBiederlinden (G-1 of GHQ),Harris, Barr, and Ruffner were alsopresent.”

Two days before Thanksgiving,elements of the 7th Division’s 17thRegiment had reached the Yaluwithout encountering a singleChinese soldier. Years laterGeneral Almond still savored thatmoment of triumph:

And on the 21st ofNovember the leading battal-ion of the 17th Infantryreached the Yalu River and Iwas present when they didso. . . . I accompaniedGeneral Barr, the divisioncommander; General Hodes,the assistant division com-mander; and General Kieffer,the artilleryman; with the reg-

imental commander, ColonelPowell. We all walked behindthe lead company down theroad to the river bank. Thiswas the first element of theAmerican forces to reach theKorean-Manchurian border,although earlier elements ofthe 6th ROK Division with IAmerican Corps on the westflank, Eighth Army front,attempted to get to the riverbut did not succeed inremaining there.

Almond and his commanderspaused on the banks of the Yalu fora ritual urination into the waters ofthe river. Meanwhile, ColonelCharles E. Beauchamp’s 32dInfantry was advancing to thenorthwest of Powell’s 17th Infantrywith orders to reach Singalpajin,originally a Marine Corps objec-tive, on the Yalu. A 34-man patrolunder Second Lieutenant Robert C.Kingston (a future four-star gener-al) was sent out from the 3dBattalion, 32d Infantry. The patrolreached Samsu, 23 miles south ofthe Yalu, where it held on forthree days, and then, reinforcedby tanks, artillery, engineers, andmore infantry, plunged forward,still commanded by the 22-year-old second lieutenant. Now desig-nated “Task Force Kingston,” itarrived at Singalpajin on 28November, fought a house-to-house fight with North Koreans,and then took its turn at urinatingin the Yalu. The second and lastAmerican unit to reach theChinese border, Task ForceKingston, for all of its adventures,suffered only one casualty: a soldierreportedly killed by a Siberiantiger.

While soldiers and Marineswere eating their Thanksgivingturkey, Smith again modified hisorders for the 1st Marine Division’sadvance. RCT-7 was to move on to

Photo by Sgt Peter Ruplenas, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC363307

It was a proud moment for MajGen Almond, center, when, on 21 November, sol-diers of the 7th Infantry Division reached the Yalu River. Savoring the momentwith him, from left to right: BGen Homer Kiefer, division artillery commander;BGen Henry I. Hodes, assistant division commander; MajGen David G. Barr, divi-sion commander; and Col Herbert B. Powell, Commanding Officer, RCT-17.

41

Yudam-ni. RCT-5 was to continueup the eastern side of the reser-voir. RCT-1 was to protect the MSRfrom positions at Hagaru-ri, Koto-ri,and Chinhung-ni. As Smith said inhis log:

I did not want to pushMurray too far or getLitzenberg out on a limb atYudam-ni until I could closeup Puller in rear of them. . . .I had hoped there might besome change in the orders onthe conservative side. Thischange did not materializeand I had to direct Litzenbergto move on to Yudam-ni.

Most of the 7th Marines hadtheir Thanksgiving dinner atHagaru-ri. The 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, had set up its field mess inthe shadow of what would come tobe called “East Hill.” Private FirstClass Alfred P. Bradshaw, areservist who had recently joinedCaptain Hull’s Dog Company, hadlost his mess gear. The mess kits

consisted of two flat aluminumpans clamped together, not muchchanged in pattern since the CivilWar. Marines in rifle companiesseldom had need for mess gear;they subsisted almost entirely on

C-rations, thankfully much im-proved since World War II.Bradshaw, standing in the chowline, had sought to improvise aplate out of a piece of cardboard.Hull saw Bradshaw’s plight andgave him one of his pans.Bradshaw would remember that.

The road from Hagaru-ri toYudam-ni climbed up throughToktong Pass, four miles to thenorthwest and about 4,000 feet inelevation, and then descendedinto a narrow valley before reach-ing Yudam-ni. Smith personallygave Litzenberg orders to drop offa company at Toktong Pass.

On the day following Thanks-giving, 24 November, MacArthurcame to Korea to see the jump-offof the Eighth Army on the offensivethat was to end the war. Heannounced to the press that thewar would be won in two weeksand that the Eighth Army wouldspend Christmas in Japan. To com-plete Walker’s victory, MacArthurordered Almond to execute thealready planned attack to the westso as to squeeze the Chinese

Photo by TSgt J. W. Helms, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A5289

In the 1st Marine Division rear at Hamhung, where the weather was still benign,members of Maj Robert L. Schreier’ 1st Signal Battalion queue up forThanksgiving dinner. This battalion, responsible for both the wire and radio com-munications of the division, also included ANGLICO—the Air and NavalGunfire Liaison Company that provided forward observer teams to Army and ROKelements of X Corps.

Elements of both the 5th and 7th Marines spent Thanksgiving within the perime-ter of the burgeoning combat base at Hagaru-ri. Every effort was made to reachevery Marine in the division with a traditional holiday dinner. Here a 5thMarines cook ladles pumpkin pie mix into a piecrust spread out in a square pan.


between the Eighth Army and thestill-independent X Corps. Lieu-tenant Colonel John H. Chiles,USA, Almond’s G-3, had carriedthe final draft of X Corps opera-tions order to Tokyo onThanksgiving Day. MacArthur ap-proved the plan on Friday.

On Saturday morning, 25November, O. P. Smith attended abriefing at X Corps headquartersoutlining X Corps Operation OrderNumber 7. He learned that hisdivision was to be the northernarm of a giant pincer. The otherarm of the pincer would be theEighth Army. He was to sever theenemy’s lines of communication atMupyong-ni and then advance tothe Yalu. He was to launch hisattack on Monday, 27 November.Concurrently, the 7th Divisionwould continue its advance north-ward to the Yalu. Almost 100 milesseparated the two divisions.Strength returns for that dayshowed the 1st Marine Division as

having 25,323 Americans with 110South Koreans attached, but ofthat number only about 15,000were up at the reservoir. Indeed,some units of the division were asfar to the rear as Japan. A goodlynumber of hospitalized Marine

patients were also carried in thetotal. The 7th Division strength onthe same day was 16,001 men ofwhom 6,794 were South KoreanKATUSA soldiers.

Smith estimated the road dis-tance from Yudam-ni west toMupyong-ni, over another moun-tain pass and then through a narrowvalley, as being 55 miles. The divi-sion was then to advance north-ward to the Yalu. Almond’s threecolumns—the 1st Marine Division,the 7th Infantry Division, and,nominally under his control, theROK I Corps—were diverging likethe ribs of an opened fan. The 7thInfantry Division was to completeits advance to the Yalu. The ROKcorps was to advance to theChinese border from the Hapsuand Chongjin areas. To the rearthe newly arrived 3d InfantryDivision, under General Soule,was given a multiplicity of mis-sions: gain contact with the rightflank of the Eighth Army; protectthe left flank of X Corps; supportthe 1st Marine Division on order;protect the harbor and airfield atWonsan; and destroy guerrillas in itszone of action. The 3d Divisionwas also to have had the task of

42


Thanksgiving was a last lull before the Chinese storm broke. At Hagaru-ri,Reverend Lee In Sup, a Presbyterian pastor, and his wife joined the 5th Marinesfor Thanksgiving services. Lee thanked LtCol Murray, commanding officer of the5th Marines, for the liberation “of our country and our church.” Beamingbroadly in the background is the regimental chaplain, LtCdr OrlandoIngvoldstad, Jr.

By the third week in November a tent camp, mostly for combat service units hadsprung up at Hagaru-ri. One observer said that the badly battered town remind-ed him of an Alaska gold-rush camp. In the foreground a bit of the narrow-gaugerailroad track that once served Hagaru-ri can be seen.


43

defending the area south ofHagaru-ri, but, with its other mis-sions, the best it could promise todo was take over the security of theMSR from Sudong back toHamhung. It bothered Smith thatthe 3d Infantry Division had notyet closed behind him and that hewould have to leave Puller’s 1stMarines strung out along the MSR tokeep it open from Hagaru-ri southto Chinhung-ni.

Advances on Both Sidesof the Reservoir

Davis with his 1st Battalion, 7thMarines, had led off the advance toYudam-ni on Thanksgiving Day.He ran into a defense of ToktongPass by an estimated 150-200Chinese, but scattered it with theaid of air and artillery. The battalionpaused to celebrate Thanksgiving aday late, and then moved on intoYudam-ni on the 25th against negli-gible resistance. The 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, and Litzenberg’s regimentalheadquarters followed Davis’ bat-talion into the forlorn village.

Smith’s rough plan was to havethe 5th Marines pass through the7th Marines at Yudam-ni and thenattack to the west. The 1stMarines, in reserve, was to occupypositions along the MSR atChinhung-ni, Koto-ri, and Hagaru-ri. Supporting this plan, Almonddecided that a regimental-sizedforce from Barr’s 7th Divisionshould relieve Murray’s 5thMarines on the east side of thereservoir so that the 5th Marinescould join the 7th Marines atYudam-ni. He ordered Barr tosend a regimental combat team forthis purpose by 27 November.

Barr, acting on local intelligencethat the Chinese in massive num-bers had crossed the Yalu atLinchiang and were moving intothe gap between his division and

National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC352938

Gen Douglas MacArthur came to Korea on 24 November to see the jump-off ofthe Eighth Army in the offensive that was to end the war. Two days later the EighthArmy was in full retreat. LtGen Walton H. “Johnnie” Walker, commanding gen-eral of the Eighth Army, seated behind MacArthur, would die in a traffic acci-dent one month later.

LtCol Don C. Faith, Jr., USA, right, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 32dInfantry, 7th Division, pictured with the regiment’s commanding officer, Col AllanD. MacLean, in Japan in the spring of 1950. Except for limited experience dur-ing the battle for Seoul, Faith had not commanded a unit in combat prior to theChosin Reservoir.

Courtesy of Col Erwin B. Bigger, USA (Ret)

44

the Marines, had already begunpulling together his scattered bat-talions.

RCT-31, as assembled by Barrand commanded by Colonel AllanD. MacLean, consisted of the 31stInfantry’s Headquarters andService Company, the regiment’s2d and 3d Battalions, the 31stTank Company, the 57th FieldArtillery Battalion, Battery D of theself-propelled 15th AntiaircraftArtillery Automatic Weapons

Battalion, and the 1st Battalion,32d Infantry, commanded byLieutenant Colonel Don C. Faith, Jr.

Don Faith, 32, six-feet-tall,handsome, and charismatic, wassomething of an Army golden boy.The son of an Army brigadier gen-eral, he had enlisted in 1941 andwon his commission as a secondlieutenant the following year. Forthree years of World War II, heserved first in the 82d AirborneDivision and then in the XVIII

Airborne Corps as an aide to MajorGeneral Matthew B. Ridgway withwhom he landed at Sicily andjumped into Normandy andHolland. Faith had worked forBarr in China. He had commandedthe 1st Battalion, 32d Infantry, formore than a year. In this new warhe had been recommended for aDistinguished Service Cross for hisperformance between Inchon andSeoul.

Barr chose to pull Faith’s battal-ion from the 32d Infantry andassign it to RCT-31 because it, inbivouac northeast of Hamhung,was the Army battalion closest tothe reservoir. Faith on 24 Novem-ber had a strength of 715Americans and about 300 SouthKoreans.

Most of Faith’s officers werewell trained and combat experi-enced. Some had served in Europeduring World War II, some in thePacific. There was also a layer ofbattle-hardened senior noncom-missioned officers. The mix ofAmericans and South Koreans inthe rank-and-file, however, was aproblem, both in language andlack of training. The battalion, in itsequipment and preparation for awinter campaign, was about on apar with the Marine battalions, insome ways better and in someways not as good. “They wereshort of chains for their trucks.The only tentage they had weretent flies for their kitchens,” saidone observer. During the previouswinter the 31st Infantry, stationed atCamp Crawford, Hokkaido, hadreceived cold-weather training.Most of the men were issued Armywinter parkas, shorter and lessclumsy than the Navy parkas wornby the Marines. They had sweatersand pile liners of various sorts andshoe-pacs which were really rub-ber-and-leather hunter’s boots. Be-lieved by the troops to have beenprovided by L. L. Bean, these

45

boots had been suitable in WorldWar II in the wet cold of northernFrance and Germany. But, as theMarines were also learning, theywere worse than no good in sub-zero temperatures. Faith himselfdid not like the shoe-pacs andwore galoshes over his leathercombat boots. So did many othersoldiers and Marines if they couldget them.

On Saturday morning, 25November, Faith and his battalion,the lead element of RCT-31, startedup the icy road to the reservoir. AtHagaru-ri they took the right-handfork in the road. Some miles upthe eastern side of the reservoir

Faith met Murray, the commanderof the 5th Marines. Murray out-lined for him the disposition of histhree battalions, all of which werenow east of the reservoir. Taplett’s3d Battalion, in the lead, had agood defensive position aboutfour road miles north of thePungnyuri-gang inlet. Earlier thatday, a patrol from Taplett’s battal-ion had almost reached the north-ern end of the reservoir beforebrushing up against a small party ofChinese. Murray designated anassembly area for Faith’s battalionnear the village of Twiggae. Faithset up his command post in a huton a lower slope of Hill 1221.

With the relief of RCT-5 byFaith’s battalion, Marine opera-tions east of the reservoir wouldend. There was no sign of large-scale enemy activity. The soldierswere to stay under the operationalcontrol of the 1st Marine Divisionuntil the arrival of ColonelMacLean, the commanding officer,31st Infantry. Faith’s commandrelationship to the 1st MarineDivision was not clear. He askedMurray for instructions. Murray,who did not consider Faith to beunder his command, said that hehad none, but he did caution Faithnot to move farther north withoutorders from the 7th Division. OnceMurray departed, the only radiolink between Faith and the 1stMarine Division would be thatprovided by his attached tacticalair control party, led by MarineCaptain Edward P. Stamford. Heand his four-man team had beenwith the battalion since Seoul.

Just before noon on the 26th,Brigadier General Henry I. Hodes,the 7th’s assistant division com-mander, visited Faith at Hill 1221.Hodes, 51 years old, a WestPointer who had commanded the112th Infantry in Europe in WorldWar II, and a future four-star gen-eral, told Faith that MacLean andthe rest of the 31st RCT wouldsoon be arriving.

Smith Visits Yudam-ni

On Sunday morning, 26November, Smith visited Yudam-ni. During the night he had beeninformed that the ROK II Corps,on the right flank of the EighthArmy, had been thrown back inthe vicinity of Tokchon, about 70 airmiles southwest of Yudam-ni. Butas yet Smith had no notion of theextent of the disaster that hadbefallen the Eighth Army. BothWalker’s G-2 and GHQ in Tokyohad badly underestimated the


Ill-fated RCT-31, under Col Allan D. MacLean, USA, right, followed RCT-17ashore at Iwon. Here, on 12 November with the weather still mild, MajGenAlmond gives MacLean some words of advice after presenting him with a SilverStar. MajGen Barr, MacLean’s division commander, stands stolidly in the cen-ter. Two weeks later MacLean would be dead.

46

strength of the Chinese. One dayinto the offensive that MacArthurhad blithely informed the presswould end the war, the ChineseThirteenth Army Group with 18

divisions counterattacked Walker.From his helicopter on the way

to Yudam-ni Smith could see nosigns of enemy activity. As heentered in his log:

I landed at what I thoughtwas the CP of the 7th, but itproved to be the CP of the 1stBattalion, 7th. I had a visitwith LtCol Davis, the Com-manding Officer, and gotdirections from him as to thelocation of the CP of the 7th,which was about 5000 yardssouth, up the road to Hagaru-ri. In making the landing atthe regimental CP I discov-ered some of the limitations ofhelicopters. We first attemptedto land on a gentle slope nearthe CP. As the pilot put hiswheels down we slippedbackwards on the ice andsnow. After 4 or 5 tries wewent down to the floor of thevalley to land. The elevationhere was about 4000 feet. Atthis altitude the helicopterdoes not have much hoveringcapability. There was no airstirring in the bottom of thevalley and for the last 10 feetwe simply dropped. We hitwith quite a bump but nodamage was done. Had therebeen a breeze it might haveassisted us in hovering.Litzenberg’s role now is tohold the Yudam-ni area whileMurray passes through him tocontinue the advance to thewestward. Litzenberg indicat-ed he would like to keep ongoing.

Yudam-ni lay in the center of abroad valley surrounded by fivegreat ridgelines. Moving counter-clockwise from the north, theridges were given the prosaic butuseful designations North, North-west, Southwest, South, andSoutheast. The 7th Marines held aperimeter that commanded four ofthe five ridges—all but the North-west Ridge. Yudam-ni itself was amiserable collection of mud-and-thatch houses, battered by air

47

attacks and now abandoned bytheir owners. The road that wasthe lifeline of the 1st MarineDivision forked at Yudam-ni. Onefork continued to the north. Theother opened to the west, going asfar as Mupyong-ni, before turningnorth and continuing to Kanggye.

On 26 November the 7thMarines reported the capture ofthree Chinese soldiers from the60th CCF Division and learnedfrom them that the 58th, 59th, and60th CCF Divisions, making up the20th CCF Army, were in the vicin-ity of Yudam-ni.

1st Marines Button Up Division Rear

RCT-1 had to wait several daysfor rail transport to take them the 70miles north from Wonsan toChigyong. The regiment’s 1st Bat-talion relieved the 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, at Chinhung-ni onThanksgiving. Two days later theregiment’s 2d Battalion, along withPuller’s regimental headquarters,took over Koto-ri from the 2dBattalion, 5th Marines. Smith nowhad his regiments fairly closetogether, but further movement

was hindered by a shortage ofmotor transport.

Two-thirds of the 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, arrived at Hagaru-ri duringthe early evening of Monday, 26November. The battalion comman-der, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L.Ridge, 35 and University of Illinois1938, had been a naval attaché inBrazil for much of World War II buthad reached the Pacific as an intel-ligence officer in time for Iwo Jimaand Okinawa, where he was twicewounded. The motor march toHagaru-ri was uneventful exceptfor snarls in traffic. Because of theshortage of trucks, Captain Carl L.Sitter’s George Company, rein-forced with a provisional platoonfrom Weapons Company, had tobe left behind at Chigyong.

Relief of Lieutenant ColonelRandolph S. D. Lockwood’s 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, had to waituntil morning. Lockwood, 37, U.S.Naval Academy 1936 and Harvard1940, had just taken over the bat-talion from Major “Buzz” Sawyeron 9 November. Lockwood hadspent most of World War II as astaff officer in Hawaii. The com-bat-experienced Sawyer stayed onas battalion executive officer.

The new-arrivals at Hagaru-riwatched the engineers hack away atthe frozen earth in their effort tobuild an airstrip capable of han-dling Air Force C-47 and Marine R-4D transports. The 1st MedicalBattalion under CommanderHoward A. Johnson set up a clear-ing station close to the strip for theexpected flow of casualties. Extrasurgical teams were flown intoHagaru-ri. The hospital shipConsolation (AH 15) moved up toHungnam from Wonsan. The 1stMarine Division 400-bed hospitalat Hungnam had an annex of 150more beds at Hamhung.

Smith informed Fleet MarineForce, Pacific, and HeadquartersMarine Corps, that, unless hereceived word to the contrary, hewas sending his assistant divisioncommander, Brigadier GeneralCraig, home on emergency leave.Craig had received the bad newsthat his father had suffered a cere-bral thrombosis and that the prog-nosis was unfavorable. Craig leftfor the States on Monday morning,27 November.

The Chinese

The Marines were graduallylearning about the new enemy.The term used for them by the U.S.and other English-speaking forceswas “CCF” or “Chinese CommunistForces.” Marines would learn that aCCF division, with its three infantryregiments and an artillery battalion(more theoretical than real in1950), numbered about 8,000 men.A CCF regiment would averageabout 2,200 men, organized intothree infantry battalions, some-times with an artillery battery,more often with a mortar company,and several meager support com-panies. In the forward areas theChinese had little or no motortransport. Things were pulled incarts by man or beast or carried on

On 25 November, the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, along with Col Puller’s regimentalheadquarters, relieved the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, at Koto-ri. Next day, thisheavy machine gun squad, with its water-cooled Browning M1917A1, followsbehind two well-deployed rifle platoons making a reconnaissance in forcetoward the first range of hills.

Photo by Cpl W. T. Wolfe, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A4866

the backs of men, either Chinesesoldiers or impressed Koreanporters. The CCF infantry battal-ion, on paper at least, lookedmuch like the Marines’ own battal-ions: three rifle companies and amachine gun or heavy weaponscompany. The rifle companiessimilarly had three rifle platoonsand a 60mm mortar section or pla-toon. The individual Chinese soldierwas physically tough, uncomplain-ing, and used to long marcheswith few if any creature comforts.Politically he had been thoroughlyindoctrinated, but once taken pris-oner that indoctrination wouldtend to crack.

Collectively, his armament was amixed bag of weapons gainedfrom the surrender of theJapanese, the collapse of theChinese Nationalist government—and its mixture of American,British, German, Czech, and otherweapons—and the more recentissue of Russian weapons by theSoviet Union. But the Chinesearmy, at least in this stage of the

war, was never equipped as uni-formly or as well as the NorthKorean army had been. For themost part, the Chinese soldierwore a two-piece padded uniformwith a cap to match, fairly ade-quate of themselves against thecold, but paired off with canvas“sneakers.” They seldom hadgloves or mittens and dependedupon tucking their hands into thesleeves of their coats to keep themwarm. Signal communicationswere primitive in the extreme.Commonly the Chinese used theSCR-300, captured from theChinese Nationalists, as their back-packed radio, the same radio usedby the Marine infantry. Radio netsalmost never went below the regi-mental level. Telephone wire wasseldom strung beneath the battalionlevel. Below the battalion, com-munications was by runner sup-plemented with bugles, whistles,flares, and flashlights.

Lacking adequate communica-tions at the front, Chinese attackpatterns tended to be rigid and

repetitive. Once committed, aChinese battalion would usuallystay in contact until completelyshredded by casualties or until allits ammunition was used up.There was little or no battlefieldresupply.

Lin Piao had been concernedover the capability of the poorlyequipped Chinese to fight theAmericans, but Peng Dehuai ham-mered home to his senior subordi-nate officers his belief thatAmericans were afraid of closecombat, a tactic in which theChinese Communist troops ex-celled. Peng himself was a special-ist in what the Chinese called a“short attack,” hammering away atenemy defenses with successivecompact combat groups, usuallynot more than a company in size,until a breakthrough or puncturewas achieved, a tactic not unlikethat used by German storm troopsin the last years of World War I.

U.S. Marines’ and soldiers’imaginations sometimes magnifiedwhat they saw and heard whileunder attack. The Western presswas soon filled with fantasies of“human sea attacks” by “hordes”of Chinese. Chinese propagandaphotographs and films showingwave after wave of Chineseadvancing in line across the snowwith bravely flying red bannersreinforced these exaggerations.The truth was quite different.Hearing or reading such reports,the Marine infantry, those whowere really there, would later askderisively: “How many hordes arethere in a Chinese platoon?”

RCT-31 East of the Reservoir

In mid-afternoon on 26November, Colonel MacLean andhis command group arrived atFaith’s position on Hill 1221. Faith,ignoring Murray’s caution, re-ceived MacLean’s permission to

48

Marine Corps Historical Center Photo Collection

Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese did not attack in “human waves,” but incompact combat groups of 50 to 100 men. Here one such group makes its wayup a snow-clad hill. The 1st Marine Division came into contact with the majorportion of the Chinese Ninth Army Group, which, with 12 divisions, totaled about150,000 men.

49

move his battalion forward thenext morning to the position vacat-ed by Taplett’s battalion.

MacLean set up his regimentalcommand post in a schoolhouse inHudong-ni, a village about a milesouth of Hill 1221. A big, robust,aggressive man, MacLean was 43, agraduate of West Point, Class of1930, and a veteran of theEuropean theater. Barr had givenhim command of the 31st Infantryabout two months earlier, replacinga commander who had not donewell in the Inchon to Seoul drive.Before that MacLean had been inthe G-3 Section of the EighthArmy. Previously, in Japan, he hadcommanded the 32d Infantry and heknew Faith well.

5th Marines’ 27 November Attack

Of the 1st Marine Division’splanned attack to the west, RayMurray later said: “It was unbeliev-able. The more you think about it,the more unreal it becomes. Well,anyhow, those were the ordersand that’s what we started to do.”

All elements of Murray’s RCT-5were to be relieved by Mondaynoon, 27 November, so as to takepositions at Yudam-ni preparatoryto passing through RCT-7 to lead theadvance to Mupyong-ni. Firstobjective for the regiment, once itwas altogether, was to be the roadjunction at Yongnim-dong, 27 roadmiles to the west.

By nightfall on 26 November,Roise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,was in its attack position atYudam-ni. His company comman-ders gathered in his blackout tent at2200 to receive the attack order.Two Corsairs from VMF-312 forclose support and a “Grasshop-per” from VMO-6 for aerial recon-naissance were promised. The 7thMarines would support Roise’sattack with patrols and a sec-ondary attack to the southwest.

The temperature at Yudam-ni dur-ing the night went down to zerodegrees Fahrenheit.

In the morning Fox Company,under Captain Uel D. Peters, ledoff the 5th Marines’ attack with anadvance up the road leading west-ward. Peters’ first objective was aspur about 500 yards beyond the7th Marines perimeter. Almostimmediately his Marines wereengaged by long-range small armsfire. The VMO-6 spotter plane,overhead as promised, reportedChinese positions all across thefront. At 1115, Corsairs from VMF-312 dumped rockets and bombson the Chinese emplacements infront of Fox Company. As Petersbegan his assault, Chinese soldierscould be seen fleeing to the west.Three prisoners were taken.

Dog Company, under CaptainSamuel S. Smith, had followedbehind Peters and at about noonjoined in the fight. AltogetherRoise’s battalion advanced about amile. At 1430, Roise ordered Petersand Smith to break off the attack

and set up night defensive posi-tions.

The 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, inits attack to the southwest, hadadvanced about the same distance,about a mile, before running intostiffening opposition. The battalionhad a new commander: LieutenantColonel William F. Harris, 32,Naval Academy 1936, who hadtaken over from Major Roach on11 November. He was the son ofMajor General Field Harris. As acaptain he had been serving withthe 4th Marines when it was sur-rendered to the Japanese onCorregidor in the Philippines. Hehad spent the war as a prisoner ofwar and was one of four formerprisoners to witness the Japanesesurrender on board the battleshipMissouri (BB 63). A big man with aneasy manner he was immediatelyliked by the Marines in his battalion.

At noon Taplett’s 3d Battalion,5th Marines, arrived at Yudam-ni,after a hard five-hour motor marchfrom the east side of the reservoir,and was assigned an assembly area

Marines, probably members of the 5th Marines, take a roadside break while onthe march from Hagaru-ri to Yudam-ni on 27 November. This photo shows veryclearly the nature and condition of the MSR or “main supply route” that was thedivision’s lifeline from Yudam-ni back to Hungnam.


50

west of the village where the roadforked to the north and west.Taplett understood that his battalionwas to follow Roise’s 2d Battalionwhen the attack was resumed inthe morning.

The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines,now under Lieutenant ColonelJohn Stevens, did not arrive untildusk and was given an assemblyarea east of the village.Meanwhile, the 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, was completing its motormarch, company by company, butwithout Randolph Lockwood, thebattalion’s new commander, whostayed behind in Hagaru-ri.

Units of the 5th and 7th Marineswere now thoroughly intermixedand would become more so, butthere was no specific jointure ofcommand. Brigadier GeneralCraig, the assistant division com-mander, might have been givencommand of the two regimentscombined into a task force, but hewas home on emergency leave.Colonel Litzenberg was muchsenior to Lieutenant ColonelMurray, and perhaps Smiththought that was all the overallcommand authority needed.Litzenberg had positioned hiscommand post for the 7th Marinesin the center of Yudam-ni.Murray’s command post for the5th Marines was some distanceaway in the northwest corner ofthe village.

During the day Almond, accom-panied by an aide and an assistantoperations officer, drove by jeepto Yudam-ni from his commandpost at Hamhung. Arriving at the7th Marines command post unex-pectedly, he found Litzenbergabsent but his executive officer,Lieutenant Colonel Frederick R.Dowsett, 39, present. Tall, lanky,Dowsett briefed him on the enemysituation and the disposition of theregiment. Almond passed outthree Silver Stars, one to an officer

and two to enlisted Marines, andthen late in the afternoon beganhis return to Hamhung. The MSRwas jammed with traffic going inboth directions. In his opinion, thetraffic was poorly controlled. Thedrive took nearly five hours. Thatnight he reported to GHQ inTokyo that the strength of theenemy was considerable and thatthe disposition of the Marinesneeded to be reexamined.

Hagaru-ri, 27 November

At Hagaru-ri, Ridge’s 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, completedthe relief of Lockwood’s 2d Bat-talion, 7th Marines, on the morningof 27 November. Companies Dand E of Lockwood’s battalion hadalready arrived at Yudam-ni. Whilethey waited for their own battal-ion commander, Litzenbergattached the two companies toDavis’ 1st Battalion.

Lockwood, in accordance withSmith’s directive to Litzenberg,now led forward his remainingrifle company, Fox Company, tooccupy Toktong Pass. He gaveCaptain William E. Barber ordersto move off the road, beginningfour miles north of Hagaru, withthe mission of keeping open threemiles of the MSR. Lockwood thenreturned to Hagaru-ri where hisHeadquarters Company and theremainder of his WeaponsCompany were awaiting trucks totake them on to Yudam-ni. Thetrucks never came. Lockwoodhimself, and the remainder of hisbattalion, would never get toYudam-ni.

When Captain Barber took com-mand of Fox Company on 7November, he made a littlespeech, telling his company thathe was “an infantryman and a hellof a good one at that.” Born inKentucky in 1919, he had enlistedin the Marine Corps in 1940. He

went through parachute training,doing so well that he stayed on asan instructor. He was commis-sioned in 1943, and as a platoonleader at Iwo Jima with the 26thMarines, he was wounded andevacuated. Refusing to stay hospi-talized, he came back to take com-mand of a company. For this hereceived a Silver Star and his firstPurple Heart.

Ridge, faced with the mission ofdefending Hagaru with two-thirdsof a battalion, sent Major JosephD. Trompeter, his S-3, and MajorEdwin H. Simmons, his WeaponsCompany commander and sup-porting arms coordinator, on awalking reconnaissance. Trom-peter and Simmons found that toenclose all of Hagaru-ri wouldrequire a perimeter of four miles, animpossible task for a singleinfantry battalion at two-thirdsstrength. Ridge estimated that oneto two regiments would berequired for a thorough defense.

“Under the circumstances andconsidering the mission assignedto the 1st Marine Division,”General Smith would later com-ment, “an infantry component ofone battalion was all that could bespared for the defense of Hagaru,”adding with the benefit of hind-sight, “This battalion was very ade-quately supported by air, and hadsufficient artillery and tanks for itspurposes.”

Captain Benjamin S. Read’sHow Battery, 3d Battalion, 11thMarines, which had been shootingfor the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines,was already in place in the north-east corner of the sketchy perime-ter. Now it would have to divide itsfire missions between the defenseof Fox Company in Toktong Passand the Hagaru-ri perimeter and atthe same time provide its owndefense for its segment of theperimeter. “Our lives centered onour 105mm howitzers, and our

mission was to support theinfantry,” said Captain Read crisplya short time later.

Captain Andrew J. Stroh-menger’s Dog Battery, 2dBattalion, 11th Marines, hadarrived at Hagaru-ri with Ridge’s3d Battalion, 1st Marines. The bat-talion and battery had workedtogether before, notably at Majon-ni, and were old friends.Strohmenger’s battery went intoposition on the flats just southeastof the village.

The extreme cold affected therecoil systems of the howitzersand the reach of their shells. Theguns were slow in coming backinto battery and the extreme rangewas cut down from 12,200 yards tosomething like 9,000-9,500 yards.

Not being able to be strongeverywhere, Ridge decided to con-centrate his two rifle companies,How and Item, in a salient south-west of the not yet operational,but all-important, airstrip. Theother greatest threat to Hagaru-riwas the hill mass just east of the

town that would come to be called“East Hill.”

Beyond the airstrip, FirstLieutenant Joseph R. “Bull”Fisher’s Item Company improved

the positions vacated by Barber’sFox Company by blasting deeperfoxholes with “Composition C”plastic explosive. On Fisher’s leftflank, Captain Clarence E. Corley’sHow Company extended the lineuntil it tied in with the right flank ofStrohmenger’s Dog Battery, 11thMarines. The frozen marsh in frontof Dog Battery was covered withfire but left unmanned. Theperimeter picked up again with aroadblock held by a portion ofWeapons Company across theroad running south to Koto-ri. EastHill remained unoccupied. Ridgeplanned to put George Companyon the hill when it arrived fromthe south. Service Battalion heldthe roadblock on the road that lednortheast of the reservoir. Some-where out there on the east side ofthe reservoir was the Army col-umn that would come to be called“Task Force Faith,” named for itsdoomed commander. The rest ofthe perimeter was patched togeth-er with bits and pieces of theService Battalion, the division’s

51


Capt William E. Barber took command of Fox Company, 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, on 7 November. A seasoned combat leader, he had commanded a pla-toon and company at Iwo Jima. He demanded a lot from his Marines and he gotit. Shortly before leaving Hagaru-ri to take position in Toktong Pass, he held arifle inspection for his company.

A 105mm fires a mission from its position close to the airstrip at Hagaru-ri. Thetwo batteries of artillery—Capt Benjamin S. Read’s Battery H, 3d Battalion, andCapt Andrew J. Strohmenger’s Battery D, 2d Battalion, both of the 11thMarines—were essential to the defense of the Hagaru-ri perimeter.

Photo by TSgt V. Jobs, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A130286

52

Headquarters Battalion, and oddsand ends left behind by the 7thMarines, until it closed again onItem Company’s right flank. At thenorthern-most edge of the perime-ter, Read’s How Battery, 11thMarines, like Strohmenger’s bat-tery, was used as a frontline unit.

Lockwood received orders fromLitzenberg to move to ToktongPass to assist Fox Company. Heborrowed a platoon from Ridge’sbattalion as an escort, but theeffort went nowhere. Tank-infantry patrols sent out to thenorth toward Yudam-ni and to thesouth toward Koto-ri were pushedback in by mid-afternoon.

East of the reservoir, Mondaymorning, 27 November, ColonelMacLean, commanding RCT-31,went forward, accompanied byLieutenant Colonel Faith, andtogether they inspected the linesvacated by the Marines. MacLeanthen selected a forward commandpost site south of Faith’s intendednew position.

Chinese Order of Battle

It was not yet known with cer-tainty, but the scattered Chineseelements encountered earlier byMurray’s 5th Marines were fromthe 80th Division of the 27thArmy, Ninth Army Group. Com-manded by Sung Shih-lun, theNinth Army Group, with a total of11 and possibly 12 divisions, con-sisted of three “armies,” the 20th,26th, and 27th, each roughlyequivalent to a U.S. corps in front-line infantry strength. Sung Shih-lunwas the equivalent of a lieutenantgeneral, but the ChineseCommunist Forces had not yetadopted Western military grades.Rank was indicated by billet held.Sung, like Peng, was his ownpolitical commissar. The NinthArmy Group had been poised toinvade Taiwan after having cap-

tured Shanghai from theNationalists. At Mao’s directionPeng had brought Sung up fromthe Shanghai area and had senthim into Korea with specificorders to destroy X Corps. Peng’sheadquarters, it will be remem-bered, estimated that Sung couldbring 150,000 troops against90,000 men, a close guess at thestrength of X Corps, giving him a1.7 to 1 advantage.

Mao, in a telegram sent to Pengon 12 November, said: “It is saidthat the American Marine FirstDivision has the highest combateffectiveness in the Americanarmed forces.” Sung would makethe destruction of the 1st MarineDivision, as the strongest of theAmerican divisions, his maineffort.

Sung’s information as to thelocation of Marine Corps units wasexcellent. His plan, as later piecedtogether by U.S. intelligence, was asfollows: The 27th Army—exceptfor the 80th Division, which was tocome down the east side of thereservoir—was charged with at-tacking the two Marine regiments atYudam-ni. The 20th Army was tocut the MSR or main supply routesouth of Yudam-ni, includingattacks against Hagaru-ri andKoto-ri. The 26th, initially inreserve, would not come into thefight until somewhat later. Sung

was to launch his attack the nightof 25 November, simultaneouswith the assault to the west againstthe Eighth Army, but he was notquite ready and he secured Peng’sapproval to delay his attack fortwo days.

Early on the afternoon of 27November, Faith completed themove of his battalion into thepositions vacated by Taplett’s 3dBattalion, 5th Marines. It was atypical Marine Corps perimeter,horseshoe shaped and occupyingthe high ground. Each of theexposed sides was occupied byone of Faith’s rifle companies, thebattalion command post was inthe center, and the open side tothe rear was covered by elementsof his Headquarters and ServiceCompany and Weapons Company.Lacking the strength in men andweapons of a Marine battalion,Faith could not fill all the foxholes.

MacLean, who had returned toHudong-ni, was told that severalhundred Chinese had been sightedeast of the Pungnyuri-gang inlet.He sent out his Intelligence andReconnaissance Platoon to investi-gate. The platoon roared out ofthe compound in its machine gunmounted jeeps and was neverseen again.

The 3d Battalion, 31st Infantry,commanded by Lieutenant Colo-nel William R. Reilly, arrived that

Chinese Order of BattleNinth CCF Army Group

20th CCF Army 26th CCF Army 27th CCF Army

58th CCF Division 76th CCF Division 79th CCF Division


60th CCF Division 78th CCF Division 81st CCF Division


Source: Montross & Canzona, The Chosin Reservoir Campaign (1957). The fourth division ineach army was not organic. The 88th, 89th, and 90th CCF Divisions were attached from the30th CCF Army. Some other, later, authorities, Chinese as well as American, show the 90thCCF Division as the 94th CCF Division from the 32d CCF Army.

afternoon, followed by the 57thField Artillery Battalion, com-manded by Lieutenant ColonelRaymond Embree. MacLean putEmbree’s battalion—which wasminus its Battery C—into abivouac area near the hamlet ofSinhung-ni, just south ofPungnyuri-gang inlet. The two fir-ing batteries were positioned onthe south side of the inlet on lowground surrounded on three sidesby ridges. Embree placed hisartillery headquarters a mile or sofarther south on the slope of Hill1456. Battery D of the 15thAntiaircraft Automatic WeaponsBattalion, with four full-track M19weapons carriers mounting dual40mm guns and four half-trackedM16 carriers bearing quad .50-cal-iber machine guns, was set upclose to Embree’s headquarters.

The 31st Heavy MortarCompany, with its 4.2-inch mor-tars, moved into a position close toMacLean’s forward command postand about halfway between Faith’sbattalion and Reilly’s battalion.

Meanwhile, the 31st Tank Com-pany, with 20 M-4A4 Shermantanks and two 105mm howitzertanks, had reached Hudong-ni.

Thus, on the evening of 27November, elements of MacLean’sRCT-31 were stretched out on theroad for 10 miles in seven differentpositions. By nightfall, or shortlythereafter, Faith, on the northernend with his 1st Battalion, 32dInfantry, had registered hisartillery and mortar defensive fires.At about this time he receivedorders from MacLean to attack thenext morning toward Kalchon-ni.MacLean himself spent the night atFaith’s headquarters.

Sung Shi-lun, it will be remem-bered, had allocated his 80thDivision to the attack east of thereservoir. Shortly before midnight afirefight developed on CompanyA’s front on the forward edge ofFaith’s position. The companycommander was killed. Stamford,the Marine captain, took tempo-rary command. The Chinese attackspread until it encompassed the

rest of the battalion perimeter. South of the inlet, the two firing

batteries of Embree’s 57th FieldArtillery Battalion and Reilly’s 3dBattalion, 31st Infantry Regiment,came under heavy attack from theeast. The Chinese overran the 3dBattalion’s command post andboth artillery batteries. Reilly wasseverely wounded. Farther south,mortar shells began falling onEmbree’s artillery headquarters.Embree, in turn, was badlywounded.

Yudam-ni, 27 November

As darkness fell on the 27th atYudam-ni, Captain Wilcox’sCompany B, 7th Marines, whichhad been patrolling South Ridge,came under heavy attack.Lieutenant Colonel Davis, com-manding the 1st Battalion,received permission from Litz-enberg to take a company to extri-cate Wilcox. Davis led CharlieCompany, less one of its rifle pla-toons and commanded by Captain

53


LtCol Randolph S. D. Lockwood, Commanding Officer, 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, had allowed his headquarters tobecome separated from his rifle companies. On 27November, on orders from Col Litzenberg, he attempted to

reach Fox Company in Toktong Pass with elements of his H&SCompany and Weapons Company shown here. The effortfailed.

John F. Morris, down the MSR topositions across the road from Hill1419. Baker Company pulled itselfloose from its engagement andDavis took it back into Yudam-ni,leaving Morris’ Charlie Companyto occupy Hill 1419—about twomiles south of the incompleteperimeter. With less than a fullcompany, Morris organized a cres-cent-shaped defense on an easternspur of Hill 1419, well below thecrest.

Unknown to Litzenberg andMurray as yet was that almost sur-rounding them at Yudam-ni werethe 79th and 81st CCF Divisions.

Furthermore, the 59th CCFDivision had begun a wideenveloping movement past SouthRidge and on south to cut the MSRat Toktong Pass, held only by FoxCompany, 7th Marines.

Artillery support at Yudam-niwas provided initially by MajorParry’s 3d Battalion, 11thMarines—three batteries of 105mmhowitzers, 18 tubes in all, enoughto support a regiment in a narrowzone of attack, but not enough toprovide adequate 360-degree sup-port for a sprawling two-regimentdefensive sector. Fortunately,among the Marine forces converg-

ing on Yudam-ni, during that busy27th of November, was the 4thBattalion, 11th Marines, command-ed by Major William McReynolds,with three batteries of its heavier155mm howitzers—18 more tubes.All would be in action before mid-night.

That night the temperaturedropped to 20 degrees belowzero. Northwest Ridge, the lastridge to be occupied, now had aMarine presence, a frontline offoxholes chipped out of the frozenground and occupied by tired andcold-benumbed Marines. HowCompany, 7th Marines, command-ed by Captain Leroy M. Cooke,held Hill 1403, the high point onNorthwest Ridge. On HowCompany’s left flank were Easyand Fox Companies of Roise’s 2dBattalion, 5th Marines, occupyingthe rest of the ridge until itdropped down to the defilethrough which passed the road tothe west. Roise had his commandpost behind the juncture of thesetwo companies. A roadblockmanned largely by WeaponsCompany covered the road west-ward. On the other side of theroad, Dog Company curled backtoward Southwest Ridge.

Taplett, uneasy with the situa-tion, turned the assembly areaassigned his 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, into its own defensiveperimeter. His command post wasin a draw behind Hill 1282. Hesent a platoon from Item Companyto outpost a spur of Hill 1384about 500 yards forward of hiscommand post. The outpost beganreceiving harassing fire at 2045.

The 89th CCF Division’s attackagainst Northwest Ridge, with tworegiments, the 266th and the267th, began at about 2200. TheChinese suddenly hit all along theline with sub-machine guns andgrenades supported by machinegun fire and an intense mortar bar-

54

Toward the end of the day on 27 November, two Marines at Yudam-ni help awounded comrade reach an aid station. Heavy action at Yudam-ni had begunthat morning when elements of both the 5th and 7th Marines made an attack west-ward, were halted, and fell back to defensive positions.


55

rage. This attack apparently aimedat fixing the Marines in positionwhile a dense column of Chineseassaulted the line on a narrowfront against the boundarybetween Easy and Fox Companies.This assault penetrated theMarines’ position, overrunningFox Company’s right flank pla-toon. Captain Samuel Jaskilka (afuture four-star Assistant Com-mandant), commanding EasyCompany, turned back his leftflank to cover the penetration.Roise pounded the Chinese salientwith his 81mm mortars and sentup a platoon from Dog Company toreinforce Fox Company’s rupturedright flank. A great number ofChinese were killed and by dawnthe break in the line had beenrepaired.

Things went less well in thefight that had begun for posses-sion of Hill 1403. Captain Cooke,How Company’s commander, had

deployed his three rifle platoonsin a semi-circle on the forwardedge of the crest of the hill. Hisright flank crumbled under theweight of an assault by the 266thCCF Regiment. Cooke himselfbravely led a counterattack torestore his line and was cut downby Chinese machine gun fire.Second Lieutenant James M.Mitchell took temporary charge ofthe company until First LieutenantHoward H. Harris, who had earliercommanded the company, couldget there from battalion. Harris (norelation to Lieutenant ColonelWilliam Harris, commanding the3d Battalion) arrived at about mid-night and found only one HowCompany officer, Second Lieuten-ant Minard P. Newton, Jr., still on hisfeet. The Chinese again assaultedHill 1403 at about 0300. After anhour of pounding, LieutenantColonel Harris ordered the bat-tered How Company to withdraw to

the rear of the 2d Battalion, 5thMarines, leaving Hill 1403 inChinese hands.

Battle for North Ridge

Concurrently with the assault ofNorthwest Ridge, the 79th CCFDivision, with three regiments,had moved against North Ridge,held by two widely separatedcompanies of the 2d Battalion, 7thMarines—Dog Company on Hill1240 and Easy Company on Hill1282. Separating the two hilltopswas a long saddle. (The battalion’sthird rifle company, Fox Company,it will be remembered, had beendropped off at Toktong Pass andLockwood and his headquarterswere still at Hagaru-ri.)

The 235th CCF Regimentattacked in a column of battalionsagainst Hill 1282 at about mid-night. Easy Company, underCaptain Walter Phillips, held its


This BAR-man, as sketched by combat artist Sgt Schofield,sights in his Browning automatic rifle. It still has its bipod,making it an efficient substitute for a light machine gun.

Some BAR-men threw away their bipods to lighten theirload, reducing the BAR to an assault rifle.

ground against the first attack.Simultaneously, the 236th CCFRegiment, following behind the235th, was feeling out DogCompany’s position on Hill 1240.

Anticipating an attack againstNorth Ridge, Murray had movedStevens’ 1st Battalion out of itsassembly area northward to thereverse slope of Hill 1282. Firstelements of Able Companyreached a spur of Hill 1282 barelyin time to reinforce EasyCompany, 7th Marines, which wasbeing pummeled by the 1stBattalion, 235th CCF Regiment.Easy Company’s commander,Captain Phillips was killed andwould receive a posthumous NavyCross. His executive officer, FirstLieutenant Raymond O. Ball, tookover command, was several timeswounded, and died in the battalionaid station. Command devolvedupon the senior platoon leader,First Lieutenant Robert E. Snyder.Easy Company had been reduced tothe size of a single platoon, and bydaylight the Chinese had taken thecrest of Hill 1282.

The crest of Hill 1240 to the easthad also fallen. Chinese from the3d Battalion, 236th CCF Regiment,had overrun the command post ofbig, burly Captain Milton Hull, thecompany commander of DogCompany. At about 0300, Hull,wounded, counterattacked withthe few squads at his disposal,won back a foothold, and waswounded again. When dawn camehe could count only 16 Marinesleft with him, and the enemy hadhim surrounded.

During the night some Chinesehad crossed the saddle that sepa-rated the Dog and Easy Companypositions and had taken the 5thand 7th Marines’ command postsunder fire. Some time before mid-night, a few half-dressed mortarmen from How Company, 7thMarines, beaten back from Hill

1403, found their way intoTaplett’s 3d Battalion, 5th Marines,perimeter. A message from HowCompany, 7th Marines—that partthat still remained on Hill 1403—reached Taplett, warning him thatthe Chinese were flanking hisposition. At about 0145, Taplett’soutposted platoon on Hill 1384received increasingly heavy fire.Shortly thereafter a CCF force, esti-mated at two companies, overranthe outpost. Taplett’s commandpost became the bull’s eye of thefight. Major John J. Canney, thebattalion executive officer and aWorld War II aviator turnedinfantryman, was killed.

South of Yudam-ni

At 0230, with the assaultsagainst North and NorthwestRidges at their height, the Chinesealso struck Charlie Company,under Captain Morris, on the spurof Hill 1419 two miles south ofYudam-ni. Morris’ Marines held ongrimly until dawn when artilleryfire finally made the Chinese breakoff their attack. But, with a third ofhis men casualties, Morris waseffectively pinned into position byChinese fire continuing to raindown from the heights. HisMarines could do nothing morethan hold their position and hopethat help would come fromYudam-ni.

While the 79th and 89th CCFDivisions savaged the Marines onNorthwest and North Ridges, the59th CCF Division completed itswide sweeping movement to thesoutheast, putting itself in positionto cut the 14 miles of vital MSRbetween Yudam-ni and Hagaru-ri.Until midnight on 27 Novembertruck traffic on the MSR was stillactive and unimpeded—mostlyempty trucks from LieutenantColonel Beall’s 1st Motor Trans-port Battalion rattling their way

back to Hagaru-ri, having deliv-ered the last serials of the 1stBattalion, 5th Marines, and the 4thBattalion, 11th Marines, to Yudam-ni.

Captain Barber had gone intoposition at Toktong Pass with anear full-strength Fox Companyreinforced with sections of water-cooled Browning machine gunsand 81mm mortars from WeaponsCompany, 2d Battalion—a total of240 officers and men. Barberchose to organize his defensiveperimeter on a hill at the mid-point of the pass. “We arrived in thelate afternoon after which weunloaded and were positioned forthe night,” remembered CorporalHoward W. Koone. “Our positionwas off to the right of the road upon a saddle-like hill. The groundwas like a sheet of concrete andvery barren.”

Barber’s 3d Platoon, under FirstLieutenant Robert C. McCarthy,occupied the high ground at thecenter of the narrow perimeter. Atabout 0230, McCarthy’s two for-ward squads were overwhelmedby a company-sized attack. Out of35 men, McCarthy lost 15 killed, 9wounded, and 3 missing. Theeight survivors fell back to thereserve squad on the reverse slopeof the hill. Barber’s position wasalmost cut in half, but his twowing platoons managed to holdtheir ground. Much was owed tothe valor of three Marines: PrivateFirst Class Robert Benson andPrivate Hector A. Cafferatta of the2d Platoon under Second Lieuten-ant Elmo G. Peterson on the left,and Private First Class Gerald J.Smith of the 1st Platoon underFirst Lieutenant John M. Dunne onthe right. One party of Chinesepenetrated as far as the companycommand post and the 81mmmortar position. Fighting, some ofit hand-to-hand, continued untildaybreak when the Chinese broke

56

57

off the assault but continued tokeep the position under fire. In allBarber had lost 20 Marines killedand 54 wounded. Fox Companydid not know how many Chinese ithad killed but guesses went up to500.

Howard Koone was one ofthose wounded. He eventuallyfound himself in a Korean hutbeing used by Fox Company’scorpsmen as a sick bay. He wastold that helicopters would becoming to evacuate the woundedand that he would be third on thelist, but the helicopters nevercame.


Dawn on 28 November saw thetactical situation on NorthwestRidge unresolved. Hill 1403 hadbeen lost to the enemy. Elsewhereboth Marines and Chinese wereclinging to the high ground.Roise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,had a firm grip on its portion of theline. As yet there had been noorders to abandon the offensivebegun the day before. Roise hadreceived orders from Murray tocontinue the attack at daybreak.Taplett’s 3d Battalion was to comeup on his right flank and add itsweight to the assault.

Murray met with Litzenberg atthe 7th Marines command post atdawn. Both regimental comman-ders agreed that the situation dic-tated that they change from theoffensive to the defensive. Murraycanceled the attacks to be madeby Roise and Taplett.

Murray barely knew Litzenberg.In the south, at Seoul, he had seenhim once or twice at divisionheadquarters. The only intimatecontact he ever had with himwould be at Yudam-ni. Never-the-less, the loose command relation-ship seemed to work. “If he hadtroops on some hills,” said Murray,

“ then I put troops on some otherhills, so that we had a goodperimeter defense of the area.”

Murray remembered thatLitzenberg “had a reputation ofbeing sort of a fussbudget, a stick-ler . . . he seemed to be a studioustype of person, knew his business,and as far as I could tell from talk-ing with people in the 7th Marines,it seemed everyone respected himand his abilities. . . . Many peoplehave asked why he didn’t justassume command up there. I can’tanswer that question definitively.After all, there was a divisionheadquarters over the hill from us,and we were still part of that divi-sion, so we had a common head.But in any case, we decided tooperate very closely together, andwe did.”

Taplett had begun his counter-attack against the spur of Hill 1384at about 0300 with two platoonsof George Company led by

Lieutenants John J. “Blackie” Cahilland Dana B. Cashion. Some timeafter daylight Cahill and Cashionreached the crest of Hill 1384 withtheir platoons. About this timeTaplett received the order cancelingthe attack. He, in turn, directedCahill and Cashion to hold wherethey were until they received fur-ther orders. With their presence ontop of the hill, the remainder ofHow Company, 7th Marines—some 80 officers and men—wasable to complete its withdrawalfrom Hill 1403 and pass on intoTaplett’s perimeter.

John Stevens’ 1st Battalion, 5thMarines, spent the morning con-solidating its position on Hill 1240.His Charlie Company, underCaptain Jack R. Jones, had movedover during the night to backstopTaplett’s battalion and was putunder the operational control ofthe 7th Marines. One platoon wasdropped off to rejoin its parent

A row of dead Chinese, frozen in grotesque positions, on the high ground over-looking a command post of the 5th Marines at Yudam-ni, mark the line of theirfarthest advance. The burden of the Chinese attack was borne chiefly by isolat-ed Marine rifle companies holding ridgeline positions.


battalion on Hill 1240. The remain-der of the company continued onto Hill 1282. A company ofChinese from the 235th CCFRegiment had lodged itself on thehilltop. Jones led his reduced com-pany in a hand-to-hand assaultthat won back the hill.

At 1100 Murray ordered Roise topull his battalion back to

Southwest Ridge tying in withHarris’ 3d Battalion, 7th Marines,on his left and Taplett’s 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, on hisright. Early that afternoon Roisebrought his battalion back fromNorthwest Ridge a company at atime. Except for occasional harass-ing fire, the Chinese did not inter-fere.

Early that morning, Davis’ 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, had set outto the south to relieve both Charlieand Fox Companies from theirencirclement on the MSR. AbleCompany, under First LieutenantEugenous M. Hovatter, led off,moving through a gorge separat-ing South from Southeast Ridge.Five hours of fighting found AbleCompany still a mile short ofCharlie Company’s position. BakerCompany, under Captain Wilcox,joined the attack. Together the twocompanies reached Charlie Com-pany. Litzenberg, with CharlieCompany now relieved and itswounded evacuated, and notwanting to have the 1st Battaliontrapped in the gorge, orderedDavis to pull back into the Yudam-ni perimeter. By evening Stevens’1st Battalion, 5th Marines, hadrelieved the shattered remnants ofHull’s Company D, 7th Marines.The two regiments at Yudam-ni,their perimeter tightened andmended, faced the night of 28November with considerable con-fidence. But Barber’s FoxCompany remained alone inToktong Pass.

Almond Visits Faith

At Hagaru-ri, a platoon-sizedpatrol, sent out to the southwestearly on the morning of 28November from Fisher’s ItemCompany, was pushed back intothe perimeter. At about the sametime as this patrol action, Ridgetelephoned Colonel Bowser, thedivision G-3 and Smith’s war chief,recommending that an overalldefense commander be designat-ed for Hagaru-ri. He also request-ed that the arrival of his GeorgeCompany and the Royal Marine 41Commando be expedited. Before adecision could be reached,General Smith flew in by heli-copter at about 1100 to open his

58

command post at Hagaru-ri. Ahalf-hour later General Almond,along with his junior aide, 26-year-old Captain Alexander M. Haig, Jr.,arrived in Almond’s L-17 light air-craft, the “Blue Goose.”

After meeting with Smith,Almond borrowed a Marine heli-copter to take him east of thereservoir to meet with Faith andMacLean. Colonel MacLean, it willbe remembered, had spent thenight of 27 November at Faith’sposition. MacLean thought thatFaith’s battalion had come throughthe night in fairly good shape. Heknew little or nothing about whathad happened south of the inlet. Atdawn he left to return to his ownadvance command post. His shortjeep trip was not interrupted.

Almond, on arriving at Faith’sposition in his borrowed MarineCorps helicopter, airily told Faiththat there was nothing in front ofhim except scattered Chineseretreating to the north and that heshould try to retake the lost highground. As further encourage-ment, Almond informed Faith thathe had three Silver Stars to pre-sent, one for Faith himself and twomore for whomever Faith desig-nated. Faith called forward awounded platoon leader and amess sergeant. Almond pinned thethree Silver Stars to their parkas,Captain Haig noted their names inhis notebook, and the general andhis aide got back on board theirhelicopter. As the helicopterwhirled away, Faith and the lieu-tenant tore the Silver Stars fromtheir parkas and threw them in thesnow.

Stopping to see MacLean,Almond advised him that the pre-viously planned attack would beresumed once the 2d Battalion,31st Infantry, joined the regiment.This battalion and Battery C of the57th Field Artillery were maroonedfar south on the clogged MSR.

During the night, the 31stMedical Company, pushing northfrom Hudong-ni had beenambushed and badly shot up inthe vicinity of Hill 1221. Survivorsdrifting back to the headquartersof RCT-31 at Hudong-ni were thefirst indication that the road hadbeen cut.

Meanwhile, General Hodes, theassistant commander of the 7thDivision, was at Hudong-ni. Hedirected Captain Richard E. Drake,commander of the 31st TankCompany, to sally forth to thenorth to see if he could breakthrough to the inlet. Drake movedout with 16 tanks. Hodes rodewith Drake as a passenger; he didnot take tactical command.Without infantry support, thetanks could not break the Chinesegrip on Hill 1221 which effectivelyblocked the route north. Fourtanks were lost. Hodes returned toHudong-ni in a jeep, intent on get-ting back to Hagaru-ri for help. He

took a tank, at Drake’s insistence,for transportation and got back toHagaru-ri, five miles away, with-out further incident. He neverreturned to Hudong-ni.

South of the inlet that day, 28November, the badly battered 3dBattalion, 31st Infantry, and 57thField Artillery Battalion painfullyreorganized and consolidated theirpositions. Before nightfall, theChinese came back into the attackwith the M16 and M19 self-pro-pelled guns the focal point of theireffort. The automatic 40mm and.50-caliber fire did its lethal work.The perimeter held and manyChinese died.

North of the inlet sporadic fight-ing had continued. A dominant hillposition was lost to the Chinese.Stamford ran close air supportstrikes with Marine Corsairs withlittle apparent effect. To the eastthe battalion could glimpse longcolumns of Chinese marchingsouth, some of them mounted on

59

Photo courtesy of Sgt Norman L. Strickbine, USA

East of the reservoir during 28 November, the Army’s 3d Battalion, 31st Infantry,and two firing batteries of the 57th Field Artillery Battalion painfully reorganizedafter the previous night’s devastating attack against their positions just south ofPungnyuri Inlet. Bodies can be seen in the foreground. Sporadic fighting con-tinued north of the inlet.

Mongolian ponies, or so it wassaid. Air strikes were flown againstthem and claimed good results.


Smith had moved into aJapanese-style house, soon over-crowded with the impedimenta ofa division command post. On thewall close by Smith’s field deskhung a picture of Stalin; Smith let itremain where it was. By nightfall onthe 28th Smith had officially sanc-tioned actions already taken atYudam-ni. Murray was ordered tohalt his attack to the northwest.Litzenberg was told to attack to thesouth and reopen the MSR toHagaru-ri. Together, Murray andLitzenberg were to plan for thecontinued defense of Yudam-niand the breakout to the south. Thejoint defense plan worked up byLitzenberg and Murray providedfor RCT-5 to take over responsibil-

ity for the west and north sectors,RCT-7 for the east, south, andsouthwest.

“Although the two regimentalcommanders acted jointly,” saidTaplett years later, ”I harbored thegut feeling that Colonel Litzenbergand not Colonel Murray called theshots simply because of seniority. Iconfess to having more confidencein Murray.”

During the afternoon, ColonelBowser, the division G-3, tele-phoned Lieutenant Colonel Ridgeconfirming his appointment asHagaru’s defense commander. Bythen Ridge knew that GeorgeCompany would not be arriving intime to occupy East Hill. GeorgeCompany under Captain Carl L.Sitter reached Koto-ri that sameday. Sitter, 28, had received a fieldcommission in World War II aftertwo years enlisted service. Hefought in the Marshalls and atGuam, was twice wounded, and

had received a Silver Star. At Koto-ri it soon became obvious thatSitter’s company could go no fartherwithout strenuous effort.

Colonel Brower had arrived atHagaru-ri with the headquarters ofhis artillery regiment, the 11thMarines. He set up the fire supportcontrol center in juxtapositionwith Smith’s headquarters. Hisexecutive officer, Lieutenant Colo-nel Carl A. Youngdale, 48, IowaState University, class of 1936,headed the regiment’s fire direc-tion center.

That afternoon, Company D,10th Combat Engineer Battalion,came in from a tent camp the engi-neer soldiers had set up just outsidethe perimeter on the road leadingsouth to Koto-ri. In his expandedrole as Hagaru-ri defense com-mander, Ridge had operationalcontrol of the company. He decid-ed to use it to fill the yawning gapon East Hill. He so informed theengineer company commander,Army Captain Philip A. Kulbes.The engineer captain protested,saying that he was at Hagaru tobuild a new command post for XCorps and that his men—77Americans and 90 SouthKoreans—had no training ininfantry combat. Aside from indi-vidual weapons, the only arma-ment the company possessed wasfour .50-caliber machine guns, fivelight .30-caliber machine guns,and six 3.5-inch rocket launchers.Ridge asked Kulbes if he wouldaccept the tactical advice of aMarine officer and Kulbes said hewould. Captain John C. Shelnutt,the executive officer of the 3dBattalion’s Weapons Company,was assigned as a “liaison” officer.Shelnutt was accompanied by aradioman, Private First ClassBruno Podolak. Major Simmonsprivately advised Shelnutt that, inface of the Army captain’s reluc-tance, he would have to take de

60

Before moving north to the reservoir, the commander and staff of the division’sartillery regiment, the 11th Marines, lined up outside their command post atHamhung for a group photograph. Standing, from left to right, are: Maj DonaldV. Anderson, LtCol Carl A. Youngdale, the executive officer, Col James H.Brower, the commanding officer, and LtCol James G. Appleyard. Kneeling are CaptWilliam T. Phillips and Maj Floyd M. McCorkle.

Photo by TSgt James W. Helms, Jr., National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5264

facto command. The Army compa-ny procrastinated, taking its timeto move its trucks and engineerequipment into a motor park. Atdusk the engineers started up thehill. The ascent took them throughthe roadblock facing south towardKoto-ri.

About 10 Marines underGunnery Sergeant Bert E. Elliott,the Weapons Company machinegun platoon sergeant, manned theroadblock. Reinforcements for theroadblock came late in the day inthe form of a platoon from theArmy’s 4th Signal Battalion sent toinstall communications for whatwas to be General Almond’s com-mand post. The Army signal lieu-tenant, First Lieutenant John A.Colborn, like the Army engineercaptain, reported that his men hadno infantry training. The 3dBattalion’s Weapons Companycommander asked him if he wouldtake orders from a Marine gunnerysergeant. The lieutenant eagerlysaid that he would.

On the north side of East Hill, thecommanding officer of the 1stService Battalion, LieutenantColonel Charles L. “Gus” Banks,36, a World War II Edson’s raider,was named a sub-sector comman-der. He was to coordinate hisactions with Lockwood. WhileKolbes’ engineers climbed thesouth face of the hill a column ofMarines sent by Banks started upthe north face. The two columnswere supposed to meet on thecrest.

At sundown, Simmons pulledhis roadblock back about 75 yardsto what he thought was a strongerposition. With a total of about 40men Gunnery Sergeant Elliott wasable to man the roadblock with hisMarines and the knoll on his leftflank, which was the first step in theclimb up East Hill, with the Armysignal platoon. Elliott had been alieutenant during World War II and

he was determined to win back hisbars. Tough, battle-wise, and notparticularly well-liked, even by hisown Marines, he balanced his .45-caliber pistol in the palm of hishand and bluntly advised the sol-diers that if they dug in, stayed,and fought, they would be therein the morning; but if they got upto run, he would shoot them him-self.

Hagaru-ri Airstrip Defense

While the two columns, Armyand Marine, moved toward thecrest of East Hill, a major Chineseattack hit the southwest quarter ofthe perimeter, fortunately strikingthe strongest segment of theMarine line, that held by Com-panies H and I of the 3d Battalion,1st Marines. The two companies,stretched thinly along the far side ofthe prospective airstrip on whichthe engineers were laboring underlights, were well dug-in. Holes hadbeen blasted through the top 8 or10 inches of frozen earth withration cans filled with C-3 explosiveso that foxholes and machine gunemplacements could be dug. Thespoil was used to fill sandbags. Ameager supply of concertina andother barbed wire was strung outwhere it would do the most good.Five-gallon cans filled with gasolinewere rigged with white phosphorusgrenades. Tied to the grenadeswere strings that could be pulled toexplode the grenades and flamethe gasoline. An earnest demoli-tions sergeant explained that thesewere French devices known as a“foo-gah-say.” Three draws ledinto the Marine position; they hadbeen sown with anti-personnelmines. In all, it would be a toughnut for the Chinese to crack.

A light snow was falling. Thetwo companies were at 100 per-cent alert. At about 2230, three redflares and three blasts of a whistle

signaled that the Chinese werecoming. Mortar shells, high explo-sive mixed with white phospho-rus, began crunching down on thefrontline positions. Marine sup-porting arms—some artillery butmostly mortars and machineguns—took the Chinese underfire, but did not stop the enemyfrom closing to within hand-grenade and burp-gun range. Theassault continued for an hour, theChinese attacking in combatgroups of about 50 men each.Most of the Marine line held, butthe Chinese succeeded in pene-trating the center of HowCompany’s position. The companycommander, Captain ClarenceCorley, pulled together a scratchsquad and tried to plug the gapbut was pushed aside. Some fewChinese broke through as far asthe airstrip where the engineerskilled them.

Ridge dispatched a mixed pla-toon of Marines and soldiers underFirst Lieutenant Grady P. Mitchell,Jr., to back up How Company.Mitchell was killed and FirstLieutenant Horace L. Johnson, Jr.,took over. Johnson deployed hismen in a ditch fortuitously behindHow Company’s ruptured line.The Chinese who had penetratedthe position were milling around,seemingly more intent on lootingthe supply and cook tents thanexploiting their success. Theywere fighting for food, warmclothes, and U.S. ammunition. Atleast one wounded Marine sur-vived by feigning death when aChinese soldier stripped him of hisparka. Ridge fed in another pla-toon made up of casuals to build onJohnson’s line. By about 0130 thesituation appeared to be undercontrol. The engineers relit theirfloodlights, got back on their doz-ers, and resumed work on theairstrip.

But bad things were now hap-

61

pening on the other side of theperimeter.

Action on East Hill

The two columns that had beensent up East Hill had failed toreach the crest. Captain Shelnutt, invirtual command of the Armyengineers and under heavy fire,reported to the 3d Battalion’sWeapons Company commanderthat Banks’ column coming up theother way did not seem to bewhere it was supposed to be.Shelnutt was told to turn back hisleft flank and hold for the night. Hewas promised that artillery firewould fill in the gap.

At about 0115, the Marines andsoldiers on the south roadblockwere treated to the sight of a com-pany-sized column of Chinesemarching up the road towardthem. Apparently the pullback ofthe roadblock earlier in theevening had caused the Chinese tothink the position had been aban-doned. The column presented thepair of Weapons Company water-cooled machine guns with a perfectenfilade target. Few members ofthe Chinese column escaped.

At Ridge’s command tent heavysmall arms fire and grenades couldbe heard on East Hill itself. TheWeapons Company commanderreached Shelnutt by radio at about0200. Podolak, the radio operator,informed him that Shelnutt wasdead: “There’s nobody up hereexcept me and a couple of dog-gies.” Podolak was sternlyenjoined, as a Marine, to takecharge. The next time theWeapons Company commandertried to radio him the set wasdead.

During the night, stragglersfrom the Army engineer company,mostly South Koreans, but someAmericans, streamed back off thehill and took cover in the ditches

and culverts of Hagaru-ri itself.Some few were rallied into a sup-port line, stiffened with a handful ofMarines, along the road parallelingthe base of the hill. Other soldiersstayed on the hill and foughtbravely. Most of these died.

Across the perimeter, CaptainClarence Corley, a spent bullet inhis arm, launched a counterattackat about 0430 to restore his mainline of resistance. It was successful,but the night had cost HowCompany 16 men dead and 39wounded.


Ridge’s greatest concern nowwas the situation on East Hill. Ifthe enemy continued to have pos-session of the crest when daylightcame, exposing the defenses ofHagaru-ri to full view, the situationwould be critical. At 0530 hedecided that he must counterat-tack. Major Reginald R. Myers, 31,University of Idaho 1941, the bat-talion executive officer, volun-teered to lead a column up thehill. Myers had spent most ofWorld War II on sea duty butjoined the 5th Marines in time forOkinawa and North China. Therewas no tactical unit available tohim at Hagaru that could be used.The attack would have to be madeby a mixed force of servicetroops—and some stragglersfound skulking in the town—patched together into a provision-al company of about 250 men,mostly Marines but including a fewsoldiers. Myers’ improvised com-pany formed up on the road next tothe battalion command post andwas tolled off into platoons andsquads. The first platoon, made upof Marines from the 1st EngineerBattalion and under command ofFirst Lieutenant Robert E. Jochums,was the most homogenous and inthe best shape.

Ridge delayed Myers’ jump-offuntil about 0930 by which time themorning mists had cleared andCorsairs for close support could bebrought overhead. The southroadblock had held. The soldiersignalmen had stayed and foughtwell, delighting both themselvesand the Marines. Myers led his“company” upward through theirposition. Troubles began almostimmediately, if not from Chinesegunfire then from the icy slope.Men stumbled and fell, to behauled to the rear by others onlytoo willing to carry them to relativesafety. Myers’ force melted awayto about 75 men. Best perfor-mance, predictably, was by theplatoon led by Jochums. He waswounded in the foot but contin-ued in command. Myers couldclaim reaching the military crest,but the topographical crest wasstill firmly in Chinese hands.

A supporting attack was to bemade by Company A, 1st EngineerBattalion, under Captain GeorgeW. King, coming up the south faceand passing through Myers’ posi-tion. King started up the hill atabout noon, his 1st Platoon underFirst Lieutenant Nicholas A.Canzona in the lead. Orders werechanged. King’s company waspulled back, marched almost amile to the north, and then sent upthe north face. Like the Myersforce, he reached the militarycrest, but on the north side. Hiscompany went into a reverseslope defensive position for thenight, separated from Myers byabout 500 yards. Ridge had to besatisfied with King and Myersholding these positions. TheChinese continued to hold thetopographical crest.

Ridge planned to feed in Sitter’sGeorge Company to take theremainder of the hill when itarrived from Koto-ri. From prison-er interrogation Ridge now

62

believed that the 58th CCFDivision, led by the 172dRegiment and followed by the173d, with the 174th held back inreserve, had attacked CompaniesH and I. It was not clear whatChinese force was driving west toEast Hill or when its deployment toassault Hagaru itself would becompleted.

The Corsairs from Frank Cole’sVMF-312 flew 31 sorties that dayover Hagaru most of them againstEast Hill. One plane took a bad hitfrom Chinese small arms. Thepilot, First Lieutenant Harry W.Colmery, successfully crash-land-ed inside the perimeter.

Brigadier General Hodes, theassistant division commander ofthe 7th Division, had spoken

briefly with General Smith uponhis arrival from Hudong-ni on theevening of 28 November. At noonon the 29th of November, he metagain with Smith, informing him inmore detail of the condition ofRCT-31 east of the reservoir; that ithad taken 400 casualties and wasfalling back toward Hagaru-ri andprobably was unable to fight itsway to safety.

“The inference was that theyshould be rescued by a largerforce,” wrote Smith in his log. “Ihave nothing now with which tolend a hand except the battalion atHagaru-ri and it has its hands full.I cannot see why the cutoff battal-ions cannot at least improve thesituation by moving toward us.”

Second Night on Fox Hill

Barber was supposed to havebrought Fox Company off ToktongPass and, with the help of Davis’battalion, was to have marched oninto Yudam-ni. There was nochance of this. He was alreadyencumbered with 54 wounded.During the morning of 28November he had the help of aclose air strike by Australian F-51Mustangs. Later he sent out patrolsthat confirmed that he was com-pletely surrounded. He asked forresupply by air. Marine R-5D four-engine transports, the MarineCorps equivalent of the Air Force C-54, dropped medical supplies andammunition. Most fell at the base ofthe hill. Recovering them cost twomore Marines wounded.

That night the Chinese cameagain against Fox Company. Fivemore Marines were killed, 29 morewounded, among the latterCaptain Barber. Hit in the leg, hereceived first aid and stayed inaction. During the day that fol-lowed, both Marine and Air Forceplanes dropped ammunition andother supplies. A Marine heli-

copter made a precarious deliveryof some ammunition and much-needed radio batteries. LieutenantPeterson, already twice wounded,took a patrol out in front of FoxCompany to recover some errantmortar ammunition.

Koto-ri Action, 24-28 November

Lieutenant Colonel Alan Sutter’s2d Battalion, 1st Marines, hadarrived at the meager village ofKoto-ri on 24 November. Hand-some, silver-haired Sutter, 36,Dartmouth 1937, had been a signalofficer at Guadalcanal, Guam, andOkinawa. Now at Koto-ri, with hisbattalion reinforced by the 105mmhowitzers of Easy Battery of the11th Marines, a platoon of 4.2-inchmortars, bits and pieces of the reg-imental antitank company, andCompany D of the 1st MedicalBattalion, he set up a convention-al perimeter defense.

A patrol from Captain Jack A.Smith’s Easy Company brushed upagainst about 25 Chinese west ofthe village and brought in twowounded prisoners who said theywere part of a Chinese divisionmoving into attack positions.Chesty Puller and his regimentalheadquarters had joined Sutter atKoto-ri and in the next severaldays more Marine and Army unitsjammed their way into the protec-tive envelope of the perimeter. Onthe morning of 28 November,Smith ordered Puller to send aforce up the MSR to meet a tankpatrol coming down from Hagaru-ri. Sutter sent out Dog Companyunder Captain Welby W. Cronk,but it was stopped a mile north ofthe perimeter by a strong Chineseforce entrenched on both sides ofthe road. Dog Company withdrewunder cover of air strikes by thebusy Corsairs of VMF-312. Theday’s fighting cost the Marines four

63

LtCol Allan Sutter arrived at Koto-riwith the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, on24 November. Col Puller moved hisheadquarters to Koto-ri on the sameday. With the 3d Battalion atHagaru-ri and the 1st Battalion atChinhung-ni, Puller would have hisinfantry battalions at three widelyseparated combat bases along theMSR. National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5546

killed and 34 wounded. Threeprisoners were taken and theyidentified their unit as the 179thRegiment, 60th CCF Division.

Solemn Meeting at GHQ

The 28th of November hadbeen a busy day for GeneralAlmond and, when he arrived at hiscomfortable headquarters atHamhung that evening, he foundurgent orders directing him toreport immediately to MacArthur’sGHQ in Tokyo. Almond and asmall staff left for Tokyo fromYonpo in an Air Force C-54. Theyarrived at Haneda Airport at 2130where Almond was told to pro-ceed immediately to GeneralMacArthur’s residence at theAmerican Embassy. He learnedthat MacArthur had called hissenior commanders back to GHQfor a secret council of war.General Walker would also be pre-sent. The conference lasted twohours. In the west, Eighth Army’s“Home-by-Christmas” offensivehad gone well for the first twodays. Then, on the night of 25November, Chinese bugles wereheard all across the front. By noonon 27 November, Walker hadreported to MacArthur that he esti-mated there were 200,000 Chinesein front of him, that the ROK IICorps had been swept away, andthat the U.S. IX Corps was fallingback to cover his exposed flank.Walker now informed MacArthurthat he thought he could build upa line in the vicinity of Pyongyang.Almond, in a bit of braggadocio,told MacArthur that he expectedthe 1st Marine and 7th InfantryDivision to continue their attack.However, in his own mindAlmond had come to realize thatthe greatest problem facing XCorps was its dispersion over a400-mile front. He had begun tocontemplate concentrating his

forces into a perimeter defensearound the Hamhung-Hungnamarea. MacArthur, after listening tohis field commanders, gave hisdecision: a changeover from thestrategic offensive to the defen-sive. (Some authorities believeMacArthur had already reachedthis decision before meeting withhis senior field commanders.)


The night of 28-29 Novemberwas quiet at Yudam-ni. Divisiondirected that an effort again bemade to relieve Fox Company. Acomposite battalion was pastedtogether of Able Company fromthe 5th Marines, Baker and GeorgeCompanies from the 7th Marines,reinforced with a section of 75mmrecoilless rifles and two sections of81mm mortars. Major WarrenMorris, the executive officer of 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, was placedin command. He assembled hisforce in front of the 1st Battalion,7th Marines, command post on themorning of 29 November and at0800 marched out to the south.

Three hundred yards outside theperimeter heavy machine gun firelaced into his column. Morrispushed on. Corsairs came over-head to help and dropped mes-sages warning that the Chinesewere entrenched along both sidesof the road. At 1315, Litzenberg,warned that Morris’ column was indanger of being surrounded,ordered him to return to theperimeter. Fox Company wouldspend another night at ToktongPass alone. As evening fell,Captain Barber called his platoonleaders together and told themthey could expect no immediaterelief.

RCT-31 Begins Withdrawal

During the night of 28November, Faith and MacLeantried to get some sleep in the hutthat was now their joint commandpost. By 0100, 29 November, theChinese were attacking in strengthbut were beaten off. An hour later,MacLean ordered Faith to prepareto breakout to the south with theobjective of reaching the 3d

64

Photo by Cpl W. T. Wolfe, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A4868

A company of Marines, quite possibly Capt Welby W. Cronk’s Company D, 2dBattalion, 1st Marines, makes a school-solution advance up a hill outside the Koto-ri perimeter on 28 November. One platoon is deployed as skirmishers followed bythe other two platoons in squad column. Cronk took three Chinese prisoners, butthe Marines lost four killed and 34 wounded.

Battalion, 31st Infantry. All truckswere to be unloaded of cargo andgiven over to carrying out thewounded. Equipment and vehiclesleft behind were to be disabledbut not destroyed. Blackout wouldbe observed and there would be noburning of tentage and supplies.

MacLean and Faith began their

march-out at about 0600 onWednesday morning, the 29th. Itwas strangely quiet as the riflecompanies broke contact andcame down from the high ground.The truck column, about 60 vehi-cles in all, formed up and movedsouth on the road with MarineCorsairs overhead. Leading the

way was a command party thatincluded MacLean and Faith. Asthe party approached the highwaybridge over the inlet, it cameunder fire and split into two parts,MacLean with one, Faith with theother.

A column of troops was seencoming up the road. “Those aremy boys,” shouted MacLean andhe started on foot across the icetoward them. A crackle of rifle firewas heard. His body was seen tojerk as though hit several times bybullets. He fell on the ice, then gotto his feet and staggered on untilout of friendly sight. Much later itwould be learned that he wastaken prisoner, but on the marchnorth died of his wounds. Hiscomrades buried him by the side ofthe road.

Faith was now the senior sur-viving officer and the 31st RCTwould go into the collective mem-ory of the Korean War as “TaskForce Faith,” although it wouldnever officially bear that name.The head of Faith’s columnreached the 3d Battalion’s posi-tions by 0900 and by 1300 mostelements had closed south of theinlet. Faith formed a new perimeterwith the remnants of the two bat-talions, attempting to incorporatesome of the high ground to thesouth. A helicopter sent in fromHagaru-ri by General Hodes tookout the two wounded battalioncommanders, Reilly and Embree.Air delivery of ammunition andsupplies, called in by Stamford,had mixed results. Much of whatwas dropped landed outside thenew perimeter.

Faith knew nothing of Drake’sattempt to reach the inlet with histanks. Drake tried a second time on29 November with 11 tanks and ascratch platoon of infantry drawnfrom the regimental headquarters.After four hours of effort, the tanksfell back once more to Hudong-ni.

65

Fox’s Continued Ordeal

The night of 29-30 Novemberwas again relatively quiet atYudam-ni, but not so at ToktongPass. At 0200 a voice came out ofthe dark and in stilted English said:“Fox Company, you are surround-ed. I am a lieutenant from the 11thMarines. The Chinese will giveyou warm clothes and good treat-ment. Surrender now.”

Fox Company threw up some81mm illumination shells andreplied with mortar and machinegun fire. The Chinese were caughtin their attack position, perhapsthree companies of them. Manydied but some got close enoughfor an exchange of hand grenades.Fox Company, now well dug in,lost only one Marine wounded. Atsunrise the protective Corsairscame overhead once again.

Chinhung-ni Action, 26-30 November

Short and feisty LieutenantColonel Donald M. “Buck”Schmuck, 35, University of Colo-rado 1938, had taken over com-mand of the 1st Battalion, 1stMarines, on 8 November. In WorldWar II he had fought as a compa-ny commander at Bougainvilleand Peleliu, and later served atOkinawa. On the night of 26November the Chinese probed hisperimeter at Chinhung-ni at thefoot of Funchilin Pass with a seriesof light attacks. Patrols sent out bySchmuck the next day failed tomake contact. That night theChinese hit his perimeter withanother tantalizing, easily re-pulsed, light attack. Schmuck sentout more patrols during the nexttwo days. What they found or didnot find caused him to concludethat a Chinese battalion thatattacked him at night and hid inthe houses to his west during the

day was pestering him. A patrol sent out from Captain

Wesley Noren’s Company B on the29th more or less confirmedSchmuck’s conclusion. Schmuckdecided to attack the suspectedChinese position on the followingday, using Captain Robert H.Barrow’s Company A and a part ofNoren’s company, reinforced with81mm and 4.2-inch mortars.Battery F, 11th Marines, under FirstLieutenant Howard A. Blancheri,laid down preparatory 105mmhowitzer fire, the infantry sweptforward, and, in the words ofMajor William L. Bates, Jr., the bat-talion’s Weapons Company com-mander, “ran the Chinese right outof the country.” The houses thatsheltered the Chinese wereburned. There was no more troubleat Chinhung-ni.

Task Force Drysdale Formed

On the evening of 28 Novemberthree disparate units—41 Com-mando, Royal Marines; CompanyG, 3d Battalion, 1st Marines; andCompany B, 31st Infantry, 7thInfantry Division—had crowdedinto the perimeter at Koto-ri after an

uneventful motor march up fromthe south. Puller pasted the threeunits together into a task force,giving command to LieutenantColonel Douglas B. Drysdale ofthe Royal Marines, with orders tofight his way through to Hagaru-rithe next day.

Drysdale barely had time touncrate his newly issued American81mm mortars and Browningmachine guns. He moved out at0945 on 29 November, his truck-borne column followed by a serialof headquarters troops on its way tothe new division headquarters atHagaru-ri. Drysdale’s plan was forhis Royal Marines to lead off withan assault against the Chineseentrenched on the right of theroad just north of Koto-ri. CaptainCarl Sitter’s George Company—reinforced with a provisional pla-toon of water-cooled machineguns, rocket launchers, and 81mmmortars—was to follow with anassault against Hill 1236, a mile-and-a-half north of Koto-ri. Thesoldiers of Baker Company, 31stInfantry, would be in reserve.

The Royal Marines took theirobjective without much trouble,but Sitter’s Marines ran into seri-

66


Parachutes laden with ammunition and supplies blossom as they are droppedby an Air Force C-119 of the Far East Air Force’s Combat Cargo Command to theentrapped RCT-31 east of the reservoir. Such aerial delivery had mixed results.Much of what was dropped fell outside American lines and into Chinese hands.

ous resistance before taking Hill1236. The British and AmericanMarines then moved togetherabout a mile farther up the roadwhere they were stopped byChinese machine gun and mortarfire coming from Hill 1182.Drysdale received a message fromPuller telling him that three pla-toons of tanks would arrive by1300 to help. The tanks—two pla-toons of Pershings from CaptainBruce W. Clarke’s Company D, 1stTank Battalion, and the tank pla-toon with Shermans from the regi-ment’s Anti-Tank Company—hadjust arrived at Koto-ri at noon.Drysdale ordered Sitter to breakoff the action and come backdown to the road and await thetanks.

Drysdale found Captain Clarkean “opinionated young man.”Drysdale wanted the tanks distrib-uted throughout the length of thecolumn. Clarke insisted that theybe kept together at the head of the

column to punch a way through.Resignedly, Drysdale resumed hisadvance at 1350, with 17 tanksleading the way, followed bySitter’s George Company. It was apulsating advance—short move-ments followed by pauses whileChinese strong points werereduced with 90mm and machinegun fire. Progress was slow andGeorge Company took heavy loss-es.

More tanks—Company B, 1stTank Battalion—arrived at Koto-ri atabout 1500. Puller ordered theircommander, Captain Bruce F.Williams, to leave one platoonwith Sutter’s 2d Battalion and tojoin the rear of the Drysdale columnwith his remaining two platoons.Meanwhile, Puller had dispatched aplatoon from Company E, 2dBattalion, to assist in the evacuationof Drysdale’s casualties. The pla-toon did not get back into theKoto-ri perimeter until about 1600.

67

Photo by PFC C. Wehner, Jr., National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A6593

LtCol Donald M. Schmuck received a Silver Star for his command of 1stBattalion, 1st Marines, at Chinhung-ni from 26 November until 11 December.Making the award sometime in late winter 1951, is Col Francis A. McAlister, whohad been the division G-4 but who by this time had succeeded Col Puller in com-mand of the 1st Marines.

This sketch by Sgt Schofield shows the meeting at Hagaru-ri of two U.S. Marineswith two Royal Marines of 41 Independent Commando. The professionalismand sangfroid of the British Marines impressed their American counterparts, who,in turn, impressed the British with their dogged fighting qualities.


Task Force Drysdale came to a haltabout four miles north of Koto-ri atabout the same time. Shortly there-after the Chinese began poundingthe northern face of the Koto-riperimeter with mortar fire fol-lowed by a company-sized attackthat was easily contained by EasyCompany.

Clarke and Williams, the tankcommanders, advised Drysdaleand Sitter that they thought thetanks could get through toHagaru-ri but were dubious aboutfurther movement by trucks.Drysdale put the decision of a fur-ther advance up to division. Smithordered him to continue. The

tanks needed to refuel and thistook more time. When the columndid plunge forward unit integritywas lost and combat troopsbecame intermingled with head-quarters elements.

At the midway point to Hagaru-ri there was a valley, about a milelong, high ground on one side andthe Changjin River and more hillson the other—Drysdale wouldname it “Hell Fire Valley.” Itbecame the scene of an all-nightfight. The column broke in half.George Company, three-quartersof 41 Commando, and a few sol-diers, led by tanks from CompanyD, continued on toward Hagaru-ri.The remainder of 41 Commando;most of Company B, 31st Infantry;and nearly all other headquarterspersonnel were left on the roadwhich the Chinese closed behindthem. The Chinese chopped awayat them. The best protection thestalled half of the convoy couldfind were the shallow ditches oneach side of the road. LieutenantColonel Arthur A. Chidester, 37,University of Arkansas 1935, theassistant division G-4 and thesenior officer in the group,attempted to turn his truncatedcolumn around and return toKoto-ri. He was wounded andcaptured. His place was taken byMajor James K. Eagan, soon alsowounded and taken prisoner.

The half-column that had beenleft behind coalesced into onelarge perimeter and three smallones strung out over a distance ofclose to a mile. Farthest north,near the hamlet of Pusong-ni, wasthe largest perimeter, a hodge-podge of about 140 men includingAssociated Press photographerFrank “Pappy” Noel. Senior officerwas Major John N. McLaughlin, 32,Emory University 1941, an assis-tant division G-3 and a well-deco-rated veteran who had fought withthe 5th Marines at Guadalcanal,

68

Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu inWorld War II.

There was some hope that theCompany B tanks from Koto-riwould come to the rescue of thefour ragged perimeters, but thetanks were stopped by theChinese at the defile formed byHills 1236 and 1182, the same hillscaptured earlier but now reoccu-pied by the Chinese. The south-ernmost group on the roadworked its way back into theKoto-ri perimeter by 2200 withoutmuch trouble. The middle group,mostly headquarters personnel,also made it back by 0230, losingmost of its trucks along the way. Itsleader, Lieutenant Colonel Harvey S.Walseth, the division G-1, waswounded. (Lieutenant ColonelBryghte D. Godbold would takehis place on the general staff.) Bydawn all of the Company B tankshad returned to Koto-ri.

The troops remaining trappedin Hell Fire Valley and still hopingto be rescued by the tanks knewnone of this. The Chinese mean-while seemed more interested in

looting the trucks than annihilat-ing the defenders. Major Mc-Laughlin tried sending patrolsback to the south to link up with

the other perimeters. They werebeaten back. He gathered hiswounded in a ditch and prayed fordaylight and the arrival of MarineCorps aircraft overhead. By 0200he was out of grenades. A 75mmrecoilless rifle, gallantly mannedby U.S. soldiers, was knocked outand all its crew killed or wounded.Associated Press photographerNoel and two men attempted torun the gantlet in a jeep and werecaptured.

The Chinese at about 0430 sentseveral prisoners into Mc-Laughlin’s position bearing ademand that the Americans sur-render. McLaughlin and a BritishMarine went out under a whiteflag to parley. In a desperate act ofbravado McLaughlin pretendedthat the Chinese wished to surren-der to him, but the enemy was nei-ther impressed nor amused. Theygave him 10 minutes to capitulateor face an all-out assault.McLaughlin, with only about 40

69


The village of Koto-ri, midway between Hagaru-ri and the Funchilin Pass, washeld by the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, and was the site of Col “Chesty” Puller’sregimental command post. Units moving north and south staged through here.Unseen are the fighting holes of the Marine infantry that encircled the camp.

A gaggle of Marines, looking like giant penguins in their hooded parkas, watchwith great interest an air strike against a hill outside Koto-ri on 28 November. Thenext day these Marines very probably could have been part of Task ForceDrysdale, which would depart Koto-ri to fight its way to Hagaru-ri.


able-bodied defenders and almostno ammunition, reluctantly decidedto surrender but with the condi-tion that his most serious woundedbe evacuated. The Chinese agreedto his terms. The Chinese did notlive up to their promise, but theydid, however, permit some of thewounded to be placed in housesalong the road where they mighteventually be found.

While McLaughlin was negotiat-ing his surrender, some fewAmericans and British Marines anda considerable number of U.S. sol-diers managed to slip away fromthe smaller perimeters to thesouth. This group, led largely byMajor Henry W. “Pop” Seeley, Jr.,

33, Amherst College 1939, made itsway successfully back to Koto-ri.Seeley had spent four years in thePacific during World War II andhad been well decorated for hisservice.

Drysdale had continued hisstart-and-stop progress with Com-pany D’s tanks, Company G, andthe larger part of 41 Commando,not knowing what had happened tothe rear half of his haphazardcommand. One of the tanks wasknocked out by a satchel charge.Drysdale received a grenade frag-ment in the arm and deferredcommand of the column, momen-tarily, to Sitter.

Well after dark the first of

Company D’s tanks, leading thecolumn, burst through Hagaru-ri’ssouth roadblock, flattening one ofWeapons Company’s jeeps in theprocess. Sitter’s George Companycame into the perimeter, batteredbut intact. The Royal MarineCommando, in accordance with itstraining, split into small groups.For most of the night, U.S. Marineson the perimeter were treated toEnglish accents shouting, “Don’tshoot, Yanks. We’re comingthrough.” Royal Marine troop com-mander Lieutenant Peter Thomassaid later, “I never thought Ishould be so glad to see anAmerican.” At about midnight,Lieutenant Colonel Drysdale,blood dripping down his arm,gave Lieutenant Colonel Ridge aside-winding salute and reported41 Commando present for duty.

By best estimates, Task ForceDrysdale had begun the day with922 officers and men. Somethinglike 400 men reached Hagaru-ri,another 300 hundred found theirway back to Koto-ri. Killed inaction and missing in action wereestimated at 162. Another 159 menwere identified as wounded.Forty-four Marines, originally listedas missing, were taken prisoner.Of these, just 25 either escaped orsurvived their captivity. Chidesterand Eagan were among thosewounded who died in captivity.The column had started with 141vehicles and 29 tanks. Of these, 75vehicles and one tank were lost.

George Company Goes Up East Hill

Lieutenant Colonel Ridge’s com-mand group had remarkably goodintelligence as to the extent of theenemy outside the Hagaru-riperimeter, the information oftenbrought in by “line-crossers,”plainclothes Korean agents whoboldly moved in and out of the

70

Maj John N. McLaughlin, left, taken prisoner during the disastrous advance ofTask Force Drysdale from Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri, is welcomed back from captivi-ty, still in his Chinese cap and coat, on 5 September 1953, by BGen Joseph C.Burger, then the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division.

Photo by TSgt Jack E. Ely, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A1744606.

perimeter. The Chinese 58thDivision’s reported intentions torenew its attack against Hagaru-riseem to have been thwarted bywell-placed air attacks during theday and heavy artillery and mortarfires during the night. Ridge’s sup-porting arms coordinator alsoexperimented with night close airsupport, using converging bandsof machine gun tracer fire to pointout targets to the Corsair “nighthecklers” overhead.

At 0800 on 30 November, themorning after George Company’sarrival and a scant night’s sleep,Ridge ordered Sitter to passthrough Myers’ position on EastHill and continue the attack.Drysdale’s 41 Commando washeld in reserve. This company-sized force of highly trained RoyalMarines gave Ridge a small butpotent maneuver element, farmore promising than the scratchreserve formations he had beenforced to use. Drysdale and hisofficers spent much of the dayreconnoitering possible counterat-tack routes and acquainting them-selves with supporting fire plans. “Ifelt entirely comfortable fightingalongside the Marines,” saidDrysdale.

Sitter, stoic and unflappable,sent out his 1st and 2d Platoons topass through Myers’ toehold onthe hill. They were then to attack onboth sides of the ridge. The 3dPlatoon and two platoons of AbleCompany engineers would followin reserve. Progress was slow andSitter used his reserve to envelopthe Chinese right flank. The attackbogged down and Sitter asked forpermission to set up defensivepositions on the ground previous-ly held by Myers who had with-drawn his meager force. Corsairswere brought in and worked overthe crest of the hill again andagain, but George Company couldnot take the contested ground.

That same day at Hagaru-ri, 30November, Colonel Brower, com-manding the 11th Marines, camedown with a serious liver infec-tion. Command of the regimentpassed to his executive officer,Lieutenant Colonel Youngdale.

Disaster Threatens RCT-31

Sung Shi-lun was amazinglywell informed as to exactly what hisopponents were doing. Chinesereconnaissance was good; and

Korean civilians, including linecrossers, were at least as useful tothe Chinese as they were to theAmericans. Moreover, he appar-ently had a serviceable quantity ofsignal intelligence from radiointercepts. Stymied by the Marines’stubborn defense at Yudam-ni andHagaru-ri, he decided to finish offthe U.S. Army forces east of thereservoir by adding the weight ofthe 81st Division to the 80thDivision already engaged againstTask Force Faith.

71

National Archives Photo (USAF) AC40314

Ammunition and supplies for the embattled Marines descend from a C-119Flying Boxcar of the Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo Command. This was theonly photograph the U.S. Air Force photographer was able to take before 23-degree-below-zero weather froze the shutter on his camera.

The curious command relation-ships at Yudam-ni continued.Without a common commander inplace on the ground, the two col-located regiments pursued theirseparate missions. Smith hadissued an order on the afternoon of29 November directing Murray toassume responsibility for the pro-tection of the Yudam-ni area withhis 5th Marines, while Litzenbergwas to employ the entire 7thMarines in clearing the MSR toHagaru-ri “without delay.”

Almond Issues New Orders

At noon on 29 November,Almond departed Haneda airfield inJapan on his return flight from hismeeting with MacArthur. Enrouteto Yonpo he directed his G-3 andother staff members to commenceplanning the break-off of theoffensive and the consolidation ofthe corps. When Almond arrivedat his war room in Hamhung hesaw that, in addition to thepredicament of the 1st MarineDivision and RCT-31 at the ChosinReservoir, his remaining forceswere in considerable disarray.Soule’s 3d Infantry Division washeaded in two different directions.A CCF column at Sachang far tothe southwest of Yudam-ni hadalready engaged the division’s 7thInfantry. The remaining two regi-ments, the 15th and 65th, wereregrouping at Yonghong on thecoast preparatory to attackingwest, in accordance with orders torelieve pressure on the EighthArmy’s dangling flank. In Barr’s7th Infantry Division, MacLean’sRCT-31 was already isolated andheavily engaged east of the reser-voir. Barr’s remaining regiments,the 17th and 32d Infantry, werepulling back to the Pungsan area.By 2100 that evening X CorpsOperation Order Number 8, pro-viding for the discontinuance of

the attack to the northwest and thewithdrawal of forces into theHamhung-Hungnam perimeter,was ready for Almond’s approval.

By that order, Almond placedunder Smith’s command all Armytroops in the Chosin Reservoirarea, including Task Force Faithand elements at Hagaru-ri, effec-tive 0800 the next morning. Alongwith the assignment of thesetroops came a highly optimisticorder from X Corps to Smith to“redeploy one RCT without delayfrom Yudam-ni area to Hagaruarea, gain contact with elements ofthe 7th Inf Div E of ChosinReservoir; coordinate all forces inand N of Hagaru in a perimeterdefense based on Hagaru; openand secure Hagaru-Koto-ri MSR.”

At 0600, 30 November, Litz-enberg and Murray issued a jointorder for the breakout. (Smith didadmit in his log entry for 30November: “An ADC [assistantdivision commander; that is, Craig]would have come in handy at thispoint.”) That same morning,Almond gave the senior membersof his staff a fuller briefing on theMacArthur decision to go over tothe strategic defensive. He made itknown that he had also issuedorders to the ROK I Corps to pullback. By this time the 3d ROKDivision was at Hapsu and theCapital Division above Chongjin.They were now to withdraw toSongjin, a deepwater port about100 miles northeast of Hungnam.

General Barr, who had estab-lished an advance command post atHungnam, was among those pre-sent. After the briefing, Barr—whether at Almond’s suggestion oron his own initiative is not clear—flew to Hagaru-ri. There he metwith O.P. Smith and Hodes andthen borrowed a Marine helicopterto go forward to Faith’s position.Smith asked Hodes to draft a mes-sage advising Faith that his com-

mand was now attached to the 1stMarine Division. Barr at this pointwas out of the operational chain-of-command to Task Force Faith, butRCT-31 was still, of course, part ofthe 7th Infantry Division. Barr toldSmith that he was recalling Hodesfrom the Chosin Reservoir area toavoid any misunderstanding as tocommand arrangements. (Hodeswould pay a last visit to Hagaru-rion 2 December,)

Barr arrived at Faith’s commandpost shortly before noon. He pre-sumably informed Faith of thechanged command status, either insubstance or by delivering theHodes dispatch.

On his return to Hagaru-ri, Barragreed with Smith that Task ForceFaith, with Marine and Navy closeair support, could extricate itselfand get back to Hagaru-ri. Almondarrived at about this time and metwith Smith, Barr, and Hodes atSmith’s forward command post, afew hundred yards from whereRidge’s Marines were contendingfor possession of East Hill. Almondannounced that he had aban-doned any idea of consolidatingpositions in the Chosin Reservoirarea. A withdrawal would bemade posthaste to Hungnam.Almond authorized Smith todestroy or burn all equipment thatwould impede his movement.Resupply would be by air. Smithdemurred: “I told him that mymovements would be governed bymy ability to evacuate the wound-ed, that I would have to fight myway back and could not afford todiscard equipment and that, there-fore, I intended to bring out thebulk of my equipment.”

Almond shrugged. He thendirected Smith and Barr to workout a time-phased plan to pullback the three Army battalions ofRCT-31 making up “Task ForceFaith.” Furthermore, if Faith failedto execute his orders, Almond

72

opined that he should be relieved. Almond later said that in addition

to general instructions on with-drawal of forces and a specificplan for the withdrawal of RCT-31,he also asked Smith for an explicitplan for the evacuation of bothArmy and Marine wounded byway of the airstrip being complet-ed at Hagaru-ri.

Almond told Barr that on hisflight up to Hagaru-ri he hadpassed over a column of truckshalted on the road a few milessouth of Koto-ri and recognized itas the 2d Battalion, 31st Infantry,which was working its way upfrom Chinhung-ni. He suggestedto Barr that he relieve the slow-moving battalion commander,West Pointer Lieutenant ColonelRichard F. Reidy. Barr objected,saying he did not know the situa-tion confronting the battalion. Hemay also have reminded Almondthat all movements up to Koto-riwere being coordinated by XCorps. Almond telephoned (byradio link) his chief of staff, theable Major General Clark L.Ruffner, and ordered him to expe-dite the movement north of the 2dBattalion, 31st Regiment, to joinPuller’s forces at Koto-ri. Before

leaving, Almond told Barr andSmith that Soule’s 3d InfantryDivision was doing a “magnifi-cent” job of covering the gap withthe Eighth Army.

After Almond had departed,Barr and Smith agreed that notmuch could be done for RCT-31until the 5th and 7th Marinesarrived at Hagaru-ri from Yudam-ni.Smith did order Litzenberg andMurray to expedite their with-drawal, destroying any suppliesand equipment that had to beabandoned.

Ruffner sent Captain Joseph L.Gurfein, West Point 1944, to getReidy, a short, chunky man whoseface showed the marks of his box-ing days at the Academy, moving.Gurfein found Reidy and his bat-talion, which had only two riflecompanies, stalled about threemiles outside Puller’s position.(The other rifle company had goneforward earlier, had been withTask Force Drysdale, and was nowin place, more or less intact, atKoto-ri.) Reidy’s battalion, urgedon by Gurfein, made a falteringnight attack and eventually pushedits way into Koto-ri. Puller gavethe battalion a sector of Koto-ri’sdefensive perimeter. He also

ordered Reidy (who was sufferingfrom a badly infected foot) to takecharge of the sizable number ofsoldiers from various units—including a detachment of the185th Engineer Battalion—thathad now collected at Koto-ri.

With Task Force Faith

During the daylight hours of 30November, Don Faith worked outcounterattack plans to meet a pen-etration of his perimeter. TheChinese, not waiting for nightfall,began their attack in the after-noon. Task Force Faith’s perimeterat Sinhung-ni was now isolatedand alone with no friendly forcesbetween it and Hagaru-ri. By mid-night the attack against Faith’sperimeter had built up to unprece-dented intensity. There were pen-etrations, but Faith sealed these offwith local counterattacks. At theaid station, medical supplies werecompletely exhausted. The dead,frozen stiff, were laid out in rowsstacked about four feet high.

Meanwhile, well to Faith’s rear,headquarters elements of RCT-31and the 31st Tank Company atHudong-ni, with 1st Marine Di-vision approval, had fallen back toHagaru-ri. Two disabled tanks hadto be abandoned along the four-mile route, but otherwise themarch, about 325 soldiers alto-gether, was made without inci-dent. The regimental S-3,Lieutenant Colonel Berry K.Anderson, the senior Army officerpresent, was in charge. A new 31stInfantry headquarters was beingformed at Hamhung, with ColonelJohn A. Gavin, USA, as its desig-nated commander, but it was notsent forward to Hagaru-ri.

Intimations of an Evacuation

By the end of November it wasincreasingly obvious that Rear

73


Cases of ammunition are sorted out and lashed together at Yonpo airfield on 29November before loading into C-47 transports of the Far East Air Force’s CombatCargo Command. This ammo was intended for RCT-31, better known as Task ForceFaith, east of the reservoir. First airdrops directly from Japan would be toHagaru-ri on 1 December.

Admiral James Doyle, who hadlanded the Marines at Inchon andagain at Wonsan, was now going tohave to lift them out of Hungnamas part of a massive amphibiouswithdrawal. Doyle, as Comman-der, Task Force 90, issued plans on28 November for a redeployment ofUnited Nations forces. Doyle’splans called for the division of hisTask Force 90 into two amphibioustask groups. Task Group Three,under Rear Admiral Lyman A.Thackrey, would provide foramphibious evacuation on thewest coast of Eighth Army units ifrequired. Task Group One, underDoyle’s immediate command,would execute the amphibiousevacuation of east coast ports, pri-marily Hungnam. Task GroupThree, with two-thirds of theamphibious force, would go to thewest coast where the situation, atthat moment, seemed more criti-cal. There would not be nearlyenough amphibious ships forthese tasks; there had to be anenormous gathering of merchantshipping. Vice Admiral Joy’sdeputy chief of staff, newly pro-moted Rear Admiral ArleighBurke, largely ran this effort.

The carrier-based aircraftbrought together for the Inchonlanding and then the Wonsanlanding had by mid-Novemberbeen largely dispersed. Left withTask Force 77 were the fast carriersLeyte (CV 32) and Philippine Sea(CV 47). Also still on station was theescort carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE116)—“Bing-Ding” to the Marinesand sailors—but her sister shipSicily (CVE 118), having droppedoff VMF-214, the “Blacksheep”squadron, at Wonsan, was in port inJapan. Major Robert P. Keller hadcommanded the squadron until 20November when he was detachedto become the Marine air liaisonofficer with Eighth Army and FifthAir Force. In World War, Keller

served in the Pacific with MarineFighter Squadrons 212 and 223and was credited with at least oneaerial victory. Command of VMF-214 was taken over by MajorWilliam M. Lundin.

The big carrier Valley Forge (CV45), which on 3 July had been thefirst carrier to launch combat mis-sions against North Koreaninvaders, was on her way homefor a much-needed refit. Now theemergency caused her to turnabout and head for the Sea ofJapan. Also on the way was thePrinceton (CV 37), hurriedlyyanked out of mothballs. But untilthese carriers could arrive, tacticalair operations, including all impor-tant close air support, would haveto be carried out by shore-basedMarine squadrons and Navy andMarine squadrons in the Leyte,Philippine Sea, and BadoengStrait.

On 1 December the Far East AirForces relinquished control of alltactical air support of X Corps to the1st Marine Aircraft Wing, which, inthe words of air historian Richard P.Hallion, “performed brilliantly.”The Princeton arrived on stationon 5 December. By then TaskForce 77 was giving the Chosinexodus its full attention.

Carrier-based Vought F4U Cor-sairs and Douglas AD Skyraiderswere the workhorses of TaskForce 77. A typical ordnance loadfor the Corsair on a close air sup-port mission was 800 rounds forits 20mm guns, eight 5-inch rockets,and two 150-gallon napalmbombs. With this load the planehad an endurance of two-and-one-half hours. The Navy’s Skyraider,much admired by the Marines,packed an ordnance load compa-rable to a World War II Boeing B-17 heavy bomber, commonly 400rounds of 20mm, three 150-gallonnapalm bombs, and either twelve 5-inch rockets or twelve 250-pound

fragmentation bombs. The Sky-raider could stay in the air for fourhours with this load.

Bad Night at Hagaru-ri

The Marines at Hagaru-ri hadanother bad night on 30November. The Chinese, the 58thDivision now augmented by the59th, assaulted Ridge’s wearydefenders once again in an attackpattern that repeated that of thenight of the 28th. One regiment ormore came in against the south-west face of the perimeter andunfortunately for them hit ItemCompany’s well-entrenched posi-tion. First Lieutenant Joseph Fisher,always optimistic in his countingof enemy casualties, guessed that hekilled as many as 500 to 750 ofthem. His own losses were twoMarines killed, 10 wounded.

Another Chinese regiment cameacross the contested ground onEast Hill hitting the reverse slopedefenses held chiefly by Sitter’sCompany G and 1st EngineerBattalion’s Companies A and B.General Smith watched the fightfrom the doorway of his commandpost, two-thirds of a mile away.Some ground was lost. Ridge sentup a portion of his preciousreserve, 41 Commando, to rein-force Company G, and the lostground was retaken by early morn-ing.

After the night’s action, Ridge,the defense force commander,came to see Smith at about 0900.“He was pretty low and almostincoherent,” Smith wrote in his logfor 1 December. “The main troublewas loss of sleep. He was muchconcerned about another attack.He felt with the force available tohim he could not hold both theairstrip and the ridge [East Hill] eastof the bridge. I told him he wouldhave to hold both and would haveto do it with what we had.”

74

Casualty Evacuation and Resupply

Friday, 1 December—althoughno one thought of it that way at thetime—was the turning point of thecampaign.

Lieutenant Colonel John Part-ridge’s 1st Engineer Battalion hadsucceeded in hacking out the sem-blance of an airstrip from thefrozen earth in 12 days of around-the-clock dangerous work, theengineers at times laying downtheir tools to take up rifles and

machine guns. Heroic though theengineering effort was, the airstripwas only 40 percent complete. Itsrough runway, 50-feet wide and2,900-feet long, fell considerablyshort of the length and conditionspecified by regulations for opera-tion of transport aircraft at thosealtitudes and temperatures. Smithdecided that the urgency of theevacuation problem was such thatthe uncompleted airfield must beused, ready or not.

Its impossible load of casualties

was overwhelming the divisionfield hospital—a collection of tentsand Korean houses. Navy CaptainEugene R. Hering, the division sur-geon, met with General Smith thatmorning. Two additional surgicalteams had been flown in by heli-copter from Hungnam. The twocompanies, Charlie and Easy, ofthe 1st Medical Battalion, alreadyhad some 600 patients. Heringexpected 500 more casualties fromYudam-ni and 400 from the Armybattalions east of the reservoir.Grim as his prediction of casualtieswas, these estimates would prove tobe much too low.

Until the airstrip was opera-tional, aerial evacuation of themost serious cases had been limit-ed to those that could be flownout by the nine helicopters and 10light aircraft of Major Gottschalk’sVMO-6, which also had manyother missions to perform. From27 November to 1 December,VMO-6, struggling to fly at thecold, thin altitudes, had lifted out152 casualties—109 from Yudam-ni,36 from Hagaru-ri, and 7 fromKoto-ri. One of Gottschalk’s pilots,First Lieutenant Robert A. Long-staff, was killed on an evacuationflight to Toktong Pass.

At 1430 on Friday afternoon, thefirst Air Force C-47 transporttouched down on the frozensnow-covered runway. A half-hourlater the plane, loaded with 24casualties, bumped its way off therough strip into the air. Threemore planes came in that after-noon, taking out about 60 morecasualties. “It takes about a halfhour to load a plane with litterpatients,” Smith noted in his log.“Ambulatory patients go verymuch faster.” The last plane in forthe day, arriving heavily loadedwith ammunition, collapsed itslanding gear and had to bedestroyed.

Because of Smith’s foresight,

75

LtCol Murray, exact location and time unknown, but possibly mid-November atHagaru-ri, briefs Maj Vincent J. Gottschalk, commanding officer of VMO-6, onthe locations of units of his regiment. Between 27 November and 1 December, VMO-6’s helicopters flew 152 medical evacuation missions in addition to many otherreconnaissance and liaison missions.


Hagaru-ri was already stockpiledwith six days of rations and twodays of ammunition. The first air-drop from Air Force C-119 “FlyingBox Cars” flying from Japan wason that same critical 1st ofDecember. The drops, called“Baldwins,” delivered prearrangedquantities of ammunition, rations,and medical supplies. Some dropswere by parachute, some by freefall. The Combat Cargo Commandof the Far East Air Forces at first esti-mated that it could deliver only 70tons of supply a day, enough per-haps for a regimental combatteam, but not a division. By whatbecame a steady stream of trans-ports landing on the strip and airdrops elsewhere the Air Forcedrove its deliveries up to a 100tons a day.

Toward the end of the dayLieutenant Colonel William J.McCaffrey, West Point 1939 and

the X Corps’ deputy chief of staff,visited Smith. McCaffrey, who hadbeen Almond’s chief of staff in the92d Infantry Division in Italy, out-lined for Smith the plan for con-striction into a Hungnamperimeter and its subsequent de-fense. Soule’s 3d Infantry Divisionwas to move elements to the foot ofFunchilin Pass and provide a cov-ering force through which the 1stMarine Division would withdraw.The 1st Marine Division wouldthen organize a defensive sectorwest and southwest of Hungam.The 7th Infantry Division wouldoccupy a sector northeast andnorth of Hungnam.

The consolidation of X Corps inthe Hamhung-Hungnam areaincluded the evacuation ofWonsan to the south. MajorGeneral Field Harris, commandingthe 1st Marine Aircraft Wing,ordered MAG-12—the Marine air-craft group had three tacticalsquadrons and a headquarters

76

Photo by Sgt William R. Keating, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A5683

Casualty evacuation from Hagaru-ri airstrip began on 1 December, although thecondition of the field fell far short of what safety regulations required. Here, ona subsequent day, an ambulance discharges its cargo directly into an Air ForceC-47 or Marine Corps R-4D transport. Weapons of other, walking wounded,casualties form a pile in the foreground.

Mountains of supplies were rigged at Yonpo Airfield by Capt Hersel D. C.Blasingame’s 1st Air Delivery Platoon for parachute drop, free airdrop, or sim-ply as cargo for the transports flying into Hagaru-ri. The 1st Marine Division need-ed 100 tons of resupply a day, delivered by one means or another.

Photo by SSgt Ed Barnum, Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A130436

squadron—to move up fromWonsan to Yonpo. The groupcommander, Colonel Boeker C.Batterton, 46, Naval Academy1928, had spent most of World WarII with a naval aviation mission inPeru. MAG-12 completed themovement of its aircraft in oneday—that same busy 1 December.Some planes took off fromWonsan, flew a mission, and land-ed at Yonpo.

East of Chosin

Total strength of RCT-31 hasbeen calculated at a precise 3,155,but of this number probably notmore than 2,500 fell under DonFaith’s direct command in “TaskForce Faith” itself. On the morningof 1 December, Lieutenant ColonelFaith, on his own initiative, beganhis breakout from Sinhung-ni tothe south. He did not have a solidradio link to the 1st MarineDivision, and had nothing morethan a chancy relay throughMarine Captain Edward P.Stamford’s tactical air control net.Faith’s own 1st Battalion, 32dInfantry, would lead off, followedby the 57th Field Artillery, with the3d Battalion, 31st Infantry, bringingup the rear. Trucks would beunloaded so as to carry thewounded. The howitzers werespiked. Most jeeps and all inoper-able trucks were to be destroyed, aswould be all supplies and equip-ment. In execution the destructionof the surplus was spotty. About 25to 30 vehicles—all that were still inoperating condition—formed upinto column. The overriding missionfor Task Force Faith was now toprotect the truck convoy with itshundreds of wounded. Muchreliance would be placed on theautomatic weapons fire of thetracked weapons carriers, down tothree in number, two quad .50sand one dual 40mm.

The column began to move outat about 1100. The soldiers couldsee the Chinese in plain sight on thesurrounding high ground. Progresswas slow. Mortar rounds contin-ued to fall, causing more casualties,and Chinese infantry began press-ing in on the column. The fightingfor the first half-mile was particu-larly intense. Officers and non-commissioned officers suffereddisproportionate losses. Controlbroke down.

Captain Stamford and his tacticalair control party tried to keepclose air support overhead as con-tinuously as possible. NavyCorsairs from the fast carrier Leytecame on station at about 1300.With Stamford calling them in, theCorsairs used napalm and rocketsand strafed with 20mm cannon.One napalm drop hit close toFaith’s command group causingeight or ten casualties. This ghast-ly accident was demoralizing, butsurvivors agreed that without closeair support the column wouldnever have cleared the perimeter.

Some of the soldiers on thepoint began to fall back. Faithdrew his Colt .45 pistol and turnedthem around. Panicky KATUSAs—and some Americans—tried toclimb into the trucks with thewounded. Riflemen assigned tomove along the high ground onthe flanks started to drift back to theroad. The head of the columnreached a blown bridge just northof Hill 1221 at about 1500. Some ofthe trucks, trying to cross thefrozen stream, broke through theice and had to be abandoned.

The Chinese held the highground on both sides of a road-block that now stood in the wayand were in particular strength onHill 1221. Faith, .45 in hand, gath-ered together enough men toreduce the roadblock. Other smallgroups of men clawed their waycrossways along the slope of Hill

1221. This fight was almost the lastgasp of Task Force Faith. In thewords of one major, “[After Hill1221] there was no organizationleft.”

Even so, by dusk the columnwas within four-and-one-half roadmiles of Hagaru-ri when a grenadefragment that penetrated his chestjust above his heart killed Faithhimself. His men propped up hisbody, with a blanket wrappedaround his shoulders, in the cab ofa truck—rather like a dead El Cidriding out to his last battle—hopingthat word of his death would notspread through the column causingmore demoralization. Just whathappened to his body after that isnot clear.

As the column struggled onsouthward the Chinese methodi-cally continued their destruction ofthe convoy, truck by truck.Individual soldiers and smallgroups began to break away fromthe column to attempt to cross thefrozen reservoir on foot. TaskForce Faith, as such, had ceased toexist.

At Hagaru-ri

During the fighting at Hagaru-rifrom 28 November through 1December, Ridge’s 3d Battalion,1st Marines, had suffered 43 killed,2 missing, and 270 wounded—atotal of 315 battle casualties and athird of its beginning strength. Thebits and pieces of Marine andArmy units that made up the rest ofthe Hagaru-ri defense force hadcasualties perhaps this high if nothigher. These casualties, however,did not come even close to thosesuffered by RCT-31 east of thereservoir.

Throughout the night of 1December survivors of Task ForceFaith drifted into the north side ofthe perimeter at Hagaru-ri, most ofthem coming across the ice.

77

During that last night all sem-blance of unit integrity dissolved. Atabout 0230 on the morning of 2December, Marine Captain Stam-ford appeared in front of CaptainRead’s artillery battery position.Stamford had been briefly takenprisoner but escaped. By mid-morning, 670 soldier survivors,many of them wounded or badlyfrostbitten, had found their wayinto Hagaru-ri warming tents.They had a terrible tale to tell.

Dr. Hering, the division sur-geon, reported to Smith that 919casualties went out on 1December, but that among themthere was a large number of malin-gerers. “Unfortunately,” Smith en-tered in his log, “there are a goodmany Army men, not casualtieswho got on planes. . . . Men got onstretchers, pulled a blanket overthemselves and did a little groaning,posing as casualties. . . .Tomorrowwe will get this situation undercontrol and will have MPs at theplanes. No man will be able toboard a plane without a [medical-ly issued] ticket.” Smith, who hadordered Army Lieutenant ColonelBerry K. Anderson to organizephysically fit soldier survivors intoa provisional battalion, now“talked” to Anderson again and

told him to get his soldiers undercontrol.

X Corps had set up a clearing sta-tion at Yonpo. Triage determinedthose casualties who would recov-er in 30 days or less. They went tothe 1st Marine Division Hospital inHungnam, the Army’s 121stEvacuation Hospital in Hamhung,

or the hospital ship Consolation inHungnam harbor. Casualtiesexpected to require more than 30days hospitalization were flownon to Japan.

Lieutenant Colonel Olin L.Beall, 52, a quintessential salty oldmustang and a great favorite ofGeneral Smith, commanded the1st Motor Transport Battalion,which held a position on thenortheast quadrant of the Hagaru-ri perimeter. Smith, not flamboyanthimself, liked colorful leaders suchas Beall and Puller. Murray, a verydifferent style of leader, said ofBeall: “We all agreed that hewould have had to lived a thousandyears to have done all the things heclaimed to have done. But whenpeople began checking up onsome of the things that he had saidhe had done, by God, he haddone them.”

Beall had enlisted in the MarineCorps on 5 April 1917, the daybefore war was declared on

78


Moving toward the perceived safety of Hagaru-ri, soldiers of Task Force Faith marchin a well dispersed but terribly exposed single column across the snow-covered,frozen surface of Pungnyuri Inlet. The march across the ice would continuethroughout the night of 1 December.

Marine wounded await evacuation at Yudam-ni. A total of 109 went out by heli-copter. The rest would go out by ambulance or truck once the 5th and 7thMarines broke their way through to Hagaru-ri. Fixed-wing aerial evacuation fromHagaru-ri began on 1 December.


Germany. He served in Cuba andHaiti, gained a temporary commis-sion, and went to France just asthe war ended. He reenlisted in1920 and served as an officer—asdid many other Marine noncom-missioned officers—in the Gen-darmerie d’Haiti chasing bandits. In1935 he reached the much-respected warrant grade of Marinegunner. By the end of World War IIhe was a major and a veteran ofOkinawa.

On Saturday, 2 December 1950,Beall led a rescue column of jeeps,trucks, and sleds across the icelooking for other Task Force Faithsurvivors. Marine Corsairs coveredhis efforts, flying so low that hesaid, “I could have scratched amatch against their bellies.” Hebrought in 319 soldiers, many ofthem in a state of shock. TheChinese did little to interfereexcept for long-range rifle fire.

There is no agreement on exactArmy casualty figures. Perhaps1,050 survivors reached Hagaru-ri.Of these only 385 were found to bephysically and mentally fit for

combat. These soldiers were givenMarine weapons and equipment.Not a single vehicle, artillerypiece, mortar, or machine gun ofTask Force Faith had been saved.When Almond visited Smith thatsame Saturday, he had, in Smith’swords, “very little to say about thetactical situation. He is no longerurging me to destroy equipment.”

Coming Out of Yudam-ni

All day long on Thursday, 30November, at Yudam-ni theChinese harried the perimeter withlong-range small arms fire andminor probing attacks. As a step inthe regroupment of their batteredregiments, Litzenberg and Murrayorganized a provisional battalionmade up rather strangely of thecombined Companies D and E, 7thMarines; and sections of 81mmmortars from the weapons compa-nies of the 2d and 3d Battalions, 7thMarines; and Companies A and G,5th Marines. Dog-Easy Company,under First Lieutenant Robert T.Bey, was really no more than two

under strength platoons—a DogCompany platoon and an EasyCompany platoon Litzenberg gaveoverall command of this oddassortment to Major MauriceRoach, former commander of the3d Battalion and now the regimen-tal S-3.

A good part of the reason forforming the battalion was to freeLieutenant Colonel Davis ofresponsibility for Dog-Easy Com-pany and other attachments. Thebattalion, which was given its ownsector in the perimeter, wasassigned the radio sign“Damnation” and that became theshort-lived battalion’s title. Some-one tore up a green parachute tomake a neckerchief, the practicecaught on, and a green necker-chief became the battalion’sbadge.

The most difficult task in thedisengagement probably fell toRoise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,which held a long line stretchingfrom Hill 1426 to 1282. Covered byair and artillery, Roise fell backabout a mile from Hill 1426 to Hill1294. This and other movementsfreed up Harris’ 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, to move to a positionastride the MSR about 4,000 yardssouth of Yudam-ni.

Litzenberg and Murray issuedtheir second joint operation orderon the morning of 1 December.Essentially it provided that the 7thMarines would move overland andthe 5th Marines would move alongthe axis of the MSR. Both regi-ments put what were widelyregarded as their best battalionsout in front. Davis’ 1st Battalion,7th Marines, would take to thehills; Taplett’s 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, down to half-strength,would lead the way down theroad. They were to converge inthe general vicinity of FoxCompany on Toktong Pass. Pointfor the advance along the road

79


PFC Ralph C. Stephens, wounded at Koto-ri, receives whole blood at the 1stMarine Division hospital in Hamhung on 1 December. Administering the bloodare HM 2/C Emmett E. Houston and Lt(jg) Vernon L. Summers. Until the airstripsopened at Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri, evacuation of the wounded was virtuallyimpossible.

would be the single Marine tankthat had reached Yudam-ni. StaffSergeant Russell A. Munsell andanother crewman were flown up byhelicopter from Hagaru-ri to driveit.

Major William McReynolds’ 4thBattalion, 11th Marines, was ingeneral support of both regimentsbut under the command of nei-ther. The arrangement was made to

work with Lieutenant ColonelHarvey A. Feehan, commander ofthe 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, act-ing as coordinator of supportingartillery fire. McReynolds’ battalionwas ordered to shoot up most of its155mm ammunition before pullingout. Excess gunners were thenorganized into nine rifle platoons.The guns themselves were tobring up the rear of the convoy.

Roach’s “Damnation Battalion”was to have followed Davis acrosscountry, but Litzenberg reconsid-ered and broke up the battalionon 1 December returning its partsto their parent organizationsexcept for Dog-Easy Company,which only had about 100 effec-tives. Litzenberg passed theorphan company to Murray who, inturn, passed it to Taplett, hisadvance guard commander.

All available Marine aircraftwere to be in the air to cover thewithdrawal. They were to bejoined by carrier aircraft from TaskForce 77. On the ground only thedrivers and the critically woundedwould move by vehicle; the restwould walk. It was decided toleave the dead at Yudam-ni and afield burial was held for 85Marines.

The grand parade began at 0800on 1 December. Taplett’s 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, came downfrom its positions north of Yudam-ni, followed an hour-and-a-halflater by Stevens’ 1st Battalion.Company B of Stevens’ battalionunder First Lieutenant John R.Hancock made up the rear guardcoming out of the town.Meanwhile the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, under Harris proceededto clear both sides of the roadleading south, Company H goingup Hill 1419 east of the road whilethe rest of the battalion wentagainst Hill 1542 on the west side.Roise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines,having cleared the town, relievedDavis’ 1st Battalion, 7th Marines,on Hill 1276, freeing up Davis topursue his overland mission.Harris was slow in taking Hill1542. By mid-afternoon, an impa-tient Taplett was in positionbehind Harris, ready to attacksouth astride the road even withhis right flank somewhat exposed.

Company H, 7th Marines, com-manded by First Lieutenant

80


Maj Maurice E. Roach, the 7th Marines jack-of-all-trades, and for the momentcommander of a provisional battalion, pauses for a photo with the regimentalcommander, Col Litzenberg, before leaving Yudam-ni on 1 December. Roach iswearing the Navy parka that was part of the winter uniform, but Litzenberg findsan Army field jacket sufficient for the daytime cold.

Howard H. Harris, met trouble onHill 1419. Harris’ battalion com-mander, Lieutenant Colonel Harris,was fully occupied with problemson Hill 1542. Litzenberg, realizingthat Hill 1419 was too far from Hill1542 for a mutually supportingattack, detached How Companyfrom the 3d Battalion and assignedit to Davis’ 1st Battalion. Davis,Hill 1419 now his responsibility,sent his Able Company to add itsweight to How Company’s effort.

81

OVERLEAF: “Band of Brothers” byColonel Charles H. Waterhouse,USMCR (Ret), widely regarded bymany Marine veterans of the KoreanWar as Waterhouse’s masterpiece,shows the column of Marines windingits way down Funchilin Pass.Courtesy of Col Waterhouse and theChosin Few Association.


Marines depart Yudam-ni on 1 December. The general planfor the breakout was that the 5th Marines would follow theaxis of the MSR and the 7th Marines would move overland.

MajGen Smith did not formally designate an overall com-mander, but LtCol Murray deferred to Col Litzenbergbecause of seniority.

The 7th Marines command group breaks camp at Yudam-ni on 1 December inpreparation for the march back to Hagaru-ri. The jeep in the foreground carriesa radio. Note the long antenna. Below zero temperatures caused problems withbattery life. Extra five-gallon cans of gasoline are lashed to the front bumper.



Meanwhile, Lieutenant Harris hadbeen wounded and SecondLieutenant Minard P. Newton, Jr.,had taken over the company. AbleCompany, under Captain David W.Banks, passed through HowCompany and took the hill atabout 1930.

Davis now stripped his battaliondown for its cross-country trek.Everything needed for the marchwould have to be hand carried. Hedecided to go very light, takingonly two 81mm mortars and sixheavy machine guns (with doublecrews) as supporting weaponsfrom his Weapons Company. Hisvehicles, left behind with his sick,walking wounded, and frostbitecases as drivers, were to join theregimental train on the road.Baker Company, now command-ed by First Lieutenant Joseph R.Kurcaba, led off the line of march,followed by Davis and his com-mand group, then Able Company,Charlie Company, battalion head-quarters, and How Company, stillattached.

It was a very dark night. Theguide stars soon disappeared. Thesnow-covered rock masses alllooked alike. The point had tobreak trail, through snow knee-deep in places. The path, oncebeaten, became icy and treacher-ous. Marines stumbled and fell.

Radios would not work reliably.Davis, moving ahead and floun-dering in the snow, lost touch withthe forward elements of his battal-ion for a time. He continued for-ward until he reached the point.His map, hurriedly read by a flash-light held under a poncho, toldhim that they were climbing Hill1520, the slopes of which wereheld by the Chinese. Baker andCharlie Companies converged onthe Chinese who were about aplatoon in strength, taking themby surprise. Davis stopped on theeastern slope of Hill 1520 to reor-ganize. Enemy resistance hadslackened to small arms fire fromridges across the valley but Davis’men were numb with cold andexhausted. At 0300 he again haltedhis advance to give his Marines arest, sending out small patrols forsecurity. Now, for the first time, hegained radio contact with regi-ment.

On the MSR with the 5th Marines

Taplett, meanwhile, was march-ing southward astride the MSR, led

84


The heaviest guns in the defense of Yudam-ni were the 155mm howitzers of the4th Battalion, 11th Marines, commanded by Maj William McReynolds. Shown here,the big guns are preparing to leave the perimeter, towed by their tractor primemovers. Excess gunners were reorganized into provisional rifle units.

Before leaving Yudam-ni, as a matter of professional pride, the 5th and 7th Marines“policed up the area.” Trash, including remnants of rations, was collected intopiles and burned. Slim pickings were left for Chinese scavengers who, desperatefor food, clothing, and shelter, followed close behind the departing Marines.


by the solitary Pershing tank, fol-lowed by a platoon from his HowCompany and a platoon of ever-useful engineers. His radio callsign, “Darkhorse,” suited his owndark visage. He advanced forabout a mile before being halted byheavy fire coming from both sidesof the road. He fanned out Howand Item Companies and theycleared the opposition by 1930.

Taplett gave his battalion a briefrest and then resumed theadvance. Item Company, led byCaptain Harold Schrier, ran intostiff resistance on the reverse slopeof still-troublesome Hill 1520 east ofthe road. Schrier received permis-sion to fall back to his jump-offposition so as to better protect theMSR. The Chinese hit with mortarsand an infantry attack. Schrier waswounded for a second time andSecond Lieutenant Willard S.Peterson took over the company.Taplett moved George Companyand his attached engineers intodefensive positions behind ItemCompany. It was an all-night fight.In the morning, 2 December, 342

enemy dead were counted in frontof Item Company. Peterson hadonly 20 Marines still on their feetwhen George Company passedthrough his position to continuethe attack against Hill 1520.George and How Company were

both down to two-platoonstrengths.

As a reserve Taplett had Dog-Easy Company, 7th Marines,detached from the now-dissolved“Damnation Battalion.” Dog-EasyCompany moved onto the roadbetween How and GeorgeCompanies. By noon GeorgeCompany, commanded by CaptainChester R. Hermanson, had takenHill 1520 and Dog-Easy had runinto its own fight on the road.Second Lieutenant Edward H.Seeburger, lone surviving officerof Dog Company, was severelywounded while giving a fire com-mand to the solitary tank. Herefused evacuation. (Seeburgerfaced long hospitalization andafter a year was physically retired asa first lieutenant. In 1995 hereceived a belated Navy Cross.)

Corsairs reduced the roadblockthat held up Dog-Easy Company.“Darkhorse” trudged on, How andGeorge Companies on both sides ofthe MSR and Dog-Easy movingdown the middle, followed by theengineers and the solitary tank.

85


In coming back from Yudam-ni, the 1st Marine Division’s large number ofroad-bound wheeled vehicles was both an advantage and a handicap. They car-ried the wherewithal to live and fight; they also slowed the march and were a temp-tation for attack by the Chinese. Here an 11th Marines howitzer can be seen infiring position to cover the column’s rear.

After leaving Yudam-ni, a unit of the 7th Marines, possibly a company of LtColDavis’ 1st Battalion, leaves the road to climb into the hills. Davis’ objective wasto come down on Toktong Pass from higher ground so as to relieve Capt Barber’sembattled Fox Company.


With Davis’ Battalion in the Hills

East of the MSR at daybreak,Davis reoriented the direction ofhis march. The 1st Battalion, 7thMarines, passed over the eastslope of Hill 1520 and attackedtoward Hill 1653, a mountain amile-and-a-half north of ToktongPass. Davis’ radios could not reachBarber on Fox Hill nor could he talkdirectly to the Corsairs circulatingoverhead. Fortunately oppositionwas light except for Chinese nib-bling against the rear of his col-umn where Company H, 3dBattalion, was bringing up thewounded on litters. Davis con-verged on Hill 1653 with his threeorganic rifle companies.

At last, radio contact was madewith Captain Barber on Fox Hill.Barber jauntily offered to send outa patrol to guide Davis into hisposition. Davis declined the offerbut did welcome the control ofVMF-312’s Corsairs by Barber’sforward air controller. Just beforenoon, lead elements of Company Breached Barber’s beleagueredposition.

Company A halted on the northside of Hill 1653 to provide man-power to evacuate casualties.Twenty-two wounded had to becarried by litter to safety. The reg-imental surgeon, Navy LieutenantPeter E. Arioli, was killed by aChinese sniper’s bullet whilesupervising the task. Two Marines,who had cracked mentally andwho were restrained in improvisedstrait jackets, died of exposurebefore they could be evacuated.Marines of Kurcaba’s Company Bcelebrated their arrival on Fox Hillwith a noontime meal of air-dropped rations. They then went onto take the high ground that dom-inated the loop in the road wherethe MSR passed through ToktongPass. First Lieutenant Eugenous M.Hovatter’s Company A followed

them and the two companies set upa perimeter for the night.Meanwhile the balance of Davis’battalion had joined Barber on FoxHill. Barber’s Company F had suf-fered 118 casualties—26 killed, 3missing, and 89 wounded—almostexactly half of his original comple-ment of 240. Six of the seven offi-cers, including Barber himself,were among the wounded.

5th Marines on the Road

At the rear of the column on theMSR, Lieutenant Colonel Roise’s2d Battalion, 5th Marines, the des-ignated rear guard, had troubles ofits own on Hill 1276 during theearly morning hours of 2December. Captain Uel D. Peters’Company F was hit hard. Nightfighters from VMF(N)-542 came onstation and were vectored to thetarget by white phosphorusrounds delivered by Company F’s60mm mortars. Strafing and rocketsfrom the night fighters dampenedthe Chinese attack, but the fightcontinued on into mid-morningwith Fox Company trying to regainlost ground. By then it was timefor Roise to give up his positionon Hill 1276 and continue themarch south.

Lieutenant Colonel Jack Stevens’1st Battalion, 5th Marines, had itsfight that night of 1-2 Decembereast of the road, being hit by aChinese force that apparently hadcrossed the ice of the reservoir.Stevens guessed the number ofChinese killed at 200, at least 50 ofthem cut down in front of CharlieCompany by machine guns.

Lieutenant Colonel WilliamHarris’ 3d Battalion, 7th Marines,meanwhile was continuing to havetrouble on Hill 1542. Litzenbergreinforced Harris with a compositeunit, called “Jig Company,” madeup of about 100 cannoneers, head-quarters troops, and other individ-

uals. Command of this assortmentwas given to First LieutenantAlfred I. Thomas. Chinese recordscaptured later indicated that theythought they had killed 100Americans in this action; actualMarine losses were somethingbetween 30 and 40 killed andwounded.

Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri,2-3 December

At the head of the column,Taplett’s Darkhorse battalion onthe morning of 2 December had tofight for nearly every foot of theway. George Company still hadHill 1520 to cross. Dog-EasyCompany was moving along theroad itself. South of Hill 1520 at asharp bend in the road a bridgeover a ravine had been blown, andthe Chinese covering the breakstopped Dog-Easy Company withmachine gun fire. Twelve Corsairscame overhead and ripped intothe ravine with strafing fire androckets. Dog-Easy Company,helped by How Company, re-sumed its advance. The attachedengineer platoon, now command-ed by Technical Sergeant Edwin L.Knox, patched up the bridge sovehicles could pass. The engineershad started out with 48 men; theywere now down to 17. Taplettcontinued his advance through thenight until by 0200, 3 December, hewas only 1,000 yards short of FoxHill. Taplett could only guesswhere Davis might be with the 1stBattalion, 7th Marines.

To the rear, the Chinese peckedaway at the Marines withdrawingfrom Hills 1276 and 1542. Stevens’1st Battalion, 5th Marines, continuedto provide close-in flank protec-tion. Marine air held off much of theharassment, but the column ofvehicles on the road moved slow-ly and the jeep and truck driversbecame targets for Chinese

86

snipers. That night the Chinese gotthrough to Lieutenant ColonelFeehan’s 1st Battalion, 11thMarines, and the artillerymen had torepulse them with howitzer fireover open sights.

Six inches of new snow fell dur-ing the night. In the morning, 3December, Taplett combined theremnants of Dog-Easy Companywith George Company andreturned the command to FirstLieutenant Charles D. Mize, whohad had George Company until 17November. From up on Fox Hill,Davis made a converging attackagainst the Chinese still holding aspur blocking the way to Hagaru-ri.He pushed the Chinese into theguns of Taplett’s battalion. An esti-mated battalion of Chinese wasslaughtered. By 1300, Davis’“Ridgerunners” had joined up withTaplett’s “Darkhorses.”

Davis and Taplett conferred.

The senior Davis now took thelead on the MSR with his battalion.The lone tank still provided thepoint. The truck column reachedToktong Pass. The criticallywounded were loaded onto thealready over-burdened vehicles.Less severely wounded wouldhave to walk. Stevens’ 1stBattalion, 5th Marines, followedDavis’ battalion, passing throughTaplett’s battalion. Taplett stayedin Toktong Pass until after mid-night. Coming up from the rear onthe MSR was Roise’s 2d Battalion,5th Marines, followed by Harris’3d Battalion, 7th Marines, now therear guard.

Sergeant Robert B. Gault, leaderof the 7th Marines GravesRegistration Section, came out ofYudam-ni in the column on theMSR with his five-man section anda truck with which to pick upMarine dead encountered along

the way. As he remembered it afew months later: “That was thetime when there was no outfit,you was with nobody, you was aMarine, you were fighting witheverybody. There was no more5th or 7th; you were just one out-fit, just fighting to get the hell outof there, if you could.”

Column Reaches Hagaru-ri

The six fighter-bomber squad-rons of Field Harris’ 1st MarineAircraft Wing flew 145 sorties onSunday, 3 December, most ofthem in close support of the 5th and7th Marines. Under this aerialumbrella, Davis’ 1st Battalion, 7thMarines, marched along almostunimpeded. In the early evening,Ridge sent out Drysdale with 41Commando, supported by tanksfrom Drake’s 31st Tank Company,to open the door to the Hagaru-riperimeter. At about 1900, a fewhundred yards out, Davis formedup his battalion into a route columnand they marched into the perime-ter, singing The Marines’ Hymn.Hagaru’s defenders greeted themarchers with a tumultuous wel-come. A field mess offered anunending supply of hot cakes,syrup, and coffee. Litzenberg’s 7thMarines command group arrivedshortly after Davis’ battalion andwas welcomed into the motortransport area by Litzenberg’s oldfriend, Olin Beall.

In Tokyo that Sunday, Mac-Arthur sent a message to the JointChiefs of Staff that X Corps wasbeing withdrawn to Hungnam asrapidly as possible. He stated thatthere was no possibility of unitingit with Eighth Army in a line acrossthe peninsula. Such a line, he said,would have to be 150 miles longand held alone by the sevenAmerican divisions, the combateffectiveness of the South Koreanarmy now being negligible.

87


Dead Marines at a Yudam-ni aid station wait mutely on their stretchers for load-ing onto the truck that will take them to eventual burial. Once on the march, prac-tice was to carry those who died in the savage fighting in the hills down to theroad where they could be picked up by the regiments’ Graves Registrationdetachments.

The Chinese made no seriousobjection to the last leg of themarch from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-riuntil about 0200 on Monday morn-ing, 4 December, when the primemovers hauling eight of Mc-Reynolds’ 155mm howitzers at therear of the column ran out ofdiesel fuel. That halted the columnand brought on a Chinese attack.Taplett’s battalion, unaware of thebreak, continued to advance. Theartillerymen—assisted by bits andpieces of the 1st and 2d Battalions,5th Marines, who were on the highground to the flanks—defendedthemselves until Taplett could facearound and come to their rescue.

It was a bad scene. The eightheavy howitzers had been pushedoff the road, perhaps prematurely,and would have to be destroyed thenext day by air strikes. A half-milefarther down the MSR was a cache

of air-delivered diesel fuel thatwould have fueled the primemovers. By 0830 the road wasagain open. Chinese losses wereguessed at 150 dead.

At 1400 on Monday, the rearguard, still provided by the 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, marchedinto Hagaru-ri and the four-day,14-mile, breakout from Yudam-niwas over. The Marines hadbrought in about 1,500 casualties,some 1,000 of them caused by theChinese, the rest by the cold.Smith observed in his log: “Themen of the regiments are. . . pret-ty well beaten down. We maderoom for them in tents where theycould get warm. Also they weregiven hot chow. However, in viewof their condition, the day aftertomorrow [6 December] appears tobe the earliest date we can startout for Koto-ri.”

Reorganization at Hagaru-ri

Ridge’s Marine defenders ofHagaru-ri breathed much moreeasily after the arrival in theirperimeter of the 5th and 7th RCTs.A sanguine corporal opined to hiscompany commander: “Now thatthe 5th and 7th Marines are here,we can be resupplied by air, holduntil spring, and then attack againto the north.”

General Almond flew intoHagaru-ri on Monday afternoon tobe briefed on the breakout planand while there pinned ArmyDistinguished Service Crosses onthe parkas of Smith, Litzenberg,Murray, and Beall. Almond thenflew to Koto-ri where he decoratedPuller and Reidy (who had beenslow in getting his battalion toKoto-ri) with Distinguished ServiceCrosses. Nine others, including

88


The 5th and 7th Marines on arrival at Hagaru-ri combat basefound hot chow waiting for them. The mess tents, operatingon a 24-hour basis, provided an almost unvarying but

inexhaustible menu of hot cakes, syrup, and coffee. After afew days rest and reorganization, the march to the southresumed.

Gurfein, who had nudged Reidyinto moving, received Silver Stars.Reidy was relieved of his com-mand not much later.

For the breakout, Murray’s RCT-5, with Ridge’s 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, and 41 Commandoattached, would briefly take overthe defense of Hagaru-ri whileLitzenberg’s RCT-7, beginning atfirst light on Wednesday, 6December, would march to thesouth. Puller’s RCT-1 would con-tinue to hold Koto-ri andChinhung-ni. All personnel exceptdrivers, radio operators, and casu-alties were to move on foot.Specially detailed Marines were toprovide close-in security to theroad-bound vehicles. Any thatbroke down were to be pushed tothe side of the road and destroyed.Troops were to carry two-days of Crations and one unit of fire, whichtranslated for most into full car-tridge belts and an extra bandoleer

of ammunition for their M-1 rifles.Another unit of fire was to be car-ried on organic vehicles. The vehi-cles were divided into two divisiontrains. Lieutenant Colonel Banks,commanding officer of the 1stService Battalion, was put in com-mand of Train No. 1, subordinate toRCT-7. Train No. 2, subordinate toRCT-5, was given to LieutenantColonel Harry T. Milne, the com-mander of the 1st Tank Battalion.Although Smith had stated that hewould come out with all his sup-plies and equipment, more realisti-cally a destruction plan, decreeingthe disposal of any excess suppliesand equipment, was put into effecton 4 December. Bonfires werebuilt. Ironically, loose rounds andcanned foods in the fires exploded,causing some casualties to Marineswho crowded close to the fires forwarmth.

Air Force and Marine transportshad flown out over 900 casualties

on Saturday, 2 December, fromHagaru-ri, and more than 700 thenext day. To the south thatSunday, 47 casualties were takenout by light aircraft from the strip atKoto-ri. But casualties kept pilingup and by the morning ofTuesday, 5 December, some 1,400casualties—Army and Marine—stillremained at Hagaru-ri. In a mag-nificent effort, they were all flownout that day. Altogether, in the firstfive days of December, by bestcount, 4,312 men—3,150 Marines,1,137 soldiers, and 25 RoyalMarines—were air-evacuated.

Even a four-engine Navy R5Dventured a landing. Takeoff with aload of wounded in an R5D was sohairy that it was not tried again.An R4D—the Marine equivalent ofthe sturdy C-47—wiped out itslanding gear in landing. An AirForce C-47 lost power on take-offand crashed-landed outside theMarine lines. Marines rushed to

89


Members of this patrol, moving along the abandoned nar-row gauge railroad track that paralleled the main supplyroute, help along a wounded or exhausted comrade while the

point and rear riflemen provide watchful cover. No wound-ed Marine need worry about being left behind.

the rescue. The plane had to beabandoned and destroyed, butthere were no personnel casualtiesduring the entire evacuationprocess.

During those same first fivedays of December, 537 replace-ments, the majority of them recov-ering wounded from hospitals inJapan, arrived by air at Hagaru-ri.Most rejoined their original units. Aplatoon sergeant in WeaponsCompany, 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, wounded in the fighting inSeoul, assured his company com-mander that he was glad to beback.

Visitors who could wanglespaces on board the incomingtransports began arriving atHagaru-ri. Marguerite “Maggie”Higgins of the New York Herald-Tribune, well known to theMarines from both the PusanPerimeter and the Inchon-Seoulcampaigns, was among the gaggleof war correspondents that arrivedon Tuesday, 5 December, includingformer Marine combat correspon-dent Keyes Beach. Higgins an-nounced her intention to marchout with the Marines. General

Smith disabused her of her intentionand ordered that she be out of theperimeter by air by nightfall.

A British reporter made theimpolite error of referring to thewithdrawal as a “retreat.” Smithpatiently corrected him, pointingout that when surrounded therewas no retreat, only an attack in anew direction. The press improvedSmith’s remark into: “Retreat, hell,we’re just attacking in a new direc-tion.” The new television technol-ogy was demonstrated by scenestaken of the aerial evacuation ofthe casualties and an interviewwith General Smith and LieutenantColonel Murray.

Major General William H.Tunner, USAF, commander of theCombat Cargo Combat and greatlyadmired by the Marines because ofthe sterling performance of hiscommand, was one of the visitors.Tunner had flown the Hump fromBurma into China during WorldWar II and later commanded muchof the Berlin Airlift. He solicitouslyoffered to evacuate the rest of thetroops now in Hagaru-ri. Smithstiffly told him that no man whowas able-bodied would be evacu-

ated. “He seemed somewhat sur-prised,” wrote Smith.

Almond met with Major GeneralSoule, commander of the 3dInfantry Division, that Tuesday, 5December, and ordered him toform a task force under a generalofficer “to prepare the route ofwithdrawal [of the 1st MarineDivision] if obstructed by explo-sives or whatnot, especially at thebridge site.” The site in questionlay in Funchilin Pass. Almondapparently did not know that thebridge had already been de-stroyed. The downed span threat-ened to block the Marines’withdrawal. Soule gave commandof what was designated as “TaskForce Dog” to his assistant divisioncommander, Brigadier GeneralArmistead D. “Red” Mead, a hard-driving West Pointer who hadbeen G-3 of the Ninth Army in theEuropean Theater in World War II.

Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri, 6 December

At noon on Tuesday, 5December, Murray relieved Ridge ofhis responsibility as Hagaru-ridefense commander, and the bat-talions of the 5th Marines plumpedup the thin lines held by the 3dBattalion, 1st Marines. TheChinese did not choose to test thestrengthened defenses, but atabout 2000 that evening an AirForce B-26 mistakenly dropped astick of six 500-pound bombsclose to Ridge’s command tent.His forward air controller couldnot talk to the Air Force pilotbecause of crystal differences intheir radios, but an obligingMarine night-fighter from Lieuten-ant Colonel Max J. Volcansek, Jr.’sVMF(N)-542 came overhead andpromised to shoot down any AirForce bomber that might return torepeat the outrage.

The well-liked Max Volcansek,36, born in Minnesota, had come

90


Aerial evacuation of wounded and severely frostbitten Marines and soldiersfrom Hagaru-ri saved many lives. During the first five days of December, 4,312men—3,150 Marines, 1,137 soldiers, and 25 Royal Marines—were air evacuatedby Air Force and Marine transports that also brought in supplies and replacements.

into the Marine Corps as an aviationcadet in 1936 after graduating fromMacalester College. During WorldWar II he had flown Corsairs whilecommanding VMF-222 in thePacific and had scored at least oneJapanese plane. During the battlefor Seoul he had been woundedand shot down but quickly recov-ered and continued in commandof VMF(N)-542.

The plan of attack forWednesday, 6 December, calledfor the 5th Marines to clean upEast Hill while the 7th Marinesmoved south along the MSR

toward Koto-ri. Close air support forthe attack against East Hill was to beon station at 0700. With a touch ofcondescension, Murray’s Marinestold Ridge’s Marines to stand backand watch for a demonstration ofhow a hill should be taken.

Smith wanted to march out withhis men, but Shepherd orderedhim to fly to Koto-ri. Death orwounding of Smith, or worse, hiscapture by the Chinese, could notbe risked. By this time the lurkingpresence of seven CCF divisionshad been identified by prisoner ofwar interrogations—the 58th,

59th, 60th, 76th, 79th, 80th, and89th. Two more divisions—the77th and 78th—were reported inthe area but not yet confirmed.

Later it would be learned thatthe 26th CCF Army—consisting ofthe 76th, 77th, and 78th Divisions,reinforced by the 88th Divisionfrom the 30th CCF Army, hadmoved down from the north intopositions on the east side of theMSR between Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri. They had relieved the 60thDivision, which had moved intopositions south of Koto-ri.Elements of the 60th Divisionwere preparing for the defense ofFunchilin Pass including positionson the dominant terrain feature,Hill 1081. Even farther south the89th Division was positioningitself to move against the defendersof Chinhung-ni.

Murray has given a characteristi-cally laconic account of the attackby the 5th Marines against EastHill:

I had been ordered to takea little hill, and I had HalRoise do that job. When hegot over there, he foundabout 200 Chinese in a mass,and he captured the wholecrowd of them. So we hadabout 200 prisoners we hadto take care of. . . . A lot ofthem were in such bad shapethat we left them there, leftsome medical supplies, andleft them there for theChinese to come along andtake care of them after weleft.

It was not quite that simple.Heavy air, artillery, and mortarpreparation began at 0700 onThursday, 6 December. CaptainSamuel S. Smith’s Dog Companyjumped off in the assault at 0900,beginning a fight that would go onuntil daylight the next morning.

91

Photo by Cpl Arthur Curtis, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC354492

After her adventures at Chosin, including her aborted efforts to march out withthe Marines, Marguerite “Maggie” Higgins, wearing a Navy parka and shoe-pacs,arrived safely at Haneda Air Force Base, Tokyo, on 15 December. Her broadlysmiling traveling companion is Army MajGen William F. Marquat ofMacArthur’s staff.

All three rifle companies of Roise’s2d Battalion and Charlie Companyof the 1st Battalion were drawninto it. Estimates of enemy killedran as high as 800 to 1,000. East Hillwas never completely taken, butthe Chinese were pushed back farenough to prevent them frominterfering with the exit of thedivision from Hagaru-ri.

RCT-7 Attacks South

General Smith planned to closehis command post at Hagaru-ri onWednesday morning, 6 December.Before he could leave GeneralBarr, commander of the 7thInfantry Division, who arrived tocheck on the status of his soldiers,visited him. The survivors of TaskForce Faith coupled with units that

had been at Hagaru-ri andHudong-ni added up to a provi-sional battalion of 490 able-bodiedmen under command of ArmyLieutenant Colonel Anderson. Asorganized by Anderson, the “bat-talion” actually was two very smallbattalions (3d Battalion, 31stInfantry, under Major Carl Witteand 1st Battalion, 32d Infantry,under Major Robert E. Jones) eachwith three very small rifle compa-nies. Smith attached Anderson’sforce to RCT-7 and it was some-times called “31/7.”

Litzenberg had about 2,200men—about half his originalstrength—for the breakout toKoto-ri. His attack order putLockwood’s 2d Battalion, withtanks, on the MSR as the advanceguard; Davis’ 1st Battalion on the

right of Changjin River and theMSR; Anderson’s provisional Armybattalion on the left of the road;and Harris’ 3d Battalion on theroad as the rear guard.

Lockwood, it will be recalled,had stayed at Hagaru-ri with hiscommand group and much of hisWeapons Company while Com-panies D and E went forward toYudam-ni and Company F heldToktong Pass. At 0630, tanks fromCompany D, 1st Tank Battalion,led Lockwood’s reunited, but piti-fully shrunken battalion out of theperimeter through the south road-block. Almost immediately it raninto trouble from Chinese on theleft side of the road. The morningfog burned off and air was called in.A showy air attack was deliveredagainst the tent camp south of theperimeter, abandoned days earlierby the Army engineers and nowperiodically infested with Chineseseeking warmth and supplies.Lockwood’s two rifle companies—Fox Company and Dog-EasyCompany—pushed through andthe advance resumed at noon.Meanwhile, barely a mile out ofHagaru-ri, Captain John F. Morris’Company C, 1st Battalion, sur-prised an enemy platoon on thehigh ground to the southeast ofthe hamlet of Tonae-ri and killedmost of them.

At 1400 Smith received a reas-suring message from Litzenbergthat the march south was goingwell. Smith decided that it wastime to move his command post toKoto-ri. His aide, Major Martin J.“Stormy” Sexton, World War IIraider, asked the commander ofWeapons Company, 3d Battalion,1st Marines, for the loan of a jeepto take his boss to the airstrip. A 10-minute helicopter ride took Smithand Sexton to Koto-ri where Pullerwas waiting. Smith began planningfor the next step in the withdraw-al.

92


In a ceremony at Masan on 21 December, LtCol Harold S. Roise, the stalwart com-mander of 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, receives a Silver Star for actions incidentto the seizure of Kimpo Airfield after the Inchon landing. Further awards for Roisefor heroism at Chosin would come later.

Meanwhile Lockwood’s 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, had runinto more serious trouble anothermile down the road. Davis’ 1stBattalion, up in the hills, could seethe enemy; Lockwood’s battalion,on the road itself, could not. FoxCompany, with some help fromDog-Easy Company and the Armymini-battalions under Anderson,pushed through at about 1500.Davis’ battalion continued to playcompany-sized hopscotch fromhilltop to hilltop on the right of theroad. By dark, lead elements ofRCT-7 were about three milessouth of Hagaru-ri. Enemy resis-tance stiffened and air reconnais-sance spoke of Chinese columnscoming in from the east, butLitzenberg decided to push on.After two more miles of advance,Lockwood’s battalion was stoppedin what Drysdale had called HellFire Valley by what seemed to be asolitary Chinese machine gun firingfrom the left. An Army tank solved

that problem. Another half-miledown the road a blown bridgehalted the column. The engineersdid their job, the march resumed,but then there was another blownbridge. At dawn on Thursdaythings got better. Air came over-head, and 2d Battalion, 7th

Marines, had no more trouble as itmarched the last few miles intoKoto-ri. Through all of thisLockwood, sick with severe bron-chitis, had sat numbly in his jeep.Early that morning his executiveofficer, Major Sawyer, had beenwounded in the leg by a mortar

93


Col Litzenberg’s 7th Marines led off the march south fromHagaru-ri on 6 December. Here one of his units pauses atthe roadblock held by Weapons Company, 3d Battalion, 1st

Marines, before exiting the town to watch a drop of napalmby a Marine Corsair against a camp abandoned by Armyengineers, now infested with Chinese.

Coming out of Hagaru-ri, Col Litzenberg used LtCol Lockwood’s 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, reinforced with tanks, as his advance guard. Here a heavy machine gunsquad rests by the side of the road while a M-26 Pershing medium tank trundlesby. The M-26 mounted a powerful flat-trajectory 90mm gun.


fragment and was out of action.Major James F. Lawrence, Jr., 32,University of North Carolina 1941,the battalion S-3, had become thede facto commander.

Things were going even lesswell on the left flank and rear of thecolumn. The Army provisional bat-talion, fragile to begin with, hadfought itself out and was replacedby Harris’ 3d Battalion, 7thMarines. By 2100 the Chinese hadcome down to within hand-grenade range of the trucks on theroad. Harris deployed his Georgeand Item Companies to push themback. Sometime before dawn,Lieutenant Colonel William Harris,son of Major General Field Harris,disappeared. He was last seenwalking down the road with tworifles slung over his shoulder. Asearch for him found no body andit was presumed he had beentaken prisoner. Major WarrenMorris, the executive officer of the1st Battalion, took over commandof the 3d Battalion and it reached

Koto-ri at about 0700 on Thursdaymorning.

Chinese prisoners taken alongthe road from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri

were identified as being from the76th and 77th Divisions of 26thCCF Army.

For Almond, most of Wednes-day, 6 December, was absorbedwith a visit by General J. LawtonCollins, the Army chief of staff.Collins and Almond dropped in atthe command posts of the Army’s7th and 3d Infantry Divisions, but“weather precluded flying to Koto-ri” for a visit with Smith. Collinsleft at nightfall for Tokyo. The visithad gone well and Almond notedcontentedly in his diary: “Gen.Collins seemed completely satis-fied with the operation of X Corpsand apparently was much relievedin finding the situation well inhand.”

At Koto-ri, 7 December

First Lieutenant Leo R. Ryan, theadjutant of the 2d Battalion, 7thMarines, alarmed by LieutenantColonel Lockwood’s apathy,pressed the battalion surgeon andassistant surgeon, Lieutenants (jg)

94

The role of the rifle companies in the breakout from Hagaru-ri on 6 Decemberwas to take the high ground on both sides of the road. Much fought over “EastHill” dominated the exit from Hagaru-ri. It was never completely taken, but theChinese were pushed back far enough to permit the relatively safe passage of thedivision trains of vehicles.



Marching, encumbered with weapons, packs, and winter clothing, on the roadfrom Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri was heavy work, even without Chinese interference.This unit of the 7th Marines, taking advantage of a halt, manages a quick nap.Most of the fighting was on the high ground on both sides of the MSR, but occa-sionally the Chinese reached the road.

Laverne F. Peiffer and Stanley I.Wolf, to examine him. Neitherdoctor was a psychiatrist, but theycame to the conclusion thatLockwood was suffering from aneurosis that made him unfit forcommand. This was communicatedto Colonel Litzenberg who con-firmed Major Lawrence as the act-ing commander.

In mid-morning, Thursday, 7December, to ease the passage ofthe division train, both the 2d and3d Battalions, 7th Marines, wereordered to face about, move northagain, and set up blocking posi-tions on both sides of the roadbetween Koto-ri and Hill 1182. Onthe way the 2d Battalion pickedup 22 Royal Marine survivors whohad been laagered up in a Koreanhouse ever since Task Force

Drysdale had passed that way. AVMO-6 pilot had spotted themthree days earlier by the letters “H-E-L-P” stamped in the snow andhad dropped rations and medicalsupplies.

Elsewhere on Thursday, 7December, X Corps and EighthArmy had received orders fromGHQ Tokyo to plan to withdraw, insuccessive positions if necessary,to the Pusan area. Eighth Armywas to hold on to the Inchon-Seoul area as long as possible. XCorps was to withdraw throughHungnam and eventually to pass tothe command of Eighth Army.

Almond visited Smith at Koto-riand assured him that Soule’s 3dInfantry Division would providemaximum protection from Chin-hung-ni on into Hamhung. Smith

95

LtCol William F. Harris, commandingofficer of the 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, and son of MajGen FieldHarris, disappeared on the marchfrom Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri. He was lastseen moving down the road with tworifles slung over his shoulder. Hisexact fate remains a mystery.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A45353


Soldiers, readily recognizable as such in their short parkas,march in single file on 6 December along the MSR south ofHagaru-ri. RCT-31, badly mauled east of the reservoir and

reduced in combat effectives to a small provisional battal-ion commanded by LtCol Berry K. Anderson, USA, wasattached to the 7th Marines for the breakout.

was concerned over the coordina-tion of artillery fire by the 3dDivision. Almond promised that itwould be under Marine control.He spoke briefly with Puller andLitzenberg and noted that night inhis diary, “Morale is high in theMarine Division.”

All elements of RCT-7 hadclosed into Koto-ri by 1700 on theevening of 7 December; butDivision Train No. 1, which theywere to have shepherded, did notget out of Hagaru-ri until 1600 onthe 6th. A little more than a mile outof Hagaru-ri the Chinese camedown on the column. They mighthave thought the train would beeasy pickings; if so, they werewrong. They hit Major Francis“Fox” Parry’s 3d Battalion, 11thMarines. The artillerymen, fightingas infantry, held them off. Another

mile down the road and theprocess was repeated. This timethe gunners got to use their how-itzers, firing at pointblank range,and happily, if optimistically,guessed that they had killed orwounded all but about 50 of theestimated 500 to 800 attackers.

As the night wore on there wasmore fighting along the road. Thedivision headquarters had a stiffscuffle sometime after midnight.The members of the division bandwere given the opportunity todemonstrate their skills asmachine gunners. The MilitaryPolice Company was bringing out abag of 160 able-bodied prisoners ofwar. The prisoners got caughtbetween Chinese and Americanfires and most were killed. Nighthecklers from David Wolfe’sVMF(N)-513 helped and at dawnthe omnipresent Corsairs fromFrank Cole’s VMF-312 came onstation and resolved the situation.The column moved through thestark debris—there were still bod-ies lying about and many brokenvehicles—of Hell Fire Valley andby 1000 on 7 December DivisionTrain No. 1, after an all-nightmarch, was in Koto-ri.

Eleven miles away in Hagaru,Division Train No. 2, unable tomove onto the road until DivisionTrain No. 1 had cleared, did notget started until well after dark on6 December. At midnight, the headof the train was still barely out ofthe town. Lieutenant ColonelMilne, the train commander, askedfor infantry help. Taplett’s 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, wasdetailed to the job. Taplett movedforward with two companies.Nothing much happened untildawn on 7 December when thecolumn was able to continue onunder air cover.

In Hagaru-ri engineers and ord-nance men were busy blowing upeverything that could be blown up

and burning the rest. Stevens’ 1stBattalion, 5th Marines; Ridge’s 3dBattalion, 1st Marines; andDrysdale’s 41 Commando stoodpoised to leave but could not getout of town until Thursday morn-ing, 7 December, after some fight-ing in Hagaru-ri itself, because ofthe clogged roads. Roise’s 2dBattalion, 5th Marines, came offEast Hill and fell in behind them asrear guard at about 1000. TheChinese once again seemed moreinterested in looting what was leftof the town than in further fighting.After some light interference onthe road, all elements of RCT-5were safely tucked into the Koto-riperimeter before midnight on the7th.

A number of units—includingRoise’s 2d Battalion, 5th Marines;Ridge’s 3d Battalion, 1st Marines;and Drake’s 31st Tank Company—assert that they provided the rearpoint coming out of Hagaru-ri.Able Company engineers, however,busy with last-minute demolitions inthe already burning town, probablyhave the best claim. In round fig-ures, 10,000 Marines and soldiers,shepherding 1,000 vehicles, hadmarched 11 miles in 38 hours.Marine losses were 103 dead, 7missing, and 506 wounded.

Marine engineers, arguably thegreatest heroes of the campaign,had widened and improved theairstrip at Koto-ri so that it couldhandle World War II TBMs, nolonger used as torpedo bombers,but now stripped-down utility air-craft that could bring in a few pas-sengers—as many as nine—andlift out a corresponding number ofwounded. The TBMs, plus thelight aircraft and helicopters fromVMO-6, took out about 200 casual-ties on 7 December and 225 moreon the 8th. Most of the TBMs werepiloted, not by squadron pilots,but by otherwise desk-bound avia-tors on the wing and group staffs.

96


General J. Lawton Collins, the Armychief of staff, left, visited X Corps on 6December and warmly praisedMajGen Almond, right, for his con-duct of the battle. Collins got to thecommand posts of the 3d and 7thInfantry Divisions, but bad weatherkept him from seeing MajGen Smithand the command post of the 1stMarine Division at Koto-ri.

March South from Koto-ri

There would be no rest at Koto-ri. By somebody’s count 14,229men had piled into Koto-ri, includ-ing the long-waited Army’s 2dBattalion, 31st Infantry, which hadarrived far too late to go forward tojoin its regiment, the shreddedRCT-31, east of the reservoir.Reidy’s battalion was to continue aspart of Puller’s RCT-1 in the breakout.

Anderson’s two-battalion collec-tion of soldiers, quite separatefrom Reidy’s battalion, had suf-fered additional casualties—bothbattle and from the cold—comingin from Hagaru-ri. Major Witte,one of the battalion commanders,was among the wounded.Anderson reorganized his shrinkingcommand into two companies: a31st Company under CaptainGeorge A. Rasula, a canny Finnish-American from Minnesota whoknew what cold weather was allabout, and a 32d Company underCaptain Robert J. Kitz, who had

been a company commander inReilly’s 3d Battalion, 31st Infantry,in Task Force Faith. Anderson thenstepped aside from immediatecommand, giving the battalion toMajor Robert E. Jones who hadbeen Don Faith’s S-1 and adjutant.

As a paratrooper in World War II,Jones had jumped with the 101stAirborne Division near Eindhoven,Holland. Now, coming out ofKoto-ri, his improvised battalionremained part of Litzenberg’s RCT-7.

97

Chinese prisoners within the Hagaru-ri perimeter wereherded into a stockade guarded by a detachment of Capt JohnH. Griffin’s Military Police Company. When the Marines

evacuated the town they left the wounded prisoners of warbehind in a compound, telling them that their comradeswould soon be down from the hills to help them.

The Marines left Hagaru-ri in flames, wanting to leave no shelter for the Chinese.Veterans still argue as to which unit was the last to leave the town. Marines fromCompany A, 1st Engineer Battalion, charged with last minute demolitions,probably have the best claim to this honor.



The march south was to beresumed at first light on Friday, 8December. It would be a “skin-the-cat” maneuver with the riflecompanies leap-frogging along thehigh ground on each side of theroad while the heavily laden vehi-cles of the division trains madetheir way toward Funchilin Passand then down the pass toChinhung-ni. At the foot of the

pass the Marines could expect tofind elements of the Army’s 3dInfantry Division manning theouter defenses of the Hamhung-Hungnam area. But the road wasnot yet open. Smith had beenwarned, as early as 4 December,that the Chinese had blown a crit-ical bridge halfway down the pass.Here water came out from theChangjin Reservoir through a tunnel

into four giant pipes called “pen-stocks.” The bridge had crossedover the penstocks at a pointwhere the road clung to an almostsheer cliff. If the division was to getout its tanks, artillery, and vehiclesthe 24-foot gap would somehowhave to be bridged.

Lieutenant Colonel Partridge,the division engineer, had madean aerial reconnaissance on 6December and determined that thegap could be spanned by four sec-tions of an M-2 steel “Treadway”bridge. He had no such bridgesections, but fortuitously there wasa detachment of the TreadwayBridge Company from the Army’s58th Engineer Battalion at Koto-riwith two Brockway trucks thatcould carry the bridge sections ifthey could be air-delivered. A sec-tion was test-dropped at Yonpo byan Air Force C-119 and gotsmashed up in the process. Notdiscouraged, Partridge pressed foran airdrop of eight sections—togive himself a 100 percent insur-ance factor that at least four sectionswould land in useable condition.The 2,500-pound bridge sectionsbegan their parachute drop at0930 on 7 December. One fell intothe hands of the Chinese. Anotherwas banged up beyond use. Butsix sections landed intact.Plywood center sections forwheeled traffic were also dropped.Next, the Brockway trucks wouldhave to deliver the sections to thebridge site three-and-a-half milesaway, a location likely to bedefended fiercely by the Chinese.

Partridge met with Litzenbergand it was decided that theBrockway trucks would move atthe front of the 7th Marines’ regi-mental train after RCT-7 jumped-off at 0800 on 8 December. Thebridge site was dominated by Hill1081 so Lieutenant ColonelSchmuck’s 1st Battalion, 1stMarines, at Chinhung-ni was

98

Photo by David Douglas Duncan

As the Marines moved south from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri they had to pass through“Hell Fire Valley,” site of Task Force Drysdale’s heaviest losses. The Chinese hadmade no attempt to salvage the abandoned vehicles, but the Marines did andlearned that some needed nothing more than a push to start them.

ordered to advance overland threemiles to the north to take the hill.All of this required exquisite timing.

First objective for Litzenberg’s7th Marines coming out of Koto-riwas the high ground on the right ofthe road for a distance of about amile-and-a-half. Murray’s 5thMarines would then pass throughthe 7th Marines and take and holdthe high ground for the next mile.Puller’s 1st Marines was to stay inKoto-ri until the division and regi-mental trains had cleared and thenwas to relieve the 5th and 7thMarines on their high ground posi-tions so the trains could pass on toFunchilin Pass. The 5th and 7thMarines, relieved by the 1st, wouldthen move on down the passtoward Hamhung. The 11thMarines artillery would displacefrom battery firing position to bat-tery firing position but for much ofthe time would be limbered upand on the road. Heavy reliancefor fire support would be placed on

the Corsairs and organic mortars.Tanks would follow at the end ofthe vehicular column so therewould be no chance of a crippled

tank blocking the road.Task Force Dog, under

Brigadier General Mead and con-sisting of the 3d Battalion, 7thInfantry, liberally reinforced withtanks and artillery, had startednorth on 7 December, passedthrough Su-dong, and by lateafternoon had reached Chinhung-ni. Schmuck’s 1st Battalion, 1stMarines, after being relieved byTask Force Dog, moved into anassembly area several miles north ofChinhung-ni.

The jump-offs from both Koto-riand Chinhung-ni on the morning of8 December were made in aswirling snowstorm. Schmuck’sMarines started the six-mile marchup the MSR to the line of departureat 0200. His plan was for CaptainRobert P. Wray’s Company C totake Hill 891, the southwesternnose of Hill 1081, and hold itwhile his other two rifle compa-nies passed through and contin-ued the attack. Captain Barrow’sCompany A was to attack east ofthe road and on up to the summitof Hill 1081. Captain Noren’s

99


One of the vehicles salvaged by the Marines in “Hell Fire Valley” was a bullet-rid-den Army ambulance. Battered, but still in running condition, the Marinesused it to evacuate casualties incurred along the line of march. Once safely inMasan, a large number of Army vehicles were returned to the Army.

Koto-ri as it looked on 8 December, the day that the march to the south contin-ued. Virtually all the combat strength of the 1st Marine Division, plus someArmy troops, had concentrated there for the breakout. The next critical terrainfeature would be Funchilin Pass where a blown bridge threatened to halt themarch. Its repair posed a problem for Marine engineers.

Photo by Sgt William R. Keating, Department of Defense (USMC) A5354

100

Snow-dusted M-4A3 Sherman tanks of LtCol Harry T.Milne’s 1st Tank Battalion await the word at Koto-ri tomove out to the south. The tanks had turned in a disap-

pointing performance with Task Force Drysdale. Therewould be further problems with the tanks in Funchilin Pass.



Immediately outside of Koto-ri, two Chinese soldiers willinglysurrender to members of a Marine rifle company early on 9December. Each leg of the withdrawal, from Yudam-ni to

Hagaru-ri, from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri, and from Koto-ri toChinhung-ni, showed a marked improvement in Marinetactics to deal with the situation.

Company B would be on the leftflank, moving along the slopebetween Barrow and the road.

Wray had his objective bydawn. On it Schmuck built up abase of fire with his 81mm mortarsand an attached platoon of 4.2-inch mortars—the effective, butroad-bound “four-deuces.” Alsoeffective, but tied to the road,were five Army self-propelled anti-aircraft guns—quad .50-calibersand duel 40mms—attached fromCompany B, 50th AntiaircraftArtillery (Automatic Weapons)Battalion.

Things went like clockwork.Schmuck’s main attack jumped offat 1000. Barrow clambered up thehogback ridge that led to the sum-mit of Hill 1081; Noren advanced

101

A mixed group of Marines and soldiers struggle up an ice-covered slope some-where south of Koto-ri. The weather and the terrain were at least as much of anenemy as the Chinese. Marines, disdainful of the Army’s performance east of thereservoir, learned in the march-out from Hagaru-ri that soldiers, properly led,were not much different from themselves.


Aerial view taken from one of VMO-6’s light observationaircraft, flown by 1stLt John D. Cotton, shows the powerstation, the pipes or “penstocks” that carried off the water, and

the precarious nature of the road occupying a thin shelf cutinto the precipitous slope.


along the wooded western slopeof the hill. Noren met scatteredresistance, was stopped momen-tarily by two enemy machineguns, which he then took out with

a tidy schoolbook solution—engaging the enemy with his ownmachine guns and 60mm mortarswhile a platoon worked around ina right hook. He then ran into a

bunker complex, took it after asavage fight, and found a kettle ofrice cooking in the largest bunker.Schmuck moved his headquartersforward and set up his commandpost in the bunker only to find itlouse-ridden. The day cost Norenthree killed and six wounded.

Barrow had gone up the ridgeagainst no enemy whatsoever,impeded only by the icy ridgeline,so narrow that he had to march ina dangerous single file. Through abreak in the snowstorm, Barrowgot a glimpse of a stronglybunkered Chinese position on aknob between his company andthe crest of the hill. He elected todo a double envelopment, sendinghis 2d Platoon around to the leftand his 1st Platoon around to theright. He went himself with the 3dPlatoon up the center in a frontalattack. It all came together in asmashing assault. Barrow’s

102


Going downhill was easier for the most part than going up, but wherever it wasthe march was single file of Marines, or at best a double file. Even stripped downto essentials, the average Marine carried 35 to 40 pounds of weapons, ammu-nition, rations, and sleeping bag. Anything more, such as toilet articles, shelterhalf, or poncho, was a luxury.


Fresh snow fell during the march from Koto-ri to the top ofFunchilin Pass. When the column on the road halted, as itfrequently did, the Marines tended to bunch up, making

themselves inviting targets for Chinese mortar and machinegun fire. March discipline had to be enforced by tough cor-porals and sergeants more than by orders from the top.

Marines counted more than 60Chinese dead. They themselveslost 10 killed, 11 wounded. Thesnow ended and the night wasclear. At midnight a Chinese platoonbravely but foolishly tried to evictBarrow’s Marines and lost 18killed. To Barrow’s left, all wasquiet in front of Noren’s position.

To their north, Litzenberg’s 7th

Marines had come out of Koto-ri onschedule on the morning of 8December. Counting the Armyprovisional battalion he had fourbattalions. Two were to clear eachside of the road. One was toadvance along the MSR, to be fol-lowed by the regimental train andthe reserve battalion. Major Morrishad been assigned to take Hill

1328 on the right of the road withhis 3d Battalion. Going was slow.By mid-morning Litzenberg grewimpatient and urged him to commithis reserve company. Morrissnapped back: “All three compa-nies are up there—50 men fromGeorge Company, 50 men fromHow, 30 men from Item. That’s it.”Shortly after noon, Litzenbergcommitted his regimental reserve,Lawrence’s 2d Battalion, to come tothe assistance of Morris. By night-fall the two battalions had joinedbut not much more was accom-plished.

Left of the road, the provisionalArmy battalion, under Major Jones,had jumped off on time and, withthe help of two Marine tanks, hadmoved along against light resis-tance. In two jumps Jones reachedHill 1457 where his soldiers dug infor the night. Their position wasraked by Chinese automatic fire,and in a brief nasty action 12enemy were killed at a cost of onesoldier killed, four wounded.

Litzenberg’s executive officer,Lieutenant Colonel FrederickDowsett, had been shot throughthe ankle the day before. Litz-enberg moved Raymond Davis upto executive officer to replace himand gave the 1st Battalion, still hisstrongest battalion, to MajorSawyer, whose wound had provedsuperficial. Sawyer’s initial missionwas to move a mile down the roadand wait for the 3d Battalion tocome up on his right flank. The 1stBattalion now had it own fight.

Sawyer’s lead platoon cameunder fire from Hill 1304. BakerCompany continued to moveagainst the high ground just left ofthe road while Able and CharlieCompanies moved more deeply tothe right against the hill. BakerCompany was caught in a cross-fire; the company commander,Lieutenant Kurcaba, was killed,two of his platoon leaders were

103

wounded. First Lieutenant WilliamW. “Woody” Taylor took over com-mand of the company and had hisobjective by nightfall. Able andCharlie Companies meanwhile hadtaken Hill 1304 without muchtrouble. Sawyer divided his battal-ion into two perimeters for thenight. Vehicular movement alongthe MSR was halted.

It had been nearly noon on 8December before Murray’s 5thMarines, following behind the 7thMarines, moved out of Koto-ri.Stevens’ 1st Battalion was in thelead. Stevens sent out his Bakerand Charlie Companies to take Hill1457. Charlie Company joined upunexpectedly with the Army’s pro-visional battalion and the soldiersand Marines had the Chinese off thehigh ground by mid-afternoon.Baker and Charlie Companies,combined with the Army troops,formed a perimeter for the night.Able Company had its ownperimeter closer to the MSR.Murray moved 41 Commando, inreserve, up behind the 1stBattalion.

Meanwhile, the 2d and 3d

Battalions of Puller’s 1st Marinesheld Koto-ri itself. For the defend-ers the problem was not the scat-tered small arms fire of theChinese, but the flood of civilianrefugees coming down the roadfrom the north. They could not beadmitted into the perimeterbecause of the probability that theChinese had infiltrated them.

During the bitterly cold night, twobabies were born with the help ofNavy doctors and corpsmen. In alltheir misery these thousands ofcivilians had to wait outside thelines until Koto-ri was vacated.They then followed behind theMarines, as best they could, untilthe presumed safety of Hamhung-Hungnam might be reached.

During the day Smith, alwaysconscious of his dead, attended afuneral at Koto-ri. What had beenan artillery command post,scraped more deeply into thefrozen ground by a bulldozer,became a mass grave. A total of117 bodies, mostly Marines butsome soldiers and Royal Marines,were lowered into the hole. AProtestant and a Catholic chaplainofficiated. The bulldozer coveredthe bodies with a mound of dirt.

Sergeant Robert Gault, head ofthe Graves Registration Section ofthe 7th Marines, remembered thefuneral this way:

We had a chaplain of eachfaith, and the fellows hadmade a big hole and laid thefellows out in rows the best

104


A section of two 81mm mortars set up in the snow to give fire support for a riflecompany in the attack. These high-angle medium mortars, with a shell almostas lethal as a 105mm howitzer round, were considered to be the infantry bat-talion commander’s own “artillery.” Mortars were particularly effective in thedefense of a perimeter.

Task Force Dog included these self-propelled 155mm howitzers shown in firingposition covering Funchilin Pass on 10 December near Chinhung-ni. Marine155mm howitzers at this time were still tractor-drawn and some were lost com-ing out of Yudam-ni. At a greater distance an Army tank can be glimpsed.

Photo by TSgt James W. Helms, Jr., Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A156320

we could and put ponchosover them. As soon as eachchaplain had said his little bitfor the fellows, we wouldcover them up and closethem in. Everyone wasgiven—I think under the cir-cumstances—a very fine bur-ial. It wasn’t like the one backat Inchon and Hungnam. Itwasn’t like the one where wehad crosses for the boyspainted white and all the pre-liminaries: flowers that wecould get for them—we’d goout and pick them. It wasn’tlike that, no. It was onewhere we were just out in afield, but it was one withmore true heart.

There was more snow duringthe night, but Saturday, 9December, dawned bright, clear,and cold. South of Funchilin Pass,Noren moved his Baker Companyto the next high ground to hisfront and Barrow had his AbleCompany test-fire their weaponsbefore beginning the assault ofHill 1081. Barrow then attacked ina column of platoons behind athunderous preparation by closeair, artillery, and mortars. Even so

his lead platoon, under FirstLieutenant William A. McClelland,was hard hit as it moved forward byrushes, stopping about 200 yardsfrom the crest. Under cover of airstrikes by four Corsairs and hisown 60mm mortars, Barrowmoved his 2d and 3d Platoons for-ward and by mid-afternoon hisMarines had the hill. The two-daybattle cost Barrow almost exactlyhalf his company. He had started upthe hill with 223 Marines; he wasnow down to 111 effectives. But530 enemy dead were countedand the Marines held the highground commanding FunchilinPass.

On the MSR that Saturday, mov-ing south from Koto-ri, the 7thMarines resumed its attack. Therest of Hill 1304 was taken.Captain John Morris with hisCompany C and a platoon fromCompany B moved down the roadand secured the bridge site. Therest of Company B, followingbehind, overran an enemy posi-tion garrisoned by 50 Chinese sofrozen by the cold that they sur-rendered without resistance.

The old war horse, GeneralShepherd, arrived from Hawaii theday before on what was his fifth trip

to Korea, this time as “Represen-tative of Commander Naval Force,Far East, on matters relating to theMarine Corps and for consultationand advice in connection with thecontemplated amphibious opera-tions now being planned.”Shepherd may have thought hehad more authority than he reallyhad. In his 1967 oral history hesaid:

When reports came backthat the cold weather had setin and they weren’t able tomake the Yalu River andthings began falling apart,Admiral Radford sent me toKorea—I think [the orders]came from the Chief of NavalOperations on the recom-mendation of Admiral Joy—that [I] was to take charge ofthe evacuation of the Marinesfrom Hungnam.

More accurately, the Chief ofNaval Operations, Admiral ForrestP. Sherman, had probably beenprompted by back-channel mes-sages to Admiral Radford to sendShepherd to the Far East “for thepurpose of advising and assistingCommander Naval Forces, Far East[Admiral Joy], with particularemphasis on Marine Corps mat-ters.”

Shepherd did recognize thatthere could be a conflict of com-mand because of Almond’s actualcommand of X Corps. On arrivingin Tokyo on 6 December he metwith General MacArthur and noted“General MacArthur was unquali-fied in his admiration and praisefor the effective contributionwhich Marines had made through-out the whole of the Korea fighting.His general demeanor [however]was not one of optimism.”

After more conferences andmeetings in Tokyo, Shepherd left on8 December for Hungnam and on

105

Photo by Cpl James Lyle, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC354456

A squad-sized Army patrol, led by Sgt Grant J. Miller, from the 3d InfantryDivision’s Task Force Dog, moves up from Chinhung-ni into Funchilin Pass on9 December. The tank at the side of the road appears to be a Soviet-built T-34knocked out a month earlier by the 7th Marines.

arrival went immediately to theMount McKinley. Here on the nextday he attended a meeting on out-loading and naval support alsoattended by Admirals Joy, Struble,and Doyle, and General Harris. Apress conference followed.Shepherd praised the operationsof the X Corps and said that he

was there to assist GeneralAlmond. He was anxious to get upto the reservoir to see things forhimself. He made the trip in aTBM, landing at Koto-ri after cir-cling Hagaru-ri. He then met withSmith for an hour or more. Smithtold him that all casualties would beout by the end of the day.

Shepherd announced that heintended to march out with thedivision. Smith dug in his heelsand said absolutely not.

Shepherd returned to theairstrip. A number of war corre-spondents, among them “Maggie”Higgins, Keyes Beach, and thephotographer David DouglasDuncan, had wangled their way toKoto-ri. While Shepherd’s planewas warming up, Colonel Pullerarrived leading Higgins by thehand. Puller said: “General Smithsays take this woman out of hishair and see that she goes out onyour plane.” Shepherd turned toHiggins, whom he had met atInchon, saying, “Maggie, it’s toobad. I wanted to march downtoo.” The plane completed itsloading of wounded and taxied tothe end of the strip. It was dusk andas the plane took off Shepherdcould see machine gun tracer bul-lets reaching up at the underside of

106


Litzenberg’s 7th Marines led the way out of Koto-ri at dawn on 8 December.Murray’s 5th Marines followed the 7th Marines and in turn was followed by twobattalions of Puller’s 1st Marines. Infantry units, moving from hilltop to hilltopon both sides of the road covered the movement of the division trains. Some calledthe maneuver “hop-scotch,” others called it “skinning-the-cat.”

As the march went on, cold-benumbed Chinese soldiers surrendered in increas-ing numbers. This group, probably the remnants of a platoon or perhaps a com-pany, surrendered to Company C, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, south of Koto-ri on9 December.


Two Chinese, anxious to surrender,get a quick pat-down search forweapons by members of Company C,7th Marines, but there was no fightleft in them. Once given a cigaretteand perhaps a chocolate bar by theircaptors, they would follow alonguncomplainingly into eventual cap-tivity.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5378

the plane. Leaning over toHiggins, the irrepressible Shep-herd said to her, “If we get hit, wewill die in each other’s arms.”

From Koto-ri to Chinhung-ni

The column of division vehi-cles, protected on both sides bythe Marine infantry in the hills,crawled along the road south ofKoto-ri at a snail’s pace and withfrequent stops. The Marines, whowatched the crawling columnfrom their perches in the hills,wondered profanely why the vehi-cles had to be piled high with tentframes, wooden doors, and otherluxuries of life.

Partridge had held back theArmy’s Brockway trucks, withtheir precious cargo of bridge sec-tions, in Koto-ri until first light on9 December when he consideredthe MSR secure enough for him tomove them forward. He thenjoined Sawyer’s 1st Battalion at thehead of the column. Everythingworked at the bridge site like apracticed jigsaw puzzle. Army andMarine engineers rebuilt the abut-ments with sandbags and timbers.

A Brockway truck laid the steeltreadways and plywood deck pan-els. At noon, Almond flew over-head in his “Blue Goose” to seefor himself that things were going

well. Installation was done inthree hours and at 1530 Partridgedrove his jeep back to the top of thepass to tell Lieutenant ColonelBanks that he could bring DivisionTrain No. 1 down the defile. Thefirst vehicles began to cross thebridge at about 1800. Sawyer’sMarines kept the enemy at a dis-tance and captured 60 prisoners inthe process. All night long vehiclespassed over the bridge.

At 0245 on Sunday morning, 10December, the head of the columnreached Chinhung-ni. ColonelSnedeker, the division’s deputychief of staff, had positioned him-self there to direct the furthermovement of the vehicle serials.The 7th Marines followed DivisionTrain No. 1 down the pass. Up onthe plateau Ridge’s 3d Battalion,1st Marines, had come out ofKoto-ri and relieved the 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, on Hill1328 where it had a fight with

107

Frozen corpses are unloaded from a truck at Koto-ri where they will be buriedin a mass grave. A 155mm howitzer can be seen in the background. The dead,117 of them, mostly U.S. Marines but some soldiers and Royal Marines, wereinterred in a hole originally bull-dozed into the ground to serve as an artilleryfire direction center.



First step in evacuation of casualties, alive or dead, during the march-out wasto get them down to the road by stretcher. Here four Marines, without helmets orpacks, carry a stretcher down from the high ground somewhere south of Koto-rion 9 December. Fresh snow had fallen the previous night.

about 350 resurgent Chinese. At1030, General Smith closed hiscommand post at Koto-ri and flewto his rear command post atHungnam.

Puller brought out the remainderof RCT-1 from Koto-ri on the after-noon of the 10th. Milne’s tanks,including the tank company fromthe 31st Infantry, followed behindthe elements of RCT-1 on the road.Ridge’s 3d Battalion was alreadydeployed on the high ground onboth sides of the MSR south ofKoto-ri. The plan was for Sutter’s 2dBattalion to relieve Stevens’ 1stBattalion, 5th Marines, on Hill1457.

As the last Americans left Koto-ri, the Army’s 92d Field Artillery, fir-ing from Chinhung-ni, shelled thetown with its long-range 155mmguns. There was confusion at thetail of the column as Koreanrefugees pressed close. Thetankers fired warning shots tomake them stay back. Panic devel-oped as the rumor spread that theMarines were shooting the re-

fugees. The tanks passed on downthe road, protected on both sides atfirst by Ridge’s Marines in the hills.But Sutter, having begun his climbup Hill 1457 and finding it a longway off and with no enemy insight, asked Puller’s permission,which he received, to return to theroad.

Ridge pulled his companies offHill 1304 and the high ground onthe opposite side of the MSR atabout 2100. Ridge’s battalion wasthe last major unit to descend thepass, following behind Jones’ pro-visional battalion of soldiers andthe detachment of the 185thEngineers. Harry Milne’s tankswere behind Ridge with noinfantry protection except thelightweight division Reconnais-sance Company mounted in jeeps.It was now about midnight.

By then both division trains, allof RCT-7, and most of the 11thMarines had reached Chinhung-ni.The 5th Marines followed the 7thMarines. Beyond Chinhung-ni,guerrillas were reported to be

active in the vicinity of Sudong,but the division trains and boththe 5th and 7th Marines passedthrough without interference.Some time after midnight whenthe vehicles of RCT-1 reached thetown sudden swarms of Chinesecame out of the houses of the vil-lage with burp guns and grenades.Truck drivers and casuals, bothArmy and Marine, fought a wild,shapeless action. Lieutenant Colo-nel John U. D. Page, an Armyartillery officer, took charge, waskilled, and received a posthumousMedal of Honor. LieutenantColonel Waldon C. Winston, anArmy motor transport officer, tookhis place. It was dawn before theplace was cleaned up. RCT-1 lostnine trucks and a personnel carri-er; 8 men killed and 21 wounded.

Meanwhile, Milne’s tanks, some40 of them, descending the nar-row, icy-slick road of FunchilinPass had run into trouble. About amile short of the Treadway bridgethe brakes of the ninth tank fromthe end of the column froze up.The tanks to its front clanked on,but the immobile ninth tankblocked the eight tanks to the rear.Close behind came the refugees.Left guarding the nine tanks wasFirst Lieutenant Ernest C. Hargett’s28-man reconnaissance platoon.Five Chinese soldiers emergedfrom the mass of refugees andone, in English, called uponHargett to surrender. Hargett, cov-ered by a BAR-man, approachedthe five Chinese cautiously. TheEnglish-speaking one steppedaside and the four others pro-duced burp guns and grenades. Agrenade wounded Hargett. HisBAR-man, Corporal George A. J.Amyotte, cut the five Chinesedown, but more Chinese material-ized on the road and the steepslope of the hill. Hargett backedaway with his platoon. The lasttank in the column was lost to the

108


LtGen Shepherd, right, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific,arrived on 8 December on his fifth trip to Korea. Although not in the operationalchain-of-command, he had arrived to oversee the evacuation of the Marines. RAdmDoyle, left, and MajGen Harris, center, greet Shepherd. All three look glum.

Chinese. Meanwhile, the crew ofthe tank that blocked the road hadsucceeded in freeing the frozenbrakes and was ready to proceed.But the crews of the remainingseven tanks had departed, leavingthe hatches of their tanks open. Amember of Hargett’s platoon, whohad never driven a tank, managedto bring out one tank. The night’sadventure cost Hargett two menkilled and 12 wounded.

Engineers were waiting at theTreadway bridge, ready to blow itup. They thought the two tanksand Hargett’s platoon were the lastto come by. They blew the bridge,but one Marine had been leftbehind. Private First Class Robert D.DeMott from Hargett’s platoon hadbeen blown off the road by aChinese explosive charge. Regain-ing consciousness, he got back onthe road and joined the refugees.

109


Marines from Litzenberg’s regiment, along with someattached soldiers, on 9 December reached the blown bridgein Funchilin Pass, which, unless replaced, would stop any

further southward movement of wheeled or tracked vehicles.Plans were already afoot to bridge the gap with a Treadwaybridge to be airdropped in sections at Koto-ri.


The Chinese had blown a critical bridge halfway down Funchilin Pass where waterflowed downward from Changjin Reservoir and passed through four giant pipescalled “penstocks.” As early as 4 December, MajGen Smith knew that this 24-footgap would have to be bridged if his vehicles were to reach Hungnam.

110

By evening on 9 December the Treadway bridge was inplace and men and vehicles could move unimpeded downthe MSR through Funchilin Pass. From here on enemy resis-

tance was limited to small-scale firefights and ambushes. Themost sizable resistance would come near Sudong.

The wind that blew from Manchuria and beyond, “down overthe Yalu and the mountains all around. . . down into thegorges with their frozen streams amd naked rocks. . . downalong the ice-capped road—now shrieking and wild—that

wind,” said noted photographer David Douglas Duncan, “waslike nothing ever known by the trapped Marines, yet they hadto march through it.”



He heard the detonation that blewthe bridge, but figured that hecould make his way on footthrough the gatehouse above thepenstocks. This he did as didmany of the following refugees.

Warm Welcome at Hungnam

Donald Schmuck, from his posi-tion on Hill 1081, watched thelights of the tanks descending thepass and at 0300 gave orders forBarrow’s Company A to begin itswithdrawal. At 1300 on 11December the last units of thedivision passed through Chin-hung-ni. By 1730 they had gonethrough Majon-dong and by 2100most had reached their Hamhung-Hungnam assembly areas. Theyfound a tent camp waiting forthem. Lieutenant Colonel Erwin F.Wann, Jr.’s 1st Amphibian Tractor

111


Marines march along a particularly precipitous portion ofthe road winding down through Funchilin Pass on 9December. The day before had seen the launching of anexquisitely timed maneuver—the exit of the 5th and 7th

Marines from Koto-ri and the simultaneous advance of the1st Battalion, 1st Marines, from Chinhung-ni to take the highground controlling the pass.

Coming down Funchilin Pass on 10 December, the Marine column was intermixedwith many Korean refugees fleeing the Chinese. Numbers were such as to inter-fere with military traffic. Behind them, Yudam-ni, Hagaru-ri, and Koto-ri wereleft as deserted ghost towns.

Photo by Sgt William R. Keating, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5407

Battalion had done much of thepreparation for their arrival. Chowlines were open for the continu-ous serving of hot meals. Wann, 31and Naval Academy 1940, hadbeen an amphibian tractor officer atBougainville, Guam, and IwoJima. The weather seemed almostbalmy after the unrelieved sub-zero temperatures of the plateau.Milne’s tanks continued on to theLST staging area, arriving justbefore midnight. From 8 through 11December, the division had lost 75men dead, 16 missing, and 256wounded, for a total of 347 casu-alties.

As late as Saturday, 9December, General Smith believedthat the 1st Marine Division, onceconcentrated, would be given adefensive sector to the south andsouthwest of Hungnam. A day ear-lier his deputy chief of staff,Colonel Snedeker, who was run-ning his rear headquarters, issuedtentative orders for Puller’s RCT-1 to

organize defensively at Chigyong,with Murray’s RCT-5 andLitzenberg’s RCT-7 preparing todefend Yonpo airfield.

But on that Saturday, Almondreceived his formal orders fromMacArthur to redeploy X Corps toSouth Korea and Smith learnedthat his division would be loadingout immediately on arrival. At thispoint Almond regarded the 1stMarine Division as only marginallycombat effective. He consideredthe 7th Infantry Division, exceptfor its loss of almost a completeregimental combat team, to be inbetter condition. In best condition,in his opinion, was the 3d InfantryDivision, which he visited almostdaily.

Almond therefore decided thatonce the 1st Marine Divisionpassed through the Hamhung-Hungnam perimeter defense itwould be relieved from activecombat and evacuated. Secondpriority for evacuation would be

given the 7th Infantry Division.Last out would be the 3d InfantryDivision.

The Hungnam-Hamhung defen-sive perimeter, as neatly drawn onthe situation maps in Almond’sheadquarters, consisted of a mainline of resistance (MLR) about 20miles long arcing in a semicirclefrom north of Hungnam around toinclude Yonpo. In front of the MLRwas a lightly held outpost line ofresistance. The northernmost sector,beginning at the coastline, wasgiven to Major General Kim PakIl’s ROK I Corps, which, havingarrived uneventfully from Songjin,began moving into line on 8December. The lift-off fromSongjin by LSTs, merchant ships,and the attack transport USS Noble(APA 218) had been completed inthree days. Counterclockwise,next in line on the perimeter,came Barr’s 7th Infantry Divisionwith two sound regiments, fol-lowed by Soule’s 3d InfantryDivision. The southern anchor ofthe perimeter was held by the 1stKorean Marine Corps Regiment,which had the mission of defend-

112


LtCol John H. Partridge, whose engineers performed miracles, particularly in scrap-ing out the airstrip at Hagaru-ri and installing the airdropped Treadway bridgein Funchilin Pass, received a second Bronze Star from MajGen Smith at Masanin early January 1951.

LtCol Harry T. Milne, commandingofficer of the 1st Tank Battalion, in apost-war photograph. Tanks werevital to the Marine breakout, but theirrecord was marred by poor perfor-mance with Task Force Drysdale and,later, in Funchilin Pass.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A552011

ing the Yonpo airfield. As theevacuation progressed, the MLRwas to shrink back to successivephase lines.

Admiral Doyle, as commander,Task Force 90, assumed control ofall naval functions on 10December. Marine Colonel Ed-ward Forney, a X Corps deputychief of staff whose principalduties were to advise Almond onthe use of Marine and Navy forces,was now designated as the Corps’evacuation control officer. TheArmy’s 2d Engineer SpecialBrigade would be responsible foroperating the dock facilities andtraffic control. A group of experi-enced Japanese dock workersarrived to supplement their efforts,

Years later Almond character-ized Forney’s performance as fol-lows: “I would say that the successof [the evacuation] was due 98percent to common sense andjudgment and that this commonsense and judgment being prac-ticed by all concerned was turnedover to General Forney who orga-

nized the activities in fine form. Imean Colonel Forney, he shouldhave been a General!”

General Field Harris briefedGeneral Shepherd on 10 December

on the status of the 1st MarineAircraft Wing. Ashore were Marinefighter squadrons -312, -542, -513,and -311. Afloat were VMF-212 inthe Bataan, VMF-214 in the Sicily,and VMF-323 in the BadoengStrait. Shepherd learned that thewing had been offered either the K-10 airfield near Masan or K-1 nearPusan. K-1 was preferable becauseit was the better field and close toPusan’s port facilities.

The 11th of December was abusy day. X Corps issued itsOperation Order 10-50, calling forthe immediate embarkation of the1st Marine Division. The perimeterwould shrink progressively as thenthe 7th and 3d Infantry Divisions, inturn, were withdrawn. As theperimeter contracted, naval gun-fire and air support wouldincrease to defend the remainingbeachhead. General MacArthurhimself arrived that day at Yonpo,met with Almond, and approvedthe X Corps evacuation plan. Hetold Almond that he could return to

113

Photo by Sgt William R. Keating, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A5404

Once the high ground commanding Funchilin Pass had been taken and theTreadway bridge was in place, the 1st Marine Division could descend almost unim-peded to the sea. All day long on 10 December Marine troops marched down thepass until they reached first Chinhung-ni and then went beyond Sudong-ni wherethey took trucks to Hamhung.

A Marine, left, and a Korean soldier, right, check the meager baggage of aKorean family on 10 December at some point east of Chinhung-ni before allow-ing the family to proceed to Hungnam. Some 91,000 refugees, driven by hunger,the cold, and fear of the Chinese, would be evacuated.

Photo by Cpl James Lyles, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC354459


114

Staff Sergeant Archie Van Winkle,25, of Juneau, Alaska, andDarrington, Washington, a pla-toon sergeant in Company B, 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, awardedthe Medal of Honor for gallantryand intrepidity in action on 2

November 1950 near Sudongwherein he led a successfulattack by his platoon in spite of abullet that shattered his arm and agrenade that exploded against hischest.

Medals of Honor

Sergeant James I. Poynter, 33, ofDowney, California, a squadleader with Company A, 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, post-humously awarded the Medal ofHonor for his actions on 4November south of Sudong,

where, although already criticallywounded, he assaulted threeenemy machine gun positionswith hand grenades, killing thecrews of two and putting thethird out of action before fallingmortally wounded.

Staff Sergeant Archie Van Winkle

Sergeant James I. Poynter

T he Medal ofHonor, theNation’s highest

award for valor, hasbeen given to 294Marines since its incep-tion in 1862. TheKorean War saw 42Marines so honored. Ofthis number, 14 awardswere made for actionsincident to the ChosinReservoir campaign.Seven of these awardswere posthumous.

115

Corporal Lee H. Phillips, 20, ofBen Hill, Georgia, a squad leaderwith Company E, 2d Battalion,7th Marines, posthumouslyawarded the Medal of Honor foractions on 4 November 1950 nearSudong where he led his squad in

a costly but successful bayonetcharge against a numericallysuperior enemy. Corporal Phil-lips was subsequently killed inaction on 27 November 1950 atYudam-ni.

Corporal Lee H. Phillips

Second Lieutenant Robert D.Reem, 26, of Elizabethtown,Pennsylvania, a platoon leader inCompany H, 3d Battalion, 7thMarines, posthumously awardedthe Medal of Honor for actions

on 6 November 1950 nearChinhung-ni. Leading his platoonin the assault of a heavily fortifiedChinese position, he threw himselfupon an enemy grenade, sacrific-ing his life to save his men.

Second Lieutenant Robert D. Reem

First Lieutenant Frank N. Mitchell,29, of Indian Gap, Texas, a mem-ber of Company A, 1st Battalion,7th Marines, posthumouslyawarded the Medal of Honor forextraordinary heroism in waging a

single-handed battle against theenemy on 26 November 1950near Yudam-ni to cover the with-drawal of wounded Marines,notwithstanding multiple woundsto himself.

First Lieutenant Frank N. Mitchell

Staff Sergeant Robert S.Kennemore, 30, of Greenville,South Carolina, a machine gunsection leader with Company E, 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, awardedthe Medal of Honor for extraordi-

nary heroism during the night of27-28 November 1950 north ofYudam-ni in deliberately cover-ing an enemy grenade whoseexplosion cost him both of hislegs.

Staff Sergeant Robert S. Kennemore

116

Private Hector A. Cafferata, Jr.Private Hector A. Cafferata, Jr.,21, born in New York City, a rifle-man with Company F, 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, awardedthe Medal of Honor for his stout-

hearted defense on 28 November1950 of his position at ToktongPass despite his repeated griev-ous wounds.

Captain William E. BarberCaptain William E. Barber, 31, ofDehart, Kentucky, commandingofficer of Company F, 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, awarded

the Medal of Honor for his intre-pid defense of Toktong Pass from28 November to 2 December inspite of his own severe wounds.

Private First Class William B. BaughPrivate First Class William B.Baugh, 20, born in McKinney,Kentucky, a member of the Anti-Tank Assault Platoon, WeaponsCompany, 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, posthumously awardedthe Medal of Honor for covering

with his body an enemy grenadethrown into the truck in whichhis squad was moving fromKoto-ri to Hagaru-ri on the nightof 29 November 1950 as part ofTask Force Drysdale.

Major Reginald R. Myers

Major Reginald R. Myers, 31, ofBoise, Idaho, executive officer ofthe 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,awarded the Medal of Honor forleading a hastily organized provi-

sional company of soldiers andMarines in the critical assault ofEast Hill at Hagaru-ri on 29November 1950.

117

Captain Carl L. SitterCaptain Carl L. Sitter, 28, born inSyracuse, Missouri, commandingofficer of Company G, 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, awardedthe Medal of Honor for his valiantleadership in bringing his compa-

ny from Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri aspart of Task Force Drysdale on 29November. He then led it in thecontinued assault of vital East Hillon 30 November 1950.

Staff Sergeant William G.Windrich, 29, born in Chicago,Illinois, a platoon sergeant withCompany I, 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, posthumously awardedthe Medal of Honor for his extra-

ordinary bravery in taking andthen holding a critical positionnear Yudam-ni on 29 Novemberdespite two serious woundswhich eventually caused hisdeath.

Staff Sergeant William G.Windrich

Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. DavisLieutenant Colonel Raymond G.Davis, 35, of Atlanta, Georgia,commanding officer of the 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, awardedthe Medal of Honor for his con-spicuous gallantry and skill in

leading his battalion, from 1 to 4December 1950, across moun-tainous and frigid terrain to cometo the relief of the beleagueredcompany holding Toktong Pass.

Sergeant James E. Johnson

Sergeant James E. Johnson, 24, ofWashington, D.C. and Pocatello,Idaho, regularly a member of the11th Marines but serving as a pla-toon sergeant of a provisional rifleplatoon attached to the 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, posthu-

mously awarded the Medal ofHonor for continuing to engagethe enemy single-handedly inhand-to-hand combat on 2December south of Yudam-ni afterbeing severely wounded.

GHQ and pick up his duties asMacArthur’s chief of staff or hecould remain in command of XCorps. Almond replied that hewished to stay with X Corps evenif it became part of Eighth Army.The 27th of December was set asthe day that X Corps would pass toEighth Army control.

The evacuation of the 1stMarine Division began with theloading-out of the 7th Marines inthe MSTS Daniel I. Sultan. The 5thMarines would follow on the 12thand the 1st Marines on the 13th. Itwas anticipated that the shipswould have to make a second,even a third turn-around, to lift theentire division. The docks couldberth only seven ships at a time. Tocompensate, there would be somedouble berthing, but most of thepassengers would have to load outin the stream. Approximately 1,400vehicles had been brought downfrom the Chosin plateau, about thesame number as had gone up, butnow some of the complementbore U.S. Army markings. Most ofthe division’s vehicles would goout in LSTs. Green Beaches One

and Two could handle 11 LSTssimultaneously. Thankfully therewas no great tide to contend with,only one foot as compared toInchon’s 30.

Marine Close Air Support at Its Finest

The Marines’ ground controlintercept squadron, MGCIS-1,

Major Harold E. Allen commanding,shut down at Yonpo on the 11th,passing control of air defense ofthe perimeter to the MountMcKinley. The sky remainedempty of enemy aircraft. Overallair control stayed with MTACS-2,the Marines’ tactical air controlsquadron, under Major Christian C.Lee. Each of the infantry battal-ions had gone into the Chosincampaign with two forward aircontrollers assigned, most of themreserves, all of them qualifiedMarine aviators. They broughtwith them both expertise in closeair support and rapport with thefighter-bombers overhead. Al-though inclined to lament not hav-ing a cockpit assignment theyrealized they were providing anunmatched link to the air. Theyknew how to talk a pilot onto a tar-get.

Between 1 and 11 December,Marine aviators, ashore and afloat,flew more than 1,300 sorties insupport of their comrades on theground. Of these, 254 were flownfrom the Badoeng Strait and 122from the late-arriving Sicily.(Lundin’s Blacksheep squadron,still at Wonsan, reembarked in the

118


LtCol Murray’s 5th Marines found a tent camp waiting for them when theyarrived at Hungnam after the long march. Much of the camp was the work ofthe 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion. Although there was still snow on theground, the weather at Hungnam was mild in comparison with the sub-zero tem-peratures of the Changjin plateau.

MajGen Almond gave his Marine deputy chief of staff, Col Edward H. Forney, muchof the credit for the orderly departure of X Corps from Hungnam. Here, on 14December, he presents Forney with a Legion of Merit.


Sicily on 7 December.) The resthad been by the shore-basedsquadrons at Wonsan and Yonpo.The first Marine jet squadron toarrive in Korea, VMF-311, withMcDonnell F9F Panther jets,Lieutenant Colonel Neil R.McIntyre commanding, had ar-rived at Yonpo on 10 Decemberand managed to fly four days ofinterdiction missions before movingback to Pusan to aid the Fifth AirForce in its support of the EighthArmy.

Flight conditions both ashore atYonpo and afloat in the carrierswere hellish—in the air, poorcharts, minimal navigational aids,and capricious radios; at Yonpo,primitive conditions and icy run-ways; and, afloat, ice-glazed decksand tumultuous seas for the carrier-based aircraft. The Badoeng Straitreported scraping off three inches

of ice and snow from the flightdeck. The Sicily at one point had tostop flight operations for VMF-214’s Blacksheep in the face ofheavy seas and 68-knot winds.Planes were lost. Three night fight-ers went down. There were othercrashes. It was estimated that apilot who had to ditch at sea in thearctic waters had only 20 minutesbefore fatal hypothermia. TwoVMF-212 pilots from Yonpo, out ofgas, managed to save themselvesand their planes by landing on theBadoeng Strait. By strenuouseffort on the part of all hands, air-craft availability at Yonpo hoveredaround 67 percent and a remark-able 90 percent on board the carri-ers. About half the missions flownwere not for the Marines but forsomeone else. Statistics kept bythe wing reported a total of 3,703sorties in 1,053 missions controlledby tactical air control parties beingflown between 26 October and 11December. Of these missions, 599were close support—468 for the1st Marine Division, 67 for the

119

Gen MacArthur made one of his quick trips to Korea on 11 December, this timeto Yonpo Airfield to meet with MajGen Almond and approve the X Corps evacu-ation plan. MacArthur is in his trademark peaked cap and Almond is in a bom-bardier’s leather jacket. No one would mistake the accompanying staff officers,with their well-fed jowls, for combat soldiers.


Photo by Sgt Jack T. McKirk, National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC354464

MajGen Almond, left, always generous with medals and commendations, on 11December congratulates bareheaded BGen Armistead D. Mead, commander ofTask Force Dog, on keeping the MSR open from Chinhung-ni to Hamhung. FewMarines were aware of this Army contribution to their march back from Chosin.

ROKs, 56 for the 7th InfantryDivision, and 8 for the 3d InfantryDivision. Eight Marine pilots werekilled or died of wounds, threewere wounded, and four weremissing in action.

Marine transports—twin-engineR4Ds and four-engine R5Ds fromVMR-152, commanded by 44-year-old Colonel Deane C. Roberts—supplemented General Tunner’sCombat Cargo Command in itsaerial resupply and casualty evac-uation from Hagaru-ri.

The squadron that the 1stMarine Division considered itsown private air force, MajorGottschalk’s VMO-6, with 10 lightfixed-wing aircraft and nine heli-copters, racked up 1,544 flightsbetween 28 October and 15December. Of these 457 had beenreconnaissance, 220 casualty evac-uation, and 11 search-and-rescue.

Time To Leave

Wonsan closed as a port onSunday, 10 December. Outloadingfor the evacuation, conductedfrom 2 to 10 December, was underLieutenant Colonel Henry “Jim”Crowe with muscle provided byhis 1st Shore Party Battalion. Theattached Company A, 1st Amphib-ian Truck Battalion, foundemployment for its DUKWs

(amphibian trucks) in shuttlingback and forth between docks andships. In the nine-day period,3,834 troops (mostly Army), 7,009Korean civilians, 1,146 vehicles,and 10,013 tons of bulk cargowere evacuated. Defense of theimmediate harbor area was sharedwith two battalions of SouthKorean Marines and a battalionfrom the 3d Infantry Division.

General Craig, Smith’s sorelymissed assistant division comman-der, returned from emergency

leave on the 11th. Marines wereleft to wonder what his tacticalrole might have been if he hadcome back earlier. Smith sent himsouth to Pusan to arrange for thedivision’s arrival. “I took 35 peopleof various categories with me andleft for Masan,” said Craig yearslater. “[I] conferred with the Armycommander there about replace-ment of enormous losses of equip-ment of various kinds. He assuredme that he would open his store-rooms to us and give us anythingwe required that was in his stock.And this he did.”

On Tuesday evening, 12December, General Almond calledhis generals together for a confer-ence and a dinner at X Corpsheadquarters. The division com-manders—Smith, Barr, andSoule—listened without commentto a briefing on the evacuationplan. They then learned that thetrue purpose of the dinner wasAlmond’s 58th birthday. GeneralRuffner, Almond’s chief of staff,eulogized his commander, saying,in effect, that never in the history of

120


Marine crewmen check the loading of rockets on the rails of an F-4U Corsair fly-ing from Yonpo Airfield early in December. Despite minimum facilities and ter-rible weather, the hard-working crews maintained an availability rate of 67percent for aircraft flying from Yonpo.

Nerve center for the tactical air support of X Corps was the 1st Marine AircraftWing’s Tactical Air Control Center at Hamhung. After the last of the Marinesquadrons departed Yonpo on 14 December, control of air operations passed toNavy air controllers on the command ship Mount McKinley (AGC 7).

Photo by SSgt Ed Barnum, National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A130453

the U.S. Army had a corps in sucha short time done so much.General Almond replied andGeneral Shepherd added a fewcomplimentary remarks. EarlierAlmond had asked Smith if hethought it feasible to disinter thedead buried at Hungnam. Smithdid not think it feasible.

Interdiction fires by Armyartillery, deep support by navalgunfire, and air interdiction bomb-ing by Air Force, Navy, and Marineaircraft provided a thunderousbackground of noise for the load-ing operations. By 13 Decemberthe 5th and 7th Marines wereloaded and ready to sail. At 1500,General Smith closed his divisioncommand post ashore and movedit to the Bayfield (APA 33). Beforedeparting Hungnam, Smith pausedat the cemetery to join a memorialservice for the dead. Protestant,Catholic, and Jewish chaplainsofficiated. Volleys were fired andtaps sounded. Meanwhile, the 3d

and 7th Infantry Divisions hadnothing to report except lightprobing of their lines and minorpatrol actions.

The loading of the Marines andattached Army elements was com-pleted on the 14th. That day sawthe last of the Marine land-basedfighter-bombers depart Yonpo forJapan. Shortly after midnight theair defense section of MTACS-2passed control of all air to theNavy’s Tactical Air ControlSquadron One on board theMount McKinley, but, just to besure, a standby Marine tactical aircontrol center was set up on anLST and maintained until the daybefore Christmas.

The Bayfield, an attack trans-port and the veteran of many land-ings, with General Smithembarked, lifted her hook andsailed at 1030 on 15 December.The ship had been experimentingwith C-rations, but with theembarkation of the Marines she

121

Wings folded, Marine F-4U Corsairs wait on the ice-glazeddeck of the escort carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE 116). Asmuch as three inches of ice had to be scraped from theflight deck. A remarkable aircraft availability rate of 90

percent was maintained on board the carriers. Only half themissions were in support of the Marines. The rest went to theArmy and South Koreans.


In a landing exercise in reverse,Marines in an LCM landing crafthead for a transport waiting for themin Hungnam harbor. The docks couldonly berth seven ships at a time, somost soldier and Marines had to loadout in the stream. Collecting enoughships, both U.S. Navy and MerchantMarine, for the evacuation was amonumental effort.


returned to a more appetizingNavy diet. A total of 22,215Marines had boarded an assem-blage of 4 transports, 16 landingships, an assault cargo ship, and 7merchant ships. General Shep-herd, with his Marines safelyembarked, left Hungnam the sameday for Hawaii by way of Tokyo.Just before leaving Hungnam heattended a ceremony at whichGeneral Almond presented aDistinguished Service Cross toGeneral Barr.

A day’s steaming on board thejam-packed ships took the Marinesto Pusan. They landed at Pusanand motor-marched to the “beanpatch” at Masan where a tentcamp was being set up. Smithmoved into a Japanese-stylehouse. “The toilet works, but theradiators are not yet in operation,”he noted.

The Commandant reported tothe Secretary of the Navy 4,418

Marine casualties for the period 26October to 15 December. Of these,718 were killed or died of wounds,3,508 wounded, and 192 missingin action. In addition, there were7,313 non-battle casualties, mostlyfrostbite. Roughly speaking, thesenon-battle casualties added up to athird of the strength of the divi-sion. (From 26 November until 11December, Commander HowardA. Johnson’s 1st Medical Battalionhad treated 7,350 casualties of allcategories.) The three infantry reg-iments had absorbed the lion’sshare of the casualties and arrivedat the Bean Patch at about 50 per-cent strength. Some rifle compa-nies had as little as 25 or 30percent of their authorizedallowance.

Chinese Casualties

Captured documents and pris-oner interrogations confirmed thatthe Marines had fought at leastnine and possibly all 12 CCF divi-sions. These divisions can beassumed to have each enteredcombat at an effective strength ofabout 7,500—perhaps 90,000 menin all. Other estimates of Chinese

strength go as high as 100,000 ormore. Peng’s chief of staff said, itwill be remembered, that theNinth Army Group had startedacross the Yalu with 150,000troops, but not all of these hadcome against the 1st MarineDivision. The Marines could onlyguess at the casualties they hadinflicted. The estimates came in at15,000 killed and 7,500 wounded bythe ground forces and an addition-al 10,000 killed and 5,000 wound-ed by Marine air.

Still waiting in the surroundinghills above Hamhung, Sung Shi-lun’s Ninth Army Group—assum-ing non-combat casualties at leastequal to battle casualties—probablyhad at most no more than 35,000combat effectives. Almond’s XCorps had three times that num-ber. Rank-and-file Marines whogrumbled, “Why in the hell are webugging out? Why don’t we stayhere until spring and then coun-terattack?” may have had it right.

Last Days of the Evacuation

The light carrier Bataan (CVL29) joined Task Force 77 on 16December, too late to help the

122

Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC355243

These members of the 5th Marinesmove by way of a cargo net from anLCM landing craft into a side hatch ofthe transport that would take them tothe southern tip of the Korean penin-sula. Loading out of the regiment wasessentially accomplished in one day, 12December. Destination was the “BeanPatch” at Masan.

Marines, but in time for the laststages of the Hungnam evacua-tion. Airlift from Yonpo continueduntil 17 December after which thatfield was closed and a temporaryfield, able to handle two-enginetransports, opened in the harborarea. The only Marine units stillashore were an ANGLICO (AirNaval Gunfire Liaison Company)group, a reinforced shore partycompany, and one-and-a-halfcompanies of the 1st AmphibianTractor Battalion manning 88amphibian tractors. These Marineshad been left behind to assist in

the outloading of the remainder ofX Corps. General Smith had resist-ed this detachment, and GeneralShepherd, before departing, hadadvised Smith to stress to X Corpsthe irreplaceable character of thetractors. Admiral Doyle, as a safe-guard, had earmarked severalLSDs (landing ship, docks) to lift offthe tractor companies and theirvehicles.

The last of the ROK Army unitssailed away on the 18th. GeneralAlmond closed his command postashore on 19 December andjoined Admiral Doyle in the

Mount McKinley. Doyle remindedAlmond that, in accordance withamphibious doctrine, all troopsstill ashore were now under hiscommand as amphibious taskforce commander. By the 20th all ofthe 7th Infantry Division wasembarked. On the morning of 24December the 3d Infantry did itsamphibious landing in reverse,coming off seven beaches intolanding ships in smart style marredonly by the premature explosionof an ammunition dump, set off byan Army captain, that killed aMarine lieutenant and a Navy sea-

123


MajGen Smith, a deeply religious man, paid a last visit to thedivision’s Hungnam cemetery before boarding the Bayfield(APA 33) on 13 December. A memorial service with chaplainsof three faiths, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, was held.

Volleys were fired and taps sounded. During the course ofthe Chosin Reservoir campaign, 714 Marines were killed ordied of wounds.

man and wounded 34 others.Three Marine amphibian tractorswere lost in the explosion.

Totting up the statistics: 105,000U.S. and ROK service men, 91,000Korean refugees, 17,500 vehicles,and 350,000 measurement tonshad gone out in 193 shiploads in109 ships—some ships made two oreven three trips.

The carrier Valley Forge cameon station on 23 December, intime for the final curtain. By mid-afternoon on the 24th, all beaches

were clear and the plannedpyrotechnic display of demolitionsand final naval gunfire began. Thewhole waterfront seemed toexplode as prepared explosivecharges went off, sending skywardsuch ammunition, POL, and otherstores as could not be lifted off.On board the Mount McKinley theembarked brass enjoyed the showand then the command ship sailedaway.

More naval shells were used atHungnam than at Inchon. Navy

records show that during the peri-od 7 to 24 December the expendi-ture, headed off by 162sixteen-inch rounds from the bat-tleship Missouri (BB 63), included2,932 eight-inch, 18,637 five-inch,and 71 three-inch shells plus 1,462five-inch rockets. The Chinese didnot choose to test seriously theHamhung-Hungnam perimeter de-fenses. Not a man was lost toenemy action.

After the short run south,General Almond went ashore fromthe Mount McKinley at Ulsan atmid-afternoon with Admiral Doyleto inspect unloading areas. Late inthe evening they returned in theadmiral’s barge to the flagship andthen went ashore again forChristmas dinner, Doyle explain-ing to Almond that no alcoholicdrinks could be served on boardship.

Chairman Mao Is Pleased

On 17 December the Chineseoccupied Hamhung. On the 27ththey moved into Hungnam.Chairman Mao sent the NinthArmy Group a citation: “You com-pleted a great strategic task underextremely difficult conditions.”

But the costs had been high.The assaults against Yudam-ni andHagaru-ri had almost destroyedthe 20th and 27th CCF Armies.From Koto-ri on most of theChinese fight was taken up by the26th CCF Army.

Zhang Renchu, commander ofthe 26th CCF Army lamented inhis report:

A shortage of transporta-tion and escort personnelmakes it impossible toaccomplish the mission ofsupplying the troops. As aresult, our soldiers frequentlystarve. From now on, theorganization of our rear ser-

124


Marines, probably members of the division headquarters, board the Bayfield byway of the gangway ladder. With MajGen Smith and his command groupembarked, the Bayfield lifted her hook and sailed before noon on 15 December.A day’s steaming would take the ship to Pusan.

vice units should be im-proved.

The troops were hungry.They ate cold food, and somehad only a few potatoes intwo days. They were unable tomaintain the physical strengthfor combat; the wounded per-sonnel could not be evacuat-ed. . . . The fire power of ourentire army was basicallyinadequate. When we usedour guns there were no shellsand sometimes the shellswere duds.

Zhang Yixiang, commander ofthe 20th CCF Army, equally bitter,recognized that communicationslimitations had caused a tacticalrigidity:

Our signal communicationwas not up to standard. Forexample, it took more thantwo days to receive instruc-

tions from higher level units.Rapid changes of the enemy’ssituation and the slow motionof our signal communicationscaused us to lose our oppor-tunities in combat and madethe instructions of the highlevel units ineffective.

We succeeded in the sepa-ration and encirclement of theenemy, but we failed to anni-hilate the enemy one by one.For example, the failure toannihilate the enemy atYudam-ni made it impossibleto annihilate the enemy atHagaru-ri.

Zhang Yixiang reported 100deaths from tetanus due to poormedical care. Hundreds more weresick or dead from typhus or mal-nutrition to say nothing of lossesfrom frostbite. The 26th CCF Armyreported 90 percent of the com-mand suffering from frostbite.

125

Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC355244

Vehicles of LtCol Youngdale’s 11th Marines are swung up on board a merchantship at a Hungnam dock on 14 December. Some ships had to make two or eventhree round trips before the evacuation was completed. About 1,400 vehicles hadbeen brought down to Hungnam by the division. Most would go out by LSTs (tanklanding ships).

An Army band greets Col Litzenberg’s 7th Marines on arrival at Pusan. From herethe regiment moved by motor march to Masan where an advance party had thebeginnings of a tent camp ready for them. After a pause for Christmas, therebuilding of the 1st Marine Division began in earnest.


Peng Deqing, commander ofthe 27th CCF Army, reported10,000 non-combat casualties inhis four divisions:

The troops did not haveenough food. They did nothave enough houses to livein. They could not stand thebitter cold, which was thereason for the excessive non-combat reduction in person-nel. The weapons were notused effectively. When thefighters bivouacked in snow-covered ground during com-bat, their feet, socks, andhands were frozen togetherin one ice ball. They couldnot unscrew the caps on thehand grenades. The fuseswould not ignite. The handswere not supple. The mortartubes shrank on account ofthe cold; 70 percent of the

shells failed to detonate. Skinfrom the hands was stuck onthe shells and the mortartubes.

In best Communist tradition ofself-criticism, Peng Deqing de-plored his heavy casualties ascaused by tactical errors:

We underestimated theenemy so we distributed thestrength, and consequentlythe higher echelons wereover-dispersed while thelower echelon units wereover-concentrated. Duringone movement, the distancebetween the three leadingdivisions was very long,while the formations of thebattalions, companies, andunits of lower levels were tooclose, and the troops wereunable to deploy. Further-

126

The 1st Marine Division was only a fraction of the totalevacuation from Hungnam. In all, along with 105,000 U.S.and South Korean servicemen, 91,000 civilian refugeeswere evacuated. In materiel, 17,500 vehicles and 350,000

tons of all classes of equipment and supplies were taken outin 193 shiploads in 109 ships. “We never, never contemplateda Dunkirk,” Admiral C. Turner Joy later said.

MajGen Robert H. “Shorty” Soule,USA, supervises the loading-out of thelast elements of his 3d InfantryDivision at Hungnam on 24December. By then, MajGen Almond,the X Corps commander, consideredthe 3d Infantry Division, which hadnot been involved in heavy fighting, hismost combat-effective division.National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC355587


more, reconnaissance wasnot conducted strictly; wewalked into the enemy firenet and suffered heavy casu-alties.

Zhang Renchu, commander ofthe 26th CCF Army found reason toadmire the fire support coordinationof the Marines:

The coordination betweenthe enemy infantry, tanks,artillery, and airplanes is sur-prisingly close. Besides usingheavy weapons for the depth,the enemy carries with himautomatic light firearmswhich, coordinated withrockets, launchers, and re-coilless guns are disposed atthe front line. The character-istic of their employment is tostay quietly under cover andopen fire suddenly when wecome to between 70 and 100

meters from them, making itdifficult for our troops todeploy and thus inflictingcasualties upon us.

In a 17 December message toPeng Dehuai, Mao acknowledgedthat as many as 40,000 men hadperished due to cold weather, lackof supplies, and the fierce fighting.“The Central Committee cherishesthe memory of those lost.” Pengasked for 60,000 replacements; itwould be April before the NinthArmy Group again went into com-bat.

Christmas at Masan

At Masan on Christmas Eve, OlinBeall, the mustang commander ofthe 1st Motor Transport Battalion,wrote a letter to his old command-ing officer, General Holland M.“Howlin’ Mad” Smith, now retiredand living in La Jolla, California:

127


North Korean refugees wait apprehensively to board U.S. Navy LST 845. Some91,000 civilians were evacuated from Hungnam. This does not count the thou-sands of others who fled Hungnam and other North Korean ports in fishing boatsand other coastal vessels. Family separations occurred that in future yearswould never be mended.

An enormous stockpile of equipment and supplies, including rations, fuel, andammunition had been built up at Hungnam. Much was evacuated, but even morewould have to be destroyed. A detachment of Marines was left behind to help inthe destruction. A Marine lieutenant was killed on 24 December in a prematureexplosion, probably the last Marine casualty of the campaign.

Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC 355021

I just thought that youmight like to have a fewwords on first hand informa-tion from an ole friend andan ole timer. . . . I’ve seensome brave men along thatroad and in these hills, menwith feet frozen, men withhands frozen still helpingtheir buddies, men riding

trucks with frozen feet butfighting from the trucks. . . .Ithink the fight of our 5th and7th Regts, from Yudam-ni in toHagaru-ri was a thing thatwill never be equaled. . . .Litzenberg [7th] and Murray[5th] showed real commandability and at no time did anyof us doubt their judgment.

The night we came out ofKoto-ri the temperature was27 below zero and still wefought. Men froze to theirsocks, blood froze in woundsalmost instantaneously, onesfingers were numb insideheavy mittens. Still men tookthem off to give to a wound-ed buddy. . . . We are now in

128

The Begor (APD 127), a high-speed amphibious transport,lends its weight to the pyrotechnic display ashore on 24December. In a final farewell to the stricken port there was

a crescendo of planned demolitions and naval gunfire.RAdm Doyle and MajGen Almond watched the spectaclefrom the bridge of the Mount McKinley.


Masan in South Korea reout-fitting, training and gettingsome new equipment. I’mvery, very proud to be able tosay that in all our operationmy Bn [1st Motor TransportBattalion] has lost only 27trucks and every one of thesewas an actual battle casualty,so I think my boys did prettygood. . . . Oliver P. Smith andCraig make a fine team andwe’d stand by them thru helland high water.

An epidemic of flu and bronchi-tis swept through the tent camp atMasan. The Marines were treated

with an early antibiotic, Aure-omycin, in capsules to be swal-lowed the size of the first joint of aman’s finger. The division rebuiltitself rapidly. Replacements—menand materiel—arrived. Some unitsfound themselves with an “over-age” of vehicles and weapons thathad to be returned to the Army.

A refrigerator ship brought intoMasan a planned double ration ofChristmas turkey. Through somemix-up a second shipment ofturkey and accessories arrived sothat there were four days of holidaymenu for the Marines. Workingparties pretending to be patrolswent up into the surrounding hills

to cut pine trees to line the com-pany streets of the tent camp. C-ration cans and crinkled tinfoilfrom cigarette packages made dofor ornaments. Choirs wereformed to sing Christmas carols.Various delegations of SouthKoreans, civilian and military,arrived at the camp with gifts andmusical shows.

On Christmas Day, GeneralSmith was pleased to note thatattendance at church services wasexcellent. Afterward he held openhouse at his Japanese-style housefor officers of sufficient rank—hisspecial staff, general staff, andmore senior unit commanders.First Lieutenant James B. Soper,serving at Sasebo, Japan, had sentthe commanding general’s mess acase of Old Grand-Dad bourbon.Mixed with powered milk, sugar,and Korean eggs it made a passableeggnog.

129

The irrepressible LtCol Olin L. Beall ina photo taken at Camp Pendleton inMay 1951. Beall’s exploits as com-manding officer of the 1st MotorTransport Battalion, which lost noth-ing in his own telling, delightedMajGen Smith, himself a reservedand rather humorless individual.National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A215229

Department of Defense Photo (USA) 426954

More naval shells were shot at Hungnam than at Inchon. Here the battleshipMissouri (BB 63) bangs away with its 16-inch guns. Altogether the Navy fired morethan 162 sixteen-inch, 2,932 eight-inch, and 18,637 five-inch shells plus 1,462five-inch rockets during the period 7 to 24 December.

130

Drysdale’s 41 Commando alsoheld an open house. The Britishembassy in Tokyo had sent over asupply of Scotch whisky andmincemeat pies. Most of the guestswere officers of the 1st and 5thMarines.

On 27 December, for the benefitof his log, General Smith added uphis division’s losses since theInchon landing on 15 September:

On the 28th of December thedivision was placed once againunder the operational control of XCorps, still commanded byAlmond who would soon be pro-moted to lieutenant general. X

Corps was now part of the EighthArmy, which had a new comman-der. General Walker had beenkilled when this jeep collided witha South Korean weapons carriernorth of Seoul on 23 December.Lieutenant General Matthew B.Ridgway, known to the Marines asa fighting paratrooper in WorldWar II, took his place. GeneralSmith met him for the first time ata conference at X Corps headquar-ters on 30 December. Ridgway toldhis listeners that he wanted lesslooking backward toward the MSR,saying that when parachutistslanded their MSR was always cut.Smith, not sure if this was praise orcriticism, was nevertheless cau-tiously impressed by the new com-manding general.

By the first of the year the 1stMarine Division would be ready toreturn to combat. There would benew battles to be fought—andwon.


On Christmas Day, MajGen Smith held open house for his senior officers and imme-diate staff at his Japanese-style quarters in Masan. Not all can be readily iden-tified, but easily recognizable on the General’s right are Cols Puller, McAlister, andBowser. On Smith’s immediate left, with pipe, is BGen Craig. In the middle of thekneeling row is LtCol Beall.

Killed in action 969Died of wounds 163Missing in action 199Wounded in action 5,517

Total 6,848Non-battle casualties 8,900Prisoners of war taken 7,916

Dressed for the occasion of MajGen Smith’s Christmas party, LtCol Murray is wear-ing an Army winter trench coat and Col Puller a brand-new M1943 field jack-et. Both wear the highly prized cuffed Army boots, but O. P. Smith, hisinseparable pipe clutched in his left hand, is wearing, as always, regulation leg-gings with his high-top “boondockers.”


131

What Happened to Them?

CHARLES L.“GUS” BANKS, commander of the 1stService Battalion, received a Navy Cross forhis actions at Hagaru-ri. He retired in 1959

with a promotion to brigadier general in recogni-tion of his combat decorations and died in 1988.

BOEKER C. BATTERTON, commanding officer ofMAG-12, retired in 1958 with a promotion tobrigadier general in recognition of his combatdecorations. He died in 1987.

OLIN L. BEALL, commanding officer of the 1stMotor Transport Battalion, retired as a colonel,with both a Navy Cross and a DistinguishedService Cross for his actions at Chosin Reservoir.He died in 1977.

ALPHA L. BOWSER, JR., the division’s G-3 or oper-ations officer, retired in 1967 as a lieutenant gen-eral and presently lives in Hawaii.

JAMES H. BROWER, commander of the 11thMarines, the artillery regiment, retired as acolonel in 1960 and died in 1984.

J. FRANK COLE, commanding officer of VMF-312,retired as a colonel in 1965 and died in 1969.

HENRY P.“JIM” CROWE, commanding officer of 1stShore Battalion, retired in 1960 as a colonel,became chief of police in Portsmouth, Virginia, anddied in 1991.

RAYMOND G. DAVIS, commander of the 1stBattalion, 7th Marines, went on to command the3d Marine Division in Vietnam and was a four-stargeneral and Assistant Commandant of the MarineCorps before retiring in 1972. He now lives nearAtlanta, Georgia.

FREDERICK R.DOWSETT, the executive officer of the7th Marines, retired as a colonel and died in 1986.

VINCENT J. GOTTSCHALK, commanding officer ofVMO-6, received a Silver Star for his service inKorea. He retired as a colonel in 1968 and died in2000.

FIELD HARRIS, commanding general of the 1stMarine Aircraft Wing, retired in 1953 and wasadvanced to lieutenant general because of hiscombat decorations. He died in 1967 at age 72.

WILLIAM F. HARRIS, commander of the 3dBattalion, 7th Marines, was listed as missing inaction. No trace of him was ever found and he waseventually presumed dead. He received a posthu-mous Navy Cross.

BANKSON T. HOLCOMB, JR., the division’s G-2 orintelligence officer, retired as a brigadier general

in 1959. An expatriate, he lived for many years inInverness, Scotland, where he died in 2000 at theage of 92.

MILTON A. HULL, company commander,Company D, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, twicewounded, received both a Silver Star and NavyCross for his actions. He retired as a colonel in 1969and died in 1984.

ROBERT P. KELLER, commander of the“Blacksheep Squadron” and air liaison officer toFifth Air Force, retired in 1974 as a lieutenantgeneral. He lives in Pensacola, Florida.

RANDOLPH S. D. LOCKWOOD, commander of the 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, was not evacuated afterbeing relieved but continued to move with the 7thMarines. On arrival at Masan he was sent to anArmy hospital for psychiatric observation. TheArmy psychiatrist concluded he had suffered asituational neurosis, which disappeared after theevacuation. Lockwood returned briefly to the 2dBattalion, 7th Marines, but was soon transferred toadministrative duties. He retired as a lieutenantcolonel in 1960 and resides in Texas.

JAMES F. LAWRENCE, JR., who assumed command of2d Battalion, 7th Marines, after Lockwood’s relief,received a Navy Cross for his actions at the reser-voir. After distinguished service as a Marine Corpslawyer, he retired in 1972 as a brigadier general.He lives in northern Virginia.

HOMER L. LITZENBERG, JR., commanding officer ofthe 7th Marines, rapidly ascended in grade tomajor general and as such in 1957 served as thesenior member of the United Nations componentnegotiating the peace talks at Panmunjom. Heretired in 1959, was elevated to lieutenant gener-al because of his combat decorations, and died in1963 at age 68.

FRANCIS M. MCALISTER, the division’s G-4 orlogistics officer, succeeded Puller as the com-mander, 1st Marines, a position he held untilwounded in May 1951. He retired as a major gen-eral in 1960 and died in 1965.

JOHN N. MCLAUGHLIN, survived his captivity andwent on to become a lieutenant general and chiefof staff at Headquarters Marine Corps. He retiredin 1977 and lives in Savannah, Georgia.

RAYMOND L. MURRAY, commander of the 5thMarines, rose to the grade of major general beforeretiring in 1968. He lives in Southern California.

132

REGINALD R. MYERS, Executive Officer, 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, received a Medal of Honorfor his actions on East Hill. He retired as acolonel in 1967 and now lives in Florida.

GEORGE R. NEWTON, commander of the 1stBattalion, 5th Marines, received a Silver Star for hisservice in Korea and retired as a colonel in 1964.He died in 1993.

FRANCIS F. “FOX” PARRY, commander of 3dBattalion, 11th Marines, retired as a colonel in1967. He published his memoir, Three WarMarine, in 1987. He lives in Flourtown,Pennsylvania.

JOHN H. PARTRIDGE, the division engineer, retiredas a colonel in 1965 and died in 1987.

LEWIS B.“CHESTY” PULLER, the 1st Marines’ com-manding officer, was promoted to brigadier gen-eral and became the division’s assistantcommander in February 1951. He received hisfifth Navy Cross for his performance at the ChosinReservoir and rose to the grade of major generalon active service and to lieutenant general on theretired list when he retired in 1955. He died in 1971at the age of 73.

J. ROBERT REINBURG, commander of VMF(N)-513,retired as a colonel in 1978 and died in 1997.

THOMAS L. RIDGE, Commanding Officer, 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, received a Silver Star for hisdefense of Hagaru. He retired as a colonel in1964 and died in 1999.

MAURICE E. ROACH, Litzenberg’s jack-of-all-trades, retired as a colonel in 1962 and died in1988.

DEANE C. ROBERTS, commander of VMR-152,retired as a colonel in 1957 and died in 1985.

HAROLD S. ROISE, commander of 2d Battalion,5th Marines, received two Navy Crosses for hisheroic actions. He retired as a colonel in 1965and died in 1991.

WEBB D.“BUZZ” SAWYER, Litzenberg’s roving bat-talion commander, received two Silver Stars for hisactions at Chosin Reservoir and a Navy Cross forlater heroics during the Chinese spring coun-teroffensive in April 1951. He retired as abrigadier general in 1968 and died in 1995.

HENRY W.“POP” SEELEY, JR., retired as a colonel in1963 with his last years of active duty as a highlyregarded logistics officer. He lives in Florida.

DONALD M. “BUCK” SCHMUCK, CommandingOfficer, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was lateradvanced to executive officer of the regiment. He

retired in 1959 and because of his combat deco-rations was advanced in grade to brigadier general.He lives in Wyoming and Hawaii.

CARL L. SITTER, company commander, CompanyG, 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, recipient of a Medalof Honor, retired as colonel in 1970. He was a long-time resident of Richmond, Virginia, until hisdeath in 2000.

OLIVER P. SMITH, Commanding General, 1stMarine Division, was promoted to lieutenant gen-eral in 1953 and given command of Fleet MarineForce, Atlantic. He retired in 1955 and for hismany combat awards was raised in grade to four-star general. He died on Christmas Day, 1977, athis home in Los Altos Hills, California, at age 81.

EDWARD W. SNEDEKER, the division’s deputy chiefof staff, retired as a lieutenant general in 1963. Inretirement he was known as a world-class stampcollector. He died in 1995.

EDWARD P. STAMFORD, the Marine tactical air con-troller with Task Force Faith, retired as a major in1961 and lives in Southern California.

ALLAN SUTTER, commander of the 2d Battalion, 1stMarines, retired as a colonel in 1964 and died inOrange, Virginia, in 1988.

MAX J. VOLCANSEK, JR., commander of VMF(N)-542, retired in 1956 and was advanced in grade tobrigadier general because of his combat decora-tions. He died in 1995.

HARVEY S.WALSETH, the division’s G-1 or person-nel officer, after recovering from his wounds,returned to the division to serve as deputy chiefof staff and commanding officer, rear echelon. Heretired in 1960 as a colonel and resides in SantaBarbara, California.

ERWIN F. WANN, JR., commander of the 1stAmphibian Tractor Battalion, retired as a colonelin 1965 and died in 1997.

GREGON A.WILLIAMS, the division’s chief of staff,retired as a major general in 1954 and died in1968.

DAVID C. WOLFE, successor to Reinburg asCommanding Officer, VMF(N)-513, served as thehead of the U.S. military mission in theDominican Republic before retiring as a colonel in1965. He died in 1992.

CARL A. YOUNGDALE, who relieved Brower asCommanding Officer, 11th Marines, went on tocommand the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam andretired as a major general in 1972. He died in1993.

About the Author

Edwin Howard Simmons, aretired Marine brigadier gen-

eral, was, as a major, the com-manding officer of WeaponsCompany, 3d Battalion, 1stMarines, throughout the ChosinReservoir campaign. His activeMarine Corps service spanned 30years—1942 to 1972—duringwhich, as he likes to boast, suc-cessively in World War II, Korea,and Vietnam he had command oracting command in combat of every size unit from platoonto division. A writer and historian all his adult life, he wasthe Director of Marine Corps History and Museums from1972 until 1996 and is now the Director Emeritus.

Born in 1921 in Billingsport, New Jersey, the site of aRevolutionary War battle, he received his commission in theMarine Corps in 1942 through the Army ROTC at LehighUniversity. He also holds a master’s degree from Ohio StateUniversity and is a graduate of the National War College. Aone-time managing editor of the Marine Corps Gazette(1945-1949), he has been widely published, including morethan 300 articles and essays. His most recent books are TheUnited States Marine: A History (1998), The Marines (1998),and a Korean War novel, Dog Company Six. He is theauthor of an earlier pamphlet in this series, Over theSeawall: U.S. Marines at Inchon.

He is married, has four grown children, and lives withhis wife, Frances, at their residence, “Dunmarchin,” twomiles up the Potomac from Mount Vernon.

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marinesin the Korean War era, is published for the education and training ofMarines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S.Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as part of the U.S. Department ofDefense observance of the 50th anniversary of that war. Editorial costshave been defrayed in part by contributions from members of theMarine Corps Heritage Foundation. To plan and coordinate the KoreanWar commemorative events and activities of the Sea Services, the Navy,Marine Corps, and Coast Guard have formed the Sea Services KoreanWar Commemoration Committee, chaired by the Director, Navy Staff.For more information about the Sea Services’ commemorative effort,please contact the Navy-Marine Corps Korean War CommemorationCoordinator at (202) 433-4223/3085, FAX 433-7265 (DSN288-7265), E-Mail: [email protected], Website: www.histo-ry.usmc.mil.

KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR, KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Charles R. Smith

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION

W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist

Catherine A. Kerns, Visual Information Specialist

NAVY-MARINE CORPS KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATION

Lieutenant Colonel Ward E. Scott II, USMCR, Coordinator

U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center1254 Charles Morris Street SE

Washington Navy Yard DC 20374-50402002

PCN 190 00041 0000

SourcesThe official history, The Chosin Reservoir

Campaign by Lynn Montross and CaptNicholas A. Canzona, volume three in thefive-volume series U.S. Marine Operationsin Korea, 1950-1953, provided a startingplace for this account. However, in the nearhalf-century since this volume was pub-lished in 1957, there has been a great dealof new scholarship as well as release ofclassified records, particularly with respectto Chinese forces. This pamphlet attemptsto benefit from these later sources.

With respect to Chinese forces, TheDragon Strikes by Maj Patrick C. Roe hasbeen especially useful as have various arti-cles by both Chinese and Western scholarsthat have appeared in academic journals.The Changjin Journal, the electronicnewsletter edited by Col George A. Rasula,USA (Ret), has provided thought-provokingdetail on the role of U.S. Army forces, par-ticularly RCT-31, at the reservoir. The as-yetuncompleted work on the Hungnam evacu-ation by Professor Donald Chisholm hasyielded new insights on that critical culmi-nating event.

Books, some new, some old, that havebeen most useful include—listed alphabeti-cally and not necessarily by worth, which

varies widely—Roy E. Appleman, East ofChosin and South to the Naktong, North tothe Yalu; Clay Blair, The Forgotten War;Malcolm W. Cagle and Frank A. Manson,The Sea War in Korea; T. R. Fehrenbach,This Kind of War; Andrew Geer, The NewBreed; D. M. Giangreco, War in Korea,1950-1953; Richard P. Hallion, The NavalAir War in Korea; Max Hastings, TheKorean War; Robert Leckie, The March toGlory; Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences;Francis Fox Parry, Three War Marine;Russell Spurr, Enter the Dragon; Shelby L.Stanton, America’s Tenth Legion; JohnToland, In Mortal Combat: Korea 1950-1953; Rudy Tomedi, No Bugles, No Drums;and Harry Truman, Memoirs.

The official reports that proved mosthelpful were the Far East Command’sCommand Report, December 1950; the 1stMarine Division’s Historical Diary forNovember 1950; the Commander, TaskForce 90’s Hungnam Redeployment, 9-25December 1950; and the Headquarters, XCorps, Special Report on Chosin Reservoir,17 November to 10 December 1950.

Oral histories, diaries, memoirs (pub-lished and unpublished), and personal cor-respondence were extremely useful, espe-cially those papers originating withGenerals Almond, Bowser, Craig, Litzen-berg, Murray, Shepherd, and Smith.

Resort was made to scores of biographi-cal and subject files held by the ReferenceSection of the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter.

The author also unabashedly put to usehis own recollections of events and recycledmaterials that he had first developed onChosin Reservoir in various essays, articles,and lectures during the past half-century.

As is invariably the case, the author hadthe unstinting and enthusiastic support andcooperation of the staff at the Marine CorpsHistorical Center.

The text has benefited greatly from thecritical reviews by the editorial ladder with-in the Marine Corps Historical Center—Mr.Charles R. “Rich” Smith, Mr. Charles D.Melson, LtCol Jon Hoffman—and externallyby Col Joseph Alexander, Col Thomas G.Ferguson, USA (Ret), BGen James F.Lawrence, Col Allan R. Millett, Mr. J. RobertMoskin, Col George A. Rasula, USA (Ret),and Maj Patrick C. Roe. The author, ofcourse, remains responsible for any defectsremaining in the book.

A fully annotated draft manuscript is ondeposit at the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter. Virtually all of the reference materi-als published and unpublished, used can befound at the Marine Corps Historical Centerin Washington, D.C., or at the Marine CorpsResearch Center at Quantico, Virginia.

about the author · 2011. 7. 10. · about the author e dwin howard simmons, a retired marine...

Documents