U.S. Marines in the Recapture of Seoulby Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret)

ate on the afternoonof 24 September1950, Captain RobertH. Barrow's CompanyA, 1st Battalion, 1st

Marines, secured the military crestof Hill 79 in the southwest corner ofSeoul, the enemy-occupied capitalof the Republic of South Korea.

This momentous day for Barrowand his men began with a nerve-wracking crossing of the Han Riverin open-hatched DUKWs, theubiquitous amphibious trucks ofWorld War II. Debarkation on thenorth shore had been followed byan unorthodox passage of lines"on the fly" of the regiment's leadbattalion and the subsequent high-tempo attack on Hill 79. Now therifle company assumed defensivepositions on the objective, the mengazing in awe at the capital cityarrayed to their north and east,sprawling virtually to the horizon.Thousands of North KoreanPeoples' Army (NKPA) troops laywaiting for them behind barricadesor among coUntless courtyards androoftops. Tens of thousands ofcivilians still clung to life in thebattered city. The Marines were avery long way from the barren

ON THE COVER: Bitter fighting,house-to-house, with every alleyway,every storefront window being adeadly hazard to the Marines recap-turing Seoul. Photo by David DouglasDuncanAT LEFT: Lead elements of a Marinerifle squad pause by a captured NorthKorean barricade in Seoul to assignthe next objective. Photo by DavidDouglas Duncan

beaches of Tarawa or Peleliu.Even smoking Inchon, theiramphibious objective 10 days ear-lier seemed far distant. Seoulwould represent the largest objec-tive the Marines ever assailed.

Earlier that day Colonel Lewis B."Chesty" Puller, commanding the1st Marines, issued a foldedAmerican flag to be raised on theregiment's first objective within thecity limits. Barrow's battalion com-mander gave him the honor as thepoint company in the assault. Thetime was right. Barrow's menattached the national colors to apole and raised them proudly on arooftop on Hill 79. Lfe magazinephotographer David DouglasDuncan, himself a Marine combatveteran, captured the moment onfilm. The photograph provedunremarkable—Hill 79 was noMount Suribachi—but it reflectedan indelible moment in MarineCorps history. Seven weeks earli-er the 1st Marine Division was adivision in name only. This after-noon a rifle company from thathastily reconstituted division hadseized the first hill within occupiedSeoul while all three regimentsconverged inexorably on the capi-tal's rambling perimeter.

Barrow's flag-raising initiativeenraged the neighboring 5thMarines, still slugging its waythrough the last of the bitterlydefended ridges protecting thecity's northwest approaches.Chang Dok Palace, the Republic ofKorea's government center, laywithin the 5th Marines' assignedzone. There, the 5th Marines

1

insisted, should be the rightfulplace for the triumphant flag-rais-ing. Barrow brushed aside thecomplaints. "Putting the flag on abamboo pole over a peasant'shouse on the edge of Seoul doesnot constitute retaking the city," hesaid. Whether premature or ap-propriate, the flag raising on Hill79 was an exuberant boost tomorale at a good time. Chang DokPalace lay just two miles north ofBarrow's current position, hut get-ting there in force would take theMarines three more days ofextremely hard fighting.

By the night of 19 SeptemberMajor General Oliver P. Smith,commanding the 1st MarineDivision, had grounds for caution.

Capt Robert H. Barrow, commandingCompany A, 1st Battalion, 1stMarines, pauses to raise the firstAmerican flag within the city limits ofSeoul on Hill 79.

Photo by David Douglas Duncan

BATTLE OF THE BARRICADES

•Xumhwo

Pohang-dong

Taegu

Hyssanjin

Yudam-nI. ogaru

HuichonKoto-r,

fokchon

Homhung•Hungnam

.WonsonMajon - n i

Despite the impatient insistence onspeed of advance by the X Corpscommander, Major GeneralEdward S. "Ned" AJmond, USA,Smith knew he led a two-regimentdivision against an unknownenemy defending an enormousurban center.

On one hand, the pace of theallied build-up encouraged Smith.

Two new Marine fighter squadronshad commenced flying into KimpoAirfield since the 5th Marines cap-tured it intact on the 18th, and theywould launch their first VoughtF4U Corsair strikes in support ofthe X Corps advance the morningof the 20th. The 32d InfantryRegiment of Major General DavidG. Barr's 7th Infantry Division had

2

MajGen Oliver P Smith, a veteran ofthe Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, andOkinawa campaigns in the PacJicduring World War II, commanded the1st Marine Division throughout theInchon-Seoul-Chosin campaigns.

landed at Inchon and movedrapidly to cover the exposed rightflank of Smith's approach to Seoul,south of Chesty Puller's 1stMarines. The 7th Marines' long,global journey to Inchon wasabout to end. Meanwhile, GeneralAlmond had strengthened Smith'slight division by attaching two bat-talions of the 1st Republic of Korea(ROK) Marine Regiment, green butspirited sea soldiers.

Against these positive develop-ments, 0. P. Smith worried abouthis lack of a significant reserve, theabsence of bridging materialthroughout X Corps, the morning'srequirement to split his division onboth sides of a tidal river, and therealization that the landing forcewould henceforth pass beyond theeffective range of the guns of thefleet. He could also sense thatNorth Korean resistance was stiff-ening and the quality of the oppo-sition was improving. All signspointed to a major clash in theweek ahead.

Intelligence analysts on bothdivision and corps staffs had diffi-

'..iII,IIhII •\h III. IIl,I,,!i lit

Principal Commanders ,1st Marine Division, Seoul

1st Marine Division

Commanding General : Major General Oliver P. Smith

Assistant Division Commander: Brigadier General Edward A . Crai gG-3: Colonel Alpha L. Bowser, Jr .

1st Marine s

Commanding Officer : Colonel Lewis B . Pulle r

1st Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Jack Hawkins

2d Battalion: Lieutenant Colonel Alan Sutte r

3d Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L . Ridge

5th Marines

Commanding Officer : Lieutenant Colonel Raymond L . Murra y

1st Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel George R . Newton

2d Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Harold S . Rois e

3d Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Robert D . Taplet t

7th MarinesCommanding Officer : Colonel Homer L . Litzenherg, Jr.

1st Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. Davis2d Battalion: Lieutenant Colonel Thornton M . Hinkle (Wounded in Action-

Evacuated, September 28)Major Webb D . Sawyer (from September 28)3d Battalion : Major Maurice E . Roach

11th Marine s

Commanding Officer : Colonel James H . Browe r

1st Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Ransom M. Wood

2d Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Merritt Adelman

3d Battalion : Major Francis F. Parry

4th Battalion: Major William McReynolds

Other Division Unit sCommanding Officer, 1st Shore Party Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Henry

P. CroweCommanding Officer, 1st Engineer Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel John H .

PartridgeCommanding Officer, 1st Tank Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Harry T.

MilneCommanding Officer, 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel

Erwin F. Wann, Jr .Commanding Officer, VMO-6 : Major Vincent J . GottschalkCommanding Officer, 1st Service Battalion : Lieutenant Colonel Charles L .

BanksCommanding Officer, 1st Ordnance Battalion : Major Lloyd O . WilliamsCommanding Officer, 1st Motor Transport Battalion : Lieutenant Colone l

Olin I.. . Beal lCommanding Officer, 1st Medical Battalion : Commander H . B . Johnson, Jr. ,

USNCommanding Officer, 1st Signal Battalion : Major Robert L . Schreier

Commanding Officer, Reconnaissance Company : Captain Kenneth J .

Houghton

culty defining an enemy order ofbattle after the Inchon landin gbecause of the chaos the landin gcreated in the headquarters of th eNKPA in Pyongyang, the North

Korean capital . Ignoring dozens oftelltale indicators, the NKPAseemed astonished that theCommander in Chief, Far East ,General of the Army Dougla s

MacArthur, could have landed suc ha large force amid Inchon's narrowchannels and formidable mudflats .

The Marines' quick seizure of theport, Ascom City, and Kimpo

Airfield further disoriented the

North Koreans .By the night of the 19th-20th,

however, the North Korean hig h

command finally had major troop

units on the move to defend the

South Korean capital . They turne d

around the untested 18th NKPA

Division, bound from Seoul to thePusan Perimeter, and recalled . a

veteran regiment of the 9th NKPA

Division from the southwest cor-ner of the Naktong River . Most ofthese troops would defend the

industrial suburb of Yongdungpo ,directly south of the Han from cen-tral Seoul, against the 1st Marines .

On 20 September, whileLieutenant Colonel Raymond L .Murray led his 5th Marines acrossthe Han River, two significan tenemy units reached Seoul fro massembly areas in North Korea t oman the northwest defense sagainst this new American threa t

above the Han. From Sariwon

came Colonel Pak Han Lin at the

head of his 78th Independen t

Infantry Regiment, some 1,500-

2,000 untested troops in threeinfantry battalions . From nearbyChorwon came Colonel Wol Ki

Chan's 25th NKPA Brigade, morethan 4,000 strong . Colonel Wo lhad received "postgraduate" tacti-cal training in the Soviet Union andhad trained his green troops well .His newly formed brigade con -

3

'1'vo Rough Roads To Sioiih

tamed an unusual concentration ofcrew-served weapons, includingfour heavy weapons battalionsproviding a proliferation of anti-tank and antiaircraft guns, plusheavy machine guns. Wol led thetwo units west of town to preparelast-ditch defenses along the samejumbled ridges where the Japanesehad formerly conducted infantry-training exercises. General Smith'sintuition had been correct. HisNorth Korean enemy would short-ly change from delaying tactics tohard-nosed, stand-and-deliver de-fense to the death.

Few things could fazeLieutenant Colonel Murray, the 5thMarines' commander, after hismonth-long experience as theEighth Army's "Fire Brigade" in thePusan Perimeter, but preparing hisveteran regiment for an opposedcrossing of the Han River on 20September proved a daunting task.To begin with, Murray found his

LtCol Raymond L. Murray, a tallTexan who had earned a Silver Staron Guadalcanal, a second Silver Staron Tawara, and a Navy Cross onSaipan, commanded the 5th Marines.Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A5850

command post crowded with high-ranking observers and correspon-dents. Each wondered howMurray would execute a crossingof such a broad river withoutheavy bridging material; all offeredfree advice. Murray abided thesekibitzers for awhile, then cast themout.

A second situation proved moretroublesome. While Murray feltconfident the 2d AmphibianTractor Battalion could shuttle hisriflemen across in their trackedlanding vehicles (LVTs then, AAVsnow), and while he was reason-ably sure Lieutenant Colonel JohnH. Partridge, the division engineer,could ferry his attached tanksacross by using 50-foot pontoon

4

sections, he still knew nothing ofthe river—its current, shorelinegradients, exit points. Nor didMurray know anything of theenemy's strength and capabilitiesin the vicinity of the abandonedferry site at Haengju. Mile-longHill 125 on the north bank domi-nated the crossing. Six years earli-er Murray had led his 2d Battalion,6th Marines, ashore at Saipanunder direct fire from Japaneseguns occupying the coastal hills,and he had no intention of repeat-ing that experience here.

Murray asked General Smith toassign Captain Kenneth R.

Houghton's division Reconnais-sance Company to the crossingoperation. Murray wanted an

North Korean Order Of Battle:Seoul/Wonsan Campaign

Defending the Northwest Approaches (Hill 296 Complex and beyond):

25th Brigade: Colonel Wol Ki Chan78th Independent Infantry Regiment: Colonel Pak Han LinSeoul City Regiment

Defending Yongdungpo:

Elements of 3d Regiment, 9th DivisionElements of 18th and 87th Divisions

Defending Seoul:

Surviving components of the above forces17th Rfle Division43d Tank Regiment19th Antiaircraft Regiment513th Artillery Regiment10th Railroad Regiment

Defending Uijongbu:

31st Regiment, 31st Division75th Independent Regiment

Opposing 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, at Kojo:

10th Regiment, 5th Division: Colonel Cho Ii Kwon

Opposing 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, at Majon-ni:

Elements of 15th Division: Major General Pak Sun Chol

KimpoPeninsula

INCHON & SEOULSeptember 1950 Uijangbu

0 2.5 5

Miles

YELLOWSEA

Hill

KimpoAirfield

INC HON

Yongdungpo

C -ll kadvance party of reconnaissanceMarines to swim the Han after darkon 19 September, stealthily deter-mine any enemy presence, andthen signal the remainder of thecompany to cross in LVTs. Murraythen expected the company to

man a defensive perimeter tocover the predawn crossing ofLieutenant Colonel Robert D.Taplett's 3d Battalion, 5th Marines.

Taplett considered the plan tooambitious. The ReconnaissanceCompany had the heart, he

believed, hut not the numbers (127strong) to cover the sprawling highground along the river. No oneknew anything in advance aboutthe possibility of enemy presencein strength along the far bank.Taplett quietly ordered his staff todraw up contingency plans for thecrossing.

The North Koreans had notignored the former ferry site.Aware that the Marines would like-ly cross the Han soon, the NKPAdeployed an infantry battalion inthe underbrush along Hill 125.Their camouflage disciplineproved excellent. The Marines didnot detect their presence through-out the afternoon and evening ofthe 19th.

After dark, Captain Houghtonled 14 swimmers across the 400-yard-wide river. An ill-timedartillery mission set fire to a housein Haengju village, exposing the

Marine Coips amphibian tractors and DUKWs ferry troops across the Han River cifter the assault waves.Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Press

5

-

experience, he later recounted ."Amphibian tractors were hardl ystealthy vehicles," Shutler recalled ."We received enemy fire as soon asthe vehicles entered the water.You could hear machine gunrounds plinking against thearmored cab . Mortar rounds, pos-sibly from our own `four-deuce 'tubes, were exploding in the river. "

In the chaos some LVTs becam estuck in the mud near the farshore, others veered away .Captain Houghton sprang into theriver to rally the vehicles towar dthe landing site. Mortar roundslanded in the water near him ; theconcussion from one near mis sknocked him out.

men in their final approach to the tight spots . He had spent the Lieutenant Shutler could see

north bank. Technical Sergeant month of August making night none of this from the crowde d

Ernest L. Defazio complained the raids from USS Horace A . Bass troop compartment of his lurchin g

blaze "lit up the place like a (API) 124) in the Sea of Japan LVT . He scrambled topside, di s

Christmas tree," but nothing against the North Korean coastline, covered to his horror that the vehi -

stirred. Houghton dispatched four his

Marines

teamed

with cle had turned upstream, broad

men to check for signs of the Underwater Demolition Team 1 . side to the NKPA gunners on Hil l

enemy on Hill 125, then sent an Crossing the Han was a dissimilar 125 .

He whacked the driver,

exultant but premature message toAn LVT-3C of theist Amphibian Tractor Battalion takes offfrom the south ban k

Murray: "The Marines have landed of the Han with a load of American and Korean Marines, while Marine engi-and the situation is well in hand ." veers prepare a pontoon bridge to carry equipment.Houghton also radioed his execu-

Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Pres s

tive officer to launch the balanc eof the comnanv in its nine IVTs .

So far, so good . But few soundsattract more attention on a quie tnight than the sudden revving u pof nine pairs of Cadillac V-8Amtrac engines . The noiseseemed enough to wake the dead ,and abruptly the NKPA battalionon Hill 125 opened a vicious fireagainst the approaching LVTs andHoughton's small group, now dan-gerously backlit by the burningbuilding .

Second Lieutenant Philip D .Shutler commanded the secondplatoon of the ReconnaissanceCompany, his men dividedbetween two LVTs that nosed intothe river in column. Young as hewas, Shutter had already been in

jumped into the waist-deep water,and attempted to guide the vehicledirectly ashore. He saw no sign ofthe advance swimmers.

At this point someone passedthe word to abort the mission andreturn to the south bank. FiveLVTs returned, leaving four stuckin the mud along the far shore.One of these contained CaptainHoughton's unconscious body.Other Marines were missing.Shutler found one of his troopshad died of wounds in the con-fused melee. The crossing hadfailed.

When Technical Sergeant ErnieDeFazio discovered his captainmissing he promptly led a swim-mer team back across the river.They rescued Houghton and hisradio operator, retrieved two of thestuck vehicles and restored morethan a bit of the company's honor.

But the night was nearly spent,the enemy occupied the crossingsite in considerable strength, andevery VIP in the theater—includingGeneral Douglas MacArthur—hadannounced their intentions ofobserving the morning crossing.As assistant division commander,Brigadier General Edward A. Craigfrankly observed: "The eyes of theworld were upon us. It wouldhave looked bad for the Marines,of all people, to reach a river andnot be able to cross."

The 5th Marines calmly decidedto approach the crossing as anamphibious assault mission—tight-ly coordinated preliminary fires onthe objective, an intermediate andfinal objective assigned, and troopsorganized into boat teams config-ured to each LVT. Taplett's 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, would leadthe landing in assault waves, fol-lowed by Lieutenant ColonelHarold S. Roise's 2d Battalion, 5thMarines, to expand the beachhead;the entire regiment with itsattached tank company to cross

before dark. Marine Corsairswould arrive soon after sunrise topound Hill 125 and scorch theSeoul-Kaesong highway to dis-courage any NKPA reinforcements.

Only a veteran force like the 5thMarines could have made suchlast-minute adaptations and passedthe word to all hands in theremaining minutes before dawn.Taplett's original skepticism aboutthe Reconnaissance Company'sability to hold an opposed bridge-head had served 3d Battalion, 5thMarines well; the battalion hadalready prepared worst-case alter-native plans. By the time GeneralAlmond, Vice Admiral Arthur D.Struble, USN (Commander,Seventh Fleet), and LieutenantGeneral Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.,USMC (Commanding Genera!,Fleet Marine Force, Pacific) arrivedthey found Lieutenant ColonelMurray as unflappable as ever andthe crossing we!l underway.Lieutenant Colonel Ransom M.Wood's 1st Battalion, 11th Marines,pounded the far bank with 105mmhowitzers; Murray's own 81mmand 4.2-inch mortars joined thechorus. Taplett's first wave of sixLVTs chugged resolutely on linetowards the far bank.

At this point the NKPA battalionon Hill 125 opened a disciplinedfire on the LVTs, scoring more than200 hits on the vehicles .as theytrundled ashore. Fortunately theirone antitank gun proved less accu-rate than their small arms fire.Taplett pressed on. His LVTs dis-charged Captain Robert A.McMullen's Company I, thenpulled away for the return transit.McMullen quickly deployed hisplatoons up the open slopes of Hill125 in a double envelopment. Thefighting became point-blank anddeadly.

With most NKPA gunners nowtaking aim at McMullen's Marines,the remaining companies of 3d

7

Battalion, 5th Marines, crossed theriver with relative ease. CorporalLarry V. Brom, a Company Hsquad leader, worried more aboutthe claustrophobia his men experi-enced in their LVT's cramped troopcompartment than "the occasionalsplat of bullets against the armorplate." Company H's LVTs lurchedout of the river and continuedrolling north, crossing the railroadand highway to secure distant Hill51. Corporal Brom led his men ina mad dash up the rise as soon asthe rear ramp dropped, vastlyrelieved to discover the crest unde-fended.

By contrast, Company I had itshands full taking Hill 125. Thelower approaches contained scantcover. Well-sited NKPA gunnersscythed down Captain McMullen'sexposed 60mm mortar section andtwo sections of light machine guns.

The situation improved dramati-cally with the appearance over-head of four Corsairs fromLieutenant Colonel Walter E.

Lischeid's Marine Fighter Squadron214 (VMF-214). The Black Sheeppilots launched at 0551 from theescort carrier USS Sicily (C\JE 118)in the Yellow Sea, southwest ofInchon, arriving over the river justin time to even the odds againstCompany I's arduous assault witha series of ear-splitting rocket andnapalm attacks against the NorthKoreans defending the highground. McMullen spurred hismen forward, upward amid thebedlam. Their difficult doubleenvelopment converged on thecrest, culminating in a vicious flur-ry of hand-to-hand combat. Anabrupt silence followed, brokenonly by the Marines gasping forbreath.

Taking Hill 125 cost Company I43 casualties; it inflicted at least200 upon the enemy. It had beena beautifully executed tacticalassault, highlighted by the high-

speed, low-level strikes of theCorsairs. General Almond, observ-ing this conflict from barely 500yards away, admitted it was "oneof the finest small-unit actions I'veever witnessed."

The forcible taking of Hill 125meant the remainder of the 5thMarines could cross the river unim-peded. By the time GeneralMacArthur arrived the crossingseemed routine. "You've done aperfect job," he told LieutenantColonel Murray, unaware of theall-night flail that preceded theperfection. Murray by then had hiseye on the main objective, and hepointed upstream to the convolut-ed ridges that protected theapproaches to Seoul from thenorthwest, the regiment1 route ofadvance. "They'll all evaporatevery shortly," MacArthur assuredMurray.

At a glance from long distance itseemed that the Supreme AlliedCommander might have beenright. Only eight miles separatedHill 125 at the Haengju crossingsite from downtown Seoul.Murray's advance elements cov-ered half that distance on the after-noon of the 20th, raising false

hopes. Then NKPA resistance stiff-ened abruptly. It would take the5th Marines a full week of desper-ate fighting to advance the finalfour miles into Seoul.

The 20th of September alsobegan very early for Chesty Puller's1st Marines on their final approachto Yongdungpo. The 87th NKPARegiment launched two predawnspoiling attacks against bothflanks. The southern attack, led byfive T-34 tanks, posed the greatestthreat. The veteran NKPA troopsendeavored to repeat their high-speed, straight-down-the-highwayarmored tactics that had provenwildly successful in the initial inva-sion, but their tanks had now losttheir invulnerability. The armoredcolumn barreled blindly into a

lethal L-shaped ambush set byLieutenant Colonel Alan Sutter's 2dBattalion, 1st Marines. Short-rangefire from Marine 3.5-inch bazookasknocked out the first two enemytanks; a storm of direct and indi-rect fire cut down the supportinginfantry, killing 300 men. The sur-viving North Koreans withdrew totheir prepared defenses withinYongdungpo.

Puller pressed the advance, his

8

2d Battalion still astride theInchon-Seoul highway, the 1stBattalion attacking through thehilly countryside below the Han.Sutter's lop-sided success inthwarting the NKPA tank attackpleased Puller, but the initial viewof sprawling Yongdungpo from hisobservation post brought forthPuller's trademark scowl. Theprospect of forcing a crossing ofthe high-banked Kalchon Canal,then fighting door-to-door throughthis large industrial suburb did notappeal to the veteran jungle fight-er. When General Almond ap-peared from observing Murray'sriver crossing, Puller asked him forauthorization to employ unrestrict-ed firepower in taking the city.

The corps commander agreed.Puller unleashed two battalions ofsupporting artillery (LieutenantColonel Merritt Adelman's 2dBattalion, 11th Marines, in directsupport, and Major WilliamMcReynolds' 4th Battalion, 11thMarines, in general support) plusair strikes by Marine Corsairs. TheSicily-based Black Sheep followedtheir early-morning assistance tothe 5th Marines with two dozensorties against Yongdungpo, drop-ping 500-pound bombs and straf-ing with 20mm cannon and rock-ets. The city began to burn.

The 1st Marines commenced itsmain assault on Yongdungpo at0630 the next morning. NeitherSutter's 2d Battalion or LieutenantColonel Jack Hawkins' 1stBattalion could sustain much head-way. Crossing the Kalchon waslike crossing a medieval castlemoat; clambering over the dikeswas akin to "going over the top" inthe trenches of World War I.

Sutter's outfit in particular tookheavy casualties. The division'sSpecial Action Report recorded theloss of 17 officers and 200 men bythe 2d Battalion along the canal-like river by 21 September.

Department of Defense Photo (USMc) A409336

Advancing Marines examine the smoking ruin of a North Korean T-34 tankrecently destroyed in an ambush.

Puller committed elements ofLieutenant Colonel Thomas L.

Ridge's 3d Battalion in the center,but a half dozen NKPA Maximheavy machine guns took a grimtoll of every attempt to cross thewater gate sector of the Kalchon.

Ridge ordered Major Edwin H.Simmons, his Weapons Companycommander, to suppress the fire.With his 81mm mortars temporari-

artillery support immediately avail-able, Simmons chose his BrowningM1917A1 watercooled .30-caliberheavy machine guns for the mis-sion. Proven veterans of the WorldWar, the heavy Brownings wereunsurpassed in providing rock-steady, sustained fire at a rate of450-600 rounds per minute.Simmons massed these weaponswith their barrels "just clearing thetop of the dike." A fierce duel

ensued—"heavies against heav-ies"—at an interval no greater thanhalf a football field. The exchangewas deafening, but Simmons' stur-dy Brownings prevailed, allowing3d Battalion, 1st Marines, to crossthe Kalchon intact.

The Kalchon proved a barrier tothe entire regiment on 21September—with one memorableexception. While the battle ragedon both sides—and shortly beforeMajor Simmons' machine gunduel—Captain Robert H. Barrow,the future 27th Commandant, ledhis Company A, 1st Marines,through a rice field towards anuncommonly quiet sector of theYongdungpo defenses. The NorthKoreans may have vacated thissector in order to more effectivelycontest the adjacent water gatefronting the 3d Battalion, an obvi-ous crossing site. Barrow, howev-er, expected to be hit at anymoment. Simmons watched ap-provingly as Company A, 1stMarines, advanced past his imme-diate left flank, each platoon online. "They were beautifullydeployed," said Simmons. "Asthey came through the dry ricepaddy I thought of the Marinescoming through the wheat fields atBelleau Wood in 1918."

Private First Class MorganBrainard of Barrow's company,though apprehensive about thespooky quiet, experienced similarthoughts as he crossed through thewaist-high rice stalks. As he laterdescribed the advance:

9

Somewhere off to our left,beyond the road and out ofsight, beyond a line of treeswe could hear the rattle ofrifle and machine gun firewhere Baker Company wasgoing in. . . . To our immedi-ate front, however, there wasnothing but silence, as wecontinued to move forward

ly out of ammunition and no

through the field in perfectorder. It was a classic-typeinfantry advance . . . but mymind kept racing back towardthe stories I had read as a boyof the Marines attackingthrough the wheat fields of

Be!!eau Wood . . . and I ex-pected our peaceful scenewould be shattered in a simi-lar manner at any moment.

Captain Barrow acknowledgedhis serendipity. "We just happened

to experience one of those rarefortunes of war . . . a momentaryopportunity."

"We passed over the top of thedike quickly, slithered down theother side," recalled Brainard,"then inexplicably and stupidlystopped facing a stream [theKalchon]. I mean the whole linestopped." The company gunnerysergeant quickly ended their hesi-tation: "Get in that goddamnedwater!"

Company A found itself enteringthe main street of Yongdungpototally unopposed. "It was eerie,"said Barrow. "We simply slitheredinto town undetected."

The 87th NKPA Regiment, des-perately attempting to patchtogether a defense in depth, hadaccidentally left this criticalapproach unguarded, and Barrowtook full advantage of the opening.His 200-man company flowedrapidly into the heart of the city,sweeping up surprised bands of

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A3200

A column of M-26 Pershings and a bulldozer-configured M-4 Sherman advancetowards Yongdungpo. The threat comes from the right flank, and firing hasalready been vigorous, judging from the spent 90mm shell casings alongside theroad.

10

Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC348715

Elements of the 5th Marines advance through a burning village after crossing the Han River. Z3e days of high mobility ended as the Marines reached the enemy main line of resistance in the high ridges on the outskirts of Seoul.

The enemy tanks may have been more successful had infantry accompanied them, but the NKPA riflemen did not appear until 0100. Four separate ground assaults fol- lowed, each beaten back by disci- plined fire. "I expected to have a lot of promiscuous firing," said Barrow, but "my people didn't lose their fire discipline and go bananas and shoot randomly."

The enemy assembly area was so close to the Marines' defensive position that they could hear the voice of the local commander, unmistakably haranguing his troops into launching another attack. Corporal Billy D. Webb, an Oklahoma reservist "with fire in his eye," decided to even the odds. Slipping out of his foxhole-"for God's sake don't shoot me when I come back!"-Webb dashed through the adjoining maze of buildings, spotted an extremely animated officer trying to rally his troops for yet another attack, took careful aim, and shot him dead. Webb escaped in the resultant con- fusion, and the night assaults

ceased before the Marines ran out of ammunition.

At dawn, Barrow counted 210 dead North Koreans around his beleaguered dike. "Yongdungpo did for A Company," said Barrow, "what no other thing could have done in terms of unifying it and giving it its own spirit, a spirit that said 'We can do anything."'

If Barrow's company had "slith- ered" into Yongdungpo on the 21st, it was now the turn of the 87th NKPA Regiment, having failed to oust the Marines throughout the night, to slither out of town the next morning. Barrow had skinned the cat, helping Puller capture a very difficult intermedi- ate objective in two days of fight- ing. The road to Seoul for the 1st Marines now lay open, once the 5th Marines could advance east- ward enough to cover their tactical crossing of the Han.

Back at Inchon, now well to the west of Puller's regiment at Yongdungpo, the offloading of fresh troops and combat cargo continued around the clock. By

D+6, 21 September, 50,000 troops had landed, including Colonel Homer L. Litzenberg, Jr.'s 7th Marines, supported by Lieutenant Colonel Francis F. Parry's 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, a 105mm howitzer outfit.

The 7th Marines initially assumed security duties in the Inchon vicinity. General 0. P. Smith critically needed them for the recapture of Seoul, but the newly formed outfit first required a day or two to shake itself down from the long deployment by sea. This did not take long. Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. Davis' 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, for exam- ple, had conducted field firing from the fantail of their attack transport each day enroute. "We fired machine guns, rifles, mortars, and bullets, rocket launchers, and threw hand grenades at every piece of trash, orange crates, or whatever the ship's crew would toss overboard for us," said Davis. Within 48 hours the regiment moved out tactically, crossed the Han River, and began its own path towards Seoul's northern suburbs, somewhat northwest of the route of the 5th Marines. On the third day Parry's gunners fired their first rounds down range.

By the fortunes of war, the 5th Marines would pay the stiffest price of admission to enter Seoul. General MacArthur's beguiling assurance to Lieutenant Colonel Murray that the hills guarding the northwestern approaches to the capital "would all evaporate" proved famously false. The regi- ment would suffer a casualty rate more reflective of its recent history at Peleliu and Okinawa than the Korean peninsula.

Part of the difficulty came from the convoluted terrain, a sprawling series of hill masses, ridges, and draws extending from the Kaesong-Seoul highway in the

north to the Han River in thesouth. "As an exercise in mapreading," observed Marine histori-an Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr.,"this ground is confusing anddeceptive; for the tactician, it is anightmare." Massive Hill 296 dom-inated the landscape; indeed,many of the other numbered peaksand knobs were in reality onlyprotuberances of the hill's bonyfingers extending to the Han andeastward into downtown Seoulitself. Confusingly, there werethree Hill 105s in this complex (justas there had been three Hill 362s atIwo Jima). Regimental plannersnicknamed them for their linearsequence—Hills 105 North, Center,and South. All three would proveprickly objectives to seize andhold.

The North Koreans found thejumbled terrain around the Hill 296complex to be ideal defensive

ground. The fact that the Japanesehad long used the same ridges fortactical training meant the preexist-ing availability of firing positions,command posts, and observationsites. Colonel Wol Ki Chanreached this preferred ground withhis 25th NKPA Brigade andColonel Pak Han Lin's 78thIndependent Infantry Regiment justin time. Had the North Koreansbeen held up one more day pass-ing through Seoul, the Marinesmight have seized Hill 296 and allof its deadly fingers with hardly afight.

Colonels Wol and Pak deployedat least 6,000 troops into the hillcomplex. While yet to be tested inbattle, the combined force wasboth well-led and well-trained.Wol's brigade also contained anabundance of heavy weaponsunits. Their crews spent the 20thand 21st digging in their weapons

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and registering their fire along theMarines' likely avenues ofapproach. Additional troops inodd-lot specialty organizationsreinforced Wol during the battle forthe hills, increasing his total forceto nearly 10,000 men. The 5thMarines, even reinforced by theirattachments and the ROK Marinebattalion, could not match thosenumbers.

The 5th Marines had foughtagainst highly experienced NKPAregiments in the Pusan Perimeter,units whose officers and non-com-missioned officers had years ofcombat experience in China. TheNorth Koreans they now facedlacked that background but madeup for it with tenacity and fire-power, including well-served high-velocity 76mm guns and 120mmheavy mortars. "Their mortar firewas very accurate," said veterancompany commander Captain

Francis I. "Ike" Fenton, Jr. "Theycould really drop it in your lap."

Lieutenant Colonel RaymondMurray began the 22d ofSeptember with three of his fourbattalions on line: Taplett's 3dBattalion on the left, facing themain crest of Hill 296; Major Ko's1st ROK Marine Battalion in thecenter, facing an exposed slopetowards its objective, Hill 56; andLieutenant Colonel George R.

Newton's 1st Battalion on the right,aimed towards Hill 105-South.Lieutenant Colonel Harold S.

Roise's 2d Battalion remained inreserve.

The battle for the hills got off toa bad start for Murray. During thenight a North Korean shell explod-ed in his command post, causingmany casualties. Murray survived

its.

with a small cut, but LieutenantColonel Lawrence C. Hays, hisexecutive officer and fellowTarawa veteran (1st Battalion, 8thMarines commanding officer atRed Beach Two), was badly hitand required emergency evacua-tion.

Murray nevertheless kicked offhis regimental attack at 0700 onthe 22d as planned. Taplett's 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, clawed itsway steadily towards the steepcrest of Hill 296, shaking off plung-ing fire from Communist positionsnorth of the Kaesong Highway (the7th Marines would not drawabreast to clear these positionsalong the left flank for anotherthree days). Taplett's Marinesmaintained a steady rate ofadvance, the most promising of the

14

week, halting only to resist compa-ny-sized counterattacks that boiledout of the draws and defiles alongthe shoulders of the hill mass.

Company H, 5th Marines,reached the hill's geographic crestby the end of the day. CorporalLarry Brom's platoon commanderdirected him to deploy his squadin a defensive sector along a groveof pine trees, and Brom supervisedhis men as they dug night posi-tions and selected interlockingfields of fire. Satisfied with theirpreparations, he took off his packand unfolded his e-tool (entrench-ing tool) to dig his own hole forthe night. The squad had beenuncommonly fortunate, Bromreflected, having lost only one manto enemy fire throughout the fight-ing along the Naktong, at Wolmi-

Capt Francis I. "Ike" Fenton, Jr., commanding Company B,1st Battalion, 5th Marines, experienced unremitting fire

Photo by David Douglas Duncan

taking and holding Hill 105-South just outside the city urn-

do Island, and the advance east ofInchon. Here on Hill 296 theirluck abruptly soured. A NorthKorean sniper shot Brom throughthe foot just after he knelt tounsling his pack. More firesprayed the ridge crest. A gray-headed Korean "papa-san" scur-ried to Brom's side, scooped himup, and carried him piggybackdown the reverse slope underintermittent fire to the battalion aidstation. Brom gave him a freshpack of cigarettes, all he possessedat the time. The old man bowed ingratitude, then returned back upthe hill. For Corporal Brom, a two-year veteran of the 5th Marines, thewar was over.

The incident of a Marine squadleader being picked off from longrange at dusk by a North Koreansniper signified two developments.The NKPA had deployed front-linetroops west of Seoul. Secondly,although the Marines had seizedthe crest of Hill 296, the NorthKoreans occupied defenses indepth throughout its massive fin-gers descending to the east andsouth.

The situation south of 3dBattalion, 5th Marines' advancevalidated these serious develop-ments. On the 22d, the KoreanMarine battalion encountered afurious fire from masked guns inevery adjoining declivity each timeit mounted an attack. Its objectivewas deceptive. Captain Fenton,operating on the Koreans' rightflank, described Hill 56 as "a veryinsignificant looking low ridge thatextended from 296 to 105-South."But the Koreans were advancingfrom low ground, through ricefields, exposed every step of theway to unrelenting artillery andmortar fire.

Murray directed LieutenantColonel Ransom M. Wood's sup-porting 1st Battalion, 11th Marines,to give the Koreans priority of

fires. He also asked General Smithfor more air support. This wasforthcoming—the 1st Marines weremopping up Yongdungpo and the7th Marines were not yet engaged.Major Arnold A. Lund led hisDeath Rattlers of VMF-323 off theescort carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE116), which the aviators lovinglynicknamed "The Bing-Ding," in 42sorties in support of the 5thMarines, the heaviest operationalrate since D-Day at Inchon.Lieutenant Colonel Norman J.Anderson, the airborne tactical aircontroller for Marine AircraftGroup 33 (MAG-33), directed thestrikes, then led one himself, aspectacular direct hit on Hill 72 (bynow "Nellie's Tit" to the 5thMarines) that knocked out one ofColonel Wol's few tanks.Additional air strikes came fromthe newly arrived, Kimpo-basedLancers of VMF-212, commandedby Lieutenant Colonel Richard W.Wyczawski and Lieutenant ColonelMax J. Volcansek, Jr.'s night-fight-ing Tigers of VMF(N)-542.

This was spectacular close airsupport—unerringly directed anddelivered—and many NorthKoreans met their deaths from theskies, but their withering crossfirenever ceased. The Korean Marineswere literally stopped in theirtracks. The advance of Newton's1st Battalion, 5th Marines, on theright flank fared better, but only inrelative terms. Attacking across2,000 yards of open terrain costCompanies A and C dearly. TheMarines found that one particularlydeadly NKPA outpost contained aU.S. Browning .50-caliber heavymachine gun, captured during thefirst week of the war. Company Alost its last two officer platooncommanders in the assault. Thecost was endemic with the 5thMarines. Seventeen of the regi-ment's original 18 platoon com-manders had been killed or

15

wounded in the first 50 days ofcombat in Korea, along with five ofthe six company commanders.Experienced non-commissionedofficers took command of the pla-toons in Company A and contin-ued the attack on Hill 105-South.

Captain "Ike" Fenton ledCompany B through Company Alate in the day, then, leaning into afurious barrage from 1st Battalion,11th Marines, joined Company C'sdash for the crest of 105-South. Itwas a hollow victory. The battal-ion had suffered more than 40casualties, and the enemy hadmysteriously disappeared—"therewere no bodies, not even any car-tridge cases lying around," report-ed Fenton. Only later would theMarines discover the existence of alarge cave on the hill's reverseslope, now a sanctuary for the for-mer defenders, living and dead. Inthe meantime, punishing fire fromthe hills to the northeast began torake the Marines exposed on thecrest. As Heinl described Hill 105-South:

[The hill] was no vacationspot. Before the sun set,enemy heavy machine gunsbegan to scythe back andforth over the hilltop, whileantitank guns, accurate as asniper's rifle and a lot dead-lier, flash-banged in withhigh-velocity rounds that leftno time for a man to duck.

This was an unwelcome devel-opment to Fenton, who had lostonly one killed and six woundedin his assault on the hill. Now,despite digging new foxholesalong the military crest, his menwould suffer stiff casualties fromtheir hostile neighbors. "We werepinned down by (lay and counter-attacked by night," he said. Tomake matters worse, the KoreanMarines' lack of progress left 1st

Marine Close Air Supportin the Recapture Of Seoul

believe the modern Marine Air-Ground Team'truly takes its departure from the crucible of theKorean War," reflected retired Lieutenant

General Robert P. Keller, USMC. in a recent interview.Keller took command of the VMF-214 Black Sheep afterNorth Korean antiaircraft gunners shot down LieutenantColonel Walter E. Lischeid over Seoul on 25 September1950. Comparing this experience with his World War IIservice as a fighter pilot and squadron commander inthe northern Solomons, Keller pointed to the emergenceof close air support in the Korean 'ti—'by Marines, forMarines"—as the principal difference. While groundMarines had enjoyed Marine air support at Peleliu, IwoJima, and Okinawa, it was never delivered more close-ly, nor more responsively than that provided by the F4-U Corsairs of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing throughoutthe final four months of 1950, from the Pusan Perimeterthrough Inchon-Seoul to the Chosin Reservoir.

Major General Norman J. Anderson credited the suc-cess of this air support coordination to the hard workperformed by Marine air and ground officers in the shortinterwar period. "The Marine Corps, having learnedvaluable lessons late in World War II, went to extremesin the late lOs to school its air and ground officerstogether and to structure its deployments as air-groundteams under a single command," he said. "This new

structure served us well, then and ever since, beginningwith the air-ground composition of the 1st ProvisionalMarine Brigade.

Of the four Marine fighter squadrons and two nightfighter squadrons supporting the 1st Marine Divisionduring the 33-day period from 7 September to 9October, the Death Rattlers of VMF-323, commanded byMajor Arnold A. Lund, saw more days in action and flewthe most combat sorties (784, according to the officialMarine Corps history of the Seoul campaign). Therecord comes with a bittersweet irony. The squadronhad been in the process of a mandated deactivationwhen the war erupted, its pilots reassigned, its planestransferred for preservation. Saved at the last momentfrom the draconian cutbacks of the TrumanAdministration, the Death Rattlers reassembled in recordtime. During the Seoul campaign they launched fromthe escort carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE 116) in the Sea ofJapan on missions ranging from reconnaissance to pro-paganda leaflet drops, but their most frequent missionby an order of magnitude was close air support.

The Black Sheep pilots of \\IF-2 14 flew off the escortcarrier Sicily (CVE 118), commanded by the legendarynaval aviator Captain John S. Thach, ITSN. a World WarII ace who in 1941 invented the "Thach Weave" tocounter the Japanese Zero's technical superiority over

ió

Photo cowtesy of Ltcol Leo J. lhIi, USMC (Ret)

the FiF Wildcats. Thach became an enthusiastic advo-cate of Marine close air support. It's like havingartillery right over your shoulderl" he said, During theSeoul Campaign, Thach would often leave the bridge toattend the Black Sheep post-mission debriefings. 'Theytook their work seriously. They really were the top prosin the business, I think, in the whole world. I hadtremendous admiration for them."

So did the commanding general of the 1st MarineDivision. "The effectiveness of the Marine air-groundteam and close air support doctrine were reaffirmedwith outstanding success,," wrote Major General Oliver RSmith after the liberation of Seoul.

For the troops on the ground, struggling to prevailagainst a well-armed enemy they could rarely see in theopen, the firepower delivered by their fellow Marinesoverhead seemed awesome. Lieutenant Joseph R.

Owen, the mortar platoon commander in Company B,1st Battalion, 7th Marines, described his first experiencewith a close air strike during the battalions battle for aridge south of Uijongbu:

The first of the gull-winged, dark blue Corsairspeeled from the circle and dove at the whitesmoke. Red tracers from its guns poured from theforward edges of the wings. The plane leveled offonly yards above the ridgeline. We could see thepilot in the cockpit and the big, white MarineCorps emblem on the fuselage. . . Then the Inextiplane came in, this one dropping a pod of napalm.The black, coffin-shaped canister hit the ground,skipped a few feet above the surface, and explod-ed into a wall of flame that extended the length ofthe North Koreans' position. Two hundred yardsbelow, we felt the shock of its explosion and awave of searing heat.

While equally appreciative of the aviators' precisionand valor, veteran infantry officer Captain Francis I.

"Ike" Fenton, Jr., commanding Company B, 1st Battalion,5th Marines, suggested even deadlier aerial firepowerthat could uproot North Koreans who took shelter incaves or railroad tunnels, as the 5th Marines experiencedin the extended battle for Hill 105-South. "The close airsupport in Korea by the Marine Corps was outstanding,"Fenton said. "However, I would like to see Marine avia-tion come up with a rocket with a napalm head. Thisrocket would be great for getting into tunnels, or intocaves The Koreans showed great lear for firebombs... .1 believe a big rocket, maybe a Tiny Tim, thatcould cany a fairly good quantity of napalm, would bean excellent weapon."

Major General Field Harris' 1st Marine Aircraft Wingalso provided close air support to the 7th InfantryDivision, the other major component in X Corps during

17

the Seoul campaign. Superbly assisted by MarineCaptain Charles F. Crew's Far East Detachment, Air andNaval Gunfire Liaison Company, Fleet Marine Force,Pacific, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing flew 1,024 sorties insupport of the Army division in 57 days without a singlecasualty to front-line friendly troops, despite bombingand strafing runs as close as 200 yards. BrigadierGeneral Homer W. Kiefer, USA, commanding the 7thDivision's artillery, wrote an appreciative letter to theCommandant, stating: "The Marine system of control, inmy estimation, approaches the ideal, and I flimly believethat a similar system should be adopted as standard forArmy Divisions."

The Korean War as a whole would advance militaryaviation hilly into the Jet Age, and soon the U.S. AirForce would wage epic air-to-air battles between its F-86 Sabers and the Soviet-built (and often Soviet-flown)MIG-15 fighters. Eventually the Marines would intro-duce in the skies over Korea their own jet fighter, theGrumman F9F-2 Panther, well armed for both air-to-airand air-to-ground missions. It was also the dawn of theHelicopter Age. and VMO-6 made military aviation his-tory when it deployed to Pusan with the 1st MarineBrigade in August 1950 with four Sikorsky HO3S-1 heli-copters.

By contrast the propeller-driven Corsair was nowconsidered old and slow, hampered by a light payloadcapacity and too small a fuel tank. binding the high-rise"U-birds" on the pitching deck of an escort carrierremained "adventurous," especially with the ship steam-ing westerly into a setting sun. "That bright red ballseemed to be sitting right on the fan-tail," General Kellerrecalled, "and it was difficult to make out the LandingSignal Officer, his signals, or even the deck." GeneralAnderson cited another common hazard when trying toland an FiU into a setting sun: "The Corsair frequentlymanaged to splatter the windshield with oil!"

Yet the Corsair in good hands proved highly reliableand durable for its age and the operating conditions.The hard-working maintenance crews of VMF-21•-tsomehow averaged 95 percent availability of the BlackSheep Corsairs throughout the Pusan-Inchon-Seoul cam-paigns. And in the absence of a jet-propelled enemy airthreat during those two months, the Corsair proved aninvaluable contributor to the allied victories.

Certainly the ground Marines fighting towards Seoulor Uijongbu in the autumn of 1950 were very comfort-able with the presence overhead of their protectiveCorsair, their familiar old "bent-wing widow-maker,' theattack aircraft the Japanese in the previous war alleged-ly nicknamed "The Whistling Death." There is no recordof what nickname the North Koreans may have used,but judging from the ever-increasing intensity of theirground fire the moment the F4Us swept into view, it wasprobable the Corsairs held their highest respect, as well.

Battalion, 5th Marines' left flankfully exposed. Newton had to peela company back to the startingposition, and the day ended onthat sour note.

Lieutenant Colonel Murrayordered the Korean Marines toresume their assault on Hill 56 themorning of 23 September, but tryas they might the ROK troops werestopped cold by heavy fire. Noone then realized that Colonel Wolhad established his main line ofresistance along the low ridge that

passed through Hill 56. Theinsignificant-looking rise wouldbecome known as Smith's Ridgethe following day.

Murray committed his reserve,ordering Lieutenant Colonel Roiseto pass through the Koreans with2d Battalion, 5th Marines, and con-tinue the attack. Roise deployedCaptain Uel D. Peters' Company Fon the right and First Lieutenant H.J. "Hog Jaw" Smith's Company Don the left. Hugging the terrainand advancing by squad rushes,

18

both companies were able in timeto approach the higher groundwith acceptable casualties, yetboth suffered heavily in the close-in fighting that followed. This tookthe balance of the afternoon.

George Newton's 1st Battalion,5th Marines, had all it could handlethat day and night just maintainingits exposed forward position onHill 105-South. In two days spentclinging to the hill's fire-sweptcrest, Companies B and C suffered24 casualties. "All these men werehit in their foxholes," said CaptainFenton. "There was no way tokeep the enemy from deliveringplunging fire right in on top of us."

Robert Taplett's 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, also had its hands fullthroughout the 23d in repellingNKPA counterattacks against thecrest of Hill 296 and trying toestablish fire superiority against theenemy on a half-dozen circlinghills. Clearly visible at one of theseCommunist strongpoints was a tall,fair-skinned officer with a charmedlife, "Fireproof Phil." He may havebeen a Soviet military advisor, butwhoever he was, Fireproof Philexhibited unflagging disdain forMarine marksmanship. When rifle-men, mortarmen, and artillerymenfailed to knock him down, Taplettordered up an M-26 Pershing tank.Sniping at Phil with a 90mm gunproved equally futile. The mandodged every round and keptexhorting his gunners to return fireuntil darkness shrouded the scene.The Marines never saw him again.

The 2d Battalion held Hill 56throughout the night, but only byits collective fingernails. Theassault companies were scatteredand vulnerable. Lieutenant Colo-nel Max Volcansek's faithful nightfighters circling overhead helpedeven the odds, but Marine artilleryprovided the greatest assistance.Wood's 1st Battalion, 11th Marines,fired all night long, illuminating the

Marine Combat Vehicles in the Seoul Campaignhe Marines mostly fought the first months of theKorean War with hand-me-down weapons andequipment from World War II stockpiles. In the

case of combat vehicles, however, the Corps invested intwo critical upgrades that provided a tactical edge in therecapture of Seoul: the M-26 Pershing medium tank andthe LVT-3C amphibian tractor.

The sturdy M-4 Sherman tank had served the Marineswell in the Pacific War from Tarawa through Okinawa,and by 1950 the tank battalions in the Fleet Marine Forcewere still equipped with the M-4A3-E8 "Easy Eight" ver-sion, featuring a 105mm gun. Yet the Sherman's successin the Pacific War was deceptive. Japanese tanks hadprovided no particular threat, the vehicle's narrow trackwidth and high ground pressure had posed mobilityproblems in marginal terrain, and the Sherman's notori-ously thin side and rear armor protection had proveninadequate against the enemy's 47mm antitank guns.The Sherman's prospects did not look favorable againstthe battle-proven T-34 medium tanks that the SovietUnion exported to client states like North Korea at theonset of the Cold War.

The Marines had foresightedly invested in the Army'sacquisition of the M-26 Pershing 90mm-gun tank late inWorld War II. Their vehicles did not arrive in time forcombat validation in Okinawa; nor could the postwarCorps afford to place them into operation, so thePershings sat for several years in contingency reserve atthe Marine supply base in Barstow, California.

When the Korean War erupted, the Commandant

ordered the 1st Tank Battalion to deploy with the newPershings in lieu of its Sherman "Easy Eights." The hastytransition was not pretty, especially in the case of thereinforced company assigned to the 1st Brigade for itsearly-July deployment. Few tankers had the opportuni-ty for hands-on operation and maintenance training.The gunners were lucky to be able to fire two roundseach—and they had to use the more abundantly avail-able 90mm antiaircraft rounds instead of the new butscarce high-velocity armor-piercing munitions. Andsince none of the new Marine Pershings were config-ured as flamethrowers or dozer-blade variants, the bat-talion sailed with an awkward mixture of old Shermansalong with the M-26s, the making of a logistical night-mare.

The ragged transition made for an inauspicious com-bat debut for the Marine M-26s in Korea. Operating inthe Pusan Perimeter southwest corner, one Pershingbroke through the planking of a critical bridge, height-ening fears that its 46-ton weight would prove too heavyfor Korea's road network. A second vehicle threw atrack while fording a stream, blocking the crossing.Things improved. The Marine Pershings establishedtheir dominance in a head-to-head engagement againstT-34s in the first battle of the Naktong Bulge, then con-tinued to sweep the field as the 1st Marine Divisionadvanced on Seoul. The Sherman blade and flame vari-ants also contributed materially, especially in the closeengagement waged by Baker Company's tanks againstcave-infested Hill 105-South on 25 September.

A Marine LVT-3C Bushmaster from the 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion transfers troops to an LCVP.Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A162956

22

National Archives Photo (USA) 111-SC348713

In the battle of downtown Seoul, the Pershings ofLieutenant Colonel Harry T. Milne's 1st Tank Battalionprovided the crucial edge, time and again crashingthrough the North Korean barricades despite intense firefrom the enemy's ubiquitous 45mm antitank guns. Thebattalion's War Diary for September reported thedestruction of 13 NKPA tanks (which may have includ-ed several 76mm self-propelled guns) and 56 antitankguns or antiaircraft guns being fired horizontally at theapproaching Pershings. The battalion lost five Pershingsand one each of the flame and dozer Shermans in therecapture of Seoul.

The LVT-3C Bushmaster proved to be another smartinvestment for the Marines. Borg Warner's original LVT-3 had developed slowly during World War II, reachingthe Fleet Marine Force out of numerical sequence andmore than a year behind rival Ford Motor Company'sLVT-4. Borg Warner built nearly 3,000 Bushmasters forthe Marine Corps. The first vehicles arrived in time forthe Okinawa invasion in the spring of 1945.

The Bushmaster was a welcome addition to theMarines' ship-to-shore team. Like its FMC predecessor,the Bushmaster came with a hinged rear ramp and suf-ficient cargo space to accommodate either a jeep or a105mm howitzer. By mounting its twin Cadillac V-8engines along the sides of both hulls, the Borg Warnerengineers provided the Bushmaster with a cargo capac-ity that exceeded the LVT-4's by 3,000 pounds.

Faced with the need to upgrade their amphibian trac-tor fleet during the austere late 1940s, the Marines optedto modernize 1,200 low-mileage LVT-3s by raising thesides, installing aluminum covers over the troop/cargocompartment, and installing a small machine gun turretatop the cab. The Marines designated their newly mod-

23

ified vehicle the L\JT-3C, and it proved remarkably wellsuited for both salt-water and fresh-water operationsthroughout the Korean peninsula. (The Republic ofChina Marine Corps employed American-built LVT-3Cson Taiwan for a quarter of a century after the KoreanWar).

The Bushmasters of Lieutenant Colonel Erwin F.Wann, Jr.'s 1st Arnphibian Tractor Battalion deliveredMarines ashore at Inchon, transported each regimentplus the Army and ROK regiments across the Han underfire, and served as armored personnel carriers and cargovehicles overland.

The 1st Marine Division was similarly well-supportedby the versatile DUKWs of the 1st Amphibian TruckCompany, an element of Lieutenant Colonel Olin L.Beall's 1st Motor Transport Battalion. (DUKW is not anacronym but an arcane industrial code used in WorldWar II meaning an all-wheel-drive utility vehicle withtwin rear wheel axles manufactured in 1942—DUCKS"to Marines!)

Unfortunately the Marines fought the Inchon-Seoulcampaign without the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion.General Smith left the battalion with the division's rearechelon in Kobe as a temporary repository for the 500-plus, 17-year-olds ruled ineligible for combat by theSecretary of the Navy on the eve of the Inchon landing.The X Corps commander partially offset this lost capa-bility by attaching the Army's Company A, 56thAmphibian Tractor Battalion, to the Marines. The Armycompany's 18 LVTA-5s equipped with snub-nosed 75mmhowitzers spearheaded each river crossing, therebyproving themselves worthy recipients of the PresidentialUnit Citation subsequently awarded the 1st MarineDivision.

Painting by Col Charles H. Waterhouse, USMCK (Ret)

'First Firefight Above Seoul, B/1/7" portrays the intensity of night action that greeted the 7th Marines as they advanced to cut the roads leading north from Seoul.

was unforgettable:

The North Korean mortars came. Spouts of earth and black smoke leaped about us, laced with flame and scream- ing shrapnel. The leaves from the bean plants spun in flurries, and the ground shook. I was suddenly in the midst of a frenzied storm of noise.

By the nature of their northern mission the 7th Marines would have scant contact with the other elements of the 1st Marine Division in the fight for Seoul. The other two regiments, however, would experience a dangerous interface, the 1st Marines attacking north through the heart of the city, the 5th Marines coming in from the northwest.

Concerned with the inherent risks facing these converging forces, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Murray boarded a heli- copter late in the afternoon of 24

September and flew to Chesty Puller's command post to coordi- nate the final assault. It was the first time the two commanders had ever met. Characteristically, Puller inquired of Murray the extent of the casualties he had sustained fighting for the northwest ridges. "He determined how good a fight- er you were by how many casual- ties you had," Murray recalled. Murray's grim accounting of the 5th Marines' losses during the pre- ceding three days made even Chesty Puller blink. The men then got down to work.

This was the time and setting when Captain Robert Barrow's Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, seized Hill 79 and raised the first flag in Seoul proper. The 1st Marine Division had entered the capital.

Seoul in 1950 was home to more than a million people, the fifth largest city in the Orient. While

several hundred thousand civilian residents had fled the capital at the outbreak of the North Korean inva- sion, tens of thousands remained. Chesty Puller had ruefully predict- ed to a news correspondent that the North Koreans would defend the city in such a manner as to force the attacking Marines to destroy it. The ensuing three days would validate Puller's prediction. British correspondent Reginald Thompson would write despairing- ly: "Few people can have suffered so terrible a liberation."

X Corps launched its assault on Seoul proper the morning of 25 September. Lieutenant Colonel Erwin F. Wann, Jr.'s 2d Amphibian Tractor Battalion displaced during the night to Sansa-ri, a former ferry crossing 5,000 yards east of Yongdungpo. There, reinforced by Army LVTs of Company A, 56th Amphibian Tractor Battalion, the Marines embarked the 2d Battalion, 32d Infantry. Following a brief artillery and mortar barrage, the Arntracs plunged into the Han, shook off a few 76mm rounds, and at 0630 disembarked the soldiers on the far bank. Four Corsairs from Lieutenant Colonel Lischeid's VMF-214 Black Sheep squadron off the Sicily worked just ahead of the beachhead, coordinated by Marine tactical air control parties provided the 7th Division for the occasion.

The Army regiment completed the crossing by mid-afternoon and seized South Mountain, the 900- foot eminence (the Koreans call Nam-san) dominating southeastern Seoul. Late in the day, the 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion deliv- ered the 17th ROK Infantry across in trace, an exposed crossing that attracted considerably more NKPA long-range fires. Yet by nightfall all of General Almond's maneuver elements were in place north of the river.

General 0. P. Smith worried that

the presence of the two additionalregiments on his right flank wouldcreate dangerous crossfires andaccidental meeting engagements,hut the Army units maintainedtheir positions on and aroundNam-san, defending against majorcounterattacks, and later assaultedtowards the east, well clear of theMarines' zone of action. No signif-icant control problems developed.

At 0700 on the 25th, the 1stMarine Division kicked off itsassault on Seoul. The plan ofattack developed by Smith and hisoperations officer, Colonel AlphaL. Bowser, Jr., placed the biggestburden on the 1st Marines. Puller'sregiment would attack to the norththrough the heart of the city on amile-and-a-half front, bordered byNam-san on the right and the Duk

Soo Palace of the ancient rulers ofKorea, on the left. Smith assignedthe 1st Marines Objective Able, thehigh ground just beyond the city'snortheastern limit, about six milesfrom Captain Barrow's forwardposition on Hill 79. Murray's 5thMarines would attack the north-west section of the capital, like-wise on a mile-and-a-half front,seize Government House andObjective Baker, the high groundoverlooking the Seoul-Uijongburoad from their dearly won posi-tions along the Hill 296 complex.Litzenberg's 7th Marines wouldseize Objective Charlie, the highground along the Seoul-Kaesongroad six miles outside the city cen-ter. Smith continued his reinforce-ment of the 1st and 5th Marineswith one battalion each of Korean

Marines and assigned the balanceof the Korean regiment as divisionreserve. Smith also attached thedivision Reconnaissance Companyto the 5th Marines to screen thehigh ground along its left flank.The 3d Battalion, 187th Airborne,under the operational control ofthe 1st Marine Division, wouldprotect the Marines' western flankbelow the Han.

Colonel James H. Brower con-centrated most of the howitzers ofhis 11th Marines in firing positionson the south bank of the Han nearYongdungpo. The big 155mmhowitzers of the Army's 96th FieldArtillery deployed nearby, ready tosupport either the Marines or theArmy, as needed.

The action for the 5th Marineson 25 September was largely deja

Photo by Frank Noel, Associated Press

The Ma rines fought two enemies in downtown Seoul—those ingly hidden in evey other window.who defended behind the barricades and the snipers seem-

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business of eliminating the residualpositions of the 25th NKPABrigade along the eastern fingersof Hill 296 as described earlier.Here on two adjoining knobs,Company E, 2d Battalion, 5thMarines, and Companies H and Iof 3d Battalion, 5th Marines,engaged the North Koreans inbloody close combat, again most

By now the 19th NKPAAntiaircraft A rtilleiy Regiment hadlearned how to deal with the terri-fying strafing runs by MarineCorsairs. Increasingly, those anti-aircraft gunners who survived thenorthwest ridge battles would turnSeoul into a "flak trap." September25th reflected this new lethality, aparticularly costly day for Marine

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Corsair squadron commanders.With the escort carrier Sicily and itsembarked VMF-214 Black Sheepscheduled to rotate back to Inchonfor repairs and resupply that after-noon, Lieutenant Colonel WalterLischeid led the final sorties insupport of the Army's river cross-ings. A North Korean gunner hithis Corsair over Seoul. Lischeidtried to nurse his crippled plane toKimpo field but crashed in flamestwo miles shy of the airstrip.

In other aerial action on the2 5th, Lieutenant Colonel RichardWyczawski, commanding theLancers of VMF-212, was woundedand shot down by hostile fire. So

was Lieutenant Colonel MaxVolcansek, commanding the night-fighting Tigers of VMF(N)-542,who barely bailed out before hisplane crashed near Kimpo.Marines flying Sikorsky HO3S-1helicopters from MarineObservation Squadron 6 VMO-6)rescued both officers—Volcansek'srescue helicopter pulled him out ofa rice paddy in a record six min-utes elapsed time following notifi-cation—but all hands regretted thedeath of Lieutenant ColonelLischeid.

Major Robert P. Keller, who hadcommanded three squadrons inthe Pacific War, took over theBlack Sheep. When a fellow avia-tor remarked, "Now you are theacting commanding officer," Kellerretorted, "Acting, hell—I'm seri-ous." Keller maintained the VMF-214 commitment to launching five-plane strikes every two hours. TheBlack Sheep pilots first plasteredthe ridge from which the antiair-craft battery had fired on Lischeid,then spent the remainder of theday delivering ordnance againsttargets ranging from railroad yardsin the North Korean capital ofPyongyang to enemy troop con-centrations in downtown Seoul,the other capital.

vu, the unfinished and still costly ably supported by Marine Corsairs.

The nature of Marine close airsupport changed as the campaignentered the streets of Seoul. AsLieutenant Colonel NormanAnderson subsequently noted:"Bombing by its very nature gaveway to the more easily accuratetechniques of rocketing and straf-ing. . . . I feel we became increas-ingly aware of the need to avoidwhat we now call collateral dam-age." The Corsair's 20mm cannoncould deliver a hellacious strafingrun, but the "bent-wing U-Birds"could only carry 800 rounds, limit-ing the extent of this application.Anderson wistfully recalled hisdays of flying Marine Corps B-25sin the Philippines late in WorldWar II, "a memorable strafer with14 forward-firing, .50-calibermachine guns. Many's the time wemight have put them to good usesupporting Marines in the streets ofYongdungpo and Seoul. Alas, theywere not carrier suitable."

On the ground in Seoul on 25September progress came grudg-ingly to the 1st Marines despite its

early start. Puller passed Ridge's3d Battalion, 1st Marines, throughSutter's 2d Battalion, while, toRidge's right, Hawkins adjusted the1st Battalion's positions along Hill79 to accommodate the 90-degreepivot to the northeast. This done,the regiment advanced methodi-cally, Ridge and Hawkins abreast,Sutter in close reserve. The NorthKoreans resisted savagely, andPuller looked often for his missingtanks, still completing their longrun east from the Haengju ferrycrossing the previous afternoon.

Fresh minefields and suddenambushes slowed Captain Bruce F.Williams' tank company, rein-forced by a platoon each ofinfantry and combat engineers,once they crossed the river. As thearmored column approachedSeoul they drew fire from thesoutheast corner of Hill 105-South,still unconquered despite CaptainFenton's seizure of the crest threedays earlier. This time, finally, theMarines had a force on the groundwith the firepower, mobility, and

shock action to finish the job. Thetankers and engineers blew away aline of shacks blocking the base ofthe hill, thereby discovering thehidden cave mouth, and moved aflame tank up to the opening.Sensibly, the North Koreans beganto surrender, one or two at first,then more than 100, outnumberingtheir captors.

The Marines to this point rou-tinely made each prisoner of warstrip buck naked, hut they wereshocked to find two womenamong this crew. Someone help-fully provided two pairs of longjohns for the occasion, but theAmerican press had a field daywith the matter later, once thewomen got to the rear and com-plained. But it was a no-win situ-ation for the Marines. The NKPAoccupants of that cave had killedMarines from five different battal-ions; they were quite fortunate toescape the flame tank's horrors.As it was, other NKPA troops near-by had no intention of surrender-ing to the Marines. As StaffSergeant Arthur Farrington report-ed:

The enemy wounded werehoisted on board the tanks,129 bare asses were lined upthree abreast [between thevehiclesi . . . when about 40-50 [Northl Koreans jumped upto the left of the railroadtracks. They had been lyingtheir doggo behind us all thetime. We killed them withrifle, machine gun, and 90mmfire as they went across thepaddies.

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Captain Williams was under-standably exultant as he led hiscolumn with its rich prizes intoSeoul, but when he tried torecount the unit's success at 105-South to Chesty Puller, the colonelcut him short, saying, "I'm not

A corsair/light on a close air support mission against targets in North Korea andaround the South Korean capital.

Photo courtesy of Ltcol Leo J. IhIi, USMC (Ret)

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A3380

Marine riflemen and tanks advance north under fire along Seoul's principal boulevard.

interested in your sea storiesyoung man. You're late. We'vegot fish to fry."

Puller sorely needed the tanks.The North Koreans defendingSeoul lacked the numbers to occu-py every building or side street, sothey concentrated instead on themajor avenues and thoroughfares.By now each significant intersec-tion in the city featured an impro-vised barricade, typically protectedby rice bags filled with sand orrubble, piled eight feet high by fivefeet wide, and defended by anti-tank guns, heavy machine guns,and mines. Marine historian Colo-nel Robert D. Heinl, Jr., likened thescene to 19th century France:"Every intersection was barricadedafter the fashion of the ParisCommune: carts, earth-filled ricebags . . . furniture, and rubble."The Soviet Union's official newspa-per Pravda compared the Situationin Seoul to the Russian defense of

Stalingrad in World War II: "Thereis firing behind every stone."

The axis of advance ofLieutenant Colonel Ridge's 3dBattalion, 1st Marines, was directlyup Ma Po Boulevard towards theembassies and principal govern-ment buildings. Major EdwinSimmons later compared his com-pany's advance to "attacking upPennsylvania Avenue towards theCapitol in Washington, D.C." Theboulevard was straight and wide—"once a busy, pleasant avenuelined with sycamores, groceries,wine and tea shops," according toHeinl. Trolley car tracks ran downthe middle. Now NKPA barricadesmushroomed at each intersection.Enemy snipers fired from blownout windows. Other NKPA troopslobbed Molotov cocktails from therooftops Onto the Marine tanks inthe street below. And throughoutall this mayhem fled thousandsand thousands of terrified Korean

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refugees. Mines accounted forappalling casualties among them.

At one point Captain RobertBarrow halted his company alonga particularly advantageous rise ofground overlooking the railroadyards and passenger station. Foronce he could clearly see theenemy troops moving into newpositions, building fresh barri-cades, and preparing futureambushes. He called in artilleryand mortar fire, employed hismachine guns and rocket launch-ers, enjoying his dominant posi-tion. Strangely, he said, LieutenantColonel Hawkins kept urging himto advance. "We thought we werehaving a turkey shoot," Barrowrecalled. "Nobody getting hurt and[us] knocking the hell out of them,"but Hawkins said, "What's holdingyou up—move out!" WhenBarrow tried to explain his favor-able position, Hawkins repliedbluntly: "Unless you want a new

battalion commander, you willattack at once." Barrow managedto convince Hawkins to come andsee the situation for himself.Hawkins marveled at the abun-dance of targets under directobservation: "Get more mortars inthere—get more artillery."

Yet Hawkins remained agitated,

and Barrow soon saddled up hisgunners and forward observersand plunged forward downhill intothe maze of streets and railroadtracks (3d Battalion, 1st Marines,had Ma Po Boulevard; 1st

Battalion, 1st Marines' axis ofadvance was less straightforward).Barrow and other junior officers in

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the 1st Marines later concludedthat the pressure to advance hadcome down several echelons, pos-sibly from the Tokyo headquartersof General MacArthur in his desireto recapture the capital by thesymbolic third-month anniversaryof its loss. "Who knows?" Barrowasked rhetorically. "Puller was

wire to the OP. These were rea-sonable precautions given thevolatile nature of the Street fightingduring the day and the nearby re-entrants occupied by the NorthKoreans. Parts of the city stillburned from the day's fighting, butthe streets seemed quiet.

Then, shortly after 2000, a flashmessage from X Corps arrived inthe division command post. Aerialobservers had just reported

"enemy fleeing city of Seoul onroad north of Uijongbu." GeneralAlmond, sensing a great opportu-nity to crush the North Koreans,ordered an immediate advance bythe 1st Marine Division, stating:"You will push attack now to the

insure maximum destruction ofenemy forces. Signed Almond."

The flash message stunnedColonel Bowser. The order was

of retreating troops and a columnof fleeing refugees? Bowser calledhis counterpart at X Corps withthese questions but got nowhere.Neither did General Smith amoment later in a call to Almond'schief of staff. Smith shook hishead and ordered his regimentalcommanders to comply—carefully.Throughout their smoking third ofthe city, the 1st Marine Divisionstirred and bitched. As one com-pany commander queried: "A nightattack without a reconnaissance orrehearsal? What are our objec-tives?" Private First Class MorganBrainard recalled the grousing inthe ranks that night: "We were allrousted out and mustered downon the darkened Street by pla-toons. Scuttlebutt said we weregoing into the heart of Seoul in asurprise night attack."

After allowing his regimentalcommanders plenty of time tocoordinate their plans, GeneralSmith ordered the advance to kickoff at 0145 following a 15-minuteartillery preparation. The enemymoved first. Before midnight a siz-able NKPA force hit LieutenantColonel Taplett's 3d Battalion, 5thMarines, on Hill 105-North.Lieutenant Colonel Murray and hisexecutive officer attempted tomake sense of the situation: "I'mafraid we'll have to delay pursuit ofthe 'fleeing enemy' until we see ifTap can beat off the counterat-tack."

As Major Simmons listeneduneasily to the sounds of Taplett'sfirefight, less than 1,000 yardswest, he received a call fromLieutenant Colonel Ridge ordering

rife with unanswered questions—did Almond envision a five-milenight attack through the heart ofthe city by converging regimentsout of direct contact with eachother? And, by the way, howcould an aerial observer distin-

limit of your objectives in order to guish at night between a column

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the radio call sign of the Armyartillery liaison officer coordinatingthe 155mm howitzer missions thatnight, but he knew first-class firesupport when he saw it. "This isBlade," he growled into his hand-set, "I don't know who in the hellyou are, but thank God! Out."

The Army fire mission destroyedor disabled the last of the NKPAtanks threatening the 3d Battalion'sroadblock, but several immobi-lized vehicles maintained a stub-born fire. One self-propelled guncontinued to fire at Simmons'observation post, each shellscreeching overhead barely adegree in elevation too high.Simmons feared the coming dawnwould make his position terriblyexposed, so he moved one of the75mm recoilless rifles from theroadblock to the rubble-strewnfront yard of the abandonedhouse. The crew stared anxiouslyinto the darkness just north of thebridge, hoping to get off the firstshot at dawn. Finally, in the grayhalf-light, the gunner spotted theenemy vehicle and squeezed histrigger. The round was a pin-

wheel hit—the self-propelled gunburst into flames. But the Marineshad forgotten to consider the backblast of the recoilless rifle. "Itbounced off the mud-and-wattleside of the house behind us andknocked us head-over-heels,"Simmons said, adding "we thoughtit very funny at the time."

Sunrise brought Simmons morewelcome news. Corporal Collins,having ordered the rest of hispatrol back to the roadblock attheir first encounter with theapproaching NKPA armored col-umn, covered its retreat with riflefire, and then took refuge for thenight in a cellar. Somehow hefound a set of white robes com-monly worn by the Korean civil-ians. Thus attired, he made hisway through the still-dangerousstreets to the 3d Battalion, 1stMarines' lines and safety.

The North Koreans executed athird major spoiling attack at 0500,launching a reinforced battalionagainst the 32d Infantry's positionson Nam-san. The Army regimentstood its ground and did not getrattled when one company was

overrun. Making good use of hissupporting arms, Colonel CharlesBeauchamp organized a counterat-tack that drove the enemy out ofthe position and inflicted severalhundred casualties.

At daybreak, Colonel Pullerarrived at Lieutenant ColonelRidge's position. "You had bettershow me some results of thisalleged battle you had last night,"he warned. Ridge was unper-turbed. He showed Puller thewreckage of the NKPA vehiclesnorth of the bridge, the ruins ofseven tanks, two self-propelledguns, and eight 45mm antitankguns. At least 250 dead NorthKoreans lay in clots along theboulevard (the official figure of475 may have included those slainby Lieutenant Colonel Taplett's 3dBattalion, 5th Marines, that samenight), and there were more than80 prisoners in hand. The Marines'side of the battlefield seemed cov-ered with a river of spent brassshell casings. Major Simmons' 10Browning heavy machine gunshad fired a phenomenal 120 boxesof ammunition during the night—30,000 rounds, a feat that even sur-passed the volume fired by the leg-endary Sergeant "Manila John"Basilone at Guadalcanal in 1942 inPuller's old battalion. ColonelPuller flashed a rare grin.

Time magazine's combat corre-spondent Dwight Martin describedthe battlefield the morning of the26th, as Sutter's 2d Battalion, 1stMarines, passed through Ridge's1st Battalion:

This morning Ma-Po worea different look. The burnedand blackened remains of theboulevard's shops and homessent clouds of acrid smokebillowing over the city.Buildings still ablaze show-ered sparks and ashes highinto the air to cascade down

Marine riflemen evacuate their wounded buddy under heavy enemy fire.Department of Defense Photo (USA) SC351385

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