East of Chosin Read online

  There is no indication that Hodes was in communication with Colonel MacLean after the latter left Hudong-ni in the evening of November 27. MacLean had planned to stay at Hudong-ni overnight, but he changed his mind during his conversation with Hodes and started back north to join his forward units. We know that when Lieutenant McNally, the communications officer at MacLean's forward CP, shook Maj. Hugh W. Robbins awake at 1:00 A.M. on November 28 and told him that there was enemy action north and south of them, he also told Robbins that MacLean had returned from Hudong-ni but had gone on north to Faith's CP.36

  Major Curtis remembers an incident at Faith's CP late that evening which indicates that MacLean had arrived well before the beginning of enemy action. First Lieutenant Rollin W. Skilton, 31st Infantry liaison officer with the 1st Marine Division at Hagaru-ri, arrived at Faith's CP to deliver to him a copy of the 1st Marine Division's operations order. After delivering the document, Skilton drove off into the night back to Hagaru-ri.37 He arrived there safely, ahead of the Chinese who established the fire block at Hill 1221.

  So, when the enemy attacked that night, the two senior officers east of Chosin were at opposite ends of the 31st RCT positions and out of touch with each other. MacLean was at Faith's forward perimeter; Hodes was at the 31st rear CP at Hudong-ni.

  During the night of November 27-28, the Chinese made one more major attack, their third, but it came late, just before dawn. It must have been an afterthought, and it probably grew out of their establishment of the roadblock at Hill 1221 and the ambush of the medical company.

  In their small valley, a covelike area at the western base of Hill 1456 and immediately east of the MSR, half a mile from the mouth of the Pungnyurigang Inlet, Lt. Col. Ray Embree and his Headquarters of the 57th Field Artillery Battalion and Captain McClymont with his D Battery (- ), 15th AAA AW SP Battalion, spent the night quietly, not knowing that a mile north of them a furious battle was being fought, involving their two artillery batteries.

  McClymont had arrived at this bivouac area, where the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters group had already established itself, just before dark. He placed his four full-track Migs, with their powerful dual-4o-mm guns, and his four half-track M16s, with their quad-5os, in defensive positions to protect the 57th Artillery Headquarters and his own CP near it and to command the road just west of the bivouac area. He set up his ist Platoon CP in the south-central part of the little valley. There was no infantry in the bivouac area. McClymont was able to get wire strung between his CP and his 1st Platoon, field telephones established each place, and wire and phones to each of his Mlgs and M16s. In the evening the mess tent was raised, and all members of his battery had a hot meal.38

  The 3o-year-old captain who controlled this array of firepower had been born in a small town in the state of Washington in 1920. Like many others who had a rural or semirural background, he knew how to shoot like a marksman long before entering the armed services. In 1940, McClymont joined the National Guard as a member of the tooth Coast Artillery Regiment. He finished a special course in fire control at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and then served with his regiment in the Aleutian Islands. From there he went as an officer candidate to the Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) School at Camp Davis, North Carolina, and was commissioned a second lieutenant on August 26, 1943. He volunteered for overseas duty. McClymont stayed in the Army at the end of World War II, served in the occupation of South Korea from 1947 to 1949, and was then assigned to Japan. He commanded D Battery, 15th Antiaircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion, Self Propelled (15th AAA AW Battalion, SP), when it was, assigned to the 7th Infantry Division. He was attached to the 57th Field Artillery Battalion near the end of November, 195o. The next day he was on his way to Chosin Reservoir and the first combat experience of his life.39

  The night of November 27-28 was quiet in the little valley alongside Chosin Reservoir, and McClymont and those with him heard no sound of battle to the north of them, nor did they know anything of the ambush of the medical company just to the south of them.

  A change came suddenly. Shortly before dawn on November 28 enemy soldiers appeared. The first sign was mortar fire that dropped around the 57th Artillery Headquarters and McClymont's AAA CP. McClymont rang the field phone for his 1st Platoon. Warrant Officer Roscoe M. Calcote answered, saying that they were under small-arms and mortar fire. McCly mont ran to Sfc. Robert Denham's M19 near his CP tent, and climbed on its back. Small-arms fire was now whistling about, and the mortar fire had increased in volume. McClymont relates what happened:

  A view to the northeast from the A Battery, 57th FA Battalion position, inlet perimeter, which the Chinese overran on the night of November 27-28, 1950. American dead are in the foreground. The photograph was taken on the morning of November 28, 1950, by an unknown photographer. Photograph courtesy of Col. Ray 0. Embree.

  I raised my field glasses. The M19 crew were at their posts. I looked through the field glasses and with their light gathering ability, I could see movement on the side of a hill alongside of the road leading back to Hagaru-ri. I focused the glasses and I could see that there was a column of soldiers marching in formation along the road, heading directly towards our position-they were about 200 yards from my CP and were closing on us. They would soon be on top of my 1st Platoon CR Just then some sort of illumination shell or mortar round went off and we could see the column clearly. Dressed in dark winter clothes, quilted coats, with flapped caps, they were moving toward us. I ordered the M19 commander to load his twin 40 mms and to open fire. The twin 40S crumped simultaneously, and the tracers leaped out. Immediately, the high explosive shells burst in the column of men, and I ordered fire at full automatic. In only seconds there was no movement from the column.

  Capt. (later Maj.) James R. McClymont in Korea, early ig5i. Photograph courtesy of Major McClymont.

  I felt someone grab my ankle. One of my cooks was standing on the ground. I leaned over and he said I was wanted on the field telephone. I jumped down and went to the phone in the CP tent. "This is Major Tolly [S-31 of the 57th [Field Artillery Battalion]," I was told, "those are friendly troops out there, cease fire!"

  My heart sank. I had just erased a whole column of men.4°

  McClymont had indeed erased a whole column of men-but they were Chinese, as he had thought. However, after taking the telephone call, McClymont ran back to the Miq and told Sergeant Denham to cease fire. Quiet now prevailed, with only an occasional mortar round dropping in the bivouac area. The quiet was suddenly broken by a large volume of noise and weapons fire at the ist Platoon CP. McClymont phoned the CP but got no answer.

  Daylight was beginning to give visibility, and McClymont could see that the hut where his ist Platoon CP was set up was on fire. He took three men, left Lieutenant Ballard in charge of the CP, and moved south along the edge of the road. He planned to make sure that the road was secure and then turn east to his ist Platoon CP.

  As McClymont's small group moved down the road, they approached a sandbagged outpost which either the 5th Marines or the 57th Field Artillery had established. They were about 35 to 40 yards from the post when they were fired on from it. McClymont's carbine would not fire; its mechanism was sluggish from the intense cold. He dropped it and picked up a submachine gun lying on the road. It fired once, and then the clip froze. McClymont then got an M-i rifle from a nearby soldier and led his three men toward the enemy-held hole. Again they were fired on. The four of them hit the dirt. McClymont shouted back to his CP for someone to bring him a bazooka. A 3.5 bazooka with one round of ammunition was soon delivered to him. He fired it at the sandbags but missed low. He asked for another round of ammunition, got it, and again missed. This time the round went too high and demolished a 57th Field Artillery jeep parked just beyond the sandbagged hole.

  Disgusted, McClymont asked for a grenade. One of the men handed him one. He crawled to a point near the sandbags, pulled the pin, and lobbed the grenade into the foxhole. It exploded, and McClymont was getting to his feet when a Chinese
inside the foxhole pushed a machine gun over the edge of the sandbags and let loose with about zo rounds.

  Capt. (later Maj.) James R. McClymont and a group of enlisted men of D Battery, i5th AAA AW Battalion, Korea, ca. February, i95i. Pfc. Robert M. Slater is third from left in the front row; Sgt. Grantford R. Brown is on the far left, back row; Captain McClymont is second from left, back row. Photograph courtesy of Major McClymont.

  McClymont sent one of his men to move around the foxhole to a higher point where he could look down into it while he himself climbed the road embankment and reached a point where he could see into the foxhole. Both of them then fired into it. All was quiet from within the hole. McClymont and the other man started toward it. Suddenly a grenade sailed out and exploded with a dull, weak pop. The two of them ran to the edge of the sandbags, and, holding their weapons as high as possible and pointing them down so that their fire would enter the hole, they cut loose. Nothing moved inside the hole. McClymont put his helmet on the end of the M-i and moved it over the edge of the sandbags. Nothing happened. Then McClymont and his companion carefully peered over the top. Five Chinese soldiers were dead inside-one of them torn apart when he apparently threw himself on the grenade McClymont had thrown into the hole.

  An Mi9 full-track (dual-4o), Korea, February, ig5i. Two 4o-mm Bofors antiaircraft guns are mounted in a revolving turret. This Mi9 is exactly like those in D Battery, i5th AAA AW Battalion, at Chosin. Photograph courtesy of Maj. James R. McClymont.

  McClymont decided that he needed more men before he started for his ist Platoon CP. He shouted back for more men. About io men came up, a few of them from the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters. He led his reinforced group down the road toward Hagaru-ri to the spot where his Miq 40-mm fire had earlier stopped the enemy column. Scattered along about iso feet of the road lay the bodies of the Chinese, about 8o of them. As McClymont reached the clusters of bodies, four or five who had played dead jumped to their feet and ran for the road bend to the south. They did not make it. The wholesale destruction of this marching column of men showed how deadly the 40-mm shell was against massed men at close range. McClymont could see places where a shell had hit one man and also brought down three or four others nearby. Chinese equipment and weapons lay all around.

  Most of the Chinese had been armed with American-made Thompson submachine guns. As an accessory each soldier who carried the Thompson wore a canvas apron strapped to his chest. The apron had slots to hold a 20-round straight clip for the gun. There were different models of the Thompson on the ground, one with pistol grips front and back and later models with a rear pistol grip and a forearm in front. Some used the 5oround drum, but most of them used the Io- or 20-round clip. McClymont tried several of the Thompsons and finally picked one of the later models using a Io- or 20-round .45-caliber clip. He also took one of the canvas apron vests. He carried this weapon and its ammunition apron through the rest of his time in Korea. He set his newfound weapon on single fire (it also had full automatic setting). In examining the Thompsons that lay on the road, McClymont observed that they had little oil on them; that was one reason they seldom failed to fire for the Chinese in cold weather -there was no fluid to freeze in the subzero temperature. (It is interesting that in World War II the German soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union in wintertime used no oil on their weapons; they had found that if they were oiled they froze up and would not function; instead they used a fine, dry powder or no lubricant at all.)

  Finding the road secure at least as far as the bend where it curved eastward around high ground at the south side of the little valley, McClymont centered his attention on getting to his ist Platoon CP. It was about 300 yards to the east, near the south side of the valley. McClymont took the point, with his 13 or 14 men fanned out behind him. They advanced cautiously. Before moving 50 yards, McClymont was fired on. He could not see an enemy. Still advancing, he broke into a weaving, dodging run. Then he saw a Chinese soldier in a clump of grass. McClymont fired one shot from his Thompson. The bullet hit the Chinese soldier in the head and killed him.

  Two other Chinese, unseen until now, stood up with their hands in the air. McClymont motioned them to come toward him, and one of his men took their grenades and ammunition pouches.

  From a greater distance another Chinese stood up and fired at McClymont's group and then started running toward the ist Platoon CP. Mc Clymont fired on him at about 75 yards, but he kept running up the old Korean ox trail. Wearing tennis shoes, he was making good speed. Again McClymont fired and missed him. Then, as the Chinese soldier neared the crest of a small rise, McClymont took more careful aim. This time as the Thompson fired the Chinese threw up his arms and fell to the ground.

  An M16 half-track (quad-5o), Korea, February, 1951. Four .5o-caliber machine guns are mounted in a revolving turret. Photograph courtesy of Maj. James R. McClymont.

  McClymont's group continued their careful advance toward the ist Platoon CP. A little distance from it they came to one of their half-track M16 quad-5os. No one was there. The quad-5o was inoperable. From the halftrack McClymont could see the CP hut. It was still burning; there was no movement around it.

  A sudden burst of heavy small-arms fire hit around the quad-5o. It came from the high ground on the south side of the valley. Everyone took cover; McClymont rolled under the quad-5o trailer. A group of Chinese soldiers at the foot of the ridge got to their feet and began climbing the hillside away from the valley. McClymont and his men took them under fire. It did little damage, and it was only when one of the full-track Migs on the north side of the valley near the artillery CP opened up on the Chinese climbing the open hillside that they began falling. Not many made it over the crest.

  Thinking that the area was now clear of Chinese, McClymont started to leave the cover of the trailer. Again Chinese bullets hit the frozen ground around him. He rolled back under the trailer. Then one of his men yelled to him to get out, that the trailer was on fire. One glance upward and McClymont confirmed the fact. He got free of the trailer and took a running dive for a fold of snow-covered ground about 20 feet away. One of the 5-gallon gasoline cans in the trailer went up in flames, and soon the So-caliber ammunition in the trailer was exploding.

  The enemy fire that had set the trailer ablaze died down as McClymont's group approached the ist Platoon CP, and all enemy action had stopped by the time they arrived there. McClymont found Maj. Max Morris, the 57th Field Artillery Battalion executive officer, dead in the yard of the hut. Apparently he had cut directly across the valley from the artillery CP and was heading toward the 1st Platoon CP when the action there broke out, while McClymont and his group went up the road. Inside the hut Warrant Officer Calcote lay dead, face down. His right hand had been mangled by a grenade burst. McClymont learned later from survivors of the ist Platoon CP that when the Chinese closed on the CP and began throwing hand grenades inside the hut, Calcote threw several of them back. Then one exploded in his hand. But small-arms fire killed him. Lieutenant Chapman, the ist Platoon leader, was found alive. The first sergeant of D Battery had left McClymont's CP to go to the 1st Platoon after McClymont had started down the road and was killed halfway there. Altogether at the 1st Platoon CP and in the vicinity McClymont found two officers and four enlisted men killed and one officer and six enlisted men alive.41

  Of the ist Platoon's four full-track Migs and 4 half-track M16s the Chinese had knocked out the Mig near the 1st Platoon's CP. The nearby MI6 would not operate because of the frigid air and battery failure. Enemy small-arms fire had shot up two 21/2-ton trucks.

  This Chinese attack had come from the south. The column that had come along the road was destroyed by the Miq, as described, only 200 yards from the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters CP. A second force had come over the trail that crossed the southwestern spur of Hill 1456 and entered the little valley on its south side near its middle. It was the latter force that had caused most of the damage and casualties.

  It is not known how many arti
llerymen were killed or wounded in the attack other than those in McClymont's battery. The Chinese never reached the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters CP, according to Embree, but it was under enemy mortar and small-arms fire during the early-morning fight, and this caused some casualties. Small-arms fire wounded Embree in the upper legs early in the engagement. With Embree wounded and Major Morris killed, the ranking officer left in the 57th Artillery was Major Robert J. Tolly, the battalion S-3.

  It seems probable that if McClymont's Migs and M16s had not been in the bivouac area with the 57th Artillery Headquarters, the Chinese attacking from the south might have overrun the position and continued on the half mile to the Pungnyuri-gang inlet. There it could have taken B Battery in the rear just at the time it was serving as the rallying point for nearly all the remaining 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry, and A and B batteries of artillerymen. That might have been enough to complete the overrunning and destruction of the inlet position.

  The Chinese who came from the south, from the direction of Hagaruri, wore the usual brown-green field uniforms, and can be assumed to have belonged to a different battalion, and probably a different regiment, from the one that had made the attack on the inlet. Logic and circumstantial evidence, based largely on the direction from which the attack came, indicate that these enemy soldiers were from the force that had established the roadblock and fire block on Hill 1221, just south of them. This force may have started north after the ambush of the medical company to make contact with their units attacking the inlet perimeter, without knowing of the Artillery Headquarters and AAA AW bivouac in the little valley cove along the road just short of the Inlet.