East of Chosin Page 13

  Although the Chinese withdrew from close contact at the inlet at dawn, they did not cease hostilities during the day. They deployed out of range to take control of the high ground around the small perimeter of the inlet. From the northern slopes of Hill 1456 they continued a harrassing sniper fire from the ridges on the east and the slope south of the perimeter. Several officers and men were killed or wounded by this fire during the day.

  The command situation at the inlet perimeter seemed uncertain throughout the day. Both Colonel Reilly and Colonel Embree had been wounded during the night, though Reilly remained in command after he regained consciousness in the morning. Reilly, according to Captain Jordan, was able to sit up and carry on a conversation. It is not certain whether Embree relinquished command of the 57th Field Artillery on the 28th after being wounded. If he did, it is probable that Maj. Robert J. Tolly, the S-3, assumed command. Reilly's condition must have worsened, because when Major Curtis, of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, saw him the next day in the aid station, he thought Reilly appeared to be in a daze and could hardly talk.23

  The most important event affecting the 31st RCT at the inlet during the 28th was Colonel Embree's order in the morning for the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, together with Captain McClymont's AAA AW weapons, to move into the 3rd Battalion perimeter. In making the move, McClymont had to leave one knocked-out Miq dual4o behind in the little valley. The rest of his antiaircraft weapons, three M1gs and four M16s, were taken into the 3rd Battalion perimeter, together with a 21/z-ton truck. It is not known how many vehicles of the artillery headquarters were operable and made the short trip into the inlet perimeter. The move was completed about 1:0o P.M. without enemy interference. Air cover and the lethal power of the Migs and M16s made the situation unappealing to the Chinese. The American dead were left behind, and the wounded were taken to the middle of the perimeter.

  A Far East Air Force airdrop in the southeastern part of the inlet perimeter, November 28-29, igso. The photographer is unknown. Photograph courtesy of Col. Ray 0. Embree.

  In the afternoon McClymont took one of his half-track M16 quad-5os with its crew and went back to their recently abandoned bivouac. He wanted to be sure that no stragglers or wounded had been left behind. He made a circuit of the area but found no one. Enemy were present in the hills, however, and some small-arms fire came from a few of them. It caused no damage.24

  The M1gs and M16s were the most effective weapons for defending the inlet perimeter. Without them it is unlikely that the troops could have survived another night. McClymont describes how he positioned the AAA weapons: "When we arrived at the 3/31 perimeter, I placed my weapons around the edge, with fields of fire such that the northern, eastern, and southern solid ground areas were covered by overlap-one M1q and one M16 also could cover the arm of the reservoir." 25

  In the late afternoon C-47 aircraft tried to drop 16 tons of supplies to the 31st RCT at the inlet, but strong winds carried much of it to the Chinese on the southern slope.

  the 28th the Chinese watched the inlet from the high ground. They saw the Migs and M16s of McClymont's D Battery move into the perimeter and carefully plotted the position of each of the dreaded weapons. They noted the reorganization of the position and the composition of infantry put into the front lines, roughly at the same places K and I companies had occupied the first night. Captain Kitz still commanded K Company, but it now included remnants of both K and L. The L Company troops occupied the lower section of the line next to the Pungnyuri-gang, below the bridge and causeway.

  The main defense still faced east, positioned along the spur ridge that came down to the stream east of the southern end of the bridge and causeway across the Pungnyuri-gang. The 3rd Battalion line ran up this ridge about Boo yards along its lower, gentler crest. From that point the Chinese held the upper and sharply steeper portion of the ridge to the crest of Hill 1456. During the day the 31st Infantry troops in the low ground frequently saw enemy groups higher up, south and southeast of them.'

  The CCF resumed the battle at the inlet perimeter before dark on the night of November 28-29, so eager were they to finish off what they had nearly accomplished the night before. The attack began against the infantry line on the east side of the perimeter. There the Chinese captured a machine gun and for a time achieved a penetration of K Company. Members of the gun crew ran up to the K Company CP to report the incident. Captain Kitz at once set off to get mortar fire to stop the enemy. Many of his men criticized him for leaving his company at this point, thinking that he should have stayed with it and sent a runner back with his request. There is no explanation why a telephone line was not in to the 8i-mm mortars. It was probably Kitz who ran up to Sfc. Robert M. Slater, who commanded an Mig, and ordered him to move his weapon to stop a CCF attack. Slater thought that a captain had abandoned his company. He did not move his M19.2

  The Chinese who had overrun the machine gun on the infantry line were subsequently killed inside the perimeter. During the night some of the enemy penetrated as far as the artillery, but the artillerymen stayed with their pieces and, aided by the fire of the Migs near them, killed or drove off the Chinese. At the inlet, the battle lasted all night and at times was furious. There were many temporary enemy penetrations, but they were all liquidated. At daybreak the perimeter still held, though shakily.

  New and ominous features of the fighting in the hours before dawn were the enemy attacks coming from the west, on the approach along the inlet by the road and the railroad. These enemy troops had come from the south. The attacks at the western part of the perimeter by these Chinese lasted the longest. Before they withdrew just after daylight, they had occupied land between the inlet and the perimeter.

  Many within the perimeter saw that the Chinese had made the Migs and M16s their special targets and had attacked them at close quarters in an effort to destroy them. The antiaircraft guns played a dominant role in holding the main part of the position. First Lieutenant Patton, of A Battery, speaking of the heavy combat that night, said that the enemy attacks "were repulsed with credit due mostly to the men of the i5th AAA AW Bn who manned the M16s and Migs."3

  The main enemy close-in attack against the antiaircraft weapons guarding the artillery came after midnight and was preceded by a salvo of mortar shells and heavy small-arms fire. Sergeant Grantford R. Brown's M1q, near the artillery, came under close attack, and a number of Chinese succeeded in infiltrating right up to it. Captain McClymont was in his foxhole about 35 yards from Brown's dual-4o. Brown had been firing the two Bofors guns toward the hill southward, and his heavy fire of high-explosive 40-mm shells, at the rate of 24o rounds a minute, which included tracers, briefly lighted up the area.

  McClymont realized that Brown's Miq was under attack and started toward it, even though he felt that it was defending itself adequately. Before he got to it, the firing stopped, and all was darkness again. Then one of the nearby quad-5os opened up, sweeping the area in front of it. When McClymont arrived there, the crew was reloading the gun. These enemy attacks, and the responding fire of the antiaircraft weapons, continued at intervals throughout the night.

  At daybreak McClymont walked over to Brown's dual-4o. He saw a trail of Chinese bodies beginning at the very side of the Mig and leading up the hillside out of sight. Brown had fired most of his ammunition during the night. He told McClymont that he had something to show him. He pointed out the body of a Chinese soldier lying beside the full-track, killed by small-arms fire. He said, "That fellow came in with the second rush. I was up on the turret directing fire when he climbed up alongside of me. I saw he was carrying something and he looked Chinese to me, so I hit him with my fist. Almost broke my wrist, I did, and he fell over the side. One of my ROK soldiers under the Mig shot the Chinese as he hit the ground." McClymont said that Sergeant Brown "reached down on the top deck of the Mig where spare barrels were kept and raised the end of a 6 inch (in diameter) bamboo tube. There were two fuses running into this homemade 5-foot Ban
galore torpedo. Had the Chinese been able to find his matches, or had Sergeant Brown been less alert, that Mig would have been blown sky high and the perimeter would have been breached."4

  McClymont and some of his men gathered up the Chinese bodies and put them in a pile. Two were still alive and told a ROK soldier that 4,000 Chinese soldiers surrounded the Americans. Whether they meant the inlet perimeter or all the scattered groups was not clear. Their leader had placed a big price on the antiaircraft full-tracks and half-tracks, promising a great prize to any soldier who knocked out one of them.

  McClymont started on a round of his other AAA vehicles. At one of the other dual-40s the crew were standing at the rear of the full-track, pointing to the twin 40-mm guns. There McClymont saw an unexploded 6o-mm enemy mortar shell wedged between the barrel jackets.

  He fashioned a noose from a length of field wire, climbed on the Miq, and gingerly slipped the wire noose around the mortar shell to catch on the fins at the end. After one effort to jerk the shell loose, which would have brought it straight to him, he was glad that the effort failed. He then slipped the wire through the towing eye of the Miq and went to the other end of the vehicle. From there he gave another jerk on the wire. The mortar round came loose this time and went flying to just about the spot where he had been standing. But it did not explode.

  A little distance away the D Battery mess tent was a shambles. Parts of the field kitchen were angling out in all directions. Over the rear of the truck bed was a stovepipe from the immersion heaters. Pointing straight up out of the stovepipe was another unexploded Chinese mortar shell. The mess personnel lassoed and dragged away the stovepipe and the mortar round after McClymont showed them how to do it.f

  How did the night battle look to the survivors in the foxholes? Each had his own experiences and impressions. John C. Sweatman, an assistant mess sergeant of K Company, gives a vignette of his: "The second night we were there, just before sunset, we dug a foxhole, took our position there, and every now and then they banzaied. These kept up all night about every half hour. During the course of the night there were 3 jeep drivers that got caught outside their foxholes. Two of them fell on top of us and died. Just about that time we were hit by white phosphorus. There was one Hawaiian boy there shot in the back and also burned with white phosphorus. Another was burned up by white phosphorus."6

  When daylight came, the Chinese in contact at the perimeter began to withdraw, as they had the morning before, fearing air strikes, which would bring decimating casualties. But action was still heavy at the southwest corner, where there had been no enemy the first night. There were also large numbers of Chinese between the perimeter and the arm of the reservoirthe inlet-on the north side of the perimeter. It is apparent, therefore, that either the position did not go down to the inlet shoreline or that part of the perimeter had been lost in the night's battle. It is also apparent that the Chinese had completely surrounded the inlet perimeter.

  The Chinese in this area withdrew west at daylight along the edge of the inlet, moving on the road and the railroad leading south. This showed a new development and directness in the approach march of many of their assault forces. Here the AAA automatic weapons had killed many Chinese near and along the side of the inlet.

  First Lieutenant Paul C. Smithey, assistant executive and motor officer of B Battery, 57th Field Artillery, said that he and Lieutenant Magill went out and checked the perimeter to estimate the destruction they had wrought on the Chinese during the night. He said that he counted 750 Chinese bodies.? This figure probably included a somewhat exaggerated estimate of casualties in some places that could not be examined closely. There was ample testimony from others who saw parts of the enemy dead within and outside the inlet perimeter that there were many casualties.

  At the Forward Perimeter

  The second night started off quietly at the forward position of the ist Battalion, in contrast to the situation at the inlet. There was time for the kitchen and mess personnel of D Company to prepare a hot meal.

  Several officers gathered at the battalion CP hut, where a gasoline stove gave some warmth. Captain Raymond Vaudreaux, the battalion S-4, came in to report that ammunition had run low and an airdrop would be needed the next day. MacLean and Faith went into a small side room to try to get some sleep. But Faith apparently could not sleep and about 8:oo P.M. returned to the main room and began telephoning his company commanders. They reported that the situation was quiet.

  The heavy mortars about two miles behind the ist Battalion front lines had delivered heavy fire the first night and during the day just ended. But several of them had broken or cracked standards because of the heavy use and maximum rate of fire with extreme charge in the cold weather. The Ist Battalion, therefore, would have reduced heavy-mortar support during the second night.8

  Lieutenant Colonel Faith had had to put some troops in position at the gap in the line that Mortrude had left at the extreme western end of C Company's sector, next to the road, when on orders he had taken his platoon to the company's right flank during the day. Faith asked ist Lt. Hugh May, the motor officer, to gather about a platoon-size force of men from Headquarters Company and take them up the hill to fill Mortrude's former position. May assembled about 40 men and arrived at the gap in the line just before dark.

  May appears to have been the oldest man in the Ist Battalion and also had perhaps as much varied experience, much of it in combat, as any other man in the battalion. He had obtained a battlefield commission as a second lieutenant when he was a member of a tank battalion in the Italian Campaign of World War II, and his long and varied career in the Army included training as an artilleryman and tanker. But at Chosin he served largely as an infantry platoon leader. He had seen enough service and combat that he had no trouble performing the role with distinction.

  May was first assigned to the Far East in 1948. In Korea in the fall of 195o he was reassigned to Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, as its motor officer. All who have written or spoken of May have admired him as a competent and experienced officer, a dependable soldier in combat.9

  The wait in the ist Battalion for the enemy attack ended at midnight. First there were a few probes. Then quickly the Chinese attack developed all around the perimeter. By I:oo A.M. it was in full force, and at once the battalion was in trouble. On the battalion left in A Company's sector the Chinese moved around the west end of the company line and attacked from that side. They cut off the left-flank ist Platoon and threatened the entire company rear, killing the ist Platoon leader. A counterattack failed to restore the position. The Chinese success against A Company came at the point where the battalion perimeter made its closest approach to the reservoir, about Ilh miles west over rough terrain. The Chinese could now infiltrate around A Company's left flank and reach the battalion CP and Captain Bigger's 8i-mm mortars, less than a mile to the rear.

  At the same time more Chinese attacked up the road against Lieutenant May's improvised platoon, which now held the east side of the road in the battalion line. When he went into the line just before dark, May had arranged with Lt. Cecil Smith, commanding A Company, that he, May, would assume responsibility for the road during the night. May said that he made this arrangement because A Company informed him that they had every man on their front line for the night's expected action.

  May comments:

  I arrived at the ridge line above (north) of CP to take over the position held by the left flank platoon of "C" Company, and on the right flank of A' Co. I established contact with both "C" and W Cos. We set up with A' Co's right platoon for my unit to cover the road. The road proved to be the point to defend during the night. The road was covered by 2 30 cal. M.G.'s one light and one heavy, plus one recoilless rifle.

  Using these weapons plus some rifle fire we beat back 2 attempts of the CCF to penetrate during the night. Also some probing action along our front on the steep forward slope.10

  After May had repelled the enemy attacks up the road, the Chinese
tried to mount an attack frontally up the draws of the steep northern slope. May and his men could hear the Chinese troops below them. May adjusted 81-mm and 4.2-inch mortar fire on their assembly areas, preventing any further attacks on his front during the night.

  From their position on A Company's right May and his men could see the battle continuing against A Company westward on Hill 1316. On or ders from battalion May directed observed mortar fire in front of A Company's position."

  At the right (east) of A Company and May's platoon, C Company was hard pressed. The critical point was still the Chinese-held knob and the high ground on its right flank at the boundary with B Company. There and Lt. James G. Campbell, from the Weapons Company, had two machine guns emplaced downslope from the enemy-held knob. He expected the Chinese to extend their hold farther down the ridgeline during the night, so he selected alternate positions for the guns and was prepared to displace them so that they could cover the Chinese if they made a penetration. During the night Captain Bigger had been able to get a telephone wire run from his command post to Campbell's position to adjust on enemy mortar fire on his front. When the enemy began mortar fire, Campbell was able to see the tube flashes on the hill mass to his southeast but could not adjust on them because he could not differentiate the mortar ranging rounds from other indirect fire impacting on his front.

  The expected CCF attack from the knob came during an enemy mortar barrage and pushed C Company's right-hand squad off its position. Campbell moved one of his guns about 30 feet to the alternate position and reoriented the other gun's field of fire. These changes limited further enemy penetrations and prevented the Chinese from exploiting the situation.12

  Lieutenant Mortrude, a little farther east, received enemy sniper fire in his platoon area from the ridge and knoll in front of him. He requested mortar fire, and it came in on target. According to Mortrude, "The first ranging round fell over and behind the target ridge line and resulted in loud cries of distress. I then requested `Fire for Effect' at repeat range. The next few rounds resulted in more cries of pain, as though the fire for effect was falling in an assembly area. In any case, the fire from the ridge line at that point ceased and all remained quiet thereafter."13 During these attacks on C Company's right flank Capt. Dale Seever had his CP only is yards behind his frontline riflemen.14