East of Chosin Read online

  We do not know what the Chinese did after Faith led the ist Battalion to the inlet. They probably spent the day pillaging the area. Although there was no coordinated assault on the perimeter during the night, there were infiltration attempts and probing along the lines all night long and two or three sharp attacks. One of these attacks was especially vicious, though it did not last long. It was directed against both ends of the perimeter where the road entered and exited. The worst part of the attack was at the southern end, where A Company had established a roadblock to anchor its western boundary road. There an assault party overran a heavy machine gun, and a mortar shell exploded on a 75-mm recoilless rifle, wiping out that position. These two weapons had provided most of the American firepower in that sector. The Chinese captured some of the crew members.

  The enemy made special efforts against the antiaircraft weapons, causing some damage. In placing his quad-5os around the artillery, McClymont put one of them close to his CP with the cab away from the direction of the intended main area of fire, toward the inlet. The M16 could fire better over the tailgate, for the turret had more freedom to traverse.2 There was concern that the enemy might attack over the flat frozen area of the inlet. Mortars walked a barrage up the inlet and then pulled their rounds to within ioo yards of American foxholes. These shells did not break the ice and expose running water as hoped, to inhibit an enemy attack across the inlet. From time to time mortars fired illuminating shells over the perimeter.

  McClymont happened to be gazing out toward the inlet when one of the illuminating shells opened in the sky over a part of the inlet. In the sudden light he saw a group of men on the ice, crossing toward the perimeter. Then the anticlimax: they were American stragglers cut off the night before when the 1st Battalion withdrew from the forward perimeter. When they entered, McClymont said, "How they hollered, laughed, and were glad to see us."

  After this brief, tense incident, things quieted down again. McClymont remained in his foxhole underneath the half-track with a confiscated tommy gun at his side and a row of grenades on the lip of his foxhole. He had pulled his sleeping bag over him and was about to drop off to sleep. Suddenly shooting started at a foxhole near the edge of the inlet. McClymont and his two buddies were immediately awake. He grabbed his glasses and could just make out figures running on the ice, coming toward the perimeter. A star shell rose into the sky over the inlet. The quad-5o, about io to 20 yards to his right, opened up. The running figures had reached the south side of the inlet and the foxholes at the edge of the perimeter.

  By now the four machine guns of the quad-5o were raking the edge of the inlet and the ice. Each gun fires 45o rounds a minute on full automatic, and every fifth round is a tracer. The tracers showed the fire cutting into a bank and working over the edge of the ice at the inlet. Then suddenly it stopped firing, and the illuminating shell burned out. Relative darkness and quiet once more prevailed.

  McClymont could make out movement, closer to him than before, but he did not know whether it was friendly or enemy. He and the two men with him pointed their guns toward the movement but held their fire. Rifle fire was still coming from friendly foxholes in front of him. This led him to conclude that the moving shadows he saw were enemy.

  At this point a soldier climbed into his foxhole from the rear. He told McClymont that the edge of the inlet was "crawling with Chinese." McClymont picked up his gun; the others seized their weapons, and all fired into the mass of moving shadows below them. The nearby quad-5o had by now reloaded and came to life with a swath of .So-caliber bullets along the edge of the inlet, only 40 to 50 yards away. After this moving scythe of fire passed along the edge of the inlet, things became quiet. This is the only recorded enemy attack across the ice of the inlet from the north to the south side. It came to a bloody end.

  McClymont used the ensuing interval of inaction to go to the quad-5o and check on its status. The last stoppage of its fire was caused when the gunner was hit in the head as he sat in the turret. He was a tall man, and the crew had not been able to remove him because his feet were entangled with something inside. McClymont crouched down until he could feel the gunner's feet and slowly was able to turn them around. Then the crew lifted the gunner from his place, and laid him down alongside the quad-5o. A new gunner slid into the empty place in the turret.

  The soldier from the inlet who had crawled into McClymont's foxhole had other information. He said that a Korean house near the inlet held Chinese soldiers. McClymont went to one of his dual-4os and directed fire on the house. The 40-mm shells soon made a wreck of the hut, killing a squad of Chinese inside it.3

  During the night the Chinese attacked the Mig dual-4o commanded by Sgt. Harold B. Haugland, going for a knockout there, and a penetration of the perimeter. Enemy squads attacked it repeatedly before midnight. Haugland was able to direct the dual-4o fire against the assault groups, killing most of them. But in the action Haugland suffered a serious foot wound and was carried to the aid station.

  In the early hours of November 3o enemy groups renewed the attack on the Miq. Haugland wrapped his foot and wedged it into an empty ration box, using it for a shoe, and under fire hobbled back to his Miq and resumed command of it. Enemy mortar fire now set the Mig's ammunition trailer ablaze, causing the 40-mm shells to explode. Despite this, Haugland went to the front of the dual-4o and guided the driver in moving the vehicle to a new position away from the trailer. The Miq continued in action and during the night was the dominant factor in preventing an enemy penetration of the perimeter at that point. But in the nightlong duel the Miq suffered serious damage, which rendered it immobile, although still able to fire its guns. The destruction of the trailer also meant the loss of invaluable 40-mm shells.4

  After the attacks against the antiaircraft weapons, enemy activity for the rest of the night was confined to harassing with machine-gun fire, blowing bugles and whistles, and setting off flares. The latter were probably used as signals in the regrouping of forces.

  During the night an American soldier froze to death in a sitting position in his foxhole.f

  Daylight at the Inlet, November 30

  Ground fog during the morning of November 30 slowed the arrival of daylight. The fog began to dissipate about 8:0o A.M., and by 10:00 A.M. the skies had cleared. Airdrops then brought supplies, but ammunition was still critically short. Stamford asked the pilots to bring in more ammunition. Later there was a drop of .5o-caliber machine-gun ammunition, but there was still no resupply of 4o-mm shells for the dual-4os.

  After dawn the men built fires to warm themselves and heat water for coffee. Thus fortified, they worked on improving and deepening their positions. The Chinese on the high ground did not interfere and seemed to give no heed. After the fog burned off and the sun came out, some optimism developed in the perimeter, primarily because the scale of enemy activity had dropped off during the previous night from that of the first two nights. Many thought that the worst was over. Some still expected that a relief force from Hagaru-ri would reach them during the day. But by midafternoon it was obvious to all that they would have to stay another night. Another airdrop during the afternoon improved the ammunition situation for the perimeter forces, especially for the 4.2-inch mortars.

  Early on the 3oth, Lieutenant Mortrude was ordered to clear the shoreline of the inlet in his platoon area for a helicopter landing site for the evac uation of casualties. The work was finished before the only helicopter ever to use it arrived shortly before noon-with an unanticipated visitor, Maj. Gen. David G. Barr, commander of the 7th Infantry Division.

  Earlier, from Hagaru-ri, General Hodes had made it clear to Barr that all 7th Division troops east of the reservoir were in jeopardy. On the morning of November 30, Barr had flown from Hungnam to Hagaru-ri after an early-morning conference with General Almond. He also had a brief meeting with General Smith at Hagaru-ri before boarding a helicopter for the short flight to the inlet.

  When Barr stepped out of the helicopter, Mortrude and some of his men w
ere there to greet him. Mortrude wrote, "He quickly discouraged our enthusiastic welcome with a brusque and unsympathetic response and stalked off to locate Col. Faith." Barr went into immediate private conference with Faith, the meeting lasting about half an hour. What passed between them is not known, and Faith did not disclose it to his staff. From remarks that Barr made later in the day to Smith at Hagaru-ri, however, Faith told him that in any breakout attempt he would have 500 wounded to bring out. This figure did not include casualties that the task force might incur at the perimeter or in the breakout effort. He also told Barr about Colonel MacLean. This was the first information that higher headquarters had of the loss of the regimental commander on the 29th and of Faith's assumption of command.6

  The next day, when Faith called a meeting of his officers to tell them of his decision to try a breakout, all he said of his meeting with Barr was that he had received no instructions on what he was to do. But when Barr met Faith before noon on November 30, he no longer had authority to give Faith orders. General Almond's X Corps Operational Instructions No. iq, effective 8:0o A.M. on 3o November, placed all elements of the 7th Infantry Division north of Koto-ri under the command of Maj. Gen. Oliver D. Smith, ist Marine Division commander.? Barr could make recommendations to General Smith upon his return to Hagaru-ri on what he thought would be best for his troops cut off in the inlet perimeter, and he no doubt did so. For two years Barr had headed the US Military Advisory Group assigned to help Chiang Kai-shek in the civil war against the Communist Chinese and should have known as much as any other man in the US Department of Defense about the Communist forces and their capabilities.8

  Stamford got in a good day's work on the 3oth. He had planes on station as soon as it was light enough to see. The Corsair flight leader reported that east of the perimeter he had spotted vehicles, tents, and enemy soldiers dragging away their dead. He reported that the center of activity seemed to be what looked like a CCF regimental CP, which he and his flight attacked with good results. Stamford thought that the supporting arms on the ground-the mortars, the artillery, and the AAA AW weapons-did a good job in helping the infantry defend the perimeter, considering the shortage of ammunition.

  By now three main avenues of enemy attack toward the perimeter had become apparent. The first, which had been used each night, was from the northeast along a shallow draw upstream from the bridge and causeway leading into the northeast corner, down the valley of the Pungnyuri-gang. The second approach was down a draw that entered the perimeter at its southeast corner from the ridge on the south. The third approach, an increasingly frequent avenue of violent attack, was along the narrow-gauge railroad and the road passing through the perimeter from the southwest.

  About noon, after the early Corsair and supply-plane flights to the inlet, Stamford's high-frequency radio ceased to operate. Stamford thought that parts of Lieutenant Johnson's equipment, damaged when Johnson was killed in the first night's attack on the 3rd Battalion, might be salvaged to repair his set. Johnson's equipment lay about Soo yards from Stamford's position. Corporal Myron J. Smith, the radio operator, and Pfc. Billy E. Johnson, another member of the TACP, volunteered to cross the area under enemy fire to bring the equipment to Stamford. They succeeded in rescuing it and then worked four hours with bare hands in freezing weather to make the radio set operable.9

  The prevailing practice was for the ist Marine Air Wing and the Fifth Air Force to send all the planes they could make available from Yonpo Airfield near Hungnam, the Marine Air Field near Wonsan, and carriers off the coast near Hungnam to Hagaru-ri every day to support the 1st Marine Division and the 31st RCT A dispatcher at Hagaru-ri would direct the planes to points where they were most needed. The repaired radio set enabled Stamford to reach the dispatcher at Hagaru-ri by relay through the pilots in the air over the inlet. The expert repair work done under adverse conditions by Smith and Johnson thus enabled Task Force Faith to continue to receive the help of a forward air controller. It is sad that neither Corporal Smith nor Private Johnson survived Chosin.

  In view of the disastrous effects of the lack of communications between the cutoff battalions at the inlet and the 31st Rear at Hudong-ni and the Marines at Hagaru-ri, it is regrettable that no one took steps to reestablish communication. It was Army practice at that time that responsibility for reestablishing broken communications rested with the higher command. But in this instance nothing was done by higher headquarters. Therefore, common sense should have dictated that a lower-level commander of cutoff forces would take the initiative in getting communications reestablished if it was in his power. There is no evidence that any effort was made by Faith at the inlet to establish communications when the means were at hand to do so through the daily radio contact of the TACP with pilots overhead. According to Stamford, he had the means to communicate if he had been given the proper radio frequencies. He said: "My AN/FRC-i was capable of tuning any high frequency used by US forces air or land. Had we been given a frequency by a pilot or had Gen. Barr brought one with him, or someone air dropped one, we could have been in business. The ist Mar Div Air Section knew what kind of equipment I had."10

  It apparently never dawned on Faith or his principal staff officers that this means of establishing communication with the ist Marine Division at Hagaru-ri, and through it with the 7th Infantry Division and X Corps, was feasible. According to Curtis, who admits his own lack of foresight in the matter, he knew of no such effort in the 31st RCT.11

  During the late afternoon of the 3oth, Faith and Curtis worked out a detailed plan for counterattacks that might be needed to close penetrations at any part of the perimeter. The counterattack forces were taken from the 57th FA Headquarters Battery, the ist Battalion Headquarters, and the Heavy Weapons (D) Company. Wire communications within the perimeter were improved, and ammunition was redistributed. 12

  Major Miller explains how he improved his medical operations: "The aid station was set up under a tarp stretched across the railroad culvert or cut, with other canvas hung on the sides to cut the wind and a makeshift stove set up inside to dispel some of the chill. A standard GI field range was in use to heat soup for the wounded. The Bn CP was of the same makeshift construction and was set up about 20 yards from the aid station in the culvert. Two sets of telephone wires were run from the Bn CP to each company and to the Task Force CP."11

  Miller was especially concerned about frostbite, and he ordered all the men to change socks before nightfall and keep an extra pair of socks under their shirts to dry out from body heat. So far there had been few cases of frozen feet because, as mentioned earlier, Faith did not favor wearing the shoepacs but believed that the ordinary combat boots with overshoes were better. Most of the men who went through the winter in North Korea in 1950 agreed with that judgment.

  Throughout the day parts of the perimeter received sporadic, light-caliber enemy mortar fire. Mortrude's platoon CP had been discovered by the Chinese, and it was one of the targets. The mortar fire spurred Mortrude's men to dig deeper into the cutbank of the railroad. Once during the day they observed an enemy group approaching up the roadbed but dispersed them with long-range rifle fire.

  Lieutenant May relates an unusual incident that occurred at his corner of the perimeter on the morning of November 30:

  I observed a lone man out on the ice coming toward our positions. We put our glasses on him and found he was in an American uniform. Col. Faith told me to get a '/a ton M.G.veh. and pick him up.

  Our point of departure was from the west corner of our position at the edge of the ice. Sgt. Rule of Dog Company drove the vehicle. The north side of the reservoir Inlet was controlled by the CCF and required we stay as far away from them as possible. I decided to go along the south side of the inlet to open ice. I think we took the CCF to our west by surprise as we had very little fire from them at this time.

  We traveled southwest until out of rifle range, then cut west and picked up a man from our HQ. Co. The man had been cut off at the time of our withdrawal from t
he forward positions.

  We returned with the rescued man by the same route we used going out. We did get a lot more small arms fire on our return trip. Yes, we took a chance on this venture and were lucky in the rescue.14

  After returning from this mission at noon, May was given one of the more difficult and dangerous jobs on the perimeter. He was to cover the road and the railroad leading south out of the perimeter. This was the boundary between A and C companies, A Company having originally been responsible for the line across the railbed and the road. The repeated enemy attacks made it necessary to reinforce this critical point. May recruited his force from drivers, cooks, and other Headquarters personnel. His role here was almost identical to the one he had had in the forward perimeter. In addition to their individual weapons, the men of his makeshift force were provided with a rocket launcher, two .5o-caliber machine guns, and two .3o-caliber machine guns. The Chinese continued attacking the line during the afternoon, not waiting for nightfall. May tells about this action:

  The Chinese continued to make attacks from around an embankment approximately ioo to Iso yards southwest of our road outposts. The outposts had to withdraw to the perimeter boundary and we set up a strong point there. These suicide attacks, of the Chinese along the road, continued all that afternoon and night. At times they got so close we used grenades. Due to this action, the Chinese KIA was extremely heavy, while we suffered only a few KIA and wounded. The Chinese had a strong point set up behind the curve in the road out a few hundred yards, which later proved to be an obstacle, requiring an air strike to remove.'S