East of Chosin Page 5
McClymont set up his own CP a short distance from Embree's. For protection he placed an Miq close to the road in front of the artillery CP, another just south of the first one, and an M16 south of the second Miq. A few hundred feet east of his own CP, McClymont positioned another M16. In the center of the cove he emplaced his ist Platoon CP and an Miq and an M16 nearby. At the southern edge of the cove he placed his two remaining weapons carriers, the M16 close to the road.
Accompanying the 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry, to Chosin on the 27th was Capt. George Cody's 31st Heavy Mortar (4.2-inch) Company, less one platoon that was attached to the 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry, which MacLean expected to arrive at any time. Cody emplaced his heavy mortars in the flat marshland about halfway between the inlet and the 3rd Battalion on the south and Faith's 1st Battalion forward position on the north. The mortar position was west of the MSR and nearly opposite MacLean's forward CP. From its position the 31st Heavy Mortar Company could deliver supporting fire for both infantry battalions. Faith had with him one platoon of the 32nd Infantry's Heavy Mortar Company. When Cody arrived, Faith had Lt. Robert Reynolds take the platoon of heavy mortars to join him. The latter then had the equivalent of a full company of 12 heavy mortars, 4 to a platoon.
During the afternoon A and B batteries (each with four toy-mm howitzers) of the 57th Field Artillery Battalion emplaced on the south side of the inlet where the ground flared into semiflat land just short of the bridge and causeway that crossed the Pungnyuri-gang. A Battery emplaced farther east and closer to the bridge than B Battery, which was behind, or west, of it. Captain Harold L. Hodge commanded A Battery; Capt. Theodore C. Goss commanded B Battery.
First Lieutenant Thomas J. Patton, a member of A Battery, said that on arrival at the inlet the artillery occupied its positions without difficulty and that "perimeter defenses were set up with men in foxholes." He continued: "The Battery CP was set up in a log hut on the left side of the battery position-Gun Sections were dug into the rear of the pieces in covered over shelters-Wire communications were laid and radio communications were made with Battalion-the Battery Mess was set up in a log hut in the forward position some 30 yards inside the perimeter defense line."32
Reilly placed two rifle companies of his 3rd Battalion on a ridge about goo yards east of his CP. This spur ridge ran northward from Hill 1456, south of the bivouac area, descending to the south bank of the Pungnyurigang about half a mile east of the bridge. This long finger ridge controlled a view of all the low ground lying westward along the southern side of the inlet, where the artillery and the 3rd Battalion had bivouacked for the night. Reilly placed Capt. Robert J. Kitz's K Company on the lower part of the ridge and Capt. Albert Marr's I Company above K Company on the upper extension of the ridge. Captain Earle H. Jordan, Jr.'s M Company was to the west, behind I Company. These three companies constituted the east ern defense of the perimeter. Captain William Etchemendy's L Company appears to have been bivouacked in the vicinity of the artillery, but its initial location on the 27th has not been determined.
Captain Jordan emplaced the 8i-mm mortars of the Weapons (M) Company in a dry wash just east of his CP and between it and I Company. Companies K and I each had a section of machine guns and a section of 75-mm recoilless rifles attached to it from M Company. Jordan says that it was dark before he had his mortars emplaced and local security established on the evening of November
It appears from what is known about the troop dispositions of the 3rd Battalion and the 57th Field Artillery on the night of November 27 that there was a defensive line only on the east; on the north there was the frozen inlet; on the west and south there was no organized line-only scattered foxholes; and in between were the foxholes of the artillerymen near their howitzers and the parked trucks and other vehicles of the troops north of the artillery pieces just off the road.
Registrations of mortar defensive fires for both the ist and the 3rd battalions, at both the forward position and at the inlet, were not completed until about 8:30 P.M., well after dark. These were normal precautions. No one expected an enemy attack that night; no enemy were known to be in the vicinity.
The 31st Tank Company was expected to join MacLean's infantry and artillery forces at the reservoir and to be a powerful part of the combat team in the projected attack northward. In the X Corps movement from the Inchon-Seoul area to northeast Korea, the 7th Division had moved overland to Pusan and there loaded on ships for the sea voyage up the coast to Iwon. The tank company was not with its regiment on the overland journey to Pusan. Instead, it loaded on an LST at Inchon and had a three-week sea trip around the tip of Korea and northward up the east coast of the peninsula to Hungnam.
The company, commanded by Capt. Robert E. Drake, arrived at Hungnam, long overdue, at full strength in authorized tanks. It had four platoons of five M 4A4 tanks each, all armed with 76-mm guns. There were two additional tanks in the command section armed with toy-mm howitzers, making a total of 22 tanks. In Korea seldom did a tank company operate as a unit; usually it was employed in platoons or sections. But at Chosin, Drake's company was employed as a unit.
In unloading from the LST at Hungnam, the tanks submerged in salt water and needed immediate maintenance. Drake assembled them in an apple orchard on the outskirts of the port city, provided the necessary maintenance, and then had a fine Thanksgiving Day dinner, which included pies made from the orchard's apples. That day he received instructions to proceed at once to Chosin Reservoir to join the 31st RCT.
Drake obtained a black-and-white Japanese map based on 1916 data, which the Army had hastily reproduced for the Chosin operation. The next day, November 27, he led the tank company out of its bivouac area and started for Chosin.34
In the afternoon, after a tiring climb from the coastal plain to the Kotori Plateau, the tankers arrived at the reservoir. Drake stopped the tank company at Hudong-ni for a rest and refueling. Colonel MacLean had already established his rear CP there, together with an ammunition and petroleum dump. When Drake pulled off the road into the Hudong-ni schoolhouse area, the last combat unit of MacLean's RCT to reach Chosin had arrived. The 2nd Battalion, 31st Infantry, with C Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, never made it.
Drake instructed his men to make a full maintenance check of the tanks while he went on a search for the regimental commander. Members of MacLean's staff told Drake that he was somewhere forward. Drake, with his Korean interpreter, started down the road northward. After some miles he came to what he later remembered as a CP, probably that of Reilly's 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry. MacLean was not there. At this stop, however, Drake learned that MacLean had sent the 31st I&R Platoon to check a report of enemy troops in a village to the northeast. Drake drove on as far as Faith's CP at the forward position. MacLean was not there, but Faith told him that the regimental plan called for an attack the next morning to Kalchon-ni, at the north end of the reservoir. He advised Drake not to try to bring his tanks up during the night but to wait until the next
It is one of the curious mishaps of the campaign that Drake never saw MacLean at the reservoir. On the way back to Hudong-ni he did not find him. Drake arrived there sometime after MacLean had left the schoolhouse to return to his own forward CP. The two officers passed each other somewhere between the 31st rear at Hudong-ni and Faith's forward position.
One can speculate on what MacLean's orders might have been that night if the two had met, and whether Drake would have moved his tanks forward to either of the infantry battalions. The tanks probably could have made it to the inlet if they had moved on by evening. It is probable that neither Hodes nor MacLean had any definite plan for the tank company or felt any urgency that evening for it to join the infantry forward at once. Both of these officers conferred at the Hudong-ni schoolhouse after the tanks had arrived there and could have left orders for Drake. Indeed, Hodes was at Hudong-ni all night.
As it was, upon his return to Hudong-ni, Drake made arrangements for local security for the night, planning to move forward in
the morning. He did not know that Hodes was in the area until the next morning.
The same evening Maj. William R. Lynch, Jr., of the 7th Infantry Division G-3 Section, arrived at Hudong-ni. The time of his arrival and what he observed that night are significant relative to the situation of the 31st RCT. Lynch had been with the 17th Regiment in its advance toward Hyesanjin but had been recalled to the division CP at Pungsan. There Colonel Paddock, the Division G-3, told Lynch that General Hodes was going to fly to Hamhung to the X Corps CP to check on a rumor that the corps planned to move the 31st Infantry to join the 1st Marine Division. He instructed Lynch to take Sergeants Cox and Hammer of the G-3 Section and drive at once to Hamhung, where they were to join Hodes as his G-3 assistants.
Lynch and the two sergeants left Pukchong, the division rear CP, on the morning of November 26 and made the long, cold, desolate journey to Hamhung. They arrived late that evening. Lynch reported to X Corps G-3 Section, where he learned for the first time about the Chosin Reservoir operation and that General Hodes had already hurried to the area to check on unit deployments. Lynch and the two sergeants planned to leave the next morning to join Hodes at the reservoir.
At the X Corps morning briefing, when Lt. Col. William W. Quinn, the G-2, discussed the intelligence situation along the X Corps front, he made only passing reference to the presence of some Chinese in the 1st Marine Division sector and seemed to attach no importance to it. After the briefing Lynch and the two sergeants got on the road and headed for the reservoir. They found that they had cut in just behind the tail of the 31st Tank Company, also on its way to Chosin. They traveled all day behind the tank company and eventually reached and passed Hagaru-ri. Some miles north of the shattered village Lynch remembers Sergeant Cox pulling off "the ice-covered, narrow road and crossing two branches of the Paegamni-gang. Cox drove the jeep through hub-deep water. He stopped momentarily to keep backwash from the vehicle ahead from drowning out our jeep."
Immediately upon his arrival at Hudong-ni about 5:30 P.M., Lynch entered the schoolhouse. There he found Hodes in conversation with MacLean. Subsequently he heard MacLean instruct Lt. Col. Berry Anderson, his S-3, to bring forward the rest of the regimental headquarters staff still at the schoolhouse the next morning. Colonel MacLean left about half an hour later, stating that he was going north to his forward units. Thus it appears that MacLean left Hudong-ni about 6:oo P.M., during darkness. Hodes and Lynch remained at the schoolhouse overnight.36
The Hudong-ni schoolhouse and the 31st rear CP stood at the southwestern base of a large hill mass, Hill 1472-Kobong or Nopun-Bong, some early maps called it. Drake had been there three nights and three days and knew the area well. He said that below the schoolhouse the ground sloped south toward the low marsh area at the Paegamni-gang, affording an expanse of about 25 to 3o acres that could be used for an assembly area, ammunition and petroleum products dumps, a tentage area, and a tank park. The road ran on the west side of the schoolhouse area. Beyond the road the Chosin Reservoir was in view about a mile away.
After Lynch's arrival at Hudong-ni, only Service Battery of the 57th Field Artillery (FA) Battalion, which had lagged behind the rest of the artillery, reached Hudong-ni. It settled down for the night about a mile south of Hudong-ni. The next morning it joined the 31st rear CP at the schoolhouse. i7
Thus, on the evening of November 27 elements of the 31st RCT were scattered along the road from Hagaru-ri northward on the east side of the reservoir in seven different locations in a distance of 1o miles, beginning on the south at a point 4 miles north of Hagaru-ri and extending northward to the forward perimeter of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, 14 miles north of Hagaru-ri. Beginning with the most forward 1st Battalion position and moving south, the seven positions in succession were:
i. 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry
2. 31st Infantry Advance CP
3. 31st Heavy Mortar Company
4. 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry, and A and B Batteries, 57th Field Artillery Battalion
HQ and HQ Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion, and D Battery (minus one platoon), 15th AAA AW Battalion
6. 31st Infantry Rear CP and 31st Tank Company
7. Service Battery, 57th Field Artillery Battalion
Those units of MacLean's 31st RCT that had arrived east of Chosin by the evening of November 27 were far from concentrated. MacLean did not even know where the and Battalion, 31st Infantry, was.38
While the 31st Infantry and the 57th Field Artillery were climbing to the reservoir on November 27, the 5th Marines completed their move from the east side of Chosin Reservoir to Yudam-ni, on the west side. Faith could not move his battalion to the Marines' forward position east of Chosin until they had cleared on the road past Hill 1221, where the battalion was located.'
It should have been clear to Faith and his staff that Lt. Col. Robert D. Taplett's 3rd Marine Battalion would start its movement from the forward perimeter at first light. That is what it did; it never had any intention of waiting until Faith's battalion arrived to relieve it. Later complaints by the 7th Infantry Division that this was not done were unjustified. By the evening of November 27 the only Marines left on the east side of the reservoir were A Company, 1st Marine Engineer Combat Battalion, at Hill 1203 and the sawmill town of Sasu just north of it, about two miles north of Hagaru-ri.2
All morning on Monday, November 27, Marines raised a haze of dust on the road past the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry. Faith's men learned from the Marines moving south past Hill 1221 that a few small enemy patrols had probed their positions during the night. In one instance a Chinese soldier had pulled a Marine from his foxhole and disarmed and beaten him.3
It was early afternoon when Faith started his battalion, mounted in vehicles, north to occupy Taplett's vacated positions. The battalion occupied the same positions; there was no compelling reason to make changes. The Marine defense line was well situated, with several bunkers constructed and foxholes dug. Being considerably fewer in number than the Marines, how ever, the ist Battalion did not occupy all the positions, particularly those on the right, or southern, flank. This did not concern the battalion; it expected to be there only one night. After settling into their positions, the battalion began registration of defensive fire. The mortar registrations were completed about 8:30 P.m., after dark.
An aerial view looking north over the lower (north) end of Chosin Reservoir. Near the bottom of the picture the road leading south to the A Company, 32nd Infantry, position can be seen. The Changjin River can be seen near the center of the picture, extending from the dam (and Kalchon-ni) at the edge of the reservoir to the northeast (upper right). The photograph was taken at a point directly above the position occupied by the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, on November 27, i95o. This and other aerial shots appearing in this book were taken on November i, 195o, before ice had formed at the reservoir, except at the shallow edges of tributaries. By November 24 the reservoir had frozen solid enough to hold the weight of a man and generally appeared to be frozen over. US Army photograph SC 363268.
Col. (Maj. at Chosin) Crosby P Miller, in February, 1966. Photograph courtesy of Colonel Miller.
In his narrative, Major Miller, the battalion executive officer, included a description of the position occupied during the afternoon of the 27th:
When I reached the new CP (5384) [Miller had not accompanied Faith when he and his party reconnoitered it earlier], I found the battalion position to be on high ground which stretched around in a huge horseshoe, the open end of which was generally southwest of the Bn CP In order to cover this ground, the battalion was extended beyond its capabilities, but the one road leading north was adequately covered. Able Company on the north and west (left) end of the horseshoe was well disposed to block the road. Charley Company extended east from the right flank of Able Company, along the northern side of the horseshoe to its bend. Baker Company closed off the bend and back along the southern leg to the road [B Company did not extend to the road]. Dog Company [Heavy Weapons], HQ Co
mpany, and the Battalion HQ were in a deep ravine immediately behind Able and Charley Companies. An ammunition dump also was located in the ravine. This ravine was crowded. The battalion was thinly spread, but the position had excellent control of the ground and the key road to the north.4
To expand on Miller's description of the position, one can confirm that Faith's CP was in a Korean house just northeast of the road where it bent around a finger ridge on the south side of the deep ravine that ran down from the high ground to the east. Captain Erwin B. Bigger's D Company CP and his 81-mm mortars were across the road west of Faith's CP. After bending around the nose of ground just south of Faith's and Bigger's CP positions, the road turned sharply to the right. It climbed almost due north about half a mile to the front-line position of A Company, which held a commanding position west of the road at the point where it passed through a saddle. It then dropped north down the side of a ridgeline to a draw that met the reservoir.
Across the road at the saddle, on ground higher than that of the right flank of A Company, C Company went into position. There was a physical gap between the two companies at the road, but both commanded it from their elevation and had visual control of the road north. Lieutenant Mortrude's 3rd Platoon held the left flank of C Company near the road and opposite A Company. He describes how his platoon established its position: "Detrucked on road behind ridgeline pass to our front. Proceeded to occupy Marine prepared forward slope positions to right of road through pass. Tied in by fire with Co. A CP group on lower ground across road. Heavy ma chine guns on my right flank. Located my own platoon CP in excellently prepared, former Marine bunker with overhead cover and good view to front, flanks, and rear." 5 Telephone communication was established between Mortrude's CP and battalion just as darkness came. The temperature be gan to drop sharply. Mortrude allowed his men to build squad warming fires in pits on the rear slope behind the front lines. But both Captain Seever, C Company commander, and battalion headquarters telephoned to tell him to extinguish the fires.