East of Chosin Read online

  In May, 1948, Jones was sent to Japan as S-3, 3rd Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry, 11th Airborne Division. When the division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in March, 1949, Jones stayed behind and became commanding officer of C Company, 32nd Infantry. In the battle for Seoul, following the Inchon Landing in September, 1950, when his company was driving the enemy from a key hill, a .3o-caliber machine-gun bullet hit him over the heart. What might have been a fatal wound was converted to a minor one when the slug hit the steel button on his left breast pocket and then passed through a 5o-page notebook and a 20-page company roster before a rib stopped it.3 In October, 1950, Jones was promoted to major, and Faith at once made him his adjutant and S-1. Jones was 32 years old at Chosin.

  Running through the story of theist RCT at Chosin is the dark thread of the KATUSA. These were young men who were picked up on the streets of South Korean cities and towns by President Syngman Rhee's impressment agents and without any military training turned over by the thousands to US Army authorities to fill depleted ranks of American units. This practice was at its peak in the summer of ig5o when the North Koreans seemed on the verge of breaking through the Naktong Perimeter in the south of the peninsula. The 7th Division had been "cannibalized" of infantry junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and experienced riflemen to fill the ranks of the three American divisions fighting in Korea. In a sense the 7th Division was a hollow shell in Japan when the Inchon Landing was being planned. It was essential to bring the division up to some level of strength. In addition to replacements coming from the United States, the 7th Infantry Division received in Japan approximately 8,6oo KATUSA, more than any other American division. They were distributed to every unit.

  At that time the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, at Camp McNair received 500 KATUSA. By the time the battalion reached Chosin Reservoir, the number was down to about 300. Each of its three rifle companies had 45 to 50 assigned South Koreans, or ROKs, as they were generally called. They constituted about one-fourth of a company's numerical strength. The American squad leaders could rarely communicate satisfactorily with their ROK soldiers. In the action east of Chosin they were frequently a handicap to the Americans rather than a help. Later in the war, when the South Koreans were properly trained and supported, they proved to be good soldiers. That was not the case at the Chosin Reservoir. This unsatisfactory situation must be kept in mind constantly in evaluating the problems Americans had in meeting the daily and nightly demands on all their energies and courage.

  MAP 6. The seven positions of the 31st RCT on the evening of November 27, 1950.

  In contrast to the Army units at Chosin, the overstrength 1st Marine Division, fighting under similar conditions at Chosin, had almost no KATUSA, and the few they had served as interpreters. On November 24, 195o, the ist Marine Division had an assigned strength of 25,323 men, with only iio attached South Korean interpreters, for a total strength of 25,433 men. At the same time the 7th Division had a strength of 16,ooi men, including 6,794 assigned South Koreans, more than a third of its foxhole strength.4

  Late in the afternoon of November 27, Lieutenant Colonel Faith ordered Capt. Edward P. Stamford, USMC, the forward air controller with the battalion, to move his Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) to A Company's position so that he would be in a position to run air support, if needed, for the battalion attack in the morning. A Company held the left flank of the battalion perimeter on the high ground of Hill 1316 and west of the road where it passed through a saddle between Hill 1316 and east of the road higher ground climbing eastward. Stamford's stay overnight with A Company on the evening of the 27th imposed on him duties no one expected. He had been attached to the 1st Battalion, 32nd' Infantry, together with his Marine TACP of four enlisted men, just as the battalion was loading out in Japan for the Inchon Landing. At that time the Navy had lent him to the Army battalion as a forward air controller for the landing operation. He served with the battalion during the battle for Seoul and remained attached to it when the division moved to northeast Korea.

  Stamford was one of the many Marine enlisted pilots who received commissions in World War II. Stamford received his in September, 1943, and the next month he went to the South Pacific, serving first as a second lieutenant in antisubmarine search. Later he was a dive-bomber pilot in the Solomon Islands, Green Island, and other South Pacific combat areas. In 1944 he returned to the United States, where he attended the 13-week course at the Marine Air-Infantry School at Quantico, Virginia. This training course was important for Stamford in his later duties as a forward controller. It greatly increased his competence in that role because it gave him an understanding of infantry tactics and problems, and he was better able to act as liaison between the fighter and bomber pilots overhead and the infantry on the ground. He was the communication link between the two. This training also qualified him for performance as an infantryman.

  Capt. (later Maj.) Edward P. Stamford, US Marine Corps, Fort Lewis, Washington, late September, 1949. Stamford was forward air controller with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, and Task Force Faith at Chosin Reservoir in 195o. Photograph courtesy of Major Stamford.

  In ig5o, Stamford was in Japan helping develop the Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (Anglico) teams that were to direct naval gunfire in support of ground troops making a landing and establishing a beachhead. The Marine Corps was the first of the services to develop this technique, but the Army wanted the same capability. That summer in Japan, Stamford's Forward Air Controller Anglico Team trained nine teams from the Fifth Air Force for use by the 7th Infantry Division battalions in the Inchon Landing. Each such team had one officer and three enlisted men. Two of the enlisted men were radio operators; the third was a technician. The TACP equipment was mounted on a jeep, but comparable equipment could be placed on a pack board and carried on foot. In the loading out of the 7th Infantry Division in Japan, Stamford's party was attached by chance to the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry. He met the battalion commander for the first time when he boarded the transport. It should be noted that Stamford's TACP with the battalion consisted of four men: one officer (himself-now a captain) and three enlisted men.

  Stamford was powerfully built, about 5 feet, 1o inches tall, compact, with a barrel-shaped chest, heavily muscled legs and arms, and big hands. He was an experienced, practical, cool operator at all times. He knew his business. There was never any question that he would do his duty as a soldiers

  Two months after the Chosin Reservoir action Stamford wrote of the situation he found at A Company when he joined it on the evening of November 27:

  Able Company's CP was protected by company headquarters personnel and the platoons were from the left in the order of 1st, 3rd, and 2nd. The 2nd was bent back to the rear on a spur. I was given two bunkers for myself and my 4 men. Captain Ed Scullion, Able Company commander, ordered me to use the bunker between the CP and the right flank of the 1st Platoon. I was given an SCR 300 [infantry company radio] to be in contact with him. I moved into the bunker with 2 of my men and put the other 2 in the bunker about So yards to the rear and bedded down for the night, keeping a radio watch. The end of the bunker to the north [the one Stamford occupied] had a soldier on watch and the south end was covered with a poncho to keep the snow out.6

  Members of Captain Stamford's TACP with the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, and Task Force Faith. From left: Cpl. Myron J. Smith, Pfc. Wendell P. Shaffer, and Pfc. Billy E. Johnson, all US Marines. Photograph courtesy of Major Stamford.

  Behind Stamford's bunker and slightly east of it Scullion had his company command bunker. It was behind the crest (south) of Hill 1316, near the center of the A Company line. At the right of Stamford's bunker the 3rd Platoon held the center of the company line in an arc around the military crest of Hill 1316. A spur ridge dropped southeast from this hill, angling into the road at the saddle. The and Platoon held this spur ridge and had observation of the road approaching from the north. Neither A Company nor C Company, opposite A Company on the east side of the
saddle, had a block on the road.

  The 1st Platoon of A Company formed the western flank of the 1st Battalion. Beyond it westward to the reservoir the continuing steep slope of Hill 1316 was unoccupied.

  Beginning at the 1,20o-meter contour line elevation behind the front line at Hill TO, a deep draw ran almost due south. The A Company 6o-mm mortars were placed in this draw. A Company's position was in the shape of an uneven triangle, its western side longer than its eastern side, and the northern apex a rounded arc at the crest of Hill i;r6. There was no physical contact between A and C companies where the road ran through the saddle between them.

  Shortly before 11:00 P.M. men at the battalion CP heard scattered rifle fire in the A Company position. At first this did not cause any great concern for it was common for ROK soldiers attached to the battalion to fire at imaginary enemies after dark, and sometimes their ruckus developed into what sounded like a fire fight before it could be stopped.

  Actually, however, Chinese soldiers had appeared. The first group spotted in front of the A Company perimeter carried shovels. One of the Chinese soldiers was captured; the others scattered. Enemy patrols probed the company front for the next hour. Then, just after midnight, after their reconnaissance was apparently completed, the Chinese struck. This was part of a coordinated attack that had begun several hours earlier against the ist Marine Division at Yudam-ni, on the west side of the reservoir.

  The Chinese came from the north, marching straight up the road against A Company. Either at the saddle or just south of it they veered to their right, west of the road, and immediately either penetrated or moved around the right flank of the and Platoon on the spur ridge that paralleled the road at that point. This put the Chinese behind the company CP, in the vicinity of the draw where 6o-mm mortars were positioned.

  MAP 7. The forward perimeter of the ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, on the night of November 27-28, 1950.

  This first enemy attack accomplished two things. Some of the Chinese turned back in a hairpin movement against the center of A Company from its rear. That put them in the area of the CP and behind the 3rd Platoon on the high ground of Hill 1316, in the center of the company line, before anyone knew of their presence. Other Chinese turned sharply south after the penetration and went for the mortars in the draw. Sergeant James J. Freund of the mortar squad said later that the Chinese marched up the hill and quickly penetrated A Company to the mortar position behind the front line. The mortarmen, surprised, gave way and abandoned their weapons.'

  Just behind the left center of the company line Stamford awoke sometime after midnight to the sound of shots and heard Scullion shouting. Before he could get up, he heard voices chattering outside his bunker. The poncho at the back end was pulled aside, and Stamford saw a fur-rimmed face in the moonlight. He fired at it from a sitting position, but the Chinese soldier had already dropped a grenade inside the bunker, which blew up on the sleeping bag between Stamford's feet. Fragments wounded one of the two men with him, but he was untouched. Stamford fired more rounds through the poncho. Enemy rifle fire then hit the bunker, some shots coming down from the top through cracks in the log roof. He and his two men moved from the bunker into the escape slit trench at the back end and remained hidden there for a few minutes. One of A Company's machine guns now opened up and swept a spray of bullets across the top of the bunker, clearing it of Chinese soldiers. Stamford climbed out of the slit trench.

  He at once began assembling the scattered men in his vicinity into a defense. Scullion, whose shouts had helped awaken him, lay dead nearby, shot down only a few yards from his CP bunker when he hurried out to learn what was happening. Stamford gathered enough men to hold the ground immediately around the command bunker. He then moved off to the 1st Platoon position on the left to learn the situation there. He found that Lt. Raymond C. Dentchfield, the platoon leader, had been wounded. Stamford asked for 1st Lt. Cecil Smith, the company executive officer, and was told that he was directing the troops near the CP.

  First Lieutenant Carlos J. Ortenzi, A Company mortar officer, came up to Stamford and informed him that as the next senior man he would have to take the company. Stamford sent one of his Marine TACP helpers to obtain reports on the situation of the other platoons and placed Smith in charge of the ist Platoon. Stamford soon had reports that the enemy had thus far hit A Company only in the vicinity of the 3rd Platoon, the company CP, and had overrun the mortars.

  He moved two squads of the ist Platoon from the left to the right flank to strengthen the 2nd Platoon there. He left Corporal Smith of his TACP with the one remaining squad at the ist Platoon line to act as a getaway man to warn him in case the enemy attacked there. He then set about searching out and destroying enemy in the CP area. He accomplished this without much trouble, and with his defense now organized, he repulsed other attempts to overrun the company position.

  After the initial penetration, enemy pressure developed frontally on the 3rd Platoon in the center of the line, but this was repulsed. Near dawn the Chinese discovered that the 1st Platoon had shifted most of its men to the right flank, and they began a buildup on the left for an attack there. Stamford learned of this in time to move the two squads of the 1st Platoon and a machine-gun section back to their original positions and repelled attacks there, which never gained much strength.8

  Meanwhile, Lieutenant Ortenzi had rallied his mortarmen behind the line and counterattacked the Chinese at their overrun mortar position. In protracted fighting behind the line Ortenzi and his men inflicted heavy casualties on them and halted further penetration. Their stout defense behind the center of the line prevented Chinese penetration southward to the battalion CP, Captain Bigger's D Company CP, the 8i-mm mortars, and possibly farther to Captain Cody's heavy mortars, which were wholly outside and south of the ist Battalion perimeter.

  Stamford could see from his place near the center of the company line that the Chinese had penetrated about 200 yards behind the front line and had overrun the 6o-mm mortars and that a fire fight was in progress behind him. Both telephone lines and radio communications were out between A Company and the battalion CP. Stamford learned later that two wire teams had been lost when Captain Bigger tried to reestablish communication between his 8i-mm mortars and the rifle company, a distance of only 6oo yards. Without communication the mortars could not give A Company supporting fires. They were, however, able to fire support for both C and B companies during the night.

  With the position reestablished, Stamford gave orders to the company to hold precisely where it was because if the Chinese broke through they could enlarge the penetration south up the road to the battalion CP and reach the 8i-mm mortars. He had to reduce the company's rate of fire because it was expending too much ammunition-a common fault-and he feared that it would run short before daylight. Stamford also strengthened his position by setting up two machine guns to cover a shallow draw the enemy was using to gain a new entrance to the perimeter. A 57-mm recoilless rifle fired on an enemy assembly area and did much to prevent the Chinese from mounting a successful attack from that point.

  In discussions with me, Stamford expressed strong views about how the Chinese accomplished their initial surprise penetration of A Company. He believed that they infiltrated through the line because of the men's lack of alertness. He believed that the Chinese caught the soldiers dozing in their foxholes and simply bypassed or overran some positions before they were discovered. Stamford heard no shooting in front of his own position before the Chinese overran his bunker, which was slightly behind the right flank of the ist Platoon. The enemy had reached Scullion's CP before there was any general alarm. The lack of alertness in the outposts and in the front line was, Stamford said, `one fault that was common to all the units I came in contact with. It was a continual gripe of all officers even while we were in the Seoul area. They'd check their lines and were scared to walk through them because they knew the men were asleep. If they kicked them to wake them up, they were scared of being shot, though many of them di
d on their rounds of the lines arouse at least one man in each [two- or three-man] foxhole. They threatened the men, ... and still they dozed in their holes when they should have been watchful."9

  In his overnight impromptu command of A Company, Stamford had performed like a veteran infantry officer. After daylight Major Miller, the battalion executive officer, came up to A Company and relieved Stamford, placing Lieutenant Smith in command. Stamford was needed as the FAC at battalion headquarters.

  Telling of his night's experience, Stamford had some comments about the men of A Company. He said that there was a lot of difficulty keeping the ROK soldiers on the line. Most of them had no stomach for facing the enemy. He added, "The company was easy to handle because the officers and men respected the position I had and did an excellent job in carrying out my orders." He thought that the company's casualties were light considering the number of enemy who came against it.b0

  Meanwhile, at the battalion CP the Chinese surprise attack had started off on an incongruous note. When the first scattered shots were heard in the A Company area, Faith called for Captain Bigger of D Company to come to his CP at once. Faith said to him, "Do you suppose those ROKs are firing at each other again?" Faith had had no word yet of a CCF attack. But he added, "I have had a garbled report that something has happened to Ed Scullion-that maybe he has been killed." Faith then turned to Capt. Robert F. Haynes, the battalion assistant S-3, and said to him, "You had better go up there to A Company and see what the situation is." Bigger quickly offered to go with Haynes, saying, "I know the troop situation up there, and I want to check on my heavy weapons with the company.""

  Bigger and Haynes started up the road toward A Company. Neither they nor those back at the battalion CP were yet thinking of a CCF attack. Moving around at night near the front line was a common concern of officers in the battalion, for their own men or the South Koreans might mistakenly fire on them.