Korean War....

[Lucky13]

Lieutenant Curtis, with the platoon from Company F and the Ranger platoon, reached Company G about 0330. [18] Lieutenant Curtis took command of the two platoons but immediately encountered trouble from the commander of the Ranger company. The latter officer had come with the platoon from his company. He claimed that the platoon, being a part of regimental reserve, was to take orders only from the regimental commander. Curtis immediately called his battalion headquarters to explain the situation to Colonel Edwards, who solved the problem by putting another staff officer this time a captain in command of the composite force.

It was between 0345 and 0400, 15 February, when Capt. John H. Ramsburg left the long, tin-roofed building that housed the battalion's command post and set out for Company G's area. Except for Company G's sector where there was brisk firing, the regimental perimeter was relatively quiet at the time. A quarter of a mile beyond the railroad tracks Ramsburg turned left, following a trail that led from the road to the house where Lieutenant Heath had established his command post.

Along the trail there was a quad caliber .so halftrack. An hour or two before the crew with the vehicle had accidentally run into a ditch, nearly tipping the halftrack over. Unable to get it into firing position, the crew had abandoned the weapon and vehicle. Lieutenant Curtis was standing near he halftrack. There was enough light in the area for Captain Ramsburg to recognize him at a distance of ten or fifteen feet.

"Christ, John," Lieutenant Curtis said, "but I'm glad to see you here! Can't do anything with these Rangers."

He went on to explain that the commander of the Ranger company objected to having a platoon from his company attached to another unit, to having it participate in a counterattack, and that he refused to take orders from anyone but the regimental commander.

Captain Ramsburg went first to Lieutenant Heath's command post where he called Colonel Edwards in order to report that he and both platoons were at the position. He then talked with the commander of the Ranger company to establish his position as commander of the infantry units in that sector.

At the time the few men left from Company G and those from the platoons from Company F and the Ranger company were all mixed together just a line of bodies on the ground firing against the hill to discourage the enemy from attempting a further advance. Captain Ramsburg had the platoon leaders separate their units and sort out the artillerymen whom he sent across the road where most men from the battery had assembled. Since none of Company G's communications facilities was working at the time, Captain Ramsburg asked Lieutenant Curtis to send men to Chipyongni for more radios. He then asked Lieutenant McGee to have the mortars moved closer to the line of departure so that he could call out orders to the crew.

In the meantime, the two platoon leaders re-formed their men. There were 36 men in the platoon from the Ranger company, 28 in the platoon from Company F. In addition, there were 6 or 7 mortarmen, 2 machinegun crews, and 4 or 5 men left from Company G. To the two platoon leaders he outlined his plan: following a short mortar concentration, the two machine guns would commence firing at the top of the ridge and over the heads of the attacking men who were to move on Captain Ramsburg's signal. The Ranger platoon, on the right, was to attack the hill formerly held by the 1st Platoon of Company G, while the platoon from Company F was to assault Lieutenant McGee's former position.

It was still dark when a man returned with three SCR-536 radios one each for Captain Ramsburg and his two platoon leaders. The enemy was fairly quiet at the time and had not interfered with organizing the attack. After testing the radios and getting all men in position on the line of departure, Captain Ramsburg called for mortar fire. The first round, fired from a range of not more than 150 yards, landed squarely on the crest of the ridge.

"That where you want 'em?" one of the mortarmen asked.

"That's exactly right," Captain Ramsburg yelled back. "Now go ahead and sweep the hill in both directions."

He asked for a five-minute concentration. The mortarmen doubted that their ammunition would last that long. After two or three minutes, Captain Ramsburg signaled for machine-gun fire. The two guns went into action, but after a few bursts enemy mortar rounds landed nearby, and both the friendly mortars and the machine guns had to cease firing. Eight or ten rounds landed between the line of departure and the mortar crews about twenty yards behind it. The explosions wounded at least six men, including the leader of the platoon from Company F.

The commander of the Ranger company, thinking that friendly rounds were falling short, called for the mortar crews to cease firing. The shouting interfered with efforts to get the attack under way. Captain Ramsburg became angry. He ordered the Ranger commander to gather up and evacuate his wounded men, hoping thereby to get rid of the commander as well as the wounded men.

The platoon sergeant took command of the platoon from Company F, the machine guns opened fire again, and Captain Ramsburg signaled for the jumpoff.

"OK, let's go!" he shouted.

The men stood up, commenced firing, and walked forward through crusted snow which, in the low ground in front of the hill, was knee-deep in places. In a minute or two the advancing line, with Captain Ramsburg moving in the center, started up the hillside, the Rangers in the lead since men from that platoon, all yelling loudly, pushed their attack fast.

Several enemy mortar rounds and a few grenades exploded on the slope of the hill. In the middle of the attack, two guns located near the French Battalion's hill fired into the Ranger platoon. The guns appeared to be either automatic rifles or light machine guns, but Captain Ramsburg could not tell if the French were firing by mistake, or if Chinese soldiers had set up guns in that area. Nor did he later learn who was firing. The first burst was a long, steady one a solid string of light from the gun to the Ranger platoon. After that there were short bursts for a minute or longer while Captain Ramsburg and several other men, believing this to be friendly fire, screamed to have it stopped. Several Rangers were wounded by this fire.

Just before the attack jumped off, Lieutenant Curtis had gone to each of the three tanks in that area to tell the tankers of the counterattack plans, and to warn them not to fire without orders. He had just returned when the machine gun fired into the Ranger platoon. One of the tank crews, having apparently decided the machine gun firing from the French Battalion's hill was friendly and the Rangers were enemy, disregarded orders and also opened fire, aiming the tank's caliber .50 machine gun at the Ranger platoon. While Captain Ramsburg yelled at the tankers, Lieutenant Curtis raced back and halted the machine gun, which had fired for 20 or 30 seconds, only long enough to sweep across the hill once. Besides creating more confusion, this caused additional casualties among the Rangers, the remaining ones of whom, by this time, were near the top of their hill still yelling among themselves.

[Lucky13]

Another gun this one definitely manned by the Chinese had meanwhile opened fire into the left flank of the platoon from Company F, causing serious damage in that area. The gun was in the rice paddies near the place where the 2d Platoon of Company G had been, and gave the attacking force its first indication that friendly troops had vacated that position. The commander of Company F spotted the tracers from this enemy gun and directed mortar fire at it but was unable to knock it out. As he afterward learned, the Chinese crew had been there long enough to dig in and provide overhead protection for the gun.

Captain Ramsburg, occupied with the machine-gun fire hitting the right flank of his line, did not know of the trouble the platoon from Company F was experiencing on the opposite end. Lieutenant Curtis succeeded in silencing the tank's fire. Several men from the Ranger platoon were already on top of their objective shouting for help.

"We're on top!" they yelled. "Come on up! Get some men up here!"

Other members of that platoon were still climbing the hill, but a third or more were casualties by this time, the result of either friendly or enemy fire.

A grenade exploded beside Captain Ramsburg just as the tank's fire ended and he turned to go on up the hill. A fragment struck him in the foot. At the moment he was holding a caliber .45 submachine gun in his right hand and at first he thought that, in his anger and excitement over the machine-gun fire from his own tanks, he had squeezed too hard on the trigger and shot himself through the foot. He wondered how he would explain the accident to Colonel Edwards. He then realized his gun was on full automatic and, had he pulled the trigger, it would have fired several times. He also recalled seeing a flash and decided he had been hit by a grenade fragment. He removed his glove and sat down to examine his foot. The two machine-gun crews came by on their way to the top of the hill where they were to relocate their guns. A little later Lieutenant Heath came up the hill and stopped where Ramsburg was sitting.

Permission to fire from the infantrymen. At the command post, Captain Ramsburg had just given the order to pull out.

"Go ahead and fire," he told Captain Elledge. "No one's left up there."

Captain Elledge returned to the quad .50 and swept the length of the enemy-held hill. The tank commander (MSgt. Andrew Reyna) appeared at that time to ask for help in recovering sixteen wounded men artillerymen and infantrymen who had been left at Battery B's supply tent near the foot of the hill and directly under the enemy's guns. While Captain Elledge kept pounding the enemy hilltop with fire from his four machine guns, Sergeant Reyna and his crew drove the tank under the fire to the base of the hill, carried the wounded men from the tent, piled them on the tank, and returned.

Captain Elledge had been firing so steadily that, in the first gray light of the morning, artillerymen across the road could see heat waves shimmering above the four guns. Elledge scanned the area, looking for targets. He noticed several enemy soldiers standing on the hill between the saddle and the road cut, and suddenly realized they were preparing to fire a 75-mm recoilless rifle that the 1st Platoon of Company G had left there. It was aimed directly at him. Captain Elledge could see daylight through the tube. He watched as the Chinese shoved a round into the breech, then he quickly turned his machine guns in that direction and destroyed the enemy crew.

Two wounded men had been left under a blanket in the fire direction center tent. While one tank, firing from the road, covered the rescue, PFC Thomas S. Allison and PFC Isaiah W. Williams (both members of the artillery wire section) drove a 3/4-ton truck to the tent, loaded the two wounded men onto it, and backed out again.

Lieutenant Curtis urged the remaining wounded men to start walking toward Chipyong-ni, then ran to the road to tell the artillerymen that the infantrymen were pulling back.

"You're the front line now," he told them.

The artillerymen, concerned about the safety of their howitzers, decided to stay behind the road embankment where, by fire, they could keep the Chinese out of their battery's position. Two tanks on the road separating the artillerymen from their howitzers regularly fired short machine-gun bursts into the blackened, chewed-up top of the hill.

At the command post only nine wounded men were left not counting Captain Ramsburg, who stayed behind to supervise the withdrawal. All nine were seriously wounded and waiting for litters and a vehicle to carry them to the battalion's aid station. They were lying on the ground near the straw-roofed buildings. As Lieutenant Curtis returned to the command post, a bugle sounded and he saw 10 or 12 Chinese soldiers coming down the highest hill the one originally defended by Lieutenant McGee's platoon. Curtis pointed out the enemy to the wounded men.

"If you fellows don't leave now," he told them, "you'll never leave. There aren't enough men left to protect you."

All nine men left, somehow or other moving with only the help they could give one another or get from Lieutenant Curtis, who followed them, heading back to the new defensive position.

Only two men both sergeants remained at the command post with Captain Ramsburg. The sergeants pulled out the telephones and the three men started toward Chipyong-ni, moving across the frozen rice paddies. Before they had gone far, however, an enemy machine-gunner fired at them. They broke into a run. Captain Ramsburg, disregarding his broken ankle which was now stiff and sore, sprinted the entire distance to the new hilltop.

The quad .50 still manned by Captain Elledge and the three tanks pounded the enemy hill with machine-gun fire. One of the artillery officers yelled for a gun crew to man a howitzer, and half a dozen men scrambled over the road embankment and dashed to one of the 155-mm howitzers. Turning it around, they fired six white phosphorus shells that blossomed into white streamers of smoke and fire along the hillside. At such close range, the sound of the propelling charge and the sound of the shell burst were barely separated.

At the new position, Captain Ramsburg joined the survivors of the tenhour enemy attack, as well as the remaining two platoons of the Ranger company attached to Colonel Edwards's battalion. All of the men experienced a feeling of relief when daylight came on 15 February, because the enemy soldiers usually withdrew then. This time, however, the Chinese did not withdraw. They conducted a determined defense against an attack made by the Ranger company and Company B, supported by air strikes, artillery, and tanks, and directed by Colonel Edwards. It was evening before the enemy was defeated and withdrew.

Several inches of snow fell during the night of 15-16 February, covering several hundred Chinese bodies on the hill originally defended by Lieutenant Heath's Company G. At Chipyong-ni the Chinese suffered their first defeat since entering the Korean war.

[Matt308]

This is great. Perhaps I missed it, but did you credit the author?

[comiso90]

Are we posting entire books now?

[Lucky13]

Not yet, I'll do so when finished, the credits that is... and no, we don't post entire books....

[Lucky13]

Task Force Crombez

While the 23d Regimental Combat Team, surrounded by Chinese Communists at Chipyong-ni, braced itself for the second night of the siege, a regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division set out on a sort of rescue mission: to drive through enemy lines, join the encircled unit and give it all possible assistance. Specifically, it was to open the road for supply vehicles and ambulances.

On 14 February 1951, the 5th Cavalry Regiment was in corps reserve when the commanding general of U.S. IX Corps (Maj.Gen. Bryant E. Moore) alerted it for possible action. It was midafternoon when he first telephoned the regimental commander (Col. Marcel G. Crombez) warning him to make plans for an attack along the road running from Yoju to Koksu-ri and then northeast into Chipyong-ni a road distance of fifteen miles. Another force, attacking along the better and more direct road to Chipyong-ni, had been unable to make fast enough progress because of heavily entrenched enemy forces along its route.

Immediately relaying the warning order to subordinate units, Colonel Crombez organized a task force.

In addition to the three organic infantry battalions of the 5th Cavalry, he included a medical company, a company of combat engineers, two battalions of field artillery of which one was equipped with selfpropelled howitzers, two platoons of medium tanks, and an attached company of medium tanks. [4] The last named Company D, 6th Tank Battalion was not a part of the 1st Cavalry Division, but happened to be located closer than any other available tank company. General Moore attached Company D to the 5th Cavalry and ordered it to get under way within thirty minutes to join that unit. Company D was on the road twenty-eight minutes later. At 1700 that afternoon, the corps commander again called.:

"You'll have to move out tonight," he told Colonel Crombez, "and I know you'll do it."

In the darkness, trucks and vehicles formed a column along the narrow, rutted road, snow covered and patched with ice. Moving under black-out conditions and in enemy territory, all units except the two artillery battalions crossed the Han River and advanced approximately half of the distance to Chipyong-ni. About midnight the regimental column halted at a destroyed bridge where units formed defensive perimeters while combat engineers rebuilt the structure.

At daylight on 15 February, the 1t Battalion jumped off again this time on foot. Its mission was to seize a terrain feature on the right which dominated the road for several miles to the north. When the battalion was engaged after moving a hundred or two hundred yards, Colonel Crombez sent the 2d Battalion to attack north on the left side of the road. Within an hour or two a full-scale regimental attack was in progress. Two artillery battalions supported the action, lifting their fire only for air strikes. Chinese resistance was firm. Observers in airplanes reported large enemy forces north of the attacking battalions.

The advance lagged throughout the morning. Sensing that the enemy offered too much opposition for the infantry battalions to be able to reach Chipyong-ni by evening, Colonel Crombez decided that only an armored task force would be able to penetrate the enemy-held territory. With corps and division headquarters pressing for progress, Colonel Crombez separated the tanks a total of twenty-three from his regimental column, and organized an armored task force. The tanks came from Company D, 6th Tank Battalion, and Company A, 70th Tank Battalion. He also ordered a company of infantrymen to accompany the tanks in order to protect them from fanatic enemy troops who might attempt to knock out the tanks at close range. This task fell to Company L, 5th Cavalry Regiment. In addition, four combat engineer soldiers were ordered to go along to lift any antitank mines that might be discovered. The engineers and the infantrymen were to ride on top of the tanks.

While the tanks maneuvered into position, Colonel Crombez reconnoitered the road to Chipyong-ni by helicopter. It was a secondary road even by Korean standards: narrow, with mountain slopes on the left side and flat rice paddies on the right, except at a deep roadcut a mile south of Chipyong-ni where, for a short distance, steep cliffs walled both sides of the road.

Meanwhile, the Company L commander (Capt. John C. Barrett) and the commander of Company D, 6th Tank Battalion (Capt. Johnnie M. Hiers), worked out the plans at company level. The two officers agreed that when the tanks stopped, the troopers would dismount, deploy on both sides of the road, and protect the tanks and the engineers who might be lifting mines. When the tank column was ready to proceed, Captain Hiers would inform the tankers by radio; the tankers, in turn, would signal the troopers to remount.

The M46 tanks of the 6th Tank Battalion were placed to lead the 70th Tank Battalion's M4A3 tanks because the M46s mounted 90-mm guns, could turn completely around in place (an important consideration in the mountainous terrain traversed by a single and narrow road), and had better armor protection than the M4A3 tanks, which mounted only 76-mm guns.

Original plans called for a separate column of supply trucks and ambulances to follow the tanks. Colonel Crombez, however, doubted if such a column could get through. He decided to proceed with only the armored vehicles. When the road was clear and suitable for wheeled traffic, he would radio instructions to the supply vehicles and ambulances. By radio he informed the commanding officer of the 23d RCT that he was coming, but without the supply trains.

"Come on," the commander of the encircled force answered; "trains or no trains."

Just before the task force left, the commander of the 3d Battalion, 5th Cavalry (Lt.Col. Edgar J. Treacy, Jr.) arranged for a 2 1/2-ton truck to follow the rear of the tank column and pick up any wounded men from Company L. The Company L commander (Captain Barrett) issued instructions that any troopers who became separated from the tank column were to make their way back to friendly lines if possible, or wait near the road, utilizing the best available defensive positions, until the tanks returned from Chipyong-ni later in the day.

About 1500 Captain Barrett mounted his company on the tanks in the center of the column, leaving four tanks at each end of the column bare. The four engineer soldiers rode on the second tank in the column. Thus, 15 tanks carried 160 Company L infantrymen. The infantry platoon leaders selected one man on each tank to fire the caliber .50 machine gun mounted on its deck. Captain Barrett rode on the sixth tank in line, along with ten enlisted men and Colonel Treacy who, at the last minute, decided to accompany the task force.

Planes strafed and bombed enemy positions along the route of march before the armored column took off. The two infantry battalions maintained strong pressure to keep the Chinese occupied and to prevent them from drawing off any strength to throw against the task force. With Colonel Crombez riding in the fifth tank, the mile-long column got under way at 1545 on 15 February. Liaison planes circled overhead, maintaining contact with the advancing tanks.

The task force, with fifty-yard intervals between tanks, proceeded about two miles until the lead tank approached the village of Koksu-ri.

All of a sudden, enemy mortar shells began exploding near the tanks, and enemy riflemen and machine gunners opened fire on the troopers exposed on the decks. Just then the lead tank stopped at a bridge bypass on the south edge of Koksu-ri, and the entire column came to a halt. The tankers turned their guns toward Chinese whom they could see clearly on nearby hills and opened fire with their machine guns and cannons. Several troopers, wounded by the first bursts of enemy fire, fell or were knocked from the tanks. Others left the tanks, not so much to protect them as to take cover themselves. Colonel Crombez directed the tank fire.

"We're killing hundreds of them!" he shouted over the intertank communications.

After a few minutes, however, feeling that the success of the task force depended upon the ability of the tanks to keep moving, Colonel Crombez directed them to continue.

[Lucky13]

Without warning, the tanks moved forward. The troopers raced after the moving tanks but, in the scramble, thirty or more men, including two officers of Company L, were left behind. The truck following the tanks picked up three wounded men who had been left lying near the road. This truck, however, was drawing so much enemy fire that other wounded men preferred to stay where they were. After both officers in the group were wounded by mortar fire, MSgt. Lloyd L. Jones organized the stranded men and led them back toward their own lines.

There was another halt just after the column passed through Koksu-ri, and again the infantrymen deployed. Against the intense enemy fire the tankers and infantrymen fired furiously to hold the enemy soldiers at some distance. For the second time, the tanks began moving without notifying the infantrymen, and again many Company L men were unable to remount. Some troopers were deployed 50 or 75 yards from the road and the tanks were going too fast to remount by the time the men got back to the road. Less than seventy men were left on the tanks when Task Force Crombez moved out after the second halt. Another large group of men was left to seek cover or to attempt to rejoin friendly units south of Koksu-ri. Several men from this group, including the commander of the 3d Battalion (Colonel Treacy) are known to have become prisoners of the Chinese.

Captain Barrett was unable to remount the tank upon which he had been riding, but he did manage to climb on the fifth or sixth tank behind it.

During the next three or three and a half miles there were several brief halts and almost continuous enemy fire directed against the column whether it was halted or moving. Several times, in the face of heavy enemy fire, tank commanders inquired if they should slow down or stop long enough to shell and silence the Chinese guns. Although enemy fire was causing many casualties among the troopers who remained on the tanks, Colonel Crombez, speaking in a calm and cool voice over the radio network, each time directed the column to continue forward.

Task Force Crombez, in turn, maintained a volume of rifle, machinegun, and cannon fire that, throughout the six-mile attack, could be heard by members of the infantry battalions still in position at the task force point of departure. Much of this fire was directed only against the bordering hills, but there were also definite targets at which to aim enemy machine guns, bazooka teams, and individual Chinese carrying pole or satchel charges. Even though it was difficult to aim from moving tanks, the remaining troopers kept firing at Chinese soldiers who several times were within fifty yards of the road. On one occasion Captain Barrett shot and killed three enemy soldiers who, trotting across a rice field toward the tanks, were carrying a bangalore torpedo.

Because of the intense enemy fire on the road, Colonel Crombez decided that wheeled traffic would be unable to get through. When he had gone about two thirds of the way to Chipyong-ni, he radioed back instructions to hold up the supply trucks and ambulances and await further orders.

The Chinese made an all-out effort to halt Task Force Crombez when the leading tanks entered the deep roadcut south of Chipyong-ni. For a distance of about 150 yards the road passed between steep embankments that were between 30 and so feet high. And on each side of the road at that point were dominating hills, the one on the right (east) side of the road being Hill 397 from which the Chinese had launched several of their attacks against the Chipyong-ni perimeter. There was a sudden flare-up of enemy fire as the point tank (commanded by Lt. Lawrence L. DeSchweinitz) approached the cut. Mortar rounds exploded on and near the road. SFC James Maxwell (in the second tank) spotted an enemy soldier carrying a bazooka along the top of the embankment at the roadcut. He immediately radioed a warning to Lieutenant DeSchweinitz, but before he got the call through a bazooka round struck the point tank, hitting the top of the turret and wounding DeSchweinitz, the gunner (Cpl. Donald P. Harrell), and the loader (Pvt. Joseph Galard). The tank continued but without communication since the explosion also destroyed its radio.
The four members of the engineer mine-detector team rode on the next tank in line (Sergeant Maxwell's). They clung to the tank as it entered the zone of intense enemy fire. An antitank rocket or pole charge exploded on each side of Maxwell's tank as it entered the pass and one of the engineers was shot from the deck, but the vehicle continued, as did the next tank in the column.

Captain Hiers (tank company commander) rode in the fourth tank that entered the road cut. Striking the turret, a bazooka round penetrated the armor and exploded the ammunition in the ready racks inside. The tank started to burn. The men in the fighting compartment, including Captain Hiers, were killed. Although severely burned, the driver of the tank (Cpl. John A. Calhoun) gunned the engine and drove through the cut and off the road, thus permitting the remainder of the column to advance. [32] It was later learned that this tank was destroyed by an American 3.5inch bazooka which had fallen into enemy hands.

With the enemy located at the top of the cliffs directly overlooking the task force column and throwing satchel charges and firing rockets down at the tanks, close teamwork among the tankers became particularly necessary for mutual protection. As each of the remaining tanks rammed through the cut, crews from the tanks that followed and those already beyond the danger area fired a heavy blast at the embankments on both sides of the road. This cut down enemy activity during the minute or less required for each tank to run the cut. The enemy fire did, however, thin out the infantrymen riding on the tanks and, at the tail of the task force, flattened a tire on the 2 1/2-ton truck that had been gathering up the wounded infantrymen who had either fallen or been knocked from the tanks. The driver had been hit near Koksu-ri as he was putting a wounded infantryman on the truck. Another wounded man (SFC George A. Krizan) drove after that and, although he was wounded a second time, continued driving until the truck was disabled at the roadcut. A few of the wounded men managed to get to one of the last tanks in the column, which carried them on into Chipyong-ni. The others, surrounded by the enemy, became missing in action.

Meanwhile, within the perimeter of the 23d RCT at Chipyong-ni, the 2d Battalion was fighting off stubborn and persistent enemy attempts to overrun the sector shared by Company G, 23d Infantry, and Battery A, 503d Field Artillery Battalion, on the south rim of the perimeter. Late in the afternoon of 15 February, after twenty hours of uninterrupted fighting, the battalion commander managed to send four tanks a short distance down the road leading south beyond the regimental defense perimeter with the mission of getting behind the Chinese and firing into their exposed flank and rear. Ten or fifteen minutes of firing by the four tanks appeared to have suddenly disrupted the Chinese organization. Enemy soldiers began running.

[Lucky13]

Just at that moment, tanks of Task Force Crombez appeared from the south. Sergeant Maxwell, in the second tank, saw the four tanks on the road ahead and was just about to open fire when he recognized them as friendly. The leading tanks stopped. For about a minute everyone waited, then Sergeant Maxwell dismounted and walked forward to make contact with the 23d Infantry's tanks. He asked them to withdraw and allow Task Force Crombez to get through.

By this time the Chinese were in the process of abandoning their positions south of Chipyong-ni and many were attempting to escape. Enemy opposition dwindled. With enemy soldiers moving in the open, targets were plentiful for a short time and Colonel Crombez halted his force long enough to take the Chinese under fire.

At 1700 Task Force Crombez entered the Chipyong-ni perimeter. It had required an hour and fifteen minutes for the tanks to break through a little more than six miles of enemy territory. Even though there were neither supply trucks nor ambulances with the column, and although the task force itself was low on ammunition, infantrymen were cheered by the sight of reinforcements.

Of 160 Company L infantrymen plus the 4 engineers who had started out riding the tank decks, only 23 remained. Of these, 13 were wounded, of whom 1 died of wounds that evening. Some members of that company already had returned to join the remainder of the 3d Battalion near the point of departure; a few wounded men lay scattered along the road between Koksuri and Chipyong-ni. While crossing the six miles of drab and barren country between those two villages, Company L lost about 70 men nearly half of its strength. Twelve men were dead, 19 were missing in action, and about 40 were wounded.

With only an hour of daylight remaining, Colonel Crombez had to choose between returning at once to his regiment, or spending the night at Chipyong-ni. Any enemy opposition encountered on a return trip that evening would probably delay into darkness the contact with friendly forces, and unprotected tanks operating in the darkness, he reasoned, could be ambushed easily by enemy groups.

On the other hand, the 23d RCT was dangerously low on small-caliber ammunition, airdrops that day having contained only artillery shells. Task Force Crombez had fired most of its ammunition during the action. Officers inside the perimeter wondered if there were enough small-arms ammunition to beat off another Chinese attack.

There was another reason for returning. Seriously wounded infantry-men within the perimeter urgently needed to be evacuated. It was also probable that men from Company L who had been wounded or stranded during the attack by Task Force Crombez were waiting near the road, according to their instructions, hoping to be picked up again as the tanks made the return trip. However, weighing the two risks, Colonel Crombez chose to stay. He arranged to station his tanks around the perimeter to strengthen the defense, but no attack came. Except for a few flares that appeared over enemy territory, the night passed quietly. Toward morning it began to snow.

At 0900, 16 February, the scheduled time for return to the regiment, Colonel Crombez informed his assembled force that the return trip would be postponed because the snow, reducing visibility at times to less than a hundred yards, prevented air cover. It was 1100 before the weather cleared and the task force was reassembled. This time Colonel Crombez stated that only volunteers from the infantrymen and the engineer minedetecting crew would ride on the tanks. None volunteered. Instead, an artillery liaison plane hovered over the column as it moved south. The observer in the plane had instructions to adjust proximity-fuzed shells directly on the column if the enemy attempted to destroy any of the tanks. On the return trip not a single enemy was seen, nor a shot fired. [40]

Immediately upon his return Colonel Crombez ordered the assembled supply train to proceed to Chipyong-ni. Escorted by tanks, twenty-eight 2l/2ton trucks and nineteen ambulances pulled out in the middle of the afternoon. For his part, Captain Barrett (the Company L commander), having returned with the task force because he wanted to find out what had happened to the rest of his company, set out in a jeep to retrace the route and search for wounded men who might still be lying along the road. He found four whom he turned over to the evacuation train at Chipyong-ni. The ambulances and seven 2 1/2-ton trucks, all loaded with wounded men from the 23d Regimental Combat Team, left Chipyong-ni that evening. The siege was ended.

[Lucky13]

A Rifle Company as a Covering Force

Toward the end of April 1951, Communist forces in North Korea launched an offensive against the peninsula-wide United Nations line. Except near Kaesong, at the west end, Eighth Army troops were ten or more miles north of the 38th parallel when the enemy attack began on the 22d day of the month. Although the attack was general in both plan and scope, North Korean units fighting on the east end of the front made only scant efforts and small advances. Chinese Communist forces concentrated on the west half of the line, aiming the heavy punch at the city of Seoul, thirty-five miles south of existing lines. The Chinese called the attack the "First Step, Fifth Phase Offensive."

This enemy activity interrupted an Eighth Army limited offensive that contemplated seizing the Chorwon-Kumhwa-Pyonggang area, an important communication and supply area commonly called "The Iron Triangle." The 3d Infantry Division was attacking north toward Chorwon and Pyonggang along the road running from Seoul through these towns and then north to the eastern port city of Wonsan. Units of the 3d were within ten miles of Chorwon and about the same distance north of the Imjin River.

As usual, the Chinese waited until after dark before launching their big attack. By morning on the following day (Z3 April) they had penetrated United Nations' lines at widely scattered points and, under orders, units of Eighth Army began falling back. The 3d Division gave up ten miles of territory, returned to the south bank of the Imjin River, and there, by the evening of the 23d, took up previously prepared positions on an established Eighth Army fortified defense line. The 7th Infantry (3d Division) was placed on a ridge overlooking the important Seoul-ChorwonWonsan road and the single-track railroad that parallels it. The position was especially important since it guarded the crossing site of the Imjin River. This was the same road and river crossing the North Koreans had used when they first invaded South Korean territory during the summer of 1950.

The 7th Infantry positions were not more than a thousand yards south of the 38th parallel, the former boundary between North and South Korea. The 1st Battalion occupied the east end of the regimental sector. Company B manned the bunkers and foxholes on Hill 283 and those along the ridgeline that slanted down toward the road. Company A's sector extended from Company B, southwest across a long, brush-covered saddle, then west along the top of Hill 287 a company front of 1,400 yards. Beyond Company A there was a gap of about 500 yards between its leftflank position and the right flank of the 3d Battalion, which occupied another ridgeline to the north and west.

To cover the wide Company A front, its commander (Lt. Harley F. Mooney) committed his three rifle platoons on his front line, leaving as his reserve a force of only eight men including himself, his executive officer, and his Weapons Platoon leader. Except for being thinly manned, however, Mooney's defensive positions were good. In most places the north side of the hill was too steep to permit the enemy to maneuver in front of the company.

The Weapons Platoon leader (Lt. John N. Middlemas) covered the critical areas with his weapons. He "fired-in" mortar concentrations in front of each platoon and located his mortar position near the center of the company front and only a few yards behind it so that the mortar crews would immediately be available if needed for front-line action.

Lieutenant Mooney considered his left flank the weakest section of the line since the best approach for the Chinese was at that end. In addition, the existing gap between the two battalions made that area more vulnerable. He stationed the 1st Platoon (MSgt. Joseph J. Lock) at that end. To cover the gap between the two battalions, Sergeant Lock sent his second-in-command (SFC Thomas R. Teti) with nine other men to establish an out-post on a small hill between the two battalions. Mooney then instructed Teti to make physical contact with the adjoining unit of the 3d Battalion once an hour. Company I agreed to send a patrol to contact Teti's outpost on alternate half-hour periods.

This was the position of troops when Chinese Communists renewed their attack on the morning of 24 April. Within the defensive position of the 7th Infantry, the heaviest enemy pressure was against the 3d Battalion, which was engaged throughout the day and the following night. Another enemy force struck Company B's end of the line and started a heavy fire fight that lasted from midnight until first light on 25 April. Men from company A waited quietly and tensely between these areas of activity, watching and listening. They were not disturbed.

At 0700 on 25 April a large enemy force attacked an observation post that the 3d Battalion had established on a hill about four hundred yards south of Lieutenant Mooney's company. Since this hill was over three hundred feet higher than front-line positions of either the 1st or 3d Battalions, it afforded observation of both battalions. The enemy force, after having penetrated the lines during the night, made a sudden and strong assault against the observation-post hill, forcing the battalion commander and his group to abandon it hurriedly. In enemy hands, this hill threatened both battalions.

Sergeant Lock, in charge of the left-flank platoon, watched this enemy action and, as soon as he realized what had happened, turned his machine gun toward the Chinese to restrict their movement and help the members of the observation-post party who were escaping toward the south and the north in order to rejoin Company A. Sergeant Lock also called Mooney, who immediately had his Weapons Platoon leader (Lieutenant Middlemas) shift his 57-mm recoilless rifle to the west flank from where it could be fired more effectively against the Chinese.

Meanwhile, the S-3 of the 1st Battalion called Mooney to tell him the regiment had orders to move to a fortified Eighth Army line just north of Seoul.

"You and Baker Company are to cover the withdrawal of the 3d Battalion and then be prepared to move Able Company out at 1000."

The S-3 designated Lieutenant Mooney's company as rear guard for the move because there was a trail from the center of Company A's position that went southwest down the hill to the road to Seoul. This was the only easily accessible route by which the three companies of the 3d Battalion and the two companies of the 1st Battalion could get down with their equipment and wounded men. The plan outlined to Mooney was for the three companies of the 3d Battalion to move through Company A in column of companies. Company B then would pass through the right flank of Company A. This action was to begin immediately. Lieutenant Mooney called his platoon leaders to tell them of the orders, then walked over to the top of Hill 283 to coordinate plans with the commander of Company B (Capt. Ray W. Blandin, Jr.). The time was about 0800.

At the opposite end of the line Sergeant Lock's platoon was still busy firing at the Chinese, who were now in full possession of the 3d Battalion's OP hill. On the north side of this hill there was a trail that the Chinese followed, and near the top the trail curved around a large rock. Sergeant Lock's machine gunner (Cpl. Pedro Colon Rodriguez) zeroed his light machine gun in on that point on the trail a range of about three hundred yards-and fired cautiously, usually squeezing off one round at a time, throughout the morning. He did not fire at every Chinese who passed the point, but after hitting one, would allow one or several others to pass unmolested before firing again. Because he was not greedy the Chinese kept using the trail and Rodriguez hit a total of fifty-nine enemy soldiers during several hours of firing.

After returning from Company B's position, Lieutenant Mooney and his executive officer (Lt. Leonard Haley) briefed the platoon leaders on the plan for moving Company A after the other units had started down the trail. To better cover his route of withdrawal Mooney decided to peel off his line from the left. Sergeant Teti's outpost between the two battalions would follow the last element of the 3d Battalion. Sergeant Lock's platoon would follow Teti; next, the 2d Platoon would follow and move through the 3d which would hold the right flank until the rest of the company was on the trail; then it would move out.

By the time Mooney had thoroughly briefed his platoon leaders it was 0900. There were still heavy exchanges of fire between the Chinese on the OP hill and Lock's left-flank platoon. Mooney, believing that the next action would be against this platoon, went to the west end of his line where he could best observe that situation. He was also anxious to learn what was happening to the 3d Battalion, knowing that the commander had lost control at the time his group was forced to leave the observation post. Even though an hour and a half had gone by since the order to leave had been issued, none of the men from 3d Battalion had yet reached the outpost position manned by Sergeant Teti, who had orders to call Mooney as soon as the first men appeared. Teti could see only an increase of enemy activity in the zone of the 3d Battalion. At the same time, the volume of rifle and machine-gun fire from the OP hill had increased steadily.

[Lucky13]

It was about 0915 when the first of the 3d Battalion men from Company K came through Lieutenant Mooney's area. They were tired from the activity during the previous night and day, and walked slowly along the narrow trail. They sat down if there was any delay along the single-file column. Mooney urged them to hurry. This made little impression on the weary men, however, and the column moved haltingly. It required fortyfive minutes for Company K to clear, and by the time men from the next company appeared it was after 1000. This was the hour scheduled for Company A to begin moving but Mooney, now that this was no longer possible, called his battalion headquarters again for further orders. He was told to wait until everyone else was off the ridgeline before moving his own company.

At the opposite end of the battalion front, however, Company B's commander (Captain Blandin) started his company down the trail at 1000 according to plan, unaware that the plan had broken down. Lieutenant Mooney received the information by telephone from his executive officer (Lieutenant Haley). This posed a new threat on the east flank although Mooney still believed the Chinese were most likely to strike Sergeant Lock's platoon at the west end of the line. He told Haley to send a few men to outpost the top of Hill 283, which had been Company B's left flank, and to bend the right flank of the company line south and refuse it. Haley sent a sergeant with four men to outpost Hill 283.

While these events were taking place, four planes made a strike with napalm and rockets on the OP hill causing a sudden drop in enemy fire from that area. A brief and relatively calm period followed while men from the 3d Battalion filed along the path. At 1100 the last men from Company I, still moving slowly, reached the spot where Lieutenant Mooney was waiting. Mooney urged the officers of the company to hurry, but they explained they needed litters and that the men were very tired. Mooney offered to furnish the litters, adding, "You'd better hurry or all of us will be up here and we'll be damned tired."

It had taken about two hours for two of the three companies to clear through Company A's area. In the meantime, Captain Blandin's Company B had reached the bottom of the hill where he reported to his battalion commander (Lt.Col. Fred D. Weyand). Colonel Weyand, realizing that the plans had miscarried, told him to get one platoon back on the top of the hill as quickly as possible to help Mooney hold his right flank.

Lt. Eugene C. May (a Company B officer) turned his platoon around and started back up the hill. He was near the top of the trail at 1130. When he arrived the last company of the 3d Battalion was strung out along the ridge top, and the entire company front was suddenly quiet. From the west end of the line Mooney called Lieutenant Middlemas who was now watching the east end of the line. Mooney explained that all the firing at his end of the line had stopped, and asked what was happening on the opposite flank.

"It's so quiet here," said Middlemas, "I'm just about ready to read some adventure stories for excitement."

At that instant there was the sound of scattered rifle fire from the top of Hill 283 where a sergeant and four men had been sent to outpost the right flank after Company B had vacated its sector. Hill 283 was just a large knob on the east end of the ridgeline. Between the knob and the right-flank position of Company A there was another smaller mound about forty yards beyond the last foxhole occupied by Lieutenant Mooney's men, and about seventy yards west of Hill 283.

Within a minute or two the sergeant in charge of the outpost appeared, running from the intermediate mound and yelling in a voice loud enough to be heard by the entire 3d Platoon: "They're coming! They're coming! Millions of them! They'll banzai us!"

Middlemas was near the center of the company line when he heard and saw what was happening. He took off running as hard as he could go toward the sergeant. The two men met near the right flank, and Middlemas lunged, bringing the sergeant to the ground with a football tackle. The other four members of the sergeant's outpost were following him, "just as goslings follow along after a mother goose." At the same time, three of the infantrymen at that end of the line started to abandon their holes, fearing that the right flank was crumbling.

Lieutenant Middlemas was yelling loudly and pounding several of the men on their helmets. "Get the hell back in your positions! Get up on that damned hill!"

He shoved the three men back in their holes, called to the 3d Platoon to send up one squad immediately, and then started off chasing the sergeant from the outpost and his four men back to the intermediate brush-covered knoll. They arrived there just in time to shoot one Chinese who was racing up the opposite side. There were 10 or 15 more enemy soldiers running from Hill 283 toward them. If the Chinese took this intermediate knoll they could fire down onto the top of the trail, severing the only route of withdrawal and evacuation. Lieutenant Middlemas knew he would have to hold off the Chinese for at least a half hour, or suffer heavy losses. He also knew they would probably either win or lose the battle within the next few minutes.

"Get to firing. Get to firing!" Middlemas shouted.

The action on this end of the line developed fast. There was considerable enemy fire coming from Hill 283 and a few Chinese crept within grenade range before they were killed. Within another minute or two, however, an eight-man squad from the 3d Platoon reached the knoll, making a total of fourteen men there, including Middlemas. All of them were firing rapidly.

A platoon leader of Company D in charge of the two heavy machine guns with Company A saw the critical situation as it developed and rushed the heavy machine gun from the 3d Platoon to the knoll. Then he sent for both the light caliber .30 and the heavy machine gun that were with the 2d Platoon. All of this action had taken place within five minutes after the sergeant in charge of the outpost signaled the alarm.

The platoon from Company B, meanwhile, reached the top of the trail soon after the shooting started and hurried into position. This platoon had one light machine gun. Then crews with two machine guns from the 2d Platoon arrived so that, in less than ten minutes, Lieutenant Middlemas had four machine guns firing and approximately forty-five riflemen in position. The firing swelled into a noisy roar and even the sound of the clips coming out of the rifles made considerable noise. The Chinese, who had been trying to wriggle around both sides of Hill 283 and reach Middlemas's knoll, backed away to the protection of the reverse slope.

At the opposite end of the company line, Lieutenant Mooney heard the storm of activity and realized he had allowed himself to be drawn away from the center of his company front. He was now more than a thousand
yards away from the main action. He started east along the trail, but it as clogged with men from the 3d Battalion who had squatted there as soon as the fire fight flared up at the east end. Mooney hurried along the ail telling the men to keep going and looking for their officers, one of whom he found also sitting by the trail resting.

"For Christ's sake," he said, "get up and get these men moving."

[Lucky13]

Farther along the trail he met Lieutenant Haley whom he instructed strip all ammunition from the 3d Battalion men as they turned down the trail.

Up on the knoll the sergeant who had been in charge of the outpost ad recovered his composure and was now reassuring his men. "We're holding them! By God, we're holding them!"

Gradually, after the strength and fire power increased and the men realized they could hold the small hill, they overcame their fear and their anxiety changed to bravado. One of the men started yelling, "Come and get it!" and the other men took it up, either firing or screaming at the Chinese. Once, when their rate of fire dropped noticeably, there was a sudden increase in the amount of fire received from the Chinese. After that experience the Americans kept up a heavy volume of fire, and although Lieutenant Middlemas believed it was this sudden and heavy base of fire hat was built up in the first ten minutes of the action that saved the flank, he was now concerned with making the ammunition last until everyone was off the hill. He went back and forth across his short line cautioning he men to fire aimed shots and hold down their rate of firing. In addition to its basic load of ammunition and that taken from the 3d Battalion, Company A had 300 bandoleers of rifle ammunition that were still intact when his action commenced. Mooney had this carried up to the knoll on the right lank. Even so, there was danger of running out.

About 1145 Mooney reached the area of activity. At that time the last of the 3d Battalion was passing through Company A's area followed by Sergeant Teti's outpost, and then the rest of Sergeant Lock's platoon. Lieutenant Mooney got in touch with his battalion commander (Colonel Weyand) to tell him of the situation and that he desperately needed some artillery support. As it happened, the artillery forward observer with Company A had been shot in the leg just before this action started, and Mooney now had no map of the area. He explained to Colonel Weyand that he wanted the artillery to fall on the hill which Company B had occupied that morning.

"Put a round out somewhere," he said, "and maybe I can hear it."

Colonel Weyand had been over this terrain and was well acquainted with it. He called the artillery, gave them the general area, and asked for one round. Mooney reported that he could neither see nor hear this round, especially through the heavy firing going on where he was standing. Weyand then asked for a shift "right 200, drop 200" and within a minute this round fell squarely on the enemy, exploding on the far side of the mound where there was apparently a concentration of Chinese troops. In any event, there were loud screams from the Chinese.

Mooney yelled over the radio, "That's beautiful! That's beautiful! Fire for effect! Throw out some more!"

The troops around him commenced yelling with renewed enthusiasm. More shells landed in battery volleys, relieving the pressure against Lieutenant Middlemas and his crew.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Mooney revised his plan for moving his company from the hill. The 1st and 2d Platoons on the west end of his line were already moving and were not affected, but the remainder of his forcewhich now had become a mixture of the 3d Platoon, his headquarters group, and the platoon from Company B could not be moved as a unit. He ordered these men to move out one at a time, Indian fashion, with the men farthest from the trail moving first so that he would be able to keep men along the trail to protect it. This plan would also release the men in the order that they became least valuable.

The two heavy machine guns, having fired twenty-six boxes of ammunition, ran out and Mooney ordered them to leave. The other ammunition was running low and Colonel Weyand kept urging Mooney to hurry since the artillery battery firing for him was almost out of shells too. Weyand arranged for an air strike and the planes soon appeared circling overhead until called in. These could not be employed until after the artillery fire stopped, and Lieutenant Mooney asked for the artillery to continue as long as the ammunition lasted.

Shortly after 1200 Colonel Weyand again called, urging Mooney to "move fast and get down from there." Except for those men still firing at the Chinese, all men from Company A had cleared the top of the trail. Mooney asked for smoke to screen the movement of these men as they broke contact. With smoke and a mixture of explosive shells to replace the machine-gun and rifle fire, men from the last group started to leavethey needed no urging. Less than five minutes elapsed from the time the first of the forty-five left their position until the last was on the trail. As the last man left, the artillery fire stopped and the planes commenced the air strike.

The entire action on the right flank had lasted from 1130 until approximately 1215. During this time two men had been killed by enemy rifle fire. When the tail of the column had gone about seventy-five yards down the trail, a single mortar round landed on the trail, killing one man and wounding four others, including Lieutenants Middlemas and Mooney, both of whom were hit in the leg by mortar fragments. By the time this happened a few Chinese were at the top of the trail and began firing down upon the withdrawing column. The last men in the column turned to fire up at the top of the trail, backing down the hill as they did so.