Edward L. Posey

by Last;Only All-Black Rangers US Army's First

  Then another man near me, St. Thomas, was hit in the foot. His feet were frozen, and he was not really convinced he had been hit by a bullet. He removed his shoe-pac and asked me if it was really a bullet hole. I told him it was indeed. That was the last time I saw him alive. I was sure he got out safely, but he was killed a short time later. St. Thomas was one of my good stateside buddies. I found out later through Sergeant Herman Jackson that he had volunteered to go on this operation. He could have stayed behind because he was, after all, a cook, and not an assigned rifleman. That was when he got it.

  We began to disperse or spread out. It was getting a bit hot behind that boulder. I had rather wisely removed the bi-pod from my weapon during this firefight. I knew how the enemy would always go after the automatic weapon, and this made me a somewhat less conspicuous target.

  After I had used up most of my magazines in the return fire, I thought I had better save one for myself. I had used up all except one magazine, and I had lost contact with my assistant ammo bearers. One of them was Isaiah Woodard. Men were still being hit all around me. Then some guys from “B” Company came down the valley yelling “everybody out!” and the retreat was on. We still couldn’t figure what was going on, so we began to withdraw.

  On the way out I passed J. T. Holley. He had been hit in the back and said he couldn’t move and asked me to help him to cover. That is when Boatwright was wounded; he had been hit twice. He came along and we helped him [Holley] to a shelter beneath a ledge. If we had known what the situation was I know that we could have dragged him out. This still haunts me. I thought we were going to regroup and maybe counterattack, but I was wrong and we lost a few men that I knew were only wounded. The North Koreans moved in and executed them the same way we had shot their men down. After all, this was war.

  I can also recall on the way out “Dude” Walker was giving us covering fire, saying, “Come on out, I got you covered.” He was firing away with an M-1 rifle.

  Up the ridge as we attempted to regroup and gather some of our walking wounded, Lieutenant Pryor staggered up. He had been hit in the head and blood was streaming down his face. We tried to get him on a litter but he refused. After a few moments he finally collapsed and some South Koreans carried him off to the aid station. In a couple of weeks he was back, only to be injured again. The next time I saw him we were back in Taegu, March 1951.

  After we broke contact with the enemy we began to dig in for defense, as we knew that they would counterattack. I still didn’t have any ammo for my BAR, so I began to empty M-1 clips to fill my magazines. We dug in for the night. The fighting went on into the night as the enemy counterattacked, but B Company held them off with machine gun fire and small arms.

  The next day we moved up past a lot of dead Communists and a few dead from B Company; they had lost a lot of people. We dug in on a ridge to form a perimeter and set up for the night. As dusk began to settle elements of the 187 ABN RCT came up to relieve us. They wondered what all of the commotion was about, and I remarked, “You should have been here yesterday.”

  Lieutenant Allen gathered what was left of his company and we set off down the mountain in pitch black darkness to the village and aid station a few miles away. I still wonder why we couldn’t have waited until dawn to make this move.

  The next day we headed north again to a town called Tanyang. We spent days going on patrol and nights on defense perimeter in the hills. The cold was still unforgiving, so we took on more casualties from frozen or frostbitten limbs. It was a toss-up—frostbite or bullets.

  Soon we were on the move again to Chechon. More defense, more patrols, attack and withdraw. We still didn’t have our own mess hall. Always hungry, always cold, we were a rather sorry lot at times, but somehow we survived.

  Then we got the word that we were on the move again. I didn’t know it at the time but we were headed south to join up with the 187th RCT to make preparations for an airborne assault sometime soon called “Operation Tomahawk.” Our first and only combat jump.

  This was sort of a blessing in disguise, as it gave us a break from front-line duty and a chance to get out of the elements. We had served almost two solid months of front-line duty, and we needed a rest. We also got much-needed replacements.

  P.S. “Big Jim”—This is really all I have on the situation at “Majori-ri.” I know that a lot of men have different versions of their personal experience as to what really happened in this firefight—our first taste of real battle. Some of this material I have shared with Herman Jackson, and together we brought some of the details into perspective, and we agree on all of the things that I put into this writing. He (Jackson) remembers more about Glover than I can recall. Even though he was in the squad, I lost track of him in the din of battle.

  Recollections of Herman Jackson, 2d Ranger Company (Airborne), transcribed by William Weathersbee, April 17, 1997

  Hello, Weathersbee, this is Jack, in sunny California. I will try to get these tapes off today. I made a couple I wasn’t satisfied with. I had started from the beginning when we were in the Tanyang Pass. I wasn’t satisfied with them; anyway, I will get them off to you as soon as I can.

  First, I want to give you some information on my background with mortars. In 1942, the last part of ’42, I was assigned to Company E, 369th Infantry Division. I was in the weapons platoon. In the weapons platoon, we had a section of light machine guns and a section of three (3) 60mm mortars. I was assigned to the mortars. So I had been working on 60mm mortars all that time, from 1942 up until I went to Ranger School. In the military, I was in the 81mm mortar platoon in the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. We had six 81mm mortars in a separate platoon. So you can see, I had much experience with 60s and 81mm mortars.

  So, what I will talk about, I will give you information on what happened while fighting in Korea.

  Years later, I was assigned to the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, in Japan. Later we gyro-scoped with the 508th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. That same year, we transferred to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to form the 101st Airborne Division. While at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, I was working as an instructor at the Division jump school and received orders for Korea, to be assigned to the 24th Infantry Division, 34th Infantry Regiment. This was in 1956. I was a platoon sergeant in company M, 34th Infantry Regiment.

  More about my experience with mortars. I won every award that could be won in the 24th Infantry Division. I even beat out the reconnaissance company. They are always pretty good. I beat every other unit in the 24th Infantry Division that had mortars. I topped them all. I was put in for the I.D. White Leadership Award. You had to go to Japan to receive this award. They had a parade for me. After the parade, I was invited to the NCO Club for a party, and we had a swell time. I decided to go to the village, but the village was off limits, we were caught and I didn’t get the I.D. White Award for outstanding leadership.

  In Korea I was assigned to Camp Casey. The Third Battalion was in a small camp. Casey was no more than five miles from where we parachuted into Munsan-ni. You can imagine, I had plenty of time to go to the drop zone area. The DZ was in our defensive position for the 34th Regiment. Hill 151 was the main objective for the 2d Ranger Company during Operation Tomahawk. I could drive from my camp to the old DZ in ten to fifteen minutes. Being familiar with that area, I had an opportunity to go there several times to visit the area.

  Upon my return to the area, word got around there was a sergeant in the Mortar Platoon of the 34th Regiment who had parachuted in there during the war. A couple of reporters came in to see me, seeking information about the drop. We went to the DZ, I pointed out to them where we dropped, where we assembled, and where we began our attack on Hill 151. Before we got to Hill 151, I took them to an area—this was the first time I had been there since the drop—where we mounted our 60mm mortars, after we assembled, and supported one of our platoons in the attack.

  If you look north from Hill 151, the portion of the hill we took
would be near the rear of Hill 151. In other words, the 1st and 2d platoons of 2d Ranger Company took the top of Hill 151, the hill leading to Hill 151, we were fighting up there. We were actually attacking the rear of Hill 151 at the same time.

  I took those reporters up there, telling the story about our jump, our attack, and taking that hill, etc. I stopped in the same area where we placed our mortars and fired them. As you know, on a 60mm mortar round, the case they come in has a metal top and bottom. The rest of the case is fabric. Anyway, we stopped where we originally fired our 60’s. The tops and bottoms of these containers were metal; amazingly, they were still there in our original position. I picked up a few of those metal tops and stuck them in my pocket. I am letting you know that I went back to Korea in 1956, visited the Drop Zone, and was standing in the position where we fired our mortars.

  Tanyang Pass

  I want to talk about what we were really doing down in the Tanyang Pass. I cannot remember the exact date, but I believe it was the Division evacuation. It was the last evacuation in that chain, it was the last position going south. Anyway, when we first arrived there, we immediately sent out patrols. We started patrolling that area, the mountains around that area. I remember going out one day when we returned from off those mountains. I was assigned a position with half of my squad. I was a squad leader in the 1st platoon, the 3d squad, 2d Ranger Company (Airborne).

  SFC Freeman was our platoon sergeant. Lieutenant Pryor was the platoon leader. I remember coming in, tired, from climbing those mountains. The 2d Ranger Company always made a point, if humanly possible, of working our way to the top to do our patrolling. If we were attacked, we would always be on the high ground. That was the motto in our company.

  On this particular day we came in in the evening, the sun was going down, and my squad was given the mission to defend the railroad tunnel. The tunnel was directly above the 7th Division Medical Evacuation heading north to the town of Tanyang. The mission for my squad was to protect that area that night. With me was Carrell, my asst. squad leader; David “Tank” Clarke, my BAR man; Curtis Courts, radio telephone operator; and Richard Glover, a rifleman in the squad. This is what happened that night. We moved into position and remained until around nine o’clock. Quietly, we moved back and joined the other half of the squad. We still had the tunnel in sight. You could see through the tunnel from our position. It was like a big tube.

  Our reason for moving, we knew the enemy had pinpointed our position and knew our exact location. And they did. This is what happened: I sat at the head of my squad with my legs crossed and my rifle in my lap for at least three hours. What we didn’t know was that during this time the enemy was closing in on us. My reason for saying that: Glover shot one just a few feet from me, where we were located. What gave this enemy soldier, this guerrilla, the protection for him to crawl beside me was this bank, a ditch. I was at the head of the squad, just sitting there looking directly into the tunnel. Suddenly, one shot was fired, then another one. When that happened, Glover was in position where he could see this guerrilla. When he saw him, he shot him. What happened after that, Tank Clarke threw a white phosphorous grenade. Now, we were just a few feet from where the huts started in this village and that white phosphorous got into the top of those shacks. When that happened, everything started burning. He probably threw a WP grenade because if he had thrown a fragmentation grenade, it would have hit some of us in the ditch. When this happened, Glover and Courts leaped over the bank and joined the rest of the squad. Now we had four men on the other side of the bank, but I was still in the ditch. I leaped over the bank and joined my squad. On the other side of the bank, I counted my men: everyone was present. The noise we were hearing wasn’t 2d Ranger Company. Ice was cracking, people running; as you know, snow was everywhere, it was very cold, I thought it was below zero.

  Spreading my squad out about five to ten yards, we formed a line. When they were in the proper position, we heard running toward us, to our front and on our flanks. The enemy was everywhere. We opened up with everything we had. We sprayed the whole area. I had one fire team with me, and we really poured it on. I would say this was around three or four o’clock in the morning.

  Jesse Anderson, “Big Tech,” brought a half squad to the area to relieve me. After Anderson relieved my squad, I looked in the place where Glover shot this enemy soldier. You could see plainly where he had been dragged off. Blood was there; someone had dragged him away. We were just about in the village, so we searched it. As we searched, we found more blood. I interrogated an old Korean man and pointed to the blood. He knew what I meant. He made a motion, flapping his hands and arms to pretend he had killed a chicken. I knew it was a damn lie, especially with all that blood in the snow. Whatever the blood came from—and we knew where it came from—it wasn’t from a chicken. They were hiding this guerrilla. I can assure you, Glover shot that guerrilla at least two times. Had it not been for Glover—as close as this guerrilla had gotten to us, if I had to stand, I could have touched this guerrilla in the center of his back. That’s how close he had gotten to us. There were two enemy grenades just lying there in the snow when Anderson relieved my squad.

  When we returned to the perimeter, they were hitting us that night. I remember Paulding and Small, on a mountain south of the aid station. Both had been wounded; SFC Baker was killed during that engagement. You can tell what date it was, I cannot recall the date of that engagement. [January 7, 1951.]

  We pulled out from the 7th Division Medical Evacuation and went into the attack with the 1st Battalion, 32d Infantry Regiment. Second Company was behind Company B, 32d Infantry Regiment. What happened that evening, prior to going into the attack, was we moved up into the mountains and saw some Koreans to our left front. We fired on them, but didn’t hit anyone. That morning we pulled out and continued the attack up the mountain. Second Company was following B Company, 32d Regiment.

  We filed down this mountain, there was a village in front of us. When we passed that village, there was a huge rock or boulder. It was a big one. Just as I was leading the squad, the enemy opened fire on us. Rembert was a few yards away. He was hit in the chest. I think it killed him immediately. When Rembert got hit, the only cover we had, going up this hill, was this huge boulder that was there. We took cover behind it. The enemy was firing at us from the rear of the boulder. In other words, the boulder didn’t give us any protection whatsoever. People were hit all around that damn rock. That huge rock, or whatever you want to call it, actually didn’t give us protection at all.

  I had a bullet rip me on the tip of my chin. Had it been an inch over, it would have taken my chin off. I spread my men out, firing up the hill. My automatic rifleman (BAR man that was with me) was Tank Clarke, and Lawrence Williams. I directed their fire on that doggone hill. Williams was closest to me and was hit. I would say someone was firing at us from our rear. The bullet that hit Williams entered the top of his head and came out in front of his eye. I looked at it, his brains started running out of the bullet hole. Glover who was to my left, was also hit. He got it in the neck. That’s how close I was to him. In all probability, this may have killed him immediately. Then, he was hit again in the neck.

  We received the word to pull out. When I started moving back, Legree Aikens, who was about twenty-five to thirty yards from my position, was wounded. I ran across this rice paddy, and I think every Chinaman or Korean was shooting at me. I jumped in this huge ditch and crawled up to the bank. Standing no more than ten feet from me was a Korean. He didn’t see me. I leveled down on him and got off two rounds, but my carbine jammed. I always had trouble with that carbine. Anyway, he was shooting, as I looked at it, to his left. Just before I had gotten into position on that bank, a man in my squad (Robert St. Thomas) yelled, “Jack, where are you?” I yelled back, “Down here! Come on down!” Before I could get a shot off on this Korean in front of me, when I crawled up to the bank, he was shooting to my left. I am sure he was shooting at St. Thomas. Prior to this, St. Thomas had bee
n hit in the foot, so I told him to come down where I was. When I called back up, standing before me, not more than ten feet, I mean ten feet, was a Korean. No way in the world I could have missed him. That’s when I got my two shots off with the carbine and it jammed on me. If I had been a little earlier, I would have knocked him down before. I believe he was the one who killed St. Thomas.

  I pulled back to this little village. On the way, I saw this cap on the ground. It was an old tanker’s cap, lying in this ditch. You know, the kind that had flaps on it. It was the one Dude Walker had been wearing. When I saw the cap, I said, damn, they have gotten the Dude. When I arrived at the village, the Dude was there. He told me, “Look Jack, we’ve got a couple of wounded men here. I don’t want a living ass to leave until we get the wounded out.” I picked up a rifle and a belt with some ammo on it, and threw the belt over my shoulder. I took up a position on the high ground, not more than twenty-five yards from this Korean shack where several guys were lying wounded. Dude Walker and I were the last two men out of that place that day. I would like everyone to know what the Dude said on this particular day. He said, “Nobody will leave until all of the wounded are out of here.”

  We pulled back to our position. That night the enemy reassembled and hit us again (counterattacked). I was back at the aid station. I was at the aid station or the division evac…. I wasn’t up there that night. Second Ranger Company and B Company, 32d Regiment made up for what the enemy had done to us on that bloody day.