While E Company occupied Hill 201 without trouble, the Ranger Company had come to a point the Chinese meant to hold. The Ranger Company attacked the hill late in the afternoon and just barely managed to seize it, engaging in hand-to-hand fighting. The scale was weighted in favor of the Rangers by the heavy supporting fire of the 77th Field Artillery Battalion firing from its positions just north of Ipsok."
At dark, Task Force Dolvin had thus made a good advance. Evidence accumulated during the day, however, that CCF screening forces were watching it carefully, and then just before dark the Ranger Company had a very hard battle, suffering many casualties, in taking Hill 205, the northernmost point of advance. Task Force Dolvin never got any farther.
Lieutenant Colonel Dolvin established his CP for the night in a little valley just south of Hill 222 and close to the Kuryong River. It was about midway between Ipsok and the Ranger Company's hill-perhaps five road miles south of the latter. The 77th and 90th field artillery battalions went into firing positions just north of Ipsok and were prepared to support the task force ahead of them.'
Aerial reconnaissance during the afternoon north of Ipsok and in front of Task Force Dolvin reported heavy enemy troop movement, presumably Chinese. Most of this enemy movement slanted laterally southeast across the front of Task Force Dolvin. Dolvin's advance at the same time slanted northeast because of the general constricting course of the looping bends of the Kuryong River on his west side. Events during the late afternoon and intelligence coming in during the day suggested there might be enemy action against the task force during the night.
The situation for Task Force Dolvin was not improved by the fact that, across its boundary to the east, or right, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, had failed to establish contact with it. Its position was unknown. This left the right flank of Task Force Dolvin open. It offered an opportunity for Chinese forces reported moving to the southeast in front of it to come around that flank and get into Dolvin's rear."
That morning the 24th Infantry had lined up again on the right side of Task Force Dolvin and formed the right flank of the 25th Division. Its 1st Battalion was on the let, the 3rd Battalion was in the center, and the 2nd Battalion was on the right of the regimental line. The main 24th Infantry advance initially was east along the Yongbyon-Un hung road, toward Kujang-dong on the Chongchon River, with D Company, 89th Tank Battalion, attached to the regiment. The 3rd Battalion led the column down this road, reaching a point about three miles southwest of Unhung by evening. During the day, the 2nd and 3rd battalions had some slight contact with enemy groups. By accident of geography the 24th Regiment was advancing toward enemy-held territory, and by accident of time it was at the moment the Chinese were moving into the valleys and draws to follow corridors of approach to the main forces of Eighth Army. The 24th Regiment, in the main, was on the high ground of the divide between the Kuryong and the Chongchon Rivers and away from the principal enemy movements. There the roadnet was very poor. So poor was it that E and G companies of the 2nd Battalion tried to move by motor column through the left flank of the 2nd Division zone along the Chongchon River to join F Company, 24th Infantry, on the 25th Division's right flank. The 2nd Division canceled this move through it while it was in progress because of enemy roadblocks on the route. E and G companies then took to mountain trails on foot to reach F Company. They sent all tanks, artillery, and heavy mortars back to the battalion CP."
The 2nd Infantry Division along the Chongchon
During 25 November, the 9th Infantry Regiment, commanded by Col. Charles C. Sloane, Jr., on the 2nd Division's left flank and adjoining the boundary with the 24th Infantry, 25th Division, moved up the jammed Chongchon River road. North of Kujang-dong, the 3rd Battalion and the 2nd Battalion (the latter minus E Company) and the battalion advance headquarters group crossed to the west side of the Chongchon River, where they adjoined the zone of the 25th Division. There they advanced into the hills lining that side of the river. The 3rd Battalion sent K Company across and north of a dry wash to occupy Hill 180, less than a mile west of the Chongchon River, and it sent L Company to occupy Hill 153, on the south side of the dry wash, somewhat closer to the river. The 2nd Battalion, less its command group and E Company, also west of the river, assembled and dug in on the south side of a hill, in an irregular line, opposite the village of Sinhung-dong on the cast side of the river. In this position the 2nd Battalion (-) faced both the Chongchon River to the east of it and the dry wash to the south of it. The units of the 2nd and 3rd battalions, 9th Infantry, occupied these positions without opposition.
In the meantime, the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, E Company, of the 2nd Battalion, and the 2nd Battalion's forward command group continued north along the main road on the cast side of the Chongchon, past Hill 329, later known as Chinaman's Hat, crossed the Paengnvong River, and entered the village of Sinhung-dong on its north bank. About one mile north of Sinhungdong, crowded close to the river and the road, was Hill 219.10
During the morning of 25 November, B Company, 9th Infantry, received orders to seize Hill 219. There had been thus far no indication the 1st Battalion would have any trouble in doing so. The hill appeared to he unoccupied. According to one source B Company had a strength of 116 men when it started for Hill 219; another source gave its strength as 129 able-bodied men. Capt. William C. Wallace commanded the company. He had four medium tanks and two quad-50 M16 antiaircraft gun carriages to give him supporting fire, if needed.
An aspect of the state of mind of the troops and their morale and discipline, widespread in Eighth Army at this time, is revealed by the fact that most of the men in B Company had thrown away their helmets. In the increasingly cold weather, pile caps were much more comfortable. Bayonets also had been dis carded. Only two men, both new in the company, had them. There was less than one grenade on average to a man. Most of the men carried fewer than 50 rounds of small-arms ammunition for their personal weapon.
Hill 219 was a ridge with three knobs, each increasing in height from the lower one at the south end to the peak at the north end. Captain Wallace thought the easiest route to the top was from the western, river side of the hill. A little after 10 A.M., his 2nd and 3rd platoons started from the road at the western base of the hill. The point group was within 25 yards of the crest of the middle knob when a shower of grenades suddenly came down upon it. Enemy rifle fire followed. The men scrambled for cover. Pfc. Lawrence E. Smith, Jr., leading the point squad, glanced up and saw five Chinese running from the knob toward the higher one to the north. The 3rd Platoon at the northern base of the hill now began climbing up. In attempting to lead the 2nd Platoon closer to the crest, Captain Wallace was hit by a grenade explosion close to his face and shoulder. The tanks and quad-50s on the road were of no help, as they were so close to the lower slope that intervening folds of ground prevented their fire from reaching the crest of Hill 219.
Command passed to 1st Lt. Ellison C. Wynn when Wallace was wounded. Wynn continued the attack on the high knob. Enemy fire, however, knocked out the machine-gun section, killing both the gunner and assistant gunner. For a short time thereafter, Wynn was on the forward position alone, throwing hand grenades. A few men joined him, and they held out for a time. Once a group got to within 50 feet of the top, only to find that they had four bullets left among them as they prepared for a rush to the top.
The 1st Battalion commander realized it was an impossible situation and ordered Wynn to withdraw. Bleeding from wounds, he led his remaining men back down the hill. The survivors of B Company took positions around the bottom of the hill at dark. Wallace and Wynn both received the Distinguished Service Cross for their leadership and courage in combat on Hill 219 during the day.
The fight for the hill was not over, but it. is to be noted here that the 3rd Platoon's positions on the north slope of Hill 219 during 25 November constituted the farthest northern advance any element of Eighth Army gained in its ill-fated offensive. This was another point the Chinese had marked as a nopass lin
e."
Chinaman's Hat-Hill 329
A place-name destined to be better known than Hill 219 to the men of the 2nd Division who fought at the northern tip of the Eighth Army advance was Chinaman's Hat. It was a mile and a half south of Hill 219 and named for its resemblance to the traditional conical hat of a Chinese peasant. The name was well chosen, because many former Chinese peasants fought around and occupied it at this time. Officially, however, it was marked on the maps as Hill 329 (that is, its elevation is 329 meters). The hill's lower end was a sharp cone rising steeply from the bank of the Chongchon River, just south of a large tributary, the Paengnyong River, flowing from the east. Sinhung-dong was half a mile north of Chinaman's Hat on the opposite, or north, side of the Paengnyong.
Sgt. Elijah McLaughlin (left front) leads his 2nd Infantry Division squad in an advance down a hill northwest of the Chongchon River, late November 1950. The squad is composed of black, white, and South Korean troops. National Archives 111-SC 353466
Kujang-dong, about three and a half miles south of Chinaman's Hat, was a larger settlement than Sinhung-dong and also on the east side of the Chongchon River and astride the MSR of the 2nd Division up the Chongchon valley. There the 2nd Division had concentrated a mass of artillery to support all its infantry farther north.
Three battalions of 105-mm howitzers (the 15th, 37th, and 99th) and the 17th Battalion of 8-inch howitzers, the largest artillery in Korea at the time and the only battalion of it, were in battery firing positions about 3,000 yards south of Kujang-dong. The 15th Battalion was the normal support artillery for the 23rd Infantry Regiment; the 37th was the normal support for the 9th Infantry Regiment. The 99th Battalion was borrowed from the 1st Cavalry Division, which was then in Eighth Army reserve.
Two more artillery battalions, the 61st and the 503rd (155-mm), minus A Battery, moved on up the valley of the Chongchon, past Kujang-dong, to posi tions a little south of Chinaman's Hat. Their positions there were crowded, but they were the best available that close to the front in the narrow river valley. The 61st Battalion emplaced its howitzers near the river and farther north than the 155-mm howitzers of the 503rd Battalion. Altogether, then, there were six battalions of artillery in the valley of the Chongchon to support the 2nd Division advance. Another battalion, the 38th, the normal support for the 38th Infantry Regiment, accompanied it into the hills east of the valley.
Plc. Ernest Tidwell carries rations on a Korean packboard to his platoon of the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, in Kunu-ri section, November 1950. Pfc. John Adams is his guard. National Archives 11I-SC 354128
The four battalions of artillery emplaced south of Kujang-dong were about four miles distant from the 9th Infantry front, about five to six miles from B Company at Hill 219, and from three to five miles from the spread-out 38th Infantry in the hills cast of the Chongchon River and Kujang-dong. This was a very large artillery concentration within a distance of four miles of Chinaman's Hat on the evening of 25 November."
According to the 2nd Division plan, Col. Paul L. Freeman's 23rd Infantry Regiment was to take over the point of the 2nd Division advance up the Chongchon on 26 November. With that purpose in mind, Lt. Col. Claire E. Hutchins, Jr., led his 1st Battalion out of Kunu-ri and proceeded northward along the river road. It was expected that Hill 219, where Chinese forces had held up B Company, 9th Infantry, all during the day on 25 November, would be reduced by morning of 26 November. The 23rd Infantry would then pass through the 9th Infantry and continue the division attack toward Huichon, which was the division's immediate objective.
Hutchins's battalion arrived at the 503rd Field Artillery Battalion position south of Chinaman's Hat about 4 P.m. on 25 November, while B Company, 9th Infantry, was still trying to take Hill 219, two miles to the north. Colonel Freeman's 23rd Infantry Regimental headquarters, the 23rd Tank Company, and the Heavy Mortar Company were with the 1st Battalion. Hutchins placed his Ist Battalion near the 503rd Artillery Battalion, west and north of it, thus giving it close-in protection. Both the 503rd Artillery and the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry, were in a slight widening of the Chongchon River floodplain southwest of Chinaman's Hat.
Hutchins placed two rifle companies on line: he put A Company in the ricepaddy land close to and facing westward to the 50-yard-wide Chongchon River, with a refused flank on the north, bent to the east. The river was only three to four feet deep in front of A Company. Troops could wade it easily. Hutchins placed B Company eastward from the river, where A Company's line ended on the north, to the road. There he established a roadblock.
After the two rifle companies of the 1st Battalion had gone into their positions, the 61st Field Artillery Battalion, already mentioned, came up, passed through B Company's line, and went into a separate perimeter for the night a little more than half a mile farther north. It was the closest of all army units to Chinaman's Hat.
Six tanks came up and took interspersed positions among the A Company infantry. Most of them faced north toward the area the 61st Field Artillery Battalion had occupied. The rest of the 23rd Tank Company was behind A Company's left flank. Capt. Melvin R. Staff commanded A Company.
Meanwhile, Colonel Freeman established his 23rd Regimental Headquarters, together with Headquarters Company, on a small hill east of the road and railroad tracks, at the southern base of Chinaman's Hat. Had he expected enemy action that night, Freeman most certainly would not have placed his headquarters in this vulnerable position.
The 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 23rd Infantry were not then under Colonel Freeman's control and were not present that night at Chinaman's Hat. The 2nd Battalion was still south of Kujang-dong under 2nd Division control, and the 3rd Battalion was under 38th Infantry control in a blocking position on its MSR, which ran from Kujang-dong eastward into the high hills."
The movement of the 23rd Infantry to Chinaman's Hat in the late afternoon of 25 November was to have important consequences in the next 24 hours. Chinese reconnaissance patrols, unseen, had left the area to make their reports on the vulnerability of the artillery from Kujang-dong northward before the 23rd Infantry units arrived at Chinaman's Hat. As seen by the Chinese patrols, the artillery was without infantry protection. CCF plans for attack on the artillery that night were thus made hastily, without knowledge of the infantry arrival and intelligence on developments at Chinaman's Hat late in the afternoon.
As stated earlier, Col. George B. Pcploe, commander of the 38th Infantry Regiment, had previously moved his regiment to the area east of Kujang-dong, into the hill country back from the Chongchon. He had with him the 38th Artillery Battalion of 105-mm howitzers and A Battery, 503rd Artillery Battalion, of 155-mm howitzers attached. He felt he would need this artillery with him, as most of his regiment would be out of range of the artillery to be massed in the Kujang-dong area in the Chongchon valley. Peploe established his CP at Unbong-dong.
His line of departure for the 38th Infantry part of the division attack would be essentially the Paengnyong River, three to five miles east of Chinaman's Hat, from the Kujang-dong-Somin-dong-Tokchon road. That road was the only feasible axis of advance into the mountainous country where Peploe's regiment's assignment lay. There was a short connecting road to the Paengnyong-chon valley road north of it, near the point where the two roads converged and went southeast to Tokchon. This connecting road lay just east ofSomin-long. Peploe's 38th Regiment had its 1st Battalion, William Kelleher commanding, on the regimental left, facing north. It was the regimental battalion closest to the Chongchon River. The 3rd Battalion, Lt. Col. Harold V. Maixner commanding, extended the line eastward into the hills. Lt. Col. James H. Skeldon's 2nd Battalion was in reserve, but it was scheduled to relieve the 1st Battalion on the line on the morning of 25 November."
The 38th Infantry had forbidding terrain in front of it and on its right flank, next to the ROK 3rd Regiment of the ROK 7th Division. Its area of action in the attack was destined to be the Paengnyong River valley and the hills on either side of it. The Pacngnyong River fl
owed almost due west from its origin on the west side of the divide between the Taedong and Chongchon rivers and joined the Chongchon at the northern base of Chinaman's Hat, just south of the village of Sinhung-dong. The key town of Tokchon on the Taedong River lay about ten air miles southeast of the right flank of the 38th Regiment's position on 25 November.
The highest ground in front of the 38th Regiment was Hill 1229, a massive mountain five air miles to the northeast but 16 miles by mountain foot trails. Aerial reports indicated enemy groups were on the mountain, as well as mortar positions and several ammunition dumps. The 38th Regiment had captured three North Korean prisoners who said that in the past week they had seen several thousand Chinese troops on Hill 1229. US aerial reports placed as many as 2,000 Chinese troops there.
Then, on 25 November, a Joint Operations Center aerial report revealed that a trail from the vicinity of Huichon, running to the southeast toward the Tokchon area, formerly considered impassable to vehicles, had been improved during the past 36 hours so as to permit vehicular traffic. It stated also that a bridge on this trail was under construction. Improving this trail to road status was interpreted at once as a means of speeding movement of enemy troops, weapons, and supplies to enemy forces acting against Eighth Army's right flank.'s As soon as Maj. Gen. Laurence Keiser, commander of the 2nd Division, received this information, he said his division and the adjacent ROK troops would be heavily attacked.
So much intelligence had been reported about the huge enemy concentration on Hill 1229 that higher command decided a ground reconnaissance of the situation there was in order. Colonel Peploc, however, does not recall that the 38th Infantry at the time had much information about an enemy concentration on and in the vicinity of Hill 1229. According to him, this information must have been held mostly by division and higher headquarters. In any event, the 38th Regiment had to send a strong infantry patrol to the hill. This task fell to A Company, 1st Battalion.
Disaster in Korea Page 10
