On the morning of 25 November, the 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry, relieved the 1st Battalion and a company of the 9th Infantry that held the left flank of the 38th Regimental line. Already, however, A Company of the 1st Battalion had started on its hazardous patrol toward Hill 1229, and it was not included in the 1st Battalion's reverting to regimental reserve.'°
Lieutenant Colonel Kelleher had ordered Capt. Jack W. Rodarm at 1:30 A.M., 25 November, to take his A Company to Hill 1229 to find out what was there. Rodarm was to be ready to move at 4 A.M. Trucks carried A Company up the valley two and a half miles to its point of departure. There were 125 men in A Company, and a few more men were attached to it for special functions. Capt. Leonard Lowery, 1st Battalion executive officer, went along with 20 Korean carriers with rations. Each man in the company carried two grenades and a good supply of small-arms ammunition. There were 14 BARS, two light machine guns, one 60-mm mortar, and one 57-mm recoilless rifle included in the company's weapons.
The 2nd Battalion was supposed to occupy ridges on both sides of the Paengnyong River when it relieved the 1st Battalion that morning. Of particular importance to the A Company patrol was F Company's position on a hill on the north side of the valley. From its point of departure in the valley, the patrol took four hours to climb one and a half miles. By then it was daylight. A burst of machine-gun fire suddenly cut across the front of Cpl. Renaldo Acosta, the lead scout. He and others behind him dropped to the ground. Immediately all of A Company sought cover as enemy automatic and rifle fire ripped the ground around them. From its sound, Rodarm thought it came from Americanmade weapons. It did-from American weapons taken by the CCF from Nationalist Chinese forces. A Company's support platoon in the rear worked its way to the ridge top, and the Chinese soldiers there fled. F Company of the 2nd Battalion now came up the ridgelinc from its hill position on the north side of the valley and occupied the knob formerly held by the Chinese. A Company continued its patrol toward Hill 1229. It was now about noon.
While the fight for the Chinese-held hilltop had been in progress, the Korean carriers scattered. Rodarm by radio had informed Lieutenant Colonel Kelleher at the 1st Battalion CP of what had happened. He now came up the trail to join A Company. The company was way behind schedule on its way to Hill 1229. Kelleher and Captain Lowery set a faster pace. By late afternoon, the company reached Hill 453, considerably less than halfway to Hill 1229. The men had been climbing since early in the morning, and the firefight had tired them more. Many were near exhaustion, and the company was scattered down the trail from the point squad, as many lagged behind. Kelleher stopped the point frequently to let those in the rear catch up.
Near Hill 453, an unseen enemy soldier threw a grenade from a clump of bushes along the trail. It exploded close to Lt. John O. Crockett of the 1st Platoon and Captain Rodarm, who was with him. This incident, together with the knowledge that the enemy had a screening force watching the patrol's progress and the near exhaustion of the men, caused Kelleher and Rodarm to stop for the night when they reached Hill 453. It was nearly dark when A Company stopped and began establishing a defense perimeter on top the hill. At this point, Lieutenant Colonel Kelleher took the trail back to his 1st Battalion CP. It was apparent from the day's events that A Company's approach to Hill 1229 from the south was covered almost from its beginning by an enemy screening force and that Chinese in force were ahead of it on higher ground."
While A Company headed north on its arduous patrol, another rifle company from the 2nd Battalion started southeast from the valley of the Paengnyong on what was thought to be a routine mission. About noon of 25 November, Lt. Robert H. Rivet led G Company from Sinhung-dong to relieve C Company of the 1st Battalion at its position on Hill 291, about two air miles southeast of Chinaman's Hat. Rivet's company had a better-than-average strength of 164 men in the then understrength rifle companies of Eighth Army. The two air miles converted into many more miles by the twisting and exceedingly rough and steep trails the company followed to reach Hill 291.
When G Company arrived at the hill past midafternoon, the men were tired. It took over C Company's badly chosen positions but made no change in them, even though it inherited platoon positions on three different hills, none of them in sight of the others or of the company CP. The latter was a mile behind the nearest platoon-held hill. And C Company had not dug in. When G Company started to do so, it found that shale and slate lay just beneath the surface. After their exhausting climb into the hills, the men quickly gave up trying to dig holes, and the officers did not try to force them to do it. From the northern crest of Hill 219, it was about one-half air mile due north to the Paengnyong River; from its most distant southern tip it was about one air mile to the stream. A small trail came south up a draw from the Paengnyong to the cast side of the hill."
At twilight on 25 November, Col. George B. Peploc's 38th Infantry held scattered positions for about five miles in the terrain on both sides of the Paengnyong northeast of Kujang-dong and Sinhung-dong. Its right flank had a boundary with the ROK 3rd Regiment of the ROK 7th Division.19
In summarizing Eighth Army's situation at twilight on 25 November, the second day of its attack, one may say its west flank in the area of the 21st Infantry, 24th Division, had met almost no opposition, but contact had been made with enemy reconnaissance parties that had withdrawn in front of the 21st Infantry. The ROK 1st Division, adjacent to it on the east, had also advanced without opposition, but as evening approached it had intelligence that large bodies of Chinese troops were just ahead of it near Taechon. Next on the right, just west of the Kuryong River, the 35th Infantry of the US 25th Divi sion had advanced without opposition to a point just south of Unsan. Across the Kuryong River on its east side, Task Force Dolvin had had light skirmishes with a Chinese screening force nearly all day north of Ipsok on the hills bordering the Kuryong River, and late in the afternoon its Ranger Company had had a hard fight, suffering many casualties, in capturing Hill 205 on the left side of the road leading north. To the east of Task Force Dolvin, in rough terrain, the 24th Regiment of the 25th Division had had no important resistance-the area seemed to be strangely free of enemy forces.
Farther east, in the valley of the Chongchon River, the 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 9th Infantry had crossed to the west side of the stream near Kujang-dong and then continued north into hills bordering the river on that side. By dark they had reached a point approximately opposite Sinhung-dong and Chinaman's Hat and had gone into position there on a series of three hills. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion of the 9th Infantry had advanced along the Chongchon valley road east of the river to Sinhung-dong, where its B Company had attacked Hill 219, just north of the village. Chinese troops on the hill resolutely turned back all efforts during the day to drive them from it.
Previously, the 38th Regiment of the 2nd Division had turned east from the Chongchon valley at Kujang-dong, where it followed a poor secondary dirt road into increasingly rough terrain eastward toward Somin-dong and Tokchon. Its 2nd and 3rd battalions were on line from left to right on hills lining the Paengnyong-gang, its 3rd Battalion having a boundary with the ROK 3rd Regiment of the ROK 7th Division of the ROK 11 Corps. Before daylight that moming, A Company of the Ist Battalion started on a patrol toward Hill 1229, a dominating height north of the 38th Regiment, where aerial reconnaissance and prisoner intelligence had reported large numbers of Chinese troops and mortar emplacements to have been concentrated.
The ROK II Corps front on 25 November remained much as it was on 24 November. On its left flank, in the area of the ROK 3rd Regiment, there had been little enemy opposition, and the 3rd Regiment had advanced northward short distances. Elsewhere, the ROK II Corps had made no gains. Accordingly, by evening of 25 November a gap had developed between the ROK 3rd Regiment on the corps left and the rest of the II Corps. Just before dark the Chinese launched a precision attack with a massed assault force against the ROK II Corps.
Thus stood Eighth Army's advance toward the border at dark on 25 No
vember. B Company, 9th Infantry, at Hill 219 was the farthest northern point gained by the army in the valley of the Chongchon. In the center, Task Force Dolvin's most advanced position at dark was Hill 205, some miles north of Ipsok, held by the Ranger Company. Eighth Army troops were to go no farther. In the vicinity of Taechon, Unsan, Ipsok, Sinhung-dong, and eastward into the ROK II Corps area, Eighth Army had run out of easy going. By dark on 25 November it had reached the positions where the Chinese concentrations were waiting for them.
But let us see how the Far East Command intelligence in Tokyo interpreted these events: "Pressure of the current UN offensive showed the enemy willing to withdraw north to the point of abandoning field guns, tanks and self-propelled artillery. It is now considered unlikely that the enemy will operate extensively on the flank of the Eighth Army. His alignment is not expected to remain roughly West to Fast but rather an oblique disposition west of the Chongchon River, in the direction of Huichon."20 It would appear that the Far East Command intelligence officer believed the Eighth Army advance would continue without serious difficulty.
Underscoring the situation at the Eighth Army front at dusk on 25 November was an unusual incident that had occurred before dawn that morning, 45 air miles behind the front. The 187th Airborne Regiment was in Eighth Army reserve near Kangdong, about 20 miles northeast of Pyongyang, on the main lateral road from the North Korean capital to Wonsan on the east coast. The 2nd Platoon of B Company of the airborne regiment occupied Hill 171 near the town. Before daylight on 25 November, an enemy force tried to seize the hill. After a two-hour fight, the 2nd Platoon, less its 3rd Squad, which had been held in reserve, had expended nearly all its ammunition. With the attacking enemy within 25 yards of the platoon position, the platoon leader had to commit the 3rd Squad. Cpl. Joe R. Baldonado, machine gunner of that squad, put his weapon in an exposed position in a hurry, having no time to dig in, where he could place heavy fire on the assaulting enemy. His stream of machinegun fire caused these troops to fall back. Several times enemy assault squads attacked Baldonado's gun position with grenades, but by good luck none of them put Baldonado out of action. Near daylight, however, about 7 A.M. in a final assault, an enemy grenade explosion killed Baldonado. But with daylight at hand, the enemy withdrew after this last attack."
This fierce fight on a platoon position nearly 50 air miles south of the army battle front was undoubtedly carried out by a North Korean guerrilla force and is one of many episodes that occurred deep behind the Eighth Army front that showed to what an extent bypassed North Korean army groups in guerrillatype action tried to coordinate their action with Chinese attack plans to disrupt UN rear areas at this time.
As soon as it began to grow dark, Chinese troops were in movement against specific American and ROK positions all across the front, except at the extreme left flank, held by the 24th Infantry Division. This was not an attack through any gap. Nor was it only an attack against the UN or Eighth Army's right flank and a turning movement there. It was a head-on attack against Eighth Army, stretching all the way from Tacchon, in front of the ROK 1st Division in the west, right on eastward against the US 25th and 2nd infantry divisions in the army center, before culminating in the ROK II Corps zone on the right flank. The Chinese were intent on making penetrations anywhere they could find them and then encircling small or large portions of Eighth Army as circumstances permitted.
As events turned out, and probably as the CCF anticipated, their earliest important penetration came in the ROK II Corps. They exploited it well, and thus began a turning movement through the Eighth Army's right flank and around it when that flank collapsed. But this effort succeeded only because their frontal attacks across the Eighth Army succeeded at the same time-the entire Eighth Army front was pressed back. The CCF 50th Army, on the American left flank, held back at first to permit the other Chinese forces at the center and at the right flank to accomplish their initial objectives and then to press and swing the Eighth Army westward toward the coast. The Chinese plan was an example of classic military tactics as stated by such theorists as Antoine Henri Jomini and Karl von Clausewitz.
As the Eighth Army troops stopped in late afternoon and evening of 25 November to dig in for the night, activity in the Chinese assembly areas just ahead of them became frenzied but orderly. As was to be learned later so well, the typical CCF method of preparing for a major attack was to withdraw from immediate contact, leaving only light screening and reconnaissance forces behind to observe the enemy. Then, out of sight and beyond light artillery range, the main force rested, reorganized, resupplied, and reassembled in preparation for another major effort. Nearly every major Chinese attack in the Korean War followed this pattern. When ready to renew combat, Chinese soldiers left their assembly areas in approach-march formations, beginning at dusk or soon after dark, and by a rapid night march approached their previously determined points of contact and assault. Normally, the attack formations would reach their points of departure within three or four hours after leaving their assembly areas. In these hours of approach the Chinese soldiers often went at a dogtrot and usually silently. They covered a lot of distance in a short time. Well rested, and perfectly disciplined in such marches, they were ready to rush the enemy's positions by midnight or earlier. So it was this time.
A day-to-day recounting of events along the Eighth Army front would make difficult reading. Events will therefore be recounted by considering one definable sector of the front (ordinarily a UN corps sector) at a time. Each battle is followed through to a conclusion, if the outcome was clear. In nearly all cases during the Chinese 2nd Phase Offensive, a conclusion was reached, or its outcome evident, after three days and three nights. By that time the Eighth Army was in retreat everywhere.
It seems best to start with the CCF assault against the ROK II Corps on the Eighth Army right flank because it was there that the enemy breakthrough first was decisive and complete. The effect of enemy victory spread westward to all other sectors. Next came the defeat of the American troops in the UN line's center in the area of Taechon, Unsan, Ipsok, and Yongbyon. And following closely that series of triumphs, the enemy overcame the US 2nd Division in its holding actions, and that division fought a rear-guard action in withdrawing to the Kunu-ri area, at the same time covering the crossing of the Chongchon River to the south side by many other units of the IX Corps. And finally, there was the effort of the 2nd Infantry Division to escape, at the rear of the Eighth Army retreat, through a long and heavily gunned Chinese gauntlet that stretched along the road south from Kunu-ri to Sunchon on 30 November.
By the end of November and the first day of December, the Chinese 2nd Phase Offensive had decisively defeated the Eighth Army, and the latter was gathering speed in a headlong retreat southward. The days and nights from the evening of 25 November to 1 December 1950 are crowded with a churning, hectic, often bizarre, series of battles, large and small, clear across the Eighth Army front. Taken together at any one moment, they render difficult any attempt to hold up a mirror and present them in a narrative form that would give an overall view of the ever-changing scene. (See table 3 for a lineup of forces involved across the battlefront.) Just how the Chinese XIII Army Group accomplished their amazing victory will unfold in the following chapters.
Table 3. Alignment of Eighth Army and CCF Forces, 25 November 1950
SOURCE: FEC, Daily Intelligence Summary No. 3207, 21 tune 1951, Box 473.
Nom: This FEC summary is a translation ofa captured Chinese document, which gives this XIII Army Group order of battle about the latter part of Feb. 1951. It is probably the most important enemy document the UN forces captured prior to July 1951. The date, place, and circumstances of capture are unknown, but it was acquired probably in the latter part of Feb. 1951. Many additional enemy sources support its accuracy.
The 38th and 42nd armies crossed the Yalu At Manpojin, and the 42nd Army initially moved to the Chosin Reservoir area to block the advance of the US X Corps there and to protect the XIII Army Group's
left (east) flank. When the Chinese IX Army Group later arrived at the Chosin Reservoir area prior to the 2nd Phase Offensive and relieved the 42nd Army, the latter moved west to join its parent organization, the XIII Army Group for the 2nd Phase Offensive. The 39th, 40th, 50th, and 66th armies crossed the Yalu River at Sinuiju. Some elements of the CCF 1st and 8th artillery divisions were also engaged with Eighth Army during the Chinese 2nd Phase Offensive.
'Front-line units appear in italics.
'Originated from three Nationalist Chinese divisions and other Nationalist units that defected in Manchuria in 1945.
`Part of XX Army Group until it entered Korea; included one Nationalist division; initial contact with US forces on I Nov. 1950, but then in reserve until 25 Nov.
dlntegrated old 269th Nationalist Division; seized Kuryong River area and Yongbyon.
`Foremost combat organization of CCF Army; attacked along Chongchon River.
Integrated one or more Nationalist divisions; penetrated ROK II Corps fmnt; turned back Turkish Brigade; formed massive roadblock that trapped US 2nd Division at Kunu-n.
slntegrated one Nationalist division in 1949; 124th Division at low strength because of combat in X Corps area against ROK 23rd Rcgt. and 7th Marines along Hamhung-Hagaru-n road; after defeating ROK 8th Div., turned the Eighth Army flank and drove on Sunchon, in army rear; met by 1st Cav. Div. and halted in the vicinity of Sinchang-ni.
Two ROK divisions, the 7th and 8th, of the ROK II Corps were on line at dark 25 November. The boundary between them, with the 7th Division on the left, or west, ran on a generally north-south line about eight miles east of Tokchon. The ROK 7th Division had brought up its 5th Regiment late in the afternoon of 25 November to fill the gap in its lines, as its 3rd Regiment had advanced to the northwest on the ROK II Corps left flank against little or no opposition, while its 8th Regiment on the boundary with the ROK 8th Division made no progress. The ROK 7th Division thus had its three regiments, the 3rd, 5th, and 8th, in that order, on line from left to right by evening.
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