Disaster in Korea

by Roy E Appleman

  The CCF 40th Army had crossed the Yalu River at Sinanju on 24-25 October and had attacked the ROK 6th Division in the 1st Phase Offensive, rendering it largely combat ineffective. It then moved south and engaged American forces in other battles near the Chongchon, the 8th Cavalry Regiment suffering heavy casualties in these actions. The CCF Army reassembled at Unsan after the 1st Phase Offensive ended. There We Yu Shu, the cultural officer of the Heavy Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 359th Regiment of the 120th Chinese Division, captured at Chinaman's Hat on 26 November, said the Chinese 40th Army spent the time from 5 to 25 November 1950 in regrouping and reequipping. The 120th Division led the advance of the 40th Army to the Chongchon River on 25 November. He said his regiment received orders at 3 P.M. 25 November to advance that night to the Chongchon River at Kujang-dong.

  We Yu Shu said the 359th Regiment started its march at dark, using mountain trails across country. It was thoroughly trained in night movement and warfare. Its strategy in night battle was to use rifles as little as possible, since that gave away positions, and to rely on grenades in close approach to an enemy. On leaving Unsan, each man had five days' rations of corn and millet and 100 rounds of small-arms ammunition. Each soldier also carried four grenades. Shu said the regiment arrived at the Chongchon River at midnight and waded across it in waist-deep water. While Kujang-dong was given as the regiment's destination, we know that it actually reached and crossed the Chongchon in the vicinity of Chinaman's Hat and Sinhung-dong, because that is where Shu and many other members of the 359th Regiment were captured during the night of 25-26 November and the next morning.

  Another Chinese prisoner captured that night was Capt. Chang Han-chung, commanding officer of the 6th Company, 2nd Battalion, 359th Regiment. He had been a Chinese Nationalist soldier until 1948, when he was captured and incorporated into the Chinese Communist Army. He described the Chinese system of communication in the 120th Division as using courier at all levels, radio at regimental and higher levels, telephone (when wire could be laid) and signal flares at battalion level, bugle at company level, and whistles at platoon level.'

  No map locations for K and L companies, 9th Infantry, have been found in army records. Their locations on the night of 25 November are therefore hard to plot. From survivor evidence, however, it appears that K Company was on a hill on the north side of the 30-foot-wide, sand-bottomed creek bed known only as Dry Creek in the records and in the personal recollections of participants. The company's position on meandering Dry Creek was about two air miles northwest of the creek's junction with the Chongchon River a mile west ofSinhung-dong, where the river in its own meandering course ran almost cast to west. The distance to the river by the creek bed must have been about three miles. I. Company was downstream, approximately one and a half miles from K Company, occupying a part of Hill 356 on the south side of Dry Creek. The third company of the battalion, I Company, was about a mile and a half west across the hills from L Company and Dry Creek. It was not in the path of the Chinese approach march and escaped enemy contact on the night of 25 November.

  K Company, commanded by Capt. Benjamin J. Benton, was at very low strength, about one-third, having only 65 men in all, including attached ROK soldiers. It included only five BARS and two light machine guns. Some of its men had one or two grenades. Others had none. The company had marched all day in the hills, and when they reached their objective on Dry Creek, they were tired. They had not eaten since breakfast.

  Captain Benton did not occupy the high ground of his position. He placed one platoon on a western knob of the hill ridge; the other two he placed at the bottom of the hill, facing them north and west toward the nearby Dry Creek. The west end of K Company's position was less than 100 feet from the bed of Dry Creek. The hill ridge itself was a weak position, as it had easy incline approaches to its crest from the creek bottom and from the north. Benton had communication with neither the 3rd Battalion nor I. Company across Dry Creek southwest of him. He did not send out patrols to locate L Company. K Company was a weak force in a weak, isolated position on the night of 25 November.

  Pfc. Louis Giudici was in an outpost position in what had been a cornfield along the creek bottom, at the west end of the K Company position, within 35 to 40 feet of Dry Creek. He manned a light machine gun. Two ROK riflemen guarded him. The moon was out and spread a bright silver sheen over the landscape. Giudici happened to glance at his watch and noted it was 7 P.M. At that moment he heard some small-arms fire to the south. A bugle sounded from the north and another from the west, and then other bugle sounds came from the south.

  Within a few seconds Giudici heard the sound of tramping men. And then he saw them-coming down the creek bed toward him. Those in the lead were in small groups of about six men each, with small spaces between them. They seemed to carry no small arms. They came at double-time. Giudici saw them first at a distance of 250 to 300 feet. He waited to open fire when they came abreast of him, about 35 feet distant in the turn of the creek bed. But before that moment came, he saw a solid column of enemy infantry, four abreast, carrying rifles and submachine guns at port, moving at a rapid pace, following the advance groups. Giudici held his fire. For 17 minutes he watched the column go by, never pausing in its dogtrot pace. Horsemen, at intervals, rode alongside the men. He could hear them giving orders, apparently urging the men to maintain their speed.

  The Chinese column, in regimental strength, did not discover Giudici and his two ROKs. Apparently they did not know that K Company was only yards away. K Company might have been spared, except that a rifleman with an M-1 had come down into the cornfield. As the last of the Chinese column started around the creek bend and would soon be lost to sight, the rifleman opened fire. Giudici thereupon cut loose with his machine gun, but after a few rounds it quit.

  This one burst of automatic fire caused the tail end of the enemy column to hit the ground. When the automatic fire did not resume, Chinese rose and in a V formation walked straight toward Giudici's position. He, the two ROKs, and the rifleman ran up the hill. The K Company CP and its adjacent troops had not seen or heard the Chinese column pass.

  The small-arms fire that Giudici had heard just before the Chinese infantry column came in sight had come from the 2nd Platoon at the other end of K Company's position in the valley below the hill. Apparently an advance scouting party had entered the creek valley there by chance. It may have had no direct connection with the enemy column that double-timed down the bed of Dry Creek toward the Chongchon. After its flurry of fire the 2nd Platoon had run for the hill. It did not see the enemy column pass.

  With the presence of an American force now disclosed, about two companies of Chinese peeled off from the column, which never paused, and started to reconnoiter K Company's position north of the creek bed. Much of what happened thereafter is a matter of conjecture.

  Pfc. Lawrence Brown in the 3rd Platoon manned the second light machine gun in the company. Two riflemen flanked him. Cpl. Eugene Mann was in a foxhole with a BAR a short distance behind Brown. None of these men had seen any targets or had fired their weapons. Without warning, a grenade dropped into the machine-gun position. Its explosion killed Brown and knocked over the machine gun. Mann saw the ROK soldier at Brown's side run for the hill. The American rifleman on the other side did not move-apparently killed by the grenade.

  Mann cut loose with his BAR, although he saw no targets, and put about 50 rounds in front of the machine-gun position. Then he ran for the hill behind him. On the hill he met 2nd Lt. Al Raskin with about 15 men. There were no others in sight. Raskin told him they would have to get out. But there were two other groups of K Company men, one in the saddle between two knobs and another at the western base of the hill.

  The group in the saddle was a small one of five men, consisting of Lt. George Williams and two American and two ROK soldiers. They saw a group of the Chinese soldiers that left the column at the creek bed. These enemy soldiers came toward them, firing as they came. Williams's group waited until the Chinese
were within 100 feet, then fired their rifles and carbines at them. Some of the Chinese fell, but the others kept coming. The five men continued to pour small-arms fire into them. Thirty feet away, the survivors took cover. Behind them another enemy platoon was coming up the draw toward the saddle. At this point, the two ROKs ran for it. The front line of the approaching Chinese quit firing, apparently convinced that only a few men were in front of them. They apparently wanted prisoners. Suddenly, a small group of the Chinese in the first line that had taken cover rushed the three Americans, and a hand-to hand fistfight took place. All three Americans, however, broke loose and escaped to the north side of the hill. There they barely escaped another enemy group and got away.

  The other, larger group of Americans was at the west base of the ridge. It included what was left of the 3rd Platoon-about 15 men. In it were Captain Benton and Lieutenant Kreuger. The Chinese had not yet located them. According to one of the parry, as he told it later, Captain Benton decided that, if any of them were to survive, they would have to abandon their position. The party moved north, the only direction that seemed to be free of enemy. But they ran into small Chinese groups even there and had frequent short firefights, losing some men. Those remaining turned cast toward the Chongchon River, hoping to work their way back to friendly lines. But some of the men decided to hide out in rock ravines until daylight. Many of those who continued on were never seen again. Most of those who hid during the night eventually escaped.

  Lieutenant Raskin and Corporal Mann's group fought their way out with the help of their perfectly functioning BARS. Not until survivors reached friendly lines on the Chongchon did any part of Eighth Army know what had happened to K Company that night.'

  An incident that later became known about K Company should be told here. In the period after K Company survivors abandoned their position and individually and in small groups tried to escape, the CCF captured Captain Benton. They took him at once to a Korean house, where a Chinese officer interrogated him. The Chinese took his watch but did not mistreat him, except that they gave him no food. When Benton asked for food, a Chinese lieutenant told him he was sorry that he had none for him, since he had not anticipated his capture. The Chinese kept Benton separate from about 25 to 30 other American prisoners they had taken in the K Company fight. Two guards were assigned to him. This Chinese force of about five platoons soon moved on to another place, taking him with them. The Chinese marched in a column of platoons to the foot of a hill, where they deployed on a bugle signal. Benton later escaped and told American debriefing interrogators that the Chinese deployed without any confusion and that there was no noise or talking until they began their attack, which began about 20 minutes after deployment.'

  L Company, 9th Infantry, was the closest American unit to K Company when the latter's position was given away to the Chinese column in its approach march to the Chongchon River. Capt. Maxwell M. Vail's L Company was stronger in manpower than K Company, numbering about 110 men. But it was short of ammunition and had neither bedrolls nor overcoats. It had stopped for the night on 25 November on the south side of Dry Creek on an elongated ridgeline that bent north in its center toward the creek. The ridge was noted as Hill 356. It was on the south side of Dry Creek, about one and a half miles southwest from K Company's position and therefore about a mile closer to the Chongchon River.

  A supply party was supposed to bring food, ammunition, and bedrolls to L Company early in the evening. A carrying party of ten men had waited near the mouth of Dry Creek for the 2%-ton truck and a jeep carrying the supplies. But the drivers of the two vehicles got lost in the dark and ended up north of Dry Creek in the 2nd Battalion position. They then turned back to the rendezvous point.

  Sgt. Charles Clark, leader of the carrying party, after waiting longer than he expected for the vehicles, decided they had become lost. He sent one of his men to look for them. This messenger found them a mile or more away and guided them south along the sandy bank of the Chongchon. They made slow progress but finally arrived at the rendezvous site, where Clark and his men started to unload the vehicles.

  The carrying parry had unloaded only a few items when sounds of a heavy firefight to the west, on the L Company position, reached them. At the same time, they saw masses of men running toward the Chongchon in the creek bed near its mouth, just north of them. They were the Chinese in the regimental column that had passed K and L companies. Clark hurried his men away from the vehicles to a small hill nearby. Although some of the carrying party had called out to the men in Dry Creek when they had first seen them, they received no answer. The CCF column never paused but continued on to the river. At this time a group of six men, escapees from K Company, joined Clark's group.

  Back at the truck unloading spot, the drivers of the two vehicles had taken off in their trucks, for the river, and somehow got them across to the east side. Once there, they turned south toward the artillery positions at Kujang-dong. But they very soon ran into a Chinese roadblock. The truck driver was never seen again; Sgt. Joel Henry in the jeep was wounded twice in making his escape. These events explain why L Company did not get their expected bedrolls and an ammunition resupply that evening.

  When the CCF regiment dogtrotted past K Company, it did not have far to go before it would come in sight of L Company's position. In less than a mile it would be abreast of its western edge. As it chanced, L Company had advance warning, but not by much, before Chinese appeared at its position. Two ROK soldiers who had escaped Chinese captors some days earlier were hiding out for the night in a schoolhouse on the northeast side of Dry Creek, about half a mile below K Company. It was only a matter of minutes after the point of the big Chinese column had passed K Company before it appeared in the creek bed in front of the schoolhouse, dogtrotting in the moonlight. The two ROKs watched in fascination and fear as the Chinese hurried past. They counted 25 horsemen interspersed in the column and estimated the enemy force as about 2,000 men, all carrying arms. As soon as the rear of the column passed, the two ROKs broke from the building and started on a run southward over the hills to a ridge where they had seen bonfires burning. They reasoned that these fires could only be on an American position. They were right. In a short time they came panting into the 3rd Platoon, L Company's position.

  Squad bonfires stretched the full length of L Company's position, outlining perfectly the location and extent of the company. Captain Vail had authorized the bonfires when his men complained of the cold. One of the biggest fires was at his CP. Because the two ROKs had seen the bonfires from upstream, there could be no doubt the Chinese had seen them also, and as the creek bed curved north around the L Company hill position, they had good close-up views of the fires and the areas they lighted as they came abreast of it. As in the case of K Company, some companies of Chinese dropped out of the column and began enveloping the position. There was no firing or noise of any kind, even though one L Company outpost was within 200 yards of the creek. No one in L Company knew a Chinese column had just passed them. Their first knowledge came from the two ROK soldiers who burst suddenly into the western end of their position and said excitedly, "You are in great danger!"

  A member of the platoon immediately took the two ROKs to the 2nd Platoon leader, Lt. Gene Takahashi. They told him what they had seen. Takahashi accepted their story. But he reasoned from it that the Chinese column had already passed the L Company position, since there had been no disturbance, and that the enemy column must have hurried on to the Chongchon River, only a short distance away. The ROKs repeated that they were all in great danger and should get out. Then they disappeared. They had no intention of staying there.

  Takahashi walked down the back side of the hill to Captain Vail's CP and told him the story he had just heard. Vail agreed with Takahashi that the Chinese had probably already passed them, but he moved a part of the 3rd Platoon at the eastern end of the position to cover an approach route from the southwest-from the river side.

  The squad warming fires still burned. L Com
pany men stood around warming themselves. Their ridge positions looked like a lighted street. A forward observer from the 37th Field Artillery Battalion, Lt. Lynn R. Raybould, had been in his observation post in the 1st Platoon position in the middle of the line, where it approached closest to Dry Creek. But at the time the Chinese column went by, he had gone to Vail's CP on the reverse slope. He did not approve of the warming fires but apparently did not say anything about them when he saw that Vail himself had a large one. Takahashi was talking to Vail when Raybould arrived, but Raybould did not hear their conversation.

  Sfc. Lionel King was in charge of the artillery observation post during Raybould's absence. He knew nothing of enemy in the vicinity and thought mistakenly that K Company was only a short distance north of him. Again, no patrols had established a connection between the two companies that evening. Some yards in front of the artillery observation post, two ROK soldiers occupied a foxhole. One of them reported to King that he could hear men digging in front of him. The other ROK said they were speaking Chinese. King went forward and listened. He could hear the digging but was uncertain about the source of it. He thought it might be caused by K Company men. Nevertheless, he moved seven men near him to firing positions facing the sound of digging. He then called out, "Are you guys from K Company?" The digging stopped and there was silence out front. He ordered his small group to fire. One of the men had a BAR. A loud scream came from the area in front of them. Then a machine gun fired on King's group from below them. Its fire was off target, however, and hit cast of them among the 3rd Platoon.