Out of 116 men who entered the battle with B Company the morning before, only 34 men, including several wounded, remained combat effective. In the first night and the following day's battles, the 9th Infantry Regiment had lost half its men. It had borne the brunt of the initial Chinese onslaught along the Chongchon.
By now, all of the 2nd Division was under attack. The CCF 120th Division that had dogtrotted down the dry creek the night before had crossed during the night and had infiltrated through and spread out almost everywhere behind the American front line.' The US 2nd Infantry Division never gained the initiative. And the Chinese never let up in their attacks on the division in the days that followed. The 2nd Division fought only defensive actions.
When B Company left the southern nose of Hill 219 on the afternoon of 26 November on 9th Infantry orders and, together with D Company, consolidated with the 2nd Battalion on the west side of the Chongchon River opposite Sinhung-dong, Eighth Army lost its foothold north of the Paengnyonggang on the east side of the river. The 23rd Regiment of the division was now fighting desperately to maintain a foothold adjacent to Chinaman's Hat south of the Paengnyong-gang.
Chinese Wade the Chongchon River at Chinaman's Hat
The Chinese 359th Regiment of the 40th Army, although it dropped off enough troops to dispose of K and L companies of the 9th Infantry along Dry Creek on its way to the Chongchon, apparently had an assignment to destroy the American artillery near Kujang-dong, which they seem to have thought from their latest intelligence was unprotected by infantry. Both the Americans and the Chinese had surprises when the enemy force waded the Chongchon on the night of 25 November.
The 61st Field Artillery Battalion was the farthest north of any artillery unit with the 2nd Infantry Division on the Chongchon front. It was emplaced between Chinaman's Hat and the Chongchon River. This artillery battalion normally supported the 1st Cavalry Division. But because the 1st Cavalry Division was in Eighth Army reserve when the army drive to the border began on 24 November, two of its artillery battalions, the 61st and the 99th, were ordered to assist the 2nd Infantry Division in its attack up the Chongchon valley. The 61st Artillery of 105-mm howitzers arrived at Chinaman's Hat in the evening of 25 November after the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry, came up and went into bivouac there. As previously mentioned, the artillery battalion passed through the infantry and went into position more than half a mile in advance of them. This position may not have seemed so unusual, since the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, was in front of them.
The CCF 120th Division, 40th Army, led the Chinese Army's attack against the US 2nd Division. At least two of its regiments, the 358th and 359th, coming from Unsan, crossed the Chongchon River to the east side on the night of 25 November. Reports from prisoners captured that night and the next moming indicated the 359th Regiment led the division to the Chongchon, followed by the 358th Regiment. If that was the case, it appears that elements of the 359th Regiment overran K and L companies of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry, on hills overlooking Dry Creek soon after dark on the evening of 25 November. It will be recalled that Private First Class Giudici's watch timed the arrival of the Chinese column at K Company's outpost position at 7 P.M. It would be four or five miles from there to the mouth of Dry Creek.
The first Chinese attack on the east side of the Chongchon in the Chinaman's Hat area came when Chinese from the 359th Regiment waded the river about 10 P.M. Captured prisoners said the next morning that they attacked across the Chongchon in seven columns, evenly spaced at intervals of about 100 yards, with about two companies totaling approximately 100 men to a column. They deployed undiscovered into these seven columns on the west side of the river. They began their crossings at about 10 P.M.'
It is not clear whether the first crossings were into the area of the 61st Field Artillery Battalion or into A Company, 23rd Infantry, half a mile farther south. The weight of evidence seems to indicate the crossings into the two American positions were made at about the same time.
Three of the seven columns of Chinese that crossed the Chongchon between 10 and 11 P.M. came directly into the bivouac area of the 61st Field Artillery Battalion. A Chinese prisoner later said that, at the river's edge, the Chinese soldiers undressed until they were completely naked and waded across the waist deep river, holding their clothes and weapons above the water. Other evidence indicates that most of them removed only their shoes and trousers. Once on the east side, and virtually at the edge of the artillery position, some of the Chinese quickly put on their clothes, but others did not put on either shoes or pants but attacked immediately. The night was cold, and these men were wet. The Chinese assault caught the 61st Field Artillerymen completely by surprise. The Chinese overran the battalion quickly and occupied the gun pits. Most of the artillerymen fled south to friendly positions. Some ran through the camp of B Company, 23rd Infantry, going through the 3rd Platoon's line. Some continued their flight as far south as Kujang-dong, where they entered the 17th Field Artillery emplacements.
Capt. Melvin Stai, commander of A Company, 23rd Infantry, said that many of the 61st artillerymen came into his position, some in their underwear or barefooted, and that they barely had been able to get out of their sleeping bags before the Chinese soldiers were upon them. They left all their equipment and the howitzers behind. This sudden attack from across the Chongchon was also aided by other Chinese coming from the north, who had just overrun the CP of the 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry. These enemy penetrated behind the artillery position about the same time as the 359th Regiment crossed the river from the west. About three companies hit the 61st Field Artillery Battalion area. The next day a count showed 61 members of the artillery battalion missing in action and Captain Gunnell, A Battery commander, and Lieutenant Peterson, also of A Battery, killed.'
Members of the 61st Field Artillery Battalion later charged that tanks of the 23rd Tank Company, in position south of them in support of A and B companies, 23rd Infantry, would not fire in their support although requested to do so. It is true that six or seven tanks were oriented to fire north, which would have been in the direction of the 61st Field Artillery Battalion. But at this time, A and B companies, 23rd Infantry, were under the same kind of surprise attack, and it would appear that the tanks could not fire in support of the artillerymen without running the risk of hitting them as well as Chinese who were already in their positions.
At the same time that three of seven Chinese columns waded the Chongchon River on the left flank of their deployment and completely routed the 61st Field Artillery Battalion, the other four columns, spaced about 200 to 250 feet apart, waded the river into the A Company, 23rd Infantry, position. There is a time discrepancy between official records and some interview material of participants as to when this happened. According to one source some members of A Company said the Chinese columns crossed into their front at dusk, about 6:30 P.m. The records put it some hours later, as does a credible interview report with responsible officers of A Company and the 1st Battalion.9
One recalls that Private First Class Giudici of K Company, 9th Infantry, timed the head of the enemy column by his watch at 7 P.M. when it reached his outpost position on Dry Creek. This same column waded the Chongchon opposite Chinaman's Hat to enter the 61st Field Artillery Battalion and A Company, 23rd Infantry, positions. It would have taken this enemy column at least an hour or longer to have reached the Chongchon River after passing Giudici's position, and additional time had to be spent in assembling and deploying the Chinese on the west bank of the river into the seven attack columns.
When Lt. Col. Claire E. Hutchins brought his 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry, north to Chinaman's Hat on the evening of 25 November he expected to pass through the 9th Infantry the next morning and continue the attack upstream. No one had expected the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, to be held up at Hill 219. Accordingly, Hutchins put his battalion into a bivouac, but so disposed that it still resembled a perimeter defense, although it was not expected to be used as such. It occupied holes an
d trenches that had been dug by either American, ROK, or North Korean troops. Col. Paul L. Freeman, Jr., the 23rd Infantry Regimental commander, came up at the same time with his headquarters group to direct resumption of the attack the next morning.
The 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry, was disposed around the 503rd Field Artillery (less A Battery), which had already arrived at Chinaman's Hat. A Company occupied a line of foxholes facing west toward the Chongchon River. Its 1st Platoon faced the river; the 2nd Platoon bent back from this line toward the road; and the 3rd Platoon was back of the 2nd Platoon in a reserve position near the company CP. Capt. Melvin Stai commanded A Company; 1st Lt. William J. Major was his executive officer. The mortars of D Company were south of the CP near tanks of the 23rd Tank Company. A Company had outposts on hills east of the road.
Pfc. Harvey M. Deshoen of A Company was on outpost duty near the river. Deshoen first alerted the A Company CP of enemy at hand. He was gazing straight to his front toward a growth of shrubs and small trees along the river bank when he noticed movement on the opposite bank. Watching closely, he could make out men removing their shoes and pants. He knew they could only be enemy. The river here was about 150 to 200 feet wide and three to four feet deep. It could he waded easily. Some small-arms fire could be heard dimly from the north. After Stai had alerted Lieutenant Colonel Hutchins that something was happening, but he knew not what, he ran toward his 1st Platoon near the river to see for himself.10
Sgts. Theodore A. Aspinwall and Robert Strahorn manned the 1st Platoon's machine gun on the platoon line. M. Sgt. Roger W. Remillard sat near them. The machine-gun position was in a large foxhole with an earth rampart around it. Remillard, gazing toward the river bank, which was lined with low shrubs, saw many Chinese soldiers, naked from the waist down, trying to get their trousers on, and some were pulling on shoes. He opened fire on them at once with a carbine. The nearby machine gun joined in the fire, as did the closest riflemen, and together they cut down the enemy in view. But others hidden by the bushes came on a run toward the 1st Platoon line. Some were naked from the waist down. Some of these had been able to get their shoes on, others had not, when the first American fire hit among them. Still trying to dress as they ran forward, this group of Chinese did not fire much as they came on.
Riflemen near the 1st Platoon's machine gun got up and ran toward it. As Captain Stai hurried toward the platoon, running riflemen passed him, going in the opposite direction. Then pursuing Chinese soldiers passed Stai, apparently without noticing him. Remillard had jumped into the machine-gun foxhole with Aspinwall and Strahorn. They stopped firing after they had cut down the first Chinese they had seen at the river bank. Now with the others charging toward them, they held their fire until these Chinese were quite close. They killed and wounded some, but onrushing Chinese passed them as if they were unnoticed. The three Americans then used only the one carbine and two .45-caliber Colt pistols to shoot at any Chinese who turned back toward the river. At different times three Chinese grenades landed in their hole, but none of them exploded. These three men held that forward part of the 1st Platoon line alone.
Staff, on meeting the running riflemen and pursuing Chinese, turned back and hurried to the 3rd Platoon bivouac. There he ordered 2nd Lt. John Gandy, the platoon leader, to form his platoon for an advance toward the 1st Platoon and to stop and incorporate into his 3rd Platoon any fleeing 1st Platoon soldiers he met. He also ordered Gandy to reestablish the forward line. Cooks and kitchen personnel had now grabbed their weapons and formed a makeshift position behind the front line. Gandy started his deployed platoon toward the river. By this time Chinese mortars, firing from the opposite side of the Chongchon, were dropping white phosphorus shells into the area back of the front line. On the American side of the river, the Chinese had also emplaced a machine gun near the southwest corner of A Company's position. Its fire swept across the flat ground that Gandy's men would have to cross. One of the American tanks had turned around to face this gun and fired on it with its own machine gun. This crossfire could have been deadly for Gandy's men and others still in the 1st Platoon position. Sfc. Tillman B. Leaphart ran to the tank and stopped its fire.
As Gandy's 3rd Platoon swept forward, Americans running hard suddenly appeared from the north and yelled "GI, GI!" as they hurtled through his skirmish line, never pausing. They were from the 61st Field Artillery Battalion half a mile north. Chinese had immediately occupied their positions. Many of these artillerymen ran through B Company's position where it extended A Company's line farther cast to the road. Some B Company men jumped from their holes and joined the artillerymen in flight, illustrating the genesis of panic.
Gandy's platoon lost some men killed and wounded to the Chinese machinegun fire, but the others bore straight ahead. Already most of the Chinese who had crossed the river in the first wave and had penetrated the front line had occupied American holes, sometimes as many as four or more in one hole. Most of them made no effort to fight as Gandy's men approached. The 3rd Platoon simply sprayed these holes with BAR, rifle, and carbine fire when they came up to them. Many carbines malfunctioned. Pfc. Robert L. Echard's BAR froze. He urinated on it, and the warm fluid unlocked the gun and again the BAR became a killer. Some men swung their inoperable carbines as clubs. Gandy completed his sweep when he reached the foxhole that the three men of the 1st Platoon still held with their machine gun.
Chinese who had taken over the 61st Field Artillery position were now firing south toward A Company with at least one machine gun. As Gandy came up to the 1st Platoon machine-gun position, a burst of enemy fire struck the staunch second lieutenant in the heart and killed him. Captain Stai was present when Gandy fell. To buttress the still-precarious 1st Platoon position, Stai moved some of the tanks that had been supporting the 2nd Platoon to join the 1st Platoon."
While all this was happening, still more Chinese were crossing the river, for a second regiment of the CCF 120th Division had arrived. Captain Stai took command of the left side of A Company-the part that faced the river. First Lt. William J. Major, the company executive officer, took command of the right side, facing north. The tanks that had joined the 1st Platoon proved invaluable to its defense. Staff watched as 100 Chinese, holding shoes, pants, and weapons above the water, waded the river in the moonlight. Only when they had crossed to the east side and were putting on their shoes did he order all weapons to fire on them. This group was all but annihilated.
In front of the 2nd Platoon of A Company and in front of B Company, which faced north between the river and the road, heavy fire built up from Chinese who had occupied the position held earlier by 61st Field Artillery Battalion. The columns of Chinese that followed the first one down the dry creek bed could cross the river here unopposed to the cast side. Some of them reinforced the first group that had stampeded the artillerymen; others continued on cast and occupied all of Hill 329, Chinaman's Hat. This was a major enemy accomplishment. Still other Chinese forces of the CCF 120th Division pressed straight on east and southeast during the night to get behind the 38th Regiment.
Captain Staff was first aware of Chinese on top of Chinaman's Hat when, during the battle along the river, he noticed several flares fired from the top of the hill. The Chinese never gave up any ground they held on Chinaman's Hat. They were still there, looking down on all the American forces below them, when the latter withdrew down the river toward Kunu-ri.
When Chinese rifle fire from across the Chongchon River killed 1st Lt. Peter F. Charnctski of the 2nd Platoon, Captain Stai had lost all his original platoon leaders in little more than an hour. Before midnight, however, things were quiet in A Company. The enemy who initially had entered its perimeter were dead or had gone elsewhere. The battle had moved north and east into the areas of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, where its remaining troops were fighting desperately but increasingly were becoming casualties. The enemy now reached the CP of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, east of the road.
By midnight of 25 November the Chinese 40th Army h
ad crossed the river in force and was rapidly moving eastward. All front-line units of the 2nd Infantry Division were engaged. At the same time, it appears that part of the CCF 113th Division of the 38th Army, coming from the north, penetrated the left flank of the 38th Regiment, cast of Sinhung-dong. In this first night of the Chinese 2nd Phase Offensive, the enemy hit the 2nd Infantry Division hard everywhere and made impressive gains. At the same time, the ROK II Corps was crumbling on its right.
One might wonder why the first regimental-sized Chinese crossing of the river did not accomplish more lasting results than overrunning the 61st Field Artillery Battalion, thereby securing an uncontested crossing place during the remainder of the night for other parts of the 40th Army. Very likely these troops were surprised to find strong infantry forces where they had expected to find only artillerymen. It has been noted that many of these first Chinese troops to arrive at the river did not carry personal arms but instead carried explosive charges, which apparently were intended to blow up artillery pieces. Some Chinese prisoners said this was the intent. The large number who dashed to the attack naked from the waist down must nearly have frozen in the cold night, even though some of them huddled four to five in a foxhole and gave little attention to carrying on a battle after the first rush. A dividend came to A Company at daybreak on 26 November when 74 Chinese soldiers crossed the river from the west side and surrendered.
After midnight of 25 November, the Chinese launched an attack against Colonel Freeman's CP and Headquarters Company. The CP and Headquarters Company were located on a small hill cast of the road and at the southwest base of Chinaman's Hat. The Chinese came around the base of Chinaman's Hat and attacked the CP from the east. At this time they also attacked C Company, 23rd Infantry. The first enemy attack there was repulsed. But at 6 A.M., the Chinese drove C Company off the north end of its ridge. Parts of A Company were sent to help C Company hold the southern end of its position. Lieutenant Colonel Hutchins then moved his 1st Battalion CP 150 yards south of the railroad station.
Disaster in Korea Page 27
