Rivet's company had a hot meal before noon and then started on its march to Hill 291. Counting attached ROK soldiers, the company numbered 164 men, larger than the average at that time. The men carried rifles, carbines, sleeping bags, an average of one grenade each, but no rations. Hot food was to be brought to them that evening. They had the usual company machine guns and light mortars. When G Company started, it did not appear to be a long or especially hard march. But it took the company nearly five hours to reach the hill. They took many rest breaks during the climb and were exhausted when they reached the top. G Company relieved C Company in place, platoon for platoon, making no changes in the initial position.
The C Company positions had been badly chosen. No one platoon position was in sight of another or of the company CP. Each of the four positions occupied what was essentially an isolated knob. The company CP was behind (south of) the nearest platoon position at the southern end of the long shank of the dogleg. The other platoon positions were farther north. It appears that the eastwest ridge of the dogleg at the north end and the crest of Hill 291, which was closest there to the Paengnyong, were unoccupied. All the company positions were on the southern shank of the dogleg. Second Lt. Ester King's 3rd Platoon seems to have been north of and nearest to the company CP. Second Lieutenant Hollingsworth's 2nd Platoon was on a knob three-fourths of a mile from the CP, and M. Sgt. Felix Acosta's 1st Platoon was on a knob just below (south of) the crest of Hill 291 and about a mile north of the 2nd Platoon-a mile and a half or a little farther from Rivet's CP. Thus, by not independently considering the security of the defense position, Rivet inherited and accepted a poor position, with little opportunity for the several platoons and the company CP to be mutually supporting, or for the company commander to communicate with and control his several separated platoons.
Rivet's men made a desultory effort to dig in on their platoon positions but found shale and rock less than a foot below the surface. Fatigued from their climb, they quickly gave up, as there appeared to be no pressing need for holes. Some of the men piled slabs of slate and rocks around their individual positions. The company was isolated. There were no friendly forces on either side or in front or in its rear close enough to be of any help or even to know if it was under attack. Only Lieutenant King of the 3rd Platoon had contact, through an SCR 536 radio, with the company CP. Acosta's SCR 300 radio did not reach either the 2nd or the 3rd platoons. Lieutenant Hollingsworth's radio apparently could not make contact with either the CP or the 1st Platoon. Hollingsworth had to go personally to the company CP to confer with Rivet. There Rivet told him not to send out patrols until morning.
That night, moonlight illuminated the landscape. During the early part of the night, men in G Company could hear the distant sound of firing far to the west. Expecting the food promised for the evening meal, Rivet sent Cpl. Kenneth F. Johnson back on the trail to guide the carrying party with the hot food and ammunition to his position. Johnson ran into Chinese and barely escaped with his life. G Company had no hot food that night.
The night remained quiet around Hill 291 until sometime after midnight. Gradually, muffled noises reached Rivet from the trail to the left of his knob position. He could not tell just what it was. Rivet relayed an order through a ROK soldier to one of his most reliable KATUSA, An Jong Sup, to go down the hill in the direction of the noises to see what was happening. An Jong Sup worked his way quietly down the slope until he reached a large boulder about 100 feet from the bottom. From there he could see clearly the source of the strange noises heard on top. Several hundred Chinese soldiers were digging in on both sides of the trail and as far up the draw as he could see. While he watched this activity, a column of Chinese soldiers, in single file, appeared out of the draw, marching toward him. He watched them pass the digging Chinese, and just below him they turned south. He counted 150 of them. He still watched but did not report to Rivet what he had seen. After an interval another column came in view, following the first. They passed and also turned south. There were 113 in this group.
Inexplicably, An suddenly rose to his feet and emptied his carbine into the last of this group. He saw four or five of them fall. In a minute or two, a Chinese machine gun opened up on his position from the far side of the trail. An took to his heels and sprinted to the top of the knob. He had needlessly given away Rivet's position. When he reported to Rivet, the latter knew that he was in for it. The Chinese would certainly come for the hill.
Rivet at once radioed Skeldon and told him he was about to be attacked. Immediately afterward Rivet reached Lieutenant King and ordered him to move his two rifle squads of the 3rd Platoon toward the CP. King ran into Chinese in trying to reach Rivet and had a fight. He had only eight men, three of them ROKs, when he arrived at Rivet's position.
Rivet at this point seems to have decided suddenly that he should vacate his CP and move to higher ground northward, closer to the 2nd and 1st platoons. He did so, taking up a new position in rocks, trees, and shrubs, but only 150 yards away. He hoped the Chinese might miss him and ordered his men to remain quiet, not to fire even if Chinese were close to them, unless he ordered it. Rivet had 25 men with him. He faced them south in the direction from which he had just come.
As Rivet's men crouched among the boulders, they heard Chinese automatic fire sweeping the knob they had just vacated. About half an hour passed. Then three blasts from a whistle sounded-two short and one long. Following this signal, three Chinese appeared from the direction of their first position, walking calmly toward them. The three men were at intervals of about 100 feet. They appeared to be unarmed but each carried what looked like a short stick. They stopped short of the rise of ground from which Rivet's men watched. The moonlight gave good visibility. The three figures then raised what they carried to their lips and began playing a flute serenade of sweet music. They played unmolested for perhaps five minutes. Rivet's men were spellbound. After the initial serenade, many Chinese rose from among the rocks and hushes behind the flutists and danced and moved around them in three separate chains of men. One of Rivet's men could stand the strain no longer and fired his weapon. Then most of the others joined him firing at the Chinese. At the first shot the Chinese disappeared as if by magic. Then came four short Chinese bugle notesthe Chinese signal for reassembly.
In a matter of minutes, three enemy machine guns, several submachine guns, and perhaps 100 rifles were firing on Rivet's position. From the very first, this fire was accurate and took its toll. Lieutenant Rivet seems to have completely lost his judgment by this time. He told the 20 men who were left that he would lead them in a charge. But they went only a few steps before several dropped from enemy bullets. Those still on their feet quickly took cover. The Chinese made no effort to infiltrate or assault the hill. They probably believed that the men would never get away and that there was no need to attack. This strange fight and exchange of fire went on until just before dawn. Two Chinese mortars had by then been emplaced, and they began dropping their shells on the ridge. One of the mortar rounds killed Rivet. There were then two officers, five American enlisted men, and three ROKs alive on the knob, and only five of them were unwounded. Among them all there were only two clips of ammunition for two Colt .45 pistols and two clips for one carbine. The remnant agreed they had to try to escape.
Lieutenant King of the 3rd Platoon led the survivors down the slope to the east, then headed north in the direction of the 2nd and 1st platoons. But there were Chinese all around them, and in a series of encounters they found themselves in the midst of perhaps two companies of Chinese just as an American air strike came in on the enemy. An L-5 pilot had radioed the 38th Regiment that he had spotted about 300 Chinese in a valley behind G Company's position. In the confusion of the napalm and rocket strike, An Jong Sup raced up the slope through the Chinese in front of him. The rest were never heard of afterward.
An went north. Later he ran into two Chinese who let him come right up to them. They apparently thought he was friendly. At point-blank ra
nge he shot them both dead with his carbine. He then ran until he collapsed. Friendly troops later found him where he lay, still unconscious. They took him to Lieutenant Colonel Skeldon at the 2nd Battalion CP, where An told his story. Skeldon and the others who heard him believed his account. Except for An's account, no one would have known what happened to Rivet, his headquarters group, and the 3rd Platoon."
Second Lieutenant Hollingsworth with his 2nd Platoon and Master Sergeant Acosta with the 1st Platoon, G Company, both only a short distance north on the Hill 291 dogleg from Rivet's position, escaped from the Chinese around them and rejoined Skeldon's 2nd Battalion to the north. But the fact that they did illustrates some features of the Chinese 2nd Phase Offensive. Hollingsworth's 2nd Platoon was approximately two-thirds of a mile north of Rivet's initial CP; Acosta's 1st Platoon was about a mile farther north. Both groups heard the distant sounds of battle. But neither had any idea that their company commander and his men and the 3rd Platoon were involved in a grim fight for life. They did not hear the sounds of that particular fight, and no message reached them of it.
About an hour after midnight, Hollingsworth decided he would go back to the company CP to find out why he had received no communications from it. Only a quarter of a mile from his own position, he made a turn in a small stream bed he was following to find directly in front of him about two companies of Chinese soldiers moving haphazardly around a small building. Perhaps an early breakfast break, he thought. He stopped and took cover and sent back his sole companion to bring up a machine gun. By the time the latter returned with it and an ammunition bearer, Hollingsworth had discovered another body of Chinese moving along a nearby ridge on a course that, if continued, would take them into his own 2nd Platoon position. He had already decided that it would not be wise to fire on the Chinese in front of him but that he should hurry back to his own men. Arriving there with his two companions and the machine gun, he swung the platoon around and reem placed the automatic weapons to face south, where he expected the Chinese to appear. Hollingsworth forgot to send a runner to tell Acosta about the appearance of Chinese.
The Chinese column Hollingsworth expected to arrive in front of him got to within 100 yards of his easternmost squad before they were discovered, and that was only when the CCF opened up on the position with a sudden hail of submachine-gun fire-mostly from American Thompson submachine guns. In the firefight that now erupted, all the American BARS and the one machine gun jammed after firing briefly. With their automatic fire gone, the platoon lost morale.
Some of the attached South Korean soldiers jumped up and started running north toward the 1st Platoon. This caused some Americans to get to their feet as if to take off also. Hollingsworth decided at once that he had to get his men out of there and to gain time to restore their composure and try to clear the jammed weapons. He backed his platoon off the position in the direction of the 1st Platoon, learning in the process that nine of his platoon were casualties- killed, wounded, missing, or captured in the brief engagement. Halfway to the 1st Platoon, Hollingsworth stopped his platoon. He examined the machine gun and the BARS. He found that all the weapons except one of the BARS were hopelessly jammed. During this halt, Hollingsworth saw some Chinese leaving the position he had just vacated and moving in their direction. He now quickly led his men into the perimeter of the 1st Platoon.
For reasons not known, the Chinese did not attack the 1st Platoon position. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese troops now in the rear of the 38th Infantry front line. It is not clear where they all came from, but it is clear that enemy troops had penetrated the regiment's line at numerous places during the night of 25 November. It is known that large numbers crossed the Chongchon River from the west in the vicinity of Chinaman's Hat and that many others had come south from the Hill 1229 region and crossed the Paengnyong in the vicinity of Somin-dong. Both of these enemy forces, from different Chinese armies, had proceeded to send large forces swiftly behind the rear of the 38th Regiment and of the 2nd Infantry Division. The Chinese that surrounded G Company could have come from either one or both of these large penetrations. It is apparent that, by daylight of 26 November large numbers of CCF from the 40th Army, and probably also from the 38th Army, were behind Colonel Peploe's 38th Infantry east of the Chongchon River.
At the 1st Platoon position, now reinforced by survivors of Hollingsworth's 2nd Platoon, the excited Americans, however, remained undisturbed during the rest of the night and all morning of 26 November. Shortly after noon, Hollingsworth, now in command of both platoons, sent out two patrols to see whether a route of withdrawal was open. He and Sergeant Acosta decided they must get away from that location and try to fight their way out. The patrols reported back that enemy were on all sides of them. Yet Hollingsworth led the two platoons all the way back to Skeldon's battalion CP without firing a shot or being fired on. This could have happened only because the Chinese allowed it. Perhaps they were satisfied with having cut off the entire 38th Regiment during the night and now wanted to give all their effort to pressing farther into the 2nd Division rear. The escape of a platoon or two of isolated troops probably seemed unimportant to them in comparison to their larger mission.
Meanwhile, by the morning of 26 November, Lieutenant Colonel Skeldon had concluded that G Company must have been destroyed during the night. He reported this to Colonel Peploe, the 38th Regimental commander, and asked for a company to fill the gap that now existed between the 38th Regiment and the 9th Infantry west of it. Peploe released C Company to Skeldon, who put it into position on the west side of the regimental front. Only when Lieutenant Hollingsworth led his men into the 2nd Battalion CP about 5:30 P.M. that afternoon was it known that one officer and 60 men of G Company had survived out of the four officers, 115 American enlisted men, and 44 ROK soldiers the company had comprised the day before.19
The action at 14111 291 is an example of what can happen when there is poor leadership and no coordination, or poor coordination, at regimental boundaries. The right flank of the 9th Regiment and the left flank of the 38th Regiment had their boundaries at Hill 291. According to Colonel Peploe, the 9th Infantry made no attempt to establish contact with G Company on Hill 291. This resulted in a gap between the two regiments, which the Chinese were able to exploit for a successful penetration between them.30 On the other hand, the Chinese who devastated G Company may have come from the north and east, and not through the gap between the regimental boundaries.
It is impossible to tell a coherent story of what happened to the 38th Regiment on the nights of 25 and 26 November. It is clear, however, that F Company, 2nd Battalion, on Hill 383, just south of and in a sharp bend of the Paengnyong River and about a mile northwest of Somin-long, made a remarkable fight and killed hundreds of Chinese who crossed the river in front of it and tried to overrun its position during the night of 26-27 November. Capt. Nicholas Gombos commanded the company. He was in a strong position with a large supply of ammunition. The Chinese failed in their coordinated attack to take the hill and were deflected eastward from it. There they found Somin-dong straight ahead in their path. They made a major penetration at Somin-dong between the 2nd and 3rd battalions. Two Chinese prisoners said the force that hit F Company and subsequently penetrated the regimental line at Somin-dong came from the CCF 113th Division, 38th Army. This force, therefore, came from the north.
During the battle around Hill 383 and Somin-dong, F Company ran out of grenades. A platoon from E Company then reinforced it, and finally the last of the 2nd Battalion reserve had to join it on the hill. The outcome was in doubt for a while. For a time, Chinese held the crest of Hill 383. F Company at this point emplaced two 81-mm mortars to concentrate on the crest. The Chinese on top then emplaced three 60-mm mortars to fire on the 81-mm mortars below them. One Chinese salvo destroyed both the 81-mm mortars and wounded five men. From the top of Hill 383, these Chinese 60-mm mortars hit the 38th Regimental Collecting Station and the F Company CP at the southern base of the hill. They also pla
ced interdicting fire on the F Company supply route. These enemy mortars remained active until daylight.
Gombos told his platoon leaders they must hold their ground and fight it out there, and they did exactly as ordered. The 1st Platoon had about 50 percent casualties. Before dawn, two red flares burst over the valley to the north. Afterward the enemy attack lessened, but the enemy on the crest of Hill 383 stayed there-until an air strike about 10 A.M. came in on them. An ad hoc platoon from remnants of E, B, and L companies then attacked the crest and drove off the remaining Chinese. This was one fight the Americans won. Dead Chinese were found on all approaches to the hill-from the north, east, and west sides and at the river crossings north of the hill.
Elsewhere in the 2nd Battalion front during the night, Chinese penetrated L Company, west of F Company. One of L Company's platoons withdrew into E Company. The 2nd Battalion CP in Somin-dong received heavy small-arms and mortar fire. Lieutenant Colonel Skeldon finally ordered the CP abandoned. An enemy mortar round made a direct hit on the only radio in the CP still working, and communication was then lost to all companies on 26 November. Many of the battalion vehicles were so cold they could not be started and had to be abandoned. H Company lost its mortars, and the regiment lost two tanks. Because the road west to Kujang-dong was closed to it at this time, the 38th Infantry had to evacuate 38 wounded eastward through Tokchon and Pukchang-ni.
The 38th Regiment by now had another problem on its right, or east, flank. ROK troops from the ROK 3rd Regiment in the ROK II Corps area were now streaming across the boundary into the regiment's sector. Colonel Peploe stopped them, attached them to his regiment, and put them into his defenses as best he could. The 38th Regiment's 3rd Battalion on that flank was itself pulling back. Colonel Peploc had started a movement by which he shifted his right flank and faced his regiment in a crescent-shaped perimeter to the north and east." He was now being threatened not only from the west and north, but also from the east-and, one could easily have added, from the rear.
Disaster in Korea Page 29
