U.S. Marines from Bunker Hifi to the Hook

by Bernard C. Nalty

n a typical night during 1952, a Marine

patrol set out from

the very center of a

company position on

the Jamestown Line in west-central

Korea. The group was following

the trace of an abandoned trenchline when a Chinese machine gun

cut loose, killing the leader,

wounding some of his men, and

forcing the patrol to return without

completing its mission of setting an

ambush.

Shortly afterward, about two

hours before midnight, Second

Lieutenant William A. Watson, who

had recently joined the 1st Marine

Division, received orders to move

out with a squad from his platoon

and set up the ambush, finishing

what the ill-fated patrol had begun.

The powerful searchlight aimed

skyward to warn airmen of the

location of Panmunjom, where the

United Nations forces were conducting truce talks with the North

Korean and Chinese, reflected

from the clouds creating the

impression that Watson's patrol

was "walking in bright moonlight."

The lieutenant and his men

moved between the spine of a

ridgeline and the trench they were

following, watching carefully for

signs of a Chinese ambush and

maintaining enough space between Marines to minimize the

effect of a sudden burst of fire.

"Creep, sit, wait," Watson told his

men. "Move on my order. A few

feet and be still." The Marines were

confident that their cautious

advance, the 50 or so yards separating their route from the nearest

concealment the enemy could use,

the artificial moonlight, and the

trench itself, which provided ready

cover in case of an attack, would

combine to prevent the Chinese

from surprising them.

ON Ti-fE CovER: A Marine sentry looks

out from his position along the Is!

Marine Division 's front in western

Korea. Department of Defense Photo

(USMC) A166024

AT LEFT: The 1st Marine Division

engaged in static warfare during

1952 from typical segments c'f trenchline on the Jamestown Line.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC)

A167091

I

While two Marines provide protection by watching for enemy snipers, two other

members of a patrol probe for mines. The Marines in the jbreground wear

armored vests. By November 1952 delivery of the new vests to the division was

completed, including more than 400 sets qf lower torso armor

National Archives Photo (usMc) 127-N-A160817
a

believed, than from exertion.

Fighting took place by day as

well as by night, but art early

morning attack often depended on

preparations made under cover of

darkness. For example, before

Lieutenant Watson's platoon took

part in an early morning attack on

a Chinese outpost, Marine engineers moved out shortly after midnight to mark a path through the

minefields protecting the Jamestown Line. This work took them

past marshy ground inhabited by

frogs that fell silent at the approach

of the Marines, only to resume

their croaking at about 0300 when

the passage had been marked and

the engineers returned to the main

line of resistance. After daybreak,

Watson's platoon advanced, staying between the lines of whitetape Xs that marked the presence

of mines.

The night patrol by Watson's

Marines was one in a succession of

probes and patrols—interspersed

with attacks and counterattacks—

that occurred during 1952 after the

1st Marine Division moved onto

the Jamestown Line. The move

there in March 1952 confirmed a

shift to position warfare. instead of

making amphibious landings as at

Inchon or Wonsan or seizing

ground either to break out of

encirclement or to advance,

The patrol drew no fire as it

made its way to the objective,

where the trench the two patrols

had followed intersected with

another shallower trench. Watson

deployed the fire teams in a perimeter. The Marines strained

their eyes and ears to detect movement over sandy soil that gleamed

almost white in the cloud-reflected

light. Nothing moved; Chinese

mortars and machine guns

remained silent.

At 0300 Watson's patrol started

back, the fire team that had led the

way out was now at the rear. The

return, as cautious and methodical

as the advance, took roughly two

hours. When the lieutenant at last

came through the wire, he realized

he was soaking wet from perspiration, more from tension, he

2

division had the mission of defending its portion of the Jamestown

Line and preparing to counterattack as ordered to contain or eliminate any Chinese penetration.

The enemy maintained pressure

on the United Nations forces. He

probed the line of combat outposts, which provided warning of

attacks and disrupted or delayed

them until the troops posted there

could withdraw, and also tested at

times the defenses of the main line
0

and 83 railroad cars, along with 14

Landing Ships Dock and Landing

Ships Tank that sailed from

Sokoho-ri and unloaded at Inchon.

Two transport aircraft also figured

in the move, By the time the division took over its segment of the

Jamestown Line on 25 March, completing the relief of a Korean division, the officers who directed the

move realized all too well how

much excess equipment the unit

had accumulated during the period

of comparative stability that followed the capture of the Punchbowl in the summer of 1951.

of resistance. Because of the threat

of a major Chinese offensive, the

division assumed responsibility for

two other lines, Wyoming and

Kansas, which might serve as fallback positions if Jamestown

should fail. More important than

keeping the Wyoming and Kansas

lines ready to be manned, was the

division's mission, assigned on

April 19, of standing by to rescue

the United Nations truce negotiators, should the enemy try to trap

them at Panmunjom.

Operation Mixmaster, the transfer of Major General John T.

Selden's 1st Marine Division from

X Corns positions in the vicinity of

the Punchbowl in eastern Korea to

the Jamestown Line north of the

Imjin River under I Corps control,

began on St. Patrick's Day, 17

March 1952. The division's major

infantry units—the 1st, 5th, and 7th

Marines, and the 1st Korean

Marine Corps Regiment—the

organic artillery of the 11th

Marines, and the service and other

support units moved over steep

and twisting roads, with almost

6,000 truckloads required fot the

deployment. The heaviest equipment, totaling an estimated 50,000

tons, traveled on 63 flatbed trailers

The segment of the Jamestown

Line assigned to the 1st Marine

Division extended southwest from

the Samichon River and the left

flank of the British 1st Commonwealth Division, crossed the 38th

Parallel (the original demarcation

between North and South Korea),

shifted to the south bank of the

Imjin in the vicinity of Munsan-ni,

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A160928

A landing ship disgorges a Marine tank at Inchon during Operation Mixmaster,

the deployment ofthe 1st Marine Division from east-central to western Korea.

The 5th Marines with reinforcing anillery, slowed by muddy roads, moves into

its sector as the division occupied new positions along the Jamestown Line northeast of Seoul.

National Archives Photo (usMc) 127-N-A160346

3
R..tr Wn' OId

\ —,

I MUNSAN-NI )

The Sector of the

1st Marine Division,

April 1952

• • • MLR (Une Jamestown)

OPLR Iwpthdraprp April 1952) 3 1 1 3 Miles

continued to the conflux of the

Imjin and Han, and then followed

the south bank of the Han past the

Kimpo Peninsula. Initially, the 1st

Marines, under Colonel Sidney S.

Wade, held the right of the main

line of resistance, the regiment's

right flank on the heights beyond

the Jmjin River, some 1,100 yards

north of the 38th Parallel. The 5th

Marines, commanded by Colonel

Thomas A. Culhane, Jr., held the

center of the new line, with a regiment of Korean Marines on the

left. Colonel Russell E. Honsoweta'

7th Marines served as division

reserve. An adjustment in April

resulted in the insertion of the 1st

Amphibian Tractor Battalion on the

left of the Korean Marines.

The Kimpo Peninsula, bounded

by the Han and Yom Rivers, complicated the defense of the 1st

Marine Division's segment of the

Jamestown Line, even though an

attack there would require the

Chinese to cross the broad and

sometimes raging Han. Defending

the peninsula became the mission

of the Kimpo Provisional

Regiment, led by Colonel Edward

M. Staab, Jr., an improvised force

made up of American and South

Korean soldiers and Marines from

a variety of combat and service

units, with the 1st Armored

4

Amphibian Battalion providing

artillery support (thirty-six 75mm

guns) and a battalion of the division reserve, at this time the 7th

Marines, serving as a maneuver

force.

The 1st Marne Division—

including the Kimpo Provisional

Regiment, the amphibian tractor

battalion, the Korean Marines, and

the two Marine regiments on line

—defended some 60,000 yards,

two to four times that normally

assigned to a similarly reinforced

division. Within the division, a battalion, one third of the infantry

strength of a regiment, held a

frontage of from 3,500 to 5,000

yards, while a rifle company, onethird the infantry strength of a battalion, could man a sector as wide

as 1,700 yards. A line of outposts

of varying strength located on hills

as far as 2,500 yards in front of the

main line of resistance, improved

the security of the Jamestown posi.-

tions, but forced the Marines to

spread themselves even thinner

along the front. To defend the division's broad segment of the

Jamestown Line, General Selden

commanded a total of 1,364 Marine

officers, 24,846 enlisted Marines,

1,100 naval officers an.d sailors—

mostly doctors, dentists, and medical corpsmen—and 4,400 Korean

Marines.

The Imjin River, flowing southwest from the division's right flank,

lay behind the main line of resistance until the defenses crossed

the river west of Munsan-ni. Since

only three bridges—all of them

vulnerable to damage from floods

—spanned the Irnjin, the stream,

when in flood, posed a formidable

obstacle to the movement of supplies and reinforcements. A single

rail line to Munsan-ni served the

region and the existing road net

required extensive improvement to

support military traffic. The terrain

varied from mountainous, with
4 \9• T?

24:

sharp-backed ridges delineating

narrow valleys, to rice paddies and

mud flats along the major rivers.

West-central Korea promised to be

a difficult place for the reinforced

but widely spread 1st Marine

Division to conduct sustained military operations.

General Selden's Marines took

over their portion of the

Jamestown Line from South

Korean soldiers manning an area

that had become something of a

backwater, perhaps because of its

proximity to Kaesong, where truce

talks had begun, and Panmunjom

where they were continuing. "It

was quite apparent," Seldon noted,

'that the relieved ROK [Republic of

Korea] Division had not been conducting an aggressive defense." As

a result, the Marines inherited

bunkers built to protect more

against the elements than against

enemy mortars and artillery.

Korean noncombatants, taking

advantage of the lull, had resumed

farming in the area, moving about

and creating concealment for possible Chinese infiltration.

To oppose the Marines on the

Jamestown Line, the Chinese

Communist Forces (CCF) had the

65th and 63d Armies, totaling

49,800 troops. Probing the Marine

outposts and the main line of resistance were an estimated 15

infantry battalions, equipped with

small arms, automatic weapons,

and mortars, and supported by 10

battalions of artillery, totaling 106

guns ranging from 75mm to

155mm. Unlike the defenses the

Marines had inherited, the solidly

built Chinese bunkers were protected by barbed wire, minefields,

and other obstacles, and organized

to provide defense in depth. A

variety of automatic weapons,

including 37mm guns, provided

antiaircraft protection.

Under the command of Major

General Christian F. Schilt, who

had earned the Medal of Honor

during the Nicaraguan campaign

for a daring rescue in January 1928,

the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing consisted of land- and carrier-based

fixed-wing aircraft plus helicopters.

The land-based fighter and attack

squadrons, whether flying jets or

propeller aircraft, came under the

operational control of the Fifth Air

Force, which in early 1952 was

attempting to direct Marine Corps

and Air Force activity from a Joint

Operations Center at Seoul. With

the exception of Marine Aircraft

Group 12 (MAG-12), the components of the wing based in eastern

South Korea remained there when

the division moved westward.

MAG-1 2's night fighter squadron,

VMF (N-513, shifted to the airfield

at Kunsan, and the rest of the

group, including two fighter outfits, began flying from Pyongtaek,

also in April. Unlike the land-based

fighter-bombers and attack aircraft—and the new jet-equipped

photographic squadron, VMJ-1-—

the wing's helicopters, light observation planes, and carrier-based

fighter-bombers directly supported

the 1st Marine Division.

The inventory of Marine rotarywing aircraft included Bell HTL-4

and Sikorsky HO3S-1 light helicopters and the larger Sikorsky

HRS-1. The fixed-wing, pistonengine aircraft ranged in size from

the unarmed, lightweight Cessna

OF-i to the Douglas AD-2

Skyraider the most powerful, heaviest, and deadliest single-engine

attack plane of the era. Marines

LtGen John W "Iron Mike" O'Daniel, USA, I Cosps commander, right, joins

MajGen John F Selden, center, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division,

and Col Thomas A. Culhane, left, commanding officer of the 5th Marines, on an

inspection qf the regiment's sector of the main line qf resistance.

National Archives Photo (USMc) 127-N-A160325

5
urirrg the summer ft 19S 1. I lit' sucecssii iii (Ii

iltcnsrves and counteroffen.sivt's ended with the

establishment iii a line that stretched across the

Korean peninsula generally along the 38th Parallel. 'l'he

Chinese had nIt'crcd grievous losses atter' inten'ening in

late 1950. ;lrlii rugli they drove the I 'riitecl Natir ins N in, es

out if North Korea, they failed hold a bridgehead iii

the South that 0 a time included the ta pital city. Se ml As the nariles 1)1 two I 'nited Nations counterattacks

)per'atir ins Killer and Ripper indicated, the I 'n ited Stales

and its allies sought to inflict casualties rather than recaptore ground. This si r;rregv magnified the effect nI the

,'nijmv's earlier In isses and succeeded sri well that

Communist Chinese Forces (CCFt—and Chinese .sn iciet\

as well—needed a respite from the cumulative attritinn

of late I PSI a rid earl)' 195 1.

Art armistice also seemed attraeti\ e to tile nitud

States for reasi iris of both strategy and domest ft politics.

The lengthening list it American casualties, and the con—

tiiti;ition into a seen md :n nd third year if a war described

in Ni n-ember 19511 as on the verge of icing won, undermined pulilic support for the ti inflict, derisively

described as Mr. Truman's war, as though the President

had si nmelin iw started the fighting. hi terms of stratev.

Europe, where the "i rviet Union and its satellites seemed

ready to rest the new Ni nh ;\r antic lreatv Organ i7.atiotl

(>ATO), seemed more important than the Far East,

Indeed .aceaselire that would Ir't.'e Aniericati li uces l'rotii

thr'rr cotiltuitnient in Kn rrea , enalilit-ig them t i strengthen

N .\TO, sI mold wr irk ti m the lung—term st 'at n.'g i, adsa ntage nI the t ni ted Sr ate.s

As a result. ;'lien tIre s nyret delt'ga te to the United

Nations, arm nh \Ia I ft. suggested ci iscn I ssi rig tite )S,sihili—

re of negorirt rig an arriustice in Km 'rca, the United Suites

and its allies agreed. The prehiminar\ disccissiriris be,g,rn

on 8 holy 1951 at IKaesr mg, sn muth of tire 58th Parallel and

5i (lilt' 5 rililes northeast nil Sen uI. TIre Chinese anti Ni mr-lit

Korean.-', showed little erltl'Ilnsiasttr lot negr mtiations until

the United Natinntis, in July and August, mounted a hirttit—

ccl i Ifensive tlia t rescn Ited in the c,n ito re mu t lie

I'iunclihosvl. On 25 C )c tolier negotiatim Ins resumed at

l'anrirunjom. a village just sn ruth mrf (lie 38th Parallel,

winch became a clet'tiililarized island iii a sea r.mf fighting

and was linked I r\ road lii Sr nutli Kr mt'eari tel't'itory.

fly the end nut Ni msc'rtil icr', the tieg itiru ti irs had agreeu I

that the battle line, rather than the 38i1t Parallel, \\nmtlid

set's e tetlipn ira rib t,5 tile lint' mit detiiarcatioti between the

ts\'m r K neas, a iroundar' that becanre pcrtitanent. esserl—

ti:rllv liv ilelault as cit her issues took precedence in the

negotiations. \lrlttau's n mperatin iris sir iss tm,i as did tilL' race of the talks, wlinr,li I i', the time tile Marines entered tire

,lanrestowti Line. had encountered sesem'.rl m nbstaclcs. tile

most serin 'us dealing ss NIt tire t'epatr'iation of irisi flier's cml

\s ar.

Armistice Talks

6
on 12 April 1952.

also flew the Vought F4U-4 Corsair,

a piston-powered fighter-bomber, a

dozen of which operated from the

escort carriers Bataan (LHD 5) and

Bairoko (AKV 15), and later the

light carrier Badoeng Strait (CVE

116). A more heavily armored version of the Corsair, the AU, served

as an attack aircraft. The Marine

Corps jets were the Grumman F9F

Panther fighter-bomber, the

McDonnell F2H-2P photo plane,

and the Douglas F3D Skyknight, a

two-seat night fighter. The

Skyknight by year's end became

the principal Marine night fighter,

replacing the piston-engine Gruniman F7F Tigercat, which continued

until the spring of 1953 to fly interdiction and close air support during

darkness.

Like their fellow Marines on the

ground, the airmen operated under

restrictions peculiar to a limited

war. Air strikes were prohibited in

the vicinity of Panmunjom to avoid

jeopardizing the truce talks.

Moreover, to ease the task of the

Joint Operations Center in exercising centralized control over tactical

7

aviation, the number of close-support sorties flown over the battlefront could not exceed 96 each

day. In general, the allocation of air

power proved flexible enough to

satisfy General Schilt. Although

conceding that Marines on the

ground "did not always get all that

they wanted" because the wing

was "sometimes . . . tied up with

the Air Force," Schilt found that "if

there was anything we particularly

wanted to do and thought it necessary to support our ground forces,

we'd go over and talk to them (representatives of the Fifth Air Force]

and they'd go along with us."

Besides affecting aerial operations, the neutral zone around

Panmunjom influenced the mission

of the Marine division. On 19 April,

General Selden, reacting to orders

from higher headquarters, directed

the regiment with the best access

to Panmunjom to draft a plan to

rescue the United Nations Truce

Team if it should be trapped there.

The regiment that fit this description, initially the 5th Marines, organized a tank-infantry team from

within its reserve battalion. Supported by tanks and fire from mortars and artillery, a covering force

would advance along the demilitarized corridor leading to the negotiation site and seize the dominant

ground beyond Panmunjom so that

a second group could move in and

pick up the negotiators. A third

contingent would escort the pickup force as it brought the truce

team to a safe area behind the

Jamestown Line.

During the spring of 1952, the

fighting along the Jamestown Line

gradually intensified, requiring the

support of artillery and aircraft. The

105mm and 155mm howitzers of

the 11th Marines joined tanks and

other weapons in battering Chinese

National Archives Photo (U5Mc) 127-N-A133271

BGen Clayton C Jerome, r4ght, the new commanding general of the 1st Marine

Aircraft Wing, tours the front in a transport helicopter piloted by Col Keith B.

McCutcheon, commanding officer of Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron

262. EGen Jerome replaced MajGen christian F Schilt in command f the wing
Battalion Tactical Mr Control Party

r -, n the Jamestown Line, the Tactical Air Control Party assigned to

each battalion on the main line of resistance linked the ground

forces with the aircraft supporting them. At this stage of the war, these parties consisted of two Marine Corps officers, both of them naval

aviators, and eight enlisted men who handled radio and wire communications and drove the truck assigned to the group. Earlier in the fighting.

the truck provided necessary mobility, but the controllers could now oper- ate from command bunkers using radios located there instead of relying

on the temperamental set mounted in the vehicle.

While the battleftont remained fluid, one officer served as a foxard air

controller with each of the two infantry companies, the third company

normally being in reserve. After the move to the tamestown line, one of

the officers took his place at a forward command post. usually a hunker

more solidly built than those that sheltered the infantrymen, calling strikes

i in support of the Marines manning the defenses. The other remained at

the battalion conmiander's supporting arms center, serving as air liaison

officer. Evers week or two, the airmen (hanged places.

positions. The artillerymen experimented successfully with variabletime fuses, actuated by radio

waves. When fitted to a standard

high-explosive shell, the fuse

achieved airbursts at a height of

about 20 meters above Marine

defensive positions, which had

overhead cover. Logs, sandbags,

and earth protected the Marines,

while a deadly hail of shell fragments scourged the attackers.

Concentrations of variable-time

fire, delivered in conjunction with

so-called "box-me-in" barrages that

placed a curtain of fire around

friendly forces, became standard

tactics, On 18 May 1952, for example, Chinese troops cut off a Marine platoon led by Second

Lieutenant Theodore H. Watson, as

it withdrew from the outpost line.

Watson shepherded his men into

two abandoned bunkers and called

for airbursts overhead, which

helped scatter the enemy.

Marine aviation also supported

operations along the Jamestown

Line. In May 1952, the Fifth Air

Force granted the Marines an additional dozen sorties per day to train

controllers, ground commanders,

and pilots in the techniques of

close air support. Although the

number of these daily training

sources increased to 20, the program lasted only until 3 August,

largely because of Army complaints

8

that General Selden's division was

getting a lion's share of close air

support in the theater.

Stabilization of the battle line

enhanced the value of groundbased radar in nighttime close air

support. The Air Force had begun

using an improvised system in

January 1951, and September of

that year marked the introduction

into combat of the Marine-developed MPQ-14 radar. Despite nagging technical problems, the

Marine radar and its operators

became increasingly precise until,

by mid-1952, the Fifth Air Force

granted permission to use the

MPQ-14, supplemented by a tactical air controller with the troops on

the ground, to direct close air support.

One supporting arm, artillery,

sometimes came to the aid of

another, Marine Corps aviation.

Even before the 1st Marine

Offshore Islands

yen before the Marines occupied positions on the Jamestown Line,

they were involved in the defense of several offshore islands on the

east and west coasts of Korea. The 1st Marine Division provided officers and enlisted men to direct the Korean Marines actually manning the

defenses, but in January Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, took over, usually

employing Marines who volunteered for this duty after recovering from

wounds suffered while sewing with the division. The West Coast Island

Defense Unit bore responsibility for six islands astride the 38th Parallel,

while the East Coast Defense Unit guarded nine islands, seven clustered

around Wonsan, within artillery range of the mainland, and the other two

near Songjin.

The eastern islands proved tempting to the Chinese, who occasionally

took them under fire, and attacked the two Yang-do Islands, 160 miles

northeast of Wonsan, where the South Korean defenders, backed by

United Nations ships, beat off the invaders. In March, the United Nations

Command sought to strengthen its hold on the western islands by seizing

Ho-do, an unoccupied islet north of the 38th Parallel, even though it lay

within range of enemy snipers on the mainland and might be attacked in

winter by advancing across the ice. The occupation nevertheless went

ahead, but a Chinese amphibious attack on the night of 25-26 March overwhelmed the South Korean platoon that held Ho-do. Only six members of

the platoon survived, and the United Nations Command made no attempt

to recapture the tiny island. The Chinese refrained from further amphibious activity, but instead struck back with a rate aerial attack, bombing Cho

-do, one of the western islands, though ineffectually.
Department of Defense Photo (USMQ A161556

Marine 105mm howitzer crews of the 11th Marines prepare to fire in support of

the Jamestown Line by "clobbering" Chinese command posts, bivouac areas,

artilleiy and mortar positions, and observation outposts.

Division deployed to the Jamestown Line, the 11th Marines was

firing flak suppression missions in

support of close air strikes. The

batteries tried to neutralize or

destroy known antiaircraft positions, some of them discovered

when aircraft began an attack only

to break it off deliberately after

forcing the Chinese guns to cut

loose and reveal their locations.

Despite the doctrinal emphasis

on close air support, in the summer of 1952 Marine pilots were

attacking targets far beyond the

battle line as a part of the Fifth Air

Force's Operation Pressure,

designed to destroy important

North Korean industrial facilities.

During one such mission, Colonel

Robert E. Galer, who commanded

MAG-12 in Korea and had earned

the Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal

in World War II, led 31 attack aircraft against targets in the mountains southwest of Wonsan. His

Vought AU Corsair sustained damage from antiaircraft fire that

forced him to parachute. One foot

became wedged in the cockpit, but

he managed to kick free of the

in 10 feet of his crashed aircraft.

He got away from the wreckage,

which was sure to attract the

enemy, found concealment, and

with his survival radio contacted a

rescue force orbiting overhead. As

a helicopter darted in his direction

at treetop height, he ignited a smoke grenade to mark his position and enable the rescue craft to

pick him up. The flight to a ship

off the coast proved more dangerous than the actual pick up, for

enroute to safety antiaircraft shells

exploded so close that the concussion spun the helicopter around,

fuel ran low, and patches of fog

concealed landmarks making navigation difficult.

doomed airplane, which almost

ran him down in its gyrations. He

succeeded, however, in opening

his chute and drifted to earth withThe Marines and the Chinese

soon began clashing over the high

ground between the frontlines

that could accommodate combat

Gen Holland Al. Smith, a leader of the amphibious war against Japan and whose

Marines fought their way from Tarawa to Okinawa, visits the Jamestown Line in

Korea. From the left are: ('ol Russell E. Honsowetz, commander of the 7th

Marines, Col Frederick P. Henderson, commander of the 11th Marines, (len

Smith; and MajGen John 7". Selden, commanding general of the 1st Marine

Division.

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A161123

9

- '14 ji'

t.. :t,

r

4.1

Ground Fighting liiieiisifies
S. .t.

I • It

outposts or observation posts. A

series of objectives that the

Marines designated by letters of

the alphabet became a bone of

contention early in May. These

were Objective S, a small outcropping northwest of the main line of

resistance, and \J, x, Y, and Z,

three separate peaks on a ridge

extending northeastward from S

and forming an angle of roughly

45 degrees with the main line of

resistance. As part of the continued

probing that occurred almost every

night, First Lieutenant Ernest S.

Lee, commander of Company A,

1st Battalion, 5th Marines, led his

unit, reinforced with light and

heavy .30-caliber machine guns, to

occupy the high ground south of

Objective Y, arriving there before

sunrise on 4 May. The Chinese

immediately opened fire with inortars, but an aerial observer spotted

a half-dozen of the weapons and

called in Marine F4UJ-4Bs that

destroyed them. The enemy then

attacked unsuccessfully, but since

more powerful attacks seemed certain, the reinforced platoon pulled

back.

Twice during the withdrawal,

Chinese troops tried to ambush the

patrol, which used its own

weapons to beat off the first

attempt and called down artillery

fire to help frustrate the second.

Forced from their route by the second ambush, Marines car ying the

patrol's casualties, one dead and

four wounded, entered an

unmarked and uncharted minefield left behind by United Nations

troops; two stretcher bearers were

killed and three others wounded

by the mines, which later were

cleared.

Colonel Thomas A. Culhane, in

command of the 5th Marines,

directed the 1st Battalion, under

Lieutenant Colonel Franklin B.

Nihart, to drive the enemy from the

vicinity of Objective Y, in the

process taking prisoners and

inflicting casualties, before seizing

Objective Z. Nihart decided to capture Objectives S, V, and X before

attacking Objective Y; if all went

well, he could then move against

z.

Nihart used his battalion's

Company C to feint toward

Objective T, located between the

ridge and the Marine division's

main line of resistance, in an

attempt to neutralize the Chinese

there and prevent them from interfering with the attack, which began

when Company A, the 1st Platoon

leading the way, quickly overran

Objective S. Fire from the Marine

division's rocket battery shook the

defenders of Objective V, enabling

the attackers to capture it. Both

Marine and Chinese artillery

stepped up their firing as the

Nihart's men reorganized to

advance on Objective X. In preparation for that move, friendly fire

from artillery, mortars, tanks, and

even machine guns scourged the

knob raising a cloud of dust that

enveloped it and blinded the

attacking Marines, who encountered increasingly savage fire as

they climbed the slope.

At this point, the Chinese counterattacked. Although the Marines

beat back this thrust, other probes

followed, as infiltrators tried to isolate the 1st Platoon from the rest of

Company A. To maintain the

integrity of his unit, the company

commander, First Lieutenant Ernest

S. Lee, pulled back the endangered

platoon, while Chinese artillery

rained fire on Objective X, some

400 rounds exploding in five minutes. The deadly fire forced

Company A to abandon the toehold on X and then fall back to the

main line of resistance under the

cover of fire from the division's

tanks. The Marines, however, set

up a part-time outpost on

Marines on patrol forward of the main line check out a cache of enemy ammunition found in an abandoned farmhouse, In addition to denying the enemy

use of critical terrain, inflicting casualties and capturing prisoners were added

tasks assigned to daily patrols.

National Archives Photo (USN) 80-G-442340

I0
Objective Y, at first manning it

mostly during daylight. In the

bloodiest single day of fighting

since the capture of the

Punchbowl, the Marines suffered

seven killed and 66 wounded, perhaps one-fourth the number of the

Chinese casualties.

The fighting now shifted eastward. After relieving the 5th

Marines, the 7th Marines, commanded by Colonel Russe]l E.

Honsowetz, attacked Hill 104 and

the adjacent ridgeline, located on

the regimental right. Advancing

during darkness on the early morning of 28 May, Companies A and C

of Lieutenant Colonel George W. E.

Daughtry's 1st Battalion, seized

their objectives but could not hold

them against fierce Chinese reaction and fell back to the

Jamestown Line. The fighting

proved costlier than the struggle

for Objectives S, T, V, W, and X,

with seven Marines killed and 107

wounded. Two of those killed in

action were honored posthumously with the Medal of Honor:

Corporal David B. Champagne for

throwing himself on a grenade to

save the lives of other Marines; and

11

Private First Class John D. Kelly for

sacrificing his life while gallantly

attacking enemy positions.

Despite the developing stalemate, the Marine division continued probing, sending out patrols

as large as a company to raid

Chinese positions, killing or

wounding the defenders and keeping the enemy off balance. Both

American and South Korean

Marines conducted these actions,

and the Chinese retaliated in kind,

as on the night of 24 June, when

they cut off the elements of the 5th

Marines manning an outpost on

Objective Y, now redesignated Hill

159. Hostile mortar and artillery

tire prevented the Marines from

withdrawing over the trails leading

back to the Jamestown Line, but

they were able to take cover in

their bunkers while fire from the

11th Marines helped frustrate the

attack. The Marines could not hold

the hill against a determined

enemy, and by the end of the

month, a Chinese battalion occupied it.

The 3d Battalion, 7th Marines,

used its Company G to attack Hill

159, occupying an assault position

on the night of 2 July and attacking

at dawn of the following morning.

The first phase went smoothly, and

the assault began at 0630. Deadly

fire from the battalion holding Hill

159 stalled the attack until the

leader of a Marine machine gun

squad, Staff Sergeant William E.

Shuck, Jr., took over a rifle squad

whose leader had been wounded.

Shuck maneuvered the combined

squads up the hill and clung to the

exposed position until ordered to

withdraw. While pulling his

Marines back, the sergeant suffered a third and fatal wound.

shuck's daring and initiative

earned him a posthumous Medal

of Honor, but the hill remained in

Chinese hands, even though the

defenders may have suffered 200
- a _•

'I p S - I- '

casualties compared to four

Marines killed and 40 wounded.

On the right of the division's

line, the portion now held by the

5th Marines, Company A of the

regiment's 1st Battalion overran

two unoccupied outposts on the

night of 2-3 July before receiving

orders to return to the main line of

resistance. A patrol from the regiment's 2d Battalion ambushed a

Chinese patrol shortly before midnight on 2 July, suffering no casualties while killing six of the enemy

and wounding eight. Another

patrol from the same battalion set

out shortly after dawn on 3 July

and engaged in an hour-long firefight that killed or wounded an

unknown number of Chinese at

the cost of one Marine killed and

11 wounded.

Within the next few days, two

ambitious operations would

involve the 1st Marine Division.

The first was Operation

Firecracker, a fire mission planned

for 4 July when I Corps would

mass artillery fire on targets all

along the battle line, timing the

shoot so that all the shells would

detonate within one minute, a

technique known as time on target. The 11th Marines opened fire

with its howitzers, and the 4.5-inch

rocket battery joined in as did

corps artillery, so that 3,202 shells

detonated almost simultaneously

on Chinese positions in front of the

Marine division.

Besides thus helping celebrate

Independence Day, the Marines

took part, over General Selden's

objections, in large-scale raids,

directed by Major General Paul W.

Kendall, USA, I Corps commander,

to gather additional intelligence on

Chinese defenses. The division's

commanding general believed that

his Marines were spread so thin

that he could not pull together a

force strong enough to conduct

such a raid without jeopardizing

the overall security of the

Jamestown Line. Selden suggested

that smaller patrols could obtain

the necessary information with less

risk. The Marine general also

pointed out that 2,651 officers and

enlisted men were in the process

of returning to the United States

and that their replacements would

not be in place until 11 July.

Although the British commander of

the adjacent 1st Commonwealth

Division, Brigadier C. N. Barclay,

agreed that the more ambitious

raids might well prove too costly

for the results achieved, Selden's

National Archives Photo (usMc) 127-N-A162789

On the forward slope of Outpost Yoke (Hill 159) exhausted members of the 34-

man 5th Marines outpost relax on the morning of 25 June. The night before they

withstood an assault on the position by an estimated enemy battalion, killing or

wounding more than 100 Chinese soldiers.

One enemy soldier reached the Marine entrenchment at Yoke before being killed.

He was armed with nothing but stick hand grenades carried in a belt under his

arm and a gas mask, the first known instance of the enemy being equipped with

masks in the division's sector of the line.

Department of Defense Photo (U5.4) A162793

12
Corporal Duane E. Dewey

9

orri in 1931 in Grand Rapids. Michigan, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves

in 1951. In Korea. he served as a machine gun squad leader with Company F,

7d Battalion, 5th Marines, and was critically wounded near Panmunjom on

April 192. his Medal of Honor citation reads, in pail:

When an enemy grenade landed cli se to this position, while lie and his assistant gunner were receiving medical attention for their wounds during a fierce night attack by

numerically superior hostile torcc.s. Corporal Dewey, although suffering intense pain,

immediately pulled the corpsman to the ground and, shouting a warning to the other

Marines around him, bravely smothered the deadly missile with his body, personally absorbing the full force of the explosion to save his comrades from possibie injury

or death.

The survivors of his heroic self—sacrifice never forgot his remarkahle shout, as he opmcnI..l [ifns.' PhoioI1'

threw himself on the grenade, "Doc, I got it in my hip pocket" After presenting the

Medal on 12 March 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower told him: 'You must have a body of steel."

Corporal David B. Champagne

B

orn in Wakefield, Rhode Island, in 1932. Corporal Champagne enlisted in the

\larinc Corps in 1951. Serving as a fire team leader with Company A, l't

Battalion. 7th Marines, lie was killed on 28 May 192. His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part:

Corporal Champagne skillfully led his fire team through a veritable hail 0f intense

enemy machine-gun, small-arms and grenade fire, overrunniog encles'and a series

of almost impregnable bunker positions before reaching the crest of the bill and placing his men in defensive positions. Suffering a painful leg wound while assisting in

repelling the ensuing hostile counterattack, which was launched under cover of a

murderous hail of mortar and artillery fire, he steadfastly refused evacuation and fearlessly continued to control his fire team. When the enemy counterattack increased

in intensity, and a hostile grenade landed in the mid.ct of the fire team, Corporal

Champagne unhesitatingly seized the deadly missile and hurled it in the direction )I the approaching enemy. As

the grenade left his hand, it exploded, blowing if his hand and throwing him out of the trench. Il-Ic wasi mortally wounded by enemy mortar lire while in this exposed position.

Corporal Champagnes Medal of Honor was presented to his younger brother during ceremonies lieki in July 19c3 at

the Old Mountain Baseball Field in Wakefield.

Private First Class John D. Kelly

23-year-old native of Youngstown, Ohio, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in

1951 As a radio operator in Company C. 1st Battalion, 7th .'s1arine. he volLinteered to join an assault and was killed on 28 May 192. His Medal of

Honor citation reads, in part:

Fearlessly charging forward in the face of :1 murderous hail of machine-gun tire

and hand grenades he initiated a daring attack against a hostile strongpoint and

personally neutralized the position, killing two of the enemy. Unyielding in the

face of heavy odds, he continued forward and single-handedly assaulted a

machine-gun bunker. Although painfully wounded, he bravely charged the bunker

and destroyed it, killing three of the enemy. Courageously continuing his one-man

assault, he again stormed forward in a valiant attempt to wipe out a third bunker

and boldly delivered point-blank fire into the aperture of the hostile emplacement.

aptain John C. Chapin, USMCR (Ret.)

icpfli ol Phoio'I

13
• - I Ig

Natiomil Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A161138

Marines hug the trench as a Communist mortar tunic near- blesome enemy mortar positions in support of the division

by. Marine C'orsairs were often called upon to destroy trou- outpost line.

arguments for waiting until his The war on the Jamestown Line became a battle for the combat outposts that prodivision returned to full numerical vided security for the main line of resistance. These Marines areprepa ring to join

strength and in the meantime dis- in the fighting on the outpost line.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A163311 patching smaller patrols did not

prevail.

A tank-infantry team made the

Marine division's contribution to

large-scale patrolling with Buckshot 2B, an operation launched on

6 july. At 2200, two companies of

Lieutenant Colonel Daughtry's 1st

Battalion, 7th Marines, supported

by elements of the 1st Tank

Battalion, advanced against Hill

159. The assault force braved

deadly fire to gain a lodgment on

the hill. Because they were in danger of encirclement, the Marines

had to pull back before daylight.

General Selden had been correct;

the intelligence gained did not justify the effort and the casualties—

12 dead, 85 wounded, and five

missing. Until the incorporation of

14

.7-

'I

4;

- •-t. — - 0.0:... w—

A . 1_• r—w. .. r — SS'$ *1 2: 'a' : I 1

-_ -,;a-- - - t

?r3e ,

0 - e

- • L•

. . -

•

- r& 4, - 4.,_- f. 't.
-4-f

It

a

__

replacements had restored the

strength of the division, emphasis

shifted to smaller patrols with less

ambitious objectives than raiding a

stoutly defended hill.

The bunker symbolized the

fighting along the Jamestown Line

and its combat outposts like

Siberia. To build bunkers for future

fighting, Marine engineers and

truck drivers, and some 500 members of the Korean Service Corps,

cut trees, shaped timbers, and

hauled the rough-hewn beams

some 50 miles to the sector held by

the 1st Marine Division. When

some 35,000 timbers proved insufficient, the Eighth Army made up

the difference, and work went

ahead on the Jamestown Line, its

combat outposts, and the two

back-up lines, Wyoming and

Kansas. Although a company of

Marine engineers, assisted as necessary by members of the 1st Shore

Party Battalion, provided supervision, infantrymen did most of the

work, following plans prepared by

the Army for the assembly of the

ready-cut timbers. The Marines set

up each standard bunker in a hole

12-feet square and seven-foot

deep, excavated using shovels,

without the aid of earth-moving

machinery. Once the timbers were

in place, some of them shaped

from tree trunks eight inches in

diameter, and the basic structure

finished, the Marines covered the

roof, some four feet of timbers,

with another three or four feet of

earth, rock, and sandbags. If carehilly built, the structure could withstand a direct bit from a 105mm

shell, besides affording protection

against shrapnel from time-fused

shells exploding overhead. The living bunker provided sleeping

quarters and the fighting bunker

featured firing ports for machine

guns and rifles.

Bunker construction failed,

however, to keep pace with plans

or achieve the desired degree of

protection. Fatigue contributed to

the shortcomings, since the

infantrymen who by day dug holes

and manhandled timbers into

Department of Detense Photo (USMc) A164200

Marine observers direct an air strike on [Jill 122 later called Bunker Hill, a

Communist position critical to the fighting.

PFC[a,nes McIntosh of Company H, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, aims a .50-caliber machine gun with mounted scope at Communist positions from Hill 229.

The 750-foot-high Paekhak Hill, a mile east of the road leading to Panmunjom

and Kaesong, was the goal of Communist forces who hoped to acquire the dominant terrain necessaay for controlling access to Seoul.

National Archives Photo (USA) 111-sc411556

15

*

4.

1* %%.,4

__aS
E

yen as the 1st Marine I)j isinn became more heavily engaged aIont the taniestown Line, replacements had to be absorbed, not only for the growing number of killed and wounded, but also for those

whose tours of duty in Korea were ending. In the spring

of 1952, for example, the division transferred elsewhere

433 officers arid 6,280 enlisted Marines, while adding 5O(

officers and .359 men. The greater number of replacen1ents kept the division slightly above authorized

strength

,\I this time, a normal tour of duty in Korea encompassed about 10 and one-half months. Infantry lieutenants

and .aptains arrived in such large numbers, however, that

a six-month tour became common for these officers,

although those in other grades and specialties might continue to serve froni nine to twelve months, The turnover

among lTicr'rs. p!115 reassignments within the division,

had mixed results. Although changing assignments ever).

three to live months reduced the efTectiveness of the clivision, the policy broadened the experience of officers.

individually and as a group. In the summer of l2. however, the division chose efficiency over experience and

reduced the frequency of reassignments among its c'liiccrsReplacement drafis did not ak\a\s fill existing vacancks. Indeed, for a time in 1952 the 11th Marines had to

1-etruin inhiniry officers Ii 'r artillery duty. Moreover, skilled

drivers and gunners fur the NI—46 tank proved scarce until

the training programs at Camp I cndlvt n, California,

could be expanded.

Similar problem's affected the 1st Nlarinc Aircrali Wing

where tours of duty averaged si lu nine months for pilots

and 10 to 12 months for non-fliers. Ac in the division, rotation between Korea and the United States and reassignment within the wing affected efficiency. Tue turnover in

pilots got the blame for a series of accidents on the escort

carrier Balaan. even though the new arrivals had requalified to fly from a carrier. Moreover, the wing's Marine Air

Control Group operated a formal course to train forward

air controllers, and recently arrived pilots with rusty skills

iindyiveiit informal refresher training. .\ scarcity of aircraft mechanics and electronics technicians rrsistcd.

tkiiniiini I)eteni,e Photo (USMC) Ar(rn2

Rotation

16
place had to guard against attack at

any time and patrol aggressively

by night. Another explanation of

the lagging program of bunker

construction blamed the training

received by the Marines, who

learned to emphasize the attack at

the expense, perhaps, of defensive

preparations. Whatever the reasons, Marine hunkers, as well as

those manned by American so!-

diers, did not measure up to the

standards of the Chinese, who provided as much as 35 feet of overJamestown Line

and its Combat Outposts,

Summer 1952

head cover for frontline positions,

which usually were linked by tunnels rather than trenches.

The fighting along the Jamestown Line grew even deadlier.

Shortly after midnight on 9 August,

the Chinese seized Siberia (Hill

58A), the site of a squad-size Outpost, and also probed the positions

of the 1st Marines. Siberia lay midway between the Marine main line

of resistance and the line of

Chinese outposts. The enemy's

possession of Siberia would pro17

vide observation posts to adjust

artillery and mortar fire against the

nearest segment of the Jamestown

Line. As a result, Colonel Walter F.

Layer's 1st Marines, on the right of

the division's line, counterattacked

at once, using the same unit,

Company E, 2d Battalion, that had

dispatched the squad driven from

Siberia. Chinese artillery and mortar fire, directed from Hills 110 and

120, stopped the counterattack

short of its objective.

The Marines called for air strikes

and additional artillery fire before

renewing the counterattack on

Siberia. At 0650, four Grumman

F9F jets from the 1st Marine

Aircraft Win.g struck, dropping

napalm and 500-pound bombs.

Shortly before 1000, Air Force F-80

jets dropped 1,000-pounders, and

a platoon from Company A, 1st

Battalion, the regimental reserve of

the 1st Marines, immediately

stormed the hill, with the support

of a platoon from the 2d Battalion's

Company E. The Chinese again cut

loose with mortars and artillery but

could not stop the assault, which

seized the crest. The supporting

platoon from Company E joined in

organizing the defense of the

recaptured outpost, which came

under a deadly torrent of accurate

fire that forced the Marines to seek

the protection of the reverse slope,

nearer their main line of resistance,

where they held out until midafternoon before falling back. The

enemy's artillery and mortars had

fired an estimated 5,000 rounds,

wounding or killing perhaps threefourths of the Marines who had

attacked Siberia on the morning of

9 August.

While Companies E and A reorganized, the task of recapturing

Siberia fell to Company C, commanded by Captain Casimir C.

Ksycewski, who attacked with two

platoons starting uphill at 0116. A

firefight erupted, lasting four

The Center of the

C) outposts n ,ight bttaIIOn sector

0 sço lopo 1500

Yards
-

- S — k i

SI

- V n-r-• :'#

5', 'ens

- ,a-. c fl sT a. t Dp -F •w1._: CC'

C

-5;:- 4_-'r' • t•_ yt01ft 4 4: - ft 2' '4 -

1'

0'

and an 18-inch searchlight fitted

with shutter to highlight a target in

a brief burst of illumination, and

four M-4A3E8 tanks, each carrying

both a flamethrower and a 105mm

howitzer. While the 90mm

weapons hammered Hill 110, the

flame-throwing tanks climbed

Siberia, using bursts of flame to

light their way while demoralizing

the defenders, and gained the crest

before doubling back toward

Marine lines. As the flame-throwing M-4s withdrew, the M-46s

opened fire on both Siberia and

Hill 110, illuminating targets with

five-second bursts of light from

their shuttered searchlights, and

Department of Defense Photo (USM A164531 Captain George W. Campbell's Cbl Walter F Layer, a veteran of the

battles for Saipan, Tintan, and

Okinawa, assumed command of the

is! Marines in July. He would later

serve as the senior advisor to the

Korean Marine C'oips.

hours, but the Marines gained the

crest and held it until dawn, when

driven from Siberia by a Chinese

counterattack.

The losses suffered by the 1st

Marines, 17 killed and 243 wounded within 30 hours, convinced

Colonel Layer that his regiment

could not hold Siberia if Hill 122,

nicknamed Bunker Hill, remained

in Chinese hands. He and his staff

planned a sudden thrust at Bunker

Hill, possession of which would

enable his command to dominate

Siberia and observe movement

beyond the Chinese outpost line.

To disguise the true objective,

Lieutenant Colonel Roy J. Batterton

attacked Siberia at dusk on 11

August with one company from his

2d Battalion. The 1st Tank

Battalion supported the maneuver

with four M-46 tanks (M-26 tank

with a new engine and transmission), each mounting a 90mm gun

Company D overran Siberia, holding the crest until midnight when

the diversionary attack ended.

The Bunker Hill assault force,

Company B, 1st Battalion, 1st

Marines—commanded by Captain

Sereno S. Scranton, Jr., and under

the operational control of Batterton's 2d Battalion—reached the

crest by 2230 and began driving

the enemy from the slope nearest

the division's main line of resistance. The defenders recovered

from their initial surprise, but the

bypassed pockets of Chinese soldiers, though they tried to resist,

could not check the Marine

advance. In the wake of the assault

force, other Marines and members

Marines crouch in a trench during the fighting jbr Siberia and other nearby hills.

The struggle was fiercej some Chinese rqfused to yield and fought to their death.

Most briefly held their defrnsive positions before retiring.

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A165154

18
of the Korean Service Corps manhandled sandbags, wire, and shovels up the hill to help Company B

organize the defenses of the objective against the counterattack that

was certain to come.

Chinese mortars and artillery

harassed the Marines on Bunker

Hill until dawn on 12 August, but

the counterattack did not come

until mid-afternoon, after Company B passed under the operational control of 3d Battalion, 1st

Marines. The defense of Bunker

Hill became the responsibility of

the battalion commandeD

Lieutenant Colonel Gerard T.

Armitage, whose Marines faced a

demanding test. The volume and

accuracy of the shelling increased

at about 1500, a barrage that lasted

an hour and forced the Marines to

seek the protection from direct fire

afforded by the reverse slope.

Company 1, 3d Battalion, 1st

Marines, commanded by Captain

Howard J. Connolly, reinforced

Scranton's embattled Company B

in time to help break up an attack

by some 350 Chinese and hold the

southern slope of Bunker Hill.

While the battle raged on

Bunker Hill, General Selden

moved his reserves closer to the

fighting. Company 1, 3d Battalion,

7th Marines, took the place of

Connolly's company on the main

line of resistance, and by the end

of the day, all of the 3d Battalion,

7th Marines, had come under the

operational control of the 3d

Battalion, 1st Marines. Selden

attached the 2d Battalion, 7th

Marines, to Layer's command to

strengthen the reserve of the 1st

Marines. Meanwhile, Layer moved

two provisional platoons from his

reserve, the 1st Battalion, to reinforce the 3d Battalion, and the 3d

Battalion's reconnaissance platoon

established an outpost on Hill 124,

linking Bunker Hill with the main

line of resistance. This shuffling of

units proved necessary because

the 1st Marine Division was so

thinly spread over an extended

front. During the realignment, supporting weapons, ranging from

machine guns through mortars and

artillery to rocket batteries, prepared to box in the Marines holding the near slope of Bunker Hill,

hammer the Chinese at the crest

Department of Defense Photo (TJsMc) A165O6

Wavy Coipsmen administer blood plasma to a Marine wounded in the fight for

Siberia. Intense enemy mortar and artillery fire during the seesaw battle caused

most of the casualties.

Marines take a much-needed break on the reverse slope of the main line of resistance during a lull in the fight for Siberia.

Department of Defense Photo (UsMc) A165132

19

r .-.•(;- c..rt.

!:, —-':: T?•1

::.,acbji - — i-i:. 1cSt 4ri'c
and beyond, protect the flanks,

and harass movement on the

routes enemy reinforcements

would have to use.

As daylight faded into dusk on

12 August, the Marines defending

the reverse slope of Bunker Hill

struggled to improve their hurriediy prepared fortifications, for the

Chinese preferred to counterattack

under cover of darkness. Fortunately, the comparatively gentle

incline of the reverse slope of the

ridge that culminated in Bunker

Hill reduced the amount of dead

space that could not be covered by

grazing fire from the Marine position. Moreover, weapons on the

Jamestown Line could fire directly

onto the crest, when the expected

attack began. By 2000, all the supporting weapons had registered to

help the two companies hold the

position.

Just as the Marines had attacked

Siberia on the evening of 11

August to divert attention from

Bunker Hill, the Chinese sought to

conceal the timing of their

inevitable counterthrust. Shortly

before midnight on the night of 12

August, the enemy probed the

division's sector at three points.

While one Chinese patrol was

stumbling into an ambush set by

Korean Marines, another harried a

Marine outpost east of Bunker Hill.

The third and strongest blow, however, landed after midnight at

Stromboli, a Marine outpost on Hill

48A at the far right of the sector

held by Layer's regiment, near the

boundary with the 5th Marines.

In conjunction with the attack

on Stromboli, launched in the early

hours of August 13, the Chinese hit

Company F on the right of the line

held by the 1st Marines. The

Chinese failed to crack the

Jamestown defenses, but they

inflicted so many casualties at

Stromboli that reinforcements had

to be sent. The reinforcing unit, a

squad from Company F, came

under mortar and machine gun fire

from the Chinese probing

Company F's defenses and had to

return to the main line of resis20

tance. Pressure against Stromboli

and its defenders continued until

the commander of Company F,

Captain Clarence G. Moody, Jr.,

sent a stronger force that fought its

way to the outpost, breaking the

Chinese encirclement. The 5th

Marines moved one company into

a blocking position behind the

Jamestown Line near Stromboli in

case the fighting again flared at

that outpost.

Some 4,500 yards to the southwest, the Chinese attempted to

seize Bunker Hill. At about 0100

on the morning of 13 August, savage Chinese artillery and mortar

fire persuaded Captain Connolly of

Company I to request box-me-in

fires, which the 11th Marines provided immediately. Enemy infanny, supported by machine gun

fire, advanced behind bursting

shells, but the Marines fought back

with every weapon they could

bring to bear—artillery, mortars,

tank guns, rockets, rifles, and automatic weapons. After almost four

hours, the violence abated as the

enemy relaxed his pressure on

Bunker Hill.

Company G, 3d Battalion, 7th

Marines, under Captain William M.

Varizuyen, joined Connolly's men

before the Chinese broke off the

action and withdrew behind a

screen of artillery and mortar fire.

Except for a determined few,

whom the Marines killed, the

enemy abandoned Bunker Hill.

Colonel La.yer took advantage of

the lull to send Company H, 3d

Battalion, 7th Marines, to relieve

the Marines holding the hill. He

afterward withdrew all the other

elements of the 7th Marines that

had reinforced, his regiment, but

not until a patrol from Company I

had reconnoitered the far slope of

the hill.

In keeping with their usual tactics, the Chinese tried to divert

attention from Bunker Hill before

Department of Defense Photo (U5MC) A164530

On the night of 11-12 August, the 1st Tank Battalion made effective use of the

18-inch searchlight mounted on its M-46 tanks by tenporarily blinding the

enemy with dazzling beams of light. Behind the "cloak of darkness" elements of

the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, were able to overrun Siberia.
Staff Sergeant William E. Shuck, Jr.

B

orn in 192( in Cumberland, Maryland, he enlisted in the Marine Corps in

1>-( Serving as a machine gun squad leader with Company A. 1st

Battalion, 7th Marines, he was killed near Panmunjom on 3 lul 1952. His

Medal of Honor award bore a citation which reads, in pam

When his platoon was subjected to a devastating barrage of enemy small-arms.

grenade, artillery, and mortar fire during an assault against strongly loitilied hill

positions well forward to the main line of resistance. Staff erteant Thuek,

although painfully wounded, refused medical attention and continued to lead

his machine-gun squad in die attack. Unhesitatingly assuming command ut' a

rifle squad when the leader became a casualty. he skillfully organized the i'.'

squads into an attacking force and led two more daring assaults upon the hostile positions. Wounded a second time, he steadfastly refused evacuation and

remained in the foremost position under heavy fire until assured that all dead and wounded weje evacuated. IHe was] mortally wounded hr an enemy sniper bullet while voluntarily assisting in the removal

of the last casualty.

After war, a mess hail at Marine Corps Base, Quantico. Virginia, was named in his honor.

Hospital Corpsman John E. Kilmer

jA

native of Highland Park, Illinois, 22-year-old Kilmer enlisted in the Na',

from Texas in 1947. He was assigned to duty with 3d Battalion, 7th

Marines, in Korea and was killed on 13 August 1952 His Medal of Honor

citation reads, in part:

With his company engaged in defending a vitally important hill position, well

forward of the main line of resistance, during an assault by large concentrations

of hostile troops, HG Kilmer repeatedly braved intense enemy mortar. artillery,

and sniper fire to move from one position to another, administering aid to the

wounded and expediting their evacuation. Painfully wounded himself when

struck by mortar fragments, while moving to the aid of a casualty, he persisted in his efforts and inched his war to the side of the stricken Marine through

a hail of enemy shells falling around him. Undaunted by the devastating hostile fire, he skillfully administered first aid to his comrade and, as am )lher mounting barrage enemy

fire shattered the immediate area, unhesitatingly shielded the wounded man with his body.

Private First Class Robert E. Simanek

Born

in Detroit, NIidiigan, in 1930. he was inducted into the Marine Corps

in 1951. For his braver in Korea on 17 August l2. while serving \vIIll

Company F, 2d Battalion. 5th Marines, he was awarded a Medal of Honor

with a citation which reads, in part:

While accompanying a patrol en route to occupy a combat outpost forward of

friendly tines, Private Class Simanek exhibited a high degree of courage and resolute spirit of self-sacrifice in protecting the lives of his fellow Marines. With

his unit ambushed by an intense concentration of enemy mortar and small-arms

fire, and suffering heavy casualties, he was forced to seek cover with the

remaining members of the patrol in the near-by trench line. Determined to save

his comrades when a hostile grenade was hurled into their midst, he unhesitatingly threw himself on the deadly missile, absorbing the shattering violence Dmnr ol Ddn Phro A of the exploding charge in his own body and shielding his fellow Marines from serious injury or death.

He miraculously survived the explosion and was retired on disability in 13. —Captain John C. Chapin.

I SMCIt (Ret)

_________________

De1,.nflnleflt of I hI'fl',c Pluit,, I ISMCI ;\_I,Io

21
attacking again. Mortars and

artillery shelled Combat Outpost 2,

overlooking the Panmunjom corridor on the left of the sector held

by the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,

and also harassed the main line of

resistance nearby. The main

Chinese thrust, directed as expected against Bunker Hill, began at

about 2100 on the night of August

13. While shells still exploded on

Combat Outpost 2, the enemy

intensified his bombardment of

Bunker Hill, which had been

under sporadic fire throughout the

afternoon. Chinese troops hit

Company H, commanded by

Captain John G. Demas, attacking

simultaneously near the center of

the position and on the right flank.

(His was the only element of the

3d Battalion, 7th Marines, not yet

pulled back to the Jamestown

Line.) High explosive shells boxed

in the Marines, and illuminating

rounds helped them isolate and

kill the few Chinese who had penetrated the position.

The Chinese battalion that

attacked Bunker Hill on the night

of August 13 again tested the

Marine defenses at 0225 on the following morning. Before this Unit's

second attack, a Chinese machine

gun on Siberia began firing onto

Bunker Hill. Marine M-46s stabbed

Siberia with brief shafts of illumination from their searchlights and

silenced the weapon with 90mm

fire, thus revealing the position of

the tanks and enabling Chinese

artillery fire to wound a crewman

of one of them. The enemy may

have initiated this flurry of action,

which lasted only about four minutes, to protect the recovery of his

soldiers wounded or killed in the

earlier fighting rather than to diallenge the hill's defenses.

The 1st Marines responded to

the fighting of 13 and 14 August by

reinforcing both Bunker Hill arid

the nearest segment of the

Jamestown Line, the so-called

Siberia Sector, in anticipation of

further Chinese attacks. As part of

the preparation, Captain Demas,

whose Company H, 7th Marines,

still held Bunker Hill, patrolled, the

slopes where the enemy had

launched several attacks but found

no Chinese, a situation that rapidly

changed.. At 011.8 on 15 August, a

deluge of hostile artillery began

pummeling the Marine position,

while Chinese infantry jabbed at

the defenses. Once again, MarineDepartment of Defense Photo (USMC) A161025

Two Marine machine gunners Wa it Jbr another Chinese onslaught after beating

back an attack that seemed to last jbr hours.

X HIll 120 Hill X KIIII aA ifl 122 XIlllIa

(BonkerHill) F

XHuhI24 It x

P41

IEGENO

C

X Hill dO,,uliOn

F F!u,nelank mule — Fouto to, dlvereionery ufldl . Tunkli,irgpOuftiofl

The Capture of Bunker Hill,

9-11 August 1952

0 500 1Q00 Yards

22
4 -it ._, —pU..

The struggle for Bunker Hill cost

the Marines 48 killed, 313 seriously wounded, and hundreds of others who suffered minor wounds.

The number of known Chinese

dead exceeded 400 and total casualties may have numbered 3,200.

The month ended with Bunker Hill

in Marine hands.

supporting weapons laid down

final protective fires that prevented

this latest attack from gaining

momentum. Fate then intervened

when the crew of an M-46 tank

triggered the shutter of its searchlight and illuminated a force of

Chinese massing in a draw. Before

these soldiers could launch their

assault, fire from tanks, artillery,

and mortars tore into the group,

killing or wounding many and

scattering the survivors.

Even though Marine-supporting

weapons had deflected this

planned thrust, the Chinese

regrouped, called in additional

supporting fire, and plunged

ahead, The bombardment by mortars and artillery attained a volume

of 100 rounds per minute before

ending at about 0400, when the

enemy realized that he could not

overwhelm Bunker Hill and called

off his attack, at least for the present. When the threat abated,

Demas withdrew his company to

the main line of resistance, leaving

the defense of Bunker Hill to

Captain Scranton's Company B.

The quiet lasted only until late

afternoon. At 1640, the Chinese

attacked during a thunderstorm,

avoiding the use of mortars or

artillery, presumably to achieve

surprise, but once again the attack

failed. The Chinese refused, however, to abandon their attempts to

seize Bunker Hill. At 0040, 16

August, a Chinese battalion

attacked behind mortar and

artillery fire, penetrating to the

crest of the hill. Captain Scranton,

whose Company B held the hill,

called for reinforcements, and a

platoon from Company I, 3d

Battalion, 7th Marines, arrived as

this assault was ending. The

enemy again probed the hill with

fire but did not press the attack.

Before Company C, 1st Battalion,

1st Marines, relieved Scranton's

unit, it came under artillery fire

three more times.

The succession of Marine companies that took over Bunker Hill

had to repel seven attacks before

the end of August, but only one,

on the night of 25-26 August,

threatened to overrun the outpost.

23

The capture of Bunker Hill by

Colonel Layer's Marines and its

subsequent defense relied on the

deadly use of supporting arms,

ranging from the tanks that had

spearheaded the diversion against

Siberia, through mortars and

artillery, to aircraft. The searchlight-carrying M-46s, for example,

helped illuminate Chinese troops

massing to counterattack the hill

and opened fire on them. Marine

and Air Force fighter-bombers hit

the enemy on Siberia, helped seize

and hold Bunker Hill, and hammered the approaches to

Stromboli, where F4Us dropped

1,000-pound bombs and napalm.

Marine MPQ-14 radar directed

nighttime strikes against Chinese

artillery positions. In addition,

Marine artillery played a critical

role, especially the box-me-in fires

planned for emergencies. The 11th

Marines fired 10,652 shells in the

24 hours ending at 1800 on 13

August, a volume not exceeded

until the final months of the war in

1953. Although supplies of explosive shells proved adequate at this

time, illuminating rounds tended to

be in short supply.

The Marines of 1952 were fighting a war of unceasing attrition far

different from the succession of

bloody campaigns, interspersed

with time for incorporating

replacements into units withdrawn

from combat, that had characterized the war against Japan. Men

and equipment had to be absorbed

during sustained fighting to

replace not only combat losses,

but also administrative attrition

Depart,nent of Defense Photo (usMc) A164539

Tired Marines qf Company F 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, unwind during a pause

in the fighting on Bunker Hill. Think, artillery, air; and ground Marines participating in the battle gave up one outpost but took another; one that added strength

not only to the outpost defense but also to the main line.
Casualties and Courageous Hospital Corpsmen

he fighting at Bunker Hill would have been even

deadlier for the Marines had it not been for their

protective equipment and the excellent medical

treatment available from battlefield first-aid stations to

hospital ships off the coast. According to regimental surgeons, 17 wounded Marines would certainly have died

had they not been wearing the new armored vest.

Moreover, the steel helmet used in World War IT had

again proved its worth in deflecting or stopping shell

fragments or nearly spent bullets. The heavy vest,

though it undeniably saved lives, proved an enervating

burden in the heat and humidity of the Korean summer

and contributed to dehydration and heat exhaustion,

but the advantage of increased safety—along with

improved morale—more than outweighed the disadvantages.

The uniformly sloping terrain of Bunker Hill caused

the Hospital Corpsmen assigned to the Marines to set up

their forward aid stations on the reverse slope, overlooked by the Jamestown Line, to obtain protection

from flat trajectory fire and direct observation by the

enemy. Wounded Marines being evacuated from the aid

stations for further treatment ran the risk of mortar and

artillery fire. A shortage of tracked armored personnel

carriers, which would have provided a measure of protection from hostile fire and a less jolting ride than ordi24

nary trucks, increased both the danger and the discomfort. Moreover, the stretcher rapidly became a precious

item, since so many of the limited supply were being

used for the time-consuming trip to surgical facilities

some distance to the rear.

The 1st Medical Battalion had three collecting and

clearing companies, two of which supported units committed on the division's main line of resistance while the

third supported units on the Kimpo Peninsula. Located

about six miles behind the line was the division hospital, a 200-bed facility staffed and equipped to provide

definitive care for all types of cases. Serious cases or

cases requiring specialized care were evacuated by helicopter, ambulance, hospital train, rail bus, or plane to a

hospital ship at Inchon, Army Mobile Surgical Hospitals,

or to the Naval Hospital, Yokosuka, Japan.

The Surgeon General of the Navy, Rear Admiral

Herbert L. Pugh, evaluated the medical support that he

observed during the Bunker Hill fighting. He declared

that medical treatment had been successful for a variety

of reasons: the armored vest and steel helmet, of course;

skilled Navy surgeons with access to a reliable supply of

blood for transfusions; evacuation by helicopter to surgical facilities ashore or, if necessary, to hospital ships;

and the courageous effort of Navy Hospital Corpsmen

serving alongside the Marines.

courtesy of Frank D. Praytor, USMC
Q

n 29 August 192, Major General John T. Selden,

shown on the left in the accompanying photograph, relinquished command of the 1st Marine

Division. Hi tenure as commanding general, which

began in January 1952. earned him the U.S. Army's

Distinguished Service Medal for conducting "successful

operations against the enemy." During World War II, he

had commanded the 5th Marines on New Britain and

served as Chief of Staff, 1t Marine Division. in the conquest of Peleliu in the Palau Island-s. After leaving Korea,

he served on the staff of the Commander in Chief, U. ,

Forces, Europe, until 1953 when he assumed command

of Marine Corps Base. Camp Pendleton, California, from

which post he retired in 1955. General Selden died in

1964 and was buried with full military honors in

Arlington National Cemetery.

Born at Richmond. Virginia, in 1893, Selden enlisted

in the Marine Corps in 1915 and was commissioned a

nd lieutenant in July 1918. Instead of being sent to

France, he received orders to convoy duty in LSS

Huntin,gton Between the World \Xars. he served in Haiti

and China and at various posts in the United States. He

attended the Senior Officers' Course at Marine Barracks,

Quantico, Virginia, joined the hi Brigade, which formed

the nucleus of the 1st Marine Division, and participated

in maneuvers at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When war

came, he served in a variety of assignments in the Pacific

before joining the 1st Marine Division in time for the

New Britain campaign.

Command of the 1st Marine Division in Korea passed

to Major General Edwin A. Pollock. a native of Georgia

who graduated from The Citadel, South Carolina's military college, in 1921. He promptly resigned his commission in the Army Reserve and on 1 July accepted an

appointment as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps

Reserve. His early career included service in the

Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, on board ship, and

with various installations and units in the United States.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel in April 1942, he commanded the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, at Guadalcanal.

where on the night of 20-2 1 August, he earned the Navy

Cross for his Inspired leadership in repulsing a Japanese

attack at the Tenaru River. He became a colonel in

- November 1943 and afterward saw action on New Britain

Land at Iwo Jima.

Following the war he served at Marine Corps Schools

and Marine Barracks, Quantico, Virginia, and at

Headquatlers Marine Corps. As a major general, he took

over the 2d Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North

Carolina, before being reassigned to Korea. where he

succeeded General Selden in command of the 1st Marine

Division. General Pollock led the division in Korea from

August 1952 until june 1953, in the final weeks of the

war.

After Korea, General Pollock returned to Quantico as

director of the Marine Corps Education Center, and then

was assigned as commander Marine Corps Recruit

Depot. Parris Island, South Carolina, before coming hack

to Quantico as Commandant of Mad-ne Corps Schools. In

19Ô. he was appointed Commanding General, Fleet

Marine Force, Pacific, followed by a tour as Commanding

General. Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, from which post he

retired in 1959. General Pollock served in several capa'- -

ities on The Citadel's Board of Visitors before his death,,

in 1982.

Change of Command

National Arclitves Photo t5]i) iT-N-,1((,O

caused by a fixed period of enlistment and a definite tour of duty in

Korea. To help man his combat

battalions, General Selden on 12

August directed rear-area units to

provide replacements for the 1st

Marines; within two days, some

200 men, most of them volunteers,

joined the regiment's infantry units.

The Commandant of the Marine

Corps, General Lemuel C.

Shepherd, Jr., approved flying 500

infantry replacements to Korea.

Lieutenant General Franklin A.

25

Hart, in command of the Fleet

Marine Force, Pacific, requested a

delay to make sure he could

assemble the necessary air transport; he could, and on 21 August

the replacements arrived in Korea.

The Commandant also approved
Selden's request to increase by 500

men each of the next two scheduled replacement drafts.

As the month of August wore

on, any lull in the action around

Bunker Hill usually coincided with

a surge in the fighting elsewhere,

usually on the right of the main

line of resistance, the segment held

by the 5th Marines, commanded

after 16 August by Colonel Eustace

R. Smoak. On 6 August, while

Colonel Culhane still commanded

the regiment, the Chinese began

chipping away at the outpost line

in front of the 2d Battalion, 5th

Marines, which consisted of

Outposts Elmer, Hilda, and Irene.

Because the battalion manned

the outposts only in daylight, the

Chinese simply occupied Elmer,

farthest to the southwest, after

dusk on 6 August and employed

artillery fire to seal off the

approaches and prevent the

Marines from returning after claybreak. The Chinese took over

Outpost Hilda on the night of 11

August, driving back the Marines

sent to reoccupy it the following

morning. The same basic tactics

enabled the enemy to take over

Outpost Irene on the 17th. During

an unsuccessful attempt to regain

the third of the outposts, Private

First Class Robert E, Simanek saved

the lives of other Marines by diving

onto a Chinese hand grenade,

absorbing the explosion with his

body, suffering severe though not

fatal wounds, and earning the

Medal of Honor.

Heavy rains comparable to the

downpour of late July turned roads

into swamps throughout the

Marine sector, swept away a bridge

over the Imjin River, and forced

the closing of a ferry. Bunkers

remained largely unaffected by

flooding, but the deluge interfered

with both air support and combat

on. the ground. Since the rain fell

alike on the U.N. and Chinese

forces, activity halted temporarily

when nine inches fell between 23

and 25 August.

The Chinese greeted the new

division commander, Major

General Edwin A. Pollock, by

exerting new pressure against the

Bunker Hill complex, now held by

26

Captain Stanley T. Moak's

Company E, 2d Battalion, 1st

Marines, attached temporarily to

the regiment's 3d Battalion. On the

night of 4 September, Chinese gunners began shelling the outpost

and probing its right flank, but

small arms fire forced the enemy to

pull back.

The resulting lull lasted only

until 0100 on 5 September., when

Chinese mortars and artillery

resumed firing, concentrating on

Hill 122, Bunker Hill. Apparently

confident that the barrage had

neutralized the defenses, the

attackers ignored cover and concealment and moved boldly into

an unexpected hail of fire that

drove them back. After regrouping,

the enemy attacked once again,

this time making use of every

irregularity in the ground and

employing the entire spectrum of

weapons from hand grenades to

artillery. This latest effort went

badly awry when a force trying to

outflank Bunker Hill lost its way

and drew fire from Marines on the

main line of resistance. The attackers tried to correct their mistake

only to come under fire from their

fellow Chinese who had penetrated the extreme right of Bunker

Hill's defenses and may have mistaken their comrades for counterattacking Marines. Amid the confusion, Moak's company surged forward and drove the enemy from

the outpost. The Marines of

Company E suffered 12 killed and

40 wounded in routing a Chinese

battalion while killing an estimated

335 of the enemy.

Yet another diversionary attack

on Outpost Stromboli coincided

with the thrust against Bunker Hill.

The Marines defending Stromboli

sustained no casualties in breaking

up an attack by an enemy platoon

supported by machine guns.

The 2d and 3d Battalions of

Colonel Smoak's 5th Marines

The Right of the 1St Marine Division's Line,

September 1952
Private First Class Afford L. McLaughlin

24year—old native of leeds, Alabama, he listed in the Marine Corps in 19n5.

Awarded a Purple F-lean Medal in August 1952. his heroism again was recgnized during the struggle on Bunker hill (in the night of 4-5 September

1952, while serving as a machine gunner with Company I. 3d Battalion. 5th Marines.

I-Its citation itadt, in pan:

When hostile fi irees attacked in battalion strength during the night. he maintained

a constant flow if devastating tire upon the enemy, alternating employing two

maclune guns. a carbine and hand grenades. Although painftilly wounded, he

bravely Fired the machine guns from the hip until his hands hee.inie blistered by

the extreme heat from the weapons and, placing the guns on the ground ii allow

them to cool, continued to defend the isitit in with his carbine antI grenades.

Standing up in full view, he shouted words iii encouragement to his comrades

above the din ol battle and, throughout a series of fanatical enemy attacks. sprayed the surrounding area

with de:tdlv fire acci tunting for an estimated one hundred and fifty enemy dead and fifty wounded.

Remarkably, lie survived this baffle, made a ii inlinuing career in the Marine Corps. and eventually retired in

19T7 as a master sergeant.

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Edward C. Benfold

Born

in Staten Island. New Thrk. in 931, he enlisted in the Navy

assigned in 1951 to the Marine (1i tips where he bore the designation

ical field technician." In Korea. while serving with 3d Battalion, 5th

he wa killed on S September i9S2 I-his Medal of Honor citation reads, in

Benfold resolutely moved from pi sit 'a to position in the Lice of intense hostile

fire, treating the wounded and lending words of encouragement. Leaving the protection iii his sheltered position Lii treat the wounded, when the platoon area in

which he was workiili \v:is attacked from both the front and rear, he moved forward to an exposed ridge line where he observed two Marines in a large crater.

As he approached the to' men to determine their condition, an enemy soldier

threw two grenades into the crater while 1w' i other enemy charged the position.

Picking up a grenade in cach hand. Il( :, Benfold leaped out iii the crater and

hurled himself against the onrushing hostile soldiers, pushing the grenades against

their chests and killing both the attackers.

In 199-i, the Navy named a guided missile dcstrocr. USS BenJbld (DDG ôSh in his honor.

I)e1,aon,eni of Dekn.cc photo it SMC A49'Thô-A

and was

it ' nied—

Marines,

Navy Medicine Photo Coikcton

—Captain John C. Chapin, tSMCH (Ret)

fought to defend their outpost line

—from Allen in the west, through

Bruce, Clarence, Donald, Felix,

and Gary, to Jill in the east—

against a succession of attacks that

began in the early hours of 5

September. At Outpost Bruce—

manned by Company I, 3d

Battalion, 5th Marines, under

Captain Edward Y. Holt, Jr.—a

company of attacking infantry followed up a savage barrage. Private

First Class Alford L. McLaughlin

killed or wounded an estimated

200 Chinese, victims of the

machine guns, carbine, and

grenades that he used at various

times during the fight, and survived to receive the Medal of

Honor. Private First Class Fernando

L. Garcia, a'so earned the nation's

highest award for heroism; though

already wounded, he threw himself of a Chinese grenade, sacrificing his life to save his platoon

sergeant. Hospitalman Third Class

27

Edward C. Benfold saw two

wounded Marines in a shell hole

on Outpost Bruce; as he prepared

to attend to them, a pair of

grenades thrown by two onrushing

Chinese soldiers fell inside the

crater. Benfoid picked up one

grenade in each hand, scrambled

from the hole, and pressed a grenade against each of the two

soldiers. The explosions killed

both the Chinese, as Benfold sacrificed himself to save the two
wounded Marines, earning a posthumous Medal of Honor.

When dawn broke on 5

September, Molt's Company I still

clung to Outpost Bruce, even

though only two bunkers, both on

the slope nearest the Jamestown

Line, survived destruction by mortar and artillery shells. The commander of the 3d Battalion,

Lieutenant Colonel Oscar T.

Jensen, Jr., rushed reinforcements,

construction and other supplies,

and ammunition to the battered

outpost despite harassing fire

directed at the trails leading there.

Marine and Mr Force pilots tried to

suppress the hostile gunners with

10 air strikes that dropped napalm

as well as high explosive.

On the morning of 6 September,

the defenders of Outpost Bruce

beat off another attack, finally calling for box-me-in fires that temporarily put an end to infantry

assaults. At dusk, however, the

Chinese again bombarded the outpost, this time for an hour, before

attacking with infantry while

directing long-range fire at neighboring Outpost Allen to the southwest. The Marines defending

Outpost Bruce survived to undergo further attack on the early

morning of 7 September. Two

Chinese companies tried to envelop the hilltop, using demolitions in

an attempt to destroy any bunkers

not yet shattered by the latest

shelling.

28

For a total of 51 hours, the

enemy besieged Outpost Bruce

before breaking off the action by

sunrise on the 7th. At Bruce, the

site of the deadliest fighting in this

sector, the Marines suffered 19

killed and 38 wounded, 20 more

than the combined casualties sustained defending all the other outposts manned by the 2d and 3d

The 1st Marine Division commander, MajGen Edwin A. Pollock, left, welcomes

the United Nations commander, Gen Mark W Clark USA, to the division's area.

Gen Clark had succeeded Gen Matthew B. Ridgway, who took over as Supreme

Allied Commander, Europe, from General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower.

National Archives Photo (USMc) 127-N-A167677

Private First Class Fernando L. Garcia

B

orn in 1929 in Iituado, Puerto Rico, and inducted into the Marine Corps in

19 1 he was kiJied at Outpost Bruce in the Bunker Hill area on 5 September

1952 while serving as a member of Company 1, 3d Battalion. 5th Marines. The

first Puerto Rican to he awarded a Medal of Honor, his citation reads, in part:

\\1iile paiticipating in the defense of a combat outpost located more than one mile

forward of the main line of resistance, during a savage night attack by a fanatical

enemy force employing grenades, mortars, and artillery, Private First Class Garcia,

although suffering painful wounds, moved through the intense hail of hostile fire

to a supply point to secure more hand grenades. Quick to act when a hostile

grenade landed nearby, endangering the life of another Marine, as well as his

own, he unhesitatingly chose to sacrifice himself and immediately threw his body

upon the deadly missile, receiving the full impact of the explosion.

The enemy then overran his position and his body was not recovered. In his honor, a camp at Vieques in

Puerto Rico and a destroyer -suo. t'S Garcia (DE 1O-O. were named after him.

—Captain John C. Chapin, tJSMCR (Ret)
Piiss ii i'i O 1 I\ irtu

Battalions, 5th Marines. Chinese

killed and wounded at Outpost

Bruce may have totaled 400.

At the left of the line held by the

1st Marine Division, the frontage of

the Korean Marine Corps veered

southward, roughly paralleling the

Sachon River as it flowed toward

the Irnjin. The Korean Marines had

established a series of combat outposts on the broken ground

between the Sachon and the

Jamestown Line. On the evening of

5 September, while the outposts

manned by the 5th Marines were

undergoing attack, Chinese artillery and mortars began pounding

Outpost 37, a bombardment that

soon included Outpost 36 to the

southwest and an observation post

on Hill 155 on the main line of

resistance, roughly 1,000 yards

from the boundary with the 1st

Marines.

Chinese infantry, who had

crossed the Sachon near Outposts

36 arid 37, attacked both of them.

29

Two assaults on Outpost 37, which

began at 1910, may have been a

diversion, for at the same time the

enemy launched the first of three

attacks on Outpost 36. The final

effort, supported by fire from tanks

and artillery, overran the hill, but

the Chinese had lost too many

men and too much equipment—at

least 33 bodies littered the hill

along with a hundred abandoned

grenades and numerous automatic

weapons—forcing the enemy to

withdraw the survivors. The

Korean Marines suffered 16 killed

or wounded from the platoon at

Outpost 36 and another four casualties in the platoon defending

Outpost 37.

Clashes involving the outposts

of the Korean Marine Corps continued. The South Koreans dispatched. tank-infantry probes and

set up ambushes. At first, the

Chinese responded to this activity

with mortars and artillery, firing a

daily average of 339 rounds

between 12 and 19 September,

about one-third of the total directed against Outpost 36. An attack

by infantry followed.

Before sunrise on the 19th,

Chinese troops again infiltrated

across the Sachon, as they had two

weeks earlier. They hid in caves

and ravines until evening, when

they advanced on Outposts 36,

their principal objective, and. 37,

along with Outposts 33 and 31 to

the south. A savage barrage of

more than 400 rounds tore up the

defenses rebuilt after the 5

September attack and enabled the

Chinese to overwhelm Outpost 36.

Shortly after midnight, a South

Korean counterattack seized a

lodgrnerit on the hill, but the

Chinese retaliated immediately,

driving off, killing, or capturing

th.ose who had regained the outpost.

With the coming of daylight,

Marine aircraft joined in battering

Combat Outposts of the

South Korean Marines,

September 1952

0 500 1000 Yards'
•• utr•4 - s4:i 1.4

*

MajGen Edwin A. Pollock, center, accompanied by C'oI Kim

Suk Bum, commanding officer of the 1st Korean Marine

Co?ps Regiment, talks with members of the 1st Air and Naval

National Archivea Photo (IJSMC) 127-N-A165912

Gunfire Liaison Company concerning Marine air support

for Korean Marine operations.

enemy-held Outpost 36. Air strikes

succeeded in hitting the far side of

the hill, destroying mortars and

killing troops massing in defilade

to exploit the earlier success. Two

platoons of Korean Marines—supported by fire from tanks, mortars,

and artillery—followed up the

deadly air attacks and regained

Outpost 36, killing or wounding an

estimated 150 of the enemy.

In late September, while fighting

raged around Outpost 36 in the

sector held by the Korean Marines,

the Chinese attacked the combat

outposts manned by Colonel

Layer's 1st Marines, especially Hill

122 (Bunker Hill) and Hill 124 at

the southwestern tip of the same

ridge line. The enemy struck first at

Hill 124, attacking by flare-light

from four directions but failing to

dislodge the squad dug in there,

even though most of the Marines

suffered at least minor wounds.

The entire ridge from Hill 124 to

Hill 122 remained under recurring

attack for the remainder of

September, especially Bunker Hill

itself, where the enemy clung to

advance positions as close as 30

yards to Marine trenches. The

Chinese frequently probed Bunker

Hill's defenses by night, and the

Marines took advantage of darkness to raid enemy positions, using

portable flamethrowers and demolitioris to destroy bunkers while

fire from tanks and artillery discouraged counterattacks.

Tests earlier in the year had

proved the theory that transport

helicopters could resupply a battalion manning the main line of resistance. The next step was to determine if rotary wing aircraft could

accomplish the logistical support

30

of an entire frontline regiment. For

the five-day period, 22-26 September, Marine Helicopter Transport

Squadron 161 successfully supplied the 7th Marines with ammunition, gasoline, rations, and made

a daily mail run. All but valuable

cargo, such as mail, was carried

externally in slings or wire baskets.

As October began, the Chinese

saluted the new month with heavier shelling, the prelude to a series

of attacks on outposts all across

the division front from the Korean

Marine Corps on the left, past the

1st Marines and Bunker Hill, to the

far right, where the 7th Marines,

commanded. by Colonel Thomas C.

Moore, Jr., had taken over from the

5th Marines, now in reserve. To

make communications more

secure, Colonel Moore's regiment

redesignated Outposts Allen,

Bruce, Clarence, Donald, Gary,

and Jill, replacing proper names, in

ItII'lIl(l Actioll ;\Ioiig ttit I..i l1(
'-aII_iIi.,. s1__ - -— fl - I 4'

National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A165528

Gen Letnuel C. Shepherd, Jr., center, Commandant of the Marine Corps, looks at

enemy positions while touring frontline Marine positions. LtCol Anthony f

Gaputo, left, commanding officer of 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, briefs the

Commandant on the situation.

alphabetical order, with the randomly arranged names of cities:

Carson, Reno, Vegas, Berlin,

Detroit, Frisco, and Seattle.

On the left, Chinese loudspeakers announced on the night of 1

October that artillery would level

the outpost on Hill 86, overlooking

the Sachon River, and warned the

defenders to flee. When the South

Korean Marines remained in place,

a comparatively light barrage of

145 rounds exploded on the hill

and its approaches, too few to dislodge the defenders. On the following evening at 1830, the

Chinese resumed firing, this time

from the high ground beyond Mill

36, and extended the bombardrnent to all the outposts within

range. The Korean Marines dispatched a platoon of tanks to

silence the enemy's direct-fire

weapons, but the unit returned

without locating the source of the

enemy fire. After the tanks pulled

back, Chinese artillery fire intensified, battering all the outposts until

one red and one green flare burst

the three, resisted gallantly, forcing

the Chinese to double the size of

the assault force in order to overrun the position. On 3 October, the

Korean Marines launched two

counterattacks. The second of

these recaptured the crest and held

it until Chinese artillery and mortar

fire forced a withdrawal. By late

afternoon on 5 October, the

Korean Marines twice regained the

outpost, only to be hurled back

each time, and finally had to call

off the counterattacks, leaving the

hilt in enemy hands.

To the south, the Chinese also

stormed Outpost 36 on 2 October.

The defenders hurled back two

nighttime attacks, but the cumulative casualties and damage to the

fortifications forced the Korean

Marines to withdraw. The enem.y

immediately occupied the hitl and

held it.

in the night sky. At that signal, the The most vulnerable of the

guns fell silent, and infantry three, Outpost 86, lay farthest from

attacked Outposts 36, 37, and 86, the main line of resistance and

Outpost 37, the northernmost of closest to the Sachon River. On the

During Operation .1-laylift in late September, Sikorsky HRS-2 helicopters of HIVIR161 lft cargo from the 1st Air Delivery Platoon area to the sector occupied by the

7th Marines. The cargo net slung under the helicopter greatly increased its 1t

capability.

National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A166041

31
night of 2 October, a Chinese

assault overran the outpost, forcing

the Korean Marines to find cover at

the foot of the hill and regroup. At

mid-morning on the 3d, artillery

barrages and air strikes pounded

the enemy at Outpost 86, scattering the Chinese there and enabling

a South Korean counterattack to

regain the objective. The Korean

Marines dug in, but on 6 October

the Chinese again prevailed, holding the outpost until a South

Korean counterattack in the early

hours of the 7th forced them down

the slope. At about dawn on that

same morning, the enemy mounted yet another counterattack,

advancing behind a deadly artillery

barrage, seizing and holding

Outpost 86, and ending this flurry

of action on the outpost line in

front of the Korean Marine Corps.

Although October passed. rather

quietly for the 1st Marines—except

for recurring probes, patrols, and

ambushes in the vicinity of Bunker

Hill—violent clashes erupted along

the line held by the 7th Marines.

The enemy began stubborn efforts,

which persisted into 1953, to gain

control of some or all of the nine

combat outposts that Colonel

Moore's regiment manned on the

high ground to its front.

The 7th Marines took over seven

outposts when it relieved the 5th

Marines, renaming them, from left

to right, Carson, Reno, Vegas,

Berlin, Detroit, Frisco, and Seattle.

At the point—later known as the

Hook—where the frontline veered

southward toward the boundary

with the British Commonwealth

Division—the 7th Marines set up

Outpost Warsaw. A second new

outpost, Verdun, guarded the

boundary between the Marine and

Commonwealth divisions. An average of 450 yards separated four of

these outposts—Detroit, Frisco,

Seattle, and Warsaw—which occupied hills lower than those on the

left of the regimental line and

therefore were more easily isolated

and attacked.

As they did so often, the

Chinese began with a diversionary

thrust, jabbing at Detroit before

throwing knockout blows—

artillery and mortar fire preceding

an infantry attack—at Seattle and

Warsaw. An enemy company overwhelmed the reinforced platoon

on Warsaw on 2 October, but the

Marines fought stubbornly before

falling back. Private Jack W. Kelso

picked up a grenade thrown into a

Department of Defense Photo (IJ5MC) AU16198

Replacements step ashore at "Charlie Pier" Brought from transports by landing

craft, the Marines would broad waiting trains for the four-and-one-half-hour

trip to the division's lines.

-raw

A

L, Conibar natpont (COP). COP and date withdrawn. C bour,da,y estebr(sftad 5 Qebbe,. Companion A W,d Daft 'no, llr7 Si resenra after 5 October

The 7th Marines on the

Division's Right,

October 1952

Yerds

32
Private Jack W. Kelso

orn in 1934 in Madera. California. he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1951.

In Korea. he was awarded a Silver Star medal for heroism in August 1952.

a rifleman with Company I. 3d Battalion. 7th Marines, he was killed on

2 October 1952 near Sokchon. His Medal of Honor citation reads, in part:

When both the platoon commander and the platoon sergeant became casualties during the defense of a viral outpost against a numerically superior

enemy force attacking at night under cover of intense small-arms, grenade and

mortar fire, Private Kelso bravely exposed himself to the hail uf enemy fire in

a determined effort to reorganize the unit and to repel the onrushing attackei-s. Forced to seek cover, along with four other Marines, in a near-hy bunker

which immediately came under attack, he unhesitatingly picked up an enemy

grenade which landed in the shelter, rushed out into the open and hurled it back at the enemy.

Although painfully wounded when the grenade exploded as it left his hand, and again forced to seek

the protection of the bunker when the hostile fire became more intensified, Pri'ate Kelso refused to

remain in his position of comparative safety and moved out into the luc-swept area Ri return the enemy

fire, thereby permitting the pinned-down Marines in the bunker to escape.

Staff Sergeant Lewis G.Watkins

orn in 1925 in Seneca. South Carolina. he enlisted in the Marine Corps in

1950. While serving as a platoon guide for Company I, 3d Battalion, 7th

- L Marines, he gave his life on 7 October 1952. His Medal of Honor citation

reads, in part:

With his platoon assied the mission or re-taking an outpost which had

been overrun by the enemy earlier in the night, Staff Sergeant Watkins skillfully

led his unit in the assault up the designated hill. Although painfully wounded

when a well-entrenched hostile force at the crest of the hill engaged the platoon with intense small-arms and grenade fire, gallantly continued to lead his

men. Obtaining an automatic rifle from one of the wounded men, he assisted

in pinning down an enemy machine gun holding up the assault.

When an enemy grenade landed among Staff Sergeant Watkins and several

other Marines while they were moving forward through a trench on the hill

crest, he immediately pushed his companions aside, placed himself in position

to shield them and picked up the deadly missile in an attempt to throw it outside the trench. Mortally

ounderl when the grenade exploded in his hand, Staff Sergeant Watkins, 1w his great personal valor in

the face of almost certain death, saved the lives of several of his comrades.

—Captain John C Chapin. USMCR (Ret)

L)epartnleflt ti L,CTCflSt' Pl,i,wp

bunker that he and four other

Marines from Company I, 3d

Battalion, 7th Marines, were manning. Kelso threw the live grenade

at the advancing Chinese, but it

exploded immediately after leaving

his hand. Although badly wounded, Kelso tried to cover the withdrawal of the other four, firing at

the attackers until he suffered fatal

wounds. Kelso earned a posthumous Medal of Honor, but heroism

alone coutd not prevail; numerically superior forces captured both

Warsaw and Seattle.

The Marines counterattacked

immediately. Captain John H.

Thomas, in command of Company

I, sent one platoon against

Warsaw, but the enemy had temporarily withdrawn. The lull continued until 0145 on the morning

of 4 October, when a Chinese platoon attacked only to be beaten

33

back by the Marines holding

Warsaw.

Meanwhile, Captain Thomas

mounted a counterattack against

Seattle early on the morning of 3

October, sending out two squads

from the company's position on

the main line of resistance. Despite

Chinese artillery fire, the Marines

reached the objective, but Seattle

proved too strongly held and

Thomas broke off the counterat-
Second Lieutenant Sherrod E. Skinner, Jr.

om in 1929 in Hartford, Connecticut, he was appointed a second lieutenant in

the \Lirine Corps Reserve i92 and then ordered to active duty. He died heroically at The Hook" on 26 October 1952 while serving as an artillery fnriH

obser ci of Battery F, 2d Battalion, 11th Marines. The citation for his Medal f Honor

award reads, in part:

Skinner, in a detemiined effort to hold his position, immediately organized and

directed the surviving personnel in the defense of the outpost, continuing to call

down fire on the enemy by means of radio alone until this equipment became

damaged beyond repair. Undaunted by the intense hostile barrage and the rapid- P'" ne Phoio U'.SI A3O''

ly closing attackers, he twice left the protection of his hunker in order to direct accurate machine-gun fire and

to replenish the depleted supply of ammunition and grenades. Although painfully wounded on each occasion, he steadfastly refused medical aid until the rest of the men received treatment.

'\ the ground attack reached its climax, he gallantly directed the final defense until the meager supply of

ammunition was exhausted and the position oven-un. During the three hours that the outpost was occupied

hy the enemy, several grenades were thrown into the hunker which served as protection for Second Lieutenant

Skinner and his remaining comrades. Realizing that there was no chance for other than passive resistance, he

directed his men to feign death even though the hostile troops entered the bunker and searched their persons. Later, when an enemy grenade was thrown between hini and two other survivors, he immediately threw

himself on the deadly missile in an effort to protect the others, absorbing the full force of the explosion and

sacrificing his life for his comrades.

In 1991, Skinner Hall at Quantico, Virginia, was dedicated in his honor.

Second Lieutenant George H. O'Brien,Jr.

om in Fort rth. Fexas, in 1926, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in

1949. Ordered to active duty in 1951. he entered Officer Candidate School and

was commissioned in 1952. As a rifle pbtoon leader with Company H. 3d

Battalion, "rh Marines, in the battle for the I-look on 27 October 1952, he was awarded a Medal of Honor with a citation, which reads, in part:

O'Brien leaped from his tiencli when the attack signal was given and, shouting

for his men to follow raced across an exposed saddle and up the enemy-held hill

through a virtual hail of deadly small-arms, artillery and mortar fire. Although shot

through the arm and thrown to the ground by hostile automatic-weapons lire as he neared the well-entrenched enemy position, he bravely regained his feet. waved

his men onward and continued to spearhead the assault, pausing only long enough t)ekn. Ph,o 'ISttT

to go to the aid of a wi unded \larine. Encountering the enemy at close range. he proceeded to hurl hand

grenades into the bunkeis and, utilizing his carbine ii' best ad'. antage in savage hand-to-hand combat. succeeded in killing at least three ol' the enemy.

Stmck down by the concussion of grenades on three occasions during the subsequent action, he ckadf'astlv

refused to be c'.•-acuated for medical treatment and continued to lead his platoon in the .issiuIt for a period of

nearly four hours, repeatedly encouraging his men and maintaining superb direction of the unit.

He received a second Purple Heart Medal in January 13. and after the war, he joined the Reserves and was promoted to major. —t;aptain John C. Chapin. l.s\1CR (Ret)

tack. As dusk settled over the battleground, Marine aircraft and

artillery put down a smoke screen

behind which the counterattack

resumed, but the Chinese succeeded in containing the two squads

short of the crest. To regain

momentum, another squad—this

one from Company A, 1st

Battalion, 7th Marines, which had

34

come under the operational control of the 3d Battalion—reinforced

the other two, but the Chinese

clinging to Seattle inflicted casualties that sapped the strength of the
:*

4

¶

candy, cameras, and toilet articles.

counterattack. While the Marines

regrouped for another assault, the

11th Marines pounded the outpost

with artillery fire. At 2225 on 3

October, the Marines again

stormed the objective, hut Chinese

artillery prevailed, and Seattle

remained in Chinese hands.

The loss of Outpost Seattle, the

recapture of Warsaw, and a successful defense of Frisco against a

Chinese probe on the night of 5

October did not mark the end of

the effort to seize the outposts

manned by the 7th Marines, but

only a pause. The regiment's casualties—13 killed and 88 wounded

by 3 October when the Marines

suspended the attempt to retake

Seattle—caused the 7th Marines to

shuffle units. The 3d Battalion,

commanded until 13 October by

Lieutenant Colonel Gerald F.

Russell, had suffered most of the

casualties. As a result, while

Russell's battalion reduced its

frontage, the 1st Battalion, under

Lieutenant Colonel Leo J. Dulacki,

moved from the regimental reserve

to take over the right-hand portion

of the Jamestown Line. Dulacki's

M.arines manned the main line of

resistance from roughly 500 yards

southwest of the Hook to the

boundary shared with the

Commonwealth Division, including Outposts Warsaw and \7erdun.

Colonel Moore thus placed alt

three battalions on line, Lieutenant

Colonel Anthony Caputo's 2d

Battalion on the left, Russell's 3d

Battalion in the center, and now

Dulacki's 1st Battalion on the right.

The 7th Marines completed its

realignment just in time to meet a

series of carefully planned and

aggressively executed Chinese

attacks delivered on 6 and 7

October against five combat outposts and two points on the main

line of resistance. The Marines

struck first, however, when a reinforced platoon from Company C,

1st Battalion, attacked toward

35

Outpost Seattle at 0600 on 6

October. Mortar and artillery fire

forced the platoon to take cover

and regroup, even as the Chinese

were reinforcing the outpost they

now held. The attack resumed at

0900. Despite infantry reinforcements, air strikes, and artillery, the

Marines could not crack Seattle's

defenses and broke off the attack

at about 1100, after losing 12 killed

and 44 wounded. The attackers

estimated that they had killed or

wounded 71 Chinese.

On the evening of the 6th, the

Chinese took the initiative, by midnight firing some 4,400 artillery

and mortar rounds against the outpost line and two points on the

main line of resistance. On the left

of Colonel Moore's line, the enemy

probed Outposts Carson and Reno,

and on the right he stormed

Warsaw, forcing the defenders to

call for box-me-in fire that severed

the telephone wire linking the outpost with the Jamestown Line. The

first message from Warsaw when

contact was restored requested

more artillery fire, which by 2055

helped break the back of the

Chinese assault, forcing the enemy

to fall back.

The most determined attacks on

the night of 6 October and early

hours of the 7th hit Outposts

Detroit and Frisco in the center of

the regimental front. To divert

attention from these objectives,

each one manned by two squads,

the Chinese probed two points on

the main line of resistance that had

already been subjected to artillery

and mortar bombardment. At 1940

on the night of the 6th, an attacking company that had gained a

foothold in the main trench on

Detroit fell back after deadly fire

stopped the enemy short of the

bunkers. Two hours later, the

Chinese again seized a segment of

trench on Detroit and tried to

exploit the lodgment. The Marines

Department of Defense Photo (usMc A165717

Riflemen of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, take a break from frontline duty long

enough to buy "luxuries" from the regimental Post Exchange truck. The truck

toured the frontline twice a month offering Marines a chance to buy such items
reacted by calling on the 11th

Marines to box in the outpost.

Communications failed for a time,

but at about 2115 the defenders of

Detroit requested variable-time fire

for airbursts over the bunkers,

which would protect the Marines

while the enemy outside remained

exposed to a hail of shell fragments. The artillerymen fired as the

Marines on Detroit asked, hut the

outpost again lost contact with

headquarters of the 3d Battalion.

Two squads set out from the

Jamestown Line to reinforce the

Marines from Company G, 3d

BattalIon, 7th Marines, manning

Outpost Detroit. The Chinese frustrated this attempt with artillery fire

but in the meantime again abandoned their foothold on Detroit,

probably because of the shower of

fragments from Marine shells bursting above them. The respite

proved short-lived, however, for

the enemy renewed the attack

shortly after midnight and extended his control of the hill despite

further scourging from the 11th

Marines. A six-man Marine patrol

reached the outpost, returning at

0355 to report that the Chinese

now held the trenchline and

bunkers; only two of the Marines

who had manned Detroit escaped

death or capture. The attempt to

break through to the outpost

ended, and by 0630, the Marines

engaged in the effort had returned

to the main line of resistance.

Meanwhile, at about 2000, a Chinese company hit the two

squads from Company H that held

Outpost Frisco, north of Detroit.

The assault troops worked their

way into the trenches, but airbursts

from Marine artillery reinforced the

small arms fire of the defenders in

driving the enemy back. The

Chinese renewed the attack just

after midnight, and two Marine

squads advanced from the main

line of resistance to reinforce

Frisco, only to be stopped short of

their goal by fire from artillery and

mortars. Companies H and I of

Russell's 3d Battalion made further

attempts to reach Frisco during the

early morning, but not until 0510

did a reinforced platoon from

Company I arrive and take control.

During the final attack, Staff

Sergeant Lewis G. Watkins, despite

earlier wounds, took an automatic

rifle from a more badly injured

Marine and opened fire to keep the

platoon moving forward. When a

Chinese grenade landed near him,

he seized it, but it exploded before

he could throw it away, fatally

wounding Watkins, whose leadership and self-sacrifice earned him a

posthumous Medal of Honor. A

second platoon from Company 1

joined the other unit atop the hill,

and at 0715 Frisco was declared

secure.

To keep Frisco firmly in Marine

hands, however, would have invited attrition and ultimately required

more men than General Pollock

and Colonel Moore could spare

from the main line of resistance.

Consequently, the 7th Marines

abandoned the outpost. The regiment had yielded three outposts—

Detroit, Frisco, and Seattle—but

forced the Chinese to pay a high

price, estimated to include 200

killed. The losses suffered by the

7th Marines totaled 10 killed, 22

missing, and 128 wounded, 105 of

them seriously enough to require

evacuation.

Since the Chinese also wrested

Outposts 37, 36, and 86 frOm the

Korean Marine Corps, the 1st

Marine Division had lost six combat outposts of varying tactical

importance. The lost outposts and

those that remained in Marine

hands had no value except to the

extent their possession affected the

security of the Jamestown Line. As

a result, the Marines remained

wary of mounting major counterattacks; to provide continued protection for the main line of resistance,

General Pollock would rely on

nighttime patrols and listening

posts to supplement the remaining

outposts and replace the captured

ones.

During the battles of October 1952, a number of Marine bunkers on the

Jamestown Line were severely damaged by Chinese mortar and artillery fire.

Department of Defense Photo (U5MQ A167465

36
I, 4

.4.

Unlike the 1st Marine Aircraft

Wing, which experienced shortages of spare parts, especially for

its newer planes and helicopters,

the 1st Marine Division emerged

from the outpost fighting with few

supply problems except for communications gear. The Army

helped with replenishment by

releasing essential spare parts from

stocks in Japan, and new radio,

telephone, and teletype equipment

also arrived from the United States.

The Army, moreover, tapped its

stocks for new trucks to replace

the division's worn-out vehicles.

To operate the logistics network

more efficiently, the division

placed the re-equipped truck units

in direct support of the infantry

regiments instead of keeping them

in a centralized motor pool. The

change reduced both the total

mileage driven and vulnerability to

artillery fire. In another attempt to

improve logistics, the Marines

increased from 500 to 800 the

number of Korean laborers serving

with each of the front-line regiments.

The fighting for the outposts

that raged early in October died

down, although the Chinese

jabbed from time to time at Bunker

Hill and continued their nighttime

37

patrolling elsewhere along the

Jamestown Line. During the lull,

Colonel Smoak's 5th Marines took

over the center of the division's

line from the 1st Marines, which

went into reserve, improving the

fall-back defense lines, undergoing

training, and patrolling to maintain

security in the rear areas. As the

division reserve, the 1st Marines

prepared to counterattack if the

enemy should penetrate the main

line of resistance. [ndeed, the regiment had to be ready to help block

a Chinese breakthrough anywhere

in I Corps, which held the western

third of the United Nations line.

With the 1st Marines now in

reserve, Colonel Moore's 7th

Marines manned the right of the

division's line placing all three battalions on line and keeping only

one company from the 3d

Battalion in reserve. To replace this

company, Lieutenant Colonel

Charles D. Barrett, the 3d

Battalion's new commander, organized a platoon of cooks, drivers,

and other members of the headquarters into an improvised platoon that served as his unit's

reserve. Barrett's thinly spread 3d

Battalion manned two combat outposts—Berlin and East Berlin, the

latter established on 13 October—

besides defending the center of the

regimental line.

To the left of Barrett's unit, the

2d Battalion, 7th Marines, under

Lieutenant Colonel Anthony

Caputo defended its portion of the

regimental line and maintained

three combat outposts, Carson,

Reno, and Vegas. Like Barrett's battalion in the center, Caputo's

Marines held a sector with few vulnerable salients that the aggressive

Chinese might pinch off and capture.

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A166429

The Marine in the foreground reads while others talk or sleep just before jumping off into "no-man 's-land" on the Hook.

On the far right of the regimental line, Lieutenant Colonel

Dulacki's 1st Battalion held the

dominant terrain feature in the regCliiiicse Attack the hook
J1

j

Distant Strikes to Close Mr Support

uring the struggle over the combat outpost line,

from late July through early Octohet; the 1st

Marine Division benefited from a shift in aerial

strategy. Long-range interdiction, an important element

of U. S. Air Force doctrine, gave way to a policy of hitting the enemy wherever he might be, whether exercising control from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang

or massing to attack Bunker Hill or some other outpost.

United Nations aircraft hit Pyongyang hard in July and

again in August. The 11 July attack consisted of four separate raids, the last of them after dark. The operation,

named Pressure Pump, blasted headquarters buildings,

supply dumps, and the radio station, which was silenced

for two days. Of 30 individual targets attacked on the

11th, three were obliterated, 25 damaged in varying

degrees and only two survived intact. On 29 August,

three daylight raids damaged 34 targets on a list of 45

that included government agencies—among them the

resurrected Radio Pyongyang—factories, warehouses,

and barracks.

According to Colonel Samuel S. Jack. chief of staff of

the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, a shift of emphasis away

from long-range interdiction caused the Far East Air

Forces to endorse the wing's using its aircraft primarily

to respond to requests for support from the 1st Marine

Division. Even as the Air Force became more cooperative, Army commanders complained about the air support they received and began agitating for a more

responsive system, like that of the Marine Corps, that

would cover the entire battlefront. General Mark W.

Clark, the United Nations commander since May 1952,

refused, however, to tamper with the existing system that

in effect gave the Far East Air Forces, an Air Force headquarters, "coordination control" over the 1st Marine

Aircraft Wing and channeled requests through a Joint

Operations Center, Instead, he called for increasing the

efficiency of the current arrangement to reduce reaction

time.

During the defense of Bunker Hill in August, 1,000

sorties, most of them by Marines, bombed and strafed

the attacking Chinese. In early October, when the fighting shifted eastward to the outposts manned by the 7th

Marines, the wing flew 319 close air support sorties.

Besides coming to the aid of their fellow Marines on

the ground, crews of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing supported the U. S. and South Korean armies. In July, for

example, eight heavily-armed and armored AU-i

Corsairs from Marine Attack Squadron 323 attacked

Chinese mortar positions, antitank weapons, and troop

concentrations opposing the Republic of Korea's I Corps.

Rockers, 1,000-pound bombs, napalm, and 20mm fire

killed an estimated 500 of the enemy. Similarly, four

38

National Archives Photo (csMc) 127-N-Al 33864

Co/John P. Condon, left commanding officer of Marine

Aircraft Group 33, shows BGen Clayton C. Jerome, the

area strafed in the largest Ma rine jet strike of the Korean

War.

pilots from Marine Fighter Squadron 311 helped the U.S.

Army's 25th Infantry Division by destroying three

hunkers and two artillery pieces while collapsing some

50 feet of trench.

In operations like these, weather could prove as deadly as antiaircraft fire. On 10 September, as 22 Panther jets

were returning from a strike near Sariwon, fog settled

over their base. Sixteen planes landed safely at an alternate airfield, but the others flew into a mountain as they

approached the runway. killing all six pilots.

Marine helicopters continued to fly experimental missions, as when Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron

161 deployed multiple-tube 4.5-inch rocket launchers

from one position to another, thus preventing Chinese

observers from using, as an aiming point for effective

counterbattery fire, the dust cloud that arose when the

rockets were launched. The same squadron, using 40

percent of its assigned helicopters for the purpose, delivered enough supplies to sustain the 7th Marines for five

days. Problems continued to nag the helicopter program,

however. The Sikorsky H035-1 light helicopter—used

for liaison, observation, and casualty evacuation—had to

he grounded in October to await spare parts.
imental sector, the Hook, where

the high ground that defined the

Jamestown Line veered sharply to

the south. Outposts Seattle and

Warsaw had protected the 1-Took,

but only Warsaw remained in

Marine hands. To restore the security of the 1-look, Dulacki set up a

new outpost, Ronson, some 200

yards southeast of enemy-held

Seattle and 275 yards west of the

Hook. Ronson guarded the western approaches to the 1-Took, while

Warsaw commanded the lowlands

east of the Hook and a narrow valThe Hook,

26 October 1952

0 100 200 300 400 500 Yardsl I

ley leading eastward toward the

Samichon River.

If the Chinese should seize the

Hook, disastrous results might follow, for the Hook held the key to

controlling the Santichon and Imjin

valleys. Its capture could expose

the rear areas of the 1st Marine

Division and force that unit and

the adjacent Commonwealth

Division to fall back two miles or

more to find defensible terrain

from which to protect the northeastern approaches to Seoul.

Because of the Hook's importance,

Colonel Moore set up his headquarters on Hill 146 near the base

of the salient.

Opposite the 7th Marines, the

Chinese had massed two infantry

regiments, totaling some 7,000

men, supported by 10 battalions of

artillery ranging in size from 75mm

to 122mm and later to 152mm. The

enemy, moreover, had learned

during the fighting at Bunker Hill

and along the outpost line to make

deadlier use of his artillery, massing fires and, when the Marines

counterattacked, imitating the boxme-in fires used by the 11th

Marines. In preparation for an

attack on the Hook, the Chinese

massed their artillery batteries

within range of the salient, stockpiled ammunition, and dug new

trenches that reached like tentacles

toward the various elements of the

outpost line and afforded cover

and concealment for attacking

infantry.

Against the formidable concentration of Chinese troops and guns,

Colonel Moore's regiment could

muster 3,844 Marines, officers and

men, supported by 11 Navy medical officers and 133 Hospital

Corpsmen, three Army communications specialists, and 746 Korean

laborers with their 18 interpreters.

As in the earlier fighting, the 7th

Marines could call upon the

105mm and 155mm howitzers of

the 11th Marines, and other Marine

supporting weapons including

rocket batteries, tanks, and aircraft.

Army artillery and Air Force fighter-bombers reinforced the firepower of the division.

In the words of Staff Sergeant

Christopher E. Sarno of the 1st

Marine Division's tank battalion:

"Korea was an artilleryman's paradise." rt seemed to him that the

Chinese always fought by night,

making effective use of an arsenal

of weapons. The burp guns and

mines were bad, Sarno said, but

Warsaw Seattle /

Ronson

Hook

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LEQEND

A Marine Combat Outpost

Former COP

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39
the worst was the artillery, which

"could blast a man's body to bits

so that his remains were picked up

in a shovel."

The static battle line obviously

placed a premium on artillery,

especially the 105mm and 155mm

howitzers of the Army and Marine

Corps. Indeed, by mid-October

1952 American batteries were firing these shells at a more rapid

rate than during the bloody fighting in the early months of 1951,

when United Nations forces

advanced beyond the 38th Parallel

and conducted offensive operations like Killer and Ripper. By the

fall of 1952, firepower, especially

artillery, dominated the battleground, as probes, patrols,

ambushes, and attacks on outposts

took the place of major offensives.

Because of the demand of

artillery support, the rationing of

105mm and 155mm shells became

necessary. During the last 11 days

of October, a quota prevailed, at

least for purposes of planning. In

support of the 7th Marines, each

105mm howitzer might fire a daily

average of 20 rounds and each

155mm howitzer 4.3 rounds. The

81mm mortars located in each battalion also suffered from a shortage

of shells, and even hand grenades

were now scarce. To do the work

of mortars and artillery, Colonel

Moore employed tripod-mounted,

water-cooled .30-caliber machine

guns. These weapons employed

the techniques of World War 1,

engaging targets like potential

assembly areas with indirect fire

based on map data and adjusted

by forward observers, as well as

aimed direct fire.

The enemy initiated his attack

on the Hook by battering the

salient and its combat outposts

with mortar and artillery fire; an

estimated 1,200 rounds exploded

among the trenches and bunkers

on the Hook and Outposts Ronson

and Warsaw between dusk on 24

October and dawn on the 25th.

The Marine defenders, aided by

detachments from the Korean

Service Corps, struggled to keep

pace with the destruction, repairing damage as best they could during lulls in the bombardment only

to face new damage when the

shelling resumed.

While shoring up trenches and

bunkers, the 7th Marines fought

back. In the hardest hit area,

Lieutenant Colonel Dulacki's 1st

Battalion returned fire with its own

mortars, machine guns, and recoilless rifles, while the regimental

mortars and tanks joined in.

Despite the shortage of highexplosive shells, the 2d Battalion,

11th Marines, fired some 400

105mm rounds in response to the

first day's Chinese bombardment,

575 rounds on the 24 October, and

506 on the 25th, balancing the

need to conserve ammunition

against the worsening crisis. Air

strikes also pounded the enemy

massing near the Hook and the

two nearby outposts, including

attacks by four Panther jets from

VMF-311 that dropped high explosives and napalm on Chinese

troops massing some 750 yards

east of the salient.

During the 24 hours beginning

Ammunition camets step aside to let litter barriers pass with a wounded Ma rine

durin,g the battle for the Hook.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A1456424

40
L

at 1800 on the 25th, Chinese gunners scourged Colonel Moore's

regiment with another 1,600 mortar and artillery shells, most of

them exploding on the ground

held by Dulacki's battalion. The

shelling abated briefly on the 25th

but resumed, convincing the division's intelligence officer, Colonel

Clarence A. Barninger, that the

enemy was planning a major

attack to overwhelm the Hook and

gain control of the Samichon

Valley. Barninger warned the division's commander, General

Pollock, well in advance of the

actual attack.

The Chinese fire diminished

somewhat on the morning of 26

October, but the Hook remained a

dangerous place. On that morning, Lieutenant Colonel Dulacki

took advantage of a lull to inspect

the defenses, only to be knocked

down by the concussion from an

enemy shell. He escaped with

bruises and abrasions and continued his rounds. The intensity of

the bombardment increased later

in the morning and continued

after dark in preparation for

attacks on Outposts Ronson and

Warsaw and the Hook itself.

Chinese troops stormed Ronson

at 1810 on 26 October after three

days of preparatory fire that had

collapsed trenches, shattered

bunkers, and killed and wounded

Marines at both outposts and on

the Hook. At Ronson. 50 or more

of the enemy penetrated the

defensive artillery concentrations,

overran the position, and killed or

captured the members of the reinforced squad manning the outpost.

At about the same time, a Chinese company split into two

groups and attacked Outpost

Warsaw simultaneously from the

east and west. A box-me-in barrage fired by the 11th Marines

could not prevent the assault

troops for closing in on the

defenders, led by Second

Lieutenant John L. Babson, Jr. The

Marines at Warsaw fought back

with grenades, pistols, and rifles,

using the latter as clubs when

ammunition ran out. Taking cover

in the wreckage of the bunkers,

they called for variable-time fire

directly overhead. Hope lingered

that the rain of shell fragments had

saved Warsaw, but after four hours

of silence from the garrison,

Colonel Moore reluctantly concluded that Warsaw was lost, its

defenders either dead or captured.

Lieutenant Babson was one of

those killed.

While the fate of Warsaw still

National Archives Photo (U5MC) 127-N-A19O52

The crew of Number 5 gun, Battery 4 4th Battalion, 11th Martne.c, loads its

155mm howitzer after receiving word to prepare for afire mission.

Chinese shells explode in the valley below as Marines on the Hook move about in

their trenches.

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) A166773

41
remained in doubt and a platoon

from Captain Paul B. Byrum's

Company C was preparing to reinforce the outpost, a flurry of

Chinese shells battered the Hook.

Colonel Moore reacted by sending

Captain Frederick C. McLaughlin's

Company A, which Byrum's unit

had just relieved, to help Company

C defend the salient. Moore also

directed that the 1st Battalion have

first call on the regiment's supply

of ammunition, In addition, the 1st

Marine Division lifted the restrictions on artillery ammunition fired

in support of the Hook's defenders.

Under cover of artillery and

mortar fire, a Chinese battalion

launched a three-pronged attack

on Dulacki's 1st Battalion. By 1938

on the 26th, Chinese infantry first

threatened the main line of resistance southwest of the Hook itself,

to the left of the salient and roughly halfway to the boundary with

the 3d Battalion. Within a few minutes, a second attack hit the very

nose of the Hook, while a third

struck its eastern face. Mingled

with the assault troops were laborers carrying construction materials

to fortify the Hook after the three

prongs of the attack had isolated

and overrun it.

The thrust along the ridge that

formed the spine of the Hook continued until the Chinese encountered the observation post from

which Second Lieutenant Sherrod

E. Skinner, Jr., was directing the

fire of the 11th Marines. The lieutenant organized the defense of

this hunker, running from cover

when necessary to replenish the

supply of small arms ammunition.

He was still calling down artillery

fire when the attackers overran the

Hook. He then told his men to

play dead until other Marines

counterattacked. For three hours,

they fooled the Chinese who

entered the bunker. Finally, an

mander, and to Col Honsowetz' left

of the 7tbMarine.s.

enemy soldier became suspicious

and threw a grenade inside.

Skinner rolled onto the grenade,

absorbing the force of the explosion and saving the lives of two of

his men. His sacrifice resulted in

the posthumous award of the

Medal of Honor.

To the left of the Hook, the

assault force outflanked a platoon

of Company C, led by Second

Lieutenant John W. Meikle, but he

succeeded in pulling back the

flanks to form a perimeter. East of

the Hook, on the 1st Battalion's

right, other elements of Company

C formed another perimeter. in the

400 yards separating the two, scattered groups from Byrum's company struggled to close the gap.

Help for Company C began

arriving at about 2330, after the

Chinese had overrun the Hook,

when the first elements of

McLaughlin's Company A, sent to

reinforce Byrum's Marines, made

contact with Meikle's perimeter to

42

Col Thomas C Moore, commanding officer

the left rear of the captured salient.

The arrival of reinforcements

enabled the members of Company

C, scattered between the two

perimeters, to form a blocking

position on a ridge running east

and west a few hundred yards to

the rear of the Hook. At 0300 on

the 27th, Colonel Moore committed the regimental reserve,

Company H, 3d Battalion. General

Pollock ordered the 3d Battalion,

1st Marines, from the division

reserve into the sector held by

Moore's 7th Marines.

The 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,

had the mission of counterattacking the Chinese who had seized

the Hook and penetrated the

Jamestown Line. Anticipating commitment in this critical sector, the

battalion commander, Lieutenant

Colonel Sidney J. Altman, had

already drawn up a basic plan for

such a counterattack and personally reconnoitered the area. Now

Altman's Marines prepared to exeNational Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A165743

MajGen PaulA. Kendall, center, i corps commander, receives a tactical briefIng

from Col Russell E. Honsowetz, operations officer of the 1st Marine Division. To

MajGen Kendall's right is MajGen Edwin A. PollocJe, 1st Marine Division com-
cute that plan. Tank gunners, mortar crews, and artillerymen battered the recently captured

Outpost Warsaw, other Chinese

troop concentrations, firing batteries, and supply routes. The 1st

Marine Aircraft Wing also joined in,

as Grumman Tigercat night fighters

used the ground-based MPQ radar

to hit the main Chinese supply

route sustaining the attack, dropping their bombs less than a mile

west of the Hook.

While the 3d Battalion prepared

to counterattack the Hook, the

enemy made a new thrust at the

7th Marines, Early on the morning

of 27 October, the Chinese

attacked Reno, one of the outposts

manned by Lieutenant Colonel

Caputo's 2d Battalion. Some two

miles west of the Hook, the battalion's three outposts formed an

arrowhead aimed at Chinese lines,

with Reno at the point, Carson on

the left, and Vegas on the right.

The pattern of hostile activity

opposite the 7th Marines earlier in

October persuaded General

Pollock's intelligence specialists

that the enemy had given first priority to seizing Caputo's three outposts. This estimate of Chinese

intentions caused the 11th Marines

to plan concentrations in front of

the 2d Battalion, while Caputo set

up strong ambush positions to protect the threatened outposts.

On the night before the assault

on Reno, Captain James R. Flores

led a reinforced platoon from

Company E into the darkness. The

patrol's destination was a camouflaged ambush position about 300

yards south of Reno and halfway

between Carson and Vegas. At

midnight, noises to the front alerted Flores and his men that the

enemy had infiltrated between

them and the outpost and were

preparing to attack Reno from the

rear. The ambush force alerted the

Marines defending the outpost of

43

the danger behind them and

opened fire when the force, estimated at two Chinese companies,

seemed on the verge of attacking.

Although raked by fire from the

front and rear, the enemy fought

back, holding the Marines in check

until they could break off the

action and make an orderly withdrawal to the main line of resistance.

Quiet enveloped Outpost Reno

until 0400 on the 27th, when a

Chinese platoon attacked from the

northwest, assaulting in two

waves. The Marines on Reno beat

back this first attack, but a second

thrust from the same direction

broke through the perimeter. The

defenders took cover so that variable-time artillery fire bursting

overhead could maul the enemy.

The tactics worked to perfection,

forcing the Chinese to abandon

their lodgment after some 40 minutes of fighting

After the ambush by Marines

behind Rena, while the outpost's

defenders were fighting off the

subsequent Chinese assaults,

Captain McLaughlin's Company A

passed through the line established

by Byrum's Marines and began

advancing toward the Hook.

Enemy mortar and artillery fire

stopped McLaughlin's unit short of

the objective, forcing him to order

his Marines to dig in and hold the

ground they had gained.

When Mclaughlin's counterattack stalled, Colonel Moore

attached the last of the regimental

reserve—Company H, 3d Battalion, under Captain Bernard B.

Belant—to Lieutenant Colonel

Dulacki's 1st Battalion. At 0505,

Belant reported to Dulacki, who

directed him to renew the counterattack. Within three hours,

Company H stood ready to attack

I 2 ENEMY COMPANIES

ATTACK AT 0030

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ATTACK AT 0400 —

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LIMITS

The Fight for Outpost Reno,

27 October 1952

0 100 200 300 400 500 Meters "—'—i———-———J

(ot flU ratiacking ihe II ock
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the Chinese, whose bridgehead

encompassed the Hook itself and a

crescent of ridges and draws

extending from the spine of that

terrain feature and embracing a

segment of the main line of resistance about a half-mile wide.

As Belant led his unit forward, it

rapidly covered the first 200 yards

before Chinese small arms, mortar,

and artillery fire shifted to meet the

threat. The company commander

pressed the attack, however.

Second Lieutenant George H.

O'Brien, Jr., led his platoon over

the ridge to his front, the men

zigzagging as they ran toward the

Chinese-held trenchline. A bullet

struck O'Brien's armored vest,

knocking him down, but he scrambled to his feet and continued

toward the enemy, pausing only

briefly to help a wounded man.

Throwing grenades and firing his

carbine, he silenced the Chinese

weapons in a bunker and led his

platoon toward the Hook itself.

This headlong assault, which

Marines climb an improved trail to

bring ammunition to machine gunners on the Hook.

Deparmtent of Defense Photo (usMc) A166423

earned O'Brien the Medal of

Honor, broke through the Chinese

perimeter and approached the

enemy-held bunkers on the Hook

before being contained by hostile

mortar and artillery fire, The

remainder of Company H widened

the crack that O'Brien's platoon

had opened and captured three

prisoners as it overran the southeastern portion of the Hook before

a fierce shelling forced the

advance elements to find cover

and yield some of the ground they

had taken.

Marine aircraft helped Company

H advance onto the Hook, attacking reinforcements moving into

battle and the positions from

which the Chinese were firing or

adjusting fire. Key targets included

the former Marine outposts of

Irene, Seattle, and Frisco, along

with the frequently bombed main

supply route and those enemy

troops trying to dislodge the

Marines who had gained a foothold on the Hook. Fire from

Marine tanks and artillery engaged

some of the same targets and

proved deadly against trenches

and bunkers that the Chinese had

seized. The howitzers also joined

mortars in counterbattery fire.

At midday on 27 October, after

General Pollock had released

Company I, 3d Battalion, 1st

Marines, to Colonel Moore's control, the counterattack to regain the

Hook entered its final phase.

Company I would drive the enemy

onto the Hook, after which

Company H, the unit that had penetrated the Chinese perimeter earlier in the day, was to take over the

right of the 1st Battalion's line,

relieving Company B, which

would make a final assault on the

Hook and recapture both the

Hook and Outpost Warsaw.

Captain Murray V. Harlan, Jr.,

who commanded Company I,

launched his attack early in the

44

afternoon. The 1st Platoon, which

led the way, seized the crest of the

ridge to its front at 1350 and began

advancing toward the Hook

behind a barrage laid down by the

11th Marines. The Chinese reacted

to the threat from Harlan's company with deadly artillery and mortar

concentrations directed against not

only the advancing Marines, but

also Colonel Moore's command

post and the weapons along the

Jamestown Line that supported the

assault.

Despite severe casualties,

Harlan's Marines pushed ahead, at

times crawling from one outcropping in the shell-torn earth to

another. After pausing to reorganize at about 1635, the company

moved, a few men at a time, onto

the Hook, regaining the bunker

where Lieutenant Skinner had sacrificed his life for his men and forging ahead against die-hard Chinese

in collapsed bunkers and trenches.

The deadliest fire came, as always,

from enemy mortars and artillery

shells that plunged steeply onto

the Hook before exploding.

Company I took such cover as it

could find, but terrain afforded

concealment and greater protection from flat-trajectory than from

high-angle-fire weapons.

By midnight on 28 October,

Company 13 had threaded its way

through a maze of shell craters and

moved into position to the left of

Company I. Shortly afterward

Company B began what Dulacki

had planned as the final assault on

the Hook. Small arms fire and a

shower of grenades from the

Chinese positions stopped the

Marines as they attacked with rifles

and grenades of their own. After

exchanging fire with the enemy for

perhaps 90 minutes the company

fell back to obtain cover and called

for mortar and artillery fire. The

shelling battered not only the

strongpoints immediately to the
I

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quency of malfunctions, they did

not appear to be cleaning and caring for their weapons, as they

should. Dulacki also expressed

concern that the Marines had

become too willing to seek the

cover of bunkers during Chinese

attacks, gaining protection from

shell fragments—though not from

satchel charges or direct hits by

large-caliber shells—at a sacrifice

in fields of fire. He believed that

infantrymen should build and fight

from individual positions with at

least some overhead cover, rather

than from large bunkers in which

several defenders might be isolated

and attacked with explosive

charges or trapped if a direct hit

collapsed the structure.

with belted ammunition.

front of Company B, but also the

enemy's supporting weapons and

the routes of reinforcement and

replenishment that passed through

the Chinese-held outposts of

Warsaw and Ronson. The Marines

renewed the assault at 0340, broke

through, and by 0600 overran the

Hook. Afterward, elements of

Colonel Moore's regiment reoccupied Warsaw and Reno, which the

enemy bad abandoned.

A dense fog settled over the

Hook as Lieutenant Colonel

Dulacki's battalion killed or captured Chinese stragglers and reorganized the defenses. The battle

for the Hook and its two outposts,

along with the diversionary action

at Outpost Reno, cost the Chinese

269 dead and wounded, a number

verified as best the Marines could,

and perhaps another 953 casualties

that escaped verification. In preventing the enemy from gaining a

permanent tactical advantage at

the Hook, the Marines lost 70

killed, 386 wounded, and 39 missing, of whom 27 were prisoners of

the Chinese. At Reno, nine Marines

were killed and 49 wounded.

During the struggle for the

Hook, Chinese mortars and

artillery proved as deadly as usual

in both defending against Marine

attack and battering Marine defenses. The enemy sent additional soldiers immediately behind the

assault troops, intending that they

exploit any breakthrough by the

earlier waves, but th.e tactics failed

to accomplish the intended purpose. Lieutenant Colonel Dulacki

believed that the gambit failed

because too few junior officers

were on hand to commit the

reserve at the precise moment to

maintain momentum.

Dulacki also found flaws with

his Marines. Judging from the fre45

From the Hook, the fighting

returned to the sector of the South

Korean Marines on the left of the

5th Marines. The most vulnerable

points along the segment of the

Jamestown Line held by the

Korean Marines were Combat

Outposts 39, 33, 31, and 51.

Outposts 39, 33, and 31 were located near the boundary with the 5th

Marines and manned by the 5th

Battalion, Korean Marine Corps,

which had relieved the 3d

Battalion on the afternoon of 31

October. The 2d Battalion of the

Korean Marine Corps maintained

Combat Outpost 51, in front of its

lines.

An assault against these four

hilltop outposts would represent

an extension of the attacks in early

October that had overrun three

other South Korean outposts—86

to the south, 36, and 37. The dominant terrain feature in this area

was Hill 155 on the main line of

resistance in the sector of the 5th

Battalion, a promontory that overlooked not only the Sachon Valley

Department of Detense Photo (usMc) A16642s

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and the Chinese activity there, but

also the Panmunjom corridor and

its environs. The enemy made no

attempt to disguise his designs on

the outposts and ultimately the hill,

unleashing a savage bombardment

—more than 3,000 rounds during

the 48 hours ending at 1800, 31

October—that rocked the South

Korean positions, especially

Outposts 39 and 33.

The anticipated Chinese attack

began at 1830 on the 31st, when

the Chinese probed Outposts 39

and 33, apparently in an attempt to

exploit any confusion resulting

from the 5th Battalion's relief of

the 3d. Artillery fire blocked these

enemy jabs but did not end the

night's fighting. At 2200, an eightminute bombardment struck the

four outposts in preparation for

infantry assaults against all of

them.

On the right, a Chinese company pressured the platoon of South

Korean Marines holding Outpost

31 until 0155, when defensive fire

prevailed and the attack ended. At

Outpost 33, another enemy company broke through a perimeter

manned by only two South Korean

squads, which clung to parts of the

hill until 0515 when, with the help

of artillery fire, they drove off the

Chinese.

Two enemy companies attacked

Outpost 39, the nearest of the four

to Hill 155. The platoon of South

Korean Marines deployed there

yielded some ground before taking

advantage of defensive artillery

concentrations to eject the Chinese

by 0410. The enemy again probed

the outpost two hours later, but

soon broke off the action on the

right of the sector held by the

South Korean Marines.

On the left, four Chinese companies attacked Combat Outpost

51, the most heavily defended of

the four, since an entire company

had dug in there. It was also the

as not to hamper operations

most remote of the outposts, 2,625

yards from the main line of resistance, and this vulnerable location

may have persuaded the enemy to

scrimp on shelling. Except for 20

rounds of 90mm fire from Sovietbuilt tanks, the bombardment here

was lighter and less effective than

at the other three outposts. Three

Chinese companies attacked

Outpost 51 from the southwest and

another from the north. After some

initial gains, the attack lost

momentum and ended at 0330.

Despite the clashes involving

the Korean Marines, a lull settled

over the division following the

fierce action at the Hook. Elements

of the Commonwealth Division

assumed responsibility for the

Hook itself on 3 November, but the

11th Marines continued to fire in

support of the salient's British

46

defenders. On the night of 18-19

November, for example, Marine

artillerymen fired some 2,000

rounds to help break up a Chinese

attack.

Meanwhile, the 1st Marines

replaced the 7th Marines in manning the right of the division's

main line of resistance. On 22

November, the 2d Battalion, 1st

Marines, in regimental reserve,

provided one company for

Operation Wakeup, a raid on

Chinese positions opposite

Combat Outposts Reno and Vegas.

The battalion commander,

Lieutenant Colonel Charles E.

Warren, assigned the mission to

Captain Jay V. Poage's Company

D, which attacked just before

dawn. The operation succeeded

mainly in demonstrating the

strength of the Chinese, whose

defensive fire stopped the attack

short of the objective and frustrated the plan to seize and interrogate

Department of Defense Photo (usMc) M68017

Men of the 5th Marines eat hot chow cooked and brouRht up to them on the frontlines from the battalion command post to the rear Marines often ate in relays so
Life in the Bunkers

pon arriving on the Jamestown Line, the 1st

Marine Division made use of log-and-sandbag

bunkers, which Second Lieutenant William

Watson, described as a simultaneous curse and blessing.

Although the structures provided "places of some comfort

to which Marines went to get dry and sleep and to escape

incoming [firel," the "sandbag castles" lured men out of

their fighting positions. Once inside a hunker, the Marines

could be killed or wounded not only by a direct hit by a

heavy shell that collapsed the structure, but also by a

grenade or explosive charge hurled inside.

Given the vulnerability of bunkers and their effect on

aggressiveness, it was no wonder, said Watson, that he

and his fellow junior officers had received no formal

instruction in bunker placement or construction. "They

didn't teach bunker building at Quantico," lie recalled.

"Who would have dared?" In a Marine Corps trained "to

assault and dominate the enemy," anyone foolish enough

to advocate the use of defensive bunkers would probably

have been shipped at once to Korea where he might well

have found himself building the very structures that had

resulted in his being sent there.

Life in the bunkers gave rise to unique problems, not

the least of which was trash disposal. As the bunkers and

trenches proliferated on the main line of resistance and

the outpost line, the troops manning them—whether

American or South Korean Marines or Chinese soldiers—

generated vast amount of refuse. Both sides, reported

Second Lieutenant John M. Verdi, a Marine pilot who flew

a hundred missions and for a time controlled air strikes

from a bunker on the sratic battle line, did an adequate

job of policing the main line of resistance, hut the combat

outposts posed a more difficult challenge. By day activity

in a confined and exposed area could attract hostile fire,

and by night policing up might interfere with planned

fires, the movement of patrols, or the establishment of listening posts. As a result, trash accumulated around the

outposts, especially those of the Marines who not only ate

more than their enemy, but consumed food that came in

cans or packages that could he more easily discarded than

carried away, even with the help of Korean laborers.

Trash attracted rats, nicknamed "bunker bunnies"

because of their size. The Marines waged war against

them but with partial success at best. Verdi recalled that

one Marine used his bayonet to pin a scurrying rat to a

sandbag, but the screams of the dying varmint proved so

unnerving that the hunter had to borrow a pistol to finish

off his prey.

Mines planted by Marines could be as dangerous as

those laid by the Chinese, or so Verdi believed. The

Marines charted their minefields, selecting a starting point

and an azimuth, then planting the mines at specific intervals to form rows a certain distance apart. An error with

the compass or a mistake in recording the information

would render the chart useless, and the map itself might

disappear, destroyed as a result of enemy action or simply lost during the relief of a unit. A return to mobile warfare, or a truce that required removal of the old minefields, would increase the danger.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A 169578

prisoners. Patrols, ambushes, and

less ambitious raids continued for

the balance of the year.

On the same day as Operation

Wakeup, South Korean police captured two infiltrators in the rear

area of the Kimpo Provisional

Regiment. Although the I-Ian River

interposed a barrier to large-scale

attacks, the occasional infiltrator

managed to cross and lose themselves among the 80,000 civilians

living on the Kimpo Peninsula. A

few of these infiltrators struck on 1

December, ambushing a jeep driving on the main supply route.

Some two-dozen bullets tore into

the vehicle, but only one struck the

lone occupant, wounding him in

the knee.

47

During 1952, the Korean fighting

assumed a pattern far different

from that for which the Marines

sent to Korea in previous years had

prepared. Mobility gave way to

stalemate. The battlefield now

resembled the trench warfare of

World War I more than the sudden
a

— S - r it

Tn December, President-elect

Dwight D. Eisenhower made good

his campaign promise to "go to

Korea," hut it was not yet possible

to predict the consequences, if

any, of his visit. The war remained

unpopular with the American people, threats posed by the Soviet

Union in Europe seemed more

dangerous than the Chinese menace in the Far East, and the negotiations at Panmunjom had stalled

over the question whether prisoners of war could refuse repatriation. The only hope, as yet a slim

one, for resolving the issue of

repatriation lay in the adoption by

the United Nations of an Indian

proposal to create a special commission to address the issue.

amphibious thrusts and rapid campaigns of World War TI in the

Pacific. If the amphibian tractor

symbolized the role of Marines in

the war against Japan, the bunker,

built of logs and sandbags on both

the main line of resistance and the

line of outposts that protected it,

represented the war along the

Jamestown Line.

The final months of 1952 saw

changes of leadership within the

1st Marine Division. On 5

November, Colonel Moore handed

over the 7th Marines to Colonel

Loren E. Haffner, and Colonel

Hewitt D. Adams replaced Colonel

Layer in command of the 1st

Marines on the 22d. On 10

December, Colonel Lewis W. Walt

assumed command of the 5th

Marines from Colonel Smoak.

Colonel Harvey C. Tschirgi took

over the Kimpo Provisional

Regiment on 1 December from

Colonel Richard H. Crockett, who

had replaced Colonel Staab, the

unit's original commander, on 31

August. General Pollock remained

in command of the division as the

new year began and the stalemate

continued.

Honors are rendered for President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower during his visit to

the 1st Marine Division. Standing to Eisenhower's left are MajGen Edwin A.

Pollock, the division commando;; and Gen Mark W clark, USA., the United

Nations commander

IstMarniv Historicat Diaty Photo Supplement, Dec52

Department of Defense Photo (UsMc) A167563

Two 48-ton Patton tanks wait to receive firing orders before their Marine drivers

wheel them up onto earthen ramps behind the main line of resistance where they

would fire on enemy positions as ar/ille;y.

48
ernard C. Nalty was a

civilian member of the

Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters Marine

Corps, from October 1956 to

September 1961. He collaborated with Henry I. Shaw, Jr.,

and Edwin T. Turnbladh on

Central Pacific Drive, a volume of the History of U S.

Marine Corps Operations in

World War II series. He also completed more than 14

short historical studies, some of which appeared in

Leatherneck or Marine Corps Gazette. He joined the

history office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1961, transferred in 1964 to the Air Force history program, and

retired in 1994. Mr. Nalty has written or edited a number of publications, including Blacks in the Military:

Essential Documents, Strength for the Fight: A History

of Black Americans in the Military, The Vietnam War,

Tigers Over Asia, Air Power and the Fight for Khe

Sanh, and Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of

the U.S. Air Force. In addition, he participated in the

Marines in World War II commemorative series, writing C'ape Gloucester: The Green inferno and The

Right to Fight: African-American Marines in World

War H.

TillS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in

the Korean War era, is published for the education and training of'

Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine

corps, Washington, ac., as part nf the U.S. Department of Defense

observance of the 50th anniversary of that war, Editorial costs have been

defrayed in part by contributions from members of the Marine corps

1-Jeritage Foundation.

KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

DIRECTOR OFM.4R.JNE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC (Ret)

GENERAL EDITOR,

KOREAN WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Charles R. Smith

EDiTING AND DESIGN sEC7IOAç HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIViSiON

W. Stephen Hill, Visual Informariovi. Specialist

Catherine A. Kerns, Visual Information Specialist

11.5. Marine Corps Historical Center

1254 Charles Morris Street SE

Washington Navy Yard DC 20374-5040

2001

PCN 190 00319 700

Ahc,ut the Author

Sources

Clay Blair, Jr.. has chosen The

Forgotten War as the title of his

account of the Korean conflict, the history of which tends to be overshadowed by World War 11 and the

Vietnam War, Detailed though it is

compared to other such histories, the

ForRotten War: America in Korea,

1950-1953 (New York: Times Books,

1987) tends to gloss over the final 18

months of the war, especially the battles fought by the United States

Marines, The best account of Marine

operations during 1952 and after

remains Operations in West Korea, volume five of the series (I. S. Marine

corps Operations in Korea, 1950-1953

(Washington, D.C.: Historical Division,

HQMC, 1972), by LtCol Pat Meid,

USMCR, and Maj James M. Yingling,

USMC,

Although the official Marine Corps

account is essential, Walter G. Hermes

contributes valuable additional information on Marine Corps operations, as

well as Army activity and the negotiation of a ceasefire, in Truce Tertt and

Fighting Front (Washington, D.C.:

Office of the Chief of Military History,

United States Army. 1988), a volume

of United States Ar,ni' in the Korean

War series.

Personal accounts by Marines are

included in Korean Vignettes: Faces of

War (Portland, OR: Artwork

Publications, 1996), a compilation of

narratives and photographs by 201

veterans of the Korean War, prepared

by Arthur W. Wilson and Norman L.

Strickbine.

Other valuable insights and firsthand accounts appear in The Korean

War.' (',icertain Victory: The

Concluding Volume of an Oral History

(New York: Harcourt Brace

jovanovich, 1988) by Donald Knox,

with additional text by Alfred Coppel.

The Marine Corps Gazette covered

the professional aspects of the war in

a number of articles. Especially important are "Outpost Warfare," in the

November 1953 issue, and "Back to

the Trenches," (March 1955), both by

Peter Braestrup. and LtCol Roy A.

Batterton's "Random Notes on Korea,"

(November 1955).

The personal papers collected by

the History and Museums Division,

Headquarters U, S. Marine Corps

proved extremely helpful. The material on file varies tremendously, including journals, photographs, letters, narrative memoirs, and at least one academic paper, a master's thesis on outpost warfare by Maj Norman W. Hicks,

a Korean War veteran assigned to help

write the history of that conflict,

Among the most valuable of these

were the submissions by John Minturn

Verdi, William A. Watson, and Gen

Christian F. Schilt.

With the exception of MajGen John

T. Selden, the senior Marine officers

serving in Korea at this time participated in the Marine Corps' oral history

program. The interviews with Gen

Christian F, Schilt and Gen Edwin A,

Pollock proved especially valuable.