We saw the Chinese advance . . . they were so numerous!
THEODORE DROOGMANS, Platoon B, Company C, Belgian Battalion, c. 10:30 PM, 22 April1
The bastards must be breeding over there!
LEN ALLEN, 7 Platoon, C Company, 1st Glosters, c. 11:30 pm, 22 April2
As eighth army intelligence had rightly predicted, the Chinese People’s Volunteers were preparing to launch a major offensive in the spring of 1951 under the overall command of Peng Te-huai. What was less clear was when, where, and in what strength the enemy would strike, and what he would seek to accomplish. As it happened the ultimate objective remained to drive U.N. forces from the peninsula and unite Korea under Kim Il-sung. The immediate aims of the Fifth Phase offensive included the recapture of Seoul and the destruction of no less than three U.S. divisions, two ROK divisions, the Turkish brigade, and both 27th Commonwealth Brigade and “the British 29th Brigade.”3
To accomplish this Peng had amassed over 350,000 men serving in forty assault divisions divided between eleven armies organized into three corps or groups. As in the past the Chinese had little in the way of artillery support and no air cover, but each rifle company now had two Soviet-made medium machine-guns, three Soviet-made light machine-guns, and a 60-mm mortar. As for the individual Chinese soldier, the mixture of Japanese, American, and British weapons with which he had initially been equipped had largely given way by the start of the offensive – albeit with comparatively limited supplies of ammunition – to plenty of Russian rifles and the notorious burp gun.4
The first part of the Fifth Phase offensive would involve more or less simultaneous attacks all along the western half of the U.N. line. Toward 29th Brigade on Sunday, 22 April came the 187th, 188th, and 189th divisions of the 63rd Army and 198th Division from the 60th Army. This meant that upwards of 40,000 Chinese troops were advancing against a force that consisted of a little over 3,500 officers and men.
It was the sheer number and bravery of the enemy they faced that would remain uppermost in the minds of many British survivors. Carrying only light bandoliers of ammunition and rations in addition to their weapons, wearing rubber-soled canvas shoes rather than boots, dressed in sand-colored, rather shapeless quilted cotton uniforms, sporting soft caps on their heads (very occasionally supplemented by helmets captured from the Japanese), and often far from intimidating in terms of stature, Chinese soldiers were nevertheless a great deal more formidable than their adversaries expected. “They kept coming in waves, large numbers of them,” Corporal Ronald Norley of the Glosters would later vividly recall, adding that “however intense the fire they just seemed to keep coming.”5 It was analogous, a number of participants explained, to facing a crowd streaming out of a soccer stadium or motion picture palace, the effect made worse by the shouts, whistles, and trumpets calls – the latter sounding like “something between a hunting horn and a French horn” according to one unwilling auditor6 – used in lieu of radios to signal actions. Indeed, so willing were the masses of shouting and screaming Chinese infantry to keep up attacks in the face of mounting losses that would have caused an equivalent British assault to collapse that it was widely thought they were drunk or drugged.7 Making a difficult situation worse was the fact that, in contrast to earlier engagements, the Chinese soldiers on the Imjin were quite well armed; one Gloster private estimated that half were equipped with automatic weapons, the rest with rifles, and everyone with four or more stick grenades.8
At dawn on 22nd April, though, few in 29th Brigade were aware of what was about to happen. As the sun rose the spring weather was cool but sunny, and soldiers went about their business much as usual. The Northumberlands were preparing to celebrate their patron saint, St. George, the following day, having already taken delivery of paper roses to adorn their headgear and prepared a feast, while the Ulsters were relaxing in reserve and looking forward to a film show that evening. This being a Sunday, morning church services were being organized in all four battalions. None of the chaplains involved can have known that for some who attended, this communion would be their viaticum, though Father Ryan with the Ulsters apparently took no chances. “Boys,” a subaltern recalled him saying, “some of ye’ll not see another day. So if you will all make a good Act of Contrition I’ll give you General Absolution.”9
Meanwhile at battalion and brigade headquarters there were signs of a major increase in enemy activity within no-man’s-land. A local Glosters patrol north of the Imjin bumped into a Chinese force and by 6 AM was withdrawing in the face of the enemy. Three hours or so later a 1RNF patrol was also in contact a few miles north of the river. Lieutenant Sam Phillips, commanding 9 Platoon in Y Company of the 5th Fusiliers – a regiment which for reasons of heritage labeled its companies from the end rather than the beginning of the alphabet – was in command.
On the morning of the 22nd it was my turn to go across the river. Early in the morning we went across on a couple of small, punt-like boats, and I took the platoon across. The only thing I noticed when we landed on the north bank of the river was that there appeared to be a lot of wires down to the river, telephone wires; and you know one just snipped them and thought no more about it. Then we moved up, and were about two miles north of the river. Coming to the edge of a village, when suddenly, on the hill in front of us, I saw a [Chinese] sentry running around, waking people up who were asleep (or I assumed were asleep). We had stumbled on what I thought were just a platoon of enemy; but it turned out to be more, and I wirelessed back and said “we have met enemy.” We fired on them and I then called down fire from 45 Field Regiment. When that happened, I was then told to return back.10
By about noon reports were coming in that parties of twenty or more Chinese were moving toward Gloster Crossing. More contacts were relayed by Northumberland patrols in the afternoon, and reports were arriving from fleeing civilians, by 6 PM. Belgian patrols were also encountering enemy groups, and before nightfall the guns of 45 Field Regiment had started to engage multiple targets north of the river. It was the same elsewhere in 3rd Division and across the I Corps front, with reports coming in from American air reconnaissance flights of not only hundreds of men on the move but also towed guns. In the afternoon the news was relayed to brigade headquarters that the Turks had captured a Chinese survey party whose leader had revealed that an offensive was about to begin that night and that it should “be prepared for a general CCF offensive.”11
The first reports of contact on Sunday did not cause much of a stir among the Glosters. “The news caused no alarm,” remembered Padre Sam Davies of the post-service gathering of Gloster officers; “we received it carelessly.” Others confirmed this mood of equanimity. “Oh, the Chinese are supposed to be on their way down,” replied Major Pat Angier of A Company to a query from his RAMC corporal, “but there’s nothing to worry about.” As Private Lofty Large later wrote, “No one seemed to take this news as anything of note.” This did not mean that the Glosters did not think the Chinese were coming. Major P. W. “Sam” Weller, in command of Support Company, recalled distinctly that once the reports came in, “we were all then alerted, and the whole battalion was then keyed up to expect an attack.” The expectation, though, and hence the sang-froid among the officers, was based on the faulty premise that the enemy would not strike at first in any strength hill positions which were regarded, in Weller’s words, as “fairly secure.”12
At dinner with representatives of the press at brigade headquarters, Brodie appeared unruffled by the day’s events. “Might be tonight,” he casually answered a correspondent’s query as to when the long-anticipated Chinese offensive was to start. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he added when pressed by others. All the indications now were that the enemy was intent on an assault. The brigade commander, though, like those above and below him, was assuming that the offensive would begin with probing moves to ascertain the location and strength of U.N. defenses. Contacts had been made in no-man’s-land, but aerial reconnaissance on the 22nd indicated that the enemy main body was still fifteen to twenty miles from the Imjin. This suggested to I Corps Headquarters that the main attack could not start until after sunset on the 23rd, because the Chinese would have to cover a lot of ground and lie up during the day on their way down to avoid air attack. The real battle, in short, was twenty-four hours away, and hence there would be plenty of time to make necessary adjustments to the dispositions of individual battalions.13
Unfortunately, the Chinese did not behave as expected. For one thing, units were able to move much faster on foot than anticipated, arriving in strength on the Imjin by nightfall. For another, in contrast to earlier observed behavior, they were neither preparing for probing attacks nor willing to lie up during daylight hours. Thanks to small reconnaissance parties that had largely gone unobserved by British patrols and observation posts, the enemy already knew exactly where and in what strength the units of 29th Brigade lay. They intended to achieve as much surprise as possible and, despite what it might cost, maintain their momentum by continuing to operate during the day as much as possible. The result, as Major T. V. Fisher-Hoch of 170 Independent Mortar Battery bluntly noted, was that reaction by brigade HQ to the strength and speed of the Chinese offensive “was slow, and we were left to meet it still well dispersed.”14
That brigade HQ was not anticipating anything serious that night was reflected in the orders that Brodie issued in the evening. The brigadier put the Ulsters on notice that their mobile Battle Patrol might be needed along with an infantry company at some point, and ordered the Northumberlands to prepare a company-sized patrol meant to go north across the Imjin the next morning.15
The headquarters of forward battalions, meanwhile, prepared to meet what they thought would be probing moves in the darkness. At first this seemed to be the case. A listening post of the 5th Fusiliers overlooking the one known ford across the Imjin in the Northumberlands’ sector reported at around 8:30 PM that parties of enemy soldiers were crossing. Defensive artillery fire was subsequently brought down on the area, and by 10 PM X Company on the battalion left flank was undergoing what appeared to be probing attacks.16 Farther to the west, in the wake of enemy parties being observed approaching Gloster Crossing earlier in the day, Colonel Carne had put his battalion on fifty percent stand-to and in addition to sending out the nightly listening party had given orders for the setting up of an ambush party to meet what he thought would be an enemy attempt to cross the Imjin that night. Carne seems to have suspected that the enemy might be coming in force, but the intelligence he had been given indicated he could anticipate only small patrols. “I think the most we’d expected to cross was a company or two,” Anthony Farrar-Hockley, the battalion adjutant, later admitted. Carne’s orders to Lieutenant Guy “Guido” Temple, leading a sixteen-man fighting patrol (from 7 Platoon, C Company), were to surprise the enemy, capture a prisoner for interrogation purposes, and withdraw if there seemed to be more than a platoon of Chinese making use of Gloster Crossing.17
Temple himself had a sixth sense that there would be more of the enemy than expected, and made sure that his fighting patrol, delivered to riverbank slit trenches just to the right of Gloster Crossing by Oxford carrier, had three Brens with four thousand rounds of ammunition each plus six grenades per man and ample mortar rounds. At about 11:30 PM his men heard shouts and splashes from the other side of the Imjin. Temple put up a flare, which revealed forty to fifty Chinese starting to cross. The fighting patrol opened fire, and the Chinese withdrew. After a period of comparative silence, the lieutenant and his men heard more noise from the opposite bank – “they were very unquiet in their movements,” Temple observed – and sent up another flare. “This time there were very, very many more people,” he recalled, “like battalion strength.” Defensive fire from the nearest artillery battery was called down through a radio link with Gloster battalion headquarters and from there to 45 Field Regiment HQ, and after some adjustments 25-pound shells starting exploding in the water of the crossing. “That put them off their stroke for a bit,” Guido recalled, “and they appeared to go back and reassemble, and next they came forward in what I can only assume was the equivalent of brigade strength.” More artillery defensive fire was called for, first in battery strength and then in “Mike Target” strength, involving all twenty-four guns of 45 Field Regiment. Huge amounts of rifle, mortar, and Bren gun ammunition were also expended, “so much so that the Bren gun tips were actually glowing a sort of dull pink in the night they were so hot.” The Chinese, despite several hundred casualties sustained at the ford, were still coming and could be heard now on the south bank. The fighting patrol, meanwhile, was running very short of ammunition, and Temple asked for and got permission from Colonel Carne to withdraw under covering fire from the artillery to the main battalion positions.18
The departure of the fighting patrol from Gloster Crossing coincided with the unanticipated arrival of the listening party. Captain Mike Harvey, temporarily in command of D Company, had ordered twenty-two-year-old Second-Lieutenant David Holdsworth earlier in the evening to take four men from 12 Platoon – mostly made up of crotchety reservists a decade older than their officer – down to the Imjin west of Gloster Crossing where the river curved south, attach a field telephone to a previously laid wire, and report what he saw. They reached the Imjin where the wire was supposed to be, but could not locate it in the dark. Holdsworth decided to move northeast along the south bank of the river toward Gloster Crossing, where he knew there was another telephone wire along with Temple and his men. “Anyway,” Holdsworth related, “me and my merry men started to wander along the riverbank.” Suddenly they heard shells exploding in the direction of the crossing. “What the hell’s going on, sir?” he was asked, and had to admit he did not know. After being discouraged by his men from using his whistle to alert the ambush patrol to their imminent arrival – it was urgently pointed out to him that the Chinese used whistles too – Holdsworth moved his party eastward along the south bank of the Imjin. “We marched on a bit,” he later explained, “and suddenly we saw hundreds of people scurrying around the [south] bank of the river.” At first Holdsworth thought these were Korean porters attached to the battalion, but it quickly became apparent that they were in fact Chinese soldiers. “It was like Wembley [Stadium],” Lance-Corporal Len Swatton remembered. “You couldn’t miss, there were so many of them and they were so close. I looked down, and there was a face sticking up out of the river, right in front of me. He got an army boot in the face.” Wisely deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the officer and his four men very rapidly retraced their steps southwestward, and after dodging artillery bursts and Chinese troops attacking A Company, eventually made it back to D Company. As Holdsworth put it, “we were bloody lucky that none of us were killed.”19
The enemy, meanwhile, had been active elsewhere along the brigade front. Other than, for a time, at Gloster Crossing, it was the advancing Chinese who mostly held the initiative.
Like “Fred” Carne at the other end of the brigade front, the commander of the Belgian battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Crahay, wondered if the signs of enemy movement during the day meant that a night attack was being prepared. In his exposed position north of the river he was “anxious not to be surprised,” so a listening post of five men led by First Sergeant Médard Leiding had been set up in the afternoon on a small feature over a thousand yards out from Company C. By 8 PM Leiding was reporting by telephone the spotting of the odd enemy soldier, but within half an hour parties of about twenty or thirty Chinese were being observed, and just before the line was found and cut by the enemy a couple of hours later there were so many that Leiding’s telephone operator was nervously exclaiming, “Now I can’t even count them!”20
Defensive artillery fire from 45 Field Regiment was called in on the approaches to the Belgian positions, the bursting of 25-pounder shells adding to the cacophony of small-arms fire, shattering grenades, and exploding mortar bombs fired by the troop from 170 Battery attached to the Belgians. In the hours before and after midnight Company C came under repeated attack, the Belgian defenders aided by the barbed wire and mines in front of them but frustrated by a shortage of manpower and the fact that the slit trenches did not often connect with one another, making movement from one threatened sector to another quite hazardous. The Chinese were able to seize an unmanned bunker in the Company C area from which they directed accurate machine-gun fire on their opponents. Grenades and bazooka rounds proved ineffective against the bunker, and it was only after it was hit by an artillery shell that the enemy machine-gun was temporarily silenced. Meanwhile, amid the noise and flare-pierced darkness, with the Chinese apparently everywhere and firefights breaking out on all sides, isolated men sometimes took counsel of their fears. Roger Pauwels, a member of section one of Platoon B, Company C, admitted that after seeing several of his comrades wounded “I had the impression that all was collapsing around me.”21
Though all three forward battalions were reporting firefights – the Chinese had also crossed the Imjin to the east of the Glosters beginning about half past eight in the evening and were attacking the platoons of X Company of the Northumberlands by 10 PM22 – at around midnight Brodie was still operating on the assumption that these contacts were only the result of enemy probes. In the darkness the forward battalions knew they were coming under fire but had no way of knowing or reporting back to brigade how many troops were bypassing them using either the gaps of up to around a mile between most companies or the several miles of uncontested ground between the battalions and on the open brigade flanks. Brodie did, however, want to make sure that the Belgian line of retreat was clear when the eventual order to withdraw across the Imjin needed to be issued under the code word “Foxhound.” This was why, after reports reached him that the Chinese were now south of the Imjin, the brigadier had decided at about 10:30 PM to commit his reserve formation, the Royal Ulster Rifles, to securing the bridge crossings across the Imjin and Hantan.23
Thus far the Ulsters, situated roughly five miles south of the Imjin, had been largely unaware that anything serious was happening. While the riflemen were enjoying an open-air film showing (Tea for Two with Doris Day and Gordon MacCrae), the officers were having a party in a tent to celebrate the announcement of various awards arising from the engagement in January. “Suddenly in walked the duty officer and said ‘The Chinese have taken Ulster Crossing,’” remembered Second-Lieutenant Mervyn McCord, a platoon commander in B Company, “at which everyone threw things at him and said ‘Stop being so stupid, go away, don’t start trying to wreck a good party.’” It took some time to convince those present that the news was real. (“You’ve never seen a party sober up so quickly in your life.”) The Chinese, indeed, were by the early hours of 23rd April infiltrating small parties as far south as they could manage. Rifleman Albert Tyas, also in B Company, recalled that the first indication he had that a battle had started was when the sounds of firing and the sight of firework-like arcs of tracer bullets coming from the north reached those watching Tea for Two in the open air. “Good God, what’s happening?” he remembered thinking. Shortly thereafter the film was stopped and everyone was hurriedly ordered to take up positions.24
With Lieutenant-Colonel R. J. H. Carson on leave, the Ulsters were under the authority of the second-in-command, the tough and experienced Major Gerald Rickord. With the battalion so far from the Imjin and having to suddenly gird itself for battle, Rickord decided that the only way to quickly secure the bridges was to send forward the Battle Patrol in their Oxford carriers, accompanied by fourteen field engineers. The orders given to the Battle Patrol commander, Lieutenant Hedley Craig, were to dismount from the carriers on arrival at the Imjin so that the vehicles could return and be used by the rest of the battalion as transport, then to fight forward to the Belgians or withdraw if pressed heavily.25
When the Battle Patrol eventually arrived at the Imjin bridges around two in the morning there was initially no sign of the enemy. Craig stopped his column just south of the river and conferred briefly with his second-in-command:
“Looks a bit fishy.”
“Yes.”
“Better push on a bit, though.”
“Yes.”
The carriers rattled over the vehicle bridge and were then ambushed by the waiting Chinese. The night suddenly erupted in sound and light, Oxfords started going up in flames, radio contact with the battalion was lost, riflemen scrambled to get out, and any semblance of order rapidly disintegrated; “all is confusion,” wrote Second-Lieutenant P. J. Kavanagh in a lightly fictionalized version of his experiences that night. Craig attempted to salvage something from the disaster by organizing a party of riflemen to cover the withdrawal over the bridge of the remnants of the Battle Patrol. Of the eight carriers and fifty-plus soldiers who had crossed the bridge, only a single Oxford, the wounded Kavanagh, and five wounded riflemen initially made it back. Craig, though he eventually escaped the clutches of the enemy with one or two others of the covering party, was so traumatized by the ambush that he eventually lost his mind.26
By the early hours of 23rd April it was starting to becoming clear that, rather than making isolated probing attacks, the Chinese were engaged in a full-scale offensive right across the brigade front. The Belgians, the Northumberlands, and the Glosters were all fending off serious assaults in the hours before dawn.
On Hill 196 north of the river, the three Belgian companies were being cut off from one another and from the battalion command post by enemy infiltration parties, and coming under periodic attack from a variety of directions. “Were they numerous?” Max De Kerpel, a soldier in Company C, asked rhetorically regarding the Chinese. “Yes, I would say hundreds, perhaps thousands. . . . Fire as much as possible and duck the head . . . in the end, they came from all sides.” A few spontaneous withdrawals had taken place along the Company C perimeter, and ammunition was getting very scarce indeed. Colonel Crahay was understandably worried about in exactly whose hands were the all-important bridges as the night drew to a close.27
Three miles to the southwest, the Fusiliers were also finding themselves in difficulty on the south side of the river. Using a ford unknown to the British, the Chinese had infiltrated across the Imjin near X Company and were preparing to attack it from several directions. “They’re coming,” a corporal warned 6 Platoon, immediately adding, “they’re here.” After an initial brush between the two sides a call was made in broken English for 6 Platoon to surrender, which was at first misinterpreted to mean the Chinese wanted to throw in the towel. Any confusion on either side about pacific intentions was quickly cleared up by the outbreak of a fierce firefight in front of 4 Platoon. By about 2 AM, in the wake of heavy mortaring and machine-gunning by the enemy, 4 Platoon was in trouble. Its commander, Malcolm Cubiss, encouraged his men to “hold your ground!” despite mounting losses, but returning to the platoon position after having a wound dressed found that only the dead remained: “The remnants of the platoon decided that they’d had enough and had buggered off, which surprised me.” In retrospect he thought he could guess what had happened. “We had lost fourteen out of twenty-six [men] in three hours. Most people don’t want to let their pals down – that is why you have slit trenches with two men and Bren trenches with three men. But once you start losing people, it changes the character. Chaps think, ‘Christ, he’s gone – I could be next.’” The spontaneous retreat of 4 Platoon exposed the flank of 5 Platoon and put the whole X Company hilltop position in jeopardy.28
“First we were winning,” commented Fusilier Derek Kinne, “then we were losing.” Learning what was happening by radio, Brodie at 2:15 AM gave permission for X Company to retreat and join up with Battalion HQ several miles to the east if necessary. Within half an hour it did become necessary, Lieutenant-Colonel Kingsley Foster giving the company commander, Major Reggie Pratt, the authority to withdraw at his discretion. These were not the only fusiliers under fire from infiltrating enemy parties. W Company on Hill 217 a mile to the east held up relatively well; though as the second-in-command, Captain Andrew Scott, later admitted, “it was a bit disconcerting to be attacked from four directions at once.” More alarming was the state of Z Company a mile to the northeast. 11 Platoon, occupying the commanding heights of Hill 257, was caught totally by surprise when the Chinese scaled the heights and appeared on the company right flank at around 3 AM, it not having been realized that the Imjin was fordable just to the north. Fusilier Roy Rees remembered that a young mate of his was so alarmed by the sudden appearance of enemy parties among the slit trenches that he simply bolted. By 4:45 AM 11 Platoon had withdrawn or been pushed off the heights in some disarray; Rees recalled with some indignation that he had found himself on his own because “nobody had come round and told us we were pulling out.” Colonel Foster had discovered about an hour earlier that his Battalion HQ, half a mile to the east of Z Company, was coming under sporadic enemy fire. This quickly necessitated its withdrawal southward into the protective ring offered by the leaguered Centurions of C Squadron, 8th Hussars.29
The 70 Field Battery of 45 Field Regiment was also threatened by the enemy overrunning Hill 257. While continuing to shoot in support of the Glosters, Lieutenant George Truell was forced to divert the fire of one of his 25-pounders, at a range of only 150 yards and virtually over open sights, in order to break up further enemy advances before they could overrun the gun lines. After about twenty minutes of point-blank fire, the danger eased; “firing stopped and the Chinese took themselves off,” Truell later remembered.30
A further three miles in a southwesterly direction from the Northumberlands’ position, the Glosters were also under pressure. The enemy advance over Gloster Crossing had been only temporarily checked by Lieutenant Temple and his men, and a mile upstream the Chinese were using a ford unknown to the battalion. Dug in atop a 485-foot feature known as Castle site (Hill 148), A Company, farthest forward, was the first to feel the full weight of the Chinese offensive shortly after midnight, followed by D Company on Hill 182 a mile to the southeast. Within a few hours B Company, a mile west of D Company, was also coming under attack. Fire from the field guns of 70 Battery, 45 Field Regiment, the mortars of C Troop, 170 Battery, and the battalion Vickers and Bren machine-guns, along with grenades and bullets took an enormously heavy toll on the attackers, but one bugle-led wave of brave men shooting burp guns and throwing stick grenades was always succeeded by another.31
Chinese numbers were staggering to the defenders, even in retrospect. “There were about a million Chinese there,” exclaimed Walter Cleveland of 9 Platoon, D Company, with understandable exaggeration. “There were thousands,” Nick Carter, a private in B Company, remembered a bit less wildly: “I’ve never seen so many soldiers in my life,” he added. “There seemed to be hundreds of them,” the commander of 11 Platoon, D Company, Second-Lieutenant Denys Whatmore, wrote rather more cautiously. “They kept coming,” recalled Bill Clark of 3 Platoon, A Company. “We were more or less firing continuously during the night,” recalled Ronald Norley, a section leader under Whatmore, but as John Grosvenor of 12 Platoon noted, “as fast as you was killing ’em there was more coming.”32
Six or so hours into the battle, Brodie had ascertained that 29th Brigade was dealing with far more than probing attacks, and that important decisions would have to be made concerning movements and dispositions. Knowing that the bridges had not been secured but little more, Brodie was concerned that if the Fusiliers lost control of their sector south of the Imjin the enemy would nullify his efforts to prevent Route 11 south of the Imjin from falling into their hands. If the brigade was pushed back, then the Chinese might be able to thrust southeast, take Route 33, the MSR, and outflank the 65th Infantry. Brodie was also worried about the Glosters, partly because they covered the less important Route 57 and also because he was concerned that if his left flank was pushed in then the enemy would be in a position to exert further flanking pressure on the Fusiliers or turn right and outflank the 1st ROK Division. The fact that the Belgians were holding on north of the river helped delay the enemy, but the brigadier did not want to press for a general retirement or individual withdrawals until it was clear that the U.N. forces on either side of the brigade were safe from being flanked when 29th Brigade pulled back. So far he had been given no orders to retreat by I Corps or 3rd Division, which Brodie took to mean he should hold on and try to shore up his defenses. With both the Glosters and the Northumberlands under heavy pressure, Brodie had to reconsider what to do with the Ulsters. His first inclination was to split his reserve, with A and D companies being sent up Route 11 to support the Northumberlands and prepare to retake the bridges, and first B Company and then (briefly) C Company being taken into brigade hands in preparation for a forthcoming counterattack in support of the Glosters to the northwest.33
The first hints of dawn were welcomed by all, the common expectation being that the Chinese would stop and go to ground rather than leave themselves open to more accurate ground fire and, especially, rocket and napalm strikes from roving American fighter-bombers. Brodie also knew that in daylight the Centurion tanks of C Squadron, 8th Hussars (leaguered behind the lines at night because their crews could not spot or hit targets at any distance in darkness as well as out of a desire to avoid the kind of nighttime ambush that had befallen Cooperforce in January) could move forward and add their main guns to the fire-support efforts of 45 Field Regiment and 170 Mortar Battery. From the perspective of brigade HQ a dangerous situation had not as yet become perilous, and it was anticipated that the morning, as in past engagements, would witness an improvement. Alas, as the commander of the Belgian battalion reflected later, “this time instead of helping us the light would scarcely bring us any relief.”34