Valleys of Death

“In the annals of modern warfare, there have been few units who have inked in their blood the gallant story of their last battle. They fought as the cavalry of old fought. The army can be proud of these men.”

LTC. FILMORE W. MCABEE (NATIONAL ARCHIVES)

I checked my ammo and looked at my four guys. They looked nervous. I thought about leaving them, but I didn’t know what I might find. For all I knew the company might have been overrun.

I nodded and moved out. The other three followed. We’d barely made it into the field when the shooting started. We all bolted for the tree line. Jones was right. We were going to get shot up trying to get across this field. God, I hoped the company was there and not overrun like the rest of us.

“Richardson. Sergeant Richardson, we’re coming in,” I started screaming at the top of my lungs. “We’re from the weapons platoon. We’re coming in.”

Giroux had only been with the company for six days. A World War II veteran and experienced airborne infantry officer, he had taken control of what was left of the company.

“Up the road to the battalion command post then straight across the field. The battalion command post is torn up, dead and wounded all over the place. I think the commander may be dead. I know the chaplain, doctor and about eight to ten men are still alive.”

“Things aren’t much better here,” Giroux said. “The company commander is hit. We had a full-scale attack across our entire front, and before we knew what happened they were inside our position. It was total chaos. The best I can figure, we have twenty to thirty men.”

“We’d have to move past the bridge on this side for a good distance and then turn south. They have machine guns on the hills south of the bridge,” I said. “We don’t stand a fart’s chance in hell of crossing anywhere near the bridge.”

“I received a lot of fire from that direction, and later we shot up ten to twelve enemy coming from that direction, they were just walking in a column of twos,” I said. “From what I understood that’s the way they entered the battalion command post. A corporal at battalion told me that once they got into the command post they seemed as confused as our own people.”

Giroux went off to tell Bromser about the bridge. I’d barely knelt down when some of the men, it was too dark to see faces, gathered around me. They were rattling off names of guys they knew were dead. The attack had run right through them and only 25 of the company’s 180 men were left. Costello, the supply sergeant who’d just delivered field jackets to my section, was also dead. It was just yesterday he’d told me how he was going to live to a ripe old age.

Giroux called me over. He was sitting with Bromser, who had been badly shot up. There were no radios, and it didn’t seem like the company had any communications with battalion or any higher units. The only information on the immediate situation was my report.

“Yeah, I can. But we’ve got to watch that bridge and the machine guns on the hill,” I said. “I’ve already been on the wrong side of those bastards.”

“We’re going to move out,” Giroux said. “Take all the ammunition you can and take the machine guns. We move in five minutes. Sergeant Richardson is going to lead us out.”

When everybody was ready, Giroux gave me the nod and I led us out of the wood line. I was confident I could lead them to the road, but I damn sure didn’t know what we were in for when we crossed the river.

A thick smoke and fog hung over us, concealing our movements. I could barely see the hills. No one talked, but you could feel the nervous energy. After being run over, the last thing we wanted to see was the enemy. We’d made it halfway to the road when I saw two men walking toward us. Their weapons were slung across their chests and they didn’t have helmets.

One of them saw us and reached into a bag hung over his shoulder and pulled out a grenade. I leveled my M-1 rifle and fired. The enemy soldier fell in a pink mist and dropped the grenade. It exploded, cutting down the second man, and shattering the silence. The explosion and flash alerted the machine guns on the hill. With deadly accuracy, the gunners started raking the formation. I tried to get the men moving, but panic set in. There was yelling and men running in every direction.

I could hear the roar of a tank engine and looked toward the battalion command post. It was two M4A3 Sherman tanks coming our way. I could see the green hulks moving toward us, a bright white star painted on their sloped armored fronts and the long barrel sticking out of the turret.

The men ran for them instantly. Where the hell did they come from? I thought as I ran toward them. I never saw them earlier as I moved through the battalion command post, and Jones, the machine gunner guarding the battalion command post, never mentioned them.

The first few men got to the tanks and climbed aboard. They saw the tanks as salvation. As Americans, we clung to our tanks for safety, a rock in the storm of machine gun rounds crashing around us. They figured the tanks could drive them to safety, but the men on top made it impossible to rotate and fire the machine guns on the turret.

The enemy machine gunners quickly zeroed in and raked the tanks with fire. I ran to the side near the track and started grabbing the men and pulling them to the ground. It took every ounce of energy I had to get the men off the tanks.

With nowhere to go, we started to dig in. The field was sandy loam that made it easy to dig trenches and foxholes. By daylight, we were dug into a perimeter 250 yards in diameter. Sergeant Elmer Miller, one of the tank commanders, moved his three tanks into the perimeter. I positioned the few machine guns we had at critical points along the trenches. We’d made it through the night, and the enemy rarely attacked during the day.

The chaplain moved on to another position, but before he left he told me we were fighting the Chinese. We’d heard rumors about Chinese soldiers coming over the border. That pretty much confirmed what I had thought for the last couple of hours. Jones had basically told me when he mentioned that their quilted uniform jackets looked so much different than the North Koreans’.

First Lieutenants Phil Peterson and Walt Mayo had also scrambled into our perimeter. Both officers were artillery forward observers but had lost their radios in the confusion. They’d gotten reports hours before the attack that the Chinese were in the area. The Chinese soldiers had crossed the Yalu to protect electrical generators along the river. That night, Peterson had seen a Chinese prisoner in his quilted jacket but had no idea the danger we were in. They’d been ordered back to the battalion and then tried to escape when the artillery unit tried to save their howitzers. But the Chinese had already cut the road. We were trapped.

For the rest of the day, we set up our defenses. We knew the Chinese would come for us that night. Stragglers from the other units in the battalion kept arriving. By nightfall, we had about 120 men, with 50 wounded and approximately 90 dead. I moved around the perimeter checking on the men and tried to identify noncommissioned officers. None of the corporals or sergeants had any rank on their fatigues. It had been that way since we first exchanged uniforms in the Pusan perimeter. It was just as hard to find officers. They’d started pinning their rank under their collar because snipers were picking off the leadership first.

Some of the stragglers were from the mortar section. As they set up the 60mm mortar tubes, I quizzed them about Roberts and Vaillancourt. We’d been separated since arriving at Unsan, and I feared the worst.

The news hit me in the chest and nearly took my breath away. I tried to stay focused, but my mind wandered to Pusan, Camp Stoneman, the train. To that damn infantry movie at Fort Devens. Walsh was dead. Now Roberts and Vaillancourt were missing. I was the last one. The only witness to the regiment being destroyed.

I kept circulating around the perimeter trying to keep guys focused. We needed so many things, but ammunition quickly became the most critical. I found out from one of the sergeants that the battalion had lined up all of the unit’s trucks the night before the Chinese attack. We needed the ammunition in the beds of those trucks. I’d learn years later that all the rifle companies had been ordered to withdraw through the battalion headquarters area. My battalion was under orders to hold as long as possible and withdraw early in the morning. That was why all the vehicles had been lined up by the road.

I found Giroux near the tanks. He was talking to the tank battalion headquarters on a radio. Giroux called me over. There were bombers on the way; he wanted to call in an air strike and needed targets.

We knew that the Chinese were attacking us from three sides—east, west and south. After a short discussion, we decided on a riverbed in the east, the hill with the machine guns in the south and another riverbed in the west. There was still some vestige of hope. One of the last radio messages from division was that help was on its way.

While Giroux called in the details for the strike, I dashed out of the perimeter toward the trucks. I knew the Chinese machine gunners were watching, but I hoped that one guy wasn’t worth wasting the ammo. Running in a half crouch, I zigzagged my way out slowly, trying to take advantage of every little burrow in the field. It felt like forever before I finally got close to the trucks.

The olive-drab trucks were lined up on the shoulder of the road. Some were open and full of supplies. Others were kitchen trucks, mobile kitchens that could be wheeled to the front and cook hot food for the troops. I concentrated on the trucks with guns and ammunition.

I climbed into the back of one two-and-a-half-ton truck and started pulling open crates of ammunition and grenades. We needed both if we were to keep the Chinese off us. I worked my way through the bed of the truck as quickly as possible, trying to stay low. The Chinese must have spotted me, because suddenly I could hear the machine guns start firing from the nearby hill. Rounds smashed into the truck as I snatched up two large cans of ammo and stuffed grenades into my pants and fatigue jacket.

Diving out of the back of the truck, I raced back toward the perimeter. I could see the rounds kicking up debris all around me. Dropping the loot in a pile, I went back again. I played this game of chicken with the machine gunners three times before I couldn’t stand any more.

At the end of my last sprint, my legs felt like jelly. My chest burned and I could barely hold the ammunition cans in my hands. I collapsed next to Giroux and Bromser in the trench. They had the grenades stacked up neatly in the foxhole we were using as a command post.

I just shook my head and leaned back in the hole. My fatigue jacket was soaked and my body felt weary, exhausted. I quickly recovered when Giroux patted me on the back. He didn’t need to say anything. The moment was broken when we heard the rumble of the engines. They echoed as the planes approached from the south, dipping into the valley and flying over our position.

The planes came around low and fast and strafed the riverbed in the east. With their wings dipping low, the planes swung around and came right over our position again as they approached the hill south of the bridge where the machine gun positions were. Their guns sounded like loud zippers as they pounded the hills with long bursts. The machine gun links from the planes were falling right on us as they unloaded on the machine gunners who’d pinned us down. Every link increased morale. Everyone was excitedly waving and cheering them on. Pulling up after hitting the hill, they slipped over the mountains and disappeared. They didn’t hit the west riverbed. Out of ammo, low on gas, who knows? As the saying goes, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Taking advantage of the attack, Bromser wanted to check out the battalion command post before the Chinese soldiers recovered. Operationally there was nothing left in the command post. The only communications we had were in Sergeant Miller’s tank. I didn’t think Bromser should go, but there was no stopping him. He wanted to check for survivors. It would be a treacherous dash fully exposed to the Chinese; however, the air strike must have shook the shit out of the Chinese. They never fired a shot.

Bromser and Giroux went into the command post while I waited outside and talked to Corporal Jones, who was still manning the machine gun. Jones was a medic from Massachusetts, and we mostly talked about home. I could tell he was nervous after manning the gun for so long. He’d kept the wounded in the command post safe and seemed grateful just to have some company. Anything to take his mind off things.

It’s funny the things you find yourself talking about. He told me how he planned to join the State Troopers when he got back. I looked into his eyes and thought, Here’s one hell of a brave guy. But I couldn’t take my mind off our bigger problems.

Inside the command post, I knew what the officers were talking about. It was a forbidden subject. What were we going to do with the wounded in the terrible final moment that everyone knew was coming? The battalion surgeon, Doc Anderson, and the chaplain were doing what they could for about forty wounded men. But we couldn’t hold out for long without a relief column. And if we had to run, the wounded officers were going to have to decide whether or not to leave themselves and the other wounded men behind to the mercies of the enemy.

Bromser and Giroux came out. They didn’t say anything about their decisions and told me to get ready to head back to the perimeter. I knew this might be the last time I’d see Jones. He smiled as I stood up and waved. I didn’t want to leave.

“Lieutenant, how about I come back with some men and help defend this position,” I said. “Jones is beat, and if he doesn’t get some help they will never be able to hold the position.”

Bromser looked at Giroux. They knew the situation. They knew we were surrounded and trapped. You could see them doing the battlefield calculus in their heads. Could they spare anyone at their own position? Finally Giroux turned to me.

We moved back to the perimeter, racing through the open area but still not attracting the gunners. When we got back, I went to the west side to check on our defenses.

Remnants of 3rd Battalion, perimeter defense. November 2-4, 1950. Excerpts from Major General Gay, 1st CAV Div. Commander 1950-1951. National Archives

Wollack, a stocky sergeant, had taken charge. I never got his first name, we really just used last names, but I do remember he was Polish and one of twenty-six children off a farm from somewhere in the north-central part of the country. As we talked, I saw that a group of twenty men were running right at us. They were Americans and were hollering and waving at us. I prayed they were the lead element of a relief column. The others guys were cheering them on as they made the short dash to our trench. They slid inside, their chests heaving.

The stragglers pushed by us and collapsed in the center of the perimeter. Everyone’s morale sank lower than whale shit. The energy and excitement seemed to deflate from the men in the trench, and all at once their heads hung and shoulders dipped. These guys weren’t a relief column. They were just more stragglers from the Second Battalion.