Snake Eyes
As much as the attacking Chinese had been blown apart on Saturday night, the early-morning hours of March 29—Palm Sunday, 1953—were no time for Colonel Walt and his 5th Marines to rest. In case the Communists had still not had enough, it was best to clear the Vegas summit of snipers and other stragglers and set about building fresh fortifications at the outpost. This meant more work for the men commanded by Major Lee and Captains Lorence and Connolly. By this time, Captain Ralph Walz and the remnants of Fox 2/5, filled out a bit with replacements, had rejoined the Marines on Vegas.
Of course, there was no shortage of casualties on the American side. Many of them were seen during the battle by Dr. William Beaven, who was a medical officer with the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marines. They had been carried to him and other doctors and corpsmen for at least thirty hours, and the medical workers were hard-pressed to keep up, improvising along the way.
“Stretcher cases in coma, profound shock, or brutally mutilated were placed directly in ‘high shock’ position,” Beaven later wrote, “three abreast in rows on the floor of the tent. Bayoneted M-1 rifles were rammed into the ground, providing poles from which plasma was hung.” Hour after hour more casualties arrived. And then Dr. Beaven and others learned that their position was in danger.
At around 2 Saturday morning, the battle-scarred Captain John Melvin strode into the medical tent. He tried to speak, but the roar of the “symphony of death” was so loud he could not be heard. He ripped a flap off a cardboard carton and with a crayon he wrote: “Gooks bypassing Vegas, coming around your side. Close to battalion strength. Laying down smoke screen first. Can’t bug out! Load walking wounded with grenades. Send them down far path. Pitch them into smoke screen!” He turned and left the tent to return to where the fighting was most fierce.
There were about a hundred wounded Marines in the tent. The piece of cardboard was passed around and read by each of them. A few moments passed, then all the men got up from their cots, rummaged for hand grenades, and left the tent to limp and hobble the fifty yards down the path to where the hill ended and the unmistakable garlic smell of the advancing Chinese troops began.
“But the end didn’t come,” wrote Beaven. “The artillery barrage lessened, the smoke screen drifted apart, and the garlic smell wafted away. The wounded Marines had held their ground. Some of the men, overcome by emotion, fell to their knees. These damaged yet proud men would live to fight, perhaps die, another day.”
• • •
The 11th Marines were at it again on Sunday, lobbing shells on the summit and the hillside behind it. Whatever was left of the enemy resistance after that was broken when the combined Marine force reached the summit and started down the other side. The Chinese either died where they stood or fled. More than forty-eight hours after the hill had been taken away, all of Vegas belonged to the Marines once more.
At 5 a.m., ten minutes after the rest of Vegas was taken, Major Lee and Captain Walz, weary but satisfied, were standing together in the outpost, perhaps planning on how to best defend it against the next attack, if the enemy still had the stomach for it. A 120-mm mortar shell landed between them, killing them both. Lee’s second Silver Star was awarded posthumously. As the citation stated, “By his inspiring leadership, outstanding tactical ability and exceptional courage, Major Lee was directly instrumental in the accomplishment of the vital mission. His great personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself and enhances the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”
The widow and two young children of Captain Walz, a thirty-one-year-old born in Montana, were given his posthumous Navy Cross. As much as any other Marines in the history of the Corps, these two men had given another demonstration of Semper Fidelis.
It would be left up to Major Joseph Buntin, who served as the executive officer of the 5th Regiment’s 3rd Battalion, to oversee the rebuilding of the Outpost Vegas defenses. Along with the sunrise that Palm Sunday morning came supplies—picks and shovels, barbed wire, more communications wire, planks of wood, and other matériel hauled by Korean laborers as well as replacements sent up from the Main Line of Resistance.
But the day conspired against the efforts to create new bunkers, trenches, and fighting holes. The earth of the hilltop consisted of troughs of thick mud containing shell fragments and even body parts. Even once that was navigated, the Marines and workers were plagued by clouds covering the sun and a mixture of snow and rain falling upon them. The risk was heightened because the nasty weather also frustrated forward artillery observers and pilots searching for signs of a new Chinese attack.
Still, by 11 that morning, trenches had been excavated that varied in depth from waist height to shoulder height. The sheer stubborn perseverance of the Marines had produced results. “The guys were like rabbits digging in,” observed Corporal George Demars of Fox 2/5. “The fill-ins gotten by the company during the reorganization jumped right in. We didn’t know half the people in the fire teams but everybody worked together.”
Perhaps helping that feeling of unity was that the men, between grunts, began to hum and sing the “Marines’ Hymn”: “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country’s battles, in the air, on land, and sea. First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean, we are proud to claim the title of United States Marine.”
Major Buntin could report to Colonel Walt that “the situation was well in hand.” Indeed, a Fox Company second lieutenant, Irvin Maizlish—the only one of the officers originally attached to the company not killed or wounded—stated: “Everybody knew Fox was here to stay. I’ve never seen men work so hard. We were going to hold this ground and the spirits were unusually high.”
Trigger Jack Williams also had an experience he wouldn’t forget. A Marine from Able Anti-Tank Company arrived atop Vegas and said, “Kind of hairy up here, isn’t it? This is a real adventure.” After the sergeant agreed with him, the Marine informed him that he had started out from the MLR a few hours ago with a “Chiggy Train,” slang for a group of Korean Service Corps workers. Because of those killed and wounded along the way plus those who had simply fled, of the sixty-five men he had set off leading across the muddy terrain and up the hill, only two were left. Unfazed, however, the Marine said, “I’m new at this game. Should I take the dead away?” Sergeant Williams pointed to two bodies still on the hill. Without hesitation, the Marine and the two remaining Korean workers took the bodies down the hill.
Evidently, the enemy commanders were not inclined to agree with Major Buntin’s assessment and saw the weather and the fading light as allies. Spotter planes had observed large groups of Chinese troops moving toward Vegas, and a few minutes after 6:30 p.m., having congregated at a jump-off point at the base of the battered hill, they commenced a new assault. Enemy troops climbed up the Vegas hill. There had to be thoughts among a few of the Marines atop the hill of being overrun if enough of the Chinese reached them. Fortunately, they had an even better ally than the enemy did.
Despite the reduced sighting abilities of the forward observers, the American artillery was ready. Its bombardment of the attacking enemy troops and assembly areas actually exceeded the one when the day had begun, with sixty-four hundred rounds landing. They were joined by mortar shells and small-arms fire from the outpost Marines. It was all too much for the Communists, who retreated rapidly and in disarray, ready to do anything to get away from the brutal thunderstorm of metal and lead.
“Incoming fire on Vegas was a withering rain of steel as the enemy again surrounded the hill on three sides, left, right, and forward,” wrote Lee Ballenger. “But the artillery onslaught was devastating. . . . Even the Chinese, with their vast numbers, could not sustain casualties of this magnitude and continue the attack.”
Incredibly, despite staggering losses, the Chinese stubbornly tried twice more, but it was obvious that the attackers were low-level officers and troops who had no choice but to follow the orders of desperate commanders who in turn were following the orders of Communist commissars and senior officers seeing Outpost Vegas slipping away for good.
The last attacks came at 8:45 p.m. on the 29th and shortly after midnight of the next day, Monday. Again, the enemy attacked on two sides. Again, they did not get too far before artillery fire tore them part. There had to be some realization, too, that with every hour that went by and every attack that was repulsed, the Marines bolstered the fortifications of the outpost, meaning even if Chinese troops got that far they faced a second source of destruction.
Most likely, it was that, combined with the enormous casualties and the physical and psychological depletion of the remaining troops, that finally persuaded the Communist commanders to leave Outpost Vegas—and Outpost Carson, which was no longer threatened—to the Marines.
That is, except for one peculiar incident. At 11 that Monday morning, with replacement units sent by Colonel Walt on their way from the MLR, five Chinese soldiers appeared, walking up toward the outpost. The Marines expected that they would raise their hands and surrender at any moment. But as if on a prearranged signal, they hurled grenades and opened up with burp guns. Four were killed, cut down by Marines who had to be shaking their heads over the waste of life, and the fifth was taken prisoner.
With that last act of defiance, desperation, or madness, the Battle for the Nevada Cities was over. Colonel Anthony Caputo had called the defense of the Nevada outposts a gamble. At age ninety-four, sixty years after leading his battalion into battle, he summed it up: “The Chinese were tough and relentless and they fought without regard for their lives. We faced our most critical minutes when the Chinese attacked with heavy numbers. Still, our Marines performed magnificently and we did not doubt that we would prevail.”
And as one post-battle account concluded, “The Chinese roll of the dice at Vegas had come up snake eyes.”