15

The Road to Hell

AS THE FIRST fingers of dawn snaked their way across the frozen landscape surrounding the tiny hamlet of Koto-ri, Bruce Farr and Bobby Hallawell emerged from their makeshift foxhole. Slowly, Farr peeled back the stiff snow and frost that coated the sleeping bag like a spider web. The Marines had slept back to back, “so each of us had one eye out watching for the enemy on either side.”

That night, the temperature had plummeted to -20 degrees; just waking up had its own special meaning.The fighting overnight across the neck of the Korean peninsula claimed the lives of scores of Chinese and U.S. servicemen alike. Overnight, the war had profoundly changed. Instead of being on the offensive, both X Corps and the Eighth Army found themselves in the battle of their lives, their very survival at stake.

Moments after they awoke, George’s machine gunners heard familiar voices bark the orders: “Get your asses up!”

Zullo directed his noncommissioned officers to round up the men and square them into platoons. After the men were briefed on the planned assault to capture several hills outside Koto-ri, they guzzled down cups of scalding hot coffee. Even the piping hot Joe wasn’t immune from the effects of the elements. It would freeze in a matter of seconds. “At 20 below zero . . . vapor was coming out of your mouth. Ice froze to our beards and moustaches. Couldn’t touch any metal, [your] fingers would freeze upon touching it,” recalled machine gunner Harbula.

By the morning of November 29, the Chosin Reservoir had become an insidious trap.Throughout the area, a massive Chinese army of twelve infantry divisions comprising over 120,000 men caught X Corps and the First Marine Division off guard and seemed poised to cut them off and destroy them. The Marines faced terrible odds, outnumbered roughly eight to one. Meanwhile, on the western side of Korea, the Eighth Army faced over 200,000 Chinese. In what became known as the “Big Bug-out,” the Eighth had entered full retreat in the face of near-certain defeat.

Initially, the Marines had been preparing their own offensive into the western portion of North Korea. They intended to link up with the Eighth Army and move forward toward the Yalu River. The First Marine Division was spread out over several strong points that stretched from Koto-ri through Hagaru-ri (which contained the First Marine Division’s headquarters) all the way to Yudam-ni in the far north.

In the north, X Corps got pounded by the Chinese.The Chinese surrounded the Fifth and Seventh Marines, and a similar fate befell Army units. Days into the Chinese offensive, Fifth Marine’s Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Murray would reflect: “Once I learned we were being hit from virtually all sides in considerable strength, and knowing we were out there all by ourselves, I figured we were finished. Frankly, I thought Yudam-ni, North Korea, was where I was going to die.”

Murray issued a simple order to his men: “All hands. Make sure every shot counts.”

The Marines made preparations for the worst. Ignoring General Almond’s orders for a headlong advance, and anticipating a possible Chinese counterattack, General Smith attempted to position his forces somewhat proportionally in the three strongpoints to avoid being overrun in any one area. A single road, or MSR, seventy-two miles long, linked these positions. Significant portions of the Chinese Army amassed along the entire length of the Marines’ salient, which jutted into the spine of North Korea. Hagaru-ri formed the keystone of the Marines’ entire defense, because it contained not only headquarters, but also priceless supply dumps and even an airfield under construction that ultimately could be used to evacuate wounded Marines and bring in reinforcements and supplies. If it fell, most of X Corps would be enveloped and destroyed by the Chinese.

According to the official Marine Corps history:

Hagaru-ri with its supply dumps, hospital facilities, and partially (constructed) C-47 airstrip, was the one base offering the First Marine Division a reasonable hope of uniting its separated elements. Hagaru-ri had to be held at all costs. Yet only a reinforced infantry battalion, less one rifle company, and a third of its (weapons) company and two batteries of artillery were available for the main burden of the defense.

Hagaru-ri had to be reinforced immediately or else it would be overrun.The outcome of the war hung in the balance.²⁷

With barely enough men to hold their position at Koto-ri, Colonel Puller put together a scratch task force to break through to Hagaru-ri.The transportation problems continued, making it doubtful that reinforcements could reach Hagaru-ri in time. The day before company-sized elements attempted to break through from Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri but were forced back by the Chinese.The transportation problems that had plagued George Company for the last month ironically left them in a position as one of First Marine Division’s last reserves. Now, they became crucial to the defense of Hagaru-ri, but they needed to get there first.

Additional leadership for the task arrived in the form of a seasoned British Commando officer, who smartly addressed elements of George Company command: “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Drysdale, and I’m here to take you to Hagaru-ri.”

A Marine who was near the George Company command post at the time recalled Drysdale introducing himself: “They [the British] were spit-and-polish and professional, clean shaven.We were dirty and combat worn.”

Lieutenant Colonel Douglas B. Drysdale commanded 41 Independent Royal Marine Commando Group,²⁸ 235 Marine commandos, many with WWII combat experience. He would head up “Task Force Drysdale,” a nine hundred-man plus task force, which included 41 Independent Royal Marine Commando, George Company, elements of a tank company, B Company, Thirty-First Infantry, and cats and dogs from various headquarters’ units. This was only the second time U.S. and British Marines would campaign together, the first being the Boxer Rebellion. Once assembled and on the road, the column of men, tanks, and trucks stretched for over a mile.

Elements of an entire division of Chinese troops held bunkered positions on the high ground all along the single-lane road that wound between the mountains from Koto-ri to Hagaru-ri. The ice-covered dirt road, which might better be described as an elevated dike, paralleled a narrow-gauge railroad that snaked through the mountains and valleys. It is estimated the task force was outnumbered at least ten to one. Despite the odds, the Brits were confident.

On the ground, the first hurdle the men faced on the eleven-mile route was a pair of hills outside of Koto-ri. Both hills were ingloriously named for their elevation, 1236 and 1182, respectively.

To soften up the Chinese defenses, three Marine Corps Corsairs dropped pods of napalm “danger close,” since the Chinese hugged the hills directly in the path of the task force.

“The napalm was awesome. Fireballs destroyed everything.As the planes returned, the heat followed us, and it touched our faces. The explosions were only about 300 yards away,” Harrell Roberts recalled. The planes also pounded the hills with rockets and machine gun fire, further softening up the Chinese position, or so many members of the task force thought.

With snow flurries gently lashing their faces, Drysdale’s commandos formed skirmish lines for the attack. The commandos surged forward. Harbula recalls Drysdale pointing and saying in his British accent, “Let’s give it a bloody go!”

“A sea of green berets bobbed up and down, as the Royal Marines assaulted the hill,” recalled Henry.

As the highly trained commandos hit the hill, one British officer stood ramrod straight near Henry, drawing fire and the consternation of the salty sergeant and his fellow Marines.

Boldly, the Brit looked at Henry. “Be calm, my boy.”

“Shit was flying all around both of us,” recalled Henry.

The commando officer then turned, looking for one of his men and politely shouted in a proper British accent, “Leslie, Leslie, where are you? Leslie, go out and strike out that gun.”

“Leslie looked about fifteen years old,” to Henry, but the commandos took out the gun, and George Company surged forward.

George Company passed through the line of commandos and charged up Hill 1182, later dubbed “Telegraph Hill” for a telegraph pole that capped its crown. The Marines trudged up the icy, snow-covered hill. Harbula recalled seeing the First Machine Gun Section firing tracer bullets and missing their mark: “We were on the ridgeline going up. There was a bunker halfway up the hill. The bullets were cracking and whizzing around us from all the machine gun fire.”

As the men slithered up the crest of the hill, Sergeant Tillman yelled, “Get your asses up!”

Suddenly, “the snow erupted” in front of the Marines as Chinese machine guns peppered First Platoon. A mortar screamed down, and shrapnel from the projectile shattered the hand guard on Roberts’s M1.

Several George Company men dropped under the withering fire. Courageously, while several of his men sought cover, Sergeant Tillman stood up and attempted to get a better fix on the enemy machine guns.

“Tillman’s down!” Someone yelled.

“I saw his steel helmet tumbling down the hill, and a bullet hole pierced the middle of his forehead. He was still moaning,” recalled Roberts.

Bruce Farr was staring directly at Tillman when he was shot: “I was looking straight at his face. There was a hole at least as big as a quarter in his forehead.”

The Marines dragged his body back down the hill toward a stretcher team making its way up the hill; “the heels from his double-buckle combat boots made two tracks in the snow.”

Halfway up the hill, a chaplain “with a cloth around his neck and the tools for the Last Rites” appeared on the scene. The men were feverishly trying to get Tillman back on a stretcher, slipping and sliding in the snow, to the aid station.

“What’s this man’s name?” asked the chaplain.

“His name’s Jimmy Bones, and he don’t need ya,” snapped Pendas.

“I’m going to give him his Last Rites,” said the Chaplain.

“No you’re not,” Pendas shot back.

“I tried to keep him away as we sent the litter to the aid station,” recalls Pendas.

Sensing the momentum was shifting to the Chinese, Zullo took charge of the situation and barked at a youthful bazooka man, “Fuckin’ gimme that!”

He grabbed the bazooka from the eighteen-year-old Marine. Another Marine loaded a rocket, and Zullo carefully aimed the 3.5-inch rocket launcher.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The rocket screamed forward, slamming into the front of the enemy strongpoint and turning it instantly into splinters and dust. The Marines cheered and yelled. “He hit it!” “He hit it!”

Smoke poured from the wreckage. Next, Zullo calmly ordered the bazooka reloaded. He fired again, destroying another enemy position. Several Chinese soldiers fled the second bunker, providing easy targets for the sharpshooting Marines. After Zullo destroyed the two strongpoints, the Chinese retreated to the reverse slope of the hill.

The official Marine Corps history succinctly records the action: “It was nip and tuck until First Sergeant Rocco A. Zullo fired his 3.5-inch rocket launcher at a range of 200 yards. Several rounds brought the Chinese out of their holes, and the Marines took possession of the hill.”

PFC Mert GoodEagle scurried down the hill, looking over his shoulder to see dozens of Chinese soldiers emerge from the reverse slope. At first, the Marines thought that they had run the Chinese off the hill when Zullo had destroyed the two bunkers. In reality, the gnomelike Chinese clad in mustard-colored uniforms emerged from the back side of the hill, hammering the Marines as they pulled back on their way to the convoy below.

“Saddle up!” Zullo bellowed.

Frantically, the Marines barreled into the backs of trucks as the convoy rolled down the MSR toward their next objective, another hill.

George Company attacked and again met a storm of mortar and machine gun fire. Stymied by the fierce resistance, Drysdale ordered George Company to break off the attack on the hill and reform near the trucks.With the Chinese in control of the high ground, every hill became a battle, costing the task force precious time and many casualties. Could the convoy make it to Hagaru-ri before it was overrun? George Company and Task Force Drysdale did not have enough men to take every Chinese strongpoint on the MSR. Time was running out. Every minute counted.