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THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANYAlso by the authorsHalsey's Typhoon
THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANYA True Story of U.S. Marines in CombatBOB DRURYANDTOM CLAVINAtlantic Monthly Press New YorkCopyright © 2009 by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin Maps © 2009 by Matthew Ericson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003. Published simultaneously in Canada Printed in the United States of AmericaFIRST EDITION ISBN-10: 0-87113-993-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-87113-993-1Atlantic Monthly Press an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. 841 Broadway New York, NY 10003 Distributed by Publishers Group West www.groveatlantic.com 09 10 11 12 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1To the United States Marines who fought and died on Fox HiU
CONTENTSPrologue I The Hill 7 The Attack 69 The Siege 127 "We Will Hold" 177 The Ridgerunners 229 Epilogue 297 Afterword 307 Postscript 2008 315 Acknowledgments 319 Appendix 323 Selected Bibliography 331 Index 335 "If we are marked to die, we are enough."-Henry V
PROLOGUENOVEMBER 2 TO 4, 1950Only the officers knew that the dark railway tunnel a few hundred yards up the road marked the official entrance to the Sudong Gorge. The enlisted men didn't carry maps, but they sensed it. Over the past several miles the broad rice paddies and vineyards, the neat rows of persimmon trees, and the tiny farmhouses with their empty oxcarts had disappeared and had been replaced by the stark granite hills of upper North Korea. "Injun Territory," one of the Marines said. A few others forced a grim laugh. To most of the Marines, hostile terrain had begun as soon as they'd crossed the 38th Parallel and started the long slog north. Still, that dark tunnel looked ominous.They were Fox Company, and just before they rounded the sharp bend in the road and humped into the tunnel they spotted Dog Company engaged in a firelight, maybe half a mile to the west, along the slopes of one of the broken-tooth mountains. They found this strange. By this point in the war-more than four months since Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea, and six weeks after the United States' successful counterattack at Inchon-the North Koreans could be counted on to cut and run at the first sign of Americans. But Dog Company seemed to be meeting serious opposition, and some of the Marines in Fox Company began to wonder if the regimental commander's warning hadn't been the usual shinola; perhaps the Chinese had indeed crossed the Yalu River and entered the war.In any event, that was Dog's problem, at least for the time being, and as Fox emerged from the north end of the tunnel and into the dusk, the sheer hills on either side of the company loomed high and tight.It was a good place to call a halt, and the outfit's enigmatic commander, Captain Elmer Zorn, decided to bed down the column for the night. One of the actions that had Zorn's men often glancing at him warily was calling in an air strike uncomfortably close to their own position. On another occasion he mistakenly radioed for artillery support on Fox Company's own coordinates. The sun was dipping over the stout, charcoal-colored western hills, and an eerie gray mist shrouded the forbidding taller mountains to the north. Fox was still four miles south of its objective, the tiny crossroads hamlet of Sudong, but Zorn's men had slept hardly at all for two days. The CO considered the odds: with the First Battalion out in front, and the Third Battalion following close behind, he expected no trouble. Before assigning night watches, however, Zorn did take one precaution. He ordered the leaders of his three rifle platoons to have each of their men take a good long look at four Marines from the First Battalion who had been bayoneted in their sleeping bags twenty-four hours earlier. Their cold bodies, laid in a small depression between a creek bed and the dirt road, were still wrapped in their bloody mummy bags. Sergeant Earl Peach of the Second Platoon spat. He'd seen worse, on Tarawa and Iwo. Still, he never got used to the sight.As darkness fell and the temperature dropped, Fox was strung out perhaps four hundred yards along the road, with sentries snaking up the overhanging ridgelines. All the scuttlebutt about the Red Chinese spooked the company, and scattered small arms fire and an occasional howitzer report punctuating the cold air from up ahead didn't help. At midnight a rumor started that a North Korean tank was prowling the area, and this put everyone's nerves on edge. But there were no incidents.Not long after sunrise, a few Marines spotted the column of soldiers exiting the tunnel, seventy-five yards south of their bivouac. These were definitely troopers, maybe 200 all told, marching in twos with a brisk, jaunty step-far too crisp for them to be the weary Marines of the Third Battalion's rear guard. And they were wearing unfamiliar uniforms. But Fox Company had been relieving numerous South Korean infantrymen all along the road north, and these were most likely more of the same. The Americans had taken to calling their allies ROKs, after South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.Corporal Alex "Bob" Mixon, a forward artillery observer attached to Fox from the Second Battalion's 81-mm mortar unit, was the first to see them-and the first to sense that something was not right. They were no more than forty or fifty yards away when he hollered, "Halt. Who goes there?"The answer was a fusillade of automatic weapons fire. Mixon dived behind a rock. When he emptied the clip of his carbine into the two columns, they broke to both sides of the road and assumed firing positions. Mixon was impressed by their discipline-a trait heretofore lacking among most of the Reds he'd encountered. Now Mixon could hear Captain Zorn running toward him, yelling, "Hold your fire! Friends! Friends!"But the bullets snapping over Bob Mixon's head were far from friendly, and as he shouldered his carbine and squeezed off another clip he watched Fox Company's civilian interpreter tackle the captain and pull him down into a ditch on the side of the road.By now the Chinese-as Mixon had concluded they were-had set up two heavy machine guns on either side of the tunnel entrance and were pouring fire into the company's mortar squad strung out along the creek bed. Half a dozen Marines fell instantly. Mixon was debating what to do when a helmet popped up beside him. It was Sergeant Peach, who had crawled through a culvert under the road."Gotta keep 'em off those mortar men," Peach said. He began picking off enemy soldiers with his m 1. Mixon reloaded and joined in with his carbine, aiming especially for the machine gunners. When they had both run out of ammunition they fell back to Captain Zorn's ditch. The captain was on the field phone, ordering several fire teams to take the high ground and secure the main ridgeline on the east side of the gorge. Simultaneously, a large unit of Chinese broke off from the gunfight in the valley and began scrabbling up the steep hills.A BAR man from the Second Platoon watched them: maybe a hundred or so soldiers no more than three hundred yards away, climbing a parallel peak. They were hopping along the ridgeline like jackrabbits, and he was so impressed with their agility and the sharp cut of their uniforms-hell, even their backpacks looked impossibly squared away-that he initially thought they might be some hotshot Marine outfit he didn't recognize.But when his squad reached the top of the ridge they were stopped in their tracks by the disconcerting sight of a lone Chinese officer standing atop a giant boulder and dragging casually on a cigarette. At the Americans' approach he flicked his butt in their direction, jumped from the rock, and disappeared over the reverse slope. The Marines had been too stunned by his presence to shoot him. When they reached the boulder they found field telephone wires running down the cleft in the ridgeline. A couple of men unsheathed K-bar knives to cut the wires, and someone said, "The bastard's been watching us the whole time."From the top of the hill the Marines of Fox Company could again see Dog Company, fighting for its life far to the west. Not a few men wondered what the hell was happening.Meanwhile, down in the creek bed, one of the wounded Marines cried for help. A Navy corpsman squatting next to Captain Zorn made a move to rise from the ditch, but the company's gunnery sergeant shouldered him back to the ground. Because of the Chinese machine-gun fire, any attempt at rescue seemed futile. But Sergeant Peach decided to chance it. He scooped up the corpsman's medical kit and took off. Zorn and the few Marines behind him opened up with covering fire. Peach made the creek bed. The Americans near Zorn whooped with admiration. Peach was unlashing the med kit from his shoulder when he was stitched across the face by machine-gun fire. The top of his skull seemed to lift off his head, as if pulled by invisible wires.Captain Zorn ordered a counterattack, and the remaining Chinese fled up the hill, leaving perhaps fifty of their dead strewn across the road. The rest of the day became a long, tense standoff as the Marines and Chinese regulars attempted to outflank each other on the ridgelines. Sniper fire and the occasional pop of small mortar rounds echoed off the hills. Zorn radioed Division and then ordered Fox Company to dig in for the night as he and his staff laid plans for a dawn attack.But by sunrise the Chinese had vanished, and the Marines of Fox were left to wonder if this disappearance was permanent, or if they had just taken part in the opening salvo of World War III.
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
THE SIEGEDAY TWONOVEMBER 28, 1950 6 A.M.-MIDNIGHT1At 6 a.m. the Marines strung up and down the hill unofficially declared the first night's battle for Fox Hill over. The action at the Sudong Gorge had been a vicious skirmish, but still only a skirmish. Now Fox Company had engaged in a full-scale firefight with Chinese Communists for the first time and had held their own.The snow had stopped falling and pale sunlight streamed through the smoky scene as now and again another "dead" enemy soldier would rise like a ghost and scamper back across the saddle toward the rocky knoll. Sometimes a Marine would pick him off; sometimes he would make it. Intermittent sniper fire from the ridges and folds of the West Hill and the ridges of Toktong-san continued, and two Americans were wounded by a burst of automatic fire at 6:07 a.m. But for the most part both sides were content to use the daylight hours to lick their wounds and regroup.Men hopped from their foxholes and began dragging Chinese bodies to use as sandbags. Although there were fewer enemy dead on the west slope of the hill, Bob Kirchner managed to find half a dozen corpses to pile in front of his hole, including the two men he had bayoneted and the bugler Sergeant Komorowski's grenade had beheaded.To his everlasting sorrow, he also dragged Roger Gonzales's body out of his hole and added it to the stack. He was sure the dead Marine would have understood; Kirchner certainly would have if the tables were turned.Up at the two tall rocks Captain Barber directed Bob Ezell's machine-gun crew, now down to four men, to register several white phosphorous rounds-"Willie Peter"-lofted toward the rocky knoll and the rocky ridge by the 81-mm mortars. The shells were not very effective because the small mushroom clouds, with their white, spindly spider legs, did not contrast with the snow. Meanwhile, Marines across the hill began scrounging among the enemy corpses. They were amazed to find U.S. Navy-issue field glasses and Americanmade Palmolive soap, Colgate toothpaste, and Lucky Strike cigarettes. Many of the captured packs and knapsacks also held small picks and shovels. After the firefight the Americans, who now understood the danger they faced, found it miraculously easier to dig into the frozen ground.But the most stunning discoveries were the guns and ammunition. They ran a global gamut, and the recovered weaponry flabbergasted the Americans. There were a dozen or so Thompson submachine guns, the "Chicago typewriters" that the United States had shipped to Chiang Kai-shek by the boatload during World War II and the Chinese civil war. To these were added aluminum Russian burp guns, Japanese automatic rifles, British Lee-Enfields and Stens, American Springfields, and several ancient wooden rifles of indeterminate origin. Numerous khukri blades, knives carried by generations of Ghurka infantrymen, were also turned up, and the late Corporal Ladner's light machine gun was discovered half-buried in the snow near the lip of the ravine running up the west valley. Finally, Lieutenant McCarthy ordered his men to take the weapons and ammo from any dead Marines, a particularly unpleasant task.At 8 a.m., Ezell was one of the Marines sorting through the captured weapons on the hilltop when he saw Hector Cafferata crawling in his socks out onto the saddle toward the listening post he had escaped six hours earlier. Ezell could only imagine how awful the big man's feet must have felt as he slithered into the hole and bent down to gather his gear and shoepacs. As soon as he stood he was knocked down again by a sniper bullet. Ezell dived into a trench and called out to him, but Cafferata merely let loose a torrent of curses and oaths. Shit-shit-fuck-shit. Fuckinggoddamn sniper. Motherfucking fucker.Ezell yelled again. "Hector! Is it bad?"Between curses Cafferata waved at him to keep down. "I can make it!" he hollered.Cafferata had no way of knowing that the bullet had pierced his right shoulder, ricocheted off a rib, and punctured his lung. What he did know was that he was in agony-the pain was so great that he did not even know where, or how many times, he'd been hit. His chest felt as if it had been run through by a spear, and his groin was on fire. He assumed they'd also gotten him in the balls. When he reached down with his good right hand his underwear was pooling with blood. He could not feel his testicles. That's it, he thought. No kids for me. A wave of remorse washed over him as he undid his web belt, fashioned a sling, and lurched down the hill.The Americans down near the road were also stirring from their foxholes and defensive positions. Corporal Robert Gaines was venturing down from Private First Class Holt's heavy machine-gun nest-the gun was finally unfrozen-when he heard a combination of voices and moans from the large hut adjacent to the MSR. He peeked through a bullet hole in the planking and saw at least a squad of wounded Chinese on the dirt floor. He pulled the pins on two grenades, tossed them inside, and ran back up the hill.Not long afterward Corporal Harry Burke of the bazooka section and a corpsman arrived at the same hut. Burke was hoping to retrieve the sleeping bag he'd stowed in the large cooking pot when he'd first arrived on the hill. Gaines's grenade had left two Chinese still alive, though badly torn up. The light brown color of their frozen flesh reminded Burke of wax dummies. He and the corpsman put them out of their misery with sidearms, and Burke found his bag right where he had left it. Everything else, however, was gone. Shoepacs, parkas, and packs had been carried away in the night.Burke had mixed feelings. The parkas were long and bulky, and their hoods impaired your vision and hearing; they were more suitable for standing watch aboard ship than for long mountain hikes. But they sure kept you warm. As for the shoepacs-well, don't get Harry Burke started on shoepacs. Nothing more than glorified rubber duck hunter's boots, an invitation to frostbite. But now that they were gone he felt a chill run through his entire body. He looked to his left. The three mailbags had been torn open, and the floor was littered with empty food and candy wrappers, presents from home that the Marines would never see.When Burke stepped outside he nearly tripped over a dead Chinese sergeant lying in a red puddle of ice between the two huts. He took the man's whistle from around his neck and found several pamphlets in his jacket pocket. One had a photograph of Mao Tsetung printed on the cover. He pocketed them and climbed back up to the foxhole he had found on the southeast slope. When he blew the whistle it made a sound like a platoon sergeant's on the parade ground.A bit lower down the east slope the assistant company cook John Bledsoe wondered aloud if his partner, Phil Bavaro, planned to dig to China. Their hole was less than two feet deep. "Can't dig to China," Bavaro replied. "That's right over there." He lifted his chin toward the north without pausing in his shoveling. "I guess I'd be digging to ..."As Bavaro tried to imagine what country was on the other side of the globe from North Korea, Bledsoe hopped out of the hole and walked over to the sixteen-by-eighteen tent erected by the mortarmen the afternoon before. It had been taken over by the corpsmen and turned into the med tent. The entire canvas floor, corner to corner, was covered with wounded Marines. He spotted his buddy Howard Koone, with whom he had served in China before the war. A corpsman was cutting the boot off Koone's left ankle while another jabbed a morphine syrette into his thigh.Bledsoe brewed a pot of coffee, mixed water from his canteen with orange juice powder, and gave Koone a swig of each. Koone vomited it back up on Bledsoe's boots and passed out. Bledsoe limited the remainder of his juice and joe to the corpsmen.Now feeling guilty, Bledsoe walked back to their foxhole and told Bavaro that he would take a turn with the spade. Bavaro headed down to the small hut, hoping to find his clothes (he was still wearing his skivvies under his parka). No such luck. His pack with its spare socks, thermal insoles, and spare underwear was gone. Worse, so was his dungaree jacket with the small flask of whiskey hidden in its pocket. To add insult to injury, in the corner of the hut he saw the box from a birthday cake his mother had sent him. He had carried that cake since Thanksgiving. Nothing was left but a few crumbs trailing across the dirt floor.On his trek back up the hill Bavaro passed by the med tent and was dragooned by a corpsman into assisting in a field operation. He held a Marine down as the corpsman tried to dig a bullet out of his chest. Soon Bavaro's gloves were soaked with blood and frozen stiff.Sometime after dawn, with the sun well up and the sniping well down, Barber's executive officer, Lieutenant Clark Wright, ordered the 81-mm mortar gunner Private First Class Richard Kline and the heavy machine gunner Corporal Jack Page to recon the road and take a body count. Below the cut bank, in the middle of the MSR, they came upon two Chinese soldiers sitting back to back. One was dead, the other mortally wounded. Page could tell from the dying man's white armband that he was a noncom. As Page and Kline approached him he lifted a finger to his temple and made a triggerpulling motion. Page obliged him with his sidearm. Kline found two pearl-handled 9-mm Luger pistols on his body.Page and Kline, not straying too far past the cut-bank, figured they could count about 100 enemy dead up and down and on either side of the road. Remarkably, most of the corpses seemed to be officers and NCOs. They carried large flashlights powered by five battery cells, with a canvas cover over the globe-like bulb. A red star was cut out of the canvas, and an officer's or NCO's insignia was etched into the metal casing. One man was apparently a paymaster; his pack was crammed with paper yuans and what looked like Chinese bonds.Kline looked to Page. "Sure can't accuse them of hiding behind their enlisted men," he said.On the northeast corner of the hilltop, Corporal Belmarez was the first to hear the thrum of the planes. He looked up and saw several formations of camouflaged, gull-winged Marine Corsairs heading north. As the aircraft and their payloads of rockets and napalm canisters passed overhead, all sniping from the Chinese ceased. To reduce its risk of facing better-trained American and Australian pilots, the People's Air Force of China had played no part in the war to this point. But in the short time since the Red armies had crossed the Yalu River, their soldiers had developed excellent discipline under American air attacks. Troops in foxholes learned to stifle their natural instinct to flee and instead remained hunkered down, and any caught out in the open would often freeze in their tracks and stand stock-still with arms outstretched or squat into a ball for long periods of time in an attempt to resemble a tree or a bush.But evasion techniques that may have worked in warmer months proved futile in winter. For one thing, any attempt to remain motionless for any length of time could be just as deadly as gunfire or bombs in the subzero temperatures. And though the white quilted Chinese uniforms afforded some camouflage against the snow, Marine pilots had become adept at swooping in low and following broken trails leading to enemy emplacements, even to the point of zeroing in on a single set of footprints.Watching the planes come into range, the Americans on Fox Hill anticipated a slaughter. But the cheer that rose across the hill died quickly when the planes overflew them and continued on toward Yudam-ni.2The enlisted men of Fox Company had no idea that six enemy divisions-more than 40,000 Chinese soldiers-were now encircling the bulk of the First Marine Division. Nor did they know of the dire circumstances facing Litzenberg's and Murray's men at Yudamni as another 100,000 Reds approached; nor of Charlie Company's near annihilation on Turkey Hill; nor of the Army's calamitous situation on the east side of the reservoir, where the GI forces were being cut down. Nor did Barber and his officers know that two days earlier, across the Taebacks, the panicked Eighth Army had been routed and was fleeing south following a disastrous defeat north of Pyongyang. The situation, however, was certainly becoming clear in Tokyo, where Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, commanding officer of all U.S. naval forces in the Far East, summoned the commander of his amphibious forces and directed him to begin making plans for a large-scale evacuation of Marines from North Korea.However, as soldiers have always done, the men of Fox Company somehow intuited their fate, though without speaking of it. They also knew there was not a thing they could do about it. The wind was blowing from the north, and the reverberations of distant Corsair cannons and rocket fire carried on it were audible up at the frozen Chosin.At 7:45 a.m., shortly after the Corsairs disappeared over the northern horizon, Lieutenant McCarthy edged up to the saddle to attempt a body count. He could barely move without stepping over an enemy corpse. He estimated the total as close to 350, with at least 150 dead between the site of Corporal Ladner's light machine gun emplacement and the slit trench from which Cafferata, Benson, Pourers, and Smith had fought. Most of the rest lay piled before the original site for the two forward squads of the Third Platoon, particularly where Sergeant Keirn had set up his nest. McCarthy, like Page and Kline down on the MSR, was struck by the disproportional number of officers and NCOs among the dead. He figured that was why most of the prisoners were so young: the veterans were fighting to the end.Upon his return to the company command post tent McCarthy handed Barber his own casualty report. Of the fifty-four Marines and corpsmen of the Third Rifle Platoon, sixteen were dead, nine wounded, and three missing. Fox Company in total had twentyfour dead, fifty-four wounded, and three missing. Almost a third of the company had become casualties in one night. In addition, men who were still effective were running out of ammunition. Barber turned to the huge stacks of enemy weapons and ammo the Marines had collected, cleaned, and test-fired. There was a similar stack at the bottom of the hill."See what we've got here," he told his communications officer Lieutenant Schmitt. "And start handing them out."Sometime during the night Corporal Wayne Pickett and Private First Class Troy Williford had been roused from their cave and forced by their captors to carry Private First Class Daniel Yesko up over the rocky ridge and down to a dilapidated farmhouse beneath the opposite slope of Toktong-san. As they were shoved into a cattle shed behind the house, Pickett saw several Chinese and North Korean officers assembling near the main building's front door. He guessed that he and the other Marines had been moved to a temporary enemy battalion command post.Their wristwatches had been stripped off them, but the three Americans could tell from the sun's position that it was still early morning. Before long a guard flung open the shed door and pointed with his rifle barrel toward a small grove of trees one hundred yards away. Firing squad was Pickett's first thought. Instead they were led to a slit trench latrine. The Marines were relieving themselves there when a squadron of Australian Mustangs flew in low and rocketed the farmhouse and the shed, obliterating both buildings.Their captors were furious, and Pickett was certain that this time they would be executed. But again they were merely marched, unbound and carrying Yesko, four miles to another farmhouse. There they were led into an adjoining corral where seven or eight more Americans were huddled. The prisoners were all Marines captured at Yudam-ni. One had been shot in the shoulder.The Americans did what they could to treat their wounded comrades until sometime late in the afternoon, when a North Korean ambulance arrived. Yesko and the second wounded Marine were loaded inside and driven away. Pickett would have preferred to see Chinese markings on the ambulance; the North Koreans were known to be less gentle with captives. He steeled himself to enter the rice culture as a prisoner of war, and he wondered if that would include ever seeing Dan Yesko again.3By midmorning Fox Company was again a bustling hive, gearing up with an intensity, born of combat, that would have been all but unimaginable the day before. The bright sunshine provided some needed warmth, though the Marines guessed that the temperature had risen to only ten below zero. The lubricating oil on all weapons had been turned to sludge by the cold, so every carbine, M 1, BAR, sidearm, and light and heavy machine gun was wiped of excess oil and test-fired. Every bullet of every clip of every gun was also removed, wiped down, and replaced.The machine gunners, remembering the Chinese suicide charges on their emplacements, laid out their belts and substituted standard cartridges for the red tracers on every fifth round.The forward artillery officer contacted How Company's 105-mm howitzer unit, using the dying gasps of the SCR-300's frozen radio batteries, and requested that they register their shells for distance on the East Hill, South Hill, West Hill, and rocky ridge surrounding Fox Hill. Within moments, explosions ringed the company's position. The artillery observer marked them on his topographic maps. When new batteries were air-dropped, he would contact Captain Ben Read, How's commander, to tell him where the rounds landed.Barber ordered a detail to be formed to take the company Jeep as well as the mail carrier's Jeep back to Hagaru-ri for supplies. But the vehicles' batteries were dead, and at any rate the Jeeps themselves were so badly shot up that nobody believed they would start, or run, even with fresh batteries. The same detail, led by Sergeant Kenneth Kipp, the NCO whose fire team had rescued Lee Knowles and Robert Rapp from a Jeep trailer, set off on a recon patrol east and south-the two directions from which the Chinese had not yet attacked.Kipp returned an hour later with news Barber had anticipated: Fox Hill was surrounded. Kipp had encountered enemy snipers from both directions. Fox Company was completely cut off from any other units of the First Marine Division. Thousands of Chinese were out there, perhaps tens of thousands, and Barber's company was down to two-thirds of its strength.There may have been a lull, but the Chinese let Fox Company know they were still watching. At 9:40 a.m., Private First Class Alvin Haney, out collecting abandoned weapons near the eastern edge of the hilltop, was knocked over by a sniper's bullet fired from the rocky knoll. Private First Class Billy French, the mail carrier, saw the shooting and bolted from his foxhole. He reached Haney and began dragging him back to cover.But Haney was a big man and the rescue was slow. Halfway to the tree line Haney was hit again, by a bullet that lodged in his back. French persevered and had nearly made it to safety when he, too, was shot, in the foot. Corporal Gaines and Private First Class Hutchinson, the two Marines who had arrived late and had dug in near the erosion ridge, managed to pull both Haney and French to safety.Farther northwest, near the saddle, the four Marines manning the light machine-gun unit were using the two tall rocks as an improvised fort. Crouching behind the forward rock were Bob Ezell and Private First Class Ray Valek. They had been joined by two other privates first class: Charles Parker and David Goodrich of the Second Platoon. A sniper on the rocky knoll-Ezell was certain it was the same bastard who had gotten Haney just missed Goodrich's head. The slug struck the rock an inch from his ear, and the impact of the rock fragments knocked Goodrich into the open. Valek, lunging to pull him back in, was grazed in the head just below the helmet.Gushing blood, Valek took off for the aid station, trying to keep the two rocks between him and the rocky knoll until he reached the tree line. Goodrich, meanwhile, was semiconscious and had a nasty-looking gouge in his neck from the ricochet. While Ezell treated the wound with sulfa powder and bandaged it, Parker leaned out from behind the forward rock. "I'm gonna find that son of a bitch," he said.Earlier, in Hagaru-ri, Lieutenant Peterson had tried to confine Parker to sick bay with a bad case of the flu, but Parker refused. He truly believed Fox Company was going to be home by Christmas and was terrified of being stranded in a military hospital in Japan while his buddies left. Now, as he scrutinized the rocky knoll for the sniper who'd nailed Goodrich and Valek, he suddenly grunted. Bob Ezell turned and Parker fell into his lap, a hole in his stomach. Ezell hollered for a corpsman. Two arrived, with a stretcher. The medic examining Parker told Ezell he wouldn't need it. Parker was dead.Ezell and the three medics carried Goodrich down the hill, intending to come back for Parker's body. Outside the med tents Ezell ran into a friend, Sergeant Clarence Tallbull, a Blackfoot Indian who served as the company's unofficial barber. Tallbull hated the North Koreans, and his buddies surmised that this was because he looked just like one. He was small and wiry and had Asian facial features; whenever he walked near a POW enclosure, the prisoners would rush to the wire to talk to him. That pissed Tallbull off. Now he had a thick, bloody bandage wrapped around his neck and shoulders."What happened, Chief?""Hit in the back of the neck. Take a look, willya, tell me how bad it is?"Ezell bent over Tallbull and removed the dressing. He gently skinned off a glob of frozen blood the size of a small snowball. He could see the Indian's exposed shoulder bone. A day or two earlier he would have been horrified. Hell, a couple of hours ago he had been afraid to mess with Kenny Benson's crusted eyes. Not now."Aw, that's OK," Ezell said. "You're gonna be fine."Tallbull smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.When Ezell returned to the two tall rocks, Private First Class Jerry Triggs was waiting for him. Triggs, who was only seventeen, was another ammo carrier with the First Platoon's light machine-gun unit. Several paces to the east, Corporal Alvin Dytkiewicz and Private First Class William Gleason had taken over the gun and emplaced it in the same broad notch that Corporal Ladner had previously occupied, between the Second and Third Platoons. Ezell told Triggs that on his way back up he had passed close enough to the company command post to hear Captain Barber chewing out Mr. Chung, the Korean interpreter. Barber was incensed because Mr. Chung couldn't speak Chinese."Guess all those smart guys back at Division really didn't have any idea they were crossing the Yalu," Ezell said."Home for Christmas, my ass," Triggs said.Unknown to Ezell, the interpreter had nonetheless found out, through a combination of sign language and linguistically related Korean and Chinese words, that the prisoners were from a regiment of the Fifty-ninth CCF Division, and that several of them had fought against Mao in Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army before being conscripted by the Chinese Communists.Barber had stood over the prisoners listening to the interpreter's report and noted that their uniforms reeked of garlic. To Barber they were a pathetic bunch, rocking on their haunches with their backs to the wind, shivering, frostbitten. Even the few tough, battlehardened fighters were tiny and looked beaten, and their skin seemed to have been cured by the wind, like beef jerky. He wondered what the hell was happening up at the Chosin Reservoir.The unflappable Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Lockwood was in his usual good mood when, at 9:45 a.m., his composite "cooks and bakers" company started up the MSR from Hagaru-ri. In the van were three tanks from Company D's First Tank Battalion; several hundred Marines followed on foot. Lockwood wore a 35-mm camera attached to a strap around his neck.The relief detail had reached the top of the first rise, barely a mile beyond the northern perimeter of Hagaru-ri, when Lockwood saw a burning Sherman tank lying on its side ahead. The disabled tank was in a small vale where the road dipped before again rising toward the pass through a series of steep gorges. These gateway hills were studded with a string of abandoned gold mines.Lockwood halted the column and swept the heights with binoculars. He was encircled. On hilltops in every direction he saw rows of enemy soldiers. No sooner had he moved his men off the road than they began taking rifle and mortar fire. He ordered several flanking maneuvers, but the Chinese mirrored his movements. It would be impossible to get around them.Soon, more Chinese riflemen poured out of the gold mines. A squadron of Corsairs passed overhead, but Lockwood didn't carry a radio with the frequency to contact them. He may have had tanks, but without mortars and heavy machine guns this was suicide.He lit his pipe and told his radioman to contact Litzenberg.Warren McClure gave up on the idea of retrieving his BAR from the "deep dip." There were too many snipers. He had just learned of Roger Gonzales's death from Bob Kirchner. He couldn't believe the new boot had been killed in the short time he'd been gone. Christ, he barely knew the kid, but nevertheless this death hit him hard. A foxhole buddy was, after all, a foxhole buddy. However, before he had time to think, much less grieve, his squad leader, Sergeant Reitz, again asked him to establish a forward listening post, this time by himself.McClure surveyed the entire west slope of the hill before deciding on a small, rocky outcropping farther up the grade that jutted out, nearly hanging, over the ravine that ran up the west valley. Finding some sparse scrub for cover, he shoved the vegetation into his BAR belt, crawled out onto the ledge, and settled into a prone position behind a little rock knob that reminded him of a wart on a witch's nose. He knew that an enemy sniper would find his scrub camouflage laughable and prayed that his filthy uniform blended into the granite.Marines behind him passed him a carbine and an M1. He was about 150 yards distant from the top of the West Hill, and at eye level with it. He was also 250 or so yards away from, and well below, the snipers on the rocky knoll. At 10:15 a.m. he heard the drone of the planes.McClure looked up to see eight Australian Mustangs barreling down toward the west valley. He hollered for the Second Platoon's multicolored air panels. They were passed out to his little ledge, and he laid them out in the snow about ten yards to his right, pointing them toward the rocky knoll. Sniper slugs ricocheted off the rocks around the panels as he dived back behind the witch's wart.The Royal Australian Air Force was based at the snow-covered airstrip in Yonpo, just north of Wonsan, and was famous for its officers' club, which sold beer and whiskey. Everybody said that those Aussies knew how to fight a war. For days the pilots had been peering down from their cramped cockpits while supporting the retreating Eighth Army in the west. Now they were watching the same thing happening to the U.S. Marines in the east.In a moment the planes were directly in front of McClure over the west valley, flying so low that their propellers could have chopped kindling. He was at eye level with the pilots, and he gave one a thumbs-up. One Aussie, who had a full blond mustache, returned the signal. Half a dozen Chinese stood up on the rocky knoll and actually shot down at the incoming aircraft with automatic weapons. They did no damage. The P-51 s plastered the rocky knoll with bombs, rockets, and 20-mm cannon rounds.One Mustang loosed a napalm canister from its cradle near the top of the east side of the knoll, but it failed to ignite. McClure watched the twenty-two remaining Marines of the Third Platoon near the hilltop stand in their holes and fire like madmen. He knew they were aiming for the napalm. Another Mustang pounded the hill with more cannon fire and simultaneously dropped a second napalm cylinder. The two exploded at the same time, sucking the oxygen out of the air and turning the knoll into a vaporizing orange inferno. Flaming quilted uniforms toppled from it like melting candle wax. Ezell's light machine-gun crew up at the two tall rocks felt the hot wind wash over them as they burrowed into the snow.It was over in a minute. Before heading home, for good measure, the Mustangs strafed a roadblock the Chinese had set up between the West Hill and Yudam-ni. Then the Aussies pulled up, backtracked over Fox Hill, and waggled their wings. A cheer rose to meet them. Bob Ezell felt so good about life that he broke out crackers, frozen jelly, and a roll of Charms hard candies from his C-rats and handed the snacks around. His companions took the crackers and jelly but passed up the Charms. Marines considered (and still consider) eating Charms bad luck.McClure's smile evaporated. He could still hear the fading whine of the P-51 propellers when he saw five Chinese soldiers rise from a fold in the West Hill directly across the valley. They jogged down the slope, performed a left oblique as if they were walking paradeground duty, and raced toward the ravine. McClure lifted his carbine, aimed for the head, and took two of them out. The others disappeared into the deep gash in the valley.Now four more Chinese jumped up and followed their exact trail. McClure sighted his carbine but it jammed. He lifted his M 1, sighted, and picked off another Chinese. He squeezed again but then the M1 also jammed. Goddamn rifles frozen at ten-thirty in the morning.He yelled for another weapon and a second carbine was passed out to him. By then, however, the second group of Chinese had been swallowed up by the ravine. Just as they disappeared, a lone enemy rifleman bolted out of the mouth of the ravine and began tearing back toward the West Hill. McClure fired and missed. The man ducked behind a tree at the base of the hill. McClure could see his left arm and part of his ass sticking out from behind the scrawny sapling. He knelt, lifted the carbine to his shoulder-and felt a god-awful burning sensation in his back and under his right shoulder blade. He flopped like a fish and turned faceup.McClure stared back at his own men, one of whom must have shot him in the back. Jesus! He was furious, searching the tree line for the asshole. Then he looked down and noticed a dark crimson circle about the size of a half-dollar on his fatigue jacket, just over his sternum. A through-and-through wound. He guessed the sniper had used an armor-piercing 7.62 round. He shook off his right glove and covered the puncture. With his bare palm he could feel the air rushing into and out of his chest with each breath.Sergeant Harold Bean crawled out on the ledge. As he reached McClure he, too, keeled over, shot in the side. Oblivious of the sniper, the corpsman William McLean rushed onto the outcropping. McClure had raised himself to a half-sitting position, with his back to the small rock. Sergeant Bean was moaning on the ground next to him. Words came out of McClure's mouth in a gurgle: "Take care of Bean first." He didn't recognize his own voice.The corpsman slipped a morphine syrette into McClure's jacket pocket and turned to bend over the sergeant. Then a strange thing happened.McClure found himself looking down at himself. He was hovering perhaps ten feet over the outcropping. His gaze moved from his own inert body, to McLean working on Bean, to the Chinese moving in and out of the folds of the West Hill. He turned in the air, floating, and saw Lieutenant Elmo Peterson and Lieutenant Clark Wright several yards back in the tree line, ducking behind a large flat rock. Peterson was yelling something to the corpsmanMcClure couldn't make out what. Wright, the company XO, was not saying anything. That suited McClure just fine. This was the same officer who had given his platoon a "blood and guts" speech, in the manner of General Patton, on the USS Bradley before the landing at Inchon. But now he wasn't making one move to assist the ballsy corpsman.Just as suddenly as he had floated above this scene, McClure was back in his pain-racked body. At home in the Ozarks he'd wounded many a deer, and he now realized he had to move, immediately, before his body stiffened up. He sat up and asked the corpsman for directions to the aid station. McLean turned from Sergeant Bean and pointed to the bottom of the hill. McClure noticed that he was warming a morphine syrette in his mouth.McClure struggled to his feet and lunged back into the trees. Neither Peterson nor Wright made a move to help him. He would have spat at their feet as he passed them, if he had had any spit.By 11:30 a.m., Lieutenant Colonel Lockwood's column was still pinned down near the old gold mines, barely more than a mile up the MSR from Hagaru-ri. Lockwood radioed to Colonel Alpha Bowser, the commander of the Marine contingent in the village, and requested reinforcements for his reinforcement company. Bowser directed the First Marine Division's Able Company, Third Battalion-the last of the last of the rear guard-to get ready. Before the company could go beyond the perimeter, however, the orders were canceled. Lockwood had managed to deliver a situation report to Colonel Litzenberg in Yudam-ni, and Litzenberg counterordered Lockwood's "cooks and bakers" unit to return to Hagaru-ri."We'll pick up Fox on our way south," Litzenberg had told Bowser before signing off. At least Litzenberg knew what was coming.At about the same time, eight miles east across the reservoir, General Edward Almond, commander in chief of X Corps, choppered into the perimeter held by the army's battered task force. The elements from his Fifth and Seventh regiments as well as their supporting artillery units, close to three thousand soldiers in all, had taken nearly 35 percent casualties. When it was explained to Almond that parts of at least two Chinese divisions had hit them the previous night, and that even more Reds were swarming toward the Marines at Yudam-ni, Turkey Hill, and Fox Hill, Almond was skeptical."That's impossible," he said. "There aren't two Chinese divisions in the whole of North Korea. The enemy delaying you is nothing more than remnants fleeing north. We're still attacking, and we're going all the way to the Yalu. Don't let a bunch of goddamn Chinese laundrymen stop you."Remnants fleeing north. Chinese laundrymen. Almond's battle commanders could only shake their heads at his dreadnaught pretensions.As Almond's helicopter flew him south again, however, General MacArthur, seven hundred miles away in Tokyo, had been forced to officially swallow his premature declaration of victory. His situation report to the United Nations made that clear. "Enemy reactions developed in the course of our assault operations of the past four days disclose that a major segment of the Chinese continental forces in Army, Corps, and Divisional organization of an aggregate strength of 200,000 men is now arrayed against the United Nations forces in North Korea," he wrote. "Consequently, we face an entirely new war."4Warren McClure was lost and in pain when he nearly tripped over a wounded Chinese soldier. The man was half buried in the snow, and there were bullet holes all across his bare stomach. He seemed to be an officer. Now, he groped with his left arm and hand as if searching for a weapon. McClure could see none.He half-circled the man, giving him a wide berth, and their eyes met. Something unsaid passed between them, a silent commiseration, an acknowledgment of the misfortunes of war. If he had had a weapon, McClure would have put the dying soldier out of his misery. But he didn't, and he left without looking back.McClure stumbled through the trees before eventually finding the old command post tent at the bottom of the gully. He ripped back the flap, and the first person he saw was Lieutenant Joe Brady, the CO of the mortar section. Brady was the son of Irish immigrants and still carried the whiff of peat bog about him. He was sitting on an empty crate-he could not lie down because of grenade fragments in his back-and his left hand was bandaged. With his good right hand he reached into his field jacket and produced a fifth of White Horse scotch whisky. "Here," Brady said, "you look like you need a swig."McClure took the bottle and swallowed a large portion. He teetered toward the back of the tent and found an open space on the floor. He collapsed onto his back and passed out.It was just past noon, and Gray Davis was fed up with two particularly annoying snipers on the ridgeline of the West Hill. What bothered him most, he supposed, was how good they were. He and Luke Johnson had been ducking and diving all morning. Davis had always heard that the Belgians made the best damn guns in the world, even better than the Czechs, and he was itching to find out.He loaded a full magazine into the automatic rifle he had recovered from the valley, took a deep breath, and stood up in his foxhole. He raked the ridgeline with the full clip. As he flopped back down beneath the lip of his hole, a light machine gunner farther up the west slope hollered down to offer his compliments. Davis had knocked one of the snipers off the crest.At 1 p.m., Captain Barber ordered the corpsmen who were using the old mortarmen's tents at the bottom of the hill as an aid station to relocate. He had no doubt that there would be another attack after nightfall, and the wounded would be safer farther east, up and over the main central ridgeline. This would also put them out of harm's way with regard to the snipers on the West Hill and the rocky knoll.A squad of Marines broke out the two eighteen-by-sixteen med tents that had never been erected and set them up in the trees behind the First Platoon's defensive line on the east slope. Fifteen minutes later corpsmen began carrying the most seriously wounded over the ridge on stretchers. The others limped and hobbled behind them. The tents were soon filled, and holes were dug in the snow beside them to accommodate the overflow. The more seriously wounded remained inside. The less seriously injured, swathed in sleeping bags, were rotated between the tents and the dugouts so that they would not freeze to death.As the mortarmen's tent was being taken down, Warren McClure came to. He stared up at a gunmetal gray sky. He wondered for a moment where he was. Then he felt the stabbing pain in his chest. He and one other Marine-a man who seemed to be dying, although McClure could not see his injury-were the only two of the wounded who had not been evacuated to the new med tents. McClure listened as the other man asked to be left at the bottom of the hill with a sidearm.A squad of Marines assisting the corpsmen, including the bazooka man Harry Burke, huddled to ponder this request. Then they wordlessly propped the man up against a tree facing the road. One of them handed him a forty-five-caliber pistol. The rest turned and lifted McClure. Then they put him back down, hard, at the sound of a plane.At 3 p.m., a Marine R4FD cargo plane, number 785, piloted by First Lieutenant Bobby Carter, swooped low over Fox Hill and waggled its wings. Around this time, Captain Barber decided to tell his XO, Clark Wright, that an hour earlier he'd heard from Litzenberg regarding Lieutenant Colonel Lockwood's reinforcement company. That company would not be coming. Under covering fire from their own reinforcements from the Third Battalion, First Marines, Lockwood had extracted his cooks and bakers and limped back to Hagaru-ri."We're on our own," Barber said, gazing up at the cargo plane. "Form up a recovery detail and let's see what they sent us."On his dry run, Bobby Carter flew in over the rocky knoll, down the west valley, and banked left in front of the South Hill across the road. Now he was soaring directly over Fox Hill, following its main ridgeline, throttling back to eighty-five miles per hour perhaps three hundred feet above the treetops. The cargo doors on the left side of the aircraft slid open and bundles fell from them. The parachutes barely had time to open before the pallets smashed to the ground in the east valley about seventy-five yards in front of the First Platoon's perimeter.Smith, the supply sergeant, was the first to reach them. Contrails from the plane disappeared in the southeast sky as he knelt over the parachutes, slashing at the tangled ropes. A bullet hit his right leg and he heard his tibia snap. Smith fell into a ditch.The communications officer, Lieutenant Schmitt, grabbed a stretcher. A fire team from the First Platoon laid down covering fire and three more Marines joined Schmitt as he hustled out to the wounded man. Schmitt was rolling Smith onto the litter when the same sniper hit him in virtually the same place, shattering his shinbone. The three uninjured Marines were joined by two corpsmen. Together, dodging sniper fire, they dragged Smith and Schmitt back to the tree line. When they got to the med tent, Lieutenant Brady offered Smith and Schmitt slugs of White Horse scotch whisky. They threw them back as corpsmen broke and shaved pine tree branches to form into splints.The First Platoon's commanding officer, Lieutenant John Dunne, dispatched a four-man detail to smoke out the sniper. They found him easily, and as they buried him in a barrage of automatic weapons fire, a recovery team jumped from the tree line and began hauling the supplies back to the perimeter.Boxes and bandoliers of thirty-caliber ammo, hand grenades, and 60-mm and 81-mm mortar rounds were handed out across the hill. Lieutenant McCarthy of the Third Platoon confiscated the several rolls of barbed wire to stretch across the mouth of the saddle, and ordered trip-wire grenades strung across the crest. The silk parachutes were cut into strips to be used as blankets for the wounded. Several hungry men noted that there were no C-rations in the air drop.After the ammunition had been dragged in from the valley, eight unarmed Chinese soldiers jumped from the culvert where the MSR met the dry creek bed. Bob Ezell had been wrong; the Chinese were even smaller-or more supple-than he'd guessed. They took off in the direction of the woods that encircled the bottom of the South Hill like an apron. A burst from one of the First Platoon's light machine guns halted them. They fell to their knees, raised their hands above their heads, and were frog-marched back into the perimeter.Forty minutes later the Americans were astonished to see a small helicopter approach the hill. Weeks earlier, as the Korean winter began, the Marine chopper fleet had been grounded when the oil in the gearboxes that controlled the rotors had frozen up. Since then the gearboxes had been drained and the standard lubricant had been replaced by thinner oil. Nonetheless it remained a dangerous adventure to take these little craft up into the windswept mountains. Apparently this particular chopper pilot, Captain George Farish, had been willing to take the risk.Farish's little two-seater darted in like a mosquito over the east valley. When it reached treetop level over the First Platoon's position it hovered to drop fresh batteries for the SCR-300 radio and field phones. For an instant Farish appeared to be looking for a place to land. Several wounded men, including Warren McClure and Walt Hiskett, began to think of a medevac.Their hope died when the helicopter took a sniper's bullet in its rotor transmission case and began leaking oil. Master Sergeant Charles Dana considered forcing the pilot down at gunpoint. Barber stopped him: "Do that and none will ever come back."It was an academic point-Farish's machine was mortally wounded. As he struggled to control his little chopper, he clipped several treetops with his rotor blades. Finally he gave a halfhearted salute and coaxed the damaged chopper toward the temporary airstrip at Hagaru-ri. (The Marines at Fox Hill would learn later that the chopper never made it; the transmission locked up and Farish crash-landed at the edge of the village. He walked away from the wreck unhurt.)5With sunset approaching a sense of grim urgency settled over Fox Hill. The temperature dropped to the minus twenties; the less seriously wounded drifted, unbidden, from the med tents back to their foxholes; and Marines across the hill prepared for what many suspected might be their last night alive.Corporal Hiskett was heartsick. He had seen the corpsmen carry Private First Class Parker's body down from the two tall rocks. First Johnny Farley, he thought, and now Charlie Parker-his two best friends. He realized that no one was getting off the hill this day, and he resolved that his shoulder wound would still allow him to toss grenades. He stumbled from the med tent back to the Second Platoon lines. But the corpsman McLean saw him and talked him into returning to the aid station. It was not hard to persuade him. Hiskett was barely conscious.Except for the Marines who had moved up from the road and the remnants of the badly hit Third Rifle Platoon-about twenty Marines in all who now fortified a new, smaller defensive line thirty yards below the crest of the hill-Fox Company's perimeter remained similar to the horseshoe shape it had taken the previous night. However, it now had gaps.Lieutenant Peterson, ignoring his own shoulder wound, paced up and down behind the Second Platoon lines on the west slope with a grim message: "If we should be overrun tonight, don't-I repeat, don't-leave your foxholes." He knew that How Company's howitzer men had been given orders to shell the entire hill if Fox Company was overrun. "We're going to take some Chinese with us if we go," he told his men.Individual men prepared for battle in their own ways. Up on the Third Platoon's front line, Ernest Gonzalez was hungry. While there was still light he snaked down through the trees, back to the position his fire team had originally occupied before being ordered to the hilltop. He found several of his squad's sleeping bags pierced with bullet holes. He also dug up two boxes of C-rations and popped a couple of frozen gumdrops into his mouth. Then nature called.Gonzalez walked over to a stand of trees. The blowing snow had built up against their trunks, forming a small, three-sided embankment. One joke in the company was how you could get only half an inch of peter out of three inches of clothing in order to take a leak. But defecating was an entirely different story. The trick, everyone knew, was to move your bowels before your balls turned blue and broke off.He squatted, encased in his tentlike parka, and dropped his dungarees, wool pants, long johns, and shorts. He did his business, cleaned up, and was buttoning up when a sniper's bullet snapped a pine branch over his head. Gonzalez's feet went out from under him and he plopped down on top of his deposit. He scrambled deeper into the trees, wondering how he would clean himself. But there was no need. His crap had frozen between the time he'd dropped it and the time it had taken to get his layers of pants on again. It hadn't even dented when he'd sat on it.Gonzalez removed his helmet, found a stick, and lifted the steel pot out from behind a tree-just like what he'd seen in war movies. Nothing happened. He swung the helmet to the other side of the tree. Still no sniper. Feeling safe, he skittered back toward the road. He snatched several enemy rifles and clips of ammo from the stack that had been piled up earlier and began scrounging among the dead Chinese in the shadow of the small hut. He discovered a camera with two rolls of film, and a Chinese backpack.He was about to rip open the backpack when his eyes were drawn to a strangely discolored spot in the snow. It wasn't bright red with new blood; nor was it dirt. He kicked at it and then bent down to probe with his hand. Jesus! He jumped backward, realizing that it was a corpse, burned black by napalm. The Chinese must have held this hill before being burned out by the flyboys. So that's who had dug the foxholes and trenches.Backing away, he turned and dragged his booty up the hill to share with his new foxhole buddy, Freddy Gonzales from San Pedro. What would our aunts say if they could see us now?The two Marines went to work situating their six rifles, clips of ammo, and hand grenades within easy reach around the lip of the hole. Their gun pit fortified, they tore into the C-rations, but the food was frozen solid. They might as well have tried to eat concrete. The best they could manage was to melt the top quarter-inch layer of beef hash and beans over a small fire, drag their bayonets over that top layer, and scrape the tepid shavings into their mouths.Next they rummaged through the captured backpack. It contained a small bowl of frozen rice, a pair of steel-spiked boots too small to fit either of them, a tin of special rifle oil-whale oil?-for use in subfreezing temperatures, and a foldout brochure with photographs of people they assumed were Chinese dignitaries. The only face they recognized was Mao's.At the bottom of the backpack was a crinkled photograph of its owner. He was posing in front of a pagoda in what looked like a big city with his wife and two children. They were all wearing Western clothes and smiling. Ernest and Freddy glanced from the photo to each other. Neither said a word.Up at the two tall rocks the First Platoon's resituated light machine gun emplacement was down to four men. Corporal Dytkiewicz and Private First Class Gleason, who manned the gun, knew by now what had happened to Corporal Ladner's team the last time the Chinese had attacked. They expected no subtlety from their opponents. The Chinese would charge down the saddle, straight on and straight up, until they died.The only cover for the machine-gun nest was some thin brush, and Dytkiewicz and Gleason shot envious glances at Ezell and Triggs frantically chipping out a hole behind the larger, more forward rock a few yards away. As the sky glazed purple in the west, almost to the color of a mussel shell, more "dead" enemy soldiers jumped up from snow holes and dashed across the saddle. The four Marines snapped off shots at these blurry figures while sniper bullets from the rocky knoll and the rocky ridges ticked through the branches around them."We either get 'em now or get 'em when they come later," Ezell yelled to Dytkiewicz. The corporal replied with a long burst that raked the ridgelines of Toktong-san.At 6:05 p.m., Ezell flinched at a crunching of snow behind himbut he lowered his weapon when he recognized a Marine uniform. "Here," the Marine said, handing over eight hand grenades to be divided among the four-man crew. "It's all we can spare."He had taken only a few steps back down the hill when he stopped and turned. "Listen," he said, "when you pull the pin, don't forget to pull the spoons up, too. They're probably frozen to the skin of the grenades."At 6:30, a light snow began to fall. Ezell, Triggs, Dytkiewicz, and Gleason settled into what was technically a fifty-fifty watch. Although they were all exhausted, no one really slept.Sometime around 7 p.m., Warren McClure woke from a deep sleep. He saw that he was still lying in the northeast corner of a sixteenby-eighteen tent, but something had changed. He was at such an angle that he felt he was about to slide down on top of the man below him. Then he remembered that the aid station had been moved and he was no longer on flat ground.He looked around, wondering who had carried him here. Every square foot of the canvas tent floor was covered with wounded men. Most were suffering in silence, but many were in agonized positions. It was warm in the tent, the warmest McClure had felt in a long time, and he noticed pine branches burning in a portable kerosene stove near the tent's downhill flap.Despite the heat McClure was in excruciating pain. Moving slowly, so as not to intensify what felt like the red-hot poker gouging into his chest, he began searching his pants and dungaree field jacket for his first-aid kit. In his right breast jacket pocket his fingers felt the morphine syrette that the corpsman McLean had left with him on the outcropping. He tore open the paper packaging and injected the tiny needle into his left wrist.Someone-he couldn't tell who-pulled back the tent flap and announced that, according to scuttlebutt, a company of cooks and bakers was heading up the road from Hagaru-ri to relieve them. A smile creased McClure's face. Imagine what they'll say back at battalion. A line company of Marine riflemen rescued by the kitchen staff? Suddenly the pain was deadened and McClure nodded off into dreamless oblivion.Dick Bonelli was certain this was a gag. He hadn't fired a machine gun since Pendleton and wasn't shy about letting Lieutenant McCarthy know it. The platoon commander had handed Sergeant Keirn's old light machine gun to one of the West Coast Marines, an Apache everyone called "Big Indian." Then McCarthy had tapped Bonelli as his assistant gunner. Bonelli thought that being assigned a dead man's gun was a bad enough omen. But then the lieutenant had ordered them to set up their nest out in front of the Third Platoon's forward line at the top of the hill. Like two sitting ducks.They had barely dug in when it began snowing hard. As the flakes built up on the gun barrel, the Big Indian started shaking. At first Bonelli thought it was from the cold. Then he realized something was not right, and he wondered if it had to do with the fact that the Big Indian had been the only member of Wayne Pickett's fire team to avoid capture during the first attack. He was pondering just how, in fact, this had occurred when the Apache bolted from the hole with nary a word. Not a good sign.Bonelli kept an eye out for his return as he sorted through the machine gun belts. Half of them, each holding a hundred or so bullets, had "crimped," or bent beyond repair, in their ammo boxes. He stacked these defectives toward the back of the foxhole while laying all the good belts, maybe half a dozen, within easy reach.When he finished this housekeeping there was still no sign of his gunner, so he left the hole himself and made his way back to McCarthy's bunker command post. He found McCarthy and the Big Indian huddled around a single candle. The Apache had one lit cigarette in his mouth and another burning in his hand."What the hell's happening, Lieutenant?"Bonelli was not one of Lieutenant McCarthy's favorite Marines. More than once McCarthy had to warn the wise-ass New Yorker to shape up or he'd be so deep in the brig they would have to shoot peas at him for chow. Now he just looked at Bonelli, exasperated."He can't make it," McCarthy said."Hell you mean he can't make it?"McCarthy looked at Bonelli like he was three-quarters stupid. "I mean, he can't make it.""Jesus Christ. The party's gonna start. Who's on the gun?""You got the gun," McCarthy said. "Get yourself an assistant. And when they come I'd better find you firing that gun or dead over it."Bonelli took a last, disgusted look at the Big Indian, who would not return his gaze, and backed out of the dugout, fuming. The first foxhole he stumbled across was occupied by Private First Class Homer Penn of the Third Platoon-Penn from Pennsylvania, as everybody called him. Bonelli rapped him on the helmet. "You're coming with me," he said.Penn from Pennsylvania cursed Bonelli during the entire trek up the hill. When they reached the machine-gun nest Penn eased himself into the foxhole as if there might be snakes inside.At precisely 10 p.m., a loud series of beeps and electric feedback emanated from a loudspeaker set up under the lip of the west valley's deep ravine where it joined the saddle. A Chinese voice, speaking in perfectly enunciated English, explained that the Americans were surrounded and outnumbered, and their only rational course was to surrender. The man spoke patronizingly, as if he were addressing a classroom of particularly dull children.A few Marines on the west slope caught an occasional glimpse of the Red behind the voice. He was tall and wore a full-length quilted coat with what appeared to be an officer's insignia on his shoulders and cap. They were maddening, these glimpses-too fleeting and coming from all about the shadowed ravine. It was as if the Chinese was aware of the Americans' desire to kill him and enjoyed playing this game of cat and mouse. He was too far away to reach with a grenade, and orders had been passed earlier among all Marines to save their little ammunition for a clear shot.The enemy officer repeated his demand several times, and then the loudspeaker played Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas." When that ended, another song was played. It too was in English, but with a heavy accent. The chorus seemed to be, "Marines, tonight you die." When the music ended a huge bonfire erupted at the lee side of the rocky knoll, throwing into relief scores of moving, white-clad figures.At 11 p.m., How Battery fired a white phosphorous shell from Hagaru-ri to register distance on the West Hill. The shell fell far short, and Gray Davis and Luke Johnson nearly jumped from their foxhole "all the way to Japan" when the round landed no more than ten yards in front of them. Unlike a howitzer shell, "Willie Peter" made no rustling whistle as it flew through the sky. The expanding shower of glowing, acrid-smelling, talclike orange particles filled the air around their hole. Both men were hit with chunks of the smoldering debris. Davis picked one up and studied it by the moonlight. The stuff was supposed to keep burning through anything it touched. Too damn cold to burn, he thought. Good thing.Thirty minutes later, their range corrected, How Company began an intermittent howitzer bombardment of the West Hill, the rocky knoll, and the rocky ridge. Fox Company's 81-mm mortar unit joined in, concentrating its fire on the rocky knoll and what the Marines were now calling the "sniper ridges" of Toktong-san.It was almost midnight, and the four men manning the First Platoon's light machine-gun emplacement by the two tall rocks could clearly see many Chinese moving into and out of the light of the glowing bonfire. To Bob Ezell they looked like Indians performing a slow-motion war dance.DAY THREENOVEMBER 29, 1950, 12 A.M-3 A.M.6Fox Company was hit by friendly fire at 2:15 a.m. when two artillery shells fell within the perimeter almost simultaneously. No one could tell whether they were launched from the howitzers at Hagaru-ri or the company's own 81-mm mortars.The first exploded in one of the wide gaps along the Second Platoon's lines on the west slope, knocking a corpsman, McLean, against a tree but otherwise causing no harm. The second landed nearly on top of a Third Platoon foxhole just below the hilltop, killing one Marine and wounding two others, including the squad leader-the former seminary student Corporal Ashdale. The company's forward air controller told Captain Barber that the belowzero temperature had probably compressed the gases in the shells' propelling charges. Nothing could have been done; it was just a coldweather accident.As the friendly fire demonstrated, the weather was affecting more than just Barber's men. A few days before heading up to the pass the captain and his communications officer, Lieutenant Schmitt, had noticed that as the artillery recoil mechanisms in How Company's howitzers froze, the cannoneers were forced to push the tubes back into the batteries by hand. This prompted Barber to order Schmitt to set up a temporary firing range outside the village to test the company s weapons.The M1 rifles had handled the subfreezing temperatures better than the carbines. The gases in the smaller cartridges of the carbines had compressed in the cold, and their clips had failed to feed ammunition into the chamber. Schmitt experimented with various options, including stretching the gun's operating slide spring to give more force to the forward motion of the bolt. The results were inconclusive. The BARs also proved balky as the temperature dropped lower. But both the heavy and the light machine guns testfired adequately. Of course it was a hell of a lot colder up on Toktong Pass than it had been down at Hagaru-ri, as Jim Holt had discovered during last night's fighting when the water in the barrel jacket of his heavy machine gun froze solid.Holt's gun crew had been forced to wait until sunrise, thaw the barrel, and substitute antifreeze. Corporal Jack Page did the same. The air-cooled light machine guns posed a different problem. The only way to prevent the carbon around the barrel tips from freezing up was to fire off a burst every hour or so. But cold, drowsy, lethargic men were likely to forget this task, and too often they were wary of giving away their emplacements. A couple of ingenious machine-gun crewmen hit on the idea of pissing on the barrels-if they were willing to expose themselves to enemy snipers.The mortar crews also had difficulties. Their tubes' metal baseplates had to be relocated every few hours lest they freeze solid to the ground, and the baseplates were also beginning to show straining cracks from recoiling off the rock-hard hill. As for the grenade fuses, the men could only guess whether or not one would detonate after it was tossed.The corpsmen were perhaps even more frustrated by the weather. Warming morphine syrettes in their mouths was the least of their problems. Plasma, frozen in its feeding tubes, was worthless, and their numb fingers fumbled to change dressings. Moreover, if a medic tried to cut off a man's clothing to get a closer look at his wounds, he was probably condemning the man to gangrene and a slow death by freezing. The corpsmen did, however, discover one unexpected boon-because of the low temperatures, bullet and shrapnel wounds were closing almost immediately, blood flow was congealing, and men were staying alive instead of bleeding to death before help could reach them.There was one other advantage to fighting in such cold: the growing piles of corpses did not smell.Five minutes after the friendly-fire incident, an enemy machinegun crew wielding an ancient, Japanese-made Nambu opened up from the road, just to the east of the two huts. Marines saw the green tracers fly up the small gulley and into the rear of the reformed Third Platoon lines. Here was proof that enemy reinforcements had arrived: there had been no Chinese machine guns firing the previous night. As if to drive the point home two more machine guns immediately began raking the Third Platoon's forward positions from the rocky knoll and the rocky ridgeline leading to Toktong-san.The Marines would soon learn that General Sung Shih-lun had ordered another Chinese battalion-five more companies-into the fight for Fox Hill.Down near the MSR, Jack Page swung his barrel, aimed for the source of the tracers, and fired a burst from his heavy machine gun. Page and his crew had removed the red tracers from their own gun earlier in the day. Either he knocked out the Chinese gun or its crew cut and ran. In either case, there was no more machine-gun fire from the middle of the road. But now the Marines of the Second Platoon, up and down the west slope, reported that firing by rifles and automatic weapons from the West Hill was picking up, as if the company were being probed for weak spots. A wise-ass hollered something about Santa Ana and the Alamo. Nobody laughed. The wounded Lieutenant Elmo Peterson hobbled up and down behind the line, telling his men, "Hold fire 'til they come."Up on the saddle, they were coming. The bursts from the machine guns on the knoll were followed by a rain of mortar shellsanother new development. When had they brought in mortar tubes? Following the bombardment, the usual bugles, whistles, and cries of "Marine, you die!" echoed across the hill. To Bob Ezell, peering out from behind the two tall rocks, it looked as if the snow had come to life. In the moonlight, ghostly, white-clad soldiers, perhaps two hundred of them, were streaming across the land bridge. An illumination shell lit up the saddle, and the enemy's white quilted uniforms seemed to glisten. Ezell could hear one Chinese voice above all the others: "Son of a bitch Marine, we kill! Son of a bitch Marine, you die!"Ezell watched, rapt, as O'Leary's 60-mm mortars tore up the point squads, breaking the Chinese ranks. But still they charged, even in disarray. The forward artillery observer Lieutenant Campbell called in a howitzer barrage from Hagaru-ri. As the boom of the heavy field pieces echoed off the rocky knoll and the rocky ridge, Ezell felt a sensation like an electric current pass through his body. The enemy machine guns quit. The infantry did not.Clawing over the barbed-wire fence, they hit the Americans once more between the flanks of the Second and Third Platoons. Corporal Dytkiewicz's light machine-gun emplacement was the focushe had failed to purge the tracers from his belts-and he was wounded immediately, his left shoulder torn up by submachine-gun fire. His hole mate, Private First Class Gleason, took the unconscious corporal on his back and made for the med tents. Up at the rocks Ezell and Jerry Triggs did not see Dytkiewicz and Gleason fall back, and soon they were virtually surrounded, much like Cafferata and Benson twenty-four hours earlier. They tossed their last four grenades, momentarily slowing the advance, and-their backs to one of the two tall rocks-shouldered their M Is.Ezell emptied a clip on semiautomatic, but when he reloaded his rifle seized up-it would fire only one round at a time. The return lever was frozen and would catch on the next cartridge when he squeezed the trigger. With each shot he had to push the lever manually to force the round into the firing chamber. This was nearly impossible with frozen hands and bulky gloves.Ezell and Triggs could only guess why Dytkiewicz's gun had gone silent. But the BARs and M I s of the forward firing teams of the Third Platoon, as well as Dick Bonelli's light machine gun, kept the Chinese off for a few seconds. The Chinese were so close that Ezell could hear them grunt and gag as they were hit. Lieutenant McCarthy's platoon, however, was stretched to the breaking point. It was only a matter of time.Then something strange occurred. While Ezell and Triggs ducked to reload behind the forward rock, scores of Chinese rushed past on either side, paying no attention to them. For a moment there was an odd silence, broken only by the sound of canvas sneakers cracking the snow crust. Ezell heard rustling on the other side of the rock. He clicked his bayonet onto the barrel of his empty MI. Like all Marines, he had been instructed, during basic, in the classic Biddle bayonet offensive, but this technique was the last thing on his mind-he just wanted to stick someone. He leaped and lunged just as a hand grenade exploded between him and Triggs. Ezell was thrown through the air. He did not feel himself land.For Ezell the next several moments were a kaleidoscopic chiaroscuro of moon, sky, snow, and stars, like a black-and-white movie broken only by the orange flashes flaming around him. He could not move, but he could see and hear the enemy swarm Triggs. There was much jabbering and whistle blowing and ragged blats of the bugles. There were grenade explosions, and now flares in the sky, and still the incessant blare of the damn bugles. He forced his eyes closed as a Chinese soldier, breathing hard, squatted down next to him, ripped off his gloves, and checked each wrist for a watch. A bugler-very close, Ezell thought-ceased blowing in the middle of a note. Ezell's mind drifted to the scene from Gunga Din in which Sam Jaffe is shot off the spire.The Chinese moved on, leaving Ezell and Triggs for dead. Ezell tried to get to his feet. He could not.7The forward foxholes of the Third Platoon took the brunt of the attack.From their two-man hole Ernest Gonzalez swept the hill to the left while Freddy Gonzales fired to the right. Ernest realized he did not need the waning moon to spot the advancing enemy-a nearly constant barrage of grenades and flares lit up the sky. He sighted in on a bugler standing up by the two tall rocks blowing a Chinese charge and shot him through the head.At Pendleton, Ernest had turned out to be a crack shot, and from the first his M 1 had felt like a natural extension of his body. The rifle rarely left his hands during his eleven-day passage from San Diego to Yokohama, Japan, despite the fact that he spent nearly the entire voyage in the head throwing up. Two things, he was certain, had saved him from dying on that troopship. The first was the expectation of firing this beautiful weapon in a real battle. The other was his daily readings from the Roman Catholic missal his mother had given him as a going-away gift. He could sure use the missal now, but the gun would have to do.He was sighting in again when a potato masher exploded to his right. The concussion ripped his helmet and glasses off his head. He fell to his knees. Freddy turned. "Ernie, you all right?""I can't see."Despite his wounds from the friendly fire, Corporal Ashdale manned the light machine gun in the center of the Third Platoon's line. He was overrun almost immediately and was nearly blinded by an exploding grenade. Still, he managed to wrestle with an enemy soldier who was trying to take the gun until another Chinese slammed the butt of a rifle into the back of his skull. Ashdale went out, and the two Chinese escaped with the machine gun.One of Ashdale's assistant gunners staggered down the west slope toward the Second Platoon's right flank. He stumbled into a foxhole occupied by two privates first class: Don Childs and Norman Jackson, both firing at a frantic pace. They challenged him, and when he answered with the password they pulled him down into the hole. He was dazed, he was in his stocking feet, and his M 1 had been shattered by a grenade. "Load," Childs said, and tossed him their spare rifles. Over the previous twenty-four hours they had each scrounged five Chinese Mausers.All hell was breaking loose around Dick Bonelli and Homer Penn. Bonelli was just getting the hang of firing the light machine gun, and of sighting on the enemy's tracers, when an American voice from somewhere behind him shouted, "Let's go."Penn made a move to stand. Bonelli clamped a hand on his shoulder. "Go? Go where, for Chrissake? No bus ride outta here."Penn brushed Bonelli's hand away and bolted from the foxhole. He stumbled several feet and was shot in both shoulders. He fell, bleeding, into a hole occupied by Walt Klein and Private First Class Frank Valtierra. Together they picked him up and carried him down the hill.Bonelli was still surrounded, and now alone.Down at the command post Lieutenant Campbell again radioed How Company's howitzer unit to ask them to "box" the crest of Fox Hill with incoming. There was a subsequent curtain of explosions. They fell so close to the Third Platoon's forward squads that any Marine still standing was blown off his feet by the concussive winds. They were too close for Dick Bonelli's liking. He dived for the bottom of his hole to wait out the bombardment.At 2:30 a.m., while the battle raged on the heights, several Chinese platoons slipped down from the rocky ridge and made their way around the reverse slope of Fox Hill. They skirted the saddle and flanked the Marines around the bramble thicket on the northeast crest. Corporal Belmarez, on the First Platoon's line at the top of the eastern slope, never saw them coming. He was blown out of his foxhole, six feet straight into the air, by a concussion grenade.Wounded in both legs, he crawled down the hill, leaving a bloody trail in the snow. When he couldn't go any farther he asked the Lord to save him.Twenty yards below Belmarez, Private First Class Allen Thompson, a twenty-one-year-old reservist, swung his light machine gun toward the sound of the explosion. He aimed at the white figures darting down the hill and squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed; its head space where the firing pin connected was frozen solid. Fuck. Thompson was a rifleman by training who had been assigned to the machine gun after the First Platoon reached Fox Hill. He'd joked to his assistant gunner, Private First Class Roger Davis, that his entire knowledge of machine guns consisted of bullets going in one end and coming out the other. Still, he had test-fired the damn thing just two hours ago.The Chinese came hard and fast. Thompson and Davis emptied their rifles and sidearms and dropped back to the cover of the trees. While Thompson reloaded, Davis was gutted by automatic weapons fire. The last straw. Thompson's emotions slipped their brake.All alone, and impelled by God's own anger, he charged the nearest group of enemy soldiers, screaming at the top of his lungs, firing like a madman. He took out a squad. The Chinese were stunned. At the same time, Jack Page swung his heavy machine gun up the east slope and raked the charging enemy. At Page's burst more Marines from the First Platoon joined the fight. The Chinese fled in all directions. Thompson fell to his knees in the snow, trembling and panting.The surviving Chinese who had attacked down the east slope were now scattered on the hill, within the American lines. In his foxhole near the tree line the bazooka man Harry Burke heard pine boughs cracking to his right. He whirled and shot two men with his M I. In the next hole the cooks Phil Bavaro and John Bledsoe were about to charge up the hill when Bavaro saw movement down on the road. They each emptied a clip from their M I s. Up? Down? Which way to fight? "Best to stay here," Bavaro said.It was a smart decision. Yet another platoon of Chinese had crept down from the South Hill three hundred yards across the road, had crossed the level ground, and were now forming up on the MSR. In the foxhole below Bavaro and Bledsoe, on the lower southeast corner of the hill, Corporal Robert Gaines jabbed Private First Class Rollin Hutchinson hard in the ribs with the butt of his M1: "See 'em?" Hutchinson nodded.The two had laid out spare rifles, ammo, and grenades on the parapet of their hole. They had bayonets fixed. They watched in silence as a squad broke off from the platoon on the road and loped toward the larger hut. Gaines and Hutchinson lit them up. One Chinese soldier with a Thompson submachine gun was particularly persistent. He darted from the hut to the trees and back again, spraying Gaines's and Hutchinson's position. Bullets flicked across the lip of their hole, knocking off the carefully stacked weapons. Gaines concentrated on following his muzzle flashes. From a corner of the hut the Thompson opened up again. Gaines stood and emptied a rifle clip at the flashes. The firing stopped.Below them someone was crashing through the trees. They saw a crouching figure. "Don't shoot," a voice yelled in English. "I'm a Marine.""What's the password?""Uh, uh ... I don't know. Please. I'm a Marine. I swear to God."Gaines looked at Hutchinson. They had both been brought up on World War II movies. Would the Hollywood technique come through? "Who won the World Series last month?" Gaines shouted."Yankees," the voice shot back instantly. "Four straight over the Phillies.""Get your ass up here."A platoon-size group of Chinese, perhaps forty men, were dispersed about the east slope. They crashed through the trees and penetrated deep into Fox's perimeter. Now they gathered in a small open vale just above the med tents, bunched up and milling around, chatter ing confusedly. Some of the wounded, including Warren McClure, heard the noises, the alien voices, and sat up and felt around for weapons. But there had been none to spare for the med tents, and the armed corpsmen were all out on the flanks.Suddenly the flap of McClure's tent rose and he prepared for the worst. He wished he had his BAR. In crept Sergeant Robert Scully, the squad leader of the bazooka section, pressing a finger to his lips."They're all around us, right up the draw," Scully said in a hushed voice. "I don't know what to tell you, except to keep the fuck quiet." Scully hoisted his M 1. "I'll be right outside," he said, and disappeared.McClure looked around. Someone began saying the Lord's Prayer aloud, until someone else told him to keep quiet. After this not a whisper could be heard, although some men anxiously continued to mouth the words to prayers. Lieutenant Schmitt passed a whispered message: "If they stick their heads in here, stare them in the eye and show them you're Marines." McClure, still dopey from the morphine, decided that no matter what happened, he couldn't do a damned thing about it. He flopped back down to sleep.In the adjacent tent, Corporal Walt Hiskett was fingering the rosary his mother had given him before her death. Hiskett was celebrated in the outfit for his huge, jutting, steely jaw, which had taken more than a few punches. He was a tough kid from a broken home, and he couldn't remember the last time he had prayed. In Chicago he had once had an elementary school teacher who made the entire class memorize the Twenty-third Psalm. And the janitor who had worked in his mother's apartment building gave a piece of candy to every kid who attended his weekly Bible studies. Hiskett liked the candy and recalled that the janitor had always closed the classes with the Lord's Prayer. Now he found it almost funnyalmost-that the words of both the psalm and the prayer suddenly popped back into his head here in a med tent in North Korea.Something suddenly became clear to Hiskett. He made a pledge: if he got off this hill alive he would serve God, forever, in any way he could. He closed his eyes and whispered softly, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ..."Across the med tent, Hector Cafferata lay on a stretcher. Prayer was the last thing on his mind. He had never so much as taken an aspirin in his life, and the morphine coursing through his bloodstream was making him crazy. He thought he might actually go insane if he didn't get to use the Mauser machine pistol Kenny Benson had slipped past the corpsmen and given him-even if it did feel as if it weighed a hundred pounds when he tried to lift it.He attempted to crawl, but despite the painkiller even the slightest movement left him in agony. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had always been a strong kid, maybe the strongest in the outfit. Back in the States he had hated to fight because he just hated to hurt anyone. But not now.Bullets and grenade fragments zipped through the canvas tent and ricocheted off the warming stoves. A corpsman dived through the flap and began wriggling, staying low to the ground. He told everyone to keep still and-Jesus Christ, of all things-to keep low."I'll be back," the corpsman said. "I'll try to bring some weapons."Oh, you do that, Cafferata thought. Bring lots, and bring 'em fast. His animal instincts were aroused. He wanted to kill people.Privates first class Childs and Jackson, still occupying the hole on the west slope at the top of the Second Platoon's right flank, heard the enemy's chatter over their shoulders. They wheeled and saw thirty to forty Chinese soldiers behind them, between their position and the First Platoon, and pretty damn close to the med tents.Jackson made a face. What the hell they doing back there in the middle of the perimeter? Childs could only shrug. Their loader, the Marine in his socks with the broken rifle, held two spare rifles at the ready. Without a word the two rose from their hole. Childs leveled his M1, Jackson his BAR. They nodded to each other. One, two, three, and they swept the little vale.The Chinese who escaped Childs and Jackson ran east-and into a wall of bullets organized by Master Sergeant Dana, who had formed a squad of Marines from the headquarters unit just above the med tents. Dana, whose face was bleeding from grenade fragments, did not call a cease-fire until every last man was dead.8Up and down the MSR, from Yudam-ni to Koto-ri, Chinese forces were attacking on all fronts. On the west side of the Chosin elements of the Fifth and Seventh Marine regiments were fending off repeated assaults, and Murray and Litzenberg were aware that more Reds were pouring into the area. On the east side of the reservoir, what remained of the Army units had buckled and were attempting to fight their way back to Hagaru-ri.They had no idea that farther south the Fifty-eighth CCF Division was penetrating the perimeter surrounding Hagaru-ri. If the United Nations forces there were routed, no Americans trapped north of the village would find a safe haven.In Tokyo General MacArthur did not yet have specifics; nor did he have any grasp of the desperate situation facing his X Corps. When he convened his top commanders, General Almond still seemed reluctant to accept the size and intensity of the Chinese opposition. Almond told MacArthur that he expected the Marines to continue their "attack" west and north, to carry out the plan to cut the enemy lines of communication, and to continue their march on to the Yalu River. According to one participant, "The meeting broke up after midnight on a note of confident resolution."Lieutenant Bob McCarthy waited until the howitzer bombardment tailed off before heading for the crest of Fox Hill. Running west to east just below the hilltop he passed Dick Bonelli blazing away on the light machine gun and saw Freddy Gonzales and Ernest Gonzalez higher still, standing back-to-back in their foxhole and firing in opposite directions.A little farther on, he reached Corporal "Ski" Golembieski, who occupied the foxhole on the Third Platoon's ultimate right flank. If McCarthy's calculations were correct, the left flank of Lieutenant Dunne's First Platoon should be about fifty yards down the east slope. He had no idea that the Chinese had already maneuvered around the bramble thicket and poured through the gap in the American lines. McCarthy ordered Golembieski down the hill to make contact with, and bring back, whatever men Lieutenant Dunne could spare.Golembieski took off in a low crouch. After going about thirty yards he saw a group of soldiers huddled in a semicircle. In the moonlight he could make out the contours of their calf-length parkas, and he assumed they were Marines. He stood, walked a few paces, and was about to hail them when he heard one speaking Chinese. A burst of automatic weapons fire ripped through the loose folds of his field jacket. One bullet nicked off his cartridge belt, knocking him backward onto the snow. He rolled over into a prone position and fired. Several of the Chinese fell.Golembieski's clip was almost empty when his M1 jammed. He lifted the rifle over his head, turned it backward, and tried to kick the bolt into place with his shoepac. It wouldn't budge. With enemy fire throwing up teardrops of snow all around him, he crawled back toward the northeast crest with the bad news for Lieutenant McCarthy.For Dick Bonelli the spookiest aspect of night fighting was never knowing whether friend or foe was to his immediate left or right. There had been times during the first night, after Howard Koone went down, when he was certain he was the only Marine left standing on the hill; when the sun rose he had been surprised to see friendly faces in neighboring holes. Now, with the enemy again charging, he knew there were foxholes on either side of him that were supposed to be manned by Marines. But things changed fast in a firefight. Assaults started; holes were overrun; some people were killed or wounded; others, like Homer Penn, bugged out to regroup somewhere else. Worse, the contours of the hill made it difficult to communicate even with someone who was, in theory, only several yards away.Earlier in the day Captain Barber had issued standing orders to the entire company: "Treat anything outside your foxhole as enemy." In other words, you were allowed to retreat as far as the back of your hole. Easier said than done, Bonelli thought. He could see no other Americans around him. White quilted uniforms flashed from all directions as the Chinese from the saddle meshed with the survivors from the bramble thicket. Bonelli's hole was an island.He unlocked the light machine gun from its traverse bar and pointed it down the hill. He sprayed bullets as if he were watering a lawn. When it came to a "gook party," Dick Bonelli had a motto: Too much ain't never enough. And this was the party to end all parties. He scythed the lower slopes.Lieutenant Elmo Peterson was wounded again, this time in the rib cage. But again he stayed on his feet and refused to leave his command. He ordered the upper flanks of his Second Platoon to turn in their holes and fire into the same confused mass.Bullets cracked past Bonelli's head. Most, he deduced, were coming from his own lines. It was time to get out of there.He hefted the machine gun and tripod and moved down the slope, four ammunition belts crisscrossing his chest like bandoliers. He swiveled back and forth, spraying pockets of the enemy as they came into view. Four here, reloading behind a rock; two there, trying to undo a jammed rifle.Above him, the Chinese had momentarily bypassed the foxhole occupied by Ernest Gonzalez and Freddy Gonzales. They used the time to catch their breath and reload. Freddy was jamming bullets into his M 1 when Ernest tapped him on the shoulder and pointed with his chin, down the slope. They both goggled at a frenzied Sergeant York zigzagging across the battlefield hauling forty pounds of weapons and a tripod. Bonelli was wrapped in so much ammo he looked like a mummy. Crazy bastard.At 2:43 a.m., Captain Barber left his command post below the med tents and raced for the east slope. Just above the tree line he nearly tripped over the unconscious Eleazar Belmarez. The corporal's torn leggings were caked with frozen blood. Barber hollered for a corpsman. None appeared, but Private First Class William Garza heard the cry and bolted from his foxhole near the tree line. Barber left Garza with Belmarez and continued up the hill. Before he'd gone ten feet he spotted two Marines running toward him in their stocking feet, parkas flapping."Where you men going?""Getting the hell out of here."Garza, confused and frightened himself, almost expected the CO to shoot them on the spot. Instead Barber merely held up a hand. "Hold on, you're not going anywhere," he said. "There's nowhere to go. We can talk about this, but now's not the time. I'll make a deal with you. Get back to your position and in the morning if you come up with a better plan than mine, I'll listen. But now's not the time."The two men turned and trotted back up the hill. Garza was dumbstruck. Barber shrugged and took off after them.When he reached the northeast corner of the hill where the flanks of the First Platoon and Third Platoon should have met, the area was pandemonium. Marines and Chinese ran in all directions, shooting, hollering, heaving grenades, cursing, fighting with knives and rifle butts and even hand to hand. One Marine was beating an enemy soldier to death with a helmet. The air was acrid, thick with smoke and the smell of blasted granite. There were, Barber realized, no more lines.He saw Lieutenant McCarthy. They were both converging on a Marine lying on his back in the snow in the middle of the firefight, for some reason kicking his Ml with his shoepac. From out of this maelstrom Dick Bonelli abruptly appeared. He plopped down in a prone position between the two officers and set up his machine gun pointing down the east slope. The barrel glowed red-hot.Barber pointed down the slope. "Are those Marines down there?""Gooks," Lieutenant McCarthy said. "They're shooting at us."Barber nodded and Bonelli opened up, firing over the head of the soldier who was still lying on his back and kicking his rifle. They had no idea it was Stan Golembieski, still trying to un-jam his rifle. Out of the corner of his eye Bonelli saw a muzzle flash. He felt a rush of air past his ear as a bullet snapped by. It hit Lieutenant McCarthy in the thigh, ricocheted off the stock of the lieutenant's MI, and smashed into Captain Barber's pelvis.They fell on either side of Bonelli. He saw a quarter-size red oval spread across Barber's upper left thigh, near his groin. Barber plugged the hole with his handkerchief. Bonelli again sprayed the Chinese. At the same time, Golembieski kick-started his rifle. Together they knocked down the entire group. Bonelli and Golembieski scanned the east slope for more targets; none appeared. They moved the machine gun around to face the crest, but the enemy on the hilltop also seemed to have been beaten back.Bonelli felt a hand on his shoulder, swiveled, and came face-toface with the platoon sergeant, John Audas. He was kneeling over McCarthy and Barber. McCarthy croaked to Audas to take over command of the Third Platoon. Audas hollered for a corpsman, but Barber waved him off. "We'll walk," he said. Using each other as a crutch, the two officers limped off toward the med tents.On the way down the hill Barber was certain he heard a voice speaking English from somewhere in the west valley. "We're from the Eleventh Marines. Captain Barber, will you surrender?" He ignored it.Bonelli watched the two officers recede, and his thoughts drifted to Barber's recent boast that there hadn't been a bullet made that could kill him. Then he remembered, farther back, the captain's coming-aboard speech in Koto-ri, the part about being a hell of a good infantry officer. Damn right, he thought.
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
EPILOGUEThe first vehicles taking the most seriously wounded Marines from the Chosin Reservoir and Fox Hill into Hagaru-ri had already arrived hours before Fox Company's dramatic entrance into the village. A converted schoolhouse served as the UN forces' field hospital, where British Royal Marines removed injured men from vehicles and passed out hot coffee and cigarettes.Warren McClure was helped down from his Jeep and left standing alone in the street among rows of stretchers. To his left was the field hospital. To his right was a mess tent. The Marines around him seemed dazed, wandering aimlessly, staring blankly. McClure was also cold and confused, having eaten nothing but three halftins of peaches in six days. The smell of hot pancakes drew him like a magnet. He followed his nose and stumbled through the flaps of the mess tent.A cook immediately assessed his sorry condition and attempted to steer him back across the street to the hospital. But McClure argued so stubbornly that the cook finally relented. He sat McClure in a corner at a picnic table and placed a gallon tin of peaches and a tablespoon before him. "Eat all you want," the cook said. "We're only going to end up burning everything left over before the Chinese get here."Across the street Colonel Homer Litzenberg's Jeep pulled up to the field hospital. Lieutenant Colonel Lockwood approached Litzenberg to welcome him to Hagaru-ri. Litzenberg climbed stiffly from his Jeep without acknowledging Lockwood. All over the frozen ground were wounded men awaiting triage and identification. Among them was Captain Benjamin Read, How Company's commanding officer, who had paid for his refusal to move his guns back inside the safety of the Hagaru-ri perimeter with a sniper bullet through the knee.Litzenberg exploded. He sought out the head corpsman and ordered him to eliminate the red tape and move the wounded inside on the double. It was "Litzen" at his most "Blitzen."Inside the makeshift medical center, overwhelmed doctors and corpsmen rushed from station to station. Dick Bonelli opened his eyes and saw a roof over his head. He had no idea where he was. A crude mural above him depicted American planes machine-gunning Korean women and children. He looked around. Photographs and portraits of Kim, Mao, and Stalin hung from every wall. Bonelli had no way of knowing that the First Marine Division's commanding officer, General Smith, had ordered that none of the propaganda be removed from any North Korean structure. Not that Bonelli would have cared. His chest felt as if it were exploding, and he reached out to a corpsman who passed by wearing a bloody apron."Easy there, pal," the corpsman said. "You've got a shitload of broken ribs. Bullet bounced around inside you pretty good." Bonelli called out for a weapon, any weapon. The corpsman drew his fortyfive-caliber pistol and let Bonelli feel the stock. Handling the weapon put Bonelli at ease. He slipped into unconsciousness again. The next time he awoke was in Osaka, Japan, where he was being given the last rites by a priest.Not far away, beneath a bullet-pocked photograph of Joseph Stalin, corpsmen cut away Bob Ezell's dungarees and shoepacs. The grenade had left his legs looking like ground meat, but only one wound-a deep gash in his right thigh-appeared life-threatening. Luckily for Ezell, the blood had frozen and coagulated almost immediately. His feet were another story. Both were black with frostbite and covered with ugly red blisters.Another corpsman was looking warily at Eleazar Belmarez, who was in a cot next to Ezell. The medic suspected that Belmarez's shot-up legs were in worse shape than Ezell's, but Belmarez was delirious and refused to relinquish either his M I or the several live hand grenades attached to his field jacket beneath the two bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing his chest. Finally one corpsman gingerly examined Belmarez's wounds while a second hung back. After a brief consultation they concluded that he was in no danger of dying and decided to leave him for the Division docs to deal with.Walt Hiskett led Amos Fixico into the field hospital and remained at his side while a medic unwrapped the filthy bandages that had covered his head. His left eye was swollen shut and his right eye was a small slit beneath the shrapnel wounds. "Walt, I can see a little out of this one," he said. Hiskett had his own shoulder wound treated and joined Fixico near a coffee urn in the corner of the building. He poured two cups.A British commando took one look at Howard Koone, trussed up in a red parachute, and asked a buddy to lend a hand. "Here, Harry, they've got this fucking Yank all tied up like a Christmas present." After they cut Koone loose he was carried inside, his snapped ankle was reset, and someone handed him a few Tootsie Rolls. He passed them out to the men around him. He hated Tootsie Rolls. He drifted off to sleep and woke up on a cargo plane bound for Japan. His parka was gone. In its place someone had wrapped him in a clean wool blanket.Dick Gilling walked the seven miles overland from Fox Hill and stumbled into an outlying artillery command post staffed by Marines from How Company. He had never found the MSR, and when he entered the compound he looked like a snowman. A corpsman attempted to remove his boots but Gilling stopped him. "Don't. My feet are frozen solid." The medic complied and instead pumped Gilling full of penicillin before transporting him to Hagaru-ri.On it went. Lieutenant Bob McCarthy's leg wound was freshly dressed and he was wheeled to a corner of the makeshift hospital. He pulled a small leather notebook from his field jacket and began writing down his recommendations for battlefield citations. The first two names he jotted were Captain William Barber and Private Hector Cafferata. McCarthy planned to nominate both for the Congressional Medal of Honor. He smiled to himself as he wrote down Dick Bonelli's name. He'd never thought much of the wiseass New Yorker; now he planned to put him up for a Silver Star. McCarthy was airlifted to Fukuoka, Japan, the next day.Aside from a small rear guard set up outside the perimeter, the ambulatory survivors of Fox Company were the last Marines to enter Hagaru-ri. They surged into the mess tent. To Ralph Abell's great surprise, hot coffee, pancakes with syrup, and buttered noodles with beef stew awaited them. It was their first hot meal in seventeen days. Abell was speechless as Marines clapped him on the back, congratulating him for his accurate prediction about precisely what chow they could expect if they made it to the village.Outside the mess tent Gray Davis slouched in a snowbank, too tired to move. He had come down from Fox Hill the same way he went up, and this time he felt he had earned a little rest without some gunny threatening to direct a shoepac up his butt. Somewhere in the distance a radio was playing, and Davis heard Billy Eckstine's "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" for the first time. He thought it was beautiful, and it became his favorite song for the rest of his life.Around 2 a.m., the company was led from the mess hall to warming tents. Phil Bavaro found a corner near a stove, peeled off his shoepacs, shoe pads, and socks, and baked his mangled feet as close to the fire as he dared. Like most of the rest of the company, he slept for the next twelve hours. Before nodding off, however, he filed away a cooking tip. He had watched a wounded Marine in the next cot slap a slice of the doughy, Marine-issue white bread onto the side of a field stove. When it fell off, it was toast on one side. Wait'll I start serving toast next time we're in the shit.Someone helped Gray Davis out of the snowbank and into a warming tent. He collapsed onto a cot, but had trouble staying asleep-every fifteen minutes he would sit bolt upright. This happened all night. Finally the reason hit him: the tent was too warm for the kid from Florida. His body, he realized, had become too accustomed to the weather on Fox Hill. Jesus, don't that beat all?The evacuation to Japan began at daybreak. Over the next four days more than four thousand wounded Marines and Army troops, a third of them victims of frostbite, were flown out by an international airlift staged from Hagaru-ri. Bob Ezell was put on a Greek C-47 and Dick Bonelli was strapped into a tiny Piper Cub. Elmo Peterson's cargo plane ran off the runway on takeoff and crashed into a small creek. No one was seriously injured, but Peterson had to wait another twenty-four hours before being flown out. He was evacuated on the same plane as Bill Barber and Hector Cafferata.At just past 9 a.m., Warren McClure stumbled from the mess tent toward the field hospital. He recognized Eleazar Belmarez, unconscious, being carried on a stretcher into the hold of a cargo plane. McClure ached for his own turn. But in the med tent a corpsman mistook the three-inch-long, scabbed-over tear where the bullet had exited beneath McClure's shoulder blade for a "flesh wound" and directed him to return to his company. McClure flagged down a passing doctor, who put a stethoscope to his chest. Without a word the doctor motioned him toward the line of walking wounded awaiting evacuation. Around him stretchers were stacked four deep on both sides of the passageway that led to the airfield.As McClure inched closer to the door he could hear a C-47 revving its engines on the muddy landing strip. He had almost reached the exit when a Marine two places in front of him dropped a live grenade and fell on it. The Marine's body absorbed most of the explosion, but McClure was knocked backward. Accident? Suicide? McClure, dazed and numb to the point of apathy, stepped over the corpse and walked out onto the tarmac. He boarded the C-47 in a trance, found a place to lie down in the hold, and woke up in Fukuoka.By 11 a.m., Phil Bavaro had made an uncomfortable decision. Fox Company was down to about sixty effectives, and he knew they would soon be ordered to join the fight to break out of the encircled village of Hagaru-ri. He hated to leave the outfit in the lurch, but his feet were so inflamed that he told John Audas he had to see a corpsman. The doctor who examined him glanced at the shrapnel wound on his thumb and waved him away. Bavaro nearly collapsed. "It's my feet," he said.The physician cut off his shoepacs, took one look at Bavaro's misshapen and discolored feet, and tied an "EVAC" tag to a button on his parka. Bavaro waited for most of the afternoon on the long evacuation line, occasionally catching glimpses of Fox Company Marines who had been wounded weeks ago disembarking from planes. They were reinforcements.It was dusk when his turn to board finally came. He limped out onto the tarmac but was halted just as he was about to climb the clamshell into the hold of a cargo plane. "We're full," a corpsman on the loading detail told him. "Next one's tomorrow morning."Heartsick, Bavaro turned to gimp back to his tent when he heard the pilot yell from the cockpit, "Got room, send up one more." Bavaro scrambled toward the nose of the plane, the pain in his feet miraculously eased. He settled into the copilot's seat next to the gray-haired World War II veteran at the controls."Pretty rough up there?" the pilot said."Could have been worse.""Well, put on your seat belt. And don't touch anything!"The pilot gunned the engine, released the brakes, and shot down the runway. Bavaro watched a mountain at the end of the runway looming larger and larger. There's no way we clear it, he thought. He said nothing. The pilot threw the cargo plane into a steep bank. Bavaro, peering straight down, could see the muzzle flashes from Chinese snipers issuing from the trees across the heights. OK, we clear the mountain, but there's no way I don't get shot.When the cargo plane skipped over the mountaintop by a few yards, the pilot turned again to Bavaro, who was ashen. "See anybody you know down there?" he said.A detail from the Marine Graves Registration Unit collected all the dead Americans who had been transported down from Fox Hill and both sides of the Chosin Reservoir. Their dog tags were sortedone for the official files, one to be buried with the body-while bulldozers gouged several trenches in the frozen soil, six feet deep by six feet wide. The bodies were stripped and laid side by side in the holes, each man wearing only a dog tag around his neck. Their uniforms were burned.The few Marines who attended the service thought the bodies didn't even resemble the friends and comrades they had known and fought with. It was if they were burying rows of white wax figures. The bulldozers covered them with dirt, and the sites were marked on maps for future recovery.At roll call on December 5, sergeants Audas and Pitts inspected the approximately sixty Marines of Fox Company who could still fight. They announced that the Seventh Regiment's three battalions would lead the next day's breakout from Hagaru-ri to Koto-ri, and Fox had the point.To the Marines, "the pogue Army generals" MacArthur and Almond had failed to get them all killed on Fox Hill, and now they were determined to get it right. There wasn't a damn thing any of them could do about it. Audas told the men that anything left behind would be incinerated; this meant that the food storehouses were fair game. Ernest Gonzalez ran over and scrounged a large carton of powdered chocolate. He immediately mixed a small portion of it with the melted snow in his canteen.At 6 p.m., the ready, able, and effective Marines of Fox Company, still under the command of Lieutenant Abell, gathered after chow to find that the outfit had been supplemented by nearly one hundred replacements. Most were new boots flown in from Japan; others were Marine airmen from cargo planes and technicians and clerks cannibalized from regimental and battalion headquarters units.One of the replacements was Bob Duffy, an enlisted man who had been a part of the Marine crew dropping supplies on Fox Hill. He had sought out several Marines from Fox when they had reached Hagaru-ri, and he did not wait to be conscripted into the company. When an officer announced that men were needed to fill out the ranks of several units, Duffy stepped up and volunteered for Fox. He would fight with the outfit through the rest of his tour in Korea.Replacement officers, however, remained scarce. Lieutenant Dunne still led Fox's First Platoon, but the Second and Third platoons were commanded, respectively, by an artillery officer and a bewildered young reserve lieutenant who a day earlier had been the First Division's assistant historian. Everyone was told to be ready to move out at dawn.One of the replacements, Private First Class Everett Jensen, was a veteran of Fox Company who had developed frostbite after Sudong and was transferred to the motor pool at Hagaru-ri. Jensen beamed when he saw Gray Davis, his buddy from the Second Platoon."Hey, Gray," he said, motioning over his shoulder in the general direction of Fox Hill, "what the hell happened up there?"The two spoke for a while before the paucity of survivors dawned on Jensen."How's Iverson doing?""Dead.""Farley?""Dead.""Peoples?""Dead.""Parker?""Dead."With each response Jensen's voice became softer, until it was almost inaudible. Jensen tried half a dozen more names before both Marines became too choked up to speak. Jensen cried. Davis did not. After a moment they walked toward the bivouac tent in silence. Behind them the supply dumps were already beginning to burn.There would be more, much more, bloody fighting to come before Fox Company and the First Marine Division reached the safety of the sea near Hungnam on December 11. But as one Marine wrote in his journal, "That is another story."
AFTERWORDIn a postwar interview with the military historian S. L. A. "Slam" Marshall, Major General Oliver P. Smith of the Marine Corps confessed, "The country around the Chosin Reservoir was never intended for military operations. Even Genghis Khan wouldn't tackle it."Any Marine from Fox Company could have told the general this. But the outfit's travails did not end on the Toktong Pass overlooking the Chosin Reservoir. Shortly before noon on December 8, 1950, First Lieutenant John M. Dunne, the only officer to survive Fox Hill unscathed, was shot dead in an ambush on the road to Koto-ri.In the same encounter, during a strange, foggy snowstorm, the bazooka man Corporal Harry Burke and the rifleman Corporal Rollin Hutchinson were wounded by grenades, and Private First Class Kenny Benson was hit by a bullet from a Thompson submachine gun. All three were returned to Hagaru-ri and airlifted to American military bases in Japan. Hutchinson and Benson were sent home to the United States; Burke returned to duty with Fox Company in May 1951. Ten days later shrapnel from a Chinese artillery round shredded his back. He was then also shipped home, with two Purple Hearts.The day after Dunne's death, Fox was again ambushed on the road to Koto-ri. Sergeants Kenneth Kipp and Clyde Pitts were killed, and Sergeant John Audas was seriously wounded in the right leg, which eventually had to be amputated. As Pitts lay bleeding out in the snow, with two bullets in his chest, Private First Class Walt Klein held Pitts's head in his lap. "I always knew it would end like this," Pitts said in his deep Alabama drawl.Lieutenant Abell was wounded in the arm the following day. When Fox finally reached the evacuation port of Hungnam on December 11, there were no officers left standing. The platoon sergeant Richard Danford commanded the company, which now consisted of fewer than three dozen men. Private First Class Walt Klein and Ernest Gonzalez were the only members of the Third Platoon remaining. Gonzalez was hospitalized in South Korea with severe frostbite on December 18. He was flown to Japan a week later, and from there he returned to southern California.Private First Class Phil "Cookie" Bavaro spent months in hospitals in Fukuoka, Japan; Hawaii; California; and New York before being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in August 1951. One of his small toes and large portions of both heels were amputated because of frostbite. On his first day in the Fukuoka army hospital he was weighed. He had lost thirty-five pounds on Fox Hill.On his return to the United States, Bavaro learned that during the days of the breakout his parish in Newark, St. Charles Borromeo, had organized prayer vigils for his safe return. One of his family's neighbors, a Mr. Katz, had held similar religious services at his temple, and the black landlord where Bavaro garaged his car, a Baptist minister, had also organized prayer meetings for him. When Bavaro remembered the last bit of energy he had summoned to escape the pursuing Chinese on the MSR from Fox Hill, he was certain that these prayers had saved his life.Corporal Eleazar Belmarez was evacuated from Japan to the naval hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, close to his home in San Antonio. His left leg was amputated six inches below the kneecap, and he also lost a section of his right foot as a result of frostbite.Dick Bernard was returned to the United States and was hospitalized for six months. Because he had gone too long on Fox Hill without medical attention, both of his legs had to be amputated.In 1981, Fidel Gomez was invited to a party at a lake outside San Antonio to meet the family of the man who had proposed to his daughter. As he was talking to a young man at the party the subject of Korea came up, and the man mentioned that his father also fought there. Gomez asked to meet him, and the next minute he was introduced to David Goodrich. Each had thought the other died on Fox Hill.Lieutenant Elmo Peterson was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on Fox Hill. He was back fighting in Korea as a platoon commander in Fox Company six months after his evacuation from Hagaru-ri. He led a platoon that included Walt Klein. Both went home permanently in November 1951.After Private First Class Dick Bonelli was given the last rites, he remained on the critical list at the Army hospital in Osaka for three days. He endured several agonizing spinal taps before the thirtycaliber bullet was finally removed from his chest. It had narrowly missed both his spine and his heart. The surgeon who operated on him was of Chinese-American descent. When Bonelli awoke, the surgeon handed him the small, misshapen chunk of metal he had extracted."You take it out?" Bonelli said.The surgeon nodded."How do ya like that? A Chinaman put it in and a Chinaman took it out."When Bonelli returned to the United States, he found a woman who would tame him-up to a point. He and his wife, Mary, had eight children and twenty-four grandchildren.Private First Class Bob Ezell never played baseball again. In addition to his leg wounds, he had developed frostbite on his left foot while he was in the med tent on Fox Hill, and all five toes on that foot were eventually amputated. When he returned to California he graduated from college and became a baseball coach in the Los Angeles city school district. Eight years later, in the 1960 World Series, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Yankees in seven games. It was a bittersweet experience for "Zeke" Ezell-his old friend and fellow high school graduate George Witt, who had also served in the Marine Corps, pitched in three of the games.Sergeant John 0. Henry made it through the breakout unscathed and on the road to the port of Hungnam actually oversaw the evacuation of his younger brother, George, another machine gunner who had developed a severe case of frostbite at the Chosin. John was awarded the Silver Star for his actions on Fox Hill, and then a Bronze Star with a V for valor for actions, later, at Koto-ri. He remained a Marine until his retirement in 1968. The Henry Machine Gun Range at Basic School in Quantico is named in his honor.Private First Class Bob Kirchner made it off Fox Hill and out of Hagaru-ri without injury. He returned to Pittsburgh to his wife and baby daughter. He then visited Roger Gonzales's family in San Pedro, California, to ask their pardon for using Roger's body as cover. They told him they understood and forgave him.Corporal Wayne Pickett of Duluth, Minnesota, was held as a prisoner of war by the Chinese in North Korea for 999 days. He endured starvation, torture, dysentery, and the burials of many of his fellow prisoners, who died from sickness or from lack of the will to survive.Following the battle for Fox Hill and the subsequent breakout, Pickett was moved to the town of Chang Song in the far northwest of the country, to a facility that officially became known as North Korean Prison Camp Number 1. Escape from Chang Song was impossible, and the few who attempted it were soon caught and punished severely. Not until more than a year after his capture did the U.S. government notify Allan and Clara Pickett that their missing son was a prisoner of war. The Picketts quickly got word to Wayne's fiancee, Helyn Bergman.As part of the cease-fire agreement with North Korea on August 23, 1953, Pickett and the other American prisoners were driven on flatbed trucks to the city of Panmunjom. There they crossed a small bridge to where UN ambulances awaited them. Pickett-sixty pounds lighter-was back in Duluth eleven days later.Today, Wayne Pickett says he has no animus toward his Communist captors. He adds that he will never forget "the hills. Hills and mountains every direction you looked. I would imagine under different circumstances some people would even say that North Korea is really a beautiful country."Walt Hiskett had the slug removed from his shoulder at a U.S. naval hospital in Guam. After his recovery he was promoted to sergeant, and he returned to the United States in August 1951. He was discharged two months later.Hiskett kept his commitment to God. In Chicago, Hiskett passed the GED test and received his high school diploma. He earned a college degree attending night school while working at construction jobs, and then attended Chicago Lutheran Seminary. After his graduation he enlisted in the Navy; he served twenty-four years as a chaplain, retiring as the Head of Marine Chaplains in the Navy. He saw combat again in 1968 in Vietnam, with Fox Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Regiment.First Lieutenant Chew-Een Lee took command of Baker Company when Lieutenant Joe Kurcaba was killed just south of Koto-ri on December 8. Lieutenant Joe Owen suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the same engagement and was evacuated to Japan by air transport from Koto-ri. Baker Company reached Hungnam by train with twenty-seven Marines still standing. In addition to his two Purple Hearts, Lee was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at Sudong Gorge. He recovered from his wounds and remained in the Corps until his retirement, with the rank of major, on December 31, 1968.By far the most famous Ridgerunner to come out of the Chosin Reservoir campaign was Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Davis. Three days after arriving in Hagaru-ri he was named executive officer of Colonel Homer Litzenberg's Seventh Marine Regiment. Two years later, Davis was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in the relief of Fox Hill by President Harry S. Truman in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Davis went on to command the Third Marine Division in Vietnam. After his promotion to general, he became the assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.In the autumn of 2002 Davis was among the small party of Korean War veterans-four vets, with family members-allowed to visit Yudam-ni, Toktong Pass, and Hagaru-ri on a trip arranged by the U.S. Defense Department, the first of its kind since the war. A year later Davis-one of the most decorated Marines of his generationdied of a heart attack.Lieutenant Bob McCarthy remained a Marine after the Korean War, served at various posts in the Pacific, and retired in 1957 as a major. He subsequently enlisted in the U.S. Army and spent three years running an Army training facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Soon after his evacuation from Hagaru-ri, McCarthy nominated both Captain William Barber and Private Hector Cafferata for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Of that first night on Fox Hill, McCarthy recalled, "I figured Cafferata flat killed about a hundred, but I only wrote it up for thirty-six because I didn't think anybody would believe one hundred."Following his evacuation, Cafferata spent the next eighteen months undergoing surgery in hospitals in Japan, Hawaii, California, Texas, and New York. A nerve in his right arm had been severed by the sniper's bullet. To this day, he cannot eat or write with his right hand, although he relearned to pull a trigger. Hunting and fishing remain his passion. In 1952, at home in New Jersey, he was informed by telegram that he had been awarded the nation's highest military citation and was to travel to Washington, D.C., for the presentation ceremonies. Never much for pomp, he replied that he would prefer to have the award mailed to him. He was subsequently contacted by an irate Marine officer, who told him, "You will get down here so that President Truman can personally give this Medal of Honor to you'." Cafferata obeyed, and the award was presented to him on November 24, 1952. What he remembers most about the ceremony is that the undersized Truman had to stand on Cafferata's freshly shined shoes to place the ribbon and medal over his head.Captain William Barber was evacuated from Hagaru-ri to Yokosuka, Japan, on December 8, 1950. He spent three months in various hospitals while his infection was treated and the bullet lodged in his hip bone was finally removed. He returned to the United States in March 1951, and in August 1952 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Truman for his leadership in the defense of Fox Hill. "One bullet doesn't stop a man," he told reporters after the ceremony.He went on to serve in Okinawa and Bangkok, and to become, like Davis, one of the few men in any branch of the U.S. military to have held commands in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In Vietnam he served as psychological operations officer for the III Marine Amphibious Force. For his service in Vietnam he added the Legion of Merit with Combat V to his war chest of commendations, medals, and awards.He retired from the active-duty Marine Corps as a full colonel in 1970 and returned to the now renamed Morehead University to finish his studies and receive his degree-three decades after he had dropped out "to see the world." He became a civilian military analyst for the Northrop Corporation. William Barber died of bone marrow cancer in 2002 at the age of eighty-two. He was buried with full honors at Arlington Cemetery. Four years later his widow, lone, died. Her ashes were interred in her husband's grave.Throughout his life, Barber resisted attempts to compare Fox Company's six-day ordeal on Toktong Pass to an apparently obvious parallel-the Spartan general Leonidas's last stand against an overwhelming Persian invasion at the Greek pass of Thermopylae. Mythology is what never was, but always is. He was quick to point out that the effect of his company's actions at Fox Hill on world history was nowhere near the effect of Thermopylae. He also noted that during the Korean War several other surrounded, outnumbered Marine and Army units had held out against much greater odds. And don't even get me started on Bastogne," he would say with a laugh.Yet it is fair to say that no Marine unit-or any other unitfighting in Korea in 1950 held a more strategic piece of land against more crushing odds, and despite such severe isolation, as Fox Company on Fox Hill. Writing in the archives of the Marine Corps Association, the eminent military historian H. Lew Wallace put the battle for Fox Hill into perspective: "If the actions of Barber and his men did not alter the broad sweep of history, they did alter the margin between a potential rout and the controlled breakout that actually occurred, between moderate and unacceptable losses, indeed between life and death for 8,000 Marines."One hundred thirty-one Medals of Honor were earned during the fighting in Korea. Davis, Cafferata, and Barber were three of only thirty-seven men who were not awarded the medals posthumously.In 1981 the former Marine Corps commandant General Robert H. Barrow wrote in a letter to Barber, "I regard your performance as commander of Fox Company at Toktong Pass from 27 November to 2 December 1950 as the single most distinguished act of personal courage and extraordinary leadership I have witnessed or about which I have read."At Bill Barber's funeral service, one side of the church was filled with veterans of Fox Company who had traveled to California from across the United States. On the other side of the aisle, behind his family, friends and other military veterans, including several fellow recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, packed the pews. Moments before the ceremony began, Barber's only son, John Barber, stood, kissed his mother, and walked across the aisle to sit with Fox Company.
POSTSCRIPT 2008After the Korean War the veterans of Fox Hill scattered to their homes around the country. Except for several informal, regional get-togethers, most of them remained apart for forty-one years.Then, in 1991, Fox Company held its first official reunion. Fifteen years later, in November 2006-more than five decades after one of the greatest stands against an enemy in U.S. military historythe Marines of Fox 2/7 gathered in Quantico, Virginia, on the weekend celebrating the dedication of the new National Museum of the Marine Corps.Four sections of this magnificent structure are devoted to signature U.S. Marine Corps actions in twentieth-century American wars: Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Khe San, and Fox Hill. The Korean War gallery presents a tableau of Fox Hill-complete with airconditioning to simulate (to a point) the freezing cold. Captain Bill Barber's bullet-pocked parka is worn by the figure depicting himhe had put it over a wounded Marine in Hagaru-ri, and it was discovered in an attic several years ago.A few of the veterans from Fox Company grumbled about some of the details, but most seemed pleased by the attention and the sentiments. Following the ceremony, on the evening of Saturday, November 10, 2006-the 231st birthday of the Corps-some of the former Marines commandeered a meeting room at their hotel, pulled bottles from their suitcases, and proceeded to catch up on each other's lives, and to swap tales about a time when ordinary men won an extraordinary battle on the other side of the world.Later there was a dinner in a conference room at the same hotel. The keynote speaker was Major (Ret.) Chew-Een Lee, still ramrod straight in his uniform covered with medals, and still with a chip on his shoulder. Bill Barber's daughter and son, Sharon and John, attended. They were in town to bury the ashes of their mother, lone, with their father at Arlington National Cemetery.By the time Fox Company met again a year later, in Orlando, Florida, the survivors were waging a different kind of war-against age and its depredations. Dick Bonelli, now seventy-six, had coordinated this reunion. He seemed to have enough energy for the entire company, but some of the men weren't up to making the trip. Elmo Peterson, slowed by a stroke and an eye disorder-macular degeneration-stayed at his home, near one of his daughters, in Tucson, Arizona. Bob McCarthy remained in North Carolina because of leg problems. The machine gunner John Henry had planned to attend but was having heart trouble and was grieving over the recent death of his wife of fifty years. Kenny Benson, who had journeyed from New Jersey to Quantico a year earlier, did not have the strength to make this journey in his wheelchair. Fidel Gomez had also attended the museum dedication, but this year his wife was too ill for him to get away. (She died two days later.)But there was still a good turnout. Warren McClure, Edward Gonzales, Harry Burke, and Wayne Pickett attended with their wives, as did, among others, Clifford Steen, Eleazar Belmarez, Bob Duffy, Richard Danford, Bob Kirchner, Walt Klein, Richard Kline, Bob Ezell, and Bob Watson from the Ridgerunners.As the weekend came to a close, a room at the hotel in Orlando was set aside on Sunday morning for a memorial service to honor those who had fallen on Fox Hill. The service was conducted by the Reverend Walt Hiskett, who was also grieving; his wife, Marilyn, had died the previous March.A few minutes before 11 a.m., the men and their wives, along with several adult children, filed in to sit in a semicircle around a table Hiskett had set up. As Hiskett spoke to the veterans and their families about a war, in David Halberstam's phrase, "orphaned by history," he stepped from the table and moved to a podium to deliver a homily.He began by speaking about a stained-glass window in the old chapel next to Arlington Cemetery that is dedicated "in honor and memory of all deceased Marines." The scene on the window depicts Gideon and his three hundred vastly outnumbered soldiers as they prepared for battle. But Hiskett did not speak of death or glory-he spoke to the men about peace. "Gideon was tasked by God to organize an army to rout the Midionites and Amalekites in order to restore peace to the people of Israel," he said. "Not unlike the task given to the Marine Corps when the North Koreans swooped down across the 38th Parallel in June of 1950-we were tasked to restore peace."Every eye was on Hiskett as he spoke of his "brothers" on Fox Hill. "We are here today because when we were faced with overwhelming odds, we fought, and many died, not just for self-survival, but for our Corps and for one another. We commemorate the memory of our heroic dead. They were the life, the spirit, and soul of our Corps. We will not, nor can we ever, forget the lessons they taught us about honor and faithfulness."Here Hiskett paused, trying to keep his composure. He was choking on the words. He raised his right hand and continued, his voice strengthening as he declared, "We are the Marine Corps, and Semper Fidelis is our motto. Always faithful. That was the spirit that keeps our Corps alive today. That was the spirit of the Marines we honor here today. We are here today because they made the sacrifice then. They will live on forever in our hearts and minds because we are a part of them and they are a part of us."When Hiskett finished the service, the men of Fox Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Regiment, First Division, stood and closed ranks once more. Then it was time for these Marines and their families to go home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe have been humbled by the enormous generosity of the men of Fox Company and their families. When we initially sought them out and introduced ourselves and our book idea, there was some caution on their part: Who are these two guys? Can we trust them to tell the story? Can we trust them to tell it right? Over time, however, the surviving members of the Marines who fought on Fox Hill became most charitable with us-sharing their memories, private letters, journals, oral histories, and official reports-as well as allowing us into their lives. For that we thank them, most especially Warren McClure and Dick Bonelli.In McClure's case we took advantage of his years of dedication, as the secretary of the Fox 2/7 Association, in collecting, coordinating, and preserving the hundreds if not thousands of details, individual narratives, and maps of the events on Fox Hill during that week in late November and early December of 1950. Given that McClure is a writer of wonderful verse, we feel that we have met a true modern-day warrior-poet. As for Bonelli-quite simply there would have been no book without his input, participation, friendship, and coordinating abilities. He has as much considerable energy today as he had in Korea fifty-eight years ago.We are also grateful for the recollections of Eleazar Belmarez, Ken Benson, Hector Cafferata, Jack Coleman, Dick Connelly, Richard Danford, Victor M. Davis, Bob Duffy, Harry Burke, Bob Ezell, Dick Gilling, Fidel Gomez, Edward Gonzales, Arnie Hansen, John Henry, Walt Hiskett, Rollin Hutchinson, Barry Jones, Bob Kirchner, Walt Klein, Richard Kline, Chew-Een Lee, Howard Mason, Bob McCarthy, Joe Owen, Chuck Pearson, Elmo Peterson, Wayne Pickett, Harrison Pourers, David Seils, Jerry Triggs, and Bob Watson, as well as for the accounts of the battle set to paper by Phil Bavaro, Don Childs, Graydon Davis, Raymond Davis, Vic Dey, Billy French, Stan Golembieski, Ernest Gonzalez, Lemuel Goode, Lee Knowles, Howard Koone, Minard Paul Newton, Clifford Steen, and Allen Thompson.In addition to those veterans of Fox Hill, we would also like to thank Woodrow Barber, Jerry Courtier, Jean Sheets, and Sharon Waldo for their contributions.Even with the recollections and written testimonies of those who participated in the Battle for Fox Hill, we also took advantage of a wide range of research sources to add more details to the narrative. We thank the following for their courteous help: Danny Brandi of the Denver, Colorado, "Chosin Few" organization; William Dillon; Paul Hughes; the Korean War Educator (www.koreanwar-educator .org); the Korean War Project in Dallas, Texas; Lee Mead; staffers at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, Maryland; Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer, Robert Aquilina, and their colleagues at the Reference Branch at the Marine Corps History Division in Quantico, Virginia; the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation; and the National Museum of the Marine Corps, also in Quantico.We have been fortunate to have assistance and encouragement from friends and others in the preparation of the manuscript. We are most grateful to James Brady, David Hughes, Colonel (Ret.) Joseph C. Long , Major General (Ret.) J. Michael Myatt of the Marines Memorial Association, David Winter, Valerie Pillsworth, Kelly Olsen, Bob Rosen and Jennifer Unter at RLR Associates, and Alison Thompson.It has been written many times before yet it is still true: Without the expertise and support of the professionals who made The Last Stand of Fox Company a reality, we wouldn't have the privi lege of thanking them for this book. And we are very happy to thank Morgan Entrekin, Jofie Ferrari-Adler, and Nat Sobel.Finally, to our family members and loved ones-Brendan Clavin, Kathryn Clavin, Liam-Antoine DeBusschere-Drury, Denise McDonald, and Leslie Reingold-you have given us more than we deserve.
APPENDIXAccording to United States Marine Corps records, the following men were assigned to Fox Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, along with various attached Marines and United States Navy corpsmen, on the official November/December 1950 roster. Marine Corps historians attribute the seven-man discrepancy between this roster and the 246 Marines and Navy corpsmen who fought on Fox Hill to last-minute replacements and evacuations, as well as the fog of war."1. Adams, Douglas H., Private First Class2. Aguilar, Jose R., Private First Class3. Anderson, Robert, Private First Class4. Arcuri, Nickolas M., Private5. Ashdale, Thomas G., Corporal6. Audas, John D., Staff Sergeant7. Balcezak, Benjamin, Private First Class8. Barber, William E., Captain9. Batdorff, Robert L., Private First Class10. Bean, Harry H., Sergeant11. Belmarez, Eleazar R., Corporal12. Bendy, Cecil J., Private First Class13. Benson, Kenneth R., Private First Class14. Bernard, Richard J., Private First Class15. Blacklidge, Jack W., Corporal16. Blunk, Albert W., Private First Class17. Bolstad, Richard E., Private First Class18. Bonelli, Richard A., Private First Class19. Boudousquie, William, Private First Class20. Brady, Joseph J., First Lieutenant21. Bryan, John C., Private First Class22. Brydon, William H., Corporal23. Bunch, William H., Master Sergeant24. Burkard, Raymond L., Corporal25. Burke, Harry L., Corporal26. Cafferata, Hector A., Private27. Campbell, Donald, First Lieutenant28. Cavanaugh, James P., Private First Class29. Childs, Donald L., Private First Class30. Chung, Mr., Korean Interpreter31. Cilek, Gene, Private First Class32. Clark, Thomas L., Corporal33. Connelly, Richard W., Corporal34. Conrad, Richard A., Private First Class35. Cornelison, Roy J., Private First Class36. Cunningham, Alfred, Corporal37. Dana, Charles C., Master Sergeant38. Danford, Richard E., Staff Sergeant39. Danilowski, Henry J., Private First Class40. Davis, Graydon W., Private First Class41. Davis, Roger R., Private First Class42. Daugherty, James H., Private First Class43. Dunne, John M., First Lieutenant44. Dytkiewicz, Alvin T., Corporal45. Elknation, Rueben A., Private First Class46. Elrod, Judd W., Sergeant47. Erwin, Louis E., Private First Class48. Evans, Walter, USN Corpsman49. Ezell, Robert W., Private First Class50. Farley, John D., Corporal51. Fenton, Charles E., Private First Class52. Fich, Richard A., Private First Class53. Fitzgerald, Thomas, Private First Class54. Fixico, Amos, Private First Class55. French, Billy M., Private First Class56. French, James, USN Corpsman57. Friend, Harvey J., Corporal58. Fry, William L., Private First Class59. Gagner, Eugene E., Private First Class60. Gaines, Robert L., Corporal61. Gajda, Thadeus M., Private First Class62. Gamble, Clifford, Private First Class63. Garza, William F., Private First Class64. Geer, Harmony, Private First Class65. Gleason, William P., Private First Class66. Godwin, Eugene R., Private First Class67. Goldstein, Bernard, Private68. Golembieski, Stanley, Corporal69. Gomez, Fidel G., Private First Class70. Gonzales, Alfredo (Fred) D., Private First Class71. Gonzales, Roger, Private First Class72. Gonzales, Edward, Private First Class73. Gonzalez, Ernest T., Private First Class74. Goodrich, David J., Private First Class75. Gose, Roger D., Private76. Griffith, Jack B., Corporal77. Groenewald, William, Staff Sergeant78. Gruenberg, Arthur H., Staff Sergeant79. Gruenewald, Harold, Private First Class80. Haggard, Barner W., Private First Class81. Hall, David T., Private First Class82. Halstead, Raymond P., Private First Class83. Hammond, Phillip 0., Private First Class84. Hancock, Harold E., Private85. Haney, Alvin R., Private First Class86. Harvey, Edward E., Corporal87. Harvey, William L., Private First Class88. Hedinger, Larry M., Private First Class89. Heinz, Erwin C., Corporal90. Henry, John 0., Staff Sergeant91. Hess, Erwin W., Private First Class92. Hiskett, Walter A., Corporal93. Holt, James, Private First Class94. Homan, Elmer P., Sergeant95. Horn, Jack, Private First Class96. Hostetler, James S., Private First Class97. Hough, Bruce B., Private First Class98. Hutchinson, Rollin, Corporal99. Hymel, Benjamin A., Private First Class100. Iverson, James E., Corporal101. Jackson, Norman A., Private First Class102. Jacob, Ernest E., Corporal103. Jaskiewicz, Chester, Private First Class104. Johnson, Maurice W., Private First Class105. Johnson, Norman J., Corporal106. Jones, Edward, USN Corpsman107. Jones, Roy J., Corporal108. Jones, Rosco, Private First Class109. Kalinowski, Richard, Private First Class110. Kanouse, James C., Private First Class111. Kaser, George C., Private112. Keirn, Meredith F., Sergeant113. Keith, Clarence V., Private First Class114. Kipp, Kenneth R., Sergeant115. Kirchner, Robert, Private First Class116. Klein, Walter, Private117. Kline, Richard, Private First Class118. Knowles, Lee E., Private First Class119. Kohls, Robert, Staff Sergeant120. Komorowski, Joseph, Sergeant121. Koone, Howard, Corporal122. Kuca, John F., Corporal123. Ladner, Hobert P., Corporal124. Lavecchia, Joseph F., Private First Class125. Lawson, Robert E., Corporal126. Lawton, John D., Private First Class127. Leach, James C., Private First Class128. Ling, Jack D., Sergeant129. Longstaff, Robert A., First Lieutenant130. Lowry, Private First Class131. Mann, Robert R., Private First Class132. Martin, Clifford 0., Corporal133. Mathews, Kenneth J., Private First Class134. Maurath, Mervyn (Red), USN Corpsman135. McAfee, Johnson, Sergeant136. McCarthy, Robert C., First Lieutenant137. McClelland, Herbert, Private First Class138. McClure, Warren L., Private First Class139. McLean, William, USN Corpsman140. Mercadante, Louis J., Private141. Mertz, Kenneth N., Corporal142. Monagan, Homer, Private First Class143. Montville, Daniel M., Corporal144. Moore, Walter M., Private First Class145. Morrissey, James, USN Corpsman146. Myers, Raymond F., Private First Class147. Nemire, Olen D., Private First Class148. Newhoff, Elmer W., Private First Class149. North, Charles R., Corporal150. O'Leary, John, Private First Class151. Pacter, Paul F., Private First Class152. Page, Jack, Corporal153. Parker, Charles W., Private First Class154. Parker, Richard A., Private First Class155. Parks, Lloyd M., Private First Class156. Pearson, Charles M., Sergeant157. Peck, Raymond F., Corporal158. Peek, Oma L., Corporal159. Penn, Homer K., Private First Class160. Peoples, Claude, Private First Class161. Peterson, Charles H., Corporal162. Peterson, Elmo C., First Lieutenant163. Phillips, Alfred P., Technical Sergeant164. Pickett, Wayne A., Corporal165. Pietkowski, Robert, Corporal166. Pilcher, Donald R., Private First Class167. Pitts, Clyde T., Sergeant168. Pomers, Harrison, Private First Class169. Ramey, James R., Private First Class170. Reed, Billie W., Private First Class171. Reitz, George W., Sergeant172. Rittennour, Donald E., Private First Class173. Robaczynski, John, Private First Class174. Roberts, Gerald, Private First Class175. Robicheau, Staff Sergeant176. Rodien, David L., Private First Class177. Rodrigues, Nicholas, Private First Class178. Rodriguez, Manuel V., Private179. Salyer, Walter E., Private First Class180. Schmidt, Robert H., Private First Class181. Schmitt, Lawrence, First Lieutenant182. Scott, John L., Private First Class183. Scully, Robert P., Sergeant184. Seils, David, Private First Class185. Senzig, John F., Private First Class186. Shilney, Richard A., Sergeant187. Slapinskas, Daniel, Sergeant188. Smith, David, Sergeant189. Smith, Gerald J., Private First Class190. Snyder, Walter R., Private First Class191. Stanley, Glen J., Sergeant192. Steen, Clifford, USN Corpsman193. Stein, Richard J., Private First Class194. Stevens, Marvin L., Private First Class195. Stiller, Daniel J., Private First Class196. Stillwell, Charles R., Private First Class197. Stonebreaker, John G., Corporal198. Stritch, John T., Private First Class199. Strommen, Ronald D., Private First Class200. Sulem, Kenneth M., Private First Class201. Svicarovich, George, Sergeant202. Szabo, Antal J., Private First Class203. Tallbull, Clarence, Private First Class204. Temple, Johnny L., Private First Class205. Teter, Lowell D., Private First Class206. Thomas, Evan D., Private First Class207. Thompson, Allen S., Private First Class208. Thornton, Donald R., Corporal209. Thrower, Louis V., Private First Class210. Tilhof, Peter, Private First Class211. Timbes, Ralph, Private First Class212. Tranchita, Carmelo, Corporal213. Triggs, Jerry D., Private First Class214. Troxell, Paul T., Private First Class215. Trujillo, Adam, Private First Class216. Turnipseed, Roy B., Private First Class217. Umpleby, James P., Private First Class218. Urrutia, Joe C., Private First Class219. Valek, Raymond L., Private First Class220. Valtierra, Frank, Private First Class221. Vanderveer, John S., Private First Class222. Vaydice, John S., Private First Class223. Vey, Arnold R., Private First Class224. Waddell, Joseph L., Corporal225. Waldoch, Daniel C., Private First Class226. Watson, Wayne E., Staff Sergeant227. Welsh, Robert T., Private First Class228. Westin, John L., Corporal229. Whitaker, Billy J., Private First Class230. Whittaker, USN Corpsman231. Wiedau, James L., Private First Class232. Willard, James P., Private First Class233. Williams, James E., Sergeant234. Williford, Troy A., Private First Class235. Wilson, Lee D., Private First Class236. Wright, Clark B., First Lieutenant237. Yeager, Kenneth E., Corporal238. Yesko, Daniel D., Private First Class239. Zacher, Kenneth L., Private First Class
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHYAll historical records are complicated, none more so than accounts of any war's individual battles and firefights. In addition to relying on official United States and Marine Corps historical records, contemporary media accounts, and the works referenced in this selected bibliography, we have reconstructed the events of the Battle of Fox Hill-particularly the quoted conversations among participantsfrom journals and personal letters written by Marines soon after the "Last Stand" took place and from reminiscences of the remaining members of Fox Company and the Ridgerunners that were obtained in personal interviews during the last two years. We acknowledge that fifty-year-old memories can play tricks, so whenever possible we have tried to confirm those conversations with each participant.BooksAppleman, Roy E. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987.Brady, James. The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea. New York: Orion Books, 1990.Clark, Johnnie M. Gunner's Glory: Untold Stories of Machine Gunners. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.Cumings, Bruce. North Korea: Another Country. New York: New Press, 2004.Daniel, Clifton, ed. Chronicle of the 20th Century. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1995.Davis, Raymond. The Story of Ray Davis. Fuquay, VA: Research Triangle Publishing, 1995.DuPuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present (second revised edition). New York: Harper & Row, 1986.Geer, Andrew. The New Breed: The Story of the U.S. Marines in Korea. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952.Halberstam, David. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. New York: Hyperion, 2007.Hammel, Eric. Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1981.Hopkins, William B. One Bugle No Drums: The Marines at Chosin Reservoir. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1986.Jackson, Robert. Air War Over Korea. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.Knox, Donald. The Korean War-An Oral History: Pusan to Chosin. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 1981.Leckie, Robert. March to Glory. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.Mahoney, Kevin. Formidable Enemies: The North Korean and Chinese Soldier in the Korean War. Novata, CA: Presidio Press, 2001.Manchester, William. American Caesar-Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.Marshall, S.L.A. Battle at Best. New York: Pocket Books, 1964Pork Chop Hill. Nashville, TN: The Battery Press, 1986.Montross, Lynn, and Canzona, Capt. Nicholas A. (USMC). U.S. Marine Operations in Korea 1950-1953; Volume III: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign. Austin, TX: R. J. Speights, 1990.Murphy, Edward F. Korean War Heroes. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1992.Odgers, George. Across the Parallel: The Australian 77th Squadron with the United States Air Force in the Korean Air War. Australia: William Heinemann, 1952.O'Neill, Robert. Australia in the Korean War. Australian Government Publishing Service, 1981.Owen, Joseph R. Colder Than Hell. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996.Roe, Patrick C. The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean War: June-December 1950. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2000.Russ, Martin. Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.Schlesinger, Arthur M. War and the American Presidency. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.Smith, Larry. Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.Sun-tzu. The Art of War. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.Warren, James A. American Spartans-The U.S. Marines: A Combat History from Iwo to Iraq. New York: Free Press, 2005.Wilson, Jim. Retreat, Hell: The Epic Story of the 1st Marines in Korea. New York: Pocket Books, 1988.Magazine and Newspaper Articles"Angels or Gooney Birds?" William O. Brennan, Marine News Digest, JulySeptember, 2005."Finally, Back at Chosin?" W. G. Ford. Leatherneck, December, 2002."Gen. Raymond Davis, War Hero, Dies at 88." Richard Goldstein, New York Times, September 5, 2003.'Marine's Marine' Laid to Rest." Bill Hendrick. Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 9, 2003."Official Reports Describing the Fighting in Korea." New York Times, December 13, 1950."Ridgerunners of Toktong Pass." Lynn Montrose, Marine Corps Gazette, May, 1953."Sudong-ni: The Historic Clash as American Marines Meet Red Chinese Volunteers in the Korean War." Combat Magazine ISSN 1542-1546, volume 05, number 04, October, 2007."Toktong Ridgerunner." Bob Jordan. Leatherneck, December, 1985."Toktong Ridgerunners-Ist battalion, 7th Marines." Dick Camp. Leatherneck, December, 2000."Truman's Letter." Marine Corps Times, Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer, July 30, 2007Video and Electronic Sources"Battle for the Frozen Chosin." War Stories with Oliver North. Fox Network."Col. Bill Barber." Radio Interview with Hugh Hewitt, May 25, 2001."Korea: Medal of Honor." U.S. News & World Report, 1990."Korean War Stories." PBS Home Video, 2001.Miscellaneous"A Prayer Vigil on a Hill." Walter Hiskett. The Fox Two Seven Association Newsletter, April, 2007."Cold Injury." Jerrod E. Johnson, MD. The Scuttlebutt Newsletter, November, 1998."F-2-7 Battles South Korea, 1951." Jack Strong. The Fox Two Seven Association Newsletter, June, 2007.Historical Reference Branch, U.S. Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia.Letter to General C. B. Cates, USMC, from General Oliver P. Smith, USMC, November 15, 1950."Night March to Fox Hill." Joesph R. Owen. Marine Corps Association Newsletter, December, 1984."Personal Notes Covering Activities of Lt. Gen. E. M. Almond During Military Operations in Korea 31 August 1950-15 July 1951."Special Action Reports of the 1st Marine Division, November and December, 1950."Turkey Shoot at Turkey Hill." Joseph R. Owen. First Battalion Seventh Marines Newsletter, 1970.
INDEXAbell, Ralph, 290-92, 295, 300, 303, 308 Able Rifle Company, 91, 145, 241, 258,259,269,270,278-80 alcohol, 104. See also whiskey; specific soldiers Almond, Edward M., 13, 14, 20, 146, 171, 189, 207, 236 Arioli, Peter, 251-52, 279-81, 286 "army" (Chinese), 47-48 Art of War, The. See Sun-tzu Ashdale, Thomas G., 74, 76, 160, 165-66 "assembly on the objective," 84 atomic bomb, 56-57, 236 Attlee, Clement, 236 Audas, John D., 303 Ashdale and, 74 background, 107 Barber and, 175, 273 Bonelli and, 107, 113, 175, 182 casualty report, 183 Chinese soldiers and, 112-14, 289 Ernest Gonzalez and, 117, 286 Klein and, 275 McCarthy and, 66-67, 74, 175 orders, 179 wounded, 307Australian Mustangs, 137, 142-43, 190, 220 "backdoor" scheme, 190-91 Baker Company, 241, 275, 279, 280, 295, 311. See also Sudong Gorge Able and, 280 accomplishments, 20 Audas and, 275 Chew-Een Lee and, 253, 256, 259, 270, 311 Fox Company and, 20 How Company and, 269-70 Kurcaba and, 253, 262, 270, 275, 277-78,311 Raymond Davis and, 49, 259, 263,269-70,277-78, 280 Turkey Hill and, 49 Barber, William Edward, 32-34, 36-38,75-76,96,187, 203-4,214,224,235,247, 272-73 after the war, 313 Arioli and, 279 attitudes toward and views of, 32 Audas and, 175, 273Barber, William Edward, (continued) awards and honors, 24, 300, 31214 background and overview, 22- 25,33,47 birthday, 217 Bonelli and, 25, 107, 173, 175 Campbell and, 105, 206, 231, 238, 285 cargo plane, 301 casualties and, 183 Chew-Een Lee and, 279 Chinese POWs and, 125, 14041 Chung and, 75, 140 clothing and, 60, 315 command post, 219 temporary, 83, 96 communications, 78 Corsairs and, 190, 247 death, 313 Eighth Army and, 135 Ezell and, 123-24 family, 22-23, 314, 316 fascination with Korean War, 24 Flying Boxcars and, 202 food and, 60 funeral, 314 Gray Davis and, 25 Groenewald and, 75-76 Hagaru-ri and, 195 headquarters and staff (H&S) section, 38 "horseshoe," 58 at Iwo Jima, 182-83 John O. Henry and, 39 on killing wounded Chinese soldiers, 114Kipp and, 138 Litzenberg and, 78, 123, 149, 187, 188, 190, 209, 235 Lockwood and, 22, 26-29, 31, 34, 68, 149, 184 McCarthy and, 39, 106-7, 114, 136, 174, 312 McClure and, 104-5, 300 military strategies, 29, 33, 114, 123,188-90,195-96,247 O'Leary and, 83, 231 orders, 37, 39, 40, 67, 96, 107, 110, 114, 116, 124, 130, 138,148,160,173-75, 183, 186, 189, 210, 220, 225, 226, 231, 233, 273-75, 285 parka, 315 perimeter inspections, 226, 228, 258 personality and attitudes, 25, 32 Peterson and, 202, 203 physical appearance, 22, 25 Pitts and, 107, 231, 232 Raymond Davis and, 272, 274, 278-80, 286 Reitz and, 197 rifle practice, 117 Schmitt and, 36, 37, 78, 83, 136 speeches of coming-aboard speech, 25 in Koto-ri, 175 supply planes and, 195-96, 201-2 and trade-off of men for territory, 182-83 turned over command to Ralph Abell, 290-91on world history, 313 wounded, 175, 179, 224, 226, 233,250-51,258,278,286, 290, 313 wounded soldiers and, 290 Wright and, 78, 133, 149, 188, 209-10 Barrow, Robert H., 314 Bavaro, Phil "Cookie," 132, 133, 294 background, 233-35 Barber and, 233 Bledsoe and, 80-81, 112, 132, 167,183-84,232,233,258- 59,271 David Smith and, 112 rescued, 302-3 return to United States, 308 Scully and, 233 shootings, 233 trapped between Chinese and Jack Page's nest, 112 wounded Chinese soldiers and, 183-84 wounded/injured, 81, 271-72, 290,293-94,308 frostbite and foot problems, 258-59,271-72,293,294, 300, 302, 308 bayoneting sleeping soldiers, 2, 84, 99, 117 bayonets, 83, 89, 164, 213 Bean, Harold H., 144, 145 Belmarez, Eleazar Barber and, 174 Corsairs spotted by, 134 at Fox Company reunion, 316 Garza and, 174, 181 plan drawn up by, 119-20Slapinskas and, 119 Wilson and, 118-20 wounded, 166-67, 174, 181, 289, 299, 301, 308 Bendy, Cecil J., 192 Benson, Kenneth R., 87, 106, 116, 123, 140, 163 after the war, 316 background, 52-54 Barber and, 116 "battle of the slit trench," 115, 116 Cafferata and, 52-53, 55, 85, 86, 105,106,115,170,194-95, 281-82 D.J. and, 194-95 Ezell and, 115, 116 Fixico and, 281 Gilling and, 260, 281, 293 Iverson and, 194 Kirchner and, 205-6, 213 Litzenberg and, 55, 205 physical appearance, 53 reputation, 55 sent home, 307 shootings, 105, 106 surrounded, 86-87 weapons and, 170, 205 wounded/blind, 115, 194, 195, 307 Bernard, Richard J., 124, 281, 308 Biao, Lin, 48 "Big Indian," 155, 156 Bledsoe, John, 80-81, 132-33 Barber and, 233 Bavaro and, 80-81, 112, 132, 167,183-84,232,233,258- 59,271Bledsoe, John (continued) digging hole, 112, 132 Koone and, 132-33 wounded Chinese soldiers and, 183-84 "Blitzen Litzen." See Litzenberg, Homer, Jr. blizzards, 247, 260 Bonelli, Richard A., 9-11, 89, 90, 94-95,112-14,175,182, 225,239,279-80 Audas and, 107, 113, 175, 182 background and overview, 9-12, 44-45, 279 Barber and, 25, 107, 173, 175 "Big Indian" and, 155, 156 clowning, 196-97 cold weather and, 64 daily routine, 196 eating and, 196 evacuation to Japan, 301 Farmer and, 279-80, 283 Fox Company reunion coordinated by, 316 frostbite, 64 Goldstein and, 43-44, 90 Golembieski and, 43-44, 90, 175 Koone and, 94-95 McCarthy and, 155 mother, 283 motto, 173 Penn and, 156-57, 166 personality, 11, 12 prayer, 225, 279 return to United States, 309 shootings, 175 on staying alive in firefight, 44 on Uijongbu campaign, 66weapons and, 155, 166, 171, 174, 210 wounded, 280, 283, 298, 309 bonfires, 67 booby traps, 204, 233, 249 Boudousquie, William, 87 Bowser, Alpha, 145, 188, 237 Brady, Joseph J., 96 alcohol use and, 147, 149, 239 background, 147 David Smith and, 149 McClure and, 147, 239 mortar units under the command of, 38, 78, 83. See also mortar units Schmidt and, 149 wounded, 78, 83, 202, 219-20 brandy, 104 breakout column, 284, 285, 295 British Royal Marines, 188 Browning automatic rifles (BARs), 11, 34, 72. See also under Gonzalez; McClure Bryan, John C., 88 Bunch, William H., 186 Burke, Harry L., 79, 80, 96, 112, 148, 167, 272 background, 57, 184, 186-87, 240 bazookas and, 57, 184, 18687 on foot care, 57, 132 at Fox Company reunion, 316 injured Chinese and, 131-32, 240, 272 John 0. Henry and, 219 Kipp, Gaines, and, 240 Page and, 184-85 Purple Hearts, 307 sniper and, 239-40Thornton and, 186, 187 wounded, 307 C-rations, 60, 223 Cafferata, Hector A., 87, 88, 106, 130, 163, 197 background, 52-55, 106 Benson and, 52-53, 55, 85, 86, 105,106,115,170,194-95, 281-82 cargo plane, 301 Ezell and, 130-31 fear, 195 Fixico and, 281 Gilling and, 260, 281-82 honors, 300, 312 Litzenberg and, 55 McCarthy and, 312 McClure and, 300 Medal of Honor, 312, 314 ordered to break D.J.'s arm, 19495 physical appearance, 54 Pomers and, 94, 106, 218 reputation, 55 return to United States, 312 shootings, 86, 88, 105-6, 115, 312 surrounded, 86-87 on watch, 85 wounded, 131, 170, 194, 312 Campbell, Donald, 166, 215, 220, 231, 232 Barber and, 105, 206, 231, 238, 285 called in howitzer barrage from Hagaru-ri, 163 Page, Holt, and, 238 Peterson and, 206 weapons and, 231, 232, 237-38Carter, Bobby, 148-49, 196 Cates, Clifton B., 16 Charlie Company, 48-49, 241, 259,269-70,278-80 casualties, 49 illumination shells from, as cry for help, 74 near annihilation on Turkey Hill, 135 Ray Davis and, 191 "Checkerboard" squadron, 220 Childs, Donald L., 166, 170-71, 219 Chinese Communist Force (CCF), 15,45,46,113-14,225-26. See also specific topics bets on when they would come, 205 communication system, 47 disregard for life, 15 divisions, 47-48, 171 Fifty-ninth Division, 47, 76, 140, 284, 285 prison camps, 116, 137. See also prisoners of war (POWs), American tactics, 45-47, 113, 114, 134, 226 view of American soldiers, 47, 263 weapons, 45-46, 130. See also specific weapons Chinese corpses, 129-32 Chinese soldiers, 135. See also Chinese Communist Force; prisoners of war (POWs), Chinese age, 125 morality of killing wounded, 114 Chinese "Tactical Field Forces," 46Chosin Reservoir, 14, 26-29. See also specific topics American outposts stranded at, 235-36 "breakout" from, 207 climate, 27-28 map of, 8 Oliver Smith and, 205 swarmed armies in, 47, 48 Chou En-lai, 15, 52 Christmas, 21 expectation of being home by, 14, 16, 18, 25, 51, 67, 85, 139, 140, 218 Chung, Mr., 140, 241, 295 Churchill, Winston, 42-43 climate, 27-28, 36, 59. See also coldweather warfare; weather clothing, 31, 60, 112-13, 132 cobalt zones, 57 cold-weather warfare, 59-62, 64, 134, 160-62. See also climate; frostbite; weather communication systems, 36-37, 47, 75, 220. See also radio communication Congressional Medal of Honor, 300, 311-13 Corsairs, 135, 220-22, 244, 245, 248, 285 Barber and, 190, 247 Bavaro and, 293 Belmarez and, 134 Henry and, 221, 222 Lockwood and, 141 Raymond Davis and, 274 Dana, Charles C., 151, 171 Danford, Richard E., 14-15, 60, 219, 308, 316Davis, Graydon W., 107-9, 120- 21,202,207,212 background, 41, 107 Barber and, 25 casualties and, 199 food and, 198-99 Gamble and, 206 Griffith and, 108-9 Jensen and, 304-5 Luke Johnson and, 82, 108, 120, 121,157-58,198-201,206, 207,213,227,249-50 Montville and, 249-50 Peach and, 199-200 Peoples and, 199 Peterson and, 200-201 relations with natives, 41-42 Roger Davis and, 199 shootings, 107, 147, 202, 227 snipers and, 147 in snowbank, 300-301 tracers and, 82 weapons and, 202, 227-28, 24950 "Willie Peter" and, 157-58 Davis, Raymond, 241-44, 258, 266-68,274,279,280,282, 284. See also Ridgerunners Abell and, 291 Arioli and, 251, 279 awards and honors, 311-12, 314 background, 191, 208 Barber and, 272, 274, 278-80, 286 Charlie survivors rescued by, 49 Chew-Een Lee and, 245, 256, 259,260,262-67 Fidel Gomez and, 278 First Rifle Battalion, 268How Company and, 269-70 inspection, 244 Kurcaba and, 244, 245, 263, 270, 277 leadership, 208 movements, 276 orders, 251, 259, 270 Owen and, 265-67 personality, 208 Peterson and, 202, 295 Puller and, 208 Ridgerunners, 284. See also Ridgerunners shot, 270 Turkey Hill and, 191, 209, 242, 243, 257-60 unorthodox recruiting methods, 208, 209 Watson and, 264 Davis, Roger R., 167, 199 "deep dip," 48, 141 dig-ins, 37-38, 49, 60, 62, 64, 84. See also dugouts D.J., Sergeant, 194-95 Dog Company, 1, 4 Duffy, Bob, 304, 316 dugouts, 71. See also dig ins Dunne, John M., 96-97, 172, 272, 291, 304. See also First Rifle Platoon Barber and, 183, 184 Bavaro and, 184 death, 307 only officer to survive Fox Hill unscathed, 307 Peterson and, 295 sniper and, 149 wounded, 307 Dytkiewicz, Alvin T., 140, 153-54, 163, 164, 219Eighth Army, 13, 14, 135, 142, 207, 236 Eleventh Regiment (artillery), 14, 19, 189, 203, 241, 242 Elrod, Judd W., 116, 124 Englehardt, Floyd, 197 Ezell, Robert "Zeke," 58-59, 97, 115-16,154,163-64 Australian Mustangs and, 143 background, 57-59, 198 Barber and, 123-24 Belmarez and, 299 Bendy and, 192 Benson and, 1 l5, 116 Bernard and, 124, 125, 281 Cafferata and, 130-31 and the Chinese, 150 Elrod and, 124 evacuation to Japan, 301 at Fox Company reunion, 316 foxhole, 115 Freddy Gonzales and, 125 Goldstein and, 191-92 Goodrich and, 139 injured/wounded, 289, 298-99, 309 frostbite, 191 Komorowski and, 180 machine-gun crew, 130, 143 Mason and, 277, 278 paralyzed Marine and, 192-93 Parker and, 139 physical appearance, 57, 58 return to light machine-gun emplacement, 123-24 return to United States, 309-10 shootings, 124, 163-64 Tallbull and, 139-40 Triggs and, 140, 180 wounded, 164, 180Farish, George, 150 Farley, John D., 110, 111, 151, 184, 304 Farmer, Randall, 279-80, 283 Fifth Regiment, 14, 19, 24, 67, 146, 171, 203, 237, 241, 242, 258 "fire and maneuver" tactics, 45 fires, 67 First Marine Division, 13, 14, 16, 47. See also specific regiments Chinese soldiers encircling, 135 First Regiment, 14 First Rifle Battalion, 208-9, 24142, 268. See also Baker Company; Owen, Joe First Rifle Platoon, 38 Fixico, Amos alcohol use, 239 Benson, Cafferata, and, 281 Bonelli and, 95 eye injury, 95, 238-39, 274, 281, 290 Hiskett and, 291, 299 Koone and, 95 McClure and, 238-39, 273-74, 281 flanking maneuver, 49, 84, 141, 166,190-91,214 Flying Boxcars, 201, 202, 247 food, 60. See also C-rations Fox Company. See also specific topics casualties, 135-36 Chinese attacks on. See also specific topics November 28, 7 November 29, 159 November 30, 216defensive perimeter diminished, as of Nov. 29, 211 gaps widen as of Nov. 29, 246 as of Nov. 27, 65 re-formed, as of Nov. 28, 128. See also under McCarthy during first six months of war, 18 maps of, 65, 128, 159, 211, 246 memorial service, 316-17 reunions, 315-16 Fox Hill, 27-29. See also specific topics acoustical barriers across, 96 maps of, 17, 30, 159 Fox Rifle Company. See Fox Company French, Billy M., 77, 79, 82, 138, 183, 235 Friend, Harvey J., 86 friendly fire, 3, 173 artillery shells, 160 frostbite, 59-60, 64, 272, 308. See also under Bavaro; specific soldiers Fry, William L., 88 Gaines, Robert L., 80, 131, 138, 168,185-86,240 Gamble, Clifford, 206, 221 Garza, William F., 174, 181 gear, 31 Gilling, Richard, 260, 281, 293, 299 Gleason, William P., 140, 154, 163, 180, 219 gold mines, 141 Goldstein, Bernard "Goldy," 43-44, 89, 90, 191Golembieski, Stanley "Ski," 43-44, 66, 89, 90, 172, 175 Gomez, Anacleto, 104, 278 Gomez, Fidel G., 88-89, 103, 104, 211, 309, 316 Gonzales, Alfredo D. "Freddy," 92, 125, 153 Ernest Gonzalez and, 92, 153, 165,171-73,181,182,193 Ezell and, 125 Hiskett and, 282 Kirchner and, 282 Roger Gonzales and, 125, 282 Gonzales, Edward, 197, 289, 316 Gonzales, Roger background, 11, 125 death, 110-11, 129-30, 141-42, 282, 285-86 Ernest Gonzalez and, 285-86 Ezell and, 125 Freddy Gonzales and, 125, 282 Kirchner and, 110, 129-30, 141, 310 MI, 99-101 McClure and, 11, 35, 48, 99101,110,141-42 Gonzalez, Ernest T., 90-95, 116- 18,152-53,165,303 Audas and, 117, 286 background, 91-92, 165 as BAR man, 92, 93 Benson and, 194 booty, 152-53 Cafferata and, 194 Freddy Gonzales and, 92, 153, 165,171-73,181,182,193 hospitalized for frostbite, 308 Hutchinson and, 292 physical appearance, 91Roger Gonzales and, 285-86 sent home, 308 shootings, 94, 117, 165 shot, 95 sniper killed by, 93 weapons and, 152-53, 181-82, 193-94 Goodrich, David J., 139, 309 "gook," 12 Gore, Albert, Sr., 56 grenades, 81, 93, 165, 210. See also booby traps concussion, 87, 167, 249 hand, 89, 98, 100-102, 106, 154, 196-98,201,215,249 Griffith, Jack B., 108, 109, 120 Groenewald, William, 75 Gruenberg, Arthur H., 96 "gung ho," 205 Hagaru-ri, 19, 22, 226, 237. See also specific topics attack on, 195-97 Battalion Command Post in, 19 considered safe, 20 howitzer barrage called in from, 163 howitzers at, 209 Litzenberg and, 205 reinforcements for, 188 surrounded by Chinese divisions, 47 Hamhung, 252, 265 Hancock, Harold E., 88, 89 Haney, Alvin R., 138, 139, 183, 192 Hart, John, 196 "hasty burial detail," 290 Henry, George, 310Henry, John 0. after the war, 310, 316 awards and honors, 310 background, 39, 221-22 Barber and, 39 Burke and, 219 heavy weapons unit, 213 McCarthy and, 71 North Korean officers and, 24041 orders, 39 personality, 221, 222 physical appearance, 39 shootings, 81-82, 241 weapons and, 39, 82 Hill 1419, 49 Hiskett, Walter A., 169, 282 background, 111, 169 Farley and, 111 Fixico and, 291, 299 Freddy Gonzales and, 282 heartsick, 151 McLean and, 111, 151 memorial service conducted by, 316-17 prayer, 169-70, 180, 181 return to United States, 311 Roger Gonzales and, 110-11, 282 wounded, 111, 150, 151, 180- 81,290,299,311 Holt, Jim, 80, 95, 112, 131, 161, 215, 238 Horn, Jack, 87 How Battery, 157 How Company Campbell and, 206, 220, 231 howitzer bombardments, 105, 158, 220 howitzer men, 152howitzer unit, 31, 105, 138, 166, 188 howitzers, 36, 160, 206, 245 How Company, Third Battalion's (Seventh Regiment rifle company), 257-60, 269-70, 279, 280, 299 howitzer batteries, 34, 74, 206, 245 howitzer bombardments, 163, 171, 209, 243, 285. See also under How Company howitzer units, 31, 36, 138, 166, 188, 215. See also How Company, howitzer unit; Second Howitzer Battalion howitzers, 36-37, 74, 158, 160. See also under How Company Hutchinson, Rollin, 80, 139, 168, 185,291-92,307 hygiene, 21 Hymel, Benjamin A., 87 illness, 21, 60. See also frostbite Inchon, amphibious landing at, 2425 inspections, 102, 244 Iverson, James E., 86, 194, 304 Jackson, Norman A., 166, 170-7 1, 219 Japan evacuation to, 301 U.S. troops in, 16 Jensen, Everett, 304-5 Johnson, Maurice W. "Luke," 108, 147, 201 Gray Davis and, 82, 108, 120, 121,157-58,198-201,206, 207,213,227,249-50Johnson, Norman J., 86 Jones, Edward, 72, 74, 85, 117 Jones, Robert, 79 Joy, C. Turner, 135 Kaema-kowon, 18 Kalinowski, Gunny, 199 Keirn, Meredith F., 85-86, 88, 95, 113, 119, 136, 155, 239 Kim 11 Sung, 14, 17, 24, 56 Kipp, Kenneth R., 77, 138, 240, 290, 307 Kirchner, Robert, 62, 64, 88, 110, 205 ambush/firefight and, 63-64 background, 62, 63 Barber and, 290 Benson and, 205-6, 213 cold weather and, 64 Farley and, 110 at Fox Company reunion, 316 Freddy Gonzales and, 282 Komorowski and, 88 McClure and, 141 return to United States, 310 Roger Gonzales and, 1 10, 129- 30,141,310 shootings, 64 wounded, 88 Klein, Walter, 113, 275 Bonelli and, 112, 210 at Fox Company reunion, 316 foxhole, 166 Keirn and, 113 Kline and, 286 Longstaff and, 286 Penn and, 166 Peterson and, 309 Pitts and, 308 shootings, 224-25Valtierra and, 166, 210, 224-25, 275 Kline, Richard, 79, 83, 84, 133-34, 248, 277, 286, 316 Knowles, Lee E., 77, 80 Kohls, Robert, 79, 83 Komorowski, Joseph "Big Polack," 88, 113, 129, 180 Koone, Howard, 9, 44 background, 9, 132-33 Bledsoe and, 132-33 Bonelli and, 9, 64, 66, 89-90, 94-95 four-man firing team, 118 wounded, 89-90, 132-33, 172, 217, 239, 289, 299 Korean peninsula, 52 Koto-ri, 188, 189, 234, 236, 303, 307, 311 Barber in, 22, 32, 175 encircled by Chinese, 47 Lockwood in, 26 McCarthy in, 71 Kurcaba, Joseph, 267 background, 244, 245 Baker Company and, 253, 262,270,275,277-78, 311 Chew-Een Lee and, 245, 253, 263, 264 death, 311 Owen and, 244, 264, 271 radio communication, 263 Ray Davis and, 244, 245, 263, 270, 277 Ladner, Hobart P., 85-88, 116, 135-36,140,154 "landing ships, tank" (LSTs), 13 leapfrogging tactics, 45Lee, Chew-Een, 245, 259, 262-67, 291 Arioli and, 251-53 background, 252-57 Baker Company and, 253, 256, 259, 270, 311 as keynoter at Fox Company reunion, 316 Kurcaba and, 245, 253, 263, 264 Navy Cross, 311 Owen and, 264-65, 270 personality and values, 245, 257, 264 Raymond Davis and, 245, 256, 259,260,262-67 Turkey Hill and, 261, 262 wounded, 270, 279, 311 Lee, Chew-Mon "Buck," 256, 257 LeMay, Curtis, 56 Litzenberg, Homer, Jr., 171, 284-85. See also Seventh Regiment "after action" reports, 209 Alpha Bowser and, 145 background and overview, 19 Barber and, 78, 123, 149, 187, 188, 190, 209, 235 Benson and, 55, 205 Chew-Een Lee and, 256 contingency plans for evacuation and, 189 feared that North Koreans decided to annihilate Americans, 190 First Rifle Battalion, 208-9. See also First Rifle Battalion Hagaru-ri and, 205 on holding Fox Hill and keeping open Toktong Pass, 188 Lockwood and, 26, 123, 141, 145,149,297-98main column, 242, 273 McClure and, 99 meeting with battalion commanders, 207 men at Yudam-ni, 135 military strategies, 121, 123, 188-90,208,209 Murray and, 171, 190, 191, 207, 235 Oliver Smith and, 205 orders, 145, 205, 236, 257 personality, 19, 26, 256, 298 Puller and, 208 radio communication, 36, 18788 Ray Davis and, 191, 207-9, 257, 259 rear supply route, 20 Schmitt and, 78 temper, 298 Walter Smith and, 207-8, 236 wounded soldiers and, 298 Yudam-ni and, 190 Lockwood, Randolph, 145 Alpha Bowser and, 145 background, 26 Barber and, 22, 26-29, 31, 34, 68, 149, 184 "cooks and bakers" unit, 141 Litzenberg and, 26, 123, 141, 145,149,297-98 physical appearance, 26 reinforcement company, 149, 184 Longstaff, Robert A., 286 Love Dog Squadron, 245 MacArthur, Douglas A., 15, 16, 20, 48, 52, 171, 204 atomic bombs and, 56-57attitudes toward, 10, 20 "deranged blood lust," 43 First Marine Division and, 13 Mao and, 43 military decisions, 19, 20, 24, 43, 189-90 military strategies, 14, 43, 56-57 optimism, 14, 52, 57 situation report to United Nations, 146 X Corps, 13. See also X Corps Main Service Road NK72 (MSR), 19, 31, 34, 59, 224, 259 Chinese point column on, 82 Mao Tse-tung, 15, 33, 43, 46, 47, 51-52,56,132 maps, 6, 8, 17, 26-27, 30, 65, 122, 128, 159, 211, 246, 261, 276 problems with, 262 Marine Corps, U.S. See also specific topics attitudes, 12, 20 basic doctrine, 12 Marine Corps Manual, 12 Marshall, S. L. A. "Slam," 307 Mason, Howard, 277, 278 Maurath, Mervyn "Red," 79-81, 112 Mauser rifles, 45, 166, 210 McAfee, Johnson, 84, 117 McCarthy, Robert C., 90, 164, 171. See also Third Rifle Platoon after the war, 312, 316 Ashdale and, 74 Audas and, 66-67, 74, 175 background, 71-74 Barber and, 39, 106-7, 114, 136, 174, 312 "Big Indian" and, 155, 156body count, 135-36 Bonelli and, 107, 156 casualty report, 136 command post (CP), 71, 106 command post bunker, 76 Golembieski and, 172 Henry and, 39, 71 Jones and, 72 Klein and, 210 physical appearance, 72 Pitts and, 71, 72, 107 re-formed defensive perimeter, 96, 105, 114, 128 recommendations for battlefield citations, 300, 312 surprise inspections ordered by, 71-72,74 weapons and, 71-72, 130, 150, 210 wounded, 175, 292, 299-300 McClure, Warren L., 36, 99, 100, 102-5, 143-44 alcohol use and, 147, 239 Arioli and, 281 Australian Mustangs and, 142-43 background, 11, 34-36, 102 BAR, 99-102, 141 as "BAR man," 34, 35, 105 Barber and, 104-5, 300 Bean and, 144, 145 Belmarez and, 301 Ernest Gonzalez and, 285, 286 evacuation to Japan, 301 Fixico and, 238-39, 273-74, 281 at Fox Company reunion, 316 grenades and, 101, 301 Haney and, 192 Kirchner and, 141 paralyzed Marine and, 192-93 personality, 239McClure, Warren L. (continued) Peterson and, 102-4, 145 prayer, 169 quest for his gear, 287 Reitz and, 142 rescue, 287, 297 Roger Gonzales and, 11, 35, 48, 99-101,110,141-42 Schmidt and, 169, 193 Scully and, 169 sleeping position, 99 weapons, 102-3, 143-44 wounded, 144-48, 150, 154-55, 169,192-93,222-23,238, 239, 301 Wright and, 145, 193 McLean, William, 60, 103, 104, 111,145,151,160 Medal of Honor, 192 Mertz, Kenneth N., 97 Messman, Robert, 211, 212 Military Lessons, 27, 47 "Minny Gang," 184 Mixon, Alex "Bob," 3 Montville, Daniel M., 248, 249 mortar units, 38, 83, 104, 158, 161, 267 mortarmen, 3, 38, 78-79, 83, 148 Chinese, 263 mortars, 60-mm, 105 Murray, Raymond, 171, 284-85. See also Fifth Regiment "backdoor" scheme and, 191 Barber and, 235 Fifth Regiment, 19, 242. See also Fifth Regiment Litzenberg and, 171, 190, 191, 207, 235 meeting with battalion commanders, 207men at Yudam-ni, 135 order to evacuate Yudam-ni, 236 rear supply route, 20 Walter Smith and, 236 Nambu, 162, 185, 205 napalm, 143 Navy Cross, 309, 311 nervous disease, 120 night fighting, 171, 190 North, Charles R., 118-20, 248-50 North and South Korea situation as of Nov. 27, 6 North Koreans. See also specific topics strategy, 27 treatment of captives, 137 views of United States soldiers, 27 nuclear weapons, 56-57, 236 O'Leary, Lloyd, 83-84, 105, 163, 231 Orwell, George, 10-11 Owen, Joe, 243-44, 264-67, 269, 270, 275, 277 Page, Jack Burke and, 184-85 Campbell and, 238 Kline and, 133-34 shootings, 76, 77, 80, 81, 112, 162,167,218-19,235, 238 snipers and, 221 weapons and, 76, 81, 161, 162, 184,215,218-19,221,238 Wright and, 133 Parker, Charles W., 111, 139, 151, 184, 304passwords, 67, 72 Peach, Earl, 2-5, 199-200 Pearson, Charles M., 97 Peek, Oma L., 86 Penn, Homer K., 156-57, 166, 173 Peoples, Claude, 199, 304 People's Air Force of China, 134 Peterson, Elmo C., 215. See also Second Rifle Platoon after the war, 316 alcohol and, 200, 292-93 Audas and, 179 authority and credibility, 61 background and overview, 61 Barber and, 202, 203 Campbell and, 206 cargo plane, 301 cold weather and, 60-62 collapse, 295-96 Danford and, 60 detail, 193, 202 Fidel Gomez and, 278 Gray Davis and, 200-201 Groenewald and, 75 inspection rounds, 60, 61 Kirchner and, 63-64 Klein and, 309 Luke Johnson and, 200 McClure and, 102-4, 145 McLean and, 60 Navy Cross, 309 orders, 60, 82-83, 104, 152, 162, 173, 205, 213 Parker and, 139 personality, 62 Raymond Davis and, 202, 295 Second Platoon, 110, 123. See also Second Rifle Platoon supplies and, 203wounded, 103, 152, 162, 173, 183, 200 wounded soldiers and, 292-93 phosphorus shells. See "Willie Peter" Pickett, Wayne A., 287-89 background, 16-17, 50-51, 98 "Big Indian" and, 156 and the Chinese, 98-99 family, 50, 98 at Fox Company reunion, 316 injury, 288 personality, 311 as POW, 84-85, 97-99, 136-37, 310-11 warnings, 16-17 Williford and, 40, 49-51, 84-85, 97-99, 136 Yeskow and, 97-99, 136, 137 Pitts, Clyde T., 71, 72, 107, 231, 232,303,307-8 playing dead, 114 Pourers, Harrison, 87 background, 87 Barber and, 217 Cafferata and, 94, 106, 218 Gerald Smith and, 87 regained consciousness, 94 shootings, 105, 115 wounded, 87-88, 179-80, 21718 prayer, 169-70, 279 prisoners of war (POWs) American, 116, 125, 137, 14041, 212, 287-88. See also Pickett; Williford Chinese, 124-25, 140-41, 289 Puller, Lewis B. "Chesty," 208, 236, 237 Pyongyang, 14radiation strips, 57 radio communication, 36-37, 47, 74, 78, 83, 187-88, 231, 263. See also communication systems Rapp, Robert, 77, 80, 138 Read, Benjamin, 74,138,188, 231, 298 refugees, 27 Reitz, George W., 100, 101, 142, 197-98 Republic of Korea (ROK), 3 Ridgerunners, 260-61, 269, 274, 277, 280, 284, 285, 293, 311 arrival on Fox Hill Dec. 2, 276 route from Yudam-ni to Fox Hill, 261 Rivera, Charlie, 91 Robicheau, Sergeant, 213-14 rocky knoll, 158 rocky ridge, 196, 197, 220, 226, 273-75 American firing on, 38 Chinese soldiers in, 186, 235 clearing path up to, 271 Hagaru-ri battery shelling, 197 How Company bombardment of, 158 howitzer bombardments on, 220 incoming fire from, 114, 219 sniping from, 154, 179, 220. See also snipers Royal Australian Air Force, 142. See under Australian Mustangs Schmidt, Robert H., 100, 101, 160, 161, 193 Schmitt, Lawrence, 79, 169 Barber and, 36, 37, 78, 83, 136 letter to wife, 289 Litzenberg and, 78radio communications and, 36, 37, 78, 83 weapons and, 160, 161 wounded, 149, 289 Scott, John L., 118-20, 248-50 Scully, Robert P., 169, 233 Scuttlebutt, 19 Second Battalion, 9, 22, 26. See also How Company; Second Howitzer Battalion heavy weapons section, 34 Second Howitzer Battalion, 91-92 Second Rifle Platoon, 82-84, 94, 162, 179, 198, 213, 265, 296, 317. See also Seventh Regiment; specific topics ammunition shortage, 123 Barber and, 226 Chew-Een Lee and, 267 commanding officers (COs), 61 dig-ins, 37-38, 74 McClure and, 105 roster, 323-30 in Vietnam, 311 Seils, David, 320, 328 Senzig, John F., 217 Seventh Regiment, 9, 14, 19, 26, 67, 146, 171, 203, 237, 241, 242, 296, 303, 317. See also How Company; Second Rifle Platoon Barber and, 188 casualties, 189, 265 Chew-Een Lee and, 245, 256 disengagement from Yudam-ni, 258 first encounter with Chinese, 13 Litzenberg and, 121, 256 Ray Davis and, 311 roster, 323-30 in Vietnam, 311Shih-lun, Sung, 162, 204, 225 "Siberian Express," 21 Sinhung-ni, 284 Slapinskas, Daniel, 118, 119, 247- 48,250,251 sleeping soldiers, bayoneted, 2, 84, 99, 117 Smith, David, 81, 112, 149 Smith, Gerald J., 87, 88, 105, 106, 180 Smith, Oliver Prince, 14, 16, 205, 241, 307 Smith, Walter Bedell, 208, 236, 298 "sniper ridges" of Toktang-san, 114, 158 snipers, 93, 138, 149, 152, 219-22, 280, 291, 302. See also under South Hill American soldiers shot by, 110, 124, 131, 138, 139, 144, 163,192,239-40,252,270, 286 "deep dip" and, 141 Fox Hill as providing cover from, 227 helicopter shot by, 151 killed, 233 in ridgeline of West Hill, 147, 148 in ridges and folds of West Hill, 129 on rocky knoll, 139, 142, 148, 154 on rocky ridges, 139, 142, 148, 154 shot, 147, 149-50, 224, 233, 240 from West Hill, 198 snow, 39-40, 134, 247, 260 socks, changing, 60South Hill, 67, 138, 149, 150, 168, 214, 215, 224, 232, 247, 278, 280 snipers close around, 259 snipers in, 186 snipers in woods at base of, 223, 239-40, 272 snipers on far, 202 South Korea, international support for, 42. See also United Nations Soviet Union, 52 Chinese relations with, 52 Stalin, Joseph, 52 Stanley, Glen J., 96 Steen, Clifford, 316 Stein, Richard J., 86 Stiller, Daniel J., 86 Stillwell, Charles R., 86 Stritch, John T., 88 Strommen, Ronald D., 96 Sudong Gorge, 234 battles at, 1-5, 13-16, 20, 29, 45, 200, 252, 265, 304, 311 lesson learned from, 45-47 entrance to, I hillside overlooking, 99 Sun-tzu, 33 Sun Yat-sen, 254 supply planes/supply drops, 195- 96,201-2,226 Svicarovich, George, 329 Taebaek mountain range, 20-21 Tallbull, Clarence, 139-40 telecommunications. See communication systems; radio communication Thanksgiving, 18, 21, 49, 60, 84, 110, 289Third Rifle Platoon, 2, 3, 38, 71, 86, 88, 94, 103-4, 114, 118, 151, 162, 164-66. See also How Company; specific topics Audas and, 175, 286 Barber and, 114 Bowser and, 145 casualties, 96, 114, 136, 308 command post (CP), 71 Ernest Gonzalez and, 118, 286, 308 Lockwood and, 149 McCarthy and, 90, 114, 155, 175 McClure and, 143 Wilson and, 118 Thompson, Allen S., 167, 168, 185, 199, 203, 211 Thornton, Donald R., 186, 187 Tilhoff, Peter, 86 Toktong Pass, 48, 49, 51, 66-67, 226, 284. See also Toktongsan; specific topics Barber and, 29, 33, 37, 209, 235, 313, 314 Barber and Lockwood's trip to, 22, 26-28 bombing, 43 Bonelli and, 44 Chew-Een Lee and, 257 Chinese desire for, 235 as chokepoint, 190 Fox Company heading for, 19, 31,33,36,97 Gilling and, 260 Henry and, 222 holding, 204 keeping open, 188-90 Litzenberg and, 188, 209 maps of, 17, 26-27Raymond Davis and, 209, 242 strategies for defending, 29 visiting, 312 weather/climate, 36, 59, 161, 185, 205, 225, 293 Toktong-san, 186, 235, 245, 271. See also rocky ridge; snipers; Toktong Pass; specific topics Bonelli and, 225 physical characteristics, 19, 20, 26-28,64,225,243 "sniper ridges," 114, 158 Toktong-san, Battle for, 225. See also Toktong-san; specific topics tracer bullets, 77, 81-83, 86, 97, 137, 162, 163, 207, 231, 238 trenches. See dig-ins; dugouts Triggs, Jerry D., 140, 154, 163, 164, 180 Troxell, Paul T., 86 Truman, Harry S., 15, 51, 56, 92, 204 atomic bombs and, 236 awards from, 311-13 MacArthur and, 43 Turkey Hill, 49 battles of, 135, 146, 191, 209, 242-44,257-62 Chew-Een Lee and, 261, 262 lighting cooking fires on, 259 Owen and, 244 Raymond Davis and, 191, 209, 242,243,257-60 Uijongbu campaign, 32, 66, 279 Umpleby, James P., 86 United Nations, 42-43, 52, 146 United Nations forces, 171United States, 16, 56 Chinese views of, 47 overoptimism, 15-16. See also Christmas, expectation of being home by; MacArthur support for its intervention in Korea, 42 Valek, Raymond L., 139 Valtierra, Frank, 166, 210, 224, 275 Vey, Arnold R., 88 Vietnam War, 311 Wallace, H. Lew, 314 Watson, Bob "Red," 264, 316 weapons, 31, 196. See also specific topics weather, 21, 53. See also climate; cold-weather warfare; snow West Hill, 48, 100, 110, 111, 121, 143,144,158,162,200- 202,206,219,220,286-87. See also under snipers whiskey, 147, 149, 200, 239 "Willie Peter," 130, 157-58, 263, 264 Williford, Troy A., 40, 49-51, 84- 85,97-99,136 Wilson, Lee D., 118-20, 223-24, 248-50 Wonsan, 13 Wright, Clark B., 149, 193 Barber and, 78, 133, 149, 188, 209-10McClure and, 145, 193 orders, 133 recovery detail, 227 wounded, 250 X Corps, 13-14, 19, 20, 146, 171, 236 Yalu River, 1, 13, 14, 26, 51, 190 Americans warned to keep distance from, 14 bridges, 52 crossing, 1, 15, 134, 140 grand/final push to, 16, 19, 32, 121,146,171,189-90,203 Yap, Paek Sun, 51 Yesko, Daniel D., 85, 288 Pickett and, 97-99, 136, 137 Yonpo, 142 York, Sergeant, 173-74 Yudam-ni, 19, 20, 34, 47, 78, 135, 145, 190, 226 contradictory orders flying into, 207 howitzer battery at, 243 map of, 122 order to evacuate, 236 Ridgerunners' route to Fox Hill from, 261 Seventh Regiment's disengagement from, 258 5th and 7th Marine Regiments at, 121, 122 Zorn, Elmer, 2-5, 22
Table of ContentsPrologueThe HillThe AttackThe Siege"We Will Hold"The RidgerunnersEpilogueAfterwordPostscript 2008AcknowledgmentsAppendixSelected BibliographyIndex
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