CHAPTER XXII, Perimeter Battle, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu

For most of the men who fought the battles of the Pusan Perimeter inearly September 1950, it was a period of confusion. So many actions wenton simultaneously that only a wide-screen view could reveal the situationas the commander had to cope with it in its totality. Since this panoramicapproach is not feasible, the story in this chapter will follow the battlesfrom the east coast near P'ohang-dong westward to Taegu and the NaktongRiver for the first two weeks of September. The next chapter will followthe battles for the same period of time in the southern part of the PusanPerimeter.

It is necessary to keep in mind that not one of the battles in thisphase of the war was an isolated event, but that everywhere over the extentof the Perimeter other battles of equal, greater, or lesser intensity werebeing waged. As an example of their impact, on 3 September 1950 GeneralWalker faced at least five distinct and dangerous situations on the Perimeter-anenemy penetration in the east at P'ohang-dong, severance of the lateralcorridor at Yongch'on between Taegu and P'ohang-dong, alarming enemy gainsin the mountains north of Taegu, the threat posed by North Korean unitsslicing through the defenses of the Naktong Bulge area of the lower Naktong,and enemy penetration behind the greater part of the 25th Division in theMasan area in the extreme south. In addition, at this time in the eastthe ROK II Corps was on the point of collapse; above Taegu the 1st CavalryDivision withdrew closer to that city; and in the south disaster threatenedthe U.S. 2d and 25th Divisions.

Although the N.K. II Corps' general attack in the north and east wasplanned for 2 September, the enemy 12th Division, now numberingabout 5,000 men, started earlier to move forward from the mountain fastnesseswhere it had reorganized after its defeat in the Kigye and P'ohang-dongarea. (Map 14) The division was low in food supply, weapons, andammunition, and its men were in a state of lowered morale. On 26 August,American and ROK officers in the P'ohang-dong-Kigye area with great optimismcongratulated each other on having repulsed what they thought was the last serious threat to the Pusan Perimeter. In their view the NorthKoreans were now on the defensive and the war might end by Thanksgiving.

Nearest to the N.K. 12th Division was the ROK CapitalDivision. At 0400, 27 August, a North Korean attack overran one companyof the ROK 17th Regiment, Capital Division, north of Kigye. This causedthe whole regiment to give way. Then the 18th Regiment on the right fellback because of its exposed flank. The 17th Regiment lost the town of Kigye,and the entire Capital Division fell back three miles to the south sideof the Kigye valley. This enemy blow fell with startling impact on EighthArmy in the predawn hours of 27 August. [1]

At the briefing at Eighth Army headquarters in Taegu on Sunday, 27 August,General Walker showed his concern over this development. One of those presentwas Maj. Gen. John B. Coulter who had arrived in Korea about a month earlier.Half an hour after the briefing ended, General Walker called General Coulterto him and said, "I can't get reliable reports. I want you to go tothe eastern front and represent me. I am sending a regiment from the 24thDivision to help." [2]

Coulter flew to Kyongju at once, arriving there at noon. Walker in themeantime formally appointed Coulter Deputy Commander, Eighth Army, placinghim in command of the ROK I Corps, the U.S. 21st Infantry, the 3d Battalion,9th Infantry, and the 73d Medium Tank Battalion, less C Company. GeneralCoulter designated these units Task Force Jackson and established his headquartersin the same building in Kyongju in which the ROK I Corps commander andthe KMAG officers had their command post. He assumed command of Task ForceJackson at 1200, 27 August. [3]

When he arrived at Kyongju that Sunday, General Coulter found the ROKI Corps disintegrating rapidly and in low morale. Coulter talked to theROK commanders and their staffs about the terrible effect of their failureto stop the North Koreans and the danger it posed for the entire PusanPerimeter. General Walker had instructed him to issue his orders to theROK I Corps commander or his chief of staff in the form of advice, whichCoulter did. Coulter had the mission of eliminating the enemy penetrationin the Kigye area and of seizing and organizing the high ground extendingfrom north of Yongch'on northeasterly to the coast at Wolp'o-ri, abouttwelve miles north of P'ohang-dong. This line passed ten miles north ofKigye. Coulter was to attack at once with Task Force Jackson, his immediateobjective being to gain the first high ground north of Kigye. The U.S.21st Infantry Regiment on the morning of 27 August was moving to a positionnorth of Taegu, when General Walker revoked its orders and instructed ColonelStephens to turn the regiment around and proceed as rapidly as possible to Kyongju and report to General Coulter. The regiment departedTaegu at 1000 and arrived at Kyongju that afternoon. Coulter immediatelysent the 3d Battalion north to An'gang-ni where it went into a positionbehind the ROK Capital Division. [4]

General Coulter's plan to attack on 28 August had to be postponed. TheROK I Corps commander told him he could not attack, that there were "toomany enemy, too many casualties, troops tired." Also, the N.K. 5thDivision above P'ohang-dong had begun to press south again and theROK 3d Division in front of it began to show signs of giving way. On the28th, Colonel Emmerich, the KMAG adviser to the ROK 3d Division, at a timehe deemed favorable, advised Brig. Gen. Kim Suk Won, the ROK division commander,to counterattack, but General Kim refused to do so. The next day Kim saidhe was going to move his command post out of P'ohang-dong. Emmerich replied that the KMAG group was going to stayin P'ohang-dong. Upon hearing that, Kim became hysterical but decided tostay for the time being to avoid loss of face. That day, 28 August, GeneralWalker issued a special statement addressed to the ROK Army, and meantalso for the South Korean Minister of Defense. He called on the ROK's tohold their lines in the Perimeter, and said:

The ROK disorganization was so great in the face of continued enemypressure that Task Force Jackson could not launch its planned co-ordinatedattack. Colonel Stephens' 21st Infantry was in an assembly area two milesnorth of An'gang-ni and ready for an attack the morning of the 28th, butduring the night the ROK 17th Regiment lost its position on the high ridgenorthward at the bend of the Kigye valley, and the attack was canceled.The ROK's regained their position in the afternoon but that night lostit again. At the same time, elements of the enemy 5th Divisionpenetrated the ROK 3d Division southwest of P'ohang-dong. General Coulterdirected Colonel Stephens to repel this penetration. During the 29th, BCompany, 21st Infantry, supported by a platoon of tanks of B Company, 73dMedium Tank Battalion, successfully counterattacked northwest from thesouthern edge of P'ohang-dong for a distance of a mile and a half, withROK troops following. The American units then withdrew to P'ohang-dong.That night the ROK's withdrew, and the next day an American infantry-tankforce repeated the action of the day before. Colonel Stephens now receivedorders to take over from the ROK 3d Division a sector extending 1,000 yardsnorth and 3,000 yards northwest of-P'ohang-dong. [6]

Also on the 29th, the ROK Capital Division, with American tank and artillerysupport, recaptured Kigye and held it during the night against enemy counterattacks,only to lose it finally at dawn. American air attacks continued at an increasedtempo in the Kigye area. On 31 August, the aircraft carrier USS Sicilyalone launched 38 sorties. ROK troops reported finding the bodies of manyNorth Koreans, apparently killed by air attack. They also found many suitsof white clothing scattered on the ground, abandoned when enemy soldierschanged into uniforms.

Coincidentally with this air action in the Kigye area; U.S. naval vesselscontinued their efforts to help stop the N.K. 5th Divisionon the east coast. A cruiser and two destroyers concentrated their fire power on the Hunghaearea five miles north of P'ohang-dong where the enemy division's troopassembly and forward supply center were located. On 29 and 30 August thethree vessels fired almost 1,500 5-inch shells at enemy targets there insupport of the ROK 3d Division. Despite this aerial and naval support,on the last day of August the battle continued to go against the ROK forcesboth at Kigye and P'ohang-dong. [7]

Aerial observation on 1 September disclosed that North Koreans weremoving southward in the mountains above Kigye and P'ohang-dong. The nextday another major enemy attack was forming north and northwest of Kigye.In the afternoon, KMAG advisers with the Capital Division estimated that2,500 enemy soldiers had penetrated a gap between the ROK 17th and 18thRegiments.

At the same time, enemy pressure built up steadily north of P'ohang-dong,where the N.K. 5th Division fed replacements on to Hill 99in front of the ROK 23d Regiment. This hill became almost as notoriousas had Hill 181 near Yongdok earlier because of the almost continuous andbloody fighting there for its control. Although aided by U.S. air attacksand artillery and naval gunfire, the ROK 3d Division was not able to capturethis hill, and suffered many casualties in the effort. On 2 September ColonelStephens' 21st Infantry attacked northwest from P'ohang-dong in an effortto help the ROK's recapture Hill 99. A platoon of tanks followed the valleyroad between P'ohang-dong and Hunghae. Stephens assigned K Company Hill99 as its objective. The 21st Infantry made very slow progress in thisattack, and in some quarters none at all. Casualties were heavy. By 1525that afternoon K Company could account for only thirty-five men. The companywas unable to take Hill 99 from the well dug-in North Koreans who threwshowers of hand grenades to repel all efforts to reach the top. Two tanksof the 6th Tank Battalion were lost in this attack, one in an enemy minefield and another because of a thrown track. At dusk an enemy penetrationoccurred along the boundary between the ROK Capital and 3d Divisions threemiles east of Kigye. [8]

The next morning, an hour and a half after midnight, the N.K. 12thDivision, executing its part of the co-ordinated N.K. IICorps general attack, struck the Capital Division on the high hillmasses south of the Kigye valley. This attack threw back the ROK 18th Regimenton the left in the area of Hills 334 and 438, and the ROK 17th Regimenton the right in the area of Hill 445. By dawn of 3 September the enemypenetration there had reached the vital east-west corridor road three mileseast of An'gang-ni. As a result of this 5-mile enemy gain during the nightthe Capital Division all but collapsed. [9]

This dire turn of events forced General Coulter to withdraw the 21stInfantry at once from the line northwest of P'ohang-dong and concentrateit forthwith in the vicinity of Kyongju. The 2d Battalion, commanded byLt. Col. Gines Perez, had joined the regiment as its third battalion on31 August, but General Coulter had held it in Task Force reserve at An'gang-ni.That battalion now took up a horseshoe-shaped defense position around thetown, with some elements on high ground two miles eastward where they commandedthe Kyongju-P'ohang-dong highway. The rest of the regiment closed intoan assembly area north of Kyongju. At the same time, General Walker startedthe newly activated ROK 7th Division toward the enemy penetration. Its5th Regiment closed at Yongch'on that afternoon, and the 3d Regiment, lessits 1st Battalion, closed at Kyongju in the evening. Walker also authorizedCoulter to use the 3d Battalion, 8th Infantry; the 9th Infantry RegimentalTank Company; and the 15th Field Artillery Battalion as he deemed advisable.These units, held at Yonil Airfield for its defense, had not previouslybeen available for commitment elsewhere. The two antiaircraft batteriesof automatic weapons (D Battery, 865th AAA Battalion, and A Battery, 933dAAA Battalion) were not to be moved from the airfield except in an emergency.[10]

During the day (3 September), Colonel Emmerich at P'ohang-dong sentGeneral Coulter a message that the ROK 3d Division commander was preparingto withdraw from P'ohang-dong. Coulter went immediately to the ROK I Corpscommander and had him issue an order that the ROK 3d Division would notwithdraw. Coulter checked every half hour to see that the division stayedin its P'ohang-dong positions.

That night, 3-4 September, the ROK I Corps front collapsed. Three enemytanks overran a battery of ROK artillery and then scattered two battalionsof the newly arrived ROK 5th Regiment. Following a mortar preparation,the North Koreans entered An'gang-ni at 0220. An hour later the commandpost of the Capital Division withdrew from the town and fighting becameincreasingly confused. By 0400 American tanks ceased firing because remnantsof the Capital Division had become hopelessly intermingled with enemy forces.Colonel Perez said, "We couldn't tell friend from foe." At daylight,G Company, 21st Infantry, discovered that it was alone in An'gang-ni, nearlysurrounded by the enemy. ROK troops had disappeared. At 1810, G Companywithdrew from the town and dug in along the road eastward near the restof the 2d Battalion at the bridge over the Hyongsan-gang. North Koreansheld the town and extended southward along the railroad. [11]

Receiving orders from Colonel Stephens to withdraw the 2d Battalionand join the regiment above Kyongju, Colonel Perez had to fight his waythrough an enemy roadblock on the east side of the Hyongsan-gang three miles southeast of An'gang-ni. When he got throughhe discovered that G Company was missing. Colonel Stephens ordered Perezto turn around and get G Company. The 2d Battalion fought its way backnorth and found G Company at the bridge. Reunited, the battalion foughtits way out again, with tanks firing down the road ahead of the columnand into the hills along the sides. Enemy fire knocked the tracks off threePatton tanks. Friendly artillery then destroyed them to prevent enemy use.The 2d Battalion arrived in the Kyongju area shortly before noon. [12]

By noon, 4 September, enemy units had established roadblocks along theKyongju-An'gang-ni road within three miles of Kyongju. A 2-mile-wide gapexisted between the ROK 3d and Capital Divisions in the P'ohang-dong area.But the big break in the United Nations line was in the high mountain masswest of the Hyongsan valley and southwest of An'gang-ni. In this area northwestof Kyongju there was an 8-mile gap between the Capital Division and theROK 8th Division to the west. From that direction the enemy posed a threat,General Coulter thought, to the railroad and the road net running souththrough the Kyongju corridor to Pusan. He was not equally concerned aboutenemy advances in the P'ohang-dong coastal area. Faced with this big gap onhis left flank, Coulter put Stephens' 21st Infantry in the broad valleyand on its bordering hills northwest of Kyongju to block any enemy approachfrom that direction. [13]

The situation at Kyongju during the evening of 4 September was tense.The ROK corps commander proposed to evacuate the town. He said that theNorth Koreans were only three miles away on the hills to the north, andthat they would attack and overrun the town that night. General Coultertold him that he would not move his command post-that they were all stayingin Kyongju. And stay they did. Coulter put four tanks around the buildingwhere the command posts were located. Out on the roads he stationed KMAGofficers to round up ROK stragglers and get them into positions at theedge of the town. One KMAG major at pistol point stopped ROK troops fleeingsouthward. Most of his staff at Kyongju found Coulter irritable and hardto please, but they also say that he went sleepless and was determinedto hold Kyongju. [14]

That night radio conversations between tankers on the road just northof Kyongju, overheard at Coulter's headquarters, told of knocking NorthKoreans off the tanks. The expected North Korean attack on Kyongju, however,never came. The enemy turned east, crossed the highway a few miles northof the town, and headed toward Yonil Airfield. The next day the Air Force,attacking enemy gun positions four miles north of Kyongju along the road,found enemy targets at many points within the triangle Kigye-Kyongju-P'ohang-dong.

North of P'ohang-dong the situation worsened. At 0200 5 September ColonelEmmerich hastened to Yonil Airfield where he conferred with Lt. Col. D.M. McMains, commanding the 3d Battalion, 9th Infantry, stationed there,and informed him of the situation in P'ohang-dong. Emmerich obtained aplatoon of tanks and returned with them to the town. He placed the tanksin position and awaited the expected enemy armored attack. At 0530 he receivedinformation that elements of the ROK 22d Regiment had given way. Enemytroops entered this gap and just before 1100 the American tanks in P'ohang-dongwere under heavy enemy machine gun fire. Five N.K. self-propelled gunsapproached and began firing. At a range of one city block the tanks knockedout the lead gun, killing three crew members. In the ensuing exchange offire the other four withdrew. Emmerich then directed air strikes and artilleryfire which destroyed the other four guns. But, nevertheless, that afternoonat 1435 the order came to evacuate all materiel and supplies from the Yonilairstrip. [15]

That night, 5-6 September, events reached a climax inside P'ohang-dong.

At midnight, after ten rounds of enemy mortar or artillery fire strucknear it, the ROK 3d Division command post moved to another location. Enemyfire that followed it to the new location indicated observed and directedfire. The ROK division commander and his G-2 and G-3 "got sick."The division withdrew from P'ohang-dong, and on 6 September this coastaltown was again in enemy hands. The ROK Army relieved both the ROK I Corpsand the 3d Division commanders. [16]

Because the big gap between the ROK Capital and 8th Divisions made itimpossible for I Corps at Kyongju to direct the action of the 8th Division,the ROK Army at 1030, 5 September, transferred that division to the controlof the ROK II Corps, and attached to it the 5th Regiment of the ROK 7thDivision. This shift of command came just as the N.K. 15th Divisionpenetrated the ROK 8th Division lines to enter Yongch'on in the Taegu-P'ohang-dongcorridor. From west of An'gang-ni the ROK 3d Regiment drove toward Yongch'on,still trying to close the gap. [17]

The startling gains of the North Koreans in the east on 4 Septembercaused General Walker to shift still more troops to that area. The daybefore, he had ordered the 24th Division to move from its reserve positionnear Taegu to the lower Naktong River to relieve the marines in the NaktongBulge area of the 2d Division front. It bivouacked that night in a downpourof rain on the banks of the Naktong near Susan-nil. On the morning of the4th, before it could begin relief of the marines, the 24th received a neworder to proceed to Kyongju. General Davidson, the assistant division commander,proceeding at once by jeep, arrived at Kyongju that evening. Division troopsand the 18th Infantry started at 1300 the next day, 5 September, and, travelingover muddy roads, most of them arrived at Kyongju just before midnight.General Church had arrived there during the day. All division units hadarrived by 0700, 6 September. [18]

General Coulter knew that the N.K. 15th Division had crossedthe Taegu lateral corridor at Yongch'on and was heading in the directionof Kyongju. On the 6th, he ordered the 21st Infantry to attack the nextday up the valley and bordering hills that lead northwest from Kyongjuinto the high mountain mass in the direction of Yongch'on. When it attackedthere on 7 September the 21st Infantry encountered virtually no opposition.

At 1230 Eighth Army redesignated Task Force Jackson as Task Force Church,and half an hour later General Coulter departed Kyongju for Taegu to resumehis planning duties. General Church was now in command on the eastern front.That afternoon, 7 September, General Church canceled General Coulter'sorder for the 21st Infantry to attack into the mountains. He felt it wasa useless dispersion of troops and he wanted the regiment concentratednear Kyongju. Church made still another change in the disposition of the task force. On the 8th he moved its command post from Kyongju to thevicinity of Choyang-ni, four miles southward. He believed the command postcould be more easily defended there in the open if attacked than in a town,and that traffic congestion near it would be less. [19]

Fighting continued between the North Koreans and the ROK Capital Divisionon the hills bordering the valley from An'gang-ni to Kyongju. The 3d Battalion,19th Infantry, became involved there just after midnight, 8-9 September.An enemy force attacked K Company and drove it from Hill 300, a defensiveposition midway between An'gang-ni and Kyongju. North Koreans held thehill during the 9th against counterattack. Farther north, on the left sideof the valley, the ROK 17th Regiment attacked and, with the support ofthe U.S. 13th Field Artillery Battalion, captured Hill 285 and held itagainst several enemy counterattacks. On the opposite side of the valley(east) the ROK 18th Regiment made limited gains. These battles took placein drenching typhoon rains. Low-hanging clouds allowed very little airsupport. The rains finally ceased on 10 September. [20]

In this second week of September elements of the N.K. 5th Divisionhad spread out over the hills west, southwest, and south of P'ohang-dong.One North Korean force, estimated to number 1,600 men, reached Hills 482and 510, four to five miles southwest of Yonil Airfield. Facing this enemyforce were two regiments of the ROK 3d Division, which held a defensiveposition on the hills bordering the west side of the valley south of theairfield. Enemy pressure threatened to penetrate between the two ROK regiments.

On the evening of 9 September, General Church formed Task Force Davidsonto eliminate this threat to Yonil. The airfield itself had not been usedsince the middle of August except for emergency landing and refueling ofplanes, but evacuation of Air Force equipment, bombs, and petroleum productswas still in progress. General Davidson commanded the task force, whichwas composed of the 19th Infantry, less the 3d Battalion; the 3d Battalion,9th Infantry; the 13th Field Artillery Battalion; C Battery, 15th FieldArtillery Battalion; A Company, 3d Engineer Combat Battalion; the 9th InfantryRegimental Tank Company; two batteries of antiaircraft automatic weapons;and other miscellaneous units. [21]

The enemy having cut off all other approaches from the Kyongju area,the task force spent all of 10 September making a circuitous southern approachto its objective. It arrived in its assembly area at Yongdok-tong, onemile south of Yonil Airfield, at 1900 that evening. General Davidson earlythat morning had flown on ahead from Kyongju to Yongdok-tong. Colonel Emmerichwas there to meet him when his light plane landed on the road. On the flightover, Davidson looked for but did not see any enemy soldiers. Emmerich told Davidson the North Koreans had driventhe ROK's from Hill 131. This hill was on the southern side of the boundarybetween the two ROK regiments holding the Yonil defensive position. Davidsonand Emmerich agreed that the ROK's would have to recapture Hill 131 duringthe night and that then the task force would attack through the ROK 3dDivision to capture the main enemy positions on Hill 482. They thoughtthat if the task force could establish the ROK's on Hill 482 the lattershould be able to hold it and control the situation themselves thereafter.Emmerich took Davidson to meet the ROK 3d Division commander. Davidsontold him that he was in command in that area and informed him of his planfor the attack. That night the ROK's did succeed in recapturing Hill 131and restoring their lines there. In this attack the ROK 3d Engineer Battalionfought as infantry, and under the leadership and guidance of Capt. WalterJ. Hutchins, the KMAG adviser to the battalion, contributed heavily tothe success. [22]

The next morning, 11 September, the 19th Infantry passed through theleft-hand ROK regiment just south of Hill 131 and, with the 1st Battalionleading, attacked west. At 0930 it captured without opposition the firsthill mass two miles west of the line of departure. The 2d Battalion thenpassed through the 1st Battalion and continued the attack toward Hill 482(Unje-san), a mile westward across a steep-sided gorge. There, North Koreansheld entrenched positions, and their machine gun fire checked the 2d Battalionfor the rest of the day. The morning of 12 September four Australian pilotsstruck the enemy positions with napalm, and an artillery preparation followedthe strike. The 2d Battalion then launched its attack and secured the roughand towering Hill 482 about noon. In midafternoon, ROK forces relievedTask Force Davidson on the hill mass, and the latter descended to the valleysouthwest of Yongdok-tong for the night. During the day, General Walkerhad visited the task force's command post two or three times. On 13 September,Task Force Davidson returned to Kyongju. [23]

While this action was in progress near Yonil Airfield, the week-longbattle for Hill 300 north of Kyongju came to an end. A regiment of theROK 3d Division captured the hill on 11 September. In midafternoon the3d Battalion, 18th Infantry, relieved the ROK's there. Scattered over Hill300 lay 257 counted enemy dead and great quantities of abandoned equipmentand weapons, some of it American. In this fighting for Hill 300, the U.S.3d Battalion, 18th Infantry, lost eight lieutenants and twenty-nine enlistedmen killed. [24]

Tuesday, 12 September, may be considered as the day when the North Koreanoffensive in the east ended. By that date, the N.K. 12th Divisionhad been virtually destroyed and the 5th Division was tryingto consolidate its survivors near P'ohang-dong. Aerial observers reported sighting manyenemy groups moving north and east. [25]

The ROK 3d Division followed the withdrawing 5th Division,and the Capital Division advanced against the retreating survivors of theenemy 12th Division. On 15 September some elements of theCapital Division reached the southern edge of An'gang-ni. Reports indicatedthat enemy troops were retreating toward Kigye. With the enemy threat inthe east subsiding, Eighth Army dissolved Task Force Church, effectiveat noon 15 September, and the ROK Army resumed control of the ROK I Corps.Eighth Army also ordered the 24th Division to move to Kyongsan, southeastof Taegu, in a regrouping of forces. The 21st Infantry Regiment had alreadymoved there on the 14th. The 9th Infantry was to remain temporarily atKyongju in Eighth Army reserve. [26]

In the eastern battles during the first two weeks of September, theROK troops, demoralized though they were, did most of the ground fighting.American tanks, artillery, and ground units supported them. Uncontestedaerial supremacy and naval gunfire from offshore also supported the ROK's,and probably were the factors that tipped the scales in their favor. Afterthe initial phase of their September offensive, the North Koreans laboredunder what proved to be insurmountable difficulties in supplying theirforward units. The North Korean system of supply could not resolve theproblems of logistics and communication necessary to support and exploitan offensive operation in this sector of the front.

In the high mountains between the Taegu sector on the west and the Kyongju-eastcoast sector, two North Korean divisions, the 8th and 15th,stood ready on 1 September to attack south and sever the Taegu-P'ohang-dongcorridor road in the vicinity of Hayang and Yongch'on, in co-ordinationwith the North Korean offensive in the Kigye-P'ohang area. Hayang is 12,and Yongch'on 20, air miles east of Taegu. The N.K. 8th Division was astridethe main Andong-Sinnyong-Yongch'on road 20 air miles northwest of Yongch'on;the 15th was eastward in the mountains just below Andong, 35 airmiles north of Yongch'on on a poor and mountainous secondary road. Theobjective of the 8th Division was Hayang; that of the 15th was Yongch'on,which the enemy division commander had orders to take at all costs. Opposingthe N.K. 8th Division was the ROK 6th Division; in frontof the N.K. 15th Division stood the ROK 8th Division. [27]

In ten days of fighting the N.K. 8th Division gained onlya few miles, and not until 12 September did it have possession of Hwajong-dong,14 air miles northwest of Yongch'on. In this time it lost nearly all the twenty-one new tanks of the 17th Armored Brigadethat were supporting it. Just below Hwajong-dong, towering mountains closein on the road, with 3,000-foot-high Hill 928 (Hwa-san) on the east andlesser peaks 2,000 feet high on the west. At this passage of the mountainsinto the Taegu corridor, the ROK 6th Division decisively defeated the enemy8th Division and, in effect, practically destroyed it. Of these battlesaround Hwajong-dong an enemy diarist wrote on 2 September, "Todaywe opened a general attack"; after 6 September, "We underwentextremely desperate battles. With no place to hide or escape from the fierceenemy artillery bombardment our main force was wiped out." On 8 Septemberhe wrote, "We suffered miserably heavy casualties from fierce enemyair, artillery, and heavy machine gun attacks. Only 20 remain alive outof our entire battalion." [28]

On the next road eastward above Yongch'on, the N.K. 15th Divisionlaunched its attack against the ROK 8th Division on 2 September. Althoughfar understrength, with its three regiments reportedly having a total ofonly 3,600 men, it penetrated in four days to the lateral corridor at Yongch'on.North of the town one regiment of the ROK 8th Division panicked when anenemy tank got behind its lines. Elements of the enemy division were inand south of Yongch'on by midafternoon 6 September. The North Koreans didnot remain in the town, but moved to the hills south and southeast of itoverlooking the Taegu-Kyongju-Pusan road. On 7 September some of them establisheda roadblock three and a half miles southeast of Yongch'on, and other elementsattacked a ROK regiment a mile south of the town. During the day, however,the ROK 5th Regiment of the newly activated 7th Division, attacking fromthe east along the lateral corridor, cleared Yongch'on itself of enemyand then went into a defensive position north of the town. But the nextday, 8 September, additional elements of the 15th Division arrived beforeYongch'on and recaptured it. That afternoon the 11th Regiment of the ROK1st Division arrived from the Taegu front and counterattacked the enemyin and near the town. This action succeeded in clearing the enemy frommost of Yongch'on, but some North Koreans still held the railroad stationsoutheast of it. Still others were an unknown distance southeast on theroad toward Kyongju. [29]

There, in the hills southeast and east of Yongch'on, the enemy 15thDivision came to grief. Its artillery regiment foolishly advancedahead of the infantry, expended its ammunition, and, without support, wasthen largely destroyed by ROK counterbattery fire. The artillery commanderlost his life in the action. After the ROK 5th and 11th Regiments arrivedin the vicinity of Yongch'on to reinforce the demoralized 8th Division, ROK battle action was so severeagainst the enemy units that they had no chance to regroup for co-ordinatingaction. On 9 and 10 September ROK units surrounded and virtually destroyedthe N.K. 15th Division southeast of Yongch'on on the hillsbordering the Kyongju road. The North Korean division chief of staff, Col.Kim Yon, was killed there together with many other high-ranking officers.The part played by KMAG officers in rounding up stragglers of the ROK 8thDivision and in reorganizing its units was an important factor in the successfuloutcome of these battles. On 10 September, the ROK 8th Division clearedthe Yongch'on-Kyongju road of the enemy, capturing 2 tanks, 6 howitzers,1 76-mm. self-propelled gun, several antitank guns, and many small arms.The capture of the self-propelled gun is a revealing story in itself. Thedriver drove the gun, followed by a truckload of enemy infantry, from thesoutheast through the ROK lines to Yongch'on, where he stopped and wasquietly eating dinner with ROK troops when he came under suspicion andhad to make a dash for it, hotly pursued by groups of ROK's. He surrenderedfour miles northward to a lone ROK soldier with the explanation that hecould not drive the vehicle and shoot at the same time. [30]

Advancing north of Yongch'on after the retreating survivors of the N.K.15th Division, the ROK 8th Division and the 5th Regimentof the ROK 7th Division encountered almost no resistance. On 12 September,elements of the two ROK organizations were eight miles north of the town.On that day they captured 4 120-mm. mortars, 4 antitank guns, 4 artillerypieces, 9 trucks, 2 machine guns, and numerous small arms. ROK forces nowalso advanced east from Yongch'on and north from Kyongju to close the bigbreach in their lines. [31]

Perhaps the most critical period of the fighting in the east occurredwhen the N.K. 15th Division broke through the ROK 8th Divisionto Yongch'on. The enemy division at that point was in a position to turnwest toward Taegu and take Eighth Army and the 1st Cavalry Division therein the rear, or to turn east and southeast and take Task Force Jacksonin the rear or on its left flank. It tried to do the latter. But GeneralWalker's quick dispatch of the ROK 5th and 11th Regiments from two widelyseparated sectors of the front to the area of penetration resulted in destroyingthe enemy force before it could exploit its breakthrough. General Walker'sprompt judgment of the reinforcements needed to stem the North Korean attacksin the Kyongju-P'ohang and the Yongch'on areas, and his rapid shiftingof these reinforcements to the threatened sectors from other fronts, constitutea notable command achievement in the battles of the Pusan Perimeter. [32]

While four divisions of the N.K. II Corps attacked southin the P'ohang-dong, Kyongju, and Yongch'on sectors, the remaining threedivisions of the corps-the 3d, 13th, and 1st, in thatorder from west to east-were to execute their converging attack on Taegufrom the north and northwest. The 3d Division was to attackin the Waegwan area northwest of Taegu, the 13th Divisiondown the mountain ridges north of Taegu along and west of the Sangju-Taeguroad, and the 1st Division along the high mountain ridgesjust east of the road. (Map 15)

Defending Taegu, the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division had a front of aboutthirty-five miles. General Gay outposted the main avenues of entry intohis zone and kept his three regiments concentrated behind the outposts.At the southwestern end of his line General Gay initially controlled the3d Battalion, 23d Infantry, 2d Division, which had been attached to the1st Cavalry Division. On 5 September the British 27th Brigade, in its firstcommitment in the Korean War, replaced that battalion. Next in line northward,the 5th Cavalry Regiment defended the sector along the Naktong around Waegwanand the main Seoul highway southeast from there to Taegu. Eastward, the7th Cavalry Regiment was responsible for the mountainous area between thathighway and the hills bordering the Sangju road. The 8th Cavalry Regiment,responsible for the latter road, was astride it and on the bordering hills.[33]

Greatly concerned at the beginning of September over the North Koreanattack and penetration of the southern sector of the Pusan Perimeter inthe 2d and 25th Divisions' zone, General Walker on 1 September orderedthe 1st Cavalry Division to attack north or northwest in an effort to divertto that quarter some of the enemy strength in the south. General Gay'sinitial decision upon receipt of this order was to attack north up theSangju road, but his staff and regimental commanders all joined in urgingthat the attack instead be against Hill 518 in the 7th Cavalry zone, andthey talked him out of his original intent. Only two days before, Hill518 had been in the ROK 1st Division zone and had been considered an enemyassembly point. The 1st Cavalry Division, accordingly, prepared for anattack in the 7th Cavalry sector and for diversionary attacks by two companiesof the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, on the 7th Cavalry's right flank. Thisleft the 8th Cavalry only one rifle company in reserve. The regiment's1st Battalion was on the hill mass to the west of the Bowling Alley andnorth of Tabu-dong; its 2d Battalion was astride the road.

This planned attack against Hill 518 chanced to coincide with the defectionand surrender on 2 September of Maj. Kim Song Jun, the S-3 of the N.K.19th Regiment, 13th Division. He reported thata full-scale North Korean attack was to begin at dusk that day. The N.K.13th Division, he said, had just taken in 4,000 replacements,2,000 of them without weapons, and was now back to a strength of approximately9,000 men. Upon receiving this intelligence, General Gay alerted all front-lineunits to be prepared for the enemy attack. [34]

Complying with Eighth Army's order for what was in effect a spoilingattack against the North Koreans northwest of Taegu, General Gay on 1 Septemberordered the 7th Cavalry to attack the next day and seize enemy-held Hill518. Hill 518 (Suam-san) is a large mountain mass five miles northeastof Waegwan and two miles east of the Naktong River. It curves westwardfrom its peak to its westernmost height, Hill 346, from which the grounddrops abruptly to the Naktong River. Situated north of the lateral Waegwan-Tabu-dongroad, and

about midway between the two towns, it was a critical terrain featuredominating the road between the two places. After securing Hill 518, the7th Cavalry attack was to continue on to Hill 314. Air strikes and artillerypreparations were to precede the infantry attack on 2 September. Fortypieces of artillery, four-fifths of that available to the 1st Cavalry Division,were to support the attack. [35]

On the morning of 2 September the Air Force delivered a 37-minute strikeagainst Hills 518 and 346. The artillery then laid down its concentrationson the hills, and after that the planes came over again napalming and leavingthe heights ablaze. Just after 1000, and immediately after the final napalmstrike, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, attacked up Hill 518.

The plan of regimental attack unfortunately brought a minimum of forceagainst the objective. While the 1st Battalion made the attack, the 2dBattalion was in a blocking position on its left (west) and the newly arrived3d Battalion, in its first Korean operation, was to be behind the 2d Battalion and in an open gap between that battalionand Hill 518. The 1st Battalion moved up through ROK forces and, from highground, was committed along a narrow ridge line, attacking from the southeastin a column of companies. This in turn resolved itself in a column of platoons,and finally in a column of squads. The final effect, therefore, was thatof a regimental attack amounting to a one-squad attack against a stronglyheld position.

The attack was doomed to failure from the start. The heavy air strikesand the artillery preparations had failed to dislodge the North Koreans.From their positions they delivered mortar and machine gun fire on theclimbing infantry, stopping the weak, advanced force short of the crest.In the afternoon the battalion withdrew from Hill 518 and attacked northeastagainst Hill 490, from which other enemy troops had fired in support ofthe North Koreans on Hill 518.

The next day at noon, the newly arrived 3d Battalion resumed the attackagainst Hill 518 from the south, over unreconnoitered ground, and, as didthe 1st Battalion the day before, in a column of companies that resolveditself in the end into a column of squads. Again the attack failed. Otherattacks failed on 4 September. An enemy forward observer captured on Hill518 said that 1,200 North Koreans were dug in on the hill and that theyhad 120-mm. and 82-mm. mortars with ammunition. [36]

While these actions were in progress on its right, the 2d Battalion,5th Cavalry Regiment, on 4 September attacked and captured Hill 303. Thenext day it had the utmost difficulty in holding the hill against enemycounterattacks. By 4 September it had become quite clear that the N.K.3d Division in front of the 5th and 7th Cavalry Regimentswas itself attacking, and that, despite continued air strikes, artillerypreparations, and infantry efforts on Hill 518, it was infiltrating largenumbers of its troops to the rear of the attacking United States forces.That day the I&R Platoon reported that enemy soldiers held Hill 464,a high hill mass opposite Hill 518 on the south side of the Waegwan-Tabu-dongroad, and that it had to destroy its radio and machine gun to keep themfrom falling into enemy hands. That night large enemy forces came throughthe gap between the 3d Battalion on the southern slope of Hill 518 andthe 2d Battalion westward. For a time those in the 3d Battalion commandpost thought the attack was going to turn east and overrun them but, instead,the North Koreans turned west and occupied Hill 464 in force. By 5 September,although it was not yet known by the 7th Cavalry, Hill 464 to its rearprobably had more North Koreans on it than Hill 518 to its front. NorthKoreans cut the Waegwan-Tabu-dong road east of the regiment so that itscommunications with friendly units now were only to the west. During theday the 7th Cavalry made a limited withdrawal on Hill 518. Any hope thatthe regiment could capture the hill vanished. One American officer describedthe situation north of Taegu at this time with the comment, "I'llbe damned if I know who's got who surrounded." [37] On the division right,Tabu-dong was in enemy hands, on the left Waegwan was a no-man's land,and in the center strong enemy forces were infiltrating southward fromHill 518. The 7th Cavalry Regiment in the center could no longer use theWaegwan-Tabu-dong lateral supply road behind it, and was in danger of beingsurrounded. After discussing a withdrawal plan with General Walker andColonel Collier, General Gay on 5 September issued an order for a generalwithdrawal of the 1st Cavalry Division during the night to shorten thelines and to occupy a better defensive position. The movement was to progressfrom right to left beginning with the 8th Cavalry Regiment, then the 7thCavalry in the Hill 518 area, and finally the 5th Cavalry in the Waegwanarea. This withdrawal caused the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, to give upa hill it had just attacked and captured near the Tabu-dong road on theapproaches of the Walled City of Ka-san. In the 7th Cavalry sector the1st, 3d, and 2d Battalions were to withdraw in that order, after the withdrawalof the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, on their right. The 2d Battalion, 5thCavalry, on Hill 303 north of Waegwan was to cover the withdrawal of the7th Cavalry and hold open the escape road. [38]

At this time, about 5 September, as the 7th Cavalry Regiment was forcedinto a withdrawal, and enemy penetrations in the south had opened the wayto Pusan, a crisis developed in appraisals and decisions called for inthe Eighth Army command. Everywhere around the Perimeter the North Koreanswere penetrating the defense positions and in some places making spectaculargains. It was a question whether the Eighth Army and the ROK's could holdanything like the Pusan Perimeter based on the line of the Naktong. TheROK Army and most of the American divisions appeared to be near the breakingpoint. Should the United Nations line be withdrawn to the Davidson Line?That question was under debate in Eighth Army headquarters. The decisionto withdraw to that line seemed near as the North Koreans captured P'ohang-dongand drove to the edge of Kyongju in the east, reached Yongch'on in theTaegu lateral corridor, captured Waegwan, Tabu-dong, and Ka-san north ofTaegu, drove through the old Naktong Bulge area to Yongsan, and in thesouth split the U.S. 25th Division and poured into its rear areas almostto the edge of Masan. (The Naktong Bulge and Masan penetrations have notyet been described, but they had already taken place as part of the NorthKorean co-ordinated attack.)

General Walker discussed the issue of withdrawing to the Davidson Lineone night with his principal staff officers, most of the division commanders,and General Coulter, his deputy commander in the east. Colonel Dabney,Eighth Army G-3, told General Walker that for once he did not know what to recommend, that the decision was ahard one to make, but that he hoped the Army could stay. He pointed outthat North Korean penetrations in the past had waned after a few days andthat they might do so again. Upon orders from Colonel Landrum, Dabney startedthe G-3 Section that evening working on preparing withdrawal orders forEighth Army. The staff section worked all night long on them. They werepublished and ready for issuing at 0500 in the morning, but they were heldin the G-3 Section pending General Walker's personal order to put theminto effect. The order was not given. At some time during the night Walkerreached the decision that Eighth Army would not withdraw. [39]

But at this time Eighth Army headquarters did leave Taegu. The tacticalsituation had deteriorated so much on the afternoon of 4 September thatthe 1st Cavalry Division ammunition supply point in Taegu loaded nearlyall its ammunition on rail cars on Eighth Army' orders and prepared fora hasty evacuation southward. The Army transportation officer placed anembargo on all rail shipments north of Samnangjin on the main line, andnorth and east of Kyongju on the east line. The next morning, 5 September,General Walker reached the decision to move the main army headquartersback to the old Fisheries College between Pusan and Tongnae, north of Pusan,and it made the move during the day. The ROK Army headquarters moved toPusan. The ROK Army headquarters opened at Pusan at 0800 and Eighth Armyheadquarters at 1600, 6 September. Walker himself and a few staff officersremained in Taegu as an advanced echelon of the army command post, constitutinga tactical headquarters. The principal reason General Walker moved EighthArmy headquarters to Pusan was for the greater protection of the army signalcommunication equipment. Had the Eighth Army teletype equipment been destroyedor captured by the enemy there was no other similar heavy equipment inthe Far East to replace it. The Army's operations would have been seriouslyhandicapped had this signal equipment been lost or damaged. [40]

At this time, General Garvin issued verbal orders to service troopsin the 2d Logistical Command at Pusan to take defensive positions on the hills bordering the port city and withinthe city itself if and when the tactical situation required it. [41]

What the South Korean civilian estimate of the situation was at thistime can be surmised from the fact that about 5 September prominent Koreansstarted to leave Pusan for the island of Tsushima, midway in the KoreanStrait between Korea and Japan. Operators of small 10- to 20-ton vesselssmuggled them across to the island. Wealthy and influential Chinese residingin the Pusan area were planning to leave for Formosa, the first group expectingto depart about 8 September. They, too, were to be smuggled away in smallvessels. [42]

This period in early September 1950 tested General Walker as perhapsno other did. Walker was generally an undemonstrative man in public, hewas not popular with the press, and he was not always popular with histroops. He could be hard and demanding. He was so at this time. When manyof his commanders were losing confidence in the ability of Eighth Armyto stop the North Koreans he remained determined that it would. On oneoccasion in early September he told one of his division commanders in effect,"If the enemy gets into Taegu you will find me resisting him in thestreets and I'll have some of my trusted people with me and you had betterbe prepared to do the same. Now get back to your division and fight it."He told one general he did not want to see him back from the front againunless it was in a coffin. [43]

By day, General Walker moved around the Perimeter defense positionseither by liaison plane or in his armored jeep. The jeep was equipped witha special iron handrail permitting him to stand up so that he could observebetter while the vehicle was in motion, and generally it was in rapid motion.In addition to his .45 automatic pistol, he customarily carried a repeatingshotgun with him, because, as he told a fellow officer, "I don't mindbeing shot at, but ---- these are not going to ambush me." [44] Walkerwas at his best in Korea in the Pusan Perimeter battles. Famous previouslyas being an exponent of armored offensive warfare, he demonstrated in Augustand September 1950 that he was also skilled in defensive warfare. His pugnacioustemperament fitted him for directing the fighting of a bitter holding action.He was a stout-hearted soldier.

It was in this crisis that the 7th Cavalry began its withdrawal northwestof Taegu. In his withdrawal instructions for the 7th Cavalry, Col. CecilNist, the regimental commander, ordered, "The 2d Battalion must clearHill 464 of enemy tonight." This meant that the 2d Battalion mustdisengage from the enemy to its front and attack to its rear to gain possession of Hills 464 and 380 on the new main line of resistanceto be occupied by the regiment. Since efforts to gain possession of Hill464 by other elements had failed in the past two or three days this didnot promise to be an easy mission.

Heavy rains fell during the night of 5-6 September and mud slowed allwheeled and tracked vehicles in the withdrawal. The 1st Battalion completedits withdrawal without opposition. During its night march west, the 3dBattalion column was joined several times by groups of North Korean soldierswho apparently thought it was one of their own columns moving south. Theywere made prisoners and taken along in the withdrawal. Nearing Waegwanat dawn, the battalion column was taken under enemy tank and mortar fireafter daybreak and sustained about eighteen casualties.

The 2d Battalion disengaged from the enemy and began its withdrawalat 0300, 6 September. The battalion abandoned two tanks, one because ofmechanical failure and the other because it was stuck in the mud. The battalionmoved to the rear in two main groups: G Company to attack Hill 464 andthe rest of the battalion to seize Hill 380, half a mile farther south.The North Koreans quickly discovered that the 2d Battalion was withdrawing and attacked it. The battalion commander, Maj. OmarT. Hitchner, and his S-3, Capt. James T. Milam, were killed. In the vicinityof Hills 464 and 380 the battalion discovered at daybreak that it was virtuallysurrounded by enemy soldiers. Colonel Nist thought that the entire battalionwas lost. [45]

Moving by itself and completely cut off from all other units, G Company,numbering only about eighty men, was hardest hit. At 0800, nearing thetop of Hill 464, it surprised and killed three enemy soldiers. Suddenly,enemy automatic weapons and small arms fire struck the company. All dayG Company maneuvered around the hill but never gained its crest. At midafternoonit received radio orders to withdraw that night. The company left six deadon the hill and, carrying its wounded on improvised litters of ponchosand tree branches, it started down the shale slopes of the mountain inrain and darkness. Halfway down, a friendly artillery barrage killed oneof the noncommissioned officers, and a rock thrown by one of the explodingshells hit Capt. Herman L. West, G Company commander, inflicting a painfulback injury. The company scattered but Captain West reassembled it. Cautioninghis men to move quietly and not to fire in any circumstances, so that surroundingenemy troops might think them one of their own columns, West led his mento the eastern base of Hill 464 where he went into a defensive positionfor the rest of the night. [46]

On the division left, meanwhile, the 2d Battalion, 5th Cavalry, on Hill303 came under heavy attack and the battalion commander wanted to withdraw.Colonel Crombez, the regimental commander, told him he could not do sountil the 7th Cavalry had cleared on its withdrawal road. This battalionsuffered heavy casualties before it abandoned Hill 303 on the 6th to theenemy. [47]

While G Company was trying to escape from Hill 464, the rest of the2d Battalion was cut off at the eastern base of Hill 380, half a mile southward.Colonel Nist organized all the South Korean carriers he could find beforedark and loaded them with water, food, and ammunition for the 2d Battalion,but the carrier party was unable to find the battalion. At dawn on 7 Septemberthe men in G Company's perimeter at the eastern base of Hill 464 saw inthe dim light four figures coming down a trail toward them. Soon recognizingthem as North Koreans, the men killed them. This rifle fire brought answeringfire from enemy troops in nearby positions. At this time, Captain Westheard what he recognized as fire from American weapons on a knob to hiswest. Thinking that it might be from the Weapons Platoon which had becomeseparated from him during the night, he led his company in that direction.He was right; soon the company was reunited.

The Weapons Platoon, led by Lt. Harold R. Anderegg, had undergone astrange experience. After becoming separated from the rest of the company,three times during the night it encountered North Koreans on the trailit was following but in each instance neither side fired, each going onits way. At dawn, the platoon came upon a group of foxholes on a knoll.Enemy soldiers were occupying some of them. In a swift action which apparentlysurprised and paralyzed the North Koreans, the platoon killed approximatelythirteen and captured three enemy soldiers. From the body of an officerthe men took a brief case containing important documents and maps. Theseshowed that Hill 464 was an assembly point for part of the N.K. 3dDivision in its advance from Hill 518 toward Taegu. [48]

Later in the day (7 September), Capt. Melbourne C. Chandler, actingcommander of the 2d Battalion, received word of G Company's location onHill 464 from an aerial observer and sent a patrol which guided the companysafely to the battalion at the eastern base of Hill 380. The battalion,meanwhile, had received radio orders to withdraw by any route as soon aspossible. It moved southwest into the 5th Cavalry sector. At one pointit escaped ambush by turning aside when North Koreans dressed in Americanuniforms waved helmets and shouted, "Hey, this way, G.I.!" [49]

East of the td Battalion, the enemy attacked the 1st Battalion in itsnew position on 7 September and overran the battalion aid station, killingfour and wounding seven men. That night the 1st Battalion on division orderwas attached to the 5th Cavalry Regiment. The rest of the 7th Cavalry Regimentmoved to a point near Taegu in division reserve. During the night of 7-8September the 5th Cavalry Regiment on division orders withdrew still fartherbelow Waegwan to new defensive positions astride the main Seoul-Taegu highway.The enemy 3d Division was still moving reinforcements across the Naktong.Observers sighted fifteen barges loaded with troops and artillery piecescrossing the river two miles north of Waegwan on the evening of the 7th.On the 8th the North Korean communiqué claimed the capture of Waegwan.[50]

The next day the situation grew worse for the 1st Cavalry Division.On its left flank, the N.K. 3d Division forced the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry,to withdraw from Hill 345, three miles east of Waegwan. The enemy pressedforward and the 5th Cavalry was immediately locked in hard, seesaw fightingon Hills 203 and 174. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, before it left thatsector to rejoin its regiment, finally captured the latter hill after fourattacks.

Only with the greatest difficulty did the 5th Cavalry Regiment holdHill 203 on 12 September. Between midnight and 0400, 13 September, theNorth Koreans attacked again and took Hill 203 from E Company, Hill 174from L Company, and Hill 188 from B and F Companies. In an afternoon counterattack the regiment regained Hill 188 on the south side of the highway, butfailed against Hills 203 and 174 on the north side. On the 14th, I Companyagain attacked Hill 174, which had by now changed hands seven times. Inthis action the company suffered 82 casualties. Its 2d Platoon with 27Americans and 15 ROK's at the start had only 11 Americans and 5 ROK's whenit reached its objective. Even so, the company held only one side of thehill, the enemy held the other, and grenade battles between the two continuedfor another week. The battalions of the 5th Cavalry Regiment were so lowin strength at this time as to be scarcely combat effective. This seesawbattle continued in full swing only eight air miles northwest of Taegu.[51]

Hard on the heels of Major Kim's warning that the North Korean attackwould strike the night of 2 September, the blow hit with full force inthe Bowling Alley area north of Taegu. It caught the 8th Cavalry Regimentdefending the Sangju road badly deployed in that it lacked an adequatereserve. The North Koreans struck the 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, the nightof 2-3 September on Hill 448 west of the Bowling Alley and two miles northof Tabu-dong, and overran it. On the right, E Company, although not underattack, was cut off and had to withdraw by a roundabout way. Lt. Col. HaroldK. Johnson, commanding officer of the 3d Battalion, placed I Company ina blocking position just north of Tabu-dong astride the road. There, twoenemy tanks and some enemy infantry struck it at 0200 in the morning of3 September. In this action, I Company suffered many casualties but repelledthe enemy attack. The overrun 2d Battalion withdrew through the 3d Battalionwhich had assembled hastily in a defensive position south of Tabu-dong.During the day, elements of the N.K. 1st Division forced the 8thCavalry I&R Platoon and a detachment of South Korean police from theWalled City of Ka-san on the crest of Hill 902, four miles east of Tabu-dong.On 3 September, therefore, Eighth Army lost to the enemy both Tabu-dongand Hill 902, locally called Ka-san, the dominant mountain-top ten milesnorth of Taegu. [52]

The North Koreans now concentrated artillery north of Hill 902 and,although its fire was light and sporadic, it did cause minor damage inthe 99th Field Artillery positions. This sudden surge of the enemy southwardtoward Taegu caused concern in Eighth Army headquarters. The Army ordereda ROK battalion from the Taegu Replacement Training Center to a positionin the rear of the 8th Cavalry, and the 1st Cavalry Division organizedTask Force Allen, to be commanded by Assistant Division Commander Brig.Gen. Frank A. Allen, Jr. This task force comprised two provisional battalions formedof division headquarters and technical service troops, the division band,the replacement company, and other miscellaneous troops. It was to be usedin combat should the North Koreans break through to the edge of the city.[53]

Eighth Army countered the North Korean advance down the Tabu-dong roadby ordering the 1st Cavalry Division to recapture and defend Hill 902.This hill, ten miles north of Taegu, gave observation all the way souththrough Eighth Army positions into the city, and, in enemy hands, couldbe used for general intelligence purposes and to direct artillery and mortarfire. Hill 902 was too far distant from the Tabu-dong road to dominateit; otherwise it would have controlled this main communication route. Theshortage of North Korean artillery and mortar ammunition nullified in largepart the advantages the peak held as an observation point.

Actually, there was no walled city on the crest of Ka-san. Ka-san, orHill 902, the 3,000-foot-high mountain which differs from most high peaksin this part of Korea in having an oval-shaped semi-level area on its summit.This oval is a part of a mile-long ridge-like crest, varying from 200 to800 yards in width, which slopes down from the peak at 902 meters to approximately 755 meters at its southeastern end. On all sidesof this ridge crest the mountain slopes drop precipitously. In bygone agesKoreans had built a thirty-foot-high stone wall around the crest and hadconverted the summit into a fortress. One man who fought in the shadowof the wall commented later, "It looked to me like they built thatwall just to keep the land from sliding down." Most of the summitin 1950 was covered with a dense growth of scrub brush and small pine trees.There were a few small terraced fields. Koreans knew Ka-san as the SacredMountain. Near the northern end of the crest still stood the Buddhist PogukTemple.

When the 1st Cavalry Division on 29 August assumed responsibility forthe old ROK 1st Division sector north of Taegu it sent a patrol from theI&R Platoon to the top of Ka-san. There the patrol found 156 SouthKorean police. There was some discussion between General Gay and EighthArmy about whether the 1st Cavalry Division or the ROK 1st Division shouldhave the responsibility for the mountain. General Gay maintained that hisunderstrength division with a 35-mile front was already overextended andcould not extend eastward beyond the hills immediately adjacent to theTabu-dong road. Uncertainty as to final responsibility for Ka-san endedon the afternoon of 3 September after North Koreans had seized the mountain.The Eighth Army G-3 Section telephoned Col. Ernest V. Holmes, Chief of Staff, 1st Cavalry Division,and told him that the 1st Cavalry Division had responsibility for the WalledCity. Holmes replied he believed that General Gay, who was then absentfrom the headquarters, would not like the decision, but that pending hisreturn he would send a company of engineers to Ka-san. When General Gayreturned to his command post he said that if the army had ordered the responsibilityit had to be complied with, and he approved Holmes' decision to send acompany to the mountain. [54]

After his telephone conversation with Eighth Army, Colonel Holmes orderedLt. Col. William C. Holley, commanding officer of the 8th Engineer CombatBattalion, to report to Col. Raymond D. Palmer, commanding the 8th CavalryRegiment. That afternoon Colonel Palmer in his command post on the Tabu-dongroad outlined to Holley and the commanding officers of D Company, 8th EngineerCombat Battalion, and E Company, 8th Cavalry, his attack plan to regaincontrol of Ka-san. The Engineer company, commanded by 1st Lt. John T. Kennedy,was to lead the attack, E Company following. Once the force had gainedthe crest and E Company had established itself in defensive positions,the Engineer company was to come off the mountain. Luckily, many of themen in D Company had been infantrymen in World War II. [55]

That evening, D Company loaded into trucks and in a driving rain travelednorth, eventually turning off the main road to the designated assemblyarea. On the way they met two truckloads of South Korean police going south,some of them wounded. These were the police who, together with the detachmentof the I&R Platoon, had been driven off Ka-san that afternoon. Afterwaiting in the rain awhile for orders, the Engineer company turned aroundand went back to camp.

The next morning (4 September) at breakfast, D Company received ordersto move immediately as infantry to Ka-san. One platoon had to forego itsbreakfast. The company carried no rations since E Company, 8th Cavalry,was to bring food and water later. The Engineer troops arrived at theirassembly area near the village of Kisong-dong two miles east of the Tabu-dongroad, where Colonel Holley set up a communications command post. Sniperfire came in on the men as they moved up the trail half a mile to the baseof Ka-san's steep slope. Word was given to the company that there wereabout seventy-five disorganized enemy troops on Ka-san. But actually, duringthe afternoon and evening of 3 September, the N.K. 2d Battalion,2d Regiment, 1st Division, had occupied thesummit of Ka-san. [56]

The Engineer company started its attack up the mountain about noon,4 September, following a trail up a southern spur. The 1st Platoon wasin the lead, single file, followed by the 2d and 3d Platoons. Colonel Palmerconsidered the mission so important that he and his G-2, Capt. Rene J.Guiraud, accompanied the engineers. Platoon Sgt. James N. Vandygriff, 2dPlatoon, D Company, in a brief conversation with Colonel Holley as he wentahead of the latter on his way up the trail, said he thought it was a suicidemission.

Less than a mile up the trail, D Company came under machine gun firefrom its right front, which inflicted several casualties. Lieutenant Kennedyrejected Vandygriff's request to take a squad and knock out the gun, sothe file got past the line of fire as best it could until BAR fire fromthe 3d Platoon silenced the weapon. Farther up the trail another enemymachine gun fired from the right along the trail and held up the advanceuntil radio-adjusted artillery fire silenced it.

The file of men, with Lt. Robert Peterson of the I&R Platoon asguide, left the trail-like road, which dead-ended, dropped over into aravine on the left, and continued the climb. Enemy mortar fire killed twomen and wounded eight or ten others in this phase of the ascent. At thistime the 2d Platoon leader collapsed from a kidney ailment and commandpassed to Sergeant Vandygriff. Vandygriff led his platoon, now at the headof the company, on up the gully and finally, about 1700, came through atunnel under a small ridge and the stone wall into the bowl-shaped summitof Hill 755, the southern arm of the Hill 902 crest. The 2d and 3d Platoonssoon arrived, in that order. When he was within fifty feet of the top,Colonel Palmer received radio orders from General Gay to come off the mountain;Gay had not known that Palmer had accompanied the attack until he telephonedHolley trying to locate him. [57]

Lieutenant Kennedy quickly placed the approximately ninety men of hiscompany in position facing in an arc from west to northeast; the 2d Platoontook the left flank near the stone wall, the 1st Platoon took the centerposition on a wooded knoll, and the 3d Platoon the right flank at the edgeof a woods. Just as he reached the top, 2d Lt. Thomas T. Jones, commandingthe 3d Platoon, saw and heard three North Korean mortars fire, approximately1,000 yards away on a grassy ridge to the right (east). He suggested toLieutenant Kennedy several times that he request artillery fire on thesemortars, but Kennedy did not act on the suggestion. Kennedy establishedhis command post inside the tunnel behind the 2d Platoon position. TheD Company position was entirely within the area enclosed by the stone wall,which was nearly intact except on the northeast near the 3d Platoon positionwhere it had crumbled and was covered with brush and trees. LieutenantJones pointed out to his platoon sergeant and squad leaders where he wantedthem to take position at the edge of the woods facing the enemy mortarshe had seen on the grassy ridge beyond. He then remained a few minutes in conversation with Lieutenant Kennedy. [58]

A few minutes later Jones joined his 3d Squad men at the edge of thewoods. They told him that the platoon sergeant and the rest had continuedon toward the narrow grassy ridge. Just then one of the squad called Jonesto the edge of the woods and pointed out ten or twelve well-camouflagedNorth Korean soldiers, one of them carrying a machine gun, coming downthe narrow ridge toward them from the mortar position. Apparently thisgroup was a security force for the mortars because they dropped to theground about one-third of the way down the ridge.

Jones decided he had better bring back his other two squads to forma solid line and, expecting to be gone only a few minutes, he left hisSCR-300 radio behind. That, as he said later, was his big mistake. Jonesfound one squad but the other had gone on farther and was not visible.While he studied the terrain and waited for a messenger he had sent tobring back that last squad, North Koreans attacked the main company positionbehind him. Judging by the firing and yelling, Jones thought North Koreanswere all over the wooded bowl between him and the rest of the company.When the firing ended, all he could hear was North Korean voices. Jonesnever got back to his 3d Squad. He and the rest of the platoon droppeddown off the ridge into a gully on the left, the two squads separated butfor a time within sight of each other.

That night Jones and the eight men with him stayed in the ravine justunder the crest. Without his radio he could not communicate with the restof the company which he thought had been destroyed or driven off the hill.The next day when American fighter planes strafed the hilltop it confirmedhis belief that no D Company men were there. Some of the men in the advancedsquad made their way to safety, but North Koreans captured Jones and theeight men with him near the bottom of Ka-san on 10 September as they weretrying to make their way through the enemy lines. This account of the 3dPlatoon explains why-except for the 3d Squad which rejoined D Company thatevening-it was out of the action and off the crest almost as soon as itarrived on top, all unknown to Lieutenant Kennedy and the rest of the companyat the time. [59]

Half an hour after D Company had reached Hill 755, an estimated enemybattalion launched an attack down the slope running south to Hill 755 fromthe crest of Hill 902. The main attack hit Vandygriff's 2d Platoon justafter Vandygriff had set up and loaded his two machine guns. These machineguns and the protection of the 15-foot wall on its left enabled D Companyto turn back this attack, which left one dead and three wounded in the2d Platoon. That night, enemy mortar and small arms fire harassed the companyand there were several small probing attacks. Having no communication with the 3d Platoon, Kennedy sent a patrol to its supposedposition. The patrol reported back that it could find no one there buthad found the rocket launchers and two light machine guns. [60]

It rained most of the night, and 5 September dawned wet and foggy ontop of Hill 755. Just after daylight in a cold drizzle the North Koreansattacked. The engineers repulsed this attack but suffered some casualties.Enemy fire destroyed Vandygriff's radio, forcing him to use runners tocommunicate with Kennedy's command post. Ammunition was running low andthree C-47 planes came over to make an airdrop. Kennedy put out orangeidentification panels, then watched the enemy put out similarly coloredone. The planes circled, and finally dropped their bundles of ammunitionand food-to the enemy. Immediately after the airdrops, two F-51 fighterplanes came over and attacked D Company. It was obvious that the enemypanels had misled both the cargo and fighter planes. The fighters droppedtwo napalm tanks within D Company's perimeter, one of which fortunatelyfailed to ignite; the other injured no one. The planes then strafed rightthrough the 2d Platoon position, but miraculously caused no casualties.Soon after this aerial attack, enemy burp gun fire wounded Kennedy in theleg and ankle. [61]

Sometime between 1000 and 1100 the advanced platoon of E Company, 8thCavalry Regiment, arrived on top of Hill 755 and came into D Company'sperimeter. Some of the engineers fired on the E Company men before thelatter identified themselves. The E Company platoon went into positionon the right of Vandygriff, and Kennedy turned over command of the combinedforce to the E Company commander. Kennedy then assembled twelve woundedmen and started down the mountain with them. The party was under smallarms fire most of the way. A carrying party of Korean A-frame porters ledby an American officer had started up the mountain during the morning withsupplies. Enemy fire, killing several of the porters, turned it back. [62]

The day before, E Company had been delayed in following D Company toHill 755. Soon after the Engineer company had started up the trail on the4th, E Company arrived at Colonel Holley's command post at the base ofthe mountain. Enemy mortar fire was falling on the trail at the time andthe company commander said he could not advance because of it. Holley radioedthis information to Colonel Palmer who designated another company commanderand said, "Tell him to come on through." This second officerbroke his glasses on a rock and informed Holley that he could not go on.Holley put him on the radio to Palmer who ordered him to continue up thehill. Soon thereafter this officer was wounded in the leg. Holley thendesignated a third officer, who started up the mountain with E Companythat evening about 2000. Enemy fire stopped the company 500 yards short of the crest before dawn. It was this same company that the N.K.13th Division had cut off when it launched its attack theevening of 2 September and overran the 2d Battalion north of Tabu-dong.Tired and dispirited from this experience and their roundabout journeyto rejoin the regiment, E Company men were not enjoying the best of morale.[63]

Shortly after the E Company platoon joined Vandygriff, the North Koreansattacked again. The E Company infantrymen had brought no mortars with them-onlysmall arms. In this situation, Vandygriff took a 3.5-inch rocket launcherand fired into the North Koreans. They must have thought that it was mortaror 75-mm. recoilless rifle fire for they broke off the attack. Vandygriffchecked his platoon and found it was nearly out of ammunition. He theninstructed his men to gather up all the weapons and ammunition from enemydead they could reach, and in this manner they obtained for emergency useabout 30 to 40 rifles, 5 burp guns, and some hand grenades.

In the course of gathering up these enemy weapons, Vandygriff passedthe dug-in position of Pfc. Melvin L. Brown, a BAR man in the 3d Squad.Brown was next to the wall on the extreme left of the platoon positionat a point where the wall was only about six or seven feet high. At thebottom of the wall around Brown's position lay about fifteen or twentyenemy dead. Vandygriff asked Brown what had happened. The latter replied,"Every time they came up I knocked them off the wall." Earlierin the day, about 0800, Kennedy had visited Brown and had seen five enemydead that Brown had killed with BAR fire. Subsequently Brown exhaustedhis automatic rifle ammunition, then his few grenades, and finally he usedhis entrenching tool to knock the North Koreans in the head when they triedto climb over the wall. Brown had received a flesh wound in the shoulderearly in the morning, but had bandaged it himself and refused to leavehis position. [64]

At 1330 General Gay ordered the 8th Cavalry Regiment to withdraw itsmen off Ka-san. Gay decided to give up the mountain because he believedhe had insufficient forces to secure and hold it and that the enemy hadinsufficient ammunition to exploit its possession as an observation pointfor directing artillery and mortar fire. It is not certain that this orderactually reached anyone on the hill. Colonel Holley could not reach anyonein D Company, 8th Engineer Combat Battalion. [65]

Rain started falling again and heavy fog closed in on the mountain topso that it was impossible to see more than a few yards. Again the enemyattacked the 2d Platoon and the adjacent E Company infantrymen. One ofthe engineers was shot through the neck and Vandygriff sent him to thecompany command post. In about thirty minutes he returned. "What'swrong?" asked Vandygriff. Barely able to talk from his wound and shock, the man replied that there was no longer a command post,that he could not find anyone and had seen only enemy dead. Vandygriffnow went to the infantry sergeant who was in command of the E Company platoonand asked him what he intended to do. The latter replied, in effect, thathe was going to take his platoon and go over the wall.

Vandygriff went back to his own platoon, got his squad leaders togetherand told them the platoon was going out the way it came in and that hewould give the wounded a 30-minute start. Enemy fire was falling in theplatoon area now from nearly all directions and the situation looked hopeless.Sgt. John J. Philip, leader of the 3d Squad, started to break up the weaponsthat the platoon could not take out with them. Vandygriff, noticing thatBrown was not among the assembled men, asked Philip where he was. The latterreplied that he didn't know but that he would try to find out. Philip returnedto the squad's position and came back fifteen minutes later, reportingto Vandygriff that Brown was dead. Asked by Philip if he should take theidentification tags off the dead, Vandygriff said, "No," thathe should leave them on because they would be the only means of identificationlater. Vandygriff put his platoon in a V formation and led them off thehill the same way they had come up, picking up four wounded men on theway down. [66]

At the base of the mountain, Colonel Holley and others in the afternoonsaw E Company men come down from the top and, later, men from the engineercompany. Each group thought it was the last of the survivors and told confused,conflicting stories. When all remaining members of D Company had been assembled,Colonel Holley found that the company had suffered 50 percent casualties;eighteen men were wounded and thirty were missing in action. [67]

Among the wounded carried off the mountain was an officer of D Company,8th Engineer Combat Battalion. Enemy machine gun fire struck him in theleg just before he jumped off a high ledge. Two men carried him to thebottom and at his request left him in a Korean house, expecting to comeback in a jeep for him. A little later, other members escaping off themountain heard his screams. Two weeks passed before the 1st Cavalry Divisionrecaptured the area. They found the officer's body in the house. The handsand feet were tied, the eyes gouged, a thumb pulled off, and the body hadbeen partly burned. Apparently he had been tied, tortured, and a fire builtunder him.

Soldiers of the ROK 1st Division captured a North Korean near Ka-sanon 4 September who said that about 800 of his fellow soldiers were in theWalled City area with three more battalions following them from the north.The Engineer company had succeeded only in establishing a perimeter brieflywithin the enemy-held area. By evening of 5 September, Ka-san was securely in enemy hands with an estimated fivebattalions, totaling about 1,500 enemy soldiers, on the mountain and itsforward slope. A North Korean oxtrain carrying 82-mm. mortar shells andrice reportedly reached the top of Ka-san during the day. The ROK 1st Divisioncaptured this oxtrain a few days later south of Ka-san. [68]

When Lieutenant Jones went back up the mountain as a prisoner on 10September he saw at least 400-500 enemy soldiers on the ridge. A Mosquitospotter plane flew over and he felt sure it would sight the large numberof enemy troops and call in fighter planes for strafing attacks. But, hesaid, "The pilot of the plane took one look and went away which amazedme, except that the minute they heard the plane the North Koreans all eitherhit the ground or squatted and ducked their heads, which attested to theeffectiveness of the leaves, branches, etc., that almost every man hadstuck in the string netting on the back of his shirt and the top of hiscloth hat." [69]

Now, with Ka-san firmly in their possession, the N.K. 13th and1st Divisions made ready to press on downhill into Taegu.

On the 6th, the day after the American troops were driven off Ka-san,an enemy force established a roadblock three miles below Tabu-dong andother units occupied Hill 570, two miles southwest of the Walled City andoverlooking the Taegu road from the east side. The next morning five tanksof the 16th Reconnaissance Company prepared to lead an attack against theroadblock. The enemy troops were in a rice field west and on the hillseast of the road. General Gay was at the scene to watch the action. Heordered the reconnaissance company commander to launch the attack intothe rice fields at maximum speed, saying, "I don't want a damn tankmoving under 25 miles per hour until you are on top of those men."[70] The tank attack speedily disposed of the enemy in the rice field,but the infantry spent several hours clearing the hills on the east sideof the road.

Enemy artillery during 7 September shelled batteries of the 9th and99th Field Artillery Battalions, forcing displacement of two batteriesduring the day. U.S. air strikes and artillery kept both Hills 902 and570 under heavy attack. Even though the 1st Cavalry Division fell backnearly everywhere that day, General Walker ordered it and the ROK II Corpsto attack and seize Hill 902 and the Walled City, the time of the attackto be agreed upon by the commanders concerned. He directed the ROK 1stDivision and the 1st Cavalry Division to select a boundary between themand to maintain physical contact during the attack. [71]

On the morning of the 8th, Lt. Col. Harold K. Johnson's 3d Battalion,8th Cavalry, after executing a withdrawal during the night from its formerposition, tried to drive the enemy from Hill 570. The three peaks of thismountain mass were under clouds, making it impossible to support the infantryattack with air strikes or artillery and mortar fire. Johnson placed allthree of his rifle companies in the assault against the three peaks; twoof them reached their objectives, one with little opposition, the othercatching enemy soldiers asleep on the ground. But enemy counterattacksregained this second peak. The main enemy force on Hill 570 was on thethird and highest of the three peaks and held it firmly against the L Companyattack. The I Company commander and the L Company executive officer werekilled, as were several noncommissioned officers. The Eighth Army IntelligenceSection estimated that 1,000 enemy soldiers were on Hill 570, only eightair miles north of Taegu, and on 8 September it stated that the continuedpressure against the eastern flank of the 1st Cavalry Division sector "representswhat is probably the most immediate threat to the U.N. Forces." [72]

That same day, 8 September, the 1st Cavalry Division canceled a plannedcontinuation of the attack against Hill 570 by the 3d Battalion, 7th CavalryRegiment, when enemy forces threatened Hills 314 and 660, south and eastof 570.

In the midst of this enemy drive on Taegu, an ammunition shortage becamecritical for the U.N. forces. The situation was such that General MacArthuron 9 September sent messages urging that two ammunition ships then en routeto Yokohama and Pusan carrying 172,790 rounds of 105-mm. shells, with estimatedarrival time 11 September, proceed at maximum speed consistent with thesafety of the vessels. Eighth Army on 10 September reduced the ration of105-mm. howitzer ammunition from fifty to twenty-five rounds per howitzerper day, except in cases of emergency. Carbine ammunition was also in criticalshort supply. The 17th Field Artillery Battalion, with the first 8-inchhowitzers to arrive in Korea, could not engage in the battle for lack ofammunition. [73]

The N.K. 1st Division now began moving in the zone ofthe ROK 1st Division around the right flank of the 1st Cavalry Division.Its 2d Regiment, about 1,200 strong, advanced six air mileseastward from the vicinity of the Walled City on Hill 902 to the towering4,000-foot-high mountain of P'algong-san. It reached the top of P'algong-sanabout daylight on 10 September, and a little later new replacements, proddedby burp guns from behind, made a wild charge toward the ROK positions.The ROK's turned back the charge, killing or wounding about two-thirdsof the attacking force. [74]

The 1st Cavalry Division now had most of its combat units concentratedon its right flank north of Taegu. The 3d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, attachedto the 8th Cavalry Regiment, was behind that regiment on Hills 181 and182 astride the Tabu-dong road only 6 air miles north of Taegu. The restof the 7th Cavalry Regiment (the 1st Battalion rejoined the regiment duringthe day) was in the valley of the Kumho River to the right rear betweenthe enemy and the Taegu Airfield, which was situated 3 miles northeastof the city. The 5th Cavalry was disposed on the hills astride the Waegwanroad 8 air miles northwest of Taegu. On its left the entire 8th EngineerCombat Battalion was in line as infantry, with the mission of holding abridge across the Kumho River near its juncture with the Naktong east ofTaegu. [75]

The fighting north of Taegu on 11 September in the vicinity of Hills660 and 314 was heavy and confused. For a time, the 1st Cavalry Divisionfeared a breakthrough to the blocking position of the 3d Battalion, 7thCavalry. The rifle companies of the division were now very low in strength.On 11 September, for instance, E Company, 5th Cavalry, in attacking Hill203 on the division left toward Waegwan had only 3 officers and 63 men.The day before, C Company, 7th Cavalry, had only 50 men. Colonel Johnsonstated later that any company of the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, that had100 men during this period was his assault company for the day. [76]

While the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, again vainly attacked Hill 570on 11 September, enemy soldiers seized the crest of Hill 314 two milessoutheast of it and that much closer to Taegu. Actually, the two hill massesare adjacent and their lower slopes within small arms range of each other.The North Koreans drove the 16th Reconnaissance Company from the hill andonly the ROK 5th Training Battalion, previously hurried into the line fromTaegu in a supporting position, prevented the enemy from gaining completecontrol of this terrain feature. This ROK battalion still held part ofthe reverse slope of Hill 314 when the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, hurriedto the scene from its fruitless attacks on Hill 570 and tried to retakethe position. The ROK battalion twice had attacked and reached the crestbut could not hold it, and had dug in on the lower southern slopes. The3d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, command post had to fight off infiltrating enemyon 12 September as it issued its attack order and prepared to attack throughthe 8th Cavalry lines against Hill 314.

This attack on the 12th was to be part of a larger American and ROKcounterattack against the N.K. 13th and 1st Divisionsin an effort to halt them north of Taegu. The 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry,relieved the ROK units on Hill 660, east of Hill 314, and had the missionof securing that hill. Farther east the ROK 1st Division had the missionof attacking from P'algong-san toward the Walled City on Hill 902. Thepoint nearest Taegu occupied by enemy forces at this time was Hill 314.Some called it the "key to Taegu." Although this may be an exaggeration,since other hills, like links in a chain, were possibly equally important,the enemy 13th Division valued its possession and had concentratedabout 700 soldiers on it. The North Koreans meant to use it, no doubt, in making the next advanceon Taegu. From it, observation reached to Taegu and it commanded the lesserhills southward rimming the Taegu bowl.

Hill 314 is actually the southern knob of a 500-meter hill mass whichlies close to the east side of Hill 570 and is separated from that hillmass only by a deep gulch. The hill mass is shaped like an elongated teardrop,its broad end at the north. The southern point rises to 314 meters andthe ridge line climbs northward from it in a series of knobs to 380 and,finally, to 500 meters. The ridge line from the 314-meter to the 500-meterpoint is a mile in length. All sides of the hill mass are very steep. [77]

Lt. Col. James H. Lynch's 3d Battalion, 7th Cavalry, on the eve of itsattack against Hill 314 numbered 535 men, less its rear echelons. The battalion,which had been organized at Fort Benning, Ga., from the 30th Infantry Regimentof the 3d Division, had arrived in Korea at the end of August. The ill-fatedaction of the 7th Cavalry at Hill 518, begun nine days earlier, had beenits first action. This was to be its second. The battalion attack planthis time differed radically from that employed against Hill 518 and wasa direct development of that failure. The key aspect of the Hill 314 attackplan was to mass as many riflemen as possible on top of the narrow ridgeline, by attacking with two companies abreast along the ridge, and notto repeat the mistakes of Hill 518 where the fire power of only a platoon,and at times of only a squad, could be brought to bear against the enemy.Because of the ammunition shortage there was no artillery preparation onHill 314, but there was an air strike before Colonel Lynch's battalion,with L Company on the left and I Company on the right, at 1100, 12 September,started its attack. The point of departure was the front lines of the 3dBattalion, 8th Cavalry, on the lower slope of the hill. [78]

Enemy 120-mm. mortar fire was falling on and behind the line of departureas the battalion moved out. For 500 yards it encountered only sporadicsmall arms and machine gun fire; then enemy rifle fire became intense andpreregistered mortar fire came down on the troops, pinning them to theground. On the left, men in L Company could see approximately 400 NorthKoreans preparing to counterattack. They radioed for an air strike butthe planes were on the ground refueling. Fortunately, they were able torepulse the counterattack with combined artillery, mortar, and small armsfire. The air strike came in at 1400, blanketing the top and the northslope of the ridge.

By this time enemy mortar fire had caused many casualties, and elementsof L and I Companies became intermingled. But, in contrast to the actionon Hill 518, the men continued the attack largely of their own volitionafter many of the officers had become casualties. The example of certainofficers, however, pointed the way. The commanding officer of I Company, 1st Lt.Joseph A. Fields, reorganized his company under mortar fire without regardto his own safety after the company had suffered 25 percent casualties;1st Lt. Marvin H. Haynes led a small group which killed or drove off enemytroops that had overrun part of L Company; and Capt. Robert W. Walker,commanding officer of L Company, continued his superb personal leadership.Fields was wounded, Haynes killed. MSgt. Roy E. McCullom, the weapons platoonleader of I Company, organized his men as riflemen, and though woundedthree times, in shoulders and right arm, he led them on until he receiveda fourth wound in the head. Wounded by mortar fragments, 2d Lt. MarshallG. Engle, I Company, refused evacuation twice, telling litter teams togo farther forward and get the more critically injured. Engle lay on thehill for twelve hours, far into the night, receiving another mortar woundduring that time before a litter team finally evacuated him. [79]

Fifteen minutes after the air strike, the 3d Battalion resumed its attacktoward the crest. As it neared it the North Koreans came out of their positionsin a violent counterattack and engaged at close quarters. Some men gainedthe crest but enemy mortar and machine gun fire drove them off. They reachedit a second time but could not hold it. Another air strike hit the enemy.Then, a third time, Captain Walker led a group of men of L and I Companiesto the top. When Walker reached the crest he shouted back, "Come onup here where you can see them! There are lots of them and you can killthem." The men scrambled up a 60-degree slope for the last 150 yardsto the top, where they closed with the North Koreans and overran theirpositions. Walker and the remaining men of the two companies secured thehill at 1r30 and then Walker reorganized the two companies jointly underhis command. There were fewer than forty effectives left in L Company andabout forty in I Company; the latter had lost all its officers. [80]

General Gay caused a special study to be made of this action, so outstandingdid he consider it to be. He found that the 3d Battalion suffered 229 battlecasualties in the first two hours, most of them incurred during the secondhour of the attack. Of these, 38 Americans were killed and 167 wounded,the remainder were attached South Koreans. The battalion aid station reportedtreating 130 casualties. Other wounded were treated at the 8th Cavalryaid station. Many men with minor wounds did not ask for medical attentionuntil the battle had ended, and there were only five cases of combat shockin contrast to the eighteen on Hill 518. Enemy mortar fire caused 80 percentof the casualties. [81]

Colonel Lynch's battalion held Hill 314 for the next six days and gathered up a large amount of enemy equipmentand ammunition. The enemy soldiers on Hill 314 wore American uniforms,helmets, and combat boots. Many of them had M1 rifles and carbines. Twohundred of their number lay dead on the hill. Of the other 500 estimatedto have been there, prisoners said most of them had been wounded or weremissing.

Several atrocity cases came to light during the action on Hill 314.Capt. James B. Webel found the first one on the afternoon of the 12th whilethe final action on the hill was taking place. He came upon an Americanofficer who had been bound hand and foot, gasoline poured over him, andburned. A 5-gallon can lay close to the body. Two days later members ofthe battalion found on the hill the bodies of four other American soldierswith their hands tied. The bodies bore evidence that the men had been bayonetedand shot while bound. [82]

After the capture of Hill 314 on 12 September, the situation north ofTaegu improved. On 14 September the 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, attackedand, supported by fire from Hill 314, gained part of Hill 570 from theN.K. 19th Regiment, 13th Division.

Across the army boundary on the right, the ROK 1st Division continuedits attack northwest and advanced to the edge of the Walled City. The ROK11th Regiment seized Hill 755 about dark on 14 September, and small elementsof the ROK 15th Regiment reached the stone ramparts of the Walled Cityarea at the same time. The ROK's and North Koreans fought during the nightand on into the 15th at many points along the high mountain backbone thatextends southeast from the Walled City to Hills 755 and 783 and on to P'algong-san.Prisoners taken by the ROK's estimated that there were about 800 NorthKoreans on this high ridge. The ROK 1st Division later estimated that approximately3,000 enemy were inside the Walled City perimeter and about 1,500 or 2,000outside it near the crest. It appears that at this time the bulk of theN.K. 1st Division was gradually withdrawing into the WalledCity and its vicinity. Indications were that the N.K. 13th Divisionalso was withdrawing northward. Aerial observers on the afternoon of 14September reported that an estimated 500 enemy troops were moving northfrom Tabu-dong. But, while these signs were hopeful, General Walker continuedto make every possible preparation for a final close-in defense of Taegu.As part of this, fourteen battalions of South Korean police dug in aroundthe city. [83]

The fighting continued unabated north of Taegu on the 15th. The 2d Battalion,8th Cavalry, still fought to gain control of Hill 570 on the east sideof the Tabu-dong highway. On the other side, the 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry,attacked Hill 401 where an enemy force had penetrated in a gap betweenthe 8th and 5th Cavalry Regiments. The fighting on Hill 401 was particularlysevere. Both sides had troops on the mountain when night fell. In this action, SFC Earl R. Baxter, at thesacrifice of his life, covered the forced withdrawal of his platoon (2dPlatoon, L Company), killing at least ten enemy soldiers in close combatbefore he himself was killed by an enemy grenade. [84]

While the N.K. II Corps was striving to capture Taegu and penetratebehind Eighth Army toward Pusan by way of the P'ohang-Kyongju corridor,the N.K. I Corps along the lower Naktong and in the south had unleashedsimultaneously a violent offensive to bring the entire Pusan Perimeterunder assault. Of the entire Perimeter, the parts tactically most vulnerableto enemy action lay along the lower Naktong, and accordingly they promisedthe greatest dividends strategically to successful North Korean attack.There the battle in early September rose to great intensity and for a periodthe outcome hung in the balance.

Notes

[1] EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, Msg 0655 from KMAG, 27 Aug 50; Ibid., Aug 50 Summ, p. 77; GHQ FEC C-3 Opn Rpt 64, 27 Aug 50; New York Herald Tribune, August 28, 1950. Bigart dispatch of 27 August.

[2] Interv, author with Lt Gen John B. Coulter, 3 Apr 53.

[3] Ibid., EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 27 Aug 50; GHQ FEC G-3 Opn Rpt 64, 27 Aug 50; Ibid., Sitrep, 28 Aug 50; Capt. George B. Shutt, Operational Narrative History of Task Force Jackson, MS in National Archives Record Service.

[4] Ltr, Coulter to author, 7 Jul 53: Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 27 Aug 50; 21st Inf WD, 27 Aug 50; 24th Div WD, 27 Aug 50.

[5] Ltr, Coulter to author, 7 Jul 53; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 28 Aug 50; 21st Inf WD, 28 Aug 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 28 Aug 50; Ltr, Emmerich to Farrell, 29 Aug 50, recommending relief of Gen Kim Suk Won; New York Times, August 28, 1950.

[6] Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53, and accompanying map of 21st Inf positions; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, Msg 1710 from TF Jackson; 21st Inf WD, 29 Aug 50.

[7] Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53; GHQ FEC G-3 Opn Rpts 64-68, 27-31 Aug 50; Ibid., Sitreps, 28 Aug-2 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 31 Aug 50; Ibid., POR 149, 31 Aug 50; 21st Inf WD, 31 Aug 50. [8] Ltr and marked map, Stephens to author, 14 May 53; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 2 Sep 50; 21st Inf WD, 2 Sep 50; 6th Tk Bn WD, 1-3 Sep 50; Emmerich, MS review comments, 30 Nov 57.

[9] EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 0845 3 Sep 50; Ibid., PIR 53, 3 Sep 50; GHQ FEC G-3 Opn Rpt 71, 3 Sep 50; Ibid., Sitrep, 3 Sep 50; ROK Army Hq, MS review comments, 11 Jul 58.

[10] Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53; Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl 0840, 1420 3 Sep 50; Ibid., G-3 Sec and Br for CG, 3 Sep 50; New York Herald Tribune, September 6, 1950, Bigart dispatch

[11] EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 4 Sep 50; 21st Inf WD, 28 Aug-28 Sep 50 Summ, for 3-4 Sep: GHQ FEC Sitrep, 4 Sep 50; New York Herald Tribune, September 6, 1950, Bigart dispatch.

[12] 21st Inf WD, 5 Sep 50; 24th Div WD, 4 Sep 50; Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53.

[13] Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53; Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53; EUSAK WD, Br for CG, 4 Sep 50; 6th Med Tk Bn WD, 4 Sep 50.

[14] Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53; Interv, author with Col John F. Greco, 12 Aug 51 (Greco was Coulter's G-2 at Kyongju); Interv, author with Maj Wm. C. Hungate, Jr., 28 Jul 51; Interv, author with Maj George W. Flagler, 28 Jul 51 (both Hungate and Flagler were at Kyongju with Coulter); Shutt, History of Task Force Jackson.

[15] Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 5 Sep 50; Ibid., Br for CG, 5 Sep 50: Ibid., PIR 55, 5 Sep 50; 21st Inf WD, 5 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Opn Rpt 74, 6 Sep 50; Ibid., Sitrep, 6 Sep 50; Shutt, History of Task Force Jackson; Emmerich, MS review comments, 30 Jan 57.

[16] Interv, author with Emmerich, 5 Dec 51; Interv, author with Coulter, 3 Apr 53.

[17] GHQ FEC Sitrep, 5 Sep 50; Ibid., G-3 Opn Rpts 73-74, 5-6 Sep 50.

[18] Ltr, Davidson to author, 18 Feb 54; 24th Div WD, 5-6 Sep 50: EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 1800 5 Sep 50; EUSAK Opn Ord for CG 24th Div and CG TF Jackson, 5 Sep 50.

[19] Ltrs, Church to author, 3 May and 26 Jul 53; Ltr, Davidson to author, 18 Feb 54 24th Div WD, 7-8 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 7 Sep 50; Ibid., POR 171, 7 Sep 50.

[20] 24th Div WD, 9 Sep 50; 3d Engr C Bn WD, Sep 50, Summ.

[21] Interv, author with Davidson, 28 Jan 54; Ltr, Davidson to author, 18 Feb 54; 19th Inf WD, 10 Sep 50; 24th Div WD, 9 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 10 Sep 50; 3d Engr C Bn Unit Hist, 6 Aug-28 Sep 50.

[22] Ltr, Davidson to author, 18 Feb 54; 24th Div WD, 10 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 10 Sep 50; Emmerich, MS review comments, 30 Nov 57.

[23] Ltr, Davidson to author, 18 Feb 54; 24th Div WD, 11-12 Sep 50; Ibid., Opn Summ, 26 Aug-28 Sept 50; EUSAK POR 186, 12 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 1046 12 Sep 50.

[24] 21st Inf WD, 11 Sep 50; 24th Div WD, 26 Aug-28 Sep 50, p. 40; 24th Div Arty WD. 12 Sep 50; Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53. The 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, was attached to the 21st Infantry during this action.

[25] ATIS Res Supp Interrog Rpts, Issue 106 (N.K. 12th Div), p. 70; Ibid., Issue 96 (N.K. 5th Div), p. 43. There are many individual enemy interrogation reports in ATIS Interrogation Reports, Issues 6 and 7 (N.K. Forces), describing the condition of these two divisions at this time.

[26] 21st Inf WD, Summ, Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 1125 14 Sep 50; Ibid., Br for CG, 14 Sep 50; EUSAK PIR 64 and 65, 14-15 Sep 50; Ibid., POR 192 and 195, 14-15 Sep 50; GHQ FEC G-3 Opn Rpt 83, 15 Sep 50.

[27] ATIS Res Supp Interrog Rpts, Issue 4 (N.K. 8th Div), p. 25; Ibid., Issue 3 (N. K. 15th Div), p. 44.

[28] Ibid., Issue 4 (N.K. 8th Div). p. 25; ATIS Interrog Rpts, Issue 4, Rpts 922 and 923, pp. 47 and 51; ATIS Enemy Documents, Nr 28, p. 7, diary of Pak Han Pin, 83d Regt, 8th Div; EUSAK WD, 9 Sep 50, PW Interrog Rpt, 2d Lt Wong Hong Ki; Ibid., PIR 53, 3 Sep 50; New York Herald Tribune, September 7, 1950.

[29] EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 1230 3 Sep 50, and an. to PIR 53, 3 Sep 50, and PIR 56, 6 Sep 50; Ibid., Br for CG, 7 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 8-9 Sep 50; Time Magazine, September 18, 1950, J. Bell article; New York Herald Tribune, September 7, 1950, Bigart dispatch.

[30] EUSAK WD, POR 180, 10 Sep 50; Ibid., 14 Sep 50, interrog of Lee Yong Sil; Ibid., 9, 11, 12 Sep 50, interrogs of 1st Lt Kim Yong Chul, Cpl So Yong Sik, Capt Pak Chang Yong; ATIS Res Supp Interrog Rpts, Issue 106 (N.K. Arty), p. 62; Ibid., Issue 3 (N.K. 15th Div), p. 44; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 11 Sep 50; New York Times, September 11 and 13, 1950. There are scores of interrogations of prisoners from the N.K. 15th Division in ATIS Interrogation Reports, Issues 4, 5, and 9.

[31] EUSAK WD, 14 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 13 Sep 50; New York Times, September 13, 1950.

[32] Ltr, Stephens to author, 14 May 53; Interv, author with Maj Gen Edwin K. Wright (FEC G-3 at the time), 7 Jan 54; Ltr, Landrum to author, recd 28 Jun 54; Interv, author with Stebbins, 4 Dec 53.

[33] 1st Cav Div WD, 1 Sep 50; Ibid., G-3 Jnl, 2 Sep 50.

[34] 1st Cav Div WD, 1-2 Sep 50; GHQ FEC, History of the N.K. Army, p. 73; EUSAK WD, 5 Sep 50, ATIS Interrog Rpt 895, Maj Kim Song Jun; ATIS Interrog Rpts, Issue 3, pp. 214ff.: ATIS Res Supp Interrog Rpts, Issue 104 (N.K. 13th Div), p. 67; Ltr and attached notes, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; Ltr, Col Harold K. Johnson to author, n.d., but recd in Aug 54.

[35] Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53: 77th FA Bn Hist, Sep 50; 7th Cav WD, 1-2 Sep 50. The 77th FA Bn was in direct support of 7th Cav. To assist in firing support for the regiment were A Btry, 61st FA Bn (105-mm.); B and C Btrys, 9th FA Bn (155 mm.); and one plat, B Btry, 82d FA Bn (155-mm.)

[36] 7th Cav Regt WD, 4 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div WD, 5 Sep 50; 77th FA Bn Hist, 5 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 0400 5 Sep 50; Lt Col James B. Webel (Capt and S-3, 7th Cav, Sep 50), MS review comments, 15 Nov 57.

[37] 5th Cav Regt WD, 4 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt WD, 4-5 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div WD, 4-5 Sep 50; 77th FA Bn Hist, 5-6 Sep 50; Webel, MS review comments, Nov 57; New York Times, September 5, 1950.

[38] 1st Cav Div WD, 5 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt Opn Ord 14, 051840 Sep 50; Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; Brig Gen Marcel G. Crombez, Notes for author, 28 Jun 55.

[39] Ltr, Dabney to author, 19 Jan 54: Notes, Landrum to author, recd 28 Jun 54; Interv, author with Wright, 7 Jan 54; Interv, author with Stebbins, 4 Dec 53; Interv, author with Tarkenton, 3 Oct 52; Interv, author with Col Robert G. Fergusson, 2 Oct 52; Interv, author with Bullock, 28 Jan 54; Collier, MS review comments, 10 Mar 58.

[40] Notes, Landrum to author, recd 28 Jun 54; Interv, author with Allen, 15 Dec 53; Collier, MS review comments, 10 Mar 58; FEC CofS files, Summ of conversation, Hickey with Landrum, 060900 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 7 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 2030 6 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div, Ordnance Act Rpt, Sep 50.

Communication between Eighth Army and the Far East Command would have suffered most if this equipment had been lost or damaged, not the tactical control of units in Korea under Eighth Army. The Marc 2, 4-van unit for teletype, and a 1,200-line switchboard could not have been replaced-there was only one each in Korea and Japan. The big teletype unit with 180 lines to Pusan and the trunk cables constituted the critical items in U.N. signal communication at this time. Interv, author with Col William M. Thama (Deputy Sig Off, FEC, 1950), 17 Dec 53; Interv, author with Col Thomas A. Pitcher (Acting EUSAK Sig Off, Sep 50), 16 Dec 53; Interv, author with Lt Col William E. Kaley, 16 Dec 50.

[41] 2d Logistical Comd Activities Rpt, Sep 50, G-3 and Trans Secs. Operation Plan 4, dated 10 September, confirmed these orders.

[42] EUSAK WD, PIR 57, an. 2, 441st Counter Intelligence Corps Agent Rpt, 7 Sep 50.

[43] Notes, Landrum to author, recd 28 Jun 54; Interv, author with Maj Gen Leven C. Allen, 15 Dec 53; Interv, author with Bullock, 28 Jan 54; Interv, author with Lt Col Paul F. Smith, 1 Oct 52; Collier, MS review comments, Mar 58.

[44] Ltr, Wright to author, 12 Feb 54.

[45] 7th Cav Regt WD, 6-7 Sep 50; Capt Robert M. Ballard, Action of C Company on Hill 464, an. to 7th Cav Regt WD, 6 Sep 50; Webel, MS review comments, 15 Nov 57; New York Herald Tribune, September 8, 1950, Bigart dispatch.

[46] Ballard, Action of G Company on Hill 464 Capt. Russell A. Gugeler, Combat Actions in Korea, ch. 4, "Attack to the Rear," pp. 41-42.

[47] 5th Cav Regt WD, 5-6 Sep 50; Notes, Crombez for author, 28 Jul 55.

[48] Ballard, Action of G Company on Hill 464; 7th Cav Regt WD, 7 Sep 50; Gugeler, Combat Actions in Korea, pp. 39-45.

[49] Ballard, Action of G Company on Hill 464; 7th Cav Regt WD, 6-7 Sep 50.

[50] 1st Bn, 7th Cav WD, 7 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div WD, 7 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt WD, 7th Sep 50, Opn Ord 15: GHQ FEC Sitrep, 8 Sep 50.

[51] EUSAK WD, Br for CG, 130800 Sep 50; Ibid., G-3 Sec, 15 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div WD, 9-10, 13-15 Sep 50; 5th Cav Regt WD, 13-15 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt WD, 10 Sep 50; New York Times, September 9, 1950 (London rebroadcast of Moscow broadcast); I Corps WD, 15 Sep 50, Hist Narr, p. 5; ATIS Interrog Rpts, Issue 6 (N.K. Forces), Rpt 1157, Che Nak Hwan, p. 127 Allen, Korean Army Troops, USA, pp. 6-7.

[52] 8th Cav Regt WD, 3 Sep 50; 1st Cav Div WD, 3 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec, 3 Sep 50; Ibid., PIR 53, 3 Sep 50; Ltr, Johnson to author, recd Aug 54.

[53] 1st Cav Div WD, 3 Sep 50, Ordnance Stf Sec; Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53.

[54] Ltr and notes, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; Interv, author with Holmes, 27 Oct 53; 1st Cav Div WD, 29 Aug 50.

[55] Ltr, Capt John T. Kennedy to author, 2 Apr 52; Interv, author with Holley, 20 Feb 52: Interv, author with 1st Sgt Cornelius C. Kopper (D Co, 8th Engr C Bn, in 1950), 20 Feb 52.

[56] Ltr, MSgt James N. Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53 (Vandygriff was Plat Sgt, 2d Plat, D Co, 8th Engr C Bn, Sep 50); Ltr, Capt Thomas T. Jones to author, 21 Jun 53 (Plat Ldr, 3d Plat, D Co, 8th Engr C Bn, Sep 50); EUSAK WD, 11 Sep 50, interrog of Kim Choe Ski; Ibid., G-3 Jnl, 0620 4 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 4 Sep 50.

[57] Ltr, Jones to author, 21 Jun 53; Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; Ltr and notes, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53: Interv, author with Holley, 20 Feb 52; Ltr, Kennedy to author, 2 Apr 52; Interv, author with Guiraud, 21 Apr 54.

[56] Ltr, Jones to author, 21 Jun 53: Ltr, Kennedy 10 author, 2 Apr 52; Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53

[57] Ltrs, Jones to author, 26 May, 21 and 30 Jun 53; 1st Lt Thomas T. Jones, "Two Hundred Miles to Freedom," The Military Engineer (September-October 1951), pp. 351-54. The North Koreans, strangely enough, released Jones and three other soldiers later near Ch'unch'on in central Korea, where they entered the lines of the ROK 6th Division.

[60] Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; Ltrs, Kennedy to author, 2 Apr 52 and 4 Jun 52.

[61] Ltrs, Kennedy to author, 2 Apr and 4 Jun 52; Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 5 Sep 50.

[62] Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; Ltrs, Kennedy to author, 2 Apr and 4 Jun 52.

[63] Interv, author with Holley, 20 Feb 52; Ltrs, Kennedy to author, 2Apr and 4 Jun 52; Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; Ltr, Jones to author, 21 Jun 53.

[64] Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53; Ltrs, Kennedy to author, 1 Apr and 4 Jun 52.

[65] Interv, author with Holley, 20 Feb 52; Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53.

[66] Ltr, Vandygriff to author, 19 May 53. Department of the Army General Order 11, 16 February 1951, awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously to Pfc. Melvin L. Brown.

[67] Ltr, Jones to author, 21 Jun 53; Intervs, author with Holley and Kopper, 20 Feb 52 Maj Hal D. Steward, "Engineers Fight as Infantry," Ad Cosantoir (August, 1951), pp. 366-67.

[68] EUSAK WD, PIR 55, 5 Sep 50; Ibid., G-3 Jnl, 0750 and 1900 5 Sep 50 Ibid., interrogation of Kim Choe Ski, 11 Sep 50.

[69] Ltr, Jones to author, 30 Jun 53.

[70] Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; 1st Cav Div WD, 7 Sep 50.

[71] EUSAK WD, G-3 Sec and G-3 Jnl, 1330 7 Sep 50; Ibid., Br for CG, 7 Sep 50.

[72] Johnson, Review notes for author on draft chapter, Aug 54: 8th Cav Regt WD, 8 Sep 50; EUSAK PIR 58, 8 Sep 50; 7th Cav Opn Ord 16 and WD overlay, 8 Sep 50.

[73] Schnabel, FEC, GHQ Support and Participation in the Korean War, ch. 4, pp. 22-23; 24th Div WD, G-4 Summ, 25-26 Aug and 10-11 Sep 50; 159th FA Bn Unit Rpt, 1-30 Sep 50; GHQ FEC Sitrep, 9 Sep 50.

[74] EUSAK WD, 14 Sep 50, interrog rpt of Kim Yong Gi; ATIS Interrog Rpts, Issue 6, Rpt 1103, p. 8; ATIS Res Supp Interrog Rpts, Issue 3 (N.K. 1st Div), p. 36.

[75] Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; 1st Cav Div WD, Sep 50.

[76] 1st Cav Div WD, 11 Sep 50; 1st Bn, 7th Cav Regt WD, 10 Sep 50; 5th Cav Regt WD, Sep 50 Narr; Review notes, Johnson to author, Aug 54.

[77] Ltr, Johnson to author, recd Aug 54; 1st Cav Div WD, 12 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt WD, 12 Sep 50: Attack Ord, 3d Bn, 7th Cav Regt, attached to 1st Lt Morris M. Teague, Jr.'s, Narrative and Supporting Documents Concerning Hill 314, in the 7th Cav Regt WD.

[78] Teague, Hill 314 Narr; Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; Webel, MS review comments, 15 Nov 57; 7th Cav Regt WD, 12 Sep 50.

[79] 1st Cav Div WD, 12 Sep 50; 7th Cav Regt WD, 12 Sep 50; Medical Log, Hill 314, attached to 3d Bn, 7th Cav Unit Rpt, 12 Sep 50; Teague, Hill 314 Narr.

[80] Medical Log with 3d Bn, 7th Cav, Unit Rpt; Teague, Hill 314 Narr.

[81] Medical Log with 3d Bn, 7th Cav, Unit Rpt; Ltr, Gay to author, 17 Jul 53; Webel, MS review comments, 15 Nov 57; Interv, author with Robert Best, ORO analyst, 3 Apr 53. Best made a study of the Hill 314 action and stated that the 3d Battalion casualties were 30 Americans killed, 119 wounded, and 10 ROK's killed or wounded. General Gay and Colonel Webel say these figures are inaccurate.

[82] 7th Cav Regt WD, 12 and 15 Sep 50: Teague, Hill 314 Narr; Webel, MS review comments, 15 Nov 57; 1st Cav Div WD, 14 Sep 50.

[83] I Corps WD, Sep 50, Hist Narr, pp. 5-6; EUSAK WD, G-3 Jnl, 14 Sep 50 GHQ FEC G-3 Opn Rpts 82 and 83, 14-15 Sep 50: Ibid., Sitrep, 15 Sep 50; EUSAK WD, an. to PIR 64, 14 Sep 50.

[84] Ltr, Johnson to author, recd Aug 54; 1st Cav Div WD, 15 Sep 50. General Order 328, to May 1951, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously to Sergeant Baxter. EUSAK WD.

CHAPTER XXII

Perimeter Battle

The Foundation of Freedom is the Courage of Ordinary People

History On Line

Combat Photos

Notes

Causes of the Korean Tragedy ... Failure of Leadership, Intelligence and Preparation

KOREAN WAR TIME LINE

     Tanks and Fighting Vehicles

               Enemy Weapons

Korean War, 1950-1953

  Map and Battles of the MLR

                 SEARCH SITE

The Foundations of Freedom are the Courage of Ordinary People and Quality of our Arms

- A VETERAN's Blog -
Today's Issues and History's Lessons

Danish Muslim Cartoons

Guest Book

CHAPTER XXII

Perimeter Battle

The Foundation of Freedom is the Courage of Ordinary People

History On Line

Combat Photos

Notes

Causes of the Korean Tragedy ... Failure of Leadership, Intelligence and Preparation

KOREAN WAR TIME LINE Tanks and Fighting Vehicles Enemy Weapons

Korean War, 1950-1953 Map and Battles of the MLR SEARCH SITE

The Foundations of Freedom are the Courage of Ordinary People and Quality of our Arms

- A VETERAN's Blog - Today's Issues and History's Lessons

Danish Muslim Cartoons

Guest Book

KOREAN WAR TIME LINE

Tanks and Fighting Vehicles

Enemy Weapons

Korean War, 1950-1953

Map and Battles of the MLR

SEARCH SITE

- A VETERAN's Blog -
Today's Issues and History's Lessons