Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [10]
On the 5th of August, we arrived in Pusan, Korea. Three days later we were firing support missions for the infantry, until we were ordered to withdraw south of the Naktong River. The roads were jammed with refugees, making it hard to withdraw. Finally, we made it across the river and were ordered to set up and fire support for the withdrawing infantry. Word was soon passed all along the perimeter that the infantry was catching hell—especially at night.
Orders came down in late August that all rear echelon outfits were to send all available men they could spare, to the front line. Eleven of us were given an M-1 and sent to the front. I was assigned to Company B, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division.
The next day I had my first experience of being in a barrage of artillery and mortar fire; I was so scared, I pissed in my pants and wanted to get out of there. The guy in the foxhole with me was scared too. He told me when the barrages stopped all hell would break loose. He continued by telling me that flares would be shot into the air, but for me not to look at them. Once this happened he told me to pull the pin from a hand grenade and be ready to throw it, and to shoot at anything I saw in front of us.
He was right. As soon as the barrages stopped, we heard them blowing their whistles and screaming “banzai.” Our booby-traps started going off and you could see movement in front us, firing all along the perimeter. You could hear yells for medics up and down the line. This went on until daylight began to break—then it was quiet. You still heard the calls for medics, and saw bodies lying all around.
The 30th and 31st of August was more of the same. During the day we would stack up on ammo, and grenades, in preparation for the night. Our wounded, and dead, were taken care of and sent back to Pusan. The third platoon had two wounded and one killed, who was the BAR man. I was assigned to take his place. My job was to cover the machine gunner when he yelled “reloading.” I covered him until he was able to start firing again.
Our platoon sergeant had us move to another position to give support to an area that was getting hit pretty hard. Moving out in the open was scary as hell. Having just spent three days in combat—at the age of seventeen—I soon learned that what they put us through at Fort Knox was going to work.
On the 1st of September, orders came down from General’s MacArthur and Walker that we were not to give up one-inch of territory—we were to hold regardless of cost. We began to fix our foxholes, and gather all the ammo and grenade we could get. Supplies, along with needed replacements, were coming from Pusan. However, with the roads being jammed they were having trouble getting through. Plus, the North Koreans were posing as refugees and hitting the supply convoys at night.
The nights were miserable with mosquitoes and the smell of the dead.
On the night of September 4th, they hit us hard with our company getting overrun at the left flank. My foxhole buddy and I were moved over to help the left flank, and our first platoon was in hand-to-hand combat with the North Koreans that had broken through our lines. Again, as daylight approached the fighting began to lighten up. Even though the first platoon had taken casualties, which were being taken care of, they inflicted more casualties on the enemy. As bodies littered the area, they had some Korean civilians to come and remove the dead that the North Koreans had left behind.
Around mid-morning on the fifth, we noticed the North Koreans removing their dead from the river banks. We began to shoot at them, but were told to stop so we wouldn’t waste our ammunition.
It was around midnight on the sixth and we had been under an hour long artillery barrage when we heard our booby-traps rattle. These were C-ration cans, with rocks in them, attached to barbed