Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [127]
May finally arrived and they had yet to name a replacement for Sgt. Fisher. The lieutenant told me he wanted me to take over as squad leader, even though I was only a PFC. He went on to add that he had checked my records, which were good, and had already put me in for a promotion—to corporal.
On the 20th of May, Easy Company was to be the lead company for our battalion, and they were to take the first ridge. The following day we were to take Hill 329. As they worked their way up the hill, they came under intense fire. Sgt. Donald Moyer would be mortally wounded that day, as he threw himself on a grenade, saving the lives of some of his fellow soldiers. Sgt. Moyer was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
On the evening of the twentieth, Lt. Clawson told me that my squad would be leading the attack the next day. For most of the night the rain poured down and it was still raining when morning arrived. They fed us a hot breakfast, which isn’t as great as it sounds; since a front line soldier knows that by the time you get through a chow line—in the rain—the only thing worth eating is the bacon.
One of our new replacements was an old sergeant that had been court-martialed and demoted to a private; he was over fifty years old. As I was assigning men to their positions, I assigned him to bring up the rear. Needless to say, he was upset and said I only placed him there because I didn’t believe he could keep up with the younger guys. I was finally able to convince him that I needed someone in the rear who could keep a cool head, and help with the wounded. He accepted my explanation, but he was right—I thought he was too old to keep up. However, by the end of the day I regretted my decision.
As we advanced up the hill we came upon a bunker that we believed was abandoned since we had not received any fire from it. The rain was still coming down hard, and when the old sergeant came to it, he went inside—I guess to get out of the rain. Unknown to us, there were a couple of Chinese in the bunker and they killed him. If he had not been bringing up the rear, the other guys would not have allowed him to go in there. However, later in the day, another squad went into the bunker and killed the Chinese.
Before we started our advance our tanks shelled the hill, but it didn’t seem to be very effective. The hill was steep, muddy, and the rain never stopped. You would take one step forward and slide two steps back. There was a large outcrop of rocks about two-thirds of the way up. After reaching these rocks, I took my men around the right side. We hadn’t gone thirty yards, when all hell broke loose. A machine gun opened fire on us, pinning us down. I had been scared in battle before, but the combination of the heavy rain, the mud, and the heavy machine gun fire just about topped them all.
The machine gun fire was going over our heads, hitting the men in other squads back by the rocks; Lt. Clawson was pinned down behind the rocks. According to eyewitness accounts, the lieutenant moved up to the head of the unit and killed three enemy soldiers that had been holding up their advancement. After one of his men fell wounded, the lieutenant disregarding his own safety, under heavy fire, carried the wounded soldier out of harms way. Upon returning, Lt. Clawson picked up the wounded soldiers weapon and continued their advance up the hill. Moments later, he was killed by machine gun fire.
By the time word reached me that the lieutenant had been killed and our platoon sergeant wounded and out of action, our condition was deteriorating fast. I knew something had to be done, and fast. So, I moved close enough to destroy the machine gun that had killed the lieutenant with a grenade.
In the hole with the machine gun, were two or three Chinese soldiers. So, I fired a few rounds to be sure they were dead. As I surveyed the rest of the hill, I didn’t like what I saw—hundreds of Chinese. I looked down at my M-1, with its eight rounds per clip, and suddenly my situation seemed pretty dismal. About that time I thought to myself, “What the hell, I’ll use