Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [137]
They told us after K Company ate their chow that night, we would meet with them to get oriented about Hill 487. This was the hill the artillery section was continuously shelling. From all observations, there was nothing moving on that hill.
We were taken by trucks as far as possible, and then hiked to the base of the hill. From the base we were to climb to the top, string barbed wire, and set up a defensive position. After this had been completed, another unit would relieve us and we would be back by nightfall for a hot meal.
It was dark when we reached the end of the road, and disembarked from the trucks. Then we began a night march, back to the hill. The night was so long, we took three rest stops. When dawn arrived, we were on a long ridge looking up at this huge mountain.
Stopping at the base we were told to dig in, which was routine. Carl and myself dug a foxhole together. When we finished, we laid down in it and ate a can of cold beans. Soon, word was passed around that in a short time we would continue our climb up the hill. However, before we started, they told us to fire some practice rounds off to our side, which we did. What a mistake! It was like walking up to a door and ringing the doorbell—announcing “we’re here.”
As the riflemen jumped off their assault, I gave my cans of ammo to the machine gunner; who was providing overhead fire to the riflemen. I stood there wondering why there was all this shooting, when there was no one on the hill. Suddenly, a guy to my left yelled for me to get down; he didn’t have to tell me twice. It seemed someone forgot to tell the “Chinks” they weren’t supposed to be there—at least not according to our plan.
This area was rockier than where Carl and I had dug our hole. So, as I moved the rocks to make me a hole, I put them in front of me for protection from the bullets that were hitting all around us. Kneeling on my knees, I raised up to look around. This almost proved to be a fatal mistake, as I felt the heat from a bullet as it whizzed by my ear.
Suddenly, I noticed a guy lying about ten feet in front of me, unconscious, with a long gash along the side of his head. A medic picked him up and carried him off. By now everyone was running back to the rear. The only thought that came to my mind was, we are all going to get shot in the back.
In just a short distance that thought became reality. There, lying on the trail in front of me was a GI that had been shot in his back. I soon came upon four guys carrying a wounded soldier; he looked a lot like the guy I had seen earlier with the head wound. They were exhausted and asking for help, but no one stopped. I would have rather been running like the other guys, but I stopped. I told one of the guys to carry my rifle while I took his place. When we reached safety, I was unable to find the GI with my rifle. However, many guys were carrying someone else’s rifle due to the high number of casualties; so, I took one of those.
We were soon being regrouped and I had this feeling in my stomach that we would be going up that hill again. Then orders came down; move out. It was decided that we would take the easiest, and quickest, way out, since we were tired and had many wounded.
As we walked down into a valley, we came upon a large rice paddy. The water was about waist high, and it was like wading through a sewer pond; the Koreans used human waste as fertilizer. We finally reached the area where the trucks were to pick us up. Totally exhausted, there was little to no conversation on the trucks. We didn’t return to the area we started from, nor did we have a hot meal waiting for us—nobody cared. We all laid down on the ground, and slept until morning.
* * * * * *
We reached our objective, which was