Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [53]
Roughly at 1130, Drysdale was informed that seventeen tanks from D Company, 1st Tank BN would be available to him at 1300 hours—with another twelve, two hours later. He decided to regroup all his forces and wait for the seventeen tanks. We needed these tanks to help break though the roadblocks. At 1350 hours we began our push to Hagaru-ri with the seventeen tanks leading our convoy; bringing up the rear would be the other twelve tanks. Due to pockets of resistance, weather, an icy road and roadblocks, our progress was extremely slow. Vehicles were sliding off the road, only to be towed or pushed back on the road.
Around 1615 hours, not even halfway to Hagaru-ri, the head of the convoy came to a complete stop. About mid-way of the convoy, we got hit hard from the flank resulting in many killed, and some captured. Unbeknownst to us, the Chinese had severed the convoy, but most of the British Commandos and Marines from G/3/1, along with the lead seventeen tanks, were still intact at the front of the convoy.
With orders to proceed at all costs, we continued to Hagaru-ri. We climbed into, and onto whatever vehicle was close by. Sometimes we had to stop, because the lead vehicle was disabled, or to take care of the wounded. For those of us who could, we immediately set up along side the road and provided cover fire for those who tried to find out why we had stopped. After the problem was taken care of, we quickly mounted our and vehicles and continued our journey. Before reaching Hagaru-ri, these stop-and-goes happened several times.
Lt. Col. Drysdale and our Gunnery Sgt. Rocco Zullo were among the wounded; Captain Sitter had now taken over as the CO of Task Force Drysdale. By now the temperatures were ranging from twenty-five below in the day, to forty below at night.
Finally, reaching Hagaru-ri and having taken care of our wounded, Task Force Drysdale was disbanded. Then we, G/3/1, received our new orders—get a few hours rest, and sleep if possible, because in the morning we had a hill to retake. It was important that we controlled this hill, for the safety of our perimeter. Before I tried to get any sleep, I cleaned my gun. However, I made the mistake of lubricating the parts like I normally did—by morning my gun was frozen and unusable.
As we were moving out to retake the hill, I was told to stay and re-clean my gun—this time not using lubricants. After finishing, I caught up with my squad about a third of the way up the hill.
After running into some resistance, we were able to take control of what was known as East Hill. It was now the 30th of November and we were expecting a counterattack, so we dug in the best we could—considering the ground was frozen. We were fighting the Chinese, dressed in the cotton padded uniforms and split-toed sneaker type shoes; they liked to attack at night—in hordes.
Attack in hordes they did, blowing their bugles and whistles. I remember thinking this night would never end, or it would end quickly. We were overrun; we were throwing their hand grenades back at them. We were holding our position, as bodies began to pile up in front of, and around us. I had called in mortar support, which we never received.
During the night, Captain Sitter crawled up to our position to explain to us why there was no mortar support. He had all the mortar men, headquarter personnel, and any other man he could come up with, busy rounding up and capturing all the Chinese that had broken through our lines. Then he went on to tell us that the Korean troops had retreated leaving our right flank exposed; he warned us to be careful.
Finally, dawn began to break, which was a pleasant feeling. The Chinese had a tendency to leave their dead and wounded behind. On many occasions the wounded would lay there and shoot at any target they could see. We later found out that a few men in another area had been wounded in this manner.
One morning, a couple