Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [6]
Our long retreat ended about thirty miles south of Seoul around the 15th of January, 1951. American Army units decided to defend the South Korean capital and slow the enemy at the Han River, which was about 200 yards wide and frozen over.
Rumors were running rampant: the 8th Cavalry Regiment being almost annihilated at Unsan, North Korea: the 2nd Infantry Division had been caught in a huge Chinese ambush: the First Marine Division were fighting for their lives on the east coast near the city of Hungnam, North Korea. These turned out, not to be rumors. Our 27th Infantry Regiment had not yet been engaged by the CCF.
When General Walton Walker, commander of the Eighth Army, ordered a hasty withdrawal, our regiment started marching south in the snow—fighting our first battle with the “Chinks” in the western outskirts of Seoul. This four hour battle was by no means our toughest battle, but our first with the CCF. Company B—my company—was acting alone when what appeared to have been a Chinese battalion attacked us. Our 1st Battalion had already split up and each company was defending a possible enemy approach into the city.
In September of 1950, when Seoul had been captured by American troops, all the bridges spanning the 200 yard wide Han River had been destroyed. None of these had been repaired or rebuilt. So, the 65th Engineer BN had to construct a pontoon bridge across the Han in order for our men and vehicles to cross to the south. After everyone and all equipment had crossed, the engineers were to salvage the bridge. Once the pontoon had been removed, the Chinese would be on the north side while we wore out leather going south.
Our 3rd Battalion set up a perimeter just north of the pontoon bridge to provide safe passage for all the other units crossing the river. Although the river was frozen enough for men to walk across, it was unsafe for heavy equipment.
Around midnight on January 3, 1951, Company B was deployed in a defensive line along the western berm of a railroad. By 0400 hours we had dug in and our CO, Captain Gordon Jung, placed four tanks on the rear slope of the railroad, and one blocking the underpass. We were ready to meet the enemy—for the first time.
Every man was apprehensive about facing the Chinese; we had long ago made a pact to die fighting instead of surrendering. Sometimes surrendering to the NKPA was worse than dying. One of my best friends was found tied to a tree, with commo wire, and had about thirty bayonet puncture wounds to his body. We believed the Chinese would treat us the same way. About six inches of snow had covered the ground, and was still falling. Roughly seventy-five yards behind us was a row of houses with what appeared to be a harvested sweet potato field between us and the houses.
At 0730 on the fourth, about two-hundred Korean refugees were seen walking down the road towards us, some three-hundred yards away. As they drew nearer, we could see women carrying children, old men carrying their belongings on A-frame packs, old women pushing hand carts, and ox carts loaded with bundles, and a few dogs. Captain Jung ordered our second platoon leader not to allow them to come any closer than one-hundred yards to our position—by firing his machine gun over their heads. The captain wanted to prevent any civilians from getting caught in the crossfire.
Once the machine gun opened fire, the refugees panicked. Some just milled around for a few moments, but finally the majority of them ran back in the direction they came from. Lo and behold, at the sound of our gunfire a nice military formation developed on each side of the road; men threw off what appeared to be white ponchos, took cover behind some burial mounds, and opened fire on us. There were about thirty soldiers firing at us with rifles only and we suspected they must have been an advance guard of the Chinese Army.
An hour later, roughly forty Chinese soldiers joined the small arms