Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [82]
Before we entered Seoul, they pulled me back and put me in charge of three squads, or thirty-three men. We had to protect a ten mile area to stop, or accept the surrender of the NKPA and keep them from going north. All I could do was send out scouts to see which way they were coming and set up a perimeter. We set up our machine guns and saturated the area with as many men as we could. The North Korean soldiers were surrendering by the hundreds; they didn’t even have any weapons. However, there were some die-hards who tried to get back, but we took care of them.
After a few more stragglers came in to surrender we then made a beeline to Seoul. When we arrived, who was there? MacArthur himself, and with him was Syngman Rhee. The city was only about three-quarters secured, but that didn’t stop him from coming. He held a ceremony in which he presented Syngman Rhee with a “wooden” key to the city—symbolizing we had taken the capital back. Then MacArthur had everyone remove their hats, place their hand over their heart, and recite the Lord’s Prayer—as he led us.
Now we were at the 38th parallel and didn’t know if the war was over or what—it wasn’t over. MacArthur decided to chase the NKPA all the way to the Yalu River. So, we—the 1st Marines—headed back to Inchon where we boarded ships and headed for the east coast of North Korea.
After landing in North Korea, we quickly headed north to the Chosin Reservoir. We reached the town of Hagaru-ri, which was about fifteen miles south of the Chosin, where the division set up its CP there. It was reported that there were a few thousand NKPA camped in a valley around Yudam-ni, so three-thousand men from the 5th and 7th Marines headed around the west end of the reservoir. We had three 155 Howitzers accompanying us and it was my job to protect them. I took three squads and set up a perimeter about one-hundred yards out in front of the guns, but not directly in front of them. Sometimes after firing the guns the brass casings of the shells would come off, which could cause injuries to anyone in the area.
It was the day before Thanksgiving and the guns fired all through the day and night. They finally stopped on the morning of Thanksgiving. It was said that we must have killed over three-thousand NKPA soldiers in that valley.
The weather turned bitter cold during the night—dropping well below zero—and they were going to bring us our Thanksgiving Dinner. When it arrived everything was frozen—the potatoes, gravy, and even the turkey. So, we didn’t get much of a Thanksgiving Dinner.
Around 6:00 PM a buddy of mine wanted to borrow my rifle—I had a 0-3. He wanted to take it instead of his M-1 for he was going to ride shotgun with a lieutenant colonel, who was going to division to report on our progress. We were to find out later that they never made it. The Chinese caught them on the road and killed both of them. It should have been me, but he asked me if he could take my place. Not thinking anything like that would happen, I agreed.
Later that night, around 11:00 PM, we saw our first Chinese when we suddenly realized they had us surrounded. We had our machine guns set up in a crossfire pattern, and occasionally a straggler was able to get through. However, the guys behind us with their M-1’s took care of them. When morning arrived, I looked out across the area and there must have been thousands of dead Chinese.
The division wanted us to get back to Hagaru-ri but leave everything where it was. Our captain decided he wanted to take the howitzers back with us. So, we attached one to the back of a truck and another one to the back of a bulldozer. We destroyed the third gun.
By this time Bill Ellis, a friend of mine from Evansville, was getting in bad shape—his feet were frostbitten. Bill was an Army veteran of World War II and after the war he joined the Marine