Leaving their dead on the field was the bitter dose; that was something fighting men did when they were beaten, when, in panic, they turned and fled. The Fifth Regiment of the First Provisional Marine Brigade was not beaten and it was not panicked. With its tail over the dashboard, it had struck west and south from Pusan, the all-important supply port which was desperately threatened by a strong Red push. And now, with the objective almost attained, the order had come to withdraw.

For six days they had attacked, fighting along the southern coast for 40 miles. They had been soft when they came off the ship, and for the first few days heat and weariness had taken a greater toll then bullets. They were lean and hard and hungry now.

They had come 16 miles on their last route march. Now Captain Ken Houghton’s reconnaissance patrols lay on the ridges overlooking the mud-walled town of Sachon, eight miles south of Chinju, with its airfield and its network of highways and the enemy was sending its spearheads toward Pusan.

Five thousand yards ahead the town they had come so far to capture sprawled on the plain where the rice fields rose in terraces from the tidal mud flats. Taking it should be easy. The howitzers would pour in high explosives, the tanks and the recoilless 75’s would bring it under point-blank fire, the planes would rake it with rockets and cannon, and then, when it lay smoking and dead, the men with rifles would come charging down from the hills to dig the snipers from the ruins. When the mopping up was done, fresh troops would come to take over, and the Marines would go back to the rear somewhere.

These were the things the men were thinking when the order came to withdraw and give up the miles of road and river, peak and valley they had bought at the cost of 51 dead and 32 wounded, and four men lost somewhere who might never come back.

“We couldn’t believe it at first,” one officer said. “The Old Man had told us when we started the drive that we would not surrender and we would not retreat. When it finally soaked in that we had to pull back, so fast we couldn’t even bring off our dead, I never saw men so bitter. You fight for ground like we had fought for it and you feel like you own that ground. You don’t want to give up a foot of it. I saw officers nearly cry when they ordered their units back.”

But they went back in good order. Sore and griping bitterly, they moved west to Masan, and from there in a train that lurched and jerked and stood halted for hours, blowing its whistle forlornly in the night, and in trucks that pounded over a road so rough it beat the bones to a jelly, they rode for a hundred winding miles.

After 30 hours, they came to the Miryang River. Here a blue stream, clear and cold, flowed between rocky banks, and on the shore pines whispered in the wind. Beneath the trees the earth was cool and clean, and from nowhere did there come the fetid stench that is the smell of Korea. For a little while they slept and bathed and cleaned their weapons with great care and made friends with the little Korean boys who came to stare at the gaunt, tired men.

Here they found out why they had been pulled back from Sachon. Their attack had jolted the victorious North Korean Sixth Division off balance. It would take time for the Reds to regroup and start rolling eastward again. But up here, on the central sector of the thin perimeter, a greater menace had suddenly appeared. Across the Naktong River, the North Korean Fourth Division for weeks had been pushing men and tanks and heavy guns, massing them in the high hills; 6000 men had already crossed the river, had driven our thin holding forces back with heavy losses.

They were almost ready, intelligence sources knew, to break out of their salient and split our forces in two, north and south. Ahead of them, only 25 miles as the crow flies, lay Maryang and the double-track railroad over which our supplies flowed. Once this line was cut, once the Reds turned south along the railroad to Pusan, our cause was lost. Somebody had to attack west out of Maryang, dig them out of their holes on the hilltops, drive them back across the Naktong.

Of the seven hills that commanded the Red salient, the Marines drew the toughest three, each one higher and steeper than the next. They moved out in the dark by truck, and when they were close enough they dismounted and moved up through the darkness on foot-shuffling, shadowy and ghostlike men who did not talk or banter, but moved through the night in silence. Far back there was the sound of great doors slamming where the guns of the Fifth’s supporting artillery were firing on the hills ahead, and the shells passing overhead made a sound like the rushing of dry leaves in a winter wind.

Here and there in the hot and sticky night, the sickly sweet stench of dead men lay heavy on the air, clogging the throat, for this road had been fought over before and troops had been beaten here – beaten so badly that they had fallen back in a rout.

The men in the marching column looked at the dead beside the road without emotion, noting the details that combat men would note – the four who lay by the little mud hut must have been killed while trying to make a stand, the two on the slope farther on must have been killed in their sleep. For the smaller man lay on his back, naked to the waist, and the big man sprawled on his face wore his mosquito net on his helmet.

Then, day came and in the shining morning the artillery fell silent and the planes came swooping like hawks above the mile long ridge of Red Slash Hill, the first objective, blasting it with rockets, bombs and bullets until dirty gray smoke hung above it like a ugly cloud. When they pulled back for more ammunition, the artillery took over again. For what must have seemed an eternity in hell to the Reds on the ridge, they alternated this way, first the artillery, then the planes and then the artillery again.

When they had done all that they could do, the infantry moved out – in long, thinly spaced files across the emerald rice paddies, walking upright despite the sniper fire, for in war men sometimes grow so weary they do not give a damn whether they live or die, and these men were going into battled tired. They reached the terraced lower slopes where patches of peas and red peppers lay, and then they were moving upward into the scrubby pines.

There was little cover here, and from the forwards observation point the tiny figures in green could be seen clawing their way up the steep slope. Captain Andy Zimmer’s Dog Company was on the right, Lieutenant Bill Sweeney’s Easy Company was on the left; between them flared the great red gash, like a shrapnel wound, that gave the hill its name.

At first it seemed that it might be a walkover, for the little figures were halfway up now, and still moving. Then, suddenly, on the crest, brown clad men showed against the sky, and down the slope among the Marines hand grenades began to blow in puffs of flame and smoke, and the hill was alive with the hammer of heavy machine guns. Somehow, deep in their holes on the reverse slope, many Reds had ridden out the air strikes and the artillery attacks. Fire was coming now from all along the crest; and from a hill to the right other Reds were pouring hot fire into the Marines from their rear.

The Marines were too close to the enemy to call for artillery; they could only cling to the steep slopes, ducking as the grenades came down, lunging upward a yard or two and falling and hanging on and lunging again. Twice in the long morning small handfuls of men reached the top; but the first time they were driven back, and the second they were pulled back so that an air strike could be laid on. During this attack a strange and unbelievable thing took place. Along the ridge a handful of Reds disdained to take cover as the planes came over. Most merely knelt as the bombs and rockets burst around them and as the bullets poured into them; others stood up right, clearly outlined against the sky. “They seemed almost contemptuous of our air bombardment,” the official reports said later.

When this air strike ended, the thin green line rose and charged again. And again the grenades came down on them, and you could see men fall and roll, for a wounded man could not cling to the steep slope.

As the morning wore on it became clear that Lieutenant Colonel Hal Rosie’s second battalion, for all its valor, had done all it could. More and more walking wounded were coming down the slopes, holding shattered arms, limping on bleeding legs. More and more bloody forms were coming back on litters borne by corpsmen and by brave little South Korean volunteers who went up the hill carrying ammunition and water and came down bringing the wounded. More dead were being brought by, wrapped in the black poncho that is the only possession other than rifle and canteen that a Marine carries into battle.

In the middle of the afternoon word went up for Roise’s men to hold where they were while Lieutenant Colonel George Newton’s first battalion passed through to continue the attack. The first battalion, Captain John R. Stevens’ Able Company on the left, and Captain Francis (Ike) Fenton’s Baker Company on the right, began toiling up the hill.

At the forward observation post General Edward A. Craig said, “They are getting hurt. I can see them bringing the wounded down.” Suddenly he stiffened. “They are making it to the top. There’s 20 of them in that little saddle on the right….30...40… now. By george, Baker Company is up there! Now, if they can only hold!”

They held, while Captain Stevens’ Able Company on their left struggled to join them, inching up slowly under a galling fire of machine guns and a shower of grenades that stopped them 25 yards below the crest. Finally, when night was coming on and the side of the hill fell in shadow and it was too dark to see, General Craig left his high lookout and went back to his command post in the rear.

“It hurts to think what those kids will face up there in the dark tonight,” he said. He turned to Colonel Joe Stewart, his operations officer. “Get Colonel Wood on the phone,” he ordered. “Tell him his artillery did a fine job today. Tell Wood to fire all night and plow up the top of that hill. Tell him to keep heavy fire on the river crossing, so they can’t shove reinforcements across.”

A runner came up with a report on the fighting strength of the two battalions on the hill. Out of 200 men and seven officers in each company. In 1st Battalion; Captain Stevens’ Able Company had four officers and 68 enlisted men alive and unwounded – but not all of these were unhurt, for many had bandaged their own wounds and refused to come down. Captain Fenton’s Baker Company had two officers and 103 men left. In 2nd Battalion; Dog Company had two officers and 85 riflemen; and in Easy Company only three officers and 78 men were still in shape to fight.

The telephone tinkled, Stewart answered, grunted and hung up. He told the General, “Regiment says three gook tanks are coming up the road toward the first-battalion CP. They are already behind our positions on the hill.”

Naval Captain Eugene Hering, brigade surgeon, jumped to his feet, “God-all-mighty!” he said. “The aid station’s just a quarter of a mile from there! If those tanks break through to the wounded – “

“They won’t,” the general said. “Colonel Newton will know what to do.”

At the aid station, when the word came that the tanks were coming, Don Kennedy, rifleman, with a shell fragment in his shoulder, got up, got his rifle and walked over the hill to the forward slope. He lay down there to watch.

It was after sundown,” Kennedy said later, “but there was plenty of light. I watched the bend in the road where it came around the nose of the hill. You could see the dust rising, and then this long bulb-nose gun sort of poked around the corner. The tank came on slow and nothing happened, and then all of a sudden bazooka men waiting on the slope started throwing those big rockets into its flanks, whoosh-bam, whoosh-bam. It stopped and began to swing right and left, like an elephant swinging its head, but not moving forward; it was firing all its guns, but it was firing wild.

“But it didn’t fire long, for as soon as the rockets hit and the tank stopped, the 75’s cut loose, head on. One hit the machine gun mount and drove it back into the tank. The turret opened, and you could see the gooks trying to get out, but the tracers started pouring into them from all over the hill, where the riflemen were firing, and they fell back inside. And then you could see the red flames inside and then the explosions – the gas and ammo, I guess. The second tank came on, shooting, but the guns blew it up like the first one.

“Then the third tank came on, and they bashed him too.”

At two in the morning the Reds came yelling down the slopes and charged Able Company in their shallow holes on the side of the hill. Mortars blasted them and machine guns cut them down, but they kept coming until they had overran two machine guns. But the ragged line held and by four o’clock the attack was over.

Then at first light, the Corsairs came in. In their training, the Marines had worked out a rule of thumb in bombing, a rough safety factor. They would strafe with cannon fire 50 yards ahead of friendly positions. They would strike with rockets 100 yards ahead. When dropping bombs they figured that a yard of distance for every pound of high-explosive was safe enough. But when enemy is massing in front of you, these safety factors have no meaning.

So Able Company asked for bombs 50 yards in front of where it lay, and the Corsairs laid 500-pounders there. When the planes had gone, Able Company picked itself up from the dust and moved up the hill to the crest. Except for the dead and the few wounded, the enemy had fled down the reverse slope that was honeycombed with foxholes.

It took 24 hours instead of 12, and two battalions were shot to pieces, but at least we had the hill.

“Now comes the critical time,” the general said. “Two hills to take and one battalion to take them with.”

Up on the crest of the first objective where he had set up his forward command post, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Toplett(Webmaster correction, should be Taplett), of the third battalion, spoke into a telephone. George and How Companies began to move up the steep slope of Hill No. 2. Below where the cooks and clerks of the Headquarters Company waited to go in if needed, the General watched as the little figures moved upward through the straggly pines.

“No fire yet,” he said. “They are moving fast….Now they are getting a little fire, but they are still going on.”

A Marine came, walking alone past the command post. His muddy green blouse was split from the tail to the collar and there were two fresh bandages on his back, just below the shoulder blades.

“What hit you son?” Colonel Stewart asked.

“Machine gun, sir,” the wounded man said.

“The bullet still in?”

“No, sir, it went through the muscle about four inches and then came out.” The rifleman said.

“Shouldn’t cause much trouble.”

“No, sir.”

The little jeep came up and the wounded Marine climbed aboard.

The General was watching the hill through his glasses. “Great deal of movement on top,” he said. “It looks as if – They are! They are beginning to run!”

Up on the heights you could see the little brownish figures pouring over the crest and disappearing on the other side. Then you could see the thin line of Marines surge up and stand there on the crest, firing down at the fleeing men.

The man on the radio jeep began to shout, “Air says the enemy is breaking for the river in force! They are clogging up on the sand bars 50 or a hundred together!”

Suddenly, ahead, the air was full of planes – jets and Mustangs and Corsairs. They came down in shrieking dives and disappeared behind the ridge, swooped up again, turned and dived again.

The man in the radio jeep shouted. “It’s a slaughter!” he said. “The river is full of them, floating face down, and they still keep coming down off the hill!”

George and How Companies were regrouping now for the attack on the last objective, Hill No. 3, a great brutal mass of a mountain a mile long and 700 feet high.

“A big piece of ground for 400 men to take,” the General said. “But maybe there’s nothing much up there. Maybe they’ll break and run like they ran on Hill No 2.”

And on the left, where Lieutenant Bob Bone’s George Company went up, the enemy did break. But on the right, where Captain Joe Fagen’s How Company rode into battle clinging to tanks, they stood and fought. Seventy-five yards from the top of the ridge the Reds made their stand in a brushy clump of pine, with the sun at their backs. Captain Fagan’s men, looking up toward where the fire was coming from, were blinded by the sun, and Fagan himself was brought down the mountain cursing the bullet in his thigh.

High on the hill, Colonel Toplett(Webmaster correction, should be Taplett) saw that How Company was pinned down. He spoke into the telephone, and there ahead on the ridge was enacted a thunderous drama which once seen can never be forgotten – the sight and sound of a Marine Brigade bringing all its fire power to bear on one spot at one time.

To the rear of where we stood, the 155’s began to roar, and the snub-nosed 105’s, and to one side the mortars were barking, and in front the squat tanks were whamming away with the 90-mm. guns whose muzzle blast can knock a man down at 30 feet, and above the hill, swooping low, the planes were diving in. You would see the smoke and the fire flash of the rockets leaving the wings, and them would come the great tearing sound the rockets made in flight and then the roar of its blasting against the hill. All the crest of the hill in front of How Company was a roaring jumping hell.

To the men under fire it must have been terror enough to unseat reason and indeed, on the crest, a few little men could be seen, running between the bomb bursts, gesticulating wildly.

“Ah, that Toplett(Webmaster correction, should be Taplett),” Joe Stewart kept saying, “He’s a sweetheart. He knows how to call down the fire.”

Dark came and the barrage ended and How Company dug in on the slope, waiting for what the night might bring. But no counterattack came, and in the morning they went up the hill through the dead men who had fired at them out of the sun, and all was quiet on the hilltop, where the earth was scorched and plowed up and littered with dead.

And while George and How Companies’ patrols scouted the slopes leading down to the Naktong, we drive all the way to the river, behind a rumbling tank whose red-faced commander stood in the turret wearing the high meshed hat of a Korean patriarch. The General stood there on a point of land amid the cannon the enemy had abandoned and looked across the tawny river to the western hills where all that was left of the North Korean Fourth Division hid, nursing its wounds.

He couldn’t think of anything very dramatic to say. He just looked back at the hills that his men had cleared at so great a cost, and said, “Well, it was a pretty good little two-day operation after all, I guess.”

Then he bounced back down the dusty road in his jeep, past the ambulances still groaning back with the wounded and the dead, and behind him his shattered battalions followed, turning the land over to the Army to hold again. And they went back to the Miryang, and the bivouac in the pines – two thirds or less of what had once been a brigade – to rest and wait for replacements that would bring them to fighting strength again. But even before the last elements had pulled in to the bivouac, the first elements were moving out. Orders had come to move south again, back where they had fought at first. And the men slept sitting up in the trucks as they moves through the night, too weary and benumbed to know or care what other high and bloody hills might lie at the end of the road.

[RETURN]

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