by Adam Makos
Tex stood taller as he fired, a six-foot-four target aglow in muzzle flashes. Sixty yards in front of the lines, Chinese bodies began to pile up. White Jackets leapt over their dead comrades and fired from the hip. Their bullets cracked against the gun pit, tossing bits of rock and snow. Coderre ducked but Tex remained tall. Coderre grabbed Tex’s arm and pulled him low before a Chinese bullet could find him. Bodies piled up fifty yards away, then forty, then thirty.
Whoosh! From behind, a red streak arced over the Marines, then another and another. Towers of light burst in no man’s land, tossing Chinese soldiers. A cheer rose from the Marine line—the shells came from Weapons Company’s 81mm mortars, back in the valley. More hot shells streaked overhead and pinned down the enemy stampede.
Coderre seized the opportunity. “Cut it out!” he shouted to Tex, making a chopping motion. Tex ceased firing. The gun barrel was glowing red—any hotter and the bullets would cook off without the trigger being pulled. “Barrel change!” Coderre shouted.
The assistant searched the floor of the pit for the spare barrels, then turned to Coderre with horror. “Wick has them!” he said.
“Dammit!” Coderre said.
Tex grabbed Coderre’s arm. “When this lets up, we’re in trouble!” he said, gesturing to the shells streaking overhead. If their gun was silent when the stampede resumed, the Chinese would charge them unimpeded.
Coderre unzipped his parka, reached inside, and drew one of his .45 pistols. He wore both pistols under his parka to keep them from freezing. Coderre racked a round in the chamber. “I’m going after Wick,” he announced.
Alone, he set off on the trail down the hill.
—
With his pistol raised, Coderre rounded a rock outcropping and stepped onto the ledge where Wick and the others had camped. The ledge was shadowy, but Coderre could have sworn he saw bodies among the piles of debris.
With unlaced boots, Coderre waded cautiously through the clutter. Snow filtered from above. He stepped over empty sleeping bags and Marine boots. Coderre shook his head: If Wick and the others had escaped, they had fled in their socks.
Coderre knelt over a body. He felt a padded jacket and flipped the man over. The dead soldier was Chinese, his face misshapen from a blow to the head. Several other dead men in white jackets lay nearby. The Chinese had assaulted the ledge thinking it was How Company’s command post.
On hands and knees, Coderre searched for the barrels. He shook packs abandoned by the Marines and his face lifted when he heard the gun barrels jingle. “Thank God!” he said. His eyes locked on a nearby pair of boots and his grin faded. They were likely Wick’s. Whatever Wick’s reason, Coderre hoped that his friend had escaped.
Coderre departed the ledge. On the trail he stopped and glanced over the moonlit valley.
At the base of the hill, the Weapons boys were firing up the road toward the gap. Behind them, the 81mm mortars were flashing and sending red-hot shells arcing up. From every hilltop in the defensive ring, red American tracers poured out and green Chinese tracers zipped in. As the streaks crisscrossed like a Christmas light show, Coderre realized that the enemy fire was coming from almost every direction. We’re surrounded, he thought.
Coderre lowered the bag and his pistol in despair.
Commanding voices sounded from below and drew Coderre’s attention. Sixty yards downhill, How Company’s command post sat behind a rock cluster. Coderre heard the Marines stirring—officers organizing the defenses and sergeants shouting to round up men. If Wick had escaped, he was down there.
It’s so close, Coderre thought. He could drop the barrels and run down. The Marines there would welcome him and no one would ask questions—they’d need every man to defend the command post. Sixty yards away lay his chance to survive the night.
Coderre glanced uphill at the alternative. Forty yards above stretched a vision of Armageddon. Backlit against star shells, Marines were fighting for their lives. Explosions thundered and painful screams bellowed. From their foothold on the right flank, Chinese voices screeched, “You die, Marine! You die!”
The bag of barrels grew heavy in Coderre’s hand. Up there lay certain death.
But Coderre thought of Tex and the assistant gunner, glancing over their shoulders, having wagered their lives that he would return. He could envision the other Marines firing forward and rightward but never checking the man at their side because they knew he would stand his ground too. Marines had run from the hillside that night—Coderre had seen their empty boots—but none had run from the crest.
Coderre tucked the bag of barrels under his arm, raised his pistol, and began to climb. If he had to die tonight, he would try to save his friends first.
It was as simple as jumping on a grenade.
—
Back at the gun pit, Coderre found Tex and the assistant firing their carbines over the lip. The machine gun sat abandoned. Marine mortar shells were still falling and bursting—for now. Tex and the assistant turned. “Thank God!” Tex said. “We thought they got you!”
Coderre holstered his pistol and passed a fresh barrel to Tex, shouting, “Hurry, change ’em out!” The assistant turned the gun and slid the overheated barrel from the sleeve. Tex slid the fresh barrel into place and twisted it tight.
Coderre glanced ahead of the line and his jaw fell. Thirty yards away, a grotesque pile of quivering White Jackets stretched as far as he could see.
Tex swung the gun forward, chambered a round, and aimed across the pile.
—
One by one, the towers of light stopped bursting in no man’s land.
“No, no,” Coderre muttered.
The star shells stopped popping and their flares fizzled to darkness. The mortar tubes were probably overheating. Only the Marines’ tracers cast a red glow across the slope.
A commotion drew Coderre’s attention to the right. On the rise, a Marine rifle stopped flashing. Another flash extinguished, closer to Coderre, then another. The sounds of desperate hand-to-hand combat arose in their place. Coderre watched the wave of darkness spread toward him, snuffing muzzle flashes.
The neighboring machine gun stopped firing and its squad leader shouted an order. A Marine unlimbered the weapon and tossed its hot barrel over his shoulder. Another took the tripod. The squad retreated toward Coderre’s position, some men backpedaling and firing carbines toward the rise. “The right flank is gone!” the squad leader shouted as he passed.
Coderre drew his pistol, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. In the moonlight, he spotted them—more than fifty white shapes pouring down the rise. The wave of Chinese troops spilled over the vacant gun pit and charged, their bayonets catching the moonlight.
The first white shape emerged from the dark, bayonet leveled. Coderre settled his pistol’s sights on the soldier and fired. The White Jacket crumpled and slid. Coderre squinted, momentarily blinded from the muzzle flash. He blinked, picked another target, and fired. That soldier went down too. Tex and the assistant stepped to Coderre’s side and emptied their carbines into the wave. White Jackets collapsed, others veered around their dead comrades. Coderre swung his pistol left and right, firing again and again. A White Jacket tumbled from the crest. Coderre pulled the trigger again—click! The clip was empty, all seven bullets spent. He drew his second pistol. With pistols in both hands, Coderre faced the onrushing enemy and braced himself.
A rifle cracked behind Coderre’s shoulder and the nearest White Jacket flopped backward. With weapons blazing, Marine riflemen surged around Coderre. They had come from the left end of the line. From a shoulder, from a knee, they fired into the enemy ranks. Faced with a wall of fire, the wave of White Jackets crumbled and ebbed.
“Fall back to the secondary position!” a sergeant shouted. A fallback position had been chosen on the left flank, a bit downhill. Around Coderre, the riflemen lifted their weapons and retreated. Coderre nodded to Tex. The burly Marine unhooked the machine gun and passed it to the assistant. Tex then folded the tripod
and slung it over his shoulder. “Go! Go! Go!” Coderre shouted and waved. His men joined the exodus.
Coderre holstered his pistols and ducked into the pit. He grabbed a box of ammo and was searching for another when new whooshing sounds descended from the moonlit clouds. Coderre glanced up and realized what was coming down—Chinese mortars!
Explosions burst along the line, flinging shrapnel and rocks. Tex and the others hit the deck. A shell landed outside the pit and its shock wave tossed Coderre against the pit’s wall, spilling his boxes of ammo. Coderre’s vision spun. The mortars abruptly stopped—their purpose was just to soften the line. Sounds of pounding feet arose from no man’s land: another stampede.
Get up! Coderre told himself. He stood and cried out in pain. The backs of his thighs felt like they were on fire. He hobbled to the opening of the pit. Down the line, Tex and the others stood slowly.
Before Coderre could call for aid, Chinese faces appeared above the rocks between him and the others. White Jackets began pouring over the line. Two heavy crunches sounded behind Coderre and he glanced over his right shoulder. On top of the gun pit, a White Jacket clutched a Tommy gun and searched for a target. His eyes locked on Coderre and his face scrunched with anger. He swung the gun down toward the young Marine.
Coderre dived outside the pit as flashes erupted behind him. Bullets thudded, and one ricocheted off the rocky ground and into Coderre’s left calf. Coderre felt a hot stab of pain and screamed. Before the White Jacket could correct his aim, a Marine’s bullet struck him in the chest and spun him off the pit.
Coderre lifted himself from the snowy ground with his elbows. Down the line, the White Jackets were swarming the Marines. In the middle of the melee, Tex stood like a giant, swinging the tripod and bashing aside the short Chinese soldiers. In his delirium, Coderre almost smiled.
Another White Jacket leapt down from the pit and a pair of feet landed just beyond Coderre’s face. Another pair of feet followed the first. The White Jackets ran toward the melee where Tex and the others were fighting for their lives. With a grunt of pain, Coderre pushed himself up to his knees and reached into his parka for a pistol.
Ting!
A clatter of tin on rock sounded behind him. Coderre knew the sound of a Chinese grenade all too well.
Crack! In a violent flash, his world turned dark.
* * *
* “The country around Chosin was never intended for military operations,” Marine general O. P. Smith would later lament. “Even Genghis Khan wouldn’t tackle it.”
CHAPTER 33
BACKS TO THE WALL
Meanwhile, on the valley floor
RED THREW HIS BAZOOKA OVER HIS SHOULDER, gripped his rifle, and ran from the encampment with Charlie, Devans, and the other men of the Weapons detachment. Their frozen breaths puffed and their long parkas flapped with every step. A balled-up sleeping bag bounced from each man’s back.
The Marines had left everything else behind—backpacks, shelters, rations—to fall back to a secondary position. Beyond the encampment, dead Chinese soldiers lay on the road in the gap. The White Jackets had never expected the detachment’s roadblock.
One hundred yards behind the encampment, the Marines reached a frozen creek that snaked across the valley. Red slid down the five-foot bank and stopped short of the iced-over water. Charlie followed, as did Devans. Trees stood above both banks. The moon shone brightly and the trees’ shadows darkened the creek bed.
Above the bank, Marines handed two .30-caliber heavy machine guns down to their buddies’ waiting arms. Cylindrical water jackets covered the gun barrels to aid in cooling. The Marines had replaced the water with antifreeze. Other Marines slid to the creek bed and unslung their sleeping bags.
Red carried his Super Bazooka to the creek. The weapon was useless, its sights smashed in the previous attack. Red heaved the bazooka to the opposite bank and it landed with a heavy crunch. Several Marines turned with raised eyebrows. Everyone knew that the Chinese would be back in force. “What?” Red said. “It’s broken. I’m not sharing my toys if I don’t have to!” The Marines broke into nervous laughter.
Red returned to the bank, where a battle line had formed. The sixty Marines were spread across ninety yards, everyone crouching low. On the far right, the road ran past the creek toward the Marine headquarters. Devans called his platoons together. The twelve men moved low and gathered around. “Okay, let’s hope they didn’t see us regroup,” Devans said in a hush. “This is the end of the line. If they get past us and take HQ, the whole valley may fall.”
Oh, great, Red thought. Nearly 9,500 Marines were relying on them.
Devans instructed the platoons to each place a man on watch and for everyone else to remain silent and hidden until the enemy returned. His men glanced nervously at one another and Devans noticed.
“Remember, fellas,” he said, glancing around the circle. “We’re Marines. If we stick together, we can’t be beaten.” Red and the others nodded and straightened up a bit.
Before Devans could depart, Charlie grabbed his arm. “Sarge, I left my rocket launcher out there.” He gestured to the encampment. “Can I go get it quick?” Devans looked down and shook his head in disbelief. “I thought one of the other fellas had it,” Charlie added.
Red scoffed.
“You’re not going out there, Charlie,” Devans said. “Too risky.”
Charlie nodded reluctantly.
Red crawled to the lip of the bank to take first watch. One hundred yards away in the field, the wind flapped the abandoned lean-tos. Gunfire still crackled around the valley. On 1403, sporadic explosions revealed ghostly figures darting across the crest. They were likely Chinese, although Red couldn’t be certain—at last report How Company was clinging to the left side of the slope. Behind the other hilltops, green and red lights danced like auroras.
Red raised his T-shirt over his nose and tucked his rifle close. For now, all he could do was watch.
—
Four hours later, the snow was falling and filtering down through the trees to the creek bed. Huddled between Charlie and Devans, Red watched the snow settle onto the ice. The Marines called the particles “diamond dust” because they were so fine. At his side, Charlie dozed, and Devans struggled to keep his eyelids open. Snow collected on their shoulders and helmet covers. Along the lip of the bank, fifteen Marines remained on watch, their chins tucked from the wind. Hill 1403 had turned quiet.
One of the Marines above suddenly raised his head. He whispered to the man next to him. Another Marine perked up, then another. Red’s eyebrows lifted. The men sank quietly from the lip and began shaking their buddies. Up and down the line, Marines reached for rifles. Devans rose to a knee. Red nudged Charlie.
“What did I miss?” Charlie muttered.
In a crouch, a tall Marine hustled down the line from the right. He gripped his rifle with one hand at the midpoint as if he were stalking a deer. His face was tight and tough; his black hair was gray on the sides. He was Gunnery Sergeant Alvin Sawyer from the backwoods of Kentucky. The gunny was forty-eight years old and a WWII veteran.
At each cluster of men, he whispered in a thick Kentuckian accent, “They’re a-comin’! Stay low!” Weapons Company’s officers had deployed to the hills with the other detachments, leaving the gunny in charge. The gunny stopped at Devans. “Bob, keep your boys down,” he whispered. “Post weapons and fire on my call.”
“Yessir,” Devans said as the gunny moved on. Red and Charlie glanced nervously at each other.
Credit 33.1
Gunny Sawyer
“Post weapons”—the Marines whispered the command from one man to the next and began creeping up the bank. Red lowered his M1 over the lip. To his left, Charlie and Devans steadied their carbines. Two machine gun squads laid their machine guns onto tripods and took aim. All eyes settled on the encampment. Through the falling snow, only the lower half of the lean-tos were visible.
Red’s eyes went wide. Black canvas shoes slowly st
alked the encampment, crunching the diamond dust. About a hundred White Jackets were circling the lean-tos—Red could see their padded pants lashed at the ankles. Metal clinked from their slings. Red shrank lower against the earth. Charlie’s teeth chattered faster.
A whistle pierced the night.
In a frenzy, the White Jackets charged the encampment. Flashes blinked through the falling snow as the Chinese sprayed burp guns into the lean-tos. Others bayoneted the canvas shelters. More legs and feet rushed into the encampment, another hundred White Jackets. The enemy stomped fallen lean-tos, eager to kill sleeping Marines.
The White Jackets lifted the fallen shelters and chattered with surprise. The Marines weren’t there. Some of them began ransacking the Marines’ backpacks.
“My bazooka!” Charlie whispered. Red shook his head in exasperation. Other Marines gritted their teeth and hoped that the enemy wouldn’t steal their war loot. Many had liberated propaganda posters of Stalin from North Korean bunkers and public buildings.
Up the line, the gunny turned to his radio man and the radio man whispered into a field phone. On the other end of the line was Weapons Company’s 81mm mortars, located behind the creek.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Shells leapt from Marine mortars with hollow-sounding puffs and rocketed over the creek, trailing sparks in the frigid air.
A Chinese officer looked up and screeched an order. His men turned outward and raised their weapons. Red could feel their eyes searching for him.
“Don’t look!” Devans hissed. Red scrunched his eyes tight.
The star shells popped in blinding flashes over the encampment. Red slowly opened his eyes. Bluish-white light beamed down, revealing two hundred White Jackets, all momentarily blinded. Around them, the falling snow sparkled.