East of Chosin

by Roy Edgar Appleman

  As darkness settled over the perimeter, word was passed to those within it, "Hold out one more night and we've got it made!"" Those words may have held out hope to some, but to others they seemed to mean that the situation was desperate.

  Commanders' Conference at Hagaru-ri

  In a meeting on the morning of November 30, General Almond explained to the X Corps staff the changed policy of operations resulting from the conference in Tokyo and MacArthur's instructions to him on the morning of the 29th before he returned to Korea. A little later, at 9:00 A.M., Almond conferred with General Barr. Barr left immediately for Hagaru-ri to confer with General Smith and made a brief visit to Faith at the inlet. In the meantime Almond had lunch at Hamhung and at 1:40 P.M. departed for Hagaruri in an L-17 plane, accompanied by his senior aide, Major Ladd.'?

  Sometime during the afternoon, after returning to Hagaru-ri from the inlet, Barr told Smith about the Soo wounded to be brought out in any breakout attempt from the Task Force Faith perimeter and said that this would be his biggest handicap. In his discussion with Smith, Barr is said to have agreed that Faith could improve his situation and probably succeed in a breakout effort with strong Marine air support.18

  That morning at his CP, General Almond had received from his staff, and especially from Col. Edward H. Forney, USMC, a frightening account of the Chinese roadblocks and attacks on the MSR to the reservoir. The report heightened Almond's concern about the danger to the 31st RCT. Pursuant to MacArthur's instructions to abandon offensive action in the Chosin area and concentrate the corps, Almond had issued the X Corps Instruction No. 19 ordering the 1st Marine Division to redeploy one regiment immediately from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri and gain contact with the 31st RCT.19

  Upon arriving at Hagaru-ri, Almond at 2:10 P.M. began a conference with his commanders in the joined pyramidal tents that had been erected at the airstrip. His main purpose was to impress them with his views in the changed situation.20 Almond told the assembled group, which included Generals Smith, Barr, and Hodes and Colonels Williams and Forney, that the corps would abandon the Chosin Reservoir area and that all the troops would be concentrated immediately in the Hagaru-ri area. Once concentrated there, they would be withdrawn to the coast. Almond not only was acting to carry out MacArthur's instructions to him but also showed genuine alarm at recent events at the reservoir. He was an entirely different man from the one who had visited his troops there two days earlier. He knew now that the survival of X Corps itself was at stake. He told Smith that he would resupply him by air if he felt it was necessary to burn or destroy some supplies and equipment to hasten withdrawal to the coast. He stressed the need for speedy action. Smith responded that he felt that there would be no need for destruction of supplies and equipment and that he would need everything he had to fight his way to the coast. He said that the care and evacuation of the wounded would be the biggest obstacle to a speedy withdrawal. Almond ordered Smith and Barr to prepare a plan and a time schedule for getting the Army units east of the reservoir withdrawn to Hagaru-ri.21

  No transcript or record was made of the November 30 command conference at Hagaru-ri. An entry in Almond's diary concerning the conference reads as follows:

  1410- Conference with Generals Smith, Barr, Hodes and Colonels Williams and Forney on the present situation. CG X Corps stressed the urgency of withdrawing the 5th and 7th Marine Regiments to Hagaru-ri immediately and ordering Generals Barr and Smith to submit a plan for the withdrawals of the elements of the 31st and 32nd Infantry Regiments from the present position east of the lake to Hagaru-ri. By telephone, CG X Corps ordered Chief of Staff X Corps to send an immediate message to Lt. Col. Reidy, commanding the battalion enroute to Koto-ri to join Col. Puller immediately at Koto-ri. Lt. Col. Carlton was ordered to proceed to Hagaru-ri for the purpose of providing airlift of supplies specifically desired by the 1st Marine Division and arranging for their proper packing and delivery.22

  The conference lasted I hour and 20 minutes. At 3:30 P.M., Almond flew back to the X Corps CP in Hamhung to confer with his chief of staff and the G-4 concerning supply to the Hagaru-ri forces. He then drafted a message to General MacArthur on the X Corps's situation.

  Meanwhile, back in Hagaru-ri, after Almond had left, Generals Smith and Barr discussed how they could best implement his order to extricate the 7th Division elements east of the reservoir. They agreed that not much could be done with the troops available at Hagaru-ri. Every man there was needed to hold that position. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Ridge, USMC, the defense commander, desperately needed reinforcements if he was to have a chance of holding Hagaru-ri against an expected strong enemy attack, which came that night. Smith and Barr agreed that before anything could be done the Marines would have to be withdrawn from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri. Smith told Barr that Marine air support would be allotted the next day on a preferential basis to help Faith fight his way out of the inlet perimeter and try to reach Hagaru-ri.

  Smith subsequently discussed the situation with General Hodes, directing him to prepare a message to Faith ordering him to fight his way out of the perimeter to Hagaru-ri the next day but not to jeopardize the safety of his wounded.23

  General Almond's order to bring a Marine regiment from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri for the rescue of the Army troops on the east side of the reservoir is a perfect example of a moment in battle where a higher headquarters can issue commands but subordinate ones are powerless to carry them out. In this case the enemy controlled the situation on the ground. The Marines at Yudam-ni were cut off from Hagaru-ri as completely as were the 7th Division troops on the east side of the reservoir. It would take them four days and three nights to fight their way to Hagaru-ri. The situation was worse for the Army troops than for the Marines at Yudam-ni since there was no communication between Hagaru-ri and the Army units. Also, the Marines at Yudam-ni were more concentrated and in greater strength.

  On the afternoon of November 30, the 31st Infantry Rear and Captain Drake's 31st Tank Company were ordered to withdraw from Hudong-ni to Hagaru-ri. Until then the presence of the tank company at Hudong-ni had kept the Chinese off the road south of the big roadblock and fire block at the hairpin curve at the east side of Hill 1221, two miles south of the inlet perimeter.

  Until November 29, Captain King's A Company, ist Engineer Marine Battalion, was stationed about two miles north of Hagaru-ri at a sawmill near Sasu getting timbers to repair the blown concrete bridge over the Paegamni-gang. For use until this could be accomplished, an easy ford around the west side of the damaged bridge had been built by the Marine Engineers. They also had an outpost on Hill 1203, just south of Sasu, from which they could see Hagaru-ri. On the 3oth the need for troops to bolster the Marine perimeter defense at Hagaru-ri was so great that General Smith ordered them back to Hagaru-ri. First Lieutenant Nicholas A. Canzona's ist Platoon led the way back without incident and was committed that night to the fighting on East Hill.

  The recall of the Marine Engineers to Hagaru-ri, together with the withdrawal of approximately 325 Army troops from Hudong-ni to that point, left no American units between Hagaru-ri and the cutoff troops of Task Force Faith at the inlet. The 325 Army troops at Hudong-ni belonged to three units: 44 in the 31st Infantry Headquarters and Headquarters Company and Service units who had remained at the 31st Rear CP, 176 in Drake's 31st Tank Company, and 105 in the 57th Field Artillery Headquarters Battery who got no farther north.2

  Lieutenant Colonel Berry K. Anderson, S-3 of the 31st Infantry, who was the senior officer present at the 31st Rear after General Hodes left for Hagaruri on the afternoon of November 28, assumed command at Hudong-ni. Lieutenant Colonel George E. Deshon, the 31st Infantry executive officer, had remained behind at Iwon with the main regimental rear. Major Carl G. Witte, the 31st Infantry S-2, was the next-ranking officer at Hudong-ni. When Anderson became commander, Witte assumed the duties of S-3 as well as S-2.

  On November 26, Colonel MacLean had established a supply dump at Hudong-ni, and by the evening of November 27, about 26o t
ons of miscellaneous supplies had been brought there by truck. After that there were airdrops of supplies and ammunition, but the tank company did not get the io5-mm and 76-mm shells it needed or any .5o-caliber machine-gun ammunition. It did receive a generous airdrop of 40-mm ammunition, for which it had no use.

  The 31st Rear Command Post area encompassed about 25 acres of relatively flat land below the schoolhouse on the north side of the Paegamnigang with the vehicular road on its west side. Chosin Reservoir lay about a mile west of the CP and could easily be seen from it, down the valley of the Paegamni-gang. The Chinese never attacked Hudong-ni, probably because they were busy elsewhere and perhaps because they did not want to face Drake's tank company. Enemy snipers did get within range, however, and at times delivered harassing fire into the perimeter, as did some machine guns at long range. This fire did no serious damage, though a few men were wounded by it. The area was under enemy observation from higher ground on the north and northeast.;

  Vehicular traffic reached the 31st Rear and the tank area from the Hagaruri road a short distance north of the blown bridge over the Paegamnigang. As long as the tank company and more than 300 soldiers remained at Hudong-ni, it constituted a strong way station between Hagaru-ri and the 31st RCT infantry and artillerymen four miles north.

  One particular feature of the terrain at Hudong-ni was especially important. Directly north of Hudong-ni a long ridgeline descended from Ko-bong (or Nopun-bong), 1,473 meters high, in a southwesterly direction to end in a high knob, Hill 1239, about one-third mile north of Hudong-ni. From it a sharp finger ridge descended to end directly above the road about 300 yards west of the 31st Rear CP and just north of the turnoff from the road into it. That finger of ground was to be the final critical point in deciding the fate of Task Force Faith.

  Because the removal of the 31st RCT Rear and the 31st Tank Company from Hudong-ni occurred in the late afternoon of the day before Task Force Faith undertook its breakout from the inlet perimeter, and the end of that effort came virtually at the position those troops had held, the question presses: If they had still been there on December I, could they have saved Task Force Faith from destruction? And if this question is pressed, then it would be useful to know who decided to withdraw those forces from Hudong-ni just when their presence there became most crucial.

  Let us consider for a moment what answers there are to these questions: Who ordered the 31st Rear and the 31st Tank Company to withdraw from Hudongni? When was the order delivered? What were the reasons for the order? These remain questions for which only uncertain answers are available, but some rather direct evidence and much circumstantial evidence exist to warrant speculative conclusions.

  The 7th Infantry Command Report for the period says that at II:00 A.M. on November 30, Igso, the ist Marine Division ordered Anderson and Drake to withdraw to Hagaru-ri. On December 12, 1950, Captain Drake in a memorandum to the commanding officer of the 31st Infantry Regiment stated that he received the order to withdraw at 4:00 F.M. on the 3oth but does not say who gave him the order. It would seem that the order would have had to come directly or indirectly from Lieutenant Colonel Anderson. Colonel Witte (then Major), many years later said that he could not recall how or from whom the order was received. The communications situation would indicate that the order would have had to come from Hagaru-ri, and from there it could come only by 31st Tank Company radio. General Hodes at Hagaru-ri had the only 31st Tank Company radio that could communicate with Hudong-ni, and then only with other tanks of the 31st Tank Company under Drake's command.4

  If the order for the 31st Rear and the tank company to withdraw came at 11:00 A.M. on November 3o as the 7th Division Command Report states, it would have had to come from the 1st Marine Division, since all troops in the Chosin Reservoir area north of Koto-ri were under its control after 8:00 A.M. that morning by X Corps order. If General Smith or his operations officer, Col. Alpha Bowser, issued an order at 11:00 A.M., the order could have been delivered only over the radio in the tank that Hodes had brought to

  It is important to remember that General Barr, the 7th Division commander, was in Hagaru-ri during the morning and most of the afternoon of that day, and he would have been in communication there with both Hodes and Smith, who now commanded all UN and X Corps troops north of Koto-ri. Barr or Smith could have had Hodes transmit the order verbally to the 31st Rear CP over tank radio. If General Barr gave instructions to Hodes to transmit the order, he could have done so only with General Smith's oral or tacit approval. The Marine Operations Journal for the day shows no order from the Marine division. General McCaffrey, deputy chief of staff, X Corps, at the time, has told me that the order for the 31st Rear to withdraw to Hagaru-ri originated with General Barr. He said that when General Almond heard about the withdrawal he asked General Barr for an explanation and that Barr replied that he could not see any good coming from losing more men in behalf of those already lost.'

  General Lynch (then Major) states that he did not relay the withdrawal order to Anderson on behalf of Hodes or anyone else. He thinks that all the circumstances in the situation indicate that General Hodes transmitted the order.' I agree with that judgment, but it is impossible now to determine on whose instructions Hodes transmitted the order or precisely when it was received at Hudong-ni. It is possible, and perhaps probable, that in discussions with General Barr, General Smith or Colonel Bowser had agreed to delegate their authority concerning the 7th Division elements east of Chosin Reservoir to him and through him to General Hodes. I believe that the decision was made by the higher command of the 7th Division, although General Smith could not ignore or escape his responsibility in the matter under X Corps order. He had to approve the order in some way, and probably did so verbally. The order may have been issued in his name by General Hodes, who acted as either Smith's or Barr's agent, by tank radio to Anderson at Hudong-ni.

  One further development of some importance occurred at Hagaru-ri on November 30 that does not appear anywhere in the official records. This was a decision made by General Barr when he told General Smith that, to avoid possible embarrassment to all concerned and to avoid the semblance of a conflict in command, he would recall General Hodes from Hagaru-ri to 7th Division Headquarters.8

  The troops began their withdrawal from Hudong-ni about 4:00 P.M. on November 30, with some tanks in the lead and others covering the rear. The march order included foot soldiers moving on either flank as the motor convoy and tanks followed the point down the road. Most of the troops rode in trucks, with Lieutenant Colonel Anderson commanding the movement. About one mile south of Hudong-ni, at a sharp switchback in a saddle of the first ridge south of the Paegamni-gang and east of Hill 1167, Anderson ordered Drake to abandon two disabled tanks that he was towing. He foresaw difficulties getting the towed tanks around the sharp road turns that would delay the movement of the convoy. This made 6 tanks that Drake lost or had to leave behind east of Chosin. He continued the movement with 15 tanks.'

  The 7th Infantry Division After Action Report for the period states that the convoy had a running fight with the enemy on its way to Hagaru-ri, but this was not the case. Captain Drake reported that there was no significant enemy action directed at the movement to Hagaru-ri. There was occasional small-arms and automatic-weapons fire, but at such a great distance that it did no damage. No tanks or trucks were lost to enemy action, and there were no personnel casualties in the movement. Major Lynch and General Hodes met the tanks when they reached the Marine perimeter at Hagaru-ri. Lynch stated that he understood at the time that there was no enemy action.10

  Drake and his tanks reached the Marine perimeter about 5:0o P.M. Darkness was near, but Drake had time to place his tanks in the perimeter in its northeastern arc before daylight faded entirely. Sixteen tanks were deployed along the base of East Hill at a sector of the Marine perimeter that had been poorly defended. Drake now had these 16 operable tanks under his control. He recalled: "We were in a tight formation-so to no yards apart -thus we covered about i,oo
o yards of the line. Our tents were within running distance from our tank line.""

  That night Drake's tanks played an important role in turning back a massive Chinese attack from East Hill. The Chinese at one point broke through Drake's tank line and reached the tents in his rear, but they were killed there or escaped back to East Hill. A body count in front of two of his tanks the next morning showed zoo dead Chinese.

  By dark of November 30, Task Force Faith at the inlet perimeter was isolated and alone. There were no friendly forces between it and Hagaru-ri.

  For Task Force Faith the long, 16-hour night of darkness on November 3o-December i was almost certain to bring renewed Chinese attacks at the inlet. The troops were short in all kinds of ammunition and were weary after three days and three nights of fighting and trying to stay awake at their posts.

  Enemy mortar fire began about 8:oo P.m. and built up to barrage level, lasting about 45 minutes. These experienced soldiers took it to be the prelude to an infantry assault, and everyone in the perimeter stayed low in his foxhole, seeking to escape a direct hit. Many heard the repeated sound of steel on steel as mortar fragments struck nearby vehicles and other metal objects. There were two near misses at the 3rd Battalion Aid Station that wounded some medics and gave fresh wounds to men who were already casualties. Under the barrage enemy assault teams crept close to the perimeter, and those inside finally heard the sound of rifle and submachine-gun fire. The enemy had begun to clash with the infantry in the outposts.'

  One of the early attacks came from the southwest along the road. It was headed for the boundary between A and C companies, where Mortrude's 3rd Platoon held the western end of the C Company line. Mortrude wrote of the attack:

  Shortly after dark, my forward positions on the road approach reported hearing voices and observing enemy crawling to their immediate front. I requested and received mortar fire too yards to our front. Upon warning my front line people down in foxholes and reducing the range by 5o yards with a "Fire for Effect" we heard much crying and shouting. Thereafter, there was no further pressure in this area.