When these events occurred, Jones was at the head of the stalled column, about 500 to 6oo yards below the hairpin turn. He knew nothing of Faith's arrival at the roadblock or of his being wounded there. Jones has written, "I didn't know then that he had become a casualty and had been put into a truck."" Jones apparently did not learn of Faith's injuries until after he arrived at Hagaru-ri, an indication of the chaos and confusion reigning at Hill 1221. Later, however, Jones was able to make an important addition to Jordan's remarks about Faith's injuries at Hill 1221. In his December 4 report to the G-3 Section, 7th Infantry Division, Jones said that in talking at Hagaru-ri with Lieutenant Fields E. Shelton, of the Heavy Mortar Company, 31st Infantry, the latter told him that he had been with Faith when he was struck by a grenade fragment above the heart and that he himself had received slight wounds from fragments from the same grenade explosion. Shelton told Jones that he "attempted to help Lt. Col. Faith down to the road, but couldn't make it. He wrapped up Lt. Col. Faith and went to the truck column for help."34
A message in the 11th Marine Regiment S-3 Journal file for December 2, 1950 is pertinent. This message, dated 020200 (2:00 A.M., Dec. 2, 1950) reads in part: "Approximately 200 more stragglers from RCT 31 picked up by Dog Battery [D Btry, 11th Marines].... A Lieutenant Shelton reports 31st ran into heavy resistance at roadblock located at TA 5478 George. Stopped again by roadblock constructed of damaged tanks pulled onto road 400 yards to the south. Col. Faith wounded above heart and left with two enlisted men."35 Second Lieutenant Campbell, wounded and riding in one of the trucks, saw Faith carried to his jeep sometime later. He wrote:
... his [Faith] being brought back to the convoy wounded had quite an effect on the survivors there. His jeep (quite distinctive with the radios and side mounted 30 Cal LMG which he earlier had been firing) was about three vehicles up the convoy from where I was then located. Most of the other jeeps had stretchers placed across their hoods to carry the most severely wounded and it was there I recall he was initially placed. I did not talk to him nor did I see him later being placed in the cab of a truck nor did I ever personally see him in a truck cab.... I didn't see Bob Jones at this time nor was I aware of his actions.... The people down on the road at the time were largely a mixture of walking, non-walking wounded and dead from all the participating units. It became increasingly so as nightfall set in and whatever leaders were left could not be recognized.36
When Faith was wounded, Major Jones was at the head of the stalled column below the hairpin turn at Hill 1221, from which the enemy fire block was substantially cleared. This is confirmed by what Lieutenant May relates happened after he had seen all the vehicles in the column move around the blown bridge and back onto the road south of it. This difficult operation had kept May at the bridge for about two hours. It was dark when he moved up the road to the stalled trucks. He wrote of his next duties:
After closing up the column, I went forward to see what the delay was. Upon arriving near the front of the column, Major Robert E. Jones instructed me to unload the wounded from some 21/2 ton trucks that were knocked out, and to prepare the column for movement. This we did by overturning the empty knocked out trucks and letting them roll down the hillside. When the column was ready to move, I reported to Major Jones and received the following instructions: take about 20-3o riflemen and proceed through the pass at the top of the hill, continue along the road and open the road for the column. I picked a Sgt Clark, the Charley Company Supply Sgt., and Cpl. Swenson of Dog Company to form up the point. One was placed on each side of the road and we moved out.
We went about 100-150 yards when we were ambushed from the high ground to our left front. I had instructed the men prior to moving out that in case of an ambush, to hit for cover first and then to bring fire upon the flash of the weapons firing on us. When the Chinese opened up, they got off only about 3-4 rounds from a MG when we knocked it out and moved on.31
Upon being asked how he and his men had knocked out the enemy gun, May replied:
I split the team, had a column on each side of the road, the men to stay at 5 to 6 paces apart. At the first sign of movement or fire from the road block to hit the ground and to fire directly into and above and below the gun flashes. The CCF ... could hear us but could not see us as they were looking into the darkened road, and we were moving in a crouched position. The CCF got off only one short burst from the M.G. as the point on right column saw movement and opened fire at about same time they did. We hit them with about 3o or 12 rifles at the same time, we hit something at their position that caused an explosion such as a grenade or small prepared charge would make. We moved in on the position, found 2 or ; dead CCF.38
May's account shows that the enemy fire block near the hairpin turn had not been entirely reduced when Jones and his group attacked up the road from the south earlier or that enemy gunners had moved back to at least one of their machine guns after he had passed. May's group destroyed the last operable machine gun at the fire block.
The long-stalled task-force column was now able to start moving again. The time was between Too and 8:oo P.m. on December i.
Captain Stamford had discarded his binoculars and pack radio, joined some soldiers, and climbed with them to the ridgeline of Hill 1221. He tried to lead the men down the hogback toward the enemy roadblock at the hairpin turn, but they had no stomach for that and kept veering south. As a result they arrived at the Hagaru-ri road about 400 to 500 yards south of the hairpin turn. To their surprise they found there a second roadblock consisting of two knocked-out tanks and some destroyed vehicles. To this wreckage the Chinese had added some logs piled on the road below the tanks. Stamford has provided the most detailed description of this second enemy roadblock:
I found a second road block and several disabled vehicles and at least 2 burned out tanks. These vehicles were of the medical unit that was caught unexpectedly when enroute to our position. The tanks evidently were of a relief column which came later because the tanks were beside the ambulances and there were a few '/a- ton 4 X 4's and trailers in front of the tanks. One tank was overturned about 25 yards down the slope and both were burned. The second roadblock had evidently been constructed after the tanks had been knocked out because it was south of them. There were several men there and I organized a working party of the slightly wounded and got the rest to move up the road.'
After removing the logs, Stamford started up the road with some men. Before reaching the hairpin turn, he heard sounds of a few shots from what he thought was an automatic weapon and then a louder report. He then met Lieutenant May and his point men coming down the road. May told him that they had just knocked out the last enemy machine gun at the fire block. When he reached the hairpin turn, Stamford posted some soldiers in his party to watch the draw that came down from higher ground east of the saddle to the turn, to prevent the Chinese from reestablishing their fire block before the column could pass. Stamford then went down the road toward the stalled trucks.'
Two months later Stamford wrote what he found:
Maj. Jones of 1/32 staff was at the head of the convoy and I went to work to clear 2 damaged trucks of wounded [at the rear of the convoy] and get them over the side of the hill below the road. After working some time I found myself alone with the convoy of wounded.... The only officers I saw were the artillery liaison officer of 1/32 [Lieutenant Barnes], who was wounded, and our battalion surgeon, Doctor Navarre, who was unable to walk without aid. I pushed him in an ambulance and that was the last I saw of him until I found he had been evacuated to the U.S. from the foist Station Hospital in Yokohama.;
In writing to Maj. Gen. Field Harris, USMC, about Stamford's role in the breakout attempt, Navarre commented:
... the last time I saw him [Stamford] was in the early evening of 3o November [December i] 195o. The enemy had caught the withdrawing Task Force in a small valley, and we spent most of the afternoon fighting off annihilation. There was some respite as evening fell, and the vehicles clogged the road, while the abl
e bodied men attempted to load newly wounded on the already overflowing trucks. It was almost impossible to find any more space on the transports, until Captain Stamford came along. He quickly organized things, and began to force space for those recently wounded. Without his leadership and initiative, many of us (I was wounded and benefited directly by this action) would have had to hobble along the road with help from walking wounded. I don't know how this would have been possible; certainly it would have added to the mortality and frost bite.
It is difficult to express the value of this man's leadership in that dark hour when leadership was needed so badly. Only those that were there can understand its worth.
After he shoved me into an ambulance, and made certain other wounded were cared for; he moved on to other vehicles doing the same. I did not see him again.4
Later, in a letter to Stamford, Navarre said, "I'll never forget your organizing that dilapidated convoy and getting me into the ambulance; I would never have made it otherwise." S
While Jones and May at the front and Stamford at the rear were un loading inoperable trucks and removing them from the road, the column became divided into at least two parts. Jones's front part of the column moved off around the hairpin turn and down the south side of Hill 1221 to the second roadblock before Stamford had the rear part of the convoy ready to move. Jones's report to the G-3 Section of the 7th Infantry Division three days later tells about his part of the column:
By this time so many wounded were without transportation that even though the column was started, many hundreds would be left where they lay.... decided that the only solution was to leave guards with the wounded and taking as many able bodied and walking wounded as possible.
... Approximately two hundred men were put on the road.... instructed the group of guards with the lead vehicles to attempt to remove the roadblock. The column then moved down the road toward Hagaru-ri catching up with several groups of men who had already struck out and picking up stragglers all along the way.... [Later] it was decided that it would be more advisable to cross over to the RR track and follow it south.'
From Jones's report it appears that "many hundreds" were left "where they lay" on the north side of Hill 1221 because there was no room for them in the remaining operable vehicles. Jones and his party unloaded three trucks of wounded at the head of the column and reloaded them on other trucks that were already full, and Stamford and his helpers did the same for two more trucks at the rear of the convoy.' This made at least five trucks that were unloaded of their wounded and pushed over the edge of the road, the wounded from them being placed in other trucks that were already loaded to capacity. There undoubtedly were many wounded scattered around the slope of Hill 1221 who could not get back to the road and were never rescued.
In many of the trucks the wounded were piled 2 and ; deep when they came to their last stop. Sergeant Jessie R. Dorsey drove a truck in the breakout. There were about 15 or 20 wounded in his truck when he left the inlet perimeter. He estimated that there were about 40 to 5o wounded in the truck when the Chinese stopped the convoy near Hudong-ni, and many of them were dead by that time.8 Probably the other trucks were overloaded to a similar extent. Dorsey said that of the wounded men on his truck at the end only 5 or 6 got out to the ice and made it to Hagaru-ri.
When Stamford arrived at the rear of the road column, he found two inoperable trucks loaded with wounded. They had to be cleared from the road before others behind could move. Stamford found some walking wounded to help unload them and reload them in other trucks. Pushing the inoperable trucks over the side of the road proved almost beyond the men's capability. Most who helped in this work were wounded, weak from loss of blood, and completely worn out. All the men with any strength tried to help Stamford get the trucks off road, but effort after effort failed. Many of the soldiers, unnamed to this day, reopened wounds and bled while they exerted what strength they had. Stamford and a few able-bodied men strained to the utmost and finally got the trucks to the edge and toppled them over the side. Stamford said that never in his life has he had to call on his last reserves of strength as he did in helping clear the road at Hill 1221. He commented: "Getting the road cleared I got the convoy moving and passed the word back to stay closed up and move slowly. I caught the lead truck [Jones's front section] about 400 yards down the hill south of the block and found they had picked up Col. Faith who was very seriously wounded in the body. I led the convoy down the hill by walking in front of it and held them up at the bottom while I checked a bridge, point G, ahead, to see if it was passable." 9 Of about 35 vehicles that were in the column as it left the perimeter, only about 25 were still moving at the hairpin turn and on down the south side of Hill 1221.10
Stamford and the rear part of the column found the road clear at the second roadblock of knocked-out tanks, and Major Curtis, who had rejoined the rear part of the column as it was moving out, also stated that the road was clear when he passed that point. It is not known precisely what the guard Jones had left with the convoy had done to free the road, but Campbell's comment on this point may provide the answer. He wrote: At the time we passed around the K.O. tanks in the road (one was clearly in the road, the other slightly off to one side), we went off the road and back on without difficulty; a bypass could have been constructed earlier but there is no way I could cast light on this (when the truck which I was in passed, it was quite dark).""
The convoy had reached the bottom of Hill 1221, on the south face, near the village of Twiggae. Here a small stream from the east ran through the low ground to the reservoir. Across the stream were a bridge and a small trestle for the railroad. It was here that Stamford said he first saw Lieutenant Colonel Faith sitting in the cab of the lead truck.12 One may speculate that Faith had been moved from the hood of his jeep to the first truck in line when the convoy started up again, after Jones had left, and passed around the tank block. For a considerable distance south of the Twiggae bridge there was high ground on the left (east) of the road; only flat marshland, varying from about a quarter to half a mile wide, extending westward to the edge of the reservoir. The rail track followed the western base of Hill 1221 at the reservoir's edge until it reached the south side of Hill 1221. There it turned east along the base of the hill, passed through Twiggae, and then, just short of the vehicular road, turned abruptly south again. Then, with only a few yards separating the two, both took a southerly course on flat ground of the Paegamni-gang estuary for about a mile. Hills hugged the eastern side of the road; low ground of the estuary extended westward to the reservoir. Hudong-ni lay on the east side of the road just north of the Paegamni-gang. There the road and the railroad diverged again, the track turning westward, the road bending southeast, the two crossing the Paegamni-gang half a mile apart. The rail track crossed the Paegamnigang on a trestle half a mile from the reservoir; the road crossed it on a bypass around the blown concrete bridge a mile from the reservoir. The reservoir could be seen over the flat estuary from both crossing sites. This stretch of terrain just south of Hill 1221 was the scene of the final enemy fire block.
It took about an hour for the truck column to reach Twiggae after Lieutenant May and Major Jones had passed it. In May's words, after Jones's group left the convoy at the second roadblock at the knocked-out tanks,
We continued along the road past our first assembly area in this sector [south slope of Hill 12211. Immediately beyond this point we were hit by another ambush that seemed to be composed of only two (2) or three (3) riflemen. When we returned their fire, they fled. As the sound carried clearly in the extremely cold air, we were able to hear them running on the road. We moved out and down the road again.
I realized we were approaching the river near Sasu-ri. Just short of the river, I halted and went back to check with Major Jones. As he had not been over this ground in daylight, I briefed him on the lay of the land and told of the high ground that would be on our left, a logical place for another ambush. I recommended that we cut down the RR for an estimation of t
he situation. Major Jones asked for a check of ammo and we found only a few rounds per man, in some cases, none. We made a redistribution of ammo, which amounted to four (4) or five (S) rounds per man. We could not hear the column moving at this time.;
Jones and May were now near Twiggae, where Stamford later stopped the truck column while he reconnoitered the bridge just ahead. May picks up his story from this place onward after his group had redistributed their ammunition:
Major Jones gave instructions to move out along the RR. After moving a short distance, we heard the movement of troops to our front. At this time we were on the RR fill and quite exposed from both flanks. The road was approximately two to three hundred yards to our left on higher ground and an open valley to our right. We halted the column and I moved out with the point and found these troopers to our front to be composed of personnel from the 57th FA Bn, who were part of the task force. I warned them of the danger of an ambush to our left flank, and suggested they fall in with our column. There were a few officers in this group but their names I did not find out. I instructed the point to stand fast and returned to bring up Major Jones and the main body. When I got back to the point, I found that the artillery personnel had moved out.
Our group moved along the RR only a short distance when flares were fired over the trestle to our front. At this time, we were just entering the RR cut leading to the trestle and took cover along the bank on the left. We could see the artillery personnel out on the trestle and had them under observation at the time the Chinese opened fire on them. At the same time some mortars started being fired from our left front over us and a long way to our rear. We could hear a large group of Chinese talking and calling back and forth on the high ground to our left front.
East of Chosin Page 29