Miller thought that the time was near midnight when the long wait on the road was interrupted by enemy fire. He said:
The long silence was broken by two mortar round bursts to the right of the road opposite the truck column about ioo yards away. Very shortly two more rounds hit the right of the road but closer in. It became apparent that soon we would be bracketed. I could visualize the wounded hit again and possibly a truck set on fire making us an even better sitting target. The leading truck driver came to me and asked permission to make a run for it. He said he had been forward too yards and had not seen nor heard any movement. It was a choice of the unknown against the known danger. I told him to move out.
The column moved out and proceeded about 200 yards down the road to a bend. As the lead truck started around the bend, a terrific blast of rifle and machine gun fire hit the column from a hill mass to the left of the road (5376) [Hill 1239]. The lead truck driver apparently was hit as the truck piled into the ditch and blocked the road. The column was stopped cold and being punished unmercifully by a hail of lead. I rolled off the hood of the jeep onto the road and into the ditch away from the hill.
The driver of the lead truck in this last breakout effort was Sgt. Charles Garrigus, the heroic and daring noncommissioned officer who had so often played a conspicuous role in perimeter defense and in the attempted taskforce withdrawal. He had carried the bucket to the well once too often. The enemy blast that hit the truck killed him. The Department of the Army awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross, Posthumously.28 Major Storms was in his truck and was killed at the same time, according to Captain Etchemendy.
Captain Harold L. Hodge, commander of A Battery, 57th Field Artillery, was carried missing in action on December i but apparently was killed at the final roadblock trying to defend the rear of the convoy when the Chinese closed in on it. Sergeant First Class Carroll D. Price, 57th FA Headquarters Battery, said that he was with Captain Hodge at the time.29
In like manner, Capt. George Cody, commander of the 31st Heavy Mortar Company, was killed on December i, and, according to Cpl. Ambrose J. Feist, of I Company, 31st Infantry, his company commander, Capt. Albert Marr, was killed when the Chinese overran the convoy at this last roadblock. 30
After the trucks had crossed the trestle and assembled on the road just north of the last enemy roadblock, Intelligence Sgt. Ivan H. Long, 31st Infantry, showed up. He had escaped from his Chinese captors during the long climb of the high mountain east of Hill 1221 after night had fallen. He had heard the distant sound of motors and assumed it came from the task-force convoy. He descended the rocky hill carefully and reached the trucks. No one was in sight except for the wounded. He walked toward the head of the convoy and found an officer, who told him to take a seat in a truck cab. Small-arms fire from the hillside was now hitting the con voy.31 Long soon left the truck, crossed west to the reservoir, and escaped to Hagaru-ri.
While the convoy was still stopped on the north slope of Hill 1221, Lt. James Campbell, having taken cover in the roadside ditch, decided, after the enemy fire had been suppressed and the hill cleared, to work his way toward the front of the convoy. He was near the front when it began moving again. He hurriedly seized the tailgate of a truck and hung on as the convoy rounded the saddle and started down the south side. He remained with that truck to the end. Campbell recalls the bumpy, painful crossing of the trestle and the rough rice paddy and the return to the road. Back on the road, he remembered, the convoy stopped for what seemed a long time, and when it moved forward a short distance, it was stopped again by enemy small-arms and automatic fire from the high ground at the left front. Campbell estimated this nose of high ground to be about 150 to 200 yards ahead and just east of the road. The convoy had reached its final point of advance a short distance north of the nose of Hill 1239, a high mountain just north of Hudong-ni. Its western slope descended to the road just south of the spot where the motor column was stopped. Of those who survived the final moments before the Chinese overran the trucks, Campbell gives the best account:
The muzzle flashes of the incoming were clearly visible. When I dismounted it was from the third truck-a 21/z-in the convoy. Ahead of that was a 3/a and the lead truck was a 21/2. I crossed in front of this truck, and pulled up to eye level on the left side of the open cab. (Why I thought I could get it going I don't know; I had never driven a 21/2 before.) In any event I am absolutely certain there was no one in the cab-I remember that quite vividly. When SA fire began to impact on the front of the truck I moved to the rear, crossed over to the ditch on the right (west) side of the road opposite the rear of the vehicle. It was here that I was handed a carbine by an unknown person and began to fire on the muzzle flashes. I did notice that there was an overturned 21/2 in the gully about 40 yards to the west approximately opposite the third truck (the road at this point was level but the ground dropped off to the west into a shallow draw where the drainage went under the RR through a cement culvert). It was at this time that the third truck moved forward and began pushing the 3/4 which, with apparently no one at the wheel, veered slowly off the road to the right (west) and toppled in the gully. The 21/2 did not continue in its efforts to clear the road for reasons unknown (driver may have been hit or effort aborted). At the time that the 3/4 began to veer right and overturn into the gully someone yelled and I scrambled forward, the left front wheel went over my boot but there was little weight on it as the truck was already starting to roll. Although there seems to be a lot of activity here, it actually took place in a very short time span, perhaps 5-30 minutes at the outside.32
With the warning Campbell almost got clear, but he received a badly bruised foot and ankle. Of the 3/4-ton truck he said, "it tumbled down the incline and landed upside down, the wounded in it screaming in pain, throwing some of them out." After it came to rest, he heard someone inside kicking on the floor, now the roof.33
Campbell again:
Almost immediately thereafter the CCF began closing on the rear of the convoy. I could see WP grenades going off down at the end of the line of trucks. The trucks were in a straight section of road, approximately to-15 yards between vehicles at the forward end. I could not have clearly counted the number of trucks in the convoy because of darkness but based on the road space that the convoy occupied I would estimate 15+ vehicles at this point in time. I cannot offer any personal knowledge on where Faith was at this time except in a negative sense-he was not in what was then the lead 2'/2 (he could have been in the third 23/2 already in the gully, or in a truck that may have previously run the road block and proceeded southward past the nose) but I have no other firsthand knowledge.34
Sometime during these final minutes after the Chinese closed on the truck column and overran it, two of Stamford's TACP, Cpl. Myron J. Smith and Pfc. Billy E. Johnson, were killed in their jeep as enemy fire swept over the stopped column. Major Miller later told Stamford that both men were dead in their jeep when he finally left the
It will be recalled that Major Miller had rolled off Stamford's jeep into the ditch on the west side of the road, away from the high nose of ground from which enemy fire was sweeping the stopped truck column. His narrative continues:
A wounded soldier was already there. He started crawling across an open space to gain the shelter of the railroad embankment. However, he was silhouetted against the snow, was hit again and killed. It was here (about five miles from the Marines) that the efforts of many men and officers to fight off overwhelming numbers of the enemy and to get their wounded to safety finally collapsed. It is true that some broke earlier under the pressure but many fought well up to this point. There was no doubt in my mind when the column was hit this last time that the battalion was no more and it had become a case of every man for himself.
Soon the firing died down, and I realized that the Chinese would rush the trucks and, for the immediate time, the best bet was to get clear. I knew my hands would freeze while crawling if I didn't get gloves, so I crawled out to the dead soldier. I made sur
e he was dead, but, before I could get his gloves, a burst of machine gun bullets hit all around my head. Fortunately, none hit me, so I got back to cover. A few minutes later I crawled down the ditch to the lead truck where I found Lieutenant Mazzulla sitting in the back. He asked me to help get him loose as his clothes were frozen to the seat. I couldn't climb into the truck with the wounded hand and leg, but I was able to hand him my pocket knife. He was unable to cut himself free so he handed back the knife and thanked me. Knowing I could do no more with the help available, I crawled away from the truck toward a pile of ties.
A few rounds hit around me but I reached the shelter of the ties safely. Here I found two GIs both unhurt but unarmed. One started over the railroad embankment, but promptly dropped back, saying that some Chinks were moving toward us on the other side of the embankment. We started crawling down the ditch beside the road moving south away from the Chinese. The soldiers soon outdistanced me, but one came back to help. I told him to go ahead while they had a chance, and they both soon disappeared. A few minutes later someone shot at me from the direction I had come. I lay doggo and no more shots came my way. About ten minutes later I crawled on around the bend, found a stick, got to my feet, found I could hobble on the crutch and struck out across field toward the town of Sasu-ri, just beyond the Paegamni-gang. Having studied the terrain on the way up I knew the bridge was blown. I by-passed the school house near the bridge where the 31st Inf Hq had once been located, climbed up on the road and walked out on the bridge to the break. Then I realized that I was in pretty bad shape, wandering around without reason. Also, I realized my right hand was frozen stiff around the stick and the fingers were white and hard as a rock. From crawling in the snow, the remaining fingers of the left hand also were frozen. I retraced my steps to the end of the bridge, got down the bank to the water and started across the stream on ice and rocks. Almost across my foot slipped, and the left foot went in the water far enough to fill the boot with water. I kept on into the town which appeared to be deserted. I found a house with some comforters on the floor, sat down and, after what seemed hours, got out my penknife, opened it with my teeth, cut the left boot laces and got it off. The extra socks under my shirt were dry and I got one on the bare left foot. By this time I felt no pain, just an overall numbness, so I pulled a comforter over me and went to sleep. I woke up in daylight when a Korean woman and her son came in. She was quite frightened, but she dressed my finger stumps with some kind of powder, gave me some milk (GI, powdered, I think) and left hurriedly.36
Comments from a few of the men at the rear of the truck column who survived when the CCF overran that part of it give an idea of the situation there. Master Sergeant Carl A. Truett, platoon leader of the Machine Gun Platoon, M Company, 31st Infantry, wrote that the convoy ran into the last roadblock, which was defended with antitank rockets firing on the trucks. Vehicles in the lead were knocked out, and others to the rear could not move. The Chinese ran down the line of trucks, throwing white-phosphorus grenades into them.37 First Lieutenant Paul C. Smithey, an artilleryman from B Battery, said that he saw one truck driver shot through the head at the last fire block and that enemy fire was hitting the column from its right rear as well as from the front and the hill on the left.38 Sergeant Victorio R. Nonog, I Company, 31st Infantry, was on a truck when the column stopped for the last time. He played dead when the Chinese came up to the truck. He said that they took one enlisted man and one ROK from the truck but did not bother the others.39
Corporal Ambrose J. Feist, of I Company, wounded, stayed with the trucks, he said, until about 3:00 A.M., and during that time "The Chinese came, took some of our wounded's blankets and toward daybreak took off. I stayed there until the Chinese left.... I saw them kill three at the rear of the column.... I wouldn't say there were too many [wounded left alive], because it was cold there and clothes and blankets were taken by the Chinese. I started across the ice back to the Marine area.40
After midnight, Sfc. William C. Tillery, of B Battery, returned to the convoy and reported what must have been the situation thereafter. He said that he, Sergeant Wright, and Private Michell went back to the convoy about midnight and that nothing was left of it: "The CCF had come through. All I could see was people lying around in sleeping bags ... dead."41 Sergeant First Class William Mahon, of K Company, 31st Infantry, escaped when the Chinese came down to the trucks. He wrote: "I killed four (4) of them when I slipped and fell on the ice of a brook. I shot them with my carbine. The first two came at me. I was still sitting down when I shot. They were looking for me, and I opened up on automatic, on the other two.... I left and took off across a swamp and went on into Hagaru-ri."41
At the end each man had his own adventure, and some lived to tell them. Most of those who were not too badly wounded got out of the trucks during the night if the Chinese did not take them away. Those with severe body wounds or multiple leg wounds froze to death if the final Chinese assault did not kill them.
The Death of Lieutenant Colonel Faith
Darkness had closed on December I, 1950, and Lt. Col. Don Carlos Faith, Jr., grievously wounded, blue with cold, was slumped in the cab of a 21h-ton truck. A piece of metal from an enemy fragmentation hand grenade had pierced his chest just above the heart.
The first information of record to reach the ist Marine Division CP at Hagaru-ri that the commander of the 7th Division troops east of Chosin had been wounded was received at 2:00 A.M. on December 2 at the Marine perimeter, near the entrance of the Changjin River into the Chosin Reservoir, north of Hagaru-ri. The ist Marine Division G3 Journal file for December 2, ig5o, contains a message from the iith Marines (Artillery Regiment) that reads as follows:
On December 4, 1950, Maj. Robert E. Jones, S-1 of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, prepared a memorandum at Hagaru-ri, addressed to "Major Lynch: G-3 Section, 7th Division, APO 7," outlining the action east of Chosin Reservoir. In it he commented on the joint attack that he and Lieutenant Colonel Faith had made against the enemy fire block at the saddle of Hill 1221: "At this time Lt. Col. Faith was hit by a fragmentary grenade (Lt. Shelton HM Co 31st Inf confirmed this, as he was hit by the same grenade. 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)."44
When Jones reached the 32nd Infantry Service Company area at Hamhung on the afternoon of December Ii, he decided to see General Barr and tell him all he knew from his own observation and what he had learned from others about Faith's final hours. Jones talked with Barr on the morning of December 12 and gave him all the details he knew." Presumably Barr's December 13 letter to Barbara Faith from Hungnam about her husband's death was based largely on his conversation with Jones.46
Later Major Jones was in command of the remnant of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, and responsible for its rehabilitation. In late December, igso, Col. Charles E. Beauchamp, the 32nd regimental commander, ordered WO (jg.) Edwin S. Anderson, assistant personnel officer of the regiment, to interview all the officers and men of the ist Battalion who had escaped the Chosin disaster and were on the duty roster of the battalion-this did not include those who had been wounded or injured and air-evacuated from Hagaru-ri. The men to be interviewed were in a rehabilitation camp near Taegu, South Korea. The purpose was to reconstruct their personnel records, which had been lost at Chosin. There were 3 officers, including Major Jones, in command, and 73 enlisted men in this category, according to Anderson.
Before the interrogations began, General Barr ordered Anderson to go further than the reconstruction of personnel records and ask each man what he knew about Lieutenant Colonel Faith's death. He wanted to have all possible information before he wrote again to Faith's widow.
In the course of these interviews one of the men, Pfc. Russell L. Barney, told Anderson that he had driven the truck in whose cab Lieutenant Colonel Faith had ridden during the breakout effort from Hill 1221 onward. Barney said that in the truck Faith was wounded again by enemy smallarms fire a
nd that when he left the truck Faith was dead in the cab.47
Warrant Officer Junior Grade Edwin S. Anderson's memorandum of January 9, 1951, to Maj. Gen. David Barr reported on his interview with Barney. In it Anderson said that Barney told him that he drove the truck to map coordinate CV 5373, where he left it with Faith dead inside the cab. Unfortunately, Barney did not give, or Anderson did not report, the reason Barney abandoned the truck. It may have run out of gasoline. The map coordinate puts the location of the abandoned truck about two and a half road miles south of the place the task-force convoy came to its end near Hudong-ni, north of Mulgam-ni and south of Pokko-chae, in hill terrain within a mile and a half of the Marine perimeter at Hagaru-ri.48
Captain Stamford believed that Faith was in the cab of the lead truck of the convoy and that this truck was the one that dashed past him when he was a prisoner of the Chinese at the edge of the road at the last enemy fire block. As related earlier, this truck, according to Stamford, went south through Sasu-ri, climbed the sharp grade beyond, and went into the road turn on top. It was the only vehicle to get past the enemy fire block near Hudong-ni. Barney's map coordinate and his story bear a close correlation with Stamford's account of what he saw of the truck's progress. When Lieutenant Campbell and his group of survivors came off the ice at Mulgam-ni to the vehicular road later that night and before dawn of December 2, they would have been south of the point where Barney abandoned his truck and thus would not have passed it on the road.
I give the weight of evidence to Stamford's and Barney's accounts of Faith's final hours and assume that his remains lie in the earth about two miles north of Hagaru-ri a little distance north of the village of Mulgam-ni.
East of Chosin Page 31