The treatment received by survivors after they reached the Marine perimeter described by Lieutenant Campbell above was standard for members of the 31st RCT.
At the final enemy fire block, the wounded ist Battalion, 32nd Infantry, surgeon, Dr. Vincent J. Navarre, was still in the vehicle in which Stamford had placed him earlier in the evening. He wrote about his escape:
The ambulance was stopped right under the fireblock and I crawled out while they were still raking it; then hid in a foxhole right under their noses all night. Early in the morning while they were counting off & dividing supplies I grabbed a pole & walked out one step at a time down that railroad track over the frozen swamp. Any 5-year old could have caught me & the last part of my trip was in broad daylight. Spent the day in a N. Korean hut & at sundown the Koreans took me & 2 GIs on a sleigh 1/4 mile to Marines [probably Lt. Col. Olin Beall and his helpers] who took us to Hagaru-ri & eventual evacuation.
The wound was right through the knee joint & the leg broken of course. Without the pole I couldn't have taken a step, but the pole was lying within easy reach. Also was shot thru the little finger of rt. hand & felt the bullet hit my hip. Later I learned the bullet must have hit the hammer of my .45 which was in my pocket, because it was broken off. That saved me from a bad abdominal wound.
Like everyone else I froze something; in this case it was the fingers of my right hand. Also had frost bite of all hands and feet.6
Sergeant Alex E. Stevenson, captured at the Chinese assault on the stopped convoy, later escaped. He said that the convoy carried 618 wounded. The Chinese held the convoy for about io hours and looted it. During that time they took off an unknown number of prisoners, most of whom could walk. 7 Some who could not walk or soon gave up to exhaustion were helped by friends and later were confined in prison camps.
The Far East Command Daily Intelligence Summary for December 24, 1950, says that Marine Corsairs strafed the convoy after the Chinese had left it, presumably on December;. There were still Americans in the vicinity at the time, according to at least one witness who reported it later.8
When the convoy came to its final stop near Hudong-ni, wounded men and stragglers were scattered all the way back to the first blown bridge and even back to the inlet. One of these was Pfc. Glenn J. Finfrock, D Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry. He was wounded and lost a great deal of blood and as a result was unconscious until after sunrise on December 2. He was unaware of what had happened to the task force. He gained his feet and struggled down the road until he came in sight of the silent trucks. There he found some other wounded men trying to build a fire. Then he and another soldier tried to start one of the trucks. While they were busy in this effort, they saw some Chinese come out of the village in the distance (Sasu-ri) and head in their direction. Those who could make the effort to get away started for the reservoir; the others were captured. To the surprise of the soldiers, the Chinese administered morphine to some of the wounded and a few days later freed them.9
Among the wounded Americans freed by the Chinese were Maj. Robert J. Tolly, acting commander of the 57th Field Artillery Battalion, and Lt. Lloyd Mielenze, of A Battery. They were released in time to reach Hagaru-ri before the troops there began their withdrawal to the coast on December 6.10
Looking ahead to events that happened later, one can record here what became of the American prisoners captured east of Chosin. Operation Little Switch, in which sick and wounded prisoners were repatriated, began on April 20, 1953. In the exchange several American soldiers of the 31st and 32nd regiments wounded at Chosin and in the Task Force Faith breakout on December 1-2, 195o, were returned to U.S. control." They revealed what had happened to them and others captured east of Chosin in 195o.
The American prisoners were first taken a few miles from the battlefield to a holding area for a few days, until the American troops evacuated Hagaruri. Then they were taken, mostly by oxcart, to a place the prisoners called "Death Valley," 15 to 30 miles from the battleground, and held there until April, 1951, when they were transferred to Camp Changsung, across the Yalu River in Manchuria. One man, Pfc. Tully Cox, lost both feet, which had frozen and become gangrenous. Two of his prisoner buddies amputated his feet with a penknife at "Death Valley" and saved his life. In July, 1951, a Chinese woman doctor sewed up the stumps of his legs.12
Lieutenant Colonel Beall's Rescue Mission
No account of the survivors of Task Force Faith would be satisfactory without an account of the heroic and humanitarian role played by Lt. Col. Olin L. Beall, USMC, who commanded the Marine 1st Motor Transport Battalion, which held a segment of the Hagaru-ri defense perimeter on its northwest arc. In front of the perimeter at that point was an expanse of mined frozen marshland. Just beyond it the Changjin River emptied into the reservoir. Captain Read's H Battery held a section of the perimeter just north of Beall's battalion and on the east side of the Changjin River opposite Beall. Many of the American escapees came into the Marine perimeter through these two units.13
During the late afternoon of December 1 the command post of the 1st Motor Transport Battalion received word that pilots had spotted friendly troops making their way south over the ice of Chosin Reservoir toward the Marine perimeter. Just before dark Beall was told that a body of men was approaching his sector. He sent a squad through the minefield at his front to meet and identify the incoming group and guide them through the minefield.
Members of this group mistakenly told Beall that they were the sole survivors of the Army units on the east side of the reservoir. Beall said that of this first group only a few were wounded and that they were a disorganized mob, hysterical with fright, and only a few of them were armed. When he asked them where their weapons were, they replied that they had thrown them away because they were too heavy or were out of ammunition. 14 Another group, consisting of about So Americans and So ROK soldiers, came through Beall's lines about lo:oo P.M. on December i. On December 2 and 3, Beall carried out an organized rescue operation of men who had been able to walk or crawl away from the destroyed convoy near Hudong-ni and some men the Chinese had captured and then released.
Lieutenant Colonel Beall was 52 years old at Chosin and had more than 30 years' active-duty service as a Marine enlisted man and officer. He was a Marine of the old school, with a sharp temper and a no-nonsense approach, intemperate in his judgment of troops who did not live up to the highest tradition of discipline and duty. He expressed a low opinion of the Army officers he rescued at Chosin.'S
Beall wrote about the beginning of his rescue efforts on the morning of December 2, following the nightlong arrival of hundreds of survivors from the 31st RCT:
The next morning at daylight, thinking that there must be stragglers from this mob of men, I went up to the reservoir to scout the place and while there found some more wounded. Brought in six, then took some trucks and men and went back. We went up the reservoir to Hudong-ni where we spotted a bunch of wounded men on the ice. We eliminated nine snipers on the shore on the way up and upon trying to enter the edge of the reservoir opposite Hudong-ni came under heavy sniper and automatic weapons fire, so we had to leave our jeep out on the ice about 300-400 yards and walk in. When coming under fire we would drop to the ice and they would not fire on us, so this we did and during the day we got out over three hundred (300) of the wounded from the convoy.... There were many brave men here this day, men shot through the body helping a buddy, men with hands frozen helping a buddy with a broken leg, men with both legs broken dragging themselves along with their hands and elbows.16
On one occasion, Beall said, he crawled to within fifty yards of a Chinese machine gun. The soldier he was trying to rescue yelled, "Go back, go back, they'll kill you!" He nevertheless reached the man, dragged him out, and carried him to the jeep.
Beall's unit had the help of some of the less badly wounded men in the convoy who had been hiding along the edge of the reservoir near Hudongni. Sergeant Joe A. Medina, a medical-aid man, said that when the rescue party came out "we ha
d to carry the men from the trucks to the edge of the reservoir because the trucks could not get off the road. I was making my third trip when a Marine Lt. Colonel noticed my leg and arm wounds, ordered me into one of the rescue trucks."17
It appears that after daylight dawned on December 2, the Chinese did not search the area between the destroyed convoy and the shore of the reservoir for escapees and survivors from the trucks, nor did they make much effort to prevent Beall from taking off the wounded. After daylight they were largely in the villages of Sasu-ri and Sasu or digging in on the hilltops back from the reservoir along the road. Major Miller's account and the accounts of some others indicate that by December 3 they had left the villages near Hudong-ni and were moving to East Hill, overlooking Hagaru-ri. The Chinese in the vicinity of Hudong-ni on December 3 and later were probably stragglers.
When Beall made his first trip onto the ice on the morning of December 2, he was accompanied by two men, Pfc. Ralph Milton and Corpsman Oscar Biebinger. When he came back with his first group of 6 wounded men and prepared to return to the ice, he had 2nd Lt. Robert Hunt bring trucks to the edge of the reservoir, build fires there, and set up warming tents. Beall obtained a sled and attached it to his jeep so that he could evacuate 12 to 14 men at a time. On the second trip Beall's party came under fire. He halted the jeep and sled and walked by himself toward the shoreline, but the Chinese did not fire on him. Biebinger joined Beall at the shore, and they dragged 7 wounded Americans to the jeep and sled. Milton took these men to the evacuation point they had just established. Beal and Biebinger, meanwhile, continued to make trips to the shoreline to bring out more wounded.
Corporal Andrew Contreras and Lieutenant Hunt drove two more jeeps onto the ice and joined in the evacuation work. As long as the men left their weapons behind and went ashore unarmed, the Chinese did not bother them. Hunt even went inland some distance from shore and returned with wounded. Beall found one man who had compound fractures of both legs. He got him out by using an abandoned rifle sling, looping it around the man's shoulders, and skidding him across the ice. A group of 8 men came but saying that they had been prisoners but that their Chinese captors had brought them to the reservoir and freed them.
About midday a stranger with no rank came out on the ice and joined Beall's group. He was Buck Lefevre, the Red Cross field director for the area. Beall allowed him to stay on the ice, confining his job to directing walking wounded to the evacuation point. During the afternoon a strong, cold wind swept in from the north and made it increasingly difficult to continue the rescue work. With Lefevre now added to his party, Beall had six men on the ice: himself, Lieutenant Hunt, Corpsman Biebinger, Corporal Contreras, Private Milton, and Lefevre. The last stayed on the ice in bitter cold all afternoon until he collapsed from fatigue.
Late in the afternoon some Chinese soldiers on shore decided to interfere with the rescue efforts. Beall noticed them moving onto a finger of land that dominated the place where he had been leaving the ice to go inland short distances to get wounded men. Beall ordered a platoon to come onto the ice with automatic weapons, and the last evacuations before dark were made under their covering fire.
Beall and his men spent about 12 hours on the ice on December 2 in temperatures that reached - 24° F. During that time they evacuated from the ice and the shore of the reservoir an almost incredible total of 3iq American and ROK soldiers and brought them into Marine lines.18
On the morning of December 3 aerial observers reported more wounded men on the ice. Beall, Milton, and Cpl. William Howard went out on the ice. They found four soldiers huddled together under blankets in a fishing boat frozen tight in the reservoir. Enemy fire on Beall's group was heavier than at any time the previous day. The men told Beall that they had been prisoners, that two Chinese soldiers had taken them to the reservoir, and that when they started to walk away over the ice the Chinese had shot their legs from under them. The four wounded men had dragged themselves to the boat and had kept alive during the night by huddling together under the blankets. Beall later wrote of this incident:
We came under heavy machine gun and sniper fire but an observation plane called in air to cover us and under close air support that came in at times less than ten feet off the ice we got the four men out, and this is the story of two of them. An officer and some men passed them and said that they could not help them off and left them there to die. Both of these men had both legs broken, one had sixteen bullets in his legs, the other twelve; the other two men were severely wounded, one having both legs broken, the other one leg broken, three bullets in the other and a broken arm. These men were very bitter against their officers and freely said so. In fact, I had to order them to stop as it was getting them into a hysterical state.19
Beall sent the four men to the Marine lines in his jeep. Then, leaving his gun on the ice, he started alone for the reservoir shore. He was opposite Hudong-ni and still had air cover and was not fired on. Inland a short distance he came to the line of Task Force Faith's abandoned truck convoy. He later commented: "I went through that convoy and saw dead in each vehicle, stretchers piled up with men frozen to death trying to pull themselves out from under another stretcher. Yes, I saw this and I shall never forget it ... (this statement later proven by the undersigned actually finding seventeen (17) stretcher cases in one 6 x 6 truck)."20
Beall went down the line of trucks from the first to the last but found no one alive. He returned to the ice, Milton picked him up, and they returned to Hagaru-ri over the ice. Thus on the morning of December 3, Beall and his helpers seemingly had rescued the last of the men who had escaped from the convoy.21 The ist Marine Division's official history of the Chosin operation refers to a Marine patrol that went to the destroyed task-force convoy. The reference must be to Lieutenant Colonel Beall's visit to it. I have found no report of a patrol to the convoy in the Marine G-3 Journal and Message file. The Marine official history gives an estimate of 30o dead men in the convoy, an estimate apparently given by Beall, though he does not give an estimate in his own written report.
If one adds the 4 men rescued on the morning of December 3 to the count of 319 rescued the day before, a total of 323 men were rescued from the reservoir and its shore near Hudong-ni. The estimate of some 3O0 dead left in the trucks indicates that about 6oo men were in the vehicles when the convoy came to its final halt. The 1st Motor Transport Battalion report states that all these men were wounded, "with more than 50% with very severe wounds."
Major General Edward M. Almond, X Corps commander, presented Lieutenant Colonel Beall with the Distinguished Service Cross at Hagaru-ri on December 4, 1950, for his soldierly and life-saving rescue work at Chosin Reservoir, an award richly deserved.22 There was no other rescue of so many men, with so many lives saved, during the Korean War. It was attributable largely to the initiative and valorous leadership of one man.
The last group of survivors from east of Chosin noted in the official rec ords came into Hagaru-ri on December S, the day before all the American troops there and in the Chosin area began their withdrawal to the coast. General Almond left his X Corps CP at Hamhung at Io:45 on the morning of December 5, and flew in an L-17 plane to Hagaru-ri. Coming in to land, he observed a scene which he recorded in his diary for the day: A group of 30 individuals deployed around two vehicles or large sleds were observed making their way across the ice of Chosin Lake from the eastern edge toward Hagaru-ri. This group appeared to have four fighters protecting its movement." 13
he 7th Infantry Division Action Report for December, 1950, states that on the morning of December 2 a tank-infantry force tried to fight its way from Hagaru-ri up the east side of Chosin Reservoir to meet Task Force Faith but that heavy enemy opposition forced it back. The official US Marine Corps history of the Chosin Reservoir makes a similar statement: 'A company-size task force of Army troops from Hagaru-ri, supported by tanks, moved out that day to bring in any organized units of the three shattered battalions which might have been left behind. Known as Task Force A
nderson after Lieutenant Colonel Berry K. Anderson, senior Army officer at Hagaru-ri, the column met heavy CCF opposition and was recalled when it became evident that only stragglers remained."'
These statements are untrue. No such relief force ever left Hagaru-ri to help rescue Task Force Faith.
That a relief force was needed to rescue the 31st RCT on the east side of Chosin Reservoir was evident as early as midafternoon on November 30. At the commanders' conference that afternoon at Hagaru-ri, General Almond ordered General Smith to bring a Marine regiment from Yudam-ni to effect the rescue of the 31st RCT. After the conference ended, General Smith and General Barr, the 7th Division commander, agreed that no Marine troops could be spared from the Hagaru-ri defense perimeter, that it was already precariously thin, and that no rescue troops would be available until the cutoff Marine troops at Yudam-ni could fight their way through to Hagaru-ri. It would be December 4 before the vanguard began to reach Hagaru-ri. This left it up to Faith's troops to fight their way out on their own, with the help of Marine close air support.
Command arrangements in the Chosin Reservoir area suddenly changed on the night of November 29 when General Almond issued his Operations Instruction No. 19 at 8:47 P.M. It provided that as of 8:0o A.M. the next morning, November 30, all troops in the Chosin area north of Koto-ri would be under the command of the 1st Marine Division commander. Therefore, beginning on the morning of November 30, Task Force Faith at the inlet and the 31st Rear and the 31st Tank Company at Hudong-ni were under the command of General Smith.
East of Chosin Page 33