Sgt. Reckless: America's War Horse

by Robin Hutton

  Wadley also recalled seeing Reckless carry wounded soldiers off the battlefield. “They would tie a wounded Marine across her packsaddle and she would carry them out of there with all of this artillery and mortars coming in. The guys down at the bottom would unload the wounded off of her and tie gun ammo on her and she would turn around right on her own and head right back up to the guns. She was always moving and unforgettable on that skyline in the flare light.”22

  On one trip, Reckless shielded four Marines heading for the front line. They returned the favor, throwing their flak jackets over her for protection, thus risking their own lives. Reckless sometimes looked like a, “prehistoric hump-backed monster covered with large scales,”23 wearing flak jackets head to tail, but the Marines valued her that much.

  Sgt. Reckless. Reprinted by permission of Boots Reynolds. ©2003 Boots Reynolds

  An Incomprehensible Sense of Duty

  On one trip to the guns, Reckless suffered a shrapnel cut just above her left eye. Blood oozed down into her white blaze, but she kept going. Arriving at the guns, Pedersen checked her out, cleaned the wound with iodine, and sent Reckless on her way.

  Later that day, she was wounded a second time when another shard of hot, sharp shrapnel struck her left flank, behind the ribcage and in front of her hind legs. Again, the wound was dressed and she returned to work.

  Neither gash slowed the horse even one step.

  Reckless was resolute. “Fatigue had taken its toll and drained her free of nerves,” Andrew Geer wrote, “but as long as they would load and unload her, she kept to her task. No longer did she run at the hill rising sharply from the paddy . . . rather she crept up the twisting trail and paused to take two or three rest periods en route.”24 But she never stopped for long. No matter how tired she was, the mare with an almost incomprehensible sense of duty just kept going.

  Latham took great care of her. Short on water, he nonetheless poured what little he had into his helmet, to replenish some of what she lost from raw exertion. Finally, later in the day, he cut her some slack, reducing her load to six canisters and providing another twenty-minute rest. Latham even dug into his own C-rations for one of Reckless’s favorite treats—chocolate—to give her an energy boost.

  The Sound, the Fury . . . and the Red Rain

  Little was gained in the initial efforts to retake Vegas, despite the valiant work of the Dog and Easy companies of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. Captain Melvin reported that incoming from the enemy “literally rained on the troops . . . (it) was so intense at times that you couldn’t move forward or backward . . . the noise was deafening. They would start walking the mortars toward us from every direction possible. You could only hope that the next round wouldn’t be on target.”25 Incoming artillery and mortar shells slashed through the air at a rate of five hundred rounds a minute, averaging eight rounds a second.

  “You talk of the Fourth of July,” Wadley remembered. “The tonnage of incoming mixed with the outgoing was unbelievable. The concussion waves from the explosives hit every fiber in our bodies. The rounds were coming in and going out so fast, a lot of them would collide mid-air over us. The rounds were hitting each other up there and causing aerial bursts.

  “The counter mortar radar (team) that tracks the incoming rounds so they can return the fire—they said there were so many rounds, it just blurred their screen device and they couldn’t tell anything except it was all coming in their direction.

  “The concussions from the incoming . . . we were so sore, it was as if somebody had beat us with a hammer, just from that pounding of the concussions. The concussion against that mare . . . I couldn’t believe she was still doing what she was doing.”

  Reckless remained steadfast. “I can still remember the flare light and seeing that little Mongolian mare heading up that slope without anybody leading her and going up to that gun pit,” Wadley said. “She was packing three canisters of 75s on each side and two on top to balance the load. From that distance it was difficult to see what shape she was in, but just from her stride I could tell she was very tired.

  “I had ridden lots of tired horses. She was tired. She wasn’t crying in the dirt about her uncomfortable pack rigging, or the stark terror of the screaming 76 mm rounds coming from the enemy. She knew exactly what her job was.”

  Every time they sent her out, they didn’t expect her to come back. And when she did, they couldn’t believe it. She kept her Marines fighting just on her own willingness to keep at it. And that she survived is just astonishing.

  “There’s not another horse in war history that could even touch that mare,” Wadley continued. “Even Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucephalus, who was a warhorse and personal protector of him, I bet he wouldn’t have gone up that ridge with all that incoming. She was just something else. I truly felt for her.

  “The spirit of her loneliness and her loyalty, in spite of the danger, was something else to behold. Hurting. Determined. And alone. That’s the image I will always remember. That’s the image I have imprinted in my head and heart forever.”26

  One particular image still haunted Sergeant George Johannes sixty years later. “The 2/5 was getting ready to retake the hill,” he recalled in 2013, “and the guys started making their way up Vegas amidst a heavy barrage of incoming. My job was to set up a Forward Observer post to tell where to send the outgoing artillery. I had two Marines with me. We needed to get up to the top of Vegas so we could see. As I recall, it was misting at the time—a very fine rain. We were twenty to thirty yards from the top when I look up and I see these four Marines leaping—all four of them together—and you see their weapons in each of their hands and all of their legs flying in mid-air as a 120 mm mortar round landed right in between them and vaporized them—there was nothing left of them.

  “I’m looking at these other two guys with me, and they’re looking at me, and our helmets, our clothes, our faces were all red from the blood and the rain. We were dazed and dripping in their blood. I could taste it. I could taste it, and I said to myself, ‘red rain.’ To this day I can still remember the salty taste of that blood.”27

  Later in the day, Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, added some reinforcements to Dog 2/5 and Easy 2/5. In doing so, they were able to gain control of the lower trenches at the bottom of Little Vegas.

  In the Heat of the Night

  Reckless and her gun crew were so effective, and she kept them so well stocked, that as night fell, the intense heat of non-stop firing had melted Lively’s gun barrel; the gun was inoperable, and his crew had to head back to camp.

  Coming off the hill, Reckless stumbled a bit, betraying her utter exhaustion. Walking home, the men showered their war horse with praise, telling her what a great Marine she was. Overhead, the battle raged on, but for Reckless and her squad, the day was done. Her head hung so low it almost dragged on the ground, but her pace quickened as she neared her pasture. Reckless sighed loudly when Latham retired her packsaddle for the day.

  The battle-tested mare savored every morsel of a large helping of grain and greedily gulped fresh water. As she ate, Latham and Coleman rubbed her down; Reckless began nodding off before they could finish.

  Latham spread fresh straw in her bunker and, after more water, coaxed her to lie down. Reckless’s overseer gently draped a blanket over his charge, who was asleep by the time he crept out of the pasture.

  Lieutenant Pedersen’s Fears Realized

  Thanks in part to Reckless and the RR platoon’s efforts, the Marines now held Vegas’s reverse slope and the Chinese held the forward slope. No one controlled the summit. Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, stayed the night to hold what they’d gained, while the other companies evacuated, returning to the Main Line of Resistance to regroup.

  Communist gunners had fired almost 41,000 shells into Allied positions during the twenty-four-hour period ending at 6:00 p.m., March 27. Approximately 36,000 of these shells were concentrated on Marine defenses.28

  After La
tham had finished caring for Reckless, he reported to Pedersen and received his orders for the next day. The lieutenant had some news of his own. His earlier fears had been realized: he had been transferred, to Command as it turns out, where he would take control of the entire Anti-Tank Company.

  But he was being relieved of the RR platoon. Lieutenant Bill Riley would take his place.

  Pedersen still would be close by, but Reckless was staying with the platoon because that’s where she was needed most. Latham had mixed feelings. He was upset Pedersen was leaving but relieved Reckless was staying. Pedersen also told Latham a new rifle was coming for Lively and that everyone would need to be in position to fight at first light.

  A Battle Far from Over Saturday, March 28, 1953

  In the early morning hours, Pedersen turned over command of the platoon to Lieutenant Bill Riley. But before reporting to the Anti-Tank Company Command Post, he took Riley to see Reckless and to make his goodbyes to the horse. Technically he still owned her, but he knew Reckless would no longer belong to him.

  It was still dark when Coleman arrived at Reckless’s pasture. She was thin and hungry and had obviously lost a lot of weight in a single day. Coleman gave Reckless extra barley, rubbed her down, and checked her two wounds. When she had finished eating, he strapped on her pack, which she accepted without fuss. But as they set out, Coleman saw she was walking stiffly. Returning to battle after only a few hours rest, Reckless clearly was bothered by the wound in her flank, her muscles were still tired, and she appeared to show effects of the disorienting concussion waves that had pounded all day.

  They met up with Latham at the ammunitions supply point. He examined her hooves and legs and declared that while Reckless was gimpy from overwork, she would be fine once she warmed up. This proved correct, and by the end of her first trip, she was walking true and straight.29

  Bombing “Seldom Experienced in Warfare”

  Reckless was now accustomed to the sounds of battle—even a battle as fierce as this. When she broke into a sweat, it was from exertion, not fear. Andrew Geer noted, the “second day of the battle for Vegas was to bring a cannonading and bombing seldom experienced in warfare”30—and Reckless withstood it.

  Within a twenty-three-minute period later in the morning, the First Marine Aircraft Wing dropped twenty-eight tons of bombs on Vegas, completely obliterating its crest. The bombs fell at the rate of more than a ton every minute. Yet miraculously, not a single Marine was wounded, even though the bombs landed a perilously close 450 feet in front of them. Reckless “shivered under the shock of the concussion, but it was a muscular reaction, rather than from nerves.”31

  Up until then, the Marines hadn’t used air bombardment on Vegas, hoping it could be retaken with its defenses intact. But when it became clear the Chinese wouldn’t let that happen, Command decided to target Vegas with heavy bombardment.

  By 1:13 p.m., Easy Company reported it had finally gained control of the hill, although fighting remained heavy. By 2:55 p.m., Outpost Vegas was securely in the hands of the Marines.

  Reckless and her squad had played critical roles in the final surge to reclaim the hill. The squad did so by firing directly into the trenches ahead of the advancing infantry; Reckless did so by keeping the squad fully supplied with ammunition. Now, the Marines had to hold onto the turf they had recaptured.

  Garlic and Grenades

  As Marine casualties mounted, a converted mess tent had become the only aid station on Vegas’s reverse slope. Bayoneted M-1 rifles became poles to hang plasma bags for the wounded. By 11:00 p.m., there were more than two hundred wounded soldiers crammed into the makeshift hospital. Outside the tent, the dead were laid out in rows.

  At times, the roar of battle was so loud that the Marines couldn’t talk to each other. Even screaming was useless. They resorted to hand signals and passing notes.

  “All individual sounds,” recalled Dr. William E. Beaven, “were absorbed by one continuous, thunderous roar.” Beaven, a battalion medical officer in the 1st Marine Division, was tending to the wounded when, at 2:00 a.m., Melvin came by the aid station with a battle update, but the noise of the explosions was too great for anyone to hear him. “Captain Melvin appeared through the far end of the tent flap, arms in the air, a gesture of utter futility” at making himself heard over the incessant roar.

  Finally, he found a blank card and large black crayon and, according to Beaven, “scratched out a message: ‘Gooks by-passing Vegas; coming around your side . . . close to battalion strength . . . laying down smoke screen first. Can’t bug out! Load walking wounded with grenades . . . send them down far path . . . pitch them into smoke screen!’”32

  The card was passed by hand among the nearly one hundred walking wounded.

  This was it. Whoever could walk out of the tent prepared for the worst.

  “There was a moment’s pause,” Dr. Beaven recalled, “then, spontaneously, the entire complement arose and, without a word, loosened the remaining hand grenades carried on their ammo belts. Deliberately, they filed out, crept along the fifty-yard path to the end of the hill, stepped a few yards into a thick smoke screen and lobbed the grenades at the unmistakable garlic smell33 seeming to emanate from the advancing Chinese troops.

  “For more than an hour, there was a continuous procession of men jettisoning explosives down the far end of the path. The dead were stripped of all remaining grenades and [and the grenades were] loaded onto returning Marines who then returned to the edge of the smoke screen, and in a last act of defiance, hurled some 500 more grenades into the area. That was it. There was no more; and we waited for the end to come.”34

  But it never did. For two days the Chinese had led counterattack after counterattack. But finally, having gone through two regiments—at least four thousand men—they couldn’t afford more casualties. The barrage of artillery began to quiet, the smoke screen disappeared, and the garlic smell of the Chinese infantry faded away. “Simultaneously, every man dropped to his knees and wept unashamedly. The Chinese had been stopped.”35

  At 2:30 in the morning on March 30, 1953, the tide had turned. While the Marines continued firing on the enemy throughout the night, by eleven o’clock that morning, the Battle for the Nevada Cities was over. The last confrontation was when five Chinese approached on foot, appearing to surrender. Instead, they tossed grenades and fired their weapons. Three of the Chinese soldiers were killed instantly by the Americans; the other two were taken prisoner, one of whom later died.

  The Red Mongolian Mare with Two Purple Hearts

  “Outpost Vegas broke the back of the enemy,” Lieutenant Riley recalled, “and we give a lot of credit to Reckless. As far as we were concerned, she was kind of the hero in that battle.”36

  The brass agreed and made sure that, despite being an animal in a man’s Army, her sacrifices didn’t go unrecognized. Reckless was awarded two Purple Hearts, one each for the wounds she shrugged off in the heat of battle.

  Reckless did more than just keep the guns so well supplied that at least one melted. She helped carry the wounded and dead from the battlefield and was a shield for troops who walked beside her against shell fire.

  Harold Wadley recalled being asked about Reckless transporting a wounded Marine to How 3/5 Med bunker the day after the outpost was overrun. “LtCol Oddy asked me to get KSC’s [Korean Service Corps—aka “chiggy bearers”] from their camp and go with the reaction force to Reno Block. Heavy casualties were taken and we could not get up to Outpost Reno. We were called back to the line. It was the next day while bringing dead and wounded back to the How Company Command Post that I was asked if the horse that carried a wounded Marine back was with me. My reply was that the mare was with the Reckless Rifle team. I only had Chiggy Bearers.”37

  It’s impossible to say how many lives her devotion to duty saved over those final, harrowing days of March 1953.

  Wadley put it best: “I never thought she would survive. I figured she’d end up dead. But there was an angel riding th
at little mare’s back every time she went up and down Vegas—no doubt about it.”38

  Reckless’s Finest Hour

  In a single day, Reckless had made fifty-one round-trips to the various gun sites, moving solo through the combat zone ninety-five percent of the time. She carried 386 rounds of ammunition—nearly five tons of explosives—on her back, up and down treacherous terrain as the hellish battle raged all around her.

  Overall, Pedersen estimated she covered more than thirty-five miles that day, through open rice paddies and up steep mountain terrain, where the final climb was always a forty-five-degree angle. She safely delivered all fifty-one loads of the powerful shells amid “an inferno of explosives,”39 with the buzzing and screaming of enemy fire coming in at a rate of five hundred rounds per minute. No horse—before or since—has come close to such selfless acts of bravery. She was a horse truly worthy of the United States Marines.

  The Human Cost of the Nevada Cities

  The Turkish Brigade came in to relieve the Marines on April 4, 1953, and the 1st Marine Division went in reserve. According to the Division Command Diaries, casualties for the month of March were heavy: 1,488 killed, wounded, or missing.40 Of that, the Battle of the Nevada Cities alone accounted for 1,015 casualties—nearly 70 percent—including 156 killed in action, 801 wounded (441 wounded and evacuated; 360 wounded and not evacuated) and 98 missing, which included 19 captured.41

  R&R for the RR Platoon

  Reckless and her regiment moved to the relative safety of Camp Casey, south of the Imjin River, for R&R. Only at night could they hear the vague murmur of distant gunfire. Reckless was elated to be in a new pasture, one teeming with fresh grass and colorful flowers.