Vegas
_The Nevada Cities--Supporting Arms--Defense Organization at the
Outposts--Chinese Attack on 26 March--Reinforcements Dispatched--Massed
Counterattack the Next Day--Push to the Summit--Other Communist
Probes--Three CCF Attempts for the Outpost--Vegas Consolidation
Begins--Aftermath_
_The Nevada Cities_[352]
[352] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section
is derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chap. 9;
1stMarDiv, 1stMar, 5thMar, 11thMar, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5
ComdDs, Mar 53; 5thMar ComdD, Apr 53, Special Action Rpt
Period 26–30 Mar 53, “Battle of the Cities,” hereafter
5thMar SAR “Cities”; Maj Norman W. Hicks, “U.S. Marine
Operations in Korea, 1952–1953 with Special Emphasis
on Outpost Warfare” (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Maryland,
1962), hereafter Hicks, _Outpost Warfare_; 1stLt Peter
Braestrup, “Outpost Warfare,” _Marine Corps Gazette_, v.
37, no. 11 (Nov 53) and “Back to the Trenches,” _Marine
Corps Gazette_, v. 39, no. 3 (Mar 55); MSgt Robert T.
Fugate, “Vegas, Reno, and Carson,” _Leatherneck_, v. 36,
no. 6 (Jun 53), hereafter Fugate, “Vegas.”
As the third winter of war in Korea began to draw to an inconclusive
end in late March 1953, some 28,000 Marines of the 1st Division
stationed on the western front suspected that coming weeks would bring
a change of pace. Consider just the matter of basic logistics. Rising
temperatures, tons of melting snow, and the thawing of the Imjin River,
located north of the rear Marine support and reserve areas, would turn
vital road nets into quagmires to tax the patience and ingenuity of men
and machinery alike.
With the arrival of another spring in Korea there was strong likelihood
that the Chinese Communists facing the Marines across a 33-mile front
of jagged peaks and steep draws would launch a new offensive. This
would enable them to regain the initiative and end the stalemate that
had existed since October when they were rebuffed in the battle for the
Hook.
Winning new dominating hill or ridge positions adjacent to the Marine
MLR, in that uneasy No-Mans-Land buffer zone between the CCF and UN
lines, would be both militarily and psychologically advantageous to
the Communists. Any new yardage or victory, no matter how small,
could be exploited as leverage against the “Wall Street capitalists”
when truce talks resumed at the Panmunjom bargaining table. Further,
dominant terrain seized by the CCF would remain in Communist hands
when the truce went into effect. Although wise to the tactics of
the Chinese,[353] UN intelligence had not anticipated the extent or
intensity of the surprise CCF attack that opened up at 1900 on 26 March
when the Communists sent battalions of 700 to 800 men against Marine
outposts of 50 men.
[353] Since the first of the year division intelligence reports
had given the CCF the capability of mounting limited
objective attacks ranging from company to regimental
size. _PacFlt EvalRpt_, p. 9-28, quoting 1stMarDiv PIR
860, dtd 4 Mar 53.
The late March attack centered primarily on a trio of peaks where
Marines had dug in three of their key outposts--Carson, Reno, and
Vegas. Rechristened from earlier, more prosaic names of Allen, Bruce,
and Clarence, respectively, the Nevada Cities hill complex was located
approximately 1,500 yards north of the MLR fronting the 5th Marines
right sector. The trio was the province of 1/5, which manned the
western (left) part of the regimental area. Ultimately, however,
reverberations ran through nearly 10,000 yards of division front,
from the two Berlin outposts, 1,000 yards east of Vegas, to COP Hedy,
midpoint in the 1st Marines center sector. Continuous attacks and
counterattacks for possession of the key Vegas outpost raged unabated
for five days. The action escalated into the bloodiest fighting to
date in western Korea, resulted in loss of a major outpost, and the
killing or wounding of nearly 1,000 Marines. It was a partial success
for the enemy, but he paid a high price for the real estate: casualties
amounting to more than twice the Marine losses, including 800 known
killed and a regiment that was decimated by the Marine defenders.
The three Nevada outposts lay just below the 38th Parallel,
approximately 10 miles northeast of Panmunjom and the same distance
north of the Marine railhead at Munsan-ni. Possession of the area would
give the Communists improved observation of I Corps MLR positions
to the west. Indeed, the enemy had cast covetous eyes (an ambition
translated into action through his well-known creeping tactics) on the
semi-circular net of outposts since the preceding summer.
Mindful of this, the I Corps commanding general back in September had
stressed the importance of holding key terrain features that could be
of major tactical value to the enemy. This included Bunker Hill and
COP Reno, both considered likely targets for renewed enemy aggression
in the future. Particularly, the enemy had indicated he wanted to
annex Reno. The object of increasing hostile attacks since July 1952,
Reno was the closest of the three Nevadas to CCF lines and tied in
geographically with two of the enemy’s high ground positions--Hill 190,
to the northeast, and Hill 101, overlooking the site of the destroyed
village of Ungok. (See Map 22.)
Reno’s companion outpost on the right, Vegas, at 175 meters, was the
highest of the three while Carson, on the left flank, was nearest
JAMESTOWN and also assisted in defense of Reno and Vegas. Each of the
three outposts was manned by a rifle platoon (40 Marines plus two Navy
hospital corpsmen), heavily reinforced with weapons company personnel.
A small hill between Reno and Vegas, known as the Reno Block, further
supported the Nevada Cities complex and at night was defended by a
reinforced squad.
Since they commanded the historic Korean invasion route to Seoul, 30
air miles south, the strategic importance of the Nevada outposts had
been one of the reasons for transfer of the Marines from East Korea to
the West, in 1952. Both Reno and Vegas, moreover, overlooked Chinese
rear area supply routes. This was a matter of special concern to the
enemy at this time since he had recently doubled his stockpiling
efforts and wanted to prevent UNC intelligence from learning about the
build-up. Possession of the Nevada hills would enable the Chinese to
harass the Marines at even closer range and--hopefully--to conduct new
thrusts at the MLR which would ultimately weaken the UNC position.
[Illustration:
MAP 22 K. WHITE
5TH MARINES MLR SECTOR
26 March 1953]
In mid- and late March, the units forward in the 1st Marine Division
sector of the main defense line, JAMESTOWN, remained much as they had
been in recent months. Left to right, the defending components were
the Kimpo Provisional Regiment, 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion, 1st
Korean Marine Corps Regimental Combat Team (1st KMC/RCT),[354] 1st
Marines, and 5th Marines. One change had occurred when the 1st Marines
relieved the 7th in the center sector earlier in the month. The latter
was now in division reserve in the Camp Rose rear area. Before long,
this regiment was to see more offensive action in a hotly contested,
five-day period than it had during its entire recent tour on line.
Overall, the 1st Marine Division continued as one of the four infantry
divisions in the I Corps sector of EUSAK[355] and, in fact, the month
itself marked exactly one year since the Marines had arrived on the
western front.
[354] The 1st KMC Regiment had been redesignated the 1st
KMC/RCT on 15 Dec 52. Continuing under opcon of the
1stMarDiv, the Korean RCT consisted of four infantry
battalions, plus attached artillery, armor, engineer, and
service units. _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 5, Chap. 8, p. 8-64.
[355] To the Marine division right were the U.S. 2d Infantry,
ROK 1st, and U.S. 7th Infantry Divisions.
Occupying the far eastern end of the division sector, the 5th Marines,
under command of Colonel Walt,[356] had been assigned to the MLR since
late January. The regiment manned six miles of the JAMESTOWN front.
It was flanked on the left by the 1st Marines while to the right its
neighbor was the 38th Regiment, 2d Infantry Division, U.S. Army.
[356] No stranger to the 5th Marines, Colonel Walt had served
with this regiment during World War II at Guadalcanal,
Cape Gloucester, and Peleliu. He had commanded, on
separate occasions, 2/5 and 3/5 and had earned two Navy
Crosses for combat leadership and bravery.
Since 20 February, the western part of the 5th regimental sector had
been held by Lieutenant Colonel Platt’s 1/5, with Companies A, B, and
C on line, from left to right. The battalion area held four outposts.
COP Ava was tucked down near the boundary between the 1st and 5th
Regiments, while the Nevada, or Three Cities, triangle screened the
central part of the latter regimental sector. A Company A squad[357]
outposted Ava, some 325 yards forward of the main line. Personnel of
Company C were stationed on Carson and Reno. Vegas had a unique command
situation. Due to its proximity to the boundary between 1/5 and 3/5,
Vegas came under operational control of the former battalion while
personnel charged with its defense belonged to Company H of 3/5.
[357] Normally Ava was a squad-size outpost. Prior to and
during the late March attacks, all 5th Marine COPs were
strengthened.
The right flank of the regimental sector was the responsibility of 3/5,
which had moved to the front on 23 March, under Lieutenant Colonel
Robert J. Oddy. Companies H, G, and I were forward, in that order
from the west, with George personnel on duty at the two reinforced
squad size outposts, Berlin and East Berlin. In regimental reserve was
Lieutenant Colonel James H. Finch’s 2/5.
Westward along JAMESTOWN from Colonel Walt’s 5th Marines was the center
regimental sector, held by the 1st Marines commanded by Colonel Adams.
(See Map 23.) The extreme western part of the regimental line came to
a juncture with KMC territory just as it looped around the critical
Panmunjom peace corridor. This left battalion sector was manned by
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Gililland’s 2/1. Companies E, D, B from
1/1,[358] and F were forward, outposting COPs 1, 2, Marilyn, Kate,
and Ingrid. To the right 3/1, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ernest
G. Atkin, defended Hedy, Bunker, Ginger, Esther, Dagmar, and Corinne,
with Companies H, G, and I on line. Occupying the area adjacent to the
secondary defense installations, WYOMING and the western part of the
KANSAS line, was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick R. Findtner’s reserve
1/1. And located to the rear of the 1st and 5th Regiments was the 7th
Marines (Colonel Haffner), in reserve,[359] and the division rear
support units, also south of the Imjin.
[358] Company B from 1/l had been assigned to operational
control of 2/1 when the latter unit relieved 1/7 on
line on 10 March. The increased personnel enabled the
battalion to position a company-size detachment at the
strategic high ground, COP 2, that overlooked Panmunjom
and the critical truce talk site.
[359] Regimental command changed 27 March when Colonel Glenn C.
Funk, former commanding officer of the 1st Shore Party
Battalion, was assigned to the 7th Marines, succeeding
Colonel Haffner, who became G-2.
_Supporting Arms_[360]
[360] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section
is derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chaps. 9, 10;
1stMarDiv, 11thMar, 1st TkBn ComdDs, Mar 53; 1st MAW,
MAGs-12, -33 ComdDs, Mar 53.
In support of the three infantry regiments were the artillerymen,
guns, and howitzers of Colonel Mills’ 11th Marines. Two of its three
light battalions, 1/11 and 3/11, provided 105mm direct fires to the
5th and 1st Marines, respectively. The general support battalion was
2/11, prepared to reinforce the fires of 1/11. The regimental medium
battalion, 4/11, was in general support of the division, as was the 1st
4.5-inch Rocket Battery. To the southwest of the division sector, the
75mm guns of the 1st KMC Artillery Battalion, also attached to the 11th
Marines, were in direct support of the 1st KMC/RCT. Newly formed the
preceding month, the 1st Provisional Antiaircraft Artillery-Automatic
Weapons Platoon had the mission of defending two of the Imjin River
Bridges--Freedom and Spoonbill--in the division sector.
[Illustration:
MAP 23 K. WHITE
1ST MARINES MLR SECTOR
(Division Center)
26 March 1953]
In addition to organic and attached units of the 11th, four I Corps
artillery components, located within division territory, further
reinforced 11th Marines capabilities. The 623d Field Artillery
Battalion, with batteries in the 5th and 7th Marines sectors, like 4/11
consisted of 155mm howitzers. Three heavy artillery units were also
available for counterbattery missions. These 8-inch howitzers belonged
to Battery C of the 17th Field Artillery, Battery B of the 204th
Field Artillery, and the 158th Field Artillery Battalion. These Army
units were assigned to general support of I Corps, reinforcing Marine
fires on call, and were under operational control of the 159th Field
Artillery Battalion Group.
Active armored support for the division’s ground troops during
March was provided by three of the four companies from the 1st Tank
Battalion. Company A’s M-46s, flame tanks, and retrievers, well forward
in the right sector, were in direct support of the 5th Marines; Company
D tanks were assigned to the 1st Marines. Company B functioned as the
forward reserve unit, ready to move into firing positions on the MLR if
the tactical situation called for it. The rear reserve unit, Company C,
conducted refresher training and performed equipment checks on the rest
of the battalion tanks. The battalion commander, since May 1952, was
Lieutenant Colonel John I. Williamson.
The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, with a personnel strength of 6,400, was
located throughout Korea. Wing headquarters, Marine Air Control Group
2, and Marine Air Group 33, with its F9F day jet fighters and the VMJ-1
photo reconnaissance squadron operated from K-3, Pohang. VMF(N)-513,
with all weather jet fighters, flew out of K-8, Kunsan, on the west
coast, 105 miles below Seoul. MAG-12 and its squadrons of attack ADs
and Corsairs was relatively near the 1st Marine Division sector, at
K-6, Pyongtaek, 30 miles southeast of Inchon. Marine Wing Service
Squadron 1, with its heavy maintenance capability, remained at Itami,
Japan.
Tactical control had been altered radically the previous month when
the Fifth Air Force had relinquished its command of Marine pilots and
planes and they returned to operational control of the 1st Marine
Aircraft Wing for the first time since the early days of the war.
Direction of the helicopters in HMR-161 and VMO-6 used in transport
and reconnaissance missions had for some time been closer to home;
both squadrons were under 1st Marine Division operational control.
HMR-161 was based at A-17, in the vicinity of the 1st Marine Division
command post. VMO-6, a composite unit consisting of single-engine
OE-1 observation planes and a copter section of the HTL-4 and the new
larger HO5S-1 craft, was located at A-9, three miles south of division
headquarters. The squadron provided regularly scheduled helicopter
evacuation of night frontline combat-casualties, artillery spotting
flights, and airborne control of air strikes. Both squadrons performed
routine liaison and reconnaissance, administrative, and resupply
flights.
_Defense Organization on the Outposts_[361]
[361] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section
is derived from: 1/5, 3/5 ComdDs, Mar 53; 5thMar SAR
“Cities.”
Carson (Hill 27), furthest west of the three Nevada Cities was, at 820
yards, also nearest the Marine main line of resistance. It overlooked
enemy terrain to the northwest and dominated an important approach
from that same direction--the Seoul road. Organized as a perimeter
defense position, Carson security was oriented toward two major Chinese
strongpoints. These were the twin-peaked Ungok Hill mass (31-31A),
approximately 650 yards west of the Seoul road which lay between Ungok
and Carson, and Hill 67 (Arrowhead), an equal distance due northwest.
Other critical features in the immediate Carson vicinity included, on
the right, the west finger of Reno; the ridgeline south from Reno to a
point known as “Ambush Alley,” in the vicinity of enemy Hill 47; and
the ridgeline approaches by the two listening posts--Fox finger and
George finger. (See Map 24.)
[Illustration:
MAP 24 K. WHITE
COP CARSON
March 1953]
Little cover or concealment existed, other than that offered by
the trenchline and a cave used as living quarters. Four weapons
positions--light machine guns and Browning automatic rifles--covered
main enemy avenues of approach. These and two listening posts were each
manned by two men after 1800 and throughout the night. Of Carson’s
customary strength of 38 (1 officer and 37 enlisted), 28 stood watch
and worked on fortifications at night. A six-man security team was on
duty during the day. All posts connected by land line to battalion
headquarters, where a 24-hour phone watch was maintained. Sound power
phones and radios also provided communication with the company CP.
Nearly 350 yards of trenchline encircled the outpost. Most was in good
condition, five or more feet deep and two feet wide. The main trench on
the reverse slope was in spots shallow, only three to five feet, and a
new trench was being dug. Fields of fire for small arms protection were
considered good, although some of the 28 fighting holes were overly
close to culvert and sandbag overheading, which prevented complete
fire coverage of forward slopes. Adequate fire support could be given
along the southern slope of the west finger extending from COP Reno,
which was also mutually supporting with that of the Reno Block. Forward
observer teams for the 60mm and 81mm mortars provided observation for
supporting arms. The arsenal of weapons at Carson included 4 A-4 light
machine guns, 2 flamethrowers, 2 3.5-inch rocket launchers, 9 Browning
automatic rifles, 36 M-1 rifles, 2 carbines, 2 pistols, and 4 grenade
launchers.
Some 450 yards northeast, COP Reno (Hill 25) was dug in on a ridgeline
that fronted enemy Hill 25A (also known as Hill 150), immediately
north. Approximately 1,600 yards away from the MLR, Reno was the
central of the three outposts and also the one most distant from
Marine lines. West to east, critical terrain consisted of five enemy
positions--Hills 31, 67, 25A, 190, and 153--and friendly companion
outpost Vegas, on the right flank. (See Map 25.)
Two main trenches led into the outpost, a reverse slope fortification.
The forward trench, perpendicular to the ridgeline fronting the
position, was approximately 20 yards long and 8 feet deep. The second,
to the rear and about the same length, traversed the outpost in an
east-west direction. Approaching from the entrance, or “Gate” of the
MLR, the two trenches joined on the left, forming a 90 degree angle.
A cave, located in the arc between the trenches, provided overcrowded
living quarters where personnel slept either on the dirt floor or atop
sandbags, since there were no bunkers at Reno. Ammunition supplies, as
well as the corpsman’s first aid facilities, were cached in the cave.
[Illustration:
MAP 25 K. WHITE
COP RENO
March 1953]
A major blocking position, some 100 yards south, and to the rear of
Reno itself was covered by troops posted in the trenchline. Left of the
forward trench, protective wire was placed across the topographical
crest. This left finger had good observation to Ungok and Arrowhead
but also served as an approach to Carson. Most likely enemy approach,
however, was considered to be the ridgeline from Hill 150, on the
north. The Seoul road, rear trenchline, and valley to the right were
alternate approaches. Twenty-four hour security at Reno included an
automatic rifleman at the Gate, at Post 1, on the forward trench, and
Post 2, which was at the extreme right of the rear trench. Ten machine
gunners were also detailed as night watch on the guns. During the
daytime they were responsible for maintenance of ammunition and weapons
which consisted of 18 M-1 rifles, 6 BARs, 5 A-4 LMGs, 2 flamethrowers,
1 carbine, and 7 pistols.
The biggest defense problem at Reno stemmed from restricted fields of
fire. Able gun, for instance, covered the rear of the topographical
crest and Hills 31 and 67, on the left. But dead space masked its
effectiveness practically from the base of Hill 67 to the gun itself.
The Baker gun, protecting the reverse slope, had a lateral firing range
of from 10 to 30 feet. Charlie gun maintained an unlimited sector of
fire, approximately 180 degrees, and Dog gun covered the rear. As
there were no prepared machine gun positions, they were fired from the
parapet protecting both the fighting holes and firing positions in the
trenchline. Two fighting holes were manned by BARs and two were used as
machine gun posts.
Customarily 40 to 43 men were on duty at COP Reno. In fact this number
had been viewed dubiously as being “far too many to man defensive
positions at any one time,” by the commanding officer of the 1/5
Weapons Company during a survey earlier in the month, noting that
“about 20 could adequately defend the position.”[362] A six-man force
was detailed as a permanent working party for the improvement of
fortifications. Sound power phones linked all positions and field
phones connected the forward observer with gun positions. Overall, for
proper defense, Reno depended heavily upon support fires from Carson
and Vegas, on its right flank. Morale was considered “very good to
excellent” with Reno personnel being relieved every 8 to 10 days.
[362] 1/5 ComdD, Mar 53, Inspection of COP Reno Report, by Capt
Henry A. Checklou, dtd 12 Mar 53, p. 4.
Vegas (Hill 21), the highest of the three outposts, was located
approximately 1,310 yards in front of the MLR. Observation of the
surrounding terrain from the east slope of enemy Hill 190 on the north,
clockwise to the ridge south of Reno had been pronounced “excellent”
on an inspection trip made earlier the day the outposts were attacked.
From north to south this observation included in its 180-degree sweep,
enemy hill mass 57 to the right, friendly outpost Berlin, the MLR, key
Marine defense highpoints, Hills 229 and 181 in the 1st Marines rear
sector, and intervening terrain. (See Map 26.)
The north-south ridge leading to COP Reno masked the view from Vegas
on the west. To the north full observation was partially limited by
outpost Reno itself and enemy Hills 150, 153, and 190. The latter was
particularly strategic for two reasons. First, it shielded a major
assembly area. And, although the Chinese had observation of the entire
right battalion MLR from Hill 190 on the north, Vegas prevented enemy
close-in view of Marine rear areas. It also dominated the approach to
a major Marine observation point, Hill 126, to the rear of the front
lines in the western part of the 3/5 sector.
Organized as a perimeter defense, Vegas was surrounded by 250 yards
of trenchline. The forward, or north trench, averaged four feet in
depth but deepened to about eight feet as it progressed to the rear.
The most solidly constructed part was the western portion. A center
communication trench was in good condition between the rear and
topographical crest. From this point to the forward trench its depth
decreased to about four feet. The trench leading back to the MLR, about
five feet deep and two wide, was in good condition. A total of 13
fighting holes had been constructed.
Outpost troops, numbering approximately 40, consisted of six fire
teams, heavy weapons and machine gunners, two 81mm mortar crews and two
artillery observers, one corpsman, and a wireman at night. Strength
was reduced during the day, with replacements to make up the normal
complement arriving on position early each evening.
[Illustration:
MAP 26 K. WHITE
COP VEGAS
March 1953]
Major approaches to Vegas included the large draws to the west and
north of the outpost, the ridgeline to the COP from Hill 153 to the
northwest, and the rear trenchline. Several ancillary trenchlines to
the east tended to reinforce this latter approach. A hindrance to the
enemy, however, was the slope leading into the draw west of the
outpost. For security purposes, the perimeter was divided into three
sectors, each manned by two fire teams augmented by heavy weapons
personnel. The outpost detachment stood nighttime posts on a 50 percent
basis and remained within the several living bunkers or other shelters
during daylight hours because of heavy shelling and sniper fire.
Incessant enemy pressure at the exposed outpost made it expedient to
rotate infantry Marines at Vegas every three days and observers, at the
end of four or five days.
Weapons on position included two flamethrowers, one 3.5-inch bazooka,
four machine guns, three pistols, and other small arms. Fields of fire
at Vegas, rated fair to good, were generally restricted due to the
proximity of overheading. Most of the light machine guns had plunging
fields of fire except for the approach along the ridgeline from Hill
153, covered by grazing fire. A fighting hole to the left of Able Gate,
which overlooked the trenchline leading to the MLR, was manned during
the day. No other sentries or listening posts were in effect. Nine
sound power phones were operative. Three were located in the CP bunker
(connecting to C/1/5, G/3/5, and the CP net); one, each, at the four
main posts, the rear Able Gate, and the cave.
Other than periodic work being done by 10 Korean Service Corps
personnel in clearing out the trenches, no construction was in process
at Vegas. KSCs, lugging their traditional A-frames and guided by
Marines, also ran a nightly “supply train” to Vegas as they did to
Carson and Reno. Sufficient personnel manned the outpost for adequate
defense, although an inspecting officer opined that the “one 3.5 rocket
launcher on position did not appear to be necessary for defense of this
type position.”[363]
[363] 1/5 ComdD, Mar 53, Inspection of COP Vegas Report, by
Capt Henry A. Checklou, on 26 Mar, dtd 31 Mar 53, p. 4.
_The Chinese Assault of 26 March_[364]
[364] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chap. 9; 1stMarDiv
ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl, 26–27 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv
PIR 883, dtd 27 Mar 53; 1st MAW PIRs 86-53, dtd 27
Mar 53, 87-53, dtd 28 Mar 53; 1stMar, 5thMar, 7thMar,
11thMar, 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11, 2/11,
3/11, 4/11, 1st TkBn ComdDs, Mar 53; 1stMar SAR, 18–28
Mar 53; 5thMar SAR “Cities”; Fugate, “Vegas.”
Until the final days of March, the CCF units opposite the 5th Marines
had shown little aggressiveness. Regimental reports had officially
cited Chinese actions as having been “extremely limited” other than
their expected resistance to patrols and the Marine ITEM raid staged
earlier in the month by the 1/5 two-platoon unit on Hill 31A, part of
the Ungok complex. The enemy posture had, in fact, been described as
one “reluctant to meet our patrols except in their positions.”[365]
[365] 1/5 ComdD, Mar 53, dtd 4 Apr 53, p. 2.
A regimental patrol policy early in March established as SOP a minimum
of four reconnaissance and two combat patrols in each MLR battalion
sector daily. Nevertheless, 3/5 had reported no contact with the enemy
for the three-day period prior to the attack which was launched at 1900
on 26 March. Since the middle of the month, 1/5 had conducted nearly a
dozen night combat patrols and ambushes in one- and two-squad strength
to test the enemy in the Carson-Reno-Vegas area. Terminology of the
operation orders read that the Marines were to make contact, capture
prisoners, and deny the ground to the enemy, an injunction that--in
view of events shortly to transpire--was to turn out more prophetic
than anticipated.
That last Thursday in March 1953 was clear, almost unseasonably warm.
Just after darkness had settled down over the Korean ridges, gullies,
MLR, outposts, and rice paddies, the enemy suddenly made his presence
known. Up until that time it had been an average day of activity, and
there had been no especially ominous overtones to the start of the
night.
Suddenly, at 1900, small arms and machine gun fire cracked from enemy
strongholds on Hills 44, 40, 35, and 33, and tore into the left and
center part of the 1/5 sector. Almost immediately, a heavy mortar and
artillery preparation of 15 minutes duration exploded all along the 5th
Marines MLR. A Chinese rifle platoon and half a dozen machine guns on
Hill 140, about 500 yards west of Kumgok, directed additional fire on
the sector.
At the same time 5th Marines outposts Carson and Reno, each manned by
a reinforced rifle platoon from C/1/5, came under attack from Chinese
mortars and 76mm artillery. Approximately 1,200 mortar rounds struck
COP Carson by 1920. As men of D/2/5, some of whom had been detailed
to Carson earlier that night for an ambush, reported, “one round per
second from Chinese 60mm and 82mm landed in or around [our] position
during the first 20 minutes of the engagement. Thereafter, one round
was received every 40 seconds until about 2200.”[366] Interdiction
fires also raked Marine rear areas and supply routes. Counterbattery
fire struck Marine direct support artillery positions in the 5th’s
regimental sector while heavy shelling of the MLR and its battalion
CPs shattered wire communication between those installations and their
advance outposts.
[366] 1/5 ComdD, Mar 53, p. 10.
Within ten minutes, Vegas, furthest east of the four OPs in 1/5
territory, became the object of serious enemy attention. Outposts
Berlin and East Berlin, meanwhile, still further east in the 3/5 sector
proper were also engaged by fire from hostile small arms and mortars
from Chinese occupying Hills 15 (Detroit), 13 (Frisco), and 98 to the
northeast. As the coordinated fire attack raged throughout the 5th
Marines regimental front, preparatory fire and diversionary probes hit
the 1st Marines sector. Outposts Hedy, Bunker, Esther, and Dagmar, in
the center regimental area, were struck by small arms, mortars, and
artillery shells a few minutes before 1900. Platoon and squad strength
limited attacks were conducted against Dagmar, Hedy, and Esther, and
enemy units were sighted moving in front of the KMC, further west along
the MLR.
At precisely 1910, a force of 3,500 Chinese from the 358th Regiment,
120th Division, 46th CCF Army began to swarm down from Ungok,
Arrowhead, Hill 25A, and Hill 190 and launched a massive assault in
regimental strength against the 5th Marines sector. (Map 27.) Elements
of six companies from three battalions converged on the area from
three directions. Two enemy platoons of the 1st Company, 1st Battalion
from Ungok struck Carson while one infantry company each, initially,
began a direct assault on Reno and Vegas. Units from the 3d Company,
1st Battalion, from Arrowhead and Hill 29, crossed the Seoul road to
hit Reno in a direct frontal assault. Elements of the 7th Company, 3d
Battalion moved down from Hill 190, a mile north, to encircle the left
flank of Reno and thus strike from the rear of the Marine position.
Other Chinese soldiers of the 8th Company, 3d Battalion, supported
by the 9th Company, moved some 500 yards south of their ridgeline
positions on Hill 25A and 155 immediately north of Vegas to attack the
outpost head-on.
Another enemy unit, the 2d Company, 1st Battalion, swept south from
Hill 57A and made diversionary probes of the two most remote outposts
of the entire 1st Marine Division line, Berlin and East Berlin in the
3d Battalion sector. These two smaller positions, each manned by a
reinforced squad-size detachment from G/3/5, were to be successful in
driving off the enemy’s less determined efforts there with a rain of
small arms, mortar, and artillery fires.
As the enemy regiment advanced toward its objectives in a coordinated
three-pronged attack, Marine artillery fired protective boxes and
VT on the outposts and routes of approach from the west, north, and
east. Defending infantry also called down organic 60mm and 81mm mortar
barrages. Actually, prior to the Chinese onslaught at 1900, 1/11,
the direct support battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Olin W. Jones, Jr.)
for the 5th Marines, began a registration and had laid its howitzer
fires on the active area. The artillery regiment had also set up
conference calls linking its four organic battalions and supporting
Army units. The fire plan for the 11th Marines provided for its three
light battalions (1/11, 2/11, and 3/11) to cover enemy approaches and
assembly areas, deliver protective boxing and VT fires requested by
the outposts, and furnish countermortar missions called in by forward
observers. Medium battalions (4/11 and the 623d Field Artillery)
were to reinforce defensive fires and destroy hostile mortars and
artillery emplacements. Heavy 8-inch howitzer support (Battery C,
17th FA Battalion and Battery A, of the 204th) would silence enemy
counterbattery weapons.
As it happened on the night of the 26th, Marine tanks, in addition
to artillery, were also registered before the time of the actual
attack. Eleven of Captain Hunter’s Company A tanks had earlier rumbled
into firing position on the MLR to provide mechanized support for an
infantry raid scheduled at dawn the next morning.
[Illustration:
MAP 27 K. WHITE
ATTACKS ON 5TH MARINES FRONT
26–30 MARCH 1953]
Despite this immediate response of Marine fire support, the Chinese
invaders outnumbered the platoons holding the outposts by a 20 to 1
ratio. The sheer weight of numbers was the decisive factor. By 1935 the
enemy had penetrated the lower trenches of both Carson and Reno. An
hour after the onset of the attack, at 2000, the Marines were throwing
back Chinese forces with bayonets, knives, rifles, and bare fists in
the close, heavy fighting at Carson. There, where 54 men had been
on duty at the time of initial attack, the outpost was successfully
holding off the Communists. Four reinforcing squads quickly dispatched
by battalion were designed to further strengthen the position. At 2000,
just when D/1/5 and C/1/5 relief squads were leaving for the outpost,
the Chinese unexpectedly began to release their grip on Carson as they
concentrated on the two more isolated COPs, Reno and Vegas, that were
further from the MLR.
No other attempt was made by the enemy to occupy Carson that night or
the next day. Barrage fires gradually ceased as the enemy began to
withdraw about 2135. Sporadic bursts of his 60mm and 82mm mortars and
76mm guns, however, continued to rock the position until midnight.
Developments at Reno and Vegas, by 2000, were vastly more ominous.
At Reno, two companies of CCF soldiers thrust into the position from
a frontal and flank attack. Within a half hour they made their way
into the trench defenses. Although VT fires placed on the outposts
and WP flare shells outlined the enemy for the gunners, Chinese in
overpowering numbers continued to batter the Marine post. Due to the
lack of fighting trenches, bunkers, and to limited fields of fire,
Reno defenders fell back on a cave defense within a half hour of the
assault.[367]
[367] At both Reno and Vegas the Marines had moved into the
caves for protection from VT fire. This was the plan in
event of an overwhelming enemy attack. In contrast, the
detachment at Carson fought from covered fighting holes
and employed the cave there only to get their wounded out
of direct fire. 5thMar SAR “Cities,” pp. 2–3.
A message received at 2030, requesting more VT rounds and
reinforcements, indicated that the enemy had sealed all entrances to
the cave and that the men were suffering from lack of air. Of the 40
Company C Marines on the outpost at the time of attack an hour and
a half earlier, only 7 were then reported still able to fight. More
illumination to enable friendly machine guns and rockets to chop up
the enemy was furnished by artillery and a flare plane that arrived
on station at 2205. Two Marine tanks, in position behind Reno, were
alerted and put their 90mm fires to good use on the enemy and his
weapons emplacements.
Meanwhile, at Vegas, the situation was also deteriorating. More than a
hundred Chinese had moved up under the perimeter of exploding shells
and Marine defensive fires into the lower trenches by 1950, less than
an hour after the enemy’s first volley. Ten minutes later, the Marines
were forced to give way to the overwhelming number of enemy soldiers
which began to swarm over the outpost.
In addition to the sudden force and onslaught of the enemy,
communication difficulties also plagued Marine detachments on the
outposts, particularly at Vegas. Enemy mortar and artillery, aimed
at the mainline CPs, had wrecked the ground lines. As early as 1940,
communications between the 1st Battalion CP and Vegas went dead and
continued to be broken despite repeated attempts to reestablish
contact. Carson and Reno also had wire troubles about this time, but
radio contact was shortly established. For the most part, operational
reports and orders during the night and early morning hours were sent
over company and battalion tactical nets. The intensity of the Chinese
fire was not restricted just to forward positions; the 1/5 CP, a mile
south of the MLR, at one point received up to 100 rounds per minute.
_Reinforcements Dispatched_[368]
[368] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: 1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl,
26–27 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIR 883, dtd 27 Mar 53; 1st MAW
PIR 86-53, dtd 27 Mar 53; 1stMar, 5thMar, 7thMar, 1/5,
2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11 ComdDs, Mar 53; 1stMar SAR; 5thMar
SAR “Cities”; VMO-6, HMR-161 ComDs, Mar 53; MacDonald,
_POW_; USMC Biog.
While the Marines on the outposts were trying to drive off the enemy,
reinforcements back at the MLR and in the reserve ranks quickly saddled
up. A F/2/5 advance platoon dispatched to Reno at 2015 by way of the
Reno Block was ambushed near Hill 47 an hour later by two enemy squads
which had moved south to cut off Marine reinforcements. After a fire
exchange, the platoon made its way to the blocking position. Another
relief unit, from Company C, 1st Battalion, that jumped off for Reno 15
minutes later had poorer luck. The men had scarcely gone a half mile
before being shelled. After briefly taking cover the Marines moved out
again, only to draw fire from the enemy at Hill 47. Advancing for a
third time, the Company C two-squad unit was again halted by fire from
two hostile platoons. By this time 10 Marines had been wounded and
evacuated.
A D/2/5 reinforcement platoon ordered to Vegas, at 2129, encountered
strong opposition in the Block vicinity, but it threw back the enemy
in hand-to-hand fighting and prevented him from gaining fire supremacy
at the position. Leading units of F/2/5, meanwhile, had been ordered
to operational control of 1/5 to augment the earlier Company C platoon
at the Block and then move north with them to Reno. After being issued
ammunition and hand grenades at the Company C supply point, the “F” 1st
Platoon left the MLR at 2227, with the 2d Platoon filing out in column
400 yards behind them. Under a constant rain of 76mm artillery and 82mm
and 122mm mortar shells--and with casualties for one platoon reaching
as high as 70 percent within minutes--the F/2/5 men fought their way
into the trenches at the Block. Here they joined the depleted ranks of
Company C which had established a base of fire. Despite the incessant
barrage of Chinese incoming that continued to inflict heavy casualties,
the Marines maintained their precarious grip on the Block and cleared
out large numbers of Chinese attempting to infiltrate the trenches and
approaches from the north and south to the Marine position.
While the Reno and Vegas relief units were pinned down at the Block,
the situation at the outposts remained critical. Throughout the night
new waves of Communist soldiers poured out from their positions behind
Chogum-ni, Hills 31 and 31D. When a company of enemy troops were
observed at 2100 massing near Chogum-ni for a new assault, it was
quickly disposed of by Marine artillery and Company A tankers. At Reno
where the immediate situation was the most grim, a message at 2145
reported the enemy still in the trenches, trying to dig down into the
cave while the Marines were attempting to work their way out by hand.
The final report from Reno received late that night, about 2300, was
weak and could not be understood.
At Vegas, meanwhile, communications failure continued to complicate
defensive measures at the outpost. Because of this, on the order of
regimental commander, Colonel Walt, operational control had been
transferred, at 2119, from 1/5 to 3/5. Three minutes before midnight
all contact with Vegas was lost. As with Reno, reinforcements sent out
with the mission of buttressing the Vegas detachment had been delayed.
When it became evident that the Company D platoon had been pinned down
at the Block, a platoon from E/2/5 jumped off at 2323 for the Vegas
position.
Shored up to reinforced company strength, the composite unit at the
Block had prepared to move on for the ultimate relief of C/1/5 forces
at Reno. Chinese firepower and troops continued to lash the position,
however. There seemed to be no limit to the number of reserve troops
the enemy could throw into the attack. At 2157, two Chinese platoons
had hit the Block. Twenty minutes later, another two platoons struck.
By 2300, the Marines had repulsed three attacks, numbering more than
200 troops, amid a continuing withering avalanche of bullets and
shells. Shortly before midnight, a full enemy company had deployed
south from Reno to the Block, but had been largely cut down by friendly
90mm tank fire and VT rounds from 1/11. Reinforced and reorganized, the
Marines again prepared for a counterpunch on Reno.
By midnight on the 26th, after five blistering hours of battle--to
develop into five days of intense conflict and continuing
counterattacks--the early efforts of the enemy were partly successful.
Two of the Nevada Hill outposts had fallen, and Marine attempts to
strengthen them were initially being thwarted by Chinese troops that
had overflowed the Block and southward toward the MLR. COP Carson was
holding. But the enemy was in control of Reno and Vegas and was using
the Reno position to mass troops and firepower to further brace his
continuing assault on Vegas.
Initially, the 5th Marines had expected to launch an immediate
counterattack to regain Reno. In the early hours of the 27th, however,
it became apparent this plan would have to be revised. Reinforcing
elements from the 5th Marines, composed largely of F/2/5, had been
unable to mount out effectively from the Block for Reno. At 0144, the
commanding officer of Company F, Captain Ralph L. Walz, reported he
had one platoon left. Between then and 0220 his diminishing unit had
rallied for attack three times. It had successively engaged the enemy
in fire fights, one of 30 minutes’ duration, evacuated its wounded,
regrouped, and then had come under heavy incoming again. Countermortar
fire had been requested and delivered on active enemy positions at
Arrowhead, Hills 29, 45, and 21B, some 500 yards northwest of Vegas.
But as the Marines girded their defending platoon at the Block
to company-plus size, the Chinese had done likewise, throwing in
continuous rounds of new mortar attacks and additional troops. When,
at 0246, another hostile company was seen spreading south from Reno
toward the Block, the 1st Battalion directed artillery fires on the
enemy and ordered its troops to disengage and return to the MLR. By
0300, early efforts to retake Reno were suspended. Relief forces from
Companies F and C were on their way back to the battalion area. Ground
action had ceased.
During these early attempts to rescue Reno and its defenders on the
night of 26–27 March, Marine elements had struggled for more than four
hours trying to get to Reno, but the enemy had completely surrounded
it. At Reno itself, the Marine in command of the outpost when the
Chinese struck, Second Lieutenant Rufus A. Seymour, machine gun platoon
commander of C/1/5, had been taken prisoner along with several of his
men. Of the Marines originally on duty there, all but five had been
killed. Casualties of the Reno reinforcing units were later estimated
by the regimental commander as being “as high as 35 percent, with many
dead.”[369]
[369] Statement by LtGen Lewis W. Walt, as cited in Eloise
Engle, _Medic_ (New York, N.Y.: John Day, May 1967), p.
211.
A 21-year-old Navy hospital corpsman from Alexandria, Virginia,[370]
attached to a Company C relief platoon from 1/5, helped save many
Marine lives that night in the Reno Block area. He was Hospitalman
Francis C. Hammond, who lost his own life but was awarded posthumously
the nation’s highest honor for bravery under fire. For more than four
exhausting hours the young hospitalman helped others to safety, even
though he had been struck early in the fighting and was hobbling around
with a leg injury. When his unit was ordered to withdraw from its
attack against a strongly fortified CCF position, Hammond skillfully
directed the evacuation of wounded Marines and remained behind to
assist other corpsmen. Shell fragments from a mortar blast struck him,
this time, fatally.
[370] In 1956, a newly-completed school in Alexandria, Virginia
was named the Francis C. Hammond High School and
dedicated in his memory.
The Vegas reinforcing units, in those dark early hours of the 27th,
had come closer to their objective. Shortly after midnight two
platoons, composed of elements from D/2/5 and C/1/5, had reached a
point 400 yards from the outpost, in the vicinity of the entrance
to the communication trench. When the enemy threw in powerful new
assault forces at Vegas, F/2/7, a company from the regimental reserve,
came under operational control of 3/5 and moved out from the MLR to
reinforce the position. By 0300 the first relief platoon, despite
heavy and continuing Chinese barrages, got to within 200 yards of the
outpost. At this time, however, it was found that the enemy was in
control of Vegas as well as Reno. Marines from D/2/5, C/1/5, E/2/5, and
F/2/7 relief forces, on order, began to pull back to the MLR at 0417.
Initial attempts to regain control of the two outposts were temporarily
halted, and instead it was decided to launch a coordinated daylight
attack.
At about the same time, 0430, the boundary between 1/5 and 3/5 was
moved 250 yards westward to give 3/5 total responsibility for Vegas,
although operational control had been transferred seven hours earlier
the previous night.
Enemy casualties for the eight hours of action were heavy. An estimated
600 Chinese had been wounded and killed. Marine losses were also heavy.
In the action First Lieutenant Kenneth E. Taft, Jr., Officer-in-Charge
at Vegas, was killed and, as it was later learned, some of his H/3/5
defenders had been captured by the Chinese. By midnight the two
line battalions, 3/5 and 1/5, had reported a total of nearly 150
casualties,[371] and this figure did not include those wounded or
killed from the relief platoons and companies being shuttled into
action from the 2/5 reserve battalion. One platoon from E/2/5 had
arrived at the Company C supply point about 0210 and, together with a
provisional unit from Headquarters and Service Company, 1/5, began to
evacuate casualties in front of the MLR. By 0325, a total of 56 wounded
had passed through the C/1/5 aid station and a cryptic entry in the
G-3 journal noted that “more who are able are going back to assist in
evacuation of casualties.”
[371] 1/5 and 3/5 ComdDs, Mar 53. At this time 1/5 had suffered
5 killed, 30 wounded, 21 wounded not evacuated, 39
missing (personnel at Reno), or 95. Reports from 3/5
showed 1 killed, 8 wounded/evacuated, and 40 missing (at
Vegas), or 49.
Similar recovery efforts were being made at the same time in the
3d Battalion. Two alternate routes for evacuation were in effect.
From a checkpoint located just south of the MLR in the H/3/5 sector,
casualties were taken to the Company H supply point and thence to
the battalion aid station, or else to the KSC camp from which they
were evacuated to the 1st Battalion aid station. VMO-6 and HMR-161
helicopters flew out the critically-injured to USS _Haven_ and
_Consolation_ hospital ships at Inchon Harbor and transported blood
from supply points to Medical Companies A, E, and C forward stations.
Excepting the original personnel killed or missing at Reno and Vegas,
1st Battalion forces from Companies C and F dispatched to Reno had
returned to the MLR by 0445. Vegas units, ordered to disengage later
than the Reno reinforcements, were back by 0530.
Diversionary probes by the Chinese during the night of the 26th at the
3/5 right flank outposts Berlin and East Berlin, as well as in the 1st
Marines sector, had been beaten back by the Marines. Following the
preassault fire at 1900, a CCF company had sent two platoons against
Berlin and one against satellite East Berlin, both manned by Company
G. These reinforced squad outposts, both only about 325 yards forward
of the MLR, had stymied the enemy’s attempts. Boxing fires and VT on
approach routes had forced the Chinese to retreat at 2115. Ten minutes
later Company G reported that communication, which had temporarily gone
out, had been restored. One squad dispatched by the 3d Battalion to
Berlin and a second, to East Berlin an hour later, further buttressed
the companion positions.
Action in the 1st Marines center regimental sector had also been
relatively brief. Immediately after the 1900 mortar and artillery
preparation, the Chinese in company strength attempted to penetrate
outposts Hedy, Bunker, Esther, and Dagmar. Shelling had been heaviest
at Dagmar and, shortly after 1900, two squads of Chinese began to
assault the outpost with automatic weapons and satchel charges. Machine
guns positioned on enemy Hills 44, 114, and 116 and small arms fire
from Hill 108 supported the attack. The enemy was hurled back at all
places except Dagmar where approximately 25 Chinese breached the wire
entanglement.
Two hours of intense, close fighting in the trenches followed as the
27 defending Marines, directed by outpost commander Second Lieutenant
Benjamin H. Murray of I/3/1, strongly resisted the invaders. More
than 300 rounds of mortar and artillery fire supported the action. A
counterattack from the MLR led by the I/3/1 executive officer, Second
Lieutenant John J. Peeler, restored the position, and at 2120 the CCF
finally withdrew. Less determined efforts had been made by the enemy
at Esther and Bunker. By 2200 the Chinese had departed from the scene
there, too. Altogether, the 1st Marines sector skirmishes had cost the
CCF 10 killed, 20 estimated killed, and 17 estimated wounded to Marine
casualties of 4 killed and 16 wounded.
_Massed Counterattack the Next Day_[372]
[372] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: 1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3
Jnls, 27 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIR Nos. 882–4, dtd 26–28
Mar 53; 1st MAW PIR 86-53, dtd 27 Mar 53, 87-53, dtd 28
Mar 53, 88-53, dtd 29 Mar 53; 5thMar, 7thMar, 11thMar,
1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11, 2/11, 3/11, 4/11, 1st TkBn
ComdDs, Mar 53; 5thMar SAR “Cities”; 11thMar “Artillery
in the Defense of Outpost Vegas, 26–30 Mar 53,” hereafter
11thMar SAR “Arty Defense”; MAGs-12, -33, VMAs-212,
-323; VMFs-115, -311, VMF(N)-513 ComdDs, Mar 53; Fugate,
“Vegas”; USMC Biog.
While the 5th Marines reorganized during the morning hours of the
27th for a new attack to recapture the lost outposts, General Pollock
ordered mortars, tanks, and artillery, including rockets, to neutralize
the Reno and Vegas areas and enemy approaches.
From the time of the 1900 attack the preceding evening until the
temporary break in fighting eight hours later, at 0300, early estimates
indicated 5,000 rounds of enemy mixed fire had been received in the
“Wild” sector (code name for the 5th Marines, and appropriate it was
for this late-March period). And this did not include the vast number
of shells that had fallen on the three Nevada COPs. During the same
period 1/11, in direct support of the 5th, reported it had delivered
some 4,209 rounds on the enemy. Throughout the early hours, two
battalions from the 11th Marines continued to pound away at Reno and
Vegas with neutralizing fires to soften enemy positions, deter his
resupply efforts, and silence those mortars and batteries that were
troubling the Marines.
By 0330 observation planes from VMO-6 had made 28 flights behind
enemy lines which enabled artillery spotters to direct nearly 60 fire
missions on CCF active artillery, mortars, and self-propelled guns.
From nightfall on the 26th through 0600 the following morning a total
of 10,222 rounds of all calibers had been fired by Marine cannoneers
supporting the 1st Division in its ground battles from Berlin to Hedy.
Revised intelligence reports from the 5th Marines S-2, Major Murray
O. Roe, meanwhile, indicated that between 1900 on the 26th and 0400
the next day the Chinese had sent 14,000 rounds of mixed mortar and
artillery crashing into Marine positions. It was also determined that a
reinforced regiment had initially hit the Carson, Reno, and Vegas posts.
Early on the 27th, at 0345 as the 5th Marines prepared for the
counterattack, the division reserve, 2/7 (Lieutenant Colonel Alexander
D. Cereghino), was placed under operational control of the 5th Marines.
(Previously put on alert the battalion had moved into an assembly area
behind 1/5 shortly after midnight, and its F/2/7 had taken part in the
predawn relief attempt.) During the early morning hours a section of
Skyknights, from Lieutenant Colonel Conley’s night fighter squadron,
VMF(N)-513, had made radar controlled bombing runs to strike CCF
artillery positions in the Hill 190 area and enemy troops at Hill 98.
Precisely at 0650, friendly Panthers from VMF-115 began arriving on
station to help the neutralizing artillery fire on Reno and Vegas.
Originally, a dawn ground attack had been envisioned for Reno, but that
was delayed to wait for air support.
A tentative H-Hour was set for 0900 with a dual jump-off for both
Reno and Vegas. At 0930 the attacks still had not begun due to
communication difficulties. While division Marines were waiting to get
off the ground, 1st MAW pilots were enjoying a busy morning. By 0930,
six four-plane air strikes had been completed by VMF-115 (Lieutenant
Colonel Stoddard G. Cortelyou) and -311 (Lieutenant Colonel Francis
K. Coss) plus sorties by Air Force Thunderjets. Tankers from Company
A had also gotten in a few licks when two groups of Chinese were seen
carrying logs for bunker support into Reno; one group was wiped out,
the other got by.
Shortly after 1100, friendly artillery batteries began delivering
smoke on Hills 57A and 190, two enemy high points of observation. The
fire plan was modified to eliminate an early 10-minute preparation on
objective areas. (Basically, the artillery plan for counterattack was
that employed in the 19 March Operation ITEM raid on Ungok, because
of the proximity of Ungok to the Vegas hills. This plan consisted of
massed fires on the objective, with countermortar and counterbattery
fires on known artillery positions. To this prearranged plan were added
those new mortar and counterbattery targets located by air observers
during the night of 26–27 March.) This time, the preparatory fires were
to be on call, as was the 90mm fire support from the tankers. A further
change was made when it was decided to limit the assault to Vegas and
not retake Reno but rather neutralize it by fire.
While artillery, air, mortars, and tanks pounded the objective, assault
elements of D/2/5 from the regimental reserve, under Captain John B.
Melvin, prepared for jump-off. At 1120 the company crossed the line
of departure in the 3/5 sector of the MLR and immediately came under
heavy fires from enemy infantry and artillery units. Within a half
hour after leaving the battalion front for Vegas, Dog Company had
been pinned down by Chinese 76mm artillery, had picked itself up, and
been stopped again by a plastering of 60mm and 82mm shells falling
everywhere in its advance. By 1210 only nine men were left in Captain
Melvin’s 1st Platoon to carry on the fight. The Marine unit continued
to claw its way through the rain-swollen rice paddies and up the muddy
slopes leading from the MLR to within 200 yards of the outpost. In 10
minutes, heavy incoming began to take its inevitable toll and enemy
reinforcements were flowing towards Vegas from the CCF assembly point
on Hill 153.
Between noon and 1300, four enemy groups of varying size had pushed
south from Hill 153 to Vegas. At this time still another group,
of company size, moved in with its automatic weapons and mortars.
Within the next 15 minutes, a reinforced CCF platoon made its
way from the Reno trench to Vegas while still another large unit
attempted to reinforce from Hill 21B. As enemy incoming swept the
slopes and approaches to Vegas, Marine artillery and tank guns fired
counterbattery missions to silence the Chinese weapons. In the skies,
VMA-121 ADs and the sleek jet fighters from MAG-33 squadrons VMF-115
and -311 continued to pinpoint their target coordinates for destruction
of enemy mortars, trenches, personnel bunkers, and troops.
Back at the battalion CP two more companies were being readied to
continue the Vegas assault. The Provisional Company of 2/5, commanded
by Captain Floyd G. Hudson, moved out at 1215. Close on its heels,
E/2/5 left the Company H checkpoint in the 3/5 sector for the zone of
action. At 1305 the counterattack for Vegas was raging in earnest, with
Company D riflemen on the lower slopes, chewing into the enemy with
their grenades, BARs, M-1s, and carbines. Two hours after the original
jump off time, four Marines crawled out of the trenches at Vegas and by
1322 were going over the top, despite incoming that “literally rained
on the troops.” Assault commander Melvin recalled:
It was so intense at times that you couldn’t move forward or
backward. The Chinese 60mm mortars began to bother us about
as much as firecrackers. It was the 120mm mortars and 122mm
artillery that hurt the most. 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.[373]
[373] Fugate, “Vegas,” p. 20.
Meanwhile, Company E, 5th Marines, under Captain Herbert M. Lorence,
had moved up from the rear and, at 1440, was ordered to pass through
Company D ranks, evacuate casualties, continue the attack, and secure
the crest of Vegas. Although Captain Lorence’s men succeeded in moving
into Company D positions, the deluge of Chinese mortar and artillery
was so heavy that Company E was unable to advance beyond this point.
At 1530, a new Marine company, F/2/7 (Captain Ralph F. Estey), was
dispatched from the MLR to buttress the assault. By this time elements
of D/2/5 had reached the right finger of Vegas but were again pinned
down by intensive enemy artillery and mortars.
Within the first hour after leaving the battalion line, the Company F
Marines nearly reached the advanced positions of 2/5, and Company D,
which had been in the vanguard since 1100, returned to the regimental
CP. During the next hour, however, heavy shelling slowed the Marine
advance. At 1730, as Company F prepared to make its first major
assault, a deluge of 60mm and 82mm mortar shells, 76mm and 122mm
bursts, and machine gun bullets rained on the troops. As the men
crawled forward slowly, planes from VMA-323 which had arrived on scene
two hours earlier, continued to smoke the enemy’s posts on Hills 190
and 139. Captain Hunter’s tanks also moved into their MLR positions to
zero in their 90mm rifles on the CCF stronghold at the Vegas northern
crest.
By 1800, Company F was continuing the Marine counterattack to regain
Vegas and was approximately 400 yards from the outpost summit.
Combining with Company E Marines, for a total strength of three
platoons in position, Captain Estey was able to retake part of the
objective. After an intense 90-minute fire fight and hand-to-hand
fighting in the lower trenches, E/2/7 advanced to the right of the
outpost where at 1930 it began to consolidate. In the next half hour,
two platoons of Company F moved out from the right finger of Vegas
to within 50 yards of the peak, before being forced back by Chinese
machine gun fire and mortars lobbed from the Able (left) gate on
Vegas. The enemy company occupying the outpost resisted the attacking
Marines with mortars, grenades, and small arms fire. In addition, the
CCF employed firing positions at Reno for their machine guns, heavy
mortars, and artillery supporting the Vegas defense and periodically
reinforced their troops from the newly captured Reno outpost.
It was a busy night for Marines and corpsmen alike. One, whose
split-second improvisations in the blazing zone of action were in the
best Hippocratic tradition, was Hospital Corpsman Third Class William
R. Charette. Attached to F/2/7, he was assisting a Marine when an
enemy grenade landed but a few feet away. Charette immediately threw
himself on the injured man, taking the full shock of the missile with
his own body. Since the force of the blast had ripped away his helmet
and medical aid kit, he tore off his clothing to make bandages. Another
time, while attending a seriously wounded Marine whose armored vest
had been blown off, the hospitalman removed his own to place around
the injured man. Without armored vest or helmet, Charette continued
to accompany his platoon in the assault. As a Marine observer, Staff
Sergeant Robert S. Steigerwald, commented, “HM3 Charette was everyplace
seemingly at the same time, performing inexhaustibly.”[374]
[374] Statement cited in personnel record of HMC(SS) William
R. Charette, USN. He was the only corpsman during the
Korean War who was awarded the Medal of Honor and lived
to receive it.
Throughout the night the enemy counterattacked but was unsuccessful
in driving the Marines off the outpost. Between 1830 and midnight,
F/2/7 repulsed three enemy onslaughts and engaged in sporadic fire
fights. Although pushed back from the summit, Company F Marines set up
a perimeter defense at the base of Vegas where the troops dug in for
the rest of the night. Their opposite numbers, from 1st MAW, were also
on the scene. As follow-up to the day’s unremitting air bombardment of
enemy installations, night fighters of VMF(N)-513 and MAG-12 Corsairs
from VMAs-212 and -323 made nine MPQ strikes between 1830 and 0115
unleashing 24½ tons of explosives on CCF hill defenses and supply
strongpoints.
Gradually, heavy incoming on Vegas began to lift, and from midnight
through the early hours of the following morning most of the enemy’s
artillery and mortar fires switched from Vegas to the Marine companies
on the MLR. Intermittent small arms fire still cracked and punctuated
the night from enemy positions on Hills 57A, Detroit, and Frisco, to
the northeast of Vegas.
_Push to the Summit_[375]
[375] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: 1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl,
28 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIR 884, annex 340-MISP-53-12, POW
Rpt and 1stMarDiv PIR 885, annex 340-MISP-53-13, POW Rpt;
1st MAW PIRs 88-53, dtd 29 Mar 53 and 89-53, dtd 30 Mar
53; 5thMar, 7thMar, 11thMar, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11,
1st TkBn ComdDs, Mar 53; 5thMar SAR “Cities”; 11thMar SAR
“Arty Defense”; MAGs-12, -33, VMAs-212, -323, VMFs-115,
-311 ComdDs, Mar 53; Fugate, “Vegas”; USMC Biog.
Although the composite two-platoon unit of Marines from F/2/7 and
E/2/5 had partially won Vegas back in 10 hours of savage fighting on
27 March, after earlier groundwork by D/2/5, it was a precarious hold.
Marines had attained the lower slopes but the Chinese still clung to
the northern crest. As it turned out, three separate company-sized
assaults were going to be needed to dislodge the enemy.
The initial Marine action on the 28th began at 0335 when 105mm and
155mm howitzers of the 1st, 2d, and 4th Battalions, 11th Marines,
belched forth their streams of fire at the pocket of enemy troops on
the northern slopes preparatory to the forthcoming Marine infantry
assault. This 2,326-round pounding was aimed at Chinese assembly areas
and weapon emplacements, with much of the preparation zeroed in on
active mortars.
Within a half hour the weary men of F/2/7, who had spent a wakeful
night in the lower Vegas trenches, moved to within hand grenade range
of the objective in their first attempt to gain the summit. An intense
shower of small arms and mortar fire, however, forced them to pull
back to the south slopes. While Captain Estey’s troops reorganized
for the next assault, air strikes joined the big guns, mortars, and
tanks in battering the enemy’s position on the outpost and supply
routes thereto. Shortly after sunup, a lone AU from VMA-213, followed
a half hour later by a VMA-323 Corsair, arrived on station. They laid
a smoke screen three miles across the front between Arrowhead and the
far eastern Marine-U.S. Army boundary to assist four early-morning air
strikes. Soon afterwards, eight ADs from Lieutenant Colonel John E.
Hughes’ VMA-121 were in the skies to support the Vegas attack in the
opening round of aerial activity that would see day-long bombing and
strafing runs by five 1st MAW squadrons.
A new Marine assault at 0600 was repulsed and Company F pulled back
to a defilade position 375 yards south of Vegas and regrouped. Again
friendly planes from VMA-121 and -323, tanks, artillery, and mortars
plastered the enemy in a new series of preparatory fires, beginning at
0920; and again Captain Estey’s F/2/7 men jumped off in attack. By 1015
the Marines had made their way across the height to within 15 yards
of the trench line on the left finger of Vegas. There they came under
continuous small arms and grenade bursts from the crest and battled the
Chinese in an intense 22-minute fire fight.
It was during this onslaught by Company F for the crest of Vegas that
Sergeant Daniel P. Matthews so defiantly routed the enemy to save the
life of a wounded comrade that his action gave renewed spirit to those
witnessing it. A squad leader of F/2/7, Matthews was in the thick of
a counterpunch against solidly dug-in hill defenses that had repelled
six previous assaults by Marine forces. The 21-year-old California
Marine was coolly leading his men in the attack when the squad suddenly
was pinned down by a hostile machine gun located on the Vegas crest.
When he saw that its grazing fire prevented a corpsman from removing
to safety a wounded Marine who had fallen in full range of the weapon,
Matthews acted instinctively.
Quickly working his way around to the base of the enemy machine gun
position, he leaped onto the rock fortification that surrounded it.
Taking the enemy by surprise, he charged the emplacement with his
own rifle. Severely wounded within moments, the Marine continued his
assault, killed two of the enemy, dispatched a third, and silenced the
weapon. By this action, Sergeant Matthews enabled his comrades on the
ground to evacuate the injured Marine, although Matthews died before
aid could reach him.[376]
[376] The Marine NCO was to be posthumously awarded the Medal
of Honor, presented a year after the action, on 29 March
1954.
Back at battalion, E/2/5, with D/2/7 in column behind it, had moved out
to relieve Captain Estey’s redoubtable F/2/7 forces. By noon, Captain
Lorence’s Company E had completed passage of lines through Company F.
The latter unit, now numbering 43 effectives after its six assaults on
27–28 March to regain the Vegas high ground, returned to base camp.
Heavy air attacks, meanwhile, were assisting the artillery in blasting
out Communist defenses of the Vegas area. Between 0950 and 1300,
seven four-plane strikes by pilots of Colonel Bowman’s MAG-12 had
swept the outpost area and hill lairs of the enemy at 57A, the east
slope of Reno, Tumae-ri (40D), 190, and resupply points. Within one
23-minute period alone, 28 tons of bombs were laid squarely on the
Vegas position. Supported by air, mortars, and artillery, Company E was
400 yards from the objective, and, by 1245, forward elements had moved
up to within 150 yards of the crest. As Marine supporting fires lifted
from Vegas to enemy assembly areas on Hills 150, 153, and 190, E/2/5
launched its final assault at 1301. Although small arms, bursts of
mortar and enemy artillery fire traced their every move, the Marines’
hard-hitting attack brought them to the top of Vegas where they
literally dug the Chinese out of their defenses.
At 1307, the Marines had secured their position and recaptured the
Vegas outpost. At approximately the same time the Marine reinforcing
unit, D/2/7, was ordered to return to MLR, since the objective had been
gained. The Marine in charge of the E/2/5 platoon that retook Vegas was
Staff Sergeant John J. Williams, who had taken over the 1st Platoon
after its leader, Second Lieutenant Edgar R. Franz, had been wounded
and evacuated. Almost immediately after securing Vegas at 1320, the
Chinese launched a counterattack and Company E came under a renewed
barrage of incessant artillery and mortar shells, exploding at the rate
of one round per second in the Marines’ newly gained trenches.
Marine firepower from the tankers’ 90mm rifles and the protective fire
curtain placed around the outpost by the artillery batteries, however,
deterred this heavy enemy effort. For the next hour Captain Lorence’s
men continued with mopping up chores. Gradually and fitfully the
Chinese resistance began to slacken. By 1401 definite control of Vegas
was established, except for the topographical crest at the northernmost
point. Resupply and consolidation of the outpost began at once, with
Vegas under 3/5 administration and Major Benjamin G. Lee, operations
officer of 2/5, in command.
Two prisoners had been taken during the day’s action, one by E/2/5
during its afternoon assault and the other by F/2/7 early in the day.
The soldier seized by a fire team from Company E was a 21-year-old
wounded litter bearer attached to the attacking force, 3rd Battalion,
358th Regiment. He told 5th Marines interrogators that for the
preceding three months the mission of the 358th Regiment (a component
of the 40th CCF Army, under operational control of the 46th CCF Army)
had been to prepare to occupy the Vegas and Reno outposts before
the expected UN spring offensive could be launched. The two key
installations overlooked CCF supply routes. Furthermore, occupation
of these two hills, the Chinese believed, would serve as a valuable
tactical example to the 46th Army, whose ranks at this time were
composed of nearly 65 percent recruits. The POW also reported that
prior to the CCF attack on Reno and Vegas, men of his regiment had
practiced throwing hand grenades every day for the past two weeks.
No political classes had been held during this period as practical
proficiency, apparently, took priority over theoretical indoctrination.
The other Chinese prisoner, captured by Company F at 0610, was a
grenadier with the 9th Company, 3d Battalion, 358th Regiment. Prior
to the attack, his unit had occupied reverse slope positions on
Hills 25A and 155 as reinforcements for the 8th Company. Each CCF
battalion, he revealed, “held a front of approximately 1,000 meters,
utilizing one company on line with two in support.”[377] This remark
interested interrogators since it contradicted the normal pattern of
enemy employment. According to the grenadier, the mission of the 3d
Battalion had been to attack Vegas, while the 1st Battalion (to the
west of the 3d on the Chinese MLR) was to secure Reno. Hill 190.5, an
enemy strongpoint, had several antiaircraft machine guns on its reverse
slope, he declared, and was the location as well of the forward CP of
the 3d Battalion, 358th Regiment.
[377] 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl, dtd 28 Mar 53.
For the next five hours, from 1440 to 1930, the Marines dug in on the
crest and slopes of Vegas, buttressing their positions for the new
Chinese attack sure to come. A muster of the rag-tag group left from
the day’s 10 hours of fighting revealed a total strength of only five
squads--58 effectives from E/2/5 and 8 from F/2/7. Uppermost in the
minds of all the men, regardless of their diminished numbers, was the
ironclad conviction that “we intend to stay.”[378]
[378] _Ibid._
Their leader, Major Lee, was no less determined. At 42, he was a
Marine veteran of 19 years, a former sergeant major from World War
II and holder of the Silver Star and Purple Heart for service at
Guadalcanal. Now he had volunteered for this hazardous duty of holding
together segments of the Vegas enclave until the Marines could once
again possess the entire hilltop outpost. Under his direction the
troops promptly began to prepare individual fighting holes in the best
possible tactical positions and to emplace their weapons. Personnel
from Captain Lorence’s E/2/5 held the hard-won Vegas crest, while 150
men from F/2/5 committed later in the afternoon strengthened the rear
trenches.
Air bombardment, prior to the 28th, had not been employed extensively
against Vegas itself. The goal had been to recapture the outpost and
drive the Communists out without unnecessarily destroying its defenses.
Chinese tenacity in exploiting the Marine weapons positions at COP 21,
while augmenting them, had made it apparent that the Vegas defense
network would have to be reduced to retake the position. Altogether,
during the day 33 missions (more than 100 CAS sorties) were flown by
AUs, ADs, F4Us, and F9Fs of the 1st Marine Air Wing to support division
ground action in regaining the advance outpost. All morning long,
powerful attack planes from three MAG-12 squadrons had winged in from
nearby K-6. Pilots from VMA-121, VMA-212 (Lieutenant Colonel Louis R.
Smunk), and VMA-323 (Lieutenant Colonel William M. Frash) had flown the
bombing runs.
In the early afternoon they were joined by the speedy, stable Panther
jets from VMF-115 and VMF-311, of MAG-33 (Colonel Robertshaw),
based further away at K-3. Between 1300 and 1800, a series of three
four-plane F9F assaults were launched north of the Marine MLR by
VMF-311, while another strike was made further east in support of
the Army 2d Infantry Division’s Old Baldy operations. These planes,
together with two divisions from VMF-115, dumped a total of 23 tons
of bombs and 3,100 rounds of 20mm shells on CCF trenches, bunkers,
mortars, and caves at Vegas, Reno, and Hill 25A. Additionally, VMF-115
Panthers flew four single-sortie daytime MPQ missions north of the
bombline to damage and destroy enemy resupply points.
_Other Communist Probes_[379]
[379] The material in this section is derived from: 1stMarDiv
ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIRs 884-5, dtd 28–29 Mar 53;
1stMar ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMar SAR.
Although the Chinese made it plain that their main interest was in the
Vegas outpost area, spotty probes also took place in Colonel Adams’
1st Marines sector. On the 27th, at about 2310, two enemy squads milled
around the wire defense at outpost Kate, but Marine small arms, BARs,
and mortars routed them after a 15-minute fire fight. At midnight, a
CCF reinforced platoon reconnoitered Dagmar and Esther, for the second
successive night, supported by small arms and automatic weapons fire
from Chinese Hills 114 and 44. The enemy platoon started to rush the
forward slope at Dagmar, but Company I defenders pulled back to the
reverse side and directed VT-fuzed shells on the enemy.
Following this barrage the Marines reoccupied their position, with
the help of MLR machine guns, mortars, and artillery from the 3/11
direct support battalion. (Now commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alfred
L. Owens, who had succeeded Lieutenant Colonel Pregnall on 25 March.)
The enemy reinforced with a second platoon, as did the Marines. After
intense close-in fighting in the Dagmar trenches for two hours, the
Chinese withdrew. An enemy squad also engaged Bunker and Hedy; but
again, 3/11 VT-fuzed concentrations and the organic outpost defenses
sent him off handily. Enemy casualties for the evening’s activity were
15 dead, 25 more estimated killed, and 23 estimated wounded.
The following night the Chinese briefly harassed outpost Hedy, using
as cover an abandoned Marine tank just east of the outpost, as well as
the MLR to the rear of COP Bunker. Marine bullets and mortar shells
dictated a quick retreat, however. Several minor contacts with the
enemy had also been made during the two-day period in the 1st KMC
sector. The most menacing were heavy enemy sightings on the 27th of
some 200 Chinese in the area west of the old outposts 36 and 37, but no
major action developed.
_Three CCF Attempts for the Outpost_[380]
[380] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: 1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl,
28–29 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIRs 884-6, dtd 29–31 Mar 53;
1st MAW PIR 89-53, dtd 29 Mar 53; 5th Mar, 7thMar, 11th
Mar, 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11, 3/11, 4/11 ComdDs, Mar 53;
5thMar SAR “Cities”; 11thMar SAR “Arty Defense”; Fugate,
“Vegas.”
As darkness blanketed No-Man’s-Land on the night of the 28th, ground
fighting flared up anew at 1955. The Chinese had begun another one of
their nightly rituals, the first of three counterattacks to win back
the disputed territory from the Marines. Vegas reported heavy incoming,
including not only the usual assortment of mortar and artillery fires
but direct 3.5-inch rocket hits. Enemy troops, estimated at nearly a
battalion, began approaching from Reno. By way of answer two Marine
light artillery battalions, 1/11 and 2/11, together with the medium
155mm howitzers of 4/11 and the Army 623d Field Artillery, lashed a
4,670-round barrage to interdict the approaching enemy. Ripples from
the 1st 4.5-inch Rocket Battery reinforced the howitzers in thwarting
this initial enemy assault. On the right flank of the outpost an
intense 20-minute fire fight broke out at 2023, but the Vegas defenders
beat back the intruders. For an hour the enemy, supported by heavy
mortar and artillery fires from Reno and his own positions at Vegas,
tried unsuccessfully to force the Marines to withdraw.
Carson, which had been relatively undisturbed for the past two days,
also came under attack at this time from automatic weapons and mortars
directed on its north slope by the enemy holed up behind Hills 67 and
31. For the rest of the night an enemy company prowled around the area,
but the defense at Carson, plus artillery and mortar fire support from
JAMESTOWN, sent the Chinese off in the early morning hours with their
ambitions thwarted.
At Vegas, meanwhile, outpost commander Major Lee at 2130 radioed
battalion headquarters that he was preparing for a new enemy
counterattack. It was not long in coming. Less than an hour later, the
Chinese were again storming from Hill 153, and Marine boxing fires
picked off the advancing enemy. At 2230 Major Lee’s riflemen, deployed
about 25 yards from the peak, were holding Vegas, surrounded by Chinese
on the southern face of the position. For a brief period the enemy took
the high ground but then gave it up under pressure from the defending
Marines. Close by, another sharp fire fight erupted; then subsided
for about an hour. At 2300 a new onslaught of Chinese reinforcements
made the third major attempt of the evening to recapture the Vegas
position. Two enemy companies descended. Within a half hour another
massive fire fight had broken out, and the battle was raging across the
shell-scarred hilltop. Major Lee reported to G-3 heavy enemy sightings
of at least 200 Chinese on the top slopes challenging Marine possession
of the Vegas crest and attempting to smoke their positions. At 0045,
hostile forces had surrounded the outpost and seized part of the Vegas
height, but 11th Marines fires walled off the enemy and prevented
penetration. Flare planes circling overhead lighted the target and
cannoneers of both sides concentrated on the crest. The heaviest Marine
shoot of the night-long artillery duel, a 6,108-round barrage, rained
down on enemy troops and trenches shortly before midnight.
Altogether, during the night of 28–29 March, two battalions of Chinese
troops had made three separate, unsuccessful ventures to retake the
Vegas crest, but were thrown back by Marine mortar, artillery, and
tank fires. At 0130, following a heavy 37-minute artillery and mortar
concentration, the enemy began to withdraw, but not before venting his
displeasure with a resounding blast of small arms and bazooka fire from
the Reno hill. In their departure, the Chinese were given an assist by
Company E, 7th Marines, which had broken through the enemy encirclement
of Vegas in the early morning hours to join E/2/5 and F/2/5 defending
forces and help drive the invaders off all but the northern tip of the
hill. Now under Captain Thomas P. Connolly, E/2/7 ascended the high
ground, passing through F/2/5 ranks in preparation for the ultimate
relief of E/2/5.
For the next two hours the 11th Marines battalions, together with the
1st 4.5-inch Rocket Battery, sealed off the outpost and blistered enemy
fortifications at Reno with a total of 4,225 rounds. Air observers on
station fired 10 missions between midnight and 0430. Twenty minutes
later, the artillerymen unleashed still another preparation to dislodge
the unyielding CCF dug in at the Vegas topographical crest. Heavier
fires from the 155mm howitzers of 4/11 and the 623d Field Artillery
Battalions followed on more than two dozen active mortar and artillery
targets.
A new assault by Marine infantrymen (E/2/7, E/2/5, and F/2/5) at 0450
recaptured the critical northern segment of the outpost. Elation over
this encouraging turn of events was dampened, however, by loss of
several Marine leaders in the early morning foray. Shortly before 0500,
Major Lee and Captain Walz were killed instantly by a 120mm mortar
round during an intensive enemy shelling. Another Marine casualty early
on the 29th was First Lieutenant John S. Gray. A forward observer from
C/1/11, he was mortally wounded by an enemy mortar blast when he left
his foxhole to crawl closer to the Vegas peak and thus better direct
artillery fires on the enemy. At the time of his death, Lieutenant Gray
was reported to have been at Vegas longer than any other officer.
_Vegas Consolidation Begins_[381]
[381] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chap. 9; 1stMarDiv
ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl, 29–31 Mar 53; 1stMarDiv
PIRs 885–887, dtd 29–31 Mar 53; 1st MAW PIRs 8-53, dtd 29
Mar 53 and 90-53, dtd 30 Mar 53; 5thMar, 7thMar, 11thMar,
1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 2/7, 1/11, 2/11, 3/11, 4/11, 1st TkBn
ComdDs, Mar 53; 5thMar SAR “Cities”; 11thMar SAR “Arty
Defense”; MAGs-12, -33, VMAs-212, -323, VMFs-115, -311
ComdDs, Mar 53; Fugate, “Vegas.”
Only a few surviving enemy were seen when Marines of F/2/5 and E/2/7
moved out to consolidate the position after daybreak. This task was
completed without contact by 0830. In the meantime, the Vegas defense
was reorganized with two reinforced platoons on the main portion and a
third occupying the high ground. A smoke haze placed around the outpost
screened the work of the Marines. Individual foxholes were dug and
automatic weapons emplaced. Major Joseph S. Buntin, executive officer
of 3/5, had taken over as the new outpost commander. Corpsmen and
replacement weapons--machine guns, mortars, BARs, rockets--had arrived.
The morning supply train brought KSC personnel and Marines with
engineering tools to begin work on trenches, fighting holes, weapons
dugouts, and bunker fortifications.
By noon, excavation work on the shell-pocked trench system was well
under way, with all of it dug waist deep and the majority as deep as
a man’s shoulder. Daylight hours between 1000 and 1600 on the 29th
were relatively quiet with only light ground activity. Rainy weather
that turned road nets and fighting trenches into boot-high muck and
giant mud holes further slowed the action. Artillerymen completed
countermortar and smoke missions, and in the skies air observers
directed fire throughout the day on 19 enemy resupply and target points
until dusk when rain and light snow forced them to return to base.
At 1850, the Chinese launched what in some respects was a carbon
copy action of the night of the 26th. Once again there was sudden
heavy incoming and then shortly after dusk the CCF struck in a new
three-pronged attack to overrun Vegas. This time three companies of
Chinese approached both flanks of the outpost from their positions on
Reno and Hill 153. In addition to his infantry weapons, the enemy was
supported by heavy mortars and artillery. But the Marines’ mortars,
illuminating shells, and big guns replied immediately. Ten minutes
after the enemy’s latest incursion, a massed counterfire from five
artillery battalions joined in the heaviest single barrage of the
entire Vegas defense action. This massed fire of 6,404 rounds blasted
the Chinese assault battalion and sent it reeling back with heavy
losses. Two rocket ripples also tore into the Chinese troops.
In addition to the medium and heavy firing batteries, two heavy mortar
units, Companies A and C of the 461st Infantry Battalion, had that
day gone into position in the 5th Marines sector in general support
of 1/11. Other fires came from the 8-inch howitzer unit, Battery C,
424th Field Artillery Battalion, also newly assigned to the 17th Field
Artillery Battalion that day in general support of the 1st Marine
Division.
Although another enemy attack was quickly repulsed at 2045 in a brisk,
savage fight, shortly before midnight the Chinese reappeared, moving
up from behind the right finger of Hill 153. This was believed to be
an attempt to recover their casualties, but Marine artillery, mortars,
and rocket bursts sent them fleeing within ten minutes. Still the enemy
obstinately refused to give up his goal of retaking the high ground
at COP 21. In the early morning hours of the 30th, he again returned
to hit the outpost in his second battalion-strength attack within six
hours. Again he struck from Reno and Hill 153, and again he attempted
to cut off the outpost Marines by encircling the position. Heavy
pounding by artillery, mortar, and boxing fires snuffed out the enemy’s
attack and by 0215 the Chinese had left the Vegas domain--this time, it
was to prove, for good. Their casualties for this latest attempt had
been 78 counted killed, 123 more estimated killed, and 174 estimated
wounded.
With sunup, the Marines at the battered outpost again repaired the
damage of the night’s visits from the Chinese and continued work to
improve their trenches and gun emplacements. Clearing weather enabled
air observers and pilots to follow a full flight schedule. VMA-212 and
VMA-323 were again over the Vegas skies during the morning hours and
shortly before noon a joint mission by eight AU’s, a division from each
squadron, dumped nearly 10 tons of bombs on enemy trenches, mortars,
bunkers, and troops at Hill 25A across from Reno to discourage Chinese
rebuilding efforts. Both flew afternoon sorties to destroy strongholds
at Hill 21B, at Reno, now in possession of the enemy, and to make smoke
screen runs. Early in the day, Company F of 2/5 came up from the 2/5
CP to fill in on the MLR and Berlin outposts for Company G from 3/5.
Later in the afternoon, G/3/5 relieved E/2/7 on Vegas and Major George
E. Kelly, S-3 of 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, succeeded Major Buntin as
the new outpost commander.
Two comments, casually made at the time, perhaps typify the grim
staying power of the Marines who defended Vegas. As Corporal George
C. Demars, Company F platoon guide, 5th Marines, observed, “The guys
were like rabbits digging in. The fill-ins [reinforcements] gotten by
the Company during the reorganization, jumped right in. We didn’t know
half the people on the fire teams, but everybody worked together.”[382]
Second Lieutenant Irvin B. Maizlish, assigned as a rifle platoon
commander of F/2/5 on the 25th, the day before the fighting broke out,
and who had the dubious distinction of being one of the few officers
of those originally attached to the company not wounded or killed,
recalled: “I checked the men digging in at Vegas ... I’ve never seen men
work so hard ... I even heard some of them singing the Marine Corps Hymn
as they were digging....”[383]
[382] Fugate, “Vegas,” p. 74.
[383] _Ibid._
The last direct confrontation with the enemy at Vegas had occurred that
morning, about 1100, when five Chinese unconcernedly walked up to the
outpost, apparently to surrender. Then, suddenly, they began throwing
grenades and firing their automatic weapons. The little delegation was
promptly dispatched by two Marine fire teams. Three CCF soldiers were
killed and two taken prisoners, one of whom later died.
As darkness fell on the 30th, Marine artillery fired heavy harassing
and interdiction missions and regimental TOTs on enemy supply routes
and assembly areas. Although the shoot was dual-purposed, both
to prevent another Chinese attempt at retaking Vegas and to foil
a possible diversionary probe elsewhere in the division sector,
neither situation developed. For the fourth consecutive night, giant
searchlights from the Army’s 2d Platoon, 61st Field Artillery Battery
illuminated the battlefield to spotlight the enemy withdrawal routes.
Two of the quadruple .50 caliber machine gun mounts from the 1st
Provisional AAA-AW Battery were also displaced to MLR positions in
anticipation of trouble, but the CCF had apparently had enough of a
thoroughly bloodied nose from the Marine fighters and decided to call
it quits.
By daybreak, the Vegas sentry forces could report that things had been
relatively quiet--the first time in five interminably long nights--and
Companies D and E, 5th Marines, which had been watchdogging it at the
outpost moved back to the MLR. At 0800, the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines,
reverted to parent control, and by noon, reliefs were under way not
only for Vegas but for Corinne, Dagmar, Hedy, and Bunker in the 1st
Marines sector. A 5th Marines body recovery detail, meanwhile, had
moved out to search the draws.
If ground action was light on the 31st, supporting arms activity was
a different story, starting with seven MPQ drops on enemy artillery
positions and ammunition caves in the early hours of darkness. Between
0650 and 1900, 23 air strikes were flown in the Vegas-Reno area by
VMA-121 ADs and AUs of -212 and -323, MAG-12 squadrons, as well as
three quartets of Air Force Thunderjets dispatched by Fifth Air Force.
Artillery fired a total of 800 rounds on 156 enemy concentrations,
again with 4.2-inch mortars from the 461st Infantry Battalion
reinforcing 1/11 fires on hostile mortars, ammunition dumps, and supply
points. If the outgoing was aimed at discouraging Communist plans
for new acquisitions, _their_ incoming had dropped to a new low in
comparison with the heightened activity of the past five days. A total
of 699 rounds was reported in the division sector, most of it falling
in 5th Marines territory.
_Aftermath_[384]
[384] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is
derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chap. 9; 1stMarDiv
ComdD, Mar 53; 1stMarDiv PIR 887, dtd 31 Mar 53; 5thMar,
7thMar, 11thMar, 3/5 ComdDs, Mar 53; 11thMar SAR “Arty
Defense”; Hicks, _Outpost Warfare_; MacDonald _POW_;
Jane Blakeney, _Heroes--U.S. Marine Corps, 1861–1955_
(Washington, D.C.: Blakeney, 1957); Leckie, _Conflict_;
Fugate, “Vegas”; MSgt Roy E. Heinecke, “A Year in Korea,”
_Leatherneck_, v. 36, no. 11 (Nov 53); _New York Times_,
29–31 Mar 53; _Washington Post_, 29–31 Mar 53.
Recapture and defense of the Vegas outpost was one of the intense,
contained struggles which came to characterize the latter part of
the Korean War. The action developed into a five-day siege involving
over 4,000 ground and air Marines and was the most bloody action that
Marines on the western front had yet engaged in. Its cost can be seen,
in part, by the casualties sustained by the 1st Marine Division. The
infantry strength of two battalions was required to retake Outpost
Vegas and defend it against successive Chinese counterattacks. A total
of 520 Marine replacements were received during the operation. Marine
casualties totaled 1,015, or 116 killed, 441 wounded/evacuated, 360
wounded/not evacuated, and 98 missing, of which 19 were known to be
prisoners. Losses for the critical five-day period represented 70
percent of division casualties for the entire month--1,488 killed,
wounded, and missing (not including 128 in the KMC sector).
Enemy casualties were listed conservatively as 2,221. This represented
536 counted killed, 654 estimated killed, 174 counted wounded, 853
estimated wounded, and 4 prisoners. The Marines, moreover, in the
five days of furious fighting had knocked out the 358th CCF Regiment,
numbering between 3,000 and 3,500 men, and destroyed its effectiveness
as a unit.
Throughout the Vegas operation, the 1st Marine Air Wing had flown 218
combat missions against the Nevada Cities hills (63 percent of the
entire month’s total 346 CAS missions), bombing and strafing enemy
weapons positions, bunkers, ammunition dumps, trenches, and troops.
On the 27th and 28th, while heavy fighting raged in both the Marine
and 7th Army Division sectors, Marine Air Group 33 pilots flew 75
sorties--resulting in their highest daily sortie rate and air hours
since December 1952. The March 28th date was a noteworthy one for
MAG-12, too. It established a new record for combat sorties and bomb
tonnage unloaded on the enemy in a single day; the group executed 129
sorties and dropped 207.64 tons of bombs and napalm.
Although restricted on two days by weather conditions, close air
support was effectively used throughout the Vegas Cities operation. A
total of 81 four-aircraft flights dropped approximately 426 tons of
explosives in CAS missions. Smoke and flare planes--despite a shortage
of both flare planes and flares[385]--were employed throughout the
period as were the rotary aircraft of the two helicopter squadrons, the
latter for casualty evacuation operations.
[385] CG, 1stMarDiv msg to COs, 1stMar, 5thMar, 7thMar, KMC,
KPR, dtd 31 Mar 53, in 1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53, App. II,
p. 9.
Tanks, provided by the Company A direct support tank company, were
used day and night, firing from nine positions along the MLR. Their
effective use to mark air targets was of particular importance in
connection with their support role, while the tank light also helped
to provide illumination of the objective area in hours of darkness.
Approximately 7,000 rounds of 90mm tank ammunition were fired.
During these five tense days the enemy deluged Marine positions with
45,000 rounds of artillery, mortar, and mixed fire. Indicative of the
savage pounding the Vegas area took is the fact that incoming Chinese
artillery for the full two-week period from 1–15 March totaled only
3,289 rounds. Marine efforts to defend, counterattack, secure, and
hold the Vegas outpost against repeated Chinese assaults were “marked
by maximum use of and coordination with various supporting arms and
organic weapons.”[386] Three light artillery battalions, two medium
battalions, two 8-inch batteries, one 4.5-inch rocket battery, and two
companies of 4.2-inch mortars fired a combined total of 104,864 rounds
between 27–31 March; the 11th Marines and its heavy Army reinforcing
elements, in support of 5th and 7th Marines units, executed 332
counterbattery and 666 countermortar missions. Of the total number
fired, 132 were air observed.
[386] 5thMar SAR “Cities,” p. 8.
The artillery shelling was the hottest during a 24-hour period ending
at 1600 on 28–29 March. During this time 35,809 rounds were fired
(33,041 from the four Marine battalions). This even surpassed the
previous record of 34,881 rounds fired during a one-day period in the
Bunker Hill defense of August 1952. A new one-day battalion total
for West Korean fighting was also set on the 28th; 1/11 fired 11,079
rounds, exceeding the record of 10,652 set by 3/11 during the Bunker
Hill fighting.
Marines at a rear area supply point achieved another record. In a
24-hour period, during the heavy fighting on 28–29 March, 130 men
handled 2,841 tons of ammunition. Second Lieutenant Donald E. Spangler,
an ammunition platoon commander with the 1st Ordnance Battalion, who
had but 13 hours’ sleep in the entire five days of fighting, proudly
noted that his unit had “more than doubled the tonnage that the U.S.
Army says a man can handle in 14 hours.”[387]
[387] Heinecke, _op. cit._, p. 50.
As for the men on the front line, besides the Medal of Honor winners,
10 Marines were awarded the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest
combat award. Nine citations were for the Vegas action and one for the
1st Marines defense of Dagmar, in staving off an enemy penetration on
the night of the 26th.
Battlefront tactics employed by the CCF in its assault of the Vegas
Cities outposts were largely consistent with their previous strategy.
As in the past, the enemy launched simultaneous attacks against
several Marine positions in attempt to fragment defensive artillery
firepower. Characteristically, the enemy preceded his thrust with heavy
preassault concentrations of artillery and mortar fire. He also took
advantage of the twin ploys of surprise and overwhelming strength,
with wave after wave of Chinese rolling over the objective. Innovative
techniques consisted of scaling ladders, fashioned from lightweight but
sturdy bamboo, which were used to traverse Marine wire defenses, and
of having an artillery liaison officer attached to infantry squads to
better direct supporting fires during the attack. Analysis of Chinese
firepower tactics indicated deliberate counterbattery efforts by the
CCF, although this employment of artillery was secondary to its support
of ground troops.
Actually, the Chinese attack on the forward Marine outposts the night
of the 26th appeared to have been part of an overall reinvigorated
spring assault. Opening gun of this offense had been fired three nights
earlier, on the 23d, when they swept over an Army hill defense at Old
Baldy, 25 miles northeast of the Marine Vegas Hills. Despite heavy
Allied gunfire and bombing by Air Force and Marine planes under Fifth
Air Force flight orders, the Chinese had clung to the hill, burrowed
deeply, and resisted all efforts to be dislodged. After three days of
fighting, U.S. 7th Division troops had abandoned the Old Baldy hill
at dawn on the 26th. The CCF, apparently emboldened by this success,
that same night had launched a series of probes at nine UN outposts
on the Korean far western front in an attempt to further extend their
frontline acquisitions.
Following the loss of Reno, a new outpost, Elko, was established on
Hill 47, southeast of Carson and 765 yards from the MLR, to prevent the
enemy from using the Hill 47 position as an attack and patrol route to
the MLR. In addition to this new platoon-strength outpost, the Marines
substantially shored up Vegas from its former platoon garrison to a
detachment consisting of 2 officers and 133 enlisted men.
Headlines had told Americans at home and the free peoples around the
world the story of the “Nevada Cities” in Korea and the Marines’
five-day stand there to prevent loss of critical UNC territory. The
event that marked an official “well done” to the Marines themselves
was a message from the Commandant, General Shepherd, who on 30 March
sent the following dispatch to General Pollock, CG, 1st Marine Division:
Have followed the reports of intensive combat in the First Marine
Division sector during the past week with greatest sense of
pride and confidence. The stubborn and heroic defense of Vegas,
Reno, and Carson Hills coupled with the superb offensive spirit
which characterized the several counterattacks are a source of
reassurance and satisfaction to your fellow Marines everywhere.
On their behalf please accept for yourself and pass on to every
officer and man of your command my sincere congratulations on a
task accomplished in true Marine Corps fashion.[388]
[388] CMC msg to CG, 1stMarDiv, dtd 30 Mar 53, cited in
1stMarDiv ComdD, Mar 53, App. I, p. 7.
In turn, General Pollock congratulated the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing
of General Megee and its six participating squadrons (VMAs-121, -212,
-323, VMFs-115, -311, and VMF(N)-513). Citing the close air support
missions of the Marine flyers during the operation, General Pollock
noted that the air strikes of the 28th were “particularly well executed
and contributed materially to the success of the 1st Marine Division in
retaking and holding the objective.”[389]
[389] CG, 1stMarDiv msg to CG, 1st MAW, dtd 31 Mar 53, in
MAG-12 ComdD, Mar 53, App. VII-3.
Plaudits had also come to the 1st Marine Division from the Korean
Minister of Defense, Pai Yung Shin,[390] the day immediately preceding
the Vegas attack. On 25 March, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation
streamer,[391] for action from 26 October 1950 to 15 February 1953,
had been placed on the division colors in ceremonies at the division
command post, attended by the Korean Defense Minister; Vice Admiral
Woon Il Sohn, Chief of Korean Naval Operations; Major General Hyan Zoon
Shin, Commandant of the Korean Marine Corps; General Pollock, division
commander, and his troops. The event marked the fourth Korean PUC
awarded to Marine units since the beginning of the war.
[390] CROKMC ltr to CMC, dtd 2 Feb 1971, hereafter ROKMC
_Comments_.
[391] See Appendix G for complete text of citation. Previous
awards were as follows: 1stProvMarBrig (for 2 Aug-6 Sep
50 period), 1st MAW (3 Aug 50–26 Feb 51), and 1stMarDiv
(15–27 Sep 50).
A directive at the end of the month put the 7th Marines on the alert
to move into 5th Marines positions in the right regimental sector.
This was to be accomplished on 4–5 April when, after 68 days on line,
the 5th Marines moved south to Camp Rose to become the division
reserve regiment. The prospect of a new stage in the off-and-on
truce negotiations had also come late in the month. On 28 March, the
Communists informed the UN of their willingness to discuss the Allied
proposal for return of sick and wounded prisoners. This exchange
had originally been suggested by the UN more than a year earlier,
in December 1951. Notification of the new Chinese intentions came,
ironically, on a day when the Vegas outpost fighting was at its height.
As the month closed on the Vegas chapter, Marines on line and in the
reserve companies who had just sweated through the bloodiest exchange
of the war on the I Corps front to date added their own epitaph. With a
touch of ungallantry that can be understood, they called the disputed
crest of Vegas “the highest damn beachhead in Korea.”