Read The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat Online
Authors: Bob Drury,Tom Clavin
"That's Lieutenant Lee," the gunny said. "Try not to shoot him."
Despite the rests, men still fell behind, slipping and falling on the icy road. Although the Marines did not come under attack, they could hear sniper fire ahead, at the front of the column, and they nervously eyed the hills overhanging either side of the MSR. Twice they saw long files of Chinese on the ridges, but neither side fired. The Americans' tension spiked when they passed a Pershing tank burning in a ditch on the side of the road, but nothing came of that, either. When Walt Hiskett described the scene for Amos Fixico, Fixico asked him not to say anything more until they reached Hagaru-ri.
Rollin Hutchinson-who had decided that the first thing he would do when he reached Hagaru-ri was find out if the Yankees had indeed swept the Phillies in the World Series-recognized a Marine from Chosin who was lagging behind. The man was a buddy from his reserve outfit in Toledo, Ohio. Hutchinson fell in next to him, urging him on. Soon they were both encouraging Ernest Gonzalez to keep up. Gonzalez's backpack and sleeping bag, as well as the company radio, were weighing him down. But he refused to jettison any gear, even when he slipped and fell into an icy drainage ditch. As he struggled to climb out, Hutchinson and the other Ohioan helped Gonzalez balance the equipment on his back, at least allowing him to walk in a little more comfort.
Lieutenant Bob McCarthy dozed fitfully in the cab of a six-by-six packed with the dead and wounded. About halfway to Hagaru-ri, amid much stopping and starting, gaps began to appear in the convoy. At a point in the road where there was a steep drop-off to both sides, McCarthy's young driver lost sight of the truck ahead and became too frightened to move.
Despite his leg wound, McCarthy climbed from the vehicle and hobbled several feet in front of the truck so the driver could see him. They finally caught up to the vehicle ahead, and thereafter McCarthy did not allow the forward six-by-six to leave his sight.
Several officers noticed that the Marines who were walking were having a hard go of it. During another short break Lieutenant Abell spread word that in Hagaru-ri the division cooks were already busy preparing hot coffee, flapjacks with real butter, and hot maple syrup for every man coming down the MSR. Abell said he had picked up this intel on his radio. In fact, Abell had heard no such thing; he didn't even have a radio. Anything to keep the men moving.
Somewhere on the road Lieutenant Elmo Peterson passed a corpsmen's Jeep that had tipped on its side. Someone had extracted its four injured passengers-two Navy corpsmen and two wounded Marines-and laid them on stretchers in the snow. Peterson bent over and spoke to the one conscious medic.
"We can't walk," the man said.
Peterson looked around. His own vision was blurred and his legs were quivering. There were no other vehicles in sight. His men were too spent to heft four loaded stretchers. He reached into a pocket of his field jacket and pulled out the pint of whiskey he had been carrying for seven days. There were only a few drops left. He handed the bottle to the corpsman and wished him luck. It was all he could do.
Dick Gilling awoke to silence. He was alone on Fox Hill. His exhaustion had finally overwhelmed him, and when Kenny Benson had led him to this slit trench the previous night, he'd dropped like a stone. He thought he'd awakened several times during the night to a horrific odor, but his mind was still awhirl from the ridgerunning. He decided that the odor was a part of bad dreams.
He saw now that it was not bad dreams. He stood up and brushed frozen excrement from his sleeping bag. His so-called pals had led him to a latrine. Fucking Cafferata and Benson. I'll kill 'em.
But Gilling had more immediate problems. A snowy fog was rolling up over the hill, obscuring any landmarks, including the ridges of Toktong-san. He had no idea in which direction the MSR lay. From somewhere far away he heard the basso reports of 105s. American? Chinese? He squinted, concentrated, trying to recall the difference in sounds. Ours, he finally decided.
He began walking overland toward the low rumbles. He had no idea that he was breaking a fresh trail, away from the road.
Phil Bavaro was daydreaming about the last time he had eatenand about the hotcakes with real butter awaiting him-when he realized that at some point he had let go his grip on the tailgate of the truck. His feet hurt so much that he took baby steps, trying first to walk on his heels, then on his toes. Nothing eased the pain, and the column was rapidly leaving him behind.
Well after dark, as he passed the smoldering Pershing tank, it dawned on him that there were no Americans within sight. He was alone. He was listening to the distant echoes of the Corsairs of the First Marine Air Wing group bomb, strafe, and rocket the pursu ing Chinese when he heard voices not far behind him. He racked the slide of his MI. A squad of Marines trotted into view. One of them said that they were the column's rear guard.
"Hey, buddy, you'd better shag ass," said another. "Nobody behind us but Chinamen." They vanished into the dark ahead of him.
It was hopeless. Bavaro could go no farther. He saw a large rock at the side of the road and sat down. He massaged his feet through his shoepacs. All that bullshit just to die here. More voices reached him from behind. He felt the sonic whine of a bullet pass near his head an instant before he heard the crack of a shot.
If Phil Bavaro had taken one lesson from boot camp to heart, it was that even when all seems lost a Marine always has one last burst of energy somewhere deep within him. He stood and began limping, then walking, then trotting, and finally running so hard he caught the rear guard. "Nobody behind me but Chinamen?" he shouted as he moved on.
DAY EIGHT
DECEMBER 4, 1950
8
At 1:30 a.m. on December 4, six hours after Lieutenant Colonel Ray Davis had escorted the point of the breakout column into Hagaru-ri, the sixty or so Marines and Navy corpsmen of Fox Company-along with Mr. Chung, the interpreter-arrived at the roadblock demarcating the perimeter of the American lines.
Above them, what was left of the First Battalion's Baker Company staked out the heights. In the distance, beyond a small bridge, they could see pillars of smoke, evidence of the smoldering fires from the previous days' firefights around the village. Lieutenant Abell approached the guard station, and the platoon leaders Lieutenant Dunne and Lieutenant Peterson called the company to attention. Dunne and Peterson formed the company into ranks according to their units. Abell saluted and announced that Fox Company did not know the password but wished to enter Hagaru-ri.
It was at this moment that Elmo Peterson finally faltered. Gray Davis happened to be looking at Peterson when the lieutenant tottered and fell to his knees. He remained kneeling for a few seconds, fighting off unconsciousness. But for the first time in a week Peterson's will failed him. He fell face-first into a snowbank. Davis and another Marine rushed to him and lifted him off the ground, one under each arm. They were not sure if he was dead. They carried him toward the roadblock. But after only a few steps Peterson regained consciousness and straightened up. He motioned the two men away and shook the loose snow from his uniform. Peterson rejoined the ranks next to Walt Hiskett, who was still bracing Amos Fixico.
The road barriers were raised and the column was allowed to pass. The ragged remains of Fox Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Regiment parade-marched into Hagaru-ri four men abreast, to a drill sergeant's cadence count. Someone began humming, softly at first, the Marine Corps Hymn. One by one, though their throats were dry and raw, the entire company picked up the tune. Soon each man was singing.
From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,
we will fight our country's battles, on the land as on the sea.
First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean,
we are proud to claim the title of United States Marines.
As Fox Company crossed the checkpoint, a Navy corpsman stationed at the gate shook his head. He turned to a guard. "Will you look at those magnificent bastards," he said.
EPILOGUE
The first vehicles taking the most seriously wounded Marines from the Chosin Reservoir and Fox Hill into Hagaru-ri had already arrived hours before Fox Company's dramatic entrance into the village. A converted schoolhouse served as the UN forces' field hospital, where British Royal Marines removed injured men from vehicles and passed out hot coffee and cigarettes.
Warren McClure was helped down from his Jeep and left standing alone in the street among rows of stretchers. To his left was the field hospital. To his right was a mess tent. The Marines around him seemed dazed, wandering aimlessly, staring blankly. McClure was also cold and confused, having eaten nothing but three halftins of peaches in six days. The smell of hot pancakes drew him like a magnet. He followed his nose and stumbled through the flaps of the mess tent.
A cook immediately assessed his sorry condition and attempted to steer him back across the street to the hospital. But McClure argued so stubbornly that the cook finally relented. He sat McClure in a corner at a picnic table and placed a gallon tin of peaches and a tablespoon before him. "Eat all you want," the cook said. "We're only going to end up burning everything left over before the Chinese get here."
Across the street Colonel Homer Litzenberg's Jeep pulled up to the field hospital. Lieutenant Colonel Lockwood approached Litzenberg to welcome him to Hagaru-ri. Litzenberg climbed stiffly from his Jeep without acknowledging Lockwood. All over the frozen ground were wounded men awaiting triage and identification. Among them was Captain Benjamin Read, How Company's commanding officer, who had paid for his refusal to move his guns back inside the safety of the Hagaru-ri perimeter with a sniper bullet through the knee.
Litzenberg exploded. He sought out the head corpsman and ordered him to eliminate the red tape and move the wounded inside on the double. It was "Litzen" at his most "Blitzen."
Inside the makeshift medical center, overwhelmed doctors and corpsmen rushed from station to station. Dick Bonelli opened his eyes and saw a roof over his head. He had no idea where he was. A crude mural above him depicted American planes machine-gunning Korean women and children. He looked around. Photographs and portraits of Kim, Mao, and Stalin hung from every wall. Bonelli had no way of knowing that the First Marine Division's commanding officer, General Smith, had ordered that none of the propaganda be removed from any North Korean structure. Not that Bonelli would have cared. His chest felt as if it were exploding, and he reached out to a corpsman who passed by wearing a bloody apron.
"Easy there, pal," the corpsman said. "You've got a shitload of broken ribs. Bullet bounced around inside you pretty good." Bonelli called out for a weapon, any weapon. The corpsman drew his fortyfive-caliber pistol and let Bonelli feel the stock. Handling the weapon put Bonelli at ease. He slipped into unconsciousness again. The next time he awoke was in Osaka, Japan, where he was being given the last rites by a priest.
Not far away, beneath a bullet-pocked photograph of Joseph Stalin, corpsmen cut away Bob Ezell's dungarees and shoepacs. The grenade had left his legs looking like ground meat, but only one wound-a deep gash in his right thigh-appeared life-threatening. Luckily for Ezell, the blood had frozen and coagulated almost immediately. His feet were another story. Both were black with frostbite and covered with ugly red blisters.
Another corpsman was looking warily at Eleazar Belmarez, who was in a cot next to Ezell. The medic suspected that Belmarez's shot-up legs were in worse shape than Ezell's, but Belmarez was delirious and refused to relinquish either his M I or the several live hand grenades attached to his field jacket beneath the two bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing his chest. Finally one corpsman gingerly examined Belmarez's wounds while a second hung back. After a brief consultation they concluded that he was in no danger of dying and decided to leave him for the Division docs to deal with.
Walt Hiskett led Amos Fixico into the field hospital and remained at his side while a medic unwrapped the filthy bandages that had covered his head. His left eye was swollen shut and his right eye was a small slit beneath the shrapnel wounds. "Walt, I can see a little out of this one," he said. Hiskett had his own shoulder wound treated and joined Fixico near a coffee urn in the corner of the building. He poured two cups.