The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat (6 page)

A Marine rifle company was a vertically integrated pyramid-each company had three platoons, each platoon had three squads, and each squad had three fire teams. The fire team was an eminently sensible idea, for in the confusion of battle no one man could reasonably be expected to be responsible for more than three others. More important, in the heat of a gunfight there was a comfort in knowing that a Marine hefting a deadly BAR was no more than a few steps away.

Now McClure told Gonzales, "If the earth didn't curve, who knows from how far away I could hit a man?" The two jumped from a six-by-six onto the road, stretched, and stamped blood into their freezing feet. McClure was about to start a monologue regarding the killing power of the BAR when he noticed another Marine take a thermometer from a pack. It registered minus-twelve degrees Fahrenheit. A dark cloudbank, whipped by twenty-five-knot winds out of the north, obscured the peak of Toktong-san.

"Smells like snow," the Marine with the thermometer said.

McClure shook his head. Back in Missouri, he and his younger brother had often spent hours hunting and fishing in the forests and creeks of the Ozarks. On weekends they might bring home enough rabbits to feed the family for days. Except for the higher elevation, these North Korean hills reminded McClure of the mountains at home in winter. He felt no hesitation in correcting the other man. "Too cold to snow," he said.

A few moments later the first snowflakes began caking his helmet and plastering his wavy blond hair to his forehead.

Not far away, Captain Barber ordered the first two trucks to return to Hagaru-ri for the rest of his men, and he directed a sixteenby-eighteen tent erected just east of the larger hut to serve as his command post. The company radio operator was setting up his communications post in and around the tent as Barber called his team leaders together. The captain was immediately interrupted by Lieutenant Lawrence Schmitt, the company's communications officer. Schmitt told him that the SCR-300 radio was already low on battery power because of the intense cold.

Both the radio-which would keep Barber in touch with the howitzer unit in Hagaru-ri, as well as Colonel Litzenberg up at the Chosin-and the company's 610 field phones, used for communication between platoon leaders, ran on batteries. Cold weather slows the chemical reaction that generates electrons to supply electrical current inside a battery. The bitter cold of Toktong Pass drained them in minutes. This was a problem that had not been anticipated by the American forces in northeast Asia, who were unfamiliar with the peninsula's fierce winter temperatures. Moreover, the Korean winter of 1950 would be the coldest recorded in thirty years.

Meanwhile, at the Hagaru-ri defensive perimeter, the six big 105mm howitzers of How Company, which were specifically dedicated to the support of Fox, were still a full seven miles from Toktong Pass. Factoring in the effect of the cold weather on the gases that propelled the shells, as well as the effect of the elevation, this left the pass barely within their maximum firing range-another quarter mile, and the shells would have been useless. And now there was a chance that Barber might not even be able to reach the how itzer commander by radio. The captain ordered Schmitt to fix the communications problem and turned back to the briefing.

"Follow me," he said, leading his company officers and platoon sergeants on a brisk trot up the hill. At the crest the little group paused to watch the headlights of a convoy of six-by-sixes rumbling south from Yudam-ni, carrying wounded Marines. When the grinding gears of the final vehicle were only a distant echo, Barber informed his battle commanders that he had reached a hard decision. Despite the approaching darkness, the bitter cold, and the mind-numbing winds, he wanted the men dug in before any warming tents were erected.

Waiting atop Toktong Pass, his face swollen and nearly bleeding from the lash of the gale, Barber had vacillated over his choices for several hours. His men were dog-tired, and it would have been more compassionate to let them break out their entrenching tools tomorrow morning after a good night's rest. He had even checked the frost level with his bayonet; it sank to a depth of sixteen inches. Jackhammers would be more appropriate than shovels for this ground.

But something in Barber's gut told him the company needed to protect itself as well as possible as soon as possible. He would have preferred to have enough personnel to send a squad across the saddle to occupy the higher ground of the rocky knoll and the ridge behind it, but he didn't. He assumed they were being watched even now by Chinese scouts on those heights. Barber wanted to register the artillery at Hagaru-ri by asking the battery to fire a few shells, but it was too dark. He also understood, from his experience in the Pacific, that during a firefight it was psychologically harder for a man to retreat from a foxhole than from a poncho spread across the ground. He reiterated the directive to dig in-"I don't like casual compliance with my orders"-and assigned the following areas of responsibility.

The sixty-two Marines and one corpsman of First Lieutenant Elmo Peterson's Second Rifle Platoon would dig in across the steeper western slope, from just above the vertical ten-foot cut bank and up the 175 yards over the thirty-degree grade until they reached the saddle on the northwest corner. Looking at the hill from the road, this would be on the left.

First Lieutenant Robert McCarthy's Third Rifle Platoon of fiftyfour Marines and one corpsman would string out across the wide hilltop, their left flank linking up with Second Platoon's right flank in front of the saddle. Barber realized that this would be the most dangerous area to defend, because when the Chinese attacked they would undoubtedly stream across that land bridge.

"Two forward squads up, one reserve back," he told McCarthy, elucidating the Marines' classic defensive V position. McCarthy nodded. As if I don't know how to dig in for the night.

Finally, the First Rifle Platoon-sixty-two Marines and one corpsman commanded by First Lieutenant John Dunne-would complete the horseshoe, entrenching in a 225-yard line down the gentler eastern slope, nearly to the road. Each platoon would space its two air-cooled light machine guns accordingly, with as much firepower as possible concentrated on the saddle.

The defense of the "open" seventy-five-yard space along the road would be the responsibility of the sixty-nine Marines and Navy corpsmen of the heavy machine-gun units, the mortarmen, and Barber's headquarters and staff (H&S) section, stationed near the command post. The mortar units-under the command of Lieutenant Joseph Brady and consisting of Fox Company's three 60-mm tubes, augmented by the two 81-mm tubes-were positioned a few yards east of the smaller hut. Since it was now almost dark, Barber directed his mortarmen to spend what daylight they had left firing on the rocky knoll and rocky ridge-registering their ordnance for correct distances-while a motor pool detachment erected a sixteen-by-eighteen tent just below the mouth of the shallow gully. He then assigned the company's two bazooka teams and their ammo carriers-seventeen Marines in all-to occupy the larger hut, where half a dozen corpsmen had already sacked out for the night. The bazookas were to be stored inside the hut and test-fired in the morning while the corpsmen set up their two twelve-by-sixteen med tents.

Finally, Barber ordered the leader of his heavy machine-gun section, Staff Sergeant John O. Henry, to locate the optimal sites for his two heavy Brownings. At twenty-five, Henry was a sturdy veteran who had served as an Army Air Corps turret gunner aboard B-24 bombers during World War II, cashed out after the war, and reenlisted in the Corps. With his broad oval face, bulging biceps, and blond sidewall haircut, Henry looked like the Hollywood version of a five-striper, and in keeping with that image he didn't mind being known as a place where trouble started.

Barber and Henry had hit it off immediately when they'd met in Hagaru-ri-this often happened with veterans of the Pacific war-and the captain knew he could rely on the "old" machine gunner's judgment and experience. Their relationship was strengthened because Barber immediately recognized that Henry knew heavy weapons inside and out. This was why Barber allowed Henry to select his own emplacements on the hill.

The snow was coming down more heavily now, thick dry flakes that fell like a curtain. On Henry's orders the heavy machine gunners set up about twenty-five yards above the MSR and a bit closer to the eastern slope. From these nests-twenty yards apart to prevent them from being taken out by a single mortar shell-the two nine-man crews would be able to cover movement both up and down the road as well as catch, in a daunting crossfire, any enemy attacking from across the southern valley.

At one point, just before dusk, Lt. McCarthy came down from the hilltop and ordered Henry to move his units farther up the grade, nearer to the Third Platoon Marines covering the saddle. Henry argued that his guns simply had to overwatch the road just below. McCarthy and Henry's disagreement had nearly reached the shouting stage when Captain Barber appeared out of the white mist. Barber stopped and listened, and after both men had made their cases he merely shrugged. "Bob, John knows what he's doing," he said. "Leave him be." That made Henry feel good.

It was close to 5:30 p.m. by the time the last Marines from the First Platoon who had been left behind at Hagaru-ri arrived in the returning six-by-sixes. Barber told them to complete the southeast section of the perimeter nearest the road. Behind them a six-foot-high, seventy-five-yard erosion ridge arced southeast to northwest, cutting off sightlines to the crest of the hill. These men would serve as the end of the right flank of the "horseshoe" that would tie in with the units parallel to the road, albeit slightly above them.

Several Marines could not help noticing that the company command post tent, the mortar units, the bazooka section, the two huts, the parked Jeep and its trailer, and the freshwater spring-though protected by the heavy machine gun emplacements above-were all situated about thirty yards to the southeast of and outside Fox Company's defensive perimeter. One of those who noticed this was Private First Class Troy Williford of the Third Platoon, who scanned the outlying positions and shot a quizzical glance at his partner on the fire team, Corporal Wayne Pickett.

"Old Man must know what he's doin'," Pickett said as they trudged up the hill. "I mean, he's a World War Two vet and all."

5

Over the next few hours an aerial view of the terrain would have resembled a particularly motivated ant farm. As the sun set behind the western mountains, platoon sergeants yelled at squad leaders who in turn hollered at fire team leaders to move their Marines off the goddamn road and up the goddamn mountain. Orders were nearly impossible to make out in the heavy snowfall. Despite this impediment, light machine gun emplacements were allocated, listening posts were designated, platoon command posts were established, interlocking fields of fire were sighted and calculated to exacting degrees, and sites for two-man foxholes were assigned ten paces apart. The only sounds were those of shivering men pinging entrenching tools into the frozen earth. Occasionally the stinging vibration of metal slamming into rock would reverberate through a man's hands and up his arms and cause him to yelp. Gradually the outline of an inverted horseshoe took shape across the heights while emotional, psychological, and physical dramas played out.

Private First Class Graydon "Gray" Davis was bone tired. Every part of his body hurt. He lagged behind his squad mates, who were scrambling over the sheer cut bank near the road and up the western slope. He had spent the first seventeen years of his life in hot, humid southern Florida, and in the two years since he'd enlisted he had never encountered such cold. He was certain he would never grow accustomed to the tricks it played. The water in his canteen, for instance, was frozen solid. Alternately blowing into his gloves and swinging his arms to regain circulation, Davis reflected on the juxtaposition of the surreal and the quotidian in this crazy land.

On the one hand, he hated most things about the country: the freezing winter, the harrowing mountain paths, the fleas and lice, and not least the North Koreans themselves. Davis was a history buff and knew well that Korea was a country forged in war. Fighting had been a way of life here for centuries, and when the various clans, tribes, and provincial armies were not trying to kill each other they were trying to kill outside aggressors, who now, apparently, included Gray Davis.

On the other hand, only a few days earlier Davis and some buddies had commandeered a heated "gook hootch" near Hagaru-ri in order to clean, oil, and wipe dry their weapons and heat their little cans of C-rats-meatballs and string beans, hash, beef stew, ham and lima beans. Inside they found a mama-san and her two kids. As in most Korean homes, the chimneys were ducted under the kitchen floor to provide radiant heat, and during those rare few hours of God-sent warmth Davis's antagonism toward the natives had relaxed.

In fact, while the Marines were chowing down one of them had begun whistling a couple of bars of the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace." Suddenly the woman and her two children were smiling. She sent one of the kids outside to fetch her husband, who returned, headed straight for a corner of the hut, and stuck his arm into a sack of old potatoes. The Americans leaped up and leveled their rifles. But then the man retrieved a tattered hymnal left behind long ago by a missionary. The entire family then lined up and sang the hymn for them in Korean. Davis was floored. Maybe these people were human after all.

As he recalled this incident at the side of the MSR, Davis's reverie was broken when the company's gunnery master sergeant got up in his face and demanded to know what the hell his problem was.

"Sarge, it's just too cold to move," he said. This took stones, for the gunny was rumored to have a right hook that could stun a brick.

The master sergeant wore a lion tamer's expression as he briefly pondered this response. He then inquired if a shoepac directed up Davis's butt might possibly help to warm him. Davis double-timed it, clawing over the cut, seeking a place to dig in.