Valleys of Death (17 page)

Later that day, Wollack sent for me. I walked across to the west side of the perimeter and saw him standing near a machine gun position. He looked concerned and started pointing out toward what looked like an open field.

“Look over there,” he said.

I watched where he was pointing. I didn't see anything. I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders.

“No. Keep looking,” he said, this time staring intently.

Then I saw it. A faint shovelful of dirt flying into the air. The little bastards were digging a trench. There were about a half dozen or so digging a path right for us. Our machine guns had been keeping them at a distance. But when their trench was done, they could move under cover right up to the edge of our trenches.

“Jesus Christ. How many grenades do you have?” I asked.

“A couple,” Wollack said through a scowl.

“Let me get you some,” I said, still watching the dirt scoops fly into the air. “When they get close, frag them.”

We were receiving harassing fire the whole time, but late in the afternoon the Chinese started to bombard us with 120mm mortars and rockets. We spent the rest of the day hunkered down in our holes as the explosions rippled through the ground. The Chinese focused much of the barrage on the tanks. One got hit and burst into flames. The tank crew and some of the other men managed to put the fire out.

Finally, Giroux told the tankers to move outside the perimeter. The mortar and rocket fire followed them. Tanks were made to fight and move, and in the perimeter they weren't effective. Low on ammunition and fuel, Miller decided to try and get out while the tanks could still fight. He ran back into the perimeter and told Giroux his plan. Giroux agreed, and just as it started to get dark Miller and the tanks moved out toward the road. That's the last we saw of them. Miller eventually had to abandon the tanks, but he was able to reach friendly lines on foot. He was the only one that got the message to our lines that we were trapped.

Sunset was a bad time. Night always meant another attack. It started with a probe. A few Chinese soldiers would move up to the perimeter, followed by a short and violent firefight. Shortly after the probe, the artillery and mortar fire would start, followed by the demonic bawl of brass bugles and whistles as the Chinese infantry attacked.

As soon as I heard the bugles, I raced to the interior foxholes and got the men up who could fight. I was getting aggravated trying to get the men to move out to the perimeter. We needed all the men and firepower we could get to stop the Chinese from breaching the line, because as sure as they breached it, we were done.

The men looked at me with weary and tired eyes. All of us had scruffy beards and our skin was caked with mud and blood. None of the soldiers could look at me. They knew that they wouldn't survive unless they got up and fought, but they just sat there. They were not cowards, just frozen by fear. For some, this was their first taste of combat. Boys who overnight were forced to become men. I could only imagine the terror they must have been going through.

“You've got two choices,” I yelled. “Get up and get to the line or I'll shoot you.”

That shocked them into action. I don't think they thought I would shoot them. I had no sooner finished prodding the men out of the interior holes than one hell of a fight took place at the battalion command post. I knew there were mostly wounded soldiers there and I feared for Jones, the lone man on the machine gun.

But I had my own problems.

The bugles and whistles broke the silence and the Chinese rushed the east side of our perimeter. They came in waves straight into our fire. As quickly as they fell, more appeared. They moved into our fire like they were possessed. I raced from trench to trench, moving men where the Chinese concentrated their attack. When the attack on the east side slowed, they launched an attack on the west side. Although we were dug in, our casualties were mounting. I kept moving men to where the most Chinese were concentrated. The attack slowed down, but it was not long before they began an assault on the west side of the perimeter.

When I got there, Wollack had his men focused on the trench the Chinese had dug the day before. Each time a Chinese soldier popped out, Wollack's men quickly cut him down. I could hear the men screaming all types of obscenities over the roar of the guns.

Wollack suddenly burst from the perimeter through a hail of fire toward the Chinese. He hurled four or five grenades into the Chinese trench and dove to the ground as they exploded, throwing a plume of dirt into the air. Before the dust settled, Wollack jumped up and ran like hell back to our position. We waited for more Chinese, but they never came.

I grabbed Wollack as he scrambled into the trench. What he'd done was something out of the movies.

“We sure gave it to them little bastards,” he screamed over the noise.

“You sure did,” I said.

He was charged up. His eyes were on fire and he kept yelling at the now dead Chinese.

“You sure did,” I repeated.

When I got back to Bromser and Giroux, I told them about Wollack and how well he was doing on the western side. But that was the only good news. We had very little ammunition left. The mortars didn't have any illuminating rounds, which lit up the battlefield so that we could see the Chinese coming.

Giroux was staring at the trucks just outside our lines.

“What if we shoot up the trucks?” he asked.

If we set ablaze the twenty trucks, it would provide enough light to see the Chinese making their way toward us.

“We have a few rifle grenades. I am sure along with machine gun tracers we will be able to ignite the trucks,” I said, warming to the idea.

“Get them up here and get them ready,” Giroux said.

I gathered up a half dozen men armed with rifle grenades and a machine gun crew with its tracers ready to fire when the next attack started. As soon as we heard the bugle, Giroux gave the order to fire up the trucks. We hammered the gas tanks and engines until they started to glow. Soon flames shot out of the cabs, engines and tanks.

When the Chinese infantrymen ran past, we could see them silhouetted against the light. It was a shooting gallery. We cut down the first wave only to watch the next one climb over their comrades and keep coming. We mowed down the next wave, but they still kept coming. For the rest of the night, the Chinese came at us like waves to shore. But each time we stopped them. They never reached the perimeter.

The next morning, I took stock of our situation. Water and food were a problem, but ammunition and the wounded were our biggest concerns. We had eighty-five able-bodied men left out of about two hundred. The rest were dead or wounded. We were also out of morphine, and the screams of the wounded were starting to have an impact on the rest of the men. I could see in their eyes a tired, haggard look.

“A relief column is coming for us. They'll get through today,” I told the men as I walked the line. I said it over and over again, hoping to calm them and, as I realize in hindsight, probably hoping to convince myself.

I hoped to hell I was right.

When Giroux saw me walking the line, he called me over and asked me to go with him and Lieutenant Mayo to try and check the situation at the command post perimeter. I nodded and we quickly moved out.

Again, we made it without firing a shot. When we got there, everything was smashed. The Chinese had overrun the position. Every inch of the dugout was covered with the wounded. Only Doc Anderson was left. Also wounded, he hobbled over the men, trying to help. But he had few supplies and there was little he could do.

Between patients, he told us the Chinese had knocked out Jones and the machine gun position with grenades. I left and started to look for Jones. I didn't really know the guy. But after our conversation a few days ago, I felt like I did.

The machine gun was gone. The bodies close by had been dead for more than twenty-four hours. Maybe Jones was still alive—somewhere. I went back to Giroux, who was still talking to Anderson. The doc said that when the Chinese got into the dugout, Chaplain Kapaun stopped them from killing all of the wounded by surrendering himself. The Chinese took him and fifteen of the walking wounded, including my old company commander, Captain McAbee.

“What Kapaun did was heroic, stopping the Chinese,” Anderson said. “When he left, he was carrying Sergent Miller.”

Miller was Gray's friend from Pusan. Standing in the dugout, we were all astonished by the chaplain's bravery. But Doc Anderson, I thought, stood in no man's shadow either when it came to bravery.

We left what food we had and went back to our perimeter. There was nothing we could do, and there was no way we could get the wounded back to our trenches. Plus, we already had more wounded then we could treat.

 

 

 

When I got back, I organized about a dozen guys to follow me out of the perimeter and gather up some of the Chinese weapons and ammunition. We were out of almost everything, but lying in front of us were weapons and ammunition, including much needed grenades. Before we left, I told the men to be careful because some of the Chinese might still be alive.

It was a gruesome business, but the only solution to our most pressing problem. Crawling over piles of dead Chinese, the smell was overpowering. At times, I could hear gas seep out of the decaying corpses. I could hear men behind me gag and throw up.

The bodies closest to our position had weapons and ammo. We quickly gathered up their rifles, including some submachine guns, which we called burp guns because of how they sounded when fired. But the farther we got from our trenches, the fewer weapons we found. I knew when the North Koreans attacked, their soldiers in the rear ranks would be unarmed. They would pick up weapons from the wounded and killed and keep moving forward. I wondered if the Chinese were doing the same thing, or if they just did a good job recovering their weapons and equipment.

For the rest of the morning, we passed out our new trove of ammunition and dug in deeper. As we worked, I heard the faint buzz of an airplane overhead. The spotter plane that had dropped the bags of medical supplies was back. This time instead of dropping supplies it dropped a message. And this time the pilot dropped it on target.

Giroux opened the message. I saw the color leave his face. I knew what the message said before he told me. We were on our own. No relief column was on its way. Our new order was simple. We needed to get back to friendly lines the best way we could.

While Giroux got the officers together, I gathered up a few sergeants and we had a meeting.

“Well we are on our own. That message told us to get back the best way we can,” I told the sergeants.

Wollack was the first one to speak up. “We can't just leave the wounded.”

“What the hell else are we going to do?” a sergeant I didn't recognize said.

The meeting was tense. I realized that what I had been telling them was going to happen wasn't going to. No relief. No rescue. And if we stayed in this hellhole we would all die.

“I don't think we can keep the Chinese out of the perimeter for more than one more night, if we can even do that,” I said.

There was silence. We were facing death, but bravery is a funny thing. It comes in all sizes and shapes and appears in men you would least expect it from. Most of us didn't know one another, but we fought hard together like we were blood brothers.

“What do you all say about staying one more night? Maybe somehow they will break through to us,” I said. “Tomorrow, we talk about the wounded.”

Wollack nodded his head and looked at the others. “I'm for staying one more night.”

Everyone quickly agreed. No one wanted to leave the wounded. I told Giroux the way the men felt, and after he met with Bromser, Mayo and Peterson, they all agreed. No one was comfortable leaving our wounded or the wounded nearby in the battalion headquarters.

That night the Chinese attacked three times. And three times we held, but not without suffering more casualties. After the last attack, I literally fell into a hole near the center of the perimeter. I was fighting a losing battle against sleep. I could feel myself slipping away. My body felt numb, damp and heavy. There was no noise, no sound. I was paralyzed, and the harder I tried to move, the more my body felt like stone. I tried to scream.

Nothing.

I tried harder. I couldn't make a sound. Was I dreaming?

I tried to relax and gain control, but I was beginning to shake. The ground was wet and I was cold. All of a sudden I heard voices in the distance coming out of the fog.

“Rich, Rich.”

“Is that you, Walsh?”

“Yeah, I'm over here. Gray, Hall and Mac are with me.”

“Jesus, Rich, it looks like the whole section is here. What's going on? What went wrong? What happened?”

I was trying to focus my mind. I felt like I was falling down in darkness. I kept seeing scenes flashing by in my mind. Where was I? What was going on?

What went wrong?

“Wait! Wait! Walsh, Hall, wait!” They were disappearing in the mist; it was very dark and I could no longer see them.

Oh God, I never had a chance to say good-bye or tell them how great they were, how proud I was of them, or tell them I loved them.

 

 

 

Bugles in the distance cleared my hazy mind.

I was confused and cold, but in a few seconds I realized where I was. The ground rumbled and explosions crashed around me. The Chinese soldiers were almost on top of us. The men were screaming obscenities, bugles were blowing. It sounds and looks like the devil bathed in blood should be dancing over our heads. How could sane men be engaged in this apocalyptic dance?