The 5th & 7th Regiments, 1st U.S.Marine Division at Udam-ni near Chosin Reservoir, were ready to break out of Chinese Trap

For the memory of Korean War on 25 Jun. same day in 1950, I would like to remind of the brave 5th & 7th Marine Regiments near Chosin Reservoir. They demonstrated clearly in this case why every unit of US Marines did carry out their missions without hesitation, and what spirit lead them to do so. I am proud of Korean War Veterans of United Marine Corps, who may die in process of battle or after the war, or live now. You once US Marine, shall be always US Marine with the spirit of Semper Fidelis.  Korean Marines surely wish to be standing by USMC forever, just as the moment in which two marines fought together as one team in Inchon landing, Seoul barricade, Chosin reservoir, Andong guerilla, Hwacheon reservoir and battle fields of the West front. 

 

I have always respected the US Marine Corp proving their ability in times of crisis in Korean war so I would like to introduce one of their heroic tales on the Chosin reservoir campaign. This could be a good example for the marines to relief their comrades, not only for their regimental mission accomplished’ surrounded by outnumbering enemy regardless of any danger and inevitable sacrifice. I wish the dead and wounded marines in the operation surely stood in front of the heavenly judgement and were judged to be the good Samaritan. They did righteousness and justice not only for saving their comrades, regiments, and first marine division but also for saving Republic of Korea and Free Democracy from communists. My father died in April 2014 but had contributed playing a role of English translator during Korean war. He told me, one day, of his task to administer the operational casualties and made me understood the value of freedom. My mother was a witness to endure in the communist occupation in her twenties as she had lived near Youngkwang where a massacre was committed by the leftist. Our fathers and mothers in his nineties and her eighties and should be memorized for their endurance and contribution for the free democracy and Christian faith when I am looking to the tale about the US marines in the same our parents’ ages. I pray those who fought against the communist for our freedom and Christian worship were acceptable to the Lord. The US marines’ tale narrated below was abstracted partly from the book, Breakout Korea 1950, written by Martin Russ. 

                   

Eight miles westward across the ice, the two marine regiments at Yudam-ni were getting ready to break out of the Chinese trap. Litzenberg and Murray knew that Ridge’s meager force had beaten off the enemy at Hagaru where their divisional headquarter was established on the way of the only supply route. As Murray put it, “Hagaru was fourteen miles down the road, and there was a hell of a lot of Chinese between us and them.”

 

General Smith had told Litzenberg and Murray of what they to do and of not how to do.. Litzenberg thought, “Our situation at Yudam-ni was not a pleasant one. We were in a valley with five Chinese divisions around us, and there were a sixth division nearby. We were not sure of its location. We knew that Chinese had the only road well blocked. We felt that simply to try and bull our way down this road with the enemy staying ahead of us on both flanks and strong forces pressing on our rear. They would keep us pretty well boxed in. We had to find a way to take them by surprise and throw them off balance.”

 

Litzenberg conceived the notion of sending one of his battalions across country to relieve Fox company at Toktong pass and he hoped, at the same time, to disrupt enemy plans for the capture of Yudam-ni..

 

The plan was essentially as follows: Harris 3/7 would seize blocking positions on the commanding ground south of village while Davis 1/7 made the overland trek to the pass.. Steven’s 1/5 would hold blocking position just south of western tip of the reservoir while Roise’s 2/5 defended ridges south and west of Yudam-ni, poised to serve as rear guard when the moment arrived.. Tapplet then would proceed down the road through Harris’ positions, leading the main breakout.. Ideally Davis reach the summit of the pass at Fox company’s position at about the same time when Taplet reached it by road with other battalions strung out behind him.. Once, the breakout had been achieved, it was vital that momentum be maintained, otherwise the enemy could re-encircle the breakthrough force.. The battalion, behind, therefore, has to be prepared to relieve them when it became necessary to keep the tactical ball rolling..

 

Colonel Homer Litzenberg directed Lt. Col. Raymond Davis to strike off with his entire battalion across the mountain tops , plunging into a trackless no-man’s land in the dark to attack the rear of the Chinese regiment surrounding Barber’s company at Tokdong pass on the way of Hagaru, “The enemy assumes we’re road-bound with our truck, artillery and engineering equipment. So we have a good chance of catching him by surprise with an overland move.. We’ve got to get going on this.”

 

Davis briefing was subsequently delivered to his company commanders, “ Surprise will be essential weapon. Marines don’t ordinarily attack at night so the Chinese won’t be expecting us to do. We will move out in a single file along the azimuth of one hundred and twenty degrees.. Every three minutes, a star shell will burst along the azimuth to guide us, fired from a howitzer back at Yudam-ni.. The success of the attack depends on complete silence until we meet resistance.. Some fellow Marines are in trouble.. We are going to rescue them and nothing is going to stand in our way… Marines instinctively know they will never fail to get support and they will never be abandoned or let down in any way by their fellow Marines. Everyone knows this is an important mission. By seizing the pass, we would unlock the gate and hold it open for the rest of Marines in Yudam-ni. Some fellow marines were in trouble. We were going to rescue them, and nothing was going to stand in our way. Marines instinctively know they will never fail to get support, and they will never be abandoned or let down in any way by their fellow marines, and they will respond in like manner; it’s automatic. Everyone knew this was an important mission. By seizing the pass, we would unlock the gate and hold it openfor the rest of the marines in Yudam-ni.”

 

When the word got around that 1^st battalion, 7^th regiment, was going to the relief of Fox company in Tokdong pass, the troops were elated. A radioman recalled, “We had perfect confidence in Colonel Davis.”

 

Before Davis gave the signal to move out, he had the men double-time in place to check for noisy gear. It was about 9 P.M. Dec. 1, 1950, the battalion tail was then pulled up the mountain, and the last physical tie was broken with the other marine units at Yudam-ni. Davis was on his own. The lead platoon lieutenant was instructed, “Aim toward a certain star over the southern horizon that glowed a bit more brightly than the rest. That’s your heading.”

 

Half an hour later, the column of 500 marines, a few navy corpsmen and doctor that stretched half a mile was picking its way laboriously across the slopes, ridges, valleys and saddles of a rocky wilderness. The star shells from Yudam-ni popped softly in the sky at regular intervals but somehow failed yo perform their orienting function. The point of the column descending into a ravine lost sight of the brighter star and began drifting to the right. This was dangerous because the column would eventually butt up against the rear of the Chinese dug in on the ridges overlooking the road. The marines seemed to have desolate area all to themselves. The wind was erratic; sometimes it blew fiercely, sometimes it was still. When it was still, a cough sounded like a mortar shell exploding.

 

After Colonel Davis conferred with the lead platoon lieutenant, the column began to trudge forward again in snow that was often knee deep. The trail became icy, packed down by the boots of those ahead. Men in the rearward platoons slipped to their knees and staggered to their feet only to slip again. The icy downhill passages were even more treacherous especially for machine gunners and mortarmen with their cumbersome loads. Often it was necessary for the scouting lead platoon to hold up the column to let the scouts carry out a reconnaissance of the ground ahead and thus avoid leading the column over a precipice or into a stream if they were in a gorge.       

 

Lt. Col. Raymond Davis: “Up there on the ridges, we ran into an especially harsh wind and it was just devastating. We all became absolutely numb with cold. At one point, I got myself all hunched down in an abandoned Chinese hole with my map and flashlight and compass. Before I turned on the flashlight, I made sure I was tucked in under a poncho. I then got oriented to the azimuth in relation to the next hill mass, turned off the light and climed out. The three company commanders were standing there shivering and waiting for orders.”

 

PFC Allard Johnson: When the wind died down, we heard Chinese soldiers talking in low tones. I gor impression they didn’t know we were there or if they know, they assumed we were Chinese.”

 

Lt. Chew-Een Lee: I was personally leading the column in a wide skirting motion when I heard a voice very clearly, “You heard something?” A different voice said, “Yes” A moment later, “We attack.” And the shooting began. The enemy was about a hundred yards away but seemed much closer.” Lee signaled his squads into skirmish formation and led them upslope on hands and knees. There was a torrent of firings as the marines overran the position. An enemy squad had been sleeping on a wide shelf of rock that jutted out from the mountainside; most of them were shot to death in the brief action.

 

The column had been moving slowly but without letup for three hours and now a long time after midnight, the point reached a spot that seemed to be the highest in the area, the top of hill 1520. The long column again came to a halt. Davis realized that his troops were virtually in a state of collapse. When he asked a rifleman which company he belonged to, the young man couldn’t even answer. He decided it was time to take a major break. A sergeant came up and told Davis he had something to show him. The colonel went off a short distance with the sergeant and watched him pull up a large icy object that turned out to be a Chinese soldier. There were several others nearby, wedged tightly in holes for warmth, and most of them dead. It had been some kind of outpost and the weather had all but wiped out.

 

Davis deployed his troops in a tight perimeter as fast as he could and organize two-man patrols to make certain the men on twentyfive percent  watch were alert.  

 

The marines were pretty well hidden in the darkness but worried about their exposure in the broad light of day. There was no question that the mountains were crawling with enemy troops. Davis had just climed into his bag and was zipping it up from inside when he noticed a marine with an entrenching tool, working nearby; as he sat up to caution the marine to get off the skyline, there was a distant burst of machine gun fire. One of the rounds brushed across Davis’s forehead. It left a mark. Davis drolly suggested, “The Chinese were trying to tell them your digging was keeping them awake.” He turned over on his side in that nerveless way of his and fell a sleep immediately.

 

The sky was glowing in the east when the column began moving toward the pass once again. This movement stirred the Chinese who opened fire, and soon some troops were pinned down. Lieutenant Lee, hypervigilant as usual, moved forward to check on the situation and told his runner to bring his platoon up. Lieutenant said, “ My platoon always returned fire when fire upon.” He deployed his platoon in attack formation and began moving upslope under the supporting fire if two machine guns. He was nearly exhausted by the time he reached the crest and had enough strength to raise his carbine to fire at two soldiers who rose out of snow before him. Behind them, other Chinese broke and ran, and Lee directed his men to pursue them with fire.

 

Lt. Col. Davis wasn’t yet certain of his position in relation to Fox company but after the column moved a few hundred yards farther, he recognized a rocky promontory that he had noticed on the march north in late November. He said, “I was greatly relieved when I spotted that landmark because it gave me a definite fix on our location. The bad news was that we had sustained a dozen casualties including three dead in the firefight at first light. We buried them in the snow and brought the wounded along on stretchers and canvass fold-up litters.”

A corporal said, “I was dogtired that when a gook rose up out of a hole and took aim at me, I didn’t have the strength to raise my nine-and-a-half-pound rifle to shoot him. Staff sergeant took care of him with his Winchester sniper rifle and saved me. This gook shot down was just one of whole lot who were swooping down on our rear.”    

 

The marine of the relief force stopped and stared in awe. The snowfield leading up to Fox company’s line was covered with the bodies of Chinese soldiers in padded green, khaki and white uniforms. There were hundreds of them.  It was 11:25 A.M., December 2, 1950.