The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Col. Freeman at The Siege at Chipyong-Ni (Feb, 1951)

Through his well-established chain of command, Col. Freeman quickly communicated his intent and concept of the defense and then supervised the defensive preparations. These preparations, executed both before and during the battle, included mutually supporting foxholes, protective and tactical wire obstacles, trip flares, anti-personnel mines, booby-traps, fougasse, armored roadblocks with anti-tank mines, multiple commo wire links and aggressive daylight reconnaissance patrols. Unfortunately, 2nd Battalion's allotment of wire ran out before any obstacles were emplaced in front of George Company. To mitigate the effects of the enemy artillery and mortars, the soldiers used railroad ties and rice sacks to reinforce command bunkers, fire direction centers, aid stations and supply dumps. The combined effect of these defensive efforts ensured CCF recons could not determine the true location of the 23rd RCT perimeter until the enemy forces were decisively engaged.

Chipyong-ni, Korea, February 1951. A Vickers .303 machine- gun in action against the Chinese, manned by Sergeant Chaperlin, 3 RAR.

Technical leadership skill simply concerns the ability to properly resource units to accomplish assigned missions. As a staff officer in the China-Burma-India Theater, under Gen. Joseph Stilwell's command during World War II, Col. Freeman learned the true significance of logistics in battle. As a result, Col. Freeman insisted on stockpiling ammunition and supplies forward. Units to his left and right flanks were losing ground to CCF attacks so he knew the CCF would eventually surround the 23rd RCT and gain control of the roads back to the regimental supply point at Yoju. Col. Freeman knew it would become nearly impossible to evacuate the wounded once the CCF encircled Chipyong-ni, so he lent his full support to the regimental surgeon's preparations before the battle to include the procurement of whole blood since plasma was not available.

As a result of this command involvement and the inclusion of the surgeon as a vital member of the regimental staff, only two wounded soldiers died after movement from a battalion aid station to the regimental collecting station. The 404 casualties included 52 killed in action, 259 wounded in action, 51 non-battle injury and 42 missing in action. Interestingly, there were no neuropsychiatric casualties.

Command supervision of the expenditure of 155 mm and heavy mortar illumination rounds allowed effective employment of individual and crew-served weapons to defeat enemy dismounted night attacks on the night of February 13. Through his staff, Col. Freeman also managed to coordinate two aerial resupply missions during the battle and ensured a C-47 Firefly was on station during the night of February 14 to provide illumination which proved prescient when the artillery illumination rounds ran out.

Tactical leadership skill relates to the commander's ability to orchestrate unit combat power during the battle. As discussed in FM 100-5 Operations, the commander is responsible for synchronizing the employment of all systems on the battlefield to maximize effects of individual, crew-served, indirect and supporting fires. This synchronization allows the commander to achieve a relative or absolute combat power advantage over the enemy.

Captain J. W. Finley of Hazelhurst, Ga., Co. F, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, although suffering from severe neck and face wounds as a result of an exploding Chinese grenade, braces himself upright between two jeeps and refuses to leave until he has finished directing first aid treatment and evacuation of wounded men of his company. 22 February 1951. Korea

Col. Freeman clearly demonstrated his tactical prowess via the choice of terrain and the defensive preparations that included interlocking fields of fire combined with an integrated system of mines, obstacles, wire, booby traps and flares. Inside the perimeter, Col. Freeman positioned his artillery forward, preregistered numerous targets and, where possible, sighted his guns to provide support in a direct fire role. Subordinate commanders rehearsed the movement of the reserve to key points on the perimeter while the regiment hardened critical command and control nodes.

The leadership actions taken by the regimental commander to maximize and focus the energies of his staff and his subordinate commanders are described as influencing, operating or improving in nature.

As an organizational leader, Col. Freeman was also able to influence the battle via leadership actions by personally communicating his intent and orders effectively through the chain of command. His actions in the tactical operations command kept his staff involved in the battle in support of the commanders. His decision to stay with his unit after being wounded increased the motivation of every soldier to contribute to the fight when they saw the commander would not leave the perimeter. Col. Freeman allowed his battalion commanders to fight their own companies when battle was joined but he never hesitated to conduct personal recons in combat in order to support his own decision-making.

Operating actions are a nearly continuous cycle of planning, executing and assessing. Col. Freeman's operating actions readily contributed to battlefield success via his ability to properly resource his commanders, monitor the battle and maintain combat power along his regimental perimeter at the decisive points and times during the two nights when he could not get CAS. Col. Freeman's ability to properly assess the situation and his unit's capabilities is best demonstrated by his employment of the regimental reserve to adequately limit enemy penetrations and maintain the integrity of the perimeter defense.

Finally, by establishing a command climate that quickly and effectively integrated personnel replacements into his combat units, Col. Freeman was able to take battalions that were at 60-75 percent strength in soldiers and equipment after the battle of the Twin Tunnels and decisively defeat a vastly larger force less than two weeks later. Veterans of the battle confirmed that morale was high throughout the 23rd RCT and Col. Freeman was well-respected. Col. Freeman's unpublished personal account of the battle draws upon regimental reports submitted to 2nd Infantry Division headquarters, subordinate unit logs and personal diaries. This accounting demonstrates a desire to learn from previous actions and thus improve unit performance in the next fight while disseminating lessons learned to other units who may find themselves in similar situations.

This short account of the battle at Chipyong-ni shows that Col. Freeman built the 23rd RCT into a well-disciplined, cohesive, battle-focused unit. In the six months prior to this battle, the 23rd RCT, under Col. Freeman's command, fought in every major campaign from the Naktong to the Yalu and back to the Han. The soldiers learned how to fight and stay alive in Korea. Leaders studied North Korean People's Army and CCF tactics and learned how to defeat enemy forces in battle. Staff officers learned how to resource subordinate units for assigned missions and anticipate their future needs. Just seven months after Task Force Smith's defeat north of Osan, the 23rd RCT under Col. Freeman's command found itself surrounded and overwhelmingly outnumbered.

Locked in decisive combat, the soldiers of the 23rd RCT fought an aggressive, determined foe in the bitter cold, on demanding terrain, and won. By itself, the 23rd RCT was a very good unit. Col. Freeman's combination of leadership skills and actions made the 23rd RCT a great unit. For his leadership at the battles of the Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-ni, Col. Freeman received the Distinguished Service Cross.

Col. Freeman was eventually evacuated to the United States and did not return to Korea again during the war. During his notable career, Col. Freeman rose to the rank of general and served as Chief of Staff of the Army. His personal exploits as the 23rd RCT commander during the battle of Chipyong-ni are an epic of organizational leadership worthy of detailed study by all officers who seek to command battalions and brigades.

Hold One More Night!

It was a battle fought for possession of an unimpressive crossroads village less than a mile in length, a few blocks wide, and already reduced to rubble by previous combat actions in the ebb and flow of a savage war. Yet here, at Chipyong-ni (ni means "village" in Korean) in February 1951, the U.S. Army's 23rd Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division fought the Red Chinese to the death. And I, for one, will never forget it.

"Seek, Fix, And Kill"

Just a few weeks after the disastrous defeat and "winter retreat" of United Nations forces in North Korea in late November 1950, General Matthew B. Ridgway had issued new orders to patrol aggressively, to "seek, fix and kill," as initial steps of Operation Thunderbolt, a forthcoming U.N. attack northward. On January 29, 1951, a motorized patrol from my own 23rd Infantry had been ambushed, bloodied, and finally rescued after uncovering a major outpost line of the Chinese 125th Division at the Twin Tunnels, just three miles southeast of strategic Chipyong-ni. There, the Seoul-Chipyong-Wonju railroad was tunneled under two ridgelines before continuing south and east to Wonju, and "Twin Tunnels" became a designation on military maps.

Responding to Ridgway's order to fix and kill, the 23rd Infantry, with the French Battalion attached, had moved in and, in a vicious two-day battle, brutalized three regiments of the Chinese division at the Twin Tunnels. Defeated and in disarray, the survivors had fled up the hills toward Chipyong-ni and beyond, where other Chinese divisions were preparing their own attack in answer to Thunderbolt.

March To Chipyong-ni

Late in the afternoon of February 3, the American-French force, only 70 percent effective after its losses, began the weary trudge, now unopposed, to the village of Chipyong-ni. As we moved along under heavy packs of individual and combat gear, our infantry boots crunched through patches of icy snow and stepped around occasional dead Chinese along the shoulders of the narrow gravel road. I was commander of D ("Dog") Company, comprised of veteran machine-gunners, 81mm mortarmen and 75mm recoilless riflemen, who had all been tested severely in past combat actions. Now they were marching behind me on both sides of a pathway leading to whatever role would be played, along with the rest of the 23rd Infantry, in the days ahead.

Colonel Paul Freeman, the 23rd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) commander, was also walking the road. Only a small metal eagle affixed to the front of his steel helmet distinguished the wiry, handsome, gray-haired Virginian from the rank and file. Trading a word or two with soldiers around him, he was unpretentious, sometimes pessimistic, often expecting the worst in order to deal with it, and occasionally profane when orders from higher-ups seemed inane or ill-advised. He had been General Joe Stilwell's supply officer during World War II, and a lot of "Vinegar Joe" had rubbed off on Paul Freeman.

At Chipyong-ni

Chipyong-ni was located near the east-west center of South Korea. Forty miles north, the 38th parallel crossed the peninsula, generally marking the border separating Communist North Korea from free South Korea. Fifty miles west, twice-ravaged Seoul lay in Communist hands again, after the winter retreat of U.N. forces. Wonju, located 15 miles southeast of Chipyong-ni and in better times an important hub of communications and transportation, was now a wasted, deserted city. Chipyong-ni and Wonju were linked by a single-track railroad and a gravel road. Another town, Yoju, was situated about 20 miles south of Chipyong-ni and connected to it by a gravel road; these three, in military-geographical terms, formed the Chipyong-Wonju-Yoju triangle.

The advance guard of Lt. Col. George Russell's 1st Battalion entered Chipyong-ni. Patrols encountered a few Chinese soldiers, who fled after a few cursory rifle shots. The other two battalions of the 23rd, with the French Battalion, closed on the village later in the afternoon. Still later, Freeman's regimental combat team was augmented by Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, with its 155mm howitzers; by the 105mm howitzers of the 37th Field Artillery Battalion; by Battery B, 82nd AAA AW SP Battalion (anti-aircraft artillery, automatic weapons, self-propelled); by Company B, 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Ranger Company; and by a platoon from the 2nd Medical Battalion.

Freeman ordered a full alert. He realized that his 4,500-man force, including fewer than 2,500 front-line infantrymen, could not adequately man all the higher hills around Chipyong-ni. Instead, he decided to install a rectangular-shaped perimeter on the lower hills immediately surrounding the village.

Preparing The Defenses

In clockwise order within the perimeter, Colonel Russell's battalion was responsible for the 12 o'clock sector; Lt. Col. Charles Kane's 3rd Battalion was emplaced at 3 o'clock; Lt. Col. James Edwards' 2nd Battalion was deployed at 6 o'clock; and the French Battalion was prepared to defend the entire western side. Company B of the 1st Battalion and the Ranger Company made up the reserve force. Field artillery units and the regimental 4.2-inch heavy mortars were emplaced inside the perimeter, with forward observers out on the line. Fourteen M-4 Sherman tanks and the anti-aircraft 82nd's vehicle-mounted twin 40mm Bofors guns and quad .50-caliber machine guns were also inside, awaiting call. The unit command post, the field kitchens and the medical station were housed in sandbagged tents and straw-roofed mud huts, with trenches and dugouts nearby.

Darkness and an ominous silence crept over the Chipyong Valley. Soldiers hunkered down in their newly dug burrows. Cigarettes glowed below the surface of the earth. On the west side, a few small fires twinkled in the darkness; the Frenchmen were out of their foxholes, strolling about and visiting neighbors. An occasional burst of song was heard. Only when Freeman bellowed over the field phones that the fires must be extinguished did they flicker out, one by one. The French soldiers were volunteers from Legion garrisons in Africa and other parts of the world. Their leader was a battle-scarred veteran of the Legion who led them in battle wearing his monocle, a beret, a bright red scarf -- and using a cane to compensate for his limp. Sixty-year-old Raoul Monclar, as he called himself, had given up his three-star general's rank and his true name of Magrin-Venery and had reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, since general was too high a rank for a battalion commander. Now, with a nom de guerre and the proper rank to lead a volunteer battalion in combat under the U.N. flag, he and his 1,000-man force had become Colonel Freeman's "Fourth Battalion." "This is my finest hour," Monclar declared.

The Phantom Army

For more than a week, the garrison planned and prepared its positions. "Dig, dig, dig," Freeman ordered. The machine guns and their crews of D, H and M companies were attached to the rifle companies on the perimeter. Barbed wire, mines and trip flares were installed in fields of fire along final protective lines. The 81mm mortar barrages of D, H, and M companies were coordinated with the powerful 4.2-inch heavy mortars, the eighteen 105mm artillery howitzers, six mighty 155s, and the automatic weapons of the 82nd. Illuminating shells were readied; ammunition, food and other supplies were hauled in from Wonju, and the engineers constructed a small airstrip for liaison planes and helicopters.

While Freeman prepared a defensive salient miles ahead of friendly regiments, Eighth Army staff officers were asking, "Where are Lin Piao and the 'Phantom Army'?" Actually, the famous Chinese general was not in Korea. He never had been. He was back in China -- ill, and openly pessimistic about China's intervention against the Americans. General Douglas MacArthur's intelligence concerning Lin was faulty -- the fact was, General Peng Teh-huai (Peng Dehuai) was commander of Chinese Volunteers in Korea, and the Phantom Army of 200,000 men actually was lurking in the villages and valleys of central Korea while he was planning a "Fourth Phase Offensive."

Like Lin himself, General Peng was a master of leadership and deception. In 1934, as disciples of Mao Tse-tung, they both were corps commanders, leading more than 100,000 Communist soldiers who had escaped the Nationalists' entrapment effort in southern China. Heading west and turning north, they disappeared from sight into wild, uncharted, sometimes hostile lands until, a year later, they reached the safety of the Yenana caves near the Great Wall. The "Long March" of 6,000 miles was a physical, military epic unparalleled in history. Its survivors formed the nucleus of a 600,000-man army under Mao Tse-tung that helped the Nationalists fight Japan in World War II, then turned on the Nationalists again in the Chinese civil war -- and defeated them.

Chinese Rollback

Only two years later, on October 14, 1950, the 38th Army of the powerful Fourth Field Army marched over the Antung bridges spanning the Yalu River and disappeared from sight in North Korea. General MacArthur's intelligence was deceived; General Peng hurried additional troops, including the 39th, 40th and 42nd armies, over other bridges and the frozen Yalu during the bitterly cold November of 1950 until nearly 400,000 Chinese soldiers were massed in hidden valleys, forests and villages south of the Yalu border. On America's Thanksgiving night, the Red Chinese streamed out of hiding places and entered the Korean War. Within hours, they rolled back the American-dominated U.N. forces, forcing a 1,250-mile retreat in the snows of North Korea that finally ended below the 38th parallel.

Later -- weeks later -- in the early evening hours of February 11, 1951, Peng's armies mustered for a massive attack across Korea, from Seoul eastward. Columns of at least four armies padded southeast, twisting over hills and through valleys, the soldiers chattering, chanting and singing as all Chinese did when sweeping along toward battle. These were tough, simple peasants, wearing furred caps and warm, quilted, mustard-brown jackets and pants. A few had fur-lined boots, but most wore lined canvas sneakers. Each soldier carried a three-day supply of grains in a compartmented cloth sack slung around his neck and over a shoulder. No truck hauled him from place to place; he used feet and legs, marching and trotting 25 miles nightly, as necessary. He had mortar and artillery support, but only a primitive communications system that included whistles, signal flares and bugles. Some soldiers operated sirens, which, when cranked by hand, inspired fear among some defenders. Individual weapons had an international flavor -- often they were captured American or Japanese pieces; mortars and artillery pieces were supplied by the Russians -- and all soldiers carried several grenades and suitable ammunition for their particular weapons.

Trapped And Surrounded

Aware of the growing Chinese movement around him, Colonel Freeman asked permission to withdraw. United Nations commander General Matthew Ridgway said no. He planned to use Chipyong-ni as a baited trap, enticing the Chinese to turn and attack it out in the open with large forces that could be destroyed by the combined firepower of the 23rd infantrymen, tanks, mortars, artillery and close-in Air Force sorties.

As daylight faded on February 13, G Company observed Chinese crawling, walking and trotting around the railroad tracks, creek bed, road and hills to the south. The supply road from Wonju was closing, as elements of the Chinese 40th and 66th armies shied away from Wonju and advanced on Chipyong-ni from the south and east. Parts of the 39th and 42nd armies were closing in from other directions.

The Chipyong Valley was surrounded. The Chinese were bent on revenge because the hated 23rd Infantry had bloodied their noses previously at Kunu-ri during the winter retreat in North Korea and at Twin Tunnels a few days before.

The command post of D Company was on full alert. As a U.S. Army captain and company commander, I had just scanned the ominous, red-penciled arrows on Captain Sam Radow's situation map at 1st Battalion headquarters. Ponchos covered the primitive windows of the hut. Sergeant First Class Joseph Loy tended the portable switchboard, while Lieutenant William Penrod checked the alternate communication wires in the command dugout just outside the hut. D Company was ready for the part it would play.

The Attack Begins

Sergeant Loy and I stepped outside just as rifle fire flared in the southwest. A burst of machine-gun fire answered in the south. Chinese bugles and whistles were heard in front of Captain James Raney's C Company. In the west, red and green flares hung in the air over the French. A number of trip flares lighted the rice paddies in front of A and C companies. The machine guns of my own D Company chattered as shadowy figures tried to escape the illumination. Suddenly the wild whistle of a single 120mm mortar shell sounded directly overhead. Loy and I dived for the command post's trench, and it landed with a mighty "ker-whomp" on an unoccupied hut about 30 feet away. Rocks, frozen clods of dirt and shell fragments rained down as the hut collapsed.

In the nearby command hut, someone yelled, "Outta here!" and ran for the door and leaped into the dugout. An officer picked up the switchboard, ran for the door and gained the relative safety of the new command post. An instant later, another incoming whistle ended in a booming explosion on the straw roof of the vacated command hut. The building vanished in a shower of debris.

Whistles, horns, sirens and bugles sounded all around the perimeter now. Chinese mortar and artillery fire slammed down on our interior position as well as the forward positions. Chinese infantry began to close in, probing for weak spots. A platoon, charging and screaming a battle cry of "Manzai!" was repulsed by Companies E and G. Slightly after 11 p.m., enemy forces moved down the slopes of Hill 397, approaching E and G companies again. As they started to attack, G Company soldiers detonated a series of fougasse drums in front of their positions. (First used extensively during World War I, a French fougasse was a 50-gallon drum planted in the earth at an angle and half-filled with gasoline and oil.) As a group of the enemy came within range, the defenders pulled wires attached to grenades under the drums, exploding them and spraying the attackers with a fiery bath.

At Midnight

By midnight the entire perimeter was under attack. Sergeant First Class Charles Klein of D Company was killed, and Private John Hansen, Corporal Leon Dubinsky and Pfc Denvil Meadows were wounded. D Company's machine guns were directing fire along the 1st Battalion perimeter, while Captains James Raney and Glen McGuyer of C and A companies, respectively, were calling for the supporting volleys of 1st Lt. Donald Hoskin's 81mm mortar platoon.

Sergeant Harley Wilburn, a forward observer for a 4.2-inch heavy mortar on the perimeter, was adjusting devastating "fire for effect" on the charging groups in front of A and C companies. The automatic weapons of Captain Clyde Hathaway's Battery B, 82nd AAA, were being called to critical points along the perimeter throughout the night. Chinese units struck Captain Ed Haynes' K Company, dominating the road leading westward and north into Chipyong-ni with such intensity that the wounded of K Company could not be evacuated to the medical station. A wave of assailants reached the foxhole line, and a squad of Captain Leander O'Neil's I Company swung over to help in hand-to-hand combat.

An ambulance jeep raced down the road leading to K Company, but it was raked by machine-gun fire -- the driver and a medical aidman were wounded. The driver was captured by the Chinese, but the medic crawled to an E Company foxhole. A squad from E Company, supported by a tank, was unsuccessful in an attempt to reach the wounded soldiers of the 3rd Battalion.

"Where Would I Go?"

A noisy party of Chinese seemed about to fall upon the French in the west. Hearing the preparations, the legionnaires leaped out of their positions screaming a battle cry, fixing bayonets as they charged, and cranking a shrieking Chinese siren of their own. They set upon the surprised and terrified enemy. Survivors turned to escape, only to be tackled, caught, and hauled back by the French as prisoners of war.

Chinese infiltrators penetrating between A and C companies were met by machine-gunner Corporal Charles Sherwood of D Company. He was wounded and his machine gun was destroyed, but other men held fast, including Pfc Donald Byers, until a replacement gun could be brought up. Adamantly refusing evacuation, Sherwood said: "I'm not coming out, Captain. Where would I go, anyway?"

At daybreak, 37 enemy dead were counted in front of his emplacement.

Just after midnight, three incoming mortar shells landed in quick succession on dirt-filled sandbags in the 81mm mortar positions of D Company, covering two mortar tubes temporarily and wounding mortarmen Vernon Stout and Chester Darling. At the same time, a thundering salvo bracketed the command post, and Pfc Frank W. Perry was mortally wounded. Sergeant Loy ran for a litter as I cradled Perry, deep in the dugout. Two men finally carried him to the medical station.

At about 2:30 a.m., two flares in the south signaled a third assault on the hills of G Company. Squads of enemy attacked along the series of three hills, concentrating on Curtis Hill (named after an officer of the 1st Battalion) with showers of grenades. Just after 4 a.m., a fourth attempt was beaten back, but fighting flared anew just west of the hill, where only a few men held the line between G Company and the French. A group of artillerymen with a machine gun moved up; only five survived, but they did plug a potential entryway leading directly into Chipyong-ni. A regimental tank was finally dispatched to augment the thin line.

Daybreak

As dawn peeped over the hills around the village, the enemy pressure had eased -- except in the 3rd Battalion's area, where Chinese commanders continued to order charges at I and K companies. Finally, at 7:30 a.m., a bugler sounded again and the Communists withdrew. They would soon return with additional forces -- and renewed hatred for the 23rd Infantry.

A light mantle of snow cast a veil over the Chinese dead in front of the perimeter. Soldiers climbed wearily out of the earth to count more than 500 slain just beyond their positions. Private First Class Marion Augustyniak's camera clicked away, recording the chaos and various positions of violent combat death. Along with the clusters of stiffened, nearly frozen Chinese bodies outside, a number of Americans and Chinese were sprawled side by side alongside American foxholes, and a few more shared dugouts in death, apparently having succumbed after frenzied hand-to-hand struggles in the darkness.

American and French wounded and dead at the medical station awaited evacuation by air.

How Can We?

"He brought us in, he'll take us out," muttered a company rifleman, shivering in his hovel next to Corporal Sherwood's new gun. He was speaking of Colonel Freeman.

CCF soldier at right has an M2 carbine, probably captured at Hoengsong
(In the overall KW to date, Eighth Army had abandoned enough weapons to arm several CCF divisions, at the least)

A 120mm projectile slammed in close to the regimental command post. A staff officer, Major Harold Shoemaker, was killed, and Paul Freeman was wounded.

It was St. Valentine's Day.

Moving about painfully on a bandaged leg, Colonel Freeman later walked the perimeter, urging officers and men to continue the fight. Observer planes reported that great numbers of enemy soldiers were massing outside the range of Chipyong-ni's artillery and mortars. In the afternoon, General Ridgway himself flew in by helicopter, promised help and asked Freeman's soldiers to "hold for one more night." A terse note was scribbled in the D Company diary: "One more night. Ammo low. Cold and snowy. How can we...."

All-Out Assault

Early in the evening of February 14, we were subjected to a furious bombardment, the prelude to an all-out assault. Although many foxholes had at least a partial overhead covering of railroad ties, timbers and sandbags, a direct hit often would blast some of the cover away, and the detonation itself would create casualties. At midnight, a Chinese attack wave struck A Company, then veered over into C Company and the 1st French Company. Soon the entire perimeter was under siege for the second consecutive night. Casualties continued to deplete the ranks, with no replacements available. C-47 cargo planes, called "Fireflies," dropped parachute flares, which cast a momentary, garish light over the battlefield before fading into eerie shadows.

Corporal Sherwood's second machine gun was destroyed, and he was mortally wounded. In the southeast corner, E Company was repelling endless numbers of Chinese trying to break through barbed-wire obstacles out in front. Firing along the rows of wire, the machine guns of H Company stopped fanatical charges that hurled bodies against, up to and over the wire, building human bridges of the dead. By 1:30 a.m., the wires were choked with bodies snagged and hanging on the barbs.

Chinese Gains

Chinese infantry erupted from Hill 506, frontally assaulted K Company and flowed over the foxholes of I Company. Elements of Captain Chester Jackson's L Company counterattacked, supported by the machine guns and 81mm mortars of M Company, and the line was restored. A blazing firefight raged across McGee Hill, located in G Company's sector, and its platoon leaders soon were calling for help. A dozen artillerymen were brought forward, but by 3 a.m. the hill was lost.

General Ridgeway

Lieutenant Paul McGee and two other men retreated to the G Company command post. Curtis Hill was captured by the Communists, and only 16 men were holding the third hill, which tied in with the French lines. A squad from Captain Stanley Tyrell's F Company shifted over to help; within minutes all were killed or wounded, and the hill was lost.

Just before 4 a.m., Lieutenant Robert Curtis led a composite force of a Ranger platoon, a platoon from F Company, 14 G Company men and three tanks in an assault that temporarily regained the crests of McGee and Curtis hills. On the way, Captain John Ramsburg, who had just joined the force, was wounded and limping; Lieutenant Thomas Heath, G Company commander, was seriously wounded; and the two platoon officers of F Company and the Rangers were killed. At this critical moment, the three tanks on the road below unleashed a heavy fusillade on the hilltops, assuming that they were blasting the enemy. Only Curtis' running, raging screams and waving arms halted the fire. Suddenly a Chinese counterattack overwhelmed the handful of shocked men and regained the crests.

Curtis and five men backed down the hill, where the lieutenant formed a last-ditch ring of 15 men in front of the 155mm howitzers.

Chinese Hills

The Chinese now "owned" the hills of G Company, but inexplicably failed to exploit the passage to victory. Looking down the shadowy road leading into the village, they began to dig in. Possibly their officers felt that the coup de grâce could easily wait until later in the day that February 15, not knowing that the U.S. Air Force would soon darken the sky around Chipyong-ni, and that a relief column of Sherman and Patton tanks was being organized on a road a few miles south.

Just after daybreak, Freeman ordered his reserve, Captain Sherman Pratt's B Company, and the remnants of G Company and the weakened Rangers to report to Colonel Edwards' 2nd Battalion; then he limped away to a waiting medical helicopter for evacuation. Lieutenant Colonel John Chiles had already arrived to replace him.

Led by Lieutenant Richard Kotite's platoon, the reserve force was thrown back three times during the day as it clawed and grappled uphill in efforts to reclaim the lost hills of G Company. Finally, the 23rd's staff made a desperate, crucial decision: to send four regimental tanks under Captain Perry Sager a very short distance south, down the Yoju road, then have them swing left to blast the exposed flanks and rear of the Chinese on Hill 397 and the reverse slopes of the G Company hills. At the same time, the reserve force would assault the crests in one final, frontal attempt.

Help On The Way

Meanwhile, other help was on the way. Colonel Marcel Crombez, commander of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, moved out with his tank-infantry team on the Yoju-Chipyong road at 3:45 p.m. The force consisted of 23 tanks, with 160 infantrymen of L Company, the 5th Cavalry and four engineers riding on top. At least twice during the wild, harrowing, six-mile drive, the column was forced to stand and fight, with infantry dismounted. The Chinese incessantly lashed the tanks and their riders with a hail of gunfire along the way, often rushing the tanks with explosives. The running battle reached a crescendo as the tanks entered a deep road cut and another enemy gantlet just east of Hill 340.

Finally breaking through with sirens screaming, the Chinese came upon the four 23rd Infantry tanks, which had just opened up on the enemy-held hills.

Under this combined assault, the Chinese began running away from the perimeter battlefield and abandoning the hills. Many of them headed for their Hill 397 stronghold, but soon the "Crombez tanks" were bombarding Hill 397, as well. As the thin line of B Company crawled and plodded back uphill, a contagious panic apparently was triggered among the remaining Chinese everywhere at the sight of the mighty, cannonading tanks and their fellow soldiers running away, surrendering their hard-earned hills. Thousands of Peng's soldiers started a mad stampede toward north and south, leaving the battlefield and being pursued by the fiery napalm bursts and strafing gunfire delivered by U.S. tactical-fighter planes. Most were throwing away their weapons, and the 23rd Infantry was firing at their backs.

Twenty-one 5th Cavalry tanks now rolled into the Chipyong-ni perimeter. Of the original 164 infantry-engineer riders, only 23 remained, and 13 of those 23 were wounded, clinging to the hulls.

Battle Over

As night came on, gunfire ceased. The Battle of Chipyong-ni was over. During the next few days, more than 5,000 Chinese dead were counted around the perimeter and in the hills and valleys beyond. Chinese divisions totaling 25,000 veteran soldiers had been mauled and defeated by a single American regimental combat team of less than 5,000.

This was a turning point, a pivotal, singular moment of the Korean War. Rising from the wintry ashes of defeat and humiliation, Americans had won a victory, and the myth of Communist invincibility was finally shattered.

Standing before a joint session of Congress more than a year later, in May 1952, General Ridgway stated: "I shall speak briefly of the Twenty-third United States Infantry Regiment, Colonel Paul L. Freeman commanding, [and] with the French Battalion....Isolated far in advance of the general battle line, completely surrounded in near-zero weather, they repelled repeated assaults by day and night by vastly superior numbers of Chinese. They were finally relieved....I want to say that these American fighting men, with their French comrades-in-arms, measured up in every way to the battle conduct of the finest troops America and France have produced throughout their national existence."

First Person By Ansil L.Walker

Additional Sources:

www.army.mil
www.rt66.com
www.pattonsgallery.com
www.sptimes.com
www.awm.gov.au
perso.wanadoo.fr
www.ngb.army.mil
www.military.com
www.abc.net.au
www.ee.princeton.edu
www.persuaders65.org

On This Day In history

Birthdates which occurred on April 07:
1506 St Francis Xavier Jesuit missionary to India, Malaya, & Japan
1534 José de Anchieta Spanish jesuit/missionary (Brazilian Tupi-Indians)
1629 Juan José of Austria, Spanish General/Governor of Netherlands
1648 Ferdinand van Kessel Flemish painter
1770 William Wordsworth England, poet laureate (The Prelude)
1775 Francis C Lowell founded 1st raw cotton-to-cloth textile mill
1786 William Rufus DeVane King (D) 13th US Vice President (1853)
1801 Henry Eagle Commander (Union Navy), died in 1882
1805 Francis Wilkinson Pickens (Governor-SC, Confederacy), died in 1869
1822 Gershom Mott Major General (Union volunteers)
1859 Walter Camp Connecticut, father of American football (Yale)
1860 W K Kellogg a real corn flake
1869 David Grandison Fairchild US, botanist/explorer, brought plants to US
1870 Joseph Ryeland Belgian composer/Baron
1878 Jozef C Bittremieux Flemish theologist (Virgin & Mother of God)
1882 Kurt von Schleiger German chancellor (12/2/32-1/28/33)
1884 Charles Dodd English new testament authority
1890 Marjory Stoneman Douglas environmentalist (1st Lady of Everglades)
1893 Allan W Dulles US diplomat/CIA head 1953-61 (Germany's Underground)
1893 Irene Castle dancer (leader in anti-vivisection movement)
1897 Walter Winchell Harlem New York NY, newscaster/columnist/muckracker (Untouchables)
1899 Robert Marcel Casadesus French pianist/composer (Prix Diémer)
1908 Le Duan Vietnamese politician
1915 Billie Holiday(Lady Day) [Eleanora Fagan] Philadelphia PA, singer (Ain't Nobody's Business)
1915 Henry Kuttner US, sci-fi author (Dark World, As You Were, Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner)
1920 Ravi Shankar Benares India, sitar player (Sounds of India)
1920 Terence Edward Armstrong polar geographer
1928 James [Scott Bumgarner] Garner Norman OK, actor (Rockford Files, Bret Maverick)
1928 James White UK, sci-fi author (Star Surgeon, Star Healer)
1930 Andrew Sachs actor (Manuel-Fawlty Towers)
1931 Daniel Ellsberg whistleblower (Pentagon Papers)
1932 Louis "Mr Bo" Collins Indianola MS, blues singer (If Trouble Was Money)
1933 Wayne Rogers Birmingham AL, actor (MASH, House Calls, Chiefs)
1934 Ian Richards Edinburgh Scotland, actor (Montgomery-Ike)
1935 Hodding Carter III press secretary (Jimmy Carter)
1935 Bobby Bare Irontown OH, country singer (Detroit City)
1938 Freddie Hubbard Indianapolis IN, jazz trumpeter (Art Blakey)
1938 Yvonne Lime Glendale CA, actress (Father Knows Best, Dobie Gillis)
1938 [Edmund G] Jerry Brown Jr San Francisco CA, (Governor-Democrat-CA, 1975-83)(governor moonbeam)
1939 David Frost Tenderdon England, TV host (That Was the Week That Was)
1939 Francis Ford Coppola Detroit MI, film maker (Godfather, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti)
1949 John Oates guitarist/vocalist (Hall & Oates-Rich Girl)
1951 Janis Ian [Janis Eddy Fink] New York NY, folk singer (Society's Child, At 17)
1951 John Dittrich Union NJ, country singer (Restless Heart-Wheels)
1954 Jackie Chan martial art actor (Rumble in the Bronx)
1954 Tony Dorsett NFL running back (Dallas Cowboys, Heisman Trophy)
1955 Andrea Fisher artist
1966 Teri Ann Linn Honolulu HI, actress (Kristen-Bold & Beautiful)
1967 Steve Wisniewski NFL guard (Oakland Raiders)

Deaths which occurred on April 07:
0030 Jesus crucified by Roman troops in Jerusalem (scholars' estimate, according to astronomer Schaefer)
0924 Berengarius I Emperor of Italy, murdered
1498 Charles VIII King of France (1483-98), dies at 27
1524 Philip of Burgundy bishop of Utrecht, dies
1614 El Greco Spanish painter (View of Toledo), dies (birth date unknown)
1719 Jean-Baptiste de la Salle French priest/theory/saint, dies at 67
1783 Ignaz Jakob Holzbauer composer, dies at 71
1789 Abdül-Hamid I 27th sultan of Turkey (1774-89), dies at 64
1803 [François Dominique] Toussaint L'Ouverture Haitian revolutionary, dies
1881 Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte Corsican MP, dies at 65
1891 P[hineas] T Barnum US circus promoter (Barnum & Bailey), dies at 80
1932 Erv A Kelley US policeman, shot to death by Pretty Boy Floyd
1950 Walter Huston dies at 66
1955 Theda Bara actress (Camille, Cleopatra, 2 Orphans), dies at 62
1961 Marian Jordan radio comedienne (Fibber McGee & Molly), dies at 62
1968 Jim Clark of Scotland, former world driving champion, dies in race car at 32
1972 "Crazy" Joe Gallo mobster, killed at his 43rd birthday party
1983 Gavin Gordon television actor (Romance, Lone Cowboy), dies at 82
1984 Frank Church (Senator-Democrat-OH, 1957-81), dies at 59
1994 Kurt Cobain grunge rocker/junkie (Nirvana), commits suicide by gun at 27

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 BAKER ARTHUR D.---SAN ANTONIO TX.
[LAST SEEN ON DIVE THRU THIN CLOUDS]
1965 LEWIS JAMES W.---MARSHALL TX.
LAST SEEN ON DIVE THRU THIN CLOUDS]
1965 ROARK WILLIAM MARSHALL---BELLEVUE NE.
[REMAINS NOT RETURNED AS REPORTED 03/77, BODY RECOVERED?? USG REPORTS REMAINS ID 3/77]
1966 BARNETT ROBERT RUSSELL---GLADEWATER TX.
1966 WALKER THOMAS TAYLOR---TOLEDO OR.
1968 MC MURRAY FRED H. JR.---CHARLESTON SC.
1972 CARLSON ALBERT E.---SAN LORENZO CA.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE IN 98]
1972 LULL HOWARD B. JR.---DALLAS TX.
[EVADED TO XT7297 WHERE KILLED]
1972 POTTS LARRY F.---SMYRNA DE.
[CAPTURED, DIED IN QUANG BIHN]
1972 SMITH MARK A.---LIMA OH.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 SCHOTT RICHARD S.---ST CROIX VI.
[KILLED IN BUNKER AT XU731081]
1972 WALKER BRUCE C.---PUEBLO CO.
[EVADED 11 DAYS, NVA APPROACHING]
1972 WALLINGFORD KENNETH---HOUSTON TX.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG, ALIVE AND WELL 98]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0451 Attila's Hun's plunder Metz
1118 Pope Gelasius II excommunicated Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
1348 Prague U, 1st university in central Europe, formed by Charles IV
1498 Crowd storms Savonarola's convent San Marco Florence Italy
1509 France declares war on Venice
1521 Inquisitor-General Adrian Boeyens bans Lutheran books
1625 Albrecht von Wallenstein appointed German supreme commander
1645 Michael Cardozo becomes 1st Jewish lawyer in Brazil
1652 Dutch establish settlement at Cape Town, South Africa
1655 Fabio Chigi replaces Pope Innocent X as Alexander VII
1712 Slave revolt (New York NY)
1724 Johann S Bach's "John Passion" premieres in Leipzig
1788 1st settlement in Ohio, at Marietta
1798 Territory of Mississippi is organized
1805 Premiere of Beethoven's "Eroica" (conducted by himself)
1818 General Andrew Jackson conquers St Marks FL from Seminole Indians
1827 English chemist John Walker invents wooden matches
1862 Grant defeats Confederates at Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee; Island #10 falls
1863 Battle of Charleston SC, failed Federal fleet attack on Fort Sumter
1865 Battle of Farmville VA
1888 Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Yellow Face" (BG)
1891 Nebraska introduces the 8 hour work day
1902 Texas Oil Company (Texaco) forms
1922 Naval Reserve #3, "Teapot Dome", leased to Harry F Sinclair
1923 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed (Beth Israel Hospital in NYC) by Dr K Winfield Ney
1923 Workers Party of America (NYC) becomes official communist party
1926 Mussolini's Irish wife breaks his nose
1927 Using phone lines TV is sent from Washington DC to New York NY
1933 Prohibition ends, Utah becomes 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment
1933 University Bridge, Seattle opens for traffic
1933 1st 2 Nazi anti-Jewish laws, bar Jews from legal & public service
1934 In India, Mahatma Gandhi suspends his campaign of civil disobedience
1939 Italy annexes Albania
1940 1st black to appear on US stamp (Booker T Washington)
1941 British Generals O'Connor & Neame captured in North Africa
1942 Heavy German assault on Malta
1943 British/US troops make contact at Wadi Akarit, South-Tunisia
1943 Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg seriously wounded in allied air raid
1945 US planes intercept Japanese fleet heading for Okinawa on a suicide mission; superbattleship Yamato & four destroyers are sunk
1946 Part of East Prussia incorporated into Russian SFSR
1948 World Health Organization established by UN
1949 Rogers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific" opens at Majestic Theater (for 1928 performances)
1951 American Bowling Congress begins 1st masters tournament
1951 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak
1953 1st west-to-east jet transatlantic nonstop flight
1953 Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden elected 2nd UN General-Secretary
1954 German government refuses to recognize DDR
1954 President Dwight Eisenhower fears "domino-effect" in Indo-China
1956 Spain relinquishes her protectorate in Morocco
1957 Last of New York's electric trolleys completes its final run
1958 Dodgers erect 42-foot screen in left field at Los
1959 Radar 1st bounced off sun, Stanford CA
1959 Oklahoma ends prohibition, after 51 years
1963 Public stock offering of 115,000 shares in Milwaukee Braves withdrawn after only 13,000 shares are sold to 1,600 new investors
1966 US recovers lost H-bomb from Mediterranean floor (whoops!)
1967 Israeli/Syrian border fights
1967 Tom Donahue, San Francisco dj begins new radio format - Progressive (KMPX-FM)
1969 Supreme Court strikes down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material
1969 Ted Williams begins managing Washington Senators, they lose to Yankees 8-4
1970 Milwaukee Brewers (former Seattle Pilots) 1st game, lose to Angels 12-0
1971 Dismissal of Curt Flood's suit against baseball is upheld by Supreme Court
1971 President Richard Nixon orders Lieutenant Calley (My Lai) free
1976 Chinese Politburo fires vice-premier Deng Xiaoping
1977 Consumer Product Safety Commission bans the flame-retardant chemical "TRIS"
1978 President Jimmy Carter defers production of the neutron bomb
1978 Guttenberg bible sold for $2,000,000 in NYC
1978 US Court of Appeals upholds Commissioner Kuhn's voiding of attempted player sales by A's owner Charlie Finley in June 1976
1979 Henri La Mothe dives 28' into 12 3/8" of water
1980 Jimmy Carter breaks relations with Iran during hostage crisis
1981 Willem Klein mentally extracts 13th root of a 100-digit # in 29 seconds
1982 Iran minister of Foreign affairs Ghotbzadeh arrested
1983 STS-6 specialist Story Musgrave & Don Peterson 1st STS spacewalk
1983 Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt(Doesn't look a day over 79,992)
1984 Detroit Tiger Jack Morris pitches no-hitter against Chicago White Sox, 4-0
1985 New Jersey General Hershel Walker runs for USFL record 233 yards
1988 Russia announces it will withdraw its troops from Afghánistán
1989 New York Supreme Court takes America's Cup away from San Diego Yacht Club for using a catamaran against New Zealand; Appeals court eventually overrules
1989 Soviet sub sinks in Norwegian Sea, with about a dozen deaths
1990 John Poindexter (National Security Advisor) found guilty on Iran-Contra scandal
1990 Michael Milken pleads innocent to security law violations
1991 "Shadowlands" closes at Brooks Atkinson Theater NYC after 169 performances

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

China : Ching Ming - families gather at graves of ancestors
Haiti : World Health Day (1948)
Yugoslavia : Republic Day (1963)
US : National Laugh Week Ends
US : National Publicity Stunt Week Ends
US : National Reading a Road Map Week (Day 4)
National Welding Month

Religious Observances
Orthodox : Annunciation of Mary (3/25 OS)
Roman Catholic : Memorial of St John Baptist de la Salle, priest, patron of teachers

Religious History
1541 Spanish founder of the Jesuits Francis Xavier, 35, and three friends set sail from Lisbon, Portugal for Goa. They became the first Roman Catholic missionaries to travel to India.
1628 Jonas Michaelius, 51, arrived in New Amsterdam (New York City), the first minister of the Dutch Reformed Church to come to America.
1884 Birth of C. H. Dodd, English clergyman and Bible scholar. Dodd became the most influential British New Testament scholar of the mid-20th century, and penned over a dozen books, including "The Parables of the Kingdom" (1934).
1953 Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjld, 47, was elected Secretary General of the United Nations. Hammarskjld endeared himself to Christians, after his death in 1961, through the 1964 publication of his spiritual journal, "Markings."
1968 In a letter penned during his 83rd and final year of life, Karl Barth wrote: 'How one learns to be thankful for each day on which one can still do something.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap."

What a Difference 30 Years Makes
1970: Long Hair.
2000: Longing for hair.

New State Slogans...
Kansas: First Of The Rectangle States

Male Language Patterns...
"Do you love me?" REALLLY MEANS,
I've done something stupid and you might find out.

Female Language Patterns...
SOFT SIGH
Not a word, but a verbal statement. "Soft Sighs" are one of the few things that some men actually understand. She is content. Your best bet is to not move or breathe and hope she will stay content.

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