"The Other Side of History" Feathers - U.S. Marine Corps Battle of Hellfire Valley (1)
After the soldiers climbed into the truck, the convoy traveled along the frozen road at 5 to 10 miles per hour. Next, the Dreisdale contingent faced a variety of roadblocks, and the volunteer soldiers treated everything they could find as a roadblock: logs, destroyed vehicle wreckage, stones and rubble. Every time there was a roadblock, the convoy was forced to stop, which became a target for Chinese. The combination of fire from the surrounding highlands and these temporary roadblocks made the convoy's advance as slow as a snail's pace.
Mortar shells fell like raindrops, causing a large number of casualties. One shell hit a first-class soldier in a truck in which a Marine soldier was riding, Steve Olmstead, recalled that "the mortar went through the canvas cover and detonated in the truck body, killing or injuring everyone on board." Olmsted was a natural leader with a sharp mind who went all the way up to lieutenant general.
General Steve Olmsted
The Volunteers' mortars had pre-calibrated firing coordinates on the road, and as soon as the trucks were in sight, they were ready to fire, making it an ideal killing zone. Another 1 mortar shell landed on a group of Army soldiers, who Harrell Roberts recalled were "huddled together like a soccer team, and the mortar shell hit right among these people, and they were peeled off like bananas."
At least 2 G Company soldiers were forced to shell wounds, First Class Jim Byrne and First Class Paul Price, and a piece of shrapnel plunged into Bourne's back. Corporal John Agostini of Company B of the 31st Regiment drove a jeep and made countless trips back and forth on the road throughout the afternoon, transporting the wounded back to Guturi. Jeeps normally accommodate only 4 people when transporting the wounded, but are now packed with 8 people, including the driver and an observer acting as a guard.
"We're going back to Xingnan Harbor," the medic told Bourne and the other soldiers. "But aren't all the Chinese on those mountains?" Bourne asked nervously. "Ah, don't worry. The last ambulance rushed past. "It didn't give me much comfort," Bourne later recalled.
As the ambulance passed through the Funchilin Pass, Bourne heard the sound of machine gun bullets. A string of bullets passed through the front of the jeep and almost hit the front cover of the car. The driver and the escort got out of the car, and the people behind them looked at each other, and Bourne thought to himself, the road is at the end.
All the people in the back were unarmed because they were all non-combatants. Bourne thought to himself that Chinese would rush down at any moment, strafe the car with a machine gun, and throw grenades. He prayed over and over again, 5 seconds, 10 seconds. Time seemed to stand still, but the volunteer machine guns did not fire again.
U.S. Ambulance
Ambulances headed in the direction of Xingnan, and there was no more fighting. The olive-colored ambulance is painted with two bright red cross signs on the sides. "I think about it a lot, and to this day, I believe I'm alive because the Chinese soldiers were merciful and didn't fire on the ambulance."
The convoy of 141 trucks slowly became fragmented. The burned-out general-purpose trucks blocked the road, and the G Company suffered considerable casualties. They were attacked from both sides of the road. Olmsted recalled: "It was like a wild West scene where Indians opened fire on a convoy of horses. ”
The soldiers repeated the lethal procedure of the entire journey: encountering a Chinese barricade, getting out of the car under intense fire, clearing the barricade, and then getting on the car again.
"We had to hide behind the truck's tires for cover and we had to throw grenades. I remember getting on the bus at least 9 times and 1 more. In thirty or forty minutes we had to jump out, wait and hide behind the tires as more and more people fell. Merter Goodtiger recalled emotionally.
The soldiers struggled in the freezing cold, but Clark Henry united the Forward Watch team, and he was like a hen, keeping everyone focused and shouting, me with your rifle! "
Chinese fired bullets hit the truck's slats, and Bruce Fall recalled: "It exploded and there were pieces of wood everywhere". There was only canvas on the top of the truck, and there was no way to stop the bullets.
Bullets went through the canvas. The man on my right was shot in the knee. There was also a red-haired Marine soldier, whom we called 'Ryder', whose right side of his glasses had been knocked off, bullets whizzing past the inside of his helmet, his hair all wiped off, but Ryder had only shed a drop of blood. And we were like ducks in the truck, doing nothing but hope and prayer."
Habra lost all his personal belongings during the battle: "Getting on and off the truck is when most casualties occur. When our truck started, I lost everything in my backpack, including a Japanese saber and a valuable sleeping bag I had in Seoul. If I lose this thing and go to bed at night, I will have to freeze to death, and I will have to jump on another truck." Feeling certain he was dead because he had lost his sleeping bag, Habra told his good friend Joe Rice, "I don't think we're going to win." It looked like a suicide mission, Joe. "
The goal of the Volunteers was to divide the convoys of reinforcements and divide them. The Chinese soldiers made every effort to shoot at the enemy who was moving. "If a rat is cornered, it will only resist fiercely. If it can run, it can be stuttered, and the damage to the attacker is very small. Surprisingly, the fighting was carried out according to the plan of the Volunteer Army.
Communication is one of the most important elements on any battlefield. With the exception of the radio stations inside the tanks, the entire convoy's radio stations were frozen due to the harsh climate. Through the radio that was still available, Dreisdale received word that D Company of the 1st Tank Battalion would arrive for reinforcements at 13:00. Drysdale was caught in a dilemma: whether to continue to advance in the face of the volunteer attacks, somehow compensating for the time lost in the capture of the two hills, or waiting for the tanks that could break through the volunteer lines to arrive. The arriving tanks might be able to help them break into The Lower Corner and hold the place, so Dreisdale decided to wait for reinforcements to arrive.
The tanks basically arrived as scheduled shortly after 13:00, and the convoy regrouped 50 minutes later. Dresdale then asked Tank Company Commander Captain Bruce Clark to dismantle 2 Pershing tank platoons and 1 Sherman tank platoon and deploy them throughout the column. Drysdale said Clark was a "young man with opinion" because he refused the order, believing that the tanks should be concentrated in front to break through. Since Clarke's orders were not under The command of Drexdale, he broke the boundaries of the rank heights and resolutely did not submit to Theraysdale's command. And this decision will have a huge impact on the entire mission.
With tanks concentrated in front of the convoy, Dresdale was unable to contact the rest of the column. Many years after the end of the war, soldiers and historians debated the decision to decide whether the deployment saved some lives or sent them to the graves early. If the tanks were scattered in columns, it might be possible to improve communication conditions and increase cover for the entire convoy. But if the tanks are not concentrated in the front, there may not be enough firepower to break through the Chinese army's resistance.
In any case, Drysdale immediately put the arriving tanks to use. They immediately destroyed several key points occupied by the volunteers, and the G Company was thus relieved and the convoy began to advance again. As the tanks cleared the way, the convoy had to stop on the road and become a target for enemy attacks. Bob Cammarillo recalled: "Every time the tanks fired, it was like the sky was falling around us, the whole convoy was going to stop, and that's when we were enemy targets. The truck was a mess, it was a 9-hour firefight."
The reinforcements resumed their ill-fated journey.
On the afternoon of 29 November, Zulo was in the same car as Captain Citer, who often had to get out of the car to organize a counterattack against the Volunteers. As the convoy slowly advanced, he looked back and saw that the whole convoy had stretched back and forth for about 1 mile, just at which point a shot of shrapnel had burrowed into Zulo's shoulder blade, and he felt like he had been stung by a bee.
Burning trucks and explosions lit up the skyline, and the battered convoy was still moving forward. Clark's 17 tanks took the lead, with the remaining 22 trucks of G Company waddling behind the tanks, followed by the Royal Marine Commandos, followed by the British with the remaining vehicles of Company B of the 31st Regiment, followed by the cars of the divisional miscellaneous personnel. Later several tanks tried to join the convoy, but were beaten back.
When the convoy resumed its advance towards the lower corner, the pace was alarmingly slow. The Volunteers' blocking positions forced reinforcements to stop and engage repeatedly, as was the case throughout the journey, with Chinese mortar shells whizzing down. During a break in a battle, the machine gunner Tom Powers found a Marine soldier's eyeball hanging in his eye socket like a shiny golf ball, which was very strange.
The Marine soldier screamed, "Am I okay?" "
Bowles took the gauze from his first aid kit and gently put the other person's eyeball back into the eye socket. He replied in a Brooklyn accent, "Not much of a deal."
bang!
Another mortar shell roared down on the G Company convoy.
As Task Force Dreisdale slowly advanced, several trucks drove off the road, either towed back or pushed aside. Zulo and Sitel gathered the soldiers, and Zulo's "cheerful" voice sounded on the road.
"On the road!"
"Let's go!"
"Get Moving"
"The journey is gone"
More than sixty years later, Zulo recalled, "We had to rush to The Lower Umaki at any cost. We're going to get there anyway. I know that we are very important to keeping Hagaruri, and if we fail, then the fucking whole army will be finished, maybe even this damn war will be finished."
As the convoy moved farther and farther down the road, the volunteer attacks became more and more intense. Zulo said: "I feel like they're just 15 to 20 yards away from me, literally under our noses." It's a lot like fighting in the Pacific Islands." The number of casualties in g-company also continued to increase.
At 4:30 p.m., the Dreisdale contingent was just four miles from Guturi, where they encountered a web of fire woven by volunteers' mortars and light weapons. Captain Clark told Sitter and Dreisdale that he suspected that units other than tanks might not be able to reach Hakata. The road is full of craters and barricades, and even worse, Chinese, and they must make decisions right away.
(To be continued)