The North Koreans started upward once again, and now friendly artillery whistled down on the American defenders. The artillery, with the idea that the enemy had overrun Stephens' ridge, had decided on their own to fire upon the ridge.
Stephens, cursing, ran to his own command jeep. He called his regimental HQ to contact the artillery to lay off—but the shells kept whooping in.
Crouching on the ridge under his own shelifire, Stephens took another message from Bixler, that Bixler was surrounded and most of his men were down. Bixler was not hear d from again.
During the fire fight, a few men here and there on the right flank of the ridge had been seen moving back. Now a yell went up.
Dick Stephens saw a number of men running to the rear. He shouted: 'Get those high-priced soldiers back into position! This is what they're paid for!'
A corporal, a Japanese-American from Hawaii, did his best to stop the panic, but was able to collect only a few men.
Within a few minutes, Stephens saw that the ridge would have to be abandoned. He signaled the small group still with him to fall back, and they crossed the rear slope of the ridge and floundered through the stinking rice paddies. On the way, two American planes dived down and strafed them. No one was hurt, but the men, forced to wallow face down in the odorous night soil, lost any future love of rice.
Coming into the position of his 3rd Battalion, Stephens immediately ordered Lieutenant Colonel Jensen to counterattack the lost ridge. Jensen went forward and after a sharp fight retook the ground—all except Bixler's hill.
And on the retaken ground Jensen found six American soldiers with their hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head.
The 21st Infantry continued fighting, though it was forced back from the ridge toward Choch'iwon. The North Koreans, the veteran 3rd Division, which Kim II Sung had designated 'Seoul,' crashed into the 3rd Battalion early on 11 July. It was a beautifully executed assault, following the pattern of most NKPA attacks.
While heavy fire held down the American front, troops and tanks passed through and around them, setting up roadblocks. Again—as continually happened—tanks tore up the wire, and radios fizzled. Colonel Jensen and a very high percentage of his battalion staff were killed or missing in action, while more than 60 percent of the battalion went down the drain.
Overrun, the survivors streamed to the rear. The men who came out had no canteens or ammunition. They lost their shoes in the muck of the rice paddies, and threw away their heavy helmets. Nine out of ten left their weapons behind.
Behind them, Colonel Stephens had organized the remnants of the 1st Battalion—the old Task Force Smith— on new positions. Two enemy divisions—the elite 3rd and 4th—were breathing on his neck.
At 1200, 12 July, he radioed General Dean: 'Am surrounded. 1st Bn, left giving way. Situation bad on right. Having nothing left to establish intermediate delaying position with am forced to withdraw to [Kum] river line. I have issued instructions to withdraw.'
The retreat was orderly. At 1600, except for a few inevitable stragglers, the 21st had crossed south of the Kum. On the south shore Stephens took up a new blocking position. He could put a total of 325 men on line—the total fighting strength of the 1st and 3rd battalions combined.
For three days Stephens had delayed the best of the North Korean Army. His was the first impressive American performance in Korea; some Gimlets had run, but the majority had fought and died.
The Gimlets had done well, but they had paid.
Falling back, they passed through the lines of the newly arrived 19th Infantry, the 'Rock of Chickamauga,' which had been rushed forward on Dean's orders.
The Chicks needn't have hurried. They were going to get their turn.
The Kum River is the first wide, deep, defendable stream south of the Han in southwestern Korea. It flows around the important city of Taejon, 120,000 people in 1950, sixth in South Korea, which lies some ten to fifteen miles below it. Between the river and the city is no terrain suitable for any hopeful defense.
If the Kum River were lost, Taejon must inevitably follow, and the American army could ill afford to lose Taejon, with its road and rail network leading to all South Korea.
General Dean was determined not to lose it.
By 12 July he had ordered all his troops to cross to the south bank of the Kum, and to blow all bridges behind them. Along the great arc, a sort of horseshoe bend that the river made about Taejon, he placed the three regiments at his disposal, the 34th Infantry on the left, the 19th on the right, and what was left of Colonel Stephens' 21st in a reserve blocking position on the southeast.
On arrival in Korea, the regiments had been at 70 percent strength—but worse, their tactical integrity had been destroyed. Each regiment had only two battalions, instead of the normal three, and American doctrine and training supposed three battalions. In any situation now in Korea, the regimental commanders could have only one battalion on line and one in reserve, or two on line and no reserve at all.
No American officer had had any experience with this kind of arrangement. The Army schools, assuming that before being committed to action the Army would get its 'fat' restored, had developed no new and startling ways of making do with too little, too late.
Facing now its hardest test, the 24th Division was already in poor shape. The 21st Infantry had lost 1,433 men; 1,100 remained. The 34th had 2,020; the 19th, 2,276. With supporting troops the division numbered 11,400.
Attacking this battered American division were the hardened 3rd and 4th divisions, NKPA, supported by at least fifty tanks. The North Korean units stood at from 60 percent to 80 percent strength at this time; they had not fought all the way from the Ch'orwon Valley unscathed. A full-strength NKPA division numbered 11,000 officers and men—therefore, the North Koreans had not quite two-to-one superiority over the Americans.
No staff and command college in the world teaches that a military force with not quite two-to-one numerical superiority has any assurance of success. An attacking force needs heavy superiority in numbers. But staff and command colleges teach also that men are not ciphers. Fighting against great odds, American fighting men have proved that fact time and again. Again and again they have defeated foes vastly superior in manpower.
But in Korea in July 1950, before Taejon, the American 24th Division was on the brink of disaster, and not because of the enemy's numbers.
On the left side of the American defense line, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry, held the south shore of the river. It had dug in Companies L, I, and K, with the mortars of M—Weapons Company—between them. Two and a half miles to the battalion's rear, the 63rd Field, 105's, stood ready to give fire support. Still farther back, what was left of the 34th's 1st Battalion rested in assembly areas.
The 3rd Battalion had no communications—none between battalion HQ and the companies, very little between company HQ's and platoons and squads. There was no wire for the few phones—most of it had been lost on former positions—and batteries for the old radios had gone out of style. At least, it was a waste of time requisitioning any.
The Love Company Commander, Lieutenant Stith, looked high and low for just one radio with which he could talk to Battalion. He couldn't find it.
The command situation throughout the regiment had, in military parlance, worsened. After Colonel Martin's death, the regimental exec, Wadlington, had taken over, and Pappy Wadlington was doing a good job. But the 3rd Battalion commander, Smith, had exhausted himself and been evacuated, and both the regimental Operations and Intelligence officers had come down with combat fatigue. All through the regiment, command and staff positions were now occupied, from Pappy Wadlington on down, by officers not exactly prepared for them.
And during the first night along the Kum, K Company—now only forty men—had to be withdrawn and sent to Taejon for medical disposition. The company had reached such a state of deterioration that Wadlington felt they would be more liability than asset.
That left only Item and Love holding the river. Item and Love knew that there was no one west of them and that it was some two miles from their right flank to the 19th Infantry on their right.
All night 13 July, it rained on them, and they approached the dawn with no great enthusiasm. Then, early on
