the 14th, they heard tanks across the river.
Soon, tank cannon began to crack, flailing them with fire and steel. But the T-34's couldn't swim, and the shellfire did no great damage.
At midmorning, a scout ran back to L Company saying that Korean infantry was crossing the Kum two miles below them. More than five hundred were already across.
A liaison spotter plane from the 63rd Field reported NKPA ferrying across the river in two small boats, carrying thirty men each; the 63rd's Operations officer decided to wait for more lucrative targets. Then YAK fighters drove the spotter plane away.
Meanwhile Stith of L Company decided he'd better found up his supporting machine guns and mortars from the Weapons Company. He couldn't find them. Artillery and mortar fire now began to fall on Love.
Stith decided it was time to make tracks. He ordered L to withdraw from the Kum River heights. As L went back, one of its platoon leaders, Sergeant Wagnebreth, stopped to inform an officer of the 63rd Field Artillery that NKPA was south of the river; but the officer did not seem impressed with the news.
L Company went all the way back to Battalion HQ. When the Battalion C.O. found out what had happened, he relieved its commander on the spot and said he would court-martial him.
Meanwhile, I Company's acting C.O., Joe Hicks, was wondering what had happened to Love. He couldn't reach Battalion, either. Feeling rather lonely, Hicks stayed in place all day, under sporadic shelling. About dark, he received orders to rejoin the rest of the 34th back at Nonsan, and he pulled out.
The NKPA regiment that had crossed the Kum hadn't wanted Joe Hicks and Company-their scouts had filtered to the American rear and located a far richer target, the 63rd Field. The artillery battalion, consisting of only two firing batteries—artillery fat, as well as infantry, had been well sliced—Headquarters, and Service Battery, was positioned along a secondary road in the scrub- and pine-dotted low hills.
The 63rd Field was in fashion this Bastille Day, too. Its C.O. had taken sick and been evacuated to Taejon; Major William Dressler was in command. It had no communications with the infantry supposedly holding the Kum River line, and none with its own observers. It could talk only with the 34th HQ, which was to be no help.
In early afternoon, one of its outposts reported that enemy troops were in the hills. Battalion HQ told the outpost what it saw were friendly troops, and not to fire. Shortly thereafter, the outpost was captured, and its machine gun turned to fire on HQ Battery.
In this way, the 63rd Field learned it was under attack.
Mortar shells crashed into HQ Battery area, bursting with clouds of greasy smoke. A shell struck the battalion switchboard, destroying wife communication with the other batteries. Other shells burst on the CP, the medical section, and the radio truck, destroying all remaining communication left to the battalion.
An ammunition truck began to smoke, and when it went up, HQ Battery disintegrated into chaos, with men running in all directions. Machine guns flayed them. Bullets chopped holes in the doors of the Fire Direction Center hut.
Major Dressler jumped into a foxhole with a corporal, trying to fight back. Both men died there.
A few men of the battery escaped up a ravine leading to the south.
A Battery, only 250 yards away, drew fire at the same time. A company of approximately a hundred North Koreans ran into the battery, screaming and yelping, while mortar fire burst among the guns themselves.
Some of A's men fought back courageously with small arms. The battery commander was killed. Finally, some of them made it to the south, almost all without weapons of any kind.
Next, it was B Battery's turn. Four hundred enemy infantry surrounded the battery area, and for several minutes something akin to Custer's last stand was repeated. Then, while a group of ROK horse cavalry, who had ridden out of nowhere to attack the enemy, slashed into the North Koreans on the west, the artillerymen went march order.
They left their guns, after removing locks and sights.
The 63rd Field had now lost all ten guns and eighty vehicles. The five howitzers of A had been abandoned intact. Many men were missing.
Service Battery, overlooked in the first NKPA rush, was alerted by survivors from A. Service Battery marched fifteen miles south to Nonsan.
A straggler reached the 34th Infantry's CP at Ponggong-ni. When Lieutenant Colonel Pappy Wadlington understood what had occurred, he ordered Colonel Ayres' 1st Battalion to rescue the men and equipment that had been lost.
Late in the afternoon 1st Battalion marched north along the road, in attack column. Just as they came in sight of the 63rd's old position, they drew machine-gun and carbine fire.
The small-arms fire halted the battalion.
Ayres had been ordered to pull back if he could not accomplish the rescue by dark; it was now dusk. The 1st Battalion marched back to its old position. It did not remain there. It loaded into trucks and departed south for Nonsan.
That night, General Dean ordered an air strike on the abandoned materiel. The practice was becoming standard operating procedure.
It had been a bloody and tragic afternoon.
In the fading hours of 14 July, Bill Dean was still optimistic, although everything he knew of the art of war told him his hold on Taejon was precarious. But it was a forlorn optimism—again and again he ordered that the enemy be delayed; again and again his troops fell back, precipitating crisis. He knew that morale was crumbling, and he sent a message to his units:
'Hold everything we have until we find where we stand—might not be too bad—may be able to hold—make reconnaissance—may be able to knock these people out and reconsolidate. Am on my way out now.'
His line was breached, and the 19th Infantry's flank exposed.
He was in trouble, but he was not yet beaten.
The 19th Infantry, the Rock of Chickamauga, on 14 July held the principal crossing places over the Kum, centered on Taep'yong-ni. The 34th Infantry was on its left flank, and ROK Army units held to its right. As the one remaining intact regiment of the 24th Division, the 19th was given the most critical frontage of the river line.
The total front, counting the bends and twists of the Kum, extended for thirty miles. Having only two rifle battalions, the 19th was forced to leave wide gaps between units, and in some places hope for the best. The Kum itself was 200 to 300 yards in width, with four- to eight-foot embankments, and the water varied from six to fifteen feet in depth. It was a formidable barrier to enemy penetration.
But it was also crisscrossed with sandbars, and in some places wadable.
The Chicks were well commanded on 14 July by Colonel Guy S. Meloy, Jr., a combat veteran of the big war. Stan Meloy, a competent and courageous officer, made both his presence and his confidence felt. He placed his 1st Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Otho Winstead, to the front, with his 2nd generally to its rear in reserve. He had six batteries of artillery in direct support. He put his regimental CP at the village of Palsan, back from the river on the main road.
During the day, some probing attacks came across the river. All failed.
Then, in late afternoon, Meloy learned of the collapse on his left flank. He had no choice but to move his 2nd Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McGrail, over to the left to prevent his thinly spread line from being taken in the flank and rear. Now he had only one company, F, in regimental reserve.
And he had lost the battle of the Kum River before it began.
He could expect no help from the 21st. Virtually unfit for combat after the battering it had taken, the weak Gimlets had been moved by General Dean cast of Taejon to give the ROK's moral support, if nothing else.
As dark fell on 15 July, Stan Meloy alerted all his units to expect a night crossing. For two days an enemy buildup had been observed across the river. Air strikes had slammed into the enemy columns repeatedly, doing damage, but not halting them. The NKPA was growing wise to the ways of the now dominant American air power; it was staying off the roads by day, camouflaging its tanks and vehicles in wattle huts and orchards.
On both sides of the river the mud and straw villages were burning, set afire by air and artillery. As it grew dark, a hot, reddish glow overspread the muddy waters.
Then, small groups of NKPA waded into the river, trying to swim or wade across. The machine guns and
