in his zone.
The 16th Regiment reached the east bank safely, dressed, and marched down a draw between the American defensive strongpoints. They struck into American units, while behind them more North Koreans swarmed across the Naktong. By 7 August, against a 24th Division that was at less than 40 percent efficiency because of losses of men and equipment, with attendant low morale, the NKPA had seized both Cloverleaf Hill and Obong-ni Ridge, dominating the road into Yongsan, five miles to the east. They could see far down the road to Miryang, an important center.
If Miryang fell, the Perimeter would be in deep trouble.
Now the NKPA built underwater bridges across the Naktong at the ferry site, employing an old Russian trick. These bridges were invisible and therefore invulnerable to air attack. Heavy equipment of the 4th Division poured across; their artillery began to fire by battery.
The town of Yongsan came under the North Korean shellfire.
General Church ordered counterattacks. Fresh troops from the 2nd Infantry Division were coming onto line; the 9th Infantry of that Division had arrived from the States.
Along the critical Cloverleaf Hill-Obong-ni Ridge Line vicious combat now raged for ten days. Hills changed daily from hand to hand, and along this line the Perimeter would be held or lost.
First Lieutenant Frank E. Munoz, of Tucson, Arizona, was the executive officer of H Company (Heavy Weapons), 9th Infantry, the first week of July 1950, when the orders came to pack for Korea. The regiment—the Manchu Raiders—had been at Fort Lewis, Washington, since April 1946, and, as Frank Munoz put it, the Raiders were at Parade Rest.
Since most of the enlisted men of the regiment had come in at one time three years before, two months before Korea many enlistments expired, and most of the men left for civilian life. On 25 June, the parent 2nd Division was at 50 percent strength, and conducting training. Some of the training was pretty basic, and all of it was peacetime.
When Munoz heard the news of the North Korean attack, he felt the same excitement he had known after Pearl Harbor. Then he had been on active service with the Arizona National Guard. After the war he had decided to make a career of it. A middle-sized, tough, wiry black-eyed man of twenty-eight, he was what the Army called a 'career reservist'—he would stick around as long as they let him. He felt a deep pride in the uniform, and a deeper pride that he had become an officer.
The army gave the 2nd Division one week to load on shipboard at Tacoma, and the same week to fill up to full strength. As Munoz said: 'We turned the vacuum cleaner on. It sucked up men from everywhere—behind desks, out of hospitals, from depots. We filled up fast.'
Unfortunately, some of the men arriving were not infantrymen, and more than some were not interested in becoming riflemen.
The 9th Infantry was the first to embark for Korea, preceding the balance of the division. It landed at Pusan on 31 July 1950, but some of its vital equipment didn't land with it—the regiment had come across on more than one ship. It took a few days at Pusan to get everything straightened out.
H Company got no formal briefing on the war aboard ship, or before. The men heard newscasts, and they saw maps in the papers. Other than that, no one could tell them much. H Company's C.O., young, serious First Lieutenant Edward Schmitt, talked to the men once during the crossing.
He told them very solemnly: 'Men, we're going into war. This will be a time when mistakes will cost lives.' Schmitt had seen combat in World War II, and he had served in the Occupation of Korea. He talked to them about the importance of maintaining weapons and equipment, and he tried to tell them something about the lay of the land in Korea.
But at Pusan, no one would know there was a war on. The waterfront was raucous and noisy; equipment was piled high in the open; and while there was a lot of frantic activity, there was nothing to indicate things were desperate in the west.
The regiment took the train to Miryang, and above Miryang they encamped on the high ground. They made liaison and reconnaissance with units of the 24th and 1st Cavalry divisions, who held the front lines in front of them along the Naktong.
Here they got plenty of war stories. The heard about the atrocities—dozens of American soldiers found with hands tied behind their backs, shot in the head. They were briefed on the guerrilla-like tactics of the NKPA, the night operations, the probing for weak points, and the use of soldiers disguised as civilians.
To the Manchu Raiders, fresh from Fort Lewis, the 24th Division looked beat up, shoddy, and pretty nervous.
Then, five days after the NKPA crossed the Naktong into the Bulge, Schmitt, Munoz, and company were ordered up to plug a hole that had been sprung in the 24th Division's wall. They marched over hot, dusty roads beside smelly rice paddies, and went up into a series of hills along the Naktong, called the Cloverleaf.
The heat was ghastly, especially to men fresh from the cool Northwest, and it reduced their efficiency. Many of them dropped out.
Lieutenant Colonel Harrison, the six-foot, gray-haired 2nd Battalion commander, like Frank Munoz a career reservist, spread the Heavy Weapons Company and its automatic weapons and mortars among the three rifle companies, E, F, and G. The battalion occupied its assigned hills just back of the 24th, and for two days nothing happened.
There was heavy fighting all around, but H Company did not become closely engaged. It rained on 14 August, momentarily breaking the heat, but also breaking up supporting air attacks. And on 14 August both 1st and 2nd battalions of the 9th Infantry were ordered to move against the NKPA positions within the Cloverleaf complex.
After heavy fighting, and after heavy loss, both battalions failed to take the high crests of the hill mass. Exhausted after a day of battle in the broiling heat, 2nd Battalion dug in along the ridges, but the fighting did not cease with darkness.
With night, the North Koreans attacked.
Frank Munoz's first contact with the enemy came when Schmitt called him at his position with the 75mm recoilless rifles in the rear. 'Get our boys, the part of the Machine Gun Platoon attached to Fox Company, out of position. Fox has been overrun!'
Munoz jumped into his jeep and told the PFC driving to make for Fox Company's hill. Coming up behind it, he saw it was under heavy fire from SP 76's the enemy had sneaked across the Naktong. At the rear slope of the hill he left the jeep and went through the dark on foot. In the valley behind the hill, Sergeant Bozarth's Mortar Platoon was firing its 81's steadily, and Munoz located a number of three-quarter-ton weapon carriers standing by.
But F Company, dug in along the front slope of the hill, had been infiltrated in the dark, and had come apart. Many of the men had pulled back, breaking contact. The company commander was dead. Most of the officers were down. F was no longer an effective military unit.
Somehow, under fire, in the dark, Frank Munoz got a number of the men together and moved them off the hill. Just to the right rose another hill, this one clear of enemy. Munoz ordered the men he had collected to move to it, picking up any stragglers, and try to organize this hill for defense.
As they did so, they came across other casualties streaming around the hills through the rice paddies. These men told Munoz that wounded men were still lying in the fields in front of his new hill. Easy Company had been hard hit, along with Fox, and it had also come apart in the night.
Once he had his scattered remnants together and dug in, Frank called Schmitt by radio. He told the company commander about Easy Company.
'See if you can help 'em,' Schmitt ordered.
After a bit, Frank was able to raise E Company by radio. A master sergeant was in command. Lieutenant Schultz of Easy had been hit in the head, and badly wounded. Over the radio, Frank and Sergeant Jordan of Easy established each other's location; most of Easy's men were still down in the paddies in front of the hill.
'I'll send you help to bring in your wounded,' Munoz told Jordan. 'Start moving back to me—we'll cover you by fire.'
He sent five men to assist Easy, and soon fifteen enlisted men—all that could be found—joined him on the hill. He ordered the wounded out. They went down the rear slope of the hill and disappeared to the east.
He contacted Battalion HQ by radio. He learned that Colonel Harrison had been hit, and the exec had taken command. The exec ordered him to hold where he was, and said he would send him another officer, a Lieutenant
