immediately opened fire on this bridge with his tank's 90mm; the second tank and the ack-ack vehicles joined in. The bridge collapsed.
But the enemy had already crossed the river elsewhere. Sudden firing in A Company's perimeter; the infantrymen were being forced back into the hills. As the company withdrew, a soldier shouted to Kouma, 'We're pulling out, tankers!'
It was a bad night for Kouma's men and those in the other tank, commanded by SFC Berry. Koreans dressed in American uniforms approached them and spoke in English, then attacked them with hand grenades, wounding Kouma with fragments. Other Koreans slaughtered the more poorly protected crew of the Quad .50 antiaircraft vehicle parked nearby; the twin 40mm M19 crew was wounded but managed to escape.
Kouma and Berry slued their Pershing tanks out of Agok onto open ground, where they had clear fields of fire. Here they killed or drove off repeated waves of North Koreans, until Berry's tank engine began to over- heat. He told Kouma by radio he was withdrawing. After proceeding about one mile, Berry's tank caught fire, and Berry and his crew abandoned it.
Sergeant Kouma held his ground, firing at any enemy who threatened his Pershing. After daylight 1 September, he fought his way back to American lines, shooting up enemy troops and positions all the way.
After being initially overrun, A Company reassembled on a ridge in perimeter defense, and passed the night.
North of A, C Company, 9th Infantry, was assaulted near midnight to the accompaniment of green flares, screams, and shrilling whistles. The attack was unusually heavy, and Charlie soon broke under it. About half the company escaped southward into the lines of the 25th Division below the Nam River.
Five full miles north of Able Company, Baker had held a ferry crossing over the Naktong from Hill 209. And here, as the North Korean offensive broke, the 9th Infantry had been planning a show of its own, called 'Operation Manchu.' While Baker held the crossing site, the regimental reserve, E Company, had been ordered to cross west of the Naktong on an aggressive foray against the enemy 9th Division. Two heavy Weapons companies of the 9th Infantry, Dog and How, were to furnish supporting fires, while a platoon of the 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion ferried Easy across the river.
Operation Manchu misfired before it could even begin.
At dark, Lieutenant Edward Schmitt of H Company, accompanied by Lieu- tenant Caldwell of Dog, moved his company and weapons up behind Hill 209 to furnish a base of fire for the crossing. E Company at this time was still forming up with the Engineers back near Yongsan.
Around 2100, Schmitt and Caldwell went up Hill 209, showing their NCO's where they wanted each of the weapons emplaced. It was here, on the slopes, that the North Korean's attack took them by surprise, and swamped them. Colonel Hill, the 9th's C.O., who had been with the men of the Heavy Mortar Platoon, barely escaped with his life. His operations officer was less lucky.
When Hill got back and contacted Division HQ, it took Division only a little while to decide to call Operation Manchu off.
The men of Dog and How companies, taken flat-footed, fought their way onto a knob of Hill 209—but they were still half a mile distant from Baker's perimeter higher on the ridge. The survivors had only a jumble of assorted weapons—a radio, three operable machine guns, one bar, a few rifles, and approximately forty carbines and pistols. On the knob Lieutenant Schmitt took command of some seventy-five men and officers.
They passed the night, and with daylight saw they were completely surrounded. Where B Company had been the night before, they saw only mustard-colored cotton caps. Below them, all along the river, they saw streams of enemy supply parties passing through to the east. And the enemy saw them.
During the night the NKPA had pushed B Company from Hill 209, inflicting heavy casualties upon it. Now they turned to the remnants of D and H on the knob, and a terrible ordeal for the Americans began.
Schmitt had radio contact with his battalion, but all he could get from Battalion HQ were promises. He learned that at 0300 the 9th Infantry had sent its reserve company, Easy, toward the Naktong to take up a blocking position between Obong-ni Ridge and Cloverleaf Hill, to deny this critical terrain to the enemy. Easy was too late; it never reached its assigned position. It came under heavy automatic-weapons fire from the high ground surrounding the road, and its C.O. was killed, along with many of its men. By dawn on 1 September, then, Cloverleaf and Obong-ni were in North Korean hands; the hills were swarming with enemy, and the United States lines west of Yongsan completely shattered.
But on the knob of 209 Schmitt was determined to hold out. The time when Americans tended to surrender or to try to bug out was fast ending in Korea. Too many U.S. soldiers had been found shot in the back—and all hands knew there was nowhere to go. And, finally, all hands were now aware that they were in a war to the finish, regardless of how they had got into it.
All afternoon and all that night, Schmitt's small party repulsed violent enemy attacks. One master sergeant, Travis Watkins, distinguished himself by conspicuous heroism, killing a dozen of the enemy. Desperately wounded, half-paralyzed, Watkins then refused any of the few rations, saying he deserved nothing since he was now too weak to fight.
Schmitt kept asking for an air drop of supplies, if there was no other way to relieve him. A light plane was able to drop some small-arms ammunition, rations, medical supply, and twenty-one cans of beer. The water cans broke on impact with the ground, and most of the attempted resupply fell into the enemy lines beyond Schmitt's perimeter.
Schmitt was hit, but refused to give up command. His example gave renewed nerve to the tired men on the knob the second day. The enemy sent a captured American up with a message to surrender. Schmitt refused.
From higher ground, enemy machine-gun and mortar fire continued to lash the American position. After dark, the enemy renewed its infantry assaults. Again they were repulsed, but now the list of American dead and dying was growing. Schmitt's men were almost out of ammunition, and food was exhausted. They had no more water. The radio was gone; they were cut off from the world. Dead or wounded men lay in every foxhole, or on the blasted earth around it.
As the sun came up on 3 September, about the only thing left to the pitifully few Americans on the knob was the determination to resist.
At daylight on 1 September the tank platoon leader reported to Frank Munoz that there was no one alive to be seen within George's 3rd Platoon area except NKPA. But Munoz, checking the rest of his line, found the remaining rifle platoons in good shape. The enemy had boiled around them during the night, not stopping to finish them off.
Munoz conferred with his remaining platoon leaders, Lieutenant Mallory and Sergeant Long. Long had been hit, but refused evacuation during the night. Now he asked, 'What are we going to do, sir?'
'Stay here until we're told otherwise, Sergeant. I'd hate to have to recapture this terrain.'
But with the enemy in the 3rd Platoon area, this ridge was too exposed for last-ditch defense. Munoz tried to raise Battalion, and failed. In the absence of instructions, he began to look for a better hill, on which George could erect a tight perimeter. Just behind his present ridge rose Hill 211, and on this high ground Munoz now consolidated his remaining company. And during the morning, stragglers from the 3rd Platoon came in, with Flowers' patrol.
The enemy seemed willing to leave them alone. Munoz ordered his cooks to prepare a hot meal for noon chow.
At midmorning, more stragglers from Easy Company, which had been shattered between Obong-ni and Cloverleaf, wandered into his lines. Few of these men had any weapons or equipment; Munoz re-outfitted them from his store of recovered American arms. One of Easy's officers, Lieutenant Day, joined him.
Day told him, 'I want to get out of here.'
'Hell, no. Let's combine our forces here on 211 and hold till Regiment comes back.' Frank Munoz knew that Regiment would come back. The 9th Infantry had to return, or else.
Morning passed, without action. Then, at 1200, the radio in contact with Battalion HQ squawked. From it came a new order: Move back to Yongsan.
Munoz argued over the radio. 'I can hold here. I want to stay. Look, there are still isolated American troops in this vicinity, wandering over the hills. If I stay, it'll give 'em a place to come to—'
But Frank Munoz didn't have a Battalion officer on the radio; he was talking to some PFC operator. This operator told him, 'Look, Lieutenant—my orders are to tell you to move back to Yongsan. I've done that, and I'm
