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20
Into the Valley of Death
— S. L. A. Marshall.
IN THE BITTER, foggy dawn of 29 November, while the 2nd Division was locked in battle across the endless hills and corridors along the Ch'ongch'on, a Turkish motor convoy drove north from Sunch'on, some thirty road miles below Kunu-ri, bound for the division rear. The trucks carried supplies intended for the Turkish Brigade, already smashed, and it proceeded north on the single road into the division area.
The convoy never arrived. Near the straggling little village of Yangwan-ni it met a storm of fire from both sides of the road. Trucks exploded and slued off the road. Others stopped, burning. Men fell from the cabs, riddled by machine-gun bullets fired at close range. Some died in the ditches beside the road; a few ran or crawled north into the 2nd Division lines.
Because of language barriers, perhaps because of shock, the Turkish survivors were not able to get their story fully across—and one fact of extreme importance was omitted from their story altogether: two miles south of the area where they had been ambushed, the supply trucks had rolled by the corpses and burned-out vehicles of an even earlier ambush.
The evidence, then, was that a vast area of the division's lifeline south was already interdicted, but the evidence did not get into the right hands. Such of it that did, in the fury and desperation of the moment, seemed to indicate only one more small pinprick among the proliferating wounds from which the division was already bleeding.
Two squads of the 2nd Division MP's were dispatched south on the road. They never returned.
However, a platoon of tanks, from IX Corps reserve, went down the road in complete peace. Near Sunch'on they joined elements of the British Brigade moving north—code name 'Nottingham'—and radioed back that the road was clear.
The 2nd Division Reconnaissance Company next went over the same route at midafternoon. Nearing the wreckage of the Turkish convoy, it drew heavy automatic-weapons fire, and radioed back to Lieutenant Colonel Foster, Division G-2, that it was unable to move. A platoon of tanks from the 72nd Tank Battalion and one company of the 38th Infantry was sent south to clear the area. This force was brought to battle along the road, and got nowhere.
At dark, Division HQ ordered it to break off the fighting. From the evidence it now had, Division assumed approximately a thousand yards of the road were interdicted, around Yangwan-ni. The division staff was not unmindful of the threat, but felt it to be more in the nature of an annoyance than a disaster.
Meanwhile, General Keiser had become fully apprised of the major surgery the Chinese had inflicted upon his rifle units. For five days he had been falling back slowly along the Ch'ongch'on, never breaking contact, never with a chance to straighten the division out or to get it back into a firm holding position. The division had been poised to attack against crumbling resistance—not to withstand the
Now, wanting to pull back a considerable distance, to reorganize and get a breathing spell, Keiser was forced to argue with IX Corps, who did not relish retreat at all. The point was not easily won.
It was not until after the Turks' trucks were already flaming along the division's main supply route that Corps reluctantly agreed to 2nd Division's withdrawal to Sunch'on. Corps left it up to Keiser to come out on whatever route he chose.
There were only two possibilities: the north-south road between Kunu-ri and Sunch'on, and the lateral road leading west from Kunu-ri to junction with the main coastal highway at Sinanju.
Keiser talked by radio with General Milburn, CG of I Corps, who was situated west near Sinanju. Milburn wanted to know how things were with Keiser, Bad, Keiser told him—the 2nd was even drawing fire on its CP.
'Well,' Milburn radioed, 'come out my way.' To the west, all was clear.
But Keiser was not under Milburn's Corps, and he was concerned about becoming enmeshed with the 25th Division, which was retreating along the westward route.
He then drove to the IX Corps CP, which was a few miles west of Kunu-ri, toward Sinanju. Here the Corps G-3 gave him the boundaries of I and IX corps, but again did not specify how Keiser was to bring his division out of the trap being formed about Kunu-ri.
Debating how he was to move, Keiser flew back to his own CP in an L-5 liaison plane. From the plane's height he was able to see many miles across the low hills to the south. He saw hundreds and thousands of men moving southwest along the tiny trails and corridors, and he took these for Korean refugees.
And he thought that if refugees were still fleeing from the enemy in that area, the enemy must still be considerably to the east. Seemingly, he had time to move the division due south rather than into I Corps' zone to the west.
Only later was the evidence to show that these moving men, many wearing captured ROK uniforms, must have been Chinese hastening to block the division's withdrawal.
Keiser was aware of the roadblock on the Kunu-ri-Sunch'on road, but did not consider it yet of major importance. However, after dark 29 November, most of the supply and service trains, including a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital with thirty female nurses, were sent along the west road to Sinanju. These trains passed just after the 25th Division, and experienced no difficulty. With them went the trains of the 38th Regiment, and most of the wounded.
Other service elements, including those of 9th Infantry, went out by way of the lateral road to safety.
Now, on the evening of 29 November, the 23rd Regiment was still north of Kunu-ri, while Peploe's 38th was grudgingly fighting backward from the east. With Peploe were still more than a thousand men of the ROK 3rd Regiment, who were becoming increasingly difficult to control. And with him also were the 155mm howitzers of the 17th Field Artillery.
The 23rd was ordered to move south to the road junction, and to hold the gate open while the division prepared to move south. Peploe was ordered to bring his regiment in, and be prepared to lead the movement toward Sunch'on.
Pulling his units back toward the CP, Peploe told the 17th's C.O., 'You'd better get out of here, because now there is nothing in front of you.' The artillery commander refused; he had no orders for a move.
Colonel Sloane, of the 9th, was called into Division CP tent and informed that as soon as possible on the next morning, the 30th, his regiment must attack along the Sunch'on road and wipe out the blocking force around Yangwan-ni.
Sloane was far from cheerful at the news. He told Lieutenant Colonel Holden, the division operations officer, that his men were worn out and that his supposed regiment now consisted of only two battalions—each of which had the strength of a rifle company. There were two hundred men in the 2nd, and only slightly more in the 3rd. The 1st had disappeared amid the lonely hills.
Holden, backed up by Colonel Epley, the division chief of staff, told him he had plenty of strength to do the chore. 'You will be fighting not more than two Chinese companies.'
Sloane asked, 'Who's in contact down there with them now?'
The division officers admitted that no one was, at the moment. Sloane grew less cheerful. He was given, finally, a platoon of tanks from the 72nd, in support.
Then, by feeble candlelight, Lieutenant Colonel Holden wrote out the fateful operations order for the retreat. The order was not typed, but scratched out on a scrap of paper in red crayon. It read, simply:
'When R/B [roadblock] is open, follow this priority for movement south: (1) 38th Inf (2) 2nd Recon Co, Div HQ, MP Co, 2nd Signal Co (3) Divarty [divisional Artillery] (4) 2nd Engr Bn (5) Rearguard—23rd RCT (23rd Inf, 15 FA Bn, 72d Tank B—Co C, Battery B of 82d AAA.'
Events were rushing toward a conclusion. Soon they would be beyond the control of anyone, in Division HQ or
