Breaking Off Action
Battalion orders were received through Able Company to disengage at 0630 and pull down from the high ground to the trucking point at Newton’s CP. Tobin was now depending on Company A radios for 4.2″ and 81-mm. mortar support which slowed up enemy efforts. As his first move toward breaking off action, he ordered his 3d and 1st Platoons to withdraw into the perimeter of the 2d.[269]
[269] Ibid.
By this time the enemy had fallen back toward the lower levels of Hill 202. Small arms fire had slackened but the Marines still received mortar bursts.
Tobin ordered his executive officer, Captain Francis I. Fenton, to take the wounded across the rice paddies to the road with the 3d Platoon and Headquarters troops. The company commander remained on the hill to cover this movement with the other two platoons. After Fenton got well underway, Tobin ordered the 2d Platoon down to the road. Then, a squad at a time, the remaining Marines disengaged; and the Baker Company commander came off Hill 202 with the last squad at 0815. The entire movement had been accomplished with precision, and a final air strike kept the enemy quiet at the climax.
Considering the fury of the fighting on Hill 202, a Marine casualty list of 12 KIA, 18 WIA, and 8 MIA was not as large as might have been expected. The idea of men missing in action is always disturbing to Marine officers, but it was considered a moral certainty that the eight casualties of this type were killed when the enemy overran the machinegun section on the Baker Company left flank.[270] Before leaving Hill 202, Captain Tobin asked permission to lead an attack for the purpose of recovering the bodies. He believed that he could retake the lost ground in an hour, but his request could not be granted at a time when the battalion was belated in carrying out Brigade withdrawal orders.[271]
[270] Seven of these casualties were transferred from the MIA to the KIA column in September 1950 after the recovery of their bodies, following enemy withdrawal from the area. The eighth continued to be listed as MIA until November 1953, when the man was assumed to be dead.
[271] Ibid.
It fell to the engineers and armor to cover the rear after the infantry pulled out. Midway between Sachon and Kosong, the MSR is joined by a road from Samchonpo, a minor seaport on the tip of the peninsula. In order to block this approach to the Brigade’s southern flank, General Craig ordered the engineers to mine the road. First Lieutenant Nicholas A. Canzona was assigned to the task with a detachment of his 1st Platoon of Able Company, 1st Engineer Battalion. After laying an extensive field, this officer discovered to his embarrassment that he had erred in arming nearly half of the mines with wrong fuses, so that they were harmless. Apparently the moral effect was enough, however, to keep the enemy at a distance.
Lieutenant Hetrick’s 3d Platoon of the engineer company brought up the Brigade rear on the morning of 13 August to crater roads, lay antitank minefields and destroy bridges and culverts. Personnel left behind for such missions had the privilege of riding the rearmost tank to catch up with the column.[272] Thus the withdrawal proceeded systematically and was completed without enemy interference.