The attack edged forward in the second day of the “Battle of the Barricades.” Every 200–300 yards, fanatical Red detachments manned rice-bag barriers about eight feet high and five feet thick, stretching the whole width of the street. It fell to the M-26s to smash the emplacements and silence the NKPA antitank guns behind each one. Marine tank action in turn hinged on mine clearance by supporting engineers, who looked to flanking infantry for covering fire. Thus was a system of three-party teamwork developed and perfected during the roar of battle.
Aiding the Communists behind the barricades were other North Koreans who fired their rifles and submachine guns from roof tops, windows, and side streets. The Marine infantry, therefore, had to defend in every direction as it attacked to the front. Intense heat from burning buildings along the street added to the handicaps, and the constant discovery of South Korean civilians, including women and children, huddled in the rubble further strained the taut nerves of men who looked for trouble from every quarter.
It was a dirty, frustrating fight every yard of the way, perhaps best described by Puller himself, who reported that “progress was agonizingly slow.” A principal deterrent to speed was the fact that all supporting tanks simultaneously expended their ammunition and fuel, so that all had to return to the rear for replenishment at the same time. During their absences from the fight, the infantry understandably chose to await their return rather than pay heavily in casualties by assaulting barricades with small arms alone.
At one point in the street battle, an enemy soldier darted from behind a building and charged a flame tank advancing behind two lead M-26s. Ignoring the Marine infantrymen, who gaped in disbelief, the North Korean hurled a huge satchel charge over the engine compartment of the armored vehicle, then escaped unharmed as the explosion rocked the area. The flame tank was wrecked, but the crew escaped serious injury with the assistance of supporting infantry. Apparently a suicide squad of NKPA demolitions men had been assigned the mission of destroying Marine armor in this fashion, for several other Red soldiers tried single-handed assaults shortly afterwards. The riflemen of 2/1 were alert for the later attempts, however, and the enemy fanatics were cut down before inflicting further damage.
The crucial period in the 2d Battalion’s day-long fire fight came as Captain Goodwin C. Groff’s Fox Company approached a street junction below Hill 97. It had been planned that this unit would advance through the intersection and continue along the streetcar line, while Company E, moving behind in column, veered off on the right branch. Enemy resistance against Fox’s advance proved so fierce that Captain Norman R. Stanford by-passed the fork and threw Easy Company’s weight in support of the other unit. The North Korean strong point crumbled under the two-company onslaught, but not before Stanford and several others were added to the casualty rolls.[431]
[431] Capt N. R. Stanford, “Road Junction,” Marine Corps Gazette, 35 no. 9 (Sep 51): 16–21.
By dark, 2/1 had measured off a hard-won gain of 1200 yards. Lieutenant Colonel Sutter ordered the battalion into defensive positions astride the boulevard a scant 100 yards from the tip of the ridge spur which was costing Item Company, 5th Marines, so dearly.
In the right half of Puller’s zone on 26 September, the 1st Battalion stamped out a hornets’ nest around the main railroad station, nestled at the foot of South Mountain.[432] Charlie Company had led off the early morning attack in the wake of a preparation by air, artillery, and mortars. After descending Hill 82 in a column of platoons, the company formed on line along a stream paralleling the rail yard. Then, at a signal from Captain Wray, the platoons crossed over, wheeled to the north, and advanced up the tracks by leaps and bounds.
[432] The following narrative is derived from: 1st MarDiv SAR, Annex Peter Peter; Bridges interv, 18 Oct 54; and Capt F. B. Carlon interv, 1 Mar 55.
Though the over-all intensity of enemy resistance in this quarter could be termed only moderate, the random deployment of the Reds among buildings and train cars made the going slow and costly for the Marines. After clearing out the yard, the attackers converged on the station house itself and drove the last North Koreans from the building during a sharp exchange. The interior of the bullet-pocked structure produced only a handful of enemy dead, but in one corner were heaped the bodies of several South Korean women and children. It was obvious that the latter had been gunned by Communist executioners, since their sheltered location within the building was ample protection against the small arms of the advancing Marines.