While Company F moved overland to strike at the left (north) flank of the CCF position, Captain Samuel S. Smith’s Dog Company edged forward along the MSR to the mouth of the draw. Like the earlier unit, it was met by a hail of bullets. The regimental 4.2-inch mortars opened fire on the crest of the spur, and recoilless rifles slammed 75mm shells into bunkers just now sighted on the forward slopes. At 1115, after ground supporting arms had partially neutralized the CCF positions, Corsairs of VMF-312 blasted the objective with rockets and bombs.
In the wake of the air strike, First Lieutenant Gerald J. McLaughlin led Fox Company’s 1st Platoon against the enemy’s north flank, the rest of the company supporting the assault by fire from Hill 1403. Most of the Chinese defenders fled to the west, and McLaughlin’s troops cleared the northern half of the spur by 1300, capturing three Red soldiers. The 2d Platoon, commanded by Second Lieutenant Donald J. Krabbe, then passed through to secure the southern half, overlooking the road. Although the attackers encountered only negligible local resistance, they were slowed by heavy machine-gun fire sweeping in from a peak 1000 yards farther west.
During Company F’s action on the high ground, Dog Company filed around the road bend at the south end of the spur and moved toward a valley junction a few hundred yards away. This fork is dominated by Sakkat Mountain to the west; and the Chinese, in order to block the Marine advance, had dug tiers of entrenchments on the eastern slopes of the massive height. Frontal fire from these positions converged on Company D’s column. Faced by such formidable resistance and terrain Lieutenant Colonel Roise discontinued the attack. At 1430 he ordered Fox Company to set up on Northwest Ridge for the night, and Dog to deploy defensively across the MSR on a spur of Southwest Ridge.
On the crest of the latter, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, had found progress increasingly costly during the afternoon of 27 November. The peak beyond Hill 1426 was occupied by Company G at 1500,[380] bringing that unit on line with Dog Company of 2/5 in the low ground to the north. Like the 5th Marines’ outfit, Company G was now confronted with the broad crescent of CCF fortifications buttressed by the defensive complex on Sakkat Mountain. Machine-gun barrages drove the 7th Marines’ unit off the hilltop, and Company I of 3/7 rushed forward from the high ground overlooking Yudam-ni to add its firepower in support. Baker Company of 1/7, on patrol in the valley between Southwest and South Ridges, ascended into the bullet-swept zone at 1230 to help out. When it became heavily engaged, elements of Company C were ordered forward from the Yudam-ni vicinity as reinforcement. Thus parts of three battalions, 2/5, 3/7, and 1/7, felt the storm of steel and lead on Southwest Ridge throughout the afternoon.
[380] While returning to the rear to bring up reinforcements, George Company’s commander, Capt Cooney, was mortally wounded. LtCol M. E. Roach Comments, 24 Jul 56.
While fighting raged in an arc from south to west on the 27th, another danger area was discovered to the north and northeast, completing a vast semicircle of known CCF concentrations in proximity to Yudam-ni. A patrol from Company D of 2/7, moving over North Ridge along the west coast of the reservoir, ran into heavy machine-gun and mortar fire about 4000 yards from the village. Marine air struck at the entrenchments of an estimated enemy company, and at 1645 the patrol withdrew with several casualties to Company D’s lines on the southern tip of North Ridge.
At dusk on the 27th a general calm settled over Yudam-ni, broken only occasionally by scattered exchanges of small-arms fire. The main Marine attack had netted about 1500 yards, placing 2/5 on the objective originally assigned by the regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Murray. That the Chinese did not allow this battalion to advance three more miles, to its new objective and into hopeless entrapment, seems inconsistent in view of the CCF plans for the night of 27–28 November. The auxiliary attack by 3/7 won 1200 more yards of the crest of Southwest Ridge, and the occupation of Hill 1403 by How Company of that battalion represented a gain of about 2000.
In a few hours, the Marines would give thanks that their successes on 27 November had been modest ones.
Marine Dispositions Before CCF Attack
The units of Yudam-ni will be listed counter-clockwise, beginning with those on North Ridge, according to the positions they occupied around the perimeter on the night of 27–28 November. North Ridge, bounded on the east by the reservoir and on the west by the valley separating Northwest Ridge, lay closest to the village and was therefore of immediate tactical importance. Facing this hill mass from Yudam-ni, one sees four distinct terminal heights: Hill 1167 on the right, Hills 1240 and 1282 in the center, and the giant spur of Hill 1384 on the left. Companies D and E of the 7th Marines, occupied Hills 1240 and 1282 respectively. Since the combined front of these two units was a mile wide, they concentrated on their assigned hilltops and relied on periodic patrols to span the gaping, 500-yard saddle between. Although both flanks of each company dangled “in the air,” they were backed by two-thirds of the 5th Marine Regiment in the valley of Yudam-ni.[381]