The younger Harris, who had been out of action since shortly after the “How Hill” battle in early November, safely ascended the enemy-infested slopes of Hill 1403 in the darkness. About midnight he reached How Company’s positions and found all of Cooke’s officers wounded but one, Lieutenant Newton. The platoons of Krieg and Denny were badly depleted, but Harris moved Newton’s platoon from the left flank to the right. Newton’s men regained enough ground in a counterattack to cement the company’s position.
After these first attacks against 2/5 and H/7 over the two-mile breadth of Northwest Ridge, the Chinese remained generally inactive for a period of about two hours. They had paid heavily for minor gains—so heavily that fresh battalions were called from reserve to stamp out the Marine resistance on the tip of the ridge. And at 0300, several hundred CCF riflemen, grenadiers, and submachine gunners commenced the second general assault, striking at 2/5 and Company H simultaneously.
In the low ground at the center of the two-mile front, Jaskilka’s Easy Company threw a curtain of machine-gun fire across the draw in the path of 300 Chinese advancing frontally. The first enemy ranks marched into the fire lanes and were mowed down like rows of grain. The CCF soldiers in subsequent formations apparently viewed the grisly, corpse-strewn corridor with misgivings, for they stopped several hundred yards up the narrow valley and took cover. Thereafter, the main fighting in Company E’s zone involved long-range exchanges of machine-gun and mortar fire, although clashes at close quarters occasionally flared up on the flanks.
Approximately 200 Communist troops had concentrated meanwhile against Fox Company on the spur to the left, where the ground afforded more cover and space for maneuver. Stumbling over a carpet of their own dead, the Reds thrust repeatedly at the center of the Marine line. They inflicted many casualties on the defenders and ultimately overran two machine-gun positions. But this was the sum total of their success; and fighting on the north half of the spur, at the edge of the gap between Companies E and F, continued sporadically for the rest of the night with neither side gaining any appreciable advantage.
On the right of the 2d Battalion, the second CCF onslaught had struck the front and both flanks of Company H on Hill 1403. Human cannon fodder of Red China was hurled against the Marine positions for a full hour, but Lieutenant Harris’ command held. H Company’s roadblock, commanded by Sergeant Vick, decisively beat off a Chinese attack in the valley; and at 0400 Lieutenant Colonel Harris ordered the hard pressed company to pull back toward the rear of Easy Company, 2/5. Two hours later How Company completed its fighting withdrawal.
The loss of Hill 1403 posed a grave threat to the whole defensive network around the village. Not only were the Chinese now ideally situated to strike at the rear of 2/5 and sever it from the two regiments, but in sufficient strength they could attack the rear and flanks of the Marine units on North and Southwest Ridges. Moreover, at dawn, they would be looking down the throats of some 2000 Marines on the valley floor.
Fighting at 3/5’s CP
The partially successful assault on Northwest Ridge involved two regiments, the 266th and 267th, of the 89th CCF Division. Operating abreast of this force, the 79th Division had meanwhile advanced over the rugged spine of North Ridge toward the two isolated companies of the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, occupying terminal Hills 1282 and 1240 of that huge land mass. Elements of the 79th Division’s three regiments were in the fore, and each regiment was apparently disposed in a column of battalions. Facing south toward the Marine positions on North Ridge, the CCF order of battle, with probable objectives assigned, was as follows:
| 237th Regt | 235th Regt | 236th Regt |
| Hill 1384 | Hill 1240 | Hill 1167 |
| (Unoccupied) | (D/7) | (Unoccupied) |
For reasons unknown, the commander of the 235th Regiment did not include Hill 1282 in his plan for seizing the high ground above Yudam-ni. He ordered his 1st Battalion to take only Hill 1240, and the commanding officer of that unit in turn assigned the mission to his 1st and Special Duty Companies. After these two outfits had seized the objective, the 2d and 3d Companies would pass through and, in conjunction with other CCF forces in the locale, “... annihilate the enemy at Yudam-ni.”[391]