Lieutenant Colonel Ridge decided that final troop dispositions must depend not only on terrain but equally on intelligence as to enemy capabilities. Until he had more information, the units of 3/1 were to remain in the areas formerly occupied by 2/7.
Attempts to Clear MSR
The Battalion CP had been set up in a pyramidal tent at the angle of the road to Yudam-ni. Most of the day on the 27th was given over to improving positions. At the southwest end of the perimeter, First Lieutenant Fisher’s Item Company took over from Captain Barber’s Fox Company, the only rifle company of 2/7 remaining at Hagaru.
On the strength of preliminary S-2 reports, Ridge instructed the commanders of his two rifle companies to improve their sectors, which included the entire south and southwest curve of the perimeter. All the Division Headquarters troops except one motor convoy had reached Hagaru by the 27th, and it was due to leave Hungnam the next morning. The new Division CP was located in the northeast quarter of town, near the long concrete bridge over the frozen Changjin River. Rows of heated tents surrounded a Japanese type frame house repaired for the occupancy of General Smith, who was expected by helicopter in the morning. Already functioning at the CP were elements of the General Staff Sections and Headquarters Company.[426]
[426] Smith, Notes, 689–690.
The busiest Marines at Hagaru on the 27th were the men of the 1st Engineer Battalion. While a Company B platoon built tent decks for the Division CP, detachments of Company A were at work on the maintenance of the MSR in the area, and Company D had the job of hacking out the new airstrip. Apparently the latter project had its “sidewalk contractors” even in sub-zero weather, for this comment found its way into the company report:
Dozer work [was] pleasing to the eye of those who wanted activity but contributed little to the overall earth-moving problem of 90,000 cubic yards of cut and 60,000 cubic yards of fill.[427]
[427] D/Engr SAR.
Motor graders and scrapers with a 5.8 cubic yard capacity had been moved up from Hamhung. So difficult did it prove to get a bite of the frozen earth that steel teeth were welded to the blades. When the pan was filled, however, the earth froze to the cutting edges until it could be removed only by means of a jack hammer.
The strip was about one-fourth completed on the 27th, according to minimum estimates of the length required. Work went on that night as usual under the flood lights.[428] Not until the small hours of the morning did the first reports reach Hagaru of the CCF attacks on Yudam-ni and Fox Hill.