[443] K. E. Davis ltr, 20 Oct 55.
Corley and five enlisted men operated as a supporting fire team while First Lieutenant Harrison F. Betts rounded up as many men as he could find and tried to plug the gap in the 3d Platoon line. This outnumbered group was swept aside as the next wave of CCF attack carried to the rear of How Company and threatened the engineers at work under the floodlights.
A few Chinese actually broke through and fired at the Marines operating the dozers. Second Lieutenant Robert L. McFarland, the equipment officer, led a group of Dog Company engineers who counterattacked and cleared the airstrip at the cost of a few casualties. Then the men resumed work under the floodlights.[444]
[444] Partridge interv, 25 Jun 51, 45. Ridge Comments, 7 Jun 56, questions whether the floodlights were on during the whole attack.
The Battalion reserve, if such it could be called, consisted of any service troops who could be hastily gathered to meet the emergency. Shortly before midnight Ridge sent a platoon-strength group of X Corps signalmen and engineers under First Lieutenant Grady P. Mitchell to the aid of How Company. Mitchell was killed upon arrival and First Lieutenant Horace L. Johnson, Jr., deployed the reinforcements in a shallow ditch as a company reserve.
About midnight the fight had reached such a pitch of intensity that no spot in the perimeter was safe. The Company C medical clearing station, only a few hundred yards to the rear of Item Company, was repeatedly hit by machine gun bullets whipping through the wooden walls as surgeons operated on the wounded. The Division CP also took hits, and a bullet which penetrated General Smith’s quarters produced unusual sound effects when it ricocheted off pots and pans in the galley.[445]
[445] Smith, Chronicle, 93.
The Chinese seemed to be everywhere in the How Company zone. Shortly after midnight they surrounded the CP, portable galley and provision tent. “It is my personal opinion,” commented Captain Corley, “that if the enemy had decided to effect a major breakthrough at this time, he would have experienced practically no difficulty. However, he seemed content to wander in and around the 3d Platoon, galley and hut areas.”[446]
[446] Corley narrative.
The Chinese, in short, demonstrated that they knew better how to create a penetration than to exploit one. Once inside the How Company lines, they disintegrated into looting groups or purposeless tactical fragments. Clothing appealed most to the plunderers, and a wounded Marine in the 3d Platoon area saved his life by pretending to be dead while Communists stripped him of his parka.