About 0030 the Battalion CP advised Corley by radio that more reinforcements were on the way. Lieutenant Johnson met the contingent, comprising about 50 service troops, and guided them into the company area, where they were deployed as an added reserve to defend the airstrip.
Item Company was still having it hot and heavy but continued to beat off all CCF assaults. Elements of Weapons Company, manning the south road block, came under attack at 0115. Apparently a small enemy column had lost direction and blundered into a field of fire covered by heavy machine guns. The hurricane of Marine fire caught the Communists before they deployed and the result was virtual annihilation.
East Hill Lost to Enemy
Half an hour later, with the situation improving in the How Company zone, the Battalion CP had its first alarming reports of reverses on East Hill. The terrain itself had offered difficulties to men scrambling up the steep, icy slopes with heavy burdens of ammunition. These detachments of service troops, moreover, included a large proportion of newly recruited ROKs who had little training and understood no English.
EAST HILL ATTACKS
29 November
MAP-18
The largest of the East Hill units, Company D of the 10th Engineer Combat Battalion, commanded by Captain Philip A. Kulbes, USA, was composed of 77 American enlisted men and 90 ROKs. Combat equipment (in addition to individual weapons) consisted of four .50 caliber machine guns, five light .30 caliber machine guns, and six 3.5 rocket launchers.[447]
[447] References to Co D, 10th Engr Bn, USA, are based on Lt Norman R. Rosen, “Combat Comes Suddenly,” in Capt John G. Westover, Ed., Combat Support in Korea (Washington, 1955), 206–208.