FUNCHILIN PASS AND ADVANCES OF
8–10 December
SEIZURE OF HILL 1081
MAP-29
There were four U. S. Army treadway bridge (Brockway) trucks at Koto-ri, two of which were operative. After conferring with First Lieutenant George A. Babe of the 1st Engineer Battalion and Colonel Hugh D. McGaw of the 185th Engineer (C) Battalion, USA, Partridge decided to request a drop of eight sections in order to have a 100% margin of safety in case of damage.
After analyzing the causes of the unsuccessful test drop, Captain Blasingame of the Air Delivery Platoon had larger parachutes flown to Yonpo from Japan, accompanied by Captain Cecil W. Hospelhorn, USA, and a special crew of Army parachute riggers. Blasingame and a hundred-man work detail from the 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion worked all night at Yonpo to make ready for the drop next day by eight C-119s of the Air Force.
At 0930 on 7 December three of the 2500-pound bridge sections were dropped inside the Koto-ri perimeter and recovered by the Brockway trucks. The remaining five sections were delivered by noon, one of them falling into the hands of the Chinese and one being damaged.
Plywood center sections were also dropped so that the bridge could accommodate any type of Marine wheel or tracked vehicle. Thus the tanks could cross on the metal spans only, while the trucks could manage with one wheel on the metal span and the other on the plywood center.[587]
[587] Partridge interv 25 Jun 51, 48–53; Capt C. W. Hospelhorn, “Aerial Supply in Korea,” Combat Forces Journal, I, no. 10 (May 51), 29–30.
All the necessary equipment having been assembled at Koto-ri by the late afternoon of the 7th, the next problem was to transport it three and a half miles to the bridge site. Colonel Bowser, the Division G-3, directed the engineers to coordinate their movements with the progress made by RCT-7 the following morning. Lieutenant Colonel Partridge attended a briefing conducted by Colonel Litzenberg on the eve of the assault, and it was agreed that the trucks with the bridge section would accompany the regimental train. First Lieutenant Ewald D. Vom Orde’s First Platoon of Company D engineers was designated as the escort. First Lieutenant Charles C. Ward’s engineers led the 7th Marines trains. Both platoons were assigned the task of installing the bridge sections.