[601] Ibid., Schmuck Comments.
Lieutenant Colonel Partridge arrived with Weapons Company, 1/7, and the bridge sections followed in the Brockway truck. Even the enemy lent a hand when Communist prisoners were put to work as laborers. After the abutments were constructed, a Brockway truck laid the treadways and plywood panels in position so that both trucks and tanks could cross.
At about 1530, three hours after the start, the bridge was in place. Partridge drove his jeep to the top of the pass to inform Lieutenant Colonel Banks, Commanding Division Train No. 1, that he could begin the descent.
Sawyer’s troops had not been idle that afternoon and a total of about 60 CCF prisoners were taken during attacks to drive the enemy back from the bridge site. At about 1700 Partridge returned, and an hour later the first elements of the Division trains began to cross. Only a few vehicles had reached the other side when a disastrous accident threatened to undo everything that had been accomplished. A tractor towing an earth-moving pan broke through the plywood center panel, rendering it useless. And with the treadways spaced as they were, the way was closed to wheeled vehicles.
A first ray of hope glimmered when an expert tractor driver, Technical Sergeant Wilfred H. Prosser, managed to back the machine off the wrecked bridge. Then Partridge did some mental calculations and came up with the answer that a total width of 136 inches would result if the treadways were placed as far apart as possible. This would allow a very slight margin at both extremes—two inches to spare for the M-26s on the treadways; and barely half an inch for the jeeps using the 45-inch interval between the metal lips on the inboard edges of the treadways.
Thanks to skillful handling of the bulldozers the treadways were soon respaced. And in the early darkness Partridge’s solution paid off when the first jeep crossed, its tires scraping both edges. Thus the convoy got under way again as an engineer detachment guided vehicles across with flashlights while Sawyer’s troops kept the enemy at a distance.[602]
[602] Partridge interv, 25 Jun 51, 56–65.
Advance reports of the bridge drop had brought press representatives flocking to Koto-ri in casualty evacuation planes. David Duncan, of Life, a former Marine, took realistic photographs of the troops which attracted nation-wide attention. Keyes Beech sent out daily reports while making notes for a book about his adventures in Korea. Miss Marguerite Higgins, who refused to be outdone by male colleagues, was twice requested to leave Koto-ri before nightfall by Marine officers who respected her pluck as a reporter but felt that the perimeter was no place for a woman in the event of an enemy attack.
Hundreds of words were written about the bridge drop. Some of these accounts were so dramatized as to give Stateside newspaper readers the impression that the span had been parachuted to earth in one piece, settling down neatly over the abutments. Headlines reported the progress of the 1st Marine Division every day, and front-page maps made every American household familiar with the names of such obscure Korean mountain hamlets at Koto-ri and Chinhung-ni.
General Shepherd and Colonel Frederick P. Henderson flew up to the perimeter on the 9th for a conference with General Smith. Before their departure they were informed that all remaining casualties at Koto-ri would be evacuated that day.[603]