“We can expect to meet Chinese Communist troops,” he concluded, “and it is important that we win the first battle. The results of that action will reverberate around the world, and we want to make sure that the outcome has an adverse effect in Moscow as well as Peiping.”[240]
[240] Litzenberg Comments, 19 Jul 56; Woessner Comments, 13 Nov 56; Maj M. E. Roach Comments, 17 May 56. The quotation is from Litzenberg.
ROKs Relieved by 7th Marines
On 1 November the 7th Marines trucked out of Hamhung to an assembly area midway between Oro-ri and Majon-dong. Moving into position behind the 26th ROK Regiment without incident, Colonel Litzenberg ordered a reconnaissance which took Lieutenant Colonel Raymond G. Davis’ 1st Battalion about four miles northward to the South Korean positions above Majon-dong. Late that afternoon the regiment secured for the night in a tight perimeter.[241]
[241] 7thMar SAR, 5, 7.
Attached to the regiment were the 3d Battalion, 11th Marines (Major Francis F. Parry); Division Reconnaissance Company (First Lieutenant Ralph B. Crossman); Company D, 1st Engineer Battalion (Captain Byron C. Turner); 1st Motor Transport Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Olin L. Beall); Company E, 1st Medical Battalion (Lieutenant Commander Charles K. Holloway); and detachments from the 1st Signal Battalion, 1st Service Battalion, and Division Military Police Company.[242]
[242] Ibid., 3. Col R. G. Davis Comments, n. d.
Intelligence based on the questioning of the 16 prisoners taken by the ROKs had revealed that they had been attacked by elements of the 370th Regiment of the 124th CCF Division. Along with the 125th and 126th, the other two divisions of the 42d CCF Army, the 124th had crossed the Yalu during the period 14–20 October. After marching southeast via Kanggye and Changjin, the unit deployed for the defense of the Chosin Reservoir power complex while the 126th pushed eastward to the Fusen Reservoir and the 125th protected the right flank of the 42d CCF Army.[243]
[243] 1stMarDiv PIR 6. Wilson-Graeber interv, 20 Oct 55.
X Corps G-2 officers concluded that these CCF forces were “probably flank security” for the enemy’s 4th Army Group across the peninsula in the EUSAK zone.[244] The G-2 section of the 1st Marine Division arrived at this interpretation: