The coming of darkness on 3 November marked the finish of the first phase. Litzenberg’s perimeter remained essentially the same as on the previous day, the only changes being Company D’s occupation of the high ground east of the road bend, Recon Company’s assumption of local security at the regimental CP, and 3/11’s tighter concentration within the zone of 3/7. What few light contacts occurred during the night were decided quickly by Marine artillery and mortars.[269]
[269] 7thMar SAR, 14; 3/11 SAR, 3; Goggin interv; HqBn URpt 8, 2–3; 7th Mar msgs to CG 1stMarDiv, 0804 and 1508 4 Nov 50.
Later intelligence evaluations proved that these contacts could have involved only CCF patrols or stragglers, for it was in this same period that the 370th and 371st CCF Regiments withdrew some three miles from Sudong to a defense line established by elements of the 372d Regiment north of Chinhung-ni. The two assault units had paid a high price for failure during the 2–4 November fighting. The 371st Regiment lost the equivalent of five companies out of its 1st and 3d Battalions, with the total dead estimated at 793. And the 3d Battalion, 370th Regiment, was reduced by the destruction of two companies.[270]
[270] X Corps PIR 44, annex 2; 1stMarDiv PIRs 11 and 12, encl 1; 7thMar SAR, n. p.
It was a wobbly 124th CCF Division, then, that dug in with heavy machine guns and mortars on two massive hills, 987 and 891, flanking the MSR about two miles north of Chinhung-ni. The depleted 344th NKPA Tank Regiment could not avail itself of such defensible terrain, for until Marine engineers widened the tortuous cliff road through Funchilin Pass it would not accommodate armor.[271]
[271] 1stMarDiv SAR, annex NN (hereafter 1stEngrBn SAR), 8; and 7thMar SAR, n. p.
Apparently the Chinese Communists had left their North Korean comrades of the 344th to fend for themselves. The NKPA unit had already dwindled considerably from its original organization of three armored and three infantry companies. On 2 November it comprised only five T-34s and their crews. One of these machines, after being damaged during the single-handed raid on the 7th Marines’ perimeter that night, was abandoned the next day. The NKPA crews put the remaining four vehicles into camouflaged positions next to the MSR at Chinhung-ni, where they waited resignedly at a tactical dead-end.[272]
[272] G-2 SAR, 34; and 7thMar SAR, n. p.
Colonel Litzenberg was aware of the probability of further resistance along the road, since on 3 November Marine air had reported approximately 300 enemy trucks—in groups of 15 or 20—on the move south of the Chosin Reservoir.[273] At dawn of 4 November, after a night of relative calm around the old perimeter, he ordered his subordinates to conduct vigorous patrolling preparatory to continuing the advance.[274]
[273] 1stMarDiv PIR 10.