At precisely 1910, a force of 3,500 Chinese from the 358th Regiment, 120th Division, 46th CCF Army began to swarm down from Ungok, Arrowhead, Hill 25A, and Hill 190 and launched a massive assault in regimental strength against the 5th Marines sector. ([Map 27].) Elements of six companies from three battalions converged on the area from three directions. Two enemy platoons of the 1st Company, 1st Battalion from Ungok struck Carson while one infantry company each, initially, began a direct assault on Reno and Vegas. Units from the 3d Company, 1st Battalion, from Arrowhead and Hill 29, crossed the Seoul road to hit Reno in a direct frontal assault. Elements of the 7th Company, 3d Battalion moved down from Hill 190, a mile north, to encircle the left flank of Reno and thus strike from the rear of the Marine position. Other Chinese soldiers of the 8th Company, 3d Battalion, supported by the 9th Company, moved some 500 yards south of their ridgeline positions on Hill 25A and 155 immediately north of Vegas to attack the outpost head-on.
Another enemy unit, the 2d Company, 1st Battalion, swept south from Hill 57A and made diversionary probes of the two most remote outposts of the entire 1st Marine Division line, Berlin and East Berlin in the 3d Battalion sector. These two smaller positions, each manned by a reinforced squad-size detachment from G/3/5, were to be successful in driving off the enemy’s less determined efforts there with a rain of small arms, mortar, and artillery fires.
As the enemy regiment advanced toward its objectives in a coordinated three-pronged attack, Marine artillery fired protective boxes and VT on the outposts and routes of approach from the west, north, and east. Defending infantry also called down organic 60mm and 81mm mortar barrages. Actually, prior to the Chinese onslaught at 1900, 1/11, the direct support battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Olin W. Jones, Jr.) for the 5th Marines, began a registration and had laid its howitzer fires on the active area. The artillery regiment had also set up conference calls linking its four organic battalions and supporting Army units. The fire plan for the 11th Marines provided for its three light battalions (1/11, 2/11, and 3/11) to cover enemy approaches and assembly areas, deliver protective boxing and VT fires requested by the outposts, and furnish countermortar missions called in by forward observers. Medium battalions (4/11 and the 623d Field Artillery) were to reinforce defensive fires and destroy hostile mortars and artillery emplacements. Heavy 8-inch howitzer support (Battery C, 17th FA Battalion and Battery A, of the 204th) would silence enemy counterbattery weapons.
As it happened on the night of the 26th, Marine tanks, in addition to artillery, were also registered before the time of the actual attack. Eleven of Captain Hunter’s Company A tanks had earlier rumbled into firing position on the MLR to provide mechanized support for an infantry raid scheduled at dawn the next morning.
MAP 27 K. WHITE
ATTACKS ON 5TH MARINES FRONT
26–30 MARCH 1953
Despite this immediate response of Marine fire support, the Chinese invaders outnumbered the platoons holding the outposts by a 20 to 1 ratio. The sheer weight of numbers was the decisive factor. By 1935 the enemy had penetrated the lower trenches of both Carson and Reno. An hour after the onset of the attack, at 2000, the Marines were throwing back Chinese forces with bayonets, knives, rifles, and bare fists in the close, heavy fighting at Carson. There, where 54 men had been on duty at the time of initial attack, the outpost was successfully holding off the Communists. Four reinforcing squads quickly dispatched by battalion were designed to further strengthen the position. At 2000, just when D/1/5 and C/1/5 relief squads were leaving for the outpost, the Chinese unexpectedly began to release their grip on Carson as they concentrated on the two more isolated COPs, Reno and Vegas, that were further from the MLR.
No other attempt was made by the enemy to occupy Carson that night or the next day. Barrage fires gradually ceased as the enemy began to withdraw about 2135. Sporadic bursts of his 60mm and 82mm mortars and 76mm guns, however, continued to rock the position until midnight.