Although the composite two-platoon unit of Marines from F/2/7 and E/2/5 had partially won Vegas back in 10 hours of savage fighting on 27 March, after earlier groundwork by D/2/5, it was a precarious hold. Marines had attained the lower slopes but the Chinese still clung to the northern crest. As it turned out, three separate company-sized assaults were going to be needed to dislodge the enemy.
The initial Marine action on the 28th began at 0335 when 105mm and 155mm howitzers of the 1st, 2d, and 4th Battalions, 11th Marines, belched forth their streams of fire at the pocket of enemy troops on the northern slopes preparatory to the forthcoming Marine infantry assault. This 2,326-round pounding was aimed at Chinese assembly areas and weapon emplacements, with much of the preparation zeroed in on active mortars.
Within a half hour the weary men of F/2/7, who had spent a wakeful night in the lower Vegas trenches, moved to within hand grenade range of the objective in their first attempt to gain the summit. An intense shower of small arms and mortar fire, however, forced them to pull back to the south slopes. While Captain Estey’s troops reorganized for the next assault, air strikes joined the big guns, mortars, and tanks in battering the enemy’s position on the outpost and supply routes thereto. Shortly after sunup, a lone AU from VMA-213, followed a half hour later by a VMA-323 Corsair, arrived on station. They laid a smoke screen three miles across the front between Arrowhead and the far eastern Marine-U.S. Army boundary to assist four early-morning air strikes. Soon afterwards, eight ADs from Lieutenant Colonel John E. Hughes’ VMA-121 were in the skies to support the Vegas attack in the opening round of aerial activity that would see day-long bombing and strafing runs by five 1st MAW squadrons.
A new Marine assault at 0600 was repulsed and Company F pulled back to a defilade position 375 yards south of Vegas and regrouped. Again friendly planes from VMA-121 and -323, tanks, artillery, and mortars plastered the enemy in a new series of preparatory fires, beginning at 0920; and again Captain Estey’s F/2/7 men jumped off in attack. By 1015 the Marines had made their way across the height to within 15 yards of the trench line on the left finger of Vegas. There they came under continuous small arms and grenade bursts from the crest and battled the Chinese in an intense 22-minute fire fight.
It was during this onslaught by Company F for the crest of Vegas that Sergeant Daniel P. Matthews so defiantly routed the enemy to save the life of a wounded comrade that his action gave renewed spirit to those witnessing it. A squad leader of F/2/7, Matthews was in the thick of a counterpunch against solidly dug-in hill defenses that had repelled six previous assaults by Marine forces. The 21-year-old California Marine was coolly leading his men in the attack when the squad suddenly was pinned down by a hostile machine gun located on the Vegas crest. When he saw that its grazing fire prevented a corpsman from removing to safety a wounded Marine who had fallen in full range of the weapon, Matthews acted instinctively.
Quickly working his way around to the base of the enemy machine gun position, he leaped onto the rock fortification that surrounded it. Taking the enemy by surprise, he charged the emplacement with his own rifle. Severely wounded within moments, the Marine continued his assault, killed two of the enemy, dispatched a third, and silenced the weapon. By this action, Sergeant Matthews enabled his comrades on the ground to evacuate the injured Marine, although Matthews died before aid could reach him.[376]
[376] The Marine NCO was to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, presented a year after the action, on 29 March 1954.
Back at battalion, E/2/5, with D/2/7 in column behind it, had moved out to relieve Captain Estey’s redoubtable F/2/7 forces. By noon, Captain Lorence’s Company E had completed passage of lines through Company F. The latter unit, now numbering 43 effectives after its six assaults on 27–28 March to regain the Vegas high ground, returned to base camp.
Heavy air attacks, meanwhile, were assisting the artillery in blasting out Communist defenses of the Vegas area. Between 0950 and 1300, seven four-plane strikes by pilots of Colonel Bowman’s MAG-12 had swept the outpost area and hill lairs of the enemy at 57A, the east slope of Reno, Tumae-ri (40D), 190, and resupply points. Within one 23-minute period alone, 28 tons of bombs were laid squarely on the Vegas position. Supported by air, mortars, and artillery, Company E was 400 yards from the objective, and, by 1245, forward elements had moved up to within 150 yards of the crest. As Marine supporting fires lifted from Vegas to enemy assembly areas on Hills 150, 153, and 190, E/2/5 launched its final assault at 1301. Although small arms, bursts of mortar and enemy artillery fire traced their every move, the Marines’ hard-hitting attack brought them to the top of Vegas where they literally dug the Chinese out of their defenses.
At 1307, the Marines had secured their position and recaptured the Vegas outpost. At approximately the same time the Marine reinforcing unit, D/2/7, was ordered to return to MLR, since the objective had been gained. The Marine in charge of the E/2/5 platoon that retook Vegas was Staff Sergeant John J. Williams, who had taken over the 1st Platoon after its leader, Second Lieutenant Edgar R. Franz, had been wounded and evacuated. Almost immediately after securing Vegas at 1320, the Chinese launched a counterattack and Company E came under a renewed barrage of incessant artillery and mortar shells, exploding at the rate of one round per second in the Marines’ newly gained trenches.