Marine firepower from the tankers’ 90mm rifles and the protective fire curtain placed around the outpost by the artillery batteries, however, deterred this heavy enemy effort. For the next hour Captain Lorence’s men continued with mopping up chores. Gradually and fitfully the Chinese resistance began to slacken. By 1401 definite control of Vegas was established, except for the topographical crest at the northernmost point. Resupply and consolidation of the outpost began at once, with Vegas under 3/5 administration and Major Benjamin G. Lee, operations officer of 2/5, in command.
Two prisoners had been taken during the day’s action, one by E/2/5 during its afternoon assault and the other by F/2/7 early in the day. The soldier seized by a fire team from Company E was a 21-year-old wounded litter bearer attached to the attacking force, 3rd Battalion, 358th Regiment. He told 5th Marines interrogators that for the preceding three months the mission of the 358th Regiment (a component of the 40th CCF Army, under operational control of the 46th CCF Army) had been to prepare to occupy the Vegas and Reno outposts before the expected UN spring offensive could be launched. The two key installations overlooked CCF supply routes. Furthermore, occupation of these two hills, the Chinese believed, would serve as a valuable tactical example to the 46th Army, whose ranks at this time were composed of nearly 65 percent recruits. The POW also reported that prior to the CCF attack on Reno and Vegas, men of his regiment had practiced throwing hand grenades every day for the past two weeks. No political classes had been held during this period as practical proficiency, apparently, took priority over theoretical indoctrination.
The other Chinese prisoner, captured by Company F at 0610, was a grenadier with the 9th Company, 3d Battalion, 358th Regiment. Prior to the attack, his unit had occupied reverse slope positions on Hills 25A and 155 as reinforcements for the 8th Company. Each CCF battalion, he revealed, “held a front of approximately 1,000 meters, utilizing one company on line with two in support.”[377] This remark interested interrogators since it contradicted the normal pattern of enemy employment. According to the grenadier, the mission of the 3d Battalion had been to attack Vegas, while the 1st Battalion (to the west of the 3d on the Chinese MLR) was to secure Reno. Hill 190.5, an enemy strongpoint, had several antiaircraft machine guns on its reverse slope, he declared, and was the location as well of the forward CP of the 3d Battalion, 358th Regiment.
[377] 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnl, dtd 28 Mar 53.
For the next five hours, from 1440 to 1930, the Marines dug in on the crest and slopes of Vegas, buttressing their positions for the new Chinese attack sure to come. A muster of the rag-tag group left from the day’s 10 hours of fighting revealed a total strength of only five squads—58 effectives from E/2/5 and 8 from F/2/7. Uppermost in the minds of all the men, regardless of their diminished numbers, was the ironclad conviction that “we intend to stay.”[378]
[378] Ibid.
Their leader, Major Lee, was no less determined. At 42, he was a Marine veteran of 19 years, a former sergeant major from World War II and holder of the Silver Star and Purple Heart for service at Guadalcanal. Now he had volunteered for this hazardous duty of holding together segments of the Vegas enclave until the Marines could once again possess the entire hilltop outpost. Under his direction the troops promptly began to prepare individual fighting holes in the best possible tactical positions and to emplace their weapons. Personnel from Captain Lorence’s E/2/5 held the hard-won Vegas crest, while 150 men from F/2/5 committed later in the afternoon strengthened the rear trenches.
Air bombardment, prior to the 28th, had not been employed extensively against Vegas itself. The goal had been to recapture the outpost and drive the Communists out without unnecessarily destroying its defenses. Chinese tenacity in exploiting the Marine weapons positions at COP 21, while augmenting them, had made it apparent that the Vegas defense network would have to be reduced to retake the position. Altogether, during the day 33 missions (more than 100 CAS sorties) were flown by AUs, ADs, F4Us, and F9Fs of the 1st Marine Air Wing to support division ground action in regaining the advance outpost. All morning long, powerful attack planes from three MAG-12 squadrons had winged in from nearby K-6. Pilots from VMA-121, VMA-212 (Lieutenant Colonel Louis R. Smunk), and VMA-323 (Lieutenant Colonel William M. Frash) had flown the bombing runs.
In the early afternoon they were joined by the speedy, stable Panther jets from VMF-115 and VMF-311, of MAG-33 (Colonel Robertshaw), based further away at K-3. Between 1300 and 1800, a series of three four-plane F9F assaults were launched north of the Marine MLR by VMF-311, while another strike was made further east in support of the Army 2d Infantry Division’s Old Baldy operations. These planes, together with two divisions from VMF-115, dumped a total of 23 tons of bombs and 3,100 rounds of 20mm shells on CCF trenches, bunkers, mortars, and caves at Vegas, Reno, and Hill 25A. Additionally, VMF-115 Panthers flew four single-sortie daytime MPQ missions north of the bombline to damage and destroy enemy resupply points.