[390] CROKMC ltr to CMC, dtd 2 Feb 1971, hereafter ROKMC Comments.
[391] See [Appendix G] for complete text of citation. Previous awards were as follows: 1stProvMarBrig (for 2 Aug-6 Sep 50 period), 1st MAW (3 Aug 50–26 Feb 51), and 1stMarDiv (15–27 Sep 50).
A directive at the end of the month put the 7th Marines on the alert to move into 5th Marines positions in the right regimental sector. This was to be accomplished on 4–5 April when, after 68 days on line, the 5th Marines moved south to Camp Rose to become the division reserve regiment. The prospect of a new stage in the off-and-on truce negotiations had also come late in the month. On 28 March, the Communists informed the UN of their willingness to discuss the Allied proposal for return of sick and wounded prisoners. This exchange had originally been suggested by the UN more than a year earlier, in December 1951. Notification of the new Chinese intentions came, ironically, on a day when the Vegas outpost fighting was at its height.
As the month closed on the Vegas chapter, Marines on line and in the reserve companies who had just sweated through the bloodiest exchange of the war on the I Corps front to date added their own epitaph. With a touch of ungallantry that can be understood, they called the disputed crest of Vegas “the highest damn beachhead in Korea.”
CHAPTER VIII
Marking Time
(April-June 1953)
The Peace Talks Resume—Operation LITTLE SWITCH—Interval Before the Marines Go Off the Line—The May Relief—Training While in Reserve and Division Change of Command—Heavy May-June Fighting—Developments in Marine Air—Other Marine Defense Activities—The Division Is Ordered Back to the Front
The Peace Talks Resume[392]
[392] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: PacFlt EvalRpt No. 6, Chap. 9; 1stMarDiv, 1st EngrBn ComdDs, Apr 53; Berger, Korea Knot; Clark, Danube to Yalu; Hermes, Truce Tent; Leckie, Conflict; M/Sgt Robert T. Fugate, “Freedom Village,” Leatherneck, v. 36, no. 7 (Jul 53), hereafter Fugate, “Freedom Village.”
It was April 1953, but it wasn’t an April Fool’s mirage. On 6 April, representatives of the United Nations Command and the Communist delegation sat down at the Panmunjom truce tents to resume the peace talks that had been stalemated six months—since October 1952. If there was a word that could be said to reflect the attitude of American officials and private citizens alike—for that matter, the atmosphere at Panmunjom itself—it was one of caution—not real optimism, not an unbridled hopefulness, but a wearied caution born of the mountains of words, gulfs of free-flowing dialogue and diatribe, and then ultimate plateaus of intransigence that had marked negotiations with Communist leaders since the original truce discussions had begun in July 1951.