Four other outposts in the battalion area were involved in the anniversary attack, but the action around Yoke was by far the heaviest. It resulted in 10 Marines of 2/5 killed and 36 wounded. At Yoke alone, 9 were killed and 23 wounded. Enemy dead were 12 known and 50 estimated killed. Chinese wounded were estimated at 100. At one point during the attack on Yoke, the outpost commander reported that the enemy were wearing gas masks and using tear-gas grenades. Investigation revealed that the Chinese had carried and even worn the masks, but that they had employed white phosphorus grenades rather than tear gas. This was the first instance Marine division personnel had ever encountered of CCF soldiers carrying gas masks in an attack and it was “believed part of the enemy’s hate campaign to impress their troops with the possible use by the UN Forces of CBR (Chemical, Biological and Radiological) warfare.”[138]
[138] Selden, Div Staff Rpt, p. 16.
This violent eruption of enemy activity on the night of 24 June was followed by a brief period of greatly reduced ground action. Late on the 29th, however, the battlefront lull was broken when the 1st KMC Regiment sent out a raiding party to capture Chinese soldiers and their weapons and equipment, to inflict casualties, and to destroy positions. Second Lieutenant Kwak Sang In had his reinforced platoon from the 3d Company, 1st Battalion, equipped with rifles, carbines, machine guns, flamethrowers, and explosives. Target for the attack was an enemy outpost four miles south of Panmunjom that overlooked the Sachon River.
The patrol followed the general pattern of previous raids. It made use of supporting elements positioned on high ground in front of the objective. In this action the patrol struck from the rear, using artillery fire for both the assault and the withdrawal. Another similarity existed in that the results were nearly the same—no prisoners taken but fewer casualties to the attackers. One difference from earlier operations was that this patrol employed flamethrowers and TNT for destroying bunkers and inflicting casualties. Both weapons were credited in the killing of 12 and the wounding of 6 Chinese, in destroying 1 mortar and 7 bunkers, and in burning 3 other bunkers and numerous automatic weapons and rifles. Because of the heavy weight of a loaded flamethrower and the small size of the Korean Marines carrying these weapons, the flamethrower operators were fairly well exhausted by the end of the patrol.
A Long Fourth of July[139]
[139] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: PacFlt EvalRpt No. 5, Chap. 8; and 1stMarDiv, 5thMar, 7thMar, 11thMar, 1/5, 2/5, 1/7, 3/7, 1st TkBn ComdDs, Jul 52.
The approach of the American Fourth of July holiday marking an earlier struggle for freedom was appropriately accompanied by ground action initiated by all of the mainland MLR regiments. In the KMC area, a 3 July raiding party struck at forward enemy positions before dawn, killing nine Chinese. In the center regimental sector Colonel Thomas C. Moore’s[140] 7th Marines were also engaged in an active sector defense. In the left battalion spot 3/7, which had replaced 2/7 on line, dispatched raids on each of the first three nights of the month. Its Company G patrol on the night of 2–3 July was to be involved in one of the most costly small unit actions in the western Korea tour of duty for the Marine division.
[140] Colonel Moore took over regimental command on 11 June. The former CO, Colonel Honsowetz, had been named Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 of the 1st Marine Division.
Operational plans called for the platoon night raid on the 2d to be followed by a dawn attack the next morning. In both actions, the prisoner-taking aspect of the mission was considered a primary one. The early part of the operation was uneventful. One platoon moved forward toward the objective, Hill 159 (Yoke), 1,200 yards beyond combat outpost (COP) White, to the regimental left, without making contact with the enemy. The platoon then established a base of fire on favorable terrain from which the attack by the second platoon could be supported.
The second platoon passed through the forward position of the first shortly before 0630 and moved out into enemy terrain. It advanced less than 300 yards before its progress was halted by a Chinese force of battalion strength occupying the objective, Hill 159. Heavy enemy rifle and machine gun fire, hand grenades, mortar and artillery deluged the advancing Marines. Many of them quickly became casualties, but the operation continued, due in part to the determination and initiative of the NCOs. One of these was Staff Sergeant William E. Shuck, Jr., in charge of a machine gun squad. When the leader of one of the rifle squads became a casualty, Sergeant Shuck assumed command of that squad in addition to his own. Although wounded, he organized the two units and led them against the objective. Nearing the summit of the hill, the sergeant was hit a second time. Still he refused evacuation, remaining well forward in the lines to direct his assault force.