[186] During the fighting on the 13th, Hospitalman John E. Kilmer was mortally wounded while “administering aid to the wounded and expediting their evacuation.” Though wounded by enemy mortars, he continued his life-saving efforts until another barrage took his life. He had died shielding a wounded Marine undergoing emergency treatment. Hospitalman Kilmer, a distant cousin of poet Joyce Kilmer, became the first of four corpsmen serving with the 1st Marine Division to be awarded the Medal of Honor during the trench warfare in western Korea.
In the 3d Battalion sector, Marine and KSC stretcher bearers brought casualties to the I/3/1 CP, several hundred yards to the rear of the front line. At the command post, the critically wounded were airlifted by helicopter to the rear. Less seriously wounded casualties were placed in jeep ambulances and carried to the battalion forward aid station, about two miles away. Here a team of doctors and corpsmen examined and treated patients, discharged a few, but prepared most for further evacuation. At the 1st Marines forward aid station, patients were reexamined and their wounds redressed when required; discharge or further evacuation was also accomplished. Most of the Marines brought to this forward facility had become exhausted from vigorous activity in the high temperature and humidity which characterized the South Korean summer. The regimental aid station treated these heat cases and then released them to their units.
Company B Returns to Bunker Hill[187]
[187] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: 1stMarDiv, 1stMar, 3/1, 1st TkBn ComdDs, Aug 52.
Division intelligence subsequently reported that the 2100 attack on 13 August had been made by an enemy battalion with a reinforced company in assault. This same unit again sent a small band of Chinese soldiers against Hill 122 at 0225 the following morning. This clash was to be the briefest of all offensives for control of Bunker Hill during the 11–17 August period. Prior to launching this four-minute fire fight, an enemy machine gun at Siberia had attempted to harass the Marines at Bunker Hill. In retaliation, Marine tanks illuminated this enemy weapon with their searchlights and immediately took it under fire with their 90mm guns, knocking it out of action. At the same time, enemy artillery attempted to shell friendly tanks. During this brief fire exchange, one tanker was wounded slightly and the lens of one fighting light was splintered by fragments from enemy shells bursting around the tanks. The inconsequential probe was made, Marines believed, not so much to seriously challenge Marines holding Hill 122 as it was to retrieve CCF dead and wounded from the major attack a few hours earlier that night.
Anticipating that a much heavier ground attack was close at hand, the 1st Marines ordered a reinforcement of the Bunker Hill position. Even before the heavy action on the 13th, this machinery had been set in motion. To this end, the 3d Battalion was to reinforce the Bunker defense by sending a 1/1 platoon to the hill and the 2d Battalion was instructed to return Company A (minus this platoon) to the reserve battalion. At 0415 on the 14th, Company E/2/1, led since 10 August by Captain Stanley T. Moak, took over from A/1/1 the responsibility for the 2d Battalion’s MLR “Siberia sector,” adjacent to the Bunker Hill area held by the 3d Battalion. The Company A reinforcing platoon arrived at Hill 122 just before dusk, preceding another CCF company attack by only a few hours.
At midnight the 1st Marines front was suspiciously quiet for a few minutes. Forward on Hill 122, there was no apparent enemy activity. Captain Demas sent out a two fire-team patrol from Bunker to reconnoiter northwest of Bunker towards the Chinese lines. Shortly after the eight Marines returned with a negative report of contact with the enemy, the regiment received a report about the outbreak of a small arms clash between defenders on the left flank of Bunker and an enemy unit farther west. At 0118 on 15 August what had initially appeared to be a minor contest suddenly erupted into a heated fire fight all along the 124–122 Bunker Ridge complex. At the request of Captain Dumas, Marine artillery fired protective boxes around the Bunker positions. This defensive maneuver held the attackers in check.
At this moment, Chinese infantrymen in the draw running alongside the 124–122–120 ridge system were massed for an assault on Bunker from the northeast. The plan might have been successful had not a fighting light from a tank on the main line intercepted the Communists in this state of their preparations. In a matter of moments, friendly artillery, mortar, and tank fire struck the Chinese and scattered the formation.
After discovering he could not successfully pull a sneak attack, the enemy reverted to his usual procedure, employing a preassault bombardment prior to his infantry assault. This preparation began at 0206; it reached the rate of approximately 100 rounds of 82 and 122mm mortar shells per minute. While supporting weapons pounded the Marines, the Chinese assault commander reorganized his attack force that the Marine shelling had scattered. Communist infantry then moved forward and fired on the Bunker Marines, who replied with rifles and machine guns and box-me-in fires. Unable to penetrate this protective mask around the positions, the Chinese gradually decreased their small arms and artillery fire until, at 0315, the rate of exploding shells at Hill 122 had dropped to only four or five per minute. Soon thereafter the small arms fire slacked off entirely and by 0400 even the mortars had stopped. Across the entire 1st Marines front, all was quiet again.
During the Company H defense of the hill, enemy losses, caused mostly by friendly artillery and mortar fire, were placed at 350, including 40 counted dead. Captain Demas’ Marines suffered 35 casualties, of whom 7 were killed. En route to the MLR after relief by B/3/1, the company suffered four more casualties, including two KIAs, all the victims of Chinese mortars.