On the far right, in Lieutenant Colonel Dulacki’s sector, a reinforced CCF platoon poured over the Warsaw defenses at 1930. Immediately the outpost Marines called for the friendly artillery box. As these protective fires were being delivered all communication at the outpost was severed by hostile fire. Enemy artillery continued at a heavy rate. By 2000, however, communication was reestablished between the COP and MLR. The first message from the besieged outpost was a request for more artillery. With additional fire support and continued stiff outpost resistance, the Chinese at 2055 relinquished their quest to regain Warsaw.
The enemy’s most determined assaults on the night of 6–7 October were made upon a pair of outposts, Detroit and Frisco, manned by the middle battalion, 3/7 (Lieutenant Colonel Gerald F. Russell). Two JAMESTOWN areas in this sector were also attacked, but only briefly. The assault against the outposts was executed by a Chinese battalion which sent one company against Detroit and another against Frisco, east of Detroit. Both outposts were manned by two squads of Marines.
At Detroit, the Company G Marines reported that the initial attack made at 1940 on 6 October by a Chinese company had been rebuffed. The enemy did succeed, however, in advancing to the outpost trenchline. Strong defensive fires prevented him from exploiting this initial gain by occupying any of the bunkers, and the attackers were forced to pull back. After regrouping, the Chinese returned at 2100 and again were able to secure a foothold at the main trench.
Marine artillery assisted the outpost defenders in repulsing this new attack, but not before Chinese interdictory fires had disrupted all communications between the COP and its MLR support company. Some Chinese had also moved south in the vicinity of the MLR, but these attacks were neither persistent nor heavily supported. At 2115 the last of the enemy intruders had withdrawn from the MLR. At about this same time, 3/7 heard Detroit request overhead VT fires, but shortly after this the battalion again lost contact with the outpost.
Two squads were then sent out to reinforce the position. They were stopped, however, by heavy Chinese artillery barrages. At the outpost, Marine artillery fires had forced the Chinese to retreat, but at 0015 the enemy reappeared at the trenchline. The artillery regiment once again applied the overhead fire remedy, but with less success—the Chinese, neither retreating nor advancing, took cover in the trenches. During the long night, attempts to reestablish communications with Detroit had proved fruitless, although battalion radio operators reported that they had heard Chinese language coming over one of the Marine radio nets used by the COP. A six-man reconnaissance detail was sent forward to investigate. It returned at 0355 with the information that Detroit was now held by the enemy. Two wounded Marines had escaped; the rest of the Detroit garrison had fallen to the enemy. At 0630 the Marines withdrew after heavy fighting that had lasted more than 10 hours.
During the earlier part of the night, while the battle for outpost control raged at Detroit, reinforcements had also been dispatched to Frisco to help stabilize the situation at this adjacent Company H/3/7 outpost. Like Detroit, it had been attacked by a Chinese company, beginning about 2000. An hour and a half later some of the enemy had made their way into the trenchline, but were repulsed with the help of friendly artillery VT. Shortly after midnight the enemy again probed Frisco and reached the trenchline. At 0115, two squads jumped off from JAMESTOWN, but a rain of Chinese artillery interrupted their progress. Throughout the early morning hours of 7 October, Company H and I units were sent out from the MLR to buttress the Frisco defense and stem the enemy attack. At 0510, a reinforced platoon from the reserve company was sent to renew the counterattack. It was this Company I unit that finally restored control of the COP to the Marines.[230] Another reinforcing platoon arrived at the outpost just as the Marines there had evicted the remaining Chinese assault forces. At 0715, 7 October, Frisco was declared secure.
[230] During the predawn attempt to retake Frisco on 7 October, Staff Sergeant Lewis G. Watkins, I/3/7, although already wounded, led his rifle platoon in the assault against Frisco. When an enemy machine gun impeded their progress, Staff Sergeant Watkins grabbed a wounded man’s automatic rifle to help get the assault moving forward again. At that instant, an enemy grenade landed in the midst of the Marines. Staff Sergeant Watkins immediately seized it. Just as he was about to hurl it away it exploded in his hand. The grenade took the sergeant’s life but he had saved his fellow Marines. For his bravery Staff Sergeant Watkins was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Its precarious position, however, demanded either an investment of more outpost troops to retain possession of it or else its abandonment, in conjunction with other measures to neutralize loss of the position. At 1804 that day the latter course was instituted. The 7th Marines reported that the enemy had suffered an estimated 200 KIA and unknown WIA as a result of the bitterly contested outpost attacks on 6–7 October. Marine casualties were listed as 10 killed, 22 missing, 105 wounded and evacuated, and 23 not-seriously wounded.
In all, during the first week in October, the 1st Marine Division gave up six outposts, or forward positions, that had been sited on some of the commanding ground in the Marine area. On the division left, COPs 37, 36, and 86 were the ones most removed from the Korean MLR and thus easily susceptible to being overrun by the enemy at will and to his early reinforcement.[231] The division theorized that near winter and the subsequent freezing of the Sachon would facilitate the movement of Chinese troops and supplies across the river to new positions. The enemy was now able to operate patrols east of the river without interference. At the opposite side of the division MLR, on its right flank, Detroit, Frisco, and Seattle had been lost. By gaining this string of outposts, the enemy was better able to exert pressure against other Marine positions forward of the line and the critical ground on JAMESTOWN.
[231] FMFPac, 1stMarDiv Sum, Jul-Oct 52.