Correspondent’s View – 2

Heartbreak Ridge

5 September 1951, the North Koreans moved from Bloody Ridge to the 7 mile long hill known to the Americans as Heartbreak Ridge, just 1,500 yards away. A month long battle that would cost the U.S. 2nd Division 3,700 men. Below are two more articles written by Korean War correspondent Rafael Steinberg as he witnesses some of the action involved.

‘DO PEOPLE BACK HOME KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?’

By, Rafael Steinberg

WITH THE SECOND U.S. INFANTRY DIVISION, Korea, Sept. 28. – (INS) – When it began, there were many men, and they all said they’d rather live than be heroes.  But when it was over, there were many heroes.  The heroes who didn’t live through it were carried to the road in trucks that were seldom too large for the load they were given.  Those who lived, staggered off “Heartbreak Ridge” like fugitives from a nightmare.

They had fired their guns until their ammunition was gone, charged the enemy until the moment the enemy died, battled with knuckles and sinew.  The men of one group told the story today.  For the past few days they had fought as a bobtailed outfit because there were not enough officers or noncoms or men left to fill out the whole unit.  This conversation took place:

“Say, listen, buddy.”

“Yes?”

“Do the people back home know what’s going on here?”

“Some of them might.”

“Yeah?  Well tell them about this damn mountain.  Tell them this ain’t no patrol contact.  If they knew about it they’d stop this stuff.  This here’s a war.  Tell them about this damn ridge.”

 

The ridge is steep and the peaks along it are high and the North Koreans have burrowed themselves into the mountain the same way termites eat their way into a log.  For two weeks, the 23rd Infantry Regiment battled for the highest peak.  The first battalion crawled and climbed and battled and died on one slope.  The second battalion crawled and climbed and died on another.  The third battalion crawled and climbed and died on the peak just above.

The North Koreans still hold the highest peak.  But the Communist army is missing four regiments as a result of the death-grip the Reds kept on their mountain, the Americans who were wounded and died took more than their share of enemy with them.

Men of the Second US Inf. Div. back down from Heartbreak Ridge

The Communists held because they had a mortar and artillery piece aimed at every piece of ground the 23rd held or took.  They held because their commander sent four regiments, one at a time, up to the peak from the west without regard for losses.  And they held for the elementary tactical reason that a defender of high ground almost always has the advantage over his attackers.

But the men of the 23rd kept at it.  Said one company commander:  “They were charging up the hill with bayonets…”

The captain, James Dick of Elizabeth, NJ, came off the hill today and told his fellow officers:  “There were individual acts of courage the like of which I’ve never seen.  There was one kid on his way to the top, got his foot blown off and got some machine-gun fire in his chest.  Then a mortar knocked his jaw off and still the ______ kept going.  Then he almost got to the top and just collapsed, just collapsed… and we we will never know who he was.”

No American dead were left on the hill, the captain said, but there is no time to look at a man’s dog tags and write down his name when the mortars are coming in.

“I had my radio,” said one officer, “and each time we had to fall back because of the machine-guns or mortars, I asked for instructions.  They said ‘you will take the hill by dawn.’  So we try a few more times and lose a dozen more men each time and I make the same call and ask the same question and get the same answer.  Finally I left my radio near a tree and a mortar blew it up and then I had to use my own judgement and that meant get back to the perimeter.  We got back just in time, too.  I’m telling you, you can’t take that hill.  There’s no place to maneuver.  There’s just one or two ways to get up and they’ve got them zeroed in.  And their bunkers are so deep that a big shell won’t get into them.”

But the men stayed on and fought.  By this time they were usually in a state of shock.  For two weeks no one of them slept more than an hour or two at a time.  For days whole companies stayed alert on guard all night with no sleep.  There was no hot food, no change of clothes, no outlet for the tension and fear and worry that built up day by day until some men fell apart and had to be led down the hill and other men fell apart and led screaming charges up the hill.

Said one officer:  “There were two wild idiots.  Men screaming in the bottoms of their foxholes – and they had good reason to be screaming but what good were they to me?”

One small group lost 15 killed and 70 wounded.  Another smaller group had only five men hut by this afternoon.

##################################################################

Personal note – I believe stories such as these from men who were there more than cover the question as to whether these three years was a conflict or a war.

Resource:  http://nightowlsnotebook.wordpress.com

##################################################################

Farewell Salutes – 

Ben Smith – Seattle, WA; US Army Air Corps, WWII

Barbara Hooven – NJ; US Army nurse, WWII

His helmet, rifle and ammunition belt mark the spot where an unidentified soldier was killed on the Korean front

Samual Brickman – Delray Bch, FL; US Army, WWII ETO, Forward Brigade

Edward Huth – Denver, CO & Phoenix, AZ; US Army, WWII

David Rechenbach – VA; US Army, Vietnam

Robert Hortie (83) – Salisbury, MD; USMC (Ret.) GySgt.

###################################################################