By late March of 1953, the Korean Struggle remained largely static as peace negotiations went backwards and forwards. U.N. and communist forces launched repeated bloody assaults to safe management over numerous hills and ridges alongside the frontline. The lads of the first Marine Division had been ordered to protect a collection of hilltop outposts generally known as “The Cities.”
The communists had prevented attacking the world in current months, however they started shifting 1000’s of males to the frontline. Lt. Col. John I. Williamson knew one thing massive was about to occur within the sector. The commanding officer of the first Tank Battalion put his premonition in writing.
“I am type of anticipating all hell to interrupt unfastened throughout the subsequent two nights,” Williamson wrote. “Kind of a hunch.”
Two days later, Chinese language artillery opened fireplace on the chain of fight outposts. What adopted grew to become the bloodiest preventing Marines endured on the Jamestown Line throughout the whole warfare.
The Marines Defend the Outposts
The Marines had nicknamed their ahead positions “The Cities,” a collection of outposts referred to as Reno, Carson, Vegas, Berlin, East Berlin and the Reno Block. The set of Nevada-inspired names got here from Lt. Col. Anthony Caputo, govt officer of the fifth Marine Regiment, who noticed the remoted hilltops as a harmful guess.
“It is a gamble if we will maintain them,” Caputo mentioned.
Lt. Col. Jonas M. Platt’s 1st Battalion, fifth Marines, defended the Nevada Cities with roughly 40 Marines and two Navy corpsmen manning every outpost. The positions served as early warning posts in entrance of the Foremost Line of Resistance, giving the primary pressure of Marines advance discover of enemy assaults whereas peace talks continued at Panmunjom simply miles away. Chinese language commanders considered the hilltops as worthwhile bargaining chips; seizing them would strengthen their place on the negotiating desk and threaten Seoul.
In contrast to most conditions, the tactical scenario favored the attackers. Carson sat 800 yards ahead of the MLR, close to two Chinese language positions. Reno occupied essentially the most uncovered floor at 1,600 yards out, perched on terrain that made reinforcement practically unattainable underneath fireplace. Vegas, the best level, stood 1,300 yards from the MLR.
Creator Lee Ballenger described the issue in “The Ultimate Crucible: Marines in Korea, 1953.”
The outposts “had been surrounded by greater floor held by the enemy, and every one trusted the others for flank protection,” Ballenger wrote. “If one outpost fell, the others had been as weak as a stack of dominos in a hurricane.”
The Chinese language Assault the Nevada Metropolis Outposts
On the night of March 26, 1953, roughly 3,500 troopers from the Chinese language 358th Regiment attacked the outposts concurrently. The Marines defending the three positions had been outnumbered practically 30 to at least one. The enemy got here ahead in large waves that one Marine in comparison with “Tartar hordes from the steppes of Mongolia.”
At Carson, 1st Lt. John F. Ingalls of Firm C, 1st Battalion, fifth Marines, oversaw the defenses.
“Because the bombardment intensified, the lads withdrew into the bunkers,” Ingalls recalled. “Ammunition scarcity was an issue, and I ordered them to repair bayonets.”
Reno collapsed shortly underneath the enemy assault. The Marines who survived the preliminary onslaught retreated into caves carved into the hillside, however enemy troopers started sealing the entrances. Trapped Marines “had been passing out from lack of oxygen” because the air provide dwindled.
Parts of the first Battalion, fifth Marines rushed towards Reno to interrupt via to the trapped males. The reduction pressure ran right into a Chinese language ambush at a steep slope the Marines referred to as “The Ladder.” Enemy machine weapons opened fireplace from the excessive floor, slicing down Marines as they superior. The preventing became hand-to-hand fight within the darkness, with Marines and Chinese language troopers grappling within the trenches and shell holes.
The reduction pressure took devastating casualties and could not break via to Reno.
Sgt. Invoice Janzen witnessed Pfc. Henry A. Fifield get hit by shrapnel from a mortar spherical that bent the barrel of his Browning Automated Rifle.
“He did not know if it might operate or not, however mentioned he’d take his possibilities with it and took off,” Janzen remembered. “That was his third wound in 5 and a half months.”
Shut Fight on Vegas
At Vegas, Sgt. George Johannes of H Firm, third Battalion, fifth Marines had simply helped evacuate a wounded Marine when he encountered a Chinese language soldier at point-blank vary.
“Midway down the hill, a gook with a burp gun appeared within the trench about 20 toes in entrance of me,” Johannes mentioned. “5 or 6 rounds from my carbine dropped him in a short time.”
As Johannes reached the MLR and regarded again, Vegas appeared “lit up like a Christmas tree” from the explosions and tracers crisscrossing the hilltop.
Navy corpsman Billy Rivers Penn, hooked up to third Battalion, fifth Marines, fought a number of hand-to-hand battles through the chaos. A Chinese language soldier stabbed him with a bayonet, driving the blade via his left leg above the ankle.
“He began to cock his rifle with the bolt motion once I received my .45 and shot him within the head,” Penn later mentioned.
Penn encountered one other enemy soldier moments later and “beat him unconscious with a rock.” Whereas inserting a wounded Marine inside a cave, a Chinese language soldier threw a satchel cost via the doorway. The explosion knocked Penn unconscious. When he got here to, Chinese language troops had been pulling any survivors from the rubble. Penn and the others grew to become prisoners of warfare.
Solely Carson held. Its males in 28 preventing positions repelled wave after wave of attackers in shut fight that required ka-bars and bayonets. After eight hours, enemy casualties had reached an estimated 600, 4 occasions the Marine toll to this point, however the attackers managed each Vegas and Reno.
Failed Counterattacks
Col. Lewis “Silent Lew” Walt, commanding officer of the fifth Marines, acknowledged the rising disaster and arranged instant counterattacks. Shortly after midnight on March 27, F Firm’s lead platoon pushed towards Vegas and received shut sufficient to substantiate Chinese language troops on the hill earlier than heavy fireplace drove them again to the MLR by 3 a.m.
Walt tried once more at first gentle. Firm D, 2nd Battalion, fifth Marines, underneath Capt. John B. Melvin attacked at 11:20 a.m. after Main Basic Edwin A. Pollock ordered concentrated air and artillery strikes. The depth of the responding enemy fireplace help shocked even the veterans within the group.
“The noise was deafening,” Melvin mentioned later. “They’d begin strolling the mortars towards us from each route attainable. You could possibly solely hope that the following spherical would not be on the right track.”
Inside an hour, Melvin’s first platoon was right down to solely 9 able-bodied males. The survivors pushed via flooded rice paddies and up muddy slopes however could not attain the crest. Marine commanders realized the fortifications had been now impregnable Chinese language obstacles; they would want to destroy Vegas to retake it.
The Ultimate Assault
On the morning of March 28, the first Marine Plane Wing dropped 28 tons of bombs on Vegas in simply 23 minutes. The hilltop was coated underneath smoke and particles as explosions walked throughout the Chinese language positions. Some bombs landed inside 450 toes of the Marines making ready to assault, shut sufficient that the concussions knocked males off their toes. When the smoke cleared, Vegas regarded like a lunar panorama, craters overlapping craters, collapsed trenches, destroyed bunkers.
E Firm, 2nd Battalion, seventh Marines led the assault to recapture Vegas. They fought their manner up the bomb-shattered slopes underneath heavy fireplace, pushing via Chinese language positions in brutal close-quarters fight. The preventing was savage with grenades, bayonets, and rifle butts within the remaining trenches and large shell holes.
Tanks from Williamson’s battalion helped repel enemy reinforcements whereas offering direct fireplace help for the Marine assault. The tanks additionally helped haul provides up the tough terrain as ammunition ran low.
Supporting the assault and resupply efforts was an unlikely Marine. A small Mongolian mare named Sergeant Reckless. The horse had been bought from some locals for $250 by Lt. Eric Pederson of the Recoilless Rifle Platoon and skilled to hold ammunition. The Marines had taught her to step over communication traces and barbed wire, to lie flat throughout shelling, and to navigate routes by reminiscence.
As E Firm fought its manner as much as Vegas, Reckless made journey after journey up the shell-torn trails. She would then carry wounded Marines again to the MLR.
Sgt. Harold Wadley watched her climb towards the preventing via the barrage.
“I regarded again on the jap skyline via all of the smoke and swinging flare gentle and will hardly consider my eyes,” Wadley recalled years later.
Reckless made 51 journeys that day, carrying practically 10,000 kilos of ammunition, 386 rounds for the 75mm recoilless rifles. She labored alone more often than not, shifting with out a handler at the same time as shells landed round her. Shrapnel wounded her twice, as soon as above the left eye and as soon as within the left flank, however she saved climbing.
As E Firm pushed greater on Vegas, Sgt. Daniel P. Matthews led his squad ahead till machine gun fireplace from the height pinned them down. The lethal fireplace additionally prevented a corpsman from evacuating a wounded Marine mendacity uncovered within the open.
Matthews labored his strategy to the bottom of the enemy machine gun nest and leaped onto the rock fortification surrounding it. He charged the three-man crew together with his rifle, taking them without warning. The enemy turned their weapons on Matthews, critically wounding him, however he saved preventing. He killed two gunners and compelled the third to flee, silencing the gun and permitting the corpsman to succeed in the wounded Marine. Matthews died from his wounds moments later.
In the meantime, Hospital Corpsman third Class William R. Charette moved via the chaos whereas treating wounded Marines. He jumped right into a trench to assist an injured Marine when a Chinese language grenade landed subsequent to them.
“I used to be scared,” Charette recalled. “I knew I could not soar on the grenade. So I grabbed my medical bag and tried to push it away.”
As he coated the wounded man’s physique together with his personal, the grenade exploded, briefly blinding Charette and destroying his medical bag. Regardless of his accidents, he tore components of his uniform to make use of as improvised bandages and continued treating the casualties.
At 1:13 p.m. on March 28, E Firm had captured Vegas. By 2:55 p.m., the outpost was declared safe. Greater than 200 wounded males required remedy at help stations established on the close by slopes.
The Ultimate Two Days
The enemy launched repeated counterattacks on March 29 and 30, decided to retake Vegas. Waves of infantry assaulted the battered hilltop underneath the quilt of artillery barrages. The Marines repelled every assault, usually in hand-to-hand preventing among the many ruins. By 11 a.m. on March 30, the assaults lastly stopped, enemy casualties had turn out to be unsustainable.
Walt made a tough resolution about Outpost Reno. It remained in Chinese language fingers and retaking it might price a whole bunch extra casualties. Worse, the enemy on Reno might flank Vegas and make that place untenable. Walt declared Reno misplaced and ordered Marine plane and artillery to destroy it. For hours, bombs and shells pounded the hilltop till nothing remained however rubble, denying its use to each side.
Carson’s Marines had held all through the whole five-day battle, by no means yielding their place regardless of repeated assaults.
The Value in Lives
Of the roughly 1,500 Marines engaged within the Nevada Cities battle, 1,015 grew to become casualties, a devastating 70 % casualty price. The toll included 156 killed in motion, 801 wounded and 19 captured. Enemy losses reached an estimated 4,000 casualties, together with 1,200 killed, successfully destroying the whole 358th Regiment.
Sgt. Frank Metersky of 2nd Battalion, fifth Marines, recalled the violent ferocity of the battle.
“I can always remember the black Marine within the wire with half his head blown off on the path to Vegas as you got here across the flip,” he wrote a long time later. “It has haunted me.”
One rifleman who fought on Vegas captured the battle’s depth and the individuality of the Marine Corps preventing to safe the world with a poignant remark. He referred to as the contested hilltop “the best rattling beachhead in Korea.”
The Nevada Cities battle led to 2 Medals of Honor, one posthumously for Matthews and one to Charette, who survived his wounds. The engagement additionally earned the Marines a number of Navy Crosses and Silver Stars. Reckless was awarded for his actions and promoted to workers sergeant, turning into considered one of solely two animals to realize a non-commissioned officer rank in Marine Corps historical past.
Penn survived brutal circumstances as a POW earlier than he was launched in late 1953 together with 14 different survivors from the battle. Gen. Mark Clark despatched a letter to Penn’s mother and father in Mississippi.
“I be part of you in your prayers of thanksgiving that your son, Billy R. Penn, has been recovered from the enemy and that he’ll quickly be with you,” wrote Clark.
After returning dwelling, Penn attended the College of Mississippi and used his experiences from Korea to turn out to be a doctor.
Walt continued his distinguished Marine Corps profession, rising to four-star common. He commanded III Marine Amphibious Pressure in Vietnam, grew to become Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1968 and retired in 1971 after greater than 34 years of service.
The Bitter Finish of the Korean Struggle
Two months later, the Turkish Brigade and Army twenty fifth Infantry Division moved into the world and confronted renewed enemy stress. This compelled U.N. commanders to desert Vegas and Carson for good. The strategic worth could not justify the mounting casualties.
On July 27, 1953, 4 months after the Nevada Cities battle, an armistice ended the preventing in Korea. The battle traces froze roughly the place they stood, turning into the border that divides North and South Korea as we speak.
The Marines proved their preventing spirit and held two of the three outposts in opposition to unattainable odds. In keeping with some accounts, the Marines even sang the Marine Corps Hymn throughout lulls within the preventing. However the worth was brutal. Greater than a thousand American casualties for a couple of hilltops that may be deserted simply weeks later, all whereas peace negotiators argued over prisoner exchanges and boundary traces a couple of miles away.
The Battle for Outpost Vegas and the encompassing hilltops proved to be the bloodiest battle for the Marine Corps in 1953 and a number of the harshest preventing in the whole warfare. Although Sgt. Reckless stays a Marine Corps legend, the heroics proven by the 1000’s of Marines that fought there have usually been missed.
