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    Stalemate: U.S. Marines From Bunker Hill To The Hook [Illustrated Edition]
    Stalemate: U.S. Marines From Bunker Hill To The Hook [Illustrated Edition]
    Stalemate: U.S. Marines From Bunker Hill To The Hook [Illustrated Edition]
    Ebook161 pages1 hour

    Stalemate: U.S. Marines From Bunker Hill To The Hook [Illustrated Edition]

    By Captain Bernard C. Nalty

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    About this ebook

    Includes more than 40 maps, plans and illustrations.

    This volume in the official History of the Marine Corps chronicles the part played by United States Marines during the Korean War from Bunker Hill to the Hook.

    The origin of this work lies in the continuing program to keep Marines, who are the key to the success of Marine Corps operations, informed of the ways of combat and civic action in Vietnam. The project provides a timely series of short, factual narratives of small unit action, stories which would have lessons learned as an integral part.

    It’s 1952. Marines have been fighting in Korea for just over 2 years. The daring execution of the Inchon Landing, if not forgotten, might as well have been. For instead of conducting amphibious assaults and moving rapidly though North Korean forces, the Marines of the 1st Marine Division are fighting along a main line of resistance (MLR)-outpost warfare-static warfare that consisted of slugfests between artillery and mortars, but always the infantryman moving in small groups attacking and reattacking the same ground.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNormanby Press
    Release dateNov 6, 2015
    ISBN9781786256072
    Stalemate: U.S. Marines From Bunker Hill To The Hook [Illustrated Edition]

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      Book preview

      Stalemate - Captain Bernard C. Nalty

      This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 2001 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      STALEMATE: U.S. MARINES FROM BUNKER HILL TO THE HOOK

      BY

      BERNARD C. NALTY

      The 1st Marine Division engaged in static warfare during 1952 from typical segments of trench-line on the Jamestown Line. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A167091

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

      STALEMATE: U.S. MARINES FROM BUNKER HILL TO THE HOOK 6

      New Mission 9

      Area of Operations 11

      1st Marine Aircraft Wing 14

      Artillery and Air 16

      Ground Fighting Intensifies 18

      Siberia 24

      Fight for Bunker Hill 28

      Fighting Elsewhere on the Outpost Line 36

      Bunker Hill and Outpost Bruce 37

      Pressure on Korean Marines 40

      Further Action Along the Line 42

      Focus on 7th Marines 45

      Chinese Attack the Hook 51

      Action at Outpost Reno 58

      Counterattacking the Hook 59

      Renewed Action Against Korean Marines 62

      Period of Comparative Calm 64

      Situation at year’s End 64

      APPENDIX 1—Armistice Talks 67

      APPENDIX 2—Battalion Tactical Air Control Party 69

      APPENDIX 3—Offshore Islands 70

      APPENDIX 4—Corporal Duane E. Dewey 71

      APPENDIX 5—Corporal David B. Champagne 72

      APPENDIX 6—Private First Class John D. Kelly 73

      APPENDIX 7—Rotation 74

      APPENDIX 8—Staff Sergeant William E. Shuck, Jr. 76

      APPENDIX 9—Hospital Corpsman John E. Kilmer 77

      APPENDIX 10—Private First Class Robert E. Simanek 78

      APPENDIX 11—Casualties and Courageous Hospital Corpsmen 79

      APPENDIX 12—Change of Command 81

      APPENDIX 13—Private First Class Afford L. McLaughlin 83

      APPENDIX 14—Hospital Corpsman Third Class Edward C. Benfold 84

      APPENDIX 15—Private First Class Fernando L. Garcia 85

      APPENDIX 16—Private Jack W. Kelso 86

      APPENDIX 17—Staff Sergeant Lewis G. Watkins 87

      APPENDIX 18—Second Lieutenant Sherrod E. Skinner, Jr. 88

      APPENDIX 19—Second Lieutenant George H. O’Brien, Jr. 89

      APPENDIX 20—Distant Strikes to Close Air Support 90

      APPENDIX 21—Life in the Bunkers 92

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR 94

      SOURCES 95

      REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 96

      STALEMATE: U.S. MARINES FROM BUNKER HILL TO THE HOOK

      BY BERNARD C. NALTY

      On a typical night during 1952, a Marine patrol set out from the very center of a company position on the Jamestown Line in west-central Korea. The group was following the trace of an abandoned trench-line when a Chinese machine gun cut loose, killing the leader, wounding some of his men, and forcing the patrol to return without completing its mission of setting an ambush.

      Shortly afterward, about two hours before midnight, Second Lieutenant William A. Watson, who had recently joined the 1st Marine Division, received orders to move out with a squad from his platoon and set up the ambush, finishing what the ill-fated patrol had begun. The powerful searchlight aimed skyward to warn airmen of the location of Panmunjom, where the United Nations forces were conducting truce talks with the North Korean and Chinese, reflected from the clouds creating the impression that Watson’s patrol was walking in bright moonlight.

      The lieutenant and his men moved between the spine of a ridgeline and the trench they were following, watching carefully for signs of a Chinese ambush and maintaining enough space between Marines to minimize the effect of a sudden burst of fire. Creep, sit, wait, Watson told his men. Move on my order. A few feet and be still. The Marines were confident that their cautious advance, the 50 or so yards separating their route from the nearest concealment the enemy could use, the artificial moonlight, and the trench itself, which provided ready cover in case of an attack, would combine to prevent the Chinese from surprising them.

      The patrol drew no fire as it made its way to the objective, where the trench the two patrols had followed intersected with another shallower trench. Watson deployed the fire teams in a perimeter. The Marines strained their eyes and ears to detect movement over sandy soil that gleamed almost white in the cloud-reflected light. Nothing moved; Chinese mortars and machine guns remained silent.

      National Archives Photo (USMC) 127-N-A160817

      While two Marines provide protection by watching for enemy snipers, two other members of a patrol probe for mines. The Marines in the foreground wear armored vests. By November 1952 delivery of the new vests to the division was completed, including more than 400 sets of lower torso armor.

      At 0300 Watson’s patrol started back, the fire team that had led the way out was now at the rear. The return, as cautious and methodical as the advance, took roughly two hours. When the lieutenant at last came through the wire, he realized he was soaking wet from perspiration, more from tension, he believed, than from exertion.

      Fighting took place by day as well as by night, but art early morning attack often depended on preparations made under cover of darkness. For example, before Lieutenant Watson’s platoon took part in an early morning attack on a Chinese outpost, Marine engineers moved out shortly after midnight to mark a path through the minefields protecting the Jamestown Line. This work took them past marshy ground inhabited by frogs that fell silent at the approach of the Marines, only to resume their croaking at about 0300 when the passage had been marked and the engineers returned to the main line of resistance. After daybreak, Watson’s platoon advanced, staying between the lines of white-tape Xs that marked the presence of mines.

      New Mission

      The night patrol by Watson’s Marines was one in a succession of probes and patrols—interspersed with attacks and counterattacks—that occurred during 1952 after the 1st Marine Division moved onto the Jamestown Line. The move there in March 1952 confirmed a shift to position warfare. Instead of making amphibious landings as at Inchon or Wonsan or seizing ground either to break out of encirclement or to advance, the division had the mission of defending its portion of the Jamestown Line and preparing to counterattack as ordered to contain or eliminate any Chinese penetration.

      The enemy maintained pressure on the United Nations forces. He probed the line of combat outposts, which provided warning of attacks and disrupted or delayed them until the troops posted there could withdraw, and also tested at times the defenses of the main line of resistance. Because of the threat of a major Chinese offensive, the division assumed responsibility for two other lines, Wyoming and Kansas, which might serve as fall-back positions if Jamestown should fail. More important than keeping the Wyoming and Kansas lines ready to be manned, was the division’s mission, assigned on April 19, of standing by to rescue the United Nations truce negotiators, should the enemy try to trap them at Panmunjom.

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