The Complete Issue - Korean War Veterans Association

26
By William P. McCraney
As part of Operation Detonate, Fox
Company, Second Battalion, 35th
Regiment, 25th Infantry Division,
the First and Third Platoons, were the primary
forces in the battle for Hill 329 on May
21, 1951. I was with Fox Company.
In April the Division officers were rotated
out. With the exception of Captain
Holiday, F Company Commander, we had
all new officers. As it would turn out, I would
be forever connected to two of them, First
Lieutenant Paul E. Clawson, who had my
platoon, the First, and First Lieutenant Willis
Jackson, who had the Third Platoon.
We had a few new men in my squad, but
Captain Holiday had led most of our guys in
7 or 8 bayonet attacks in March and April.
So, by May 21, they pretty much knew what
they were doing.
I had been with F Company since the latter
part of July 1950. I had already been
wounded twice, once at the Pusan Perimeter,
and again when the Chinese entered the war
at Unsan, North Korea, so I was no stranger
to combat. Sgt “Pop” Camerom, my platoon
leader—and one fearless SOB—and Sgt
Virgil Fisher, my squad leader and good
friend, had managed to keep me alive and
had taught me everything I knew about combat.
They had both been in the Army since
WWII. Sgt Camerom was wounded and sent
back to the States sometime in April. Sgt
Fisher was killed in action on April 5. I didn’t
know at the time how much I would miss
them on May 21st.
When May arrived, they still had not
replaced Sgt Fisher. Lt Clawson told me he
wanted me to take over as acting squad
leader. I was only a PFC at the time, but he
said that he had checked the records of the
men in the platoon and learned that I had a
pretty good record. In fact, he told me that he
had already put me in for a promotion to
Corporal, so it was a done deal.
Operation Detonate called for E
Company to be the lead company for our battalion.
They were to take the first ridge on
May 20. Sgt Donald R. Moyer was awarded
the Medal of Honor for his actions on that
day. The next day F Company was to take the
second ridge, Hill 329. On the evening of the
20th, Lt Clawson informed me that my squad
was to lead the attack.
Rain poured most of the night, and it continued
into the next morning. They gave us a
Operation Detonate
The Battle for Hill 329
Operation Detonate called for E Company to be the
lead company for our battalion. They were to take the
first ridge on May 20. Sgt Donald R. Moyer was awarded
the Medal of Honor for his actions on that day.
hot breakfast. But, as front line soldiers
know, this is not as great as it sounds. By the
time we got through the chow line in the rain,
nothing was worth eating except the bacon.
The powdered eggs and potatoes and bread
were nothing more than a soggy mess.
After breakfast, the chaplain gave us a little
talk to assure us that we should not think
of ourselves as murderers when we killed our
enemies in battle. I didn’t get his point. I
never considered myself a murderer; I was
just trying to stop them from killing me.
One of the new men to my squad was an
old sergeant who had been court-martialed
and demoted to private. His story was that
when he was a Supply Sgt he had “refused
the order of a Colonel to issue him something
he was not entitled to.” This guy was over 50
years old. From my perspective as an 18 year
old, that was ancient.
That night, as I was assigning men their
positions, I told him that I wanted him to
bring up the rear of our squad. He got a little
hot about his position, saying that I didn’t
have confidence in his ability to keep up with
the young men in the squad. I finally convinced
him that I wanted someone in the rear
who could help with the wounded and keep
a cool head. He finally accepted my reasoning,
but the truth of the matter was that he
was right. I did assign him to bring up the
rear because I thought he was too old to keep
up. By the end of that day, I regretted my
decision.
As we were advancing up the hill, we
came upon a bunker which we thought was
abandoned because we had not received any
fire from it. It was still raining pretty hard
when the old sergeant came to the bunker.
We guessed that he entered it to get out of the
rain for a bit. That was a fatal mistake on his
part. There were a couple of Chinese in the
bunker, and they killed him. If he had not
been in the rear of the squad, the men never
would have let him go in there. Later, another
squad went in and killed the Chinese.
Before we started up Hill 329, our tanks
gave it a good shelling, which didn’t seem to
be very effective. The hill was steep and
muddy and the rain just never stopped.
Sometimes we would take one step up and
slide two steps back. About two-thirds of the
way up the hill, there was a huge outcrop of
rocks. When we reached these rocks, I took
my men around the right side. We were about
30 yards up the slope from the rocks when all
hell broke loose.
A large machine gun opened up on us and
pinned us down. I’d been scared in battle
before, but that combination of heavy pouring
rain and mud and machine gun bullets
just about topped it all. The rounds were just
over our heads and hitting the men in the
other squads, back by the rocks.
Lt Clawson was pinned down behind the
rocks. According to eyewitnesses, he moved
to the head of the unit and killed the three
enemy soldiers who had been holding up
their advance. When one of his men fell
wounded, he carried him to safety under
heavy fire. He seemed to completely disregard
the fact that he was placing his own life
in jeopardy. When he returned, he picked up
the wounded man’s weapon and continued to
September-October 2007
The Graybeards