Remembering New Year's Eve in a foxhole

[thedrifter]

Remembering New Year's Eve in a foxhole

Bert Campbell / Bert's Box

Whenever the New Year holiday draws near, I think of one more than 50 years ago on a cold winter's night near the destroyed town of Yangu, North Korea.

My outfit was the 185th Engineer Combat Battalion, one of a half-dozen Army units that was part of the First Marine Division, Reinforced.

There was also a British outfit, 41st Commando, Royal Marines, that was part of the division. That made more sense to me since they, at least, were Marines and not "doggies" as the leathernecks called Army guys.

But the First Marine Division, Reinforced, was cobbled together rather quickly after the United States was suddenly caught in a war it had never expected.

After World War II, there had been widespread downsizing of the armed forces, including the Marine Corps, which had gone from six divisions and five airwings to a stated goal of 75,000.

When Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the U.S. war effort there, he devised a strategy that was to reverse the victories won by the North Koreans who had pushed the U.S. and South Korean forces into a corner called the Pusan perimeter.

MacArthur wanted a Marine division to land behind enemy lines at Inchon. What MacArthur wanted, MacArthur got, at least at that time. The landing was successful, and soon the North Koreans were in retreat.

But the First Marine Division that had landed was understrength, so Army units were added to fill it out. They included an infantry regiment, a regimental battalion of an Army combat team, and combat engineers.

To add to the confusion, the First Marine Division, Reinforced, was under 10th Corps, an Army unit. My outfit got along just fine in this polyglot assembly.

By the time I got there, it had retreated (the Marines called it "advancing to the rear," from the Chosin Reservoir, and had been awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions along the way.

I was a treasured replacement, meaning someone could go home, so I was treated fairly well. But if I complained, I was sure to hear one of the veterans say, "You've got nothing to gripe about. You should have been with us when we came out of Koto-ri with the Marines."

Somewhere down the road from our bivouac area was a unit called a "laundry point." That meant you would bundle up what the Army called "fatigues" and get back what the Marines called "utilities."

You didn't get back the same stuff you sent, but you could find something of your own size. More than once, I ended up with a utility jacket that had a big Marine insignia and a USMC on the left top pocket. No matter. The commanding officer said it was all government issue, so wear 'em.

I never got down to the laundry point, but was told it had machines just like you'd find in a laundromat. I never knew who staffed it or what its official designation was. It was Army and not part of our division.

Now this is probably a long way around to get to the point of New Year in Korea, but I feel the background is needed for clarity.

Whenever we moved to a new area, we would set up our squad tents and, since we were engineers, had our bulldozers dig foxholes behind the bivouac area.

We had a vague plan as to what to do if we were attacked, but that didn't seem likely because of our location and the virtual stalemate in the war at that time.

My role was to carry the tripod for our squad's machine gun, a weapon I had used only briefly one afternoon during basic training.

New Year's Eve came and most of us hit the sack early. A new day in 1952 would be like one in 1951 as far as we were concerned. There was nothing to celebrate.

We had quilted sleeping bags lined with down which were quite warm. I was sawing logs when I became aware of a corporal of the guard in our tent getting everyone up.

I looked at my watch and saw it was a few minutes after midnight. I also could hear small arms fire off in the distance.

I put on my boots and field jacket, picked up the tripod and headed to our foxhole with two other guys carrying the machine gun. It had snowed, filling in the foxhole. We kicked some of the snow away and with fumbling fingers set up the gun. Now what?

We could still hear the firing in the distance, and I wondered how the Communists had got through the Marines, plus the Wolfhound Regiment of the Second Infantry Division in front of us.

One of the guys in the foxhole, who had managed to find something to drink earlier in the evening, stared off into the moonlit snow.

"See 'em," he said, pointing with his finger. "There they are."

I looked and the other guy looked, but all we could see was a winter's scene.

Then the firing stopped. Soon the officer of the guard came by our foxhole and said the firing had come from the laundry point where the men had acquired some booze and decided to celebrate the dawn of 1952 by firing their weapons at midnight. "Go back to sleep," he said.

Weeks passed and we were detached from the Marine division. And that's my war story and my New Year story all rolled into one. Happy New Year.

Bert Campbell is a retired news editor and associate editor of The Kansan. Opinions expressed here are those of the writer and not necessarily those of The Kansan.

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Sempers,

Roger

[montana]

was newyears 1970 we were out of Que son
we had been in the bush over a month moveing only at night
We found out later that there wae a big build up of NVA (that later hit and over ran LZ Ross )
I guess the brass was hopeing that some of them would stumble into us and that we would mess them up a little
Anyway we where all getting a little bumed being that we hadent had any action to give us something new to talk about
we wher set up for the night ...midnight roled around and off in the distances we saw Da nag, Baldy & Ross all set off a nice light display
I dont know who started it but as soon as the quit someone set off a green star cluster , then all H broke loos...ever and anything that would or could make a boom or light went off...even a cupple clamores...the 6 was running around screeming sees fire sees fire, if i cach who ever started this ill kill him with my bare hands
Geeee we thought he would of been proud of us...we almost put out as much light as all three ( Dag Baldy & Ross ) put together
darn good for 2 plts of grunts that where a little borer i thought