Word: 7th
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...stabilized, heavily fortified MLR (main line of resistance), a few miles west of Chorwon on the western front. U.S. troops captured Old Baldy last May. Since then it has changed hands more than once, but-up to last week-it was held by units of the U.S. 7th Division, with South Americans of the Colombia battalion attached. Baldy had some value as an observation point, but it was vulnerable to Communist attack on three sides. Mostly it had prestige value: it was what some officers cynically call a "political hill...
...outpost was overrun, then recaptured by U.S. reinforcements in the middle of the night. The main Red attack, however, was aimed at Baldy's summit by a reinforced Chinese regiment of 3,000 to 3,500 men, advancing in waves through a curtain of their own fire. The 7th Division units on the crest could not stand...
...Movements. Aside from their losses, no one was concerned about the Marines; they could take care of themselves. No one feared a Communist breakthrough anywhere. In Tokyo, Mark Clark said he was not distressed about the loss of Old Baldy. either. But there was quite visible distress in the 7th Division, resulting from tactical confusion and confused statements about what the troops were doing. The division commander, Major General Arthur Trudeau, was publicly rebuked by I Corps' Commander Paul Kendall...
...some units, commanders simply would not talk to newsmen. The 7th Division strung up so much red tape that a correspondent could spend all day trying to get a minor story. The 1st Marine Division, already made to understand by the U.S. Army that it was getting too much publicity, told newly arrived replacements not to talk to the press...
...couple of correspondents were green hands at the front. They saw the Communists hold fast to Spud Hill despite terrific bombardment, the 7th's men repulsed, the stretcher-bearers bringing down the casualties (three killed, 61 wounded, of whom many were stunned or scratched and returned to duty the next day). Their report home made Operation Smack seem like a staged show, bloody and purposeless. In Washington, Michigan's Republican Congressman Clare Hoffman, never one to shun a headline, sounded off loudly. The Army, he trumpeted, must explain "whether these invited guests were witnessing a spectacle similar...