In the low ground at the center of the two-mile front, Jaskilka’s Easy Company threw a curtain of machine-gun fire across the draw in the path of 300 Chinese advancing frontally. The first enemy ranks marched into the fire lanes and were mowed down like rows of grain. The CCF soldiers in subsequent formations apparently viewed the grisly, corpse-strewn corridor with misgivings, for they stopped several hundred yards up the narrow valley and took cover. Thereafter, the main fighting in Company E’s zone involved long-range exchanges of machine-gun and mortar fire, although clashes at close quarters occasionally flared up on the flanks.
Approximately 200 Communist troops had concentrated meanwhile against Fox Company on the spur to the left, where the ground afforded more cover and space for maneuver. Stumbling over a carpet of their own dead, the Reds thrust repeatedly at the center of the Marine line. They inflicted many casualties on the defenders and ultimately overran two machine-gun positions. But this was the sum total of their success; and fighting on the north half of the spur, at the edge of the gap between Companies E and F, continued sporadically for the rest of the night with neither side gaining any appreciable advantage.
On the right of the 2d Battalion, the second CCF onslaught had struck the front and both flanks of Company H on Hill 1403. Human cannon fodder of Red China was hurled against the Marine positions for a full hour, but Lieutenant Harris’ command held. H Company’s roadblock, commanded by Sergeant Vick, decisively beat off a Chinese attack in the valley; and at 0400 Lieutenant Colonel Harris ordered the hard pressed company to pull back toward the rear of Easy Company, 2/5. Two hours later How Company completed its fighting withdrawal.
The loss of Hill 1403 posed a grave threat to the whole defensive network around the village. Not only were the Chinese now ideally situated to strike at the rear of 2/5 and sever it from the two regiments, but in sufficient strength they could attack the rear and flanks of the Marine units on North and Southwest Ridges. Moreover, at dawn, they would be looking down the throats of some 2000 Marines on the valley floor.