The Brigade’s line of departure was a long north-south ridgeline about a thousand yards west of Yongsan and directly south of Myong-ni. This high ground was occupied on 2 September by the 9th Infantry. When the Marines passed through the next morning, the Army unit was to swing northward to attack on the Brigade right. Still farther north, the 23d Infantry had orders to hold positions on the right of the 9th and maintain contact with friendly units by patrolling.[332]
[332] 2d InfDiv Op Dir, 2 Sep 50; and Brig Op Order 19-50.
On the Brigade’s left, a special task force of the Army’s 72d Tank Battalion and 2d Engineer Battalion was to attack southward from Il-li to the Naktong River line below the Bulge. There it would link with the 25th Division’s right.
The fact that the Communists upset the plan by smashing through the 9th Infantry lines on the night of 2–3 September was both bad and good news from the standpoint of the Marines. It was bad because an overextended friendly unit had been shattered by many times its numbers and forced into a disorganized withdrawal. It was good because the enemy was plowing ahead at full steam, obviously unaware that he was shortly due for a blow that would find him off balance and send him reeling.
Low hanging clouds and smoke made for poor visibility on the morning of the 3d when General Craig set out on his customary prebattle reconnaissance by helicopter. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Stewart, who had just returned from the 1st Marine Division planning conferences at Tokyo.
“We couldn’t see anything but an occasional mountain peak,” Craig recalled at a later date. “After flying around for some time, we had almost decided to return to the CP and complete the tour by jeep. Then Colonel Stewart noticed a hole in the clouds, and we dropped to an altitude where we had a good view of the front.”[333]
What Craig and Stewart saw was a long column of Marines fighting their way toward the line of departure.
Lieutenant Colonel Murray’s plan of attack for the 5th Marines called for the 1st and 2d Battalions to advance westward astride the Yongsan road, with 2/5 on the right. Taplett’s 3d Battalion would initially be in reserve, blocking the southern approaches to Yongsan.[334]