The 2d Battalion, 24th Infantry, was scheduled to relieve 2/5 on Hill 342 during the afternoon of 8 August; but the Army unit was unable to reach the area for reasons to be explained later. Informed of the change in plans, Roise kept his battalion busy with consolidation of positions and evacuation of casualties.
Company E moved forward a few hundred yards along the western spur of 342 and dug new foxholes. Captain Andrew M. Zimmer reported from regiment, where he had been an assistant S-3, and took command of Company D.[208]
Although the North Koreans continued to harass the “iron triangle” on the crest, there was no more hard fighting. A few additional casualties were taken by Zimmer’s company, most of them occurring while Marines tried to retrieve airdropped supplies which had fallen wide of their mark.[209]
During the fighting on 342, Major Walter Gall, commander of 2/5’s Weapons Company, had dispatched a small patrol to eliminate the enemy machineguns in Tokkong-ni. After a brief fire fight which cost three friendly casualties, the withdrawal of the patrol left the Communists still entrenched in the village. When the Marines returned to Weapons Company lines on the eastern spur, First Lieutenant Ira T. Carr turned his 81-mm. mortars on Tokkong-ni and brought the enemy fire to an end.[210]
[210] Maj Walter Gall interv with authors, 9 Feb 54.
The night of 8–9 August was relatively quiet on 342. Obviously weakened by casualties, the enemy gave the Marine positions a wide berth. NKPA harassing fires consisted of periodic bursts from long-range machineguns and antitank guns.[211] There was desultory sniping during the morning of the 9th, but Brigade intelligence reported a gradual withdrawal of the enemy northward.[212]
That afternoon Company D was relieved by an Army unit when 2/5 turned over responsibility for the hill to the 2d Battalion, 24th Infantry. The fight had made veterans out of the men Zimmer led down to the road, but the company paid with 8 dead and 28 wounded.[213]
Documents taken from enemy dead disclosed that the defenders of Hill 342 had been opposed by elements of the 13th and 15th Regiments of the NK 6th Division. Lieutenant Cahill qualified his report of 150 enemy dead as “conservative,”[214] and 2/5 set the total at 400 after its fight.[215] The actual number of fatalities inflicted by Marine-Army infantry and supporting arms probably lies somewhere between these two estimates.