Altogether, 9,400 tons of supplies were unloaded, and the vast majority were turned over to Army quartermaster authorities in Pusan. Four officers and 100 men of Major Thomas J. O’Mahoney’s Combat Service Detachment were designated as the Brigade rear echelon. This group would remain in the port city to handle logistical and administrative matters. Supplies were moved into Army warehouses, where they became part of the common pool shared by all units at the front. This led to confusion later, when the Brigade requested its own Class II and IV items, only to discover that they had already been issued to other outfits. But the Army divisions had already been fighting for a month in a war which caught the nation unprepared, so that the Pusan Base Command had no alternative but to issue supplies on the basis of immediate need, not ownership.[147]
The Brigade was prepared to travel light. Not only the bulk of supplies but also all personal baggage was left behind in Pusan, to be stored and safeguarded by the rear echelon. When dawn broke on 3 August, each Marine carried only his pack, weapon, ammunition, and rations.[148]
Despite the tumult of the sleepless night at Pusan, Lieutenant Colonel George R. Newton’s 1st Battalion set out for Changwon shortly after 0600 on 3 August. As advance guard for the Brigade, it made the 40-mile trip in Marine and Army trucks, reaching a point 1 mile west of the town at 1400. There the battalion took up defensive positions astride the Changwon-Masan road in order to cover the arrival of the remainder of the Brigade.[149]
Although he had orders to bivouac at Changwon, General Craig decided to deploy the Brigade defensively to the west of the town. This decision was prompted by the enemy situation west of Masan, which was a scant 6½ miles from Changwon. Then, too, the Marine commander saw the layover as a final opportunity to check the field discipline of the Brigade.[150]
Between 0630 and 0700, the main body of the Marine ground force moved out of Pusan by road and rail. Vehicles over 2½ tons, all heavy equipment, and the M-26 tanks were transported on flatcars.
The roads were narrow and bumpy, and the churning wheels of the trucks threw up clouds of stifling dust that hung in the air and painted Marines and equipment a ghostly gray. Aboard the primitive trains, which frequently jolted to stops for no apparent reason, men tried vainly to fit themselves to miniature wooden seats constructed in perfect right angles. And always, the troops inhaled that characteristic odor drifting in from well-fertilized rice paddies.