The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951

7 KAPYONG: THE THIRD DAY

165 Kapyong:TheThirdDay As daylight crept across the Kapyong Valley on Tuesday,the24thofApril,theChinesefoundthemselvesexposed.Without the protection offered by darkness, infantry on the move could be seen at more than a few yards’ distance, which in turn opened up decent fields of fire for those Australians in range. There was no compunction about taking immediate and full advantage of this turn of events; as Major Ben O’Dowd of A Company 3RAR later explained, with those enemy soldiers caught in the open “the Diggers were having the time of their lives potting them all off all over the place.” Now that they could easily be seen, groups of Chinese forming up for assaults could also be broken up by artillery bursts.3 From their ridge positions just to the northeast the men of B Companyplayedtheirpart .“Bythistimeitwasdawn,”MajorDarcyLaughlin recorded, “and in the growing light the enemy could be clearly seen in the valley between B coy across to A and C coys. This position was quite openandtheareabetween[BandAplusC]coyswasanexcellentkilling ground.Thisareawasnowsubjectedtointensivefirefromt[an]ksandall other available weapons.” Those caught in the withering crossfire from machine-guns began to withdraw northeastward.4 Just how deadly the area between B Company and Hill 504 was became clear when Laughlin sent out a clearing patrol at 6 am under CSM EricBradley duringapauseinthefiring.Alongwiththemanydead and wounded it was revealed that there were between fifty and sixty healthy Chinese soldiers who had gone to ground in the paddy fields. Most seemed to be happy to surrender when ordered to stand up in pidseven 166 The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951 gin Chinese, but one threw a grenade. This was met with instant retaliation : Owen gunfire mowed down over thirty surrendering men before Bradley gave the ceasefire order. Forty-odd terrified and entirely docile prisoners were taken and distributed among the B Company platoons.5 The enemy, though, was not about to give up on achieving a key objective. If the Australians continued to hold Hill 504, then southwest movement would be hindered by directed enemy fire. To drive them all off, the Chinese would have to take the summit; once this position had beentakenthenallthelower-elevationdefenseswouldbecomeexposed, and as O’Dowd put it, “would fall like apples on the end of a branch.”6 This in turn put D Company, 3RAR, squarely in the enemy’s sights in the hours after dawn. From 7 am onward assaults were mounted from the north every half-hour or so, with 12 Platoon taking the brunt of the action. As the company commander, Captain Norm Gravener, later noted, a pattern quickly developed: The attacks on this pos[itio]n were always launched in depth on a narrow frontage of 4–5 men and each series of attacks were supported by Pl[atoon-] size f[or]m[atio]n assisted by mor[tar] and grenade attacks in the initial stages. 12 Pl[atoon] met these attacks with LMG [Bren] SA [rifle] fire and 36 mm [sic] grenades in the final stages of the enemy as[sau]lt. The enemy suffered h[eav] y cas[ualties] in each of the 6 attacks launched thus far and estimated enemy Pl[atoon] destroyed. Our cas[ualties] at this stage were very light.7 In the aftermath of ranging shots arranged through Gravener’s 31 Set, shells from 16 Field Regiment made life even more difficult for the attackers.8 Meanwhilethewithdrawaloftheheadquarterstroopsdownthevalley toward the Middlesex position had got under way starting before 6 am. Conducted on a rather ad hoc basis, amid ongoing communication difficulties and under sporadic enemy fire, the movement nevertheless resulted in relatively few Australian casualties, thanks in part to fire support from the tanks of Company A, 72nd Tank Battalion which also carried out many of the wounded.9 At some point shortly before 8 am the CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Ferguson, who had narrowly escaped death when a mortar round exploded by his jeep during the withdrawal, ordered B Company to join Kapyong: The Third Day 167 up with the other companies on Hill 504.10 Supported by a pair of 1st Platoon tanks and asmoke screen laid by 16 Field Regiment, one platoon afteranothermovedoffingoodorderwithitsquotaofprisoners,BCompany having accounted for around 200 dead and 40 captured Chinese at the cost of one wounded Australian.11 The relocation of B Company went smoothly, but not everyone was happy that the original position was being abandoned. It had not been on the verge...