이것이 전쟁이다! indignation. Marines never retreat! Their commander, Major General Oliver Prince Smith, expressed it more clearly and accurately. Seated casually in his frigid shelter heating a can of hamburgers—into which he periodically poked his spoon to test whether they had yet thawed—he explained that the Chinese tactic had been to reveal a tantalizing show of weakness in front of the Tenth Corps' troops, making it look like an easy thing to push on to the Yalu. But at the same time other Chinese soldiers, in great strength, were sweeping far around the flanks at night and circling to the rear of the advancing units. Once encircled, and with roadblocks set up, the Chinese had hoped to sever them completely from all other support and supplies—then annihilate every man. That had nearly been the fate of the regiments, but they had fought . . . and held . . . and finally regrouped weapons and men into a compact, calmly-commanded, extremely dangerous division of Marines who still were sure that they could blast their way through any human barrier raised between themselves and the sea. The Division was entirely surrounded by Chinese troops. There were far more to the south, between themselves and the sea, than north, between their rear and the Yalu River. Ammunition and plasma and food and gasoline and every other thing needed for waging modern war came to them from above as pilots, both Marine and Air Force, swooped in low over the plateau, through the cone of Communist fire, parachuting their loads to the isolated men below. Still other pilots, Navy and Marine, streaked in just above the snowdrifts to add their bombs and rockets to the weapons of those Marines fighting along the flanks of the column and at its head. And as the column crept south, toward the sea, only dead enemy soldiers were left upon the field of battle. General Smith knew exactly of what he spoke when he looked up from poking his still-frozen can, and commented, “Retreat? We're coming out of here as a Marine Division. We're bringing our equipment . . . our wounded . . . our dead. Retreat, hell! We're just fighting in another direction.” Not all the men fighting their way down off the plateau were of the 1st Division. Ⅵ. “Retreat, Hell!” l 157
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTMyNzcxNA==