and stood carefully watching the emplacement of the artillery battery. It was Lieutenant Colonel Franklyn Paris, Korean Military Advisory Group representative to the ROK Capital Division of which the 17th Regiment was part. He had come up from divisional headquarters at Kigye hoping that some solution might be found to expedite the attack, now over a full day behind schedule. Since the function of the KMAG was strictly that of an adviser, neither Paris nor his assistants, nor his superiors back with the Korean Army Headquarters, could do more than just suggest how the ROKs might best be employed along the line. Every adviser had orders to confine himself to that status, and even more explicit instructions not to “hurt the feelings of the sensitive South Koreans.” Working with a young almost totally inexperienced army in time of knockdown- dragout warfare made those orders very difficult to fulfill, especially for tactics-wise veterans of some of the most violent, complex battles of World War II. The Mountain was really not too high, but vast and rambling. When viewed from the valley it seemed like a wild scrub-covered horseshoe, the prongs of which curved right down across the valley, ending at the narrow road where were located the aid station and the artillery battery. On that second morning of the attack ROK forces held the slopes of the two prongs while the Communists held the peak and the pillbox which dominated the crest. By holding the peak and its adjacent high ground the Reds theoretically dominated the entire mountain and valley floor, but on that second morning they apparently were manning the heights with only a small garrison force, deeply entrenched, but unsupported by artillery. Thus the ROK artillery could, with perfect impunity, fire point-blank at the enemy target while the men in the aid station, supply trucks, and the ammunition lines moved along the road and over the fields without the slightest concern about drawing enemy fire. It was the textbook ideal of conditions for an attack. The day before, while covering the beginning of the attack with the ROK 3rd Division, which was in position in the sand-dune country just north of Pohang 38 l Ⅲ. Korea 1950 This is War!
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