the two other regiments making up, with supporting units, the 24th Division, had lost over half its strength in combat.
Worse, their breakup and retreat in the face of the North Korean onslaught had been so quick and complete that the enemy had been able to overrun the 65th Field Artillery Battalion, which had been in their support. Almost a thousand officers and men, and their intact cannon and a large supply of ammunition, fell into the hands of the North Koreans.
There were three North Korean prisoners at the 34th Infantry Command Post. An American patrol had captured them on a reconnaissance mission. They had not been interrogated, as no one in the 34th Infantry spoke Korean, and calls to division headquarters to pick up the prisoners had gone unanswered.
McCoy and Zimmerman—both speak Korean—not only uncovered that one of them, who was wearing a private’s uniform, was an officer, but got from him the enemy’s intentions for the rest of the day, including the units that would make the attack.
Taking the officer with us, we moved to the 19th Infantry command post, where the attack was supposed to take place at three the next morning. McCoy and Zimmerman went to the regiments’ most forward outposts to see if they could take another prisoner.
This correspondent was taken to an artillery forward observer post by a major, who promised to have me tied up if I tried to go farther forward. From there I could see Zimmerman and McCoy making their way to a machine-gun outpost, beyond which was only the enemy.
Through powerful, tripod-mounted binoculars, I could clearly see a half-dozen North Korean soldiers wading across the Kum River. When I asked why the enemy was not being fired upon, the major explained that it apparently had been decided to conserve artillery and machine-gun ammunition for the expected attack.
“And they’re out of rifle range,” the major added.
At that moment, through my binoculars, I could see McCoy un-limbering the .30-caliber Garand rifle he carried slung from his shoulder. Most Army officers arm themselves with the .45 Colt pistol or the .30-caliber carbine.
“He’s wasting his time,” the major said.
McCoy opened fire, dropping three, possibly four, of the North Koreans in less than a minute, and sending the survivors scurrying for safety on the far bank of the river.
Darkness fell then, and the major insisted we go back to the regimental CP. Two hours later, when McCoy and Zimmerman hadn’t shown up, I grew concerned. The major, without much conviction, told me he was sure they would be all right.
An hour after that, they appeared, calmly leading two North Korean prisoners.
At three in the morning, the North Korean artillery barrage—the terrifying prelude to the attack to follow—began.
We were all then sitting on the floor of the command post. McCoy calmly took a long black cigar from his pack. Zimmerman looked at it hungrily. McCoy took a lethal-looking dagger from its sheath, strapped to his left arm, calmly cut the cigar in half, and gave half to Zimmerman.
The artillery and mortar barrage lasted an hour. The only thing McCoy had to say, a professional judgment, was that some of “the incoming sounds like 105,” which meant the North Koreans were using the 105-mm howitzers captured from the 65th Field Artillery against the 19th Infantry.
Shortly afterward, McCoy went outside the CP, listened in the darkness to the sounds of the battle developing, and returned to announce that it was time for us to go.
Taking the North Korean officer prisoner with us, we drove—using blackout lights only— back to the 24th Division headquarters. McCoy learned that he could not turn the prisoner over to the POW compound there because there was none. The military police who would normally run the compound had been pressed into service as replacement riflemen. The provost marshal himself had been pressed into service as an infantry officer.
We then drove back to Eighth Army headquarters in Taegu, where McCoy was finally able to turn the North Korean officer over to the military police. They exchanged salutes and shook hands.
Communications at Eighth Army headquarters were overwhelmed by high-priority messages reporting to Tokyo the disaster that was taking place all over the peninsula. McCoy realized that he could deliver his report to his superiors in Tokyo quicker if he went to Japan, rather than waiting for Eighth Army to find time to transmit it, and announced he was going to Pusan to see if he could find a plane.
There was zero chance that this reporter’s dispatches could