in the Sobuk mountains simply failed.
And farther south than that, an attack by the Army’s 5th Regimental Combat Team and a large portion of the 1st Marine Brigade had turned out to be, in Colonel Dunn’s opinion, even more of a Chinese fire drill.
The 5th RCT, which was supposed to move west on the Chinju road, came to a road junction and took the wrong fork, down which the Marines had already passed. By noon, they were in positions on hills three miles south of the road fork, instead of on the hill where they were supposed to be, northwest of the fork.
The North Koreans promptly moved onto the unoccupied hill, and in the confusion, Fox Company of the 5th RCT found itself surrounded by the enemy on yet another hilltop, which was now dubbed “Fox Hill.”
While this was going on, the enemy, with other troops, also managed to block the MSR (main supply route) from Masan.
All of this forced Eighth Army to order the Marines to halt, turn around—which meant abandoning the terrain they’d just taken—and go to work trying to put these fires out.
The 2nd Battalion of the brigade tried, and failed, to get through to the surrounded men of Fox Company of the 5th, and the 3rd Battalion of the brigade, together with some troops from the 2nd Battalion of the Army’s 24th Infantry, tried—and failed—to destroy the enemy’s roadblock of the MSR.
At dawn this morning—with Marine Corsairs lending support—the 2nd Battalion of the brigade had broken through to—a more honest phrase, Dunn thought, would be “saved the ass of”—Fox Company, but another try at breaking the roadblock of the MSR by the 3rd Battalion—with Marine Corsairs lending support—had failed again.
But the 3rd Battalion would try again to open the roadblock just as soon as Dunn’s Corsairs had been refueled and rearmed and were back overhead.
On the flight deck, after landing just now, Dunn had told Captain Dave Freewall—now commanding USMC Reserve Fighter Squadron 243, following the loss of its commander—to ask the steward to make him some fried-egg sandwiches and put them in a bag. He was going to have to see the air commander, Dunn said, and go by the photo lab, and it was either fried-egg sandwiches in the cockpit, or no lunch.
Reporting to the air commander hadn’t taken as much time as he thought it would, and unless there was a problem in the photo lab, he would be out of there in two minutes, so he probably could have had a sit-down lunch, even if a quick one.
The photo lab had what could have been a personnel problem. There was a Navy chief photographer’s mate in nominal charge, but under orders to make his facilities available to the Marines, which in fact meant to Master Sergeant P. P. McGrory, USMCR, who was not known for his charm.
Surprising Dunn, the two had apparently gotten along from the moment they’d met. Dunn, however, always waited to see if the other shoe had fallen every time he went into the photo lab.
He raised his hand in a gesture indicating they didn’t have to come to attention.
“And how are things in your air-conditioned little heaven?” he asked.
“Morning, Colonel,” they said, in unison.
“The pictures from up north?”
"They went to Pusan on the COD at 1020, sir,” Sergeant McCrory said.
“Good, thank you very much. And now I will see if I can get something to eat before I go back to work.”
“Chief Young’s got something I thought you ought to have a look at, Colonel,” McGrory said.
I should have known lunch would be egg sandwiches.
“What’s that?”
McGrory went to a cabinet and came back with a stack of eight-by-ten-inch prints.
“There was a photo mission this morning—Air Commander’s request—for pictures of a railroad bridge near Tageu,” McGrory said. “Near where that goddamn fool Pickering went down.”
Dunn knew no disrespect was intended. In civilian life, McGrory was a member of the ASC and a bachelor. The American Society of Cinematographers are those people engaged in the filming of motion pictures who have proved worthy of membership by their experience and skill. Mc-Grory’s skill was in making beautiful women seem even more so on the silver screen. He was well paid for the practice of his profession, and maintained a beachfront home in Malibu, in which there often could be found an array of astonishingly beautiful women. And Captain Malcolm S. Pickering of Trans-Global Airways, who shared McGrory’s interest in really good-looking women.
McGrory handed Dunn the aerial photographs.
“Young saw this when he