The Nevada Outposts Counterattack

By Maj Allan C. Bevilacqua, USMC (Ret.) - Originally Published April 2003

"Dear God my Father, please help me do my duty and not bring dishonor to myself and family."
-Sgt Robert "Bob" Kreid
"Dog" Co, 2d Bn, 7th Marines

Murmuring this prayer as he boarded the truck that would take him to his first combat, Sergeant Robert "Bob" Kreid, newly arrived in Korea, knew instinctively that he was headed into something big. A battalion from division reserve sent forward could mean only one thing: A major battle was taking place up there.

Kreid's instincts were right. Colonel Lewis W. "Lew" Walt, commanding officer of the Fifth Marine Regiment, did indeed have a major battle on his hands. By Friday, 27 March 1953, human tidal waves of Chinese had completely submerged the regiment's vital hill outposts dubbed Reno and Vegas. Despite the fierce resistance of the platoon-size forces defending each of them and the more than 10,000 rounds of 105 mm and 155 mm high-explosive shells fired in their support, Reno and Vegas had been swamped and their defenders killed or taken prisoner. Of the three hills known as the Nevada Outposts, only Carson had weathered the storm.

The situation could not be allowed to continue unchecked. Chinese possession of Reno and Vegas would give the Chinese a launching point for a decisive attack on the main line of resistance (MLR), an attack that could affect the outcome of the war in Korea. The lost ground had to be retaken.

It quickly became apparent to Col Walt that all of the lost ground could not be retaken. There was not enough friendly manpower to retake both Reno and Vegas. It had to be one or the other but not both.

The decision was not that hard to make. If Reno could be retaken, its isolated position combined with its poor fields of fire dictated that it could not be held. Feeding more and more of his Marines into a fight for Reno and Vegas would not provide the necessary weight to either attack. Col Walt would be committed to a battle of attrition that the Chinese inevitably would win through sheer numbers.

On the other hand, if Vegas could be wrested from its Chinese captors, it could be held, and what the Chinese on Reno did would be of no consequence. Marines on Carson and Vegas would dominate them. But Vegas would be a mighty tough nut to crack. The disposition of friendly and enemy forces made it impossible to outflank Vegas. The lay of the land left only a narrow frontage to attack through. These two considerations dictated that Vegas could be assaulted only head-on, the most difficult and the costliest form of offensive action. It was the least desirable situation, but it was the only situation there was.

How perilous that situation was going to be was not long in being demonstrated. At dawn on 27 March the massed neutralizing fires of artillery, mortars, tanks and aircraft began pounding the Chinese positions on Reno, seeking to prevent the Chinese there from interfering with the attack on Vegas. While Reno would be pulverized, Vegas itself was spared in hopes that its defensive positions could be retaken intact for use against the inevitable Chinese counterattack. As it turned out, recapturing Vegas would take a bit of doing.

It also would take the efforts of an unusual participant-a little sorrel- or chestnut-colored mare called "Reckless" by the men of the 5th Marines Antitank Company's Recoilless Rifle Platoon. Trained to carry ammunition from the forward Ammunition Supply Point to the platoon's firing positions, Reckless eventually would deliver nearly 400 75 mm high-explosive rounds, logging more than 35 miles in the process. She would be nicked twice by mortar fragments but, like a true Marine, would carry on.

At 1130 the supporting fires increased to a crescendo, laying a blanket of fire on the Chinese approaches to Vegas, and Captain John B. Melvin's D/2/5 launched the first of many attempts to wrest Vegas from its captors. Driving for the hill's southwest slope, "Dog" Co was met by a hurricane of fire barely after crossing the line of departure. There were casualties immediately. Forward progress was slowed to a crawl. Marines battled forward into the teeth of the storm like swimmers struggling against a riptide, clawing for every foot of ground as shells rained down on them.

At 1220, less than an hour later, the attack had been brought to a near standstill as Marines caught in the open by the relentless shellfire fell left and right. At the height of the onslaught of fire, a provisional company made up from elements of 2/5's Weapons and Headquarters and Service companies was thrown into the fight. The Chinese barrage continued to rain down, and from the MLR heavy Chinese reinforcements could be seen rushing forward to Vegas. More than 3,500 Chinese, members of the 358th Regiment, 120th Division, were being committed to fight off the Marines' attempt to regain Vegas.

The artillerymen of Col James E. Mills' 11th Marines were throwing everything they had at the Chinese, plastering the Chinese reinforcing routes and the known firing positions of Chinese artillery with a curtain of 105 mm and 155 mm fires. Adding to the din were the 105 mm guns of the U.S. Army's 623d Field Artillery Battalion (FA Bn) and the 8-inch howitzers of Battery C, 17th FA Bn and Btry A, 204th FA Bn. On the right the 25-pound howitzers of the British Commonwealth Division pitched in. The fight for Vegas was becoming an artillery duel, with the Marines of Dog and Provisional companies caught in the middle.

Casualties were tearing Dog/2/5 apart. Less than an hour into the fight the 1st Plt was reporting only nine men still fit to carry on. Still the company struggled forward, gaining a few agonizing yards, pausing to take what scant cover there was, then inching ahead again. Shells from 120 mm mortars and 76 mm and 122 mm artillery pummeled them.

Staff Sergeant Harry Edwards was an 11th Marines forward observer and also a boxing enthusiast. Watching what was taking place before him, he could only liken it to the epic slugging matches between middleweights Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano that had been fought several years earlier. The battle on the slopes of Vegas kept bringing back mental images of two bloodied fighters standing toe to toe, raining punches on each other, neither man willing to take a step back. He would always remember the assault on Vegas as "the damnedest thing I ever saw."

Douglas AD-2 Skyraiders from Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 121 and Grumman F9F Panther jets from Marine Fighter Squadrons (VMFs) 115 and 311 raked Chinese positions with gunfire, rockets and bombs. Capt Herbert M. Lorence's Easy/2/5 moved forward to lend additional momentum to the attack. They were met by a wall of fire as the Chinese fought back savagely, lashing at them with direct fire from the trenches on Vegas and a torrent of mortar and artillery shells.

Slowly, painfully slowly, the attack inched its way toward the lower trenches of Vegas. In Dog/2/5 the ranks were terribly thin. Platoon leader Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Evans, severely wounded himself, could count only seven members of his platoon still able to fight. Refusing medical treatment to remain with his men, 2dLt Evans stayed at his post, the most forward and exposed position, as what was left of his platoon clung tenaciously to its bit of ground in the face of a blizzard of fire from Vegas. For his actions Evans would be awarded the Silver Star.

At 1430, with 2/5's Dog and Provisional companies shot to tatters, Capt Lorence was ordered to move his Easy/2/5 through Dog Co and continue the attack. It was easier said than done. Easy Co was met by the same curtain of fire that had decimated Dog Co. It was a struggle just to reach the Dog Co positions. It was impossible to move forward, but equally impossible to move back.

What was left of the three companies clung doggedly to the ground they had gained, while shells continued to fall like hail and Chinese machine guns on Vegas swept back and forth across them. Capt Melvin, wounded and with the effective fighting strength of his Dog Co reduced to only 12 men, remembered the noise as "deafening" and how the Chinese "would start walking their mortars toward us from every direction possible. You could only hope that the next round wouldn't be on target."

Through it all Melvin was a tower of strength, ranging the firing line, exposed and in the open amid an inferno of enemy fire, showing the way by example. Ignoring his wounds, he never faltered in driving ahead. Fighting forward, always forward, seeking any and every means of gaining an advantage, he brought the shattered remnants of his company with him by his unwillingness to accept defeat. Melvin should have died a hundred times, but lived, and in time he would be awarded the Navy Cross.

By 1500, Dog/2/5, Easy/2/5 and Provisional Co, mere shadows of companies now, had fought to the limits of human resistance. All three companies combined would have been hard put to muster enough manpower to field a full-strength platoon. Hundreds of green-clad forms, many of them motionless, lay scattered along the line of advance behind them. On the right finger of Vegas, a pitiful handful of Dog Co Marines clung desperately to their hard-won bit of real estate, the lower trenches and the summit still heartbreakingly beyond them. That was as far as anyone could go. There were not enough Marines left to advance any farther.

It was not entirely one-sided. While it was not known at the time, the Chinese, too, were being bled. Friendly supporting arms, artillery, mortars, tanks and air were inflicting horrific casualties on the Chinese. The Chinese approach routes to Vegas were carpeted with the torn and shattered corpses of Chinese soldiers who had fallen beneath the hail of steel. Throughout the Korean War the Chinese had demonstrated a willingness to spend the lives of their soldiers. They were doing so now, but it was costing them.

At 1530, with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander D. Cereghino's 2d Bn, 7th Marines from division reserve under his operational control, Col Walt committed his fourth company, Capt Ralph F. Estey's Fox/2/7, to the fight for Vegas. In its approach to Vegas, Fox Co would endure the same hail of fire that had greeted each previous attempt to retake the hill. The Marines of Fox Co, no less so than those who had gone before, were equal to the challenge. Leaning forward like men fighting their way into a winter blizzard, the Fox Co Marines drove relentlessly toward the blazing hill.

The fighting spirit of the Fox Co Marines was exemplified by 2dLt Theodore H. Chenoweth, platoon leader of 3d Plt. Wounded but refusing medical treatment, Chenoweth continued at the head of the assault against a key defensive position in the trench line, single-handedly charging into the defenders, leading his men in a hand-to-hand battle that ousted the Chinese from the sector. Through the bitterness of the fighting he never shrank from seeking the most exposed, the most dangerous position. A Marine who saw him described Chenoweth as a leader whom he hoped "was one who received a decoration. ... He certainly deserved it." Always in the thick of the fight, Chenoweth would be awarded the Navy Cross.

So, too, would Capt Estey. During the ensuing 48 hours of intense, unrelenting combat, Estey was everywhere, disdaining any considerations of his own safety. Always in the thick of the fight, he was a bulwark in the face of a firestorm, setting an example of courage and leadership that inspired his Marines to the heights of valor.

Courage of the kind shown by Capt Estey and 2dLt Chenoweth was common among the Marines of Fox Co as they fought their way up the side of Vegas. Few were more courageous than Hospital Corpsman Third Class William R. Charette. The platoon corpsman for Chenoweth's 3d Plt, Charette somehow managed to be the first on the scene when a Marine fell wounded.

Amid machine-gun fire that, according to Chenoweth, sounded "like a down-pour of rain on dry leaves," William Charette never hesitated to hazard his own life to go to the aid of a fallen Marine. Throwing himself atop one downed Marine, Charette absorbed the full force of an exploding grenade, then continued to treat the Marine's wounds. When the grenade's blast destroyed his medical kit, he tore his own clothing into strips for bandages.

For his dauntless courage on the slopes of Vegas, Charette would win the Medal of Honor. Of the five hospital corpsmen during the Korean War to earn America's highest award for military valor, only William Charette would live to receive the recognition for his selfless dedication to duty and his brothers in arms.

It was this kind of courage and indomitable fighting spirit that carried Fox Co into and over the lower trenches. Aided by the bloodied remnants of Easy/2/5 and helped along by the direct 90 mm fires of Capt Clyde W. Hunter's Able Co, 1st Tank Bn, the attack fought its way to within 400 yards of the summit by 1800. For the next hour and a half, while friendly artillery blasted the main Chinese stronghold atop Vegas, Fox Co shot, blasted, burned and bayoneted its way slowly forward into the resistance.

As darkness began to creep over the landscape, the combined efforts of Fox/2/7 and Easy/2/5 had wrested most of the reverse (south) slope of Vegas from the Chinese. The companies advanced to within 50 yards of the summit before being pushed back. In the thickest of the fighting, Capt Lorence, at the head of only 12 men left in Easy/2/5, was a burning flame of inspiration, always at the point of greatest danger. His courage, leadership and utter disregard for his own safety would be recognized by the award of the Navy Cross.

The Marines held the reverse slope of Vegas, while the Chinese controlled the forward (north) slope. Neither side truly controlled the summit. Pounded to dust by the deluge of shells and bombs that had fallen on it, the crest of Vegas was the dark and bloody ground where men fought each other to the death.

Night brought no respite to Fox Co, on its own now following the withdrawal of what was left of 2/5's Dog and Easy companies and Provisional Co. During the sleepless night the Chinese threw three strong counterattacks and several probes at the Marine lines. All were repulsed, and at dawn Fox Co prepared to resume the attack, looking on anxiously as swarming Marine fighters battered the crest and forward slope of Vegas with nearly 30 tons of bombs. Shortly after that the first of some 2,300 rounds of mixed artillery fires began to fall on Chinese assembly areas, approach routes and weapons positions.

Throughout the following morning, 28 March, it would take three separate assaults for Capt Estey's Marines to pass over the crest of Vegas and begin ousting the Chinese from the forward slope. Each assault was followed by a Chinese counterattack, and the summit of Vegas became the scene of a deadly game. Fighting was hand to hand, Marines and Chinese battling one another with rifle butts, knives, entrenching tools and bare fists. Through it all the circling Corsairs, Panthers and Skyraiders prowled the skies to rip the Chinese with gunfire, rockets and bombs, while friendly artillery added to what would be eventually an incredible total of nearly 105,000 rounds of all calibers.

On Vegas it was once again raw courage that held sway, courage of the type exhibited by squad leader Sgt Daniel P. Matthews. During the height of the bitter struggle for the crest, with his squad pinned down by intense enemy fire, the 21-year-old Californian watched as fire from an enemy machine gun prevented a corpsman from moving a seriously wounded Marine from the line of fire.

Without hesitating, Matthews left his protected position, skillfully worked his way to a point directly below the hammering machine gun and charged headlong against it. Severely wounded, Matthews did not relent, killing the machine-gun crew and silencing the gun, thereby allowing the wounded Marine to be evacuated and the friendly line to move forward. Sgt Daniel P. Matthews died of his wounds, but his valor would be recognized with a posthumous award of the Medal of Honor.

With the crest of Vegas firmly in hand, Fox Co was relieved by the badly depleted Easy/2/5 and the fresh Dog/2/7 from division reserve. At 1030 on the morning of the 28th, Capt Estey led 43 Marines down from Vegas. They were all that was left of Fox Co. Sgt Bob Kreid, in the ranks of Dog/2/7, watched them go by. "Each man had a strained look on his face, like he had just seen over the mountain, and whatever was there was very bad."

Vegas may have been secured, but life on Vegas wasn't very secure. For the next two days the Chinese threw everything they had at whatever Marine unit had the job of defending the hill. The rain of incoming artillery and mortar fire was almost continuous day and night. Counterattack after counterattack was launched and beaten off, and Marines continued to die on the shell-blasted hill.

Major Benjamin G. Lee, the S-3 (Operations) officer of 2/5; Capt Ralph L. Walz, who commanded Fox/2/5; and Sgt Arlis W. Ramsay of Weapons/2/5 would be among those who died there, each earning the Navy Cross in the deadly struggle to keep Vegas in Marine hands. They would be among 169 dead, 1,211 wounded and 104 missing Marines on Vegas.

The number of Chinese deaths is not known but is believed to have been in the vicinity of 3,000. The Chinese roll of the dice at Vegas had come up "snake eyes."

When the First Marine Division returned to its home at California's Camp Pendleton beginning in early 1955, Reckless had not been forgotten by the Marines she had served beside. In fact, she "rotated" early, arriving on American soil on 10 Nov. 1954. She spent the rest of her life in well-deserved retirement at the base stables, always a distinguished presence at 5th Marines parades and formations. On her death she was buried with fitting honors.