I was startled and jumped up as I heard Abel's familiar voice calling down to me, "Bill, Bill" and I looked up at where he's voice was coming from and saw him standing inside he's hole which he dug further up and slightly behind the summit trail. At the same time, I heard a familiar muffled shot, they were going on ever since we got to the summit and each time the shot was heard, it was followed by a distant, "Medic ! , Medic ! on our side. It was of a highly accurate enemy sniper firing from the other slightly higher summit. This time I didn't hear the "Medic" call so I thought, "He missed one". But as I started to go up the hill towards Abel's position, I notice Abel was settled down now, where I could only see He's helmet.
When I reached him, He was just staring at me glassy eyed with a constant blinking. I immediately got down on my knees, putting my arms under his arms and feeling the sickening feel of warm blood on his back, yes, Abel was hit and I shouted, "Medic, Medic, as I cuffed my hands over the most wet spot pressing as hard as I could, trying to stop the bleeding. About this time another familiar voice rang out "Brother Bill, Brother Bill are you Okay ? and as I looked up and down where the voice came from, saw Leroy, now, he was running toward us and hit the ground about 25 or so feet down the hill facing the summit trail as another shot rang out. He shouted at me saying it's coming from the other summit. I asked him how, was He doing and He said, " I got a scratch earlier down the hill but it's OK, I got it taken care of. How is Brother Abel", and I said, "It's Ok just a shoulder wound but I need to get him off this hill". Another concerned man was, Hernandez, Abel's assistant Squad Leader who murmured to me something like, "Take care of him, I'm going after that Fuxxing Sniper". and ran towards the other side. Leroy exclaimed, "my Squad Leader is calling, I better go, take care of Abel and you too, brother, don't go off doing anything crazy," staring at me for a few seconds than, "Aloha my Brother" and he ran down the hill I looked at his position where he was heading and told myself, "why did they put his BAR position right on the trail facing the trail to the other summit where the Chinese now seemed to occupy. It was now dusk and getting dark, I still had my hands on Abel's back and didn't want to move him so my hands were numb and I again screamed, "Medic !, where the Fuxx are you". I had been there for hours now and the medic must have been loaded with wounded from the S.O.B. sniper who incidently had quieted down. so I told first myself than Abel, "may be Hernandez got him", I kept talking to keep him awake, I was also worrying about my squad, but, told myself, "Their OK, I have to keep pressure on this wound. Abel now told me, "Brother I got my pockets stuffed with money, you know I won a lot from gambling, please take the cash, I don't know what's going to happen to me and want you to have it." I replied, "You kidding me, you're going to Japan, where you're going to need it and I want you to think of us in this hell hole when you're having a ball with all those Musumes (Japanese Girls) there in Tokyo.
Finally the medic appeared with a bunch of Korean Civilian Litter Bearers. I had to leave and wished Abel Good luck as I moseyed down the hill back to my position. It was now dark and I just knew, we were going to get hit around 2 AM, which was their normal attack time. I told the one on guard at each hole on my squad to keep alert. I dosed off again and bigger than shirt, around 2 the bugles went crazy as did the flares lighting up the sky as we saw all these silhouettes of Chinks firing their burp guns along with ours going off all over the place, I directed my men to fire up at the silhouettes. This went on for sometime when our Asst. Platoon Sgt. came down the line and informed me to cover the C.P. as they were retreating. I ordered my Squad to move up to the ridgeline and as we did I had to look forward and down to Leroy's position and saw him standing and firing he's B.A.R. I noticed than that the waves of Chinks were coming from that side, from atop the ridge line as well as both sides, wave after wave, after wave and I knew than that I would eventually lose my Brother Leroy and about that time a huge explosion went off right where Leroy was standing. The Platoon Sgt. was screaming at me but, I just stood there pouring fire towards the front of Leroy's position until I realized that there was no hope and turned to my men saying, "Cease fire, cease fire...Lets go back towards our position but then there was no one there and we started to slowly climb down the jagged slope. At the bottom of the hill we started to get joined by stragglers coming down from all directions, some from A Co. some from B Co. as well as some more from our C Co. and Our Assist. Platoon Sgt. was among them and said, "let's go we got to get back to our lines." and I said no, we'll wait a little while longer for the possibility of more stragglers. Our Assist. Platoon Sgt. was a 17 yr. Kid originally from my Squad who was promoted and re-assigned to Platoon Hqs. by the LT., they both were from West Virginia. I disregarded his commands as well as all the others who paid attention to me as I seemed to less show exitement, I thought that I'd better keep cool and try to remember the path back to our lines as we would have to travel in the dark and I never memorized our daily pass word. One of the guys from Co. B told me, "Did you see Leroy, man..He had a whole bunch of wasted Chinks in front of his hole".
Till this day I don't know how I did it but as we approached silhouettes of our tanks and was asked for the password, all I could say was, "We're Americans from the 15th Can-Do Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division and we've been overrun by Chinks on Hill 717", I don't know what happened to our Officers, we lost contact.
We found them at Battalion Hqrs., it turned out they had left way before us in anticipation of the overrun.
We were told later that there was two full Battalions of Chinese, (over 2000 men) that had over-run our 3 rifle Companies (approx. 500 men).