Combat· Korean War
May 1952 Lettered Objectives (S/V/X/Y/Z)
This was a battalion raid in the 5th Marines sector against a chain of Chinese-held hills in no-man's-land, a single north-south ridgeline of low peaks the Marines had labeled by letter for the operation.
Attacking before dawn, a rifle company overran the first, lightly held hill, then turned along the ridge to assault the cluster of higher peaks beyond, clearing them one at a time in close fighting with rifles and grenades against enemy dug into mutually supporting fighting holes. The Marines drove the Chinese off the intermediate objectives, but devastating mortar and artillery fire made the captured ground untenable, and the assault force withdrew under cover of its own supporting arms, tanks coming forward to bring up supplies and carry out the wounded. The raid achieved its purpose of inflicting casualties and taking a prisoner even though it could not hold all the ground, a characteristic limited-objective action of the position war.
Record no. 886