The Fight for Hill 235

The morning of April 24, 1951, Lieutenant Colonel James Carne found his men of the British Gloucestershire Regiment in dire straits. They had survived a brutal night of fighting against the Chinese hordes and now found themselves with very few supplies left especially ammunition. They had one hope and that was an aerial resupply. LTC Carne organized by radio a mission by the US Air Force to resupply the regiment. At 0700 that morning the US Air Force tried to parachute in resupplies to the Gloucesters. However, as was often the case during the Korean War most of the supplies landed within the Chinese lines with little of it landing on Hill 235 for the Gloucesters. If the regiment was lucky, with what little supplies they did get, they maybe had enough supplies to last them to the next morning; if they lived that long to see it.

During the day of April 24th, the Chinese continued to launch their assault on the British lines. The Chinese were unsure of the exact British positions and thus their human wave assaults were initially ineffective as the British riflemen carved up the Chinese that were advancing towards the British front lines. However, once the Chinese were able to accurately assess how the British defensive positions were deployed they quickly launched a massive attack on the C Company position near the road that ran in between the British regiment. The Chinese penetrated into the C Company frontlines and LTC Carne ordered C Company to withdraw from their positions on the east side of the road and consolidate into a final defensive perimeter on Hill 235. The withdrawal of C Company to Hill 235 across the road caused B Company to sit on top of a hill that was quickly surrounded by the Chinese after the pullout of C Company.

Literally with a sea of angry Chinese infantrymen surrounding them B Company continued to hold off the furious Chinese assaults on their hill. With little success with a full scale assault on all side the Chinese changed their tactics and decided to focus their assault in only one location on the north of the hill. By focusing their forces on one location the Chinese through their human wave assaults were able to break through B Company’s perimeter. With their perimeter broken B Company had no choice but to try to make a run for Hill 235 where the rest of the regiment was located. LTC Carne ordered all the fire power he had available to lay covering fire with the mortars from his attached C Troop, 170th Independent Mortar Battery. Though the mortar battery provided plenty of suppressive indirect fire against the Chinese the withdrawal of B Company ended up being a disaster. Out of an entire company of about 150 men only 20 made the sprinting retreat to Hill 235 to rejoin the rest of the regiment. The rest of the men were either killed or captured by the Chinese.

Hill 314 on the east side of the highway

Despite the Chinese success in removing the British from around Hill 314 they still needed to get them dislodged from Hill 235 before they could advance their main columns up the narrow valley towards Seoul. The stingy British defense had already cost the Chinese two days of time off of their scheduled offensive plan, thus they were eager to keep the momentum of the operation moving before the allies had a chance to regroup.

Even if the British wanted to retreat from the hill they had no choice due to the fact they were completely surrounded. Attempts were however being made to breach the Chinese lines and exfiltrate the regiment. Throughout the day of April 24th a platoon of British tanks and soldiers from the Philippine 10th Battalion Combat Team tried to breakthrough the valley where the Gloucestershire Regiment was located from the south.

The peak in the background is Kamaksan and the road leading towards it is the route the Filipino rescue team would have followed.

However, every time they tried to breakthrough they were held off by the Chinese troops that had completely surrounded Hill 235. The combined Filipino/British assault had actually come within two kilometers of Hill 235 but were unable to breakthrough the Chinese lines due to the steep terrain. Due to this, General Brodie ordered the Filipinos and the British armor platoon to pull back and hold a blocking position to the south of the valley and then requested help relieving the surrounded Gloucesters from the US 3rd Infantry Division. The 3rd Infantry Division Commander Major General Soule sent the 65th Infantry Regiment to aid in the offensive operation to relieve the Gloucesters.

This is the steep defile the rescue team would have fought in trying to reach the Gloucesters.

However, the regiment would not be ready to execute the attack until 0630 on April 25th. General Brodie was confident that the soldiers of the Gloucestershire Regiment would be able to hold that long. However, this assumption was based off the ability of the Gloucesters to hold off the Chinese attacks during the day. The Chinese were in fact waiting until night fall on the 24th to launch a full scale attack to wipe out the British regiment. What the Gloucesters thought was a full scale Chinese assault already during the day was in fact only probing actions with no intent to over run the British positions; they would wait until night fall to do that.

Joeksong area as viewed from the slopes of Kamaksan mountain.

As soon as night feel the Chinese horns and bugles sounded and ferocious human wave attacks unlike the British had ever seen before fell upon Hill 235. LTC Carne personally led multiple counterattacks against the Chinese every time they overran a portion of the hilltop forcing the Chinese attackers back off the hill. The Chinese bodies continued to pile up as the fresh Chinese bodies laid next to the bones and skulls of prior dead soldiers that appeared all over Korea’s hill sides with the on set of spring and the melting of the winter snows.

Amazingly the Gloucestershire Regiment survived to see the sun rise on April 25th. However, there was only 350 men out of the 700 strong regiment left that could hold and fire a rifle, plus they had now food, medicine, and very little ammo left. The bad news for the Gloucesters would only continue that morning as the attack to relieve the regiment by the 65th Infantry was cancelled because the regiment was redeployed to fill a whole in the defensive line elsewhere that the Chinese had penetrated through. Instead of an entire US infantry regiment trying to rescue the Gloucesters, the task fell on one company of American tanks from the 65th Infantry Regiment.

Modern Day Hill 235 outside Joeksong, South Korea

Due to the steep terrain and narrow road of the valley leading to the Gloucesters only one platoon of American tanks were sent into the valley to try and break through the Chinese lines. How anyone thought that one platoon of American tanks could accomplish what a British tank company and entire battalion of Filipino infantrymen could not do is anyone’s guess. Predictably the tank platoon’s assault up the valley failed once they made heavy contact with the enemy. The tank platoon put up a furious fight, but were forced to withdraw when they ran out of ammunition and the Chinese infantry began to flank their column.

With the failure of the tank platoon’s attempt to penetrate the Chinese lines a battalion of Korean soldiers from the ROK 1st Division tried to breakthrough the Chinese lines that morning as well from the west. At 0900 on April 25th the ROK soldiers found themselves in heavy contact with the Chinese forces in their attempt to relieve the Gloucesters. At about the same time LTC Carne received his last orders from General Brodie before his radio batteries went dead and the final order was for his unit to conduct a fighting withdrawal from their position.

Preparing for the Escape

LTC Carne and his officers were left that morning to figure out how they were going to make an escape from the sea of Chinese soldiers that surrounded the British island on Hill 235. To make matters worse, LTC Carne did not know exactly where the units tasked to try to breakthrough the Chinese lines were located since the batteries in his radio went out. He decided that trying to make a break from Hill 235 using a saddle of land to his southwest to link up with soldiers of the 1st ROK Division that was located somewhere to their southwest was the regiment’s best chance.

Gloucester motar team

However, the D Company commander CPT Mike G. Harvey felt that the Chinese would expect the Gloucesters to try and use the saddle as an escape route and may have set a trap there for them. He felt the best way to breakthrough the Chinese would be to do what they would never expect, assault down the steepest portion of Hill 235 to the north and keep moving north away from the Chinese front lines. Once away from the frontlines then the soldiers would try to infiltrate to the west toward the 1st ROK Division.

Since no one could agree on one course of action it was agreed upon that all the soldiers of the regiment besides D Company would make a break towards the southwest while a 100 men from D Company would try to penetrate the Chinese lines to the north. LTC Carne decided to stay on Hill 235 with the 50 wounded men on the hill. With that decision the regimental chaplain, the sergeant major, surgeon, and medics agreed to stay with LTC Carne as well and surrender to the Chinese.

Before surrendering the battalion chaplain had this to say to the remaining men of the Gloucestershire Regiment in memory of their fallen comrades, “They will remember for a little while in England. The soldier does have his day. I want to remind you this afternoon that it is not enough to remember now. We’ve got to show what we think of their sacrifice in the way we conduct ourselves in the days ahead.”

Next Posting: The Escape

Prior Posting: James P. Carne - Part 1 

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