War: At the Bowling Alley

In a month of almost continuous action, the U.S. 27th (“Wolfhound”) Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division had never retreated unless it was ordered by higher command, and most of the professionals on the Korean front thought they knew the reason why: the 2yth Regiment had something no other outfit had. That something was its commander, a lean, pleasantly hard-bitten West Pointer named John Hersey Michaelis, 38. Last week, the men of Colonel Michaelis’ 27th combat team tangled with a capable and battle-tested foe, a 45-year-old North Korean lieutenant general named Kim Mu Chong, onetime commanding general of the Chinese Communists’ famed Eighth Route Army. Kim’s men met “Mike” Michaelis’ men at a road junction 15 miles northwest of Taegu. General Kim looked the situation over and decided to hit young Colonel Michaelis smack in the nose.

Armored Slam. For four nights running, Kim slammed his armor at Michaelis’ forward elements astride the road just south of the junction. The Red tanks would drive down the road to within 100 yards of the first U.S. foxhole and open flat trajectory fire with their 85-mm. guns; a good many of the shells went screaming down the road, hit the first small elevation in their path and bounced into a nearby hillside, like bowling balls. Michaelis’ men, who did not budge under the assault, nicknamed the road, “the bowling alley.”

Finally, General Kim stopped bowling. Instead of trying to take the road headon, he tried to cut it off by an enveloping thrust. Kim sent his 8th Regiment through a hole in the South Korean line on Michaelis’ right flank.

“He’s trying to cut the road to Taegu,” said grey-haired Mike Michaelis as he sat, bone-tired, against the wall of his culvert command post as automatic weapon fire zinged and buzzed like angry bees around him. “He’s trying to scare me into withdrawing and leaving my equipment. Then he can come down the road with his armor. I’m just not going to do it.”

Big or Dead. Michaelis (rhymes with quick hail us) had been in tight spots before. He took part in the Normandy assault, won a battlefield promotion to full colonel. During the airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944, he jumped at the head of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, was wounded twice in three days. During the Battle of the Bulge, he was chief of staff of the 101st.

When he arrived in Korea to take command of the 27th, Michaelis had reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. A few days later, he had won his second battlefield promotion to full colonel. This time it looked as if he would keep his silver eagles. Said one of his sergeants thoughtfully : “The colonel, he’s going to be a big man in this Army—or a dead one.”

Kim Mu Chong discovered what Michaelis’ men knew—the colonel was a hard man to scare. In the face of Kim’s enveloping move, Mike sat tight and blasted away with his expertly placed artillery. He had some bad moments when his artillery fire control center, directing four batteries, suffered a direct mortar hit which killed his best fire control personnel. But under Mike Michaelis’ skillful direction the batteries continued to fire.

Just when the situation looked the blackest on his right flank, Michaelis got two badly needed battalions of reinforcements. Then, at nightfall, a minor miracle roared out of the northwest sky. A flight of seven B-26s, fully loaded with bombs, came winging in. They had been unable to find their primary target, asked a spotter plane over the embattled 27th Regiment if he had any job for them. He certainly did. The spotter guided the B-26s—with only enough gas in their tanks to stay in the air 20 minutes—to General Kim’s 8th Regiment, just as it prepared for a night assault. Down thundered 20 tons of bombs. Later reconnaissance showed that the slaughter among the Reds had been tremendous. Mike Michaelis’ artillery, with a nice assist from the B-26s, had broken Kim’s drive.

The Big Picture. This story of how brilliant young Colonel Michaelis beat off General Kim’s assault is what the working soldier on the hills, behind the road blocks and in the ditches calls the “big picture.”

Two of the best working soldiers in the 27th last week were young (26), blond Captain Martin Merchant of Ilion, N.Y., and Merchant’s lead platoon leader, Lieut. Doyle D. Lummis of Waco, Texas. For four long nights, Merchant, Lummis and their men had held the most advanced position on the “bowling alley.” Each night, they had heard the enemy tanks, trucks and self-propelled guns approach with a roaring and purring of motors, and a babble of voices. Each night, Lummis and his platoon sergeant had calmly told the artillery and mortars in the rear to get ready, warned the platoon of U.S. Pershing tanks to stand by. Bazookamen, machine-gunners and an artillery observation post on a hill close by were alerted. Each night, as the enemy tanks started “bowling” their fire down the road, artillery and mortars would instantly open fire. Red infantrymen would dash ahead of the tanks, trying to remove land mines and setting off flares carefully planted by the Americans which lit up the enemy soldiers and made them perfect targets. Lummis’ guns would tear into them. Then, when the tanks themselves got close enough, Lummis’ bazookamen—who had orders to hold fire until the enemy was nearly upon them —began to spit death & destruction.

The fourth night was the worst. The Reds sent nine tanks and a half-dozen assault guns at the company’s front; they started coming shortly after dark and kept right on trying until 5 a.m.

Like Willie & Joe. On the morning of the fifth day, Merchant and Lummis sat wearily by the road. They looked like Bill Mauldin’s Willie and Joe. Both wore filthy fatigues and a week’s growth of beard. Their shoulders slumped and their buttons were unbuttoned. They were perfect examples of what—according to officer candidate schools—officers should never, never look like.

About their position were strewn the

Communists they had killed. There were also scattered legs, arms and heads. The flies were terrible and the stench was worse. A lean and frightened dog skulked nearby. “I know those bastards are Reds, but I still don’t like to see dogs eat dead people,” a bearded sergeant said with a shudder as he bounced a rock off the dog’s ribs and sent him yowling into the paddy field.

Martin Merchant, long unwashed, his red beard tangled with sweat and dust, sat on a can of mortar ammunition and savored a cup of C-ration coffee. Three flies took swan dives into the coffee. Merchant looked at them philosophically. “You’re not going to drink that stuff now, are you?” a correspondent asked. “Those flies just came off those dead over there in the ditch.”

Merchant looked at the flies without emotion. “What the hell,” he said, “I’ve been drinking coffee with flies in it for a month and it ain’t hurt me yet.” He took a big swallow.

No Flies in the Coffee. That night, the enemy did not come back in force. By the time another morning dawned, the whole outfit was feeling pretty good. Lieut. Lummis had shaved. Looking almost civilized, he tried to get Captain Merchant to shave, too. Merchant refused. “I’ll shave when they get us out of this stinking place,” he growled. But even Merchant had relaxed a little. Said he: “This morning I brushed my teeth and I’ve stopped drinking coffee with flies in it.”

On the sixth day, General Kim’s forces stumbled northward to regroup. Mike Michaelis stretched out on the ground under a poplar tree outside his command post. He yawned. “Kim’s mission was to knock me off this road and take Taegu,” said Mike. “He failed. He’s going to try another way, but we beat him here.”