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IN PRAISE OF NEW TRAVELERS
Cultural Memory
zn
the
Present
Mieke Bal and Hent de Vries, Editors

Reading Caribbean Migrant Women Writers
Isabel Hoving
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
200!
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the

Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free, archival-quality paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hoving, Isabel.
In praise of new travelers: reading Caribbean migrant
women writers I Isabel Hoving.
p. em.- (Cultural memory in the present)
ISBN o-8047-2947-6 (alk. paper)- ISBN 0-8047-2948-4
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Caribbean fiction (English)-Women authors-
History and criticism. 2. English fiction-2oth century-

History and criticism. J. Immigrants' writings, English-
History and criticism. 4· Women and literature-
Caribbean Area-History-2oth century. 5· Caribbean
Area-In literature. 6. Women in literature. 7· Emigration
and immigration in literature. I. Series.
PR9205.4 .H68 2001
813 '. 5099287' 09729- dc21 00-04 5812
Original Printing 2001
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
ro 09 o8 07 o6 05 04 03 02 01
Typeset by James P. Brommer in nir3.5 Garamond
Grace Nichols's work is reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.,

London, on behalf of Grace Nichols. Copyright Grace Nichols 1989.
Thanks to Marlene Nourbese Philip and Ragweed Press for their kind
permission to quote the poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language" from
She hies Her Tongue: Her Silence Softly Breaks by Marlene Nourbese Philip.
Contents
I Introduction: Place, Voice, and Silence I
2 Tropes of Women's Exile: Violent Journeys

and the Body's Geography 29
3 Homemaking, Woman-Talk, Time-Waste:

Beryl Gilroy's Frangipani House 77
4 Writing for Listeners: Merle Colins's Angel 122
5 The Pleasures of Address: Grace Nichols's

Whole ofa Morning Sky 156
6 Jamaica Kincaid Is Getting Angry 184
7 A Dog with a Foaming Mouth: Michelle Cliff

and the Dangers of the Interior 238
8 The Castration of Livingstone: Marlene Nourbese

Philip's Successful Seduction of the Father of Silence 270
9 Conclusion: On the Hybridity of Cross-Cultural Dialogue 316
Notes 323
Works Cited 347
Index 363
Acknowledgments
Twelve years ago, this study began as a project of eager reading and
tentative writing-a project based on the urgent wish to obtain a trans-
national, intercultural understanding of women's insights and expressions.
Looking back, I can see that the project has become more and more the
background for talking and listening. Whereas I am much indebted to a
wealth of authors, a wealth of texts, I begin to feel increasingly obliged to
thank speakers, discussions, conversations. Indeed, I am the child of a poet
and a musician/painter, and both endowed me with a fondness for aspects
of orality. I thank my mother for giving me a wonderful language, lively
speech, and with it the knowledge of the deep complexities of motherhood
and daughterhood. I thank my father for acquainting me with those other
languages of rhythm and color that I do not yet fully comprehend. I hope
that I may continue to explore the field of orality in which these different
inherited semiotics can be approached.
Twelve years is a long time, and very many people have guided and
supported me on the way. I wish to thank Professor]. J. A. Mooij of the
University of Groningen for his capable scholarly guidance, and Peter Zima,
now a professor at Klagenfurt, long ago the inspired, erudite, and socially
committed scholar who kindled the spark of my passion for literary theory.
Rosi Braidotti's women's studies colloquium at the University of Utrecht
served as a cordial, exhilaratingly intelligent temporary abode. I am grateful
to the Onderzoekszwaartepunt Vrouwenstudies and its successor, the Belle
van Zuylen Institute of the University of Amsterdam, which made possible
the research project on which this book is based by accepting and funding
it. I owe many thanks to Inge Boer of the Belle van Zuylen for guiding me
with such passion into the field of postcolonial criticism and for reading dif-
ferent stages of this study and offering me many valuable comments. Selma
vu1 Acknowledgments
Leydesdorff, director of the Belle van Zuylen Institute, also offered her crit-
icism of this work, and I thank her for it. The Department of Comparative
and General Literary Studies of the University of Amsterdam offered me an
academic home; I have greatly profited from my contacts with my open-
minded colleagues. I would like to thank especially John Neubauer, Profes-
sor of Comparative Literature, and Helga Geyer-Ryan, Associate Professor
of Literary Theory, for their welcome critical remarks on an earlier version
of this work. For the same reason, I am grateful to Christel van Boheemen,
Professor of English at the University of Amsterdam. The Institute for De-
velopment Research Amsterdam (InDRA), in which I participated as a
teacher, proved to be a warm, hospitable, and inspiring place. I have learned
much from the lnDRA's exploration of South-North relations. In addition,
I thank my students at the lnDRA, the Vakgroep Algemene Literatuur-
wetenschap, and the Werkgroep Vrouwenstudies. Their often unexpected,
original, and valuable comments and questions from a variety of perspec-
tives did much to sharpen or change my own research questions and in-
sights. I am glad to be a member of the excellent Amsterdam School for
Cultural Analysis (ASCA), which offers me new opportunities for debates
with colleagues in the field. Of my many friends at ASCA I mention espe-
cially Frans-Willem Korsten, Wilma Siccama, Patricia Spyer, and Markha
Valenta for their supportive criticism and warm encouragements. I thank
Mineke Schipper, Professor of Intercultural Literary Theory at the Univer-
sity of Leiden, for sharing with me her love for African and Caribbean
(women's) writing, especially when I had the honor to be her colleague at
Leiden. I also thank the University of Antwerp for granting me the much-
desired space and time to finish this book. I am honored by, and grateful
for, the attention great specialists in the field have given to an earlier version
of this study. I thank Carole Boyce Davies, professor in the Departments of
English, Mrican, and Mrican-American Studies and Comparative Litera-
ture at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the
Columbia University. I am privileged to have been able to benefit from
their deep insights and probing questions; they have shown me how much
I still have to learn.
My deepest and enduring gratitude is for Mieke Bal, first my super-
visor, now a dear colleague and friend. She has shaped and hastened the
process that changed me from an ambitious reader into a scholarly writer.
Acknowledgments 1x
She made me lose my fear of "high" theory, supported my exploration of

less prestigious theories and perspectives enthusiastically, stimulated me al-
most out of my wits, and is still fueling my ambitions.
It may not have been the academic institutions that were most im-
portant in forming this project. An intercultural reading group, organized
and moderated by Roline Redmond in Groningen in 1988, gave me the first
decisive feeling for cultural and ethnic differences in reading positions. In-
deed, while working within the academy, my conversations with friends in-
side and outside the academy have helped me immensely in grasping the
issue of intercultural exchange. Among many, I want to thank Marnel
Breure, Kathleen Gyssels, Claire Moll, Thelma Ravell-Pinto, Garjan Sterk,
and Gloria Wekker.
In an early stage of this study, Rosa Knorringa was willing to comment
on the chapters on orality. Maaike Meijer and Laura Niesen-de Abruiia
helped me find my way into the community of Caribbean literary scholars.
My discussions with my Caribbean colleagues and their intense evaluations
of my work have been most valuable. I want to thank in particular Kathleen
Balutansky. Of my nearest colleagues, I wish to express my fond thanks to
Babs Boter, Maartje Geraedts, and lneke Mok. I thank Jan Duinkerken for
sending me all those incredible, outrageous calypsos. Louisa Trott, Mario
Caro, and Maggie Bowers took meticulous care of my English, and im-
proved it tirelessly. When this long project reached the stage in which it be-
gan to turn into a book, Helen Tartar of Stanford University Press was there,
showing me the great, passionate importance of our kind of scholarly work.
With great friendship, she helped me find my cross-cultural voice, a guid-
ance and support for which I am deeply grateful. I would also like to thank
Kate Warne and Mary Ray Worley at Stanford, who have shown great pa-
tience and precision in the last stages of the making of this book.
I thank my son, Jesse, for his patience with my absences, for messing
up my studious life in the most miraculous and essential way, and for
teaching me about the unexpected depths of love and motherhood. And,
finally, my sweetest thanks are for her who doesn't want to be thanked,
Annemarie Behrens, who does more than support me; she shares with me
the three basic vital arts: gardening, reading, and mothering. All these arts
we practice in lopsided ways, in unnatural ways, awkwardly, waywardly,
and very happily.
1
Introduction: Place, Voice, and Silence
Entering the Scene of Caribbean Writing
A South-African voice:
Yet for me there is an uninhibited euphoric experience when I do write. It is as if
I was deaf before and can now hear; I was mute, now I can speak. When people
come up to me and say, "I enjoyed your book," "I read your article," "I thought
your speech was good," "I heard you on the radio"-each time I am liberated, for
someone is listening; someone has taken time to hear me. (Ngcobo 1988: 138)
And a North-African voice:

Writing is like killing, because it takes a lot of courage, the same courage as when
you kill, because you are killing ideas, you are killing injustices, you are killing sys-
tems that oppress you. Sometimes it is better to kill the outside world and not kill
yourself (El Saadawi, quoted in Grewal et al. 1988: 4-5)
As the starting point of my long tale about reading on the East-West axis, I
draw a South-North line, linking two very different statements on women's
writing. Euphorically, South-African writer Lauretta Ngcobo sings of the
empowering liberation induced by her successful effort to claim a voice
through dialogue. From Egypt, Nawal El Saadawi speaks of liberation too
-but her dipped, angry discourse is full of violence. Here are two views on
the dialogue in which Black women's writing is engaged. One writer cele-
2 Introduction: Place, Voice, and Silence
brates the invigorating dialogue with her readers. The other acknowledges
the violent dialogue with muting and destructive dominant discourses.
In this twofold discourse about the dialogue two points become ex-
quisitely clear: First, one cannot talk about Black women's speech and writ-
ing without talking about listening and reading too. Second, one cannot
talk about women's voices without discussing liberation and imprison-
ment, violence and resistance. This goes for all those who read or listen,
write and speak, but especially for those involved in the professional prac-
tices of intercultural interpretation in the academy. In the last two decades,
postcolonial criticism and theory have taken up this challenge, too. 1
The results of their readings are varied, frequently celebrated and
school-forming bur often highly contested too. Perhaps the most vehement
critique of postcolonial theory as a frame for reading can be heard when
Black women's writing is concerned. Read, for example, Caribbean scholar
Carole Boyce Davies's passionate and rich study on Black women's writing
in which she emphatically dismisses postcolonial theory as a possible ap-
proach and argues that Black women's texts cannot be adequately addressed
by this often Eurocentric, universalizing theoretical practice (Davies 1994).
In a recent book about Caribbean women writers by Haitian scholar Mir-
iam Chancy the term postcolonial doesn't even appear in the index (Chancy
1997). These Caribbean scholars have a point: Caribbean women's writing
is irreducibly diffirent. One reason for this difference lies precisely in the
fact that their writing takes shape by their engagement in complex, vehe-
ment dialogues with their many audiences, dialogues inevitably structured
by power, violence, and resistance.
The complex nature of these dialogues can already be understood
from a historical literary perspective. In the 1970s, when Caribbean women
writers began to articulate their literary voices as a recognizable group, they
did not enter a culturally and geographically dosed male history; they en-
tered a wide universe of several intertwined or completely unrelated litera-
tures. As Selwyn Cudjoe remarked, "The rise of women's writings in the
Caribbean cannot be viewed in isolation. It is a part of a much larger ex-
pression of women's realities that is taking place in the postcolonial world
and post-civil rights era in the United States" (Cudjoe 1990a: 6). Caribbean
women write within a radically transnational literary context. Caribbean lit-
erature in itself is already a diasporic, transatlantic, multilinguistic practice.
Caribbean literature is the name given to a multitude ofliteratures that of-
Introduction: Place, Voice, and Silence 3
ten hardly know each other, for Caribbean literature is written and spoken
in Spanish, Papiamenru, Sranan, Dutch, Hindi, Portuguese, French, Eng-
lish, or others of the many languages of the Caribbean. Even within one
language, Caribbean writers are positioned between many registers, cul-
tures, and genres. But Caribbean literature is also plural because it addresses
many other literatures: Mrican-American, European, Mrican, Asian. This
transnational orientation is acutely visible in women's writing. Not only do
the new women writers emphasize the hybrid and diasporic nature of Ca-
ribbean literature, but they also suggest that, as well as being linguistic, cul-
tural, and ethnic, the diversity of Caribbean literature is gender-specific.
Though men were most visibly active in the field of Caribbean writ-
ing, women have always been a part of it. Davies and Fido suggest that, if
Caribbean literary histories tend to focus on male writers, it is not that
women were not writing, but rather it is an effect of a masculinist perspec-
tive (1990: 2). Many studies of the last decade prove that a differently in-
clined focus has no trouble perceiving a female literary tradition (Chancy
1997; Cudjoe 1990a; Davies and Fido 1990; Mordecai and Wilson 1990;
Wilenrz 1992; Nasta 1991). For women have been writing, just as they were
-at least as much as the men-part of the degrading slave labor, the
struggles against oppression, and the struggles for independence. 2
Caribbean women were so from the very beginning. When in the
nineteenth century Caribbean writing emerged in the form of slave ac-
counts, women were among those who had their narratives published.
Cudjoe mentions three slave narratives by women published between 1831
and 1857, one in Spanish, two in English. As the next female appearance on
the scene, he points to the impressive number of poems by Cuban women
published in the second half of the nineteenth century (more than one
hundred). This accomplishment can be understood as a close effect of
Cuban women's involvement in the Ten Years' War (1868-78) and the up-
risings thereafter, which eventually led to Cuban independence in 1902. As
before, literature and political and social activism are indissolubly con-
nected. This writing is highly transnational, not unlike the first slave narra-
tives: the Cuban women poets are influenced by the emancipatory move-
ments in the United States (feminism and abolitionism) (Cudjoe 1990a:
15). 3 In the French Caribbean too, works by women of color were published
already in the last decades of the nineteenth century (Wilson, quoted in
Davies and Fido 1990: 2).
Twentieth-century Caribbean writing is often described as having a

slow and sparse beginning until it finds a clear, exhilarating direction in the
1930s. Its new Mrocentric focus expresses itself, for example, in the transna-
tional event of negritude, which springs from the meeting of French-
speaking Caribbean and Mrican intellectuals in Paris. As an antiassimila-
tionist movement, driven by the desire to highlight and celebrate the
specific essence and mission of the Mricans in Mrica and the diaspora, it
had an important effect on Caribbean culture as a whole. Nevertheless, ne-
gritude's Mrocentric focus must be situated within a larger context of po-
litical movements that all share an interest in Mrica: Haitian nationalism,
the Jamaican Marcus Garvey's international "Universal Negro Improve-
ment Association'' (in the 1920s), Pan-Mricanism (in the first half of the
twentieth century). These political developments had their cultural coun-
terparts. In the United States, the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s had a
lasting, transnational impact, though its influence on Francophone Carib-
bean writing diminished when negritude made itself felt. The early part of
the twentieth century also saw the rise of European modernism, with its
enthusiasm for Mrican art and "primitive" art in general. The histories of
Caribbean writing in this period are dominated by the names of male writ-
ers: Aime Cesaire; Leon Damas; Edouard Glissant, answering Cesaire and
Damas with an emphasis on hybridity, articulated in the notion of "antil-
lanite''; and in the Anglophone areas at a later time writers as diverse as
George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul, and Sam Selvon (Conde 1979; Ramchand
1983; Cudjoe 1990a).
But even during the first six decades of the twentieth century women
writers have been active. In his account of early-twentieth-century writing,
Cudjoe is able to summarize the works and lives of several active women
writers. He speaks in more detail about Una Marson (also presented as a
foremother in Cobham and Collins 1987) and Louise Bennett as pioneers
of a woman-centered and Caribbean-centered literature. As a white Creole
writer, Jean Rhys is given a comparable, though very different, prominent
place. These women's importance for Caribbean women's writing is inde-
pendent from their actual presence in the Caribbean: Rhys and Marson
spent large parts of their lives in the United Kingdom. Louise Bennett kept
writing and performing while two new generations of women writers en-
tered the scene. But there is no slow waxing of women's presence here; the
1940s and 1950s were also an epoch of growing male dominance, express-
ing itself in the nationalist movement and resulting in an "increase of fe-

male oppression'' (Cobham-Sanders, quoted in Cudjoe 1990a: 29).
Nevertheless, the 1950s and 1960s saw the shaping of a women's tra-
dition in the Anglophone Caribbean: Phyllis Shand Allfrey published a
novel, The Orchid House, which is now seen as a feminist classic; Clara Rosa
de Lima wrote about sexuality, thematizing homosexuality too (Tomorrow
Will Always Come); Sylvia Winter's famous The Hills ofHebron saw light;
and in 1966 Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea appeared together with Rosa Guy's
Bird at My Window. These novels anticipate and parallel the rise of the
Mrican-American feminist/womanist novel in the United States. Moreover,
many of the Caribbean writers in this and the following decades lived in
the United States or the United Kingdom. If a masculinist nationalism in-
formed cultural and political life in the 1940s and 1950s, the late 1960s and
especially the 1970s opened up to Caribbean feminism (Cudjoe 1990a).
Cudjoe picks 1970 as the start of a new epoch in women's writing, as
that was the year in which Merle Hodge's Crick-Crack Monkey appeared, a
beautiful novel about a young girl's mangled departure from childhood in
Trinidad, bringing together a strong critique of colonialism, an evocative
intimacy in the depiction of family relationships and childhood experience,
and language experiment. These aspects are echoed in many of the women's
novels to come. In the Francophone Caribbean, the new era was prepared
by writers like Michele Lacrosil, who thematized the alienation of women
in the early r96os. Maryse Conde, Myriam Warner-Vieyra, and Simone
Schwarz-Bart published their woman-centered novels in the 1970s and
1980s (see Shelton 1990 for a short overview, and Gyssels 1996). As Marie
Cristina Rodriguez states, even in the last decades of the twentieth century,
women in the Spanish-speaking areas tended to write and publish poetry
rather than stories and novels. She nevertheless mentions, among others,
the novelists and story-writers Aida Bahr, Rosario Ferre, and Mayra Mon-
tero (Rodriguez 1990; Davies 1998). In the Dutch-speaking area prolific
writer, poet, and playwright Astrid Roemer demonstrates her passionate in-
terest in women's experiences in a variety of texts and genres, all marked by
an intense love oflanguage experiment (Phaf 1990; Redmond 1993). Other
women writers and poets from Surinam, the Dutch Antilles, and Aruba are
carving their own trajectories, sometimes in the Netherlands.
The prominence of language experiment in the new women's writing
is observed by many scholars of Caribbean women's writing (e.g., Davies
and Fido 1990; Gikandi 1992). To a certain degree, language experiment has
been a consistent characteristic of Caribbean men's writing, too. Simon
Gikandi argues that "the linguistic crisis the Caribbean writer faces ... is
similar to that which confronted European high modernist poets at about
the same time Laleau, Laforest, and Cesaire began to write: how can liter-
ary language face the pressures of its objective conditions and yet liberate
itself from them?" (19). One of these pressures for the Caribbean writer has
been, indeed, the language of European high modernism. Aime Cesaire's
famous poem Cahier d'un retour a mon pays natal (1939) is a case in point;
Gikandi shows that Cesaire used modernist forms to attack and explode the
European French language from within (21-24). As I will show in the rest
of this work, Caribbean women writers are engaged in a comparable pro-
ject. But just as women's experience of life differs from men's, their strug-
gle with language differs; their strategies of appropriation and abrogation of
both national and colonial languages and discourses are always specific, and
therefore we find a different perception of voice and silence in women's
novels and poetry, different images of space and time, another relationship
to oral genres (such as calypso), different images of the mother, of sexuality.
This difference cannot be explained as a mere response to male predeces-
sors. When Simon Gikandi states that the "new generation of Caribbean
women writers is revising the project of their male precursors who had, in
turn, revised and dispersed the colonial canon" (32), he pictures a particu-
larly ill-fitting image of Caribbean women's "belatedness." Women did not
enter a struggle initiated and already half accomplished by men. They have
been part of the struggle all along. Moreover, the model of women ad-
dressing just this one masculinist tradition is obviously all too simple;
women are addressing many other traditions, harking back to a long, mul-
tiple, diasporic, and transnational female tradition of Black writing. There-
fore, the multiplicity and hybridity of their writing is unparalleled.
Reading Well· The Crisis in Postcolonial Theory

and Caribbean Migrant Womens Writing
The extraordinary position of Caribbean migrant women's writing
asks for an extraordinary theoretical approach. And such a specified ap-
proach has asserted itself in the debates at the Caribbean women writers
conferences (from 1988 on), in the many papers in journals and collections,
in book-length studies and handbooks. This body of theory and criticism

often identifies itself through a highly critical evaluation of postcolonial
theory, even if postcolonial theory focuses on many of the same issues, such
as hybridity. It is true, though, that postcolonial theory is in crisis, not only
because of its universalism and Eurocentrism, but also, as Moore-Gilbert
points out, for a host of other reasons that are related to the crisis in cul-
tural criticism as a whole. There is an "increasing disenchantment with
'high' theory," and "a reaction against the new forms of political criticism
which emerged in the late 1970s and early 198os and, more particularly, a
weariness with the issues of gender, class and race which these brought to
the fore." In answer, one discerns new ways of establishing an interdiscipli-
nary approach, or, in contrast, a return to the literary (Moore-Gilbert 1997:
186). The fact that postcolonial theory is criticized from so many perspec-
tives that might also have been subsumed under the descriptor postcolonial
is perhaps a sign of wear rather than a sign of its provocative vitality.
But postcolonial theory and criticism are too broad and even too suc-
cessful to just be dismissed. Postcolonial thinkers from Fanon and Gandhi
to Said, Bhabha, and Spivak have offered pathbreaking analyses of many
crucial issues within colonialism and its subsequent phases, even if they
sometimes framed their insights in dominant Western discourses. Some
critics are inclined to embrace their favorite theorists as "not really post-
colonial" and to dismiss others by labeling them postcolonial. But deciding
whether theorists in this field can be defined as postcolonial or not is a
tricky matter. Fanon appears in most handbooks on postcolonial theory,
but Leela Gandhi is one of the few to discuss Mahatma Gandhi in this con-
text. For most, Spivak's is one of the three big names in postcolonial theory,
but Davies points out that her work also exceeds postcolonial theory-and
her argument is an example of the slippery nature of the debate about the
label (Davies 1994). Nigerian critic Chinweizu of course explicitly opposes
all efforts of appropriation by Western academic discourses, but Caribbean
writer and theorist E. K. Brathwaite-who is also searching for a specifi-
cally regional perspective-is mentioned in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin's
1989 handbook as the advocate of a promising postcolonial perspective
(146-48). Such a struggle about definitions depends of course on one's de-
finition and evaluation of postcolonial theory and criticism. I would prefer
not to define postcolonial theory too narrowly as a neocolonial master dis-
course, but rather as a broad field of varied approaches in which thorough,
specific critique serves to stimulate a necessary self-reflection (and here I

follow Moore-Gilbert's nuanced position).
Stuart Hall's fabulous 1996 reflection on the complex nature of the
concept postcolonial allows us to answer the more substantial critiques, to
wit, the critiques slating the poststructuralist tenets in postcolonial theory.
Hall's elegant demonstration of the perfect relevance of poststructuralism in
any anticolonial, anti-Enlightenment project is highly convincing. The
most important point in his argument is an intelligent intervention in the
recurring debates about the meaning of post in postcolonial Post means after,
the argument of antipostcolonialists goes, but colonialism has by no means
disappeared; it has merely taken on a new shape (Davies 1994; Hutcheon
1995; McClintock 1992; Shohat 1992). But post does not just mean after.
Hall quotes the ambivalence signaled by Peter Hulme and Ella Shohat, who
see, respectively, a temporal as well as a critical dimension in the word, and
a chronological as well as an epistemological aspect (1996: 253). Lyotard's
discussion of the implications of the term postmodern is also very useful here
in understanding the difference between these dimensions. First, Lyotard
sees post "in the sense of a simple succession," that is, as after. He com-
ments: "this 'breaking' is, rather, a manner of forgetting or repressing the
past. That's to say of repeating it. Not overcoming it." (Lyotard 1993: 171)
Next to this interpretation Lyotard sees the possibility to understand post as
"a working through-what Freud called Durcharbeitung-operated by
modernity on itself ... the 'post-' of postmodernity does not mean a pro-
cess of coming back or flashing back, feeding back, but of ana-lysing, ana-
mnesing, or reflecting" (Lyotard 1993: 173). A combination of Hulme's ob-
servation of a critical dimension and Lyotard's and Shohat's differentiations
leads to a threefold interpretation of post: (r) after; (2) anti; (3) durch, or
ana, that is, a critical working through. 4 The three interpretations are indis-
solubly intertwined. Lyotard's comments emphasize that postmodernity
should be understood as an ongoing process. This is precisely the point Hall
makes when explaining that the shift to the epoch of postcoloniality does
not mean a clean break. Following Derrida and Gramsci, Hall speaks of a
"reconfiguration of a field, rather than ... a movement of linear transcen-
dence between two mutually exclusive states" (Hall 1996: 254). The post-
colonial, then, should also be seen as a process, not as a finished, definitive
state. This interpretation implies that postcolonial theory cannot but use
concepts that have already been thoroughly criticized; but these concepts,
when used self-reflexively and critically, can still be useful in an analysis. On

the level of the sociopolitical, this triple understanding of the concepts im-
plies that the colonial is now a contested but inevitable part of decolonizing
states too, and that postcolonial nations or texts cannot but "mark their 'dif-
ference' in terms of ... the over-determining effects of Eurocentric ... sys-
tems of representation and power" (Hall 1996: 251). The colonial, then, is
an integral part of the multiplicity of the postcolonial, which, as Hall adds,
also orients its difference to other discourses.
I think Hall's arguments are very convincing. Poststructuralist insights
will be of great help in theorizing the multiplicity of identity by forming a
safeguard against easy reductionism. Poststructuralism can be especially
productive in those moments when it offers the means for its own self-
critique. For just like all other discourses criticized by poststructuralism,
poststructuralist discourse constructs its own realities. Even the productive
concept of multiple subjectivity can be seen to create, in practice, a certain
debatable perception of Black women's writing. As Donna Haraway ex-
plains in a discussion of different readings of the Nigerian writer Buchi
Emecheta, all positions in the debates about subjectivity are interest-bound
(Haraway 1991)-and so is Haraway's own in the context of her argument
(Moore-Gilbert 199T 201). And indeed, one possible response of Western
students to Black women's writing consists of the Procrustean effort to fit
Black women's texts into a poststructuralist framework. While dismissing all
clearly nonpoststructuralist aspects in their work, they insist on recognizing
in Black women's writing implicitly poststructuralist deconstructions of uni-
fied subjectivity. Thus, Black women writers are appropriated to sustain a
white Western critical self-reflection (see Haraway 1991; Homans 1994). 5
Such appropriation is clearly the wrong answer to the question this
study seeks to answer: how to read with respect, how to read in a manner
that is truly dialogical? These questions have decided my topic. My focus
on Caribbean migrant writers is motivated by my wish to discuss writing in
the contact zones; it is there, I suspect, that the dialogue can be studied in
its highest acuteness. 6 How is the unyielding "otherness" of Caribbean (mi-
grant) women's writing read, and how can my own reading connect to
these diverse manners of readings, from the contested postcolonial to the
assertive Caribbean/Black feminist modes? The theoretical issue at stake
here has a strong ethical and political dimension, as the following quote
from Caribbean poet Aime Cesaire shows, warning against certain reading
positions: "And I should say to myself: 'And most of all beware, even in
thought, of assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a
spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, a man who wails is not a danc-
ing bear"' (Cesaire 1971: 6o-62). As an exercise in reading, this study is
written in answer to Cesaire's challenge. I want to show that it is possible to
be something other than a tourist, a spectator, or an eavesdropper eager for
the stereotypically exotic. My inquiry into Caribbean women's multiple,
hybrid identities tries to feel its way into the nuances in the literary explo-
ration of these identities. It is often through close readings that these nu-
ances can be found. Here, the potential for cultural analysis in the field of
postcoloniality assesses itself; for in contrast to postcolonial theory, cultural
analysis is based on the insight that it is only in direct dialogue with cul-
tural products that the theoretical reflection on the present post- and anti-
colonial, intercultural, transnational, and national cultures can develop.
This is my tentative answer to the crisis in cultural criticism: let's turn back
to the text, indeed- but let's read certain texts, texts that are marginalized,
texts that may oppose certain Western aesthetic standards, texts that are
self-reflective and that articulate their own theories of writing and reading.
And let's listen to the ways in which these texts refuse the isolation and
reification of the literary; let's hear the political and social dimensions in
these texts too, if they ask us to. Such reading should imply what Spivak
calls "doing one's homework'': reading about the social, political, and eco-
nomical context of the texts, and about the theorizing that has been done
already, from within the same context especially. Reading self-reflectively,
then, to avoid easy appropriation, and responsibly, by learning about the
text's context; that is my answer to Cesaire. But above all, reading closely
and attentively and entering into a real dialogue with the text might be a
way to revitalize the very necessary debate about the postcolonial condi-
tion, a debate that is nonetheless urgent even if the manner in which it has
been conducted has wearied some of its participants.
Reading Well as a Critical Strategy Within Postcoloniality

Perhaps the vehemence of the critique against postcolonialism can be
understood as an angry despair about the marginality of "other discourses"
within the academy, that is, about the academic refusal or inability to listen
and read well. The anger is justified~for that marginality could well be an
Introduction: Place, Voice, and Silence II
inevitable effect of postcolonial criticism if, as Gayatri Spivak suggests,

"[t]he general mode for the postcolonial is citation, reinscription, rerout-
ing the historical" (1993b: 217). A focus on such a mode doesn't leave much
space for unheard discourse-unheard, that is, by many in dominant po-
sitions within Western academe. And although these "other discourses" are
part of the multiplicity and doubleness evoked by Hall, even he mentions
them only in passing, without rendering them audible. If a poststructural-
ist postcolonialism is part of the analytical frame I am building here, the
need to discern these other discourses and concepts about difference is cer-
tainly part of that frame too. Christopher L. Miller offers the sharpest ar-
ticulation of this imperative that I've come across when he warns against a
certain understanding of deconstructive theory, by which
this negative model of interpretation takes on a life of its own, enjoining the West-
ern reader to assess only that of which he/she can be sure-his/her own reading
processes ... the only positive object of knowledge left to be trusted is not an ob-
ject at all but the solitary subject, paralyzed by its own power. When this point has
been reached, a kind of blindness results. (Miller 1990: 8-9)
Yet, critics should strive to acknowledge the difference beyond the bound-
aries of their knowledge, outside the self. For if they do not, Miller won-
ders, "What becomes of difference in a methodology that trusts only self-
reflexivity?" (1990: IO). This study responds to Miller's analysis by aiming
at venturing a little beyond such self-reflexivity and freeing a space for the
noncolonial and anticolonial, resisting discourses of which there are many. 7
Davies's valuable polemic work on Black women's writing asks for kindred
spatial moves: the global space of postcoloniality should not always be cen-
tered around Europe, for Europe is not always the preferred addressee (Da-
vies 1994: 86). With sensitivity and insight, Davies suggests that other dis-
courses may have a definitely nonpostcolonial energy and vitality (w8).
They are often bent on organizing their reflection around race and gender,
thus countering the postcolonial tendency to erase both. Despite these
shared projects, Davies emphasizes that these discourses can not be brought
under a common denominator (be it postcoloniality or another). Davies
offers the concept "uprising textualities" as a tolerant signifier for this inap-
propriate plurality (ro7-n). I am answering Davies's challenge by high-
lighting the names and concepts offered by the texts themselves to describe
their very specific hybridities. 8
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
196th, 937th, and 780th Field Artillery Battalions, USA, brought the
number of rounds to a grand total of 8,400 for this 24-hour period.
After the securing of Hill 924, the 2d Battalion of the KMC
Regiment passed through the 1st and 3d Battalions to spearpoint the
attack west toward Hill 1026. In the zone of 3/7, an nkpa
counterattack was repulsed at 0700 on 2 September. Two hours later
George Company, supported by How Company with mortar and
machine gun fire, moved out to resume the attack on Hill 602.
Lieutenant Colonel B. T. Kelly ordered his battalion heavy machine
guns set up in battery to deliver overhead supporting fires.
In slightly less than two hours the Marines of 3/7 swept the crest
of Hill 602, securing Division Objective 2. Three company-size enemy
counterattacks were repulsed before the North Koreans withdrew to
the north at 1500.
The 2d KMC Battalion fought its way to a point within 800 yards
of Hill 1026 before dusk. So aggressive and persistent was the nkpa
defense that several light enemy probing attacks were launched
during the night of 2–3 September, not only against forward Marine
elements but also against the 5th Marines units on the kansas Line, 5
miles to the rear. The front was where you found it.
While 3/7 constructed emplacements and obstacles on Hill 602,
the KMCs continued their attack on the morning of 3 September
toward Hill 1026. With the extending of the 7th Marines zone to the
left to decrease the width of the KMC front, 2/7 was brought up
from regimental reserve to help cover a new sector that included Hill
924.
The attack led by 2/KMC collided with a large-scale enemy
counterattack. It was nip and tuck for 3½ hours before the North
Koreans broke, but, by midmorning, the KMCs were in possession of
Division Objective 3 and consolidating for defense. They were not a
moment too soon in these preparations, for the enemy
counterattacked at 1230 and put up a hot fight for two hours before
retiring.
This action completed the battle for Corps Objective YOKE. At
1800 on 3 September, the 1st Marine Division was in full possession
of the hays Line, dominating the entire northern rim of the
Punchbowl (Map 18). Reports from the U.S. 2d Infantry Division and
5th ROK Division, attacking in sectors to the west, indicated that the
pressure exerted by the Marines was assisting these units. Large
gains had been made on the west side of the Punchbowl against
comparatively light resistance.
On 4 September, with all objectives consolidated, 1st Marine
Division units patrolled northward from defensive positions. Plans
were being formed for the second phase of the Division attack—the
advance to seize the next series of commanding ridgelines, 4,000 to
7,000 yards forward of the present MLR.
The victory in the four-day battle had not been bought cheaply.
A total of 109 Marine KIA and 494 WIA (including KMCs) was
reported. nkpa casualties for the period were 656 counted KIA and 40
prisoners.
As evidence that the enemy had profited by the breathing spell
during the Kaesong truce talks, it was estimated that nkpa artillery
fire in the Punchbowl sector almost equalled the firepower provided
by the organic Marine artillery and the guns of attached U.S. Army
units. nkpa strength in mortars and machine guns also compared
favorably with that of Marines.
Supply Problems Cause Delay

Logistical shortages made it necessary for the 1st Marine
Division to call a six-day halt and build up a new reserve of artillery
and mortar ammunition.
During the first phase of the Division attack, the main burden of
transport and supply had fallen upon three Marine units—the 1st
Ordnance Battalion (Major Harold C. Borth), the 1st Motor Transport
Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Howard E. Wertman), and the 7th
Motor Transport Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Carl J. Cagle). The
extraordinary expenditure of artillery shells for these four days posed
a resupply problem that was aggravated by an almost impassable
supply route. The three Marine battalions had to strain every
resource to meet minimal requirements.
Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) 60-B, a U.S. Army installation
manned by elements of the Marine 1st Ordnance Battalion, was
located about five miles behind the gun positions. From this dump it
was 48 miles to Hongchon, the source of supplies for ASP 60-B. A
well maintained, two-lane dirt road led from that base to Inje, but
northward it deteriorated into a narrow, twisting trail following the
Soyang valley. Recent rains, resulting in earth slides and mudholes,
had reduced the road to such a condition that the round trip
273
between ASP 60-B and Hongchon took 25 hours.
273
1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51, 4, 7.
As an added complication, it was necessary to build up a 10-day

reserve of ammunition at ASP 60-B so that Division transport would
be available for lifting 2,000 rotated troops to Chunchon some time
between 3 and 15 September. This meant that 50 to 60 Marine
trucks must be employed daily to haul ammunition, with the result of
a drastic shortage of motor transport for other purposes.
Only human transport was available for supplying Marines on the
firing line. X Corps started the month of September with 20,070
Korean Service Corps, the successor to CTC, and civilian contract
laborers—the equivalent in numbers of a U.S. Army infantry division.
Even so, 14 air drops were necessary during the month, only one of
which went to a Marine unit. This took place on 1 September, when
20 Air Force cargo planes from Japan dropped ammunition and
274
rations to the KMCs. A 90 percent recovery was reported.
274
X Corps Cmd Rpt, Sep 51, 41–42; 1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51, 5–6.
It generally took a full day in the 1st Marine Division zone during
the first week of September for a cargador to complete the trip from
a battalion supply point to the front lines and return. This made it
necessary to assign from 150 to 250 Korean laborers to each
infantry battalion. And as the Marines advanced farther into the
rugged Korean highlands, the logistic problem was increased.
Resumption of Division Attack

Enemy groups moving southward into the zone of the 1st Marine
Division during the six-day lull were sighted by air observation. POW
interrogations and other G-2 sources established that the 2d nkpa
Division, II Corps, had been relieved by the 1st nkpa Division, III
Corps. Accurate 76mm fire from well-hidden guns was received by
the Marines throughout the interlude, and patrols ran into brisk
mortar fire when they approached too near to enemy bunkers on Hill
673.
For the second time, during the night of 4–5 September, 5th
Marines units were assailed on the kansas Line, 5 miles to the rear of
the 7th Marines troops similarly deployed along the hays Line. Yet a
large 7th Marines patrol ranged forward some 2,000 yards the next
day without enemy contacts. A like result was reported by a patrol
representing almost the entire strength of the Division
Reconnaissance Company (Major Robert L. Autry) after it scoured
275
the area north of the Punchbowl.
275
This section, except when otherwise specified, is based on the
following sources: eusak Cmd Rpt, Sep 51, 38–53; X Corps Cmd
Rpt, Sep 51, 9–12; 1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51, 8–14; 7th Mar HD, Sep
51; 1st, 2d, and 3d Bns of 7th Mar, HDs for Sep 51.
1st Marine Division OpnO 23-51, issued on the morning of 9

September, called for the 7th Marines to jump off at 0300 on the
11th and attack Objectives able and baker—Hills 673 and 749
respectively—white maintaining contact with the 8th ROK Division on
the right. Other Division units were given these missions:
1st Marines—to be released from X Corps reserve near

Hongchon to Division control; to be prepared to pass
through the 7th Marines, when that regiment secured
its objectives, and continue the attack to seize
Objective charlie, the ridgeline leading northwest from
Hill 1052.
5th Marines—to maintain one company on kansas line while
occupying positions in Division reserve along hays Line
in rear of 7th Marines.
KMC Regiment—to patrol aggressively on Division left to
exert pressure on enemy defenses south and southeast
of Objective charlie.
11th Marines—to displace forward to support attack of the
7th Marines.
Division Reconnaissance Company—to patrol northward in
the Soyang valley as far as Hwanggi to deny the
enemy this area.
The area ahead of the 7th Marines was ideal for defense. From
yoke Ridge the assault troops had to descend into a narrow valley
formed by a small tributary of the Soyang-gang, cross the stream,
and climb Kanmubong Ridge on the other side. This formidable piece
of terrain was dominated by three enemy positions, Hills 812, 980,
and 1052 (Map 17). Thus the attack of the 7th Marines had as its
primary purpose the securing of initial objectives on Kanmubong
Ridge that would give access to the main nkpa defense line, some
4,000 yards to the north.
The 7th Marines was to seize the eastern tip (Objective able) of
this commanding terrain feature and “run the ridge” to Hill 749,
Objective baker. While Lieutenant Colonel Louis G. Griffin’s 2/7
maintained its patrolling activities on the left, tied in with the KMCs,
Lieutenant Colonel B. T. Kelly’s 3/7 in the center and Lieutenant
Colonel J. G. Kelly’s 1/7 on the right were to attack.
As an intermediate regimental objective on the way to
Kanmubong Ridge, the 680-meter hill directly north of B. T. Kelly’s
position on Hill 602 was assigned to his battalion. He ordered How
Company to move forward under cover of darkness and be prepared
to attack at dawn. Rain and poor visibility delayed the attempt until
surprise was lost, and after a fierce fire fight How Company was
stopped halfway up the southeast spur.
In order to relieve the pressure, the battalion commander
directed Item Company to attack on the left up the southwest spur.
This maneuver enabled How Company to inch forward under heavy
mortar and machine gun fire to a point with 50 yards of the
topographical crest. Item Company became confused in the “fog of
war” and finally wound up on How’s spur at 1245.
Twice the two companies made a combined assault after artillery
and mortar preparation and air strikes with napalm, rocket, and
strafing fire. Both times the North Koreans swarmed out of their
bunkers to drive the Marines halfway back to the original jump off
line. It was anybody’s fight when the two battered companies dug in
at dusk.
Across the valley to the east, J. G. Kelly’s 1/7 had no better
fortune in its attack on Hill 673. Heavy enemy mortar and machine
gun fire kept the assault troops pinned down until they consolidated
for the night.
With both attacking battalions in trouble, Colonel Nickerson
ordered 2/7 to advance up the narrow valley separating them. His
plan called for the reserve battalion to move under cover of darkness
around the left flank of 1/7 and into a position behind the enemy
before wheeling to the northeast to trap the North Koreans
defending Hill 673.
The maneuver succeeded brilliantly. Griffin’s troops were
undetected as they filed northward during the night, making every
effort to maintain silence. By daybreak on 12 September 2/7 had
276
two platoons in position behind the enemy to lead the attack.
276
LtCol E. G. Kurdziel interv, 13 Jun 58.
The assault exploded with complete surprise as 2/7 swept to the

crest of Hill 673 against confused and ineffectual opposition. Griffin’s
battalion and 1/7 had the enemy between them, but the jaws of the
trap could not close in time because of nkpa mine fields. Thus 1/7
continued to be held up on the forward approaches to Hill 673 by
nkpa mortar and small-arms fire. Grenades were the most effective
weapons as J. G. Kelly’s men slugged their way to the summit at
1415 while 2/7 was attacking Objective baker, Hill 749.
On the other side of the valley, 3/7 had seized its initial
objective. While How and Item Companies attacked up the southeast
spur, where they had been stopped the day before, George Company
launched a surprise assault up the southwest spur. This was the
blow that broke the enemy’s will to resist. George Company knocked
out seven active enemy bunkers, one by one, thus taking the
pressure off the troops on the other spur. At 1028 all three
companies met on the summit.
The 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, radioed that Objective baker had
been secured at 1710 after a hard fight, but this report proved to be
premature. Enough nkpa troops to give the Marines a good deal of
trouble were still holding the wooded slopes of Hill 749, and it would
take the attack of a fresh battalion to dislodge them. Along the
ridgeline from Hill 673 to Hill 749, an undetermined number of
enemy soldiers had been caught between 2/7 and 1/7, and events
were to prove that they would resist as long as a man remained
alive.
Casualties of the 1st Marine Division on 11 and 12 September
were 22 KIA and 245 WIA, nearly all of them being suffered by the
assault regiment. Enemy losses included 30 counted KIA and 22
prisoners.
The Mounting Problem of CAS

With the Division in reserve from 15 July until the latter part of
August, close air support (CAS) was not a vital problem; however,
upon return to the Punchbowl area the situation became serious.
The difficulties arose from the time lag between the request for air
support to the time the planes arrived over target. The 1st Marine
Aircraft Wing operating under the control of the Fifth Air Force was
busily employed on interdiction missions. On 30 August, a tactical air
observer, spotting what appeared to be a division of nkpa troops
moving toward the Marines, hurriedly flashed back a request for a
multi-plane strike. The enemy troops were beyond artillery range,
but they were bunched up—a good target for a concentrated air
strike. It was more than three hours later that four fighter bombers
arrived on the scene; by that time, the enemy formation had
dispersed and the desired number of casualties could not be
277
inflicted.
277
CG 1stMarDiv ltr to CinCPacFlt, 4 Oct 51, enclosure (1)
“Observations on Close Air Support for the 1st Marine Division
during 5–23 September 1951.”
The reason for this lack of timely air support was apparent. Most
of the UN air power was being funneled into Operation strangle, the
interdiction operation designed to cut off the enemy’s vehicular and
rail traffic in the narrow waist of North Korea. With the emphasis on
air interdiction, close air support sorties were limited to only 96 per
278
day for the entire Eighth Army. The 1st Marine Division received
only a proportionate share.
278
PacFlt interim Rpt No. 3, VI, 6-6, 6-7; 1stMarDiv SAR, Jun 51.
Marine close air support was needed because of the enemy’s
determined resistance to the Division’s attack. The Reds hurled
frequent night counterattacks and pounded the Marine positions with
artillery and mortars hidden in the precipitous Punchbowl area. At
one time it was estimated that the enemy was using 92 pieces of
artillery. The Marines had only 72 field pieces, but in one 24-hour
period they expended more than 11,000 rounds of artillery
ammunition on a 6,000-yard frontage. The enemy emplacements,
hewn out of solid rock, were hard to knock out.
To support the hard-working infantrymen, Marine Aircraft Group
12 (MAG-12) had moved VMF-214 and VMF-312 from the Pusan area
to K-18, an airfield on the east coast at Kangnung. By moving closer
to the Division area, planes were able to extend their time over the
target area and render more effective support to the infantry. Also,
Marine Air Support Radar Team One (MASRT-1) was sent to Korea
and established positions to support the Division. Using its support
radar the team began to evaluate its capability of guiding unseen
279
fighter-bombers at night or under conditions of poor visibility.
279
PacFlt Interim Rpt No. 3, Chap. 9, 9–18; Chap. 10, 10–12, Chap.
15, 15–20, 60–61; Gen G. C. Thomas interv, 21 Jan 59.
Even though the Corsairs at K-18 were less than 50 miles from
the 1st Marine Division, very few were available to the Marines.
Operation strangle, in full swing, was not achieving the desired
results. Since sightings of enemy vehicles were increasing, more and
more Marine and Navy air sorties were channeled into interdiction.
During 18 days of rugged fighting from 3 to 21 September, forward
air controllers made 182 tactical air requests. Fighter-bombers were
provided on 127 of these requests; however, in only 24 instances did
the planes arrive when needed. The average delay time in getting
CAS in response to requests during September was slightly less than
two hours, but in 49 cases the planes were more than two hours
280
late. As a consequence, General Thomas reported, many of the
1,621 casualties suffered by the 1st Marine Division during the hard
fighting in September were due to inadequate close air support.
Furthermore, he said, the tactical capabilities of his battalions were
strongly restricted.
280
PacFlt Interim Rpt No. 3, Chap. 9, 9–14.
During the planning of attacks, infantry commanders almost

always desired and requested close air support. It was also desirable
to have planes on station overhead should an immediate CAS need
arise, for the lack of an air strike when needed could jeopardize
success. However, with restricted availability of CAS planes due to
participation in strangle, many times desired air cover was not to be
had. Attacks under those circumstances were often costly.
First Helicopter Supply Operation of History

The relief of the three battalions of the 7th Marines by their
corresponding numbers of Colonel Thomas A. Wornham’s 1st
Marines took place during the night of 12–13 September. By
daybreak 3/1 and 1/1 had assumed responsibility for the zones of
3/7 and 1/7, which were on their way to Division reserve at
Wontong-ni at the junction of the Inje and Kansong roads. In the
center, however, 2/1 could not complete the relief of 2/7. Not only
was that battalion engaged most of the day with the enemy, but the
units were separated—one company south of Hill 749 being unable
to join the other two companies on separate spurs northwest of that
height. All three were under persistent nkpa mortar and 76mm
281
fire.
281
Sources for this section are as follows: eusak Cmd Rpt, Sep 51,
35–53; X Corps Cmd Rpt, Sep 51, 9–12; 1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51,
10–16; 1st Marines HD, Sep 51; 1/1, 2/1, and 3/1 HD, Sep 51;
Class “C” Rpt, Employment of Assault Helicopters, 1–6; Lynn
Montross, Cavalry of the Sky (New York, 1954), 159–162,
(hereafter Cavalry of the Sky).
The attack of the 1st Marines, originally scheduled for 0500 on
13 September, had been changed to 0900 by Division orders. One
reason for the postponement was the serious shortage of
ammunition and other supplies after the urgent demands of the last
two days. Another reason was the inability of VMO-6 helicopters,
lifting two wounded men at most, to cope with the mounting
casualty lists. Enemy interdiction of roads added in several instances
to the complications of a major logistical problem, particularly in the
zone of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin B. Nihart’s 2d Battalion, 1st
Marines.
The hour had struck for HMR-161, and the world’s first large-
scale helicopter supply operation in a combat zone would soon be
under way. It was not the development of a day. On the contrary, its
roots went all the way back to 1945, when the atomic bomb of
Hiroshima rendered obsolescent in 10 seconds a system of
amphibious assault tactics that had been 10 years in the making.
Obviously, the concentrations of transports, warships, and aircraft
carriers that had made possible the Saipan and Iwo Jima landings
would be sitting ducks for an enemy armed with atomic weapons.
The problem was left on the doorstep of the Marine Corps
Schools, which had reared the Fleet Marine Force from infancy to
maturity during the 1930’s. A Special Board and Secretariat were
appointed for studies. They assigned two general missions to Marine
Helicopter Experimental Squadron 1 (HMX-1), organized late in 1947
before the first rotary-wing aircraft had been delivered. These
missions were:
(1) Develop techniques and tactics in connection with the

movement of assault troops by helicopter in amphibious
operations;
(2) Evaluate a small helicopter as a replacement for the
present OY type aircraft to be used for gunfire spotting,
observation, and liaison missions in connection with
282
amphibious operation.
282
CMC ltr to CO MCAS, Quantico, 3 Dec 47.
The second mission resulted in the small Sikorsky and Bell

helicopters of VMO-6 which landed in Korea with the 1st Provisional
Marine Brigade in August 1950. Although it was originally believed
that rotary wing aircraft might replace the OYs, combat experience
soon demonstrated that the best results were obtained by retaining
both types in fairly equal numbers.
Landing exercises under simulated combat conditions were
conducted by HMX-1 in fulfillment of the first mission. At first the
squadron had only three-place helicopters. Later, when the
usefulness of the helicopter was fully realized, even the new 10-
place “choppers” were never available in sufficient numbers. The
capacity designations of these machines, however, were more ideal
than real, for the helicopters could lift only four to six men in
addition to the pilot, copilot, and crewman. Despite such drawbacks,
HMX-1 developed tactical and logistical techniques for helicopter
landings to be made from widely dispersed carriers against an
enemy using atomic weapons.
Belated deliveries of aircraft delayed the commissioning of the
world’s first transport helicopter squadron, HMR-161, until 15
January 1951 at El Toro. Lieutenant Colonel George W. Herring was
designated the commanding officer and Lieutenant Colonel William
P. Mitchell the executive officer.
Nearly three months passed before the first three transport
helicopters arrived. The squadron was gradually built up to a
strength of 43 officers and 244 enlisted men with a full complement
of 15 HRS-1 helicopters. These Sikorsky aircraft, designed to Marine
specifications, were simply an enlarged three-place HO3S in
configuration, with a similar main rotor and vertical tail rotor. About
62 feet long with maximum extension of rotor blades, the HRS-1 was
11½ feet wide with the blades folded. Following are some of the
other statistics:
Gross weight at sea level, 7,000 pounds; cruising speed, 60
knots; payload at sea level, 1,420 pounds; troop-lifting capacity, four
to six men with full combat equipment or three to five casualties in
283
litters. Capabilities varied, of course, according to such factors as
altitude, temperature, and pilot experience.
283
Cavalry of the Sky, 157.
Marine Transport Helicopter Squadron 161 arrived in Korea on

the last day of August, and by the 10th of September it had moved
284
up to the front, sharing Airfield X-83 (see Map 18) with VMO-6.
The 11th was devoted to reconnaissance flights in search of landing
sites, and on the 12th the transport squadron was ready for its first
combat mission. A new means of logistical and tactical support that
was to revolutionize operations and create front page headlines had
arrived in Korea.
284
Auxiliary airstrips in Korea had an “X” designation and fields in the
“K” category were major installations. Those in proximity to U.S.
Army centers were designated “A.”
Prior to the squadron’s arrival, the Division chief of staff, Colonel

Victor H. Krulak, had held numerous planning conferences with
Division staff officers, and preparations for the employment of HMR-
161 had made noteworthy progress. Then General Thomas ordered
executed the first operation of the squadron under combat
conditions, and the major logistical problem of moving supplies and
evacuating casualties was well on the way to being solved. At 1600
on 13 September 1951—a date that would have historical
significance—Operation windmill I was set in motion.
Lieutenant Colonel Herring had attended the final planning
conference at Division headquarters at 0830 on the 13th, and he
was told that the operation would involve a lift of one day’s supplies
to 2/1 over a distance of seven miles. The commanding officer of
2/1 was to select suitable landing points and the commanding officer
of 1st Shore Party Battalion had the responsibility of providing
285
support teams to operate at the embarkation and landing points.
285
LtCol H. W. Edwards, interv of 20 Feb 61.
Only two days had been available for training and rehearsals, but
not a minute was wasted. All morning on the 13th the embarkation
point section separated the supplies into balanced loads of about
800 pounds per helicopter. Loading commenced at 1520. Half an
hour later, seven aircraft were ready to depart while four others
went ahead to carry the landing point section to the previously
reconnoitered site.
The route followed the valleys as much as possible, so that the
helicopters were in defilade most of the way. Smoke was laid down
by the 11th Marines for concealment.
The landing point section managed in 20 minutes to clear an
area of 20 × 40 feet (later enlarged to 100 × 100 feet) and mark it
with fluorescent panels. At 1610 the first HRS-1 hovered with cargo
nets suspended from a hook released by manual control. A few
minutes later it took off with five walking wounded and two litter
cases.
Each helicopter carried out as many casualties as possible,
depending on the amount of gasoline in the fuel tanks. Only 30
minutes passed from the time one Marine was wounded and the
time of his arrival at a hospital clearing station 17 miles behind the
firing line.
Radio provided communications between helicopters in flight,
HMR-161 headquarters, 2/1 CP, and the Shore Party team at the
landing site.
Fifteen aircraft were employed for one hour, three for two hours,
and one for two hours and 45 minutes—a total of 28 flights in over-
all time of 2½ hours. The helicopters landed at intervals of two
minutes and took off as soon as the landing point section could put
the casualties aboard. And though an altitude of 2,100 feet
restricted loads, 18,848 pounds of cargo had been lifted into the
area and 74 casualties evacuated when the last “chopper” returned
to X-83 at 1840.
To even the most pessimistic observer Operation windmill I was a
complete success, so successful that a similar operation, windmill ii
was conducted on the 19th. Two days later the first helicopter lift of
combat troops was completed. A new era of military transport had
dawned.
The Fight for Hill 749

Although 2/1 alone had 240 Korean cargadores attached, the
7½ tons of helicopter-borne supplies, largely ammunition, were
vitally needed by the two assault battalions of the 1st Marines. After
relieving Fox Company of 2/7 south of Hill 749 at 1100 on the 13th,
Lieutenant Colonel Nihart’s 2/1 jumped off to the attack an hour
later. Stiff opposition was encountered from the beginning. The relief
of the remaining two companies of 2/7 was complicated by the fact
that they were some 400 yards from the position reported, on the
reverse slope of Hill 749. Throughout the day these Marines were
286
heavily engaged with the enemy.
286
Sources for this section are the same as for the previous section
except when otherwise noted.
On the left of 2/1, the 3d Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Foster C.

La Hue) could not make much progress toward its regimental
objective, Hill 751, while the enemy was active on Hill 749. A second
attack of 2/1 at 1500 drove to the summit of that height after fierce
fighting with small arms, automatic weapons, and hand grenades.
There was still much fighting to be done before the entire objective
would be secured since many enemy bunkers hidden among the
trees remained to be neutralized.
At 1600 a gap of about 300 yards separated 2/1 from the two
2/7 companies. So fierce was enemy resistance in this area that it
took until 2025 for Nihart’s men to complete the relief after fighting
for every foot of ground.
Air and artillery support had been excellent on the 13th despite
the fact that neither could be called by 2/1 in some instances
because of the danger of hitting elements of 2/7. Even so, 2/11
(Lieutenant Colonel Dale H. Heely) and other artillery units fired
2,133 rounds and Company C of the 1st Tank Battalion (Lieutenant
Colonel Holly H. Evans) contributed 720 rounds of 90mm fire which
knocked out six enemy bunkers. The 4.2″ mortars had a busy day
firing 261 HE and 28 WP rounds, and Company C of the 1st Engineer
Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel John V. Kelsey) supported the attack by
clearing mine fields.
Mortar fire was received by the 1st Marines throughout the
night, and 3/1 repulsed a series of counterattacks by an estimated
300 enemy. Colonel Wornham’s regiment continued the attack at
0800 on 14 September. Both the 2d and 3d Battalions inched their
way forward against a heavy volume of well-aimed enemy mortar,
artillery, and automatic weapons fire.
nkpa resistance persisted on the wooded northern slope of Hill
749, where hidden bunkers had to be knocked out, one by one. It
took constant slugging for 2/1 to advance 300 meters before dusk,
enabling 3/1 to fight its way to the summit of Hill 751. Again the flat
trajectory fire of Company C tanks had been helpful as 400 rounds
were directed against nkpa bunkers, while the 11th Marines fired
3,029 rounds.
The 15th was a relatively quiet day as compared to the previous
48 hours. In preparation for an expected passage of lines, the action
took a slower tempo as units consolidated their positions. The
principal fight of the day was a continuation of the attack by 2/1
north of Hill 749. Although the battalion commander had arranged
for a heavy artillery preparation, the attack, which jumped off at
1710, was stopped at 1800 by a terrific pounding from nkpa mortars
and artillery coupled with a crossfire of machine guns from
concealed bunkers. The assault troops withdrew under effective
covering fire by the 11th Marines to positions occupied the previous
night. Objective baker yet remained to be secured.
The Marines could not help paying reluctant tribute to the skill as
well as obstinacy of the nkpa defense. Enemy bunkers were so stoutly
constructed that the North Koreans did not hesitate to direct well
aimed mortar fire on their own positions when the Marines closed in
for the final attack.
Nkpa fields of fire were laid out for the utmost effect. Marines
with recent memories of college football referred to the enemy’s
effective use of terrain as the “North Korean T Formation.” On Hill
749, for example, the main ridgeline leading to the summit was
crossed by another wooded ridgeline at right angles. Attackers
fighting their way up the leg of the “T” came under deadly crossfire
from the head of the imaginary letter—a transverse ridgeline
bristling with mortars and machine guns positioned in bunkers.
In accordance with Division OpnO 25-51, the 5th Marines
(Colonel Richard C. Weede) moved up to assembly areas on 15
September in preparation for passing through 3/1 on the 16th to
continue the attack. The 3d Battalion, 1st Marines in turn would
relieve 1/1 (Major Edgar F. Carney, Jr.), so that it could pass through
2/1 and carry on the assault to complete the securing of Hill 749.
The KMCs and Division Recon Company were to relieve the 5th
Marines of responsibility for the hays Line, while the 7th Marines
remained in reserve at Wontong-ni.
The comparative quiet of the 15th was shattered a minute after
midnight when the enemy launched a savage four-hour attack to
drive 2/1 off Hill 749. The nkpa hurricane barrage that preceded the
attempt, according to the Division report, “reached an intensity that
was estimated to surpass that of any barrage yet encountered by
287
the 1st Marine Division in Korea.”
287
1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51, 19–20.
The thinned companies of 2/1 took a frightful pounding from

76mm, 105mm, and 122mm artillery supplemented by 82mm and
120mm mortars. Bugles and whistles were the signal for the
onslaught. It was stopped by weary Marines who demonstrated at
nkpa expense that they, too, could put up a resolute defensive fight.
Wave after wave of attackers dashed itself at the thinned Marine

platoons, only to shatter against a resistance that could be bent but
not broken. The fight was noteworthy for examples of individual
valor. When one of the forward Marine platoons was compelled to
give ground slowly, Corporal Joseph Vittori of Fox Company rushed
through the withdrawing troops to lead a successful local
counterattack. As the all-night fight continued, “he leaped from one
foxhole to another, covering each foxhole in turn as casualties
continued to mount, manning a machine gun when the gunner was
struck down and making repeated trips through the heaviest shell
288
fire to replenish ammunition.”
288
Jane Blakeney, ed., Heroes, U.S. Marine Corps, 1861–1955
(Washington, 1957), Joseph Vittori Medal of Honor Citation, 45.
Vittori was mortally wounded during the last few minutes of the
fight, thus becoming the second Marine of 2/1 within a 48-hour
period to win the Medal of Honor. His predecessor was Pfc Edward
Gomez of Easy Company. When an enemy grenade landed in the
midst of his squad on 14 September, he “unhesitatingly chose to
sacrifice himself and, diving into the ditch with the deadly missile,
absorbed the shattering violence of the explosion in his own
289
body.”
289
Ibid., Pfc Edward Gomez citation, 38.
Not until 0400 on the 16th did the enemy waves of attack
subside on Hill 749. Nkpa strength was estimated at a regiment. A
combined assault by an estimated 150 enemy on 3/1 positions to
the west in the vicinity of Hill 751 was repulsed shortly after
midnight, as were three lesser efforts during the early morning
hours of the 16th.
When the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines moved out at 0830 to pass
through 2/1 and continue the fight, it was the first day of command
290
for Lieutenant Colonel John E. Gorman. The passage of lines was
slowed by enemy mortar fire, and nkpa resistance stiffened as 1/1
attacked along the ridgeline leading toward Hill 749. At 1800, after a
hard day’s fighting, Objective baker was occupied and defensive
positions were organized for the night.
290
On 14 September, LtCol Horace E. Knapp, Jr., the previous
commanding officer of 1/1, was severely wounded while
reconnoitering forward positions. He was evacuated, and the
executive officer, Major Edgar F. Carney, Jr., commanded until
LtCol John E. Gorman assumed command at noon on the 16th.
Thus was the attack of the 1st Marines terminated. Around Hill
751, 3/1 remained in control. The regiment’s other two battalions,
1/1 and 2/1, held a defensive line about 1,500 yards long on both
sides of Hill 749.
Hill 749 had finally been secured. A number of mutually
supporting hidden enemy bunkers had been knocked out in a
ruthless battle of extermination, and veterans of the World War II
Pacific conflict were reminded of occasions when Japanese
resistance flared up in similar fashion after ground was thought to
be secure.
Casualties of the 1st Marine Division during the four-day fight for
Hill 749, most of them suffered by the attacking regiment, were 90
KIA, 714 WIA, and 1 MIA. Enemy losses for the same period were
771 counted KIA (although more than twice that number were
estimated KIA) and 81 prisoners.
5th Marines Attack Hill 812
Division OpnO 25-51 assigned the 5th Marines the mission of
passing through 3/1 in the vicinity of Hill 751 and attacking to secure
Objective dog, the bare, brown hill mass which loomed
approximately 1,000 yards ahead. The last few hundred yards were
certain to be long ones, for the main east-west ridgeline leading to
Hill 812 was crossed by a north-south ridgeline—the leg and head of
another “T” formation. Again, as on Hill 749, the attackers had to
fight their way through a vicious crossfire.
Lieutenant Colonel Houston Stiff’s 2/5 on the right had the main
effort. The 3d Battalion, 5th Marines (Lieutenant Colonel Donald R.
Kennedy) was to advance on Stiff’s left with the mission of
supporting his attack on Objective dog, prepared to seize Hill 980 on
order. Lieutenant Colonel William P. Alston’s 1/5 remained in
291
regimental reserve.
291
Sources for this section, unless otherwise specified are as follows:
1stMarDiv HD, Sep 51, 19–23; 5thMar HD, Sep 51, 14–19; 1st,
2d, and 3dBn, 5th Mar, HD, Sep 51; LtCol Houston Stiff, interv of
25 Jun 58; Maj G. P. Averill, “Final Objective,” Marine Corps
Gazette, vol. 40, no. 8 (Aug 56), 10–16.
Fox Company spearheaded the 2/5 attack by moving initially up

the low ground between Hill 673 on the right hand and 680 on the
left. Owing to delays in completing the relief of 1st Marines
elements, it was early afternoon on 16 September before the assault
got underway. Progress was slow against heavy mortar and machine
gun fire, and a halt came at 1700 for regrouping and evacuation of
casualties.
Dog Company, in support on the ridge to the left, sighted troops
approaching the objective and requested that the positions of the
assault company be identified. In order to pinpoint the locations, a
white phosphorous grenade was used as a mark. It attracted the
attention of aircraft summoned by 3/5 against Hill 980 (Map 17),
from which fire had been received. The planes, assuming that
another target had been designated, attacked the forward platoons
of Fox Company with napalm and machine guns. By a miracle,
recognition panels were put out before a single casualty resulted,
but the men found it a harrowing experience.
Darkness fell before the attack could be resumed, and Fox
Company pulled back along the ridgeline to set up a perimeter
defense and evacuate the wounded. The night passed without
enemy action. Bright moonlight made for unusual visibility which
discouraged enemy attacks and permitted the Marine assault
platoons more sleep than might otherwise have been expected.
Regimental orders called for 2/5 to resume the attack at 0400 on
the 17th, supported by the fires of 3/5, while 1/5 continued in
reserve. Fox Company of 2/5 had some difficulty in orienting itself
after the confusion of the night before and was delayed until 0700 in
jumping off. This proved to be a stroke of luck, for dawn gave the
Marines a good view of unsuspecting enemy troops eating breakfast
and making ready for the day’s fighting. Fox Company called artillery
on them with good effect.
Surprise gave the attack an opening advantage and rapid
progress was made at first along the main ridgeline leading west to
Hill 812. Then Fox Company was stopped by the crossfire from the
head of the “T.” Easy Company passed through at 0830 to continue
the assault, reinforced by a platoon of Fox Company that had
become Separated from its parent unit, although it kept in touch by
radio.
An air strike was called but did not materialize. After waiting for
it in vain, Easy Company drove toward the summit with the support
of artillery and mortars.
Two hours after passing through Fox Company, the attackers had
advanced only about a hundred yards against the nkpa crossfire. At
1100, Lieutenant Colonel Stiff ordered an all-out drive for the
objective, following a preliminary barrage of everything that could be
thrown at the enemy—artillery, 75mm recoilless, rockets, and 81mm
and 4.2″ mortars. As soon as the bombardment lifted, Easy
Company was to drive straight ahead along the ridgeline while the
2d Platoon of Fox Company made a flank attack.
This maneuver turned the trick. The blow on the flank took the
enemy by surprise, and in just 36 minutes the assault troops were
on the summit after a hard fight at close quarters with automatic
weapons and grenades. Since regimental orders had specified
“before nightfall,” Objective dog had been seized ahead of schedule.
With scarcely a pause, Easy Company continued along the
ridgeline leading west from Hill 812 toward Hill 980. Remarkably fast
progress was made against an enemy who appeared to be thrown
off balance. Permission was asked to seize Hill 980. The regimental
commander refused because of instructions from Division to the
effect that this position could not be defended while the enemy
remained in possession of Hill 1052, the key terrain feature. Easy
Company was directed to withdraw 600 yards toward Hill 812.
Late in the evening of 17 September, Colonel Weede directed his
two assault battalions to consolidate on the best ground in their
present locations and prepare to hold a defensive line.
When the brakes were put on the attack, 3/5 was strung out
over a wide area to the north of Hill 751. This battalion was not tied
in with 2/5, which occupied positions coordinated for the defense of
Hill 812—Easy Company to the west, on the ridgeline leading to 980;
Dog and Weapons Company to the south, protecting the left flank;
and Fox Company to the east.
Both Easy and Fox Companies were under fire from Hills 980 and
1052, and daytime movement on 812 was restricted to the northern
slope. Even so, sniping shots from well aimed North Korean 76mm
mountain guns inflicted a number of casualties.
The Struggle for the “Rock”
An abrupt change in the enemy’s strategy became evident
throughout these September operations. Where he had previously
contented himself with an elastic defense, every position was now
bitterly fought for and held to the last man. When it was lost,
counterattacks were launched in efforts to regain it.
One of these attempts hit the western outpost of 2/5’s Easy
Company at 0430 on 18 September, compelling the Marines to give
ground. A second counterattack at 0840 was repulsed. Enemy fire
from Hills 980 and 1042 continued all day long, and Colonel Stiff’s
battalion suffered most of the 16 KIA and 98 WIA casualties
reported by the Division for 18 September.
The night of 18–19 September passed in comparative quiet, but
at daylight the enemy on Hills 980 and 1052 was still looking down
the throats of the 2/5 Marines. None of the participants will ever
forget a landmark known simply as “the Rock”—a huge granite knob
athwart the ridgeline approximately 700 yards west of Hill 812. Only
12 feet high, its location made it visible from afar. The Marines
outposted the top and eastern side, while the enemy held
tenaciously to the western side. Along the northern slope of the
ridge leading west to the Rock were the only positions affording
protection to the dug-in forward elements of the battalion.
The need for fortification materials such as sand bags, barbed
wire, and mines aggravated the already serious supply problems of
2/5. A request for helicopter support was sent at 1100 on the 19th
and approved immediately by General Thomas. Loading commenced
early the same afternoon, and Operation windmill ii was launched. A
total of 12,180 pounds were lifted by 10 HRS-1 aircraft in 16 flights
292
during the overall time of one hour.
292
Cavalry of the Sky, 162.
Again, on 19 September, 2/5 incurred most of the casualties
reported by the Division. During the day 1/5, after relieving the 1st
and 2d Battalions of the 1st Marines, moved up on the right of 2/5
to occupy a defensive line stretching two miles east along the ridge
almost to the Soyang-gang.
Nkpa action was confined to incessant long-range fire during the
daylight hours of the 19th, but at 0315 the following morning the
enemy made a desperate effort to retake Hill 812. After a brief but
intense mortar and artillery barrage, North Koreans in at least
company strength came pouring around the northern side of the
Rock to attack with grenades and burp guns at close range. The left
platoon of Easy Company counterattacked but was pushed back by
superior numbers to positions on the left flank of the hill.
The enemy immediately took possession of evacuated ground
which enabled him to fire into the front lines of Easy Company. At
0500 another Marine counterattack began, with Easy Company
making a frontal assault and the 2d Platoon of Fox Company striking
the enemy flank. It was the same platoon that had delivered the
flank attack resulting in the capture of Hill 812. Again 2/Fox struck
the decisive blow with grenades and automatic weapons. The
surprise was too much for enemy troops who hastened back to their
293
own side of the Rock, leaving 60 counted dead behind.
293
1st Marine Division losses of 33 killed and 235 wounded during
the three-day attack were incurred for the must part by the 5th
Marines in general and 2/5 in particular. Enemy casualties of this
period were reported as 972 KIA (265 counted) and 113
prisoners.
This was the last action of a battle that had occupied all three
Marine regiments from 11 to 20 September inclusive while the KMC
Regiment patrolled aggressively on the Division left flank. Three of
the four Division objectives had been secured after savage fights,
but Objective charlie (the ridgeline northwest of Hill 1052 in the KMC
zone) had yet to be attacked when Division OpnO 26-51 put an
abrupt stop to offensive movement.
Not only was the fight west of Hill 812 the last action of the 1st
Marine Division’s nine-day battle; it was the last action of mobility for
Marines in Korea. As time went on, it would become more and more
apparent that 20 September 1951 dated a turning point in the
Korean conflict. On that day the warfare of movement came to an
end, and the warfare of position began.
CHAPTER X
The New Warfare of Position
Sectors of Major eusak Units—Statement by

General Van Fleet—Hill 854 Secured by 3/1—
Helicopter Troop Lift to Hill 884—Helicopter
Operation blackbird—“To Organize, Construct,
and Defend”—Marine Operations of November
1951—The Second Marine Christmas in Korea
T wo and a half weeks of hard fighting had taken place along

the X Corps front when General James A. Van Fleet paid a
visit on 16 September 1951. The commanding general of eusak
wished to inspect the operations and determine the morale of the
1st Marine Division and 2d Infantry Division, both of which had
suffered heavy casualties. He found the morale of these X Corps
units good and had no adverse criticisms of their operations. While
on this tour of inspection, however, he issued the following three
directives to X Corps:
(1) That replacements would be integrated into units only

when the battalion or larger-sized unit to which they were
assigned was in reserve;
(2) that certain ‘choke points’ [General Van Fleet pointed
out the locations on the map] be interdicted to prevent
enemy reinforcements or withdrawals through these points;
(3) that the Corps Commander firm up his line by 20
September and to plan no further offensives after that date,
294
as it was unprofitable to continue the bitter operation.
294
eusak Cmd Rpt, Sep 51, 47. Other sources for this chapter are
comments and criticisms by the following officers, all but one of
whom are U.S. Marines. Ranks in each instance are those held at
the time of interview or correspondence.
General J. A. Van Fleet, USA (Ret.); General G. C. Thomas,
Lieutenant General J. T. Selden; Brigadier Generals V. H. Krulak,
S. S. Wade, R. G. Weede; Colonels G. P. Groves, B. T. Hemphill,
K. L. McCutcheon, J. H. Tinsley, F. B. Nihart, G. D. Gayle, W. P.
Mitchell, J. F. Stamm, F. P. Hager, Jr.; Lieutenant Colonels H. W.
Edwards, J. G. Kelly; Major R. L. Autry.
EUSAK DISPOSITIONS
20 SEPTEMBER 1951
MAP 19
Italics have been added to emphasize the importance of 20

September 1951 as the turning point when a warfare of position
replaced a warfare of movement throughout the remaining 22
months of the conflict in Korea. There are few dates as important in
the entire history of the war.
General Van Fleet reiterated his instructions on the 18th in a
confirming directive to the effect that X Corps continue making
limited attacks “until 20 September, after which ... units were to firm
295
up the existing line and to patrol vigorously forward of it.”
295
eusak Cmd Rpt, Sep 51, 53.
Sectors of Major eusak Units
At this turning point the Eighth Army had 14 divisions from four
corps committed along a 125-mile front across the peninsula. These
units were distributed (Map 19) as follows:
U.S. I CORPS
ROK 1st Division holding the left anchor in the Munsan-ni

area and controlling the 5th KMC Battalion on the
Kimpo Peninsula;
British 1st Commonwealth Division across the river Imjin
to the northeast;
U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Greek and Thai Battalions
attached) still farther to the northeast in the Yonchon
area;
U.S. 3rd Infantry Division (Belgian Battalion and Philippine
20th BCT attached) having the responsibility for the
vital Chorwon area;
U.S. IX CORPS
U.S. 25th Infantry Division (Turkish Brigade attached)

defending the area west of Kumhwa;
ROK 2d Division holding a sector east of Kumhwa;
U.S. 7th Infantry Division (Ethiopian Battalion attached) on
the right;
ROK 6th Division with a narrow sector as far east as the
Pukhan River, the Corps boundary;
U.S. 24th Infantry Division (Colombian Battalion attached)
in Corps reserve south of Hwachon;

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© 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

History and criticism. 2. English fiction-2oth century-

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The second mission resulted in the small Sikorsky and Bell

Marine Transport Helicopter Squadron 161 arrived in Korea on

Prior to the squadron’s arrival, the Division chief of staff, Colonel

The Fight for Hill 749

On the left of 2/1, the 3d Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel Foster C.

The thinned companies of 2/1 took a frightful pounding from

Wave after wave of attackers dashed itself at the thinned Marine

Fox Company spearheaded the 2/5 attack by moving initially up

Sectors of Major eusak Units—Statement by

T wo and a half weeks of hard fighting had taken place along