The Chinese agreed to allow Tovar to carry a verbal message to ‘Pop’ Seeley. McLaughlin instructed Tovar to tell Seeley to stall for as long as he could; there was a chance that the entire force could be saved at daybreak, less than an hour hence.

Next, McLaughlin told the Chinese political officer, ‘We are not surrendering because you beat us. We are surrendering to get our wounded cared for. If we can’t get our wounded evacuated, we will fight on.’

Seeley, in the meantime, had assumed from the start that a relief expedition would be mounted from Hagaru-ri or Koto-ri at first light. For now, he thought the Chinese were being held back; the greatest threat seemed to come from the dank, subzero chill. Troop leaders constantly checked their subordinates and one another for signs of frostbite, and reminded all hands to keep their limbs in constant motion. The ammunition supply was another constant worry, for Seeley commanded mainly headquarters people who normally carried very few bullets.

When Seeley heard Tovar yelling his name in the dark, he ordered his troops to cease firing. Tovar approached and asked Seeley to accompany him into a field on the east side of the road. There he told the major what was going on and about McLaughlin’s desire to stall for as long as possible.

Farther on, the two Americans were met by two Chinese who spoke no English but nevertheless made it clear that Seeley was to have his troops put down their weapons and advance with their hands up. As the exchange was winding down, Major Eagen, who the Chinese had carried down from the heights, spoke out of the darkness and asked Seeley to come talk. Eagen, severely wounded in both legs, told Seeley everything he knew about McLaughlin’s situation and the PLA offer. He had seen the Chinese setting up heavy mortars on the roadway, so he urged Seeley to surrender. This was Seeley’s first inkling as to the size of the PLA force, but he still wanted to wait until dawn, which might bring relief.

Eagen was pleading the case of the many wounded when the Chinese interrupted the exchange. It was clear from their hand signs that they wanted a decision. Seeley asked Eagen to stall them, then walked back to his enclave by the river. He told Sergeant Tovar to ask McLaughlin to stall while he and his troops dug in more securely. He was not going to give in. By then, however, the Chinese were disarming McLaughlin’s people, only 40 of whom were capable of putting up further resistance.

Seeley was next approached by Warrant Officer Dee Yancey, who reported that he had reconnoitered the adjacent Changjin River and found that it was solid ice. There seemed to be no Chinese fire coming from the far shore, so Yancey suggested that the group break out. Seeley readily agreed.

The entire group, including the wounded, started west across the river toward a ridge that might provide good cover. Capraro’s force joined Seeley’s west of the river, and their men also came upon two seriously wounded Marines who had been lost on patrol three days earlier. Seeley’s group struggled up to the ridge, clambered over the top and turned south toward Koto-ri at an agonizingly slow pace.

Seeley’s group was out of sight of the Chinese on the MSR before sunrise, but Seeley heard voices and Chinese bugles approaching form the rear. Yancey, who had suffered painful shrapnel wounds in both legs and back, dropped behind as the first Chinese came over the ridge. A former Marine Corps rifle team shooter, Yancey quickly dropped two Chinese point men while the remainder of the American group scrambled down the slope. The Chinese patrol went to ground, and Yancey followed his countrymen, all of whom reached Koto-ri.

True to their word, the Chinese began assembling wounded captives, but only after they had disarmed the survivors and stolen every scrap of food they could winnow from the pockets and packs of the men facing an uncertain future in captivity–or in some cased, left behind in a hut. Most of the wounded were eventually returned to Koto-ri. Some, including Lloyd Dirst, succumbed to their wounds. Arthur Chidester and James Eagen were not repatriated with the other wounded, and no one ever saw either of them again. Several captives, including Guillermo Tovar, escaped while helping prepare the wounded for return to Koto-ri.

Of roughly 1,200 men involved in the tragedy on the MSR, 162 remain officially listed as killed or missing. Another 159 were wounded and repatriated. More than 300 American and British troops were marched off to prison camps. Of those, 18 Marines escaped the following spring. About two dozen Britons and several dozen American soldiers and Marines went to ground in the hills, cut off from friendly bases but determined to await rescue. Most of them were eventually saved. Of the 141 vehicles committed to the operation, 75 percent were destroyed.

If nothing else came of Task Force Drysdale’s disastrous run down the Chinese gauntlet, it strengthened a working bond between the U.S. and Royal marines that would serve both as they regrouped to fight their way out of the trap that was closing around them. The wounded Colonel Drysdale was among the survivors who made it to Hagaru-ri, but 41 Commando had suffered 61 casualties, which would increase to 93 before it and the bulk of the X Corps completed their ‘advance in another direction to reach the relative safety of Hungnam on the night of December 10, 1950.

After being evacuated to South Korea, 41 Commando was withdrawn to Japan to be reconstituted in January 1951. Before it departed, Colonel Drysdale’s report included some comments on his unit’s collaboration with the U.S. Marines: ‘This was the first time that the Marines of the two nations had fought side by side since the defense of the Peking Legations in 1900. Let it be said that the admiration of all ranks of 41 Commando for their brothers in arms was and is unbounded. They fought like tigers and their morale and esprit de corps is second to none’

As for the impression that the Royal Marines made on their American colleagues, one U.S. Marine spoke for most, if not all survivors of the ‘Frozen Chosin’: ‘I walked into Hagaru from Yudam-ni where I learned that the British had supplied us with a fighting force. Before that we laughed at the words `U.N. Forces’ because we had not seen the troops of any other nation except the Chinese. I was delighted to meet the British. When they came around you could stop looking for a fight, because they would be right in the middle of it….’

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This article was written by Eric Hammel for Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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