During the early morning blackness which found the enemy filling the vacuum on Hills 80 and 85, a stronger North Korean force--estimated at a battalion--marched out of Yongdungpo toward 2/1’s positions astride the Inchon-Seoul Highway.[340] In the van of the Red column were five T-34 tanks preceded, oddly enough, by a truck loaded with ammunition. Other vehicles, laden with less sensitive supplies, were safely interspersed among the infantry in the long file. [340] The account of this counterattack is taken from: 1st MarDiv _SAR_, Annex Peter Peter; 2/1 _SAR_; Sutter-Codispoti interv, 25 Jan 55; Cunliffe interv, 24 Aug 54; and CMH Citation for PFC W. C. Monegan, Jr. It will be remembered that Companies D and F, the latter in the fore, occupied high ground positions parallel to and south of the highway. Farther back, Easy Company’s line tied in at a right angle and extended to the north of the road. The troops of Fox Company, tense with anticipation in their advance deployment, heard the first distant sounds of clanking armor and racing engines sometime before 0400. The noise grew steadily louder until, at 0430, the shadows of the ammunition truck and T-34s passed beneath the Marine defenses and continued along the road toward Easy Company’s lines. At the latter, Private Oliver O’Neil, Jr., rose from behind his machine gun and shouted a challenge to the truck, which by this time was well out in front of the enemy tanks. O’Neil was cut down by automatic fire in answer, and pandemonium broke out on the highway. Obviously the North Koreans had stumbled into it again, just as they had done at Ascom City. Two T-34s stopped short of Easy Company’s front and opened up wildly. Companies D and F in turn exploded with machine guns, small arms, grenades, and mortars against the flank of the enemy column, while E fought to deny further passage along the road. Under the hail of fire from above, the Red soldiers milled about in panic and were slaughtered. Some flung themselves into roadside ditches, where the crowding only increased the odds of destruction. Others sought escape by scrambling up the slopes--into the very muzzles of Dog and Fox Company weapons. The T-34s began to lurch back and forth like trapped animals. Owing either to mines laid by Marine engineers or a grenade thrown from above, the ammunition truck exploded in a brilliant spectacle of pyrotechnics. In the midst of the furor, Private First Class Monegan moved across the hillside from Company F’s front with his rocket launcher. Observing his progress against the backdrop of flames from the truck, his comrades either held or shifted their fire to protect him.