Approaching the terminal high ground in darkness, the 1st Battalion, 235th Regiment, veered off its course and mistakenly ascended a spur toward Hill 1282. The 3d Battalion, 236th Regiment, keeping contact as it advanced on the left, participated in the error and wound up at the foot of Hill 1240. Thus confronted with this precipitous mass instead of low, gently sloping Hill 1167, the 3d Battalion floundered for several hours and did not take part in the first attack against the Marine perimeter. It did, however, send out the usual screen of infiltrators. At 2200, submachine gunners and grenadiers of the 1st and Special Duty Companies, 1/235, commenced the preliminaries against Company E, 7th Marines on Hill 1282, believing they were engaging a Marine platoon on Hill 1240. The harassing force was driven off after failing to disrupt the Marine defenses. Almost two hours later, at 2345, Company D of 2/7 reported enemy infiltration on Hill 1240 a thousand yards to the east. Both Marine companies cancelled the patrols scheduled for the long saddle connecting their positions and went on a 100% alert. Captain Phillips, commanding Easy Company, had arranged two platoons in perimeter around the summit of Hill 1282, and the third he had deployed to the right rear, on a spur that dipped toward Yudam-ni. At midnight, after a period of silence across the company front, the initial CCF assault wave slammed into the northeastern arc of the perimeter, manned by First Lieutenant Yancey’s platoon. Marine firepower blunted this frontal attack, and the Reds tried to slip around the east side of the hilltop. They ran head-on into First Lieutenant Bey’s platoon entrenched on the spur and were thrown back. Resorting to grinding tactics, the Chinese repeatedly assaulted Company E’s position from midnight to 0200. Whistles and bugles blared over the reaches of North Ridge, and the charging squads of infantry met death stoically, to the tune of weird Oriental chants. When one formation was cut to pieces by machine-gun fire and grenades, another rose out of the night to take its place. By 0200, as the first attack began to taper off, the northeastern slopes of Hill 1282 lay buried under a mat of human wreckage. An hour later, the 1st and Special Duty Companies of the 1st Battalion, 235th CCF Regiment, had ceased to exist, having lost nearly every man of their combined total of over 200. Company E’s casualties had been heavy, but the Marines still held Hill 1282. [Illustration: ACTION AT 3/5’S CP MAP-15 ] On Hill 1240, a thousand yards to the east, infiltrators of the 3d Battalion, 236th CCF Regiment, probed Dog Company’s perimeter while Easy was under attack. By 0030, some of the harassing parties had side-slipped through the saddle separating Hill 1282 and opened fire on the 5th and 7th Regimental headquarters in Yudam-ni.