The busiest Marines at Hagaru on the 27th were the men of the 1st Engineer Battalion. While a Company B platoon built tent decks for the Division CP, detachments of Company A were at work on the maintenance of the MSR in the area, and Company D had the job of hacking out the new airstrip. Apparently the latter project had its “sidewalk contractors” even in sub-zero weather, for this comment found its way into the company report: Dozer work [was] pleasing to the eye of those who wanted activity but contributed little to the overall earth-moving problem of 90,000 cubic yards of cut and 60,000 cubic yards of fill.[427] [427] D/Engr _SAR_. Motor graders and scrapers with a 5.8 cubic yard capacity had been moved up from Hamhung. So difficult did it prove to get a bite of the frozen earth that steel teeth were welded to the blades. When the pan was filled, however, the earth froze to the cutting edges until it could be removed only by means of a jack hammer. The strip was about one-fourth completed on the 27th, according to minimum estimates of the length required. Work went on that night as usual under the flood lights.[428] Not until the small hours of the morning did the first reports reach Hagaru of the CCF attacks on Yudam-ni and Fox Hill. [428] 1stEngrBn _SAR_, 11; and Partridge interv, 25 Jun 51. Some remnants of 2/7 were still at Hagaru, for lack of transportation, when Lieutenant Colonel Lockwood, commanding officer of the battalion, received a dispatch from Colonel Litzenberg directing him to proceed to Toktong Pass and assist Fox Company. At 0530 he requested the “loan” of a rifle company of 3/1 to reinforce elements of Weapons Company (-), 2/7. Lieutenant Colonel Ridge could spare only a platoon from How Company, and at 0830 the attempt was cancelled. An hour later Weapons Company and three tanks from the 2d Platoon of Company D, 1st Tank Battalion, made another effort. They pushed half-way to the objective, only to be turned back by heavy Chinese small-arms and mortar fire from the high ground on both sides of the road. Supporting fires from 3/1 helped the column to break off contact and return to Hagaru at 1500.[429] [429] 3/1 _SAR 26 Nov-15 Dec 50_, 4; 1stTkBn _SAR_, 21; 3/1 msg to CO 1stMar, 1845 28 Nov 50. No better success attended a reinforced platoon of How Company, 3/1, accompanied by three Company D tanks, when it set out on the road to Koto-ri. On the outskirts of Hagaru, within sight of Captain Corley’s CP, the men were forced to climb down from their vehicles and engage in a hot fire fight. They estimated the enemy force at about 50, but an OY pilot dropped a message warning that some 300 Chinese were moving up on the flanks of the patrol. The Marines managed to disengage at 1530, with the aid of mortar and artillery fires from Hagaru, and returned to the perimeter with losses of one killed and five wounded.[430] [430] _Ibid._; Narrative of Maj C. E. Corley, n. d.