“How Company still catching hell and are about ready to launch counterattack to restore line. About an hour ago, enemy appeared on East Hill. A group of enemy sneaked up to a bunch of Banks’ men and hand-grenaded hell out of them and took position. Sending executive officer over to see if we can get some fire on that area. Should be able to restore the line but liable to be costly. Reserve practically nil. Do have a backstop behind the break in How lines on this side of airstrip, composed of engineers and other odds and ends.”[448] [448] 1stMar tel to G-3 1stMarDiv, 0230 29 Nov 50. At 0400 there was little to prevent the enemy from making a complete breakthrough on East Hill and attacking the Division CP and the supply dumps. A friendly foothold had been retained on reverse slopes of the southern nose, but the northern part was held only by artillery fires. Along the road at the bottom of East Hill a thin line of service troops with several tanks and machine guns formed a weak barrier. All indications point to the fact that the Chinese themselves were not in sufficient strength to follow up their success. Their attack on East Hill was apparently a secondary and diversionary effort in support of the main assault on the sectors held by How and Item Companies. At any rate, the enemy contented himself with holding the high ground he had won. Some of the defenders of East Hill had fought with bravery which is the more admirable because of their lack of combat training. Battle is a business for specialists, and Lieutenant Rosen relates that the Army engineers “had a great deal of difficulty with our weapons because they were cold and fired sluggishly. We had gone into action so unexpectedly that it had not occurred to us to clean the oil off our weapons.” As an example of the difficulties imposed by the language barrier, the officers were given to understand by the ROKs that they had no more ammunition. “Weeks later,” commented Rosen, “we found that most of them had not fired their ammunition this night, but continued to carry it.”[449] [449] Rosen, “Combat Comes Suddenly,” 209. In view of such circumstances, the service troops put up a creditable if losing fight in the darkness on East Hill. The 77 Americans of the Army engineer company suffered losses of 10 KIA, 25 WIA, and nine MIA; and of the 90 ROKs, about 50 were killed, wounded, or missing, chiefly the latter.[450] [450] _Ibid._, 209–210; CG 1stMarDiv msg to CG X Corps, 1445 29 Nov 50. _The Volcano of Supporting Fires_