Radio failures kept Kurcaba, at the point, from receiving messages sent in warning. An attempt was made to communicate by word of mouth, but the shouts from behind often did not penetrate to ears protected from the cold by parka hoods. At last the loss of direction became so alarming that Davis himself hurried forward with his radio operator and runner. In the darkness he lost touch with them and floundered on alone, panting and stumbling. It took such effort to overtake the point that he did not make it until the men were scrambling up the next steep ridge. There the westward drift was corrected just in time, for the battalion was running into its first CCF opposition. The column had been heading up Hill 1520, the eastern and western slopes of which were held by the enemy. An increasing volume of small-arms fire was received as Davis gave his company commanders orders to reorganize units in preparation for attack. Exhausted though the men were, they summoned a burst of energy and advanced in two assault columns supported by 81mm mortars and heavy machine guns. Now the exertion of carrying extra ammunition paid dividends as Baker and Charlie Companies closed in on a CCF position held in estimated platoon strength. Some of the Chinese were surprised while asleep or numbed with the cold, and the Marines destroyed the enemy force at a cost of only a few men wounded. The attack cleared the enemy from the eastern slope of Hill 1520, but distant small-arms fire was received from ridges across the valley to the east. Davis called a halt for reorganization, since the troops had obviously reached the limit of their endurance. Suddenly they began collapsing in the snow--“like dominoes,” as the commanding officer later described the alarming spectacle. And there the men lay, oblivious to the cold, heedless of the Chinese bullets ricocheting off the rocks. A strange scene ensued in the dim starlight as company officers and NCOs shook and cuffed the prostrate Marines into wakefulness. The officers could sympathize even while demanding renewed efforts, for the sub-zero cold seemed to numb the mind as well as body. Davis had even requested his company commanders to check every order he gave, just to make sure his own weary brain was functioning accurately. At 0300 he decided to allow the men a rest--the first in 20 hours of continuous fighting or marching under a double burden. As a preliminary, the battalion commander insisted that the perimeter be buttoned up and small patrols organized within companies to insure a 25 per cent alert. Then the pack radio was set up to establish the night’s first contact with the regimental CP, and the men took turns at sleeping as an eerie silence fell over the wasteland of ice and stone. _Attack of 3/5 on 1–2 December_