[530] Sources for this section, unless otherwise noted, are the same as those for the last and: 3/1 tels to G-3 1stMarDiv, 0430 and 1715 4 Dec 50; G-3 1stMarDiv tel to 11thMar, 0730 4 Dec 50; 7thMar tels to G-3 1stMarDiv, 0830 and 0925 4 Dec 50: G-3 1stMarDiv tels to 3/1, 0950 and 1330 4 Dec 50; Stevens Comments, 25 Jul 56. [531] MAG-33 _SAR_ sec B 6–7; VMF-214 _SAR_, 5; 1stMAW _HD_, Dec 50. Squadron Sorties VMF-214 36 VMF-323 28 VMF-212 27 VMF-312 34 VMF(N)-513 7 VMF(N)-542 13 ---- 145 At the other end of the route the Royal Marine Commandos, reinforced by a platoon of tanks, were sent out from Hagaru at 1630 on 3 December, to drive the Chinese from the road leading into that perimeter. Thanks to excellent air support, 1/7 met no opposition save harassing attacks. One of Davis’s flanking patrols reported the flushing out of a few Chinese so exhausted by cold and hardships that they had abandoned their weapons and holed up together for warmth. If these Marines had been in a mood for such reflections, they might have recalled that the American press of late had been bemoaning the supposed decline of the nation’s young manhood. UN reverses in the summer of 1950 had led editorial writers to conclude that our troops had neither the legs for long marches nor the backs for the bearing of military burdens. Mechanization had gone so far, they lamented, that we had become the servants rather than the masters of our own wheeled and tracked vehicles. The Marines of Davis’ battalion might have taken a grim satisfaction, therefore, in encountering Chinese peasants, inured all their lives to privations, whose will to fight had been broken by the hardships of the past week. These Marines had not known a full night’s sleep during that week. They had subsisted on a diet of crackers varied with canned rations thawed by body heat. They had been under continuous nervous pressure as well as physical strain, and yet they were able to summon one last burst of pride when the point neared the Hagaru perimeter at 1900 on 3 December 1950. Several hundred yards from the entrance a halt was called while the men closed up into a compact column.[532] Then they came in marching, their shoulders thrown back and their shoepacs beating a firm tread on the frozen road. [532] Since the four rifle companies had been left on key points, controlling the last two and a half miles into Hagaru, the column consisted mostly of H&S and Weapons Company personnel. Davis Comments, 20 Aug 56.