Halloween Party

On Halloween the 8th Regiment of the U.S. ist Cavalry Division was ambushed by Chinese Communist troops near Unsan in North Korea (TIME, Nov. 13). Long after the savage Halloween party had ended, survivors of the ambush continued to filter back to U.S. lines. Last week TIME Correspondent Hugh Moffett helped welcome to safety a party of weary troopers who had spent nearly seven days in Communist territory. His report:

AT a forward post we found nine /bearded cavalrymen. They had just finished chow and were looking longingly at the fresh apple pie which a medical officer had forbidden them to eat because it was too heavy for half-starved men. "All Quiet." Corporal Edwin L. Piper of Company G, 2nd Battalion, who had kept snatches of a diary, told us the story of his week. Hard hit in the first enemy thrust, the remnants of his company had made two withdrawals, finally joined K Company of the 3rd Battalion on a hill where it had been trapped. Said Piper: "Company K had dug a square trench on the hill. The enemy made a new trench all around the square, and worked it closer and closer. Several times I went into their trenches and got grenades and ammunition off their dead.

"The next day we were still held down there. I saw a wounded captain and told him I thought we should move out. He said it would be better to stay and surrender, but that if we wanted to go we could.

"Twenty-four men, including me, decided to go. We ran through the enemy lines and into the river, and didn't lose a man. Before I waded the river I saw our men getting a white flag ready and heard the captain yell to the gooks to come in--he was surrendering. The gooks went in firing pointblank. The captain shouted louder, 'I want to surrender my men!' and I could hear our men screaming as they were shot. Then it was all quiet.

"That night we slept in a gully. At 4 a.m. I woke up and got everybody else up we could find, as it was about 23 degrees and we were afraid we would freeze. We couldn't find five men and I am afraid they froze to death."

"Are You Surrounded?" "The next day 13 more G.I.s joined us. That evening we went to a house on the outskirts of a town. There we got a woman to prepare some rice, but the rice bowl broke. So we had one ear of corn each and two potatoes.

"We had to leave the house at 4 a.m. because they told us the Chinese searched every house every morning. From then on we slept in the woods and traveled all day working south. One morning before we knew it some gooks had walked right into us. We ran out of there and they were chasing us and firing at us until 3 p.m. We lost 19 men that day.

"That night we crossed the Chongchon

River under artillery fire. This side of the river a Communist patrol spotted us and yelled. We ran and we lost one man there. It was only a quarter mile farther on that an outpost of the ist Cavalry Division fired on us. They yelled 'Halt! Who is it?' and I said it was G.I.s. They said, 'One of you come forward.'

"I went up and made the deal and my first question was, 'Are you men surrounded?' Then they gave us coffee and we came on into the command post."

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