Samson & the Grenades

On Korea's Hill 217, time hung heavy on the hands of huge, handsome Rifleman William ("Samson") Speakman of the Black Watch. It was the eve of Guy Fawkes Day (Nov. 5), a day on which Britons remember with firecrackers the anniversary of the 1605 "Gunpowder Plot" on Parliament, and that gave Samson an idea. "Let's build up a nice pile of grenades," he suggested to Sergeant "Dolly" Duncan. "Then, when the Commies come, we'll let 'em have it." Dolly agreed, and the two set to work filling a trench with hand grenades and chuckling over the Guy Fawkes surprise they were planning.

At 4 a.m. the attack began, with heavy artillery fire. "The enemy in their hundreds advanced in wave upon wave," the official report said. "Private Speakman . . . learning that the section holding the left shoulder of the company's position had been seriously depleted by casualties . . . decided on his own initiative to drive the enemy off." Hurling grenades like a madman in a crockery shop, Speakman led his six men in charge after charge--ten in all--leaving "an ever mounting pile of enemy dead." A bullet caught him in the leg, and an officer ordered him to the rear. "What," roared Speakman, "and leave all my lovely grenades?"

He agreed at last to stop while medical corpsmen bandaged his wound, but as soon as their backs were turned, off he hobbled on another series of charges. "At the critical moment," says the citation, "amidst an inferno of enemy machine-gun and mortar fire . . . Speakman led a final charge to clear the crest of the hill and hold it whilst the remainder of his company withdrew." When his grenades ran out, he threw stones.

This week, Private Speakman became the first living* soldier to receive Britain's coveted Victoria Cross in the Korean war.

*The only other Korean V.C. went posthumously to Major Kenneth Muir of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in February 1951.

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