Edward L. Rowny
Puller said, "I'm not cringing, I'm just playing it safe. By unnecessarily standing
up, you're drawing fire in on us. I don't know why you feel you have to stand
up."
Almond said, "Don't worry, we're pretty much out of range, what's coming in are
spent bullets.
Puller said, "Listen, General, I lost a brother to one of those spent bullets."
Finally, Almond knelt down. He said, "I want to present you with a Silver Star
for your gallantry in action. Now stand up and salute me while we get a photo of
me pinning the medal on you."
Fuller stood up but snatched the silver star medal and stuffed it in his pocket.
"You can dispense with reading the citation," he said. "I can read that later." As
soon as the photo was taken, he pulled General Almond down with him. "Let's
be sensible," he said, "and talk over things in a foxhole. Reluctantly, Almond
crawled into the foxhole with Puller.
It was at this location that I conducted classes for the marines on how to make a
river crossing. But, by this time, the 7th Division had come ashore. We turned
over many of the marines' amtracks to them for the main crossing.
Q ..
Wasn't the 7th Division headed south toward Suwon?
A ..
One regimental combat team went south to block the North Koreans who had been
cut off, in the event they would turn around and attack our rear. The rest of the
7th Division was used in the river crossing.
Q ..
Did you have any problems bridging the Han?
A ..
My main problem was assembling the bridging and making sure it would all fit
together. We assembled about a third of the bridge upstream on the near bank and
then wheeled it out into the river. We brought additional segments from the rear
until the bridge reached the far side. Fortunately, we had brought in a number of
60-inch searchlights so we could work around the clock. One of our officers, a
very fine engineer colonel, had developed the 60-inch searchlights for use in World
War II. He commanded one of the two engineer groups assigned me.
Q ..
Was the 19th Engineer Group one of them?
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