Edward L. Rowny
A ..
Yes. We had two major engineer problems facing us. The first was to build an
airstrip within the marine perimeter so we could evacuate the many casualties they
had suffered. Some casualties were caused by enemy gunfire, but many more were
caused by frostbite and extreme cold.
There was a fairly flat piece of ground within the perimeter for a runway, but it
needed smoothing out. There was about a 6 percent slope on the runway but this
was manageable. The marines had several pieces of engineering equipment with
them, but the problem was to keep the equipment operating in the extreme cold
below zero. Because the ground was frozen
which hovered between
and
to quite a depth, to bulldoze the strip we set off explosive charges to loosen up the
ground. We also erected warming tents-large tents with space heaters in them-at
each end of the field. In this way, the operators who were running the equipment
and the equipment itself would warm up between passes as the dozers smoothed the
airstrip. The theory was good, but in practice it didn't work very well. The
warmed up dozer blades melted the moisture in the earth and caused the dirt to
stick to the blades. We solved this problem by applying to the blades ski wax
which was dropped in by air from Japan. When the dozer and grader blades were
waxed, the dirt did not stick to the metal. Some press wag accused me of having
ski wax air-dropped into Korea so we could enjoy skiing on the slopes.
The warming tents we set up came under fire. The Chinese moved in close to the
perimeter, lobbed in some mortar shells, and then disappeared. By the time a
patrol would locate the base from which the mortar shells were fired, the Chinese
were gone. They would then set up another base and hit us again.
When the wind blew up, which it did sporadically, the temperature dropped another
10 to 20 degrees. Fortunately, the winters in North Korea were quite dry and there
was very little snow. It was very light and powdery, more like dust than show.
When the wind blew, it formed clouds of dry snow and dirt that were like dust
storms.
Nevertheless, after a great deal of hard work, we were able to construct a fairly
decent airfield. With a number of courageous pilots flying the planes, we were
able to airlift out all of the casualties. With this problem solved, Colonel Chester
Puller was able to organize an effective defensive perimeter.
Q ..
And the other problem, I take it, was spanning the chasm at Koto-ri?
A ..
Yes. I put the question of how to get across the chasm to my engineer staff back
in Hungnam. The best suggestion came from an engineer officer, Major Al
Wilder, who had been my battalion executive in World War II. He had the idea
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