At this, Page began rounding up stray Army men -- artillerymen, military police, engineers, medics, truck divers -- who had been cut off from their outfits, and organized them into a shock-troop reserve for Puller's Marines. He split them into groups and drew up battle plans for each in an assigned sector of the Koto-ri perimeter.

The Chinese were thick in the hills around the village. They attacked at night and sometimes during the day. Each time the Marines drove them off, but casualties mounted. The small Marine hospital was filled, and Chesty Puller looked urgently for a way to evacuate the wounded fast. The airstrip in the village was too short for C-47's, and the small observer planes could carry out only two men at a time. The runway had to be lengthened; the job was given to Page.

The airstrip was inside the lines held by the Marines. Now it had to be stretched 1000 yards into no-mans land. Washboard ground, frozen solid, had to be graded level. Army and Marine engineers moved out with graders, and 15 volunteers from Page's reserve company went along. The Chinese snipers in the hills made it a bloody business.

Page asked Lt. Charles F. Kieffer, an observer-plane pilot, to fly him on an inspection tour of the village's defenses. Page climbed aboard looking like a walking arsenal: he carried a loaded carbine; his pockets were bulging with extra ammunition and grenades hung from his belt. In the air, he turned to Kieffer. "I would like," he said, "to fly over that tent at the top of the mountain pass just to the south."