Yard by yard, mile by mile, the column slugged its way down the mountain road. A truck stalled at a hairpin curve, and an enemy machine gun suddenly flailed the road from a nearby hill. Page grabbed a machine gun, scrambled up the slope and lashed the enemy position with fire until the column passed. Page again walked forward, looking for Klepsig. He neared the head of the column and plodded on. Night fell, and the thatched huts of a village called Sudong-ni loomed out of the darkness. Two regiments had passed through Sudong-ni ahead of it. No danger here. And then it happened!

Machine gun and rifle fire exploded into the column from the front and both side. It was a perfect ambush. The Reds had let the two regiments pass, then had sneaked into the village in the dark and caught this segment of the column with its guard relaxed.

Grenades and mortar shells burst everywhere. Brilliant flares hung in the sky over the trapped column. Trucks and jeeps were in flames, and men jumped and ran for cover, while others, too late, dropped where they stood. The column sat dead on the road.

"Come on!" shouted Page, sprinting forward." "We've got to get this column moving!" He snapped his carbine to automatic and ran straight into the frontal fire. Two Marines followed. One stopped to shoot some Chinese off to one side. The other Pfc. Marvin L. Wasson of West Albany, N.Y., stayed with Page. They dashed through the hail of fire, dodging wrecked trucks and jeeps, tripping over corpses, until they lunged into the heart of the enemy position, their carbines spewing death.