He remembers the battle grew in intensity. "The Chinese were coming out of the roads meeting the guys, the point men, and the planes were coming and dropping napalm on them, and even burned some of our own men, because it was hand-to-hand combat. The truck had to leave the road and travel across rice paddies before striking the road again at another place, and soldiers were running beside the truck, yelling they were out of ammunition. McMorris passed his remaining ammunition with the belt containing his canteen and first aid kit to one of the men beside the truck.

McMorris later became aware that his truck was not moving, and was somehow able to work his way from beneath the dead soldier despite his disabled hip. "The last truck went around us. I looked and saw that we didn't have a driver. I tried to talk to the others in the truck but nobody would answer me -- they were either unconscious or dead." McMorris crawled to the back of the truck and fell to the ground on his neck and shoulders, coming near, he believes, to breaking his neck.

"There was a guy lying in the ditch, and I asked, "Where is our driver?" and he said, "I am the driver. I am wounded. We have two flat tires on the left side and the motor is knocked out. It was night, with a full moon making the snow-covered terrain look like twilight, when McMorris and the driver began crawling along the ditch, neither able to walk. Soon McMorris could hear the idling motor of a small U.S. Tank nearby. " I crawled up the tank and opened th hatch. A guy's head was right up against the hatch, and he said he was wounded and his buddy was wounded, and to bang on the tank and tell the driver to make a break.