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Ref: Unsan
The Unsan Battle has and will always hold a
special interest for
various personnel, from historians to the troops that were actually there. And of course, there are as many different stories (and view points) as there are "tellers". Probably though, most will agree that our intelligence had a lot of the answers and warnings ahead of time, only most of these warnings went unheeded. One of the best maps outlining the start of
"Unsan" that I have
run across on the internet can be found at.. ah yes.. MY web site, http://www.sinosa.com/~wreese/unsan-m2.htm and also a different size map at http://www.sinosa.com/~wreese/unsan-m4.htm (there are links from one to the other). This map was furnished to me (with permission to use) from our good friend retired CWO Tom Goss. Tom was the Unit Administrator for I Co, 8th Cav Regt until Unsan, then Bn S3 of the 3rd Bn 8th Cav Regt. I was a member of G Co, 8th Regt at the time,
and was on G Co's
outpost about a mile or slightly more to the east of our 2nd Bn's MLR. Our Bn had only 2 Rifle Companies on line at the time, F Co being detached as guards for Corps Hq. Our outpost was commanded by a Lt Trollope, and he just died about 8 months ago (2 Jul 99). Another Trooper from that outpost was a good man known as Sgt John "GI" Gianola, and GI also has passed away very recently (16 Dec 99). Although there were a tremendous number of 8
Regt casualties from
Unsan (WIA, KIA, and MIA), the figures will always be debatable. I have long since stopped spending time on those figures as they seem to be still changing at almost a weekly pace, and there are as many different official answers as there are official sources. However, I have noticed the number of troops that are still unaccounted for is usually a most shocking and unbelievable number to the troopers that were there and recall it. No, the number of still unaccounted for troops is much lower than most recall. I think this stems from the fact that many of those we lost from our own Companies, and knew personally, showed up later and were evacuated, never to return to the same Company. A lot were taken prisoner, or was KIA without our immediate knowledge. We never knew they were accounted for. Does anyone have information concerning G
Company's outpost?
Whitey
PS: Marty, just got your note, will respond soon
as I get some "Honey Dews" out of the way!
Elmer C. (Whitey) Reese
wreese@sinosa.com Check out our website at: http://www.sinosa.com/~wreese/ or http://www.theriver.com/Public/gcompany/ or http://info.theriver.com/TheRiver/infopoint.htm |