Re: HELP!

[Mike Davino <mdavino@yahoo.com>]

The Russ book is riddled with errors.  For example, on
page 196 he identifies LTC Don C. Faith as a "West
Pointer."  Faith never went to West Point.  He was an
OCS graduate.  If Russ can't get a fact like that
straight, something that is easy to check by looking
in the Register of Graduates and Former Cadets, how
can he get the details of dozens of firefights right?

Don, you can email me that file at MDavino@aol.com


Mike Davino


--- DGill11331@aol.com wrote:
>     Two weeks ago I bought a book "Breakout" written
> by Martin Russ and 
> published by the Penguin Group in 2000.  The book is
> about the "Chosin 
> Reservoir Campaign." On pages 17-21 Mr. Russ covers
> the 1st Battalion, 1st 
> Marine Regiment at Kojo, North Korea. 
>     I have never been so enraged, humiliated, and
> heartbroken, as I was when 
> I read Russ' erroneous reporting on what had
> happened on Hill 109 in the Kojo 
> area. Russ' accounts of the men and what had
> happened to them are totally 
> untrue and implies that our Navy corpsman, Dorin
> Stafford, refused to leave 
> Hill 109 so that he could stay behind with the
> wounded.  Russ' story implies 
> that the surviving men retreated and left their
> wounded -- this far from the 
> truth.
>     Although the first page of the book says that
> Russ was a Marine (Purple 
> Heart) in Korea, if Russ actually believes that his
> buddies would abandon 
> their wounded under any circumstances, he wasn't in
> the same United States 
> Marine Corps that I was in. He also implies Stafford
> was taken prisoner as a 
> result of the unit's actions. Russ' other accounts
> of the other happenings on 
> Hill 109 are totally without merit.
>     I believe the original account of what happened
> on Hill 109 (one of Russ' 
> sources), can be found in Andrew Geer's 1952 book,
> "The New Breed."  Although 
> Geer's book is the closest to the truth, it also
> suffers from the mal-use of 
> a writer's license. Over the years I have read a
> steady increasing negative 
> spin of Geer's accounts.  Each succeeding book
> (after Geer's) that I have 
> read this story in takes on a new life-of-its-own. 
> This includes Volume III 
> of the official U.S. Marine History U.S. Marine
> Operations in Korea (not 
> listed as one of Russ' sources) whose coverage of
> Kojo and Hill 109 also is 
> erroneous and with merit. 
>     Another relatively new book, William B. Hopkins'
> book (1986) "One Bugle 
> No Drums" (another of Russ' sources) is another
> prime example of the mal-use 
> of a writer's license.  What I find hard to
> understand is that even though 
> Hopkins was at that time in charge of the 1st
> Battalion's Headquarters and 
> Service Company, his account of what happened at
> Kojo and especially what 
> happened on Hill 109 to Baker Company's First
> Platoon and Sgt. Robert's 
> machinegun section is laced with the figments of his
> imagination. Hopkins' 
> book also distorts and misrepresents and spins many
> other facts.
>     As you may have guessed by now I was one of the
> men in the 1st Platoon on 
> Hill 109 and I am crushed by Russ' implications that
> the actions of the men 
> on Hill 109 were less than honorable.  The next day
> after the fight on Hill 
> 109, only 17 men were alive to tell their story, but
> none of those 17 men 
> were asked by anyone - "What happened to you on Hill
> 109?"  Instead authors 
> of books (that may be of great historical value)
> have shamelessly used their 
> books, without any regard for the truth, to defamed
> men of great honor and 
> integrity.
>     I am heartbroken because Russ' book disgraces
> the honorable name of the 
> surviving men of 1st Platoon Baker Company, who were
> in all reality heroes. 
> Men  who fought valiantly and whose actions
> conformed in every respect with 
> Marine Corps traditions. Men who never once
> entertained a thought, or did 
> they leave their wounded behind.  When the surviving
> men from Hill 109 were 
> ordered to leave the hill, the unit had no wounded. 
> All the causalities 
> (over half their number) they had taken up to the
> time the men left the hill 
> -- were dead - they had no living wounded.
>     These men honorably fought in a no-win
> situation, brought about by the 
> highest level of incompetent leadership, only to be
> rewarded by having their 
> good names and reputations besmeared by writers
> whose only apparent motive is 
> to sell books without regard for the truth or
> history.  To have the men of 
> the 1st Platoon's (and that includes me) honor and
> integrity besmeared by 
> authors of books that will be read and used as a
> source by future historians 
> and generations of other book writers is
> intolerable.  HELP! WHAT CAN I DO TO 
> UNDO THIS WRONG AND PROTECT THE HONOR, INTEGRITY AND
> DIGNITY OF THE MEN WHO 
> SURVIVED HILL 109? 
>     Over the years I have been writing my memoirs on
> my experiences in Korea. 
> One of the chapters in my memoirs is entitled "Kojo
> and Hill 109." To help 
> set the record straight, if anyone has read any
> other author's accounts of 
> Kojo and Hill 109, or even if someone is just
> curious and wants to know the 
> true story of what happened to Baker Company's 1st
> Platoon, Stafford and 
> Roberts' machinegun section on Hill 109, I will only
> be too glad to E-mail 
> them a file containing a detailed first-hand
> account. All I need is an E-mail 
> address to send it to.  DON GILL


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