Captain Edward P. Stamford, a former enlisted pilot during World War II, became an officer and forward air controller with the Marine Corps’ new experimental unit, Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO). He was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Chosin Reservoir.
To the United States Marine Corps, the battle of the Chosin Reservoir was as a success. Consisting of just over 25,000 men, the 1st Marine Division, encircled, and enduring subzero degree weather, fought off over 120,000 Chinese soldiers in the barren, windswept hills and ridges of northeastern Korea. The Marines inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese forces from November 27th to December 6th, 1950, but still forced to evacuate after withdrawing to the port of Hungnam.
For the US Army’s Regimental Combat Team 31 (RCT 31), the actions around the eastern side of the reservoir and the withdraw towards the pacific are viewed as a failure in many circles. Individual acts of courage and valor were common but as a unit, RCT 31 was routed by the continual onslaught of enemy forces. A small team of US Marines, led by Captain Edward P. Stamford, fought side by side with these brave soldiers as the taskforce slowly disintegrated in the face of almost constant human wave attacks and apocalyptic cold.
Standing at 5’10” tall and weighing over 200 pounds, Edward Stamford was no college boy. He was already a Staff Sergeant when World War II broke out and quickly jumped at the chance to become a naval aviator. Once he got his wings, Stamford was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and would see action in the Solomon Islands. After the war, the Marine Corps sent him to Quantico, Virginia to a new school called Marine Air-Infantry training[1]. There, along with other marine pilots, they learned infantry skills. It was the Marine Corps’ belief that officers with infantry training were better at providing close air support. Fast forward a few years, Captain Stamford was assigned to a new outfit called Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) as a forward air controller.
The unit was made up of naval gunfire spotters and tactical air control party (TACP) teams. According to Captain Stamford, ANGLICO had been developed out of the requirement to support the US Army during amphibious operations since they lacked the capability to control naval gunfire or aviation during a landing. Although the nearest beachhead was miles away, Stamford and his three marines were attached to the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Infantry during the infamous battle.
On November 27, 1950, elements of the 1st Marine Division were positioned around the west side of the Chosin Reservoir. RCT 31, of the 7th Infantry Division, was dug in on the eastern side. Chinese soldiers had been probing their positions over the last few nights but the commanders weren’t too concerned. So, when Captain Scullion, company commander for Able Company 1/32, showed Stamford the bunker they would be occupying, he planned on getting some rest since Corsairs would be arriving at daybreak to provide air support. Stamford and his leathernecks would not get much sleep.
Around midnight, the marines awoke to gunfire, whistles, explosions and the voices of Chinese soldiers. As the marines were reaching for their rifles, the silhouette of a Chinese soldier appeared in the doorway. Grabbing his pistol, Stamford fired at the figure several times but not before the soldier dropped a grenade[2]. The explosion ripped through the bunker throwing the men to the ground. Miraculously, none of the marines were seriously wounded.
Helmets on and rifles in their hands, Stamford and his team ran outside down the trench. In the moonlight, chaos flowed through the perimeter like waves over stones. Dark figures were running everywhere. The marines couldn’t tell who was friendly and who wasn’t. Captain Stamford acted, “I immediately organized my men and others in the vicinity in defense of the position.” He started grabbing American soldiers running around and placing them in a small perimeter. Able company had been overrun; the soldiers were in disarray. One of the men told them that Captain Scullion, the CO, was dead.
Not long into the battle, the company mortar officer informed Stamford that the marine was now in charge. “Well Captain, you are the next senior man, I guess you have the Company,” he was told[3]. Acting decisively, Stamford ordered Private First Class (PFC) Shaffer, one of his ANGLICO marines, to go find the gaps in the line while he sustained the defense. The marine quickly found the hole; the Chinese were exploiting it.
Throughout the night, Captain Stamford moved the infantry squads around and closed the gap while repositioning the machineguns. The Chinese couldn’t penetrate the defense now. Not knowing what was happening to the rest of RCT 31, Stamford tried to contact the battalion CP unsuccessfully. The enemy had cut their communications. In his only order to Able Company as a whole, Stamford told the soldiers to “hold their positions regardless of eventualities.[4]”
In the early morning light, snow started to fall. The enemy had backed off as dawn approached. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Faith, relieved Captain Stamford of Able Company once their executive officer was found. LTC Faith ordered the ANGLICO team to occupy a position behind Baker Company and prepare to direct air strikes once the Navy and Marine Corps Corsairs started arriving.
“Boyhood One-Four, this is Fireball One, Acknowledge, Over,” came the voice from the radio. Moral instantly shot up. The small ANGLICO team started directing air strikes against Chinese positions. There were so many targets, LTC Faith wanted the Corsairs to focus on large troop concentrations and heavy weapon systems such as mortars.
Stamford recalls, “I have no idea of the number of strikes run but it was considerable.” They called in airstrikes as close as 50-yards to friendly troops. They could feel the heat from the napalm as it burned Chinese soldiers to their front. During one notable airstrike, the artillery Forward Observer with Able Company contacted the ANGLICO team. The FO spotted about 300 enemy troops moving south along the road dividing Able and Charlie Company. A T-34, and two self-propelled guns, were escorting the infantry. The marines were able to direct four Corsair F4Us, as well as four RAAF F-51s, onto the enemy force, halting the attack[5].
As the sun dipped below the horizon, temperatures dropped, and anxiety swelled. All offensive operations ceased. Cooks, clerks, drivers, mechanics and all other support personnel were put on the line to close any gaps and strengthen key positions. Gunfire could be heard in the distance as the 3rd Battalion 31st Infantry was hit. The assault was brutal. Chinese forces broke through and tried to overrun the 105mm artillery position but were stopped once the cannoneers started firing on them at point blank range[6]. The ebb and flow of the battle could be heard throughout the night.
At midnight, the Chinese attacked the battalion in force but were beaten back multiple times. The bodies of enemy fighters lay everywhere, frozen and contorted. At 0200, LTC Faith was ordered to withdraw and linkup with the rest of the RCT just to the south. To support the withdrawal, cargo was emptied from the trucks and replaced with wounded soldiers. Everything was left behind to make room for the injured. Under orders of strict light discipline, they couldn’t burn the equipment. At 0500, RCT 31 started to slowly move south.
At first, the Chinese, located in the hills and ridges overlooking the road, didn’t attack. They appeared more interested in the abandoned equipment and supplies. Caught off guard, they weren’t expecting the Americans to come out of their holes and bunkers.
By late morning, LTC Faith and his soldiers had linked up with their sister battalion at the Pungnyuri Inlet. What they saw was devastating. According to Martin Russ, author of Breakout, “the perimeter of the 3/31 and 57th Field Artillery was a scene of destruction; it had been effectively reduced and offering no organized resistance.” Basic military order had broken down.
As the RCT waited to move, ANGLICO marines, Corporal Smith and PFC Shaffer, had located a large concentration of Chinese troops moving south on the frozen shore of the reservoir.[7] Captain Stamford wanted to attack the enemy. However, LTC Faith refused to approve the attacks thinking the figures on the shoreline were US soldiers. The RCT 31 commander, Colonel MacLean, was under the belief that the men were from one of his battalions. After making his way down to greet them, the Colonel was shot and taken prisoner[8].
Being the senior officer, LTC Faith was now in charge of the RCT. Initially, he still refused to allow attacks on the Chinese along the shore out of fear of killing Colonel MacLean but eventually relented knowing he had no other choice. The air support was the RCT’s life line. The marine and navy pilots flying in the Corsair’s from off aircraft carriers in the pacific were instrumental in RCT’s survival, as was the courage of the individual solider.
The day was spent shoring up defenses but the reality of what was before them kept bubbling up. The soldiers would have to continue their withdraw towards the coast. In-between attacks, the marine captain was coordinating with the cargo pilots, requesting they drop supplies in the perimeter.
On the morning of November 30th, Captain Stamford realized the weight that was on his shoulders. His ANGLICO team was the only TACP team with RCT-31. Lieutenant Johnson, the Air Force FAC, “had been killed during the first attack and his radio put out of commission” recalls the marine officer. Since their high-frequency radio was no longer working, the marines had to find the lieutenant’s radio.[9]
Corporal Smith and PFC Johnson agreed to run the gauntlet of enemy fire to retrieve the radio. 500 yards down the road, near a bunker next to 3/31 Infantry command post, the AN/GRC-9 transmitter-receiver lay covered in snow. Initially, the marines bounded to cover every twenty yards dodging enemy machinegun fire but they quickly realized this would take too long. They stood up and ran the remaining distance while the Chinese tried to kill them. Soldiers from the RCT just looked on in amazement as the two marines defied the enemy and reached the radio. After a few hours of work, the marines were able to repair it. The retrieval and repair work done under such conditions, by Smith and Johnson, enabled the taskforce to continue to receive the support of air strikes[10].
That evening, a few hours after the sunset, Chinese mortars started to rain down. For 45-minutes, the soldiers had to sit in their fighting holes and take the punishment[11]. The enemy used the barrage to cover their approach as they crept closer to the perimeter. Before long, rifle and machinegun fire could be heard between lulls in the mortar attack. The Chinese were determined to overrun the American’s position but couldn’t break through. At around 0900, a lone marine Corsair dropped beneath the clouds. Stamford requested more air support and relayed LTC Faith’s intent to breakout of the encirclement. They couldn’t hold the perimeter another night.
LTC Faith had to act. No one was coming to save the RCT. In a moment of clarity, Faith gathered the officers around and was totally honest with them, “we have no communications with the division, we’ll be on our own except for the marine air support which may show up at around noon if the weather clears.”
At around 1100, the RCT left their positions and formed up on the road. The Chinese started maneuvering closer. Able Company was taking point. The 3/31 would provide security on the flank. The 57th Field Artillery would be the rear guard. Everyone was waiting for the Corsairs to arrive, especially Captain Stamford and his marines.
About 20 yards behind Able Company’s lead element, Stamford and his marines sat in their jeep looking out at the hills and ridgelines surrounding them[12]. Mortars started dropping along the road wounding more soldiers. Finally, just after 1300, the Corsairs showed up. The plan was simple. Stamford briefed the pilots that the breakout would start once the planes attacked the enemy positions near the front of the column.
LTC Faith gave the order.[13] The soldiers watched as the four Corsairs, under the direction of Stamford, swooped down out of the sky. The pilots released their napalm canisters one by one. End over end, the cylinders tumbled towards their target. A wall of fire erupted just in front of column, showering the Chinese and about a dozen Americans in burning petroleum jelly.
PFC Ransone, of Able Company, recalls the incident:
I felt the heat but it didn’t burn me. Men I knew were rolling around in the snow, looking the way they always looked even though they were dying, while others were burned to a crisp, their skin peeling back like potato chips. Still others just blazed away like torches.[14]
The missed drop of napalm caused panic and hysteria among the Chinese and Americans. As horrifying as it was, the air strike ultimately had the desired affects recalls Major Miller, “I was in command of the battalion at this time and feel that Captain Stamford’s cool control of our aircraft, in which he directed the dropping of the napalm not more than 40 yards to our front, started the Chinese on the run and allowed the battalion to inflict tremendous casualties on the enemy.”
As the column moved forward, LTC Faith found Stamford and told him, “I don’t want you killed.” He knew their survival depended heavily on the marine. Shortly after their discussion, Stamford and one of his marines, Corporal Myron L. Smith, were engaged by a Chinese machinegun forcing them into a ditch. Chinese infantry were everywhere. Corporal Smith, seeing a Chinese soldier approaching them, flipped his PPSH-41 “burp gun” off safe and engaged. The enemy soldier fell to the ground dead. Stamford and Corporal Smith ran back to their jeep[15].
For the rest of the day, the marines kept up the air strikes. They had no choice; the enemy was everywhere. The 1st Marine Air Wing was their only support. The artillery guns had been abandoned, mortar rounds were almost nonexistent and ammunition was running dangerously low. The RCT was given priority support by the marine pilots. In a report quoted in Roy Appleman’s book, a marine Corsair pilot made the following comment about the ANGLICO team, “Boyhood one-four kept calling for close air support to less than 50 feet; the pilots could observe people practically clubbing the reds off the trucks.”
At 1500, the column was forced to stop after the Chinese had blown a small bridge leading south along the road. A quick-thinking soldier found a small dirt path that led to the frozen reservoir. The trucks were able to drive along the shore. At the rear of the column, soldiers started to abandon their positions rushing across the reservoir in an effort to escape the Chinese onslaught. Some soldiers surrendered. All discipline was gone. LTC Faith was running around trying to get his men to fight, threatening them with his drawn pistol.[16]
Even as the RCT fell apart around them, Stamford and his marines kept hitting the Chinese with air strikes delivered by the gull winged Corsairs. Using strafing runs, rockets, napalm and bombs, they pounded enemy positions but the Chinese kept coming.
After making their way around the blown bridge, Captain Stamford and his team got back on the road at the base of hill 1221. It dominated the draw they were using to breakout of the encirclement. Once again, the marine led the assault on the hill by directing strafing runs and napalm strikes against the Chinese.
At the base of the hill, the ANGLICO team chief, Corporal Smith, was shot and severely wounded while carrying the A/N TRC-7 radio on his back, spotting targets for Stamford and fending off the enemy with his captured burp gun. The marine officer picked up the young marine and placed him in the ANGLICO jeep with PFC Johnson. Throwing the radio on his back, Stamford ran to one of the hasty fighting positions to direct more air strikes. Linking up with the acting CO of 1/32nd Infantry, Stamford was once again forced to put another wounded American in one of the trucks. This time it was Major Miller. A soldier found Captain Stamford and told him that two of his marines, Corporal Smith and PFC Johnson had just been killed by enemy machinegun fire. Their lifeless bodies laid motionless in the jeep.
Just before dusk, Stamford made his way back up hill 1221 to support the attack against the Chinese. In one of the last transmissions of the night, he made an alarming assessment of their situation, “it’s all over.”[17] They were desperate. The column of men and trucks had, by now, been split and divided all along its axis of advance. There was no longer one perimeter but a multitude of American positions, separated and fighting for their lives. The Chinese overwhelmed the small isolated pockets of soldiers while relentlessly attacking the larger groups.
Stamford and PFC Shaffer were fighting for their lives. The Chinese had set up a road block along a hair-pin turn, covering it with machinegun fire; it needed to be cleared. In a 1951 report to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Captain Stamford details the events surrounding the road block:
I found a second roadblock and several burned-out vehicles and at least two tanks. There were several men there and I organized a working party of the slightly wounded and got the rest to move up the road. As I was doing this, LTC Faith came by with Lt May, the motor transport officer, and a small party to clear the enemy in front. As I moved up to join them, I noticed Lieutenant Colonel Faith came by me going in the opposite direction. I continued up the road and found Lt May had knocked out the last machine gun position.
With the enemy position destroyed and the road block cleared, Stamford ran back to the lead vehicles. He ordered the soldiers to go slow and stay close. Before long, they were making good progress but the Chinese kept up the attacks not giving the men an ounce of relief.
The battalion surgeon for the 1/32nd Infantry, Doctor Navarre, wrote the following about Captain Stamford some months after the battle:
It is difficult to express the value of this man’s leadership in that dark hour when leadership was needed so badly. Only those that were there can understand this man’s worth.
About four miles from the Hagaru perimeter, the column of what remained of RCT-31 stopped again. The drivers in the first couple trucks had been killed. Shortly after, LTC Faith, was shot in the chest and badly wounded by an enemy machinegun. Captain Stamford immediately took control of the situation, grabbing soldiers and ordering them to push the stalled trucks and jeeps off the road so the rest of the convoy could continue on. The marine found LTC Faith, asking him if he wanted the men to continue to Hagaru that night. Barely able to speak, on the verge of unconsciousness, Faith told Stamford he wanted them to keep going.[18]
The marine officer took point trying to lead the convoy down the frozen narrow road. They came upon another blown bridge, but after a quick reconnaissance they found a detour along a railroad trestle. The marine’s vehicle was the first to cross. “Stamford cautiously drove his jeep onto the tracks to see if it would fit,” according to John Toland. It did, so the marine instructed the rest of the convoy to follow.
Once Captain Stamford was satisfied that the convoy could make it across, he made his way down the railroad tracks and cut back onto the road south of the bridge, accompanied by three soldiers. They left the jeep on the road and started a quick recon patrol to see if they could identify any more roadblocks. After about half-a-mile, several Chinese soldiers came out of the darkness and surrounded the four-man patrol.
Three communist soldiers immediately starting barking orders at the Americans. No one spoke Chinese and the enemy didn’t speak English. In the confusion, a Chinese soldier fired his rifle inches from Captain Stamford’s face[19]. After that, the men were forced to lay down in a ditch. The scene was chaotic. American soldiers on the road were firing down on the Chinese positioned along the evacuation route. Mortars started to fall as a large American truck crashed through a make shift blockade. With their Chinese guards distracted, the marine and soldiers ran off.
What was left of RCT-31 was nothing more than small groups of soldiers trying to make their way closer to the Hagaru perimeter. Unit cohesion had fallen apart. Wounded soldiers were left to fend for themselves. Few trucks were able to make their way through the gauntlet of Chinese soldiers swarming their positions. Men were scattered as they made their way south.
Captain Stamford ran west through scrub brush and snow for about 300 yards. Chinese soldiers attempted to follow but were quickly lost in the dark. Unable to link back up with the remaining force on the road due to the swarms of enemy soldiers, the marine made his way through the toughest terrain he could find. Finally, at around 0225, on the 2nd of December, Captain Stamford was picked up by marines from an artillery battery on the line in Hagaru.[20] The next day, he was evacuated out of Korea and sent to the 35th Station Hospital in Kyoto, Japan.
The remainder of Task Force Faith was split into many different groups. Some soldiers in vehicles ran through various roadblocks and made it to Hagaru. Others went out on their own, hiding from the Chinese as they made their way south to the besieged base. Many were captured; some were killed or died of wounds once left on the side of the road.
For the small ANGLICO team, only two survived the fighting. Corporal Myron J. Smith, the team chief, had been wounded while he and Captain Stamford were directing air strikes against Chinese positions. Enemy soldiers had finally killed him and PFC Billy E. Johnson while they were in their jeep. These two marines had continuously risked their lives and performed heroically while supporting the U.S. Army with devastating air strikes, coordinating vital re-supply drops, and providing one of the only communication links with the outside world. The work they did repairing the broken radio, under fire and in sub-zero degree temperatures, saved American lives and resulted in the deaths of countless Chinese soldiers. Both marines were awarded the Silver Star.
In 2018, after a summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the North Koreans turned over 55 boxes of remains reportedly of Americans killed during the war. After scientific analysis, it was concluded that some of the remains were of Private First Class, Billy E. Johnson. Corporal Smith has never been found.
PFC Wendell P. Shaffer was the only enlisted member of the ANGLICO team to live through the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. He eventually made it to the Hagaru perimeter, but it is unclear how. There is no more mention of him after last being seen cradling the head of a dying army lieutenant. He was shot in the same exchange of gunfire that the lieutenant was mortally wounded in. It wasn’t Shaffer’s first Purple Heart.
Lieutenant Colonel Faith received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions. The only other man on the eastside of the reservoir to be written up for the nation’s highest medal was Captain Edward P. Stamford, USMC.[21] The Commander of the 1st Marine Air Wing, Major General Harris, wrote to the Commanding General of the 7th Infantry Division, and said the following, “(Stamford) rated a top notch decoration and that it looked to me that it was pretty close to the Medal of Honor.”[22] The U.S. Army agreed; the adjutant general for the Department of the Army wrote it up and passed it on. However, the Department of the Navy got involved and the award stalled. In the end, the leader of Boyhood One-Four, Captain Stamford, was awarded the Silver Star on July 22, 1951.
[1] Captain Edward P. Stamford, (hereafter cited as Stamford, MS) Page 73-74,“Interview with Captain Edward P. Stamford Forward Air Controller (ANGLICO Team) Attached to 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, USA”: March 16, 1951. This is a 97-page document, reproduced and sent to me by the Archives and Special Collections Branch, Library of the Marine Corps. It discusses the development of ANGLICO, FMFLant as well as the actions of 1/32 during the Chosin Reservoir action.
[2] Stamford, MS
[3] Stamford, MS
[4] Stamford, MS
[5] Roy E. Appleman, East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950, (Texas A&M University Press, 1990)
[6] Roy E. Appleman, East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950, (Texas A&M University Press, 1990)
[7] Stamford, MS; page 81
[8] Martin Russ, Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950, (Penguin Books, 2000), Page 227
[9] Russ, “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950”
[10] Appleman, “East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950,”
[11] Appleman, “East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950,” Page 188
[12] Russ, “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950,” Page 275
[13] Stamford, MS
[14] Russ, “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950.”
[15] Stamford, MS
[16] Russ, “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950,” Page 278
[17] Russ, “Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950,” Page 280
[18] Stamford, MS
[19] Stamford, MS
[20] Stamford, MS
[21] Appleman, “East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950,” Page 331
[22] Appleman, “East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950,” Page 331
Jason Angell is a former Marine Corps Captain with over ten years of active service, both as an enlisted marine and commissioned officer. Jason participated in three combat deployments to Iraq to include the initial 2003 invasion. During these deployments, he fought in the Rumaila Oil fields, Baghdad, Ramadi and Al Hit. He has a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Fullerton and a master’s degree from the University of Houston-Downtown. Jason is the author of the book Running Towards Gunfire: Courage and Brotherhood in Ramadi, which is due to be published in August 2024.
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