Satisfied with his defensive positions, Puckett walked back to the task force command post to coordinate his artillery fire support plan. While there, he also evaluated the overall tactical situation based on the battalion operations officer's (S3) map overlay. What he saw, he did not like; his company, sitting on the very top of the hill, had both flanks exposed. There was a several kilometer gap between the Rangers and the nearest friendly units.
Continuing to dig in, the Rangers prepared for the inevitable Chinese counterattack that they knew would take place later that night or early morning. Battle-weary, the misery continued as the temperatures continued to drop. At 2100, the unit listened to a firefight in the distance, not knowing that swarming Chinese forces had just overwhelmed a friendly platoon.
An hour later, a mortar barrage cascaded on the Rangers' positions...the opening bell to an overwhelming sequence of Chinese attacks. Lifting their fires, the Chinese ground assault against the Rangers commenced with the blowing of whistles and the blasting of bugles. Swarming up the hill amid a storm of hand grenades, the Chinese attack was welcomed by the Rangers with an overwhelming fusillade of small arms and grenade fire of their own. Firing preplanned missions and illuminating the hill's slopes, of which the front and rear were quite steep, with flares, Puckett directed the Rangers' defenses.
The accurate direct and indirect fires decimated the assaulting Chinese formations. By 2350, the Ranger company commander was able to report to the task force that the attack had failed and the Rangers still held the hill. The attack was not without cost, though. Additional Rangers had fallen in defense of Hill 205 and Puckett himself had been wounded by a shard of grenade shrapnel that had pierced his thigh. The American tank company, located to the rear at the base of the hill were unable to fire a single shot in support of the Rangers throughout the course of the battle.
Throughout the next three hours, the Chinese launched four additional human wave attacks against the Ranger position. While concentrated direct and indirect fires took their toll of the attacking enemy, there were moments when the Rangers' perimeter was breached. The "spirit of the bayonet" was very much alive as it was used by the Rangers to secure these breaches. Moving about the perimeter checking the status of his men and injecting himself at the point of decision, Puckett steadied his men and directed his command's defenses, calling in artillery fire "danger close" to place a high explosive wall of steel significantly closer to their positions than the doctrinally recommended 600 meters.
The sixth, and final, Chinese blow directed at Hill 205 was launched at 0230 as a battalion-sized force directed their main effort at Puckett's exposed right flank. Already significantly hampered by casualties and shortages in ammunition, the Rangers were unable to react quickly enough to this overwhelming threat. Led by mortar fire and hand grenades, the enemy breached 2nd Platoon's sector and proceeded to begin overrunning the Ranger defenses. Artillery was not available for it was firing a mission in support of another heavily engaged infantry company.
Inside a foxhole, on his knees and continuing to call for artillery support, a tremendous blow to his feet, butt, thigh, and arm stunned Puckett. A mortar round had impacted and detonated in the foxhole. A moment later, he suffered similar wounds from the detonation of a second round. In the hole with him were Cummings and Corporal James Beatty. The resulting blasts killed Cummings and seriously wounded Puckett.
The Chinese had finally overwhelmed the Rangers' position. Isolated Ranger elements continued to fight against the staggering odds as Puckett, still conscious, reported his unit's situation to the task force. With the enemy shooting and bayoneting Rangers in their foxholes, survivors sought their escape from the hill. Failing to leave a wounded comrade behind, many surviving Rangers assisted their injured buddies off the hill. The unit's after action account noted a number of heroic actions taken that night.
Moving about the fire-swept terrain, Sergeant John Diliberto organized his men for the withdrawal and started them on their way to more tenable positions. As he proceeded to fall back himself, he observed two of his comrades lying wounded on the exposed terrain. Without regard for his personal safety, he returned to the helpless men and dragged them both to safety as the enemy overwhelmed the defense perimeter.
Another Ranger, Private First Class David L. Pollock, upon observing that the company commander had been seriously wounded and was unable to move, fought his way to Puckett's position, where the Ranger commander was crumbled on his hands and knees just outside of the foxhole and unable to move. With the assistance of Private First Class Billy G. Walls, Pollock grabbed Puckett, who had suffered his third wound of the evening, and dragged him down the hill, gathering other Ranger survivors, avoiding capture, and killing along the way a Chinese machinegun crew setting up their weapon.
During this escape, when Walls asked at one point if he was all right, Puckett retorted, "Yes, I am all right! I'm a Ranger!"
Placed on the back of a tank at the bottom of the hill, Puckett was evacuated to the task force's aid station. Hospitalized because of the severity of his wounds until November 1951, Puckett never returned to command the Eighth Army Ranger Company.
Another of Puckett's men, Ranger Bill Kemmer, realizing that his Ranger buddy, Ted Jewell, was not at the bottom of the hill, returned to the top of Hill 205 to aid his wounded friend down the hill to safety.
Other Rangers were not so fortunate. Ranger Merrill Casner, seriously wounded by grenade fragments and unable to move, watched one of the few black Rangers in the unit, Private First Class Wilbert W. Clanton, charge with only a bayonet in hand a group of enemy soldiers only to be cut down by their fire. Casner himself had the muzzle of a rifle placed against his head and a shot fired. Fortunately for him, the resulting injury was not serious enough to prevent him from making his way back to friendly lines later that morning after the Chinese had departed the hill.
Some Rangers still wanted to continue the fight despite the odds. Surviving the annihilation of his squad, Ranger Merle Simpson escaped to Private First Class Harland Morrissey's squad, screaming a warning about the advancing Chinese. Initially ordering his men to "Fix Bayonets!," Ranger Morrissey realized that discretion was the better form of valor when he noted the staggering number of enemy cresting the hilltop.
Ordering his men to "get off the hill," Morrissey led his squad's withdrawal while four brave Rangers...Sumner Kubinak, Librado Luna, Alvin Tadlock, and Ernest Nowlin...sacrificed their lives by remaining behind to form a rear guard providing covering fires. Three other Rangers were cited for gallantry, sacrificing their lives by remaining in position, firing at the enemy with fierce determination as their comrades fell back: Private First Class Harry Miyata, Private First Class Roger E. Hittle, and Private First Class Robert N. Jones. These seven men, Clanton, and two others would receive the Bronze Star for Valor.
At the base of Hill 205 that night, the Ranger company senior noncommissioned officer (NCO), First Sergeant Charles L. Pitts, assembled and reorganized the Ranger survivors. Unfortunately, dawn of the 26th found only one commissioned officer and twenty-one enlisted soldiers present for duty.
The blow that nearly annihilated the Eighth Army Ranger Company was part of a 500,000-man Chinese offensive opened on Thanksgiving Day that surprised, staggered, mauled, overwhelmed, and broke United Nations units all along the front. Entire divisions were encircled and had to fight their way through Chinese roadblocks and ambushes established along main escape routes. The 25th Infantry Division was forced to fight a series of delaying actions. In order to save Task Force Dolvin from destruction, reserves under the command of the assistant division commander, Brigadier General Vennard Wilson, had to be committed to save not only the task force from being destroyed but to also assist the 25th's withdrawal to an area nine miles north of Kunu-ri.
In recognition of their heroic stand on Hill 205 against a force estimated to be a 600-man battalion, twenty of the forty-seven Rangers of the Eighth Army Ranger Company present for duty that night were awarded a Distinguished Service Cross...Puckett, five Silver Stars...Pollock, Walls, Morrissey, Diliberto, Cummings, and fourteen Bronze Stars with "V" device.
Reconstituted and newly identified as an 'Airborne' Ranger unit, the 8ARC recommenced operations on 16 December with combat and reconnaissance patrols. General Orders Number 172, issued on 27 March by Headquarters Eighth Army stated: "Eighth Army Ranger Company, 8213th Army Unit is discontinued in Korea effective 28 March 1951." On 31 March 1951, the 5th Airborne Ranger Company, a unit formed and trained in the United States, was officially attached to the 25th Infantry Division to replace the Eighth Army Ranger Company.
Interestingly enough and despite their example, the Eighth Army Ranger Company is not officially considered to be part of the proud lineage of the 75th Ranger Regiment. In that the company was a temporary Table of Distribution & Allowances (TDA) unit and not an official TO&E organization activated by the Department of the Army (DA), it is not regarded by Army regulation to be part of the official Ranger heritage. Unofficially, though, its place in Ranger lore is assured. Fittingly, Colonel (Ret) Ralph Puckett, a member of the Ranger Hall of Fame, was designated an honorary Colonel of the 75th Ranger Regiment in 1996.
On 29 August 1950, shortly after having returned to the United States, Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins directed the formation of "marauder companies" on an experimental basis, noting that, "One of the major lessons to be learned from the Korean fighting appears to be the fact the North Koreans have made very successful use of small groups, trained, armed and equipped for the specific purpose of infiltrating our lines and attacking command posts and artillery positions."
