[289] _Ibid._, Pfc Edward Gomez citation, 38.
Not until 0400 on the 16th did the enemy waves of attack subside on Hill 749. NKPA strength was estimated at a regiment. A combined assault by an estimated 150 enemy on 3/1 positions to the west in the vicinity of Hill 751 was repulsed shortly after midnight, as were three lesser efforts during the early morning hours of the 16th.
When the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines moved out at 0830 to pass through 2/1 and continue the fight, it was the first day of command for Lieutenant Colonel John E. Gorman.[290] The passage of lines was slowed by enemy mortar fire, and NKPA resistance stiffened as 1/1 attacked along the ridgeline leading toward Hill 749. At 1800, after a hard day’s fighting, Objective BAKER was occupied and defensive positions were organized for the night.
[290] On 14 September, LtCol Horace E. Knapp, Jr., the previous commanding officer of 1/1, was severely wounded while reconnoitering forward positions. He was evacuated, and the executive officer, Major Edgar F. Carney, Jr., commanded until LtCol John E. Gorman assumed command at noon on the 16th.
Thus was the attack of the 1st Marines terminated. Around Hill 751, 3/1 remained in control. The regiment’s other two battalions, 1/1 and 2/1, held a defensive line about 1,500 yards long on both sides of Hill 749.
Hill 749 had finally been secured. A number of mutually supporting hidden enemy bunkers had been knocked out in a ruthless battle of extermination, and veterans of the World War II Pacific conflict were reminded of occasions when Japanese resistance flared up in similar fashion after ground was thought to be secure.
Casualties of the 1st Marine Division during the four-day fight for Hill 749, most of them suffered by the attacking regiment, were 90 KIA, 714 WIA, and 1 MIA. Enemy losses for the same period were 771 counted KIA (although more than twice that number were estimated KIA) and 81 prisoners.
Division OpnO 25-51 assigned the 5th Marines the mission of passing through 3/1 in the vicinity of Hill 751 and attacking to secure Objective DOG, the bare, brown hill mass which loomed approximately 1,000 yards ahead. The last few hundred yards were certain to be long ones, for the main east-west ridgeline leading to Hill 812 was crossed by a north-south ridgeline--the leg and head of another “T” formation. Again, as on Hill 749, the attackers had to fight their way through a vicious crossfire.