[250] Due to 2/7’s difficulties on Hill 698 Charlie Company was unable to move position until dusk. As Col Davis has pointed out, this was fortuitous because it allowed Charlie to move into position unseen by the Chinese and was a major factor in trapping the Chinese in the valley the next morning. R. G. Davis Comments, 3.
South of 1/7 lay Major Sawyer’s 2d Battalion with Company D at the foot of Hill 698, E on its crest and slopes, and F spread along the steep incline of 727. Sawyer’s CP and elements of the 7th Marines’ Antitank and 4.2-inch Mortar Companies were situated in a shallow meadow along the road beneath the Fox Company positions. Several hundred yards to the rear, south of a sharp bend in the road, Major Maurice E. Roach’s 3d Battalion deployed in what was in effect a second perimeter protecting the regimental train, 3/11, and Litzenberg’s CP on the valley floor. Tieing in at the MSR, Companies H and I occupied ridges on the left and right of the road respectively, while G (-) arched through the low ground as the southernmost element of the regiment. Colonel Litzenberg was concerned about the valley which joined the Sudong Valley below Oro-ri lest it contain Chinese. He had Major Roach make a helicopter reconnaissance during the afternoon. Roach sighted nothing.[251]
[251] LtCol M. E. Roach Comments, 7 May 56.
Except for the occasional thump of an incoming mortar round, night settled on the valley and the Marine perimeter with deceptive quiet. Deceptive, since at Sudong two CCF battalions were poised to smash at the 7th Marines with a well-coordinated double envelopment.
At 2300, Davis’ 1st Battalion reported itself under attack from the right flank, the enemy apparently descending the higher slopes of Hill 727. This announcement was somewhat premature, as the Marines of Company A were merely experiencing the infiltration and probing that precede almost every Communist assault. At 2400, 2/7 reported two enemy battalions on the left flank.[252] During the first hour of 3 November, sobering messages were received from Litzenberg’s northernmost units. What had begun at 2300 as a staccato of small-arms fire swelled in volume by imperceptible degrees until Hills 698 and 727 were engulfed in a ceaseless din. And by 0100 the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 7th Marines bent under the weight of a full-scale attack on both flanks.