John U. D. Page - Korean War Service

Korean War Service

During the long withdrawal of US and UN forces out of the Chosin Reservoir area as they marched to the port of Hungnam for evacuation, in the early morning hours of December 11, 1950, Chinese troops ambushed a part of the 1st Marine Regimental Train (logistical support caravan) as it entered the village of Sudong. Chinese assault groups suddenly burst from behind huts near the road, firing burp guns and throwing grenades into the vehicular train of the Marine regiment that was then passing southward through the village. This quick attack killed several truck drivers and set several vehicles ablaze. The flickering and shadowy light from the burning trucks only partially lighted the scene as the column halted. A confused fight erupted. There were no UN infantry present. The transportation and service troops of the train column had to fight their own battle.

At first there was no American leadership to organize and guide the fight. But at some point soon after the battle erupted, U.S. Army Lt. Col. John Upshur Dennis Page, an artillery officer, emerged to assume leadership. He and two Marines who followed him charged from someplace back up the road to the front, where the column had halted and several vehicles were burning on the road in the village. One of the Marines stopped to fire at some enemy. The other man, Pfc. Marvin L. Wasson, stayed with Page. They ran past burning vehicles and tripped over bodies in the road but reached the head of the stalled column, where enemy soldiers held the road. Page put his carbine on automatic and charged straight at a group of about 30 Chinese, firing into them as he ran forward. Most of this group, astounded at what was happening to them, broke and ran for the shadows. One of them threw a grenade as the others took off. Fragments from it knocked Wasson down with wounds on his head and arm. Page ordered him to go back and said he would cover him. Wasson obeyed and staggered back to the column, turning once to see Page charging on after the running Chinese. Page did not return. The two-man assault broke the spell, disrupted the Chinese assault, which had demoralized the column and was spreading death and destruction, and gave those back of the leading vehicles time to get their courage in hand and to organize a counterattack.

Another army officer took over leadership at Sudong and organized a Marine and Army service troop counterattack which gradually drove the Chinese off. It was daylight of December 11, before the road was cleared so that traffic resumed. This ambush at Sudong killed eight men and wounded 21, and destroyed nine trucks.

When the column started on and passed through Sudong, just beyond the village the point came upon the body of Lt. Col. John Page in the road. There was a scattered collection of Chinese bodies—16 of them—near him.

Page had been in the war only 12 days when he was killed. He had always wanted combat assignments, but his reputation for being able to get units in shape for combat had kept him at Fort Sill, Oklahoma during World War II. He was assigned to X Corps Artillery upon his arrival in Korea and was then attached to the 52nd Transportation Truck Battalion.

Page's performance at Sudong the night of 10–11 December, was no fluke. He had been doing the same kind of thing for 11 days in the defense of Koto-ri and in the descent from there through Funchilin Pass. Page had led a special mission north from Hamhung to establish communication points on the dangerous road toward the Chosin Reservoir. He and his jeep driver, Cpl. David Klepsig, got into Koto-ri the night of November 29, only after fighting their way past past a Chinese machine-gun crew at a blown bridge site. As darkness fell over snowy roads, Page's jeep was attacked. Page ordered Klepsig to stay with the jeep, shouting, "I'll cover you!". Klepsig was astounded at what he saw: Page was standing in the middle of the road, completely exposed, spraying the Chinese positions with carbine fire. The enemy was so startled no return fire came. Klepsig was so eager to leave that once Page returned to the jeep, he slammed his foot on the accelerator. "Slow down, corporal," Page shouted, "do you want to get us killed?"

Upon reaching Koto-ri, Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller, the 1st Marine Regimental commander there, gave Page responsibility for extending the airstrip 1,000 yards beyond his perimeter into no man's land, an area covered by Chinese snipers. Page got the job done, but often he had to mount a tank and personally operate the topside .50 caliber machine gun and direct the tank's crew in direct attacks on Chinese forces firing on the workers from nearby hills. Once, the tank he was riding on charged toward a shack containing a sniper; the tank locked its brakes but kept sliding forward, flattening the shack and the enemy inside. The Marines at Koto-ri marveled at his courage and audacity. Once while being flown low over enemy lines in a light observation plane, Lt. Col. Page ordered the pilot to fly lower while he dropped hand grenades on Chinese positions and sprayed foxholes with his carbine. Page could have returned to the safety of Hamhung, but chose to stay with the garrison at Koto-ri, which was totally surrounded.

When the withdrawal column started down from Koto-ri, Page was in it. Twice in descending through Funchilin Pass, Page was responsible for getting his part of the column moving when enemy fire stopped it. Once he grabbed a machine gun in his arms and scrambled up an incline to a point from which he brought the enemy position under fire and silenced it. On another occasion he manned a tank as he had at Koto-ri, and braving heavy fire, covered the column with its machine gun until the threat diminished. He was on foot, looking for his jeep in the column, when the Chinese ambush at Sudong stopped the column again. He was close enough to the front that he was able to rush forward, as already described, and break up the enemy group on the road at the head of the column.

No one who saw Page in action those 12 days of late November and early December 1950 ever had any doubt that the lieutenant colonel fresh from the States was truly a combat soldier. For his actions in the nighttime firefight at Sudong the Marine Corps gave Page its second highest award—the Navy Cross. His story was not widely known or publicized immediately, and he was not an early recipient of the Medal of Honor. When the facts of his short but momentous combat career became known in 1957, an act of Congress was necessary, because of the lapse of time, to grant him that honor posthumously.