Outpost Harry

Stavros has a great site blogging about the Hellenic culture: "Born in Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey of Greek parents who immigrated to the USA in 1956. Grew up in New York City, I joined the Marine Corps at age 19. and retired from the Corps twenty two years later. I was stationed in Greece during my military career, where I married a nice Greek girl...We live in Maine..." Stavros' latest post is about the Greek Expeditionary Force fighting the Chinese during the Korean war:

The soldiers of the Greek Expeditionary Forces called it Outpost 'Haros' the Greek name for Death. It was classic wartime humor, a dark pun borne of a hopeless mission. More than 88,000 rounds of Chinese artillery would pound Outpost Harry—a tiny Korean hilltop no bigger than Times Square, 425 yards ahead of the front line. Defended each night by a single company of American or Greek soldiers, the Chinese had anticipated an easy capture. Over a period of just over a week, vast waves of Chinese Communist Forces would flood into Harry’s trench lines--more than 13,000 soldiers in all. And yet each of the five companies ordered to hold Outpost Harry, when its turn came, held it.

The nightly Chinese assaults would advance and recede with each passing day--a relentless tide that would churn up a roiling, bloody flurry of hand to hand combat. On the night of the first attack, June 10, 1953, the Chinese had outnumbered Harry’s defenders by 30 to 1. “All total, there was a reinforced CCF regiment of approximately 3,600 enemy trying to kill us,” said Captain Martin Markley, commander of K Company, 15th Infantry Regiment. “There was no time to formally prepare the troops spiritually for the possibility of their death in the battle that was about to take place.” By morning, all but a dozen GIs had been killed or severely wounded. But they had held the hill. The full post.

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