The enemy had filtered across the river during the night and a full force of 1000 men, armed with Russian machine guns, attacked the position held by Chandler's men. They came in waves. First came the cannon fodder, white clad civilians being driven into death as a massive human battering ram. They were followed by crack North Korean troops, who mounted one charge after another. They overran the 7th Cav's forward machine-gun positions through sheer weight of numbers, over piles of their own dead.

Another force flanked the company and took up a position on a hill to the rear. Captain Chandler saw that it was building up strength. He assembled a group of 25 men, composed of wounded troopers awaiting evacuation, the company clerk, supply men, cooks and drivers, and led them to the hill. One of the more seriously wounded was Lieutenant Carroll, the young officer bucking for the Regular Army. Chandler left Carroll at the bottom of the hill to direct any reinforcements he could find to the fight.

Then Mel Chandler started up the hill. He took one step, two, broke into a trot and then into a run. The first thing he knew the words ``Garryowen!'' burst from his throat. His followers shouted the old battle cry after him and charged the hill, firing as they ran.

The Koreans fell back, but regrouped at the top of the hill and pinned down the cavalrymen with a screen of fire. Chandler, looking to right and left to see how his men were faring, suddenly saw another figure bounding up the hill, hurling grenades and hollering the battle cry as he ran. It was Bob Carroll, who had suddenly found himself imbued with the spirit of Garryowen. He had formed his own task force of three stragglers and led them up the hill in a Fighting Seventh charge. Because of this diversionary attack the main group that had been pinned down on the hill was able to surge forward again. But an enemy grenade hit Carroll in the head and detonated simultaneously. He went down like a wet rag and the attackers hit the dirt in the face of the withering enemy fire.