(3 of 3)
A lieutenant colonel of engineers, some demolition men and a reconnaissance platoon stood in the middle of the muddy road 100 yards from the edge of the town. The town itself was completely quiet except for a band of several hundred Koreans who stood disconsolately around holding aloft several South Korean flags. The colonel wanted to blow up a railroad bridge that crossed the road a few yards from where he stood, but he was having his troubles.
The colonel glanced down the peaceful no man's land that separated him from the friendly Koreans and saw them marching in the direction of the railroad bridge. He jumped in a jeep, swung himself behind a 30-caliber machine gun and drove up to stop them. Meanwhile, the reconnaissance platoon went off for one last swing through the town to make sure all the U.N. troops were out. When the colonel finally was forced to dismount and turn them back at carbine point, the Koreans seemed hurt and puzzled.
Up with a Bang. Back down the road to the port of Hungnam, thousands of bewildered refugees watched as the retreating U.N. army destroyed trains, tents, unsalvageable vehicles and more bridges. A young engineer lieutenant pointed pridefully to the underside of a 600-ft. highway bridge; he had packed in a series of charges totaling three tons of explosives and thought that this one should really go up with a bang; 30 minutes later it did, and the bang shook most of Hungnam. That night Hungnam rocked to still more violent and ever-increasing explosions around the U.S. perimeter. Great orange masses of flame swirled brilliantly up into the skies and then subsided again. The perimeter shrank slowly but steadily. The evacuation went on like an orderly, well-rehearsed fire drill.