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Col. Reginald Myers Dies; Medal of Honor Recipient
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; B05
Reginald R. Myers, 85, a Marine Corps colonel who
received the Medal of Honor in the Korean War for
leading his vastly outnumbered force in an assault on
a key position during the Battle of the Chosin
Reservoir, died Oct. 23 at a hospice in West Palm
Beach, Fla., of the effects of a stroke. He had lived
in Jupiter, Fla., since moving there from Annandale in
1993.
Before Col. Myers set foot in Korea, he was a veteran
of some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific during
World War II. As a young Marine officer who rose
through the ranks from second lieutenant to major in
less than four years, he fought at Guadalcanal, the
Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands and in the
Battle of Okinawa.
He went to Korea in July 1950 as a battalion executive
officer in the 1st Marine Division. He received two
Bronze Stars four days apart in September, first as
part of the U.S. invasion at Inchon and later for
rescuing two wounded Marines.
In late November 1950, Col. Myers's assignment was to
recapture a high point of land near the Chosin
Reservoir called East Hill. An Army unit trying to
defend the hill had been driven from its position by
Communist Chinese troops. Ordered to retake the hill
to secure a safe evacuation for the outmanned United
Nations forces, Col. Myers -- then a major -- did not
have a standard fighting force to command.
"I had no Marine rifle company or unit of any type in
my area," he told the Idaho Military Historical
Society in a 2001 interview. "So, as I walked toward
East Hill, I formed my own combat element from support
Marines, such as cooks, truck drivers, maintenance
personnel and administrative personnel, recruiting
Marines along the way. I ended up with about 50
hard-charging Marines that were raring to go and
anxious to get into the fight, and the 200 soldiers at
the bottom of East Hill -- 250 overall."
With that small, improvised unit, Col. Myers led an
attack against an entrenched force of 4,000 Chinese
troops Nov. 29, 1950. The conditions could not have
been more forbidding: He launched his charge at night,
up a steep, snow-covered hill in biting wind and a
temperature of 23 degrees below zero.
Only 80 of Col. Myers's 250 troops reached the summit
with him, but they were able to hold the hill in spite
of steady machine-gun fire and repeated Chinese
assaults. According to his Medal of Honor citation,
Col. Myers "persisted in constantly exposing himself
to intense, accurate, and sustained hostile fire in
order to direct and supervise the employment of his
men and to encourage and spur them on in pressing the
attack."
He directed artillery and mortar fire and set up
emplacements to defend the hill from Chinese efforts
to recapture it. The intense fighting lasted 14 hours
before reinforcements arrived. In that time, Col.
Myers's beleaguered force killed more than 600 Chinese
soldiers and wounded 500.
"I was proud of my Marines," he said four years ago.
"They proved that a Marine, whether a truck driver, a
cook, a clerk or whatever, was foremost a fighting
combat rifleman."
Reginald Rodney Myers was born Nov. 26, 1919, in
Boise, Idaho. He grew up in Boise and Salt Lake City,
where he went to high school, and graduated in 1941
from the University of Idaho. He was in the Army
Reserve before becoming a Marine officer in September
1941.
After serving in the Pacific in World War II, he took
part in the occupation of northern China and was later
stationed at Marine bases across the United States.
After his heroic deeds at East Hill, Col. Myers
remained in Korea until he was wounded in action in
April 1951. In a White House ceremony six months
later, he received the Medal of Honor from President
Harry S. Truman. As an indication of the intensity of
the fighting at East Hill, the commander of the unit
that relieved Col. Myers's, Marine Capt. Carl Sitter,
was also awarded a Medal of Honor the same day.
Col. Myers served at Quantico Marine Base from 1953 to
1958, when he became assistant naval attach to the
U.S. Embassy in London. In 1961, he was named to the
Strategic Plans Division of the Chief of Naval
Operations at the Pentagon, and he later served at
Marine Corps headquarters.
He received a master's degree in business
administration from George Washington University in
1965 and retired from the Marines in 1967. In addition
to the Medal of Honor and two Bronze Stars, his
military decorations included the Legion of Merit and
Purple Heart.
In retirement, Col. Myers was the owner of Annandale
Marine and Sports Center, a retail recreational
boating business. He kept no military memorabilia at
his workplace, and most of his customers had no idea
he had once been a Marine who received the nation's
highest honor for valor.
He retired in 1993 and moved to Florida, where he
enjoyed gardening and boating. In his later years, he
participated in veterans' activities and traveled the
country to conventions with other recipients of the
Medal of Honor.
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