[301] Ibid.
Six Months on the UNC Line[302]
[302] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: Barclay, Commonwealth; Cagle and Manson, Sea War, Korea; Clark, Danube to Yalu; Field, NavOps, Korea; Futrell, USAF, Korea; Walter G. Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front—United States Army in the Korean War (Washington: OCMH, DA, 1966), hereafter Hermes, Truce Tent; Miller, Carroll, and Tackley, Korea, 1951–1953.
The KMC Regiment’s battle in late October marked the end of two months of heavy fighting in the division sector. October had witnessed the most intense combat in more than a year. As the third Korean winter approached outpost clashes and small unit actions along the rest of the UNC frontline began to slacken. During November and December, neither side appeared eager to pursue the offensive. Chinese aggressiveness declined noticeably.
Despite other action initiated by the enemy, the I Corps sector remained the chief Communist target. On 19 November, the British 1st Commonwealth Division successfully withstood what was initially a company-size attempt to capture the Hook. In sharp fighting between 1900 and 0430, Black Watch and reinforcing Canadian units repulsed a determined battalion-strength CCF assault, killing more than 100 Chinese.[303] Marine and I Corps artillery units fired almost continuously throughout the night in support of the Hook defenders. Fighting flared again, briefly, in December in the I Corps sector when Chinese soldiers attempted to overrun outposts on the Imjin River line, but were thrown back by the ROK 1st Division. The enemy then tried to seize key terrain forward of the U.S. 2nd Division, but was again halted.
[303] For details of this action see Canadian Department of National Defence ltr to Dir, MCHist, HQMC, dtd 8 Jan 70 in v. V, Korean comment file.
Elsewhere before the end of the year, the CCF captured one outpost in the IX Corps area, to the right of I Corps, but suffered a telling defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian battalion during an attempt to crack this sector of the U.S. 7th Division line. After a brief fire fight the Chinese were forced to withdraw, leaving 131 CCF dead in the Ethiopian positions. North Korean efforts to seize critical ground in the X and ROK I Corps sectors, at the far eastern end of the EUSAK line, was similarly broken up by the U.S. 40th and ROK 5th Divisions.
By the end of 1952 General Van Fleet had not only revitalized his defenses with recent rotation of frontline units but had also strengthened his line by inserting another division in the critical and long-troublesome Chorwon-Kumhwa sector of IX Corps, on the I Corps right flank. With these changes by late December there were 16 EUSAK divisions on line—11 Korean, 3 U.S. Army, 1 Marine, and 1 British Commonwealth—plus 4 divisions in reserve (1 Korean and 3 U.S. Army). Nearly 75 percent of the UNC line had been entrusted to Republic of Korea units. Their performance was a tribute to growing ROK military proficiency and justified the EUSAK decision to assign to ROK troops a greater role in the Allied ground defense.
The slow pace of infantry action during the last two months of 1952 continued into the new year. Raids by small UNC units highlighted the limited combat during January and February. During the following month the battlefront tempo accelerated, due in part to expanded patrol activities. A number of sharp clashes in No-Man’s-Land resulted in several Communist setbacks but led the enemy to make an increased use of ambushes. These traps initially caught the UNC troops by surprise, inflicting heavy casualties on them. But by far the most severe fighting of the new year resulted when the Chinese renewed their fierce outpost and main line of resistance attacks in March.
Again, the western I Corps sector was the major combat area as enemy pressure mounted along the front. This was believed due, in part, to the “growing Chinese sensitivity to the I Corps raids”[304] as well as an attempt by the CCF to regain the initiative as they began to send out larger forces to probe and assault UNC positions. On 17 March, the Chinese launched a battalion-size attack against Hill 355 (Little Gibraltar). This MLR position was defended by elements of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division, on line immediately east of the Marine division, in the sector customarily occupied by the 1st Commonwealth Division. (The Army unit had relieved the British division on 30 January.) A second large-scale assault on the hill that month was also turned back.