BATTLE OF KOREA: The Dim-Out War

“It has been the bitterest fighting and the most gallant fighting I have ever seen,” said Colonel James Adams of Monterey, Calif. “We’ve tried every approach to that mountain, we’ve crawled up every finger of the ridge. That’s right—crawled. You can’t climb up it. It’s like a razor. There haven’t been any prisoners taken by either side on top of that mountain.”

Colonel Adams commands the U.S. 2nd Division’s 23rd Regiment, which was finally identified last week, by permission of Eighth Army censors, as the outfit spearheading the fight for Heartbreak Ridge. This strategic, four-mile-long mountain north of Yanggu (see map) overlooks an important North Korean supply and assembly base to the north. The ridge, said the 2nd Division’s commander, was “like a dagger pointing to their heart.” The Eighth Army wanted it desperately— and the Reds were just as desperately determined to prevent its capture by U.N. forces.

Bunkers & Blasts. Heartbreak Ridge has been the fiercest Korean battle in four months, worse than Bloody Ridge, worse than the Punchbowl. The North Koreans were holed up in stout, deep bunkers that resisted direct artillery and mortar hits. When they lost some of these in hand-to-hand fights, they threw in a series of heavy counterattacks, using five regiments one after another. Twice Americans got to the top, only to be blasted off by enemy fire. This week neither side held it, although at some points on the slopes their positions were only yards apart. The dirty, unshaven, dog-tired men of the 23rd claimed to have destroyed the equivalent of an enemy division.

Doubtless with the 23rd Regiment’s casualties at Heartbreak Ridge in mind, General Van Fleet issued a long statement explaining—and justifying the cost of—his summer campaign of attacks while peace talks were under way. Since May 25, in what he called “the dimout war,” the enemy had lost 188,000 men, he said. The summer battles had served to weaken the enemy, to improve the U.N.’s military posture, to school and season replacements, and above all, to ward off inertia.

Shoestrings & Stagnation. “It was imperative,” Van Fleet said, “to forestall the dreaded softening process of stagnation. A ‘sit down’ army is subject to collapse at the first sign of an enemy effort. An army that stops to tie its shoestrings seldom regains the,initiative. I couldn’t allow my forces to become soft and dormant. I couldn’t let them slip into a condition that eventually would cause horrendous casualties. So the Eighth Army kept needling the enemy with limited objective attacks.”

Van Fleet said he was now launching his autumn offensive, and added: “Whether this effort will be limited or otherwise, I am not at liberty to say.”