When truce negotiations began on
July 10, opposing armies were almost equal in
size. However, the CCF and NK had suffered
terrible casualties during their 5th Phase
offensive and were vulnerable to a vital and
competent Eighth Army which had the momentum.
However, Truman and the UN had put constraints on
Eighth Army, ordering it to hold positions at
Kansas and Wyoming Lines, not permitting them to
launch any assaults which might gain substantial
territory. Thus Eighth Army conducted only
patrols and limited assaults, including the
clearing out of CCF from the Sobang Hills in the
Iron Triangle.
And so began the Stalemate, and
what is sometimes called the Outpost
War.
Though most attention has focused
on the Korean War's first year, bloody
fighting persisted throughout the entire war.
Half of our dead were killed after the truce
talks began, while people talked and postured, at Panmunjom.
Artillery
concentrations on the small outposts and
contested hills of the MLR exceeded anything in
WWI or WWII; typically a thousand rounds
exploding in 10 minutes or so, followed by
battalion- and regiment-scale assaults against
positions scarcely large enough to hold a
company. The Marines fought for Bunker Hill,
Reno, Carson and Vegas; the ROKs for Sniper
Ridge, Triangle Hill and Big Nori; our 2nd
Division fought for Old Baldy, Arrowhead and Pork
Chop, as did our 7th Division in their
turn.
Dozens of
other obscure, torn landscapes soaked the blood
of other valliant infantrymen.
Some of the
most dangerous and important sections of the MLR
were held valiantly by the ROKs and our UN
allies.
