Battle of Bloody Ridge

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Korean War
Osan – Pusan Perimeter – Inchon – Pakchon – Chosin Reservoir – Faith – Twin Tunnels – Ripper – Courageous – Tomahawk – Yultong Bridge – Imjin River – Kapyong – Bloody Ridge – Heartbreak Ridge – Sunchon – Hill Eerie – Sui-ho Dam – Old Baldy – The Hook – Pork Chop Hill – Outpost Harry

The Battle of Bloody Ridge took place during the Korean War from August 18 to September 5, 1951. Located in hills north of the 38th parallel in the central Korean mountain range, it was fought between the communist North Korean forces of the KPA (Korean People's Army) and U.N. (United Nations) forces consisting of ROK (South Korean) units and the 2nd Infantry Division (United States) (U.S. Army). The hill known as Bloody Ridge is at 38°15′18″N, 128°0′48″E in Yanggu County, Gangwon Province, South Korea.

By the summer of 1951, the Korean War had reached a stalemate as peace negotiations began at Kaesong. The opposing armies faced each other across a line which ran (with many twists and turns along the way) from east to west, through the middle of the Korean peninsula, a few miles north of the 38th parallel. U.N. and communist forces jockeyed for position along this line, clashing in a number of relatively small, but intense and bloody battles.

Bloody Ridge began as an attempt by U.N. forces to seize a series of hills forming a ridge which they believed were being used as observation posts to call in artillery fire on a U.N. supply road. The 36th ROK Regiment made the initial attack. It succeeded in capturing most, but not all, of the ridge after a week of fierce fighting that at times was hand to hand. It was a short-lived triumph, for the following day the North Koreans recaptured the mountain in a fierce counterattack.

The next U.N. assault was made by the U.S. 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Division. The battle raged for ten days, as the North Koreans repulsed one assault after another by the increasingly exhausted and depleted 9th Infantry. After repeatedly being driven back, it succeeded in capturing one of the hill objectives after two days of heavy fighting. The weather then turned to almost constant rain, greatly slowing the attacks and making operations almost impossible because of the difficulty in bringing supplies through "rivers of mud" and up steep, slippery slopes.

Fighting continued, however, as casualties mounted. The 2nd Division's 23rd Infantry Regiment joined the attack on the main ridge while the division's other infantry regiment, the 38th, occupied positions immediately behind the main ridge which threatened to cut off any North Korean retreat. The combination of frontal attacks, flanking movements and incessant bombardment by artillery, tanks and airstrikes ultimately decided the battle. Finally, on September 5th, the North Koreans abandoned the ridge after UN forces succeeded in outflanking it.

The American soldiers called the piece of terrain they had taken, Bloody Ridge, which indeed it was: 2,700 U.N. and perhaps as many as 15,000 communists were casualties, almost all of them killed or wounded, few prisoners being taken by either side.

After withdrawing from Bloody Ridge, the North Koreans set up new positions just 1,500 yards away on a seven-mile-long hill mass that was soon to earn the name Heartbreak Ridge.

[edit] Casualties

The much higher communist casualties were due in large part, to two factors:

1. Discipline in the KPA was extremely rigid, to the point where subordinate leaders were often not allowed to retreat under any conditions, in which case the entire unit would be destroyed. Even when permission was granted for a withdrawal, it often came only after the large majority of troops in the unit had been killed.

2. In most battles, U.N. forces had an overwhelming advantage in artillery and air support; indeed, the communists had no air support whatsoever. An enormously destructive "rain of fire" could be brought by U.N. units against North Korean and Chinese forces which they could not answer in kind.

[edit] References

Blair, Clay (1987). The Forgotten War. New York: Times Books. ISBN 5-550-68614-7.
Fehrenbach, T.R (1964). This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-881113-5.
(2002). Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History. New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-4682-4.