Operation Courageous - Linkup

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The point of Task Force Growdon reached Munsan-ni at 18:30 on March 23, but the remainder of the extended column took several hours longer. The force encountered no Chinese positions along Route 1 but was kept to an intermittent crawl by having to lift or explode over 150 live mines, some of them booby-trapped, and almost as many dummy mines, including a five-mile (8 km) stretch of buried C-rations and beer cans. Casualties were few, but four tanks were disabled by mines. As the last of these tanks hit a mine a mile (1.5 km) below Munsan-ni, the explosion attracted artillery fire that damaged two more. The tail of the task force finally arrived at the airborne position at 07:00 on March 24.

General Milburn's orders to the 187th for operations on March 24 called only for patrolling. Having been given control of Task Force Growdon by Milburn, General Bowen built his principal patrols around Task Force Growdon's tanks and sent them to investigate ferry sites on the Imjin and to check Route 2Y, an earthen road running east from Munsanni, as far as the village of Sinch'on, ten miles (16 km) away. One patrol made contact while checking an Imjin ferry site and ford ten miles northeast of Munsan-ni. Six Chinese were killed and twenty-two captured. The patrol suffered no casualties, but a tank had to be destroyed after it got bogged down at a stream crossing while approaching the lmjin. A few rounds of artillery fire meanwhile fell in the northern drop zone but caused no casualties.

The ROK 1st Division had advanced steadily toward Munsan-ni without enemy contact. Early on March 24, Task Force Boone, a division armored column consisting of Company C, 64th Tank Battalion (on loan to General Paik Sun-yup from the 3d Division), Paik's tank destroyer battalion (organized as an infantry unit), and two of his engineer platoons, stepped ahead of the division and reached the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team at midmorning. By day's end the remainder of the division occupied a line extending from positions athwart Route 1 about three miles (5 km) below Munsan-ni northeastward to Pobwon-ni, a village on lateral Route 2Y six miles (10 km) east of Munsan-ni area. General Paik relieved General Bowen of responsibility for the Munsan-ni area at 17:00 and placed Task Force Boone in position just above the town.

The lack of resistance to the wider sweep of the ROK 1st Division's advance confirmed that the bid to block and attack the North Korean I Corps had been futile. To the east, the fact that the Chinese 26th Army still had forces deployed to delay the advance of the 3d and 25th Divisions had become equally clear. On the I Corps' right, the 25th Division had run into a large number of minefields and small but well entrenched Chinese groups employing small arms, machine gun, and mortar fire. At nightfall on March 24 General Bradley's forces held positions almost due west of Uijongbu in the 3d Division's zone at corps center.