Operation Courageous - Operation Ripper Linkup

Operation Ripper Linkup

Late on March 26, as it became obvious that the Chinese were backing away from the 3d and 25th Divisions, General Ridgway had ordered the I and IX Corps to continue to line Benton. As originally conceived, the IX Corps advance to Benton was limited to General Hoge's western forces and was intended simply to protect the I Corps' right flank. But Ridgway had since modified his plan of operations, widening the advance to include the entire IX Corps and all other forces to the east.

On March 23, he had lengthened line Benton eastward through the 1st Cavalry Division's patrol base at Ch'unch'on and as far as the 1st Marine Division's zone on the IX Corps right, where it joined the last few miles of line Cairo. On the following day he had extended line Cairo from its original terminus in the Marine zone northeastward across the remainder of the army front to the town of Chosan-ni on the east coast. The final objective line of the Operation Ripper thus had become a combination of the Benton and Cairo lines, following the upstream trace of the Imjin virtually to the 38th parallel in the west, hanging slack a few miles below the parallel for almost all of its remaining length to the east, then rising to an east coast anchor some eight miles (13 km) above the parallel.

Ridgway's forces achieved the adjusted line by the end of March, encountering no more than the sporadic delaying action that had characterized the opposition to Operation Ripper from the outset. Thus, since March 7 Eighth Army forces had made impressive territorial gains, recapturing the South Korean capital and moving between twenty-five and thirty miles (40–50 km) north to reach the 38th parallel. Estimates of Chinese killed and wounded during the month were high, and some 4,800 Chinese and North Koreans had been captured. Nevertheless, the results in terms of troops and supplies destroyed were considerably less than anticipated. The clear fact was that the communist high command had been and still was marshaling its main forces beyond the reach of the Operation Ripper. Equally obvious was that only advances above the 38th parallel north could attack these main forces.