Map: Korean War, Battle of the Kumsong Salient, July 1953

Battle of the Kumsong Salient, the greatest battle of the last two years of the Korean War.

(Note: to enlarge the map fully, click on it. Then, when the new page opens, click on the "View all Sizes" logo in the upper right corner.)

On 13 July 1953, only 14 days before the cease fire that ended the shooting phase of the Korean War, Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) launched their largest offensive of the last two years of the Korean War. Their intent was to remove a northward bulge of the MLR in the vicinity of the town of Kumsong. The battle is known as the Battle of the Kumsong Salient.

This map is a U.S. Army topographic map compiled in 1961 to which I've added information from other sources to illustrate aspects of the battle. The thin, solid red line indicates the position of the Main Line of Resistance (MLR) prior to the battle, and the broad east-west trending band meandering across the map shows the position of the later established Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) . To provide a sense of scale, the latitude and longitude lines are about 6 miles apart.

The massive CCF attacks in the Kumsong Salient just east of Kumhwa overwhelmed the ROK Capitol Division which had been holding the line in that sector. In attempt to block the CCF advance, on 14 July 1953 the U.S. Army 3rd Division, which had been situated within the Iron Triangle, was shifted to several miles east of Kumhwa along Road 6 (shown in the lower left corner of the map) as a blocking action against the CCF breakthrough. In fact, the CCF ran into the 3rd Division and was stopped cold.

My brother-in-law, Jerry Hartman, was with the 58th Field Artillery Battalion (FAB) of the 3rd Division. I have posted on Flickr photos I took when visiting his unit in March 1953 when his unit was supporting Outpost Harry in the center of the Iron Triangle. Soon after the 3rd Division was shifted to the Kumsong sector east of Kumhwa, I again visited his unit.

Road 6 is shown on the southwest corner of the map. Running east from Kumhwa, it was situated in a broad valley. Artillery units were aligned along the Road 6 valley as far as I could see. When I arrived, our artillery units were engaged in a massive bombardment of the CCF that stunned the ear, quaked the ground, and filled the air with cordite. They were firing over mountain ridges immediately in front of their positions where the 65th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Division was dug in along the crests of the mountain ridges, constituting the MLR. Our artillery units were in the process of decimating a large troop of CCF that had assembled in the valley--No man's land--out in front of the 65th Infantry Regiment's positions.

On the map, I indicate by a broad red band where I believe that the 65th Infantry Regiment was dug in along the crests of the mountain ridges. The valley out in front of the 65th was No-man's-land, which I indicate by a broad blue band. The east-west extent of the bands reflects my knowledge, and I'm not sure where they extended to eastward.

Everything north of the valley as far as the eye could see was CCF territory. Only a few days earlier it had been U.N. territory.

You can read about the battle in the website "Chaos along the Kumsong River Salient..." at www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?p=313253. Following are quotes from the article:

"Hostile artillery fired more rounds than it had at any time during the war," wrote 3rd Division unit historian W.F. Strobridge. "Fighting reached an intensity not seen on the Korean battleground since 1951."

"The intensity of the CCF advance prompted Gen. Maxwell Taylor to fly the 187th RCT in from Japan to bolster the left flank. He also moved the 3rd Division to the east to relieve the ROK Capital Division, which had been hammered by the CCF."

"The enemy offensive ran up against the 3rd Division and stopped," Strobridge wrote. "The 65th Regiment took an estimated 20,000 rounds of enemy artillery and kept its ground. Likewise, the 15th Regiment stood fast and inflicted tremendous casualties on the enemy."

Re the specifics of the battle, you can read about them in an article about Richard L. Carpenter who was in the Battle of the Kumsong Salient. The website is at
www.koreanwar-educator.org/memoirs/carpenter/index.htm#Ju.... Following are some quotations from the article:

"On the evening of July 13, 1953, the Chinese Army launched its largest and most violent attack since the Spring Offensive of May 1951...the Battle of Kumsong. The Chinese commanders threw no fewer than five of their armies into the surprise assault: the 24th, 68th, and 60th already at the front, and the 54th brought up from the rear. The 150,000 men in these units focused on a relatively narrow, twenty-mile sector of the front defended by six ROK divisions: the 6th, 8th, 3rd, and 5th from ROK II Corps, and the Capital and ROK 9th attached to the adjacent (western) U.S. IX Corps under Lt. General Reuben Jenkins." [Reference: From Pusan to Panmunjom by General Paik Sun Yup, Republic of Korea Army, retired].... From west (left flank) to east, the ROK units were the 9th and the Capitol (Tiger) Divisions in the IX Corps sector, and the 6th, 8th, 3rd and 5th Divisions in the ROK II Corps sector.

"The July assault by the Chinese was aimed at the ROK Capitol Division, which was holding the sector on the right flank of the IX Corps, near Kumwha, the right leg of the Iron Triangle. The Capitol Division, nearly overwhelmed by THREE (emphasis added) Chinese Divisions which broke through their lines and threatened complete envelopment, fell back in confusion." [Reference: The Korean War by Matthew B. Ridgway, General U.S. Army, retired].

"In the late part of the 14th, the Chinese broke through in several places along the western side of the Capitol Division's front line.... Further attacks caused the 1st Cavalry to disintegrate as a fighting force. The rest of the ROK Division, comprising the 26th Regiment, was ordered to fall back to the next prepared positions while under pressure from the 202nd (probably) CCF Division. As the Capitol Division was thus engaged.... A major bug out began.

"By July 14 six Chinese divisions had pressed savagely against the ROK positions in the Kumsong bulge and had practically destroyed the ROK Capitol division and much of the ROK 3rd Division (on the right side of the 20 to 21 mile bulge). Casualties on both side were extremely heavy, because it was a stand-up fight directly on the main line of resistance with direct assaults by the communists into the heart of the ROK defensive positions." [Reference: Korea: The First War We Lost by Bevin Alexander.... The quote continued, "In this last, sad series of battles, thousands of young men died or were maimed for mere yards of territory. UN casualties for June and July, 1953, were more than 52,000 men, mostly ROKs. Estimated casualties for communist troops in the same period were 108,000."

Taken on: July 7, 2009

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Sets appears in: • Korean War Memories 1951-1953

Groups appears in: • Army Korea

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