Defending the Entire Front: The Volunteer Army Launches the Fourth Campaign

On January 25, 1951, Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, the newly appointed commander of the US Eighth Army, studied the Volunteers' methods of warfare and ordered the US I and IX Corps to launch a multi-pronged advance toward Seoul along a 68-kilometer front from Yanmuli to Yeoju. The officers and men of the Volunteers' 50th and 38th Armies, defending the area, overcame bitter cold and a lack of construction materials to build two lines of defensive positions. They repeatedly contested each position with the US forces, and the fighting was exceptionally fierce. Only after the Hoengseong counterattack ended on February 16 and 18 were the defending Volunteer forces ordered to withdraw to the north bank of the Han River. In this battle, the 50th and 38th Armies pinned down the US I and IX Corps on the western front, killing, wounding, or capturing more than 20,000 enemy troops and powerfully supporting the Volunteers' main force in its counterattack on the eastern front.