Battle
Shorten · contain · break through · relieve
Military history
Chipyong-ni cannot be reduced either to a French charge or to a Chinese mass stopped by a miracle. After the front fell back around Hoengsong, the 23rd Regiment formed a short perimeter in a basin, accepted that the commanding ridges would remain outside it, and turned its fires, communications, and air support into time gained. Night attacks opened a breach in the south, but did not disintegrate the deployment. Relief infantry stalled on the heights; a column of twenty-three tanks then forced the road from Koksu-ri and made the link-up possible.
After the fighting at Twin Tunnels, the 23rd Infantry Regiment of 2nd Division reached Chipyong-ni on 3 February and established a defence. The village was a crossroads in a basin, crossed by a single-track railway; the eight surrounding hills dominated the valley but did not form a line one regiment could hold alone.
The Chinese offensive of 11–13 February around Hoengsong pushed back South Korean units and forced X Corps' front to retreat. Chipyong-ni, formerly ahead of the line, became an exposed salient; patrols and a reconnaissance sent down the southern road met Chinese forces closing the approaches.
Freeman declined to occupy all eight heights: their crests would have stretched the defence over about twelve miles and produced an enclosure several miles in diameter. He placed infantry on a low ring about a mile across, dug into the rice paddies in the northwest, registered artillery fire, and linked sectors by telephone and radio.
Freeman first considered withdrawing toward Yoju; Ridgway refused to abandon Chipyong-ni. This choice promised no isolated victory: it retained a road hub protecting the Han valley and gave the corps time to restore its line while the regiment requested air strikes, drops, and relief.
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Military history
Pages imprimées 100–125 (PDF pp. 110–135), chapitre Chipyong-ni : terrain, périmètre, isolement, deux nuits et Company G ; pages imprimées 126–146 (PDF pp. 136–156), chapitre Task Force Crombez : composition, départ à 15 h 45, dash, jonction, pertes et ravitaillement
Arrival on 3 February, perimeter geometry, artillery and mortars, decision to hold, course of the two nights, breach at Company G, composition and progress of Crombez's force, link-up times, column losses, and coordination limits.
View ↗PDF Visuals 4A–4E, pp. 24–28 (vallée, routes, collines et périmètre) ; Visuals 6–8, pp. 49–67 (ravitaillement, deuxième nuit, attaques internes et force Crombez)
Relational plan of hills and axes, organisation of the 23rd RCT, resupply difficulties, sequence of the southern breach, and educational detail on the armoured column.
View ↗PDF pp. 31–39 (pages affichées 32–40) : extrait du 23d Infantry Regiment Command Report, surtout pp. 31–32 pour les directions d'attaque, pp. 34–36 pour les largages, pénuries et Company G, puis pp. 37–39 pour les contre-attaques et la jonction ; la médiation éditoriale est explicitement signalée
Check on times and tactical causality: multidirectional attacks, registered fires, shortages of M1 clips and mortar ammunition, G's breach, internal counterattacks, and arrival of the armoured column. Editorial mediation is noted: this PDF is not the original archive.
View ↗PDF pp. 8–11, section 11–18 February 1951 ; carte opérative de la contre-offensive CCF, p. 9 ; passage Chip’yong-ni, p. 9–11 (attaques, secours, bilan et effet sur l'initiative)
Context of Hoengsong and the Fourth Offensive, role of the crossroads in the Han valley, aviation, arrival of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, UN losses, and operational scope.
View ↗Rubrique Battle of Jipyeong-ri, lignes 281–288 de la notice en ligne (13–16 février, 23e régiment et bataillon français, 39e armée, encerclement, 5e cavalerie et portée)
Korean institutional tradition for the date, 39th Army command, relief by 5th Cavalry Regiment, and effect on the February offensive.
View ↗Notice et résumé anglais de la page ouverte, lignes 47–50 : force plusieurs fois supérieure, tentative d'enveloppement et de destruction d'un régiment, retrait après trois jours et portée sur la quatrième offensive ; le texte intégral annoncé n'a pas été consulté
Limited cross-check of the Chinese aim to envelop and destroy the regiment, relative superiority, and operational scope; no detailed local attribution or numerical data is drawn from the abstract alone.
View ↗Article du 26 février 1951, sept paragraphes historiques allant de “At Kunu last December” à “Late Thursday afternoon” ; le dernier paragraphe donne les bilans publiés à chaud.
Contemporary perception of the salient, French role, cartridge shortage, breach, and arrival of tanks; early figures serve only to establish divergence from later syntheses.
View ↗Paragraphes web 96–109 (identification, ordre de tenir, départ de Task Force Crombez à 15 h 45, retrait chinois et arrivée à 17 h 25)
Institutional cross-check of relief-force times, the end of the battle, and the relationship among internal pressure, aviation, and Chinese withdrawal.
View ↗National Institute of Korean History, rapport POW No. 3943, lignes 218–230 pour l'identité et l'évaluation, 263–309 pour la 39e armée, la 116e division et le mouvement de l'élément de reconnaissance, 329–345 pour pertes, logistique et chaîne de commandement
Limited attestation that a reconnaissance element of the 116th Division passed through Chipyong-ni on 10–12 February, withdrew on the 13th, and that the division belonged to the 39th Army; the report proves neither that element's participation in the assaults nor the complete order of battle.
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