page_title: Operation Courageous
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Courageous / Aftermath
context_page_description: Operation Courageous was a military operation performed by the United Nations Command during the Korean War designed to trap large numbers of Chinese People's Volunteer Army and Korean People's Army troops between the Han and Imjin Rivers north of Seoul, opposite the Republic of Korea Army I Corps. The intent of Operation Courageous was for US I Corps, which was composed of the US 25th and 3rd Infantry Divisions and the ROK 1st Infantry Division, to advance quickly on the PVA/KPA forces and reach the Imjin River with all possible speed.
context_section_description: In advance of issuing orders for attacks above the 38th Parallel, General Ridgway assembled corps and division commanders at his Yoju headquarters on March 27 to discuss courses of action that were now open to them or that they might be obliged to follow. The possibility of Soviet intervention again had been raised, he told them. According to a reputable foreign source, the Soviets planned to launch a large scale offensive in Korea near the end of April employing Soviet regulars of Mongolian extraction under the guise of volunteers. Ridgway doubted the accuracy of the report, but as a matter of prudence, since the Eighth Army might be ordered out of Korea in the event of Soviet intervention, he intended to pass the evacuation plan outlined by the Eighth Army staff in January to Corps' commanders for further development. Lest Eighth Army forces start "looking over the shoulder", no word of the course of action or preparations for it was to go beyond those working on the plan.
  Alluding to past and recent proposals of cease-fire negotiations, Ridgway also advised that future governmental decisions might compel the Eighth Army to adopt a static defense. Because of its inherent rigidity, such a stance would require strong leadership and imaginative tactical thinking, he warned, to stand off a numerically stronger enemy that might not be similarly inhibited in the choice of tactics.
  The Eighth Army meanwhile would continue to move forward and in the next advance would cross the 38th Parallel. Ridgway agreed with General MacArthur's earlier prediction that a stalemate ultimately would develop on the battlefront, but just how far the Eighth Army would drive into North Korea before this occurred, he informed the assembled commanders, could not be accurately assessed at the moment.
  Ridgway had revised his concept for advancing above the parallel since meeting with MacArthur on March 24. He originally had intended to direct a strong attack northwestward across the Imjin, expecting that in moving as far as the Yesong River the attack force would find the elusive KPA I Corps. His intelligence staff later discovered that the bulk of the Corps had withdrawn behind the Yesong and also warned that the attack force would be vulnerable to envelopment by a fresh PVA unit located off the right flank of the advance. (The unit was the XIX Army Group, which intelligence had not yet fully identified.) Ridgway, as a result, elected to limit operations northwest of the Imjin to reconnaissance and combat patrols.
  He planned to point his main attack toward the centrally located road and rail complex marked out by the towns of Pyonggang in the north and Ch'orwon and Gimhwa-eup in the south. This complex, eventually named the Iron Triangle by newsmen searching for a dramatic term, lay 20–30 miles (32–48 km) above the 38th Parallel in the diagonal corridor dividing the Taebaek Mountains into northern and southern ranges and containing the major road and rail links between the port of Wonsan in the northeast and Seoul in the southwest. Other routes emanating from the triangle of towns connected with Pyongyang to the northwest and with the western and eastern halves of the present front. A unique center of communications, the complex was of obvious importance to the ability of the communist high command to move troops and supplies within the forward areas and to coordinate operations laterally.
  Ridgway's first concern was to occupy ground that could serve as a base both for continuing the advance toward the complex and, in view of the enemy's evident offensive preparations, for developing a defensive position. The base selected, the Kansas Line, traced the lower bank of the Imjin in the west. From the Imjin eastward as far as the Hwach'on Reservoir the line lay 2–6 miles (3.2–9.7 km) above the 38th Parallel across the approaches to the Iron Triangle. Following the lower shoreline of the reservoir, it then turned slightly north to a depth of 10 miles (16 km) above the parallel before falling off southeastward to the Yangyang area on the coast. In the adva
caption: Men of the 3rd Ranger Company, 3rd Infantry Division, adjust their gear before undertaking a dawn patrol across the Imjin River, Korea. April 17, 1951
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