After withdrawing from Bloody Ridge, the Korean People's Army (KPA) set up new positions just 1,500 yards (1,400 m) away on a 7-mile (11 km) long hill mass.

Ridgway had turned down more ambitious plans for an amphibious landing near Wonsan and for a deep advance into North Korea, but he had no objection to a modest ground offensive.

Instead he informed Ridgway that he favored sustaining his "tidying up" on the Eighth Army right flank during the remainder of September, using "elbowing" tactics without any definite objective line assigned.

[1] Acting swiftly, Van Fleet issued a general directive to his corps commanders on 8 September, emphasizing limited objective attacks, reconnaissance, and patrolling.

But the heavy woods and undergrowth had veiled the elaborate fortifications and concealed the fact that the 2nd Infantry Division was again faced with the task of breaching the KPA's main line of resistance.

Colonel Edwin Walker, the artillery commander, felt that the North Koreans would "fight like hell" for it, while some members of the staff believed that the response would be less vigorous.

As the assault troops moved north from Hill 702 up the Sat'ae-ri Valley to reach the east-west spur ridge that would serve as the approach to Heartbreak, the KPA spotted them.

The KPA 1st Regiment, 6th Division, manned a series of concealed, mutually supporting bunkers that covered the approach ridge with machine guns and small arms.

Secure in their strongly fortified bunkers, the KPA defenders waited until the artillery and air support given to the 2nd Division assault forces was lifted, then returned to their firing positions.

Since the KPA controlled the Mundung-ni Valley, which offered defiladed and less steep access routes to Heartbreak Ridge, the problem of reinforcement and resupply was not difficult to resolve.

To keep the front-line units supplied with food, water, ammunition, and equipment and to evacuate the casualties often required that American infantrymen double as carriers and litter bearers.

The rugged terrain and the close KPA surveillance of the approaches to Heartbreak Ridge made their jobs very hazardous and time consuming, for it could take up to ten hours to bring down a litter case from the forward positions held by the 23d Regiment.

If the KPA assumed that this attack marked the beginning of an envelopment of Heartbreak Ridge from the west, they might well divert men and guns to block it, Lynch reasoned.

The 23rd's regimental tanks were able to move far enough north in the Sat'ae-ri Valley to send direct fire against some of the KPA bunkers covering the eastern approaches to Heartbreak, but could not destroy the heavy mortars and machine guns that halted the 2nd Division attack.

[1]: 90–1 After almost two weeks of futile pounding on the KPA defenses on Heartbreak, Adams told Young on 26 September that it was "suicide" to continue adhering to the original plan.

Analyzing the initial attempts of 2nd Division to take Heartbreak, Young later characterized them as a "fiasco" because of the piecemeal commitment of units and the failure to organize fire support teams.

[1]: 92 The preparations for Touchdown required a period of tremendous activity on the part of the 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion and its commander, Lieutenant colonel Robert W. Love.

Working with shovels because their bulldozers were undergoing repair and would, in any case, have drawn artillery fire from the KPA on the heights further up the valley, the engineers fashioned a usable road.

[1]: 92–3 While the engineers prepared the path for the tank attack, the 2nd Division's regiments received replacements to bring their battalions up to full strength and built up their supplies of food, equipment, and ammunition for the upcoming operation.

Each battalion had to submit fire plans showing how it intended to employ its tanks, automatic weapons, small arms, and mortars in Touchdown.

To protect the division's right flank in the Sat'ae-ri Valley area and to distract the KPA, a task force under Major Kenneth R. Sturman of the 23rd Infantry Regiment was organized on 3 October.

Fire support teams, usually consisting of a combination of mortars, machine guns, rifles, and automatic weapons that could be called upon by the attacking infantry whenever the need arose, were set up and given dry runs.

In the late afternoon of 5 October, the division's artillery battalions began to pummel the defending KPA units facing the 9th and 38th Regiments in the Mundung-ni Valley area.

[1]: 93–4 Air strikes by United States Marine Corps F4U Corsairs sent napalm, rockets, and machine gun bullets into the KPA lines before the attack jumped off that evening.

[1]: 94–5 In the Sat'ae-ri Valley, Task Force Sturman's tanks sustained their daylight raids and continued to blast away at the bunkers on the eastern slopes of Hill 851.

Finally at daybreak on 13 October, Monclar's French troops stormed the peak and after 30 days of hard combat, Heartbreak Ridge was in the possession of the 23rd Infantry.

In both cases, the North Koreans had organized strong defensive positions in depth and had had the advantage of defiladed routes to bring in logistical support and reinforcements.

Then, unable to funnel in replacements to all the threatened positions or to concentrate its artillery and mortar fire within a small area, the KPA had reluctantly withdrawn to their next defense line.

[1]: 97 Public opinion turned against "limited-objective" operations of this nature, and military censorship resulted in far less media focus on the other October battles that followed Heartbreak Ridge.

In M*A*S*H Heartbreak Ridge is mentioned in the season 11 episode "Trick or Treatment" as the location where the soldiers' buddies named "Bertleson, Wooster, Greenwade" were killed in an empty foxhole during an "early Thanksgiving".