At Berlin, Turkish soldiers stayed in place for a time after the Marines arrived, and a patrol dispatched from Cereghino's battalion to set up an ambush got no farther than the outpost when the PVA struck.

However, the Marines at East Berlin succumbed to an overwhelming force that surged up a steep slope and seized the main trench despite stubborn resistance from the outpost itself and accurate fire from the MLR and beyond.

[1] A squad from Company F, 2/7 Marines, unsuccessfully counterattacked Outpost East Berlin at 04:15 on 8 July, dispensing with the usual artillery barrage in the hope of achieving surprise.

He promptly reinforced Berlin insofar as its compact size permitted, dispatching 18 additional Marines, roughly doubling the number of the outpost's American and Turkish defenders.

The platoon from Company H led the way but encountered an accurate PVA mortar barrage that pinned the Marines against the barbed wire protecting the MLR and in 15 minutes reduced the force to about 20 men able to fight.

At about noon on 8 July, however, four Marine F9Fs of VMF-311 took advantage of ground-based radar to attack targets a safe distance from East Berlin, dropping five tons of bombs on bunkers and troop concentrations.

Rain fell on 22 days that month, but the wing nevertheless reported 2,668 combat sorties, more than half of them flown in close support all along the United Nations line.

[1]: 574 Regaining Outpost East Berlin on 8 July, which coincided with the resumption of truce negotiations at Panmunjom, did not end the PVA pressure on the Marines.

After dark on the 8th, Colonel Glenn C. Funk, who had assumed command of the 7th Marines on 27 March, moved a platoon from the regiment's 3rd Battalion and four M46 Patton tanks into position to strengthen the MLR.

Entire days might pass during which Marine aerial or ground observers and patrols saw few, if any, signs of the PVA who seemed to be improving their tunnels and bunkers instead of venturing out of them to mount an attack.

Most of the fields employed mines familiar to the Marines, types that may have been newly planted or perhaps had lain dormant under the frozen ground and become deadly when the weather grew warmer and the earth softer.

The PVA proved more aggressive than in recent days, pinning down the patrol and unleashing a flurry of mortar and artillery fire that wounded every member of a unit sent to help break the ambush.

The third firefight of the night erupted just after midnight in the sector of the 7th Marines, when a 30-man patrol from Company A, 1st Battalion, was ambushed after it passed through a gate in the barbed wire northwest of Outpost Ava.

Since the 1st Marine Division returned to the main line of resistance, Chinese loudspeakers had gone beyond the usual appeals to surrender, on at least one occasion warning of the fatal consequences of going on nighttime patrols.

This threat, however, probably reflected a Chinese policy of maintaining overall military pressure after the resumption of truce talks rather than a specific effort to demoralize the Marines.

As the US I Corps commander, General Bruce C. Clarke, later explained, these actions demonstrated that American minefields and barbed wire entanglements had channeled movement between the MLR and the combat outpost lines into comparatively few routes that had become dangerously familiar to the PVA.

As a result, PVA mortars and artillery could savage the troops using these well-worn tracks to reinforce an embattled outpost, withdraw from one that had been overwhelmed, or counterattack to regain a lost position.

Indeed, US Eighth Army commander General Maxwell D. Taylor agreed that the PVA could, if he chose to pay the price in blood and effort, overrun any of the existing outposts, and endorsed the concept that Pate's staff was studying.

Rather than restore the outpost line, Pate shifted elements of the division reserve, the 1st Marines, to strengthen the MLR in the event the PVA should try to exploit their capture of the two Berlins.

Since a ceasefire seemed only days away and any attempt to regain the lost ground would result in severe Marine casualties, there would be no counterattack to restore a position that seemed almost certain to be abandoned when a demilitarized zone took shape after the end of hostilities.

VMF-115 and VMF-311, released by the Fifth Air Force to support the UN troops fighting in central and eastern Korea, joined VMA-121 in pounding the PVA threatening the 1st Marine Division.

Recurring cloud cover produced frequent downpours that interfered with operations during the critical period of 21–23 July, but the three squadrons nevertheless flew more than 15 radar-directed missions that dropped some 33 tons of bombs.

Marine artillery and 4.5-inch rocket launchers immediately responded against targets that included a PVA regiment massing behind Hill 139, northwest of Outpost Berlin.

After this flurry of action, apparently intended to divert attention from Boulder City, the PVA ignored Hill 111 until the morning of 25 July, when artillery fire battered the perimeter but no infantry assault followed.

The company's ammunition ran low, and the plight of casualties became increasingly difficult as PVA fire killed two of Boulder City's eight corpsmen and wounded most of the others.

The PVA intercepted and correctly interpreted the coded radio message ordering the Company I Marines forward, thus obtaining information that enabled their artillery and mortars to wound or kill about a third of the reinforcements.

Despite the deadly barrage, much of Company I reached Boulder City, joined forces with the remnants of Swigart's garrison, and took part in a counterattack that recaptured the hill by 03:30.

PVA attempts to revive their attack by infiltrating reinforcements through the site of Outpost Berlin failed, thanks to accurate fire from Marine riflemen and machine gunners.

That night, the PVA probed Boulder City for the last time, sending a patrol from Outpost Berlin that failed to penetrate the defensive wire and shortly after midnight dispatching another platoon that prowled about before Marine fire repulsed it.

Had the PVA captured Boulder City, they might have exploited it and seized the high ground to the south and east, from which they could have fired directly into the rear areas that sustained the 1st Marine Division in its positions beyond the Imjin River.