Combat· Korean War
Bean Patch Refit
Pulled out of the Chosin breakout, the shattered division reassembled at the Masan "Bean Patch," the same bivouac the brigade had used during the Pusan fighting, to absorb replacements and rebuild its frostbitten, understrength regiments.
The rest was brief. The division was soon committed to an anti-guerrilla campaign in the mountains around Pohang, hunting the North Korean 10th Division, which had infiltrated deep into the United Nations rear to raid supply lines and terrorize the countryside. In weeks of patrolling across snow-covered hills, the Marines ran the guerrillas to ground and destroyed the enemy division as a fighting force without its having achieved any of its aims. The period combined the quiet work of rebuilding a division with the hard, dispersed combat of counter-guerrilla operations, and it readied the Marines to rejoin the main front for the counteroffensives to come.
Record no. 624