intelligence sergeant of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry estimated the peak changed hands 19 times. From August 18 to the end of the month, KPA troops attacked the mountain every night. The peak often changed hands two or three times in a 24-hour period. The usual pattern was for the KPA to take it at night and the US 24th Infantry to recapture it the next day. This type of fluctuating battle resulted in relatively high losses among artillery forward observers and their equipment. During the period of August 15–31, seven forward observers and eight other members of the Observer and Liaison Section of the 159th Field Artillery Battalion were casualties, and they lost eight radios, 11 telephones, and two vehicles in the process. The 24th Infantry consistently captured Battle Mountain in the same way. Artillery, mortar, and tank fire raked the crest and air strikes employing napalm blanketed the top of the peak. Then, the infantry attacked from the hill beneath the east slope of the summit. Supporting mortars would set up a base of fire and kept the heights under barrage until the infantry had arrived at a point just short of the crest. The mortar fire then lifted and the infantry moved rapidly up the last stretch to the top, usually to find it abandoned by the KPA. September push On August 31, 1950, the 25th Division held a front of almost , beginning in the north at the Namji-ri bridge over the Naktong River and extending west on the hills south of the river to the Nam's confluence with it. It then bent southwest up the south side of the Nam to where the Sobuk-san mountain mass tapered down in its northern extremity to the river. There the line turned south along rising ground to Sibidang-san, crossed the saddle on its south face through which passed the Chinju-Masan railroad and highway, and continued southward up to Battle Mountain and on to P'il-bong. From P'il-bong the line dropped down spur ridge lines to the southern coastal road near Chindong-ni. The US 35th Infantry Regiment held the northern of the division line, from the Namji-ri bridge to the Chinju-Masan highway. The regiment was responsible for the highway. The regiment's weakest and most vulnerable point was a gap along the Naktong River between most of F Company on the west and its 1st Platoon to the east. This platoon