suggests the actual number was 20. 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. In its defense of that part of Sobuk-san south of Battle Mountain and P'ilbong, the 1st Battalion, 5th RCT, also had nearly continuous action in the last week of the month. During this time, Master Sergeant Melvin O. Handrich of C Company, 5th RCT posthumously won the Medal of Honor for actions on August 25 and 26. From a forward position he directed artillery fire on an attacking KPA force and at one point personally kept part of the company from abandoning its positions. Although wounded, Handrich returned to his forward position, to continue directing artillery fire, and engaged KPA troops alone until he was killed. When the 5th RCT regained the area, it counted over 70 dead KPA in the vicinity, all likely killed by Handrich. By the end of August, the fighting in the mountains west of Masan remained a stalemate. Neither side had secured a definite advantage. September push Although the KPA 6th and 7th Divisions had massed their troops primarily for the attempted breakthrough of the US 25th Infantry Division positions along the Nam and Naktong Rivers during their September offensive, the KPA 6th Division continued its attacks on the area. KPA artillery and mortar fire fell on Battle Mountain, P'il-bong and Sobuk-san, and during the period of September 1–6 there were strong local attacks and patrols by KPA troops. The 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, never succeeded in gaining complete possession of the southern parts of Sobuk-san, which would have given observation into the valley below and into the KPA rear areas. The instability of the 24th Infantry made it necessary for Kean to order Throckmorton to send his only regimental reserve, E Company, north into the 24th Infantry sector along