the Haman road to protect the right flank of the 5th RCT. In this position, E Company collected stragglers from the 24th Infantry every night and the next morning sent them back to their units. The US Navy then entered the battle in this part of the line, its destroyers standing off the south coast gave illumination at night by directing their searchlights against low-hanging clouds on Sobuk-san. One destroyer was on station almost continuously, supporting the ground action with the fire of six 5-inch guns. An artillery aerial observer directed this naval gunfire through the fire direction center. On September 7, a KPA attack succeeded once again in driving ROK and US troops from Battle Mountain. The 25th Division ordered Lieutenant Colonel George H. DeChow's 3rd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment to retake the peak. DeChow had just counterattacked through the rear areas of the 24th Infantry to the vicinity of Haman. K and B Companies of the 24th Infantry were to follow him and secure the crest if he regained it. From September 7–9, the 3rd Battalion counterattacked up Battle Mountain. On September 9, I Company reached the top and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the KPA. L Company followed to the crest but the dug-in KPA drove both companies off and back down the slope. An estimated two KPA companies held the crest of Battle Mountain and two more companies protected their flanks. DeChow's 3rd Battalion suffered heavy casualties in these three days of fighting. On the afternoon of September 9, the US counterattack force dropped back to the high ground which it had recaptured on September 7, east of Battle Mountain. Artillery, mortars, and air strikes pounded the KPA position on Battle Mountain. During this stalemate, word came from the 25th Division for the 3rd Battalion, 27th Infantry to move to the vicinity of Masan. It was needed elsewhere along the Pusan Perimeter front. Containment action With the failure of the 3rd Battalion, 27th Infantry, to hold the high knob on Battle Mountain after its attacks on September 8 and 9, the 24th Infantry stopped trying to retake Battle Mountain. K Company, 24th Infantry, and C Company, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion, dug in on the hill east of and beneath Battle Mountain, fortified their position with barbed wire and mine fields, and placed registered artillery and mortar fires on all approaches to the position. The regimental commander