entering the peninsula and assembling in the Koksan-Sin’ggye-Ich’on region north of the area occupied by the newly arrived XIX Army Group. The final force due to enter Korea in March made up the bulk of the 2nd Motorized Artillery Division. Entering late in the month, the division would join its 29th Regiment already in Korea. When all Chinese movements in March were completed, the strength of the PVA would have risen to four army groups with fourteen armies and forty-two divisions, these supported by four artillery divisions and two separate artillery regiments. As sensed by Eighth Army intelligence, the buildup was in preparation for an offensive. But the offensive would not originate in the Hongcheon area, as Colonel Tarkenton thought possible, nor was it imminent. The movement and positioning of reinforcements from Manchuria would continue through most of March; the remainder of the IX Army Group would not be fully ready to move south until the turn of the month; and the refurbishing of other units, both North Korean and Chinese, would require even more time. In line with the doctrine of elastic, or mobile, defense, small forces meanwhile would continue to employ delaying tactics against the Ripper advance. With some exceptions, the delaying forces would give ground even more easily than they had during the opening phase of the operation as they fell back toward the concentrations of major units above the 38th Parallel. Capture of Hongcheon In ordering the second phase of Ripper to begin, General Ridgway allowed for the possibility that the PVA would set up stout defenses in the ground immediately below Hongcheon and instructed the IX Corps' commander to take the town by double envelopment, not by frontal assault. Accordingly, General Hoge directed the 1st Cavalry Division to envelope it on the west and the 1st Marine Division to move around it on the east. Hongcheon actually lay in the Marine zone near the boundary between the two divisions. As Hoge's forces attacked north on the morning of the 14th, it became steadily clearer that they would meet little resistance in the ground below their objectives. Long range small-arms fire and small, scattered groups of PVA who made no genuine attempt to delay the advance toward Hongcheon were the extent of the opposition the 1st Cavalry and 1st Marine Divisions encountered during the morning. The 24th Division and the ROK 6th Division, which had rejoined