made contact only after moving northeast of Chuncheon over Route 29 in the Soyang River valley and then located only a few troops who scattered when the force opened fire. During this search to the northeast a second task force from the cavalry division reached Chuncheon in midafternoon, just in time to greet General Ridgway, who, after observing operations from a light plane overhead, landed on one of the town's longer streets. As a precaution against any PVA/KPA attempt to retake the town during the night, Ridgway before leaving instructed both task forces to return to the cavalry division's Cairo Line positions by dark. The precaution was unnecessary. Chuncheon remained vacant until the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, set up a patrol base in the town on the following day. The eastern front With the capture of Chuncheon, all major ground objectives of Operation Ripper were in Eighth Army hands. To the east, X Corps and ROK III Corps had reached the Idaho Line by 17 March. KPA forces had offered stiff resistance to the attack on only one day, the 15th, and then only in the X Corps' area. Prisoners taken during the advance indicated that the KPA V, II, and III Corps were withdrawing above the 38th Parallel to reorganize and prepare for offensive operations. Searching to confirm this information, General Ridgway on 18 March ordered all three corps on the eastern front to reconnoiter deep beyond the parallel in the area between the Hwach’on Reservoir, located almost due north of Chuncheon, and the east coast. As Ridgway's forces in the east consolidated positions along the Idaho Line and sent patrols north, the problem of the KPA 10th Division remained. On 20 March Ridgway pressed the ROK chief of staff and the Korean Military Advisory Group chief to eliminate the enemy unit. But in the difficult Taebaek terrain, the retreating division, although it lost heavily to air and ground attacks, separated into small groups and managed to find ways northwest through the mountains. After a flurry of small engagements while infiltrating the Idaho Line fronts of ROK III Corps and ROK I Corps, the remnants of the division, less than a thousand men, reached their own lines on 23 March. In the days following, the reduced division moved to Ch’ongju, deep in northwestern Korea, and began reorganizing under the control of the KPA IV Corps as a mechanized