Word: dams
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Reds attacked in the area of the Hwachon Reservoir dam (taken by U.S. troops without a fight last week before the Red drive began) and at other points farther west. On a 15-mile front, they pushed across the Imjin River, wading the waist-high water. In the extreme west, U.N. forces pulled back twelve miles to help hold the Imjin bridgehead in check. In the first twelve hours the Communist attack spread across 50 miles of front, in 24 hours across 100 miles...
Threat of Flood. The Hwachon dam, 275 ft. high and Korea's third largest, lies at the end of a spit of land shaped like a camel's head, between the western arm of the reservoir and a bend of the Pukhan River. U.S. officers knew that if the Chinese opened the dam's 18 sluice gates simultaneously, they would create a bothersome flood in the Pukhan valley; if they shattered the dam with explosives, a terrible wall of water, 50 to 60 ft. high, would plunge down the valley and cut the U.N. line...
Before his men could reach their objective, the enemy opened ten of the dam's gates, released millions of gallons of water into the river valley. The flood reached seven feet in some gorges, forced U.S. engineers to cut two pontoon bridges (to save them from being swept away), then quickly subsided. Meanwhile, the attacking battalion was having a rough time. Murderous artillery and mortar fire forced it back...
...wait for the mechanics to arrive. One company cast off in plywood boats, paddled by hand. Some of the boats were smashed by mortar fire. Finally the Chinese launched a full-scale counterattack. The Americans threw it back, then withdrew. By that time the battle for the dam had become academic. The Chinese had already wasted much of the reservoir water; if they had been able to blow the dam (they may have lacked know-how or explosives), they would almost certainly have done so earlier...
Times were not particularly impressive but not surprising since the boats battled a slight headwind and a current, probably caused because the sluices of the dam which forms the basin were open at that time. The official estimates were: Cambridge, 9:38; Harvard, 9:43.5; B.U., 10:01; M.I.T...