This was the situation across the river at nightfall on the 21st. The 5th Marines was in position to grapple with the enemy for possession of Seoul. Hill 104, in the center of the 5th Marines front, was only 5,000 yards west of the Government Palace in the northwest section of the city. Less than three miles, yet officers and men alike realized that they would have to fight for every inch of the way. If anyone had any doubts, he had only to watch the flashes of gunfire stabbing the night sky to the southeast, and he had only to listen to the unremitting roar of gunfire. For at Yongdungpo the 1st Marines had been slugging it out with the enemy for the last three days in a battle for the rambling industrial suburb. CHAPTER XI The Fight for Yongdungpo _Three Hills Taken by 1/5--Enemy Minefields Encountered--NKPA Counterattacks of 20 September--Recapture of Hills 80 and 85--1st Marines in Position--Assault of Yongdungpo--Able Company on a Limb--Yongdungpo Secured_ “If Yongdungpo is lost, Seoul also will fall.” This was the warning note sounded during the conferences of the Red Korean military leaders in Seoul. So important did they consider the industrial suburb that a regiment of the 18th NKPA Division was assigned to the defense of the built-up area on the south bank of the Han.[317] [317] 1st MarDiv _C/S Journal, 15–20 Sep 50_. Slogans of this sort were a favorite form of Communist inspirational literature, and they may have served to buck up the defenders. From the tactical standpoint, however, the quoted catch phrase was illogical. Yongdungpo was untenable. Squatting on the low ground at the confluence of the Kalchon and Han Rivers, the town was an isolated landmark of only symbolic significance. It was separated from Seoul by two miles of sand and water, and the only connecting links, the old railroad and highway bridges, had long since been destroyed. Thus, what had once been a vital communications hub south of the Han was now a veritable dead end. While the Reds in Seoul were able to ferry troops and materiel across the exposed river and sand spit by night, they could not hope by this primitive method to meet the logistical requirements of a regimental garrison confronted by a modern juggernaut of combined arms. Nevertheless, the North Koreans chose to make a fight of it, and in addition to the hundreds of troops in Yongdungpo, they sent over considerable artillery and armor that could have been put to better use in the defensible terrain around Seoul. _Three Hills Taken by 1/5_