Well before daylight, a cordon was stealthily braided around Chachon-dong and we settled down to await the raiders. A later daylight inspection of the deployment showed that the men had done a splendid job of locating themselves so as to avoid detection. They were concealed under porches, beneath the brambles, and in the heaviest foliage and trees. But no guerrilla attack materialized, probably due to a “grapevine” warning of our movement and intent.... During the remaining days in the village we conducted extensive patrolling in an attempt to catch at least one guerrilla for our effort. Patrols were kept small to maintain secrecy. We even dressed Marines in clothing worn by the “locals” and sent them out in the hills with wood-gathering details. Larger patrols up to a platoon in size were sent on combat missions at night, One thing was certain: it was easier to talk about capturing guerrillas than it was to lay a hand on them.[65] [65] Maj J. R. Jones ltr, 24 Jun 57. The elusiveness of the enemy could not always be credited to effective guerrilla tactics. Often it was due to distaste for combat. As evidence of low NKPA morale, Major Yu Dung Nam, a battalion commander, was condemned to death and shot late in January because he planned to surrender, according to POW testimony. Rations were at a bare subsistence level and typhus had claimed many victims.[66] [66] 1stMarDiv _PIR_ 105, 5 Feb 51; 1stMarDiv _HD_, Jan 51, 13. Unrelenting Marine pressure throughout the first week of February wore the guerrillas down until groups larger than 50 men were seldom encountered. On the 3d an NKPA second lieutenant surrendered voluntarily to a RCT-7 patrol and brought three of his men with him. NKPA morale had sunk so low, he divulged, that all ranks were striving only for survival. The division commander, Major General Lee Ban Nam, had apparently become a victim of acute melancholia. He spent nearly all his time, according to the prisoner, in the solitude of foxholes dug into the slopes of hills for added protection. There he brooded constantly over his predicament, but without arriving at any better solution than alternate hiding and flight.[67] [67] _Ibid._ Certainly the military situation didn’t offer much to gladden this Hamlet of the rice paddies, and the Marines continued to give him fresh causes for pessimism. His footsore remnants eluded RCT-5 only to stumble into the zone of RCT-1, northeast of Uisong. Neither rest nor sanctuary awaited them, for the 1st and 2d battalions penetrated into the mountains near Sangyong to surprise and rout a force estimated at 400 men.[68] [68] 1stMar _WD_, Feb 51. _KMC Regiment Joins 1st Marine Division_