The problem of crossing the river, 200 feet wide and chest-deep at the most likely site, was turned over to Banning with the explanation that the engineer company supporting the regiment could not be diverted from road repairs. To meet this emergency Major Edwin H. Simmons, commanding Weapons Company of 3/1, produced a field manual with instructions for building a “Swiss bent bridge.”[115] His Antitank Assault Platoon was given the task under the command of energetic Technical Sergeant Carmelo J. Randazzo, a veteran on his third enlistment. [115] FM 70-10, _Mountain Operations_, 41–46. There was no lack of trees for timbers, and rolls of telephone wire were sworn to be beyond salvaging by the battalion communications officer. The A-shaped bents, or trusses, were lashed together with wire and enthusiasm, then carried out into the ice-cold water to be attached to spars and stringers. It was a great triumph for “war by the book.” Before dark on 28 February two spans, one 120 feet long and another half that length, were linked by a sandbar in midstream. The improvised bridge stood up well next morning when the battalion crossed to the west bank. There 3/1 echeloned itself behind 3/7, which gained the first 1,000 yards under cover of a vigorous artillery preparation and belated air strikes. On the left, Major James I. Glendinning’s 2d Battalion of the 7th Marines ran into increasingly stubborn opposition from CCF mortar and small-arms fire. Before noon the attacks of both battalions of the 7th Marines were brought almost to a halt in difficult terrain which the Communists had booby-trapped. Neither artillery nor air strikes had a decisive effect against an enemy sheltered by log-covered bunkers. So many delays were encountered that it was decided in mid-afternoon to postpone the advance until the following morning, 2 March. Artillery and air strikes supported 2/7, 3/7, and 3/1 as they attacked at 0800 west of the river. Meanwhile, 1/7 patrolled on the division left flank while maintaining contact with the 6th ROK Division. Apparently the enemy put up a hard fight only when he could not withdraw in time to avoid one. Resistance was light on the west bank, and east of the river Lieutenant Colonel Allen Sutter’s 2/1, supported by tanks, had little trouble. His battalion linked up with 3/1 in the afternoon and dug in after taking its assigned objective, Hill 208, with casualties of three men wounded. The only determined opposition of 2 March took place during the afternoon in the zone of 2/7, There the attackers could only inch forward over rocky terrain which the enemy defended, ridge by ridge, in spite of air strikes and 1,600 artillery rounds fired by the 11th Marines.