Elsewhere before the end of the year, the CCF captured one outpost in the IX Corps area, to the right of I Corps, but suffered a telling defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian battalion during an attempt to crack this sector of the U.S. 7th Division line. After a brief fire fight the Chinese were forced to withdraw, leaving 131 CCF dead in the Ethiopian positions. North Korean efforts to seize critical ground in the X and ROK I Corps sectors, at the far eastern end of the EUSAK line, was similarly broken up by the U.S. 40th and ROK 5th Divisions. By the end of 1952 General Van Fleet had not only revitalized his defenses with recent rotation of frontline units but had also strengthened his line by inserting another division in the critical and long-troublesome Chorwon-Kumhwa sector of IX Corps, on the I Corps right flank. With these changes by late December there were 16 EUSAK divisions on line--11 Korean, 3 U.S. Army, 1 Marine, and 1 British Commonwealth--plus 4 divisions in reserve (1 Korean and 3 U.S. Army). Nearly 75 percent of the UNC line had been entrusted to Republic of Korea units. Their performance was a tribute to growing ROK military proficiency and justified the EUSAK decision to assign to ROK troops a greater role in the Allied ground defense. The slow pace of infantry action during the last two months of 1952 continued into the new year. Raids by small UNC units highlighted the limited combat during January and February. During the following month the battlefront tempo accelerated, due in part to expanded patrol activities. A number of sharp clashes in No-Man’s-Land resulted in several Communist setbacks but led the enemy to make an increased use of ambushes. These traps initially caught the UNC troops by surprise, inflicting heavy casualties on them. But by far the most severe fighting of the new year resulted when the Chinese renewed their fierce outpost and main line of resistance attacks in March. Again, the western I Corps sector was the major combat area as enemy pressure mounted along the front. This was believed due, in part, to the “growing Chinese sensitivity to the I Corps raids”[304] as well as an attempt by the CCF to regain the initiative as they began to send out larger forces to probe and assault UNC positions. On 17 March, the Chinese launched a battalion-size attack against Hill 355 (Little Gibraltar). This MLR position was defended by elements of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division, on line immediately east of the Marine division, in the sector customarily occupied by the 1st Commonwealth Division. (The Army unit had relieved the British division on 30 January.) A second large-scale assault on the hill that month was also turned back. [304] Hermes, _Truce Tent_, p. 392.