Diplomats and military leaders both felt this latest Chinese assault was to show a strong military hand and win dominating terrain features along the MLR. Thus the enemy would be able to improve his defensive posture when final battlelines were adjusted at the truce. It was not believed that the CCF effort was an attempt to expand their operations into a general offensive. In any event, the Nevada positions were downgraded from their previous designation as major outposts. I Corps also decreed no further effort would be made to retake them and that a “revaluation of the terrain in view of the destruction of the defensive work indicates these hills are not presently essential to defense of the sector.”[435] [435] CG, I Corps msg to CG, 7thInfDiv, CG, 25thInfDiv, CG, 1stMarDiv, GOC, 1stComWelDiv, CG I Corps Arty, dtd 9 Jun 53 in 1stMarDiv ComdD, Jun 53, App. 1, p. 1. If things were now relatively quiet along the battlefront of the I Corps coastal sector, the situation had begun to heat up in the central part of the UNC defense line. On 10 June, following a CCF realignment of troops and supply buildup that had not gone unnoticed by Eighth Army intelligence officials, elements of the CCF 60th and 68th Armies struck the ROK II Corps area, on the east-central front. (See Map 29.) Advancing south along both sides of the Pukhan River with two divisions, the Chinese struck at the ROK II defense line which originally had bulged out to form a salient in the Kumsong vicinity. Within six days the ROK line had been forced back 4,000 yards. In subsequent assaults the enemy made new penetrations further west in the ROK II MLR. Although the main Communist thrust was directed against the ROK II Corps, secondary attacks were also made in the X Corps sector east of ROK II, in the Punchbowl area manned by the ROK 20th Division. It was the heaviest, all-out drive since the CCF spring offensive of April-May 1951, when the UNC had been pushed south approximately 30 miles across the entire Korean front. By 18 June, the CCF assaults started to settle down. During the nine days of flaming action, ROK units had suffered some 7,300 casualties to enemy losses of 6,600. Boundaries had been redrawn and three ROK divisions had been redeployed in counterattacks to plug holes in the line that the Chinese had punched open. Nearly 15,000 yards of ROK front had been pushed 4,000 yards south and several hill positions east of the Pukhan had been lost. [Illustration: MAP 29 K. WHITE EIGHTH ARMY SECTORS 1 JANUARY-27 JULY 1953]