No one needed to remind the 1st Marine Division that the territory it was moving back into was not the same--with respect to defense posts in the right regimental sector--that it had left two months earlier. Three of its six outposts there (Carson, Elko, Vegas) had fallen to the enemy in the late-May battle, despite the formidable resistance of the defending Turks. Outpost Ava remained at the far western end of the line, with the Berlin-East Berlin complex in the right battalion area. Some 6,750 yards of intervening MLR--more than four miles--lay in between, bereft of any protective outposts to screen and alert the defending line companies to sudden enemy assaults. The Marines were thus returning to a main line of resistance considerably weakened in its right regimental sector. As the 1st Division CG, General Pate, observed: Vegas [had] dominated the enemy approaches to Berlin from the north and northwest and therefore made Berlin relatively secure. Berlin, in turn, dominated the enemy approaches from the north and northwest to East Berlin and made East Berlin relatively secure. The loss of Outpost Vegas to the CCF placed Berlin and East Berlin in very precarious positions and negated their being supported by ground fire except from the MLR.[483] [483] _CG, 1stMarDiv, Berlin Rpt_., p. 1. Ground support fire from the MLR, moreover, tended to be only moderately successful in supporting the outposts because of the nature of the terrain. A major Communist stronghold, Hill 190, lay northeast of the Carson-Elko-Vegas complex. Since Berlin (COP 19) and East Berlin (COP 19-A) were sited on extensions of this same hill mass, the enemy could make sudden “ridgeline” attacks against the Berlins. With buffer outpost Vegas now lost, the likelihood of CCF success in such attacks was “immeasurably increased.”[484] [484] _Ibid._, p. 2. _Initial Attacks on Outposts Berlin and East Berlin_[485] [485] Unless otherwise noted, the material in this section is derived from: _PacFlt EvalRpt_ No. 6, Chaps. 9, 10; _CG, 1stMarDiv, Berlin Rpt_; 1stMarDiv ComdD, July 53; 1stMarDiv G-3 Jnls, 1–10 Jul 53; 1stMarDiv PIR 992, dtd 8–9 Jul 53; 5thMar, 7thMar, 11thMar, 1st TkBn, 1/7, 2/7, 3/7, 2/11, 4/11 ComdDs, Jul 53; 1st MAW, VMF-311, VMO-6, HMR-161 ComdDs, Jul 53; Hicks, _Outpost Warfare_; MacDonald, _POW_.