"'The Red defense was fanatical' Colonel Addams told me. 'If they were my troops, I'd be so proud of them I couldn't see straight.'"
"General Young [agreed] 'The Communists were fanatical. The terrain was the most difficult in the world. The gallantry of the officers and men of the 23rd Regiment has been the outstanding feature.'"
The "Battle of Heartbreak Ridge" took its name from an utterance that was overheard in a forward dressing station during the first week of the contest, when each and every U.N. attack was repulsed under withering Red machine gun fire, it was said that a wounded grunt muttered to himself, 'It's a heartbreak, it's a heartbreak' - and the name stuck.
