With respect to personnel, the situation had improved markedly. An increase in ECIDU command strength authorized by CG, FMFPac in March provided for an additional 9 Marine officers, 38 enlisted Marines, and 6 Navy personnel. These were exclusive of the current detachments of 1st ANGLICO shore party and naval maintenance personnel, and represented nearly a 40 percent strength increase.478 Not long afterward the new ECIDU commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hoyt U. Bookhart, Jr., arrived to succeed Lieutenant Colonel Heinl, who had held the position since the preceding November.

As with the WCIDU force, by late spring it appeared that the days of UNC control and occupation of the east coast islands were numbered. In view of the imminent armistice, a CinCFE directive of 11 June called for the evacuation of all civilians, supplies, and equipment “in excess of immediate needs.”479 This was a preliminary step towards full evacuation of the islands once the armistice agreement was reached. Accordingly, on 11 June, as evacuation of the friendly west coast partisans got under way, villagers from Yo-do, the largest and ECIDU headquarters site, and the far northern island of Yang-do were similarly moved south. The evacuation was completed by mid-June.

The Division is Ordered Back to the Front480

A rash of political activity in June markedly affected the tenor of military operations in Korea. Intensified Communist aggression broke out north of ROK sectors in the Eighth Army line, largely as a reaction to President Rhee’s unprecedented action on 18 June of freeing, with the help of ROK guards, approximately 25,000 North Korean anti-Communist prisoners at POW camps in the south. Other anti-Communist POWs at Camp No. 10, near Ascom City, staged violent break-out attempts at that same time and Company A, 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion passed to operational control of the camp commanding officer there to help prevent a repetition of any such incidents in the future. Following a recess of truce talks, pending a clarification of the status of the current military-diplomatic agreements, key delegates held crisis meetings at Panmunjom and Tokyo to get the beleaguered talks back on track.

Despite the furor, signing of the armistice agreement was expected shortly. As a result, the Munsan-ni Provisional Command was reorganized with the 1st Marine Division assigned the responsibility of reactivating the United Nations Personnel and Medical Processing Unit for the anticipated post-truce exchange of prisoners of war. This was to be conducted along lines similar to that for Operation LITTLE SWITCH, the initial limited exchange. The Division Inspector was named processing unit commander and functional sections (S-1, S-2, S-3, S-4, interpreters, messing, medical, engineer) were also activated. As the division training tour in I Corps reserve drew to a close, a number of regimental CPXs were held during June. And the 5th Marines drew a new assignment: training in riot control. Following civilian demonstrations that had erupted in various populated areas of Eighth Army, including the I Corps sector, the regiment was ordered “to be prepared to move in battalion size increments, to be employed as army service area reserve in suppression of civil disturbances anywhere in army service area.”481

While the Marine infantry regiments concluded their training period, the 1st Tank Battalion, Kimpo Provisional Regiment, and Division Reconnaissance Company remained under operational control of the frontline U.S. 25th Infantry Division. Marine artillerymen likewise continued under orders of CG, I Corps Artillery, in the forward area, reinforcing division artillery fires. Tentative plans were underway for movement of the 1st Marine Division back to its former position on the MLR in early July. After the signing of the cease-fire, the division would comply with provisions of the truce agreement by closing out its former MLR and withdrawing to designated positions two kilometers south of the former defensive positions.