Opinions were divided between those who preferred a truce along the border and those, including MacArthur, who wished to renew the northward advance. On 11 April 1951 MacArthur was dismissed from his command, as it was feared in Washington that his greed was likely to increase the war.
Australian soldiers fought in two major battles in 1951. On the 22nd of April, Chinese forces attacked the Kapyong valley and forced South Korean and New Zealand troops into retreat; other UN troops, including Australians, were ordered to stop the attack. After a night harsh fighting, during which their positions were overrun, the Australians recaptured their positions and stalled the Chinese advance, at a cost of only 32 men killed and 53 wounded. For their contribution to this action, 3 RAR was awarded a US Presidential Citation.
Operation Commando, an attack against a Chinese-held salient in a bend of the Imjin, a river running north south that crosses the 38th parallel just above Seoul was the second major battle. The Commonwealth division, as well as Australians, had two key objectives: Hills 355 and 317. On the 3rd of October the attack began, and after five days of fighting the Chinese withdrew. 89 Australians were wounded and 20 were killed.
From 1951 on, both sides found themselves engaged in a war of slow destruction where men lived in tunnels, redoubts and sandbagged forts behind barbed wire defences. The war was generally fought with artillery and mines and in set-piece battles; at night patrols ventured into no man's land to raid enemy positions. Between 1951 and the war's end, 3 RAR occupied trenches at the eastern extremity of the Commonwealth Division's position in hills north-east of the Imjin River. There they faced heavily equipped Chinese positions across a stretch of no man's land.
As the war continued and settled into deadlock, it became fairly obvious that a negotiatio0n was the only solution.