Comrades Again

Troops of the U.S. and of Great Britain were battling side by side again. A U.S. liaison officer watched in admiration last week as the British troops dug in along the Naktong River line. "These fellows," he said, "are real professionals."

The U.S. officer was particularly impressed by the Britons' thoroughness. The new arrivals selected their positions well, dug in deep, laced their machine guns into tight fire-patterns, and methodically proceeded to lay some of the best minefields and barbed wire yet seen in Korea. Once dug in, the British began sending out patrols to make contact with the enemy. The patrols were cool, businesslike and aggressive as a pack of foxhounds.

Part of the Britons' cool thoroughness was explained by their months of field training at Hong Kong, part by their commander, big, affable Brigadier Basil Aubrey Coad, who moved constantly through his positions on the Naktong with the cool aplomb of a duke at a garden party. During the first day's action, one British company was cut off. No one got excited. Coad calmly ordered the company supplied by tanks and an airdrop, and a U.S. helicopter went into the cut-off company and brought out its first wounded. The British thought this was a particularly admirable operation.

At week's end, the first British soldier to die in Korea was buried beside several hundred U.S. and South Korean dead in a cemetery on the outskirts of Taegu. Over the cemetery flew the blue and white flag of the United Nations.

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