Able to Baker to Charlie

STRATEGY

The Chinese Communists are noted for sluggishness in victory. More than once, during their civil war with the Nationalists, they needed months after a successful offensive to mount a new one. Last week, having failed to destroy the U.N. forces in Korea, they were moving slowly down the central mountains, with oxcarts and Bactrian (two-humped) camels in their supply trains. Lieut. General Walton Walker's Eighth Army was braced for a blow, but at week's end the Chinese had failed to deliver it. At Hungnam, on the east coast, 60,000 men of Major General Edward M. Almond's X Corps were being successfully evacuated by sea. Since battle and weather casualties had already been evacuated, practically all of the 60,000 were fit to fight elsewhere in Korea if called on to do so. The rescue of the bulk of MacArthur's forces in Korea was a brilliant exhibition of what the U.S. could do in adversity--but it was time for something more than salvage operations.

The U.S., as leader of the U.N. coalition, was not preparing to defend all of South Korea. But neither was it planning to quit the peninsula altogether--at least not now. During its retreat, the Eighth Army stood first on "Line Able" below Pyongyang, and when that failed to hold, withdrew to "Line Baker," just below the 38th parallel. Since this line would become untenable as soon as the sluggish Chinese were ready to strike, the next move would be to "Position Charlie"--which will consist only of two beachhead perimeters, one around Seoul and Inchon, the other one at Pusan (see map) which U.N. forces still hold. If the Chinese move in while the allies hold perimeters at Seoul and Pusan, they will expose themselves to the same sort of flanking situation that routed the North Koreans last September.

If they attack Seoul first, they can be made to suffer. One thing the U.S. has proved in Korea is that it can hold tight perimeters at relatively small cost to itself while inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. Some Pentagon men were saying last week that Mao Tse-tung would not like to pay the price of prolonged sieges of U.S. beachheads, buttressed by all the fire power that artillery, airplanes and warships could bring to bear. And even if the Chinese should force the U.N forces to abandon the Seoul-Inchon perimeter, they would have a still harder nut to crack at Pusan. The farther south they go, the longer their supply lines would be and the more vulnerable to attack.

These considerations may or may not deter the Communists--regrouped North Koreans as well as Chinese--from venturing very far below the 38th parallel. If they do stop, South Korea may be spared the horrors of another Red occupation and some--though not all--of U.S. and U.N. prestige lost in recent weeks may be restored.

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