The Big Try

Sunday night, under the light of a hazy full moon, the Communist enemy launched his big try for victory in Korea. For him, victory meant knocking the U.N. eagle, that had been gnawing at his manpower vitals, entirely off the South Korean perch. If he could accomplish that, hundreds of thousands of lives and mountains of equipment and supplies would be, in his view, well spent.

The Reds attacked in the area of the Hwachon Reservoir dam (taken by U.S. troops without a fight last week before the Red drive began) and at other points farther west. On a 15-mile front, they pushed across the Imjin River, wading the waist-high water. In the extreme west, U.N. forces pulled back twelve miles to help hold the Imjin bridgehead in check. In the first twelve hours the Communist attack spread across 50 miles of front, in 24 hours across 100 miles.

Then the Eighth Army announced that the Reds were "exploiting" a breakthrough south of Kumhwa on the central front. A Chinese division, supported by cavalry, achieved this penetration in the face of intense artillery fire.

Gullies Full of Dead. In one sector, before launching their infantry, the Reds laid down their heaviest artillery barrage of the war. U.S. guns (including 155-mm. Long Toms, which can fire 15 miles) roared a reply, hurling 25,000 fragmentation and white phosphorus shells on one division front alone. "The gullies in front of us," said an artillery officer, "are already full of Chinese dead, and we intend to keep adding to the piles." The rumble and flash of the guns could be heard and seen almost all the way to Seoul. By the light of parachute flares, U.S. night-flying planes searched out Red troop concentrations, truck columns and artillery parks, smashed what they could. But the Reds did not stop.

Early this week, the enemy had not committed his air force over the front lines, although allied planes inflicted heavy damage on him in clear weather on Monday. Military Washington had taken it for granted that, to back up the big try, the Chinese were going to use the threatening air potential assembled in Manchuria (TIME, April 16). Reconnaissance had shown that they had 70 airfields in North Korea--some with runways 5,000 or more feet long, capable of handling jets and bombers--for staging between Manchuria and the front lines. In the field, before the Red drive began, the U.N. forces had taken elaborate precautions against air attack. Radar surveillance and blackout discipline were intensified; motor pools and supply dumps were dispersed ; truck drivers were ordered to keep their distance in convoys, jeep drivers to remove the tops of their jeeps.

Opportunity--and Danger. The Red drives gave Van Fleet an opportunity. Experience has shown that the Chinese run out of momentum, after an advance of 50 miles or so, at a point where their supplies are exhausted and their supply apparatus and order of battle disrupted. Then they make long stops for regrouping and resupply. That would be the time --if he had pulled his forces back with a minimum of casualties and in good cohesive order--for Van Fleet to turn on them and try to cut them to ribbons.

To manage that, however, the Eighth Army would have to prevent major Red breakthroughs. It had to stop the enemy or else move south in front of him. The Red breakthrough at Kumhwa, after only three days of fighting, indicated that Van Fleet might be forced to use his reserve for defense rather than for later attack.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.