War: Late Entry

Early in the Korean war U.S. planners had been haunted by the possibility that Communist China might go to the aid of North Korea. But after U.N. armies broke out of the Pusan perimeter and turned the North Korean retreat into a rout, the planners breathed more easily. China’s chance to strike a decisive blow in the Korean war had passed.

Last week R.O.K. officers in northwest Korea began to present the planners with disturbing news. Thirty-year-old Major General Yu Jae Hung, commander of the R.O.K. II Corps, became convinced that Communist counterattacks which had chopped up his overextended divisions had been delivered by Chinese troops. From interrogation of a handful of Chinese prisoners, Yu concluded that 40,000 men of the Chinese Communist XL Army Corps had crossed from Manchuria into North Korea.

The reports continued to roll in from R.O.K. commanders whose American advisers backed them up. Said a U.S. officer attached to the R.O.K. 1st Division: “This morning we counted 62 dead Chinese in our area near Unsan.”

At Wonsan, headquarters of Major General Edward Almond, a U.S. X Corps spokesman said that one Chinese Communist regiment was in action near Changjin.

Why the Chinese had sent troops into North Korea so late in the game no one could be sure. Said R.O.K. General Yu: “It may be that the Chinese have come in to save the big [Yalu River] generator at Supung which . . . serves both North Korea and Manchuria.”