BATTLE OF KOREA: What Does This Mean?

On a dusty road north of Seoul last week, a U.N. tank commander leaned against the tread of his bulky Patton and read an order to his men: “During the remainder of the armistice negotiations, every effort will be made to avoid casualties and to demonstrate our willingness to honor a cease-fire.” The lieutenant went on with specifications: no more combat patrols, artillery to be used only for counterbattery fire, the infantry to fight only to repel an attack. When he had finished, a sergeant asked: “What does this mean, lieutenant?” Answered the officer: “It means just what it says. And it means that from now on every round of ammo has got to be accounted for.”

Bonfires, Ball Games, As the order was relayed to other units in similar fashion, an unearthly quiet enveloped the snowy front. Earlier, the Chinese Reds had celebrated the settlement of a tentative cease-fire line with a display of military fireworks—red, yellow and green flares. As the fighting dwindled, the Reds, disregarding the usual front-line blackout, built bonfires. Through field glasses, U.N. troops could see them smoking cigarettes, drinking tea, playing volleyball.

A British patrol, poking into a dugout in no man’s land (which the Chinese usually occupied by night, the British by day), stumbled across two grinning Chinese still there. Flustered but polite, the British backed off without either side firing a shot. When word of this reached the British brigadier, he exclaimed: “I’ll have to get instructions on this. After all, my chaps might have fired. Why, there might have been a diplomatic incident!”

General Van Fleet’s headquarters had issued an order, the gist of which was: don’t shoot unless you are shot at. It would have been better if the Eighth Army commander had called U.N. newsmen in beforehand, and told them what he was doing instead of letting them draw their own conclusions from what they saw and heard at the front. The ensuing high-level ruckus, which reverberated all the way to Washington and Key West (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), did not trouble the men in the front lines. Using a bayonet to dig chunks of ham from a ration can, one G.I. sighed happily: “Man, this is pure heaven!”

Army & Air Targets. The air war in “MIG Alley” (see below) and U.N. air attacks on the enemy’s rear went on without letup. Van Fleet’s original order on ground activity was soon modified. Some allied artillery crews began firing at “any and all targets.” In one night, U.N. airmen sighted 9,700 enemy trucks rolling south toward the front, many of them with their headlights on for the sake of more speed. The airmen claimed to have destroyed 300 trucks, only a small fraction of the enemy traffic, the heaviest of the entire war.

What did the Red buildup portend? There are two plausible deductions: 1) that the enemy expects a smashing U.N. offensive—if the truce talks at Panmunjom fail—and is readying his defenses against it; 2) that he is mounting an offensive of his own. Despite the talk at Panmunjom and in the world’s capitals, all was not entirely quiet on the Korean front.