BATTLE OF KOREA: Piecemeal & Wholesale

The Eighth Army last week was fighting about as hard as it was possible to fight without launching an all-out offensive —which the U.N. generals had no intention of doing just yet. The Eighth was engaged in a series of local “limited offensives” which had three aims: 1) to push the Reds off strategic high ground; 2) to kill as many of them as possible; 3) to knock their big buildup off balance.

The Communists were obviously hurt. Their propaganda complained that Van Fleet’s attacks were “openly inviting war” — a pointless accusation, in view of the fact that it was agreed when the truce talks started that the war would continue until a cease-fire was signed & sealed.

On the east-central front, around an embattled hollow nicknamed the Punchbowl, U.S. Marines made the deepest U.N. penetrations into North Korea since last December. Wielding flamethrowers and bayonets, aided by planes, Army artillery and tanks, the leathernecks clawed their way up towering crags. From caves and log-roofed bunkers, North Koreans fought back doggedly, but the flamethrowers finally made the Reds break and run.

In the center and east, Communist counterattacks were fierce and frequent, forced temporary U.N. pullbacks. But U.N. artillery did not let the Reds get very far. “Bloody Ridge,” occupied last fortnight after heavy fighting, was still in U.S. hands. At new bloody ridges, Red assaults were met by the heaviest U.N. barrage in six weeks.

Pugnacious General James Van Fleet “was eager for the Communists to jump off with their offensive — if they were ever going to. Said he grimly: “A Communist offensive would give us the chance to slaughter them. That way we could get them in wholesale lots, and not have to kick them piecemeal out of the hills the way we are doing now.”