WAR IN KOREA: Air Pressure

General Mark Wayne Clark forged ahead with his program of pressure on the Communist enemy.

At General Van Fleet’s Eighth Army headquarters last week, an Air Force contingent from Washington—acting Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining, Air Force Under Secretary Roswell Gilpatric and six major generals—conferred on the air situation. Three days later some 70 U.S. Thunderjets attacked a North Korean officers’-training school near the Yalu, smashed and burned the barracks that housed 1,500 enemy cadets. When the enemy’s MIGs tried to interfere, escorting U.S. Sabres shot down twelve of the Red jets. The indications were that more heavy U.N. air blows were on the schedule.

Generators Down. Heavy reinforcements of planes and pilots were being dispatched from the U.S. to beef up Mark Clark’s air strength. Although Washington was holding the figures under a security lid, Columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop estimated that “the planned reinforcement will increase the overall strength by 40%, and the strength in jet planes by an even higher percentage.” In Korea, General Van Fleet publicly surmised that more air pressure might force the Reds to sign a truce.

Navy and Air Force planes were still picking away last week at what remained of the North Korean power plants, smashed up in the sensational raids of late June. Photo reconnaissance of the June attacks showed that all the generator houses at three power sites had received direct hits, presumably smashing most of the Japanese-built generators beyond repair (even if the Reds had the spare parts). Air intelligence officers believed that hundreds of small North Korean factories (making small arms, small-caliber ammo, grenades, bayonets, uniforms, canteens, shoes) and ordnance shops (repairing trucks, tanks, artillery and locomotives) had been shut down, and that the enemy’s radar net had been forced to switch to auxiliary generators, which are at the mercy of fuel deliveries.

Private Talk. The import of all this was not lost on the Communist delegates at Panmunjom, who showed less truculence at the truce table.

The U.N. had a carrot to go with the big stick—a face-saving proposal which might enable the Reds to agree to voluntary repatriation of prisoners. The U.N. proposed to reclassify and move out of its stockades all prisoners unwilling to return to Communist control, so that, at the time of any exchange, all remaining prisoners would be available for repatriation. The Communists were interested in this; but it still stuck in their craw that three out of four of the U.N.’s Chinese prisoners had indicated that they would forcibly resist any attempt to send them home. The Reds continued to demand the unconditional exchange of all “foreign” (non-Korean) prisoners. Nevertheless, they asked for a one-day recess to study the U.N. proposal, then for executive sessions to shield “realistic discussions.” The U.N. agreed. A U.N. briefing officer told newsmen that the private proceedings were noticeably free of propaganda tirades.