The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Times, Gettysburg PA

Korean War Weekly Front Pages

30 March 1952 – 5 April 1952

The Times, Gettysburg PA 

Was an armistice imminent?

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Task Force 77 pilots showed their muscle to the Navy Secretary on Monday as they worked over Communist rail lines in northeast Korea. US Marine and Navy fliers reported 167 rail cuts, two bridges destroyed, and numerous rail cars and supply trucks knocked out. As the fliers roared into action, surface ships pounded Red targets along the coast as the Secretary followed the attack from the carrier Valley Forge. Sabrejet pilots the next day shot down ten MIG-15s, the second highest bag for any day in the Korean War. In one of Tuesday’s eight separate battles, COL Francis S. Gabreski of Oil City, PA, commander of the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing, became the eighth US jet ace by shooting down a MIG in an ambush. It raised his total for the Korean fighting to five and one-half MIGs. Five kills made an ace. Two days later brought more bags for the Sabrejet fliers, who destroyed eight more MIGs in three battles over northwest Korea. During the entire week. Sabrejets had destroyed or damaged 40 Communist warplanes.

Communist mortar and machinegun fire pinned down an Allied patrol for four hours early Friday near the Punchbowl in eastern Korea. The raiders broke out finally under a screen of smoke and bursting shells laid down by UN artillery. This was the biggest action reported along the 155-mile front by the US Eighth Army. Three very small Red probes were forced back between the Punchbowl and the east coast. The minor action followed the pattern of March, where Communist losses had dropped to a new wartime low. He listed Red casualties for March at 4,648 killed, 3,866 wounded, and 176 captured. Warships and planes supported Allied infantrymen around the clock. Thunderjets, B-29 Superforts, and light B-26 bombers hit Red revetments from the air while the cruiser Saint Paul turned her eight and five inch guns on mortars and supply depots.                                      

Communist staff officers proposed on Monday that top level negotiators try to break the deadlock over whether Russia should help police a Korean truce. The Reds suggested the joint subcommittee on armistice supervision meet for the first time in more than two months at 1100 Tuesday. The Allies said that Russia was in effect a belligerent and was wholly unacceptable. The next day the Red staff officers gave up on the Russian question and handed it to top negotiators to settle. At this point, the Russian question was one of three major stumbling blocks to an armistice. The other two were whether the Reds would be allowed to build airfields and the exchange of prisoners. On Thursday rumors of a possible break in the prisoner exchange cropped up when top Allied brass arrived shortly after UN negotiators postponed secret prisoner parlays. An Allied spokesman said the talks were postponed for “constructive” purposes.

Late in the week, truce negotiators hinted that they were working toward a three-way compromise that would clear the way for an armistice. Three developments led observers to predict an agreement may be in sight: secret negotiations were recessed indefinitely to develop “additional avenues” for breaking the long deadlock; General Ridgway said he thought progress was being made, and he hinted a compromise may be in the offing; and Communist newsmen at Panxsmunjom said Red delegates had in effect offered to withdraw their nomination of Soviet Russia. But the latter was denied by the Allies.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Gettysburg Times)