The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Evening Sentinel, Carlisle PA
Korean War Weekly Front Pages
16 December – 22 December 1951
The Evening Sentinel, Carlisle PA
A list prisoner of war names is released.
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The United Nations ordered its planes to attack all unmarked vehicles on the main highway between Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and Kaesong, headquarters of the Communist truce team. “The honeymoon is over,” a UN spokesman said. “Tomorrow morning, they will be shot at instead of looked at.” The UN had refrained from attacking the road since 27 November, when agreement was reached on a cease-fire line good for 30 days, but the Reds had taken advantage of the immunity to move 18 to 20 vehicles per day toward the front in addition to the truce team’s own cerise-marked vehicles.
Top UN officials agreed at a meeting Tuesday on future conduct of the Korean War in the light of Communist stalling at the truce table. Supreme Commander Ridgway said afterward that the military and truce delegations had reached “complete accord.” The decisions were not disclosed, but it was known that the big question was whether to extend the trial 30-day truce deadline, which expired in nine days, or reopen the “shooting war” with a “persuader offensive.”
UN forces damaged two Communist jet fighters in an aerial dogfight and traded blows with Red raiding parties on the frozen Korean ground. Twenty American saber jets cornered 10 MIGs out of 80 to 90 sighted over northwest Korea and damaged two of them in a 25 minute battle. It was announced that the US had lost 506 planes since the start of the war, and 1,293 airmen had been killed. On Wednesday, Allied infantrymen beat back a battalion sized Chinese Communist attack in west central Korea and killed an estimated 300 Reds, the 8th Army announced. The communist attack, preceded by artillery, jumped off northwest of the former Iron Triangle bastion of Chorwon Tuesday night and continued for 13 hours until the following morning.
On Tuesday, the Communists gave the UN the names of 3,198 US war prisoners – all they held out of 12,795 Americans missing in the war. The total seemed to substantiate General Ridgway’s estimate that 6,000 Americans had been murdered in Communist atrocities. Altogether, the Reds turned over the names of 11,599 Allied prisoners in approximately 11 North Korean camps to UN delegates in a surprising about-face at an armistice subcommittee meeting. Ridgway’s headquarters announced that it would begin releasing names of all American prisoners a soon as copies of the list arrive from Korea in a B-26. The next day, the release of the list began. The Pentagon worked around the clock to speed the good news to anxious relatives, but the White House warned that the list was pending verification and should be regarded as highly unofficial and possibly incorrect. On Friday, the UN hinted that there may be hundreds of American war prisoners being held who were not on the list.
The Communists warned that they may block additional talks on prisoner release until after Christmas, but orders were still issued by the US for a mass airlift of American prisoners to Japan if an armistice was concluded. No progress was made Thursday in the negotiations on the terms of enforcing an armistice agreement, which focused on how to prevent cheating. On Friday the UN agreed to give up all the islands it held off the east and west coasts of North Korea in an attempt to speed up an armistice. The armistice talks were now about three “ground rules”: the terms of a cease-fire, withdrawal of troops from a buffer zone along the cease-fire line, and withdrawal from occupied coastal waters and islands. At the end of the week, official UN radio accused the Communists of trying to negotiate a future war in Korea under a cloak of peaceful intentions in truce negotiations. It was probable the Communists would try to stall the negotiations at Panmunjom beyond the 30-day deadline.
United Nations troops in Korea would eat more than 1,350,000 pounds of turkey, plus shrimp cocktails and other delicacies, in the most generous Christmas and New Year’s day feast ever served fighting men in the field, an 8th Army spokesman said. The holiday menu also included tomato juice, celery, olives, corn, cranberry sauce, rolls and butter, followed by both mincemeat and pumpkin pie and mixed nuts.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Carlisle Evening Sentinel)