The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Inquirer, Philadelphia PA

Korean War Weekly Front Pages

27 May – 2 June 1951

The Inquirer, Philadelphia PA

The Allies push further northward, but Communist resistance is stiffening.

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To start the week, organized Red resistance had virtually collapsed along the Korean battlefront as the Allies swept at will across the border and up to six miles inside North Korea. American and South Korean troops in division strength moved the main Allied line well beyond the 38th Parallel on a 20-mile front below Hwachon and Kumhwa in west-central Korea. South Korean troops racing again up the east coast captured Yangyang, six miles above the border on the coastal highway and railroad. Chinese Communists were beginning to surrender in large numbers for the first time as the 8th Army closed a giant trap on an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 enemy troops. Two key highway towns – Hwachon, eight miles north of the Parallel, and Inje, four miles inside North Korea – fell to the lightning Allied offensive which sealed off the Reds’ main escape routes. With casualties soaring to record heights, the shattered Communist eastern armies fled in wild disorder, abandoning equipment, artillery, ammunition and even personal weapons.

Allied troops had driven up to 15 miles into Communist Korea as harried Red troops turned and fought. Allied cleanup units behind the lines were scooping in bypassed Reds, but all along the vital central front advance units were meeting fierce resistance, mostly from Korean Communists left behind to screen the Chinese retreat. The next day a spearhead had plunged 26 miles into North Korea in what may be the last easy gains of the whirlwind offensive. Allied forces had taken nearly 10,000 Chinese Communist prisoners since April 22, and Reds were deserting in increasing numbers.

Rain-drenched Allied forces brought the bristling Red “iron triangle” within range of their big guns by advancing up to three miles on a 25-mile portion of the west Korean front. An 8th Army communique reported that troops striking east northeast from Hwachon had seized the dam there, cutting off the last foot-trail escape route for Reds remaining south of the artificial lake in central Korea. Thousands of Reds already had escaped from the dam area, and more were believed leaving under cover of the holding force that had stalled the Allied advance south of Yanggu. The UN offensive had cracked into the main defensive line from which the Chinese had launched their disastrous spring offensive. Resistance was stiffening all across Korea, but an armor-tipped American spearhead was able to hold the vital “escape city” of Yanggu briefly while other Allied units thrust 30 miles across the Parallel. Heavy rains were virtually eliminating air attack, but air drops for troops continued. The 8th Army commander warned that it was too early to count the Communists out. He said they still had plenty of power in reserve and could “smash us again” if they wanted to.

The Army Chief of Staff voiced belief that Russia was “beginning to get concerned” about increasingly heavy casualties among Chinese Communists in Korea. He also said a peace settlement was “always possible” on the basis of the 38th Parallel. He also refused to budge from his statement that MacArthur violated a policy by sending American troops close to the Manchurian border last fall.

The Air Force Chief of Staff warned against wasting the “shoestring” US Air Force in an expanded war with Communist China because air power is the only thing keeping Russia from starting a third world war. He said America’s strategic air power would have to be “roughly double” its present strength to carry out MacArthur’s Far East war proposals and still have enough planes on hand to serve as the “sole deterrent” to a Russian attack. He also said that Chinese Communists in Korea were using a Russian-built jet aircraft engine that was better than anything the US had, but American fliers were better trained and better gunners. In a manner similar to the MacArthur firing, an Air Force General was dismissed from Korea. He was apparently “boiling and ready to talk.”

According to the Chief of Naval Operations, the Joint Chiefs were so gravely concerned about the Korean War situation that they had ordered General MacArthur to get his forces ready for a possible broader war. It was the first revelation by a top-ranking military chief that the winter retreat of Allied forces had the peril of a Third World War, or that MacArthur had suggested an armistice unless the war could be carried to Red China.

In a defeat for President Truman, Senate-House conferees agreed on a Universal Military Training (UMT) and draft extension bill, but killed the administration’s plan to put a UMT program into effect automatically at the end of the present world crisis. They agreed to require additional legislation for UMT, but cleared the way for Congressional action on a bill lowering the draft age from 19 to 18-1/2 and extend the term of service from 21 to 24 months.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Philadelphia Inquirer)