The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Plain Speaker, Hazelton PA
Korean War Weekly Front Pages
21 October – 27 October 1951
The Plain Speaker, Hazelton PA
The peace talks resume.
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At the start of the week, everything was set to resume Korean truce talks as soon as Red negotiators would ratify a security agreement. Liaison officers on both sides had completed the pact Monday, detailing ground rules for renewing armistice negotiations after a two-month break. The UN command promptly ratified it and called on the Communists to reopen talks “without further delay.” The Reds didn’t answer on Monday. The next day Peiping [Beijing] radio quoted Premier Mao as saying that the Chinese would continue to “resist America” until the US accepted Red peace proposals in Korea. The Chinese leader then added that armistice negotiations “will be a success if America takes a rational stand in peace talks.” The broadcast was heard in Tokyo as the Reds had allowed another day to slip by without approving an agreement to restart the talks. Finally the Reds agreed to reopen the talks, to start on Thursday, 24 October at Panmunjom, a roadside village six miles east of the former negotiating site of Kaesong.
As the talks renewed, the UN proposed a give-and-take compromise to set up a buffer zone across the wartorn peninsula. The UN proposal called for the Allies to yield about 200 square miles of North Korea in the east, and the Reds to give up a similar area in the west. The buffer would be about 2.5 miles wide and follow generally present battle lines. The was no immediate indication of a Communist reaction. The Reds had previously demanded a buffer zone along the 38th Parallel. On Friday the Communists countered with a proposal that the Allies give up such bitterly won Korean areas as Heartbreak Ridge, Punchbowl and Iron Triangle. The Allies rejected the proposal, stating that it bore “no relationship to the military line of contact and did not offer truce protections.”
American tanks rumbled into flaming Kumsong on Monday for the second time in three days as the Chinese retreated before advancing Allied infantrymen. For four hours M-46 Patton tanks shot up the former Red stronghold on the central front. Then they lumbered back through mud and heavy mortar fire to their own lines. Allied infantrymen, striking out of the fog, overran two hill masses including the highest yet taken on the 15-mile Kumsong front. The Reds put up a hot fight on one ridgeline for a little while. Then they withdrew, and UN soldiers advanced unopposed through the mud. UN tank and infantry forces were now beginning to envelop the city.
One US sailor had been killed and six injured when Red shore batteries hit the US heavy cruiser Helena and escort destroyer Moore off Korea’s east coast earlier in the month. One shell had hit the Moore on 17 October – one man was killed and two injured. The destroyer was bombarding the industrial area of Hungnam before dawn. The Helena’s superstructure was hit on 22 October, with four crew receiving superficial injuries.
Communist airmen hurled 150 jets at UN warplanes on Tuesday and lost at least 14 destroyed or damaged in history’s largest jet battle. Two American planes were shot down and at least two damaged. The Russian-made MIG-15s had swarmed in waves on B-29 Superforts bombing a new Red airfield at Namai, 45 miles from the North Korean border with China. One B-29 was crippled and plunged into the Yellow Sea, but the crew had bailed out. The air war continued to rage through the week across northern Korea.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Hazelton Plain Speaker)