The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Press, Pittsburgh PA
Korean War Weekly Front Pages
26 August – 1 September 1951
The Press, Pittsburgh PA
The Battle of Bloody Ridge nears a conclusion as armistice talks remain suspended.
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UN forces pushed the communists off a newly captured hill on the 13th day of the battle of “Bloody Ridge.” UN troops jumped off against the western end of the ridge northwest of Yanggu on the east-central front at dawn in a drenching rain. Despite the slippery slopes, the Allied soldiers had cleared one important hill and assaulted another. Little resistance was encountered, but some UN casualties were caused by mines and booby traps. Along Bloody Ridge, the advancing UN troops counted 472 dead, including 12 officers, who were victims of 27 air strikes paving the way for the Allied soldiers.
More than 1,000 screaming Communists slammed into attacking UN forces but failed to blunt the Allied drive along a 30 mile front. A fresh North Korean division was thrown into the Communist line to fill gaps blasted by UN air strikes, artillery and infantrymen. In the Punchbowl area farther east, above Inje, UN forces finally repulsed an enemy probing attack after a six-hour fight.
US Superfortresses heavily attacked the North Korean port of Rashin, 20 miles from the Soviet Siberian border and on the Sea of Japan, by specific authority of Washington. The attack was made, it was announced, to prevent a Communist build up for a possible double-cross offensive if ceasefire talks broke up. Thirty-five B-29s hit enemy railroad yards with 300 tons of bombs, carrying the war to within 100 miles of Vladivostok. General MacArthur complained in congressional testimony the past May that he was forbidden to bomb Rashin, and that this decision gave the Communists a “sanctuary” inside Korea. Midweek Allied planes continued to attack railroads in northwest Korea, striking at supply lines along which the Communists were building up their battle line. In 318 sorties, the US Air Force and Marine tactical planes had destroyed or damaged 51 railroad cars, three locomotive and one bridge, and had cut the rails at 43 places.
The Communist high command violently attacked Vice Admiral Turner Joy for twisting the truth when he reported that the alleged bombing of Kaesong was a fraudulent claim based on faked evidence. A broadcast by North Korean radio repeated communist claims that Allied aircraft bombed and strafed Kaesong on the night of 22 August with the “residence of our delegation as the target.” It said Admiral Joy’s account of the incident was “an insult.” Communist commanders in Korea sought to blame the South Koreans for alleged neutrality violations and asked General Ridgway, UN supreme commander, to re-investigate the “bombing” incident in the Kaesong area. In turn, he charged that the Communists had used one of their own airplanes to stage a fake bombing, and stated that no American aircraft had been over Kaesong at the time of the bombing in the neutral zone.
Mid-week, a firm but mild reply to the Communists by General Ridgway was believed to have paved the way for early resumption of the Korean armistice talks. The reply rejected a Communist demand for a new UN investigation of the alleged bombing of neutralized Kaesong, but it contained none of the scathing language which marked the general’s previous exchanges with the Reds. There were two points made in his message: that the Red offer to reinvestigate the bombing could serve no good purpose; and UN truce negotiators would be sent back to Kaesong as soon as the Communists lifted their suspension of the talks. Claims from UN officers suggested the Reds were “impatient” at the continual injection of political issues into negotiations for a strictly military armistice. But there were three new charges by the Communists of violation of the neutral zone at Kaesong, including that UN armed personnel had attacked Communist military police near Chorgiam, a mile inside the neutral zone on the southeast.
United Nations forces in Korea braced themselves for an expected all-out communist offensive with the aid of 2,000 Eastern European troops. The Communists appeared about ready to launch one of the biggest Red offensives of the war with their help. The “volunteers” were believed to be from Russian satellite countries. They were supposedly encamped somewhere between Pyongyang and Kaesong.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Pittsburgh Press)