The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Republican and Herald, Pottsville PA
Korean War Weekly Front Pages
12 July 1953 – 18 July 1953
The Republican and Herald, Pottsville PA
Trouble brewing in Indochina.
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On Monday South Korean president Syngman Rhee promised to keep his hands off Korean armistice machinery for at least six months. The 78-year-old president said, however, he would take action if the post-armistice political conference failed to do anything about unifying Korea within a reasonable time. Rhee, in effect, gave the political conference 90 days to show proof of its intentions to unify Korea. His pledge was considered strong enough for Allied truce negotiators at Panmunjom to assure the Communists that the South Korean government would not obstruct the signing of the armistice. On Tuesday President Eisenhower gave congressional leaders an optimistic report on truce prospects in Korea at a White House meeting. But the very next day Allied truce delegates walked out on the Communists at Panmunjom and an informed source said the Reds may be called on to “put up or shut up.” The walkout apparently resulted from continued Communist claims that the UN Command was conspiring with President Rhee to break an armistice. The blows kept coming – late in the week Rhee complained to the 8th Army commander that the ROKs had been “chewed up” because they had been held back in anticipation of the armistice. Supposedly South Korea would never again send a delegate to Panmunjom. Then Secretary of State Dulles warned the Communist world that the UN would fight on in Korea if it was unable to obtain an honorable peace.
South Korean troops took advantage of a lull in enemy activity to regain territory seized by the Communists on the bloody east-central front. Infantrymen of the 6th ROK Division reclaimed their lost property in a two-pronged drive on an outpost west of Finger Ridge captured by the Chinese two days ago. The South Koreans split into two groups and linked on the crest of the outpost, driving off the Chinese defenders after a brief fight. The next day “human sea” assaults by up to 72,000 Chinese drove South Korean forces back along a 20-mile sector of the central front, but the ROKs were counter-attacking and their artillery was taking a fearful toll of Reds. It was the heaviest Red offensive since April 1951. The see-saw continued Thursday with South Korean and American troops launching a surprise counteroffensive against 80,000 Chinese on the flaming central front and gouged out a one-mile gain before being halted by stiffened Red resistance. Twelve thousand Chinese jumped off an attack of their own Thursday night, smashing into an ROK division east of Sniper Ridge and west of the Nam Dae River in the old “Iron Triangle,” an area previously untouched in the week’s Red offensive. But on the central front Chinese Communists were being forced back under a combined infantry-tank-artillery-plane attack and were surrendering in big numbers.
Allied Sabrejet pilots shot down seven Communist MIG-15s in a dogfight over MIG Alley on Sunday. Major James Jabara, history’s first jet ace and third-ranked MIG-killer, said that enemy pilots seemed afraid to fight. He said the MIGs had to be lured into dogfights, and MIG Alley had apparently been turned into a training area for Communist student pilots.
The Big Three foreign ministers resumed talks, concentrating on ominous signs pointing to a threat of new Communist aggression in Indochina. Prospects for an early truce in the Korean War were offset by intelligence reports that Red China, getting ready for new aggressive moves, had begun building up war supplies in Indochina. The US Secretary of State was informed during an American-French meeting that Red China in the last three months had “sharply increased” the flow of arms to Red rebels in Indochina. Deliveries of light arms, light artillery, and trucks to the Reds coincided with the Red Chinese and North Korean interest in a Korean truce. News of the increased arms shipments to Indochina whetted American interest in a French plan to add 20,000 more French troops and approximately 108 commando-trained native battalions to the war effort. The plan proposed to the US would cost initially $285 million [$3.2 billion in 2023], of which the lion’s share would come from US aid.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Pottsville Republican and Herald)