The Korean War, 70 Years Later, The Morning Call, Allentown PA
Korean War Weekly Front Pages
19 August – 25 August 1951
The Morning Call, Allentown PA
The peace talks are halted.
*****
On Sunday, scores of US and Communist jet fighters tangled in two swirling air battles over northwest Korea while the Allies laid down the heaviest one-point artillery barrage in the war on the ground front. The flashing dogfights involved 111 planes near the Yalu River boundary of Manchuria. One Red jet was reported destroyed, another damaged. The next day saw more dogfights between American F-86 Sabre jets and Red MIG-15s. Two of the latter were destroyed and five damaged. All American planes returned. On the eastern front, Allied artillery hurled a barrage of 15,000 shells at one target – a Communist-held hill. UN infantrymen walked to the crest without opposition afterward. Light ground action was reported along most of the front, mainly patrol probing, but there was fierce fighting as well in the west-central sector. Drenched by driving rain and near exhaustion, dogged Allied infantry also inched their way to the top of a mountain mass near Yanggu. They had been attacking that North Korean Red position in two days of hand-to-hand fighting about 30 miles inland. Not every action was an Allied advance, though – on Friday counterattacking Reds forced South Korean troops off two hills in eastern Korea. The observation posts were among numerous heights the southerners had seized in a “battle of the hills” which had continued into its sixth day. But by the end of the week, the hills had been recaptured.
Top government officials spoke optimistically Sunday of the chances for early agreement between UN and Communist negotiators on the critical truce line issue. Communist propaganda emphasizing the possibility of “adjustments” in the truce line demand was an important source for the optimism. But a new crisis was expected to arise over the question of armistice enforcement. Specifically the UN negotiators would demand that international inspection teams have access to all of North and South Korea. The Communists apparently intended to oppose this. By Monday, hopes for an agreement had dimmed with the revelation that Communist guerrillas may have violated the Kaesong neutral zone, and a joint liaison team was investigating Red complaints that an Allied band had killed one Red and wounded another inside the neutral zone. The chief Korean negotiator was demanding a “satisfactory reply” at once, but the US insisted on waiting for the report from the investigators. The Communists were rejecting the findings in advance.
On Thursday, Communist negotiators broke off all Kaesong truce talks. They charged that an Allied plane the night before had dropped explosive bombs and jellied gasoline near the Communist delegates’ sleeping quarters and had then strafed the area. Allied headquarters, in announcing the break, said heatedly that “the whole incident is a frame-up staged from first to last.” It was not immediately apparent whether the break presaged full-scale resumption in the war or was one more move by the Reds in their war of nerves. Diplomats, including the UN secretary-general, expressed dismay at the halted talks, but refused to give up hope that a Korean settlement could be reached. But the next day brought suggestions from the Reds that they were ready to resume talks if their demands were met, and the next brought the UN commander brusquely telling the Reds’ Korean war commanders that their charges of Allied neutrality violations were just a pack of “malicious falsehoods” along with an offer to resume the talks. It was the toughest-talking statement the Supreme Allied Commander had yet handled to the Communists.
Eight Republican senators called on the Truman administration to demand “liberation and unification” of Korea as the price for peace in that country. In a blistering attack on the administration’s foreign policies, the eight accused President Truman of “doing nothing” to help the Congress rid the State Department of “Communist infiltration.” They said such Red influences had affected far eastern policies of the US government. The loss of China to the Communists was due, they declared, to the Yalta agreement and administration “appeasement” of the Reds. Also, reporting their views on the ouster of General MacArthur, the GOP members of the Senate called the Secretary of State’s Asiatic policies a “catastrophic failure.” The Democratic response was to deem the Republican charges “political poppycock.” The Senate Majority Leader accused the Republicans of “smirking piety” and “demagogic political interference and innuendo.”
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Allentown Morning Call)