Down the Peninsula

The isolated unit of less than one battalion supported by one battery of field artillery, which was at Osan yesterday, was attacked by the best Red division, supported by 40 tanks, which were extremely skillfully maneuvered. The ratio of troops engaged was more than eight to one against the American forces. For more than six hours the American forces held off the invaders until their ammunition was exhausted, and then withdrew . . . The American forces were being enveloped on both flanks. {They} were confronted with a resourceful Red commander who skillfully applied frontal pressure with envelopment.

--Communique from Tokyo

This was the dismal outcome of the first combat for U.S. ground forces since World War II. It was too bad that this realistic appraisal of a really formidable enemy came after the fight and not before. One U.S. officer in the field admitted that he had been contemptuous of the North Koreans. He lost his contempt.

Of the Osan action, Lieut. Colonel Miller Perry said: "Four or five tanks--all medium--just sat near our infantry positions with their hatches battened down, blasting away at our line. The infantry took a terrific pounding as [other] tanks came down the road. They swung their turrets on our positions, letting us have it. We struck back with our 105-millimeters and got five that won't run again."

Sword & Umbrella. Earlier, Correspondent Sydney Smith of the London Daily Express cabled: "The final desperate stretch of routed South Koreans ranged from 16-wheeled tank-recovery vehicles to the smallest patrol cars . . . On some trucks I saw senior Korean unit commanders sitting among their troops, wearing white gloves, and carrying an official sword in one hand, and in the other a tree bough held over their heads like an umbrella. The South Koreans' terror of the Yaks' strafing has turned a sprig of leaves into a symbol of security.

"Driving back, I noticed a Korean peasant lying beside the road. The dried blood which caked his injured head and chest and a smashed arm suggested he must have been there for hours. No one had time to stop for him. His ox-load of refugee baggage waited patiently. Only the foreigners' influence persuaded a Korean ambulance truck to pause and haul the dying man aboard."

"The Best I Can Do." After Osan fell, the harried U.S. commanders tried road mines and bridge demolitions to delay the invaders, but their green troops did not handle these operations well. When envelopment threatened the U.S. units at

Pyongtaek, they retreated southward. Before the week was out, Chonan fell. Chonan was only 22 miles north of the Kum River (see above).

TIME Corespondent Frank Gibney cabled: "A gloomy lieutenant told of leaving six men in his platoon who were unable to walk. 'Lieutenant, what is going to happen to us?' one asked weakly. The lieutenant said, handing them grenades, 'This is the best I can do for you.' One group of G.I.s, before running to safety through crossfire, propped up a wounded buddy in the middle of the road, where he could raise his hands to surrender. As they tore across a paddy field, they turned back to have a last look at their friend. It was just in time to see him cut in half by Red Tommy guns, his feeble, lifeless hands still waving in the crisp summer air."

Smack into Ambush. After the first evacuation of Chonan, U.S. commanders discovered that the Communists had failed to follow and that some 15 miles of unoccupied road lay behind. Angry and ruffled, they turned one platoon around and sent it north. The platoon--led by jeeps instead of tanks--ran smack into an enemy ambush.

Gibney cabled: "Lieut. Jim Little, driving in the lead jeep, suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a 50-caliber, machine gun only 45 feet away. His panic-stricken Korean interpreter jumped out and the G.I. driver threw up his hands to surrender. Both were cut down by a merciless blast from the machine gun. A Red soldier then jumped into the road and drew a bead on Little with his rifle. Luckily, the weapon jammed. Little had time to duck into the shelter of a house by the roadside. Said he, later, 'I could see every inch of rifling down his gun barrel, I was so close.' "

Wanted: Six Divisions. On a day when Pentagon spokesmen in Washington described the Korean situation as "not serious," the New York Herald Tribune's Homer Bigart, who was in the field, described it as not only serious but "desperate." On good flying days, U.S. and Australian fighter planes harried the enemy armor and communications, but in the rainy monsoon season, good flying days are too few. In spite of continued B-29 bombing north of the 38th parallel and effective raids on the Han River crossings, the enemy seemed to be keeping his supply lines in fair order. And MacArthur's communiques constantly mentioned the grave danger of envelopment by Communists from the Wonju-Chungju area, of southward thrusts from Communist beachheads at Utchin and other points on the east coast. To exorcise these specters it would be necessary to string across the peninsula four to six Allied divisions--which last week would be a long time coming.

If Taejon and the rail line were lost, the enemy had a chance to squeeze the defenders into a perimeter around the port of Pusan. But the picture was not totally dark. The U.S. forces had seized unqualified command of the air, would hold it unless Russia directly intervened. The South Korean forces, chewed up and demoralized by the enemy's first onslaught, were regrouping behind the U.S. screen. East of the Osan-Chonan sector, where they had only Red infantry to fight against, the South Koreans were beginning to achieve some success. The arrival at week's end of U.S. medium tanks and heavy artillery was an enormous boost for U.S. morale.

On a ridge south of Chonan, a bearded U.S. sergeant in a foxhole heard the ineffective crump of mortars behind him change to the sharper slam of 155-mm. Long Toms. "Boy," he said happily, "my morale is up 300%."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.