Flare-Up

Four Communist soldiers from North Korea last week started a nasty little war of their own. Sneaking across the military demarcation line that divides Korea into Communist north and U.S.-supported south, they hid beside a road some six miles from the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom. At 5:30 a.m., a Jeep bounced along the rutted road carrying three U.S. enlisted men of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, bound for an observation point on a nearby hill. They never made it. The North Koreans blasted the Jeep from the road with a shower of grenades. Pfc Charles Dessart, 19, of Drexel Hill, Pa., and Private David Seiler, 24, of Theresa, Wis., were killed; Pfc William Foster, 26, of Baltimore was badly wounded.

Death in the Reeds. Instead of retreating to their own lines, the North Korean quartet pushed on south, passing safely through the 2,000 yards of the demilitarized zone, crossing the Imjin River, and entering a grassy bottomland bordered by reeds the height of a man. Here they were spotted by a farm boy, who raced to notify South Korean military police. Joined by a detail of U.S. troops, the police challenged the invaders, who opened fire, killing Corporal George Larion, 24, of Davison, Mich., and a South Korean policeman.

Two of the Communists died in the 25-minute running fire fight, but the other two escaped and were trailed northward by a growing force of G.I.s and South Koreans. Four helicopters flew low overhead, and their prop wash parted the reeds and kept the running North Koreans in sight. At midafternoon, exhausted and surrounded, each Communist pulled the pin from a grenade, fell upon it and committed suicide.

The four North Koreans, it turned out, had carried bundles of civilian clothes (including a coat bearing the label of a Seoul tailor), faked South Korean identity cards, rations for 15 days and $4,000 in U.S. money. Obviously, they had intended to infiltrate South Korea, but why had they jeopardized their mission by the ambush of the U.S. Jeep? Likeliest explanation: they thought they had been spotted by a U.S. patrol and had therefore opened fire.

Bloodthirsty Marauders. But it is also possible that, after a decade of the half-forgotten Korean armistice, marked only by minor skirmishes and routine infiltration attempts, the Chinese-dominated North Koreans now want to prod and poke the U.S. For days, the North Korean radio has been ranting that the "U.S. imperialist troops'--must be driven from South Korea. Al week's end a sizable group of Communist soldiers boldly penetrated 500 yards into the U.S. sector and waged a two-hour skirmish with U.S. patrols.

U.S. Marine Corps Major General George Cloud called the 176th meeting of the Military Armistice Commission at Panmunjom and delivered a blistering attack on his Communist opposite number, sleepy-eyed General Chung Hwan Chang, demanding that he curb his "bloodthirsty marauders." Chang insolently replied that North Korea was not at fault and that, undoubtedly, "you have deliberately murdered some of your own personnel in a scheme serving your political purposes." When Cloud displayed a collection of weapons taken from the slain North Korean raiders, Chang picked up"~a pistol and made as if to shoot the American. "Where is your dignity?" snapped Cloud. General Chang put the pistol down.

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