Red Strike

This week the Communists, who had been giving ground before Seoul and shifting strength to the east, launched a vicious 60,000-man assault on a 30-mile front in the central mountains of Korea. Outnumbered South Koreans, who were out in front with a U.S. division backing them up (see below), promptly collapsed. The Communists--Chinese and North Koreans --drove an eight-mile wedge in the allied line.

Some observers had the same shivery feeling that accompanied the Chinese breakthrough of last November and the wholesale U.N. retreat that followed. But the situation this time was quite different. Largely as a result of General Ridgway's morale-boosting, the Eighth Army was no longer suffering from "bugout fever" (an overquick tendency to retreat in case of trouble). Instead of being strung out in vulnerable "pursuit formation," Ridgway had been advancing carefully, compactly, on constant guard against surprise attacks and flank threats. Moreover, when they struck in November, the Chinese were fresh, confident, unhurt. Now they had been weakened by allied air attacks and ground action, and by cold, hunger and disease. Estimates of enemy battle casualties since Jan. 25 soared last week beyond 80,000.

If the Chinese followed up their central-front counterattack this week with power and determination, they might force a temporary U.N. withdrawal. But if and when their assault was contained, they would find themselves worse off than before.

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