Fearful Beating

The Chinese Communists called for their old touchdown play. Hoping again to split the U.S. Eighth Army by smashing through its center, they pushed 100,000 men against a 20-mile front in mountainous central Korea.

This time the play did not click. U.N. troops gave up unimportant sectors, but held where they had to, as at Chipyong. Then General Ridgway shifted his strength eastward from Seoul. The U.N. line snapped back. Armored counterattacks relieved Chipyong, smashed north from Wonju. North of Ichon, U.N. troops bashed in the west flank of the Red drive.

By Friday the Chinese attack was spent and broken. Switching objectives eastward, the enemy sent two North Korean corps against the minor communications center of Chechon. Here, too, U.S. counterattacks, backed by artillery and air concentrations, held the Red advance to a walk.

By week's end, the Communists had taken casualties estimated at 33,000. South of Seoul, Puerto Rican G.I.s literally annihilated a Communist regiment; after a round-the-clock shelling north of Ichon, U.S. artillerymen reported 1,100 Chinese Reds dead in their foxholes. At Wonju and Chechon the hills were littered with enemy dead and abandoned weapons. U.N. planes dropped leaflets over the Communist lines; on them was printed a terse "Count your men."

This week the Reds broke contact over most of a 70-mile front, fell back to lick their wounds. Matthew Ridgway, who is not given to boasting, claimed a clear-cut victory: "We have defeated the Communist counteroffensive in the central sector. The Communists have taken a fearful beating, and have disengaged."

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