Fourth Capture of Seoul

The fourth fall of Seoul was a sad business, something like the capture of a tomb. Only 200,000 of Seoul's original 1,500,000 population were still there. The broken city brooded over its own destruction.

Seoul had been heavily damaged last autumn when, after MacArthur's amphibious stroke at Inchon, the Marines and the 7th Infantry Division took it against savage North Korean resistance. This time there was more damage, from hundreds of shells hurled by U.N. artillery from the south bank of the Han. The Bun Chon shopping district, not badly mauled last autumn, was now flattened. Ambassador John J. Muccio's official residence had taken two more direct hits. The great red- painted, brass-studded gates of the embassy compound were leveled and buried in a welter of rubble. None of the utilities was operating. Streetcar and light wires dangled from poles. A few women dipped water from manholes in gourds fastened to long poles. The capitol building, which the Reds had fired last autumn in a senseless act of spiteful arson, had its lobby fouled by manure from horses stabled there by the enemy. The Communists had made no preparation for a street fight. There were no sandbag barricades, no new pillboxes, rifle pits or foxholes. But the retreating Reds had looted the city again, although this time the pickings were slimmer. Tables and desks had been taken out of official buildings--but the "In," "Out," and "Hold" baskets had been left in the Eighth Army's onetime headquarters at Seoul University. Twenty-eight mattresses, evidently piled up for removal, had been left behind.

Seoul residents said that in late February and early March the Communists ordered all men aged 15 to 40 and women 16 to 25 to go north. When the Red rearguards pulled out, they took food and clothing at gunpoint from the Koreans who remained. Last autumn the Communists had taken the best bifeins from Seoul --doctors, teachers and other professionals. This time they took the able-bodied and healthy, leaving the old, the children and the sick.

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