Enemy Buildup

Night-flying aircraft crews scouting North Korea's roads last week spotted one of the heaviest enemy movements toward the front since the Chinese Communist crossing of the Yalu. More than 2,000 vehicles were headed through the darkness for the Red lines above the 38th parallel. Night after night, and even by day, the ominous traffic to the front continued. U.N. air strikes attacked it but could not cut it off.

The Chinese Communists were reported massing 300,000 men along the highways and railroads below Pyongyang on the west and Wonsan on the east. Soon, perhaps this month or in May, another mightier Red offensive against the U.N. forces could be expected.

The Eighth Army moved warily northward. Two U.S. armored columns raided across the parallel on the western flank of the peninsula. One rolled up the main road north of Uijongbu toward Kumhwa; air spotters, directing artillery, helped it get back again before a Red ambush could be sprung. The second column, thrusting north of the Chongpyong Reservoir, ran into an enemy ambush of grenade and machine-gun fire, but managed to fight its way out to U.N. lines below the parallel. Along the central front above Chunchon, the enemy counterattacked; the main blow in his anticipated offensive seemed likely to come in this sensitive sector.

On the eastern flank of the peninsula, U.N. naval forces bore the brunt of probing the enemy, sapping his buildup, keeping him as much off balance as possible. The port of Wonsan, 80 miles above the parallel and a key traffic hub, was under continuous fire; by week's end it had endured 43 consecutive days of bombardment, a naval record exceeding that achieved in the siege of Vicksburg.* Rear Admiral Allan E. Smith, in command of the naval task force off Wonsan, described the operation: "In Wonsan, you cannot walk on the streets. You cannot sleep any time in the 24 hours unless it is the sleep of death." The only people in the city, said the admiral, were ''suicide groups" of soldiers living in caves and waiting to fight a possible U.N. landing.

* In the famous Civil War battle of 1863, Federal ships on the Mississippi during 42 consecutive days fired 11,500 mortar shells into Vicksburg.

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