GREAT ARMADA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 71, Issue 55, 14 December 1950, Page 5

GREAT ARMADA

TROOPS LEAVE HUNGNAM NOT A DUNKIRK tN.Z.F A.-Reuter— Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) TOKIO, Dec. 13. A great armada of United Nations ships was standing off the north-east Korean port of Hungnam to-day loading 60,000 Americans and South Koreans for evacuation to an undisclosed destination. The military spokesman claimed that this was “not a Dunkirk.” There was no air attack and almost no pressure on the ground on the quickly-dwindling defence perimeter around Hungnam into which the trapped American infantry and British commandos fought their way three days ago.

The Americans, British and South Koreans, many of whom pushed deeper into North Korea than any other United Nations. forces, boarded the grey transports covered by the guns of cruisers and destroyers. They embarked in orderly file from lighters. There is .no official news of evacuation. . / , An Associated Press photographer who flew over the Allied Fleet at Hungnam reported that transports and freighters were being loaded with men and materials. Earlier reports had stated that the entire 10th Corps m north-east Korea had escaped encirclement by Chinese troops and had withdrawn to safer areas. General MacArthur’s public information officer, Colonel Echols, said he had received no report that the evacuation had started. He added that he would not discuss it in any case, “because this is clearly a movement in progress and falls under security.”

Both the United Press and Associated Press stated that they had withheld the news of the evacuation as a matter of security, but were now releasing it because “another news service had printed the story.”

“Standing on the main p.ier of this Oriental port of Hungnam in a cold Siberian wind, I can see a transport heavily loaded with retreating United Nations troops and equipment heading out into the Japan Sea,” states William Chapman, correspondent of the United Press, in a delayed dispatch from Hungnam dated December 11. “l am looking at the first phase of the United Nations Dunkirk in north-east Korea. There is no band to play martial music for the troops. They don’t smile and they don’t look sharp and confident. They are tired, cold and disgusted,'and many are sick with colds.” The first transport, heavily laden with troops and equipment, pulled out of Hungnam on Monday. Before that one South Korean regiment was evacuated by sea from Chongjin and other Allied units from Wonsan. American rearguards held the rim of the Allied beachhead around Hungnam as the evacuation was under way, but strangely enough, the Chinese, who fought fanatically last week to prevent the escape of Marines encircled near Chosin Reservoir, made no attempt to interfere with the evacuation. Swarms of fighters and bombers from American carriers off Hungnam -flew over the enemy lines, but found few targets.