FIGHTING IN KOREA

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26395, 13 April 1951, Page 7

FIGHTING IN KOREA

Enemy Stiffens Resistance

(Rec. 12.10 a.m.) TOKYO, April 12. The new Allied offensive in west and central Korea ran into the Chinese main line of resistance to-day. Gains were carved out in bitterlycontested fighting, which developed into hand-to-hand combat in some sectors.

South Koreans on the east coast found no opposition as a patrol entered the seaport town of Kangsong, 26 miles north of the 38th parallel. The Chinese refused to budge from their hill positions' in the arc above Yongdong. Americans. Turks, and Filipinos, in several engagements, were forced to fall back and call for artillery support. The growing enemy resistance in the west was accompanied by new crossings of the parallel into a narrow wedge of South Korea still controlled by the Communists. Chinese, in battalion strength, poured across the line near the border town of Korangpo, about 30 miles north-north-west of Seoul. The Chinese troops suddenly appearing in strength on the central front blocked the Allied advance north to Yonchon on the road to the key town of Chorwon. The Chinese strategy anpeared to be to throw a brake on the Allied advance all along the front by determined resistance in the centre, which would hold up too speedy an advance along I both flanks. ■ The Communists threw artillery and I heavy mortars into the fight to stem 1 the Allied advance towards Hwachon. i the other key anchor of the central I front defences.