AMERICANS FACE WORST POSITION SINCE DUNKIRK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23314, 25 July 1950, Page 5

AMERICANS FACE WORST POSITION SINCE DUNKIRK

(10 a.in.) LONDON, July 24. “Not since Dunkirk has a great Power been in such a predicament as tiiat of the United States in Korea,’’ says the Daily Mail’s correspondent, G. Ward Price, cabling from Tokyo.

“By her military intervention in the defence of the South Korean Republic, America has bitten off more than she can at present chew." Price says that in two visits to the front he was shocked by the rawness of the American troops. Recruited since the last war, they were without real military experience except the easy conditions of occupation in Japan. He doubted if the Americans will have time to fortify and maintain the toehold in the bncks-to-the-sea position based on the east coast ports of Pusan and Pohang.

Price says: “It is now evident that the United States would have done better to abstain from committing inadequate forces to land action. She should have been content with a naval blockade combined with intensive air action in which she has uncontested superiority —unless the North Koreans' allies furnish air support.

"The loss of prestige incurred in abandoning the South Korean Army to its fate would have been less than that entailed by military defeat. At best, it is likely to be six months before sufficient strength can be accumulated to pass to the offensive, even if the coastal bridgehead can be maintained." “Extreme Gravity” It would be difficult to exaggerate the extreme gravity of the military situation in Korea, says the correspondent of The Times at American Army Headquarters in Korea. “It is not tanks; guns or aircraft that are primarily needed,” he says, “but infantry—and the time factor is crucial. Reinforcements are urgently required if the United Nations are to assert their will. “The American forces in Korea," adds the correspondent, "can achieve little if, wherever they are committed, they are confronted with overwhelming numerical superiority. "There is a simple explanation for the fall of Taejon—too few men trying to hold too large an area, with nobody to watch their flanks. It Is the oftenrepeated tale in Korea. “Allied air superiority has undoubtedly slowed up the North Korean advance, but it Is only underlining the old, old truth that air attack will not stop advancing ground forces, and that infantry can be met only with infantry. “If the American and South Korean forces are driven back into a bridgehead in South Korea (even ff it is a sizeable bridgehead) the military task of fighting a way back through the length and breadth of this mountainous peninsula will be immense.”