EVACUATION OF ALLIED TROOPS REPORTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27572, 14 December 1950, Page 7

EVACUATION OF ALLIED TROOPS REPORTED

Activity In North-east Korea

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 0.55 a.m. TOKIO, Dec. 13. A flotilla of naval vessels is carrying out the evacuation of United Nations troops from the north-east coast of port Hungnam, says the United Press correspondent. There is no indication where the troops will be taken. Earlier reports had said that the entire 10th Corps in North-east Korea had escaped encirclement by Chinese troops and withdrawn to safer greas. General MacArthur’s public information officer, Colonel M. P. 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.” Unofficial reports say that 60,000 American, British and South Koreans boarded the transports. No enemy intervention was encountered.

The Associated Press says the sea evacuation of the United Nations forces from North-east was apparently under way today. An Associated Press photographer who flew over the Allied fleet at Hungnam reported that transports and freighters were being loaded with men and materials. , United Nations forces in Korea now face 27 Chinese divisions, incluaing two divisions of Mongol cavalry—more than 250,000 men—General MacArthur announced yesterday. More troops in Manchuria were ready to cross the Yalu River to reinfqrce these Chinese forces, the communique added. Only small ground actions were fought yesterday, but United Nations war planes battered at Communist concentrations and supply centres.

General MacArthur’s forces in Korea last night waited at their guns just south of the thirty-eighth parallel for a Communist attack on the great defence arc covering Seoul. , Fifty miles to the north the Chinese massed divi-

sion on division, building up supplies by horse and camel trains moving by night. Between the two main forces formations up to division strength sparred briefly just north pf the parallel, but Jio sustained action was reported. The 17th Regimental combat team of the American 7th Division is still believed to be somewhere south of Hyesanjin, a Manchurian border town. Some 6000 to 8000 men in this tanksupported force are still fighting through snow and enemy-dominated country towards the east coast. Kim II Sung, the head of the North Korean Government, has ordered the North Korean forces and Chinese volunteers to push the American armies in Korea into the sea, according to the Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press. In a statement to the Korean people, reported fully m *ll the Soviet papers, Kim called for “ vengeance and death to the American armed interventionists and the treacherous gang of Syngman Rhee.’ A gunman last night shot dead the secretary of the South Korean National Assembly, Whang Sungloo, one of the three who visited the 'United Nations last month. An average of 18 persons have been killed in each of the past three nights in Seoul. The police investigating the murders have arrested more than 900 persons described as Communistsi