Battle For Seoul Continues

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 September 1950, Page 5

Battle For Seoul Continues

United States Troops Enter Suwon, 20 Miles South; Stiff Fighting

TOKIO, Sept. 22 (Recd. 11. headquarters announced today Division elements entered Suwoi Communist military and political leaders fled northward from Seoul today to escape United States Marines storming the city. Refugees said the Communist High Command had been thrown into a panic by the Marine assault.

Allied units forming one of the jaws of the pincers which are closing on the South Korean capital of Seuol—a force of United States Marines pushing on the city from the outlying suburb of Yongdongpo, south of the Han River —on Thursday ran into the fiercest fighting of the Inchon beachhead battle. Among the chimneys of the factory area on the fringes of of Seoul, Communists opened up with the guns of 10 tanks massed in the narrow streets.

General MacArthur, as he was. boarding his plane at Kimpo airfield to return to Tokio. said he expected the Marine force driving down on the city from the north to knock out this resistance from the rear.

The capture of Yongdongpo tightened the jaws of the pincers nipping Seoul from the north and south sides of the Han River. Marines and South Korean forces left, the jaw on Wednesday, when they speared out from their bridgehead across the Han River at Haenju, cut the railway, ana

10 p.m.)—General MacArthur that United Stabs 7th Infanti i, 20 miles south of Seoul.

then swung right to secure high ground covering the city’s approaches. These forces yesterday swept down the northern bank of the river against light opposition, and by late afternoon

their spearheads were approximately abreast of the foremost Marines battling in Yongdongpo south of the river.