Big U.S. Plane Raid on Yalu River Bridges

Wanganui Chronicle, 9 November 1950, Page 5

Big U.S. Plane Raid on Yalu River Bridges

TOKIO, Nov. 8 (Recd. 10.40pm). Eighty American Superfortresses, with a total bombload, of 650 tons, attacked military targets at Sinuiju today, including the Korean side spans of both double-tracked railway bridges crossing the Yalu River between Sinuiju and Antung. This is the first time the American Air Force has attacked the international Yalu bridge*. Included in the total bombload were 80 half-ton bombs which 10 Superfortresses were scheduled to drop on the Korean end of both bridges. The raid was intended to cripple warm-weather communications between Manchuria and Korea.

The Yalu normally freezes early in December, with ice thick enough to take military traffic.—Reuter. Fifth Air Force fighter-bombers were scheduled to precede the Superfortresses. Seventy of the Superfortresses were to drop a total of 85,000 individual incendiary bombs. American fighters were in strafe Communist anti-aircraft gun positions before the bombers reached their targets. Elements of the United States 3rd Division have been landed at Wonsan, on Korea’s east coast ,to help meet the danger of Chinese Communist intervention in the Korean war, it was announced today. The 3rd Division sailed recently from the United States and has been held in reserve in Japan. A North Korean communique broadcast last night by Sinuiju radio, claimed that Communist forces had crossed the Chongchon River northeast of Anju and were advancing south. Fifth Air Force headquarters announced that an American jet lighter shot down a Russian type of jet plane over North Korea today. Another Russian-type of jet was damaged in the same fight, but managed to escape across the Manchurian border.