Fanatical Chinese Burned Wounded And Danced Around Flames

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 December 1950, Page 5

Fanatical Chinese Burned Wounded And Danced Around Flames

Elements of the United States Seventh Division trapped by Chinese on the east side of the Changjin reservoir, fought their way back to Hagaru at the southern tip. The troops suffered heavy losses of personnel and equipment Survivors of the Communist ambush said that fanatical Chinese burned wunded American prisoners alive and danced around the flames like wild Indians while the prisoners scremed in pain. Other men of the division said the Chinese threw some wounded soldiers on to the highway and ran over them with half-tracks and lorries, bayonetted others in the face, and machine-gunned their flag of truce when they tried to

surrender. Marine and Air Force pilots evacuated more than 1000 wounded troops from the southern tip of the Changjin reservoir yesterday in probably the greatest mass mercy flight in history. The airmen delied Chinese guns, poor weather, and rough-hewn high altitude airstrip to bring the wounded down from the plateau where the troops had been cut off from road contact with the rear.

On the central front the Marines are reported to have abandoned the battered Chosin reservoir and the town of Hudamni.

Air intelligence today reported new Chinese convoys and troop columns are moving south Into Korea from

the Yalu River town of Manpojin, 65 miles north-west of the Chosin reservoir. A Chinese build-up is also reported in the Chosin reservoir area, where two regiments of American Marines today resumed the bitter fight against an overwhelming Chinese force inside beleaguered Kotori, on the reservoir’s southern tip. Further south, the American Seventh Division repulsed a Communist midnight attack on Majondong, 16 miles northwest of Hamhung. The Chinese now threaten Hamhung from the north, north-west and the west.

United States First Cavalry troops are fighting to recapture Songchon as the eastern anchor for a new defence line in north-west Korea. The town is 30 miles north-west of Pyongyang. The evacuation of Pyongyang appeared imminent today with Communists rapidly exploiting the threat on the Allied right flank. The United States First Cavalry Division and the 27th British Brigade, aided by air strikes, repulsed an attack by a nu.m-erioally-superior Communist force near Hadan on the north-west front. General Tahsin Yazici, commander of the Turkish Brigade on the northwest front, reached the American lines today, after reports that he was killed when the brigade was surrounded by Chinese Communists. Official Turkish sources said 3000 of Yazici’s men also managed to reach safety. Others are expected to fol-' low soon.