Chinese Savagely Attack Allied Bridgehead

Wanganui Chronicle, 20 December 1950, Page 5

Chinese Savagely Attack Allied Bridgehead

Effort To Take Hungnam; Airport Knocked Out, Suburbs Entered

SEOUL, December 19 (Beed. 11.30 p.m.).—Chinese Communist troops, in savage attacks last night and early today, made new gains in the Hungnam beachhead area. They knocked out Yonpo airfield and smashed into the southwest suburbs of Hungnam before the defending American troops stopped their charges. American troops and artillery and I nited States naval ships including the battleship Missouri, inflicted heavy losses on the

Chinese. A 10th Corps spokesman said the Chinese and North Korean Communist forces were maintaining medium to heavy pressure against the beachhead. Patrols today probed in the vacuum of one complete degree latitude separating the massed Chinese armies along the 39th parallel and the United Nations ranged along the 38th parallel in w’est Korea, but the lull in large-scale action continued. It is a fortnight since the Allied troops in this area had contact with the main Chinese forces. Meanwhile, the North Korean offi-

■ cial radio, broadcasting from Kanggye, in the mountainous north, clairn- . ed that Communist guerrilla forces in South Korea had linked and were ad- ■ vancing on the major cities of Taejon, Taegu and Pusan. The radio said the ■ guerrillas had been lying low in hiding I places in the Chiri mountains of South ■ Korea. • General MacArthur's intelligence today estimated the strength of the rebuilt North Korean army at 150,000 men. with probably another 50,000 conscripts and recruits being trained in Manchuria.