Reds Offer Little Opposition in Hills
Three Allied Divisions Take Two New Positions
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U. S. EIGHTH ARMY HEADQUARTERS, KOREA, Tuesday Oct. 16, 1951. – (AP) – Three Allied divisions today captured two more hills in their central front offensive and were within artillery range of Kumsong, the Reds’ central front assembly area some 30 miles north of Parallel 38.
The fourth day of the attack on a 20-mile front brought the United Nations line forward five and one-half miles from its jumping off point on the morning of Oct. 13.
AP photographer Bob Schulz reported from the front that Chinese resistance stiffened yesterday but two Red probing attacks were repulsed during the night.
Chinese artillery and mortars, however, poured out about 8,000 rounds of fire daily, he said.
American and South Korean infantrymen were driving ahead in hilly country but there still was no sign of the “traditional Communist die-hard stands,” Schulz said.
Thirty-one hill positions have fallen to the advancing United Nations forces in four days.
In the first three days of the offensive the Allied fighters won nearly 100 square miles of Communist Korean territory.
AP Correspondent George McArthur reported from the western front that American infantrymen at dawn today renewed their assault against strong Red positions along a three-mile ridgeline three miles northwest of Yonchon.
Fighting was fierce and at some points opposing forces were within hand grenade range, he said.
On Monday the U. S. Second Division’s 38th Regiment stormed a towering 4,000 feet high peak on the eastern front. It is the highest mountain between Heartbreak Ridge and the Pukan river. The American success came just as the North Koran Army communiqué boasted that the 38th Regiment had been annihilated.