Reds are caught in Giant Trap; Get Air Licking
Communists Suffer Worst Air Defeat
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U. S. EIGHTH ARMY HEADQUARTERS, KOREA, Wednesday Oct. 17, 1951, - (AP) – American troops today caught Chinese forces in a giant trap on the blazing Central Korean front where three Allied divisions have smashed within four miles of Kumsong.
“We put the cork in the bottle,” an Allied officer said.
The Americans snapped shut their trap less than 24 hours after U. S. Airmen handed the Communist Air Force its worst jet licking of the war.
The Fifth Air Force said U. S. fliers shot down nine Russian-type MIGs and damaged five others in two swirling dogfights over Northwest Korea. It reported only one Sabre Jet damaged in the flashing battles between 70 US and more than 150 Red jets.
Allied officers estimated that nearly 800 Reds were caught in the trap south of Kumsong.
The bulk of them were dug in on fortress mountain, the highest point in the area. But their escape was cut off by Allied machine-gunners and artillery, AP Correspondent Sam Summerlin said in a dispatch from the front quoting the U. S. 24th Division operations officers.
U. N. troops, who yesterday seized two peaks east and two more peaks west of fortress, snapped shut their cordon of steel Wednesday morning. They fought completely around to the north and joined forces.
“It’s easier to go around them than to make a frontal assault,” explained Lt. Col. Albert L. Thornton, the operations officer.
American and Columbian troops of the 24th Division were attacking the fortress peak.
“We’re going in and dig them out,” Thornton said.
Thornton said the new Allied gain “will deny to the enemy use of Kumsong and their supply base.” Allied guns were in position to rain fire down on the big Central Korean city.
The Allied thrust yesterday slugged into the main Chinese defense line south of Kumsong. The city is 30 miles north of Parallel 38. Heavy fighting also raged Tuesday on the Eastern and Western fronts.
AP Photographer Bob Schulz on the Central front reported nine more hills were seized by the U. S. 24th Division and the South Korean Second and Sixth Divisions in heavy fighting along the 22-mile front.
A North Korean Army communiqué, broadcast by Pyongyang radio, conceded that “the enemy, despite heavy casualties; is pushing northward,” on the Eastern front. This apparently referred to the drive by attacking South Korean and American units on hill masses between the Punkan River and captured Heartbreak Ridge.
The South Korean Eighth Division stormed one hill and advanced 1,000 yards, the Eighth Army reported.
In the West, the U. S. First Cavalry Division threw itself once more against three miles of Chinese-held ridge positions northwest of Yonchon, some 35 miles north of Seoul.
The Eighth Cavalry Regiment ground out some yardage along the Red flank after rooting out Chinese with grenades and bayonets.
But the Reds still held their main positions at nightfall.
The big air battle over “MIG Alley” in Northwestern Korea was fought under a perfect sky in the chilly sub-stratosphere, 30,000 feet up.
In a warm-up encounter, a roving force of 17 U. S. Sabres spotted 30 MIGs that declined battle. Another 17 more Sabres, guarding three jet photo planes, clashed with 20 more MIGs – shooting down one in a brief dogfight.
The fireworks came in the afternoon.
It was short even as jet fights go – only 15 minutes. But it was enough to send eight more Communist fighters crashing to the ground or exploding and burning in the air. Five more MIGs were hit and damaged.