Atlanta Daily World

Allies Hold New Defense Line On Korean Front

BY ROBERT S. ELEGANT

SEOUL -(INS)- Allied forces held a new defense line on the central Korean front after halting assaults by 10 Chinese divisions totaling 100,000 men which drove South Korean troops back more than six miles.

Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor announced that his Eighth Army had "stabilized" the front at the base of the Kumsong bulge.

The bulge had extended six miles from tip to base and it was revealed by Taylor's statement that the South Koreans had fled beyond the new defense line set up for them at the base.

Ten miles to the west of the Kumsong sector a great artillery duel raged in the Sniper Ridge area after smashing of a 10,000-man Chinese attack.

Taylor said the Chinese suffered heavy losses.

In both the Kumsong and Sniper Ridge sectors the defending South Korean Infantrymen waited tensely for new Chinese attacks but a front dispatch said that at midnight Friday no action has developed.

The dispatch said "small numbers" of Chinese were being captured.

New battles flared on the eastern front where 5,000 to 6,000 reorganized North Korean Reds achieved small gains in the area between the Punchbowl and the sea.

The North Koreans struck in units of from 20 to 1,000 men at Allied positions eastward from Luke's Castle to Anchor Hill.

An Eighth Army summary said the Communists lost 21,000 killed or wounded in the week ended Tuesday night-the highest weekly enemy casualties since October, 1951.

Taylor, giving the first official description of the battlefront situation, said:

"Recovering rapidly from the heavy blows struck by an estimated 10 enemy divisions, commanders have regrouped their units and have pressed back to contact with the enemy in the first resumption of open warfare in nearly two years."

Taylor in effect denied reports that the South Koreans had been engaged in a vast counter-offensive for the last two days.

He said action had been "intermittent across the front" in the last two days except in the Sniper Ridge area held by the ROK Ninth Division, "which repelled a major assault" Thursday night.

In the Kumsong sector, Taylor said, "advance guards" of two South Korean corps were fighting in the valley of the Kumsong river.

Taylor's statement revealed that the big Communist assault which opened Monday night was launched on the Kumsong salient held by the Ninth U. S. Corps and two ROK corps -the first official disclosure that American troops were involved.