"This Hurts"

The battered but not broken Eighth Army rolled south, with vehicle columns bumper-to-bumper on the roads and a million refugees alongside. Trucks and jeeps that broke down were not repaired --they were shoved off the road and burned. Said a reconnaissance pilot, looking down on the dreary spectacle of U.S. defeat and retreat: "This hurts. It hurts where I can't scratch."

The lowest-flying pilot could not count the dead, or see the tide of wounded flowing into collecting stations and field hospitals.

The Chinese Communists surged into burning Pyongyang and its port, Chinnampo. At the port some 7,000 allied wounded and civilians were evacuated by sea. Six U.N. destroyers steamed 30 miles up the mine-infested Taedong estuary to a dangerous night rendezvous with the transports, then shelled Chinnampo's port installations into wreckage.

Locustlike Swarm. Because it had wheels, the Eighth outdistanced the pursuing foe. Other than patrol actions and skirmishes, there was hardly any fighting last week in the western sector, but spokesmen both in the field and in Tokyo warned that the lull was deceptive. The intelligence estimate was that 18 divisions of Chinese were trying to come to grips with the Eighth Army. Chinese crossed the Taedong estuary in a vast fleet of power junks and small craft; farther back they waded the Chongchon and tinged the icy river with blood when allied airplanes strafed them. But the locustlike swarm of the enemy never stopped.

General MacArthur announced that a line from below Chinnampo to the Koksan area had been established (see map), but it was unlikely that such a line could be held, because of its open right flank.

It was later explained that the line was only a screen of "isolated outposts" which could be abandoned if necessary. South Korean units were already fighting regrouped North Koreans below the 38th parallel. Tokyo said it was a "misnomer" to call such North Koreans guerrillas--they were organized enemy spearheads.

Fare: $700. The U.S. 24th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions were now stationed on the perilous right flank, replacing the fearfully mauled U.S. 2nd Division. Caught on the shoulder of the great Communist breakthrough, the 2nd would have to be reconstituted before it could fight again. It had lost a third of its combat strength in killed, wounded and missing; its 9th Regiment, first and hardest hit in the Red onslaught, was almost completely destroyed. The division's 237 officer casualties included five doctors and two chaplains.

Retreat is contagious. Already some Korean civilians were leaving Seoul for the south, and the price of a truck ride to Pusan hovered around three million won ($700). President Syngman Rhee put his country, now facing invasion for the second time in six months, under martial law.

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