BATTLE OF KOREA: A Question of Tomatoes

"We are going to fix bayonets and charge. Fire and keep firing. We've been after these guys a long time. This is our chance. Let's go!"

One morning before dawn, under a quarter moon, Captain Frederick T. Griffiths of Cleveland shouted these brave words to his combat-green company. The Communist enemy was swarming down on them from the crest of a ridge. After the astonished Reds had been chased off the hill, down the far slope and off another hill, Captain Griffiths exulted:

"It's like a tomato fight. If the other guy has the tomatoes and you've got nothing to throw at him, you get murdered. But if you keep hurling tomatoes too, and you've got better aim, he gets murdered. This time we had more tomatoes and better aim."

Heat & Thirst. Such spirit helped to keep General Walker's "limited offensive" going on the south coast, in spite of appalling difficulties. Advancing on two winding roads through rugged country, the U.S. columns rarely had the flank protection they should have had. The enemy seemed to know just what the U.S. commanders were up to.

As "Task Force Kean"* (the 35th Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division, the 5th Regimental Combat Team and elements of the 1st Marine Division which landed last fortnight) jumped off, Negro units holding a flanking ridge were due to be relieved by marines. But alert North Koreans slipped in, beat back the marines, brought up machine guns and artillery, opened fire on the vehicle-crammed road and on U.S. artillery positions and command posts.

Combing out this enemy pocket and others on crests over 3,000-ft. high, in 100° heat, the marines found themselves suffering from thirst and dropping from heat exhaustion. Some marines were sent to relieve an infantry company which was cut off and being supplied with ammunition and water by air drop. Some of the dropped material fell too far away to recover; some of the water containers burst when they hit the ground.

Like Civil War Prints. General Walker appeared in his fast-moving, heavily armed, two-jeep convoy and ordered the attack speeded up. A U.S. night attack—hitherto a North Korean specialty—helped. As enemy frontal resistance lessened, headquarters spokesmen in Tokyo talked confidently of U.S. "pursuit," of an enemy "rout." This was an exaggeration. The forward speed of the U.S. drive was painfully slow and enemy pockets on the flanks had to be rooted out laboriously.

Correspondent Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune told what happened when several hundred trapped Reds stormed two U.S. artillery batteries. "In action of a type seldom seen outside American Civil War prints, the artillerymen leveled their 105-mm. howitzers at enemy troops which at times penetrated within a hundred yards of the guns. With fuses set at zero, the artillerymen were using Charge 7—the maximum powder charge a 105 will take. Charge 7 is almost as rough on the guns as it was today on the Reds." Three out of the batteries' four guns were burned out, but the Reds failed to take them.