Obliging

Surrenders by Korean Communists were increasing. Last week, U.S. Intelligence headquarters in Tokyo announced that nearly a score of Communist political commissars had surrendered in recent weeks. The commissars, all lieutenants, were specially trained officers charged with spreading Communist ideology among the North Korean troops. Many of them, U.S. Intelligence officers reported, said they were convinced that the Communists had lost the battle of Korea.

U.N. forces last week also honored a white flag'borne by a Communist lieutenant colonel, the first North Korean officer of field grade to surrender since the fighting began. The Communist officer walked into a South Korean command post, explained that he was: 1) annoyed at not having been promoted to the rank of full colonel; 2) sore because his superiors had told him he was not a good artilleryman; 3) convinced that the North Koreans were in a pretty bad way anyhow.

Then he sat down and obligingly pinpointed 22 of his own artillery pieces hidden in an apple orchard behind the Communist front lines. U.S. fighters and artillery promptly went to work on the orchard.