Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-02-12
Foes Offensive
Launched AIonq
3O-MiIe Front
By the Assoeiatsd Press

Combining 100, 0O0-man power with
fake surrenders, white flags and
handshakes, Chinese and North
Korean Reds thrust a dangerous
wedge 7 miles deep into the Allied
Central Korean front Monday.
isolating some American and
South Korean units.
On the east coast latest Ameri-
can reports said a patrol of the
South Korean Capital Division,
advancing northward, ran into a
Red company almost on the 38th
Parallel and was forced back
south after fight less than mile
below the old political boundary.
Earlier South Korean official re-
ports had credited the South Ko-
rean patrol with a smile pene-
tration into North Korea. The
American advisers report early
Tuesday to 9th Army headquar-
tiers said they never crossed the
line at all.
Attack on 80 Mile Front.
The savage Red counterdrive in
the mountainous central sector was
launched Sunday midnight and
pushed throughout yesterday on
a 30-mile- wide front.
Two American units of undis-
closed size were reported cut off
north of Hoengsong. They were
fighting to crack enemy road
blocks that extended 2 miles along
the road south of them. An Amer
lean relief force was battling UP
from the south. A South Korean
regiment also was reported cut
of northeast of Hoepgsong, SIS air
miles east of Seoul, Red-held for
mer Korean capital.
United Nations troops were
massed south of Seoul, just across
the Han River from the capital.
But a South Korean patrol that
had made another probe into
Seoul was forced out again late
yesterday by sharp enemy small
arms fire.
Shortly before last midnight,
Reds charged south across the ice
clogged Han River and attacked
United States 25th Division ele-
ments in Scouts industrial sub
urb, Yongdungpo. Associated Press
War Correspondent William C..
Barnard reported from that town
that the attack was beaten back
in about Is minutes.
At the same time Red artillery
subjected the Allies south of the
Han to heavy fire from 120-mm.
guns, presumably Russian made.
Critical Situation in Center.
The critical position, however,
was on the central front.
There American officers were
striving desperately to rally the
South Koreans, whose collapse
opened the way for the Red ad-
vance.
The Reds were fighting hand
to hand with Allied defenders in
the key road center of Hoeng-
song. One and a half files south
of Hoengsong. the Communists
had set up a road block. A Red
column was sweeping toward that
area to cut the Hoengsong- Womb
road.
Field dispatches said the situas
ton was confused and serious.
The Communist counteroffensive
"a typical maneuver launched at
night with massive forces at the
weak point-threatened to wipe
out the big Allied gains of the past
10 days in the central sector.
Troops i'm West Periled.
On the Western front, the Allies
had swept Saturday into Scouts
industrial suburb of Yongdungpo,
its big airport at Kimpo and its
ccdPOII VI 1IlCllUI.
The four or more Allied divi-
sions massed around Seoul in the
west and the South Koreans on
the east coast could be forced to
pull back for their lives unless the
Communist smash in Central
Korea is stopped.
On the Central Front, the Reds
were attacking Hoengsong from
three directions. Hoengsong is 10
miles north of Womb, the road
center where the United States
End Division with French support
smashed an earlier Red drive that
permitted the Allies to launch their
own offensive January 25.
From Hoengsong, five Allied
(See KOREA, Page A-2.)