Chinese Soldier

U.S. intelligence officers, caught short by the sudden flood of Chinese prisoners, questioned as many as they could get to. TIME Correspondent Hugh Moffett told the story of a typical prisoner:

WANG is about 25 years old, with less than five years of schooling behind him. Back home in Manchuria he was a farmer, and all he wants today is to go back to the fields where he left his wife and baby daughter to tend the millet crop. He volunteered for the army in February 1950--to spare his family social disgrace in his village--but he never took to army life. He discussed his dislike of fighting with other soldiers who agreed, but he had to be careful not to talk to the wrong soldiers, i.e., dedicated members of the Communist Party. Secretly he decided that if he had to fight Americans he would become a prisoner at the first opportunity.

"A Great Benefactor." Army instructors told Wang that the imperialistic aggressors were overrunning Korea and, if not stopped, would march into Manchuria and burn the villages. His knowledge of Stalin was vague, but the army told him that Stalin was a great benefactor.

He and his comrades furtively read leaflets dropped by U.N. planes (though the penalty for having a leaflet was a bullet). Thus Wang learned who General Ridgway was. He had long understood that Truman was America's Mao, but he had never heard of MacArthur. When shown magazine pictures, he could name only Mao and Stalin.

Last September, after studying railroad construction during his basic training period, Wang was made a platoon leader in an artillery unit of General Tsung Tsu-yu's army. It was a fairly well equipped outfit of between 20,000 and 30,000 men. Each company had 50 or 60 rifles with 120 rounds per rifle, ten or twelve submachine guns with 200 rounds, two 60-mm. mortars with 30 or 40 rounds, and 15 antitank grenades. Each man had four hand grenades.

"A Warrior of Liberation." Tsung's army crossed the Imjin last month. On May 15 it headed for the Han, to wipe out the U.N. bridgehead. The Manchurian farmer's battalion had twelve field pieces, and his platoon operated two of the 76-mm. pieces, with 60 rounds for each gun. Supplies of shells got up to the front pretty regularly.

Wang's outfit was in the rear; his buddies in advanced positions would have a different story to tell, but most are not around to tell it. The Chinese reinforcements never had a chance to move up. Wang saw perhaps one killed and two wounded in his own battalion by artillery, another 50 wounded and taken back north. He had not learned that in his area, one company of 120 was down to 40, another company had 30 wounded in strafing by U.N. planes. He did not see mound after mound with the epitaph: "Here lies a warrior of liberation."

When the U.N. forces whipped into the Chinese rear areas, Wang got the chance he had been waiting for. When orders came to withdraw, he slipped into the bush and started moving. He had believed the American leaflets which promised him decent treatment. He worked down into a valley, then over a hill, saw American troops advancing, and walked toward them in the open, with his hands up, as the leaflet had told him to.

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