Biggest Fire Raid

WAR IN KOREA

The place might have looked like a native collection of huts--except that U.S. air maps showed no village on the site, certainly not one that covered four square miles. Actually it was a big Communist supply dump, 30 miles northwest of the Panmunjom truce site. The Reds tried their best to disguise it by covering the boxes, barrels and bags with thatching that looked like roofs. A month ago, U.S. reconnaissance pilots spotted the dump for what it was. But the airmen waited while it grew into one of the lushest supply targets in North Korea.

At first light one morning last week, blue-black F80 Shooting Stars began howling off the runways of the 8th Fighter-Bomber Wing, making the short run to the target, setting it on fire with napalm. The enemy sent his fast MIGs down from the north to interfere, but they were driven off with heavy losses by U.S. Sabres. As fast as the F-80s got back to base, they were reloaded and refueled for follow-up missions; altogether the wing flew 250 sorties. The fighter-bombers knocked out 32 Red antiaircraft positions, dropped some 33,000 gallons of napalm in the biggest fire raid of the war.

Result: one supply dump a mass of black and shredded ruins. It was a good day's work, but U.N. commanders believe that in other and better concealed places the Reds in recent months have been able to pile up far more supplies than they had when they launched their two big offensives in April and May a year ago.

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