Link-up in Korea CONTINUED
DEATH ON THE ROAD came in the crash of an exploding box mine. The covered body of a mortar sergeant lies on a stretcher, his twisted jeep in the ditch.
WARNING ON THE ROAD is the dead sergeant's helmet, marking nearby mine which another car crew found. Past pathetic marker column keeps rolling.
THE LINK-UP between airborne and armor is made at the edge of drop zone where parachutes still lie scattered on the ground (upper right). When they saw this was the only tank to come up, the paratroopers' faces fell. But they felt a lot better when the tankers told them that the rest of the column was close behind.
THE LINK-UP between airborne and armor is made at the edge of drop zone where parachutes still lie scattered on the ground (upper right). When they saw this was the only tank to come up, the paratroopers' faces fell. But they felt a lot better when the tankers told them that the rest of the column was close behind.
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| Link-up in Korea continued on page 34 |
MINED TANK has lost a track (lower left) and is laboriously winched off road by tank-recovery crew.
ARMOR'S ROUTE is shown on map. Both link-up and air drop are marked by cross east of Munsan.
PARATROOPERS flush enemy snipers from group of peasants' huts near the drop zone. North Koreans put up short fight but they were quickly driven into the hills. Three hundred were killed, 131 captured.
MORTARMEN fire into hills with weapons and ammunition dropped to them shortly after jump.
INDIAN ARMY DOCTOR, Lieut. Colonel Rangara, jumped with surgical team, treats wounded.
HELICOPTER AMBULANCE takes off on 20-minute flight to Seoul with two enclosed stretchers lashed to each side of the fuselage. One hundred and two men were injured in the drop, only 10 seriously.
THE ARMOR MOVED UNDER STRICT ORDERS: "NO DELAYS AND NO SUCKER SKIRMISHES"
As the paratroopers and airborne Rangers, now afoot, fought through the hills near Munsan, the 20-mile-long armored column was grinding up the road from Seoul (map, opposite page). Lieut. Colonel John Growdon in command of the task force had started his 25-mile road march at 6:30 that morning "We’re going to Munsan,"he ordered. "No delays. No sucker skirmishes."
The task force snaked north, the big Pattons leading, the ambulances and trucks bringing up the rear. There were few Red troops near the road and occasional sniping was ignored. But the road was heavily laid with Russian-type mines, many of which had extra explosives under them to double or triple the explosion. There were also wooden box mines which could not be picked up on a mine detector designed to pick up metal. Three tanks, two jeeps and a scout car were wrecked by them and some of their occupants killed. The column frequently slowed, and sometimes had to halt, but always it got . . going again.
Twelve hours after they had started, and right on schedule, Colonel Growdon's lead tank nosed into the paratroopers' perimeter (above, right). But on the outskirts of Munsan three tanks had been put out of action by mines and artillery, and engineers were forced to build a log by-pass around them in the mud. With painful slowness the column coiled onto the plain and the colonel deployed his tanks on a three-mile perimeter on the battleground (next page).
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