TOKYO: Strong American counterattacks slowed the breakthrough drive by 30,000 Communists on Tuesday [Sept 5] down the Korean east coast towards the key transport hub of Kyongju, which is 17 miles south-west of Pohang, 35 miles east of Taegu and 47 miles north of Pusan. The Communist assault on the eastern flank of Allied defences had penetrated the South Korean lines west of Pohang on a wide front and they poured across the Pohan-Yongchon road… .

Then Lt. General Walton Walker, Com­mander of ground forces in Korea, threw … American forces against the Reds in another of his exhibitions of mobility which had thwarted the enemy time after time. He sought to wreck the Communist bid to isolate Pohang, to flank Taegu and to roll the line back on Pusan. By nightfall the counter-attacking American and South Korean forces were dug in along ridges and across a river valley, seven miles north of Kyongju.

Behind the hastily reformed Allied front bands of a dozen to 400 North Koreans on Tuesday night were attacking small South Korean units, throwing roadblocks across the highways and disrupting communications.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2025