The Strength Unknown

The Strength Unknown

Fifty-eight years ago on July 27, 1953 the Korean People’s Army and the Korean people led by President Kim Il Sung won the 3 year-long Korean war provoked by the US imperialists.
It was a great victory of the outstanding military wisdom of President Kim Il Sung over the strategy and tactics of the US military experts who were alleging to have ever been victorious with their numerical and technical superiority.
War is a face-off between strength and strength.
In the early 1950s, when Korea stood face to face against the US armed with the latest equipment, the world public was deeply concerned for her future.
The aggressive plan of the US to occupy Korea at a dash, however, was frustrated from the outset.
Dwight Eisenhower, who assumed the US presidency in 1953, put out a plan of “new offensive” after his trip to south Korea for front inspection.
Van Fleet, the then Commander of the 8th US Army, contrived a battle on T-shaped Height as a prelude to the “new offensive”.
The height is a low hill less than 300 meters high 16 kilometers northwest of Cholwon.
Van Fleet mapped out an elaborate operation plan and stealthily massed huge armed forces of over a division equipped with modern heavy armored combat and technical equipment.
Large-scale bombing and shelling were poured on the height for over 10 days before attack.
After making every preparation Van Fleet turned up before correspondents from the US, Britain, Japan and other capitalist countries and announced that he would show a model battle breaking through the front.
President Kim Il Sung was informed of it on January 24, 1953 at 5 p.m. the day before the battle.
If the line had been broken through, it should have moved far north and Height 1211 too might have been besieged.
In fact, on T-shaped Height there were only two regiments of the Korean People’s Army at that time. Therefore reinforcements along with artillery had to be dispatched in order to thwart the attack of the heavily armed enemy division.
President Kim Il Sung summoned operation officers and gave an instruction to bring some units to the height to deal a smashing strike at attacking enemies.
The operation officers tried to map out various plans, but they could not make time: Since the US army was expected to launch an attack at 5 to 6 a.m. the next morning, reinforcements had to be brought there till at least twelve midnight or one o’clock. But the units were too far off to cover the long distance in time, if they march as usual.
It was just what Van Fleet calculated.
One day much later in December 1986 President Kim Il Sung, looking back upon the battle, said in a meeting with officials that he had really been pressed for time.
He said he had thought that if he should believe in the men of the People’s Army who were faithful to the Party and the leader, there would be nothing impossible and called up the commanders of the units concerned, telling them to bring their units to such and such place until a specified time.
On the order of President Kim Il Sung the units ran 40-80 kilometers at the maximum speed and got to the designated place at midnight.
Informed at 5, meeting at 6 for operation plan and order released at 7-this meant that they ran 80 kilometers in 5 hours.
Unaware of it, the US army launched an attack on January 25, 1953 in the presence of correspondents of different countries under cover of hundreds of aircrafts and artillery pieces and scores of tanks.
In response to the enemy attack People’s Army soldiers dealt a fierce strike at the enemy positions even by mobilizing long range cannons. When the enemies were attacking, some People’s Army combatants made a detour to strike the enemy from the rear.
The “model battle” of Van Fleet thus turned out a complete failure, leading to the fiasco of the “new offensive”.
The world mass media gave wide publicity to it and it became a world laughingstock.
A US publication said: Clark and Van Fleet showered 300, 000 shells every day in order to gain a hill of tactical importance and hurled the excellent mechanized forces, only to fail completely.
Remembering the days, President Kim Il Sung said the US at that time did not realize Korea’s strength.
Of course, the US didn’t know what a great strength Korea had.
In the last Korean war the United States mobilized a third of its army, a fifth of its air force, the greater part of its Pacific Fleet and the forces of 15 satellite countries, not to mention of the south Korean puppet army and the Japanese forces, squandering 165 000 million US$ on military expenditure. However it gained nothing but a loss of manpower surpassing 1 657 000 including 405 490 US soldiers and lots of military equipments, and sustained an ignominious defeat.
It was out of their wit to understand the strength of Korea led by President Kim Il Sung with a gift of military wisdom and supported by the army and the people united rock-firm behind him.
Just herein lay the tragedy of the United States and the cause of its defeat.
The US, unable to draw lessons from the war 58 years ago, is still stepping up political, economic and military pressure, intervention and sanctions in a bid to stifle Korea with strength.
The Korean People’s Army that has grown into an invincible force under the leadership of Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il, brilliant Songun general, will always emerge victorious in showdowns with the imperialists.