seventy-five thousand of the POWs at Koje-do wanted repatriation back to Communism. The Reds broke off armistice talks.
On May 7, when the prisoners of Compound 76 demanded a meeting with the newly arrived camp commandant, Brigadier General Francis T. Dodd, he stood outside an open gate talking to their leaders when the prisoners charged and pulled him inside the compound. Dodd's aide saved himself by clinging to a gatepost. Shinn's report was sent to AP in Tokyo, and, after the U.N. Command withdrew its hold order, made headlines in America.
Dodd was released three days later after being forced to sign a statement that U.N. forces had killed and wounded some prisoners. Though the U.N. disclaimed the statement, calling it a "lie" made under duress, the incident gave the Communists food for propaganda that was expanded into charges that the U.N. used the prisoners as guinea pigs for bacteriological tests. A mob of correspondents descended on Koje-do to report on the situation there.
When Dodd's replacement arrived to take charge of Koje-do, he broke up the prisoner compounds into smaller groups of five hundred inmates each. During their transfer to their new compounds, another wild melee occurred at Compound 76. U.N. paratroopers, backed by tanks, subdued the prisoners by force.
During this time, furious battles raged daily along the front of outpost hills which won fleeting fame in newspaper headlines. Though small, they were lethal enough to keep correspondents and photographers busy. Adding to the difficulty of reporting the developments in Korea were the differences on the U.S.-U.N. side over the U.N. goals in entering the war, the question of military strategy versus political policy, strained further by the outspoken insistence of President Syngman Rhee that the goal of the fighting was a united Korea.
A propaganda warfare ensued with the U.N. charging the Reds of being afraid to admit that the Communist prisoners in U.N. hands didn't want Communism. The Reds countered by broadcasting "confessions" of captured American pilots to engaging in bacteriological warfare.
Throughout these exchanges, the Allied soldiers kept their sense of humor. "Just about every dugout carried a sign posted near the entrance," Poats reported. Anything from "Waldorf Towers Basement" to "Home Sweet Home," and "Marilyn Monroe Slept Here." And fallen off a rickety bridge post near the 38th parallel, a sign: "Gateway to Manchuria."
In the second year of the war, from mid-1951 to mid-1952, the air force stepped up its attacks. This systematic destruction of Communist supply lines "raised the price in man-hours and precious supplies that Communist China and Russia had to pay to support a massive army," according to Rud Poats. Though the U.N. prevented the Communists from launching a new offensive, the Red Army was able to rebuild its strength. "By mid-1952, it outgunned the 8th Army in artillery pieces by nearly two to one and had swollen to nearly one million men, twice its effective strength on the day the truce talks started," Poats reported.
But Allied control of the air denied the Reds the means to harass U.N. troop movements. "Headquarters and installations beyond Communist artillery range could stay above ground, with a minimum of time and manpower spent in camouflage and anti-aircraft precautions."
On lune 23, 1952, the Allies launched the biggest air strike of the war. Without consulting other U.N. Allies, some five hundred U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Marine planes hit the hitherto "off-limits" giant Suiho Dam and three other dams, then threw in two hundred more planes the following day, knocking out North Korea's power supply as well as power to industries in Manchuria.
With the U.S. presidential election campaign moving into its final phase before election day on November 4, the Communists attempted to use Panmunjom as a sounding board to push American public opinion into a mass demand for a quick end to the Korean War. Seeing through these tactics, Major General William K. Harrison, who took over as chief U.N. negotiator from Admiral Joy, called a recess on October 8 and told the Reds he would return to the negotiating table when they had a "constructive" proposal to present. The Panmunjom talks entered a six-month recess which continued over New Year and into the spring of 1953.
The recess at Panmunjom was accompanied by a sudden intensification of Communist attacks on U.N. outposts all along the front as the date of the U.S. presidential elections drew near. On October 6, Communist forces attacked White Horse Hill held by the ROK 9th Corps. Bill Shinn reported that the hill changed hands twenty-four times between October 6 and 15. The South Koreans, showing their newfound discipline and power, inflicted heavy losses on the Chinese and denied the enemy control of the hill.
In analyzing the war up to this point, Rud Poats pointed out, "Korea was the battleground but seldom the scene or source of key decisions." The signals sending the North Korean forces over the 38th parallel and Communist China's intervention in 1950 "undoubtedly were called in Moscow." The decision to begin truce talks was made over South Korea's objections by the United States, the United Nations Allies, and the United Nations Secretary General. In the truce talks, "the United States met and negotiated by proxy with its global enemy, Soviet Russia. The military stalemate and the armistice deadlock were reflections of the global balance of titans, afraid of the consequences of bitter war and uncertain of the multiple effects of any settlement short of a clear-cut conference-table victory." If a breakthrough was to develop, Rud said, "a new factor had to enter the picture from outside, a new situation or new assessment of the world situation which justified compromising on the prisoner repatriation issue, plus a new formula for camouflaging the retreat."
The opening came in a compromise formula put forward by India in the United Nations General Assembly in December. A series of other developments occurred outside Korea and, in combination, they created a favorable situation for the break in the stalemate, which came in 1953.
During the U.S. presidential campaign, soldier-statesman Dwight D. Eisenhower had announced that if elected, he would go to Korea for an on-the-site study of the situation. After he defeated Adlai Stevenson, the president-elect did go to Korea on December 3. His party included Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley.
Ike's visit brought into sharp focus the change in the fighting qualities of the ROK troops. In 1950 and 1951, they were under-trained and poorly led, Poats said. When the armistice talks began, only three or four ROK divisions of about twelve thousand men each could be regarded as dependable in the face of heavy attack. General Van Fleet made building a ROK army his major concern. President Rhee himself had been calling on the United States for help in building up a twenty-division army.
By the time of Eisenhower's visit, South Korean troops of the original ten-division
