Stop 'Em At The 38th Parallel Part 8

New, daily updating edition

Stop ‘Em At The 38^th Parallel:

The Soviet Intervention In Korea

By Chris Oakley

Part 8

1952(August-November)

August 1st--From a rebel-controlled section of Hungary’s capital Budapest, the leader of the Hungarian anti-Soviet resistance movement broadcasts a radio message urging the Western powers to supply weapons and medical aid to his forces before the Red Army can move to crush the rebellion.

August 2nd--Chinese air force jets bomb and strafe U.N. positions near Tunghua as the PLA launches a three-pronged counterattack against U.N. ground troops.

August 3rd--Hungarian premier Imre Nagy is shot and fatally wounded under strange circumstances while he and his staff are attempting to evacuate Budapest.

August 5th--U.S., British, and South Korean jets bomb PLA positions north of Tunghua.

August 7th--Soviet armored units in Hungary begin a surprise attack on rebel positions in the western sections of Budapest.

August 8th--U.S. airborne troops are dropped behind the PLA lines near Tunghua to disrupt Chinese offensive operations in that area. On this same day Hungarian state radio officially announces the death of Imre Nagy.

August 9th--NATO ground troops start advancing on the last remaining pockets of Communist resistance southeast of the ruins of Berlin.

August 11th--General Douglas MacArthur calls for the formation of a board of inquiry to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of the Sanjiyong massacre for war crimes. But with most of those perpetrators safely inside Communist-held territory, it will be a long time before such a tribunal can be convened.

August 12th--Radio Moscow issues a bulletin saying Soviet forces are now in control of most of Budapest.

August 14th—Chinese reserve units execute a stunning breakthrough maneuver at the U.N. eastern flank near Tunghua, putting General
MacArthur’s troops in that sector on the defensive.

August 15th--The Red Army’s efforts to crush the Hungarian anti- Soviet uprising are dealt a major setback when the commander-in-
chief of the Soviet invasion force in Hungary is killed by rebel snipers.

August 16th--Chinese ground troops begin penetrating one of the weaker sections of the U.N. eastern flank near Tunghua.

August 18th--Soviet air force jets bomb Hungarian rebel positions in the heart of Budapest.

August 19th--General MacArthur orders a massive artillery and air bombardment of PLA positions near Tunghua in hopes of halting or
at least slowing down the Chinese advance there.

August 21st--The leader of the Hungarian anti-Soviet uprising is assassinated by an NKVD hit squad.

August 22nd—U.N. ground forces near Tunghua are forced to start pulling back to the North Korean frontier.

August 23rd--Red Army tanks and infantry surround the Hungarian rebels’ headquarters in the heart of Budapest.

August 25th--Retreating U.N. troops south of Tunghua come under air attack from North Korean MiGs based above the Yalu River;
much of what remains of the North Korean air force is stationed at airfields on Chinese soil awaiting the opportunity to return to their homeland.

August 26th--Soviet forces in Hungary begin their final assault on the rebel headquarters in Budapest.

August 28th--Red Army airborne detachments are dispatched to the Chinese-North Korean border to assist the PLA in driving MacArthur’s ground forces back across the Yalu River.

August 29th--A Reuters dispatch from Vienna reports that the Hungarian rebels’ main radio link with the outside world has been lost.

August 31st--U.S. Air Force B-29s bomb Communist airfields in southern China in an attempt to reduce the Chinese air force’s offensive capabilities and wipe out what remains of the North Korean air force.

September 2nd--Radio Moscow proclaims the Red Army has won the battle for Budapest and the last traces of the Hungarian anti- Soviet rebellion have been crushed. However, CIA intelligence reports to the White House from the agency’s station chief in holding out in the Hungarian capital.

September 3rd--U.N. ground forces in Korea dig in three miles south of the Yalu River in anticipation of a massive combined offensive by Chinese, Soviet, and North Korean ground forces.

September 5th--The last pocket of Hungarian rebel resistance in Budapest is finally crushed by Soviet forces. By this time, however, the rebellion has spread to several other Hungarian cities and there are rumors Western agents may have infiltrated Hungary to assist the rebel forces.

September 6th--Two East German Volksarmee officers are court- martialed and executed on suspicion of treason after one of them is overheard expressing doubts to the other about whether the Communist bloc can still win the Third World War.

September 8th--After months of ferocious house-by-house(and in some cases hand-to-hand) fighting, NATO advance units in Germany reach the Polish border.

September 9th--Communist ground troops in Korea launch their long-awaited offensive against U.N. forces dug in along the Chinese-North Korean border. U.N. forces quickly counterattack, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.

September 10th--Hungarian rebels ambush a Red Army supply convoy northeast of Debrecen.

September 11th--In retaliation for the previous day’s supply convoy ambush, Red Army troops lay waste to Debrecen. Radio Moscow warns that similar reprisals will be carried out against other Hungarian cities if the rebel forces do not lay down their arms immediately.

September 12th--The second-highest ranking general officer for the Soviet occupation forces in Hungary is assassinated by rebel snipers.

September 14th--A number of Polish army battalions mutiny against their superior officers; although the revolt is quickly put down by troops loyal to the Communist regime, it reflects the extent to which anti-Soviet sentiment is escalating in the ranks of the Polish armed forces as the fighting in Europe continues to turn against the Communist bloc.

September 16th--The Communists’ Yalu River offensive in Korea is temporarily halted as heavy rains force both Communist and U.N. troops to suspend all ground operations.

September 17th--Romanian Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces Nicolae Ceaucescu is arrested in Bucharest on charges of treason after being overheard making comments critical of the Romanian government’s pro-Soviet policies regarding the ongoing revolt in Hungary.

September 19th--Chinese and North Korean ground forces resume their Yalu River offensive.

September 20th--The Budapest headquarters for the Red Army’s occupation forces in Hungary comes under heavy rocket attack by Hungarian insurgents; 17 Soviet personnel are killed and 35 injured in the raid.

September 21st--The Communist front at the Yalu River is abruptly cut in two as U.S. and allied tanks punch through one of the weaker sections of the Communist right flank.

September 22nd--U.S. warplanes bomb Communist airfields and military bases in southwestern Poland in support of the NATO ground campaign in that region.

September 25th--The CIA begins Operation Mule Train, a risky covert operation intended to ferry weapons and other critical material to the Hungarian resistance.

September 27th--NATO headquarters in Brussels announces the last remaining pocket of East German resistance on the German- Polish border has been surrounded by U.S. and allied ground forces.

September 28th--Nicolae Ceacescu, having been convicted of treason in a hastily conducted show trial, is executed by a Romanian army firing squad.

September 30th--For the third time since the Korean conflict escalated into World War III the French National Assembly is presented with a bill proposing to terminate France’s NATO membership. But in sharp contrast to the lengthy debates that greeted the first two attempts to enact this proposal, this time the bill is rejected within a matter of minutes.

October 1st--Chinese and North Korean divisions along the Yalu River begin pulling back toward the river’s northern banks in an attempt to avoid being completely encircled by U.N. troops.

October 3rd--The East German government acknowledges in a radio statement that its remaining forces in the pocket on the German- Polish border are engaged in what it describes as “very intense fighting” with NATO units but asserts its troops are prevailing. U.S. and allied intelligence reports, though, paint a distinctly picture for the Communist side; according to these reports, the East German troops are taking heavy casualties and the pocket is likely to collapse in the next 72 hours.

October 4th--Factory workers in the Bulgarian capital Sofia go on strike in protest of suspected atrocities committed by Soviet occupation forces in Hungary against Hungarian civilians.

October 5th--The East German pocket along the German-Polish border begins to collapse even sooner than anticipated, allowing NATO forces to overrun Communist defensive positions inside the pocket in rapid succession. Within twelve hours after the first such position was captured, the last one surrenders to U.S. Army mechanized infantry troops.

October 6th--The chief of staff for the East German army is fired.

October 8th--The Czech minister of defense commits suicide.

October 10th--Workers in two other Bulgarian cities walk off the job in a show of support for the strikers in Sofia.

October 11th--U.S. Air Force B-29s bomb Chinese military and industrial facilities near the Manchurian city of Changchun.

October 13th--The Bulgarian government declares martial law in Sofia and threatens to use force to break up the anti-Soviet demonstrations in that city. In response, the demonstrators step up their protests and burn effigies of high-ranking Bulgarian and Soviet Communist leaders.

October 14th--Bulgarian army and secret police units surround Sofia’s main square.

October 15th--Five months into its investigation of suspected Alliance negotiations between the Viet Minh and North Korea, the CIA’s Saigon branch sends a classified report to agency director Walter Bedell Smith indicating that these discussions appear to have been suspended as a direct result of recent North Korean setbacks on the battlefield.

October 16th--The anti-Communist demonstrations in Sofia are abruptly and tragically ended as Bulgarian military and security forces attack the protestors in an early morning raid backed up by a contingent of tanks; postwar investigation of the massacre will later turn up evidence suggesting NKVD hit squads may have helped suppress the protests. Incredibly, in spite of eyewitness accounts to the contrary, the Bulgarian government claims it was the protestors who started the violence.

October 17th--The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution condeming the Sofia massacre. Only the Soviet Union, Poland, and East Germany vote against it; Hungary and Romania merely abstain while Bulgaria’s U.N. ambassador boycotts the vote in protest and Czechoslovakia’s ambassador has gone missing.

October 19th--The Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter publishes an article quoting an unknown source inside the Soviet foreign ministry as saying Soviet-Chinese relations are on the decline as a consequence of the recent setbacks sustained by Communist forces in the Korean theater.

October 20th--Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev flatly denies theDagens Nyheter story, insisting it is a CIA-engineered hoax.

October 21st—The FBI’s Boston office sends a team of agents to Connecticut after receiving an anonymous tip suggesting the missing Czechoslovakian ambassador to the U.N. may have been murdered and his body dumped somewhere along the Connecticut- New York state line.

October 22nd—Dagens Nyheter follows up its October 19th article with a new story in which the anonymous Soviet foreign ministry source quoted in the first report reiterates his assertion that Soviet-Chinese diplomatic relations are souring; he also claims at least a dozen high-ranking Soviet diplomats have been thrown in prison for daring to criticize Brezhnev’s China policy.

October 24th--NATO ground forces in Poland capture the village of Walbrzych.

October 26th—Yugoslavia, the lone European Communist country to stay aloof from the Soviet-led war against the United States and its NATO allies in Europe, breaks diplomatic relations with the Bulgarian government in protest of the Sofia massacre.

October 27th--Years of Soviet anger at Yugoslavia’s continuing defiance of the U.S.S.R. explode in a horrific act of vengeance as Tupolev Tu-4 bombers raid Belgrade to punish the Yugoslavs for what Leonid Brezhnev considers their “betrayal” of Bulgaria in cutting diplomatic ties with that nation’s pro-Soviet regime. Just hours after the bombing, the Soviet ambassador in Belgrade issues Yugoslav premier Josip Broz Tito an ultimatum: unless he restores diplomatic relations with Bulgarian within the next 48 hours a joint Soviet-Romanian invasion force will occupy all of Yugoslavia and remove him from power.

This threat is actually more bluff than actual danger of attack; Soviet military forces are seriously overextended both in Europe and Korea and the Romanian government, under its public façade of apparent unity, is increasingly riddled with dissension about the wisdom of continuing to back the Soviet Union. Bearing this in mind, Marshal Tito counters the Soviet ruse with one of his own, threatening to launch a pre-emptive attack against Romania and give arms to Ukrainian nationalists to commence an uprising against Brezhnev’s rule.

October 28th--The Soviet military cancels its plans to invade and occupy Yugoslavia.

October 30th--Two NKPA squad leaders are arrested and summarily shot on suspicion of mutiny after their platoon commander hears them make what he deems as “treasonous” remarks questioning the ability of the North Korean political leadership to continue its prosecution of the war with the South. Although at the time the executions draw little notice, during the months ahead they will prove to be the catalyst for a major upheaval within the ranks of the North Korean military as war-weary soldiers, sailors, and aviators become increasingly disenchanted with the harsh methods of discipline used by their officers.

November 1st--U.N. ground forces re-occupy Tunghua.

November 2nd--In one of his last campaign appearances before the 1952 U.S. presidential general elections, Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower reiterates a famous pledge he first made at the Republican National Convention that summer: if he wins the presidency, he will not rest until the war with the Communists has been won.

November 4th--NATO advance troops in Poland reach the outskirts of Wroclaw.

November 5th--Advised by its intelligence experts that a nuclear attack on its headquarters may come at any time, NATO makes the decision to temporarily evacuate its command staff to Paris.

November 6th--NATO ground forces enter Wroclaw amid heavier than expected Communist resistance.

November 7th--President-elect Dwight Eisenhower meets with his transition team for a debriefing on the latest developments in Poland and Hungary.

November 8th--NATO troops and Polish anti-Communist rebels capture the last pocket of Communist resistance in Wroclaw.

To Be Continued