“Immediately prior to the beginning of the talks,” he explained, “the Korean-Chinese troops had withdrawn extensively along the East Coast, hoping to entice the Americans as deep as possible into a trap which would be sprung and would cut them off by an encircling move. The Americans were seriously nibbling at the bait when the proposal for cease-fire talks was made. The line was immediately frozen and Korean-Chinese troops started to dig in.”[359]
[359] Wilford G. Burchett: This Monstrous War (Melbourne, 1953): J. Waters, 121–122. Burchett was a Communist free lance correspondent for left-wing newspapers. He wrote several books and articles lauding the Communist cause in the Korean War.
This beginning of static warfare was unquestionably the great turning point of a war whose course from that time on was to be decided at the conference table of Kaesong and later Panmunjom. Any doubts as to the actual motives of the Communists might have been dispelled upon reading in Burchett’s book this naive boast of the advantage taken of the truce talks by the Reds:
Digging in is an understatement of the way the Korean-Chinese troops literally burrowed into the mountains, constructed two and three story dwellings underground, linked mountains and hills by underground tunnels and carved deep communication trenches linking flank with flank and front with rear. They raked the insides out of mountains as you would rake ashes out of a furnace. Each hill, mountain or ridge was connected with its neighbors by deep, zig-zagged inter-communication trenches, at least two yards below ground level and with yard-high antiblast walls. In emergency, troops could be switched from hill-top to hill-top with the enemy never knowing. Similar trenches extended well to the rear, so that supplies could be brought up and withdrawals if necessary made in comparative safety.... Everything was deep underground with many yards of rock and earth between them and shells and bombs, atomic or otherwise. Back of the front line positions, similar scooped-out mountain ridges stretched all the way back to Pyongyang and further. It was against these positions that Van Fleet began hurling his troops in August, 1951.[360]
[360] Ibid. General Van Fleet did not “hurl” his troops against anything. He began limited offensives for the purpose of improving Eighth Army morale and maintaining offensive spirit. See Gen James A. Van Fleet, ltr of 28 Feb 59.
The breathing spell provided by preliminary truce talk discussions gave the Communists an opportunity they had not previously enjoyed. Not only did they have time to prepare sturdy and effective entrenchments, but they were able to bring up additional mortars and artillery to equal those of the Allied forces. As a further advantage, while “free from the compulsion of impending military disaster,”[361] they made use of the interlude to reorganize and train NKPA divisions to a new and increased level of effectiveness.
[361] C. Turner Joy, How Communists Negotiate, 28.
Communists are never embarrassed in the least to deny an agreement already reached, and once having accomplished their intermediate goal, the Red delegates broke off the Kaesong talks for a while. Once the pressure on them was reduced, the enemy was in a position to try to obtain the most favorable terms for armistice talks, even if it meant prolonging the fighting.
The change in tactics soon became apparent. “Since the opening of the Kaesong conference,” commented a FECom G-2 report, “the enemy has deviated from his usual tactics of ‘flexible defense’ which he so skilfully employed during the buildup period prior to all his past offensives—to that of a more orthodox ‘fixed defense.’ Where the enemy in the past has defended key terrain features with relatively small groups to delay friendly forces, he has now changed over to tactics of a fixed line of defense to be defended at all costs.”[362]
[362] FECom G-2 Intelligence Summary, 18 Sep 51.