TOKYO: The US Marines and the 24th Division`s troops smashed the big Communist bridgehead in the elbow of the Naktong River, south of Taegu late on Friday [Aug 18] and sent a crack Communist Division fleeing in panic across the river. At the same time the 24th Division`s units and South Korean troops ... hurled back the North Korean of fensive aimed at the capital from the north in the Waegwan-Kunwi area.

Other Allied forces recaptured the east coast port of Pohang and nearby Kigye to round up one of the best Allied days of the war.

Victories allround the beachheadrim restored the Naktong line, eased the serious threat to Taegu and promised to reopen the best Allied airport in Korea just south of Pohang.

With the enemy eight miles west and 12 miles north of Taegu, the South Korean Government ... ordered a precautionary evacuation of its provisional capital. The first Communist shells fell in Taegu`s outskirts early Friday and killed four civilians.

In the first few hours after the evacuation order 40,000 of the city`s swollen population of nearly 800,000 jammed roads out of the city on foot or in ox carts. By mid-afternoon, however, the exodus had dwindled. News agencies