With the punctuality of a suburban commuter catching the 8:01, the 13,500-ton U.S. cruiser Saint Paul one morning last week slipped through the early morning fog into the North Korean port of Kojo.
Quietly her 1,700-man crew, to whom Korea's war at sea has become a businesslike and boring routine of daily shelling, went to general quarters. Earsplitting salvos reverberated all morning and afternoon as the Saint Paul's 5-and 8-in. guns plastered Communist shore installations. The blast came at 3:55 p.m. Suddenly the cruiser lurched like a hooked marlin, rattling from stem to stern. Not enemy action but a gunpowder fire of...