WAR AT SEA: Mines Ahead

Steaming off the North Korean east-coast port of Hungnam last week, her 5-in. guns blasting at enemy installations, the U.S. destroyer Ernest G. Small (2,400 tons) hit a mine. Holed below the waterline in a forward compartment, the Small made Kure, Japan, under her own power, but eight of her crew were dead, 18 injured. She was the eighth U.S. Navy vessel to strike a Communist mine. Mines, cheap to lay, hard to find and hazardous to hit, are the real peril of the Korean seas. Communists lay them at night from sampans, frigates, barges and junks. They even drift them downriver. The location and dispersion of mines on the east coast above the 38th parallel indicate that some may be sown by Russian submarines.