Despite these handicaps, Air Force and Navy bombers knocked out four of the twelve international bridges and damaged most of the others. These efforts doubtless imposed delays, but troops and supplies continued to cross throughout November.[350] After arrival in North Korea, they seemed to vanish into that void of mystery which had swallowed up Chinese Communist troops ever since they broke off contact. [350] Schnabel _Korean Conflict_. Bombing of the bridges ceased 6 December with the freezing of the Yalu. OCMH, _Report from the Secretory of Defense ... on Operations in Korea_, (Draft No. 1), Pt. V, 3–4. Students of history may have recalled at this time that one of the most significant engagements of modern history was known as the Battle of the Yalu. From a tactical viewpoint, to be sure, the clash of 30 April 1904 was not a great affair. The Japanese army, after disembarking at Chemulpo (Inchon) and marching up the Korean peninsula, numbered five times the Russian force which opposed the crossing of the Yalu at Uiji, just east of Sinuiju. A Japanese victory was doubtless to be expected, yet a new page of history had opened. For the first time in modern chronicles, an Asiatic army had successfully challenged a European army with the weapons and tactics of the Machine Age. Now, nearly half a century later, history was repeating itself as another Asiatic army crossed the Yalu with unknown capabilities and intentions. If the Chinese Communists were merely sending a force to guard the hydro-electric complexes and frontier, hopes of peace by Christmas might be realized. But if the invaders were secretly massing for an all-out counter-offensive, a great new war might soon be flaming up from the ashes of the old. Little fault can be found with current G-2 estimates of CCF numbers, which hold up surprisingly well even when viewed with the wisdom of hindsight. Quite as much depended on interpretations of CCF intentions by the UN command, and there can be no doubt that an end-of-the-war atmosphere prevailed on the eve of the Eighth Army offensive of 24 November. Thanksgiving Day, which fell on the 23d, was celebrated both in Korea and the United States in a spirit of rejoicing over a victorious peace which seemed almost within grasp. It was a tribute to American bounty as well as organizational genius that the troops in Korea were served a dinner which would have done credit to a first-rate Stateside restaurant. The menu, as proposed by X Corps to component units, included shrimp cocktail, stuffed olives, roast young tom turkey with cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes, fruit salad, fruit cake, mince pie and coffee.[351] [351] X Corps ltr to Subordinate Commands, 16 Nov 50.