The
Korean War is a war between
North
Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) and
South
Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK) that started on 25 June
1950 and paused with an armistice signed
27 July, 1953. To date, the war has not been officially
ended through treaty, and occasional skirmishes have been reported
in the border region.
The Korean peninsula was
politically
divided as a legacy of the geopolitics of defeating the
Japanese Empire on the
peninsula in 1945. Soviet forces fighting the Japanese advanced
up to the
38th Parallel, which
later became the political border between the two Koreas. Despite
talks in the months preceding open warfare, continual cross-border
skirmishes and raids at the
38th
Parallel, and the political frustration of failed all-Korea
elections in 1948, escalated to warfare. The reunification
negotiations ceased when North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June
1950.
The
United
States and the United
Nations intervened on the side of the South.
After a
rapid UN counteroffensive that repelled North Koreans past the
38th Parallel and almost to the
Yalu River, the People's
Republic of China (PRC) came to the aid of the North. With the
PRC's entry into the conflict, the fighting eventually ceased with
an armistice that restored the original border between the Koreas
at the
38th Parallel and created
the
Korean Demilitarized
Zone, a 2.5 mile wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. North
Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on 27 May 2009, thus
returning to a
de facto state of war; as of
this date, only a small
naval
skirmish has occurred.
During the war, both North and South Korea were sponsored by
external powers, thus facilitating the war's metamorphosis from a
simple
civil war to a
proxy war between powers involved in the larger
Cold War.
From a
military science
perspective, the Korean War combined strategies and tactics of
World War I and
World War II — swift
infantry attacks followed by air
bombing raids. The initial mobile campaign
transitioned to
trench warfare,
lasting from January 1951 until the 1953 border
stalemate and armistice.
Background
Terminology
In the US, the war was officially described as a
police action owing to the lack of a
legitimate
declaration of war by
the US Congress. Colloquially, it has also been referred to in
the United States as
The Forgotten War and
The Unknown War, because it was ostensibly a
United Nations conflict, ended in
stalemate, had fewer American casualties, and concerned issues much
less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts, such as the
Second World War and the
Vietnam War.
In South Korea the war is usually referred to as the 6-2-5 War
(yuk-i-o jeonjaeng), reflecting the date of its commencement on
June 25.
In North Korea the war is officially referred to as the Choguk
haebang chǒnjaeng ("fatherland liberation war"). Alternately, it is
called the
Chosǒn chǒnjaeng ("Joseon war",
Joseon being what North Koreans call Korea).
In the
People's
Republic of China the war is officially called the Chao Xian Zhan Zheng (Korean War), with the word
"Chao Xian" referring to Korea in general, and officially North
Korea.
The term
Korean War can also denote the skirmishes before
the invasion and since the armistice.
Japanese rule (1910–1945)
Upon
defeating Qing
Dynasty China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–96),
the Empire of
Japan occupied the Korean Empire (1897–1910) of Emperor
Gojong—a peninsula strategic to its sphere
of influence. A decade later, on defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese
War (1904–05), Japan made Korea its protectorate, with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the
Japan-Korea Annexation
Treaty in 1910.
Korean nationalists and the
intelligentsia fled the country, and
some founded the Provisional Korean Government, headed by
Syngman Rhee, in
Shanghai, in 1919, that proved a
“government-in-exile” recognized by few countries. From 1919 to
1925 and onwards, Korean
communists led
internal and external warfare against the Japanese.
Korea under Japanese rule was
considered to be part of the Empire of Japan along with Taiwan, which was part of the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere and was an industrialized colony; in 1937, the colonial Governor–General,
General Minami Jiro, commanded the
cultural assimilation to Japan
of the colony's 23.5 million people—by banning Korean language,
literature, and culture, replaced with that of the Japanese, and
that the populace rename themselves as Japanese. In 1938,
the Colonial Government established
labor conscription; by 1939, 2.6 million
Koreans worked overseas as
forced
laborers; by 1942, Korean men were being conscripted to the
Japanese Army.
Meanwhile, in China, the nationalist
National Revolutionary Army and
the Communist
People's
Liberation Army organized the (right-wing and left-wing)
refugee Korean patriots. The Nationalists, led by
Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the
Burma Campaign (December 1941 – August 1945).
The communists, led by
Kim Il-sung,
fought the Japanese in Korea.
During
World War II, Japanese utilized
Korea's food, livestock, and metals for the
war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased
from 46,000 (1941) to 300,000 (1945) soldiers. Japanese Korea
conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a
collaborationist Korean police force; some
723,000 people had been sent to work in the overseas empire and in
metropolitan Japan. By January 1945, Koreans were 32% of Japan’s
labor force; in August 1945, when the US dropped an
atomic bomb on Hiroshima, they were
about 25% of the people killed. Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan
was not recognized by other world powers at the end of the
war.
The US-Soviet division of Korea excluded the Koreans—who were
represented by US Army colonels
Dean Rusk
and
Charles Bonesteel. Two years
earlier, at the
Cairo Conference
(November 1943), Nationalist China, the UK, and the USA decided
that Korea should become independent, “in due course”; Stalin
concurred.
In February 1945, at the Yalta
Conference, the Allies
failed to establish the Korean trusteeship first discussed in 1943
by U.S. President Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister
Winston Churchill.
Per the US-Soviet agreement, the USSR declared war against Japan on
9 August 1945, and, by 10 August, the
Red
Army occupied the Korean north, via amphibious landings north
of the 38th parallel and its Twenty-Fifth Army entering from
Manchuria, China. Some three weeks later, on 8 September 1945, Lt.
Gen.
John R. Hodge, USA, arrived in Incheon to accept
the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel.
Korea divided (1945)
At the
Potsdam Conference
(July–August 1945), the Allies unilaterally decided to divide
Korea—without consulting the Koreans—in contradiction of the
Cairo Conference (November 1943)
where
Churchill,
Chiang Kai-shek, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Korea would be
a free nation and an independent country.
Moreover, the earlier
Yalta
Conference (February
1945) granted to Joseph Stalin
European "buffer zones"—satellite
states accountable to Moscow- as well as an expected Soviet pre-eminence
in China and Manchuria, as reward for joining the US Pacific war effort against Japan.
By 10 August, the
Red Army occupied the
northern part of the peninsula as agreed, and on 26 August halted
at the
38th parallel for three
weeks to await the arrival of US forces in the south.
On 10 August 1945, with the 15 August
Japanese surrender near, the Americans
were in doubt that the Soviets would honor their part of the
Joint Commission, the US-sponsored
Korean occupation agreement. A month
earlier, to fulfill the politico-military requirements of the US,
Colonel
Dean Rusk and Colonel
Charles Bonesteel III, divided the
Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel after hurriedly deciding (in
thirty minutes), that the
US Korean Zone of
Occupation had to have a minimum of two ports. Explaining
why the occupation zone demarcation (38th parallel) was
so far
south, Rusk observed, “even though it was further north than
could be realistically reached by US forces, in the event of Soviet
disagreement ... we felt it important to include the capital of
Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops”, especially
when “faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available,
and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach
very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area.” The
Soviets agreed to the US occupation zone demarcation, to improve
Soviet
Eastern European-occupation
negotiation-leverage, and because each would accept Japanese
surrender where they stood.
As the
military governor, General
John R. Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the
United
States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48). He
established control by first restoring to power the key Japanese
colonial administrators and their Korean and police
collaborators, and second, by refusing the
USAMGIK’s official recognition of the
People's Republic of Korea (PRK)
(August–September 1945), the provisional government (agreed with
the Japanese Army) with which the Koreans had been governing
themselves and the peninsula—because he suspected it was
communist. These US policies, voiding popular
Korean sovereignty, provoked the civil insurrections and guerrilla
warfare preceding, then constituting, the
Korean civil war.
On 3 September 1945,
Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki,
Commander, Japanese 17th Area
Army , contacted Hodge, telling him that the Soviets were
south of the 38th parallel at Kaesong. Hodge trusted the accuracy of the
Japanese Army report.
In December 1945, Korea was administered by the
US–USSR Joint Commission,
agreed at the
Moscow Conference of
Foreign Ministers (October 1945). Again excluding the Koreans,
the commission decided the country would become independent after a
five-year
trusteeship—action facilitated by
each régime sharing its sponsor's
ideology.
The incensed Korean populace revolted; in the South, some
protested, some rose in arms; to contain them, the USAMGIK banned
strikes (8 December 1945) and outlawed the
PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12
December 1945.
This
suppression of sovereignty provoked an 8,000-railroad-worker strike
on 23 September 1946 in Pusan, political
action which quickly extended throughout US-controlled Korea; the
USAMGIK had lost civil control. On 1 October 1946,
Korean police killed three students in the
“
Daegu Uprising”; people
counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen.
Likewise, on 3
October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and
injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, populaces killed some 20
landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials. The
USAMGIK declared
martial law to control
South Korea; in controlling the Koreans with Japanese colonial
administrators and Korean collaborators, the US discredited its
declarations of a “Free Korea”.
The
right-wing Representative Democratic
Council, led by nationalist
Syngman
Rhee, opposed the Soviet–American trusteeship of Korea, arguing
that after thirty-five years (1910–45) of Japanese
colonial rule—
foreign rule—most Koreans
opposed another foreign rule, i.e. US and Soviet. Gaining advantage
from the native political temper, the US quit the Soviet-supported
Moscow Accords—and, using the 31
March 1948
United Nations election
deadline to achieve a
anti-communist
civil government in the US Korean Zone of Occupation—convoked
national general elections that the Soviets opposed, then
boycotted, insisting that the US honor the Moscow Accords.
The
resultant anti-communist South Korean government promulgated a
national political constitution (17 July 1948) elected a president,
the American-educated strongman
Syngman Rhee (20 July 1948), and established the Republic of South Korea on 15 August 1948. Likewise, in the Russian
Korean Zone of Occupation, the USSR established a
Communist North Korean government led by
Kim Il-sung. Moreover, President Rhee's régime
expelled communists and
leftists from
southern national politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the
hills, to prepare guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK
Government.
As
nationalists, both Syngman
Rhee and Kim Il-Sung were intent upon reunifying Korea under their
own political system. Partly because they were the better-armed,
the North Koreans could escalate the continual border skirmishes
and raids, and then invade—with proper provocation—whereas South
Korea, with limited US material could not match them. During this
era of the beginning
Cold War, the US
government acted as if all communists—regardless of
nationality—constituted a
Communist
bloc controlled or at least directly influenced from Moscow;
thus the US portrayed the
civil war in
Korea as a Soviet
hegemonic maneuver.
U.S. troops withdrew from Korea in 1949, leaving the South Korean
army relatively ill-equipped. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union sent
large amounts of military aid to North Korea to facilitate the
invasion planned by Kim Il-Sung.
Course of the war
North Korea invades (June 1950)
Although the United Nations received messages that the North
Koreans were about to invade, all were rejected. The United States
received less than two weeks notice of the Korean War—the
Chinese-authorized, North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June
1950. The CIA provided the early notice; before the war, in early
1950, CIA China station officer
Douglas Mackiernan received Chinese and
North Korean intelligence forecasting the summer KPA invasion of
the South. Earlier, after the US missions had left the communist
People's Republic of China, he volunteered to remain and get the
intelligence.
Afterward, he and a team of CIA local
mercenaries then escaped the Chinese, in a months-long horse trek
across the Himalaya mountains; he was killed within miles of
Lhasa, Tibet — yet his team delivered the intelligence to
headquarters. Thirteen days later, the North
Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the
38th-parallel border and invaded South Korea. Mackiernan was
posthumously awarded the CIA
Intelligence Star for valor.
Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation
raid, the North Korean Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel, behind
artillery fire, at Sunday dawn of 25 June 1950. The KPA said that
Republic of Korea Army (ROK
Army) troops, under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor
Syngman Rhee", had crossed the border
first—and that they would arrest and execute Rhee. In the
past year, both Korean armies
had continually harassed
each other with skirmishes—and each continually raided the other
country across the 38th-parallel border, as in a
civil war.
Hours
later, the United
Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean
invasion of the Republic of South Korea (ROK), with UNSC Resolution
82, so adopted despite the USSR, a veto-wielding
power, boycotting the Council meetings since January—protesting
that the (Taiwan) Republic of China, and not the (mainland) People's Republic of China
held a permanent seat
in the UN Security Council. On 27 June 1950, President
Truman ordered US air and sea forces to help the South Korean
régime. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June
1950, published
Resolution 83
recommending member-state military assistance to the Republic of
Korea. Incidentally, while awaiting the Council's
fait
accompli announcement to the UN, the Soviet Deputy Foreign
Minister accused the US of starting
armed intervention in
behalf of South Korea.
The USSR challenged the legitimacy of the UN-approved war, because
(i) the ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 is based
came from US Intelligence; (ii) North Korea (Democratic People's
Republic of Korea) was not invited as a sitting temporary member of
the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and (iii) the Korean
warfare was beyond UN Charter scope, because the initial
North–South border fighting was classed as
civil war. Moreover, the Soviet representative
boycotted the UN to prevent Security Council action, to challenge
the legitimacy of UN action; legal scholars posited that deciding
upon an "action"
required the unanimous vote of the five
permanent members.
The North
Korean Army launched the "Fatherland Liberation War" with a
comprehensive air–land invasion using 231,000 soldiers, who
captured scheduled objectives and territory—among them, Kaesŏng, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin—which they achieved with 274
T-34-85 tanks, some 150 Yak fighters, 110 attack bombers, 200 artillery
pieces, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft.
Additional to the invasion force, the KPA had 114 fighters, 78
bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in
North Korea. At sea, although comprising only several small
warships, the North Korean and South Korean navies fought in the
war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.
In contrast, the ROK Army defenders were unprepared. In
South
to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1998), R.E. Applebaum
reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness on 25 June 1950. The
ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no
tanks, and a twenty-two piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type
and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign
military garrisons in Korea at invasion time—but there were large
US garrisons and air forces in Japan.
Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious
loyalty to the Syngman Rhee régime—either were retreating
southwards or were
defecting en masse to
the
Communist North, to the KPA.
Police Action: US intervention
Gen.
MacArthur, UN Command CiC (seated), observes the naval
shelling of Incheon from the USS Mt.
McKinley, 15 September 1950.
US infantry light machinegun position,
Korea, 1950–53.
A GI comforts a grieving
infantryman.
The US Army’s 6th Tank Bn. supports
the 19th RCT, at Song Sil-li, Korea, 10 January 1952.
Despite the rapid post–Second World War Allied demobilizations,
there were substantial US forces occupying Japan; under Gen.
MacArthur’s command, they could fight the North Koreans. Moreover,
in that time and place, besides the US, only the
British Commonwealth had
comparable forces.
On Saturday, June 24, 1950, US Secretary of State
Dean Acheson telephonically informed President
Harry S. Truman, “Mr. President, I have very serious
news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea.” Truman and
Acheson discussed a US invasion response with defense department
principals, who agreed that the United States was obligated to
repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's 1930s
aggressions, and said that the mistake of
appeasement must not be repeated.President
Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was pertinent to the
American global
containment of
communism:
President Harry S. Truman announced that the US would counter
"unprovoked aggression" and "vigorously support the effort of the
[UN] security council to terminate this serious breach of peace."
In Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen.
Omar Bradley warned against appeasement, saying
that Korea was the place "for drawing the line" against communist
expansion. In August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State
easily persuaded the Congress to appropriate $12 billion to pay for
the additional Asian military expenses essential to the goals of
National Security Council Report 68 (
NSC-68), the American global containment of
communism.
Per State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman
ordered Gen. MacArthur to transfer materiel to the Army of the
Republic of Korea (ROK Army) while giving air cover to the
evacuation of US nationals.
Moreover, the President disagreed with his
advisors recommending unilateral US bombing of the North Korean
forces, but did order the US Seventh
Fleet to protect Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek's China), whose Nationalist Government (confined to
Formosa island) asked to fight in Korea. The US denied the
Nationalist Chinese request for combat—lest it provoke a communist
Chinese intervention.
The
Battle of Osan
was the first significant USA–KPA fighting in the Korean War, by
the 540-Soldier
Task Force Smith,
which was a small forward element of the
24th Infantry Division based in
Japan.
On
5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at
Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the North
Korean's tanks, they were unsuccessful, resulting in 180 dead,
wounded or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, forcing
the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA also captured in the Battle of Taejon; the 24th Division
suffered 3,602 dead-wounded and 2,962 captured GIs—including the
Division’s Commander, Maj. Gen.
William F. Dean. Overhead, the KPAF shot down 18 USAF
fighters and 29 bombers; the USAF shot down 5 KPAF fighters.
By
August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the US Eighth Army to the Pusan city
vicinity, in southeast Korea. In their southward advance,
the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's
intelligentsia, by killing civil servants and
intellectuals. On 20 August, Gen. MacArthur warned North Korean
Leader Kim Il-Sung that he was responsible for the KPA’s
atrocities. By September, the UN Command controlled only the Pusan
city perimeter, about 10% of Korea. Only on being reinforced,
re-equipped, and with naval artillery and air force bombing
support, could the UN Command forces stand at the
Nakdong River. In US military history, this
"back-against-the-sea" holding action is known as the "
Pusan Perimeter".
Escalation
Aerial warfare: The
USAF attacking railroads south of Wonsan, eastern coast of North
Korea.
In the desperate
Battle of
Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the US Army withstood
KPA attacks meant to capture the city. Soon, the USAF interrupted
KPA logistics with 40 daily ground-support
sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most
daytime road and rail traffic, which hid in tunnels and moved only
at night. To deny material to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics
depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the US Navy air
forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA
could not be supplied throughout the peninsular south.
Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers
and material to reinforce the Pusan Perimeter. Tank battalions
deployed to Korea from San Francisco (in the continental US); by
late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks. In
early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces were
prepared—they out-numbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers, and
then counterattacked.
Battle of Incheon
Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their
reinforcements, the KPA were under-manned and poorly supplied;
unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air support. To
relieve the Pusan Perimeter, the UN CIC, Gen.
MacArthur,
recommended an amphibious landing
at Incheon, behind the KPA lines. On 6 July, he ordered
Maj. Gen. Hobart Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the
division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st
Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama to reinforce the 24th
Infantry Division.
The
Operation Chromite amphibious assault of
Incheon deployed in violent tides, and was awaited by a strong,
entrenched enemy. Soon after the war began, Gen.
MacArthur had begun
planning the matter, but the Pentagon opposed him. When authorized, he activated
his attack USA-USMC-ROKA force—the
X Corps, Gen.
Edward Almond, Commander, composed of 70,000
1st Marine
Division infantry; the
7th Infantry Division;
and some 8,600 ROK Army soldiers. By the 15 September attack date,
the assault force faced few, but tenacious, KPA defenders at
Incheon; military intelligence,
psychological operations,
guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted
bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle between the
US–ROK and the KPA; however, the bombardment destroyed most of
Incheon city.
The Incheon landing allowed the 1st Cavalry Division to begin its
northward fighting from the Pusan Perimeter. “Task Force Lynch”—3rd
Bn, 7th Cav Rgt, and two 70th Tank Bn units (Charlie Company and
the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon)—effected the “Pusan
Perimeter Breakout” through 106.4 miles of enemy territory to join
the 7th Infantry Division, at Osan.
[2347] The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders,
thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in South Korea; Gen.
MacArthur quickly recaptured Seoul; and the almost-isolated KPA
rapidly retreated north; only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers
surviving.
The UN Offensive: North Korea invaded (September–October
1950)
Urban combat: US
Marines fight the KPA for the Korean capital.
On 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past
the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North
Korea. Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN
Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards.
The X Corps landed at
Wonsan (SE North
Korea) and Iwon (NE North Korea), already
captured by ROK forces. The Eighth US Army and the ROK Army drove up
western Korea, and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October
1950. At month’s end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners
of war; the North Korean People’s Army appeared to
disintegrate.
Taking advantage of the UN Command’s strategic momentum against the
KPA, Gen. MacArthur (and some US politicians), believed it
necessary to extend the Korean War into Communist China to destroy
the PRC depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President
Truman disagreed, and ordered Gen. MacArthur’s caution at the
Sino-Korean border.
China intervenes
On 27
June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before
the October Chinese intervention to the Korean War, President
Truman dispatched the 7th US Fleet to the Taiwan Straits, to
protect Nationalist Republic of China from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
On 4 August 1950,
Mao Zedong reported to
the Politburo that he would intervene when the
People's Volunteer Army (PVA) was
ready to deploy. On 20 August 1950, Premier
Zhou Enlai informed the United Nations that
“Korea is China’s neighbor ... The Chinese people cannot but be
concerned about a solution of the Korean question”—thus, via
neutral-country diplomats, China warned the US, that in
safeguarding Chinese
national
security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea.
President Truman interpreted the communication as “a bald attempt
to blackmail the UN”, and dismissed it. The Politburo authorized
Chinese intervention in Korea on 2 October 1950—the day after the
ROK Army crossed the 38th-parallel border. Later, the Chinese
claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace when on
en route to bomb North Korea—
before China
intervened.
Mop-up operations:
1st Marine Div. infantry capture PVA soldiers in the central front,
Hoengsong, Korea, 2 March 1951.
In September, in Moscow, PRC Premier
Zhou
Enlai added diplomatic and personal force to Mao’s cables to
Stalin, requesting military assistance and material. Stalin
delayed; Mao re-scheduled launching the “War to Resist America and
Aid Korea” from the 13th to the 19th of October 1950. Moreover, the
USSR limited their assistance to air support no closer than 60
miles (100 km) from the battlefront—because Soviet pilots were
to fight in the air war to gain experience against the Western air
forces; they would be flying MiG-15s (camouflaged as PRC Air
Force), and seriously challenged the UN air forces for battlefield
air superiority.
On 8 October 1950, the day after the US’s northward crossing of the
38th-parallel border into North Korea, Mao Zedong ordered the
People's Liberation Army's
North East Frontier Force to be reorganized into the Chinese
People's Volunteer Army, who
were to fight the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea”. The Soviet
materiel would make the Chinese intervention to Korea a strategic
maneuver furthering Asian communist revolutionary power, Mao
explained to Stalin: “If we allow the United States to occupy all
of Korea, Korean revolutionary power will suffer a fundamental
defeat, and the American invaders will run more rampant, and have
negative effects for the entire Far East.”
US aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in
daytime, because their march and
bivouac discipline minimized aerial
detection. The PVA marched “dark-to-dark” (19:00–03:00hrs), and
aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and
equipment) was deployed by 05:30hrs. Meanwhile, daylight advance
parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity
or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft
appeared, until it flew away; PVA officers might shoot security
violators. Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-
division army to march 286 miles
(460 km), from An-tung, Manchuria, to its Korean combat zone,
in some 19 days; another division, night-marched a circuitous
mountain route, averaging 18 miles (29 km) daily for 18
days.
Meanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached
to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the
Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance,
the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion
captured
Namchonjam city. On 17 October,
they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to
Pyongyang), to capture
Hwangju.
Two days later, the
1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the capital city, on 19 October 1950; the US had
conquered North Korea.
Elsewhere, also on 15 October 1950, President Truman and Gen.
MacArthur
met at Wake
Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean, for a meeting much
publicized by the General’s discourteous refusal to meet the
President in the US. To President Truman, Gen. MacArthur
speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention to Korea;
that the PRC’s opportunity for aiding the KPA had elapsed; that the
PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some
100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River; concluding that,
although half of those forces
might cross south, “if the
Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest
slaughter” without air force protection.
After two
minor skirmishes on October 25th, the first major Chinese–American
battles occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands
of PVA soldiers encircled and attacked
scattered UN Command units with three-prong assaults—from the
north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive-position
flanks in the Battle of
Unsan. In the west, in late November, along the
Chongchon River, the PVA attacked
and over-ran several ROK Army divisions, and the flank of the
remaining UN forces. The UN Command retreated; the
US Eighth Army’s retreat (longest in US Army
history), occurred because of the
Turkish Brigade’s successful, but very
costly, rear-guard delaying action at
Kunuri
(near China), slowed the PVA attack for 4 days, (26–30 November).
In the
east, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a US 7th Infantry
Division Regimental Combat Team (3000 soldiers) and a USMC
division (12,000–15,000 marines), also unprepared for PVA’s
three-pronged encirclement tactics, escaped under X Corps support
fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.
Initially, frontline PVA infantry had neither heavy fire support
nor crew-served light infantry weapons, but quickly took advantage
of their disadvantage; in
How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War
from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror (2003),
Bevin Alexander reports:
In
South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, R.E. Appleman
delineates the PVA’s encirclement attack:
In late November, the PVA repelled the UN Command forces from
northeast North Korea, past the 38th-parallel border.
Retreating from the
peninsular north faster than they had counter-invaded, they raced
to the North Korean east coat to establish a defensive perimeter of
the port city Hungnam—and awaited rescue, in December 1950, of 193
shiploads of UN Command forces and materiel (ca. 105,000 soldiers,
98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, 350,000 tons of supplies),
embarked to Pusan, at the south end of peninsular Korea.
Before escaping, the UN Command forces effected an
enemy-denial-operation razing most of Hungam city; and, on 16
December 1950, President Truman declared a
national emergency with
Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), effective
until 14 September 1978.
Across the parallel: Chinese Winter Offensive (early 1951)
In January 1951, the PVA and the KPA launched their
Third
Phase Offensive (
aka the “Chinese Winter
Offensive”), utilizing night attacks in which UN Command fighting
positions were stealthily encircled and then assaulted by
numerically superior enemy troops who had the element of surprise.
The attacks were accompanied by loud trumpets and gongs, which
fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical communication
and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no
familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers "bugged
out," abandoning their weapons and retreating to the south. The
Chinese Winter Offensive overwhelmed the UN Command forces and the
PVA and KPA conquered Seoul on 4 January 1951.
Adding further to the US Eighth Army's injuries, Commanding General
Walker was killed in an automobile accident, demoralizing the
troops. These setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using
the
atomic bomb against the Chinese or
North Korean interiors, intending to use the resulting radioactive
fallout zones to interrupt the Chinese supply chains. However, upon
the arrival of Walker's replacement, the charismatic
Lieutenant-General
Matthew Ridgway,
the
esprit de corps of the bloodied Eighth Army
immediately began to revive.
UN forces
retreated to Suwon in the west,
Wonju in the center, and the territory north of Samchok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and
held. The PVA had outrun its logistics and thus was forced
to recoil from pressing the attack beyond Seoul; food, ammunition,
and materiel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the
Yalu River border to the three battle lines. In late January, upon
finding that the enemy had abandoned the battle lines, Gen.
Ridgway
ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became Operation Roundup, (5
February 1951) a full-scale X Corps advance that gradually
proceeded while fully exploiting the UN Command’s air superiority,
concluding with the UN reaching the Han
River and re-capturing Wonju. In
mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the
Fourth Phase
Offensive, launched from
Hoengsong against
IX
Corps positions at
Chipyong-ni, in
the center. Units of the
US 2nd
Infantry Division and the
French Battalion fought a
short but desperate battle that broke the attack’s momentum;
In the last two weeks of February 1951,
Operation Roundup
was followed with
Operation
Killer (mid-February 1951), carried out by the revitalized
Eighth Army, restored for a full-scale, battlefront-length attack
staged for maximal firepower exploitation to kill as many KPA and
PVA troops as possible.
Operation Killer, concluded with
I Corps re-occupying the territory south
of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing
Hoengsong. On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army
attacked with
Operation
Ripper, expelling the PVA and the KPA from the South
Korean capital city on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth
conquest in a years’ time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million
pre-war population was down to 200,000, and the people were
suffering from severe food shortages.
On 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved Gen.
MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea, from duty due to
insubordination and appointed Gen.
Ridgway as Supreme Commander, Korea, who regrouped the UN forces
for successful counterattacks, while Gen.
James Van Fleet assumed command of the US
Eighth Army.
Further attacks slowly repelled the PVA and
KPA forces; operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951)
and Tomahawk (23 March
1951), were a joint ground and air assault meant to trap Chinese
forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN
forces advanced to “Line Kansas”,
north of the 38th
parallel.
Hill 105: A PVA
soldier killed fighting the 1st Marine Division, Korea, 1951.
The Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the
Fifth
Phase Offensive (
aka the “Chinese Spring
Offensive”) with three field armies (ca. 700,000 men).
The principal strike
fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted in the Battle of
the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951),
blunting the impetus of the Chinese Fifth Phase Offensive, which
was halted at the “No-name Line” north of Seoul. On 15 May
1951, the Chinese in the east attacked the ROK Army and the US X
Corps, and initially were successful, yet were halted by 20 May. At
month’s end, the US Eighth Army counterattacked and regained “Line
Kansas”, just north of the 38th parallel. The UN's “Line Kansas”
halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the
stalemate that lasted until the armistice of
1953.
Stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)
For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA
fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held.
Large-scale bombing of North Korea
continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951
at Kaesong. However, combat continued while the
belligerents negotiated an armistice; the ROK–UN Command forces’
goal was to recapture all of South Korea, to avoid losing
territory. The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and
later, they effected military and psychological operations in order
to test the UN Command’s resolve to continue the war.
The principal battles
of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August – 15 September 1951) and Battle of
Heartbreak Ridge (13 September – 15 October 1951), the Battle of
Old Baldy (26 June – 4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October
1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October – 25 November 1952) and the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March – 21
June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of
the Hook (28–29 May 1953) and the Battle of
Pork Chop Hill (23 March – 16 July 1953).
A mobile war: Korea
often changed hands early in the war, until the front
stabilized.
The armistice negotiations continued for two years; first at
Kaesong (southern North Korea), then at
Panmunjon (bordering the Koreas). A major,
problematic negotiation was
prisoner of
war (POW) repatriation. The PVA, KPA and UN Command could not
agree to a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers
refused to be repatriated back to the north,, which was
unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans. In the final
armistice agreement, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission was
set up to handle the matter.
In 1952 the U.S. elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952,
the president-elect,
Dwight D.
Eisenhower, went to Korea to
learn what might end the Korean War. With the United Nations’
acceptance of India’s proposed Korean War
armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command
ceased fire on 27 July 1953, with the
battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to
the armistice, the belligerents established the
Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ),
which has since been defended by the KPA and ROKA, USA and UN
Command. The Demilitarized Zone runs north-east of the 38th
parallel; to the south, it travels west.
The Korean
old-capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay
in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the DPRK. The United
Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean
Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed
the
Armistice
Agreement; ROK President Syngman Rhee refused to sign it, thus
the Republic of Korea never participated in the armistice.
Chosin Battle aftermath: Operation Glory
After the war, the UN Command forces buried their dead in a
temporary graveyard at Hŭngnam. With
Operation Glory
(July–November 1954), each combatant exchanged their dead. The
remains of 4,167 US Army and US Marine Corps dead were exchanged
for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN
prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government.
After
Operation Glory, 416 Korean War “unknown soldiers” were
buried in the Punchbowl
Cemetery, Hawaii. DPMO records
indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of
which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains,
forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944
were identified as American, all, but 416, identified by name; of
239 unaccounted casualties: 186 not associated with Punchbowl
Cemetery unknowns (176 identified, 10 remaining cases 4 were
non-American Asians; one British; 3 identified, and 2 unconfirmed.
In 1990–94, North Korea excavated and returned some 200 sets of
remains, few have been identified, because of co-mingled remains.
Moreover, from 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near
the Sino-Korean border.
Korean War casualties — The Western (US–UN
Command) numbers of Chinese and North Korean casualties are
primarily based upon calculated battlefield-casualty reports, POW
interrogations, and military intelligence (documents, spies, etc.);
a good sources compilation is the democide web site (see Table
10.1). The Korean War dead:
US: 36,940 killed;
PVA: 100,000–1,500,000 killed; most estimate some
400,000 killed;
KPA: 214,000–520,000; most
estimate some 500,000.
ROK: Civilian: some
245,000–415,000 killed; Total civilians killed some
1,500,000–3,000,000; most estimate some 2,000,000 killed.
The PVA and KPA published a joint declaration after the war,
reporting that the armies had "eliminated 1.09 million enemy
forces, including 390,000 from the United States, 660,000 from
South Korean , and 29,000 from other countries." No breakdown was
given for the number of dead, wounded, and captured, which Chinese
researcher Xu Yan suggests may have aided negotiations for POW
repatriation. Xu writes that the PVA "suffered 148,000 deaths
altogether, among which 114,000 died in combats , incidents, and
winterkill, 21,000 died after being hospitalized, 13,000 died from
diseases; and 380,000 were wounded. There were also 29,000 missing,
including 21,400 POWs, of whom 14,000 were sent to Taiwan, 7,110
were repatriated." For the KPA, Xu cites 290,000 casualties, 90,000
POWs, and a "large" number of civilian deaths in the north.
The information box lists the UN Command forces Korean War
casualties, and their estimates of PVA and KPA casualties.
Characteristics
Armored warfare
Initially, North Korean armor dominated the battlefield with Soviet
T-34-85 medium tanks designed in the
Second World War. The KPA’s tanks confronted a tank-less ROK Army
armed with few modern anti-tank weapons, including World War
II-model 2.36-inch (60 mm) M9
bazookas,
effective only against the 45 mm side armor of the T-34-85
tank. Moreover, the US forces arriving to Korea were equipped with
light
M24 Chaffee tanks (on
Japan-occupation duty) that also proved ineffective against the
heavier KPA T-34 tanks.
During the initial hours of warfare, some under-equipped ROK Army
border units used
105 mm
howitzers as
anti-tank guns to
stop the tanks heading the KPA columns, firing
high-explosive anti-tank
ammunition (HEAT) over open sights to good effect; at war’s
start, the ROK Army had 91 such cannon, but lost most to the
invaders.
Countering the initial combat imbalance, the US and UN Command
reinforcement materiel included heavier US
M4
Sherman,
M26 Pershing,
M46 Patton, and British
Cromwell and
Centurion tanks that proved effective against
North Korean armor, ending its battlefield dominance. Unlike in the
Second World War (1939–45), in which the
tank
proved a decisive weapon, the Korean War featured few large-scale
tank battles. The mountainous, heavily-forested terrain prevented
large masses of tanks from maneuvering. In Korea, tanks served
largely as infantry support.
Aerial warfare
The Korean War was the first war in which
jet aircraft played a central role.
Once-formidable fighters such as the
P-51
Mustang,
F4U Corsair, and
Hawker Sea Fury —all
piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed
during World War II—relinquished their air superiority roles to a
new generation of faster,
jet-powered
fighters arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the
war, the
F-80 Shooting Star,
F9F Panther, and other jets under the UN
flag dominated North Korea’s prop-driven air force of Soviet
Yakovlev Yak-9 and
Lavochkin La-9s. The balance would shift,
however, with the arrival of the swept-wing Soviet
MiG-15.
The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the
Korean People's Air Force
(KPAF) of North Korea with the
MiG-15 Fagot, one of the world's
most advanced jet fighters. The fast, heavily-armed MiG outflew
first-generation UN jets such as the American F-80 and
Australian and British
Gloster
Meteors, posing a real threat to
B-29 Superfortress bombers even under
fighter escort.
Soviet Air Force
pilots flew missions for the North to learn the West’s aerial
combat techniques. This direct Soviet participation is a
casus belli (justification for
war) that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for
the Korean peninsula expand, as the US initially feared, to include
three communist countries—North Korea, the Soviet Union,
and China—and so escalate to atomic warfare.
The
US Air Force (USAF) moved quickly
to counter the MiG-15, with three squadrons of its most capable
fighter, the
F-86 Sabre, arriving in
December 1950. Although the MiG's higher
service ceiling— vs. —could be
advantageous at the start of a
dogfight, in
level flight, both
swept-wing designs
attained comparable maximum speeds around . The MiG climbed faster,
but the Sabre turned and dove better. The MiG was armed with one
37 mm and two 23 mm cannons, while the Sabre carried six
.50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns aimed with radar-ranged
gunsights.
G-suits, in their first combat deployment, gave US
pilots the biomedical advantage, affording greater resistance to
blackouts from the higher
g-forces of
jet-powered dogfights.
By early 1951, the battle lines were established and changed little
until 1953. In summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of
the USAF's
4th Fighter
Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle
in
MiG Alley, where the
Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against
Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500
aircraft. Following Colonel
Harrison
Thyng’s communication with the Pentagon, the
51st Fighter Interceptor Wing
finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for
the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare
continued so.
UN forces gradually gained
air
superiority in the Korean theater. This was decisive for the
UN: first, for attacking into the peninsular north, and second, for
resisting the Chinese intervention. North Korea and China also had
jet-powered air forces, however their limited training and
experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against the
better-trained UN air forces. Thus, the US and USSR fed materiel to
the war, battling by proxy and finding themselves virtually
matched, technologically, when the USAF deployed the F-86F against
the MiG-15 late in 1952.
After the war, the USAF reported an F-86 Sabre
kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s
and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to
enemy fire; post-war data confirms only 379 Sabre kills. The Soviet
Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG
combat losses, while China's
People's Liberation Army Air
Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and
168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN
Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first
stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention.
The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed
F-86s, respectively, as more recent US figures state only 230
losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea. The differing tactical
roles of the F-86 and MiG-15 may have contributed to the disparity
in losses: MiG-15s primarily targeted B-29 bombers and
ground-attack fighter-bombers, while F-86s targeted the MiGs.
The Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing
aircraft, but also for
rotorcraft,
featuring the first large-scale deployment of
helicopters for
medical
evacuation (medevac). In the Second World War (1939–45), the
YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance
duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the
jeep as speedy medevac, helicopters like the
Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties
to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical
innovations such as
mobile
army surgical hospitals. The limitations of jet aircraft for
close air support highlighted the
helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the
AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships
used in the
Vietnam War (1965–75).
Bombing North Korea
In the three-year Korean War (1950–53), the US Air Force (USAF) and
the UN Command air forces bombed the cities and villages of North
Korea and parts of South Korea to a degree comparable to the volume
of the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during
the six-year Second World War (1939–45). On 12 August 1950 the USAF
dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the
daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.
As a result, eighteen of North Korea’s cities were more than 50%
destroyed. The war's highest-ranking American POW, US Maj. Gen.
William Dean, reported that most of the North Korean cities and
villages he saw were either ruins or snow-covered wastelands.
Naval warfare
Because the North Korean navy was not large, the Korean War
featured few naval battles; mostly the combatant navies served as
naval artillery for their in-country armies. A skirmish between
North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the US Navy
cruiser
Juneau, the
Royal Navy cruiser
Jamaica, and the frigate
Black Swan fought four North
Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.
The UN navies sank supply and ammunition ships to deny the sea to
North Korea. The
Juneau sank ammunition ships that had
been present in her previous battle. The last sea battle of the
Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon;
the ROK ship
PC 703 sank a North Korean mine-layer in a
small
battle of Haeju Island, near
Inchon.
Three other supply ships were sunk by
PC-703 two days later in the Yellow Sea.
US threat of atomic warfare
In
The Origins of the Korean War (1981, 1990), US
historian
Bruce Cumings
reports that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President
Truman's allusions to attacking the KPA with
atomic bombs “was a threat based on
contingency planning to use the bomb, rather than the faux pas so
many assumed it to be.” The President sought to dismiss Gen.
MacArthur from theater command because his insubordination
demonstrated his political unreliability: A US Army officer who
might
disobey his civilian Commander in Chief about using
or not using atomic bombs. Also on 30 November 1950, the USAF
Strategic Air Command was
ordered to “augment its capacities, and that this should include
atomic capabilities.” In 1951, the US escalated closest to
atomic warfare in Korea, because the PRC had deployed new armies to
the Sino-Korean frontier, thus, at the Kadena USAF Base, Okinawa,
pit crews assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, “lacking only
the essential nuclear cores.”
On 5 April 1950, the
Joint Chiefs
of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic-bombing
of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed
into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The
President ordered transferred nine Mark-IV nuclear capsules “to the
Air Force’s Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons
... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean
targets”—which he never transmitted, having out-witted the JCS to
agreeing to sack the insubordinate Soldier MacArthur (announced 10
April 1950), and because neither the PRC nor USSR likewise
escalated the war.
Communist China propaganda
poster:General MacArthur is shown with a blood-stained dagger,
attacking mother and child, and a US warplane dropping bomb on
Chinese soil.
Moreover (and contradictorily), President Truman also remarked that
his government were actively considering using the atomic bomb to
end the war in Korea (implying that Gen. MacArthur would control
it), but that only
he—the US President—commanded atomic
bomb use,
and that he had not given authorization. For the
matter of atomic warfare was
solely a US decision,
not the collective decision of the UN—hence his 4 December
1950 meeting with UK PM
Clement
Attlee (and Commonwealth spokesman), French Premier
René Pleven, and Foreign Minister
Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about
Korean atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The
Indian Ambassador,
Panikkar, reports, "that Truman
announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But
the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The
propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid
Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased
production, greater national integration, and more rigid control
over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that
Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the
Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their
activities."
Six days later, on 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention
repelled the ROK, US, and UN Command armies from northern North
Korea, Gen.
J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), Gen.
MacArthur, Admiral
C. Turner Joy, Gen.
George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Maj.
Gen. Doyle Hickey, Maj. Gen.
Charles A. Willoughby, and Maj. Gen. Edwin K.
Wright, met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese
intervention; they composed three atomic warfare hypotheses
encompassinging the next weeks and months of warfare. In the first
hypothesis: if the PVA continue attacking in full—
and the
UN Command are forbidden to blockade and bomb China,
and
without Nationalist Chinese reinforcements,
and without
increasing Gen. MacArthur's US forces until April 1951 [pending
four
National Guard
divisions]—
then atomic bombs might be used in
North
Korea. In the second: if the PVA continue full
attacks—
and the UN Command have blockaded China and
effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese
interior,
and the Nationalist Chinese soldiers are
maximally exploited, and
tactical atomic-bombing is to
hand,
then Gen. MacArthur could hold positions deep in
North Korea. In the third: if the PRC agree to not cross the
38th-parallel border, Gen. MacArthur recommends UN acceptance of an
armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and
requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The US
Eighth Army remains protecting the Seoul–Incheon area, while X
Corps retreats to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise
implementation of armistice.
President Truman did not immediately threaten atomic warfare after
the October 1950 Chinese intervention, but, 45 days later, did
remark about using it after the PVA repelled the UN Command from
North Korea. Gen. MacArthur
et al. did not compose the
atomic warfare hypotheses until after the President's 30 November
press conference. The US’s forgoing atomic warfare was not because
of “a disinclination by the USSR and PRC to escalate” the Korean
War, but because UN Ally pressure—notably from the UK, the
Commonwealth, and France—about a
geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO
defenseless, while the US fought China, who then might persuade the
USSR to conquer Western Europe.
In October 1951, the US effected
Operation Hudson Harbor to
establish
nuclear weapon-use
capability.
USAF B-29 bombers practiced individual
bombing runs (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs) from
Okinawa to North Korea, coordinated from Yokota Air
Base, in east-central Japan. Hudson
Harbor tested “actual functioning of all activities which
would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons -assembly
and -testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming”. The bombing
run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically
ineffective against massed infantry, because the “timely
identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely
rare.”
War crimes
Crimes against civilians
MEMO (25 Jul ’50) to
Gen.
Timberlake, USAF; SUBJECT: Policy on Strafing
Civilian Refugees:
It is reported that large groups of civilians, either composed
of or controlled by North Korean soldiers, are infiltrating US
positions.
The army has requested we strafe all civilian refugee parties
approaching our positions.
To date, we have complied with the army request in this
respect.
It recommends a revised policy and practice.
In occupied areas, North Korean Army
political officers purged South Korean
society of its
intelligentsia, by
assassinating every educated person—academic, governmental,
religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges
continued during NPA retreat. Likewise, in combating enemy
infiltration—immediately after the invasion in
June 1950—the South Korean Government ordered the nation-wide
"pre-emptive apprehension" of politically-suspect (disloyal)
citizens.
The
military police and Right-wing
paramilitary (civilian) armies—abetted
by the US—summarily executed thousands of left-wing and communist
political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Cheju
Uprising
(1948–49). US diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea,
calculates some 100,000 pro-North political prisoners were killed
and buried in
mass graves. The South
Korean
Truth
and Reconciliation Commission received reports of some 7,800
civilian killings, in 150 places, occurred before and during the
war.
In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean
soldiers also fought the US–UN forces by
infiltrating guerrillas among refugees—who (usually)
could approach soldiers for food and help in a battlefield.
For a
time, US troops fought under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later"
policy against every civilian-refugee approaching US battlefield
positions; an unwise tactical carte blanche that led US
Soldiers to indiscriminately kill some 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950), in central Korea.
The warfare of the Korean armies included forcibly
conscripting the available civilian men and
women to their war efforts. In
Statistics of Democide
(1997), Prof.
R. J. Rummel reports
that the North Korean Army conscripted some 400,000 South Korean
citizens. The South Korean Government reported that before the US
re-captured Seoul, in September 1950, the North abducted some
83,000 citizens; the North says they
defected.
Bodo League anti–communist massacre
To outmaneuver a possible
fifth column
in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman Rhee’s régime
assassinated its “enemies of the state”—South Koreans
suspected of being “communists”, “pro-North Korea”, and
“leftist”—by imprisoning them for political re-education in the
Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng (National Rehabilitation and
Guidance League,
aka the Bodo League). The true purpose of
the anti–communist “Bodo League”, abetted by the
USAMGIK, was the régime’s hasty assassination of
some 10,000 to 100,000 “enemies of the state” whom they dumped in
trenches, mines, and the sea — before and after the 25 June 1950
North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations report some
200,000 to 1,200,000. USAMGIK officers were present at one
political execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the
mass killings of political prisoners whom the North Koreans would
free upon conquering the peninsular south.
The South Korean
Truth and Reconciliation
Commission reports that petitions requesting explanation of the
summary execution of leftist South Koreans outnumber, six-to-one,
the petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of
rightist South Koreans. These data apply solely to South Korea,
because North Korea is not integral to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission.
Bodo League massacre survivor,
seventy-one-year-old Kim Jong-chol, whose South Korean border guard
father was press-ganged to work with the KPA, was executed by the
Rhee Government as a collaborator;
his grandparents and a seven-year-old sister also were
assassinated; about his experience in Namyangju city, he says:
Moreover,
USAMGIK officers photographed the mass killings at Daejon city in
central South Korea, where the Truth Commission believe some 3,000
to 7,000 people were shot and buried in mass graves in early July
1950. Other declassified records report that a US
Army lieutenant colonel approved the assassination of 3,500
political prisoners, by the ROK Army unit to which he was military
advisor, when the KPA reached the southern port city of Pusan
(Pusan). In that time, US diplomats reported having urged
the Rhee régime’s restraint against its political opponents, and
that the USAMGIK, who formally controlled the peninsular south, did
not halt the mass assassinations.
Prisoners of war
An executed US Army POW of the US 21st
Infantry Regiment killed July 9th 1950.
Picture taken July 10, 1950
As with the ideological
raisons d’être fueling the Korean
War, the combatants—North Korea, South Korea, the US, and the UN
each treated prisoners of war (POWs) differently; notwithstanding
the
Geneva Convention. To wit, the
US reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers
were beaten, starved, put to
forced
labor,
marched to death, and
summarily executed.
The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the
Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon—discovered during early after-battle
mop-up actions by the UN forces. Later, a US Congress
war crimes investigation, the
United States
Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent
Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government
Operations reported that “... two-thirds of all American
prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes”.
The North Korean Government reported some 70,000 ROK Army POWs;
8,000 were repatriated. South Korea repatriated 76,000
Korean People's Army (KPA) POWs.
Besides the 12,000 US–UN Command forces POWs dead in captivity, the
KPA might have press-ganged some 50,000 ROK POWs into the North
Korean military. Per the
South Korean Ministry
of Defense, there remained some 560
Korean War POWs detained
in North Korea in 2008; from 1994 ’til 2003, some 30 ROK POWs
escaped the North.
The North Korean Government denied having POWs from the Korean War,
and, via the
Korean Central
News Agency, reported that the UN forces killed some 33,600 KPA
POWs; that on 19 July 1951, in POW Camp No. 62, some 100 POWs were
killed as machine-gunnery targets; that on 27 May 1952, in the 77th
Camp, Koje Island, with flamethrowers, the ROK Army incinerated
some 800 KPA POWs who rejected "voluntary repatriation" South, and
instead demanded repatriation North; and that some 1,400 KPA POWs
were secretly sent to the US to be atomic-weapon experimental
subjects.
Legacy
The DMZ: A US Army
captain confers with ROK Army counterparts, at Observation Post
(OP) Ouellette, viewing northward, April 2008.
The Korean War (1950–53) was the first
proxy
war in the
Cold War (1945–91), the
prototype of the following
sphere-of-influence wars, e.g. the
Vietnam War (1945–75). The Korean War
established proxy war as one way that the
nuclear superpowers
indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The
NSC68 Containment
Policy extended the cold war from the occupied Europe of 1945 to
the rest of the world.
Fighting ended at the 38th parallel, now the
Korean Demilitarized Zone
(DMZ)—248x4 km (155x2.5 mi)—peninsular demarcation
between the countries.
Moreover, the Korean War affected other
participant combatants; Turkey, for
example, entered NATO in
1952.
Post-war recovery was different in the two Koreas; South Korea
stagnated in the first post-war decade, but later industrialized
and modernized. Contemporary North Korea still remains
underdeveloped, while
South
Korea is a modern free-market economy, member of the
OECD and
G-20 groups. In the 1990s
North Korea faced significant economic disruptions. The
North Korean famine is believed to have
killed as many as 2.5 million people. The
CIA World Factbook estimates North
Korea's
GDP (
PPP) is $40 billion, which is 3.0%
of South Korea's $1.196 trillion GDP (PPP). North Korean personal
income is $1,800
per capita, which is
7.0% of the South Korean $24,500 per capita income.
Anti-communism remains in ROK politics. The
Uri Party practiced a "
Sunshine Policy" towards North Korea; the US
often disagreed with the Uri Party and (former) ROK Pres.
Roh about relations between the Koreas. The
conservative
Grand National
Party (GNP), the Uri Party's principal opponent, is anti-North
Korea.
Depictions
Music
Singer-songwriter David Rovics sings about the Korean War in his
song
Korea at the album
Song
for Mahmud.
Art
Painting: Massacre in Korea (1951), by
Pablo Picasso, depicts war violence against
civilians.
Literature: the war-memoir novel
War Trash (2004), by
Ha Jin, is a drafted PVA soldier’s experience of the
war, combat, and captivity under the UN Command, and of the
retribution Chinese POWs feared from other PVA prisoners, when
suspected of being unsympathetic to Communism or to the war.
Photography
Image:DestroyedBridgeTank.jpg|The wreckage of a bridge and North
Korean
T-34 tank south of Suwon, Korea. The
tank was caught on a bridge and put out of action by the US Air
Force. October 7, 1950.Image:SeoulWarDamage3.jpg|Scene of war
damage in residential section of Seoul, Korea. The capitol building
can be seen in the background (right). October 18, 1950. Sfc. Cecil
Riley. (US Army)Image:SeoulWarDamage2.jpg|An aged Korean woman
pauses in her search for salvageable materials among the ruins of
Seoul, Korea. November 1, 1950. Capt. C. W. Huff. (US
Army)Image:SeoulWarDamage1.jpg|Korean women and children search the
rubble of Seoul for anything that can be used or burned as fuel.
November 1, 1950. Capt. F. L. Scheiber. (US
Army)Image:KoreanWarDamage4.jpg|A small South Korean child sits
alone in the street, after elements of the US 1st Marine Div. and
South Korean Marines invaded the city of Inchon, in an offensive
launched against the North Korean forces in that area. September
16, 1950. Pfc. Ronald L. Hancock. (US
Army)Image:KoreanWarRefugees.jpg|Long trek southward: Seemingly
endless file of Korean refugees slogs through snow outside of
Kangnung, blocking withdrawal of ROK I Corps. January 8, 1951. Cpl.
Walter Calmus. (US Army)Image:ActorsPerformForTroops1.jpg|Marilyn
Monroe, motion picture actress, appearing with the USO, poses for
pictures after a performance at the 3rd US Inf. Div. area. February
17, 1954. Cpl. Welshman. (US Army)Image:AirAttackKoreanWar.jpg|Lt.
R. P. Yeatman, from the USS Bon Homme Richard, is shown rocketing
and bombing Korean bridge. November 1952. (US
Navy)Image:BobHopeKoreanWar3.jpg|Bob Hope sits with men of US X
Corps, as members of his troupe entertain at Womsan, Korea. October
26, 1950. (US Army)
Film
Western Films
Compared to World War II, there are relatively few Western
feature films depicting the Korean War.
- The Steel Helmet
(1951) is a war film
directed by Samuel Fuller and produced
by Lippert Studios during the Korean
War. It was the first studio film about the war, and the first of
several war films by producer-director-writer Fuller.
- Battle Hymn (1957)
stars Rock Hudson as Colonel Dean Hess, a preacher become pilot who
accidentally destroyed a German orphanage during World War II. He
later returned to the USAF in Korea and rescued orphans during that
war.
- The Bridges at
Toko-Ri (1955) stars William
Holden as a Naval Aviator assigned
to destroy the bridges at Toko Ri, while battling doubts; it is
based on an eponymous James Michener
novel.
- The Forgotten
(2004) features a decimated tank unit, lost behind enemy lines,
battling the vicissitudes of the war, as well as their own
demons.
- The Hunters
(1958), adapted from the novel The Hunters by James Salter, stars Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner as two very different United
States Air Force fighter pilots in the midst of the Korean
War.
- The Hook (1963), starring Kirk
Douglas, portrays the dilemma of three American soldiers on
board a ship who are ordered to kill a Korean Prisoner of War.
- Inchon (1982) portrays
the Battle of Inchon, a turning point in the war. Controversially,
the film was partially financed by Sun
Myung Moon's Unification
Movement. It became a notorious financial and critical failure,
losing an estimated $40 million of its $46 million budget, and
remains the last mainstream Hollywood film to use the war as its
backdrop. The film was directed by Terence Young, and starred an
elderly Laurence Olivier as General
Douglas MacArthur. According to press materials from the film,
psychics hired by Moon's church contacted MacArthur in heaven and
secured his posthumous approval of the casting.
- Korea: The Unfinished
War (2003) is a documentary written
and directed by Brian McKenna, which provides new information and
adopts a more objective editorial line. It interviews researches
that allege that the US committed war crimes by using biological
warfare on North Korean territory. The documentary provides
information that certain munitions found on the battlefield point
to the use of anthrax, bubonic plague and encephalitis by US
forces. It also provides information that the US Army deliberately
killed civilians on a large scale for fear that the communists were
infiltrating them.
- The Manchurian
Candidate, a 1959 thriller novel, was cinematically
adapted to The
Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer, and featuring
Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. It is about brainwashed POWs of the US Army, and an
officer's investigation to learn what happened to him and his
platoon in the war.
- MASH: A
Novel About Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker (pseudonym for H.
Richard Hornberger), was later adapted into a successful film and a television series; the TV series had a
total of 251 episodes, lasted 11 years, and won awards, and its
final episode was the most-watched program in television history.
Yet the sensibilities they presented were more of the 1970s than of
the 1950s; the Korean War setting was an oblique and
uncontroversial treatment of the then-current American war in
Vietnam.
- Pork Chop
Hill (1959) is a Lewis
Milestone-directed film with Gregory
Peck as an infantry lieutenant fighting the bitterly fierce
first Battle of
Pork Chop Hill, between the US Army's 7th Infantry Division,
and Chicom (Chinese Communist) forces at war's end in April
1953. The movie is lampooned by the Firesign Theatre album Don't Crush That
Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers in the story of Lieutenant
Tirebiter.
South Korean films
- Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of
War (2004), directed by Kang
Je-gyu, became extremely popular in South Korea and at the 50th
Asia Pacific Film
Festival, Taegukgi won the "Best Film", while Kang
Je-gyu was awarded the "Best Director". Taegukgi saw a limited
release in the United States.
- Welcome to
Dongmakgol (2005) shows the effect of the warring sides on
a remote village. The titular village soon becomes home to
surviving North Korean and South Korean soldiers, who in time lose
their suspicion and hatred for each other and work together to help
save the village after the Americans mistakenly identify it as an
enemy camp.
North Korean films
In North Korea the Korean War has always been a favorite subject of
film, both for its dramatic appeal and its potential as propaganda.
The North Korean government film industry has produced many scores
of films about the war. These have portrayed war crimes by American
or South Korean soldiers while glorifying members of the North
Korean military as well as North Korean ideals. Some of the most
prominent of these films include:
- Nameless Heroes, a
multi-part film produced between 1978-1981 and which included in
the cast several American soldiers who had defected to North Korea.
It tells the story of a spy in Seoul during the Korean War.
Chinese films
- Battle on
Shangganling Mountain (Shanggan Ling, Chinese: 上甘岭) is a
depiction of the Korean War from the Chinese point of view, made in
1956. The
movie is about a group of Chinese soldiers blocked in Triangle
Hill area for several days and survive until they are
relieved.
Philippine films
Theater
The Columbian theatrical work
El monte
calvo (
The Barren Mount) created by Jairo Aníbal
Niño, used two ex-soldiers (Sebastian and the colonel) of the
Columbia battalion (which participated in the Korean war) and an
ex-clown (Canute) to criticize all militarist or warmonger views,
and also to show what war is and what happens to those who live
through it.
See also
Notes
- NKorea warns of attack, says truce no longer
valid.
- The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995) p.
516.
- R. Whelan Drawing the Line: the Korean War 1950–53;
London (1990) p. 22.
- .
- .
- Gup, Ted (2000). The Book of Honor: Cover Lives and
Classified Deaths at the CIA.
- Statement by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
of the USSR, July 4, 1950
- Leo
Gross, "Voting in the Security Council: Abstention from Voting and
Absence from Meetings", The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 60, No.
2 (Feb., 1951), pp. 209–57.
- F. B.
Schick, "Videant Consules", The Western Political
Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Sep., 1950), pp. 311–25.
- Korea: The Untold Story of the War, Joseph C. Goulden
(1982) p. 48.
- Hess, Gary R. Presidential Decisions for War : Korea,
Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. New York: Johns Hopkins UP,
2001.
- Graebner, Norman A. The Age of Global Power: The United States
Since 1939. Vol. V3641. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1979.
- Hess, Gary R. Presidential Decisions for War: Korea,
Vietnam and the Persian Gulf New York: Johns Hopkins UP,
2001.
- Korea: The Limited War|Rees|David |1964|MacMillan|London|p.
27.
- http://www.first-team.us/journals/1stndx03.html
- http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/20th/korea.html
- Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War,
1945–1953, p. 390 (2002) Stanford University Press, ISBN
0804747741.
- Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War, p.
184.
- Communist China’s Changing Attitudes Toward the United Nations,
International Organization, Vol. 20, No.4 (Autumn 1966), pp.
677–704.
- .
- See 50 U.S.C. S 1601: “All powers and authorities possessed by
the President, any other officer or employee of the Federal
Government, or any executive agency ... as a result of the
existence of any declaration of national emergency in effect on
September 14, 1976 are terminated two years from September 14,
1976.”; Jolley v. INS, 441 F.2d 1245, 1255 n.17 (5th Cir. 1971)
(noting that Presidential Proclamation No. 2914 established a state
of national emergency still valid in 1967).
- Reminiscences- MacArthur, Douglas.
- DPMO White Paper - Punch Bowl 239.
- JPAC Wars And Conflicts.
- Remains from Korea identified as Ind. soldier –
Army News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports –
Army Times.
- Quoted in:
- Xu.
- Korea: The Untold Story of the War, Joseph C. Goulden
(1982) p. 51.
- Werrell, p. 71.
- Sandler, pp. 7–8.
- Werrell, pp. 76–77.
- Sandler, p. 9.
- Essay available online from the Nautilus Institute.
- http://monde-diplomatique.de/pm/2004/12/10/a0034.text
- .
- .
- .
- .
- 최소 60만명, 최대 120만명! The Hankyoreh Plus.
- South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
- Korean Central News Agency, DPRK Foreign
Ministry memorandum on GI mass killings, Pyongyang, March 22,
2003.
- United Nations Yearbook, 1950, 1951, 1952.
- M. Galip Baysan,"Turkish Brigade in Korean War- Kunuri Battles,
Turkish Weekly, 09 January 2007.
- " North Korea hunger". Reuters AlertNet.
10-07-2008.
- Halberstam, David, The Coldest Winter: America and the
Korean War, p. 4.
- Delisle, Guy Pyongyang: A Journey Into North Korea,
pp. 63, 146, 173. Drawn & Quarterly Books.
References
- Brune, Lester and Robin Higham, eds., The Korean War:
Handbook of the Literature and Research (Greenwood Press,
1994)
- Edwards, Paul M. Korean War Almanac (2006)
- Foot, Rosemary, "Making Known the Unknown War: Policy Analysis
of the Korean Conflict in the Last Decade," Diplomatic
History 15 (Summer 1991): 411–31, in JSTOR
- Goulden, Joseph C., Korea: The Untold Story of the
War, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982.
- Hickey, Michael, The Korean War: The West Confronts
Communism, 1950-1953 (London: John Murray, 1999) ISBN
0719555590 9780719555596
- Kaufman, Burton I. The Korean Conflict (Greenwood
Press, 1999).
- Knightley, P. The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as
Hero, Propagandist and Myth-maker (Quartet, 1982)
- Korea Institute of Military History, The Korean War
(1998) (English edition 2001), 3 vol, 2600 pp; highly detailed
history from South Korean perspective, U of Nebraska Press. ISBN
0-8032-7802-0
- Leitich, Keith. Shapers of the Great Debate on the Korean
War: A Biographical Dictionary (2006) covers Americans
only
- James I. Matray, ed., Historical Dictionary of the Korean
War (Greenwood Press, 1991)
- Millett, Allan R, "A Reader's Guide To The Korean War"
Journal of Military History (1997) Vol. 61 No. 3;
p. 583+ full text in JSTOR; free online revised version
- Millett, Allan R. "The Korean War: A 50 Year Critical
Historiography," Journal of Strategic Studies 24 (March
2001), pp. 188–224. full text in Ingenta and Ebsco; discusses
major works by British, American, Korean, Chinese, and Russian
authors
- Sandler, Stanley ed., The Korean War: An Encyclopedia
(Garland, 1995)
- Summers, Harry G. Korean War Almanac (1990)
Further reading
Combat studies, soldiers
- Appleman, Roy E. South to the Naktong, North to the
Yalu (1961), Official US Army history covers the Eighth Army
and X Corps from June to November 1950
- Appleman, Roy E.. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout
in Korea (1987); Escaping the Trap: The US Army in
Northeast Korea, 1950 (1987); Disaster in Korea: The
Chinese Confront MacArthur (1989); Ridgway Duels for
Korea (1990).
- Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea,
1950-1953 (1987), revisionist study that attacks senior
American officials
- Field Jr., James A. History of United States Naval
Operations: Korea, University Press of the Pacific, 2001, ISBN
0-89875-675-8. official US Navy history
- Farrar-Hockley, General Sir Anthony. The British Part in
the Korean War, HMSO, 1995, hardcover 528 pages, ISBN
0-11-630962-8
- Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Korea,
1950–1953, rev. ed. (Office of the Chief of Air Force History,
1983), official US Air Force history
- Halberstam, David. The
Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, Hyperion, 2007,
ISBN 1401300529.
- Hallion, Richard P. The Naval Air War in Korea
(1986).
- Hamburger, Kenneth E. Leadership in the Crucible: The
Korean War Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-Ni. Texas A.
& M. U. Press, 2003. 257 pp.
- Hastings, Max. The Korean War (1987). British
perspective
- James, D. Clayton The Years of MacArthur: Triumph and
Disaster, 1945-1964 (1985)
- James, D. Clayton with Anne Sharp Wells, Refighting the
Last War: Command and Crises in Korea, 1950-1953 (1993)
- Johnston, William. A War of Patrols: Canadian Army
Operations in Korea. U. of British Columbia Press, 2003. 426
pp.
- Kindsvatter, Peter S. American Soldiers: Ground Combat in
the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. U. Press of Kansas, 2003.
472 pp.
- Millett, Allan R. Their War for Korea: American, Asian, and
European Combatants and Civilians, 1945–1953. Brassey's, 2003.
310 pp.
- Montross, Lynn et al., History of US Marine Operations in
Korea, 1950–1953, 5 vols. (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3,
Headquarters, Marine Corps, 1954–72),
- Mossman, Billy. Ebb and Flow (1990), Official US Army
history covers November 1950 to July 1951.
- Russ, Martin. Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign,
Korea 1950, Penguin, 2000, 464 pages, ISBN 0-14-029259-4
- Toland, John. In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950-1953
(1991)
- Varhola, Michael J. Fire and Ice: The Korean War,
1950-1953 (2000)
- Watson, Brent Byron. Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian
Infantry in Korea, 1950–1953. 2002. 256 pp.
Origins, politics, diplomacy
- Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of
the Sino-American Confrontation (Columbia University Press,
1994).
- Cumings, Bruce. Origins of the Korean War (two
volumes), Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990.
- Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis; and Xue Litai,
Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War,
Stanford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8047-2521-7,
diplomatic
- Kaufman, Burton I. The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis,
Credibility, and Command. Temple University Press, 1986),
focus is on Washington
- Matray, James. "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self
Determination and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel Decision in Korea,"
Journal of American History 66 (September, 1979), 314–33.
Online at JSTOR
- Millett, Allan R. The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House
Burning vol 1 (2005)ISBN 0-7006-1393-5, origins
- Schnabel, James F. United States Army in the Korean War: Policy and
Direction: The First Year (Washington: Office of the Chief of
Military History, 1972). Official US Army history; full text online
- Spanier, John W. The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the
Korean War (1959).
- Stueck, William. Rethinking the Korean War: A New
Diplomatic and Strategic History. Princeton U. Press, 2002.
285 pp.
- Stueck, Jr., William J. The Korean War: An International
History (Princeton University Press, 1995), diplomatic
- Zhang Shu-gang, Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the
Korean War, 1950–1953 (University Press of Kansas, 1995)
Reference sources
- Edwards, Paul M. The A to Z of the Korean War. The
Scarecrow Press, 2005. 307 pp.
- Edwards, Paul M. The Hill Wars of the Korean Conflict : A
Dictionary of Hills, Outposts and other Sites of Military
Action. McFarland & Co., 2006. 267 pp.
- Edwards, Paul M. The Korean War : a Historical
Dictionary. The Scarecrow Press, 2003. 367 pp.
- Matray, James I. (ed.) Historical Dictionary of the Korean
War. Greenwood Press, 1991. 626 pp.
Primary sources
- Bassett, Richard M. And the Wind Blew Cold: The Story of an
American POW in North Korea. Kent State U. Press, 2002. 117
pp.
- Bin Yu and Xiaobing Li, eds. Mao's Generals Remember
Korea, University Press of Kansas, 2001, hardcover 328 pages,
ISBN 0-7006-1095-2
- S.L.A. Marshall, The River and the
Gauntlet (1953) on combat
- Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War
(1967).
External links