Summer 2025 Part 3.

 

The 75th Anniversary of the Korean War

This year is the 75th year anniversary of the Korean War. The Korean War is one of the most unsung, mysterious wars in human history, because many people don't know what the war was about. Yet, tons of heroic people fought in the war. The war technically never ended as both sides signed an armistice on July 27, 1953, at Panmunjeom, which sits on the heavily militarized border between North and South Korea. The agreement left Korea divided by the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ that stretches across the peninsula. The war started at the start of the Cold War. The Cold War was an ideological and military war between capitalism and communism. Many nations of color joined the Non-Aligned movement to try to be independent of America and the Soviet Union. After World War II, Western imperialists made an artificial division of Korea along the 38th parallel. Conflict happened after the 1949 Chinese Revolution. The Korean War caused mass casualties and economic ruin in both Koreas, and 36,940 Americans were killed. About 520,000 Northern Koreans, 415,004 Southern Korean soldiers, and nearly 900,000 Chinese troops were killed too. To start, Korea was ruled by Japan as early as 1910 after Japan defeated the Tsarist Russia in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. America and the Soviets wanted Korea to be part of a trusteeship by May 1945. Stalin and Truman agreed to divide Korea into North and South by the 38th parallel via the Potsdam Conference (which happened from July to August 1945). The problem is that much of South Korea's leadership after WWII had far-right factions headed by Syngman Rhee. Stalinists allowed the U.S. military occupation of South Korea (in refusing to recognize the provisional government of the PRK or the People's Republic of Korea). The PKK wanted social reforms like land distribution, protecting the rights of workers, etc. North Korea was influenced by Stalin. According to scholar I. F. Stone, the CIA said that American intelligence knew that conditions in Korea could cause an invasion soon. There were North and South Korea having clashes against each other as early as 1949 with armed incursions (with the South attacking the North and later the North attacking the South). There was a military buildup by North Korean military forces, and then North Korea invaded South Korean lands. The war lasted for about three years, and it changed the Cold War and world history forever. 

 

The Cold War Tensions

The existence of the Cold War caused the Korean War to exist. Imperial Japan ruled Korea from 1910 to 1945. In China, the nationalist National Revolutionary Army and the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) helped organize Korean refugees against the Japanese imperialist military, which had occupied parts of China during WWII. Yi Pom-Sok led the Nationalist-backed Koreans to fight in the Burma campaign from 1941 to 1945. The communists were led by Kim II Sung and other people to fight the Japanese forces in Korean and Manchuria. At the Cairo Conference in 1943, China, the UK, and America agreed to allow Korea to be free and independent. At the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join the Allies in the Pacific War within three months of the victory in Europe. The USSR declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria by August 8, 1945. What people like Scarborough don't get is that Stalin is wrong on civil liberty issues, but the Soviets contributed heavily to allowing the Allied forces to win the Western front. Roosevelt didn't want to justify Stalin's authoritarianism, but he desired a more peaceful world creating a system where colonialism would be abolished in the world. Likewise, Churchill was a lifelong supporter of imperialism and colonialism. By August 10, 1945, the Soviet forces came to northern Korea and secured most major cities in the north by August 25. By this time, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away in 1945, and then Truman was President. Truman would be influenced by war mongering political leaders, many of them members of the Pilgrim Society and CFR foreign policy members. FDR wanted the world to not be dominated by the totalitarian systems of Imperialism or Stalinist Communism. That is why true freedom deals with respecting and protecting all of the basic freedom of people, be they political, spiritual, and material. For example, we should have political freedom where people can elect their representatives, spiritual freedom to worship in any manner that we want (or have no faith), to have material freedom allowing the government to provide the general welfare of society and ensure economic justice for all people. FDR wanted America, China, Great Britian, and Russia to work together in promoting peaceful existence. 

Political foreign policy leaders Harriman and Kennan were more hawkish agreeing with Winston Churchill's views. The big irony is that Stalin supported the Chinese Nationalist Chiang for a time bringing him weapons and equipment. This would change by 1950 when there was the first Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950. Harry Truman has been praised for integrating the Armed Forces which was right and correct. Also, it is important to note that Truman shifted into being more hawkish on foreign policy. Truman supported the overt war crime of America dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The lie is that the bomb saved a million American lives, but even General Douglas MacArthur said that the bombs were cruel and unnecessary as negotiations for the Japanese surrender were forthcoming. Truman helped to create the CIA and promote imperialism globally. Even Truman had reservations about some of the policies of the CIA before his death. The Truman Doctrine claimed to want to contain Communism, but when American imperialists targeted non-Communist and nationalist nations for the sake of promoting Western interests, not because of ideological disagreements with Communism. These nations refused to submit to Anglo-American/Western corporate domination. The Cold War's problem and paradox is that the Americans and Soviets wanted to divide the world into their images, instead of allowing nations to create their own nations independently and with the consent of the people of those nations. We have to allow nations to grow in their growing pains that we Americans have and be a beacon of hope and democracy at the same time without coercion or imperialism. That is the truth. 

The peninsula of Korea has been a location that imperialists wanted to control for centuries. After WWII, America became the largest Empire in the world. America wanted to change world capitalism to make it control the world's resources. The Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy made compromises with America in Korea, and the Korean war still started. The Stalinist communist parties were told to force the working class to accept disarming the partisans and promote bourgeois parties. Many Stalinist leaders suppressed strikes and protests even in Eastern Europe. In Asia, the Soviet Union accepted compromises with America in dealing with Korea too. General John Hodge of the U.S. military came to Korea on September 8, 1945, to start the occupation of South Korea called the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK). On September 7, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur issued Proclamation No. 1 to the people of Korea, announcing US military control over Korea south of the 38th parallel and establishing English as the official language during military control. The USAMGIK banned workers' strikes by December 8, 1945. America, British, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Korea into North and South from December 16-27, 1945. Syngman Rhee ruled South Korea being far right. By 1946, there were Korean working people forming strikes in 1946. There was a repression of these strikes. People had inflation and rising food prices along with unemployment. Former Japanese collaborators worked with the U.S. occupation forces and the right-wing regime of Rhee. It is estimated that 100,000 - 200,000 Koreans were murdered, who opposed the U.S. occupation before the Korean War started. The Rhee regime was corrupt. By the fall of 1949, there were clashes across the border, mostly initiated by South Korea. Fighting continued into 1950. 

Citing the inability of the Joint Commission to make progress, the US government decided to hold an election under UN auspices to create an independent Korea. The Soviet authorities and Korean communists refused to cooperate on the grounds it would not be fair, and many South Korean politicians boycotted it. The 1948 South Korean general election was held in May. The resultant South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on July 17, 1948, and elected Syngman Rhee as president on July 20. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on August 15, 1948. In the Soviet-Korean Zone of Occupation, the Soviets agreed to the establishment of a communist government led by Kim Il Sung. The 1948 North Korean parliamentary elections took place in August. The Soviet Union withdrew its forces in 1948 and the US in 1949.

By 1948, a North Korea-backed insurgency had broken out in the southern half of the peninsula. This was exacerbated by the undeclared border war between the Koreas, which saw division-level engagements and thousands of deaths on both sides. The ROK was almost entirely trained and focused on counterinsurgency, rather than conventional warfare. They were equipped and advised by a force of a few hundred American officers, who were successful in helping the ROKA to subdue guerrillas and hold its own against North Korean military (Korean People's Army, KPA) forces along the 38th parallel. Approximately 8,000 South Korean soldiers and police officers died in the insurgent war and border clashes.

The first socialist uprising occurred without direct North Korean participation, though the guerrillas still professed support for the northern government. Beginning in April 1948 on Jeju Island, the campaign saw arrests and repression by the South Korean government in the fight against the South Korean Labor Party, resulting in 30,000 violent deaths, among them 14,373 civilians, of whom ~2,000 were killed by rebels and ~12,000 by ROK security forces. The Yeosu–Suncheon rebellion overlapped with it, as several thousand army defectors waving red flags massacred right-leaning families. This resulted in another brutal suppression by the government and between 2,976 and 3,392 deaths. By May 1948, both uprisings had been crushed.

Insurgency reignited in the spring of 1949 when attacks by guerrillas in the mountainous regions (buttressed by army defectors and North Korean agents) increased. Insurgent activity peaked in late 1949 as the ROKA engaged so-called People's Guerrilla Units. Organized and armed by the North Korean government and backed by 2,400 KPA commandos who had infiltrated through the border, these guerrillas launched an offensive in September aimed at undermining the South Korean government and preparing the country for the KPA's arrival in force. This offensive failed. However, the guerrillas were now entrenched in the Taebaek-san region of the North Gyeongsang Province and the border areas of the Gangwon Province. While the insurgency was ongoing, the ROKA and KPA engaged in battalion-sized battles along the border, starting in May 1949.  Border clashes between South and North continued on August 4, 1949, when thousands of North Korean troops attacked South Korean troops occupying territory north of the 38th parallel. The 2nd and 18th ROK Infantry Regiments repulsed attacks in Kuksa-bong, and KPA troops were "completely routed." Border incidents decreased by the start of 1950.

President Harry Truman lived in these times and won the 1948 election against the progressive candidate Henry Wallace. There was the McCarthy era in the 1950s, more suppression of political dissent in America, and cultural changes in America. There was the Chinese Revolution led by Mao and other people against the Nationalist forces of Chiang. The Stalinist CCP or the Chinese Communist Party and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT were ironically allies against Japanese occupation during WWII. Now, they are fighting each other for the future of China. The Communists won the Chinese civil war causing the creation of the People's Republic of China in October 1949. The Truman administration was heavily criticized by conservatives and KMT for China going Communists. So, Truman became more hawkish going beyond containment into being in support of the invasion of Korea in 1950. Truman withdrew troops in June 1949 like the Soviets did in December 1948. Republican Senator William Knowland (who was from California) supported Chiang Kai-Shek and criticized Truman for the Chinese Revolution being won by Communist. Truman made the NSC 68 to promote a massive U.S. military buildup to prepare to fight the Soviet Union. Truman, Churchill, Kennan, Harriman, and others believed that the Kremlin wanted global domination, in wanting a global dictatorship which isn't true. Still, the Soviet Union was wrong to have anti-human rights policies, execution of political dissidents in the Soviet Union, etc., as Stalin became increasingly anti-Semitic and psychologically unstable after the Korean War. 

The NSC Memorandum 8/2 paved the way for the June 1949 guerrilla attacks on the DPRK:

“Inquiry uncovers secret of series of attacks by South on North. South Korean troops attacked the North a year before the Korean war broke out, researchers have claimed in the latest disturbing revelation about the conflict which almost led to global war. More than 250 guerrillas from the South are said to have launched an attack on North Korean villages along the east coast in June 1949. The incident has been confirmed by a South Korean army official.  (John Gittings, Martin Kettle, The Guardian, 17 January 2000).

Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans fled south in mid-1950 after the North Korean army invaded.

Invasion

In April 1950, Stalin permitted Kim to attack the government in the South, under the condition that Mao would agree to send reinforcements if needed. For Kim, this was the fulfillment of his goal to unite Korea. Stalin made it clear Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat, to avoid a direct war with the United States. Full scale fighting happened in Korea on June 25, 1950, when North Korean forces attacked South Korea against Rhee's regime. The North Korean army overwhelming the South Korean military towards the southeastern corner of the peninsula, because Rhee's regime didn't have massive support. At dawn on June 25, 1950, the KPA crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire. It justified its assault with the claim ROK troops attacked first and that the KPA were aiming to arrest and execute the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee." Fighting began on the strategic Ongjin Peninsula in the west. There were initial South Korean claims that the 17th Regiment had counterattacked at Haeju; some scholars argue the claimed counterattack was instead the instigating attack, and therefore that the South Koreans may have fired first. However, the report that contained the Haeju claim contained errors and outright falsehoods.

KPA forces attacked all along the 38th parallel within an hour. The KPA had a combined arms force including tanks supported by heavy artillery. The ROK had no tanks, anti-tank weapons, or heavy artillery. The South Koreans committed their forces in a piecemeal fashion, and these were routed in a few days. On June 27, 1950, Rhee evacuated Seoul with some of the government. At 02:00 on 28 June the ROK blew up the Hangang Bridge across the Han River in an attempt to stop the KPA. The bridge was detonated while 4,000 refugees were crossing it, and hundreds were killed. Destroying the bridge trapped many ROK units north of the river. In spite of such desperate measures, Seoul fell that same day. Some South Korean National Assemblymen remained in Seoul when it fell, and 48 subsequently pledged allegiance to the North. On June 28, 1950, Rhee ordered the massacre of suspected political opponents in his own country. In five days, the ROK, which had 95,000 troops on 25 June, was down to less than 22,000 troops. In early July, when US forces arrived, what was left of the ROK was placed under US operational command of the United Nations Command.

The Truman administration was shocked at the scale of the invasion. Korea wasn't a major priority in their strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Many military strategists focused on Europe more than East Asia. Truman intervened, because he was afraid that Korea's war would escalate if America did nothing. Diplomat John Foster Dulles wanted American intervention. Truman wanted Korea to be a buffer against possible attacks against a newly democratic Japan. Truman used United Nations Council resolutions to justify American troops to go into Korea. The United Nations Security Council condemned the North Korean invasion of South Korea with Resolution 82. The Soviet Union opposed American involvement, because they said that ROK intelligence which Resolution 83 was based came from American intelligence. They felt that North Korea was not involved as a temporary member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32, and the fighting was beyond the Charter's scope being a civil war. ROK soldiers of the Rhee regime retreated to come to the KPA, the northern side. Acheson told Truman that North Koreans had invaded South Korea. Truman and Acheson opposed appeasement and wanted America to act to compare the North Korean invasion with Hitler's aggressions of the 1930s. Truman wanted to promote containment as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC 68). By August 1950, Truman and Acheson got the consent of Congress to promote 12 billion dollars for military action. General MacArthur was ordered by Truman to transfer military supplies to the South Korean military. Truman didn't want unilateral bombing of North Korean forces and ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan, whose government was asked to fight in Korea. Truman didn't allow Taiwan to intervene as not to cause China to attack Taiwan. So, the United Nations created a police force filled with American troops and other soldiers from other nations to help defend South Korea. 

 

General MacArthur's Strategies

President Truman felt that the United States has the right to intervene in Korea to try to stop Communist influence. By July 5, 1950, the first U.S. Marines (leading the U.N. Force) join the battle shortly after landing on the Korean Peninsula.  U.S. troops suffer heavy casualties and the four American divisions are driven back into a perimeter around the southern port city of Pusan. The U.S. military had an intergrated force of soldiers. The Battle of Osan, the first significant US engagement, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division flown in from Japan. On July 5, 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the KPA at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying KPA tanks. The KPA defeated the US, with 180 American casualties. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back US forces at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon. The 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including its commander, Major General William F. Dean.

By August, the KPA steadily pushed back the ROK and the Eighth United States Army southwards. The impact of the Truman administration's defense budget cutbacks was keenly felt, as US troops fought costly rearguard actions. Facing a veteran and well-led KPA force, and lacking sufficient anti-tank weapons, artillery or armor, the Americans retreated, and the KPA advanced down the Peninsula. By September, UN forces were hemmed into a corner of southeast Korea, near Pusan. This 230-kilometre (140-mile) perimeter enclosed about 10% of Korea, in a line defined by the Nakdong River. The KPA purged South Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals. On August 20, 1950, MacArthur warned Kim Il Sung he would be held responsible for KPA atrocities.

Kim's early successes led him to predict the war would finish by the end of August. Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. To counter a possible US deployment, Zhou secured a Soviet commitment to have the Soviet Union support Chinese forces with air cover, and he deployed 260,000 soldiers along the Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang. Zhou authorized a topographical survey of Korea and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military adviser in Korea, to analyze the military situation. Lei concluded MacArthur would likely attempt a landing at Incheon. After conferring with Mao that this would be MacArthur's most likely strategy, Zhou briefed Soviet and North Korean advisers of Lei's findings and issued orders to PLA commanders to prepare for US naval activity in the Korea Strait.

In the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter, UN forces withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city at the Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong, and Taegu. The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties, which destroyed 32 bridges, halting daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night. To deny military equipment and supplies to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, refineries, and harbors, while U.S. Navy aircraft attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the overextended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south. On 27 August, 67th Fighter Squadron aircraft mistakenly attacked facilities in Chinese territory, and the Soviet Union called the Security Council's attention to China's complaint about the incident. The US proposed a commission of India and Sweden determine what the US should pay in compensation, but the Soviets vetoed this.

Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and military supplies to reinforce defenders in the Pusan Perimeter. MacArthur went so far as to call for Japan's rearmament. Tank battalions deployed to Korea, from the port of San Francisco to the port of Pusan, the largest Korean port. By late August, the Pusan Perimeter had 500 medium tanks battle-ready. In early September 1950, UN forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers.

General Douglas MacArthur wanted a victory against the Communists. By September 1950, the Pusan Perimeter defenders were rested and had reinforcements. The KPA of North Korea were undermanned and were poorly supplies. They lacked naval and air support. The UN forces had this support. To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur had a plan. He wanted an amphibious landing at Incheon, near Soeul over 100 miles behind the KPA Lines. By July 6, 1950, he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, commander of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, to plan an amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama, Japan, to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division inside the Pusan Perimeter. The Pentagon opposed MacArthur's plan. When authorized, he activated a combined US Army and Marine Corps, and ROK force. The X Corps, consisted of 40,000 troops of the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division and around 8,600 ROK soldiers. By September 15, the amphibious force faced few KPA defenders at Incheon: military intelligence, psychological warfare, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted bombardment facilitated a light battle. However, the bombardment destroyed most of Incheon. The battle of Incheon was successful from General MacArthur. 

On September 16, 1950, the Eighth Army breakout from the Pusan Perimeter. Task Force Lynch, 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and 70th Tank Battalion units advanced through 171.2 km (106.4 mi) of KPA territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan on September 27, X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force.

On September 18, Stalin dispatched General H. M. Zakharov to advise Kim to halt his offensive around the Pusan Perimeter and redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. Zhou suggested the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the UN forces at Incheon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north. On September 25, Seoul was recaptured by UN forces. US air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and artillery. KPA troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable. During the retreat, only 25,000-30,000 KPA soldiers managed to reach the KPA lines. On September 27, Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, where he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.

This image above showed Chinese forces crossing the frozen Yalu River.

By September 27, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur recieved secret National Security Council Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if "at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily." On September 29, MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee. The Joint Chiefs of Staff on 27 September sent MacArthur a comprehensive directive: it stated the primary goal was the destruction of the KPA, with unification of the Peninsula under Rhee as a secondary objective "if possible"; the Joint Chiefs added this objective was dependent on whether the Chinese and Soviets would intervene and was subject to changing conditions. On September 30, 1950, Zhou warned the US that China was prepared to intervene if the US crossed the 38th parallel. Zhou attempted to advise KPA commanders on how to conduct a general withdrawal by using the same tactics that allowed Chinese Communist forces to escape Nationalist encirclement campaigns in the 1930s, but KPA commanders did not use these tactics effectively. Bruce Cumings argues, however, that the KPA's rapid withdrawal was strategic, with troops melting into the mountains from where they could launch guerrilla raids on the UN forces spread out on the coasts.

By October, 1 1950, the UN Command had driven the KPA past the 38th parallel, and RoK forces pursued the KPA northwards. MacArthur demanded the KPA's unconditional surrender. On October 7, 1950, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The Eighth US Army drove up western Korea and captured Pyongyang on 19 October 19, 1950. On 20 October, the US 187th Airborne Regiment made their first of their two combat jumps during the war at Sunchon and Sukchon. The mission was to cut the road north going to China, preventing North Korean leaders from escaping Pyongyang, and to rescue US prisoners of war.

At month's end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war. As they neared the Sino-Korean border, the UN forces in the west were divided from those in the east by 80–161 km (50–100 mi) of mountainous terrain. In addition to the 135,000 captured, the KPA had suffered some 200,000 soldiers killed or wounded, for a total of 335,000 casualties since end of June 1950, and lost 313 tanks. A mere 25,000 KPA regulars retreated across the 38th parallel, as their military had collapsed. The UN forces on the peninsula numbered 229,722 combat troops (including 125,126 Americans and 82,786 South Koreans), 119,559 rear area troops, and 36,667 US Air Force personnel. MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the war into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean effort. Truman disagreed and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border. 

The picture above showed soldiers from the US 2nd Infantry Division in action near the Ch'ongch'on River (on November 20, 1950).

The Chinese Response

The UN Forces captured Pyongyang in North Korea on October 18, 1950. This was done mostly by American and South Korean troops. This marked a massive advance of the U.N. forces in the Korean War. Later, North Korean forces retreated towards the Chinese border. Previously, On August 12, 1950, the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea and 2 week later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons. U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign during World War II.  There was a debate in America on what to do. President Harry Truman wanted U.N. forces to stop at the North Korean and Chinese border. General MacArthur wanted to continue to go into China to further fight the Korean War, but Harry Truman feared that action would provoke a Chinese response and possibly WWIII. By October 25, 1950, UN troops were approaching the Yalu River. On that day, Chinese People's Volunteers Force (CPVF) troops under veteran commander General Pen Dehaui crossed into North Korea. The Chinese inflicted seirous losses on the lead units of the U.N. advance. The sudden force of Chinese troops sent the main body of U.N. forces reeling back to the south bank of the Ch'ongch'on River.

On November 25, 1950, China, issuing warnings against the U.N. that it should cease aggressions against North Korea, sets a trap to crush MacArthur's army. Chinese forces, numbering 130,000 to 300,000, invaded North Korea and push U.N. troops southward in a disorganized, hasty retreat. From November 7 to December 9, 1950, with their backs to the Sea of Japan and fighting in a brutally cold winter, U.S. Marines encircled at the Chosin Reservoir retreat to the ports Hungnam and Wonsan, where some 20,000 troops and refugees are evacuated. Known as the battle of "Frozen Chosin," the Chinese route 15,000 U.N. troops, causing 12,000 casualties; of those, 3,000 are killed. On November 30, 1950, President Harry S. Truman went too far by threatening to use the atomic bomb against the communist Chinese forces. By April 5 of the next year, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered atomic retaliation against Soviet and Chinese bases if more communist troops entered the war. 

By December 6, 1950, The U.S. Marines at the Chosin Reservoir started their attack in a different direction as they are in a fighting retreat to the port of Hungnam. Two whole Chinese armies were tasked with the destruction of the 1st Marine Division. They succeed in driving the American force from North Korean territory, but the Chinese forces have a heavy price (of 80,000 Chinese troops being killed or wounded). The CPVF Ninth Army Group was combat ineffective for months. By January 4, 1951, Chinese and North Korean forces recapture Seoul. The Chinese-North Korean army is stopped by U.N. troops 30 miles south of Seoul and begin a counteroffensive by the end of January. By March 14, 1951, Soeul changed hands for the fourth time when U.N. forces once again liberate the South Korean capital of Seoul. The city was devasted by fighting. The population had a radical decline of population because of the fighting.  MacArthur's army advanced slightly north of the 38th Parallel.

 

MacArthur Leaves

On April 11, 1951, American President Harry S. Truman relieved General MacArthur of command for insubordination and his refusal to prosecute a limited war. General MacArthur became so extreme that he requested the discretion to drop atomic bombs as he saw fit. He desired to drop between 30 and 50 atomic bombs across the area of Manchuria while landing Chinese Nationalist troops in the Chinese mainland. This act will cause a global war. Stalin had already tested an atomic weapon by August 1949. Stalin gave aid and weaponry to North Korea and China. General Douglas MacArthur was succeeded as UN commander by Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway. MacArthur was praised as a hero in America, even considering running for President. Yet, he lived a more reserved life and ironically advised Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to not pursue a ground military invasion of Vietnam. General MacArthur did good in fighting the Axis Powers in WWII and helped to rebuild Japan. He made many errors, like his excessive response in the Bonus March protest and his other reactionary views (President Franklin Delano Roosevelt respect MacArthur's military skills, but FDR opposed MacArthur's disdain for his New Deal programs. Douglas MacArthur was a far-right conservative man). We have to be reminded that the powers of the military are bounded under the Constitution and the rule of law. There must always be a civilian control of the military. He is buried in the 757 at Norfolk, Virginia (in the city's downtown area). 

By April 25, 1951, a vastly outnumbered U.N forces checked the Chinese advance on Seoul at the Battles of Kapyoung and the Imjin River. Two Commonwealth battalions—the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment—rebuff an entire Chinese division at Kapyong, and 4,000 men of the British 29th Brigade stage a successful delaying action against nearly 30,000 troops of the Chinese 63rd Army at the Imjin River. Some 650 men of the 1st Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment (the “Glorious Glosters”), engage in a Thermopylae-like stand against more than 10,000 Chinese infantry at Imjin. Although the overwhelming majority of the Glosters are killed or captured, their sacrifice allowed UN forces to consolidate their lines around the South Korean capital. On July 10, 1951, there was a truce between the UN and the communists that begin at Kaesŏng. Truce talks begin at Kaesong near the 38th Parallel. The talks, led by U.S. Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy for the U.N. side and Lt. Gen. Nam Il of North Korea, dragged on with no real agreements on an armistice and exchange of prisoners. The truce site is moved to the village of Panmunjom. The negotiations do not end the war, however, the fighting continues for two more years. In October, the peace talks relocate to the village of P'anmunjŏm. 

Stalemate

The war entered a stalemate. According to U.S. Major General William F. Dean, there are reports that most of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wastelands. General Curtis LeMay, who coordinated the bombing raids against North Korea in a sick away, admitted that, "Over a period of three years or so we killed off what twenty percent of the population...We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too." Many of the war crimes done by the U.S. forces in South Korea have been documented by the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission. According to ROK sources, almost one million civilians were killed in South Korea in the course of the Korean War. By November 1951, the war along the 38th Parallel had become a stalemate reminiscent of trench warfare fought in World War I. The pattern of bloody fighting with no real capturing of territory continues for the next two years as peace talks repeatedly fail. On November 12, 1951, the Eighth Army assumes the “active defense” as the UN’s objectives in the armistice negotiations, and the growing unpopularity of the war in the United States, rule out major offensives with high casualties. In the active defense, UN forces hold a main line of resistance, protected by fortified outposts, from which units patrol and conduct raids against enemy positions.

From May 7 to June 10, 1952, events happen in the Korean War. On May 7, NKPA prisoners-of-war at the UN POW camp on Koje Island capture the camp commander. He was released unharmed after an American officer signs a statement admitting to the mistreatment of POWs. A great propaganda victory for the communists, this incident is the most notable example of the communist strategy to turn POW camps into another battlefield of the war. During June, the UN POW camp system is reorganized to improve security, although communist POWs will continue to provoke violent incidents until the end of the war.

From July 17 to August 4, 1952, there was the Battle for Outpost Old Baldy. The 2nd Infantry Division loses the outpost to a Chinese attack that demonstrates the Chinese communists’ greatly expanded artillery force, mounts several unsuccessful counterattacks, and then finally retakes the outpost. While patrolling is now the most common form of combat, the Chinese, for the next year will attempt to pressure the UN at the armistice negotiations by inflicting heavy casualties on UN units with attacks on outposts. From October 6-15, 1952, there was the Battle for White Horse Mountain. This was the successful defense of this position by the ROK 9th Division, with the assistance of U.S. artillery and air strikes, against heavy Chinese attacks, which signals the great improvements the ROK has made, with the aid of American advisers, in its tactical and technical competence since the first year of the war.

On October 8, 1952, the talks at Panmunjom deadlock and were recessed. U.S. planes bombed the North Korean capital, Pyongyang for two straight months.  Talks are resumed the following March. Armistice negotiations recessed because of a deadlock on the issue of repatriation of POWs. While the Geneva Convention of 1949 mandates immediate repatriation of POWs after hostilities end, the United States decides to press for allowing POWs to choose whether they will be repatriated. The U.S. takes this position because screening of enemy POWs has revealed that tens of thousands of them are either South Koreans conscripted into the NKPA or Nationalist veterans of the Chinese Civil War drafted into the PLA after the communist victory in that war. These POWs do not want to go to North Korea or to Communist China after hostilities end.

The Armistice Treaty

On April 26, 1953, the armistice negotiations continued. While both South and North Koreans still desire to defeat each other and unify the peninsula, the UN and the PRC wish to end what has become a bloody and expensive war, whose objective, the status quo ante bellum, is for them not worth the cost of continuing. On May 28-29, 1953, the 25th Infantry Division battled for the Nevada outpost complex. The Chinese repeatedly attacked to take these outposts, suffering very heavy casualties, until the Eighth Army decided to abandon the outposts. With an armistice agreement in sight, senior UN commanders conclude that holding an outpost, after the Chinese have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice whatever number of soldiers required to take it, is not worth the cost in UN soldiers’ lives. The Chinese take several other outposts with this tactic, which is designed to distract from their concessions at the armistice negotiations and to keep pressuring the UN during the final stage of the negotiations.

On June 8, 1953, an agreement was reached at armistice negotiations on the repatriation of POWs. All POWs will choose whether they will be repatriated, and both sides will be allowed an attempt to persuade its POWs to choose to be repatriated. From July 13-19, 1953, there was the Chinese offensive against ROK units in the Kumsong Salient. A major attack breaks through ROK lines and inflicts heavy losses, but the Chinese do not attempt to exploit the breach even though they also have suffered heavy casualties. The purpose of the attack is to punish the South Koreans for unilaterally releasing 27,000 POWs who had refused repatriation and to distract world attention from the concessions made at the armistice negotiations.

On July 27, 1953, Mark W. Clark for the UN Command, Peng Dehuai for the Chinese, and Kim Il-Sung for North Korea concluded an armistice ending hostilities. A demilitarized zone is created that roughly follows the prewar border along the 38th parallel. South Korean Pres. Syngman Rhee announces his acceptance of the agreement, but no representative of South Korea ever signed the document. The agreement calls for a 2.5-mile-wide buffer zone across the middle of the Korean Peninsula that closely follows the 38th Parallel. From August 1953 to February 1954, there was an exchange of POWs. A total of 82,493 Koreans and Chinese POWs are repatriated, as are 13,444 UN POWs (3,746 of which are Americans). 21,839 communist POWs refuse repatriation, as do 347 UN POWs, including 21 Americans.

These delegates signed the Korean Armistice Agreement in P'anmunjŏm.

The conflict caused more than one million military deaths and an estimated two to three million civilian deaths. War crimes existed on both sides of the war. These war crimes include the mass killing of suspected communists by Seoul and the mass killing of alleged reactionaries by Pyongyang. North Korea became one of the most heavily bombed countries in history, and virtually all of Korea's major cities were destroyed (during the Korean War). No peace treaty has been signed, making the war a frozen conflict. General Douglas MacArthur, who had actually carried out the atrocities directed against the Korean people, appeared before the US Senate and acknowledged the crimes committed against the Korean Nation:

“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million. “I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added,” (quoted by the Washington Post, August 10, 2017).

War veteran Brian Willson provides a moving assessment of the plight of the Korean people:

“Everyone I talked with, dozens and dozens of folks, lost one if not many more family members during the war, especially from the continuous bombing, much of it incendiary and napalm, deliberately dropped on virtually every space in the country. “Every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” was ordered bombed by General MacArthur in the fall of 1950. It never stopped until the day of the armistice on July 27, 1953. The pained memories of people are still obvious, and their anger at “America” is often expressed, though they were very welcoming and gracious to me. Ten million Korean families remain permanently separated from each other due to the military patrolled and fenced dividing line spanning 150 miles across the entire Peninsula.

 

Let us make it very clear here for western readers. North Korea was virtually totally destroyed during the “Korean War.” U.S. General Douglas MacArthur’s architect for the criminal air campaign was Strategic Air Command head General Curtis LeMay who had proudly conducted the earlier March 10 – August 15, 1945 continuous incendiary bombings of Japan that had destroyed 63 major cities and murdered a million citizens. (The deadly Atomic bombings actually killed far fewer people.).Eight years later, after destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.

Virtually every person wanted to know what I thought of Bush’s recent accusation of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.” I shared with them my own outrage and fears, and they seemed relieved to know that not all “Americans” are so cruel and bellicose. As with people in so many other nations with whom the U.S. has treated with hostility, they simply cannot understand why the U.S. is so obsessed with them.” (Brian Willson, Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, October 12, 2006 emphasis added).

 

Lessons and Analysis of the Korean War

This time, we are witnessing the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. The Korean War has been forgotten by many people, and numerous human beings don't know anything about the war. Yet, we realize the war in greater detail as time goes on. The war had its roots in World War II. After World War II, there were debates on how to deal with the Korean peninsula among President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Many independent progressive forces wanted Korea to have workers' rights, economic justice, and true equality. Many U.S. occupation forces crushed the resistance of the Korean working class. Also, Stalinists promoted token leadership in North Korea too. South Korea was dominated by a far-right regime under Rhee, and North Korea was dominated by pro-Stalin forces too. Much of the right-wing regime in South Korea was filled with former Japanese collaborators and other extremists who suppressed dissent. The myth is that the Korean War solely started with North Korea attacking South Korea in 1950. The truth is that North and South Korea had cross-border incursions long before 1950. 

The war was a civil war about the political nature of the Korean peninsula's future. Some wanted Korea to be capitalist, some wanted to be communist, and others wanted an independent progressive nation. China and Russia supported North Korea. The war had the U.N. take the lead and was filled with mostly American and South Korean soldiers (without a Congressional declaration of war). Truman justified the U.N. intervention by promoting the containment doctrine (which advocated using military force if necessary to stop the spread of Communism around the globe). Also, Truman went over the line by threatening the use of atomic weapons in the conflict. General MacArthur's initial military strategies worked to repel the North Korean attacks. Yet, MacArthur wanted dozens of atomic weapons dropped if necessary, and the Chinese military forces attacked the U.N. forces near the Yalu River (close to the Chinese border). The U.N. forces were pushed back, and the U.N. forces came back to form a stalemate. There were many battles and POW exchanges from 1951 to 1953. The war ended by 1953, with tensions still running high. North Korea today is an authoritarian state that promotes communism, and South Korea is more capitalistic filled with a much different reality than North Korea. South Korea has more liberties than North Korea, but U.S. imperialistic corporate interests still influence many parts of South Korea too. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President when the war ended after Truman was defeated (as opposition to the Korean War increased in America as a backlash against Truman's foreign policy agenda). Many well-known Korean War veterans are James Garner, Neil Armstrong, Sir Michael Caine, Ted Williams, Casey Kasem, Charles Rangle, Ed McMahon, Edwin Aldrin, Johnny Cash, and John Glenn. The Korean War was very brutal, destroying a high percentage of Korean infrastructure. War crimes were committed against the Korean people during the war too. The war crimes were committed by the UN Forces and by the North Korean forces too (i.e. both sides). The world needs to know these facts.

By Timothy