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The Forgotten War: Korea (1950-53)
World War II had been a truly global war, especially involving Europe's colonial empires in Asia. By the mid twentieth century, the areas outside of Europe loomed much larger in importance as they shook off Europe's grip and started developing on their own economically and politically. Japan had led the way since the late 1800's, and its early success against the European colonial powers inspired others in Asia to challenge European supremacy as well.
One such country was China, whose civil war between the Communists led by Mao Zedong and the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek had been interrupted by World War II. That civil war resumed right after Japan's defeat. Although the Nationalists started out with more men and resources, the Communists had Soviet help, both in the form of weapons and high ranking Nationalist officers who were actually Stalin’s moles and repeatedly betrayed Chiang Kai-shek. By 1949, the Communists emerged victorious, and the West found itself confronted by another Communist power that was heavily backed by the Soviet Union. The ensuing clash between Communist East and Capitalist West would occur over a third country: Korea.
American leaders agonized over how we lost China, a country the U.S. had traditionally felt strong sentimental ties to, largely because of missionary activities there since the 1800s. In February 1950, a Sino-Soviet Treaty abrogated the Yalta agreement to maintain the status quo in Asia, thus opening a new front in the Cold War.
After the war, the victorious Americans and Soviets arbitrarily partitioned Korea, which had been occupied by Japan since the early part of the century, at the thirty-eighth parallel. Soviet dominated North Korea became Communist, while American backed South Korea was capitalist and democratic, at least in form.
In September 1945 American occupation troops landed under General John Hodge (seen below right with Syngman Rhee and General MacArthur).Ignoring local Korean parties and opinion, he relied, incredibly, on over 500,000 Japanese troops and tens of thousands of Japanese bureaucrats to run the country, which deeply offended the South Koreans. When the Japanese were finally replaced, the US needed Koreans to help, but were unwilling to include communists, who were numerous. Instead, they relied on professionals, especially if they had been educated in the U.S. or by American missionaries, while ignoring how unpopular or corrupt they might be.
The American supported leader of South Korea was the contentious Syngman Rhee, seen here shaking hands with an American General as UN troops arrive to stop the N. Korean offensive in August, 1950. He was American-educated (the first Korean to get a degree at an American university) and had spent most of the period of Japan’s occupation of Korea (1910-45) in the U.S. While he had connections in America, he had no real support base in Korea. However, until the North Korean invasion, American officials didn’t really care, seeing no value in Korea or the feelings of its people. Rhee’s stubbornness would prove a major stumbling block in future negotiations at Panmunjon.
Kim Il Sung, the popular communist leader of North Korea, had opposed the Japanese during the war, although he spent more time in Russia than leading the resistance from horseback (as seen in the propaganda painting to the left) and worked with the Soviets. After the war Stalin put him in charge of North Korea, where he broke up great estates and gave them to peasants, initially without collectivization. Soon he began showing his true colors, as he ruthlessly suppressed any opposition, causing many non-communists to flee to the South. His regime and that of his son, Kim Jung Il, would prove to be among the most brutal and repressive dictatorships since World War II.
Kim constantly sought Stalin’s permission and support to invade the South. When Mao and the communists finally seized control of China in October 1949, Stalin gave Kim the green light as part of a three-way deal. Stalin would supply China and North Korea with arms, while China and North Korea supplied the bodies and blood to tie down and wear out U.S. forces and resources.
By spring, 1950, large numbers of Soviet tanks, planes, artillery, and machine guns had been delivered to North Korea and were amassing on the border. Despite reports of a buildup, MacArthur and his staff in Tokyo ignored the signs, then panicked when the invasion started. Below: South Korean refugees flee the advancing North Korean army, also complicating any efforts by their own army to regroup and fight.
On June 25, seven North Korean divisions led by big T-34 tanks, arguably the best tanks to fight in World War II, struck across the border, completely surprising the South Korean army and quickly driving it into full retreat. Below: Exhausted South Korean troops rest during their retreat in July, 1950
Three days later, they took the South Korean capital, Seoul. In order to slow the communist advance the South Koreans blew up bridges in their path, in one case killing thousands of refugees as well.
South Korean refugees flee the North Korean advance. At one time or another, most Koreans, North and South, were refugees from the fighting.
This crisis brought to the forefront the fledgling United Nations, founded in 1945 in the recurring hope that such an international organization could help defuse conflicts and safeguard the peace. The permanent members of its main executive body, the Security Council, each had the power to veto any proposed actions. As luck would have it, when the Security Council met to discuss the Korean crisis, the Soviets were boycotting the meeting in protest over refusal to admit Communist China. Russia’s absence allowed the United States to pass a resolution calling for an international force to stop the North Koreans. Below: Two diplomats talk over the empty Soviet seat in the UN Security Council.
Although fifteen other nations would join them under the UN flag, the first forces sent to help South Korea were Americans from their occupation force in Japan. Unfortunately, by 1950, thanks to the soft life in Japan, they had lost all combat readiness, in terms of both training and equipment.
American troops arriving in South Korea to stop the North Korean advance also had no respect for the North Koreans they were about to face, thinking they would just run away as soon as the Americans landed. They didn’t run.
Instead, the Americans, who fought as well as could be expected, were outgunned and outclassed by the North Koreans every step of the way. Among other things, they had no anti-tank weapons that could stop the enemy’s T-34 tanks. By September, American and South Korean forces, along with hundreds of thousands of refugees, were barely hanging on to a toehold around the port city of Pusan in the extreme south of the peninsula. Only American bombing of North Korean supply lines had any effect in slowing down their advance. Below: One of the few T-34 tanks the Americans succeeded in knocking out.
On September 15, UN forces led by MacArthur struck back, but not head on at Pusan. Instead, despite tricky tides and beaches, having little information on enemy defenses, and against contrary advice, MacArthur launched a risky amphibious landing 150 miles behind North Korean lines at Inchon. Luckily, it was a success, forcing the North Koreans into a headlong retreat northward to avoid getting trapped by the UN forces.
After heavy resistance in which 50,000 civilians were killed, Seoul was recaptured (9/25)
A marine stands over North Korean soldiers killed in the fighting around Seoul
Marines carry out another virtually unopposed landing, this time at Onsan, North Korea, in October, 1950.
Two weeks after taking Seoul, Macarthur crossed the 38th parallel into North Korean territory, taking its capital, Pyongyang (10/19). It was the only communist capital to fall to the West during the Cold War.
Stalin, not wanting to get directly involved against the United States, pushed China to support North Korea. Therefore, by way of the Indian ambassador in Beijing, China started warning the U.S. to stop its advance, which was rapidly approaching the Chinese border at the Yalu River. MacArthur wouldn’t listen, and his troops kept advancing toward the Chinese border.
Meanwhile, Truman, worried about China intervening, met with MacArthur at Wake Island. The general assured Truman that his continuing advance through N. Korea carried no risk of Chinese intervention. MacArthur even snubbed the president’s invitation to lunch. But with mid-term elections coming up, Truman had to be nice to the highly popular general, even describing their meeting as the most satisfying of his career.
Six weeks after this meeting, despite MacArthur’s confident assertions, massive Chinese intervention was driving UN forces in headlong retreat. It started as a warning shot. On October 25, Chinese forces suddenly struck in two ferocious and devastating attacks on forward units of the UN army. UN forces didn’t even realize these were Chinese until they found that the prisoners they took couldn’t understand Korean. Then, as suddenly as they had attacked, the Chinese were gone, without a trace of their army to be found.
Rather than take this warning seriously, MacArthur continued his advance northward toward China, sure that he could easily sweep aside any Chinese forces that dared challenge him. So overconfident was he that he split his forces going north and sent what he considered spare ammunition back to Japan. As far as he was concerned, he had won the war and the troops would be home by Christmas. Meanwhile, half a million Chinese soldiers were moving across the Yalu.
On November 26, right after Thanksgiving, 300,000 Chinese troops changed MacArthur’s Christmas plans. The Chinese general PengDehuai, compensated for his army’s lack of modern equipment with effective infiltration tactics away from the roads and enemy detection. As a result, MacArthur and UN forces, who were tied down to wheeled vehicles and the roads that could carry them, were caught completely off-guard
Pengwould later be rewarded for his service to China by being executed as a traitor to Communism during Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
Being assaulted from the surrounding hills, UN forces soon found themselves engulfed in successive human waves. Typically, they would mow down wave after wave until they were out of ammunition and were either overrun or had to retreat, leaving their wounded behind. Below: the results of a Chinese human wave assault.
“It was enough to make your hair stand on end…When the bugles died away we heard a voice through a megaphone and then the blast of a police whistle. I was plenty scared, but who wasn’t? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them in the moonlight. It was like the snow coming to life, and they were shouting and shaking their fists--just raising hell…The Chinese didn’t come at us by fire and maneuver…they came in a rush like a pack of wild dogs. Even though I was ready it was a terrible shock.”--Martin Russ, Breakout
Making this especially bad was the Korean winter, so that frostbite claimed more victims than combat did. An army that just days before thought it had won the war was now in full retreat, trying to use a scorched-earth policy to slow down the enemy. Caught in the middle were thousands of Korean civilians, many of whom were killed in the crossfire or even blatantly massacred. On December 6, the communists retook Pyongyang. On January 4, 1951, Seoul fell for the third time in six months.
Despite their hardships and desperate position, the marines fought their way out, destroying several Chinese divisions in some of the most celebrated engagements in the Corps’ history. Making this even more remarkable was the Marines’ custom of not leaving any of their own wounded behind.
Meanwhile, MacArthur openly advocated invading China and using the Atomic bomb.However, with nuclear weapons potentially in the equation, Truman realized that this was a whole new kind of war that MacArthur was threatening to turn into a global holocaust. Finally, on April 10, 1951 he relieved MacArthur of his command. It was one of the most controversial and divisive acts of Truman’s presidency, but he refused to back down, asserting the principle of civilian control of policy.
After Truman fired him, MacArthur came home to a hero’s welcome with parades, etc. In his farewell address to Congress, he told them “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.” In 1964 MacArthur died.
In January, Truman had put General Matthew Ridgeway in charge of the fighting in Korea, an inspired choice, who instilled a new fighting spirit in UN forces. By January1951, they had stopped the Chinese offensive and were counterattacking in February.
UN forces, having stopped the Chinese offensive by January, 1951, counterattack in February.
By late March UN forces had recaptured Seoul and reached the 38thparallel, the original border before the war started. In late April, they met and repulsed another Chinese offensive.
STALEMATE (JULY 8,1951-JULY 27 1953)
By now the front was stabilizing along the 38th Parallel where a prolonged war of stalemate would develop, with neither side able to dislodge the other with conventional weapons or willing to use nuclear weapons and risk a Third World War.
Instead, the fighting reverted to a style of trench warfare more reminiscent of World War I. On one side the huge numbers of Chinese soldiers entrenched in the hillsides held up any UN advances, while overstretched supply lines going back to China and American artillery and air superiority hampered any Chinese offensives. Below: enemy trenches along “Heartbreak Ridge”.
