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 The early politics of a divided Korea The outbreak of the war The landing at Inchon and the move of the war to the North China intervenes MacArthur is relieved of command The war drags on ArmisticeThe textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work America – The Covenant Nation © 2021, Volume Two, pages 99-106. |
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On 25 June 1950 Korean soldiers from the northern half of the country suddenly and without any warning invaded the southern part of the country. With this, events took on features that made a mockery of the term Cold War. In Korea, this had become truly a Hot War. The problem began back at Yalta with the decision designed to entice the Russians to enter the war against Japan – by promising to divide the Korean Peninsula into two occupation zones, separating North and South along the 38th parallel. The Northern zone would be placed temporarily under Soviet occupation and the South under American occupation at war’s end. The area had been held by the Japanese since 1910, and with the Japanese surrender was going to require some major nation-building to stabilize and rebuild Korean society. Roosevelt seemed to have no qualms about awarding supervision of the North to the Soviets, trusting Stalin to cooperate with Roosevelt's vision of a new world of post-war democracies. However, Roosevelt had also felt that he needed some kind of sweetener to ensure Soviet involvement in the war with Japan once Germany was defeated. Anyway, the understanding with Stalin was that Korea was to be brought to unity and independence within five years after the end of the war. But stabilizing a post-Japanese Korea turned out to be a very complicated matter. Many Koreans were incensed that Japanese occupation had been followed now by Soviet and American occupation, rather than the national independence that the Koreans had hoped for. In 1946, massive street demonstrations broke out, encouraged on the Left by Korean Communists – and on the Right by Korean conservatives under Syngman Rhee's leadership – and aimed against each other as well as against the occupying powers. Also, America's relations with the Soviets were by this time becoming increasingly difficult. The failed attempt led by the United Nations to unify Korea Thus America decided in 1947 to call on the U.N. to conduct U.N.-supervised elections, in order to turn matters over to the Koreans themselves. But the Soviets claimed that conditions were not ready for such an election and attempted to block the election. Nonetheless, in 1948 U.N.-sponsored elections did go forward (amidst much violence) as proposed – but only in the Southern half of the country. Stalin refused to allow the elections to be held in the North. The elections (in the South) were won easily by Syngman Rhee, many Communists in the South having boycotted the elections. The Soviets then responded by sponsoring their own elections three months later in the North (it's amazing how quickly conditions changed so as to ready the North Koreans for their own elections!) – not surprisingly resulting in a Communist victory there and the premiership of the local Communist leader Kim Il-sung.1 The Rhee government, with much difficulty – and American assistance – succeeded in putting down a Communist-directed uprising in the South, using brutal repression in the process. But this ended the hope in the North of a forceful unification of Korea through Communist revolution. Meanwhile in the North, which had always been the more industrialized part of the country, Koreans were supplying massive amounts of aid to Mao’s army in China, from machinery to military manpower. As a consequence, the two communist neighbors (Mao’s China and Kim Il-sung’s North Korea) drew close, both fearing an assault coming from America’s supposed plans to overthrow Asian Communism everywhere (they were hearing such threats coming from a highly alarmed Middle America rather than from the White House). But it seemed that neither Stalin nor Truman were interested in making Korea a cause of mutual conflict. The Soviets withdrew their troops from the North in 1948 and the Americans did the same the following year. Things were now left in the hands of Rhee in the South and Kim in the North, both of whom engaged in massive arrests of political opponents in their respective zones. Both also claimed to be the only legitimate voice for all of Korea, and both seemed to be laying out plans for the forced unity of the peninsula under their personal authority. But with the detonation of the Soviets' first nuclear bomb in 1949 and with Mao's victory in China, Stalin surmised that the situation had shifted greatly strategically. He was willing to rethink Soviet involvement in Korea. The Americans had not really intervened seriously in the war in China, indicating to Stalin a lesser American interest in Asian affairs. Besides, a speech issued by Secretary of State Dean Acheson, defining America's zone of interest in Asia, had not mentioned Korea at all. Also the Soviets new nuclear weapon more or less neutralized American nuclear superiority, in a sense removing that as a concern that the Soviets previously had about coming up directly against the Americans. Furthermore, support of North Korean Communist unification of the entire Korean peninsula under Soviet sponsorship would give the Soviets a strategic position atop the Sea of China. Thus by early 1950 the Soviets were massively helping Kim Il-sung get ready for an invasion of the South. And by June, Kim was ready for this invasion. 1The
Korean Communists had made themselves very popular by land reform
(undertaken only in the North) which broke the power in the North of
the old landed aristocracy which had traditionally dominated Korea. But
as in China, once the Communists were in full control of their society,
these lands would be taken away from the newly independent Korean
farmers and turned over to the state.
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The attack of the North Korean army on the South
The South Korean army was no match for the North Korean army, which immediately smashed quickly and deeply into South Korea in late June. The North Korean army was equipped with all the latest military machinery and its ranks were filled by soldiers battle-trained in the Chinese Civil War. The much smaller South Korean army had no tanks, not much artillery and its units were scattered and minimally trained for combat. Their loyalty to the Rhee government was also questionable. The South Koreans appeared totally unable to stop the North Korean invaders. In a few short days the South Korean capital at Seoul (located near the 38th parallel) had to be abandoned by the South Korean – or ROK (Republic of Korea) – government. Also, the 95,000-strong ROK army in less than a week had fallen in size to about 22,000 men (many soldiers had fled, some even defected to the North Korean side). Truman responds But immediately seeing the huge danger this posed to the American position in East Asia, Truman acted quickly. Given that Japan was at the heart of America's Asia policy, there was no way that America could let Korea – separated from Japan by only a small distance of water – fall into the hands of a Soviet client state. On the other hand, Europe weighed much heavier in American strategic thinking than did Asia, and Truman at first was not quite sure that the Korean crisis was not just a Soviet attempt to divert American attention away from the East-West struggle for Europe. Yet something had to be done ... quickly. The U.N. Security Council was called into
session immediately. The timing was fortuitous, because the Soviets
were not present to veto the resolution, which they surely would have
done had they been present. The Russians had been boycotting the U.N.
meetings because of their irritation over Mao's China not receiving the
all-important China seat on the Security Council. They would regret
this action of theirs (never to be repeated again), because at this
time a resolution was passed authorizing the sending of U.N. troops to
defend South Korea. It would not be just the Americans who were coming to the aid of a besieged South Korea. It would be the United Nations that would be sending military aid to Korea. Now for the Communists (Russian, Chinese and Korean), any coming up against the United Nations and their U.N. troops would confront them with a very tricky diplomatic dilemma. Anyway, American U.N. troops were immediately flown from Japan to Korea, and there took charge of what was left of the ROK army. But the Americans themselves did not yet have the equipment or the numbers to hold off the heavily-armed North Koreans. In early July, 400 Americans were thrown back in their first serious engagement with a North Korean force of some 5,000 soldiers at Osan (just south of Seoul). But this action, and ones like it, did help to slow down the North Korean advance. But by early August the American U.N. troops (joined now by British UN troops – and soon other U.N. national troops as well) and the ROK troops had been pushed south all the way to the city of Pusan, and the area immediately around it was all the ground the U.N. troops were able to hold. But at this point American heavy military supplies plus additional troops began to reach Korea, and after a fierce 6-week fight at Pusan, it was clear that the North Korean offensive had come to a halt. Now the U.N. troops began the painful process of pushing the North Korean troops back north. But it was murderously slow going in the mountainous terrain of South Korea (similar to the problems the Americans and British had encountered in Italy six years earlier).
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Wikipedia
John Foster Dulles being
shown the 38th parallel in Korea – June 17. 1950
(just prior to the North
Korean invasion of the South)
John Foster Dulles Papers,
Public Policy Collections,
Department of Rare Books and Special Collections,
Princeton University Library
General Douglas MacArthur
– leading the UN forces in Korea
Library of
Congress
Koreans fleeing the
fighting
United Nations (US
Army)
Men of the 1st Cav Div go
ashore somewhere in Korea, 18 July 50.
United States Army
GI's advancing to the action;
Koreans civilians fleeing the action – August 1950
1st LT William Millward of
Baltimore, Md, Civil Assistance Officer, 5th Cavalry Regiment,
1st
Cavalry Division, distributes candy to Korean
children
at a refugee Collecting Point in Western Korea.
United States Army
Conferring at Chipyong-ni,
Korea, during General Ridgway's tour of the fighting front, are L-R:
LT GEN Matthew Ridgway,
CG US Eighth Army; MAJ GEN Charles Palmer, CG, 1st Cav Div;
COL John Daskalopoules,
CO, 7th Cav Regt, 1st Cav. Division
United States Army
Vehicles of the 1st Cavalry
Division move up to the front lines, somewhere in Korea, 3 Aug 1950
United States Army
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The landing at Inchon and the liberation of Seoul
It was decided to conduct an end run around the North Koreans by sending an American landing party by sea somewhere to the north behind the North Korean lines, cutting off their supply from North Korea and trapping them in an encirclement. General MacArthur understood well the lessons of Gallipoli (World War One) and Anzio (World War Two), and was determined to move as quickly as possible off their initial landing base on the beach ... actually, even quicker than possible! Also the Americans made visible preparations for a landing 105 miles south of the intended landing point, in order to confuse North Korean spies into believing that an American landing would take place at Kunsan. On 15 September 75,000 Marines were sent ashore at high tide at Inchon. And then without hesitating they swung directly behind lightly defended North Korean lines, catching the North Koreans by complete surprise. Seizing a strategic airfield, the Americans then began to fly in large numbers of soldiers and supplies. U.N. troops then headed for Seoul, engaging in a fierce 11-day fight for the ROK capital. By late September the city was cleared of the enemy. By this time North Korean troops were retreating in huge numbers to the north, to protect their Communist region from the attack from the south that they sensed would soon be coming their way. Crossing the 38th parallel Mao's Chinese Communist government also
sensed the dangers headed its way and thus warned America not to move
north across the 38th parallel (the temporary line dividing North Korea
and South Korea) or China would be forced to intervene. But by October
1st, ROK troops had crossed the 38th parallel and a week later, with
U.N. authorization, so did a large number of UN (largely American)
troops. Thus Truman flew (October 15th) to Wake Island in the mid-Pacific to meet MacArthur (whose arrogance led him to refuse to come to meet the president in the continental United States) in an attempt to get some kind of idea of what was happening. MacArthur assured Truman that the Chinese would not dare to intervene, for "there would be the greatest slaughter" of the Chinese because they would be lacking adequate air cover.
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Soldiers Climbing Sea Wall
in Inchon – September 15, 1950
The Battle of Inchon (code
name: Operation Chromite)
was a decisive invasion and battle during the
Korean War.
Paratroopers of the 187th
A/B BCT float earthward near Munsan, Korea.
United States Army
U.S. Marines fighting in
Seoul, Korea, Sept. 1950
Troops manning 90mm guns,
supporting the 5th Regimental Combat Team, 1st Cav Division,
on the Taegu
front lines, ready to lay down a barrage
on the Communist led North Korean as
UN Forces attack.
United States Army
U.N. artillery in
Korea.
U.S. Department of
Defense
Equipment captured from the
North Koreans is examined by men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment,
Waegwan,
Korea.
United States Army
Gun crew of a 105mm howitzer
in action along the 1st Cavalry Division sector
of the Korean battle front.
United States Army
Tanks and infantrymen of
the 1st Cav Division pursue Communist led North Korean Forces
approximately 14 miles north
of Kaesong, Korea.
United States Army
CPL George D. Smedley of
Mt. Vernon, Ind (L) and SGT Thomas P. Montana of Yuma, Ariz,
light machine
gun crewmembers
of Co C, 8th Cav
Regt, 1st Cav Div, watch for Communist-led
North Koreans troops on the
38th parallel line, northwest
of Kaesong.
United States Army
Personnel of the 378th Engineer
Combat Battalion, Eighth US Army, attached to the IX Corps,
install treadways during
the construction of a bridge.
United States Army
Yanks examine a Soviet-built
tank captured from the North Korean forces, Waegwan, Korea.
United States Army
Troops of Co. B, 519th Military
Police Battalion in position
above a railway tunnel with
a .30 caliber air-cooled machine gun.
United States Army
Men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment,
1st Cavalry Division, pass burning buildings and knocked-out
tanks of the North Koreans
as they advance to the front in Pyongyang.
United States Army
Cpl. Elmer Soprano, First
Platoon, Company A, 4th Signal Battalion. leans over a cliff to
fasten
a jumper, as they rehabilitate lines
from Tanyang to Chechon, Korea.
United States Army
Men of the 1st Cav Division
fighting in a train yard in Pyongyang, Korea.
United States Army
The company street of Co.
K, 31st Inf. Regt., 7th US Inf Div.
United States Army
U.S. forces target rail cars
south of Wonsan, North Korea, an east coast port city.
U.S. Army Military History
Institute
But this war – like any other – is filled with tragedy
"A grief stricken American
infantryman whose buddy has been killed in action is
comforted by another soldier.
In the background a corpsman methodically fills out
casualty tags, Haktong-ni
area Korea."
By Sfc. Al Chang, August
28, 1950
National Archives
Men replace plain headboards
with crosses on graves in the 1st Cavalry Division
Temporary Cemetery, Taegu, Korea, 25 Aug
1950.
United States Army
Medical Co, 8th Cav Regt,
1st Cav Div-SGT E. O'Brien fills out tag to attached to a litter,
while Charles Sutton comforts
a wounded man who will be sent from this
medical aid station near
Yangzi, Korea, to a collection station further to the rear.
United States Army
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But Mao was indeed making plans for a massive Chinese intervention. A buildup of Chinese troops along the border was severely underestimated in size by MacArthur. Then on October 25th, 200,000 Chinese "volunteer"2 troops crossed the Yalu River into North Korea, a group of them catching an American regiment by surprise and nearly surrounding it, sending the Americans into retreat – although the Chinese also withdrew immediately after the action. The Americans were not sure what to make of the event. The Americans resumed their northward movement, this time running into a Chinese force of about 120,000 troops waiting for them at the Chosin Reservoir, which in the bitter cold of a North Korean winter threw the 30,000 American troops back, in a battle that lasted over two weeks – and which cost the Americans half their troops as dead or wounded. Now the Americans found themselves in retreat. By mid-December the American Eighth Army located in the Northwest had fallen all the way back to the 38th parallel. This required American troops of the Tenth Corps in the Northeast to have to fall back to prevent themselves also from being outflanked, and to assist what was left of the Eighth Army. At this time the Chinese removed North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung from military command and took direct control of the armies fighting the U.N. troops. Then in early January (1951) the South Korean capital Seoul was taken by the Communists for the second time. But otherwise the line elsewhere between the enemy armies tended to stabilize along something like the North-South line of division at the 38th parallel. Then in mid-February an Allied force of Koreans, Americans and French managed to break a huge Communist troop offensive and kill the further momentum of the Chinese. Now the Eighth Army went on the counteroffensive against the Chinese army, which was running out of supplies. U.N. troops thus recaptured Seoul and Kaesong and moved once again across the 38th parallel. The Chinese attempted yet another huge attack (700,000 troops) on the UN forces in late April, but after a month-long back and forth movement, the line of battle remained pretty much the same as it had been before the attack. Battles continued. A huge number of Chinese soldiers' lives were lost (through malnutrition and disease as often as through battle). But these battles had little effect on the overall picture. A military stalemate had set in, one that would remain largely unchanged despite periodic efforts to move it one way or the other. 2They were classed as "volunteer" troops by the Chinese in the attempt to avoid the appearance of a direct war being conducted by the Chinese against the United Nations troops. But they were hardly "volunteers."
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In late 1950 Chinese "volunteer" troops
(some 3000,000 of them) come charging
across the border into Korea – and suddenly it is an entirely
different game
The battle of the Changjin
or "Chosin" Reservoir – late November 1950
Wikipedia – "Korean
War"
MacArthur looking over North
Korea along the Yalu River border with China as the US
offensive reaches that
border – November 24, 1950. But somehow he failed to detect
the 300,000
Chinese
below gathering to counterattack the Americans.
National Archives
NA-111-SC-352944
GIs retreating before an
on-slaught of Chinese "volunteers" in North Korea
Marines retreating from the
Chosin Reservoir in sub-zero weather
Marine dead brought back
from the fighting in the Chosin Reservoir area
National Archives
NA-127-GK-197-A5348
American aircraft aboard
a snow-covered aircraft carrier – stymied by Soviet MiG-15
fighter jets
PFC William Stinnett Jr.,
Stevensport, Ky, maintains a vigil
against the Chinese Communists
at his post with the 5th Cavalry Regiment in Korea.
United States Army
Koreans fleeing the fighting
in 1951
"Men of the 1st Marine Division
capture Chinese Communists during fighting on the
central Korean front.
Hoengsong."
By Pfc. C.T. Wehner, March
2, 1951
National Archives
Pinned down by Chinese
Communist
fire, men of the 15th RCT, 3rd Inf Div, take over
during the drive against the Communist forces
near the 38th parallel. 23 March 1951
United States Army
A wearied
Marine
GIs pinned down by enemy fire near Anyang
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MacArthur versus Truman
At this point (mid-April 1951) Truman relieved MacArthur as Supreme Commander in Korea. Among other elements of MacArthur's troubling behavior, MacArthur had come to feel that the decision whether or not to use nuclear weapons in fighting the Chinese should be his rather than the president's. In fact MacArthur seemed to be boasting to the press about how he might actually do that, in order to liberate all of China from the Communists. By now Truman was furious. He was concerned not only about MacArthur dragging America into a war involving the entire Chinese nation (which had not worked out so well for the Japanese!) but he was also concerned about what such a war would do to the American abilities to hold the line against Russia in Europe (an issue of no apparent interest to MacArthur, who was completely focused on the Asian theater of war). Thus it was that Truman dismissed MacArthur – quite aware of the reaction this would likely provoke among the American people. But it had to be done.3
3Because of this action, many Americans came to view MacArthur as a national hero – and Truman as a coward, if not almost a traitor. But a Congressional investigation ultimately concluded that Truman had indeed acted constitutionally, and correctly, and that MacArthur (who actually spent all his time in Tokyo) was out of touch with the military realities in Korea, as well as the critical challenges facing America in the rest of the world.
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MacArthur receiving a hero's
welcome in New York City (7 million turned out
to cheer him) after being relieved from
duty in Korea by Truman
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U.S. Troops advance on
Communist
forces in Korea – June 1951
Library of
Congress
Men of the US 1st Cavalry
Division bring in Chinese Communist captives,
north of the Imjin River,
Korea, June 1951.
United States Army
American troops secure a
mountain top with mortar fire somewhere in Korea.
United States Army
Members of the 68th Battalion,
Division Artillery attached to the 1st ROK Div.,
fire their 90mm anti-aircraft
guns.
United States Army
Artillerymen of the 24th
Infantry Div fire 155mm howitzers at dusk, Korea.
United States Army
Koreans unload empty shell
casings from a truck at the 2nd Infantry Division Ordnance
Salvage Dump, where they will be salvaged
for reuse, 6 September 1951.
United States Army
M4A3E8 "Sherman" Tank of
Company B, 72nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division,
fires its 76mm gun at enemy
bunkers on "Napalm Ridge", in support of the 8th ROK Division.
Photograph is dated 11 May
1952.
U.S. National Archives
Men and Pershing Tanks of
the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion
await orders to board the
LST's at the Pusan Docks, Korea..
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During the presidential campaign of 1952, Republican presidential candidate Eisenhower had made
the promise that if elected president he would personally go to Korea
to bring some kind of a resolution to the conflict that had been going
on since 1950, although most serious battlefield action had subsided
since mid-1952. The sticking point to an agreement among the warring
countries was the question of repatriating Chinese and North Korean
soldiers who refused to return to their home countries, a matter that
was finally resolved under Eisenhower's threat of nuclear weapons use
if North Korea and China did not back down in their insistence on the
return (and likely execution) of their resistant soldiers. Thus it was that an armistice (not an actual treaty of peace) was signed among the warring parties, leaving Korea rather permanently divided north and south along a line not too far off from the original temporary dividing line along the 38th parallel. Tensions would flare from time to time after that, but leave the line itself intact, even down to today.
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| At Kaesong and then at nearby Panmunjom
(located along the line of stalemate) talks began in July of 1951
between U.N. representatives and the Chinese and North Korean
representatives. These dragged on for two years until the terms for a cease-fire and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) were finally agreed on in July of 1953. |
U.N. troops at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
Miles
H. Hodges
