The Korean War is sometimes called the “Forgotten War.” There must be no such thing as a forgotten war. Every war changes those who fight in it, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. We must never forget just how terrible war is. This is especially true for Korea, which defined the beginning of the Cold War and did so much to ensure it remained cold rather than thermonuclear hot. This is the 70th anniversary of the end of that war. It seems a fitting time to remember how it happened, how it ended, and how much worse it could have been.
On this Veterans Day, I have also included some photos that speak for themselves. I am posting this to Substack first because many of my friends and colleagues will not be able to open a file with many photos… And if you cannot see the full text and 9 photos here, send me a note and I will send the full email. joe@jlshaefer.com.
BACKGROUND:
It was fate and pique that, in 1950, allowed for the defense of democracy and the creation of a thriving capitalist economy in what is today the Republic of Korea.
It was “fate” because, when Japan defeated China in the 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War, then handed Russia a humiliating defeat 10 years later, Korea was the prize. Japan ruled Korea for the next nearly 40 years. At the conclusion of WWII in 1945, the Allied Powers shared the responsibility for the occupation of former Nazi and Japanese homelands. In Germany and Austria, it was divided between the UK, France, the US and the Soviet Union.
Even though the Soviet Union only entered the Pacific War 5 days before the end of hostilities with Japan, Korea was divided into a Soviet zone and a U.S. zone. The USSR immediately turned N. Korea into a communist wasteland and heavily armed the country they dubbed in true Orwellian fashion “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK.)” They installed in office Korean communist Kim Il Sung, who then ruled as a cult-of-personality totalitarian dictator overseeing a centrally planned socialist economy. This autocracy was then passed to his son, then his grandson, who rules today.
In 1949, the communist faction in China was victorious in the civil war that had been raging even before WWII. The losing Republic of China retreated, they claimed temporarily, to Taiwan. This meant the Soviet Union now had a partner that bordered the remaining 90% of their DPRK client state’s northern boundary. Had the North Koreans been victorious it would have meant a contiguous bloc of China, the USSR, and Korea facing only a war-weakened Japan, the Philippines, and the other island nations.
The Korean War began on June 25th, 1950 when, supported by the Soviet Union and China, North Korea invaded the South.
This is where the “pique” comes in. The Charter of the United Nations makes clear that its most important role is to prevent war and promote peace, security, cooperation, and human rights among nations. Chapter VII gives the “Security Council” the power to take action against any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. Who sits on the Security Council? The “permanent members” were the five large population and most engaged allied nations that were still standing after WWII, the U.S. the USSR, the U.K., France, and China. There are ten other members voted in on a revolving basis. But only the permanent five have complete veto power over any decision.
If the Soviet Union and China had veto power over the decision to defend the South, why did they not prevent the Council from voting to assist South Korea? Two reasons. (1) The China we know today had just won their civil war 8 months prior. There was still sporadic fighting on the mainland. It was this pre-Mao China that was on the Security Council. As for the Soviet Union, (2) In a fit of pique the USSR had boycotted the Security Council and General Assembly meetings because the world body still recognized Taiwan as representing China. All 11 members of the Council, ex0the Soviet Union, voted to send a UN force to repel North Korea.
It is important to remember that this invasion took place just 4 years and 9 months after Japan’s surrender on the USS Missouri. The world was exhausted from a war that had lasted roughly the same amount of time. Yet the Soldiers, Sailors. Airmen and Marines of 16 nations, believing they would never have to go to war again, were sent to fight a surprise assault in a faraway place that two previously supposed allies, the USSR and China, had fomented and financed. Had the world gone completely mad?
THE INVASION AND THE RESPONSE:
There are many sources anyone can visit – and I hope you do – that will tell the tales of stupidity, arrogance, false confidence, and missteps in the Korean War. Those same sources should also tell the stories of good fortune, excellent planning on the fly, great logistics, and unimaginable bravery under fire that also should sear this time and this place into our memory.
The basics are as follows:
After the Security Council vote, the UN formed the United Nations Command. Since the incursion came into the US zone of occupation, the US was selected to lead the 16 nations that sent combat troops and the 5 other nations that pledged field hospitals and other medical and humanitarian soldiers and civilians.
They were needed. While the U.S. and the USSR had withdrawn all but a handful of administrative, training, and rapid response troops by 1949, Kim Il Sung had traveled to Moscow and received Stalin’s approval for the invasion. The Russians provided state-of-the-art artillery, aircraft, tanks, combined arms training and logistics. The USSR also sent its senior combat generals to create the plan of attack. The Chinese under Mao provided some 50,000 to 70,000 PLA (People’s Liberation Army) combat veterans, most of Korean descent, but had been raised in and lived across the border in China
The Republic of Korea (ROK) forces, on the other hand, were almost completely focused on counterinsurgency operations. (A number of Koreans who had fought aslongside Mao’s communist forces in China returned to both northern and southern Korea. In the new ROK, they threatened the peace and stability of this new nation.) A hundred or so American counterinsurgency experts were left in-country to help the ROK Army subdue these scattered groups. Unlike the massive force buildup in North Korea, however, the ROK military was small, had suffered many casualties in subduing the insurgencies, and was not trained in modern conventional warfare.
To give but one order of battle statistic, the DPRK air force had assembled 110 attack bombers, and 150 Yak fighter aircraft for the assault -- with 114 fighter aircraft and 78 additional bombers in reserve. (Add the addition of Soviet MiG-15s from the Soviet Union via China, flown by Soviet pilots, when China entered the war.)
The ROK had 12 unarmed propeller-driven 2-4 passenger aircraft for flying dignitaries and commanders and 10 AT-6 advanced-trainer aircraft.
It was a bloodbath.
It was a bloodbath made worse by the US assessment of the known buildup of military forces in the DPRK, which was both arrogant and asinine. The CIA noted the southward movement by the KPA but assessed this as a "defensive measure" and concluded an invasion was "unlikely". Days before the invasion, the US commander of the United States Military Advisory Group to the Republic of Korea (KMAG,) the highest-ranking US military officer in South Korea, reported that a North Korean invasion would only provide "target practice” to the undermanned and poorly-equipped ROK forces.
Both could not have been more wrong. The ensuing sweep by North Korean forces decimated the countryside and caused the indiscriminate loss of life that was to characterize this war, with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Within 2 days, Syngman Rhee fled the capital while Seoul was captured by the Korean People’s Army (KPA.) Within 5 days the ROK, which had 95,000 troops to repel the invaders, had just 22,000 left. These and the few US advisers retreated during those 5 days to just the small enclave you see in the southeast corner of this map.
Like a giant steamroller, the KPA had moved down the Korean peninsula nearly unopposed.
On June 30, and with the blessing of the UN, the US began the transfer of two full divisions of Americans from Japan to Korea. Who were these Americans? Initially, they were active-duty members of the occupation forces in Japan. Later, they were volunteers who believed the world must be defended from communism, they were draftees who did not even know where Korea was, and they were National Guard and Reserve members of all the armed services.
Those who had fought in WWII must have had a sense of déjà vu, or conviction, or fear that they had escaped The Bullet just a short 5 years prior. But each and every one of them made themselves, their families, and their nation proud. As the UN Command – mostly a US operation based if nothing else on the fact that the US had so many troops in occupied Japan that were no longer needed there.
I will not tarry long with the day-to-day facts so many readers already know… The almost being pushed into the sea in the Pusan Perimeter. The Hail Mary move to encircle the North Koreans by the daring sea landing at Inchon, near Seoul. (Which Zhou Enlai, communist China’s first premier, predicted before it was done as the only strategy any good military man would choose.) The failure of the North Koreans to remember three of the most important facets of any successful war: logistics, logistics, and logistics. They had raced to conquer the entire peninsula, but where was their food coming from? Their ammunition? The fuel for their tanks?
After the Inchon landings, the UN forces pushed them out of South Korea in short order. You can see the territorial gains of the KPA on the map. Then the siege that got them little else. Then, in just two months, how those trapped between two armies from Inchon and Pusan surrendered or died. Then how UN forces penetrated deep into North Korea by November.
But then, by overreaching, it went all bad for the UN Command.
Zhou Enlai made it crystal-clear that the PRC (China) would defend North Korea and send troops across the Yalu if the US crossed the 38th Parallel. MacArthur, the overall UN commander, viewed Zhou's threats as posturing. The US then announced its goal of unifying all of Korea. An accidental bombing of a Chinese airfield just north of the Yalu River, further alarmed PRC leadership.
When President Truman recalled General MacArthur to discuss the delicate diplomatic issues as well as the necessity of not starting World War III, MacArthur responded that he was needed where he was. So Truman flew to Wake Island to meet with MacArthur, who stated that, as a military expert, he knew that neither the USSR nor the PRC would likely come to North Korea's aid. Popular in the US, and during the time of the early McCarthy Hearings, MacArthur felt he was the one who should make the decisions.
This would not be the last time in American history where the mission – in this case, the pushing of the KPA back across the armistice demarcation line and reinstating the ROK government – would fall victim to ego, stupidity or mission creep.
MacArthur sent his forces into the northernmost parts of North Korea, in direct violation of the UN promise not to do so. It was then that the war ended successfully – and another began.
Chinese forces poured across the border, the UN forces were forced back during one of the harshest winters in memory and the UN forces, now still under MacArthur, but “directly” under his subordinate, the gifted General Matt Ridgeway, made the strategic decision to abandon Seoul and Inchon. He then lured the Chinese and Koreans to follow, while his men’s incredible bravery and perseverance in this Winter from Hell turned the tide.
As a result, in January of 1951, the PRC began making offers of peace. MacArthur, without consulting Washington, decided to send an ultimatum to the PRC. MacArthur demanded that the Chinese withdraw their troops. His unilateral decision only made the Chinese more resolved to stay in the war. Three months later the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with the President that MacArthur must be relieved of his position. It took another 2 years of mostly what was called the "Accordion-War" to extract America and her allies from the decision to not halt at the 38th parallel. Finally, end it did.
TODAY’S KOREA:
Sadly, there is no unified Korea today. North Korea is a “monarchical” (in the sense that “it is good to be the king”) dictatorship where the average resident is underfed, undereducated, and treated no better than livestock.
South Korea became, economically, one of the six “Asian Tigers.” Militarily, as any of us who have been there and worked with our counterparts can attest, the will, the training, and the capabilities of the ROK military forces are second to none. The people of South Korea who, during those times of war, emigrated to the United States and other democracies have shown themselves to be hard-working, honest and devotees of quality education. The Republic of Korea is an ally the Free World can depend upon. Our Korean War Veterans did this. Bu sacrificing years of their lives, and sometimes their lives, they created a bulwark of democracy in a region that desperately needs more of the same.
Did the Korean War of 70 years ago this year enable such a difference? I believe it did. It is unfortunate that events did not allow the same for those in the North. But I could say the same for Russians, many Chinese, and a score of other nations around the world.
Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for Freedom. Men and women who volunteer to go to faraway places, like the 5.7 million who served in Korea, to defend Freedom are the backbone of The United States of America. Thank you, Veterans, one and all.
Mostly it was the US by virtue of our troops already in Japan. but here are…
The Nations That Sent Their Own Troops to Defend South Korea
United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Canada, France, New Zealand, Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, South Africa, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ethiopia and Colombia.
And those who sent medical hospitals, ambulances, and more: Denmark, India, Italy, Norway, Sweden and West Germany.
The Photos: