Attached is an article concerning a page from American Military History and it outlines the losses and gains of the Korean War (1950 - 1953). In five sentences this article gives the number of American dead and wounded, the number of U.N. dead and wounded and the amount of ground lost to the Chinese and North Korean military; a map of the stabilized front is provided.
On June 25, 1950 ten divisions of North Korean infantry invaded South Korea. In its narrowest sense, the invasion marked the beginning of a civil war between peoples of a divided country. In a far larger sense, it represented a break in tensions between the two dominant power blocs that had emerged from the Second World War. These well-illustrated pages appeared in
Quick Magazine two weeks after the hostilities commenced and serves to summarize the events in Washington and at the United Nations. Within the first twelve hours of the war President Truman committed U.S. air and naval forces to the defense of South Korea and signed a bill to widen the draft pool.
The Korean War ended in 1953. Click here to read about the military results of that war.
The Korean War was all of two weeks old when this column went to press describing the combustible atmosphere that characterized the Nation's Capitol as events unfolded on the Korean peninsula:
"A grim Senate voted the $1.2 billion foreign arms aid bill. Knots of legislators gathered on the floor or in the cloakrooms for whispered conversations. Crowds gathered around news tickers...
On everyone's lips was the question: 'Is this really World War III?'"
Click here to read about the need for Army women during the Korean War.
This single page analysis of the North Korean People's Army and the Army of South Korea will clue you in pretty quickly as to why President Truman hastened to get the necessary beans, bullets and band-aids delivered to the South as quickly as he did. This comparison, written by the U.S. Army History Section, clearly indicates that the North Korean force was intended to be an offensive army; well-equipped and fast-a-foot; the army of the South, by comparison, was intended (for some unexplained reason) to fight limited engagements - rather than prolonged, corps sized campaigns.
It was no surprise to the assorted military insiders of the world when the South Korean capital of Seoul was seized three days into the war.
"The very first engagement of the conflict, when the North Koreans crushed South Korean defenses at the 38th parallel, demonstrated the superiority of the North Korean Army. On June 28, three days after the opening attack, a tank/infantry force leading the main North Korean thrust entered Seoul... In the face of the onslaught, the South Korean Army retreated, leaving most of its equipment behind. Whatever effectiveness it may have possessed was already lost."
This editorial was one of the first of its kind and many more would follow on its heels. The opinions expressed would be repeated in American schoolrooms, barrooms, dinner tables and state houses all the way up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was not merely the parents of draftees who wondered aloud as to the whereabouts of the U.N. signatories in times of crises, but practically the whole nation:
"For two months the American and South Korean ground forces fought it out alone. For two months they fought without even the promise of help from other major powers..."
Attacking across a 125 mile front, the Chinese Army launched their spring offensive on May 17, 1951; unable to make any advances, they retired two weeks later, leaving behind some 80,000 dead.
"The Communist hit first on the east central front. A quick rout of two ROK divisions caught the U.S. 2nd Division, commanded by Major General Clark Ruffner, in a dangerous pocket with their east flank exposed...One officer called the Red onslaught 'an astounding demonstration. They wade right through macine gun or artillery fire. The bodies pile up and they walk right over the bodies and the pile of bodies gets higher.'"
"United Nations patrols in Korea probed north last week seeking out an enemy that wouldn't stand and fight. But early this week, after U.N. advance units had pushed to within eight miles of Seoul, the Communists suddenly stopped playing hide and seek and began to offer stiffer resistance.... The Communist reluctance to fight last week caused much speculation at Eighth Army headquarters. Some officers thought the Reds were regrouping for a major push down the center. Others felt the Chinese had pulled back to give weight to the cease-fire negotiations at Lake Success. But they all agreed on one point: the Communists have paid an appalling price for their Korean adventure."
In hindsight we can say that the musings of the first officers were correct: the Communists were indeed rearming for a major offensive that would begin the following May.
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
Eight months into the Korean War came this editorial from an American news magazine pointing out that the burden of defending South Korea was not being evenly shared by the other member states of the United Nations and that the U.S. was over-represented on the battlefields:
"When the Korean Communists invaded South Korea last June, the U.N. was quick to authorize the use of armed force to combat the aggression, but not so quick when it came to contributing troops. [As of February, 1951] U.N. forces in Korea total about 275,000. Of this number 150,000 are American and 100,000 are South Koreans. This leaves less than 25,000 from 11 of the other U.N. members - a pitifully small contribution... What is there definition of 'collective security'? Have they so soon forgotten Munich? Have they forgotten that collective firmness by the Allies, when Germany invaded the Rhineland, might have prevented World War II?"
Written two years prior to the Korean War, this article is about the joint occupation of Korea - the Soviets in the industrialized North, the Americans in the agrarian South, and how poorly both regions were being served before the 1950 war:
"The issue in Korea is not Communism vs. Americanism, but occupation-trusteeship vs. freedom. On that issue, both Russia and the United States would lose after a free vote of the people, because the two powers have, each in their own way, failed Korea."
The Soviet Army moved into northern Korea during the August of 1945, click here to read about it...
During the final months of the Korean war, when it seemed that both sides were willing to make an arrangement that would bring the hostilities to an agreed upon end, the Chinese diplomats upped the ante
"... the Red regime in Peiping [Beijing] wanted a Great Power conference on Korea's future as a preface to new truce talks... Zhou Enlai, premier in Mao Tse Tung's government, has secretly proposed tossing all disputes - the prisoner exchange issue as well as the political future of Korea - into a conference of 11 nations."
Watch an informative Christian documentary on Korea in 1953 (- its in color).
By the close of 1952 it became evident to anyone who followed the events in Asia that the army of the Republic of Korea (ROK) had evolved into a competent and reliable fighting force; highly disciplined and well-lead, it was finally able to both take and hold ground while simultaneously inflicting heavy casualties on their the enemies. Gone from the mind was that South Korean army of 1950: that retreating mob that quickly surrendered their nation's capital to the on-rushing Communists just three days into the war, leaving in their wake a trail of badly needed equipment.
After a year and a half of the most vicious combat, the ROK Army put in place the badly needed reforms that were demanded if the war was to be won. Relying on their own combat veterans as well as their United Nation's allies, recruits were clearly schooled in what was required to survive in battle. As relieved as the many Western commanders were to see how effectively the South Koreans were able to create such a force, the liabilities of this army were still genuine and they are listed in this article as well.
On Friday, November 3, 1950 Mao Tse-Tung (1893 – 1976) ordered the Chinese Army to intervene in the Korean War on behalf of the the retreating North Korean Army:
"...perhaps [as many as] 250,000 Chinese Communists jumped into the battle for Northwest Korea; at best, their intervention meant a winter campaign in the mountains; at worst, a world war."
From Amazon: The Korean War: The Chinese Intervention
Appearing in the June 27, 1951 issue of PATHFINDER was this list of chronological events that made up the first ten months of fighting in the Korean War.
When the Korean War began during the summer of 1950 many Americans were wondering aloud "Is this the beginning of W.W. III?" One year later they were relieved to find that it was not a world war, but the butcher's bill stood at 70,000 U.S. casualties and still there was no end in sight. This article examines these first 365 days of combat, taking into account all losses and gains.
On December 31, 1950, the Communist Armies fighting in Korea launched a campaign that was intended to drive the UN Forces further south away from the 38th Parallel. Costing much in both blood and treasure, the Red Push was easily contained and whatever ground had been gained was easily re-taken when the UN launched a counter-offensive of their own on February 21, 1951.
Click here to read how Japan, still smarting from their defeat just six years earlier, had found a new identity and resolve as a result of the Cold War, and the war in Korea in particular.
"The toughest fighting was in a three-mile beachead at the chewed-up port of Hungnam. There the U.S X Corps had escaped from a Chinese trap and was piling aboard a fleet of Victory and Liberty ships."
The U.S. Navy had a strong presence off shore to cover the American withdrawal.
"With the U.S. inducting some 50,000 men a month there must necessarily be a high number of delinquents... Few draft dodgers realize that the FBI steps in when the draft board steps out of the picture. Furthermore delinquents are liable to five years imprisonment."
To read an article about American draft dodgers of W.W. II, click here.
By the Winter of 1951 another round of cease-fire and truce agreements between UN and Communist field commanders had once again come to naught - and America's second Thanksgiving in Korea soon gave way to America's second Christmas in Korea. This brief column lays out what went wrong in the last negotiations and American Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that the U.S. would remain in Korea even after a peace agreement has been signed.
By the time November of 1952 rolled around the Korean War was in stalemate; this made the 1952 election one that was about progress as the American voters looked for a candidate who could make sound decisions and offer a leadership that would take the country (and the war) in a better direction. Neither candidate was looking for a victory in Korea, both campaigned on finding "a peace". When President Truman taunted Eisenhower to "come forward with any plan he had for peace in Korea" it resulted in the retired general standing before the microphones and uttering pensively: "I will go to Korea". The electorate was at once reminded as to how trusted he had been in the past and Eisenhower was elected, carrying 41 states and receiving nearly 58 percent of the popular vote.
More on the 1952 presidential election can be read here...
"[In Washington] the U.S. defense effort snowballed. Looking beyond the Korea showdown, the U.S. had to plan against new Russian surprises... There would be no appeasement, even at the risk of W.W. III. U.S. intelligence indicated a ten year Russian military plan designed to bleed America white. The aim would be to keep the U.S. in a semi-mobilized state for years."
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
Policy makers in Washington were divided into two groups during the early Cold War days: one held that Communist expansion was most dangerous in Asia while the other believed that Europe was the spot most deserving of attention. This short editorial by John Gunther (1901 – 1970) argued that Asia was the vulnerable zone and if Korea was lost to the Reds - the whole world would follow.
Attached is a report on President Truman's efforts to intensify America's wartime posture. When this article was first read the Korean War had been raging for seven months - with the fifth month bringing the promise of an expanded and very bloody war as a result of Chinese intervention. Compiled in these columns is a list explaining how the Truman administration, the Pentagon and the officials on the American home front had met the Korean challenge thus far.
"The Truman Doctrine for Greece and Turkey may soon have to be applied to South Korea, if the Soviets continue to sabotage the Moscow Agreement as they have done in the past."
The Soviet Army moved into northern Korea during the August of 1945, click here to read about it...
"Day and night U.S. Psychological Warfare soldiers in Korea risk their lives to talk and write Communists into submission. Their first leaflets hit the Reds just 36 hours after they first crossed the 38th Parallel. Today Pentagon brass praises 'Psywar' for influencing 70,000 North Koreans and Chinese Communists to surrender."
This snippet appeared on the newsstands shortly after Halloween, 1950. It will give you a sense of the great relief that was felt not simply in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon, but all across the country. The journalist wrote this report as if decades had past and a distant memory was being recalled about a five month-long war that was once fought and won by the all-suffering Americans and their U.N. Allies, but the Communists learned their lesson, so we don't have to worry about them anymore. The war's turning point is hailed (The Inchon Landings), as is General MacArthur, American casualty figures are listed and mention is made of the South Koreans moving into the recently liberated towns of the North. But this same reporter would write a very different article for the next issue of the magazine when he would relay that the war had expanded, and casualty figures had ballooned with the intervention of the Chinese Army.
Five days after China entered the Korean War, three U.S. Air Force F-80 Shooting Star fighter jets duked it out with three Soviet-made MIG-15s 20,000 feet above the the Korean/Manchurian border. Lieutenant Russell Brown of Southern California fired the decisive shot that sent one MIG down in flames. While engaged with the other two F-80s, the remaining MIGs were dispatched in a similar manner (although other sources had reported that these two fighters had actually been able to return to their bases badly damaged). In the entire sordid history of warfare, this engagement was the first contest to result in one jet shooting down another.
This is an eyewitness account of the fortitude and endurance exhibited by the freezing members of the 1st Marine Division as they executed their highly disciplined 100 mile march from the Chosin Reservoir to the Korean coastline - inflicting (and taking) casualties all the while. The account is simply composed of a series of diary entries - seldom more than eight sentences in length recalling that famous "fighting retreat" in the frozen Hell that was Korea. The journalist's last entry points out that the number of Marine dead was so high, we need never think of the Battle of Tarawa as the bloodiest engagement in Marine history.
Standing before the United Nations General Assembly during the Fall of 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson reminded the diplomats that five years earlier, when the U.N. Charter was conceived, it was agreed that the institution should have a military arm with which to enforce its edicts.
After trouncing Adlai Stevenson in the November Election, President-Elect Eisenhower made good on the vow he had made earlier and packed his bag for a fact-finding trip to the stagnant front lines on the Korean Peninsula.
"No abrupt change in Korea is likely to follow Ike's visit. He doesn't plan to negotiate with the Reds there. He is interested in training, equipping and preparing South Koreans to defend themselves... The South Korean's morale is good. About 400,000 of them are mobilized."
When General James Van Fleet let it be known that much of the previous two years in Korea had been plagued by a shortage in ammunition, tempers flared in the Senate as both parties talked of convening an investigative committee.
The two-round, all-out offensive launched by the Chinese Army on April 22 exhausted itself and fizzled-out four weeks later after suffering heavy losses and gaining no ground whatever.
This column will give you a quick understanding as to how 1950 ended:
"Russian diplomats made valiant efforts. In Moscow, [Stalin's adviser] Andrei Gromyko called Western envoys, urging Big Four talks to 'unify' Germany. In the U.N., Andrei Vishinsky protested Russia's 'devotion' to peace and to the belief that capitalism and Communism could live in the same world... But while the Reds talked, Chinese Communists had swept into the Korea War. The Soviet military budget had soared . Russia's submarine fleet had multiplied, it's air force had expanded to 14,000 combat planes, its army was millions strong, and still growing."
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
There is a set of rocky hills close to the 38th Parallel that came to be known as "Heartbreak Ridge" in the Fall of 1951. It came to pass when a plan was made to secure these hills for the U.N Forces - they thought this would be done in one day - but it continued for a full month. At long last, the 23rd Regiment of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division finally wrested Heartbreak Ridge from a numerically superior enemy on October 12 - and in so doing, lost half their strength (1,650 men).
"While the fighting raged on the central front the negotiators at Panmunjom rapidly approached an agreement on armistice terms. The July 19th (1953) agreement was reached on all points by both sides. The next day liaison and staff officers began the task of drawing up the boundaries of the demilitarized zone... At 1100 hours on July 27, Lieutenant General William K Harrison, Jr., the senior United Nations delegate to the armistice negotiations, signed the armistice papers. At the same time the senior enemy delegate, General Nam Il, placed his signature on the documents."
General MacArthur's wish to expand the Korean War by dropping as many as thirty (30) A-Bombs on various strategic targets located in both China and North Korea contrasted dramatically with President Truman's plans as well as those of the United Nations. Plagued by a crippling sense of self-grandeur, the General's arrogance became a liability and President Truman was absolutely delighted to fire him.
"Fighting in Korea ended under a truce effective July 27. It is a well known fact, though, that the truce is no guarantee that fighting won't start again. The UN wants to work out an agreement with the Reds that will mean no more war for Korea."
- and work it out they did; the truce has held for some sixty-five years. This article concerns all the various minutia both sides had to agree to in order to reach the agreement.
"South Korean firing squads had executed hundreds of men, women and children accused as Red sympathizers before President Rhee stopped the practice last week and set up a special board to review death sentences."
By the autumn of 1950 it became clear to the old hands at the Pentagon that the "police action" on the Korean peninsula was beginning to resemble a real war. With that in mind, thirteen military training camps that had been been barren for the past five years, were dusted off in order that they might once more begin training Americans for war. Two weeks later China threw her hat in the ring.
During this same period, the U.S. Navy took 62 ships that had been mothballed in order to launch the Inchon Landings...
"Had the five-star general, brilliant military servant of his country for 50 years, been a sincere, farsighted prophet advocating the only course which could halt Communist Imperialism and save the free world? Or had he been an egotistical, arbitrary, insubordinate soldier, deliberately undercutting his Commander-in-Chief in pursuit of a policy to which no United States or United Nations official would give endorsement?"
The author lists numerous instances indicating that the General had been insubordinate.
As is made clear on
this website, numerous tanks were fielded by the U.N. Forces during the Korean War, and one of the most effective ones was the Patton Tank (in all it's variations).
With no other seafaring nation afloat to oppose them, the United States Navy directed it's attention entirely to land-based targets on the Korean peninsula. Navy jets pelted the mountainous terrain in support of UN operations ashore while battleships, cruisers and destroyers served as floating artillery batteries:
"The miracle-man most responsible for this rejuvenated navy is brilliant, 53-year-old Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, the first air officer to serve as CNO..."
"The Koreans were joining the ranks World War II's disillusioned peoples... Thus whichever way they looked at their political future, Koreans saw little hope for the unity and independence they'd dreamed would follow Japan's defeat... The Red Army would leave Korea when they felt like it. And it would feel like it when northern Korea was so safely Red that even the Red Army couldn't paint it much Redder."
"The first surprise attack came at night. It was mounted by reckless fighters, who swarmed into battle on horseback and afoot after [American] bugles had morbidly sounded 'taps'. The Reds pounced on two combat regiments of the American First Cavalry Division and the South Korean First Division. Hundreds of civilians, caught by the flaming machine gun and mortar fire, were mowed down. In U.N. casualties, it was the one of the costliest engagements of the war."
As 1952 was coming to an end President Truman must have seemed delighted to pass along to the next guy all the various assorted trouble spots that existed throughout the world. President-Elect Eisenhower had promised peace during his presidential campaign - but many of the issues at hand were interrelated: French Indochina, South Africa, the Middle-east, the Iron Curtain and, of course, Korea.
The Korean War peace negotiations that took place at Kaesong during August of 1951 are remembered as one of the many failed peace conferences to be convened during the course of that war. The talks were broken off early as a result of a series of U.N. raids that were launched in two different enemy held positions - in addition to an nighttime airstrike that almost decimated the grounds where the talks were being held. The U.N. negotiators were especially frustrated with the fact that the Communists wished that both armies adhere to the 38th Parallel as the post-war border; exactly where the war began.
Those darn misogynists in Washington fell asleep at the switch again when they appointed a woman to fill the number two spot at the Department of Defense. The woman in question was Anna Rosenberg (1902 – 1983), an experienced and well-respected hand in the Nation's Capital who served in that post between 1950 and 1953. During the middle of the war she paid a visit to the American military installations in Korea and wrote warmly about all that she had seen.
"Then came June 24 [1950]. Her skirts legally clean, Russia hit upon a way to fight the U.S. without technically using a single bullet or soldier of her own. It mattered little if Korean mercenaries, not identifiable nationally with the USSR, were doing the fighting. A satellite war was just as good a way to weaken the U.S. as a direct war - if not better."
"The United Nations defense 'line' in Korea was more like a rubber band. It gave with Red punches, then snapped back. But last week the strain on the elastic was terrific... Neat shifting by the out-numbered defenders met and tossed back each of the blows - first along the southern coast toward Pusan..."
With the expansion of the Korean War, the United Nations realized that World War III was at their doorstep if they wanted to engage. Withdrawing in order to fight another day made sense - but such a decision was not without costs.
Upon hearing the news of the Chinese Army's appearance on the Korean peninsula, President Truman turned to his trusted advisers:
"At 11 a.m. the President spoke first to General Bradley. How bad, he wanted to know, would the casualties be? 'Very bad, I'm afraid, sir. It is too early for an accurate estimate, but our losses will be heavy.' Then President asked how serious the situation was. 'Critical,' was Bradley's terse response."
The Chinese foray into Korea resulted in the coming together of numerous politicians in Washington in order to boost Army spending by $41.8 billion dollars, with an additional $1 billion designated for nuclear warfare preparedness. Assorted branches of the military increased the draft pool and lowered their admission standards. New Jersey Representative Charles Eaton(R) gravely stated:
"We face the greatest danger of extinction since the nation was founded."
"Man, those Chinese are good soldiers... You can't see 'em; you can't hear 'em. You don't know they're there until they're on top of you... They're experts at camouflage and the best damn night-fighters I've ever seen. We could walk a company over the hill and see nothing. Then we'd look around and they'd be swarming on us like flies. It was just like they'd sprouted from the ground."
Nine months after the American intervention into the Korean War, the Congress saw reason to expand the draft pool to an even wider degree:
"Eighteen-year-olds were a little closer to the draft this week, and America was a step closer to a system of permanent universal military training..."
In mid-March the U.N. forces launched a counter-strike in answer to the Communists offensive that was commenced across a wide swath of the front line in early January. General Ridgeway remarked that although the Communists were in retreat, they still had an enormous pool of men in reserve.
Here is a collection of interviews with the men who, just a week earlier, had all been POWs in North Korea. Each of them recall their own unique account as to how they had been captured, their forced march to the camp, the poor medical care, sanitation and the high death toll from exposure to the cold. The intense practice of Communist brainwashing is described in detail.
Sitting before a senate committee convened in order to understand what went wrong in Korea, Lieutenant General Edward M. Almond (1892 – 1979), U.S. Army, was not shy to point out that it was the
"the back-seat drivers" in Washington who interfered in their ability to fight the war.
"Senator Welker: Could we have won the war in 1951...?"
General Almond: "I think so."
General Matthew Ridgway experienced the same frustration - click here to read about it.
"Ridgway wants no repetition of the Korean experience. If the U.S. is to fight in Asia again, he wants an army equal to the task and free to win. And, until his Army is capable of undertaking the job, he opposes even limited action by air or sea forces. The General disagrees with those who hold that a war can be won by air or sea power alone."
In every engagement with the enemy during the Second World War, only 12 to 25 percent of American riflemen ever fired their weapons. This was an enormous concern for the brass hats in the Pentagon and they got right to work in order to remedy the problem. Five years later, when the Korean War rolled around, they found that the situation was somewhat improved: 50% of the soldiers were now able to return fire. This article tells the story of U.S. Army General S.L.A. Marshall (1900 – 1977) and his research in addressing this issue. A good read.
"Christmas in khaki" became the new theme song of thousands of the nation's young men last week when the Army handed Selective Service a new quota... the Army wants 70,000 in November."
"The outbreak of the war in Korea sent stocks tumbling in all important world markets. In N.Y., three months of profits were wiped out. At week's end some stocks rose, but jittery brokers kept an eye on the war news and - an ear turned toward Washington, where announcements of increased U.S. participation in the fighting touched off further waves of selling>"
Click here to read about the Wall Street panic that was brought on by with the election of Abrham Lincoln...
Having learned a good deal from two world wars concerning the fragile nature of soldiers and Marines who suffered from battle fatigue, the U.S. Army Medical Department sent hastily trained psychiatrists to the forward positions during the Korean War in order to better serve these men - and get them back to battle. The Atomic Age name for battle fatigue is neurotic psychiatric casualty
