The Korean War

special topic

Spezialgebiet

1.) Introduction The Korean War has been called the 'Forgotten War,' historically overshadowed by World War II and Vietnam. It was one of the first episodes of the Cold War and involved many of the great personalities of the era: Truman, McArthur, Mao, and Stalin.
The Korean War began in the early hours of 25 June 1950, when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. 
Here are some numbers to give a short overview about the victims of the Korean War: 33.629 UN-soldiers were killed and 103.629 were wounded; 5.178 soldiers were captured or were reported missing. 1.247.000 North Korean and Chinese soldiers died. About 400.000 civilians were killed and 100.000 Korean children lost their parents. 300.000 people became homeless and 450.000 metric tons of bombs were dropped.
Although an armistice was signed in 1953 between the US, China and North Korea South Korea refused to sign it, leaving the two Koreas separate to this day.

2.) The Impacts of the 2^nd World War in Korea

At the end of the 2^nd World War, when the Japanese, who had encountered Korea, surrendered, the southern part of Korea was occupied by US-troops and the North of the country was taken by the soviet army; the border between the two regions was defined by the 38^th degree of latitude (see the map beyond).

The workers' party leader Kim Il Sung held the essential power in North Korea. In 1948 the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was founded in North Korea.

In the South the Republic of Korea was founded with its authoritarian leader Syngman Rhee, which has later been superseded by a military dictatorship under Park Chung Hee.

At that time the USA began to make South Korea an anticommunist bastion by giving a strong economic and military help.

In 1949 both US and soviet troops were pulled back. The growing opposition against Syngman Rhee in the South  convicted Kim Il Sung that he would be welcome as a liberator if he would bring down the government of Rhee and unite the two Korean states.

3.) The Korean War

3.1) The Beginning

After a number of partisan fights at the border the Korean War began on 25 June 1950 at 4 o'clock when North Korean infantry and tank units crossed the border to South Korea and advanced to the South Korean capital Seoul.
The defending units, who were totally unprepared, were completely overrun; moreover the North Korean forces, who were 170.000 men, were totally superior to the South Korean ones, for they were equipped with modern Russian weapons, such as T-34 combat tanks and Yak fighters, while the South Korean units only had light weapons and had no battle experience at all.
Immediately the communist propaganda began to work by saying that Northern Korea was acting in self-defence in order to prevent possible attacks of South Korean forces. Three days later the North Korean Forces had occupied Seoul.
Seven hours after the war began the USA got informed about the attack. The next day the security council of the United Nations came together and decided that the communist forces immediately had to stop the fight; for they were on the side of South Korea they wanted the communist forces to be pushed back in order to avert a global war.
The same day general McArthur, who had much military experience in Southeast Asia, was sent to Korea to get an overview of the situation; he decided that 2 American divisions would be enough to stop the North Koreans.
The UN decided that there should be UN-troops sent to Korea to restore peace and order. By far the biggest contingent of all was from the USA, other 18 UN-states sent their troops.
Despite of the massive UN-presence the North Koreans managed to conquer nearly the whole of South Korea and the UN-troops were pushed back to the seaport Pusan in the southeast.

3.2) Hope for Victory

General McArthur started to plan tactics to bring his troops out of the disadvantageous situation in which they were - he used the same method that he has often successfully used in the 2^nd World War: he assaulted the enemy with a surprising attack from the back. This manoeuvre was possible because of the total control of the surrounding sea that allowed the Americans to land on any place of Korea they wanted.
For the number of American soldiers wasn't sufficient a big amount of half-trained South Korean soldiers was brought to the battlefield.
The manoeuvre was absolutely successful: On 22 September the North Korean forces were pulled back to the North and so they ran right in the arms of American and South Korean forces who came from the North; in spite of this most of the North Koreans could escape because the lines of the Americans were too weak.
On 26 September the UN-troops took Seoul after a very hard battle. Immediately the South Korean government began their work in their capital again. For the South Koreans and the whole western world it seemed that this had been the essential battle, bringing an end of the war soon. Therefore the Americans stopped reinforcing their troops in Korea; the question, if the army should march in to North Korea was discussed but the decision was given to McArthur.
President Rhee of South Korea wanted to march in to North Korea by every means; two South Korean units had already crossed the borderline.
Now General McArthur sent his troops to North Korea and shortly after that it was decided officially: McArthur had to expand his actions to the north. The troops marched on and support was reduced because a near victory was expected. For there was no resistance the soldiers threw away things like helmets and grenades in order to ease their march.
On 6 October the first South Korean troops reached the Jalu, a river in the very north of the country.
Not much later the South Korean battalion at the Jalu has been assaulted and defeated; the few survivors claimed that the attackers had been Chinese. Shortly after that an army of 100.000 Chinese soldiers marched in to North Korea.

3.3) A disastrous defeat for the UN-troops

Some days after Thanksgiving Day in 1950 the Chinese started a massive attack. At night they assaulted the parts of the American front that were the most far behind. Nobody knew from where the huge Chinese army of 200.000 men at all has come. On 23 December the last American soldiers crossed the 38^th degree of latitude.
A short time after that the communist forces of North Korea and China conquered Seoul for the second time. The Chinese resumed their offensive at New Year and advanced further in the centre of the peninsula.
Now there were masses of UN-reinforcements landing in Pusan.

3.4) Time for recreation

In January 1951 the Chinese advance stopped. It didn't seem any longer that they would take the whole peninsula. Both sides were very precautious. In February the Americans restarted their offensive, they called it operation "Punch". The aim was to push the Communists back to the river Han. Therefore they used a new strategy: In the night they let the Chinese advance to the area which they had lost the day before; then the Americans surrounded and attacked them. This tactic worked very well: In these days the Americans lost some hundred men, while about 5000 Chinese soldiers were killed.
In March 1951 the UN-troops advanced further and further, they reoccupied Seoul and crossed the 38^th degree of latitude. But it wasn't easy for them at all: In the night the Chinese often launched small attacks, the American soldiers always had to sleep with the guns in their hands.
The Communist troops were estimated to around 400.000 men, while the UN-troops were around 365.000 men; the power of both opponents was quite equal because the difference in the number of soldiers was compensated by the UN-troops with a better equipment of heavy weapons. Disregarded of Americans and South Koreans the UN-forces consisted of soldiers from Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, South Africa, France, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Thailand, Belgium, Sweden and Ethiopia.

3.5) General McArthur has to retreat

At that time a serious decision was made: President Truman discharged General McArthur, who has had the supreme command.
The reason for that is not known, but there are some possible answers.
The first one says that there have been some disagreements between McArthur and Truman; these were mostly public comments of McArthur that Truman didn't approve. Once when McArthur didn't treat an order from Washington discretely enough there were some diplomatic problems with other UN-members and so McArthur was discharged.
Another explanation says that McArthur had planned to use nuclear weapons extending the war to China. This wasn't approved by some UN-states (beyond them were the United States) and therefore they discharged McArthur.
McArthur's successor was General Ridgeway, who started his supreme commandership in Tokyo.
Only eight days later, on 22 April 1951, the strongest communist offensive of the whole war began. On the front of 180 kilometres 200.000 soldiers launched an attack and until the end of this battle that lasted five days the Communists had brought 400.000 men to fight. I spite of this massive attack the American forces could hold almost all of their positions on the whole front; it was only a hole of twenty kilometres which was cut into the South Korean front.
On 26 April the Chinese broke trough this hole and marched towards Seoul.
The infantry of the allied forces waited some kilometres in the north of Seoul; all in all the Americans had pulled their front back for about 20 to 50 kilometres; in spite of this they managed to defend Seoul successfully.
For the first time in this war the Chinese pulled back their forces after 70.000 Chinese soldiers had died. A second attack with 96.000 men was also retaliated.
This had been the bloodiest battle in the whole Korean War.

3.6) Positional and aerial warfare

In June 1951 the fear of a positional warfare appeared and so the Soviet Union officially suggested to start armistice negotiations.
The negotiations began on 10 June in Kaesong in North Korea and they lasted two years.
After some small fights the United Nations started operation "Strangle" on 18 August 1951; with this operation they wanted to destroy as much of the North Korean infrastructure as possible. But it wasn't as successful as they had expected; the Communists repaired all of the destroyed traffic routes within a very short time.
In June 1952 the bomber fleet of the United Nations attacked North Korean power plants, which were not defended at all. About 90 per cent of the North Korean energy production were destroyed, but the fighting strength of the Communists was not affected by that fact.
In July the Americans decided that the next aim was the total control of the airspace in Korea; the UN-air forces consisted of 1.061.000 men.

3.7) Final victory of peace

Meanwhile both sides have come to agreements in essential questions of the continuing negotiations; the only thing that still was a disputed problem was the repatriation of prisoners of war (P.O.W.); until October 1952 no agreement could be found on this question. So the negotiations were stopped temporarily; they were resumed in April 1953. Not much later a solution for the P.O.W. - question was found. The two sides decided that they would start peace negotiations within a time of three months after an armistice. Instead of this the peace negotiations were postponed until April 1954 and finally they were definitively broken up.
In July 1953 an armistice between North - and South Korea was signed in Panmunjom. Thereby the 38^th degree of latitude was defined as a border between the two countries; moreover a demilitarised zone of 4 kilometres was set along the border and a neutral repatriation commission was appointed in order to control the exchange of the prisoners of war.

4.) Timeline

This timeline should help to give a short overview about what has happened between 1950 and 1953 in Korea:

Sources:

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2000

https://www.koreanwar.go.kr/english.htm

https://korea50.army.mil/

https://rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/arms.htm

https://www.military.com/Resources/HistorySubmittedFileView?file=history_koreanwar.htm