(19503) A war between Communist and non-Communist forces in Korea, which had been partitioned along the 38th parallel in 1945 after Japan's defeat. US troops occupied South Korea after World War 2. The Communist North invaded the South in 1950 after a series of border clashes, and a United Nations force intervened, under MacArthur's command, driving the invaders back to the Chinese frontier. China then entered the war, and together with the North Koreans occupied Seoul (1951). The UN forces counter-attacked, and by 1953, when an armistice was signed, had retaken all territory S of the 38th parallel.
| Korean War | |||||||||||
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| Part of the Cold War | |||||||||||
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United States Marines storm ashore at Incheon |
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| Combatants | |||||||||||
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United Nations: Republic of Korea United States United Kingdom Canada Australia The Netherlands France Philippines Turkey Ethiopia |
Communist states: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea People’s Republic of China Soviet Union |
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| Commanders | |||||||||||
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Syngman Rhee
Chung Il Kwon |
Kim Il-sung
Choi Yong-kun |
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| Strength | |||||||||||
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Note: All figures may vary according to source. This measures peak strength as sizes changed during the war.
South Korea 590,911 |
260,000 North Korean,
780,000 Chinese, |
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| Casualties | |||||||||||
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US killed 54,000 US wounded 103,000 South Koreans killed 673,000 Total 1,271,244 to 1,818,410 |
Chinese killed 145,000 Chinese wounded 260,000 Soviets killed 315 Total 1,858,000 to 3,822,000 |
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| Civilians killed/wounded (total Koreans) = hundreds of thousands | |||||||||||
| Korean War |
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| Pusan Perimeter – Inchon – Chosin Reservoir – Imjin River – Gloster Hill– Kapyong – Hill Eerie - The Hook - Pork Chop Hill - Bloody Ridge - Heartbreak Ridge |
| History of Korea |
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Gojoseon, Jin |
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Timeline |
| Korea Portal |
The Korean War, also known as "The Cold War", occurred between June 25, 1950 and a cease-fire on July 27, 1953, was a war between the U.S. and The Soviet Union fought on Korean ground. It was forged to appear as a war between North Korea and South Korea.
The principal support on the side of the North Korean communists was the People's Republic of China, with limited assistance by Soviet combat advisors, military pilots, and weapons. South Korea, was supported by United Nations (UN) forces, principally from the United States, although many other nations also contributed personnel.
In South Korea, the war is often called 6·25, from the date of the start of the conflict or, more formally, Han-guk Jeonjaeng (한국전쟁 "Korean War"). In the United States, the conflict was officially termed a police action — the Korean Conflict — rather than a war, largely in order to avoid the necessity of a declaration of war by the U.S. Congress. The war is sometimes referred to outside Korea as "The Forgotten War", because it is a major conflict of the 20th century that is rarely mentioned in public discourse. In China, the conflict was known as War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (抗美援朝), but is today commonly called the "Korean War" (朝鲜战争, Chaoxian Zhanzheng).
Historical background
Japanese occupation
The Japanese army surrounded strategically important parts of Korea in the early days of the Russo-Japanese war (February, 1904). Korea remained under Japanese occupation until the end of World War II in 1945. On August 6, 1945, the Soviet Union, in keeping with a commitment made to the United States government, declared war on the Japanese Empire and on August 8, 1945, started attacking the northern part of the Korean peninsula.
Post WWII Division of Korea
On August 10, 1945 with the Japanese surrender imminent and following a plan drawn up earlier by the United States, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Korea along the 38th parallel. Thus, without consulting the Korean people, the two major powers divided the Korea peninsula into two occupation zones.
In December 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to administer their halves of the country favorable to their respective political ideology.
Border hostilities
Rhee and Kim competed to reunite the peninsula, conducting limited military attacks along the border throughout 1949 and early 1950. The North Koreans, however, armed with Soviet tanks, changed the nature of the war from a border conflict to a war of conquest. World War III would begin if the Americans did nothing—with nothing less than Stalin as the new Fuhrer.
The view of monolithic global communism, with North Koreans as little more than stooges of the Soviet Union, prevented an understanding of the initial conflict as a civil war.
On January 12, 1950 United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that America's Pacific defense perimeter was made up of the Aleutians, Ryūkyū, Japan, and the Philippines implying that the U.S. might not fight over Korea.
In early 1949, Kim Il-Sung pressed his case with Joseph Stalin that the time had come for a full-scale invasion and reunification of the Korean peninsula. Stalin refused permission, concerned with the relative unpreparedness of the North Korean armed forces and about possible U.S. involvement. In the course of the next year, the North Korean leadership molded the North Korean army into a formidable offensive war machine modeled partly on a Soviet mechanized force, but strengthened primarily by an influx of Koreans who had served with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army since the 1930s.
Korean War (1950–1953)
Order of battle
In the pre-dawn hours of Sunday June 25, 1950, the North Korean army struck across the 38th parallel behind a firestorm of artillery barrage. Equipped by the Soviets with 150 T-34 tanks, the North Koreans began the war with about 180 Russian aircraft, including 40 YAK fighters and 70 attack bombers. Within days South Korean forces, outnumbered and out-gunned, were in full retreat. As the ground attack continued, the North Korean Air Force conducted bombing on Kimpo Airport in Seoul. Seoul was captured by the North Koreans on the afternoon of June 28, but the North Koreans had hoped for quick surrender by the Rhee government and the disintegration of the South Korean Army. He did not expect the war to last long enough for American intervention, so there were no significant defenses prepared against American air attacks.
The invasion of South Korea came as a surprise to the United States and the other western powers; in the preceding week Dean Acheson of the State Department had told Congress on June 20 no such war was likely. Contacted hours after the invasion had begun, Truman was convinced the beginning of World War III had arrived.
The South Korean Army had 65,000 soldiers present for duty, and was deficient in armor and artillery.
The United States still had substantial forces in Japan, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Truman did not agree with his advisors who called for unilateral U.S. airstrikes against the North Korean forces, but did order the Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan, thereby ending the policy of the United States of acquiescing to the defeat of the forces of Chiang Kai-Shek. The Chinese Nationalists government, now confined to Taiwan, asked to participate in the war, but their request was denied by the Americans who felt they would only encourage Communist Chinese intervention. By August the South Korean forces and the U.S. Eighth Army, which had arrived to help South Korea resist the Communist invasion, were driven into a small area in the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula around the city of Pusan.
Truman sends in American forces
The North's onslaught came as a surprise to the Western powers. President Harry S Truman ordered U.S. naval and air forces to stem the North Korean advance, but they were not allowed to attack north of the 38th parallel, and especially not into Chinese or Russian territory.
The initial units sent in were drawn from the U.S. occupation forces in Japan under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Truman ordered MacArthur to transfer munitions to the South Korean Army and to use air cover to protect the evacuation of American citizens. The first significant American combat unit to arrive in South Korea was Task Force Smith, part of the U.S. Army 24th Infantry Division based in Japan. On July 5, it engaged in the first North Korean-American clash of the war at Osan.
The United Nations immediately acted, ordering the invaders to withdraw and calling all members to support South Korea.
Continued retreat to Pusan perimeter
By August, 1950, the ROK forces and newly arrived units of the U.S. Eighth Army were driven back into the southeastern corner of the peninsula, around the port city of Pusan. In the face of fierce North Korean attacks, the allied defense became a desperate holding action called the Pusan Perimeter.
American air power arrived in force, flying 40 sorties a day in ground support actions, especially against tanks.
Inchon landing and move north (Sept 15 – Oct 1950)
The North Koreans, stretched thin, with very poor logistics, outnumbered, outgunned, and lacking an air force or navy, were highly vulnerable, and MacArthur put into action his plan to destroy them: the landing far behind the North Korean lines at Incheon (인천; MacArthur had started planning a few days after the war began, but had been strongly opposed by the Pentagon. When he finally received permission to go ahead, MacArthur activated X Corps under General Edward Almond (comprised of 70,000 troops of the 1st Marine Division, and the 7th Army division and augmented by 8,600 Korean troops) and ordered them to land at Incheon in "Operation CHROMITE".
The United Nations troops drove the North Koreans back past the 38th parallel. The goal of saving South Korea had been achieved, but because of the success and the prospect of uniting all of Korea under the government of Syngman Rhee, the Americans - with UN approval - were convinced to continue into North Korea.
The Chinese entry (October, 1950)
The alarmed People's Republic of China, fearful of American aggression and the establishment of a pro-American state along its border, warned neutral diplomats that it would intervene if the conflict does not end.
On October 8, 1950, the day after American troops crossed the 38th, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army edged closer to the Yalu River. Mao Zedong, seeing intervention as merely a defense against American aggression, warned Stalin: "If we allow the U.S. to occupy all of Korea… we must be prepared for the US to declare… war with China."
The Chinese made a skirmish on October 25, 1950 with 270,000 PVA troops under the command of General Peng Dehuai, much to the surprise of the UN.
In late November, the Chinese struck in the west, along the Chongchon River, and completely overran several ROK divisions and landed a heavy blow to the flank of the remaining UN forces. In the east, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a 30,000 man unit from the U.S. 7
The UN forces in northeast Korea quickly withdrew to form a defensive perimeter around the port city of Hungnam, where a major evacuation was being carried out in late December 1950.
On January 4, 1951, Chinese and North Korean forces recaptured Seoul. General Walker was killed in an accident and was replaced by a World War II airborne verteran, Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, who took immediate steps to raise the morale and fighting spirit of the battered Eighth Army, which had fallen to low levels during its retreat.
MacArthur was removed from command by President Truman on April 11, 1951 due to misconduct, including a meeting with Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek in the role of a U.S. diplomat, and providing false information to President Truman about the Chinese military buildup near the Korean border.
Historian and Korean War veteran Bevin Alexander had this to say about Chinese tactics in his book How Wars Are Won:
Historian Bruce Cumings noted that when Chinese soldiers and officers saw how Americans fought the war, they were surprised by how gratuitously the Americans would resort to what the Chinese considered to be excessive and unnecessary force. American military actions during the war had profound consequences on the environment and civilian lives.
Stalemate (July, 1951)
The rest of the war involved little territory change, large scale bombing of the population in the north, and lengthy peace negotiations (which started in Kaesong on July 10 of the same year). For the South Korean and allied forces, the goal was to recapture all of what had been South Korea before an agreement was reached in order to avoid loss of any territory. The war continued until the Communists eventually dropped this issue. With the UN's acceptance of India's proposal for a Korean armistice, a cease-fire was established on July 27, 1953, by which time the front line was back around the proximity of the 38th parallel, and so a demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established around it, still defended to this day by North Korean troops on one side and South Korean and American troops on the other.
Instead of pressing for a congressional declaration of war, which he regarded as too alarmist and time-consuming when time was of the essence, Truman went to the UN for approval. Although American opinion was solidly behind the venture, Truman would later take harsh criticism for not obtaining a declaration of war from Congress before sending troops to Korea. Thus, "Truman's War" was said by some to have violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the United States Constitution.
The first significant American combat unit to arrive in South Korea was Task Force Smith, part of the U.S. Army 24th Infantry Division based in Japan. On July 5 it engaged in the first North Korean-U.S. clash of the war at Osan, and was driven back with heavy losses.
Characteristics
Tank warfare
When the North Korean soldiers stormed down the 38th Parallel into Korea, the T-34-85 was nearly invincible against the South Korean lines. During the time, the South Korean army had few soldiers, limited anti tank guns and bazookas.
The South Korean army had 2.36 inch (60 mm) M9 bazookas that had been supplied by the U.S. The M9 could not pierce the armor of the T-34-85s. Until the U.S introduced the heavier 3.5 inch (89 mm) M20 bazooka, South Korean troops were unable to effectively counter North Korean tanks.
During the course of the Korean War, however, few open tank battles ever occurred, unlike during World War II, because of the environment of Korea. The U.S continued to use the M4 Sherman and other tanks such as the M26 Pershing, but with improved versions rather than the tanks used during World War II.
During the Korean War, tanks were used in limited operations however.
Air war
The Korean War was the last major war where propeller-powered fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair and aircraft carrier-based Supermarine Seafire, were used, as turbojet fighter aircraft such as F-80s and Grumman F9F Panthers came to dominate the skies, overwhelming North Korea's propeller-driven Yakovlev Yak-9s and Lavochkin La-9s.
From 1950, North Koreans began flying the Soviet-made MiG-15 jet fighters, some of which were piloted by experienced Soviet Air Force pilots, a casus belli deliberately overlooked by the UN allied forces who were reluctant to engage in open war with the Soviet Union and the PRC. At first UN jet fighters, which now also included Royal Australian Air Force Gloster Meteors, had some success, but the superior quality of the MiGs soon held sway over the first generation jets used by the UN early in the war.
In December 1950, the U.S. Air Force began using the F-86 Sabre. Maintenance of the Sabre was a headache and a large proportion of the UN air strength was grounded due to repairs during the war. gradually gained a numerical advantage, and their aggressiveness gave them an air superiority that lasted until the end of the war — a decisive factor in helping the U.N. Recently exposed Soviet documentation claims that 345 Soviet MiG-15s were lost during the Korean war. The number of losses of the North Korean Air Force was not revealed. It is estimated that it lost about 200 aircraft in the first stage of the war, and another 70 aircraft since Chinese intervention. According to a recent US publication, the total number of USAF F-86s ever present in the Korean peninsula during the war was only 674 and the total F-86s losses due to all causes were about 230.
Throughout the conflict, the United States maintained a policy of heavy bombing, especially using incendiary weapons, against any and all North Korean settlements.
In May and June 1953 the USAF undertook missions to destroy several key irrigation and hydroelectric dams, and targeted the Korean civilian population as well as various agriculture and industry centers in the North. This destruction of life and property diminished the food supplies available for the North Korean and Chinese troops in the area, but had no substantial effect on the final outcome of the war. The report also noted that the loss of rice - the staple food commodity for North Koreans - would result in "starvation and slow death", a course of action that was deemed a war crime when used by the Nazis against food supplies in Holland in 1944.
Atrocities
North and South Korean, Chinese and United States soldiers targeted civilians and/or POWs in some cases. Specifically, there is extremely strong evidence to suggest the following incidents:
North Korean and Chinese troops repeatedly violated the Geneva Convention through reported mistreatment of prisoners of war. North Korean forces also committed several massacres of captured U.S. troops at places such as "Hill 312" on the Pusan perimeter, and in and around Taejon. During the periods when parts of South Korea were under North Korean control, political killings, reportedly into the tens of thousands, took place in cities across South Korea. This led to fear among American forces of a fifth column, and to the indiscriminate killings of hundreds of South Korean civilians by the U.S. military at places such as No Gun Ri, where many defenseless refugees – most of whom were women, children and old men – were shot at by the U.S. Army and may have been strafed by the USAF. South Korean military and police, often with U.S. military knowledge and without trial, executed tens of thousands of alleged "communist sympathizers" during incidents like the Daejeon and Jeju Massacres.Legacy
The Korean War was the first armed confrontation of the Cold War, and set the standard for many later conflicts. It created the idea of a limited war, where the two superpowers would fight without descending into an all-out war that could involve nuclear weapons. It also expanded the Cold War, which to that point had mostly been concerned with Europe. The war led to a strengthening of alliances in the Western bloc and the splitting of China from the Soviet bloc.
Korea
600,000 Korean soldiers died in the conflict according to U.S. estimates.
The war left the peninsula divided, with a communist state in North Korea and an authoritarian state in the South. Eventually, South Korea transitioned to democracy with a rapidly growing free-market economy, while North Korea stuck to its Stalinist communist roots, with totalitarian rule and a cult of personality around leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, under whom there has been widespread famine. American troops remain in Korea as part of the still-functioning UN Command, which commands all allied military forces in South Korea - American Air Forces, Korea, the Eighth U.S. Army, and the entire South Korean military. No significant Russian or Chinese military forces remain in North Korea today. Many Korean families were also divided by the war, most of whom have had no opportunity to contact or meet one another.
United States
The U.S. military had been caught ill-prepared for the war. Accordingly, after the war, the American defense budget was boosted to $50 billion, the Army was doubled in size, as was the number of Air Groups, and they were deployed outside American territory in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia.
There has been some confusion over the previously reported number of 54,246 Korean War deaths. There were also 8,142 US personnel listed as Missing In Action (MIA) during the war. U.S. casualties in the war are fewer than in the Vietnam War, but they occurred over three years as opposed to 13 years (1960-1973) in Vietnam. However, advances in medical services such as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and the use of rapid transport of the wounded to them such as with helicopters enabled the death rate for UN forces to be much lower than in previous wars. For service during the Korean War, the U.S. military issued the Korean Service Medal.
Later neglect of remembrance of this war, in favor of the Vietnam War, World War I and World War II and the Gulf Wars, has caused the Korean War to be dubbed the Forgotten War or the Unknown War. The Korean War Veterans Memorial was built in Washington, D.C. and dedicated to veterans of the war on July 27, 1995.
The war also changed America's view of the Third World, most notably in Indochina.
The Korean War also saw the beginning of racial integration efforts in the U.S. military service, where African Americans fought in integrated units. The extent to which Truman's 1948 orders were carried out varied among the various branches of the military, with segregated units still in deployment at the start of the conflict, and eventually being integrated towards the end of the war.
The U.S. still maintains a heavy military presence in Korea, as part of the effort to uphold the armistice between South and North Korea. A special service decoration, known as the Korea Defense Service Medal is authorized for U.S. service members who serve a tour of duty in Korea.
People's Republic of China
From official Chinese sources, PVA casualties during the Korean War were 390,000. However, some Western and other sources estimate that about 400,000 Chinese soldiers were either killed in action or died of disease, starvation, exposure, and accidents out of around 2 million deployed in the war. Mao Zedong's only healthy son, Mao Anying, was also killed as a PVA officer during the war.
As the PVA rotated about 2 million troops during the war the casualties figure of some western sources would seem to be too high.
The war contributed to the significant decline of Sino-Soviet relations from the mid-1950s until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although the Chinese had their own reasons to enter the war (i.e. However, the fact that Chinese forces held their own against American forces in this war heralded that China was once again becoming a major world power. The Chinese entry of the war is generally seen by the Chinese as successful in its purpose to feign off Western forces at its borders and is honored in the history of the People's Republic as the first time in a century that a Chinese army was able to withstand a Western army in a major conflict. The Korean War thus cemented the nascent Chinese state's newly acquired political power.
Republic of China
After the war was over, 14,000 of the Chinese prisoners of war hostile to the communists of the People's Republic of China defected to the Republic of China (ROC) (7,110 Chinese POWs opted to return to the PRC).
The Korean War also led to other long lasting effects. Until the conflict in Korea, the U.S. had largely abandoned the government of Chiang Kai-Shek, which had retreated to Taiwan, and had not intervened in the Chinese Civil War. The start of the Korean War rendered any policy that would have caused Taiwan to fall under PRC control untenable. The anti-communist atmosphere in the West in response to the Korean War contributed to the unwillingness to diplomatically recognize the People's Republic of China until the 1970s.
Canada
Canada sent 26,791 troops to the war, with 7,000 more remaining to supervise the ceasefire until the end of 1955.
The Korean War was the last major conflict Canadian forces participated in until the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the last major combat by ground troops until 2002 in Afghanistan.
The Canadian military was revitalized as a result of the Korean War. A planned changeover to U.S.-designed weapons equipment had been planned for the 1950s, but the emergency in Korea forced the use of war stocks of British-designed weapons from World War II.
Japan
Japan was politically disturbed both from the security threat to Japan because of the initial defeat of South Korea and from left-wing activities in support of North Korea and aiming to bring about a revolution in Japan.
Economically, Japan was able to benefit from the war. American requirements for war material were organized through a Special Procurements system, which allowed for local purchases without the complex Pentagon procurement system.
Europe
The outbreak of the war convinced Western leaders of the growing threat of international communism. As the war continued, however, opposition to rearmament lessened and China's entry in the war caused France to revise its position towards German rearmament.
The end of the war reduced the perceived communist threat, and thus reduced the necessity of such an organisation.
Soviet Union
The war was a political disaster for the Soviet Union. The war meanwhile united the countries within the capitalist bloc: the Korean war accelerated the conclusion of a peace agreement between the USA and Japan, the warming of Germany's relations with other western countries, creation of military and political blocs ANZUS (1951) and SEATO (1954). However, the war was not without their pluses for the Soviet Union: the authority of the Soviet State seriously grew, which showed in its readiness to interfere in developing countries of the third world, many of which after the Korean war were forced into the socialist path of development, after being forced to select the Soviet Union as their patron.
The war was a heavy burden on the national economy of the Soviet Union, which was still suffering from the effects of World War II. However, despite all these expenses approximately thirty thousand Soviet soldiers in one way or another, obtained the priceless experience of waging local wars. The war also allowed them the opportunity to test several newest forms of armaments, in particular the MiG-15 combat aircraft.
Depictions
Artist Pablo Picasso's painting Massacre in Korea (1951) depicted violence against civilians during the Korean War.
In the U.S. far and away the most famous artistic depiction of the war is M*A*S*H, originally a novel by Richard Hooker (pseudonym for H. All three versions depict the misadventures of the staff of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as they struggle to keep their sanity through the war's absurdities through ribald humour and hijinks when not treating wounded. Shangganling Battle (Shanggan Ling, Chinese: 上甘岭, BW-1956)，in the Korean war in early 1950s, a group of Chinese People's Volunteer soldiers are blocked in Shangganling mountain area for several days. Hess, an American clergyman and World War II veteran fighter pilot who volunteers to return to active duty to train the fighter pilots of the South Korean Air Force. Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner as US Air Force F-86 pilots in an adaptation of the novel by James Salter, who was himself an F-86 pilot in the Korean War. The principal characters in the film are captured and brainwashed during the war. (The 2004 remake of the movie used the Persian Gulf War of 1991 instead ). MASH (1970), about the staff of a U.S. Army field hospital who use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war. The television series lasted several times longer than the war. The movie portrays the Battle of Inchon, a turning point in the war. It became a notorious financial and critical failure, losing an estimated $40 million of its $46 million budget, and remains the last mainstream Hollywood film to use the war as its backdrop. In the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zone) separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. It unravels as the story follows the development of a relationship between two North Korean and two South Korean soldiers that hang out together in an empty building in the Joint Security Area. When two Korean brothers are drafted into the military to fight in the war, the older brother tries to protect the younger by risking his own life in hopes of sending his brother home. Epic in scope, the movie has a touching family story backdropped by a brutal war. During the height of the war, three North Korean soldiers, two South Korean soldiers and a U.S. Navy pilot accidentally get stranded together in a remote and peaceful mountain village paradise called Dongmakgol. All three wayward factions learn that the village is naively oblivious to the raging war outside.
Names
The most common English term for the war is "Korean War".
The following are terms used by the participants of the Korean War:
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