Korean War

In the North, Democratic People's Republic of Korea was declared on September 9,

with Kim Il-sung as prime minister. This division of Korea, after more than a
millennium of being unified, was seen as unacceptable and temporary by both regimes.
From 1948 until the start of the civil war on June 25, 1950, the armed forces of each
side engaged in a series of bloody conflicts along the border. In 1950, these conflicts
escalated dramatically when North Korean forces attacked South Korea, triggering the
Korean War and effectively making the division permanent. An armistice was signed
ending hostilities and the two sides agreed to create a three-mile wide buffer zone
between the states, where nobody would enter. This area came to be known as the
Demilitarized Zone or DMZ.

[The Korean War was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the
United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, supported by the People's
Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was
signed on 27 July 1953.

 The war was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the
victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. The Korean peninsula had
been ruled by Japan prior to the end of the war; in 1945 following the surrender
of Japan the peninsula was divided by American administrators along the 38th
parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops
occupying the northern part.[22] The failure to hold free elections throughout the
Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides, and the
38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas.
Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war,
tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel
persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when the North Korean
forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950.[23] It was the first significant
armed conflict of the Cold War.[24]

 The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of the South
Koreans in repelling the invasion. After early defeats at the hands of the North
Korean military, a rapid UN counter-offensive repelled the North Koreans past
the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, and the People's Republic of
China (PRC) came to the aid of Communist North.[23] With Communist China's
entry into the conflict, the fighting took on a more dangerous tone. The Soviet
Union materially aided North Korea and China, and the threat of a possibly
nuclear world war eventually ceased with an armistice that restored the border
between the Koreas at the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized
Zone, a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. North
Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on May 27, 2009, thus returning
to a de jure state of war.

 During the war, both North and South Korea were sponsored by external
powers, thus facilitating the war's metamorphosis from a civil war to a proxy
war between powers involved in the larger Cold War.
  From a military science perspective, the Korean War combined strategies and
tactics of World War I and World War II — swift infantry attacks followed by
air bombing raids. The initial mobile campaign transitioned to trench warfare,
lasting from January 1951 until the 1953 border stalemate and armistice.

Background
Etymology

In the United States the war was officially described as a police action owing to the lack
of a declaration of war by the US Congress. Colloquially, it has been referred to in the
United States as The Forgotten War and The Unknown War, because it was
ostensibly a United Nations conflict, ended in stalemate, had fewer American casualties
and concerned issues much less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts such as
the Second World War and the Vietnam War.[25][26]

In South Korea the war is usually referred to as the 6–2–5 War (yuk-i-o jeonjaeng),
reflecting the date of its commencement on June 25.[citation needed] In North Korea the war is
officially referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng).
Alternately, it is called the Chosǒn chǒnjaeng ("Joseon war", Joseon being what North
Koreans call Korea).[citation needed] Meanwhile, in the People's Republic of China the war is
called the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.[27][28] The "Korean War"
(Chao Xian Zhan Zheng), with the word "Chao Xian" referring to Korea in general, and
officially North Korea, is more commonly used today.[citation needed]

The term Korean War can also denote the skirmishes before the invasion and since the
armistice.[29]

Korea divided (1945)

At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the Allies unilaterally decided to

divide Korea—without consulting the Koreans—in contradiction of the Cairo
Conference.[30]:24[38]:24–25[42]:25[43]

On 8 September 1945, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge of the United States arrived in Incheon
to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel.[38] Appointed military
governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army
Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48).[44]:63 He established control by
restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean and police
collaborators.[24] The USAMGIK refused to recognise the provisional govenment of the
short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) because he suspected it was communist.
These policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked the civil insurrections
and guerrilla warfare.[31] On 3 September 1945, Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki,
Commander, Japanese 17th Area Army, contacted Hodge, telling him that the Soviets
were south of the 38th parallel at Kaesong. Hodge trusted the accuracy of the Japanese
Army report.[38]
In December 1945, Korea was administered by the US–USSR Joint Commission, as
agreed at the Moscow Conference (1945). The Koreans were excluded from the talks.
The commission decided the country would become independent after a five-year
trusteeship action facilitated by each régime sharing its sponsor's ideology.[30]:25–26[45] The
Korean populace revolted; in the south, some protested, and some rose in arms;[31] to
contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes on 8 December 1945 and outlawed the
PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12 December
1945.

On 23 September 1946 an 8,000-railroad-worker strike began in Pusan. Civil disorder

spread throughout the country. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students
in the Daegu Uprising; protesters counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. On 3 October,
some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen
and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South
Korean officials were killed.[42] The USAMGIK declared martial law.

The right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by nationalist Syngman Rhee,

opposed the Soviet–American trusteeship of Korea, arguing that after thirty-five years
(1910–45) of Japanese colonial rule most Koreans opposed another foreign occupation.
The USAMGIK decided to forego the five year trusteeship agreed upon in Moscow,
given the 31 March 1948 United Nations election deadline to achieve an anti-
communist civil government in the US Korean Zone of Occupation. They convoked
national general elections that the Soviets first opposed, then boycotted, insisting that
the US honor the trusteeship agreed to at the Moscow Conference.[30]:26[46][47][48]

The resultant anti-communist South Korean government promulgated a national

political constitution on 17 July 1948, elected a president, the American-educated
strongman Syngman Rhee on 20 July 1948, and established the Republic of South
Korea on 15 August 1948.[49] In the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the USSR
established a Communist North Korean government[30]:26 led by Kim Il-sung.[29]
President Rhee's régime expelled communists and leftists from southern national
politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare guerrilla war against the
US-sponsored ROK Government.[29]

As nationalists, both Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung were intent upon reunifying
Korea under their own political system.[30]:27 Partly because they were the better armed,
the North Koreans could escalate the continual border skirmishes and raids, and then
invade, with proper provocation. South Korea, with limited materiel, could not match
them.[30]:27 During this era, at the beginning of the Cold War, the US government
assumed that all communists, regardless of nationality, were controlled or directly
influenced by Moscow; thus the US portrayed the civil war in Korea as a Soviet
hegemonic maneuver.

U.S. troops withdrew from Korea in 1949,[50] leaving the South Korean army relatively
ill-equipped. The Soviet Union left Korea in 1948.

Course of the war

It has been suggested that Second Korean War be merged into this article or
 section. (Discuss)

North Korea escalates the conflict (June 1950)

Territory often changed hands early in the war, until the front stabilized.

After the US missions had left the People's Republic of China, CIA China station officer
Douglas Mackiernan volunteered to remain and conduct spy operations. Afterward, he
and a team of CIA local mercenaries then escaped China in a months-long horse trek
across the Himalaya mountains; he was killed within miles of Lhasa. His team delivered
the intelligence to headquarters that invasion was imminent. Thirteen days later, the
North Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel border and invaded South
Korea. Mackiernan was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star for valor.[51]

Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation raid, the North
Korean Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel, behind artillery fire, at Sunday dawn of
25 June 1950.[30]:14 The KPA said that Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) troops,
under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee", had crossed the
border first, and that they would arrest and execute Rhee.[38] Both Korean armies had
continually harassed each other with skirmishes and each continually staged raids across
the 38th parallel border.

Hours later, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North
Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea, with UNSC Resolution 82. The
USSR, a veto-wielding power, boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950,
protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held
a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.[52] On 27 June 1950, President Truman
ordered US air and sea forces to help the South Korean régime. After debating the
matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending
member state military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy
Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention on behalf of South
Korea.[53]

The USSR challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK Army
intelligence upon which Resolution 83 was based came from US Intelligence; North
Korea was not invited as a sitting temporary member of the UN, which violated UN
Charter Article 32; and the Korean conflict was beyond UN Charter scope, because the
initial north–south border fighting was classed as civil war. The Soviet representative
boycotted the UN to prevent Security Council action, and to challenge the legitimacy of
the UN action; legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required
the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.[54][55]

The North Korean Army launched the "Fatherland Liberation War" with a
comprehensive air–land invasion using 231,000 soldiers, who captured scheduled
objectives and territory, among them Kaesŏng, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin.
Their forces included 274 T-34-85 tanks, some 150 Yak fighters, 110 attack bombers,
200 artillery pieces, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft.[38] In addition to the
invasion force, the North Korean KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85
tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in reserve in North Korea.[38] At sea, although
comprising only several small warships, the North Korean and South Korean navies
fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.

In contrast, the ROK Army defenders were unprepared. In South to the Naktong, North
to the Yalu (1998), R.E. Applebaum reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness on
25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no
tanks, and a twenty-two piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6
advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at
invasion time, but there were large US garrisons and air forces in Japan.[38]

Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the
Syngman Rhee régime—either were retreating southwards or were defecting en masse
to the north, to the KPA.[30]:23

Police action: UN intervention

US infantry light machine gun position, 20 November 1950

Korean civilians pass an M-46 tank

A GI comforts a grieving infantryman.

Despite the rapid post–Second World War Allied demobilizations, there were
substantial US forces occupying Japan; under General Douglas MacArthur’s command,
they could be made ready to fight the North Koreans.[30]:42 Only the British
Commonwealth had comparable forces in the area.

On Saturday, June 24, 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President
Harry S. Truman by telephone, "Mr. President, I have very serious news. The North
Koreans have invaded South Korea."[56][57] Truman and Acheson discussed a US
invasion response with defense department principals, who agreed that the United States
was obligated to repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's 1930s
aggressions, and said that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated.[58] In his
autobiography, President Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was essential
to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the
National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) (declassified in 1975):

"Communism was acting in Korea, just as Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had
ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed
to fall Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our
own shores. If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic
of Korea without opposition from the free world, no small nation would have the
courage to resist threat and aggression by stronger Communist neighbors." [59]

President Truman announced that the US would counter "unprovoked aggression" and
"vigorously support the effort of the [UN] security council to terminate this serious
breach of peace."[57] In Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Omar
Bradley warned against appeasement, saying that Korea was the place "for drawing the
line" against communist expansion. In August 1950, the President and the Secretary of
State obtained the consent of Congress to appropriate $12 billion to pay for the military
expenses.[57]

Per State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman ordered General

MacArthur to transfer materiel to the Army of the Republic of Korea while giving air
cover to the evacuation of US nationals. The President disagreed with his advisors
recommending unilateral US bombing of the North Korean forces, but did order the US
Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan, whose Nationalist Government asked to fight in Korea.
The US denied the Nationalist Chinese request for combat, lest it provoke a communist
Chinese retaliation.[60]

The Battle of Osan, the first significant engagement of the Korean War, involved the
540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry
Division.[30]:45 On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at Osan but
without weapons capable of destroying the North Korean's tanks. They were
unsuccessful; the result was 180 dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed
southwards, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in
the Battle of Taejon;[30]:48 the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962
captured, including the Division's Commander, Major General William F. Dean.[30]:48
Overhead, the KPAF shot down 18 USAF fighters and 29 bombers; the USAF shot
down five KPAF fighters.[citation needed]

By August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the US Eighth Army to the
vicinity of Pusan, in southeast Korea.[30]:53 In their southward advance, the KPA purged
the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals.[30]:56 On
20 August, General MacArthur warned North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung that he was
responsible for the KPA's atrocities.[30][49]:56 By September, the UN Command controlled
only the Pusan city perimeter, about 10% of Korea, in a line partially defined by the
Nakdong River.

Escalation

The USAF attacking railroads south of Wonsan on the eastern coast of North Korea.

In the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the US Army

withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city. The United States Air Force
interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32
bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic, which was forced to hide in tunnels
and move only at night.[30]:47–48[30]:66 To deny materiel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed
logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the US Navy air forces
attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied
throughout the south.[30]:58

Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and materiel to

reinforce the Pusan Perimeter.[30]:59–60 Tank battalions deployed to Korea from San
Francisco; by late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks.[30]:61 In
early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces outnumbered the KPA
180,000 to 100,000 soldiers. They counterattacked.[30][38]:61

Battle of Incheon

Main article: Battle of Incheon

General Douglas MacArthur, UN Command CiC (seated), observes the naval shelling
of Incheon from the USS Mt. McKinley, 15 September 1950.

Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the
KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked
naval and air support.[30]:61[30]:58 To relieve the Pusan Perimeter General MacArthur
recommended an amphibious landing at Incheon, behind the KPA lines.[30]:67 On 6 July,
he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the
division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division
embarked from Yokohama to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division.[61]

Code-named Operation Chromite, the amphibious assault of Incheon deployed in

violent tides, and was awaited by a strong, entrenched enemy.[30]:66–67 Soon after the war
began, General MacArthur had begun planning a landing at Incheon, but the Pentagon
opposed him.[30]:67 When authorized, he activated a combined United States Army,
United States Marine Corps, and ROK Army force. The X Corps, led by General
Edward Almond, Commander, consisted of 70,000 1st Marine Division infantry; the 7th
Infantry Division; and some 8,600 ROK Army soldiers.[30]:68 By the 15 September attack
date, the assault force faced few, but tenacious, KPA defenders at Incheon; military
intelligence, psychological operations, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted
bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle between the US–ROK and the KPA.
However, the bombardment destroyed most of the city of Incheon.[30]:70

The Incheon landing allowed the 1st Cavalry Division to begin its northward fighting
from the Pusan Perimeter. "Task Force Lynch"—3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment,
and two 70th Tank Batallion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–
Reconnaissance Platoon)—effected the "Pusan Perimeter Breakout" through
106.4 miles (171.2 km) of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan.[61]
The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders, thus threatening to trap the main
KPA force in South Korea;[30]:71–72 General MacArthur quickly recaptured Seoul.[30]:77
The almost-isolated KPA rapidly retreated north; only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers
survived.[62][63]

UN forces cross partition line (September–October 1950)

Main article: UN Offensive, 1950

Combat in the streets of Seoul.

On September 27, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council
Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th
parallel were authorized only if "at the time of such operation there was no entry into
North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of
intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily…" On September 30,
Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: "We want
you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th
parallel."[64]

On 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past the 38th
parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea.[30]:79–94 Six days later, on 7
October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces
northwards.[30]:81 The X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and
Iwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces.[30]:87–88 The Eighth
United States Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea, and captured
Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950.[30]:90 At month’s end,
UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war.

Taking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists,

General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to
destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and
ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.[30]:83

Exchange between Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong

Information later obtained by Professor Shen Zhihua, who used his own private fund to
pay for large quantities of ex-USSR declassified archives and translated large numbers
of telegram exchanges between Moscow and Beijing before China entered the war,
reveals an exchange of telegrams between Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic
of China, and Stalin, head of the USSR.

 1 October 1950: Kim Il-sung sent a telegram to China asking for military
intervention. On the same day, Mao Zedong received Stalin's telegram,
suggesting China send troops into Korea.
 5 October: under pressure from Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai, the Chinese
Communist Central Committee finalized the decision of military intervention in
Korea.
 11 October: Stalin and Zhou Enlai sent a joint signed telegram to Mao, stating:
1. Chinese troops are ill prepared and without tanks and artillery; requested
air cover would take two months to arrive.
2. Within one month, fully equipped troops need to be in position;
otherwise, US troops would step over the 38 parallel line and take over
North Korea.
3. Fully equipped troops could only be sent into Korea in six months time;
by then, North Korea would be occupied by the Americans, and any
troops would be meaningless.
 12 October, 15:30 Beijing time: Mao sent a telegram to Stalin through the
Russian ambassador: "I agree with your (Stalin and Zhou) decision."
 12 October, 22:12 Beijing time: Mao sent another telegram. "I agree with 10
October telegram; my troops stay put; I have issued order to cease the advance
into Korea plan."
 On 12 October Stalin sent a telegram to Kim Il-sung, telling him "Russian and
Chinese troops are not coming."
 13 October: The Soviet ambassador in Beijing sent a telegram to Stalin, saying
Mao Zedong had informed him that the Chinese Communist Central Committee
had approved the decision of sending troops to Korea.[65]

China intervenes

Chinese infantrymen, 1952.

On 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the Chinese
entered the war, President Truman dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet to the
Taiwan Strait, to protect the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) from the People’s
Republic of China (PRC).[66] On 4 August 1950, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo
that he would intervene when the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) was ready to deploy.
On 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the United Nations that "Korea is
China's neighbor ... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the
Korean question". Thus, via neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in
safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command
in Korea.[30]:83 President Truman interpreted the communication as "a bald attempt to
blackmail the UN", and dismissed it.[67] The Politburo authorized Chinese intervention
in Korea on 2 October 1950, the day after the ROK Army crossed the 38th parallel.[68]
Later, the Chinese claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace while
en route to bomb North Korea, before China intervened.[69]

In September, in Moscow, PRC Premier Zhou Enlai added diplomatic and personal
force to Mao's cables to Stalin, requesting military assistance and materiel. Stalin
delayed; Mao rescheduled launching the war from the 13th to the 19th of October 1950.
The USSR limited their assistance to air support north of the Yalu River. Mao did not
find this especially useful as the fighting was going to take place on the south side of the
river.[70] Soviet shipments of war materiel were limited to small quantities of trucks,
grenades, machine guns, and the like.[71]

On 8 October 1950, Mao Zedong redesignated the People's Liberation Army's North
East Frontier Force as the Chinese People's Volunteer Army,[72] who were to fight the
"War to Resist America and Aid Korea".

Artillerymen manning a 105 mm howitzer, Uirson, Korea, August 1950.

UN aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their
march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection.[30]:102 The PVA marched "dark-
to-dark" (19:00–03:00hrs), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals,
and equipment) was deployed by 05:30hrs. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties
scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to
remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away;[30]:102 PVA officers might
shoot security violators.[38] Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-division army to
march the 286 miles (460 km) from An-tung, Manchuria to the combat zone in some 19
days. Another division night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging 18 miles
(29 km) daily for 18 days.

Meanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st
Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15
October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie
Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked
rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two
days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the capital city, on 19 October
1950.

On 15 October 1950, President Truman and General MacArthur met at Wake Island in
the mid-Pacific Ocean, for a meeting much publicized because of the General's
discourteous refusal to meet the President in the US.[30]:88 To President Truman,
MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention to Korea;[30]:89 that the
PRC's opportunity for aiding the KPA had elapsed; that the PRC had some 300,000
soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River;
concluding that, although half of those forces might cross south, "if the Chinese tried to
get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter" without air force
protection.[62][73]

Map of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir

After two minor skirmishes on October 25, the first major battles involving Chinese
troops occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of PVA soldiers
encircled and attacked scattered UN Command units with three-prong assaults—from
the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle
of Unsan.[74] In the west, in late November, at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, the
PVA attacked and over-ran several ROK Army divisions, and the flank of the remaining
UN forces.[30]:98–99 The UN Command retreated; the US Eighth Army's retreat (longest in
US Army history),[75] was made possible because the Turkish Brigade’s successful, but
very costly, rear-guard delaying action at Kunuri (near China) slowed the PVA attack
for four days (26–30 November). In the east, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a US 7th
Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3000 soldiers) and a USMC division
(12,000–15,000 marines), also unprepared for the PVA's three-pronged encirclement
tactics, escaped under X Corps support fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective
casualties.[76]

Initially, frontline PVA infantry had neither heavy fire support nor crew-served light
infantry weapons, but this did not work to their disadvantage; in How Wars Are Won:
The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror (2003), Bevin
Alexander reports:

The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200,
split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the
others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults. The attacks continued on all
sides until the defenders were destroyed or forced to withdraw. The Chinese then crept forward
to the open flank of the next platoon position, and repeated the tactics.

In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, R.E. Appleman delineates the PVA’s
encirclement attack:

In the First Phase Offensive, highly-skilled enemy light infantry troops had carried out the
Chinese attacks, generally unaided by any weapons larger than mortars. Their attacks had
demonstrated that the Chinese were well-trained, disciplined fire fighters, and particularly adept
at night fighting. They were masters of the art of camouflage. Their patrols were remarkably
successful in locating the positions of the UN forces. They planned their attacks to get in the
rear of these forces, cut them off from their escape and supply roads, and then send in frontal
and flanking attacks to precipitate the battle. They also employed a tactic, which they termed
Hachi Shiki, which was a V-formation into which they allowed enemy forces to move [in]; the
sides of the V then closed around their enemy, while another force moved below the mouth of
the V to engage any forces attempting to relieve the trapped unit. Such were the tactics the
Chinese used with great success at Onjong, Unsan, and Ch'osan, but with only partial success at
Pakch'on and the Ch'ongch'on bridgehead.[38]

In late November, the PVA repelled the UN Command forces from northeast North
Korea, past the 38th parallel border. Retreating from the north faster than they had
counter-invaded, they raced to the east coat to establish a defensive perimeter of the port
city of Hungnam. They were rescued in December 1950:[30]:104–111 193 shiploads of UN
Command forces and materiel (approximately 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians,
17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies) embarked to Pusan at the south end of
the Korean peninsula.[30]:110 The SS Meredith Victory was noted for evacuating 14,000
refugees, the largest rescue operation by a single ship, even though it was designed to
hold only 12 passengers. Before escaping, the UN Command forces effected scorched
earth operation, razing most of Hungam city, especially the port facilities;[62][77] and on
16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential
Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953),[78] which remained in force until until 14
September 1978.[79]

Across the parallel: Chinese Winter Offensive (early 1951)

B-26 Invaders bomb logistics depots in Wonsan, North Korea, 1951.

In January 1951, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (also
known as the "Chinese Winter Offensive"), utilizing night attacks in which UN
Command fighting positions were stealthily encircled and then assaulted by numerically
superior troops who had the element of surprise. The attacks were accompanied by loud
trumpets and gongs, which fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical
communication and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no
familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers "bugged out," abandoning their
weapons and retreating to the south.[30]:117 The Chinese Winter Offensive overwhelmed
the UN Command forces and the PVA and KPA conquered Seoul on 4 January 1951.
Commanding General Walton Walker of the US Eighth Army was killed on 23
December 1950 in an automobile accident, demoralizing the troops.[30]:111

These setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using the atomic bomb against
the Chinese or North Korean interiors, intending to use the resulting radioactive fallout
zones to interrupt the Chinese supply chains.[80] However, upon the arrival of Walker's
replacement, the charismatic Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway, the esprit de corps
of the bloodied Eighth Army immediately began to revive.[30]:113

UN forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and the territory north of
Samchok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held.[30]:117 The PVA had
outrun its logistics and thus was forced to recoil from pressing the attack beyond Seoul;
[30]:118
food, ammunition, and materiel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the
border at the Yalu River to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the
enemy had abandoned the battle lines, General Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-
force, which became Operation Roundup (5 February 1951),[30]:121 a full-scale X Corps
advance that gradually proceeded while fully exploiting the UN Command's air
superiority,[30]:120 concluding with the UN reaching the Han River and recapturing
Wonju.[30]:121 In mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the Fourth Phase
Offensive, launched from Hoengseong against IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni in the
center.[30]:121 Units of the US 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a
short but desperate battle that broke the attack’s momentum.[30]:121

In the last two weeks of February 1951, Operation Roundup was followed by Operation
Killer (mid-February 1951), carried out by the revitalized Eighth Army. It was a full-
scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximum exploitation of firepower to kill as
many KPA and PVA troops as possible.[30]:121 Operation Killer concluded with I Corps
re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengseong.
[30]:122
On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with Operation Ripper, expelling the
PVA and the KPA from Seoul on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth conquest in
a years' time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000,
and the people were suffering from severe food shortages.[30]:122[63]

On 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved the controversial General

MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea, of duty.[30]:123–127 There were several
reasons for the dismissal. MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in the mistaken belief
that the Chinese would not enter the war, leading to major losses. He believed that
whether or not nuclear weapons should be his own decision, not the President's.[81]:69
MacArthur threatened to destroy China unless it surrendered; Truman was more
pessimistic about his chances once involved in a land war in Asia, and felt a truce and
orderly withdrawal from Korea could be a valid solution. MacArthur felt total victory
was the only honorable outcome.[82] MacArthur was the subject of congressional
hearings in May and June 1951, which determined that he had defied the orders of the
President and thus had violated the US Constitution.[81]:79 MacArthur never spent a night
in Korea and directed the war from Tokyo.[83]

General Ridgway was appointed Supreme Commander, Korea; he regrouped the UN

forces for successful counterattacks,[30]:127 while General James Van Fleet assumed
command of the US Eighth Army.[30]:130 Further attacks slowly repelled the PVA and
KPA forces; operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951) and Tomahawk (23 March
1951) were a joint ground and air assault meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong
and Seoul. UN forces advanced to "Line Kansas", north of the 38th parallel.[30]:131

The Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive (also
known as the "Chinese Spring Offensive") with three field armies (approximately
700,000 men).[30]:131[30]:132 The principal strike fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted
in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25
April 1951), blunting the impetus of the Chinese Fifth Phase Offensive, which was
halted at the "No-name Line" north of Seoul.[30]:133–134 On 15 May 1951, the Chinese in
the east attacked the ROK Army and the US X Corps, and initially were successful, yet
were halted by 20 May.[30]:136–137 At month's end, the US Eighth Army counterattacked
and regained "Line Kansas", just north of the 38th parallel.[30]:137–138 The UN's "Line
Kansas" halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the stalemate that
lasted until the armistice of 1953.

Stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)

Korean personnel unload logs that are to be used to construct bunkers.

ROK soldiers dump spent artillery casings.

For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but
exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea
continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong.[30]:175–
177[30]:145
Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the ROK–UN Command
forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea, to avoid losing territory.[30]:159 The PVA
and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later, they effected military and
psychological operations in order to test the UN Command’s resolve to continue the
war. The principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18
August – 15 September 1951)[30]:160 and Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September – 15
October 1951),[30]:161–162 the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June – 4 August 1952), the Battle of
White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October – 25
November 1952) and the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March – 21 June 1952), the sieges of
Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–29 May 1953) and the
Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March – 16 July 1953).

The armistice negotiations continued for two years;[30]:144–153 first at Kaesong (southern
North Korea), then at Panmunjon (bordering the Koreas).[30]:147 A major, problematic
negotiation was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation.[30]:187–199 The PVA, KPA and UN
Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA
soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north,[84], which was unacceptable to the
Chinese and North Koreans.[30]:189–190 In the final armistice agreement, a Neutral Nations
Repatriation Commission was set up to handle the matter.[30]:242–245[85]

In 1952 the U.S. elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-
elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War.
[30]:240
With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice,
the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire on 27 July 1953, with the battle
line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents
established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been defended by
the KPA and ROKA, USA and UN Command. The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast
of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong,
site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the
DPRK. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North
Korean Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the
Armistice Agreement; ROK President Syngman Rhee refused to sign. Thus the
Republic of Korea never participated in the armistice.[86]

Aftermath: Operation Glory

After the war, Operation Glory (July–November 1954) was conducted to allow
combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 US Army and US
Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians
dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government.[87] After
Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the Punchbowl
Cemetery, Hawaii. DPMO records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted
1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains,
forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as
American, and all but 416 were identified by name.[88] From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK
recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.[89]
Korean War memorials are found in every UN Command Korean War participant
country; this one is in Pretoria, South Africa.

Korean War casualties — The Western (US–UN Command) numbers of Chinese and
North Korean casualties are primarily based upon calculated battlefield casualty reports,
POW interrogations, and military intelligence (documents, spies, etc.); a good sources
compilation is the democide web site (see Table 10.1).[90] The Korean War dead: US:
36,940 killed; PVA: 100,000–1,500,000 killed; most estimate some 400,000 killed;
KPA: 214,000–520,000; most estimate some 500,000. ROK: Civilian: some 245,000–
415,000 killed; Total civilians killed some 1,500,000–3,000,000; most estimate some
2,000,000 killed.[91]

The PVA and KPA published a joint declaration after the war reporting that the armies
had "eliminated 1.09 million enemy forces, including 390,000 from the United States,
660,000 from South Korean [sic], and 29,000 from other countries."[92] No breakdown
was given for the number of dead, wounded, and captured, which Chinese researcher
Xu Yan suggests may have aided negotiations for POW repatriation.[93] Xu writes that
the PVA "suffered 148,000 deaths altogether, among which 114,000 died in combats
[sic], incidents, and winterkill, 21,000 died after being hospitalized, 13,000 died from
diseases; and 380,000 were wounded. There were also 29,000 missing, including 21,400
POWs, of whom 14,000 were sent to Taiwan, 7,110 were repatriated." For the KPA, Xu
cites 290,000 casualties, 90,000 POWs, and a "large" number of civilian deaths in the
north.[93]

The information box lists the UN Command forces Korean War casualties and estimates
of PVA and KPA casualties.

Characteristics
Armored warfare
Supporting the 8th ROK Army Division, a Sherman tank fires its 76 mm gun at KPA
bunkers at "Napalm Ridge", Korea, 11 May 1952.

Initially, North Korean armor dominated the battlefield with Soviet T-34-85 medium
tanks designed during the Second World War.[94] The KPA's tanks confronted a tankless
ROK Army armed with few modern anti-tank weapons,[30]:39 including World War II–
model 2.36-inch (60 mm) M9 bazookas, effective only against the 45 mm side armor of
the T-34-85 tank.[81]:25 The US forces arriving in Korea were equipped with light M24
Chaffee tanks (on occupation duty in nearby Japan) that also proved ineffective against
the heavier KPA T-34 tanks.[81]:18

During the initial hours of warfare, some under-equipped ROK Army border units used
105 mm howitzers as anti-tank guns to stop the tanks heading the KPA columns, firing
high-explosive anti-tank ammunition (HEAT) over open sights to good effect; at the
war's start, the ROK Army had 91 such cannons, but lost most to the invaders.[95]

Countering the initial combat imbalance, the UN Command reinforcement materiel

included heavier US M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, M46 Patton, and British Cromwell
and Centurion tanks that proved effective against North Korean armor, ending its
battlefield dominance.[30]:182–184 Unlike in the Second World War (1939–45), in which the
tank proved a decisive weapon, the Korean War featured few large-scale tank battles.
The mountainous, heavily-forested terrain prevented large masses of tanks from
maneuvering. In Korea, tanks served largely as infantry support.

Aerial warfare

Further information: MiG Alley, United States Air Force Aircraft of the Korean
War,  and Korean People's Air Force

MiG Alley: A MiG-15 shot down by an F-86 Sabre.

The KPAF shot down some 16 B-29 Superfortress bombers in the war.

A US Navy Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw flying near the USS Sicily

The Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played a central role. Once-
formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury[30]:174
—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—
relinquished their air superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters
arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the war, the F-80 Shooting Star, F9F
Panther, and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force
of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s. The balance would shift, however,
with the arrival of the swept-wing Soviet MiG-15.[30]:182[96]

The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force
(KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15 Fagot, one of the world's most advanced jet
fighters.[30]:182[97] The fast, heavily-armed MiG outflew first-generation UN jets such as
the American F-80 and Australian and British Gloster Meteors, posing a real threat to
B-29 Superfortress bombers even under fighter escort.[97] Soviet Air Force pilots flew
missions for the North to learn the West's aerial combat techniques. This direct Soviet
participation is a casus belli (justification for war) that the UN Command deliberately
overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand, as the US initially feared, to
include three communist countries—North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China—and so
escalate to atomic warfare.[30]:182[98]
The US Air Force (USAF) moved quickly to counter the MiG-15, with three squadrons
of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre, arriving in December 1950.[30]:183[99] Although
the MiG's higher service ceiling—50,000 feet (15,000 m) vs. 42,000 feet (13,000 m)—
could be advantageous at the start of a dogfight, in level flight, both swept-wing designs
attained comparable maximum speeds around 660 mph (1,100 km/h). The MiG climbed
faster, but the Sabre turned and dove better.[100] The MiG was armed with one 37 mm
and two 23 mm cannons, while the Sabre carried six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine
guns aimed with radar-ranged gunsights. By early 1951, the battle lines were established
and changed little until 1953. In summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of
the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking
battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese
and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel
Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing
finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-
half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.[101][clarification needed]

UN forces gradually gained air superiority in the Korean theater. This was decisive for
the UN: first, for attacking into the peninsular north, and second, for resisting the
Chinese intervention.[30]:182–184 North Korea and China also had jet-powered air forces;
their limited training and experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against
the better-trained UN air forces. Thus, the US and USSR fed materiel to the war,
battling by proxy and finding themselves virtually matched, technologically, when the
USAF deployed the F-86F against the MiG-15 late in 1952.

After the war, the USAF reported an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792
MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire;
[citation needed]
post-war data confirms only 379 Sabre kills.[citation needed] The Soviet Air Force
reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's
People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-
15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command
estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft
after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650
and 211 downed F-86s, respectively, as more recent[when?] US figures state only 230
losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea.[102] The differing tactical roles of the F-86
and MiG-15 may have contributed to the disparity in losses: MiG-15s primarily targeted
B-29 bombers and ground-attack fighter-bombers, while F-86s targeted the MiGs.

The Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for
rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical
evacuation (medevac).[103][104] In the Second World War (1939–45), the YR-4 helicopter
saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a
speedy medevac vehicle,[105] helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal
casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical
innovations such as mobile army surgical hospitals.[106][107] The limitations of jet aircraft
for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to
development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War
(1965–75).[103]

Bombing North Korea

In the three-year Korean War (1950–53), the UN Command air forces bombed the cities
and villages of North Korea and parts of South Korea to a degree comparable to the
volume of the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during the six-year
Second World War (1939–45).[dubious – discuss] On 12 August 1950 the USAF dropped 625
tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some
800 tons.[108]

As a result, eighteen of North Korea’s cities were more than 50% destroyed. The war's
highest-ranking American POW, US Major General William Dean,[109] reported that
most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either ruins or snow-covered
wastelands.[110]

Naval warfare

To disrupt North Korean communications, the USS Missouri fires a salvo from its 16-
inch guns, Chong Jin, North Korea, 21 October 1950.

Because the North Korean navy was not large, the Korean War featured few naval
battles; mostly the combatant navies served as naval artillery for their in-country armies.
A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the
US Navy cruiser Juneau, the Royal Navy cruiser Jamaica, and the frigate Black Swan
fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.

The UN navies sank supply and ammunition ships to deny the sea to North Korea. The
Juneau sank ammunition ships that had been present in her previous battle. The last sea
battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the
ROK ship PC 703 sank a North Korean mine layer in the battle of Haeju Island, near
Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by PC-703 two days later in the Yellow
Sea.[111]

US threat of atomic warfare

On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic
bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or
if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer
of nine Mark-IV nuclear capsules "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated
carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean
targets", which he never transmitted.[42]
President Truman did not immediately threaten atomic warfare after the October 1950
Chinese intervention, but, 45 days later, did remark about using it after the PVA
repelled the UN Command from North Korea.

In The Origins of the Korean War (1981, 1990), US historian Bruce Cumings reports
that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President Truman's allusions to attacking
the KPA with nuclear weapons "was a threat based on contingency planning to use the
bomb, rather than the faux pas so many assumed it to be." On 30 November 1950, the
USAF Strategic Air Command was ordered to "augment its capacities, and that this
should include atomic capabilities."

The Indian Ambassador, Panikkar, reports "that Truman announced that he was thinking
of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this
threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea
to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater
national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not
help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to
enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities."[62][112][113]

Atom bomb test, 1951.

President Truman remarked that his government was actively considering using the
atomic bomb to end the war in Korea but that only he—the US President—commanded
atomic bomb use, and that he had not given authorization. The matter of atomic warfare
was solely a US decision, not the collective decision of the UN. Truman met on 4
December 1950 with UK PM and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French
Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries
about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The US's forgoing atomic
warfare was not because of "a disinclination by the USSR and PRC to escalate" the
Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and
France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless
while the US fought China, who then might persuade the USSR to conquer Western
Europe.[62][114]
On 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies
from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General
MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers
Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major
General Edwin K. Wright, met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese
intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassinging
the next weeks and months of warfare.[62]

 In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN
Command is forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without Nationalist
Chinese reinforcements, and without an increase in US forces until April 1951
(four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be
used in North Korea.[62]

 In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command
have blockaded China and have effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of
the Chinese interior, and the Nationalist Chinese soldiers are maximally
exploited, and tactical atomic bombing is to hand, then the UN forces could hold
positions deep in North Korea.[62]

 In the third scenario: if the PRC agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border,
General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing
PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA
guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The US Eighth Army would remain to
protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN
commission whould supervise implementation of armistice.[62]

In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because the PRC had
deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base,
Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, "lacking only the essential
nuclear cores." In October 1951, the US effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish
nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practiced individual bombing runs
(using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs) from Okinawa to North Korea,
coordinated from Yokota Air Base, in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested "actual
functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including
weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming". The bombing
run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed
infantry, because the "timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was
extremely rare."[115][116][117][118][119]

War crimes

Crimes against civilians

Main article: No Gun Ri massacre

MEMO (25 Jul ’50) to Gen. Timberlake, USAF; SUBJECT: Policy on Strafing Civilian Refugees:
It is reported that large groups of civilians, either composed of or controlled by North
Korean soldiers, are infiltrating US positions. The army has requested we strafe all
civilian refugee parties approaching our positions. To date, we have complied with the
army request in this respect.

Prisoners killed by retreating KPA, Daejeon, South Korea, October 1950.

In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of
its intelligentsia by assassinating every educated person—academic, governmental,
religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the
NPA retreat.[120] Immediately after the invasion in June 1950 the South Korean
Government ordered the nation-wide "pre-emptive apprehension" of politically suspect
or disloyal citizens.

The military police and Right-wing paramilitary (civilian) armies executed thousands of
left-wing and communist political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Cheju
Uprising (1948–49).[121] The Amercians on the island documented the events, but never
intervened.[122]

US diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea, calculates some 100,000 pro-North

political prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves.[123] The South Korean Truth
and Reconciliation Commission has compiled reports of hundreds of thousands of
civilian killings before and during the war.[124]

In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the UN

forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees, who would approach soldiers for food
and help. For a time, US troops fought under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" policy
against every civilian refugee approaching US battlefield positions,[125] a policy that led
US Soldiers to indiscriminately kill some 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950)
in central Korea because they believed some of the people killed might be North Korean
soldiers in disguise.[126]

The Korean armies forcibly conscripted available civilian men and women to their war
efforts. In Statistics of Democide (1997), Prof. R. J. Rummel reports that the North
Korean Army conscripted some 400,000 South Korean citizens.[120] The South Korean
Government reported that before the US recaptured Seoul in September 1950, the North
abducted some 83,000 citizens; the North says they defected.[127][128]

Bodo League anti–communist massacre

Main article: Bodo League massacre

To outmaneuver a possible fifth column in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman

Rhee's régime assassinated its "enemies of the state"—South Koreans suspected of
being communists, pro-North Korea, and leftist—by imprisoning them for political re-
education in the Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng (National Rehabilitation and Guidance
League, also known as the Bodo League). The true purpose of the anti–communist
Bodo League, abetted by the USAMGIK, was the régime's assassination of some 10,000
to 100,000 "enemies of the state" whom they dumped in trenches, mines, and the sea,
before and after the 25 June 1950 North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations
report some 200,000 to 1,200,000.[129] USAMGIK officers were present at one political
execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the mass killings of political prisoners
whom the North Koreans would free upon conquering the peninsular south.[130]

The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports that petitions
requesting explanation of the summary execution of leftist South Koreans outnumber,
six-to-one, the petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of rightist
South Koreans.[131] These data apply solely to South Korea, because North Korea is not
integral to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The father of Bodo League
massacre survivor seventy-one-year-old Kim Jong-chol was press-ganged to work with
the KPA and later executed by the Rhee Government as a collaborator; his grandparents
and a seven-year-old sister also were assassinated. About his experience in Namyangju
city, he says:
 Young children or whatever, were all killed en masse. What did the family
“ do wrong? Why did they kill the family? When the people from the other
side [North Korea] came here, they didn’t kill many people. ”
  — Kim Jong-chol[130]

USAMGIK officers photographed the mass killings at Daejon city in central South
Korea, where the Truth Commission believe some 3,000 to 7,000 people were shot and
buried in mass graves in early July 1950. Other declassified records report that a US
Army lieutenant colonel approved the assassination of 3,500 political prisoners by the
ROK Army unit to which he was military advisor when the KPA reached the southern
port city of Pusan.[130] US diplomats reported having urged the Rhee régime’s restraint
against its political opponents, and that the USAMGIK, who formally controlled the
peninsular south, did not halt the mass assassinations.[130]

Prisoners of war

See also: Korean War POWs detained in North Korea

An executed US Army POW of the US 21st Infantry Regiment killed July 9th 1950.
Picture taken July 10, 1950

The US reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten,
starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.[132][133]

The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and
Daejeon—discovered during early after-battle mop-up actions by the UN forces. Later,
a US Congress war crimes investigation, the United States Senate Subcommittee on
Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the
Committee on Government Operations reported that "... two-thirds of all American
prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes".[134][135][136]

The North Korean Government reported some 70,000 ROK Army POWs; 8,000 were
repatriated. South Korea repatriated 76,000 Korean People's Army (KPA) POWs.[137]
Besides the 12,000 UN Command forces POWs dead in captivity, the KPA might have
press-ganged some 50,000 ROK POWs into the North Korean military.[120] Per the
South Korean Ministry of Defense, there remained some 560 Korean War POWs
detained in North Korea in 2008; from 1994 until 2003, some 30 ROK POWs escaped
the North.[138][not in citation given]
The North Korean Government denied having POWs from the Korean War, and, via the
Korean Central News Agency, reported that the UN forces killed some 33,600 KPA
POWs; that on 19 July 1951, in POW Camp No. 62, some 100 POWs were killed as
machine-gunnery targets; that on 27 May 1952, in the 77th Camp, Koje Island, the ROK
Army incinerated with flamethrowers some 800 KPA POWs who rejected "voluntary
repatriation" south, and instead demanded repatriation north; and that some 1,400 KPA
POWs were secretly sent to the US to be atomic-weapon experimental subjects.[139][140]

Legacy
Main article: Legacy of the Korean War

The DMZ as seen from the north, 2005.

A US Army captain confers with ROK Army counterparts, at Observation Post (OP)
Ouellette, viewing northward, April 2008.

The Korean War (1950–53) was the first proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the
prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars such as the Vietnam War (1945–
75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers
indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The NSC68 Containment
Policy extended the cold war from occupied Europe to the rest of the world.[citation needed]

Fighting ended at the 38th parallel, now the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)—a strip
of land 248x4 km (155x2.5 mi)—which forms the demarcation between the countries.
The Korean War affected other participant combatants; Turkey, for example, entered
NATO in 1952.[141]

Post-war recovery was different in the two Koreas; South Korea stagnated in the first
post-war decade, but later industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea
still remains underdeveloped, while South Korea is a modern free market economy,
member of the OECD and G-20 groups. In the 1990s North Korea faced significant
economic disruptions. The North Korean famine is believed to have killed as many as
2.5 million people.[142] The CIA World Factbook estimates North Korea's GDP
(Purchasing power parity (PPP)) is $40 billion, which is 3.0% of South Korea's $1.196
trillion GDP (PPP). North Korean personal income is $1,800 per capita, which is 7.0%
of the South Korean $24,500 per capita income.

Anti-communism remains in ROK politics. The Uri Party practiced a "Sunshine Policy"
towards North Korea; the US often disagreed with the Uri Party and (former) ROK
President Roh about relations between the Koreas. The conservative Grand National
Party (GNP), the Uri Party's principal opponent, is anti-North Korea.[citation needed]