Korea: The Forgotten War

In June, 1950, North Korean troops surged across the border into South Korea. The Korean Peninsula, which had been a colony of Japan until World War II, had been divided into two nations since 1945, when the United States and the Soviet Union jointly administered Korea in a manner similar to what was going on in germany at the time. The North Korean government was Communist, the South Korean government non-communist and quasi-democratic, and both claimed sovereignty over the entire peninsula. The situation also resembled what would ensue in Vietnam after the French were defeated in 1954.

Thus in 1950 a struggle broke out for control of Korea. The United States had occupyied Korea as part of the post-war administration of former Japanese colonies, and thus became immediately involved in the war. Critics of American foreign policy claimed that when the Truman administration adopted its containment policy, the theoretical line drawn around areas that would be protected failed to include Korea. North Korea, therefore, with the possible acquiescence of the Soviet Union, felt the the United States did not care about Korea and would not defend the South, preoccupied as they were with rebuilding Japan on a democratic footing. American forces in Korea, as well as the South Korean army, were caught short by the surprise attack and were soon driven ino a defensive perimeter around the South Korean port of Pusan, and for a while it looked as though North Korea would gain firm control of the entire nation.

President Truman, preoccupied with the situation in Europe and the reality of the Soviet Union's possession of nuclear weapons, nevertheless reacted swiftly to the North Korean invasion. he immediately and sought a United Nations resolution condemning the North Korean aggression and us a United Nations command was created for conduct of what became the Korean War. Nominally a UN operation, the war was for all practical purposes and other American war against North Korea. General Douglas MacArthur, who was at the time the senior American official in occupied Japan, was appointed to be commander of all United Nations forces. He visited the American troops in the Pusan perimeter, told their commanding general let he would have to hold on while he prepared a countermove.

General McArthur's plan called for an invasion of South Korea at the port of Inchon not far from the dividing line between North and South Korea. It was a daring move as the attack would fall well behind North Korean lines. But a variety of factors, including the fact that Inchon was an unlikely site for an invasion because of its high tidal swings, and because the geography of South Korea meant that the North Korean supply lines could be severed with a quick strike in land from Inchon, General MacArthur's surprise move was an unqualified success. The first Marine division under the command of General A. A. Vandergrift and experienced Army amphibious troops conducted the landing successfully captured the airport in the vicinity of the city of Seoul and soon captured the capital itself as the North Korean army, its supply lines severed, fell back into survey across the 38th parallel.

As American naval air and ground units entered the fray, and as the South Korean Army pulled itself together, the UN forces pursued the North Korean Army across the border and the South was once again secure. It does not go too far to claim that at that juncture, the Korean War had been won, but General MacArthur chose to push the North Korean army back toward the Chinese border, feeling that China would not dare to intervene in the conflict. In a meeting with President Truman at Wake Islandm he assured his commander-in-chief that Chinese intervention was unlikely. He was wrong.

In November 1950 on Thanksgiving day, a huge Chinese army swept across the border and soon drove the Americans back in the direction from which they had come. Part of that painful withdrawal included in the retrograde movement of the First Marine Division from the Chosen Reservoir area, a fighting withdrawal that took place in bitter cold weather. “Frozen Chosen” became an epithet for the painful process of extricating American troops from what had seemed a virtual death trap. The gains that had been made a great sacrifice were mostly lost, as the North Korean rmy once aghain captured the capital of Seoul.

To bolster his defenses General MacArthur sought permission to attack Chinese forces in across the Yalu River in Chinese territory in order to be able to hit them in their sanctuary. He believed that attacking bases from which the Chinese army was being supplied was a key to defeating the Chinese army that had swept into South Korea. The Truman administration, however, not wishing to escalate the crisis nor provoke a full, all-out war between United States and Communist China, restricted MacArthur's movements to the area of North Korea. General MacArthur, uncomfortable with the Truman administration's policies, openly criticized his commander-in-chief and sent a letter to a Republican congressman which was released to the public, and after consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Truman releived the five-star general of his command.

President Truman's firing of General MacArthur, one of the great heroes of the second world war, the man who accepted the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on behalf of all allied forces, caused a firestorm of criticism. When the general return to the United States he was fêted in New York with the largest ticker tape parade ever conducted, and was greeted by enthusiastic admirers as he toured the country, accepting salutes and parades in his honor in a number of cities. In his farewell address to a joint session of the United States Congress, he gave a moving speech in which he claimed that “In war there can be no substitute for victory.”

President Truman replaced General MacArthur with General Matthew Ridgway, another World War II veteran, and general which Ridgway soon be going began to reclaim some of the ground that had been lost following the Chinese invasion. But further attempts to push the war back to the Chinese border were not feasible and the fighting degenerated into a stalemate around the 38th parallel and. In the presidential election in 1952 and General Eisenhower, the Republican candidate, promised that if elected he would go to Korea and seek a solution to the conflict eventually a cease-fire was agreed upon in the fighting came to a desultory conclusion. That cease-fire, however, was not the Corp. quite the same thing as peace, and tensions along the border between North and South Korea continued for many years. To the current time, American troops are still stationed in South Korea.