The Korean War

\

Background

1910 - 1945

• Korea had most prominent communist groups and activists
• worked underground to re-establish Korean independence when Japan occupied Korean Peninsula in 1910-1945

Post-WW2 Occupation

• Korea occupied by USSR in north and USA in south in 1945
• chosen 38th parallel also used to separate Japan and Russia in early 20th century

\
\

Causes

Kim Il-Sung

• heroic guerrilla commander as 33-year-old Soviet Army captain
• Soviets made him head of provisional government for North Korea in early 1946
• made premier of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on September 9th, 1948

Progression & Economy

• Kim bought into Korean nationalism and independence with the Korean People’s Army
  • 2 million acres of land redistributed in under amonth
  • women guaranteed equality under the law
  • political action cells educate population
• North Korea advanced under Kim’s rule
• USA and USSR left peninsula in June 1949

Syngman Rhee

• educated and became Christian in US in early 1900s
• campaigned for Korean independence and was in provisional government
  • attended Treaty of Portsmouth and Washington Naval Conference
  • Roosevelt did Treaty of Portsmouth
  • Tried to go to Versailles negotiations in 1919
  • opposed trusteeship negotiations between USA and USSR
• elected president of Republic of Korea July 20, 1948
• used torture, extralegal police measures, and assassination to repress left

Kim Il-Sung & Syngman Rhee

• wanted to rule an independent Korea
• opposed to Korea becoming a trusteeship
• chose sides in the Cold War
• needed outside help to defeat the other

\
\

The Cold War

• Truman Doctrine - USA would lend aid to anti-communist countries
• Domino Effect - Truman thought that if Korea fell to communism, then major trading partner Japan will follow
• Stalin wanted to indirectly beat the US so he support the spread of communism as long as it did not result in a war with America
• Stalin especially wanted to prove USSR’s worth after humiliation of Berlin Blockade

US Ambivalence

• Sept. 1947
  • JCS assessed that US had little interest in maintaining military in Korea
• Apr. 1948
  • NSC recommended withdrawing forces but providing $150 million in non-military aid
• Jan. 1950 - Pacific Perimeter Speech
  • Secretary Acheson described Pacific Sphere without including Korea
  • House of Representatives narrowly reject Korean Aid Bill

United Nations

• General Assembly recognizes Korea’s independence in Nov. 1947
• UNTCOK to supervise elections
• Soviets wouldn’t allow UNTCOK in North Korea
• North Korea makes Democratic People’s Republic of Korea earlier in September
• escalated border skirmishes and guerrilla activity in the south
• June 27, 1950: UNSCR 83 declare North Korean actions were a breach of peace
• July 7, 1950: UNSCR 8 authorized US to run a unified command of military forces from UN member states
• UNC formed under MacArthur command
• Rhee places all ROK forces under UNC command

Cheju 4.3 Incident

• Apr. 1948 in Cheju-do Island
• leftist South Korean Labor Party demonstrations for unification
• Jeju march turn to chaos when police opened fire on a crowd and killed 6
• escalated to coast and lasted the duration of the war
• 30,000 died

Sung Courts Allies

Stalin

• recent documents reveal that he wanted to convince Stalin to back an invasion after the faltering covert insurgency
• Politburo considers military action by September 1949
  • Chinese Civil War
  • Soviet atom bomb
  • Establishment of NATO
  • Perceived US commitment to Korea
  • Soviet security in the East
  • Rhee
  • China
• Stalin’s 3 demands
  • Decisive victory
  • Conflict will not escalate
  • no direct Soviet intervention

Mao

• Mao is amenable
  • only military action would unify Korea
  • US won’t concern itself with Korea
  • Mao would “lean to one side”

South to Busan

• North Korea invades June 25, 1950
• Stalin gave the NKPA lots of tanks, artillery, and small arms
• organized as conventional CCP army with many Chinese Civil War veterans
• ROK army under-trained and under-equipped
• Major-General Chae-Pyongdok rejects plan to withdraw south
• Kaesong falls in 4 hours with typical NKPA tactics
  • T-34 disease - soldiers run away from the sound of the tank
• Chunchon holds for 3 days but rest of the front collapses
• fleeing refugees
• Han bridge hastily blown up
• ROK routed and Seoul falls June 28, 1950
• Delays reduce ROK to Busan Perimeter and area around the southeast coast

US 8th Army

• T-34 armored brigades overran Task Force Smith
• Bazookas and M-26 Pershings (famous general in WW1) return assault

Incheon Landing

• Sept 15, 1950
• Kim neglected sea power so Britain and USA could control it with impunity
• difficult landing involving an amphibious assault and urban warfare
• successful - cut North Korean logistical lines and divided their forces
• captured Wolmi-do airstrip
• Gen. Walker breaks out of Busan Perimeter
• Battle of Naktong Bridge at Busan Perimeter saw annihilation of NKPA

To the Yalu

• October 7, 1950
• UN allowed MacArthur to cross 38th parallel to unite all of Korea
• MacArthur ignored Chinese warnings
• Chinese and Soviets feared America on their borders
• Mao saw Americans as arrogance
• 8th Army and UNC push on diverging lines of advance
• Pyongyang captured October 20, 1950

First Phase Offensive

• UNC and 8th Army push through North Korea with NKPA rout
• 180,000 CPV soldiers over the border
• MacArthur overextends his forces and falls into Gen. Peng Dehuai’s trap
• poorly equipped CPV (even with Soviet help) has many advantages:
  • veterans
  • night fighters
  • good at deception
  • high morale

Battle of the Chosin Reservoir

• during Second Phase Offensive
  • started Nov. 25, 1950
• IX CVP Corp attempt to encircle X US Corp
• Chinese fighters in mountains fired at road-bound Marines on all sides
• F4U fighter-bombers supported the defense
• Marines retreat back to 38th parallel
• Biggest battle of the Korean War
• first phase of the war ends

“Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.”

• MacArthur wanted total victory
  • unite Korea
  • remove PRC threat to Asia
  • worked before, but not during, the era of nuclear warfare
  • Nuke them
• JCS wanted to avoid escalation
• MacArthur outline plan to the press
  • he did this to try to become president
  • got fired on Apr. 14, 1951
  • General Ridgway takes his command

Old Iron Tits

• Ridgway understands that the war can’t escalate
  • warfare changed since WW2
  • against nuclear weapons
  • advocates attrition
  • “the meatgrinder”
    • try to kill more of them over minimizing your casualties
• called “Old Iron Tits” because he carried grenades around his neck
• Institutes front reforms
  • officers lead from the front
  • Strong logistical support
  • deploy units into hills and off the roads to avoid Marines getting killed
  • attrition is operational doctrine
  • “Find them! Fix them! Fight them! Finish them!”
  • “Fix them” means to surround them to keep them there and prevent them from escaping or leaving
• Third Phase Offensive forces Ridgway out of Seoul
  • CPV supply lines stretched to breaking and Peng had to withdraw

MiG Alley

• MiG 15s established control between Chongchon and Yalu Rivers in the northwest corner of Korea
• Operation Strangle
  • US FEAF mission was interdiction of North Korean lines
• but they are losing a lot of people in MiG Alley
• Jul-Nov 1951 - NKPA swept from air and North Korean industrial centers strategically bombed
• Cold War understanding develops with CPV in Korea
  • Communists wouldn’t bomb Japan, South Korea, UNC Naval forces
  • No UNC aircraft within 3 miles of China
  • NO UNC aircraft within 20 miles of USSR
• Planes used:
  • North American F-51 Mustang
  • Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star
  • Republic F-84 Thunderjet
  • Boeing B-29 Stratofortess
  • Gloster Meteor
  • Martin B-26 Invader
  • F-86 Sabre
  • only USAAF swept-wing jet
  • countered MiG 15
  • Tough and fast
  • easy to fly
  • outmaneuvered the MiG 15 at high speed
  • 6.50 caliber machine guns
  • MiG 15 ‘Fagot’
  • Dominated Korea until the Sabre
  • Climbed faster than the Sabre
  • flew higher than F-86
  • Cannons had better stopping power than F-86
  • Less experienced pilots
  • more MiGs
• air offensive by Communist forces at the end of 1951 forced draw in air war
  • MiG Alley would belong to MiG-15
  • Superfortress daylight bombing into North Korea and FEAF Fighter-bomber operations here permanently abandoned

Naval Air War

• Vought F4U Corsair

• Grumman F9F Panther

• Douglas A-1 Skyraider

• Sikorsky HO3S-I

• Helicopters in warfare now

  <br /> </p>

The War of Attrition

• fighting continued along 38th parallel for the rest of the war
  • made to force Communists to bargain
  • trench warfare like WW1
  • Prefigured later wars of attrition
• Item Four of the cease-fire negotiations proved intractable
  • Communists feared mass defections would erode utopia of their ideology
  • May 7, 1952 - Koje-do pro-communist POWs rioted and captured the prison commandant
  • China and North Korea used the riot to prove UNC demand as unfounded
• more American apathy
  • “Why die for a tie?”
  • understated “police action”
  • Republican Congress said concept of limited war was appeasement
  • Omar Bradley attacked this in testimony during MacArthur Hearings
    • said that fighting Red China would be the wrong fight at the wrong place and time with the wrong enemy
    • we don’t understand limited wars but that’s how most wars are fought
• war starts to die down

Operation Showdown

• Acting CPV commander Deng Hua decided on ‘Active positional defense’ doctrine resembling Ridgway’s methods
• See-saw battles to decrease casualties
• Battle of Kumsong Bulge
  • Van Fleet’s defense suffered 9,000 casualties
  • Chinese suffered 11,500
  • even losses

\
\

End of the War

The War Ends July 27, 1953

• reasons
  • Chinese and North Koreans could no longer sustain the war
  • Eisenhower was elected
  • Stalin dies
• Little Switch
  • Progress made on proposal by chief negotiator Clark to exchange sick adn wounded soldiers
  • during negotiation, China gave in on repatriation and compromised with Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission
• Both sides continued fighting in this process
  • NSC 147 codified escalation if China did not give in
• Rhee refuses to sign until US promises military and financial support
• China and the USSR
  • China paid for most of the war
  • did bring them closer together
  • but China galled at Stalin insisting that China pay for the aid
• Klausewitz observed that the war is fought until it comes to an end

The Korean War Armistice

• made to insure end to warfare and all armed force acts in Korea until definitive peace occurred
• covered issues like
  • POWs exchange
  • demarcation line located
• Provided
  • suspended open hostilities
  • fixed demarcation line with 4 km buffer zone of demilitarization
  • mechanism for POWs transfer

The Death of Total War

• Atomic weapons multiply warfare’s destructiveness and opponent may resort to them when facing major defeat
• conventional warfare itself is expensive and exhausting
• Cold War’s zero-sum game meant any conflict could involve the superpowers
• maybe the biggest disaster is that intellectuals and foreign-policy experts like Derek Leebaert in his book Magic and Mayhem said that the war was an American victory after the war of attrition

\
\