Names
{{Infobox transliteration , title = Korean War , skhangul = 6·25 전쟁 or 한국 전쟁 , skhanja = 六二五戰爭 or 韓國戰爭 , skrr = Hanguk Jeonjaeng , skmr = Han'guk Chŏnjaeng , northkorea = , nkhangul = 조국해방전쟁 , nkhanja = 祖國解放戰爭 , nkrr = Joguk haebang Jeonjaeng , nkmr = Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng , northkorea2 = yes , ibox-order = ko4, ko3 In South Korea, the war is usually referred to as the "625 War" ({{Korean, hangul=6·25 전쟁, hanja=六二五戰爭, labels=no), the "625 Upheaval" ({{Korean, hangul=6·25 동란, hanja=六二五動亂, rr=yook-i-o dongnan, labels=no), or simply "625", reflecting the date of its commencement on 25 June. In North Korea, the war is officially referred to as the "Fatherland Liberation War" ({{Transliteration, ko, Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng) or alternatively the ''" Chosǒn'' orean''War"'' ({{Korean, hangul=조선전쟁, mr=Chosǒn chǒnjaeng, context=north, labels=no). In mainland China, the segment of the war after the intervention of theBackground
Imperial Japanese rule (1910–1945)
{{Main, Korea under Japanese rule Imperial Japan severely diminished the influence ofKorea divided (1945–1949)
{{Main, Division of Korea At the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join itsChinese Civil War (1945–1949)
{{Main, Chinese Civil War, Chinese Communist Revolution With the end of the war with Japan, the Chinese Civil War resumed in earnest between the Communists and Nationalists. While the Communists were struggling for supremacy in Manchuria, they were supported by the North Korean government withCommunist insurgency in South Korea (1948–1950)
By 1948, a large-scale North Korea-backed insurgency had broken out in the southern half of the peninsula. This was exacerbated by the ongoing undeclared border war between the Koreas, which saw division-level engagements and thousands of deaths on both sides. The ROK in this time was almost entirely trained and focused on counterinsurgency, rather than conventional warfare. They were equipped and advised by a force of a few hundred American officers, who were largely successful in helping the ROKA to subdue guerrillas and hold its own againstPrelude to war (1950)
By 1949, South Korean and US military actions had reduced the active number of indigenous communist guerrillas in the South from 5,000 to 1,000. However, Kim Il-sung believed that widespread uprisings had weakened the South Korean military and that a North Korean invasion would be welcomed by much of the South Korean population. Kim began seeking Stalin's support for an invasion in March 1949, traveling to Moscow to attempt to persuade him.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, pp=3–4 Stalin initially did not think the time was right for a war in Korea. PLA forces were still embroiled in the Chinese Civil War, while US forces remained stationed in South Korea.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, p=3 By spring 1950, he believed that the strategic situation had changed: PLA forces under Mao Zedong had secured final victory in China, US forces had withdrawn from Korea, and the Soviets had detonated their first nuclear bomb, breaking the US atomic monopoly. As the US had not directly intervened to stop the communist victory in China, Stalin calculated that they would be even less willing to fight in Korea, which had much less strategic significance. The Soviets had also cracked the codes used by the US to communicate with their embassy in Moscow, and reading these dispatches convinced Stalin that Korea did not have the importance to the US that would warrant a nuclear confrontation.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, pp=9, 10 Stalin began a more aggressive strategy in Asia based on these developments, including promising economic and military aid to China through the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, p=11 In April 1950, Stalin gave Kim permission to attack the government in the South under the condition that Mao would agree to send reinforcements if needed. For Kim, this was the fulfillment of his goal to unite Korea after its division by foreign powers. Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat, to avoid a direct war with the US.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, p=10 Kim met with Mao in May 1950. Mao was concerned the US would intervene but agreed to support the North Korean invasion. China desperately needed the economic and military aid promised by the Soviets.{{Sfn, Barnouin, Yu, 2006, pp=139–40 However, Mao sent more ethnic Korean PLA veterans to Korea and promised to move an army closer to the Korean border.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 1993, p=29 Once Mao's commitment was secured, preparations for war accelerated.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 2002, p=13 Soviet generals with extensive combat experience from the Second World War were sent to North Korea as the Soviet Advisory Group. These generals completed the plans for the attack by May.{{Sfn, Weathersby, 1993, pp=29–30 The original plans called for a skirmish to be initiated in theComparison of forces
Throughout 1949 and 1950, the Soviets continued arming North Korea. After the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, ethnic Korean units in the PLA were sent to North Korea.{{Sfn, Millett, 2007, p=14 Chinese involvement was extensive from the beginning, building on previous collaboration between the Chinese and Korean communists during the Chinese Civil War. In the fall of 1949, two PLA divisions composed mainly of Korean-Chinese troops (the 164th and 166th) entered North Korea, followed by smaller units throughout the rest of 1949; these troops brought with them not only their experience and training, but their weapons and other equipment, changing little but their uniforms. The reinforcement of the KPA with PLA veterans continued into 1950, with the 156th Division and several other units of the former Fourth Field Army arriving (also with their equipment) in February; the PLA 156th Division was reorganized as the KPA 7th Division. By mid-1950, between 50,000 and 70,000 former PLA troops had entered North Korea, forming a significant part of the KPA's strength on the eve of the war's beginning. Several generals, such asCourse of the war
At dawn on Sunday, 25 June 1950, the KPA crossed the 38th Parallel behind artillery fire.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, p=14 The KPA justified its assault with the claim that ROK troops attacked first and that the KPA were aiming to arrest and execute the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee".{{Sfn, Appleman, 1998, p=21 Fighting began on the strategic Ongjin Peninsula in the west.{{Sfn, Cumings, 2005, pp=260–63 There were initial South Korean claims that the 17th Regiment captured the city of Haeju, and this sequence of events has led some scholars to argue that the South Koreans fired first.{{Sfn, Cumings, 2005, pp=260–63 Whoever fired the first shots in Ongjin, within an hour, KPA forces attacked all along the 38th Parallel. The KPA had a combined arms force including tanks supported by heavy artillery. The ROK had no tanks, anti-tank weapons or heavy artillery to stop such an attack. In addition, the South Koreans committed their forces in a piecemeal fashion and these were routed in a few days.{{Sfn, Millett, 2007, pp=18–19 On 27 June, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with some of the government. On 28 June, at 2 am, the ROK blew up the Hangang Bridge across the Han River in an attempt to stop the KPA. The bridge was detonated while 4,000 refugees were crossing it and hundreds were killed.{{Cite book , last=Johnston , first=William , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64ZAy7NvwCgC&q=Han%20River%20demolish&pg=PA20 , title=A war of patrols: Canadian Army operations in Korea , date=1 November 2011 , publisher=Univ of British Columbia Pr , isbn=978-0774810081 , page=20 Destroying the bridge also trapped many ROK units north of the Han River.{{Sfn, Millett, 2007, pp=18–19 In spite of such desperate measures, Seoul fell that same day. A number of South Korean National Assemblymen remained in Seoul when it fell, and forty-eight subsequently pledged allegiance to the North.{{Sfn, Cumings, 2005, pp=269–70 On 28 June, Rhee ordered the massacre of suspected political opponents in his own country.{{Cite book , last=Edwards , first=Paul , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scZN59DXeOwC&q=Rhee%20bodo%20league%20massacre%20order&pg=PA32 , title=Historical Dictionary of the Korean War , date=10 June 2010 , publisher=Scarecrow Press , isbn=978-0810867734 , page=32 In five days, the ROK, which had 95,000 troops on 25 June, was down to less than 22,000 troops. In early July, when US forces arrived, what was left of the ROK were placed under US operational command of the United Nations Command.Factors in US intervention
The Truman administration was unprepared for the invasion. Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by United States Secretary of StateUnited Nations Security Council Resolutions
{{Further, List of United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning North Korea On 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of South Korea, with UN Security Council Resolution 82. The Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting Taiwan's occupation of China's permanent seat in the UN Security Council.{{Sfn, Malkasian, 2001, p=16 After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 27 June President Truman ordered US air and sea forces to help South Korea. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea. The Soviet Union challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK 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 fighting was beyond the UN Charter's scope, because the initial north–south border fighting was classed as a civil war. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the time, legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required the unanimous vote of all the five permanent members including the Soviet Union. Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee regime—were retreating southwards orUnited States' response (July–August 1950)
As soon as word of the attack was received, Acheson informed President Truman that the North Koreans had invaded South Korea.{{Sfn, Goulden, 1983, p=48 Truman and Acheson discussed a US invasion response and agreed that the US was obligated to act, comparing the North Korean invasion with Adolf Hitler's aggressions in the 1930s, with the conclusion being that the mistake ofThe drive south and Pusan (July–September 1950)
The Battle of Osan, the first significant US engagement of the Korean War, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division which had been flown in from Japan.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, p=45 On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the KPA at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the KPA tanks. The KPA defeated the US soldiers; the result was 180 American dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back US forces at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon; the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including its commander, Major GeneralBattle of Incheon (September 1950)
{{Main, Battle of Incheon Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN forces, they lacked naval and air support.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=58, 61 To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur recommended anBreakout from the Pusan Perimeter
{{Main, Pusan Perimeter offensive, UN September 1950 counteroffensive, Second Battle of Seoul On 16 September Eighth Army began its breakout from the Pusan Perimeter. ''Task Force Lynch'', 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and two 70th Tank Battalion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon) advanced through {{Convert, 106.4, mi, order=flip, abbr=on of KPA territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan on 27 September. X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in Southern Korea.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=71–72 On 18 September, Stalin dispatched General H. M. Zakharov to North Korea to advise Kim Il-sung to halt his offensive around the Pusan perimeter and to redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. As the overall commander of Chinese forces, Zhou Enlai suggested that the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the UN forces at Incheon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north.{{Sfn, Barnouin, Yu, 2006, p=143 On 25 September, Seoul was recaptured by UN forces. US air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and much of its artillery. KPA troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable.{{Sfn, Barnouin, Yu, 2006, p=143 During the general retreat only 25,000 to 30,000 KPA soldiers managed to reach the KPA lines. On 27 September, Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, in which he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.{{Sfn, Barnouin, Yu, 2006, p=143UN forces invade North Korea (September–October 1950)
{{Main, UN offensive into North Korea On 27 September, 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 29 September MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee.{{Sfn, Barnouin, Yu, 2006, p=143 On 30 September, US 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." During October, the South Korean policeChina intervenes (October–December 1950)
{{stack, On 30 June 1950, five days after the outbreak of the war, Zhou Enlai, premier of the PRC and vice-chairman of the Central Military Committee of the CCP (CMCC), decided to send a group of Chinese military intelligence personnel to North Korea to establish better communications with Kim II-Sung as well as to collect first-hand materials on the fighting. One week later, on 7 July, Zhou and Mao chaired a conference discussing military preparations for the Korean Conflict. Another conference took place on 10 July. Here it was decided that the Thirteenth Army Corps under the Fourth Field Army of theFighting around the 38th Parallel (January–June 1951)
A ceasefire presented by the UN to the PRC shortly after theStalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)
For the remainder of the war, the UN and the PVA/KPA fought but exchanged little territory, as the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began on 10 July 1951 at Kaesong, an ancient capital of Korea located in PVA/KPA held territory.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=145, 175–77 On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, andArmistice (July 1953 – November 1954)
{{Main, Korean Armistice Agreement The on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years,{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=144–53 first at Kaesong, on the border between North and South Korea, and then at the neighboring village of Panmunjom.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, p=147 A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=187–99 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, which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=189–90 ADivision of Korea (1954–present)
{{See also, Korean Demilitarized Zone The Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ. In April 1975,Characteristics
Casualties
Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, the majority of whom were civilians, making it perhaps the deadliest conflict of the Cold War-era.{{Cite book , last=Cumings , first=Bruce , title=The Korean War: A History , publisher=Military
{{See also, Australia in the Korean War, l1=Australia, Belgian United Nations Command, l2=Belgium and Luxembourg, 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade, l3=Canada, Colombian Battalion, l4=Colombia, Kagnew Battalion, l5=Ethiopia, French Battalion, l6=France, Greek Expeditionary Force (Korea), l7=Greece, Regiment van Heutsz#Korean War, l8=Netherlands, New Zealand in the Korean War, l9=New Zealand, Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea, l10=Philippines, Thailand in the Korean War, l11=Thailand, Turkish Brigade, l12=Turkey, 2 Squadron SAAF#Korean War, l13=South Africa, British Commonwealth Forces Korea, l14=United Kingdom, United States in the Korean War, l15=United States {{See also, People's Volunteer Army, l1=China, North Korea in the Korean War, l2=North Korea, Soviet Union in the Korean War, l3=Soviet Union According to the data from the US Department of Defense, the US suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths, and 17,730 other deaths during the Korean War.{{Cite news , last=Rhem, Kathleen T. , date=8 June 2000 , title=Defense.gov News Article: Korean War Death Stats Highlight Modern DoD Safety Record , publisher=defense.gov. US Department of Defense , url=http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45275 , access-date=3 March 2016 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114121831/http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45275 , archive-date=14 January 2012 American combat casualties were over 90 percent of non-Korean UN losses. U.S. battle deaths were 8,516 up to their first engagement with the Chinese on 1 November 1950. The first four months of the Korean War, that is, the war prior to the Chinese intervention (which started near the end of October), were by far the bloodiest per day for the US forces as they engaged and destroyed the comparatively well-equipped KPA in intense fighting. American medical records show that from July to October 1950, the US Army sustained 31 percent of the combat deaths it ultimately incurred in the whole 37-month war. The U.S. spent US$30 billion in total on the war. Some 1,789,000 American soldiers served in the Korean War, accounting for 31 percent of the 5,720,000 Americans who served on active-duty worldwide from June 1950 to July 1953. South Korea reported some 137,899 military deaths and 24,495 missing. Deaths from the other non-American U.N. militaries totaled 3,730, with another 379 missing. Data from official Chinese sources reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, and 7,600 missing during the war. 7,110 Chinese POWs were repatriated to China. In 2010, the Chinese government revised their official tally of war losses to 183,108 dead (114,084 in combat, 70,000 outside of combat) and 25,621 missing. Overall, 73 percent of Chinese infantry troops served in Korea (25 of 34 armies, or 79 of 109 infantry divisions, were rotated in). More than 52 percent of the Chinese air force, 55 percent of the tank units, 67 percent of the artillery divisions, and 100 percent of the railroad engineering divisions were sent to Korea as well. Chinese soldiers who served in Korea faced a greater chance of being killed than those who served in World War II or the Chinese Civil War. In terms of financial cost, China spent over 10 billion yuan on the war (roughly US$3.3 billion), not counting USSR aid which had been donated or forgiven.Xiaobing 2009, p. 112. This included $1.3 billion in money owed to the Soviet Union by the end of it. This was a relatively large cost, as China had only 1/25 the national income of the United States. Spending on the Korean War constituted 34–43 percent of China's annual government budget from 1950 to 1953, depending on the year. Despite its underdeveloped economy, Chinese military spending was the world's fourth-largest globally for most of the war after that of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, though by 1953, with the winding down of the Korean War (which ended halfway through the year) and the escalation of the First Indochina War (which reached its peak in 1953–1954), French spending also surpassed Chinese spending by about a third. According to the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, North Korean military losses totaled 294,151 dead, 91,206 missing, and 229,849 wounded, giving North Korea the highest military deaths of any belligerent in both absolute and relative terms.Andrew C. Nahm; James Hoare (2004). "Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Korea". Scarecrow Press, pp. 129–130. The PRIO Battle Deaths Dataset gave a similar figure for North Korean military deaths of 316,579.Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, 2005. ―Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths.‖ European Journal of Population: 21(2–3): 145–166. Korean data available aCivilian
According to the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, there were over three-quarters of a million confirmed violent civilians deaths during the war, another million civilians were pronounced missing, and millions more ended up as refugees. In South Korea, some 373,500 civilians were killed, more than 225,600 wounded, and over 387,740 were listed as missing. During the first communist occupation of Seoul alone, the KPA massacred 128,936 civilians and deported another 84,523 to North Korea. On the other side of the border, some 1,594,000 North Koreans were reported as casualties including 406,000 civilians reported as killed, and 680,000 missing. Over 1.5 million North Koreans fled to the South during the war.US unpreparedness for war
In a postwar analysis of the unpreparedness of US Army forces deployed to Korea during the summer and fall of 1950, Army Major GeneralArmored warfare
The initial assault by KPA forces was aided by the use of Soviet T-34-85 tanks.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, pp=14, 43 A KPA tank corps equipped with about 120 T-34s spearheaded the invasion. These drove against the ROK with few anti-tank weapons adequate to deal with the T-34s.{{Sfn, Stokesbury, 1990, p=39 Additional Soviet armor was added as the offensive progressed.{{Sfn, Perrett, 1987, pp=134–35 The KPA tanks had a good deal of early successes against ROK infantry, Task Force Smith and the USNaval warfare
{{Further, List of US Navy ships sunk or damaged in action during the Korean conflict {{Naval engagements of the Korean War Because neither Korea had a significant navy, the war featured few naval battles. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the US Navy cruiser {{USS, Juneau, CL-119, 6, the Royal Navy cruiser {{HMS, Jamaica, 44, 6 and the Royal Navy frigate {{HMS, Black Swan, L57, 6 fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them. USS ''Juneau'' later sank several ammunition ships that had been present. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship ''PC-703'' sank a North Korean minelayer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Incheon. Three other supply ships were sunk by ''PC-703'' two days later in the Yellow Sea. Thereafter, vessels from the UN nations held undisputed control of the sea about Korea. The gunships were used in shore bombardment, while the aircraft carriers provided air support to the ground forces. During most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea, sinking supply and ammunition ships and denying the North Koreans the ability to resupply from the sea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the main threat to UN navy ships was from magnetic mines. During the war, five US Navy ships were lost to mines: two minesweepers, two minesweeper escorts, and one ocean tug. Mines and gunfire from North Korean coastal artillery damaged another 87 US warships, resulting in slight to moderate damage.Aerial warfare
{{Further, MiG Alley, USAF Units and Aircraft of the Korean War, Korean People's Air Force The war was the first in whichBombing of North Korea
{{Main, Bombing of North Korea The initial bombing attack on North Korea was approved on the fourth day of the war, 29 June 1950, by General Douglas MacArthur immediately upon request by the commanding general of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), George E. Stratemeyer.{{Cite journal , last=Kim , first=Taewoo , date=2012 , title=Limited War, Unlimited Targets: U.S. Air Force Bombing of North Korea during the Korean War, 1950–1953 , journal=Critical Asian Studies , volume=44 , issue=3 , pages=467–492 , doi=10.1080/14672715.2012.711980 , s2cid=142704845. Major bombing began in late July. U.S. airpower conducted 7,000 close support and interdiction airstrikes that month, which helped slow the North Korean rate of advance to {{Convert, 2, mi, km, 0, order=flip, abbr=on a day. 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. From June through October, official US policy was to pursue precision bombing aimed at communication centers (railroad stations, marshaling yards, main yards, and railways) and industrial facilities deemed vital to war-making capacity. The policy was the result of debates after World War II, in which US policy rejected the mass civilian bombings that had been conducted in the later stages of World War II as unproductive and immoral. In early July, General Emmett O'Donnell Jr. requested permission to firebomb five North Korean cities. He proposed that MacArthur announce that the UN would employ the firebombing methods that "brought Japan to its knees". The announcement would warn the leaders of North Korea "to get women and children and other noncombatants the hell out". According to O'Donnell, MacArthur responded, "No, Rosie, I'm not prepared to go that far yet. My instructions are very explicit; however, I want you to know that I have no compunction whatever to your bombing bona fide military objectives, with high explosives, in those five industrial centers. If you miss your target and kill people or destroy other parts of the city, I accept that as a part of war." In September 1950, MacArthur said in his public report to the UN, "The problem of avoiding the killing of innocent civilians and damages to the civilian economy is continually present and given my personal attention." In October 1950, FEAF commander General Stratemeyer requested permission to attack the city of Sinuiju, a provincial capital with an estimated population of 60,000, "over the widest area of the city, without warning, by burning and high explosive". MacArthur's headquarters responded the following day: "The general policy enunciated from Washington negates such an attack unless the military situation clearly requires it. Under present circumstances this is not the case." Following the intervention of the Chinese in November, General MacArthur ordered increased bombing on North Korea which included firebombing against the country's arsenals and communications centers and especially against the "Korean end" of all the bridges across the Yalu River. As with the aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II, the nominal objective of the USAF was to destroy North Korea's war infrastructure and shatter the country's morale. On 3 November 1950, General Stratemeyer forwarded to MacArthur the request of Fifth Air Force commander GeneralUS threat of atomic warfare
On 5 November 1950, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff 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. President Truman ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... ndsigned an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets", which he never transmitted.{{Sfn, Cumings, 2005, pp=289–92 Many US officials viewed the deployment of nuclear-capable (but not nuclear-armed) B-29 bombers to Britain as helping to resolve the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. Truman and Eisenhower both had military experience and viewed nuclear weapons as potentially usable components of their military. During Truman's first meeting to discuss the war on 25 June 1950, he ordered plans be prepared for attacking Soviet forces if they entered the war. By July, Truman approved another B-29 deployment to Britain, this time with bombs (but without their cores), to remind the Soviets of US offensive ability. Deployment of a similar fleet to Guam was leaked to ''The New York Times''. As UN forces retreated to Pusan, and the CIA reported that mainland China was building up forces for a possible invasion of Taiwan, the Pentagon believed that Congress and the public would demand using nuclear weapons if the situation in Korea required them.{{Cite journal , last=Dingman , first=R. , date=1988–1989 , title=Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War , journal=International Security , volume=13 , issue=3 , pages=50–91 , doi=10.2307/2538736 , jstor=2538736 , s2cid=154823668 As PVA forces pushed back the UN forces from the Yalu River, Truman stated during a 30 November 1950 press conference that using nuclear weapons was "alwaysWar crimes
Civilian deaths and massacres
{{Further, Bodo League massacre, Seoul National University Hospital massacre, No Gun Ri Massacre, Sinchon Massacre, Ganghwa massacre, Sancheong-Hamyang massacre, Geochang massacre There were numerous atrocities and massacres of civilians throughout the Korean War committed by both sides, starting in the war's first days. On 28 June 1950, North Korean troops committed thePrisoners of War (POWs)
{{See also, Korean War POWs detained in North Korea, Hill 303 massacre, List of American and British defectors in the Korean WarChinese POWs
At=UN Command POWs
= The United States reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed. The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, Daejeon and Sunchon; these massacres were discovered afterwards 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". Although the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their North Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese-run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of US POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to logistical difficulties. The UN POWs said that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border and that the Chinese withheld food to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrination programs. According to Chinese reports, over a thousand US POWs died by the end of June 1951, while a dozen British POWs died, and all Turkish POW survived. According to Hastings, wounded US POWs died for lack of medical attention and were fed a diet of corn and millet "devoid of vegetables, almost barren of proteins, minerals, or vitamins" with only 1/3 the calories of their usual diet. Especially in early 1951, thousands of prisoners lost the will to live and "declined to eat the mess of sorghum and rice they were provided". The unpreparedness of US POWs to resist heavy communist indoctrination during the Korean War led to the Code of the United States Fighting Force which governs how US military personnel inStarvation
{{See also, National Defense Corps Incident In December 1950, the South Korean National Defense Corps was founded; the soldiers were 406,000 drafted citizens. In the winter of 1951, 50,000 to 90,000 South Korean National Defense Corps soldiers starved to death while marching southward under the PVA offensive when their commanding officers embezzled funds earmarked for their food. This event is called the National Defense Corps Incident. Although his political allies certainly profited from corruption, it remains controversial if Syngman Rhee was personally involved in or benefited from the corruption.{{Cite book , last=Terence Roehrig , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zfQggLWwyi4C&pg=PA139 , title=Prosecution of Former Military Leaders in Newly Democratic Nations: The Cases of Argentina, Greece, and South Korea , publisher=McFarland & Company , date=2001 , isbn=978-0786410910 , page=139 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921221320/https://books.google.com/books?id=zfQggLWwyi4C&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139 , archive-date=21 September 2015 , url-status=liveRecreation
{{Further, United Service Organizations In 1950, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall and Secretary of the NavyAftermath
{{Main, Aftermath of the Korean War Postwar recovery was different in the two Koreas. South Korea, which started from a far lower industrial base than North Korea (the latter contained 80% of Korea's heavy industry in 1945), stagnated in the first postwar decade. In 1953, South Korea and the United States signed a Mutual Defense Treaty. In 1960, the April Revolution occurred and students joined an anti-Syngman Rhee demonstration; 142 were killed by police; in consequence Syngman Rhee resigned and left for exile in the United States.See also
{{Div col, colwidth=20em *War memorials
* Korean War Memorial Wall,{{Ref, 25, map Brampton, Ontario * Korean War Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C. * Memorial of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Dandong, Liaoning, China * National War Memorial (New Zealand) * Philadelphia Korean War Memorial * United Nations Memorial Cemetery, Busan, Republic of Korea * Victorious War Museum, Pyongyang, North Korea *Notes
{{NotelistReferences
Citations
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