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TODAY IN HISTORY: 60 Years Later- Don’t Know Much About® the Korean War

Ken — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:00:10 +0000

It used to be called the “Forgotten War.” But it is no longer forgotten, as recent headlines continue to prove. And it never really ended. With the sinking of a South Korean navy submarine in March, tensions between the two countries were once again ratcheted higher. And the firing of Gen. MacChrystal by President Obama this week brought back recollections of the Korean wartime firing of General Douglas MacArthur by President Truman. They were more reminders of the so-called “Forgotten War.”

The Korean War started 60 years ago on June 25, 1950.

In the wake of World War II, when Korea had been brutally occupied by the Japanese, the Korean peninsula was divided by the victorious allies between a Soviet-allied North and a western allied South Korea. The Korean people were not consulted on the matter.

On June 25, 1950, more than one hundred thousand troops from Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea. The UN called the invasion a violation of international peace and demanded that the Communists withdraw. In what was called a UN “police action,” sixteen UN countries sent troops to help the South Koreans, and 41 countries sent military equipment and other supplies. But the United States provided about 90 percent of the troops, military equipment, and supplies.

Fighting in the Korean War, one of the bloodiest wars in history, ended on July 27, 1953, when the UN and North Korea signed an armistice. A permanent peace treaty between South Korea and North Korea has never been signed. What else do you know about this Cold War conflict that had the world on brink of World War III? (Answers below)

1. Who first commanded the UN troops in Korea?
2. What nation entered the war on North Korea’s side?
3. What two aviation “firsts” occurred during the war?
4. Why did President Truman fire General MacArthur?
5. What were American losses in the Korean war?

Although it attracts less attention than the nearby Vietnam War Memorial, there is a Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. A National Parks Service link: http://www.nps.gov/kwvm/

Unlike World War II and the war in Vietnam, the Korean War has also inspired a much smaller list of books. Two recent ones deserve attention:

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. This book was completed just before the acclaimed journalist/historian’s untimely death.

The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea by James Brady is a more personal account of a year spent in Korea as a Marine lieutenant.

James Michener’s The Bridges at Toko Ri (1953) is one of the few notable novels set during the Korean War and is based on Michener’s experience as a war correspondent. Another is MASH, by the pseudonymous Richard Hooker, published in 1968. Based on the author’s experiences as a surgeon in the Korean conflict, the book inspired the movie and long-running television series of the same name.

You can read more about Korea and the Cold War era in Don’t Know Much About History.

Answers

1. On July 8, with the approval of the UN Security Council, Pres. Truman named Douglas MacArthur commander in chief of the United Nations Command.

2. More than 300,000 Communist Chinese troops crossed into North Korea in October 1950 and U.S. and Chinese troops first clashed on October 25. They fought until November 6, when the Chinese suddenly withdrew.

3. The Korean war marked the first battles between jet aircraft and for the first time, helicopters carried troops into combat.

4. One of the controversies of the war occurred in April 1951, when President Truman removed General MacArthur from command, the result of a continuing dispute between MacArthur and defense leaders in Washington. MacArthur wanted to bomb bases in a part of China, and use other “all-out measures.” Truman feared such actions might lead to a third world war. The decision was very unpopular; MacArthur was viewed as a hero and Truman’s popularity plunged. It was one of the reasons he chose not to run for another term. World War II hero General Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate, won election as President in 1952 on a stunning vow to end the war.

5. The Department of Defense reports that 54,246 Americans service men and women lost their lives during the Korean War. This includes all losses worldwide during that period. As there has been no peace treaty, those Americans who lost their lives in the Demilitarized Zone of Korea since the Armistice are also included.

The quiz above was adapted from Don’t Know Much About Anything.

A Soldier is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Ken — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:09:09 +0000

“The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” That was the moment in 1918 at which they put a stop to the mindless killing of World War I with an Armistice. Back then, it was called the “Great War” or the “War to End All Wars” – because they didn’t know a WWII was right around the corner.
The November 11 date was first celebrated in 1919 as Armistice Day, becoming a legal holiday in 1938. After World War II and the Korean War, Congress changed “Armistice” to “Veterans Day”—a day to honor all veterans of all American wars. (There was brief period in which Veterans Day was celebrated as a “Monday holiday,” but in 1978, Veterans Day was returned to its original November 11th date, where it remains.)

Of course, that means today there will be a lot of speechmaking about honoring our veterans. It will come a day after the Harvard Medical School released a survey showing that more than 2,000 veterans died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/2266-veterans-died-in-200_n_353033.html

That news came on top of the fact that many of America’s veterans fill the ranks of the nation’s homeless. According to the VA, one third of America’s adult homeless are veterans.
http://www1.va.gov/homeless/page.cfm?pg=1

These grim facts are troubling enough when it comes to “honoring veterans.” What nobody will say today is what then-Senator Barack Obama said in the spring of 2007, invoking a public spanking: “We now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.”
Senator John McCain said something similar around the same time and both men quickly covered their tracks by claiming they should have said “sacrificed” not “wasted.” In word-wise America, “sacrifice” has triumphed as the socially polite term for referring to the thousands of American lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no end in sight.

This parsing of language –the distinction between the honorable “sacrifice” and the taboo “waste”—takes on added poignancy on Veterans Day.

With the memory of Fort Hood’s memorial service achingly fresh, and as Arlington and other cemeteries at home and abroad are festooned in flags and fresh flowers, some might find it inappropriate to question the “W” word. The implication is that ceremonial grieving is no occasion for truth-telling. But what better moment to ask hard questions than when the wounds are freshest?

An American President once made a very public acknowledgment of loss. Recognizing that sacrifices can indeed be wasted, Abraham Lincoln implored war-torn America to,

“resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain.”

Maybe if the country, and especially its political leadership, honestly acknowledged that all sacrifice is not created equal –that far too many sacrifices are made in vain—America will go a long way towards ensuring that there are fewer fresh graves to decorate next Veterans Day.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle
Anthem for Doomed Youth –Wilfred Owens

Here is a link to a BBC page on the great poet of the World War I era, Wilfred Owens and his poems “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/wilfred_owen.shtml

Don’t Know Much About the Korean War

Ken — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:45:36 +0000

North Korea preoccupies the headlines as two American journalists are sentenced to hard labor for “illegal entry”, and the US considers blocking shipments into North Korea. One of the thorniest of foreign policy problems facing the US, the conflict with North Korea began during the Cold War, with fighting that began in June 1950 and continued until an armistice was signed in 1953.

Here’s a quick refresher on the war that ever really ended –

Late in June 1950, after a large-scale artillery barrage, the sound of bugles signaled the massed charge of North Koreans who came down out of the mountains to roll over an American-sponsored government in South Korea. Armed and trained by the Soviets, this was the most efficient fighting force in Asia after the Soviet Red Army.
This was the onset of the Korean War, a “hot war” in the midst of the Cold War maneuvering, and one that cost more than two million Korean lives as well as 100,000 American casualties, including more than 54,000 deaths.

As the diplomatic strife with Communist North Korea continues today, that war is still not really over. The armistice signed in July 1953 ended the fighting, creating a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divided North and South Korea. After three years of fighting, the situation in Korea was almost exactly what it had been when the North Koreans first attacked.
Most contemporary American perceptions of the Korean War come from the TV series “M*A*S*H*.” The Korean conflict remains something of an ambiguity, unlike the “people’s war” that preceded it or the unpopular war in Vietnam that followed it.

The United States actually fought in Korea under a United Nations flag. In Korea, the fighting started out against the North Koreans, but it quickly escalated into a much deadlier and more dangerous war against the massive armies of Red China. The possibility of the use of an atomic bomb was seriously considered.
The war in Korea did become unpopular and helped end the presidency of a Democratic President—Harry S. Truman, in this case, who chose not tun again – and opened the way for a Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero of World War II, who campaigned on a promise to end the war.

Read more about the Korean conflict and the Cold War era in Don’t Know Much About History.