Korea Reflection
By CAPT Marshall Hanson, USNR
In late June, we began the observance of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War. The initial ceremony, while highlighted in the media, was quickly eclipsed by the 4th of July celebration. Too quickly the public and press forget that combat is duration. Spoiled by "Desert Storm," the media is forgetting that wars are fought for years, not days, hours or minutes. The irony is that this forgotten celebration is for the "Forgotten War."
From a follow-on generation, I always thought that the "Forgotten War" was an odd reference to Korea. Perhaps luckier than most, I was educated to the nature of the fight. But as with so many history courses, I was taught of national interests and strategy and not of the hardship of battle and subsequent sacrifice of the men on the front. For too many veterans in Korea, it was "our time in Hell."
Korea was the Forgotten War. It was forgotten because of the errors that lead to it and surrounded it. These were not errors of men, but of policy.
"There were heroes. There were a lot of heroes, a lot of medals, justifiably so," said RADM William T. Thompson USN (Ret), at a plaque dedication ceremony at Ichon, June 25, 2000.
The United States was not prepared. In 1950, we had not yet fully adjusted to the role of world leadership that was thrust upon us following the destruction and loss of human lives in World War II. Our diplomatic vision was not yet global, as we were reconstructing Europe and Japan. The new defense policy announced by Secretary of State Dean Acheson on January 12, 1950 placed South Korea outside the American defense perimeter in the Pacific. This encouraged the Soviets to support North Korea ambitions for invasion. On June 25, 1950, news flashed around the world that North Korean hordes had crossed the 38th parallel to attack South Korea. In quick response, President Harry Truman committed the United States armed forces to stem the tide of the enemy attack.
But the United States was not prepared for the fight. America had greeted the end of WWII with relief and dreams of peace. Weapons into plowshares; the United States military had been downsized. On June 25, the U.S. Army combat units nearest the scene were the four infantry divisions performing occupation duties in Japan. The Seventh Fleet, only a shadow of its former size and power, was scattered throughout the western Pacific and in no position to provide an immediate response. At the outbreak of hostilities, the Seventh Fleet comprised a single aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, eight destroyers, and a handful of submarines and support ships. On June 25, 1950, reduction-in-force notices were rescinded, and affected individuals were recalled to active duty.
But in a little more than a week after the war began, aircraft carriers operating in the Yellow Sea were able to launch strikes against strategic targets. U.S. Navy units destroyed the small North Korean Navy, and within two days the North Korean control of the air was destroyed. The Royal Navy augmented U.S. Naval forces, with a light carrier, two cruisers, two destroyers, and two frigates. The navies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand made other ships available. These were used for blockade duty.
Yet for the first month of the Korean War, the Army of the Republic of Korea, supported only by U.S. air and naval forces, was unable to halt the North Korean aggressors. By the end of the fourth day of combat, the city of Seoul had fallen.
By 5 July, U.S. ground forces joined the battle. Intelligence was incomplete. U.S. Army units rushed to Korea from occupation duty in Japan were learning that they were facing no rag-tag force, but a highly trained and well-equipped foe. "We were told we had a few armed Korean civilians and North Korean soldiers with old Japanese rifles, pitchforks and spears…" recalled former Pvt. John Kirby of Apple Valley, CA.
The U.S. Army combat units were thrown piecemeal into the battle to slow Communist advances. These divisions, seriously under strength and only partially trained and equipped for fighting, provided the troops that were initially committed. At first only two reinforced rifle companies were committed to battle, then a battalion, then a regiment, then a division, finally the Eighth Army and the reconstituted ROK Army. They fought a desperate and heroic delaying action, buying time until the United Nations forces could attain the military strength necessary to take the offensive. Against them, was the might of the initially victorious North Korean Army.
The forces were on the defensive side until September 15 when the American forces, under the command of General MacArthur successfully landed on Inchon. The landing allowed the U.N. forces to break through the Pusan perimeter, to retake Seoul, and to cross the thirty-eighth parallel by September 30.
Gradually, United Nations troops from many parts of the world entered the war, usually in small numbers. But in the case of Great Britain the force rose from two battalions to a Commonwealth division. When that offensive was launched, it quickly crushed the North Korean forces.
In the second phase of the Korean War, KPA forces were in retreat. In two days, the Southern forces were approximately 25 miles north of the parallel. Within a week, they captured Wonson, located on the eastern side of North Korea. Thereafter, they marched toward the Yalu River with almost no resistance from the Northern (KPA) units.
The U.N. Forces were to be met with the massive intervention of a more formidable adversary, Communist China. The unexpected decision of China to enter into the war in early October again turned the tide of the war. The Northern units, consisting of Sino-Korean troops, sent the U.N forces retreating again. On December 6, the Communist forces retook Pyongyang. And by the end of December, they recrossed the parallel and retook Seoul.
The United States military and the United Nation troops were not prepared for operational retreat. Not since the Civil War had an U.S. Army retreated. The tactics in World War II had been offensive. Move ahead; yard by yard from France to Germany, or island by island to Japan. Our soldiers had not been properly trained or mentally prepared to dig in and defend, especially against human wave tactics. When counter-attacked by the Chinese, the United Nations forces withdrew, fell back, and gave ground. Our forces felt demoralized and betrayed.
But Northern forces were not as successful as their first attack because by the end of January 1951, the U.N. forces were back on the Han river and by March 14, they were able to retake Seoul from North Korea's hands. The conditions in Korea during this time were one of desperation. One can only imagine the chaos not only in Seoul, which exchanged hands four times, but also in every city in both North and South Korea. During the months of May and April of 1951, there was a sort of "see-saw" fighting along the thirty-eighth parallel with neither units really advancing beyond the parallel. By summer of 1951, talks for an armistice began.
Throughout mid-1951 to 1953, negotiation for peace treaty stalled and reopened. Fighting continued with intensified guerilla warfare during the armistice talk. Aerial bombing in North Korea also intensified as the negotiation continued.
In the period between June 1950 and July 1953, 550,000 UNC forces were committed to battle, and of that 95,000 were killed in action. Total estimated casualties of the invading North Korean and Chinese forces are said to exceed 1,500,000. Over 5,700,000 Americans served in our armed forces during that period 1.8 million served in the Korean Theatre. Of these 33,686 died in battle and 92,134 were wounded in action. Furthermore, 7,245 military were declared captured and 4,245 missing in action.
To some, the military operational art in Korea was best forgotten. Too little attained, at too high a cost. But instead the actions taken in Korea were heroic and were pivotal to the United States, setting a new direction for its future. Korea was in actuality one of America's most significant conflicts. The wars impact include:
- It was the first full-scale exercise of Truman's policy of containment, the Cold War strategy aimed at controlling the spread of Communism.
- It was the demonstration of the United States acceptance of its role in world leadership.
- A consequence of Korea was the Cold War been the USSR and U.S.
- By Truman immediately involving the United Nations, he validated it as an international organization.
- The Korean War triggered the buildup of U.S. forces in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- It began American involvement in the Vietnam War.G. The Korean War served as the very model for America's wars of the future.
- Today, South Korea remains free, one of the most westernized countries in Asia. Before the Korean War, it had been occupied for 750 years.
- And lastly, as Historian and Korean War combat veteran T.R. Fehrenbach wrote in his classic This Kind Of War: "Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it, and wipe it clean of life--but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
Bibliography/Contributors: Available on request at legislat@navy-reserve.org