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The term Korean War refers to the warfare between North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK), begun on 25 June 1950 and paused with an armistice signed 27 July 1953.

The war was a consequence of both countries aggressively attempting Korean national–peninsular reunification under their respective governments. Despite reunification talks, in the months preceding open warfare, their continual cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel, and the political frustration of failed all-Korea elections in 1948, escalated to warfare.^[1] The reunification negotiations ceased when North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. The United States and the United Nations intervened on the side of the South. After a rapid UN counter-offensive reversing the initial North Korean invasion, the People's Republic of China (PRC) intervened on the side of the North. The fighting ended with an armistice that approximately restored the original border between the Koreas; it became the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Since then, North Korea unilaterally withdrew from the armistice on 27 May 2009.^[2]

Although a civil war gone awry, other geopolitical factors affected the course of the war. An external power sponsored each Korea, thus facilitating a civil war's metamorphosing into an hegemonic proxy war of the Cold War (1945–91); moreover, Korean War also denotes the skirmishes before and since the war.^[3]

In South Korea, the war’s informal names are the 6·25 War and 6·25 (Template:Lang-ko), the formal name is Hanguk jeonjaeng (Korean War; Hangul: 한국전쟁; Hanja: 韓國戰爭). In North Korea, the formal name is Joguk haebang jeonjaeng (Fatherland Liberation War; Hangul: 조국해방전쟁; Hanja: 祖國解放戰爭), and Korean War informally. In China, it formally is the War to Resist America and Aid Korea (抗美援朝), and Korean War informally (韓國戰爭 Hángúo zhànzhēng; 韓戰 Hánzhàn; and 朝鮮戰爭 Cháoxiān zhànzhēng).^[4]

In the US, the war officially is a police action — Korean Conflict, not Korean War — to avoid the lack of a legitimate declaration of war by the US Congress. Colloquially, it also is The Forgotten War and the The Unknown War, because it was not a victory, and, unlike the Second World War and the Vietnam War it is culturally forgotten.^[5] As military science, the Korean War combined First- and Second- world war strategies and tactics — swift infantry attacks followed air bombing raids. The initial mobile campaign slowed to trench warfare, lasting from January 1951 until the 1953 border stalemate and armistice.

Upon defeating Qing Dynasty China in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–5), the Empire of Japan occupied the Korean Empire (1897–1910) of Emperor Gojong — a peninsula strategic to its sphere of influence.^[6] A decade later, on defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Japan made Korea its protectorate, with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910.^[7][8] Despite national resistance, life in Japanese Korea was brutal; Koreans were considered sub-human; nationalists and the intelligentsia fled the country. Some founded the Provisional Korean Government, headed by Syngman Rhee, in Shanghai, in 1919, that proved a “government-in-exile” recognized by few countries. In the event, from 1919 to 1925 and onwards, Korean Communists led the internal and external national liberation warfare against the Japanese Colony.^{[6]: 23 [9]}

Japanese Korea was an industrialized colony and slave state; in 1937, the colonial Governor–General, Gen. Minami Jiro, commanded the cultural assimilation to Japan of the colony's 23.5 million people — by banning Korean language, literature, and culture, replaced with the Japanese, and that the populace rename themselves as Japanese. In 1938, the Colonial Government established labor conscription; by 1939, 2.6 million Koreans worked overseas as forced laborers; by 1942, Korean men were conscripted to the Japanese Army.

Meanwhile, in China, the nationalist National Revolutionary Army and the Communist People's Liberation Army organized the (right-wing and left-wing) refugee Korean patriots. The Nationalists, led by Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the Burma Campaign (December 1941–August 1945). The Communists, led by Kim Il-sung, fought the Japanese in Korea.

The Second World War worsened Japanese exploitation of Korea — sacked of food, livestock, and metals for the war effort — which increased Korean resistance and Japan's military presence, from 46,000 (1941) to 300,000 (1945) soldiers. Japanese Korea was a slave state with 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people had been sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan; thousands of Korean women were conscripted to military prostitution as sexual comfort women for Japanese soldiers. By January 1945, Koreans were 32 per cent of Japan’s labor force; in August 1945, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, they were about 25 per cent of the people killed.^[9]

The US-Soviet division of Korea excluded the Koreans — who were represented by US Army colonels Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel.^[10] Two years earlier, at the Cairo Conference (November 1943), Nationalist China, the UK, and the USA decided that Korea should become independent, “in due course”; Stalin concurred. In February 1945, at the Yalta Conference, the Allies failed to establish the Korean trusteeship first discussed — in 1943 — by Pres. Roosevelt and PM Anthony Eden. Per the US-Soviet agreement, the USSR declared war against Japan on 9 August 1945, and, by the 10th, the Red Army occupied the Korean peninsular north, via amphibious landings north of the 38th parallel and its Twenty-Fifth Army entering from Manchuria, China.^[9][11] Some three weeks later, on 8 September 1945, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, USA, arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel.^[12]

At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the Allies unilaterally decided to divide Korea — without consulting the Koreans — in contradiction of the Cairo Conference (November 1943) Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek, and FDR declarations that Korea would be a free nation and an independent country.^{[6][6][6]: 24 [12]: 24–25 [13]: 25 [14]} Moreover, the earlier Yalta Conference (February 1945) granted to Joseph Stalin European "buffer zones" — satellite states accountable to Moscow (a fait accompli, per the Red Army), and expected Soviet pre-eminence in China — Manchuria,^[15] for joining (6 August 1945) the US Pacific war against Japan "three months after the surrender of Germany".^[15] By 10 August, the Red Army occupied the peninsular north; as agreed, the Red Army halted at the 38th parallel on 26 August — and for three weeks awaited the US arrival to the Korean peninsular south (8 September 1945), from Okinawa, 600 miles distant.^{[6]: 25 [6]: 24} Meanwhile and earlier, on 3 September 1945, Lt. Gen. Yoshio Kozuki, Commander, Japanese 17th Area Army in Korea, called Gen. John R. Hodge, Commander, XXIV Corps and US Commander, Korea, telling him that the Soviets were south of the 38th parallel — at Kaesong ; Gen. Hodge trusted the Japanese Army report.^[12]

On 10 August 1945 — with the 15 August Japanese surrender nigh — the Americans ignored if the Russians would honour their part of the Joint Commission, the US-sponsored Korean-occupation agreement. A month earlier, to fulfil the politico-military requirememnts of the US, Col. Dean Rusk and Col. Charles Bonesteel III, divided the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel after hurriedly deciding (in thirty minutes), that the US Korean Zone of Occupation must minimally include two ports.^{[12][16][17][18]} Explaining why the occupation zone demarcation (38th parallel) was so far south, Col. Rusk observed, “even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by US forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement ... we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops”, especially when “faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area.”^[15] The Soviets agreed to the US occupation-zone demarcation, to improve Soviet Eastern European-occupation negotiation-leverage with the Allies in Europe, and because each would accept Japanese surrender where they stood.^[6]: 25

As the Military Governor, Gen. Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48). He established control by first restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean and police collaborators,^[1] and second, by refusing the USAMGIK’s official recognition of the People's Republic of Korea (PRK) (August–September 1945), the provisional government (agreed with the Japanese Army) with which the Koreans had been governing themselves and the peninsula — because he suspected it was Communistic. These US policies voiding popular Korean sovereignty provoked the civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare preceding, then constituting, the Korean civil war.^[7]

In December 1945, the Russo–American Allies administered Korea via the US–USSR Joint Commission, agreed at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers (October 1945), and, again excluding the Koreans, decided the country would become independent after a five-year trusteeship — action facilitated by each régime sharing its sponsor's ideology.^{[6]: 25–26 [19]} The incensed Korean populace revolted; in the South, some protested, some rose in arms;^[7] to contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes (8 December 1945) and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees (12 December 1945). Months later, those sovereignty suppressions provoked the 8,000-railroad-worker strike (23 September 1946) in Busan — political action which quickly extended throughout American Korea; the USAMGIK had lost civil control. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students in the “Daegu Uprising”; the people counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. Like-wise, on 3 October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, populaces killed some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials.^[13] In the event, the USAMGIK declared martial law to control South Korea; in controlling the Koreans with foreigners (Japanese colonial administrators) and Korean collaborators, the US discredited its declarations of a “Free Korea”.

In the event, the right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by nationalist Syngman Rhee, opposed the Russo–American trusteeship of Korea, arguing that after thirty-five years (1910–45) of Japanese colonial rule — foreign rule — most Koreans opposed another foreign rule, i.e. Russo–American. Gaining advantage from the native political temper, the US quit the Soviet-supported Moscow Accords — and, using the 31 March 1948 UN election-deadline to achieve a non-Communist civil government in the US Korean Zone of Occupation — convoked national general elections that the Soviets opposed, then boycotted, insisting that the US honour the Moscow Accords.^{[6]: 26 [20][21][22]} The resultant anti-Communist South Korean Government promulgated a national political constitution (17 July 1948) elected a president, the American-educated strongman Syngman Rhee (20 July 1948), and established the Republic of South Korea on 15 August 1948.^[23] Like-wise, in the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the USSR established a Communist North Korean Government^[6]: 26 led by the astute politician–soldier, Kim Il-sung.^[3] Moreover, President Rhee's régime expelled Communists and leftists from Southern national politics; disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK Government.^[3]

As nationalists, Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung each was intent upon reunifying Korea under his political system.^[6]: 27 Partly because they were the better-armed, the North Koreans could escalate the continual border skirmishes and raids, and then invade — with proper provocation — whereas South Korea, with limited US matériel could not match them.^[6]: 27 In that time, the US Government mistakenly believed that all Communists — regardless of nation and country — constituted a Communist bloc based in Moscow; thus the US misperceived the civil war between the Koreas, as a Soviet hegemonic manœuver in the Russo–American Cold War.

The United States received less than a fortnight's notice of the Korean War — the Chinese-authorized, North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950. The CIA provided the early notice; before the war, in early 1950, CIA China station officer Douglas Mackiernan had got Chinese and North Korean intelligence forecasting the summer KPA invasion of the South. Earlier, after the US missions had left the Communist People's Republic of China, he volunteered to remain and get the intelligence. Afterwards, he and a team of CIA local mercenaries then escaped the Chinese, in a months-long horse trek across the Himalaya mountains; he was killed within miles of Lhasa city, Tibet — yet his team delivered the intelligence to headquarters. Thirteen days later, the North Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the 38th-parallel border and invaded South Korea. MacKiernan was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star for valour.^[24]

Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation raid, the North Korean Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel, behind artillery cannonades, at Sunday dawn of 25 June 1950.^[6]: 14 The KPA said that Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) troops, under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee", had crossed the border first — and that they would arrest and execute President Singman Rhee.^[12] In the past year, both Korean armies had continually harrassed each other with skirmishes — and each continually raided the other country across the 38th-parallel border, as in a civil war.

Hours later, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of South Korea (ROK), with UNSC Resolution 82, so adopted despite the USSR, a veto-wielding power, boycotting the Council meetings since January — protesting that the (Taiwan) Republic of China, and not the (mainland) People's Republic of China held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.^[25] On 27 June 1950, President Truman ordered US air- and sea forces to help the South Korean régime. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member-state military assistance to the Republic of Korea. Incidentally, whilst awaiting the Council's fait accompli announcement to the UN, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention in behalf of South Korea.^[26]

The USSR challenged the legitimacy of the UN-approved war, because (i) the ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 is based came from US Intelligence; (ii) North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) was not invited as a sitting temporary-member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and (iii) the the Korean warfare is beyond UN Charter scope, because the initial North–South border fighting is classed as civil war. Moreover, the Soviet representative boycotted the UN to prevent Security Council action, to challenge the legitimacy of UN action; legal scholars posited that deciding upon an "action" required the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.^[27][28]

The North Korean Army launched the "Fatherland Liberation War" with a comprehensive air–land invasion using only 231,000 soldiers, who captured scheduled objectives and territory — among them, Kaesŏng, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin — which they achieved with 274 T-34-85 tanks, some 150 Yak fighters, 110 attack bombers, 200 artillery pieces, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aeroplanes.^[12] Additional to the invasion force, the KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in North Korea.^[12] The invasion's rapidity was feasible because of the KPA's flexible logistics system that transported matériel as the troops advanced. At sea, although comprising only several small warships, the North Korean and South Korean navies fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.

In disproportionate contrast, the ROK Army defenders were unprepared. In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1998), R.E. Applebaum reports the ROK forces' low combat-readiness on 25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no tanks, and a twenty-two piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer aeroplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at invasion time — but there were large US garrisons and air forces in Japan.^[12]

Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers — of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee régime — either were retreating southwards or were defecting en masse to the Communist North, to the KPA.^[6]: 23 Throughout, the KPA air force continually bombed Kimpo Airport, at the capital city Seoul, which the KPA captured and occupied in the afternoon of 28 June 1950, the third day of the invasion. In supporting the infantry and tanks, the KPA air force dog-fought the ROK air force over Seoul: 37 ROK fighter planes to 9 KPA fighters. Two days later, on 30 June 1950, the KPA and the ROK Army fought their largest North–South-only battle: the North destroyed 89 tanks, 76 artillery pieces, 19 bombers, and 21 fighters, killed 7,000 and captured 16,000 ROK soldiers. Despite the immediate success, North Korean expectation of the summary surrender of President Syngman Rhee's Government — and thus of the definitive peninsular reunification of the Korean Fatherland — ended with the US-led UN participation in the war between the Koreas. ^{[citation needed]}

Despite the rapid post–Second World War Allied demobilisations (a serious logistics problem for US forces in Asia), there were substantial US forces occupying Japan; under Gen. MacArthur’s command, they could fight the North Koreans.^[6]: 42 Moreover, in that time and place, besides the US, only the British Commonwealth had comparable forces.

On Saturday 24 June 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson telephonically informed President Harry S. Truman, “Mr. President, I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea.”^[29][30] Truman and Acheson discussed a US invasion response with defence department principals, who agreed that the United States was obligated to repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's 1930s aggressions, and said that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated.^[31] President Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was pertinent to the American global containment of Communism:

"Communism was acting in Korea, just as Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores. If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea without opposition from the free world, no small nation would have the courage to resist threat and aggression by stronger Communist neighbors."^[32]

President Truman announced that the US would counter "unprovoked aggression" and "vigorously support the effort of the [UN] security council to terminate this serious breach of peace."^[33] In Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Omar Bradley warned against appeasement, saying that Korea was the place "for drawing the line" against International Communist expansion. In August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State easily persuaded the Congress to guve them $12 billion to pay for the additional Asian military expenses essential to the goals of National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), the American global Containment of Communism.^[34]

Per State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman ordered Gen. MacArthur to transfer matériel to the Army of the Republic of Korea (ROK Army) while giving air cover to the evacuation of US nationals. Moreover, the President disagreed with his advisors recommending unilateral US bombing of the North Korean forces, but did order the U.S. Seventh Fleet to protect Taiwan (Chiang Kai-Shek's China), whose Nationalist Government (confined to Formosa island) asked to fight in Korea. The US denied the Nationalist Chinese request for combat — lest it provoke a Communist Chinese intervention.^[35]

The Battle of Osan was the first significant USA–KPA fighting in the Korean War, by the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, 24th Infantry Division (Japan).^[6]: 45 On 5 July 1950, the American fought the North Koreans at Osan, and were immediately defeated: 1,416 dead and wounded, 785 taken prisoner.^{[6]: 45–47} The victorious KPA progressed southwards, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA also captured;^[6]: 48 the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead-wounded and 2,962 captured GIs — including the Division’s Commander, Maj. Gen. William F. Dean.^[6]: 48 Overhead, the KPAF shot down 18 USAF fighters and 29 bombers; the USAF shot down 5 KPAF fighters.

By August, the KPA had repelled the ROK Army and the U.S. Eighth Army to the Pusan city vicinity, in southeast peninsular Korea.^[6]: 53 In their southward advance, the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia, by killing civil servants and intellectuals.^[6]: 56 On 20 August, Gen. MacArthur warned North Korean Leader Kim Il-Sung that he was responsible for the KPA’s atrocities.^{[6][23]: 56} By September, the UN Command controlled only the Pusan city perimeter, about 10 per cent of peninsular Korea. Only on being reinforced, re-equipped, and with naval artillery and air force bombing support, could the UN Command forces stand at the Nakdong River. In US military history, this "back-against-the-sea" holding action is known as the "Pusan Perimeter".

In the desperate Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the US Army withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city, and stood firm. Soon, the USAF interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground-support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic, which hid in tunnels and moved only at night.^{[6]: 47–48 [6]: 66} To deny matériel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbours, while the US Navy air forces attacked transport hubs, consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the peninsular south.^[6]: 58

Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually despatched soldiers and matériel to reinforce the Pusan Perimeter.^{[6]: 59–60} Tank battalions deployed to Korea from San Francisco (in the continental US); by late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks.^[6]: 61 In early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces were prepared — they out-numbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers, and then counter-attacked.^{[6][12]: 61}

Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were under-manned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air artillery support.^{[6]: 61 [6]: 58} To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, the UN CIC, Gen. MacArthur, recommended an amphibious landing at Incheon, behind the KPA lines.^[6]: 67 On 6 July, he ordered Maj. Gen. Hobart Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division.[2]

The Operation Chromite amphibious assault of Incheon deployed in violent tides, and was awaited by a strong, entrenched enemy.^{[6]: 66–67} Soon after the war began, Gen. MacArthur had begun planning the matter, but the Pentagon opposed him.^[6]: 67 In the event, when authorized, he activated his attack USA-USMC-ROKA force — the X Corps, Gen. Edward Almond, Commander, composed of 70,000 1st Marine Division infantry; the 7th Infantry Division; and some 8,600 ROK Army soldiers.^[6]: 68 By the 15 September attack date, the assault force faced few, but tenacious, KPA defenders at Incheon; military intelligence, psychological operations, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted cannonades facilitated a relatively light battle between the US–ROK and the KPA; however, the cannonades destroyed most of Incheon city.^[6]: 70

The Incheon landing allowed the 1st Cavalry Division to begin its northward fighting from the Pusan Perimeter. “Task Force Lynch” — 3rd Bn, 7th Cav Rgt, and two 70th Tank Bn units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon) — effected the “Pusan Perimeter Breakout” through 106.4 miles of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division, at Osan. [3] The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in South Korea;^{[6]: 71–72} Gen. MacArthur quickly recaptured Seoul;^[6]: 77 and the almost-isolated KPA rapidly retreated north; only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers surviving.^[36][37]

On 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea.^{[6]: 79–94} Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorisation, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards.^[6]: 81 The X Corps landed at Wonsan (SE North Korea) and Iwon (NE North Korea), already captured by ROK forces.^{[6]: 87–88} The Eighth US Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea, and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950.^[6]: 90 At month’s end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war; the North Korean People’s Army appeared to disintegrate.

Gaining advantage from the UN Command’s strategic momentum against the KPA, Gen. MacArthur (and some US politicians),^[who?] believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into Communist China to destroy the PRC depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered Gen. MacArthur’s caution at the Sino–Korean border.^[6]: 83

On 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the October Chinese intervention to the Korean War, President Truman despatched the 7th US Fleet to the Taiwan Straits, to protect Nationalist Republic of China from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).^[38] On 4 August 1950, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo that he would intervene when the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) were ready to deploy. On 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the United Nations that “Korea is China’s neighbor ... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question” — thus, via neutral-country diplomats, China warned the US, that in safeguarding Chinese national security, the would intervene against the UN Command in Korea.^[6]: 83 President Truman interpreted the communication as “a bald attempt to blackmail the UN”, and dismissed it.^[39] The Politburo authorized the Chinese intervention to the Korean War on 2 October 1950 — the day after the ROK Army’s northward crossing of the 38th-parallel border.^[40] Later, the Chines reported that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace when on en route to bomb North Korea — before China intervened.^[41]

In September, in Moscow, PRC Premier Zhou Enlai added diplomatic and personal force to Mao’s cables to Stalin, requesting military assistance and matériel. Stalin delayed; Mao re-scheduled launching the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea” from the 13th to the 19th of October 1950. Moreover, the USSR limited their assistance to air support no closer than 60 miles (100 km) from the battlefront — because Soviet pilots were to fight in the air war to gain experience against the Western air forces; they would be flying MiG-15s (camouflaged as PRC Air Force), and seriously challenged the UN air forces for battlefield air superiority. ^{[citation needed]}

On 8 October 1950, the day after the US’s northward crossing of the 38th-parallel border into North Korea, Mao Zedong assembled the PVA (70 per cent People's Liberation Army soldiers), who were to fight the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea”. The Soviet matériel would make the Chinese intervention to Korea a strategic maneuver furthering Asian communist revolutionary power, Mao explained to Stalin: “If we allow the United States to occupy all of Korea, Korean revolutionary power will suffer a fundamental defeat, and the American invaders will run more rampant, and have negative effects for the entire Far East.”

In campaign, despite the over-sized, First World War–style infantry formations fighting the war, US aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection.^[6]: 102 The PVA marched “dark-to-dark” (19:00–03:00hrs), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and equipment) was deployed by 05:30hrs. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away;^[6]: 102 PVA officers might shoot security violators.^[12] Such battlefield discipline allowed a three division-army to march 286 miles (460 km), from An-tung, Manchuria, to its Korean combat zone, in some 19 days; another division, night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging 18 miles (29 km) daily for 18 days.

Meanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the capital city, on 19 October 1950; the US had conquered North Korea.

Elsewhere, also on 15 October 1950, President Truman and Gen. MacArthur met at Wake Island in the mid–Pacific Ocean, for a meeting much publicized by the General’s discourteous refusal to meet the President in the US.^[6]: 88 To President Truman, Gen. MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention to Korea;^[6]: 89 that the PRC’s opportunity for aiding the KPA had elapsed; that the PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River; concluding that, although half of those forces might cross south, “if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter” without air force protection.^[36][42]

In the War to Resist America and Aid Korea, the first Chinese–American battles occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of PVA soldiers encircled and attacked scattered UN Command units with three-prong assaults — from the north, northwest, and west — and over-ran the defensive-position flanks.^[43] In the west, in late November, along the Chongchon River, the PVA attacked and over-ran several ROK Army divisions, and the flank of the remaining UN forces.^{[6]: 98–99} The UN Command retreated; the US Eighth Army’s retreat (longest in US Army history),^[44] occurred because of the Turkish Brigade’s successful, but very costly, rear-guard delaying action at Kunuri (near China), slowed the PVA attack for 4 days, (26–30 November). In the east, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a US 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3000 soldiers) and a USMC division (12,000–15,000 marines), also unprepared for PVA’s three-pronged encirclement tactics, escaped under X Corps support fire — albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.^[45]

Initially, frontline PVA infantry had neither heavy fire support nor crew-served light infantry weapons, but quickly took advantage of their disadvantage; in How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror (2003), Bevin Alexander reports:

The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults. The attacks continued on all sides until the defenders were destroyed or forced to withdraw. The Chinese then crept forward to the open flank of the next platoon position, and repeated the tactics.

In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1998), R.E. Appleman delineates the PVA’s encirclement attack:

In the First Phase Offensive, highly-skilled enemy light infantry troops had carried out the Chinese attacks, generally unaided by any weapons larger than mortars. Their attacks had demonstrated that the Chinese were well-trained, disciplined fire fighters, and particularly adept at night fighting. They were masters of the art of camouflage. Their patrols were remarkably successful in locating the positions of the UN forces. They planned their attacks to get in the rear of these forces, cut them off from their escape and supply roads, and then send in frontal and flanking attacks to precipitate the battle. They also employed a tactic, which they termed Hachi Shiki, which was a V-formation into which they allowed enemy forces to move [in]; the sides of the V then closed around their enemy, while another force moved below the mouth of the V to engage any forces attempting to relieve the trapped unit. Such were the tactics the Chinese used with great success at Onjong, Unsan, and Ch’osan, but with only partial success at Pakch’on and the Ch’ongch’on bridgehead.^[12]

In late November, the PVA repelled the UN Command forces from northeast North Korea, past the 38th-parallel border. Retreating from the peninsular north faster than they had counter-invaded, they raced to the North Korean east coat to establish a defensive perimeter of the port city Hungnam — and awaited rescue, in December 1950, ^{[6]: 104–111} of 193 shiploads of UN Command forces and matériel (ca. 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, 350,000 tons of supplies), embarked to Pusan, at the south end of peninsular Korea.^[6]: 110 Before escaping, the UN Command forces effected an enemy-denial-operation razing most of Hungam city; ^[36][46] and, on 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), ^[47] effective until 14 September 1978. ^[48]

In January 1951, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (aka the “Chinese Winter Offensive”), repeating night attacks — stealthy infiltration of UN Command fighting positions, from behind the front lines, then a numerically-superior, overwhelming assault to capture it. The tactic’s psychological warfare component was accompanying the attack with disquieting loud trumpets and gongs, played as tactical communication and as mental disorientation of the enemy. UN forces had no defense against this tactic, and soldiers’ resolve became “bug-out fever”; soldiers “bugged-out”, often abandoning their weapons, whilst rapidly retreating south. ^[6]: 117 In the event, the Chinese Winter Offensive overwhelmed the UN Command forces and the PVA and KPA conquered Seoul on 4 January 1951.

Adding insult to the US Eighth Army's injuries, Commanding General Walker was killed in a road crash, further demoralizing the troops.^[6]: 111 His replacement, Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway, immediately revived the retreat-bruised esprit de corps of the bloodied Eighth Army.^[6]: 113 The disproportionate Winter Offensive battles prompted Gen. MacArthur to consider using the atomic bomb against the Chinese interior — much to the alarm of the US’s allies. ^{[citation needed]}

UN forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and north of Samchok, in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held.^[6]: 117 The PVA had outrun its logistics and thus was forced to recoil from pressing the attack beyond Seoul; ^{[6]: 118  [citation needed]} food, ammunition, and matériel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the Sino–Korean Yalu River border to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the enemy had deserted the battle lines before his soldiers, Gen. Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became Operation Roundup (5 February 1952), ^[6]: 121 a full-scale, X Corps attack that gradually proceeded while fully exploiting the UN Command’s air–land arms, ^[6]: 120 concluding with reaching the Han River and re-capturing Wonju.^[6]: 121 In mid–February, the PVA counter-attacked with the Fourth Phase Offensive, launched from Hoengsong against IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni, in the center.^[6]: 121 Units of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a short, but desperate, PVA siege, and broke the attack’s momentum;^[6]: 121 combat in which the UN Command learned to counter PVA offensive tactics, and to stand their ground.

In the last two weeks of February 1951, Operation Roundup was followed with Operation Killer (mid-February 1951), effected by the revitalized Eighth Army, restored for a full-scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximal firepower exploitation to kill as many KPA and PVA troops as possible. ^{[6]: 121  [6]: 121} Operation Killer, concluded with I Corps re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengsong.^[6]: 122 On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with Operation Ripper, expelling the PVA and the KPA from the South Korean capital city on 14 March 1951; the fourth conquest in a years’ time, leaving it a ruin; the 1,5 million pre-war population was 200,000, and suffering severe food shortages.^{[6]: 122  [37]}

The US changed Supreme Commander, Korea, in mid-war; on 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved Gen. MacArthur for insubordination, angering the President’s Congressional enemies; ^{[6]: 123–127} he then appointed Gen. Ridgway as Supreme Commander, Korea, who regrouped the UN forces for successful counter-attacks; ^[6]: 127 and Gen. James Van Fleet assumed command of the US Eighth Army.^[6]: 130 Further attacks slowly repelled the PVA and KPA forces; operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951) and Tomahawk (23 March 1951), were a joint ground- and air assault meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN forces advanced to “Line Kansas”, north of the 38th parallel.^[6]: 131

The Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive (aka the “Chinese Spring Offensive”) with three field armies (ca. 700,000 men).^{[6]: 131  [6]: 132} The principal strike fell upon I Corps, who fiercely resisted in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951), blunting the impetus of the Chinese Fifth Phase Offensive — halted at the “No-name Line” north of Seoul.^{[6]: 133–134} On 15 May 1951, the Chinese in the east attacked the ROK Army and the US X Corps, initially winning, yet halted by 20 May;^{[6]: 136–137} at month’s end, the US Eighth Army counter-attacked and regained “Line Kansas”, just north of the 38th parallel.^{[6]: 137–138} The UN's “Line Kansas” halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down, began the stalemate that lasted ’til war’s end on 27 July 1953.

For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations, began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong.^{[6]: 175–177 [6]: 145} Yet combat continued while the belligerents negotiated an armistice; the ROK–UN Command forces’ goal was recapturing all of South Korea, to avoid losing territory.^[6]: 159 The PVA and the KPA attempted like operations; later, they effected military and psychological operations testing the UN Command’s resolve to continue the Korean War — the principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August–15 September 1951)^[6]: 160 and Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September–15 October 1951),^{[6]: 161–162} the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June–4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October–25 November 1952) and the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March–21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–29 May 1953) and the Battle of Pork Chop Hill ( 23March–16 July 1953).

The armistice negotiations continued for two years;^{[6]: 144–153} first at Kaesong (southern North Korea), then at Panmunjon (bordering the Koreas). ^[6]: 147 A major, problematic negotiation was prisoner of war (PoW) repatriation.^{[6]: 187–199} The PVA, KPA and UN Command agreed to “voluntary repatriation” — but only if most PoWs returned either to China or to North Korea; ^{[6]: 189–190} because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused repatriation north, the tactical warfare continued until the Chinese and North Koreans dropped the matter from the armistice.^{[6]: 242–245}

In October 1951, the US effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish nuclear weapon-use capability. USAF B-29 bombers practiced individual bombing runs (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs) from Okinawa to North Korea, co-ordinated from Yokota Air Base, in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested “actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons -assembly and -testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming”. The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the “timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare.”^{[49][50][51][52][53]}

The US elected a new government; on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War. ^[6]: 240 With the United Nations’ acceptance of India’s proposed Korean War armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire on 27 July 1953, with the battleline approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), since defended by the KPA and ROKA, USA and UN Command. The Demilitarized Zone runs north-east of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The Korean old-capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the DPRK. The United States and North Korea signed the Armistice Agreement; ROK President Syngman Rhee refused to sign it, thus the Republic of Korea never participated in the armistice. ^[54]

After the war, the UN Command forces buried their dead in a temporary graveyard at Hŭngnam. With Operation Glory (July–November 1954), each combatant exchanged their dead. The remains of 4,167 US Army and US Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government.^[55] After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War “unknown soldiers” were buried in the Punchbowl Cemetery, Hawaii. DPMO records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct; of the 4,167 returned remains, 4,219 were men, of whom 2,944 were identified as American, all, but 416, identified by name; of 239 unaccounted casualties: 186 not associated with Punchbowl Cemetery unknowns (176 identified, 10 remaining cases 4 were Asians; one British; 3 identified, and 2 unconfirmed. In 1990–94, North Korea excavated and returned some 200 sets of remains, few have been identified, because of co-mingled remains. ^[56][57] Moreover, from 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino–Korean border.^[58]

Korean War casualties — The Western (US–UN Command) numbers of Chinese and North Korean casualties are primarily based upon calculated battlefield-casualty reports, PoW interrogations, and military intelligence (documents, spies, etc.); a good sources compilation is the democide web site (see Table 10.1). ^[59] The Korean War dead: US: 36,940 killed; PVA: 100,000–1,500,000 killed; most estimate some 400,000 killed; KPA: 214,000–520,000; most estimate some 500,000. ROK: Civilian: some 245,000–415,000 killed; Total civilians killed some 1,500,000–3,000,000; most estimate some 2,000,000 killed. ^[60]

The People’s Republic of China published the joint PVA–KPA battlefield report, recording that the armies “eliminated 1.09 million enemy forces — including 390,000 from the United States, 660,000 from South Korea, and 29,000 from other countries.” The imprecise word “eliminated number” did not detail numbers of dead, wounded, and captured. Regarding PVA and KPA casualties, “the Chinese People’s Volunteers suffered 148,000 deaths altogether (among which 114,000 died in combat, incidents, and winter kill, 21,000 died after being hospitalized, and 13,000 died from disease); 380,000 were wounded and 29,000 missing, including 21,400 PoWs (of whom 14,000 were sent to Taiwan, 7,110 were repatriated).” The PVA–KPA battlefield report concluded with KPA casualties, “the Korean People’s Army had 290,000 casualties and 90,000 PoWs; there was a large number of civilian deaths in the northern part of Korea, but no accurate figures were available.” ^[61]

The information box lists the UN Command forces Korean War casualties, and their estimates of PVA and KPA casualties.

Initially, North Korean armor dominated the battlefield with Soviet T-34-85 medium tanks designed in the Second World War.^[62] The KPA’s tanks confronted a tank-less ROK Army armed with few modern anti-tank weapons,^[6]: 39 including WWII-model 2.36-inch (60 mm) M9 bazookas, effective only against the 45 mm side armor of the T-34-85 tank. Moreover, the US forces arriving to Korea were equipped with light M24 Chaffee tanks (on Japan-occupation duty) that also proved ineffective against the heavier KPA T-34 tanks. ^{[citation needed]}

During the initial hours of warfare, some under-equipped ROK Army border units used 105 mm howitzers as anti-tank guns to stop the tanks heading the KPA columns, firing high-explosive anti-tank ammunition (HEAT) over open sights to good effect; at war’s start, the ROK Army had 91 such cannon, but lost most to the invaders.^[63]

Countering the initial combat imbalance, the US and UN Command reinforcement matériel included heavier US M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, M46 Patton, and British Cromwell and Centurion tanks that proved effective against North Korean armor, ending its battlefield dominance.^{[6]: 182–184} Unlike in the Second World War (1939–45), in which the tank proved a decisive weapon, the Korean War featured few large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, heavily-forested terrain prevented large masses of tanks from maneuvering. In Korea, tanks served largely as infantry support.

The Korean War was the first jet-age war; it featured the last generations of propeller-driven fighters, such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, Hawker Sea Fury, and Supermarine Seafire, that saw action, ^[6]: 174 which soon were replaced by turbojet–powered fighters, such as the F-80 Shooting Star and the F9F Panther, that out-fought the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) propeller squadrons of Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9 aircraft, ^[6]: 182 and dominated the battlefield sky — yet, beginning in late 1950, the KPAF deployed the Soviet MiG-15 jet, and re-gained air superiority.

Seeking combat experience, Soviet Air Force pilots fought PRC and KPAF missions against the US and UN Command air forces, to learn the West’s aerial combat techniques. The USSR’s direct aerial participation in the Korean War is a casus belli that the UN Command overlooked, lest the war in and for the Korean peninsula expand — as the US initially feared — to include three Communist countries, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China, and so escalate from conventional to atomic warfare; a rule-of-war, agreed by the US and the UN.^[6]: 182 Intitially, UN air forces, including the Royal Australian Air Force Gloster Meteors, successfully countered it, however, the superior MiG out-flew the first-generation jets deployed early in the war.^[64]

In December 1950, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) deployed the F-86 Sabre to counter the MiG-15 ^[6]: 183 that flew higher (50,000 vs. 42,000 feet (12,800 m) than the F-86 Sabre — advantageous early in a dogfight, but their level-flight maximum speeds were comparable — ca. 660 mph (1,060 km/h); the MiG climbed faster, the Sabre turned and dove better; the MiG was armed with two 23 mm and one 37 mm cannon, the Sabre with six .50 calibre (12.7 mm) radar-aimed machine guns. Moreover, in the (new) jet-powered aerial warfare, US pilots had the biomedical piloting advantage of the anti-G suit (first deployed for this war), allowing them control over (not) fainting from the g-forces of dogfight-ing.

By early 1951, the battle lines were established, and changed little until 1953. In summer and autumn of 1951, the out-numbered USAF F-86 Sabres — only 44 at one point — of the 4th Fighter Wing continued seeking battle in MiG Alley (NW North Korea), where the Yalu River flows to the Yellow Sea, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng’s communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter Interceptor Wing reinforced the beleaguered 4th Fighter Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued so; ^[65] in the event, the UN air forces gradually (mostly) gained Korean battlefield air superiority. This was decisive for the UN Command, first, to attack into the peninsular north, and second, to resist the Chinese intervention.^{[6]: 182–184} North Korea and China also had jet-powered air forces, however, their limited training and experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against the better-trained UN air forces. In the event, as the US and the USSR fed matériel to their Korean proxy war, they found themselves virtually matched, technologically, when the USAF deployed the F-86F against the MiG-15 late in 1952.

Post-war, the USAF reported 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft destroyed with F-86 Sabres, versus 78 Sabres destroyed, a 10:1 kill-ratio; ^{[citation needed]} post-war data confirm only 379 USAF kills. The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 victories, and 335 MiG defeats. The PRC air force reported 231 aircraft, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft destroyed. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command calculate the KPAF lost some 200 aircraft in the war’s first stage, and 70 other aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF doubts the claims of 650 Soviet victories against the F-86 Sabre, and 211 PRC defeats against the F-86. Recent US figures report 674 F-86s deployed to the Korea War, and total losses were some 230.^[66] Comparing F-86 Sabre and MiG losses must include each aircraft’s mission; MiG primary targets were B-29 Superfortress bombers and ground-attack fighter-bombers; F-86 Sabre primary targets were the MiG-15s.

The Korean War also featured the initial combat service support deployment of the helicopter as battlefield ambulance.^[67] In the Second World War (1939–45), the YR-4 helicopter did limited air-ambulance work, but, in the Korean War, where terrain trumped the jeep as the speedy medical evacuation (medevac) transport, ^[69] helicopters (e.g. Sikorsky H-19) assumed the battlefield medevac functions of the litter, the truck, and the jeep.^[70] Moreover, the jet fighter’s limitations as aerial support artillery identified the helicopter’s close air support function, which lead to developing the attack helicopter (e.g. AH-1 Cobra), that featured in the Vietnam War (1965–75).^[67]

In the three-year Korean War (1950—53), the US Air Force (USAF) and the UN Command air forces bombed the cities and villages of North Korea and parts of South Korea to a degree comparable to the volume of the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during the six-year Second World War (1939—45). ^{[dubious – discuss]} On 12 August 1950 the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; a fortnight later, the daily sorties increased the monthly tonnage to some 800 tons. As a result, eighteen of North Korea’s cities were 50% or more destroyed. US Gen. William Dean, who had been a PoW, reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either ruins or wastelands.^[71]

Because the North Korean navy was not large, the Korean War features few naval battles; mostly the combatant navies served as naval artillery for their in-country armies. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the US Navy cruiser Juneau, the Royal Navy cruiser Jamaica, and the frigate Black Swan fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.

The UN navies sank supply and ammunition ships to deny the sea to North Korea. The Juneau sank ammunition ships that had been present in her previous battle. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship PC 703 sank a North Korean mine-layer and three other ships in the Yellow Sea.^[72]

In The Origins of the Korean War (1981, 1990), US historian Bruce Cumings reports that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President Truman's allusions to attacking the KPA with atomic bombs “was a threat based on contingency planning to use the bomb, rather than the faux pas so many assumed it to be.” The President sought to dismiss Gen. MacArthur from theatre command because his insubordination demonstrated his political unreliability: A US Army officer who might disobey his civilian Commander in Chief about using or not using atomic bombs. Also on 30 November 1950, the USAF Strategic Air Command was ordered to “augment its capacities, and that this should include atomic capabilities.” In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea, because the PRC had deployed new armies to the Sino–Korean frontier, thus, at the Kadena USAF Base, Okinawa, pit crews assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, “lacking only the essential nuclear cores.”

On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) 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. The President ordered transferred nine Mark-IV nuclear capsules “to the Air Force’s Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons . . . [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets” — which he never transmitted, having out-witted the JCS to agreeing to sack the insubordinate Soldier MacArthur (announced 10 April 1950), and because neither the PRC nor USSR like-wise escalated the war.^{[13][verification needed]}

Moreover (and contradictorily), President Truman also remarked that his government were actively considering using the atomic bomb to end the war in Korea (implying that Gen. MacArthur would control it), but that only he — the US President — commanded atomic bomb use, and that he had not given authorisation. For the matter of atomic warfare was solely a US decision, not the collective decision of the UN — hence his 4 December 1950 meeting with UK PM Clement Attlee (and Commonwealth spokesman), French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about Korean atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The Indian Ambassador, Pannikkar, reports, "that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat . . . The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The Aid Korea to resist America campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities." ^[36][73][74]

Six days later, on 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the ROK, US, and UN Command armies from northern North Korea, Gen. J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), Gen. MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Maj. Gen. Doyle Hickey, Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, and Maj. Gen. Edwin K. Wright, met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; the composed three atomic warfare hypotheses comprehending the next weeks and months of warfare. ^[36] In the first hypothesis: if the PVA continue attacking in full — and the UN Command are forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without Nationalist Chinese reinforcements, and without increasing Gen. MacArthur's US forces until April 1951 [pending four National Guard divisions] — then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.^[36] In the second: if the PVA continue full attacks — and the UN Command have blockaded China and effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the Nationalist Chinese soldiers are maximally exploited, and tactical atomic-bombing is to hand, then Gen. MacArthur could hold positions deep in North Korea. ^[36] In the third: if the PRC agree to not cross the 38th-parallel border, Gen. MacArthur recommends UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The US Eighth Army remains protecting the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps retreats to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of armistice.^[36]

President Truman did not immediately threaten atomic warfare after the October 1950 Chinese intervention, but, 45 days later, did remark about using it after the PVA repelled the UN Command from North Korea. Gen. MacArthur et al. did not compose the atomic warfare hypotheses ’til after the President's 30 November press conference. The US’s forgoing atomic warfare was not because of “a disinclination by the USSR and PRC to escalate” the Korean War, but because UN Ally pressure — notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France — about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenceless, whilst the US fought China, who then might persuade the USSR to conquer Western Europe. ^[36][75]

In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia, by assassinating every educated person — academic, governmental, religious — who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during NPA retreat.^[76] Likewise, in combating enemy infiltration — immediately after the invasion in June 1950 — the South Korean Government ordered the nation-wide "pre-emptive apprehension" of politically-suspect (disloyal) citizens. In the event, the military police and Right-wing paramilitary (civilian) armies — abetted by the US — summarily executed thousands of left-wing and communist political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Cheju Uprising (1948–49).^[77] US diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea, calculates some 100,000 pro–North political prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission received reports of some 7,800 civilian killings, in 150 places, occurred before and during the war.

In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers also fought the US–UN forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees — who (usually) could approach soldiers for food and help in a battlefield. For a time, US troops fought under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" policy against every civilian-refugee approaching US battlefield positions;^{[citation needed]} an unwise tactical carte blanche that led US Soldiers to indiscriminately kill some 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950), in central Korea.^[78][79]

The warfare of the Korean armies included forcibly conscripting the available civilian men and women to their war efforts. In Statistics of Democide (1997), Prof. R. J. Rummel reports that the North Korean Army conscripted some 400,000 South Korean citizens.^[76] The South Korean Government reported that before the US re-captured Seoul, in September 1950, the North abducted some 83,000 citizens; the North says they defected.^[80][81]

To outmaneuver a possible fifth column in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman Rhee’s régime assassinated its “enemies of the state” — South Koreans suspected of being “communists”, “pro–North Korea”, and “leftist” — by imprisoning them for political re-education in the Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng (National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, aka the Bodo League). In the event, the true purpose of the anti–communist “Bodo League”, abetted by the USAMGIK, was the régime’s hasty assassination of some some 10,000 to 100,000 “enemies of the state” whom they dumped in trenches, mines, and the sea — before and after the 25 June 1950 North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations report some 200,000 to 1,200,000.^[82] USAMGIK officers were present at one political execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the mass killings of political prisoners whom the North Koreans would free upon conquering the peninsular south. ^[83]

The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports that petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of leftist South Koreans outnumber, six-to-one, the petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of rightist South Koreans. ^[84] These data apply solely to South Korea, because North Korea is not integral to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Bodo League massacre survivor, seventy-one-year-old Kim Jong-chol, whose South Korean border guard father was press-ganged to work with the KPA, was executed by the Rhee Government as a collaborator; his grandparents and a seven-year-old sister also were assassinated; about his experience in Namyangju city, he says:

Young children or whatever, were all killed en masse. What did the family do wrong? Why did they kill the family? When the people from the other side [North Korea] came here, they didn’t kill many people. . . .

— Kim Jong-chol ^[83]

Moreover, USAMGIK officers photographed the mass killings at Daejon city in central South Korea, where the Truth Commission believe some 3,000 to 7,000 people were shot and buried in mass graves in early July 1950. Other declassified records report that a US Army lieutenant colonel approved the assassination of 3,500 political prisoners, by the ROK Army unit to which he was military advisor, when the KPA reached the southern port city of Busan (Pusan). ^[83] In that time, US diplomats reported having urged the Rhee régime’s restraint against its political opponents, and that the USAMGIK, who formally controlled the peninsular south, did not halt the mass assassinations. ^[83]

As with the ideological raisons d'etre fueling the Korean War, the combatants — North Korea, South Korea, the US, and the UN each treated prisoners of war (PoWs) differently; notwithstanding the Geneva Convention. ^{[citation needed]} To wit, the US reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed;^{[85] [86]} The KPA killed PoWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon — discovered during early after-battle mop-up actions 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”. ^[87][88][89]

The North Korean Government reported some 70,000 ROK Army PoWs; 8,000 were repatriated. South Korea repatriated 76,000 Korean People's Army (KPA) PoWs.^[90] Besides the 12,000 US–UN Command forces PoWs dead in captivity, the KPA might have press-ganged some 50,000 ROK PoWs into the North Korean military.^[76] Per the South Korean Ministry of Defense, there remained some 560 Korean War POWs detained in North Korea in 2008; from 1994 ’til 2003, some 30 ROK PoWs escaped the North.^[91] The North Korean Government denied having PoWs from the Korean War, and, via the Korean Central News Agency, reported that the UN forces killed some 33,600 KPA PoWs; that on 19 July 1951, in PoW Camp No. 62, some 100 PoWs were killed as machine-gunnery targets; that on 27 May 1952, in the 77th Camp, Koje Island, with flamethrowers, the ROK Army incinerated some 800 KPA PoWs who rejected "voluntary repatriation" South, and instead demanded repatriation North; and that some 1,400 KPA PoWs were secretly sent to the US to be atomic-weapon experimental subjects.^[92][93]

The Korean War (1950–53) was the first proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars, e.g. the Vietnam War (1945–75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers indirectly conducted their rivalry in third countries. The NSC68 Containment Policy extended the cold war from the occupied Europe of 1945 to the rest of the world. ^{[citation needed]}

Fighting ended at the 38th parallel, now the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) — 248x4 km (155x2.5mi) — peninsular demarcation between the countries. Moreover, the Korean War affected other participant combatants, for example, Turkey, entered NATO in 1952. ^[94]

Post-war recovery was different in the two Koreas; South Korea stagnated in the first post-war decade, but later industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea is spartan, while South Korea is a consumer society. The CIA World Factbook estimates North Korea's GDP (PPP) is $40 billion, which is 3.0 per cent of South Korea's $1.196 trillion GDP (PPP). North Korean personal income is $1,800 per capita, which is 7.0 percent of the South Korean $24,500 per capita income.

Anti-communism remains in ROK politics. The Uri Party practiced a "Sunshine Policy" towards North Korea; the US often disagreed with the Uri Party and (former) ROK Pres. Roh about relations between the Koreas. The conservative Grand National Party (GNP), the Uri Party's principal opponent, is anti-North Korea. ^{[citation needed]}

In the US, National Public Radio, on 7 September 2007, reported that US President George W. Bush offered a possible Korean War peace treaty with North Korea only when they ceased developing nuclear power (and weapons).^[95] The President said, "We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will end — will happen when Kim verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons."^[96] US conservatives criticized Pres. Bush's declaration as reversing his earlier policy of régime change in North Korea.^[97] In October 2007, at the second Inter-Korean Summit, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Il signed a joint declaration of intent for peace treaty talks to formally end the Korean War.^[98] On 27 May 2009, North Korea withdrew from the 1953 armistice, because South Korea has violated its terms, after South Korea joined a US-led initiative to search North Korean ships for nuclear weapons;^[99][100] although South Korea had not been a signator.^[101]

Painting: Massacre in Korea (1951), by Pablo Picasso, depicts war violence against civilians. Literature: the war-memoir novel War Trash (2004), by Ha Jin, is a drafted PVA soldier’s experience of the war, combat, and captivity under the UN Command, and of the retribution Chinese PoWs feared from other PVA prisoners, when suspected of being unsympathetic to Communism or to the war.

• The wreckage of a bridge and North Korean tank south of Suwon, Korea. The tank was caught on a bridge and put out of action by the US Air Force. October 7, 1950.
  The wreckage of a bridge and North Korean tank south of Suwon, Korea. The tank was caught on a bridge and put out of action by the US Air Force. October 7, 1950.
• 
  Scene of war damage in residential section of Seoul, Korea. The capitol building can be seen in the background (right). October 18, 1950. Sfc. Cecil Riley. (U.S. Army)
• 
  An aged Korean woman pauses in her search for salvageable materials among the ruins of Seoul, Korea. November 1, 1950. Capt. C. W. Huff. (U.S. Army)
• 
  Korean women and children search the rubble of Seoul for anything that can be used or burned as fuel. November 1, 1950. Capt. F. L. Scheiber. (U.S. Army)
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  A small South Korean child sits alone in the street, after elements of the US 1st Marine Div. and South Korean Marines invaded the city of Inchon, in an offensive launched against the North Korean forces in that area. September 16, 1950. Pfc. Ronald L. Hancock. (U.S. Army)
• 
  Long trek southward: Seemingly endless file of Korean refugees slogs through snow outside of Kangnung, blocking withdrawal of ROK I Corps. January 8, 1951. Cpl. Walter Calmus. (U.S. Army)
• 
  Marilyn Monroe, motion picture actress, appearing with the USO, poses for pictures after a performance at the 3rd US Inf. Div. area. February 17, 1954. Cpl. Welshman. (Army)
• 
  Lt. R. P. Yeatman, from the USS Bon Homme Richard, is shown rocketing and bombing Korean bridge. November 1952. (U.S. Navy)
• 
  Bob Hope sits with men of US X Corps, as members of his troupe entertain at Womsan, Korea. October 26, 1950. (U.S. Army)

Unlike World War II, there are relatively few Western feature films depicting the Korean War.

• The Steel Helmet (1951) is a war film directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Lippert Studios during the Korean War. It was the first studio film about the war, and the first of several war films by producer-director-writer Fuller.
• Battle Hymn (1957) stars Rock Hudson as Colonel Dean Hess, who became a preacher after bombing a German orphanage during World War II. He later volunteered as a USAF fighter pilot instructor in Korea.
• The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955) stars William Holden as a Naval Aviator assigned to destroy the bridges at Toko Ri, while battling doubts; it is based on an eponymous James Michener novel.
• The Forgotten (Korean War Movie) (2004) features a decimated tank unit, lost behind enemy lines, battling the vicissitudes of the war, as well as their own demons.
• The Hunters (1958), adapted from the novel The Hunters by James Salter, stars Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner as two very different United States Air Force fighter pilots in the midst of the Korean War.
• The Hook (1963), starring Kirk Douglas, portrays the dilemma of three American soldiers on board a ship who are ordered to kill a Korean Prisoner of War.
• Inchon (1982) portrays the Battle of Inchon, a turning point in the war. Controversially, the film was partially financed by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Movement. It became a notorious financial and critical failure, losing an estimated $40 million of its $46 million budget, and remains the last mainstream Hollywood film to use the war as its backdrop. The film was directed by Terence Young, and starred an elderly Laurence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur. According to press materials from the film, psychics hired by Moon's church contacted MacArthur in heaven and secured his posthumous approval of the casting.
• The Manchurian Candidate, a 1959 thriller novel, was cinematically adapted to The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer, and featuring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury. It is about brainwashed POWs of the US Army, and an officer's investigation to learn what happened to him and his platoon in the war.
• MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker (pseudonym for H. Richard Hornberger), was later adapted into a successful film and a television series; the TV series had a total of 251 episodes, lasted 11 years, and won awards, and its final episode was the most-watched program in television history.^[102] Yet the sensibilities they presented were more of the 1970s than of the 1950s; the Korean War setting was an oblique and uncontroversial treatment of the then-current American war in Vietnam.^[103]
• Pork Chop Hill (1959) is a Lewis Milestone-directed film with Gregory Peck as an infantry lieutenant fighting the bitterly fierce first Battle of Pork Chop Hill, between the US Army's 7th Infantry Division, and Chicom (Chinese Communist) forces at war's end in April 1953. The movie is lampooned by the Firesign Theatre album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers in the story of Lieutenant Tirebiter.

There were several South Korean films, including:

• Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004), directed by Kang Je-gyu, became extremely popular in South Korea and at the 50th Asia Pacific Film Festival, Taegukgi won the "Best Film", while Kang Je-gyu was awarded the "Best Director". Taegukgi saw a limited release in the United States.
• Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005) shows the effect of the warring sides on a remote village. The titular village soon becomes home to surviving North Korean and South Korean soldiers, who in time lose their suspicion and hatred for each other and work together to help save the village after the Americans mistakenly identify it as an enemy camp.

North Korea has made many films about the war, mostly by the government supporting forceful, armed reunification of the North and South of Korea. ^{[citation needed]} These have portrayed war crimes by American or South Korean soldiers while glorifying members of the North Korean military as well as North Korean ideals.^{[104][verification needed]}

Battle on Shangganling Mountain (Shanggan Ling, Chinese: 上甘岭) is a depiction of the Korean War from the Chinese point of view, made in 1956. The movie is about a group of Chinese soldiers blocked in Triangle Hill area for several days and survive until they are relieved.

• Joint Advisory Commission, Korea
• List of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity
• UNCMAC – the UN Command Military Armistice Commission operating from 1953 to the present
• UNCOK – the 1950 United Nations Commission on Korea
• UNCURK – the 1951 UN Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea
• Pyongyang Sally
• Vietnam War
• M*A*S*H
• List of Korean War weapons
• Military history of Australia during the Korean War

• Appleman, Roy E. South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1961), Official US Army history covers the Eighth Army and X Corps from June to November 1950
• Appleman, Roy E.. East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea (1987); Escaping the Trap: The US Army in Northeast Korea, 1950 (1987); Disaster in Korea: The Chinese Confront MacArthur (1989); Ridgway Duels for Korea (1990).
• Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (1987), revisionist study that attacks senior American officials
• Field Jr., James A. History of United States Naval Operations: Korea, University Press of the Pacific, 2001, ISBN 0-89875-675-8. official US Navy history
• Farrar-Hockley, General Sir Anthony. The British Part in the Korean War, HMSO, 1995, hardcover 528 pages, ISBN 0-11-630962-8
• Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953, rev. ed. (Office of the Chief of Air Force History, 1983), official US Air Force history
• Halberstam, David. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, Hyperion, 2007, ISBN 1401300529.
• Hallion, Richard P. The Naval Air War in Korea (1986).
• Hamburger, Kenneth E. Leadership in the Crucible: The Korean War Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-Ni. Texas A. & M. U. Press, 2003. 257 pp.
• Hastings, Max. The Korean War (1987). British perspective
• James, D. Clayton The Years of MacArthur: Triumph and Disaster, 1945-1964 (1985)
• James, D. Clayton with Anne Sharp Wells, Refighting the Last War: Command and Crises in Korea, 1950-1953 (1993)
• Johnston, William. A War of Patrols: Canadian Army Operations in Korea. U. of British Columbia Press, 2003. 426 pp.
• Kindsvatter, Peter S. American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. U. Press of Kansas, 2003. 472 pp.
• Millett, Allan R. Their War for Korea: American, Asian, and European Combatants and Civilians, 1945–1953. Brassey's, 2003. 310 pp.
• Montross, Lynn et al., History of US Marine Operations in Korea, 1950–1953, 5 vols. (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3, Headquarters, Marine Corps, 1954–72),
• Mossman, Billy. Ebb and Flow (1990), Official US Army history covers November 1950 to July 1951.
• Russ, Martin. Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950, , Penguin, 2000, 464 pages, ISBN 0-14-029259-4
• Toland, John. In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950-1953 (1991)
• Varhola, Michael J. Fire and Ice: The Korean War, 1950-1953 (2000)
• Watson, Brent Byron. Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea, 1950–1953. 2002. 256 pp.

• Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (Columbia University Press, 1994),
• Cumings, Bruce. Origins of the Korean War (two volumes), Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990
• Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis; and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War, Stanford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8047-2521-7, diplomatic
• Kaufman, Burton I. The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command. Temple University Press, 1986), focus is on Washington
• Matray, James. "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self Determination and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel Decision in Korea," Journal of American History 66 (September, 1979), 314–33. Online at JSTOR
• Millett, Allan R. The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning vol 1 (2005)ISBN 0-7006-1393-5, origins
• Schnabel, James F. United States Army in the Korean War: Policy and Direction: The First Year (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1972). Official US Army history; full text online
• Spanier, John W. The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War (1959).
• Stueck, William. Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History. Princeton U. Press, 2002. 285 pp.
• Stueck, Jr., William J. The Korean War: An International History (Princeton University Press, 1995), diplomatic
• Zhang Shu-gang, Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953 (University Press of Kansas, 1995)

• Bassett, Richard M. And the Wind Blew Cold: The Story of an American POW in North Korea. Kent State U. Press, 2002. 117 pp.
• Bin Yu and Xiaobing Li, eds Mao's Generals Remember Korea, University Press of Kansas, 2001, hardcover 328 pages, ISBN 0-7006-1095-2
• S.L.A. Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet (1953) on combat
• Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (1967).

• US Army Korea Media Center official Korean War online video archive
• Korea Defense Veterans of America
• Korean War Ex-POW Association
• Korean War Veterans Associtaion
• The Center for the Study of the Korean War
• Korean War Documentary
• Korean Children's War Memorial
• Calvin College on the Impact of the War on the Korean People
• Facts and texts on the War
• BBC: American Military Conduct in the Korean War
• Atrocities against Americans in the Korean War
• Atrocities by Americans in the Korean War
• Quicktime sequence of 27 maps adapted from the West Point Atlas of American Wars showing the dynamics of the front.
• Animation for operations in 1950
• Animation for operations in 1951
• POW films, brainwashing and the Korean War
• CBC Digital Archives – Forgotten Heroes: Canada and the Korean War
• Chinese 50th Anniversary Korean War Memorial
• North Korea International Documentation Project
• Collection of videos on Korean War
• Documents on the Korean Conflict at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• US Army Korea Media Center official Korean War online image archive
• Grand Valley State University Veteran's History Project digital collection

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