Korea+9321


 * Korea 9321

9 -**
 * United Nations forces were commanded by WWII hero of the Pacific Theater General Douglas MacArthur.
 * General MacArthur asked for permission to blockade and bomb China, but was denied it. President Truman feared General MacArthurs idea would lead to Soviet involvement in the conflict and a third world war.
 * On the home front, General MacArthur publicly criticized Truman, which Truman felt undermined civilian control of the military. Thus, he fired General MacArthur, despite public support for MacArthur.
 * General MacArthur had a plan, codenamed Operation Chromite, which was an amphibious invasion from the Yellow Sea to capture the city of Inchon, deep in enemy territory.
 * China saw the United Nations offensive into North Korea as a threat to their national security and on November 25, 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers crossed the Yulu River into North Korea, pushing United Nations forces south of the 38th parrallel.
 * Arguably the most important battle of the Korean War was the protection of the Pusan perimeter by Lt. Gen. [|Walton Walker's] U.S. Eighth Army. For over a month, the Eighth Army fought off the relentless Korean People's Army until MacArthur's Operation Chromite could begin.
 * On July 27, 1953, an armistice was agreed upon by United Nations forces, led by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Communist North Koreans and Chinese.
 * Estimates vary, but most sources agreed around 54,000 Americans were killed, 103, 248 were wounded, and 11,888 were POW-MIA.
 * The armistice line was rougly the spot of the borders of North and South Korea before the war. Despite little change on the Korean peninsula, the war changed a lot in the United States. This first demonstration of the containment policy employed by President Truman would be the primary justification for American involvement in Vietnam about a decade later.

The Korean War isn't as well known as other wars, but it still had many casualties. In this picture, two soldiers comfort each other after their buddy died and a medic fills out casualty tags.
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A downded pilot in rescued by a helicopter in Korea. Helicopters were just beginning to be employed by the US military, but they would be increasingly used later on, especially in Vietnam.

US Marines exit their Higgins boat LCI and ascend ladders during Operation Chromite, more commonly know as the Inchon landing. This was General Douglas MacArthurs daring but dangerous plan to defeat the Korea People's Army.


 * 2 -



1 -** While discussing his justification for entering the conflict in Korea, President Truman had this to say, //"In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak….Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted 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."// He is likening the action of the Korean People's Republic to that of Axis leaders.