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When the Korean War began during the summer of 1950 many Americans were wondering aloud Is this the beginning of W.W. III? One year later they were relieved to find that it was not a world war, but the butcher’s bill stood at 70,000 U.S. casualties and still there was no end in sight. This article examines these first 365 days of combat, taking into account all losses and gains.
General MacArthur’s wish to expand the war by dropping as many as thirty (30) A-Bombs on various strategic targets located in both China and North Korea contrasted dramatically with President Truman’s plans as well as those of the United Nations. Plagued by a crippling sense of self-grandeur, the General’s arrogance became a liability and President Truman was absolutely delighted to fire him.
On December 31, 1950, the Communist Armies fighting in Korea launched a campaign that was intended to drive the UN Forces further south away from the 38th Parallel. Costing much in both blood and treasure, the Red Push was easily contained and whatever ground had been gained was easily re-taken when the UN launched a counter-offensive of their own on February 21, 1951.
Click here to read how Japan, still smarting from their defeat just six years earlier, had found a new identity and resolve as a result of the Cold War, and the war in Korea in particular.
As is made clear on this website, numerous tanks were fielded by the U.N. Forces during the Korean War, and one of the most effective ones was the Patton Tank (in all it’s variations).
Five days after China entered the Korean War, three U.S. Air Force F-80 Shooting Star fighter jets duked it out with three Soviet-made MIG-15s 20,000 feet above the the Korean/Manchurian border. Lieutenant Russell Brown of Southern California fired the decisive shot that sent one MIG down in flames. While engaged with the other two F-80s, the remaining MIGs were dispatched in a similar manner (although other sources had reported that these two fighters had actually been able to return to their bases badly damaged). In the entire sordid history of warfare, this engagement was the first contest to result in one jet shooting down another.
After trouncing Adlai Stevenson in the November Election, President-Elect Eisenhower made good on the vow he had made earlier and packed his bag for a fact-finding trip to the stagnant front lines on the Korean Peninsula.
No abrupt change in Korea is likely to follow Ike’s visit. He doesn’t plan to negotiate with the Reds there. He is interested in training, equipping and preparing South Koreans to defend themselves… The South Korean’s morale is good. About 400,000 of them are mobilized.
The two-round, all-out offensive launched by the Chinese Army on April 22 exhausted itself and fizzled-out four weeks later after suffering heavy losses and gaining no ground whatever.
By the Winter of 1951 another round of cease-fire and truce agreements between UN and Communist field commanders had once again come to naught – and America’s second Thanksgiving in Korea soon gave way to America’s second Christmas in Korea. This brief column lays out what went wrong in the last negotiations and American Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that the U.S. would remain in Korea even after a peace agreement has been signed.
South Korean firing squads had executed hundreds of men, women and children accused as Red sympathizers before President Rhee stopped the practice last week and set up a special board to review death sentences.
Had the five-star general, brilliant military servant of his country for 50 years, been a sincere, farsighted prophet advocating the only course which could halt Communist Imperialism and save the free world? Or had he been an egotistical, arbitrary, insubordinate soldier, deliberately undercutting his Commander-in-Chief in pursuit of a policy to which no United States or United Nations official would give endorsement?
The author lists numerous instances indicating that the General had been insubordinate.
Had the five-star general, brilliant military servant of his country for 50 years, been a sincere, farsighted prophet advocating the only course which could halt Communist Imperialism and save the free world? Or had he been an egotistical, arbitrary, insubordinate soldier, deliberately undercutting his Commander-in-Chief in pursuit of a policy to which no United States or United Nations official would give endorsement?
The author lists numerous instances indicating that the General had been insubordinate.
Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953 generated a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the West, and a good deal of it is reflected in the attached column. A list of possible successors was provided; two of the names played an immediate roll in the governance of the Soviet Union: Georgy Malenkov (1902 – 1988) – who ruled for three days, until he was replaced by Nikolai Bulganin (1895 – 1975). Bulganin ran the shop until he, too, was replaced by Stalin’s right-hand man: Nikita Khrushchev
(1894 – 1971) – who was known in some corners as the hangman of the Ukraine.
This article from February, 1950 goes on in some detail explaining why Americans should not be worried in the least about the fact that the Soviets now have atomic capability because the U.S. military has bigger and far more destructive bombs.
A hydrogen bomb could cause damage almost without limit. The Nagasaki plutonium bomb affected an area of 10 square miles. The new weapon could destroy an area of 100, or 1,000 square miles.
During the final months of the Korean war, when it seemed that both sides were willing to make an arrangement that would bring the hostilities to an agreed upon end, the Chinese diplomats upped the ante
… the Red regime in Peiping [Beijing] wanted a Great Power conference on Korea’s future as a preface to new truce talks… Zhou Enlai, premier in Mao Tse Tung’s government, has secretly proposed tossing all disputes – the prisoner exchange issue as well as the political future of Korea – into a conference of 11 nations.
Watch an informative Christian documentary on Korea in 1953 (- its in color).
Attached herein is an essay written during the mid-Fifties that briefly summarizes the primary global events spanning the end of World War II through 1955 which set the stage for that period in Twentieth Century history called the Cold War: the global containment of Soviet expansion.
Click here to read about espionage during the Cold War.
Fingered as the premier Soviet agent working in the United States by a former communist and editor of THE DAILY WORKER and PEOPLE’S WORLD, Gerhart Eisler (1897 – 1968) – was arrested in the Fall of 1947 and charged with espionage.
Standing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Eisler refused to take the oath, preferring instead to read a prepared statement. The committee refused to play along and the Justice Department soon leveled Eisler with additional charges. By 1949 things were looking dark for Eisler; jumping bail he made good his escape and secured passage across the Atlantic. Welcomed in East Germany as a hero, Eisler was soon named director of East German radio and became a prominent voice for the Communist government.
For the first time in history, the U.S. government is training professional spies – and picking the brightest college youngsters to make espionage their career. By December, some 250 men and 50 women will be learning the spy business from the bottom up, at schools they mustn’t even admit exist.
A 1951 article about the young CIA can be read by clicking here…
– from Amazon:
ESPIONAGE is big business in Berlin and has it’s painstaking, pecuniary bureaucracy. It is practiced by small fry (who is willing to procure for you anything from the latest deployment plan of the Red Army to a lock of Hitler’s hair) and by big-time operators who deal nonchalantly and lucratively in international secrets.
