Korean War
28 quotes
Biography
The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC).
"More than 5.7 million American troops were engaged, resulting in more than 33,000 combat deaths and another 92,000 injuries. It marked the first armed, global conflict between democracy and communism in what would be known as the Cold War. The war technically never ended, as North and South Korea maintain an uneasy truce along the 38th parallel on the Korean Peninsula. Yet the conflict has gone largely ignored in American pop culture. Aside from M*A*S*H and a handful of books and films, the war remains in a narrative haze, particularly compared with stories from World War II, Vietnam and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Strangely, the Korean War has not functioned as the wellspring of Hollywood'<nowiki/>s approach to reconfirming" American heroism, says Steven Alford, film lecturer and professor of humanities at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale."
"For one, the films emerging from the war simply weren't that good," he says of a spate of forgettable movies that included 1952's Japanese War Bride and 1953's Battle Circus. "Hollywood spent the better part of the '40s churning out war films, and the lack of imagination and inventiveness in Korean War films may simply result from imaginative exhaustion." The stakes also paled compared with WWII, says Steven Gillon, resident historian for the History Channel and history professor at the University of Oklahoma. "The same generation that fought in World War II also fought in Korea," he says. "It was the first 'limited war' of the nuclear age. It ended in a stalemate and left Americans divided. There were no victory parades, no celebrations of the triumph of good over evil. Most Americans of that generation preferred to remember the earlier war."
"Halberstam writes that Korea took place before TV news came into its own. "Given the state of the technology, the footage from Korea ... rarely moved the nation.""
"The Korean War was fought for a just cause. After North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, U.S. forces were rushed into battle from Japan, joined later by many thousands of Americans, 36,000 of whom lost their lives in battle to defend freedom. In the early weeks of the war, U.S. troops were young, under-trained, and unprepared for the battle tactics of the North Korean forces. The sacrifices of the United States and the South Korean soldiers who lost their lives in this fight for freedom on the Korean peninsula could never be forgotten."
"The United States is the power that introduced nuclear weapons into Korea, and it took this drastic step primarily to stabilize volatile North-South relations. Always suspicious of North Korea's intentions, in the mid-1950s the Eisenhower Administration also worried that South Korean President Syngman Rhee might reopen the war. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wanted to restrain both sides -- with nuclear weapons. Even hotheads like Rhee and Kim Il Sung, he believed, would think twice before starting a war that would rain atomic destruction on the peninsula. In January of 1958 the United States positioned 280mm nuclear cannons and "Honest John" nuclear-tipped missiles in South Korea; these were followed a year later by nuclear-tipped Matador cruise missiles. Soon American and South Korean defense strategy rested on routine plans to use nuclear weapons very early in any new war -- at "H + 1," according to one former U.S. commander in Korea, meaning within one hour (more likely a few hours) of the outbreak of war if large masses of North Korean troops succeeded in attacking south of the DMZ. Annual "Team Spirit" military exercises included rehearsals for battlefield nuclear war. North Korea responded by building enormous facilities underground or in mountain redoubts, from troop and materiel depots to munitions factories and warplane hangars. This was a bit of a problem for American surveillance, in that it allowed for a great many places to hide an atomic bomb."
"Somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Korean women were mobilized into this slavery, along with smaller numbers of Filipinos, Chinese and a handful of Westerners. Pae Pong Gi was the first Korean woman to come forward and tell her story with her identity unprotected . She did this in Tamatani Tetsuo's 1979 film, An Old Lady in Okinawa. "Like so many other comfort women,' George Hicks writes, she "remained in the same role with the American Occupation Forces" on Okinawa. Yun Chong Mo's novel, My Mother Was a Military Comfort Woman, was inspired by the sight of a drunken American soldier dragging a Korean girl down a street in Seoul."
"In January 1956, Life magazine published an article that purportedly explained how the Eisenhower administration had ended the Korean War. Secretary of state John Foster Dulles revealed that he had conveyed an "unmistakable warning" to Beijing that the United States would use nuclear weapons against China if rapid progress toward a negotiated settlement was not made. He asserted that it was "a pretty fair inference" that this nuclear threat had worked. Dulles made this claim in defense of the notion that nuclear weapons were useful, indeed essential, tools of statecraft: When nuclear capability was combined with communication of intent to use it if necessary, deterrence- and even compellence-worked. Dulles spoke in response to partisan critics at the beginning of an election year, but his words influenced policy and history long after the 1956 contest ended. They defined the parameters of a debate about the political and diplomatic utility of nuclear weapons generally and the outcome of the Korean War in particular. However, the secretary of state's claim wass doubly deceptive. It focused analysts' attention on the six months of Republican conflict management, to the neglect of the preceding two and a one-half years of Democratic stewardship."
"It will begin with its President taking a simple, firm resolution. The resolution will be: To forego the diversions of politics and to concentrate on the job of ending the Korean war–until that job is honorably done. That job requires a personal trip to Korea. I shall make that trip. Only in that way could I learn how best to serve the American people in the cause of peace. I shall go to Korea."
"Sixteen years ago an event occurred in Korea that changed the shape of Asia and the world. On a June morning in 1950, we woke up to learn that a Communist army had smashed into the Republic of Korea without warning or provocation. Many Americans at that time could not locate Korea on the map. We were concerned mainly with the Communist threat to Europe and the rebuilding of that continent. Asia seemed remote and beyond the pale of our interest. But President Truman acted quickly. American forces went to the aid of our Korean friends. The United Nations was called into emergency session and a majority resolved to meet the aggression. There were those who condemned us for trying to play "world policeman." We were told that there would be no successful outcome to a "dirty little war" in Asia. Yet we stood firm behind the principle that the people of Korea--no less than the people of France or Italy--had a right to self-determination."
"We acted because the success of Communist aggression in Asia would have been as harmful to world peace and to our own national interest as the success of Communist aggression would be harmful in Europe. And we acted because we knew that such aggression feeds on itself. We had watched one country after another fall in the 1930's to Nazi aggression in Europe and militarist imperialism in Asia. Force prevailed from Czechoslovakia to Poland, from Korea to the Java Sea. I have always believed that the Communist strategists of the fifties were encouraged by the indifference, the fear, and the weakness that permitted the aggression of the thirties to move so far so fast. But in Korea in 1950--as in Vietnam today-we acted to stop the aggression. Side by side we fought with you to protect your fight to be sovereign and independent. We had total casualties of 157,000--33,000 killed in combat, more than 20,000 killed in noncombat, or total dead of 53,625. While our total casualties were 157,000, the Korean people suffered civilian casualties of perhaps 2 million. Who will ever know how many children starved? How many refugees lie in unmarked graves along the roads south? There is hardly a Korean family which did not lose a loved one in the assault from the North. This was the cost--the terrible cost--of protecting the Republic of Korea from Communist aggression. And as I meet with President Park and see your countryside and your people, and then I look out into the faces of this Assembly, I know that these men did not die in vain."
"By the spring of 1953, the remaining Soviet MiG-15 pilots in Korea began avoiding engagement with U.S. aircraft. Stalin was dead, a cease-fire at Panmunjom appeared inevitable, and nobody wanted to be the last casualty. Ilya Grinberg sums up the attitude of the men in the cockpits of the capable fighter: “Soviet MiG-15 pilots viewed Korean air combat as simply a job to be done. After all, they weren’t fighting to protect the motherland. They viewed the Americans as adversaries, but not really enemies.”"
"Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?"
"Chinese history textbooks state that the Korean War began when "the United States assembled a United Nations army of 15 countries and defiantly marched across the border and invaded North Korea, spreading the flames of war to our Yalu river.""
"Sixty years ago, at dawn on June 25, the Korean War broke out when Communist North Korea invaded the Republic of Korea. In response, 16 member countries of the United Nations, including the United States, joined with the Republic of Korea to defend freedom. Over the next three years of fighting, about 37,000 Americans lost their lives. They fought for the freedom of Koreans they did not even know, and thanks to their sacrifices, the peace and democracy of the republic were protected... On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, I remain grateful to America for having participated in the war. At that time, the Republic of Korea was one of the most impoverished countries, with an annual per capita income of less than $40. In 2009, my country became a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Development Assistance Committee, the first aid recipient to become a donor and in only one generation."
"By the time the armistice was signed, on July 27, 1953, B-29s had more than paid their way. The old bombers had flown 21,000 sorties and dropped 167,000 tons of bombs. Says Allan: “By the time we left, there wasn’t any electricity in North Korea.”"
"In their native countries, Roosevelt and Churchill are regarded as examples of wise statesmen. But we, during our jail conversations, were astonished by their constant shortsightedness and even stupidity. How could they, retreating gradually from 1941 to 1945, leave Eastern Europe without any guarantees of independence? How could they abandon the large territories of Saxony and Thuringia in return for such a ridiculous toy as the four-zoned Berlin that, moreover, was later to become their Achille’s heel? And what kind of military or political purpose did they see in giving away hundreds of thousands of armed Soviet citizens (who were unwilling to surrender, whatever the terms) for Stalin to have them killed? It is said that by doing this, that they secured the imminent participation of Stalin in the war against Japan. Already armed with the Atomic bomb, they did pay for Stalin so that he wouldn’t refuse to occupy Manchuria to help Mao Zedong to gain power in China and Kim Il Sung, to get half of Korea!… Oh, misery of political calculation! When later Mikolajczyk was expelled, when the end of Beneš and Masaryk came, Berlin was blocked, Budapest was in flames and turned silent, when ruins fumed in Korea and when the conservatives fled from Suez – didn’t really some of those who had a better memory, recall for instance the episode of giving away the Cossacks?"
"“There was a lot of field contact between American and Chinese forces,” Professor Armstrong said. “In a sense, this was the first and only war between China and the United States, so far.”"
"There are some places where it may even be wise to commit some land troops if we can see a reasonable chance of success. Korea does not seem to be such an area, but the entire continent of Africa is connected with Asia, and certainly we should assist in defending the Suez Canal as a means of maintaining our connections by sea, and northern Africa where we hold valuable air bases. It may be possible to assist Spain. I should suppose that Singapore and the Malay peninsula could be defended by land troops if sea and air power is available on both sides of the peninsula. The extension of such aid by land troops, however, is a dangerous experiment as we found in Korea. I doubt if we should enter into any commitments in advance, or undertake the job at all unless we are sure it is well within our capacity, and almost certain of success."
"If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another. ....If we were to let Asia go, the Near East would collapse and no telling what would happen in Europe."
"Other excised testimony revealed a fundamental reason for the administration’s reluctance to escalate in northeast Asia: There was precious little for the United States to escalate with. American air power, in particular, was stretched very thin. Hoyt Vandenberg, the Air Force chief of staff, told the committee that Korea was already claiming a large part of America’s available air strength. “The Air Force part that is engaged in Korea is roughly 85 percent—80 to 85 percent—of the tactical capacity of the United States,” he said. “The strategic portion, which is used tactically, is roughly between one-fourth and one-fifth. The air defense forces are, I would judge, about 20 percent.”"
"Vandenberg wasn’t going to disabuse America’s enemies of such notions, but he needed for the senators to hear, behind closed doors, that this was far from the case. “I am sure Admiral Davis will take this off the record,” Vandenberg said, referring to the officer overseeing the excisions, who did indeed take his remarks off the record. “The air force of the United States, as I have said, is really a shoestring air force.” Vandenberg had used the phrase in open testimony; now he provided details. One small, intrinsically insignificant country—Korea—was absorbing an alarming portion of America’s air resources. “These groups that we have over there now doing this tactical job are really about a fourth of our total effort that we could muster today.” To escalate against China, even if only from the air, would be reckless in the extreme. “Four times that amount of groups in that area over that vast expanse of China would be a drop in the bucket.”"
"[I]n the late 1940s most officials had a mixed, if not incoherent, view of the danger of war. Russia was seen as threatening but weak; expansionist but cautious. Korea led the former elements to dominate over the latter. As Secretary of Defense Johnson put it when testifying before Congress: The very fact of this aggression ... constitute[s] undeniable proof that the forces of international communism possess not only the willingness, but also the intention, of attacking and invading any free nation within their reach at any time that they think they can get away with it. The real significance of the North Korean aggression lies in this evidence that, even at the resultant risk of starting a third world war, communism is willing to resort to armed aggression, whenever it believes it can win [U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, 1950b: 272]."
"Communist threat seemed more vivid and a great deal of money was needed to maintain the troops fighting in Korea. Furthermore, once the budget smashed through the old ceiling and the economy did not fall apart, much of the resistance collapsed. It was therefore possible to act on the heightened sense of threat. The second important change was the militarization of NATO; the transforming of a paper organization built on a symbolic American commitment to a force capable of resisting Soviet attack. Here, too, Korea resolved the ambivalence felt by many decision makers and permitted the adoption of a policy that some of them had already come to favor. NSC-68 argued that because the Russians were willing to run significant risks in order to expand, and because they would soon have a significant nuclear stockpile, the West needed the capability for conventional defense. Korea appeared to prove this point-the Russians had tried to gain a small prize in spite of America's atomic weapons and mobilization base; would they not be tempted to gain a much greater one unless the local imbalance were corrected? (See Stebbins, 1951: 244.) Furthermore, Korea was an unpleasant reminder of the deficiencies of having to mobilize an army after the war had started. Allied forces were nearly pushed off the peninsula before adequate reinforcements could arrive, and the same thing could happen in Europe."
"Korea showed that limited wars were possible. Conventional forces, either American or local, were needed if similar cases recurred. Of course, it is better to avoid limited wars than to have to fight them, and in this Korea provided important lessons. By strongly implying that it would not defend Korea (in large part because decision makers did not think an attack there would be an isolated one), the United States had invited attack. It would not make the same error in the future; it would extend commitments to threatened areas, stake its reputation on meeting force with force, and thereby deter adventurism. SEATO, CENTO, and permitting Greece and Turkey to join NATO thus followed."
"In the first evening after the attack on Korea, Truman decided to interpose the Seventh Fleet between Formosa and the mainland without paying much attention to how the Chinese Communists might react. With hindsight it is not surprising that they were enraged by the prospect of the indefinite continuation of an alternative regime which challenged their power and legitimacy, but the American leaders failed to understand the degree to which their actions harmed and threatened China. They saw the increase in Chinese hostility not as an understandable reaction to what the United States had done, but as evidence of underlying Chinese enmity springing from a desire to harm U.S. interests. It is important to note that this judgement, while incorrect is similar to those made by other decision makers under similar circumstances."