A History of Korea (79 page)

After exhausting other options to reunify Korea under communism, the North Koreans finally decided to conduct an all-out, conventional attack on South Korea. Already in February–March 1949 Kim Il-sung had begun lobbying for a Soviet-backed invasion of the
ROK
. He had proposed it and struggled for it, and now, with a Soviet army battle plan, he executed it. The invasion of South Korea that began on 25 June 1950 was pre-planned, blessed, and directly aided by Stalin and his generals, and reluctantly backed, at Stalin’s insistence, by Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong of the People’s Republic of China (
PRC
).
³⁰

Between 30 March and 25 April 1950, Kim Il-sung had visited the Soviet Union and secured approval from Stalin for his planned invasion of South Korea. During a secret summit, Kim envisioned realizing his goal in three stages—first, the concentration of the Korean People’s Army troops near the 38th parallel; second, issuing an appeal to South Korea for peaceful unification; and, third, initiating military activity after the South Korean rejection of the proposal for peaceful unification. Then, at Stalin’s insistence, Kim visited the
PRC
between 13 and 16 May 1950 and succeeded in securing Mao Zedong’s approval for the planned offensive.

At Stalin’s order, North Korea’s requests for the delivery of weapons and equipment for the formation of additional units of the Korean People’s Army were quickly met. Kim Il-sung patiently waited until he secured substantial Soviet military support. In addition to the delivery of arms and ammunition, Stalin sent military advisers experienced in large-scale campaigns to draft a battle plan for the invasion of South Korea. In April 1950 Mao Zedong sent North Korea 12,000 Koreans who had served with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, bringing the strength of these combat-experienced veterans who had been absorbed into the North Korean forces to 30,000, or some one-third of the total forces.

By the end of May 1950 the general staff of the Korean People’s Army, aided by Soviet military advisers, announced the readiness of the North Korean army
to begin amassing at the 38th parallel. At the insistence of Kim Il-sung, the invasion was scheduled for 25 June 1950. The North Korean armed forces had significant superiority over the
ROK
forces: in the number of troops, the ratio was 2 to 1; guns, 2 to 1; machine guns, 7 to 1; submachine guns, 13 to 1; tanks, 150 to 0; and planes, 6 to 1. The
KPA
operational plan envisioned that its troops would advance 15 to 20 kilometers per day and complete the main military activity within 22 to 27 days.
³¹

Months earlier, in March 1950, North Korean leaders held a secret Politburo meeting in Pyongyang, where Kim Il-sung discussed with them the possibility of military action against South Korea. Pak H
ŏ
n-y
ŏ
ng spoke strongly in favor of invasion, predicting that 200,000 underground South Korean Workers Party members would emerge to join the invading northern forces. The consensus at the conference was that U.S. intervention was unlikely or, even if it did occur, would come too late to make any difference.
³²

Revisionist scholarship has argued that the Korean War originated in 1945, with the division of the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel, but the fact is that the war began with a North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950, as a continuation of the developing conflict between the two Koreas prior to 1950. To commemorate the conflict, the successive South Korean governments have set 25 June 1950 as the day the Korean War began.

Early on Sunday morning (4:00
AM
), 25 June 1950 (Korea time), the 89,000- strong North Korean forces, supported by tanks, heavy artillery, and aircraft, crossed the 38th parallel. North Korea claimed that it was merely responding to a South Korean invasion of its own territory, a patent lie. The attack struck at four points along the 38th parallel. Comprising the main invasion force were the troops sent across the border near Seoul, their mission to hasten the fall of South Korea by taking its capital city. In Seoul, panicky citizens clamored for information on the acute situation, and for a time South Korean forces appeared to have contained the invasion. It soon became evident, however, that after a brave initial resistance, South Koreans were completely overwhelmed.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who had gone home to Independence, Missouri, for the weekend, hurried back to Washington. After meeting with his national security advisers, he believed that the North Korean invasion was an
obvious move to broaden the communist hold in Asia by crushing the South Korean government, and that the Soviet Union was behind the attack. One official commented that the relationship between the Soviet Union and North Korea was the same as “between Walter Disney and Donald Duck.” Truman instructed Warren Austin, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to recommend to the Security Council that “members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the
ROK
as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.”
³³
At the time Yakov A. Malik, the Soviet representative to the United Nations, was boycotting the Security Council to protest that Communist China had not been given a seat in the international body. With Malik absenting himself from the meeting, where he could have exercised a veto, the motion was carried on 27 June. The Soviet Union might have abstained from voting intentionally so that the United States could quickly get Security Council approval to send American troops into Korea. Stalin, according to this view, wanted to draw the United States and the
PRC
into the war in Korea to divert U.S. attention from Europe.

By Wednesday, 28 June, Seoul had fallen to the North Koreans. Early that morning the main bridges over the Han River had been blown up by
ROK
army engineers with no warning to the military personnel and civilian refugees crowding the bridges. By destroying the bridges prematurely, the South Korean army not only killed hundreds but also trapped 44,000 of its own men north of the river.

With the North Korean attack on the Republic of Korea, the U.S. attitude was suddenly transformed. Truman announced military assistance for South Korea and ordered General MacArthur to support South Korean forces with U.S. air and sea forces. Air strikes, however, initially were restricted south of the 38th parallel. He also instructed MacArthur to watch the fighting closely and report on how South Korea was faring. The general flew to Korea for a firsthand look at the battlefront on 29 June and reported to the president that U.S. ground troops would have to come to the
ROK
’s aid to prevent the loss of the entire country. On 30 June Truman approved the dispatch of U.S. ground forces to Korea, broadened the range of U.S. air and naval operations to include North Korea, and authorized a U.S. naval operation to blockade North Korea’s ports. At the time, however, Truman thought that the United States was not undertaking a war but a “police action,” a limited effort meant to push North Korean forces back into their country. But it was obvious that the United States was at war in Korea, triggered by unprovoked North Korean aggression.

When he was told to commit American ground troops to the Korean fighting, General MacArthur had the 8th Army on occupation duty in Japan. It consisted mainly of four undermanned infantry divisions. The 24th Infantry Division became the first one to send men to Korea when MacArthur ordered one of its battalions to speed to the battlefront.

The 540-man “Task Force Smith,” named after its commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Brad Smith, was dispatched to Korea to buy time for MacArthur to bring enough men and arms into Korea from Japan. On 5 July Task Force Smith stubbornly fought off the North Korean assault at a point three miles above the town of Osan, and the first U.S. battle in the Korean War ended in tragic failure. Of 540 men who faced North Korean forces that July day, Smith lost 150 listed as killed, wounded, or missing. The battle had been a terrible but valiant one. Task Force Smith held up the North Korean advance for seven hours before withdrawing.
³⁴

Following a Security Council resolution of 7 July, the United Nations Command (
UNC
) was established, with General MacArthur as its commander. MacArthur would lead all U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine personnel in Korea, as well as
ROK
forces, and the troops, ships, planes, and medical aid sent by 15
U.N.
nations that joined the
UNC
. Lieutenant General Walton H. Walker, commander of the 8th U.S. Army, took command of the
UNC
ground troops on 12 July. The fifteen nations that committed themselves to the Korean fighting, with some immediately joining the
UNC
and others coming later, included Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and South Africa. On 14 July
ROK
President Syngman Rhee handed over authority of the entire
ROK
armed forces to MacArthur. The peak strength of the
UNC
was 932,964 on 27 July 1953, the day when the Armistice Agreement was finally signed.

Beginning with the battle at Osan, Walker’s 8th Army suffered a succession of defeats. From Ch’
ŏ
nan (6–8 July) to Ch’
ŏ
ngju (10 July), Choch’iw
ŏ
n (11–12 July), the K
ŭ
m River (15–16 July), and finally Taej
ŏ
n (19–20), North Korean forces continuously pushed the undermanned and poorly trained 24th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General William F. Dean, southward down the peninsula. At Taej
ŏ
n, U.S. and South Korean defenders tried to stave off the North Korean advance without success. Dean became separated and was later
captured by North Koreans. He would spend the next three years as a North Korean prisoner. Despite heavy casualties, the battle at Taej
ŏ
n enabled the 25th Infantry and the 1st Cavalry Divisions of the U.S. Army to further position themselves to slow the North Korean advance. In the course of continuing retreats, the infamous “Nog
ŭ
n-ni railroad bridge incident” occurred, in which up to 300 South Korean civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers of H Company of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division.
³⁵
The “Nog
ŭ
n-ni incident” would hold the potential for further worsening
ROK
–U.S. relations, including the “Kwangju incident” of 1980.

By mid-July 1950 the North Korean invaders were spread across the width of South Korea. Having overcome American forces and their South Korean allies on the main axis of advance leading to Pusan, they headed for Korea’s southwestern corner. Then they turned to the east and occupied Chinju, a strategically important town located west of Pusan. As North Koreans came closer to Pusan, a battle was raged in the vicinity of the strategic town of Masan. In the central sector North Korean forces were heading for Taegu, an important defensive stronghold for
U.N.
forces.

General Walker’s mission was to trade space for time, delaying and withdrawing until sufficient forces could be built up in Japan for General MacArthur to effect a significant turnabout by landing forces at Inch’
ŏ
n on South Korea’s west coast. By the end of July, however, Walker had largely run out of space. He ordered his forces to withdraw behind the line of the Naktong River, making it the last bastion to guard the
ROK
. By 4 August he established what became known as the Pusan Perimeter, a defensive line with a rectangular shape approximately 100 miles by 50 miles around the port of Pusan, in the southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula.
³⁶
The North Korean forces, under Kim Il-sung’s direction, tried but failed to destroy this line as the
U.N.
forces raced to build up their strength. Pusan was at last safe from North Korean capture.

By mid-September, as the North Korean offensive stalled, the tide had turned in favor of
U.N.
forces. While the North Korean forces were overextended and out of supplies, the
U.N.
forces became stronger and seized the opportunity to counterattack.

On 15 September 1950
U.N.
forces conducted a landing operation at Inch’
ŏ
n that constituted a turning point in the Korean war. By mid-July 1950, when
American and South Korean forces fought with their backs to the wall to defend the vital port city of Pusan, MacArthur was preparing to present North Koreans with a two-front war. Confident that the 8th Army could hold the Pusan Perimeter, he diverted his resources to a “second front,” landing several divisions of troops at the port city of Inch’
ŏ
n, Korea’s second largest port and only 15 miles from Seoul. The area was the most important road and railway hub in Korea and a vital link in the main North Korean People’s Army supply line extending to the south. Cutting it off would cause North Korean forces facing the 8th Army to suffer scanty supplies of food and munitions. Furthermore, the capture of Seoul would be a serious psychological blow for North Korea.

Planning for the landing, code-named Operation CHROMITE, began on 12 August. On 28 August MacArthur received formal approval from President Truman for the invasion. He had assembled 70,000 troops and more than 230 ships and transports for the landing. Assigned to the campaign were the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division, and the 5th Marine Brigade of the U.S. Army, as well as a contingent of South Korean forces. The force was named the X Corps and placed under the command of Major General Edward Almond, MacArthur’s chief of staff in Japan.