Seventy-three years ago today, Koreans awoke to light rain and a distant rumbling. An early thunderstorm seemed unlikely in this “land of the morning calm” and yet, that was definitely thunder. What could it mean?
The Korean people had only five years prior regained their nation—their sovereignty—after 50 years of Japanese occupation and colonization. Those living south of the 38th Parallel—an almost arbitrary division of the Korean Peninsula into Soviet and U.S. occupation zones—were just learning about democracy. Some were no doubt aware their family members up north were receiving a very different education. More to the point, none of the farmers, fisherman, shopkeepers or others that morning could have guessed that the thunder in the distance was actually The Cold War turning hot. Few, if any, foresaw just what the next few years would bring.
As virtual wards of the powerful United States of America, the least damaged and thus biggest winner of the Second World War, South Koreans in June of 1950 had reason to believe they were safe from the ravages of war. After all, wasn’t it the United States that had marched across the vast Pacific and burned Imperial Japan to cinders? Weren’t there still U.S. soldiers wandering around the streets of Seoul, occasionally making trips up to the 38th Parallel to ensure all was well? Who would dare to upset such a strong benefactor? Who indeed?
On the 25th of June, 1950, ten North Korean Peoples Army infantry divisions, supported by one armored brigade outfitted with Soviet T-34 tanks, crashed across the 38th Parallel, inaugurating what we’ve come to know as THE Korean War. “THE” really because it was our only war on a Peninsula both blessed and cursed by geography since well before the dawn of history itself. Korean kingdoms going back to Roman times have found themselves the cultural, religious, and technological beneficiaries of their physical location in the world. Just as often, however, they found themselves embroiled in conflict with a revolving cast of threatening neighbors. On this day, it just so happened the enemy were Korean as well.
Roughly 135,000 strong, the KPA had been built for one purpose and one purpose only; the forceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula. The first shot, many at the time felt, in an oft-stated desire by the Communist International or COMINTERN, to initiate a general uprising against the capitalist regimes of the world. While the COMINTERN officially dissolved in 1943, its guiding principles survived. Finally, communist theorists insisted, the worker would triumph over the oppression of his imperialist masters. A strange cocktail of geography and post-war politics, with a dash of war weariness back home in the U.S., meant that against all odds, North Korea would lead the way to a worldwide communist paradise.
The Republic of Korean Army in 1950 was a shadow of its current self. No … make that a shadow of a shadow of a shadow. South Korea’s defense force was essentially a constabulary with heavy weapons. Think policemen, but wearing fatigues, augmented by machine guns and recoilless rifles. This was not a force designed, necessarily, to fight a high intensity war, but rather, to handle internal dissent and, thus, keep the peace. This was partly intentional, at least on the part of the U.S. Wary of ROK President Syngman Rhee’s stated intent to commit a capable ROK Army to a military reunification campaign of his own, the U.S. limited the equipment issued to the infant republic. In fact, the ROK Army prior to June 25th was much more concerned with a growing communist insurrection than any external threat. Thus, the ROK Army’s lack of heavy equipment, to include tanks, anti-tank weaponry, and modern artillery, wasn’t a serious concern … until it was.
And yet a nation goes to war with the army it has, not necessarily the one it needs. Thus the 95,000 men of the ROK Army, manning eight infantry divisions spread around the country, braced themselves against the onslaught. The reds were coming hard, armed with the best equipment the Soviet Union could provide. Despite a desperate, heroic holding action orchestrated by ROK Army General Paik Sunyup north of Seoul, the capital fell on June 28th and Paik’s ROK 1st Division was forced to conduct a fighting withdrawal south to friendly lines.
In addition to an embassy in Seoul, the U.S. maintained a 500-man Korea Military Advisory Group (KMAG) and ten P-51 Mustangs on the Peninsula. A miniscule commitment, by today’s standards, essentially an infantry battalion and a squadron of fighter aircraft, the U.S. was in no position to fight a war in Korea. Sure, the occupation bases in Japan were full of U.S. Army and Navy personnel, but a post-war lethargy had taken hold there, with troops enjoying their time in formerly enemy territory a bit too much. The powerful U.S. military that had fought with such distinction just five years prior, bringing down not one, not two, but three aggressive dictatorial regimes, appeared to have dissipated between rounds.
And yet, unfolding world events often look very different from a distance. In Washington D.C., separate reporting from the U.S. Ambassador in Seoul and KMAG were verified by initial media coverage coming across the wire. The North Koreans were invading the South.
With little respect for the military capability of the communist bloc’s newest power, the Pentagon ordered General Douglas MacArthur, in his headquarters at Camp Zama, Japan, to do something about the situation. MacArthur ordered 8th Army to move the 24th Infantry Division—the occupying force physically nearest to Korea—to the Peninsula. Its lead element was to be a battalion-minus-sized task force hurriedly flown through monsoon rains to Korea. There—ironically near Pyeongtaek where I currently live—the force was met and augmented by two batteries of U.S. field artillery. The task force was led by a West Point graduate and veteran of World War II, Colonel Charles B. Smith.
Intended as an arrogant show of U.S. resolve, on July 5th, far from frightening the North Koreans into reconsidering the wisdom of their invasion, Task Force Smith would instead be overrun by North Korean infantry supported by tanks not far from Osan. The men—especially the artillerymen—gave a good account of themselves, but they were vastly outnumbered, and like their ROK brethren, not equipped as they should have been.
On that rather embarrassing note began the Korean War. Three years of brutal combat with wild swings of both initiative and success resulting in some three million casualties between the two Koreas, the U.S., and China. Less well known perhaps were the casualties incurred by the Soviet Union through its clandestine support to North Korea and those suffered by a unique collection of 22 nations that joined hands for the first time under a United Nations flag to stand against aggressive war. I say the first time but it was also the last, as the men and women of the United Nations Command which fought so bravely for a people they barely knew, would never again under a UN flag undertake combat operations under the principle that an attack against one is an attack against all. As my good friend Dr. Bosack repeatedly points out, the United Nations Command remains the only collective security organization ever mandated by the Security Council. The UNC remains in the Republic of Korea today, a stark reminder of what could have been … what was supposed to be … the United Nations. The whole world united against aggression.
Yet I digress from my intent, which is to highlight the passing of a sober date in world history. That day, 73 years ago, when war returned to a peninsula far too familiar with the death, depredation, and destruction that word connotes. That modern Korea not only survived that crucible of fire but thrived in the aftermath says something interesting about the resiliency of the people here. That they continue to trust the outside world and rise to every challenge, perhaps says something interesting about human nature itself.
Regardless, on this 73rd anniversary of the invasion, I find myself both humbled and honored to live amongst them.
M. G. Haynes