Korean War (1950 – 1953)
Japan ruled Korea for 35 years. After Japan surrendered in August 1945, control of Korea had to change.
The Soviets were already in the north, while Americans were moving in from the south. Two Army colonels in Washington, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, had to figure out how to split the administrative duties. They had a National Geographic map and thirty minutes.
They drew a line at the 38th parallel. It divided Korea roughly in half. North of that line belonged to the Soviets. South belonged to the Americans. Easy enough. They figured it was temporary.
It wasn’t.
Three years went by. By 1948, two different governments had formed. Kim Il-sung ran the North. The Soviets were behind him. Syngman Rhee ran the South. The Americans backed him.
Each one said they were Korea’s real government. Each one wanted the whole country back. Neither would budge.
June 25, 1950. North Korea invaded.
The UN voted to help South Korea. The Soviets were boycotting the Security Council right then over something else, so they couldn’t block it. Truman sent American troops without declaring war officially.
China said if UN forces got too close to their border, they’d jump in.
MacArthur didn’t take that seriously. He pushed all the way to the Yalu River. That’s where North Korea meets China.
China meant what they said.
Seoul got captured and recaptured multiple times in the first year. The battle lines swung back and forth across the peninsula. Reddit user severetoxic put together this animation showing how crazy the movement was:
By the summer of 1951, everyone was fighting near the 38th parallel again. Back where it all began. But the war kept going anyway for two more years.
Twenty-one countries got involved. The total body count came close to 4 million people.
Nearly 4 million people lost their lives. In October 1950, China sent a large number of troops across the Yalu River. Official records report 197,603 deaths, 383,500 wounded, and 450,000 hospitalized. Many historians believe the actual numbers were much higher. Chinese records from back then weren’t exactly reliable.
North Korea lost about 10% of everyone living there. 406,000 soldiers died. 303,000 got wounded. 120,000 either went missing or got captured.
South Korea had 137,899 killed and 450,742 wounded. They were still trying to get back on their feet after decades under Japan.
America lost 36,574 soldiers, 103,284 came back wounded, 4,714 got taken prisoner. More Americans died in Korea than in the whole Iraq War that lasted from 2003 to 2011.
Britain sent people and 1,109 didn’t come back. Turkey lost 741. Canada 516. Australia 339. Then you had France, Thailand, Greece, Netherlands, Ethiopia, Belgium, Colombia, Philippines. All of them sent troops. All of them lost people.
New Zealand lost 34. South Africa 34. Norway 3. Luxembourg sent 44 soldiers and 2 of them died there.
The Soviets said they were just supplying weapons, but they lost 299 people and 335 planes. They were doing more than just shipping boxes.
They signed an armistice at Panmunjom, but that is not the same as a peace treaty. An armistice only means that both sides agreed to stop fighting, not that the war is officially over.
Since no peace treaty was ever signed, Korea is still technically at war. The DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone, stretches for 250 kilometers (160 miles) between North and South Korea.
