In late February 1953 I arrived in Japan, and shortly thereafter I was assigned to the Headquarters Company , 24th Infantry Division, in Sendai, Japan. The 24th Division had been one of the first American units committed to the Korean War and had been severely mauled during the early fighting. One of its three infantry regiments had been totally destroyed, and the division commander was captured. The 24th returned to Japan in 1952 , where it had reorganized and resumed occupation duties.

In June 1953 the division received notice that it was returning to Korea in response to a new Chinese offensive thrust. I was assigned to the division headquarters advance party, and a group of about ten of us flew to Korea on July 4th to set up forward operations. During that first evening in Korea we experienced a typhoon. Our tent collapsed, and we spent the night huddled in the quonset hut that was serving as headquarters.

Over the next several weeks the various division units arrived, and on July 24 I was again assigned to an advance party. We were to move north and establish a command post on the Allied front line slightly north of the 38th parallel. On the morning of the 25th of July we got in our trucks and headed for the front. We were to drive all day and all night and arrive at our destination on the evening of the 26th. That first night, as we stopped for chow, we were surprised to receive orders to bed down. The next morning we were sent back to our starting point. When I arrived at headquarters I learned that an armistice had been signed. The war was over.

That was my three week war. I spent the next thirteen months in Korea ensuring the peace.

Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were not so fortunate as I. More than 35,000 died in that foreign war, and more than 100,000 suffered war wounds.

The following puts my three week adventure in its historical context.

THE KOREAN WAR

The ancient kingdom of Korea had been annexed by Japan in 1910, and it remained under Japanese control until the end of World War II.  At that time Korea was occupied by American and Soviet troops, the Americans in the south and the Soviets in the north.  As a presumed temporary measure pending unification, the dividing line between the two occupying powers was established along the 38^th parallel.

The unification did not happen.  The communist Peoples Korean Republic was established in the north, and the democratic Republic of Korea soon controlled the south.  The leaders of both North and South Korea wished to establish a united Korea under their own leadership, and there was continual friction between the two states.

On June 25, 1950,  North Korean troops, heavily armed with Soviet supplied equipment (including heavy tanks) attacked South Korea.  The South Korean forces were seriously outgunned and were soon in full retreat. The United States immediately condemned North Korea’s aggression and got United Nations approval for direct intervention.  Fortuitously, the Soviet representative was boycotting the UN when the decisive vote was taken by the Security Council, and the Soviet Union could not exercise its veto.

By President Truman’s order, American troops were already on the way to help.  General Douglas MacArthur was put in charge, and troops stationed in Japan were transported to the Korean peninsula.  Our occupation troops in Japan were ill-prepared for combat.  The first American divisions to arrive, the 24^th Infantry Division and the 1^st Cavalry Division, were nearly overwhelmed, One of the 24^th Division’s regiments, the 34^th Infantry, was totally destroyed, and the 24^th Division commander was captured.  Nevertheless, the Americans and the surviving Korean units managed to hold on, and they built a defensive perimeter around the port of Pusan.  Gradually, they began to build up their strength.  Allied air power played a huge role in blunting the enemy’s offensive thrust.

In September 1950 MacArthur launched a surprise amphibious assault on the port of Inchon, far behind North Korean lines.  With the threat of encirclement, the enemy was soon in full retreat.  The United Nations troops (consisting now of soldiers from many nations but predominately American) drove north, recaptured Seoul, and thrust deeply into North Korea.  With total victory for the Allies now in sight, the Chinese entered the war.  Overwhelming numbers of Chinese soldiers attacked the advancing UN troops in October and November.  Fighting in the bitter cold and snow around the Chosin Reservoir, American marines wrote a brilliant chapter in Corps history.  Elsewhere, other UN soldiers fought bravely and fiercely to avoid encirclement.   Nevertheless, the sheer weight of numbers drove the Allies back to the south.  During the next few months Seoul was lost and recaptured again, and by early 1951 the front was finally stabilized near the old 38^th parallel dividing line. China and the Soviet Union continued to support North Korea, the former with troops and military hardware, the latter with materiel and air power.  The United States and its allies backed South Korea.  General MacArthur wanted to do anything necessary to win the war and was in favor an attack on mainland China.  On the other hand, the Truman Administration was determined to contain the conflict.  The President wished to avoid a land war in Asia and seemed content with a division of Korea along pre-war lines.  MacArthur pushed his own aggressive concept so hard and so openly that it led to his dismissal in April 1951.

Over the next two years there was little change in the front lines. The Chinese mounted an offensive from time to time, and a United Nation’s counter offensive would then push them back.  Casualties were much heavier among Chinese and North Korean troops, and they were continually harassed by our air power.  On the other side, Soviet MiG pilots engaged our bombers and fighters over North Korea in a bitter air war.  Both sides wanted a way out.  Armistice negotiations began in 1951, but the return of captured enemy troops became a sticking point.  Many if not most Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war did not wish to return to their homeland.  Finally, a compromise was reached, and peace negotiations were successfully completed seven months after Dwight D. Eisenhower became President.  The fighting stopped on July 27, 1953.

Seventy years later Korea remains a divided country.  South Korea has a vibrant economy under a representative democratic government.  North Korea is mired in poverty under a brutal dictator.

It was a bloody war.

Chinese and North Korean war dead                             800,000 est.*

Chinese and North Korean war wounded                       700,000 est.

North Korean civilian deaths                                           1,500,000 est.

UN and South Korean war dead                                      200,000  est.

UN and South Korean war wounded                                566,000 est.

South Korean civilian deaths                                          1,000,000   est.

U.S. war dead                                                                     35,000  est.

U.S. war wounded                                                             103,000  est.

• The proportion of Chinese/NK war deaths to wounded appears out of kilter, but under prevailing conditions in North Korea care for the wounded was problematic.