What Americans Need to Know About the Korean War

Sometimes dubbed "The Forgotten War", the Korean War is little known to many Americans. To the generations who came of age after the Korean War and those born after it faded into history, Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H is often the sole connection to the Korean war they know. What most Americans should know about the Korean War, however, goes far beyond the best selling novel, the award-winning movie, and the long running, popular television series.

To understand the Korean War, Americans need to understand the climate of the nation and the historical events that shaped the world following the end of World War II.

In the last days of the Second World War, a rift between the Soviet Union, one of the Allies during the war, and the rest of the world began to divide Europe. A dispute over the ownership of Berlin in Germany brought the realization that although one war had just ended, a Cold War had begun.

At Potsdam, the Allies (the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) had agreed that the German city of Berlin would be divided into four sectors during the rebuilding process and postwar period. Although Berlin lay deep inside the Soviet zone of Germany, the nations agreed until the Communists blockaded Berlin. No supplies could be brought into the city and Soviet forces thumbed their proverbial noses at the world until the Berlin airlift. That allowed the Allies back into Berlin but definite sides were drawn between Communism and the Free World.

In Eastern Europe, many small nations fell to Communist rule. By 1949, it was apparent that Western European nations and allies including the United States must work together to stop the spread of Communism. The North Atlantic Treaty Pact was signed and NATO (North American Treaty Organization) was formed.

The Soviet Union shocked the world when it tested atomic weapons in the fall of 1949, ending the United States' monopoly of the atomic bomb. In response, President Truman allowed work to proceed on the H or Hydrogen bomb. By that time, the Cold War was a frightening fact of modern life. Throughout the United States, bomb shelters were built and drills were practiced in many schools. The threat of Communism felt very real and dangerous.

These events set the stage for the Korean War and America's involvement along with other United Nations forces. After World War II, Soviet forces had continued to occupy the northern half of Korea while US forces held the southern region. The original plan had been for both nations to work together toward restoring Korea as an independent nation but with hostility growing between the two nations, the plan failed. Two governments and two separate nations were established with a Communist state in North Korea and a democracy in South Korea. Both Soviet and American forces withdrew from the new nations.

On June 25, 1950, the North Korean Peoples Army invaded the Republic of Korea, crossing the boundary that had been established by the United Nations to divide the two nations. When the North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, the world was outraged. The situation was volatile. To ignore the invasion would have been an unspoken endorsement of the act but the wrong response might have brought the Soviet Union and Communist China into the conflict. The potential for another world war existed and to prevent such a global event from happening again, American President Harry Truman asked that the UN Security Council address the invasion.

When the UN Security Council called for the immediate removal of troops from South Korea, the request was ignored. Truman ordered American forces into South Korea to help the badly outnumbered troops but many other UN countries later joined the Americans.

General MacArthur, who had led US forces in the Pacific Theater of World War II, launched a counter attack that drove the North Korean forces from South Korea. With the UN's approval, MacArthur then led American and UN forces into North Korea. Within months, the American forces were driven back past the 38th parallel. MacArthur and President Truman disagreed on tactics. MacArthur wanted to be aggressive while Truman preferred that the Korean War remained limited, more of a police action than a full-scale war. Truman wanted to avoid provoking China to join with North Korea in what could well have become a third world war. He dismissed MacArthur. By June of 1951, about a year after the conflict began, peace talks began. Deliberations would continue for another two years before the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953.

The thirty seven-month long war secured South Korean's position as a republic and made a stand against Communist oppression of small nations. Casualties were high, however. 550,000 UN troops died in the Korean War. 33,686 Americans died in the fight to keep South Korea free from Communism and another 103,284 Americans were wounded. Most of the casualties occurred in the first year of the conflict, during the time when General Douglas MacArthur was in control of American forces. His aggressive policies led to thousands of causalities.

Korea was the first of America's "small wars", wars that were not formally declared and that began as "police actions" rather than full fledged wars. The Vietnam War that followed in the next decade was another struggle against the Communist threat. Although Communism no longer poses the inherent danger that it did a half-century ago, Americans continue to fight and die in wars against dictators.

The Korean War was immortalized by former M*A*S*H doctor, Richard Hooker, with his novel M*A*S*H in 1968. With America's involvement in Vietnam and heavy casualties in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Hooker's novel gained a wide readership. In 1972, M*A*S*H became a movie and the following year, a television program based on both book and movie became one of television's longest running shows. M*A*S*H ran from 1972 until 1983 and continues to be one of the most popular shows in syndication. Although generations of Americans have enjoyed the antics of Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, "Trapper John" McIntire, Frank Burns, "Hot Lips" Houlihan, Radar O'Reilly and Father Mulcahy, the reality of the Korean War was far from humorous.

Americans fought the Korean War for an objective that benefited the world rather than the nation and was one of the first wars that was not triggered by direct aggression toward the United States. Such a war laid the groundwork for future wars and the legacy lingers.