While the Korean War was controversial and unpopular back at home it was just as much a ‘good’ war as was World War 2. Unlike Vietnam in which it is often mistakenly compared, the Korean War was less a nationalist uprising and more a purely Soviet (Stalin inspired) adventure in pure aggression using both the Chinese and Koreans as the cannon fodder. Truman was dead right in opposing it and the war was worth the blood shed on the part of the American led UN forces. The U. S. Army’s performance like in WW2 was sketchy but the U. S. Marine Corps added luster to its reputation particularly in final six months of 1950 when it counted most.

I agree with JPWREL that the Marines did well in late 1950. But I think the Army did far better in World War II than it did in Korea, especially in that weird first year in Korea, until Ridgway righted the boat.
Best,
Tom

Tom,

Each year I participate in a writing exercise organized by a friend in Wind Gap, PA. Each year, Fred throws out a couple of topics and asks his Select Literate Friends to write and submit, and then Fred self publishes the submissions. This year's topics included The Best Book You Read This Year. I sent my submission to Fred on Tuesday of this week, and when i saw your comments on the Korean War I decided I needed to share with you the final portion of my submission, the portion that included my thoughts on David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter."

Here it is --

I was one week short of two years old when on 25 June, 1950 the North Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. For the next sixty years of my life I remained as ignorant of the Korean War as I was when I was not yet two years old. During the past sixty years, I read a great deal about World War II. Hell, I even took a World War II history course at the University of Minnesota in the late 60s, and I have read equally as much about Vietnam, but, as with most Americans, I understand, what happened in Korea in the first two years of the 1950s remained the stuff of mystery and disinformation. I was, I admit, naively ignorant about America and the Korean War.

Sometime in 2007, I bought a book - The Coldest Winter - shortly after it was published and put it on my bookcase with good intentions of reading it soon but it sat there until two weeks ago; the middle of September of 2010. The Coldest Winter is David Halberstam’s last book. On April 23, 2007, just a couple of days after he delivered the final proof of his manuscript to his publisher, on the way to an interview with football legend Y. A. Tittle, in San Francisco, Halberstam died in a bizarre auto accident. He was just getting started doing the interviews for his next book, which was to be about football.

What did I know about the Korean War before I read The Coldest Winter? Actually, not much.

I knew Harry Truman was the president. I knew that Douglas MacArthur was involved and that Truman fired him, but I had no reason to know the circumstances. I had never heard of the Yalu River, Unsan, the Gauntlet, or Chipyongni. I knew nothing at all about how the American and UN forces were driven south in the summer of 1950 and how, eventually, they were surrounded except for the ocean on just a small bit of what was left to them in all of South Korea on the Pusan peninsula.

I think I knew a little about the marine landing at Inchon and maybe a little about the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, but not enough to write even one intelligent paragraph. I for sure did not know the Chinese lost 40,000 killed and 20,000 wounded as the American/UN forces fought their way out of being surrounded at Chosin.

Even worse, I knew almost nothing about China’s civil war, the rise of Mao, and the collaboration of Stalin and Mao to enter the Korean War after MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in defiance of his orders from the Joint Chiefs and the president. I knew little about Senator Joseph McCarthy, of the China Lobby, of Republican politics, of MacArthur’s desire to invade China and restore Chiang Kai-shek to power from his island refuge on Formosa.

Halberstam wrote The Coldest Winter so people like me could learn about and understand what happened in Korea sixty years ago; how the Soviets and the Chinese manipulated the North Koreans, how the aging Douglas MacArthur should never have been in charge of Korea, and how American soldiers perished by the thousands in desperately brutal winter conditions, thanks in great part to the lack of leadership they received from their commanders, going all the way to General Douglas MacArthur.

It’s a long book, 719 pages of fascinating history, but Halberstam filled his Korean War history with accounts from the survivors, fifty-five years later. In many cases, Halberstam was the first journalist to ever speak to these “old soldiers” about what happened in northern Korea in the winter of 1950 and 1951.

Let me just say that the next time I am walking from the Lincoln Memorial to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and pass the Korean War memorial, I will have a much better appreciation for what happened, so far from home.

It is a beautiful thing to observe, while nerve racking when something perks-up that man's instincts that there might be trouble ahead . However, “way out front of the others” is subjective - you don’t want your point man too far ahead.

No one needs a broke dick like me to give a class on patrolling, but a Korean War vet taught me a technique that held me in good stead when my time came: if you have the manpower and the terrain permits it, run a second man just behind the point man about 20 meters - they sort of cover each other - if war is an art form, a good point man is a portrait in progress.

Next class: making fire from a Hershey bar and pop can.

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Your comment about folks backing away when the Koren War is discussed is a shame. It's a very important conflict in American history - in terms of strategy, politics, military history and a plethora of other sub-topics.

Whether one agrees with Tom and JPWREL (I do) or WHISKEYPAPA, to overlook the Korean War is to ignore one of the three (WWII and Vietnam being the others) seminal events of the second half of the 20th century - and the first decade of the 21st. It certainly helped make all of us under the age of 80 who we are, and what the USA is.

It's important to know about that war: who fought it, who fought in it, how they fought, why they fought, how it turned out in the end, and what it meant - and continues to mean - to Americans, Koreans, Chinese, and just about everyone else.

Among other things, the Korean War is a critical link between the strategic errors at the end of WW2, such as the value of the nuclear threat, and our mistakes in Vietnam (monolithic communism, Westmoreland's big battles, LBJ's reluctance to provoke a second Chinese intervention). Korea also provides a first look at how the US military functions in the absence of widespread public support, and is, in that sense, a precursor for most US military operations since then (w/ arguable exception of Desert Storm). Halberstam's book provides a superb and characteristically opinionated version of the Korean War, but professionals with a serious interest should also examine Allan Millett's recent volume on the war's first year: http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/milwa2.html

because he, you got it, takes up the slack for the point. He covers the point, watches where the point isn't watching and doubles down on the security. He has to be close enough to the point to see what's happening. 20 meters sounds right.

I'm with those who put the Korean War into the "good war" bin. The North Korean invasion was not an insurgency, but rather an aggressive war waged by one state on another. Korea had been divided into separate states, just as Vietnam had been, but unlike Vietnam, there was no insurgency at play in the south. Jsinaiko calls the war a "seminal event"; I agree. It also agree with Herc6 about the war's importance.

What's interesting about the Korean War is the actions of the Communist players. Kim Il Sung apparently first tried to peddle his idea of forceful unification to Stalin in 1949, but was rebuffed because Stalin believed the U.S. would step in. Then he tried Mao, who was receptive, but still had his hands full with Chiang. But by 1950, lots had changed. Chiang was no longer a factor for Mao. And Stalin had a change of heart. Some historians think that Stalin believed the U.S. failure to intervene on Chiang's behalf meant it would not intervene on South Korea's behalf. Plus Stalin now had the bomb.

So Kim launched the war on June 25, 1950. A three-year-long exercise in brutality under amazingly harsh conditions (Korean winters are no fun), with the end result being what one really must term a victory for the UN/U.S., if only because the restoration of status quo ante meant the defeat of Kim's ambitions and the ultimate growth of South Korea as a free state (even if it took many years of what amounted to military dictatorship to get there). North Korea is one of the sorriest, pathetic places on earth; South Korea dazzles in comparison.

I think Korean War vets should be very proud of their service. They persevered through great hardship and were responsible for a significant U.S. statement in the early years of the Cold War. And incidentally, if anyone reading this hasn't seen the Korean Memorial on the Mall, do so. It's a really unique memorial and I find it quite moving.

Korea itself is a fascinating study. The war only adds to it. Unfortunately, it does seem to be true that it is indeed the "forgotten war." And that's a pity. No war should ever be forgotten, but the strategic importance of the Korean War makes it an essential thing for Americans to know. It started a process that ended with the fall of the wall in 1989. The expenditure of national treasure and the loss of lives over those 39 years is staggering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju_massacre

The Seoul gov't apparently came into the war with something of a 'death list' approach to counterinsurgency, and employed pretty brutal local security forces formerly associated with Japanese colonialism. The focus on rounding up (and executing) political opposition in advance of the N. Korean offensive may have contributed to S. Korean inability to put up a fight, on a peninsula offering overwhelming flank naval support to any defensive line established.

I worked closely for a decade with a 1st DIv. veteran of the Inchon/Chosin campaign. Towards the end of MacArthur's command, it was strongly rumored that Japanese forces were to be mobilized and committed in Korea. I'm not saying it's true that such a plan was feasable; just that the rumor had both traction and disrepute among line Marines, according to my source.

Manchester (I think) gives some attention to the idea that Nat. Chinese forces were being pushed by Mac's staff as a way to match Mao's PLA manpower.

Any way you tear it, the S. Korean military command was under US occupation authority (1945-94?), so it was our watch. Losing the S. Korean capital twice in two years was a fiasco for US post-war neocolonial (anti-communist) policy, already tarnished by the 'loss' of China.

I read it a long time ago, but I think it was Fehrenbach that described three wars for the US Army in Korea. The War fought by the ill-prepared occupation forces hurried over from Japan who ended up surrounded in Pusan, the War fought by national Guardsman (primarily WW II vets) who conducted the break-out and held the line until new divisions could be built from draftees, and the the War of conscript Army that fought the long campaign along the DMZ.

The war probably makes more sense as a four-part struggle: the NKPA attack (June-Sep 50), the UN counterattack (Sep - Dec 50), the Chinese intervention (Dec 50 - June 51), and the stalemate/truce talks (June 51 - July 53). Most national guard units were late in arriving, but the real forgotten participants of the Korean War were the South Koreans themselves, who did the majority of fighting and dying, an oversight that Millett addresses in his most recent volume.

fascinating comments. thanks everyone.

Read Clay Blair's book on the Korean War, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953.
A detailed look at the war, 1,152 pages.
I was 11 years old when the N. Koreans struck. I was dumbfounded at the way they chewed up the army troops MacArthur sent in.
I remember cheering when I read that the Marines were going to Korea. They did just what I expected they would.
A cousin fought in the Pacific, 6th Marines, from Guadalcanal to the end of the war. He made it a career. I served in the 9th Marines and 1st Marines in the '50s-'60s because of him. Most of my NCOs in the 9th Marines (in Japan) were Korea vets. Great bunch of Marines. I was always thankful for having leadership like that.
S/F