After the Second World War, the question of who should control the Korean peninsula became a sticking point of the rapidly deteriorating U.S.-USSR alliance against the defeated Japan. After the Soviet dictator Stalin declared war on Tokyo in August 1945, it was decided that Russia should enter Korea and occupy it down to the latitude of the 38th parallel, cutting it in two, with the southern half occupied by the United States. As the South went about building a prosperous and relatively free nation (albeit under the thumb of our Princeton-educated puppet, Syngman Rhee) the communists solidified their iron grip over the north. By 1948, Korea was officially divided, each half claiming rightful authority over the other. It was clear that no peaceful re-unification would take place.
Gambling that the U.S. would not come to the defense of a nation its careless Secretary of State Dean Acheson had publicly offered was out of our zone of influence, on June 25, 1950, Kim Il-Sung sent his 90,000-man North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) across the 38th parallel to bring the south under communism’s jackboot once and for all. Equipped with Soviet-supplied tanks and artillery, the NKPA shattered the ill-prepared Republic of Korea (ROK) army and was soon poised to overrun the South. But to the communist leader’s surprise, U.S. President Harry Truman did, in fact, intervene and, leading the U.N. in the effort, sent American troops and materiel to South Korea. Although it was officially declared a “police action,” the United Nations had gone to war to defend a member state against blatant aggression. (In protest of Communist China’s exclusion from the body in favor of Taiwan, the Soviets had been boycotting the U.N., removing themselves from any position on the Security Council to veto the resolution. It was a mistake they never repeated.)
By September 1950, the now 140,000 U.N. troops deployed into the fight for Korea had been pushed back into a 140-mile defensive pocket around the southeast port city of Pusan. There the line solidified and beat back a final assault by an NKPA weakened through attrition and a tenuous supply line. Despite fatalistic initial predictions, South Korea would not be evacuated.
To break the stalemate, on September 15, the overall U.N. Commander, American five-star general and World War II legend Douglas MacArthur, sent the First U.S. Marine Division on a daring amphibious landing against the port of Inchon a third of the way up Korea’s west coast and far behind enemy lines. Believing the harbor’s extreme tides, distance in the rear, and forbidding topography made such a landing impossible, the North Koreans failed to adequately fortify Inchon and were caught completely by surprise . . . just as MacArthur, who acted against the advice of everyone around him, predicted. The suddenly surrounded NKPA, caught between the hammer of Inchon and the anvil of Pusan, fell back in wild retreat and two weeks later the U.N. forces recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul.
The landing at Inchon was, in fact, a military classic, well beyond the capacity and vision of all but history’s great captains. But it would also fill the victorious MacArthur with a dangerous over-confidence. In a move that remains controversial, MacArthur, albeit with the blessing of the U.N., sent his troops northward across the 38th Parallel into North Korea to chase down and destroy the NKPA. Victory was in the air and soon the U.N. goal was nothing less than Korea’s unification under Seoul’s government.
But Mao had other plans.
Brad Schaeffer is an historian, author, musician, and trader. His eclectic body of writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, and a variety of well-read blogs and news outlets. Of Another Time and Place is his first novel, which takes place in World War II Germany and the deadly skies over the Western Front. You can pre-order his book here:
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