Talk:Korean War/Archive 1

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Question/suggestion

How about either renaming the section called "Stalemate..." to "The Outpost Battles" (or War), as this stage of the Korean War had settled into a battle for position via the various outposts both sides controlled. Either that, or an article in and of itself about the "Outpost Battles", since there were so many of them, being taken, lost, re-taken again, etc. for almost a two year period. Lots of assistance would be needed for this, as there are so many outpost battles (I have started one about Outpost Harry) and thousands of web pages to peruse and who knows how many books. wbfergus 19:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Why is this page (the article itself) getting hit almost daily (it seems like anyway) by vandals? And how to revert, or should I just let the 'bots do it? wbfergus 15:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Different vandals have different reasons for their vandalism... some have political agendas, some are simply bored and want to be annoying. Wars in general tend to be political hot-button issues, and they also tend to be higher-profile articles, which is probably why you're seeing vandalism here. The Navigation popups are a useful tool for reverting vandalism - if you hover over the last good revision on a page's history page, you'll get a popup with an "actions" section that includes "revert", allowing you to automatically revert back to that version. And even without popups, if you click on a good revision, the resulting page will then have a link to edit that version, which you can save (with an appropriate edit summary) to revert the page.

Bots, unfortunately, won't always catch the vandalism, so if you notice it, it's always helpful to revert. (The bots have to be conservative in what they revert, to avoid false positives.) I always keep an eye out for vandalism on pages on my watchlist (including this one), as well as periodically taking runs through recent changes site-wide looking for vandalism. The more people helping to combat it, the better the quality of Wikipedia will be, so your efforts are certainly appreciated! —Krellis 15:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

North Korean Casualties

Why no mention of north korean casualties?, ?

--Pupster21 16:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• • I'm not sure whether any accurate figures are available - it might be worth inserting a line about "no official figures available - estimates vary between [x] and [y] and cite sources for [x] and [y] if anyone fancies doing the homework. I don't think the North Korean government knew at the time how many casualties they'd taken, and even if they did, and the present government haven't lost/destroyed the files since then, they still aren't telling... Brickie 09:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Summary

The summary needs to be more in depth.

I can't find something right for my essay.

--Pupster21 16:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Archive Needed

There is a NEED to archive this page. --Pupster21 16:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? NPOV??

"The North Koreans, however, armed with Soviet tanks, changed the nature of the war from a border conflict to a war of conquest. If the North Koreans were emboldened they were only emboldened, in America’s mind, by Joseph Stalin himself. World War III would begin if the Americans did nothing—with nothing less than Stalin as the new Fuhrer."

What sort of anti-communist nonsense is this? I thought articles were supposed to adhere to the NPOV policy? A war of conquest? How about a war of liberation? Stalin as the new Fuhrer? Fascism and socialism - even the bureaucratic socialism that developed while Uncle Joe lead the USSR, is the polar opposite of Hitlerite-fascism. Redflagflying 03:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

~I took the liberty of removing this biased nonsense. Kiwinanday 1225 EST, 17 November 2006

I believe the intent of that statement was to show what America thought of the issue, not so much as a statement of fact.

I agree. It was to show the "american" perspective, this is not trying to push any idea. Anyway, i really don't care if it was offensive to communists! --69.66.240.245 20:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand how the Inchon landings can be absent

I don't understand how the Inchon landings can be absent. The article jumps from the Pusan Perimeter (which deserves more than a few paragraphs on its own) to Chinese intervention. Is this an intentional slight to MacArthur? No facts on the NKA reeling back to cover their flanks and supply links is an interesting way to show distaste for Mac Arthur and his brilliant move to save the remnants of South Korea.

As for the occasionally recurring story about bio warfare in NK, even the Sovs stopped using that dead horse after it became an embarrassment. Even the Sov archives show this to be without merit, so although I agree with including it in the article, there should be statement that none of the allegations have been proven and instead most of them have been disproven. Madogducati

My appologies that I do not have the background+time to just edit this properly, but I think the section on the actual fighting of the war could use with a bit of editing. Most significantly, it doesn't even mention the Inchon Landing, which seems like an rather important part of the war. Thank you.

On 9 November 2005 I amended the article text concerning the Chosin Reservoir battle to read that, "a 2,500 man task force from the 7th Infantry Division was devastated," rather than the entire division as it previously stated. This unit was the ill-fated Task Force MacLean/Faith which was virtually annihilated, losing at least 1,000 of its men killed or captured, most of the rest wounded or frost-bitten, and all of its equipment captured or destroyed.

I am Beau Martin, aka dubeaux and my source for this change is Clay Blair's, THE FORGOTTEN WAR, Times Books, NY(1987).

"In the predawn hours of June 25, 1950 North Korea struck across the 38th parallel behind a thunderous artillery barrage and [with 90,000 troops were assassinated by the JEWS (Oh thats gotta hurt your pride"]

Um, I don't get the last half of that sentence. Is someone being a rascal?! I thought the initial strike was a success (but maybe that's just according to "accredited" sources.)

The above was added by User:168.166.54.11 yesterday.  There have been a couple of edits 
since, so I haven't reverted the page. - Dalbury 15:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

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First line

First line, "democratic" South ? Can Syngman Rhee be called "democratic"?

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Good question, but possibly beyond the scope of the main article. Naturally it was hailed as one during the war, but even the US had contingency plans to overthrow Rhee. (I'll dig up a source on that if it's not handy.) I don't know how to address it, maybe "officially" democratic, but then again, the North is "officially" a republic, so it's a loaded question. I disremember whether Rhee was duly elected, or put in place provisionally; accounts of his popularity may vary. It's gonna be hard to maintain NPOV on that point, but I would suggest that some qualification be put in place. Ojcit 17:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

There have been persistent allegations of American use of biological weapons

There have been persistent allegations of American use of biological weapons, which have been more or less dismissed out of hand. The North Koreans produced "confessions" from American POWs and pictures of hollow bomb-cases containing infected feathers or insects, but this has always been believed a propaganda hoax. Those POWs retracted their confessions on being released (though i've read they were threatened with court-martial if they didn't). On the other hand, there is circumstancial evidence to suggest that some of these claims are true. Even if someone can produce 100% documented proof that it was all a lie, there has been a persistent controversy on the topic, so it should get some kind of a mention.

The circumstantial evidence was then, and still is, the existence of FLYING ANTS. Period. Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh. Why can't Communists admit they were wrong?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.64.178 (talk • contribs)

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Added the bit in parentheses about "Truman's War" and Truman not getting a declaration of war from Congress. Wasn't quite sure where to stick it, if anyone thinks of a better place, feel free to move it. --Eil 02:40, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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THANK YOU!!! circumstantial is circumstanial, I don't want to hear about that anti-american crap. If it can not be backed up by facts, then it should not be mentioned in a FACTUAL article. If you want to write an article about North Korean daydreams do it somewhere else!--69.66.240.245 20:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure where to put this

Not sure where to put this:

On November 26, 1950, troops from the People's Republic of China moved into North Korea and launched a massive counterattack against South Korean and American forces, ending any thought of a quick end to the conflict. By November 29 United Nations forces were in desperate retreat from North Korea.

--mav 07:53, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

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There's no mentioning of the uncertainty

There's no mentioning of the uncertainty around the exact start of the Korean War in the article. If memory serves right, there's been minor battles (up to 1000 troops) before the 25 June. Also there's this thing about the South Koreans capturing a town on 26 June north of the 38th parallel and initial reports about the South Koreans doing the attacking... Maybe someone else knows a bit more on this... unfortunately I haven't got my books at hand... Finally, shouldn't it be mentioned that Syngman Rhee called for a forceful unification with the north? Or just generally more on the background on the conflict? Kokiri 18:46, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

These issues were the thesis of a massive work published by a historian in 1989. He argued that the war was as much South Korea's fault as the North's. Then the Soviet archives opened and we now know that it was pretty much an unprovoked attack by the North. But yes, this theory should be mentioned, even if it has mostly been discredited. - SimonP 19:42, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Whatever the Soviet archives might have contained in terms of intentions and plans of North Korea, the Soviets and China, that doesn't change the record of the US and South Korean actions before the official date of June 25, 1950, using Japanese troops and collaborators to create a government over popular leaders, fighting insurgents who had resisted the Japanese and fighting N. Korean troops in many skirmishes across the border. (Invading S. Korea to depose Syngman Rhee probably would have been popular in the US if we'd had real information about his rule.) So, at least a mention of the ambivalence of this date and the causes would make sense. - Admiralblur 10:40, Dec 31, 2004 (PDT)

Baloney. Sheer baloney. Japanese troops and collaborators in 1950. Maybe the Zionists did it? Or maybe Moonbeams from Mars. And yeah -- the South Koreans really wanted to be invaded by Kim Il Sung. And remember the flying ants? This is the trouble with Wikipedia. Too much off the wall nonsense is "contributed" by Stalinists still trying to pretend that they didn't start the Cold War. Perhaps Wikipedia should stay out of 20th Century history.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.5.64.178 (talk • contribs)

The Cold War was inevitable because two superpowers wanted world domination. However, if you compare the economic strength and the amount of nukes in the beginning of the war, you will see that

claiming that USSR was the sole agressor in the cold war is complete bull, an offspring of cold war era western propaganda (just as claiming that the USA was the sole agresspor is an offspring of soviet propaganda and likewise, complete bull)

Well, not so much bull. State Department Study groups in 1939 demonstrate that the US gov. has ambitions of spreading its "open door" policy unto Western Europe. Looking at the patterns of US behavior through the war, the repeated failure to aid the Soviets in their fight against Germany, the use of a 2nd atomic bomb to keep the USSR out of Japan and the anti democratic contentions of the Marshal Plan providing aid contingent of removal of communists from the French and Italian governments, all seem to point to the fact that US actions were driven by ambitions of control of Western European markets regardless of the possible threat to USSR security. While these provocations might have their source not in intended aggression but in US policymaking ineptitude, the Russian reaction of isolation and armament was defensive and not offensive as our unnamed McCarthyite contends. The Cold War is not the result of friction between two hegemonic powers but rather the symptomatic endangering of international security on the part of inept policy makers in the White House. It is irrevocable that Truman, Kennan, Nitze and all their stooges sincerely believed the USSR was a threat in 1945, but that jut shows their paranoia rather than the geopolitical realities of the postwar world. Sorry, but most of the planet is quite aware that the US single handedly provoked the Soviets into the arms race, therefore endangering humanity in order to accomplish the global hegemony it shortly enjoyed in the 90's. For a more dangerous world, we thank you US gov. and please give me a citation for the allegations that Stalin directed rather than couseled (and aided) N. Korea into the offensive, there is no proof that the Korean war was anything other than a civil war in which the US meddled. 68.142.10.45 Kob. 07/20/06

• Wow, here is proof positive that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Or would it be that, after all this time and for whatever reason, there are still individuals that want to alter the past to fit their own twisted paradigm. But, then again it is quite and argument for the study of history. Research of any depth, would reveal the truth or falsity of the above claims. Some are true, some are gross oversimplifications, and some are outright trash. The U.S. single handedly began the arms race? A secret plan for global hegemony? JFK was assassinated by the Joint Chiefs in order to keep the Vietnam Conflict in play for the boys in Bohemian Grove? What other planet has this guy been for the past 40 years? Jeez, that must be why I love this stuff!

This is questionable speculation

The US would have fought whatever the outcome, and Douglas MacArthur later told Congress "I had no connection with the UN whatsoever".

First of all, its far from clear what would have happen had Britain and France opposed the war. Second, anything that MacArthur says has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Roadrunner 05:16, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Seems to me something more needs to be said about the Japanese connection.

Seems to me something more needs to be said about the Japanese connection. If FDR hadn't made such a strong effort to bring the USSR into the PacWar, & SecState Byrnes hadn't stalled signing a surrender with Japan (which she was seeking since 4/45) until after the Trinity test, the Korean War would never have happened... Trekphiler 10:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The Japanese were trying to open negotiations to end the war, but refused to surrender "unconditionally", which the allies had set as the only terms of surrender they would accept. I've seen statements that the Soviets may have deliberately hindered the Japanese efforts, as they stood to gain if the war were prolonged until they were ready to enter it, per Allied agreements. The Japanese did not agree to surrender "unconditionally" until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

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IIRC, UN troops are still stationed in the ROK. Also, the United Nations Command (Korea) which fought the war still exists and is manned. -- Penta 08:04, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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technically the Korean War is still going on, is that correct?

- technically the Korean War is still going on, is that correct?

Yes!

about Chinese (PLA) loses

- about Chinese (PLA) loses:

Various credible Western and Eastern sources (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Ko) agree that about 500,000 Chinese soldiers were either killed in action or died of disease, starvation, exposure, and accidents.

I think the 500,000 number is a MEDIAN from all different estimates, not an "agreed number".

--Sgfhk321 21:34, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Super Power Countries

I personally am raised believing that the super powers (U.S, Soviet) are responsible for splitting up the once united Korea. I am speaking from a Korean's point of view as I myself am S. Korean. Although Americans out there may think this is bull, many S. Koreans will most likely go with my opinion.Though if they don't, I guess I can't blame them. People think that S. Korea asked for help, this is a true fact, but in the background I personally think that the U.S. and Soviet were fighting for the Koreas through their own greed.

It is hard for me to believe the above, as the North Koreans started the war (with Soviet support).

Its every counties design to have influence else where in the world, even S.Korea want its own influences. Drew1369 17:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The "super powers" are not responsible for anything. Koreans started the war and Koreans are the ones still fighting. The young, activist S. Koreans may agree with you, but that is because they don't know any better. Many S. Korean understand the U.S. involment in the Korean War and today's issues are because of the simple fact that if the U.S. wasn't there South Korea and its democratic, capitalist system would not exsist. It wasn't greed in any way, shape, or form. The U.S. simply wanted stablity in the region and a democratic government for Koreans. They had no desire to ever "take over" Korea. The Soviets had little to do with it except setting up a communist regime in the North and later providing minimal support to the North Korean Air power. The main aggressors to S. Korea in the Korean War are the Chinese and the North Koreans. The United States has done nothing but help the S. Koreans and anyone in South Korea who says otherwise may want to think about what their lives would be like without United States support, caring, and protection. --69.66.240.245 20:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

I removed this sentence:

This proved to be the last, and most terrible, of the major war crimes undertaken by the United States during the Korean War.

If killing/bombing enemy civilians intentionally is a war crime then every party ever involved in a war is guilty of it. Both allied and axis powers did it during both world wars. I can't really think of a major conflict which didn't involve bombing of _targets which were not always strictly military in nature. For example, is bombing a factory making weapons which is staffed by civilians a war crime? You could interpret the fourth Geneva Convention to say that it's not OK. Regardless, this is a topic for discussion in a piece about ethics, not the Korean war. We should be describing what happened, not judging it. Where are the numerous war crimes of the North Koreans/Chinese/etc. mentioned? Why are those the most terrible? Nvinen 12:25, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've done about an hour of research on the topic and can't find anything which identifies bombing of civilians as a "war crime". Attacking a hospital, ambulance, killing prisoners, etc. are prohibited under conventions like GCIV and incendiaries were outlawed in 1980 (after the Korean war ended, obviously) but nothing specifically disallowing attacks on civilians. Please correct me if I am wrong. I think agreements to ban such things were proposed but never agreed upon? Nvinen 13:30, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression that while direct _targetting of civilains was/is illegal, actions resulting in the deaths of civilians (even on a large scale) are not though issues of proportional conduct and intent arise. Im thinking this is like the Desden/Hiroshima debate. This is best dealt with by mentioning any such controversies without taking a POV (even if it seems justified) and providing links to articles on rules/ethics/customs of war.--Mazzarin 03:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, what is your impression of the ruling(s) making _targetting of civilians illegal? I can't find anything in the Geneva conventions or the Hague convention. I heard from someone that it was proposed in a later Hague convention but was not adopted by anyone. However I didn't really take the time to read all the conventions all the way through so it's possible that I missed something. I certainly agree it's distasteful to _target civilians but I point out that for example, during World War 2, this was practiced by all major parties - Germany, Japan, USA and UK - and they all admitted to it. In fact, the main reason restraint was exercised earlier in the war was for fear of prompting reprisals, which was quickly discarded when civilian bombing began. Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. were exception only for the number of deaths in such a short period. Many more total civilians were killed by bombing in smaller raids throughout the way. Unfortunately, at the time, this was seen as the only means to end the war that was within the power of the various strategic air forces.

Anyway, I digress. I agree that it's fine to mention this sort of thing in an NPOV way. I was just wondering if calling it a crime was in fact POV, as it is my understanding that this is not technically the case, which would make it so. Even if it is technically a crime, it's pretty POV to mention particular incidents when I'm sure all parties to the war engaged in questionable actions at one time or another. Nvinen 09:03, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Direct _targeting of civlians was prohibited (1897 or 1907), but the convention language was contradictary, so it could be interpreted as to be allowed in some circumstances. A weapons factory could have been said to qualify as a military _target; civilian casualties ("collateral damage") attacking it were acceptable, even by strict interpretation. See Stephen Garrett, Ethics and Airpower (St Martin's, 1993). Trekphiler 10:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

My impression has been bulit up form taking in secondary/tertiary sources, either on specific incidents or general discussions.

Labelling something a crime when the legal staus is clearly disputed , as is commom with many forms of international law, is POV, better to stay neutral and refer to the controversy without taking sides and balance the data.

I feel that all articles on wars should include sections on crimes/legal issues, it gives a more complete picture of the war, and links in to other developments in history , such as human rights developments. --Mazzarin 03:27, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, I added a section and mentioned incidents by the US, North Korea, South Korea and "communist forces" so I think I covered it fairly evenly and added a discussion about which of them would probably be considered crimes. Feel free to edit it if you don't think it's quite right.

After additional research, it seems that _targeting civilians became a war crime around 1977 with the First and Second protocols of the fourth Geneva Convention, and again in 1999/2000 with UN Security Council resolutions. I believe, therefore, that in every war up to and including Vietnam, killing civilians could not be considered a war crime, however you could argue that particularly bad instances (like genocide) would be crimes against humanity. Nvinen 04:53, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thats just the kind of thing we need, thanks. This page has had some traffic recently so that should get a few voices in to develop/edit it if any is needed. Perhaps we should put it above the artistic section as I find they generally come at the end of most articles on conflicts.--Mazzarin 19:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, I moved it up one and shortened it slightly since we're getting a size warning. I also shortened the heading since it was so long. Hopefully this is an improvement. Nvinen 01:51, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Hague Convention of the Laws and Customs of War on Land states that it is illegal "to employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering". The Nuremberg Principles include "Principle VI. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law ... (b) War Crimes: ... wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity". I believe the issue of a destruction of a dam in the Netherlands was brought before the tribunal that sat at Nuremberg, in fact. As a consequence of all these, the deliberate destruction of these dams, being so late in the war and at so late a stage of armistice talks that it could have been of no military necessity and, according to the USAF, was to cause "starvation and slow death", must have been, even in 1953, a textbook war crime.

I'd be wary of citing Nuremberg; that was a noxious example of the victors using trumped up law to punish the defeated. Many of the "crimes" were not illegal at the war's start (such as "waging agressive war"). Which is not to say the Nazis desrved to get off scott free; they should have been hunted down like rats & strung up from lampposts. Trekphiler 10:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

To mention to the above... innocent until proven guilty, no conviction doesn't mean no crime but shouldn't be put that a crime has taken place... no case has been brought up about it therefor I do not believe that they should be mentioned as official war crimes, maybe use weasel words if you have to Drew1369 17:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Kaesong and 38th parallel

Prior to the war Kaesong was a South Korean territory, but is now a North Korean territory. Was the 38th parallel after the war not the same 38th parallel before the war? — Instantnood 20:35, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

The current border is actually the location of the front line at the time of the cease-fire. It isn't exactly in line with the original border. There were many discussions aimed at moving the border back to where it was at the start of the hostilities, but as you may realise, there was no official truce and the war technically continues, although with a 50+ year ceasefire (which is occasionally broken). The talks were so protracted, fighting often broke out, changing the front line, while discussions about where the border should be were continuing. Nvinen 23:09, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

South Korea was not yet a UN member

In the infobox South Korea is listed as a UN member under combatants. South Korea was not a UN member until the late 1980s as far as I remember. Could be double checked on www.un.int. — Instantnood 20:38, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

Both Koreas joined the UN on 17th September 1991 (http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html) However, the UN forces fought, essentially, on behalf of South Korea, so including them on the list makes perfect sense.

Questions

Since the war never ended and if it starts up again. Will it still be considered the Korean War? - Little Spike

Any answer to that would be speculation. Enduring names for wars often do not come into general use until well after the war is over. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 21:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Mistake

The following line is erroneous:

"The United States still maintains a heavy military presence in Korea, as part of the effort to uphold the armistice between South and North Korea."

South Korea did not sign the armistice. She refused. It was signed between UN forces and NK+Chinese forces. This is a very important thing to understand current situation and legalistic difficulties. Another thing: no war was ever declared between the South and the North and could not be declared, since they never recognized each other as states. Legally there was no war at all. It may sound kind of funny, but it is no fun at all, because you cannot sign a regular peace agreement or a treaty if there was no war and while the South and the North (as well as the North and the USA) still do not officially recognize each other.

Please correct the abovementioned phrase. My English is not good enough for that.

a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air. Even if war was not officaly declared it was seen as a war by the general public

The part about heavy military presence is questionable as well. The US forces represent less than 1/20th of the order of battle south of the 38th parallel, or perhaps 2% of the total number of troops on both sides. Moreover, compared to the current US deployment in Germany (~250,000) and the deployment there during the cold war (approaching 1 million), we can see that the US presence in South Korea is moderate at best.

Shooting civilians

TDC changed "It was the military policy of the US armed forces to shoot at civilian refugees in South Korea." to "Following the discovery of North Korean army units posing as civilian refugees, it became the military policy of the US armed forces to shoot at approaching civilian refugees in South Korea suspected to contain North Korean infiltrators." The beginning of this is fine. The end of it is completely false however. In fact in the memo I posted, which is one of many, it says the US strafed "*ALL* civilian refugee parties", not just "ones suspected to contain North Korean infiltrators". This is one document of many, there are many orders, memoes and whatnot documenting this policy, not to mention testimony regarding verbal orders about this and whatnot. TDC is adding a caveat to these orders over a half century late, they say nothing of shooting only refugee parties suspected of being infiltrated, they said to shoot all civilian refugees approaching them, period. Ruy Lopez 08:13, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From the document you provided:

• For the protection of the Air Force, it is recommended that a policy be established whereby fifth Air Force aircraft will not attack civilian refugees unless they are definitely know to contain North Korean soldiers or commit hostile acts.

No where in the document you provided did it say or even suggest that all civilian refugee parties were being strafed. It stated that the Army had requested the USAF to strafe civilian parties approaching Army positions, not that all civilian refugee parties were being strafed.

If you have other documents stating otherwise, please provide them or I will revert your edit. TDC 14:02, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

As far as the colonel recommending to the general that the policy be changed to shooting at only refugee parties known to contain North Korean soldiers, yes, he did suggest that. That a colonel recommends a policy be changed has nothing to do with a policy in place and complied with while a recommendation to a superior officer is made.

• 3. The army has requested that we strafe all civilian refugee parties parties that are noted approaching our positions.
• 4. To date, we have complied with the army request in this respect.

I find it odd that nowhere can you find in this document that there was a policy that they "strafe all civilian refugee parties parties that are noted approaching" especially since it is not only stated that there was a policy but that it was complied with. Did you "accidentally" skip over bullet point #4? Actually, bullet points #3 and #4 were blacked out by the government in the original FOIA requests, although they were eventually released, so it's clear the government did not want this smoking gun revealed either. And as I said before, these are not the only memoes documenting this happening, not to mention the testimony of soldiers, Korean witnesses and whatnot. Ruy Lopez 22:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Since U.S. troops were shooting refugees from North Korea, shouldn't the title be "Shooting Refugees".

This article in WSJ

Not sure if this link will work forever - but http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB111937345541365397-08wXv4f864Vh8o7ov6es2U_3UhE_20060622,00.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top. Shame it was about a mistake :(. Pcb21| Pete 14:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but how many encyclopedias fix their errors so fast that the cited article was outdated before it was released? (For those who haven't followed the links or history, this refers to the 36,000 U.S. fatalities from the Korean War, revised downward from 54,000 several years ago by the DOD after realizing they'd erroneously included all U.S. military fatalities throughout the world, even for traffic accidents, etc., a statistic that remains uncorrected in many sources.) — Jeff Q (talk) 21:53, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. Actually I think it is great. General reference works are bound to make mistakes. Britannica is literally littered with them (see our "mistakes in Britannica" page). Wikipedia however is a unique position to correct the errors quickly and moreover, and this is important, document the error for all to see so that it doesn't happen again. Obviously a completely perfect reference work would be ideal and the wiki model is not providing that yet. However I honestly believe it is a major step forward to making that goal possible. Pcb21| Pete 22:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Bravissimo. I've found countless mistakes in printed works & TV docs, & in them, the only option is a new ed, which is mighty unlikely. Here, a quick post, a note on the Talk page, & voila. I love it. Trekphiler 10:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Atrocities

While it is clear in not only the "Atrocities and War Crimes" section but the rest of the article that there were atrocities committed by both sides during the war, the simple statement that Communists executed thousands of persons in its occupation is misleading at best and, in places, a vicious lie.

There is a great amount of doubt whether those executed in Taejon were killed by DPRK after, or ROK troops before, its capture in July 1950. Eyewitness and journalistic accounts point to it having been carried out by ROK troops and, importantly, US military advisers overseeing the effort. In 1999, the US Archives declassified many photographs showing that US advisors or observers on the ground were aware or were present at the killing of at least 2,000 civilians in Taejon in early July 1950.

During the (first) recapture of Seoul, there are tens of thousands of cases of communist sympathisers and their families being summarily executed by ROK personnel. Similar events occurred after the capture of Pyongyang. Following the entry of China into the war, the Department of State estimates that 50,000-90,000 men from Pyongyang died of starvation, disease, exposure and bruality when the ROK conscripted them with the intention to use them as slave soldiers.

Even disregarding US atrocities, which were mostly from aerial bombardment rather than executions and are relatively well summed-up at the end of the "Air War" section, massacres by the ROK were similar in number and magnitude to those by the DPRK and Chinese. This should not be surprising considering that the ROK leadership was made up of mainly those people who had collaborated with the Japanese in their occupation and brutalisation of East Asia.

Considering this, the "Atrocities and War Crimes" section reads close to slanderous McCarthyism, which, given that we do, in fact, have the benefit of hindsight, is clearly inappropriate.

I have taken the liberty to remove the Taejon comment, but will leave the management of the remainder of the obvious oversights to others more experienced than I.

I think most of us can agree that the War Crimes section is a bit of a shambles, as, indeed, is much of the commentary when one considers the magnitude of the conflict. If others would allow it, I think we need to look again at certain parts of that section in order to introduce a more comprehensive evidencing of specific actions in order to create a more balanced account of events and to avoid the somewhat unsatisfactory ending of that section. Also, if the Hague Conventions or Nuremburg Principles classify (as posted above by anonymous - please register, log in and timestamp!) these actions as war crimes, I see no reason why there should be such a fudging over what is clearly an important issue. Tancred 09:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The section definitely needs expansion, more detail, and more references. Since the article is getting lengthy, what are everybody's thoughts on making the section an article in its own right (if not several)? That would give room to sort it out by incident, by kind (abuse/execution of prisoners, noncombatant victims, humanitarian crises, etc.), by perpetrator, and by source. It's too important to have in one short subsection. Ojcit 03:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed the bit explaining the reasons for American atrocities "Americans were afraid of communist infiltration". If one is to provide the 'reasons' or 'explanations' or 'justifications', why a side committed atrocities, this must be done consistently. As the paragraph was written, it seemed to suggest that American atrocities were the result of legitimate fears whereas atrocities committed on the other side were not. Many would argue just the opposite so to keep NPOV, I deleted a sentence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Suvrat (talk • contribs) 08:34, February 2, 2007 (PST).

a bit redundant

Is it just me or do the first two paragraphs sound redundant?--Kross 23:22, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

It seems like the much of the content in the section "Order of War" is repeated verbatim in the following sections. I reccomend removal of any redundancies. 206.61.144.2 13:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Was it exaggerated?

The U.N. pilots achieved impressive success with the F-86, claiming to shoot down 792 MiG-15s and 108 additional aircraft for the loss of 78 Sabres, a ratio in excess of 10:1. Post-war research was only able to confirm 379 victories and recently exposed Soviet documentation admits only 345, but even with the lower figures the advantage was still clearly with the U.N. fighter pilots with a kill ratio of at least 4.4:1.

According to http://korean-war.com/AirWar/AircraftType-LossList.html

271 F-86A/B were lost in the korean war theater, as long as other ~3000 air crafts. It looks highly doubtable that only 78 were credited to air combats. And it's also unfair to just mention F-86's scores as if nothing else matters. Pttcc 13:21, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The page that you listed shows losses for all causes, from accidents to anti-aircraft fire from the ground. F-86s were used as fighter-bombers as well as interceptors. 78 F-86s were lost in air combat, compared to 345 MiG-15s, from official government documents on both sides. You have to compare apples to apples. TomTheHand 14:25, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Allies primarily used F86 Sabers to dominate the air superiority, while older ones (e.g. F84, P51) were used as figher-bombers. Correct me if I am wrong.

What's more, 345 was the number of communist's total Mig-15 lost. It's absolutely wrong if we count all of them as F-86's score Pttcc 15:50, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

At the end of the war almost half of all F-86s were fighter-bombers. I don't have figures for earlier in the war, but the F-86 was used as a fighter-bomber from the beginning. 345 is not the total number of Communist MiG-15s lost. It is the total number of Soviet MiG-15s lost, and does not count the hundreds of MiG-15s lost by the PRC or the losses suffered by North Korea. Also, because the MiG-15 was not used as a fighter-bomber, nearly all of its losses were in air combat. TomTheHand 17:06, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

At the end of the war almost half of all F-86s were fighter-bombers. I don't have figures for earlier in the war, but the F-86 was used as a fighter-bomber from the beginning.

In all the memoir I have read written by the communist pilots, they specifically mentioned Allied Air Force primarily use F-86 to escort other kinds of aircraft to execute gound attack. F-86 was the only capable model U.S. had in the Korean war to compete air superiority with Mig-15.

http://korean-war.com/KWAircraft/US/USAF/north_american_f86.html TomTheHand 13:45, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

345 is not the total number of Communist MiG-15s lost. It is the total number of Soviet MiG-15s lost, and does not count the hundreds of MiG-15s lost by the PRC or the losses suffered by North Korea.

Not true. 345 was the total number of Mig-15 lost. See the bottom of http://korean-war.com/AirWar/AircraftType-LossList.html Unless you can provide more solid evidence, we'd better conside it as the total Mig-15 lost. China and NK had a relatively very small Air Force in the Korean war.

The page you just posted says that 345 was the number of Soviet MiG-15s lost, with at least 83 Chinese MiG-15s and 1 North Korean MiG-15 lost. Also see this page http://korean-war.com/KWAircraft/Communist/SovietUnion/mikoyan_mig15bis.html on the site you've posted. TomTheHand 13:45, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

because the MiG-15 was not used as a fighter-bomber, nearly all of its losses were in air combat.

True. But the communist did lost some Mig-15 to F80/F84 and other aircrafts. Pttcc 04:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust Sov records from that era too far... Also, I'm unaware of F-86 fi/bos; F4Us, F9Fs, & others were mainly used for that, in particular since there were few enough F-86s in theatre at any 1 time.

On a related subj, let me mention victor in first jet-v-jet action was Russell Brown, USAF, in a P-80. First MiG downed was by an F4U... Trekphiler 10:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust Sov records from that era too far... Also, I'm unaware of F-86 fi/bos; F4Us, F9Fs, & others were mainly used for that, in particular since there were few enough F-86s in theatre at any 1 time. Wise words regarding Stalin-era documentation. The above figure of 345 is neither the total number of MiG-15s lost, nor the number of Soviet MiGs lost, but the number they claimed to have lost. The statement about the size of the Chinese and NK air forces needs "solid evidence" of its own, esp. in light of the losses sustained in the last 90 days of the war. As for F-86s as fighter-bombers, F-86Fs were used to re-equip two FB wings in the spring of 1953. 12:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC) --Buckboard 14:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would trust the Sov records from that era, as they are not propaganda for the masses, but military archives, declassified after the collapse of USSR.

What's wrong with CJK?

What's his problem to bring on an edit war?

He just keeps on deleting the following numbers from Chinese sources. From official Chinese sources, PVA casualty during the Korean war was 390,000. It breaks down as follows: 110,400 KIA; 21,600 died of wounds; 13,000 died of sickness; 25,600 MIA/POW; and 260,000 more WIA. Chairman Mao's only healthy son, Mao Anying, was also killed as a PVA during the war.

It's an obvious fact that both sides of the war are biased. Therefore to keep both sides of story following the spirit of wikipedia is important.

How can we keep the matter cool?

Pttcc 00:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese aren't a reliable source, as their figures have been almost universally rejected and in any case can't be contested by any Chinese group in China. In fact, the Chinese still maintain that they weren't involved in the war--all those soldiers were just happy "volunteers". CJK 20:20, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

How about my current modification? Pttcc 01:14, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

CJK, where did you get that from? It is taught in China and elsewhere that they named the army "volunteers" to avoid a public declaration of war against the "UN police action". Unless China rotated more men into Korea, I don't see how their figures can be so easily rejected for it is a very reasonable figure for a standstill.

article changed

I tried to make part about air war more neutral and less US-biased. Also UN (and US) pilots largely overclaimed both number of MiGs engaged and their air kills. Also sentense about Sabre pros is quite messed up. Sabre did have radar gunsight, but didn't have any radar warning receiver for reason below. MiG didn't have radar gunsight, gyroscopic only, but did have radar warning receiver for reason abover. I took this info from www.acig.org and Venic's Aviation Page which are very reliable and not biased sourses.

which are very reliable and not biased sourses. So you say. That doesn't make it so. SHow basis for your statement "largely overclaimed"--if claiming 650 Sabres downed isn't "largely overclaimed" what is? Buckboard 13:02, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that bias needs to be removed where found, but whoever authored or edited the present version has gone the other way. Soviet documentation of its own losses from the Stalin era is dubious at best. And the statement that the UN heavily bombed "any and all North Korean settlements" is a tad gratuitous. The MiG-15 was a rugged beast and operating so close to its own bases many thought to have been shot down returned to base. F-86s designated by the USAF as lost to unk reasons were also possible shoot-downs where the pilot was not recovered. The truth of the matter for both sides obviously lies somewhere inbetween the stated claims, but to accept the "discovery" of "recently unclassified" Soviet documents as the authoritative source is beyond absurd. The fact is that Soviet sources agree that veteran Soviet pilots engaged UN aircraft in cycles, and after March 1952 hardly at all. Losses of MiGs (probably Chinese and NKAF) in May, June, and July of 1953 were massive and well after Soviet units had phased out operations. 131.238.92.62 11:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC) Buckboard

BTW, the comment about the F-86 having the same ceiling, acceleration and climb rate as the MiG-15 is incorrect. The F-86 was far closer to the MiG than any other allied fighter in these respects ("almost a match" or "comparable" might be appropriate), but its higher thrust to weight ratio gave the MiG-15 better climb and acceleration performance, and better compressor performance allowed MiGs to routinely patrol above the service ceiling of the F-86. I can find no source that asserts the F-86 matching the MiG-15 in these characteristics.

The F-86's main advantages were the already mentioned radar gunsight, roll rate, far superior transsonic maneuverability due primarily to the use of elevons, and being much less prone to departures near the edge of the envelope. RandallC

Please review

The first sentence states: The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁/韓國戰爭), from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... Should it not read ... The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁/韓國戰爭) was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea which began on June 25, 1950 and entered a state of truce on July 27, 1953. --- As there has been no declaration of peace, the two nations are still at a state of war, so to say the war has ended is inaccurate. --Jon Cates 17:41, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point, however the war is in effect (if not formally) over. So saying the countries are still at war while technically true doesnt ring true. So we should make clear there is no formal peace treaty but also make clear that the war is in fact over.

Perhaps "The Korean War was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea which began on June 25, 1950 and ended on July 27, 1953 with a ceasefire. However no formal peace treaty was signed after the ceasation of hostilities and the two countries are technically still at war."

We could also mention the fact that a similar situation exists between Israel and Syria post-1973 and existed between the USSR and West Germany (as a sucessor state to the Third Reich) unitl 1974.

--Mazzarin 17:52, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, is there have been numerous boarder clashes and fighting going on, N.Korea has on several occassions been caught trying to infiltrate there spec op forces into S.Korea. so you still can't say that the ceasefire has been kept by either side. Drew1369 18:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Restructured page

I restructured the page so that a unitiated reader does not drown in chaos. Mjolnir1984 19:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Casulties vs. Combatents

For the UN side, the artcile states total combatents: 933,845; total casulaties: 995,601 - which is more than the number of combatents! Tompw 22:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Guys, the numbers are hugely screwed up for both sides. It's even worse for the Reds - 1.5 million dead with less than 900,000 deployed? Come on, we need better figures for this! John Smith's 15:48, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

The non-Un side could include civilian casulaties, hence why I didn't question it. But still... those numbers need to be sorted out! Tompw 19:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Good luck, mate. Settling casualties is a perennial task; new research will obsolete your numbers tomorrow. And records tend to get lost or destroyed in wars... Trekphiler 10:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

We can include estimations from several different sources from either side, but not mixed. Aran|heru|nar 08:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Related articles

I just created United Nations Command (Korea) as it was on the list of requested articles. I put links to Korean Armistice Agreement and Military Armistice Commission in that article. I know that the KAA is referenced in at least one other article. I assume there will be some opinions on how to properly integrate the above with this article. - Dalbury 14:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Wake?

"he (MacArthur) was also wrong at Wake when President Truman asked him specifically about Chinese troop buildup near the Korean border" What was Wake? The link is faulty...

Meeting with President Truman on Wake Island. Douglas MacArthur, Korean War section. Also, [1] - Dalbury 20:08, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Korean Surnames

Any reason the North Koreans Kim Il-sung in this article use surname-first designation, whereas the South Korean Syngman Rhee gets the western style surname-last?

This should be changed lest we reveal any bias--pro-western Rhee gets a western name? Kidding, of course, but the article really should be consistent. I suggest Korean style, surname-first for both names. (Also, "combatants" is mispelled above)

Rhee was American educated, and that was probably one of the reasons that his name is usually written in the western style. Other reasons may include personal preference. Kim, by contrast, may not even speak any western language. Most text in English uses the western-style order for Rhee's name. — Instantnood 16:22, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned above, Synmgman Rhee was educated in the West. Since he had a Ph.D. he published a few papers and presumably he signed them with his name written this way. He himself westernized his name (see the Wikipedia article on him). At any rate, this is the name he goes by now and conventions are conventions. I guess it's the case with many foreign names - why do we refer to Vienna as "Vienna" when the Germans spell it "Wien"? Heythatslife 02:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

well, we might assume he spoke some russian, given his service in the soviet army for a few years. :) as for the names, part of the reason is due to long-standing colonial practice of "natives" adopting "western" mannerisms so as to ingratiate themselves - as well as the reason given by instantnood.

hongkyongnaeHongkyongnae 03:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a Manual of Style page that should address that...Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Korea-related articles). I have no opinion. Ojcit 03:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

United Nations involvement

Valour Remembered; Canadians in Korea 1950 - 1953, by Patricia Giesler, a Government of Canada publication, Veterans Affairs, 2005 paints an utterly different picture - that in 1947 the U.S. submitted the problem to the U.N. which subsequently failed re unification but nonetheless voted out the U.S. forces protecting the South. (the U.S.S.R. having withdrawn in Dec 1948 once Northern forces had been heavily built up.) It paints this, without saying so absolutely directly, as a war created by U.N. ineptitude.

Korean name of the war

Koreans do not use the name provided in parentheses: 한국전쟁 (hanguk jeonjaeng). That means, literally, Korea War. Of course, Americans don't call the Civil War "The American War." Almost all Koreans say 육이오 (yuk-i-o), which means "six-two-five," the starting day of the war. It is written "6.25". I did not make any changes because the way it is written now contains no real ambiguity and is understood by Koreans.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can weigh in with what Korean historians of the Korean War use as the official name (I'm sure the DPRK has it's own name, too). After all, even American historians say "the American Civil War" when distinguishing America's conflict from others.

i second the motion that 한국전쟁 is not the right korean word for the korean war. i think the most widely used scholarly term is 남북전쟁 ("South-North War") (which is the same word used for the american civil war), at least in south korea. 6.25 is more colloquial. & 한국전쟁 would not be used by north korea either because 한국 is south korea's word for korea, not used by nk. Appleby 02:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

6.25 is actually the most favored name to title The Korean War among the Koreans. -KoreanHistorist

hmm nevermind, it seems 한국전쟁 is now the favored term, to distinguish it from the american civil war. i seem to remember this not being the case a while back, but korean wikipedia has this topic under 한국전쟁, although it may be because they're translating from this english wikipedia. Appleby 15:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

in the north, the official name for the war is "fatherland liberation war." Hongkyongnae 03:30, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree on troop strengths?

this article has canada at significantly less than the 25,000 troops listed on the history of canadian military page. Why?

I don't know, but I can tell you that our troop figure is already on the high side. Summing the non-US, non-Korean UN figure gives 46,000. The World Book Encyclopedia article "Korean War" quotes 39,000. Adding an extra 19,000 Canadian troops seems a bit excessive. Primetime 00:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there's a difference between total served and maximum number at any one time? -- Dalbury^(Talk) 00:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The Canadian Veterans Affairs official websitespecifically cites that "26,791 Canadians ... served in the Korean War". Unless someone can cite a more authoritative source, I'd suggest that the number be corrected. 216.240.7.149 04:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to say what the site meant. That could be the total number. Until a source is found that clearly states whether it was at one time or over the length of the war, I think that we should keep the range to reflect this uncertainty. Primetime 22:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Ask them. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 04:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I just sent them an e-mail and will let everyone know what they say.
Primetime 06:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey everyone,

I just received a response from the Veterans Affairs Canada web site:

Dear Mr. ---: [I deleted my name]

Thank you for your email dated December 31, 2005, inquiring whether the number listed on the Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) Web site for Canadians who served in the Korean was indicates the total number of Canadians who served or the number that served at a given time.

The VAC Web site makes reference to the number of Canadians who served in the Korean War in two locations. The following web page (www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/KoreaWar) indicates that 26,791 Canadians served in the Korean War, whereas, this web page (www.vac-acc.gc.ca/youth/sub.cfm?source=teach_resources/korfact) simply indicates that over 26,000 Canadians served. Both numbers reflect the total number of Canadians who served. However, another 7,000 Canadians served in the theatre between the cease-fire and the end of 1955.

I trust that the above information will be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Murnaghan

A/Program Officer

Correspondence Unit,
Canada Remembers Division/
Direction générale du Canada se souvient Veterans Affairs Canada/ Anciens Combattants Canada

Thus, it appears as if the number is the total, and not the number serving at any one time. So, I will restore the range for the sake of peace, even though I should delete the 26,000 figure.

If anyone would like a copy of the e-mail, let me know.

Primetime 07:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Quote: "I should delete the 26,000 figure"

Why on earth would you NOT use the total number of human beings who served over the course of the entire war?? First of all, if you're not going to include everyone, then who gets in and who doesn't? and why? Secondly, if you're not going to include every combatant, then I think you should take the time to explain to every surviving veteran that you've arbitrarily excluded why it is that you feel they're beneath notice.... (in the case of slain soldiers, you can just explain to the families why it is their lost loved-ones don't count; afterall, it's not like they gave up their lives or anything, oh wait....)

I just noticed that the article doesn't say ANYWHERE whether the "Strengths" listed represent the total contributions of each nation (as one would expect the numbers to be), or some other peculiar, arbitrarily chosen subset of each nation's contribution (as seems implied by this discussion). Furthermore, if you're using some bizzarro subset number, the LEAST you can do is explain both WHY you've chosen to do so, and what method it is that you've opted to use in place of the logical numbers most people would expect to see (i.e. total contributions). I strongly disagree with the use of any representation that by discount, denigrates the contributions both of the veterans themselves many of whom died, and also, by direct relation, of the contribution made by any given country. If other countries have been similiarly slighted, then I feel that they too deserve to have their full contribution tallied and shown.

216.240.7.149 05:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Overemphasizing one country's contribution over another's also denegrates the contributions of veterans of the other countries. In any case, the word strength implies the ability to wage war as indicated by the number of troops available at any one time. The total contribution does not provide an accurate picture of the ability to wage war. Also, I know for a fact that all of the other low numbers in the table are strengths at one time. This is the usual way of representing troop strengths in war literature (i.e., just listing the strength at one time). The method you suggest actually striked me as more bizarre. Adding ranges at all was my idea to compromise with anonymous editors just to make them happy. We have very few total contributions listed in the table, so to make it consistent, I would have preferred just keep the static numbers--rather than the totals. --Primetime 06:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting perspective. First off, I totally agree that overemphasizing would absolutely denigrate EVERYONE who participated. But I clearly stated, "If other countries have been similiarly slighted, then I feel that they too deserve to have their full contribution tallied and shown". Obviously I meant that the full contribution of EVERY country should be included on the list. Secondly, when viewing a conflict in a historic perspective, I believe that the entirety of every country's contribution should be detailed. Indicating a particular country's troop strength seems a very peculiar method to choose because it is severely lacking in context. For example:

• Imagine a 10 year long conflict with an overall "allied" casualty rate of 10%:
• Country "A" initially rushes in and provides 10,000 combat troops.
• Country "B" can't afford to send so many troops, but wants to help and sends 5000 troops.
• Two years later, country "A"'s populace has become discontent and mandates that country's departure from the conflict. They pack up their wagons and go home.
• Meanwhile, Country "B" believes strongly in the cause and keeps its 5000 troops on station for the entire fight.
• At the end, Country "A" has contributed 12,000 troops and Country "B" has sent 10,000, however Country "B" has suffered overall casualties of 50% (500x10 years=5000) but Country "A" had less than 17% (1000x2=2000)

According to your chosen method, you would detail both country's overall contribution to the conflict as follows: "Country A: 10,000", "Country B: 5000". I have to ask, is that really an accurate portrayal of each country's contribution? Additionally, both methods ignore relativity in the capacity of each country to wage the conflict. For example, Canada is approximately 1/10th of the size of the United States. If the US contributes 10000 troops, Canada would have a relatively equal contribution if it sent only 1000. But on these lists, that wouldn't be apparent either. Nevertheless, I hope that my example demonstrates clearly how your method dramatically misrepresents the overall contribution to the effort of each country. For a real-world example, (and I apologise because I don't have numbers to fill in): In World War I, Great Britain (and it's Dominions), France and Germany fought for four brutal years, from 1914 through 1918. Russia, which fought from the outset departed slightly early in 1918 due to the Russian Revolution and the United States came in late (early in 1917). However, if you were to make a similiar list using only each country's one-time troop strength, the table would make it seem as though every country had an approximately equal contribution. Historically speaking, such a table would be a very misleading way to relate a view of that conflict. BTW: The World War I Wikipedia entry doesn't even list troop strengths at all, only overall casualties, an interesting choice for such a globally devastating event.

You know what, after all that, I realise that we're talking about apples and oranges. Your list (as you state) is of Troop Strength, whereas my information is of overall contribution. In realising this, I understand why, in relation to what it is that you're showing, you say the lower number is appropriate; and I agree that for the purpose of strictly detailing raw troop strength, you are correct. That having been said, however, I have to say that my original argument should have been that detailing this information, in this way, doesn't really tell people anything! At least, nothing that adds value to the overall purpose of the article. Raw troop strength, even assuming it's maximal, is essentially irrelevant -- it doesn't say anything about the war itself, or even (since it is entirely without context) anything about the countries themselves. As my example in the prior paragraph indicates, simply stating the largest number of troops contributed by a country at some point during the war doesn't tell you anything about that country's overall contribution to the effort. So, given these deficiencies, I don't understand what value this chart (in this form) adds to this article? Personally, I think that overall troop contributions would have a greater value for demonstrating a particular country's commitment, but I'm curious to hear the rationale behind using this method? 216.240.7.149 02:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all of your points except one in that I think that both the total as well as the static number would be valuable. The number of troops present at one time helps give a picture of the threater as well as the politics of the situation. I agree though, that the total-contribution figure helps to give the long-term impact of each country as well as a better picture of the impact on the home front. (Although I always go straight for the static numbers myself.) So, I think that we should keep the static numbers (as I still think they're the most important for understanding the war front rather than the home one) but am also open to expanding on the totals. However, that raises the question of how to do that exactly. I can think of three ways we could:

1. Add the totals in the table in parentheses like this: Canada 6,146 (total 26,791*)

• The downside to this approach would be that the table might look cluttered and thus be harder to understand.

2. Expand the table vertically or add another table somewhere else in the article

• The downside to this would be that the article is already somewhat crowded with images and this raises the question whether you have the total figures on hand.

3. Create another page for the total figures and add a link to it in the current table, like for total contributions see ---.

• The downside to this would be that total contributions might be less visible and also again whether you have the totals handy.

In sum, I see no reason to delete anything in something as broad in scope as an encyclopedia, but I'm very open to adding anything you have. --Primetime 03:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Combatant Troop Contributions			Actually, I think that putting overall troop-contribution totals together with the front-line troop strengths helps in a lot of ways. The best of which being that it gives some context to the original numbers. I also agree with your point about leaving information in the article so long as it"s accurate and in context. As for the method of presenting all of this information, I wonder if we might try an altogether different layout. Although I understand the relational rationale behind a side-by-side comparison, this one (Allied (UN) vs Communist) isn"t a very efficient method insofar as screen-real-estate is concerned (because of the significantly shorter Communist-bloc list). So what about something like this table? (sans this fourth column of course!) Now this is just to show what I"m talking about (easier to show than try to explain), and obviously I don"t have the "Overall" figures for any other countries (than Canada), but I"m sure that they can be filled in with some research on our (or others) part(s). It occupies comparable real-estate to the current "Strength" section, and conveys the extra information we"ve been talking about. It should be cleaned up though (I don"t like using the <HR> tags for example), but it suffices for the purpose of demonstrating a "look"... 216.240.7.149 01:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Allied (United Nations) Command
Country	Front	Overall
South Korea:	590,911	x,xxx,xxx
United States:	302,483	x,xxx,xxx
United Kingdom:	14,198	xxx,xxx
The Phillipines:	7,000	xxx,xxx
Canada:	6,146	26,791
Turkey:	5,455	xx,xxx
Australia:	2,282	xx,xxx
The Netherlands:	1,700	xx,xxx
New Zealand:	1,389	xx,xxx
Thailand:	1,294	xx,xxx
Ethiopia:	1,271	xx,xxx
Greece:	1,263	xx,xxx
France:	1,119	xx,xxx
Colombia:	1,068	xx,xxx
Belgium:	900	x,xxx
South Africa:	826	x,xxx
Luxembourg:	44	xxx
Totals:	933,845	x,xxx,xxx
Communist Nations
Country	Front	Overall
North Korea:	260,000	x,xxx,xxx
China:	780,000	x,xxx,xxx
Soviet Union:	xxx	x,xxx
Totals:	933,845	x,xxx,xxx

By "troops" does the author mean total military personnel, or simply Army/marines. I find it hard to believe that a little over 14,000 British troops were deployed to the Korean Peninsula. Over on the OP Telic page they state that it was somewhere in the 26 to 27 thousand range.

207.159.196.2 18:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

"Kim Il-sung Trail"

Unlike the "Ho Chi Minh" trail in Vietnam, why was there never a "Kim Il-sung Trail" in Korea? --Shultz 01:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Because Korea is a peninsula. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was only made possible because of the porous nature of the borders of, sympathetic groups within, and awkward and ambiguous status with relation to the Vietnam War of, Cambodia and Laos, the two countries directly to the west of Vietnam. Tancred 05:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

"Chinese POWs who defected to Taiwan"

I remember from various Chinese history textbooks published in Taiwan, that 14,000 chose to go to Taiwan after the war ended. It was recorded that they arrived in Taiwan in January 1954. Why didn't this one make to the main article?

I'm not sure if it's their will to "chose to go to Taiwan" but I do know before South Korea sent Chinese POWs back, many of the POWs were forced to get anti-communist, anti-Mao tatoos. Not difficult to imagine those poor guys' fate during the Culture Revolution few years later.

They didn't have the benefit of the hindsight we have. If they knew how China was to become back then, they probably would have chosen to go to Taiwan, and if they didn't probably wouldn't think that having a tatoo that was forced upon them by the enemy would be a big deal. Therefore the most likely version is that most of them preffered Taiwan to communist China. 193.77.18.84 12:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This 'event' was called Operation Comeback, January 21, 1954. It might be better to make a page just for it, and then link to it from here. Several other pages could link to it as well, like the page for the Joint Security Area. wbfergus 18:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

World Freedom Day (自由日)

Each year Jan 23 is named World Freedom Day (自由日)

Is this an official translation ? Literally it seems to be just a "Freedom Day", with no character for the "World" part. Taw 20:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Books TO&E

What book lists the weapons and equipment used by the countries involved in the Korean War ? Cordially SirIsaacBrock 15:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Clarification of Threat by PRC

While the People's Republic of China had issued warnings that they would intervene if any non-South Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel, Truman regarded the warnings as "a bald attempt to blackmail the UN." Could someone please reread this sentence carefully & check the logic. Does it referring to North Korean troops heading south? or north? US troops heading north? south? I think a better worded sentence is needed GrahamBould 11:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

 Just delete the word 'South', i.e., the Korean forces are freed to move about in their own
 country, but if US forces moved into North Korea, then it's perceived as a threat to China.

Casualties

I am confused. The casualty estimates seem to be much higher than the troop strength for both sides. Either these facts should be checked, or, if the casualty estimates include civilians, this should be stated.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Grhs126student (talk • contribs)

That's been noticed before. See the section #Casulties vs. Combatents above. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

ɢ−

question

I like the objectivity you placed within the atrocities section. I still unfortunately hear my grandfather speak about, while fighting for our country in the Korean War, how he witnessed his fellow soldiers attaching a hose pipe to a truck's exhaust and the other end within an enclosed shack to torture information out of Koreans. My grandfather still says that he never beleived that those people within that shack were anything other than civilians. Creepy story ! However, I would like to use your article within a paper, but you dont go into enough detail about the names of these massacres. What about Kwangju? Im suggesting that you list the names of massacres of all participants please. That would really add spice to your article. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.117.147 (talk • contribs)

Please sign your talk page comments. Anyhow, just FYI, the Gwangju Massacre happened about 25 years after the end of the Korean War. Additionally, I sort of doubt that most of the supposed massacres are well-documented enough to really make a list out of. There's some mention of No Gun Ri on the page, and the Jeju Massacre is sort of contemporaneous, but other than that... Dunno. --Zonath 01:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Unsettling Peace

After the war, there was no peace treaty signed only the cease-of-fire agreement was signed and probably the North Koreans are perhaps rounding up military troops and supplies to invade South Korea again. It just might MIGHT be possible that North Korea somehow can escape the high electronic gear on the U.S. ships observing their military movements. Also did you hear the news yet? North Korea has made an atom bomb and it threats Japan and South Korea since its their closest neigbor. I doubt they will use the atom bomb on South Korea since the aftermaths of the atom bomb might spread back to North Korea. I personally think they will bomb Japan like the U.S. did in Wolrd War II. Right now the Korean leaders are anxious and nervous of this 'unsettling peace'. -KoreanHistorist

Clean-up tag consensus?

How would people feel about a clean-up tag? I've spent the last fifteen minutes cherry-picking lines of question marks (and other vandalism) out of the page, but I notice some are still there. I considered just editing in an older version of the page, but it looks like those question marks have been there for a while without being edited out. Check out the page history to see what I mean. I also think that for the listing of casualties, the UN and the communists should not be lumped into two catagories. There should be individual break-downs of casualties for each country involved in this war. I think this page needs some serious revision (especially considering its importance), but I won't put a tag on it until I hear what others have to say.

Hi, for the question marks, they are actually native text encoded in unicode. I've reinserted them. Unicode.org has a page to help you set your browser to display them correctly. --A10203040 03:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

civil war

as noted above, when the US had a war between the north and south, it is referred to as a civil war. the same goes for the war between north korea and south korea. it was a civil war wherein the two sides hoped to unify the nation under a single government. this distinction is an important one since it means the war was a domestic matter. if so, then questions can be raised about whether UN intervention was legal according to international law at the time.

this in itself is an interesting topic and also raises the point that the origins of the war need to be discussed if we are to gain a better understanding of the war itself. issues such as the US/SU occupations are crucial to understanding the origins of the war since each regime was more or less a product of this twin occupation.

one other thing, does anyone else think it is a bit out of place to put a picture that shows only US marines as the lead in pix for an article on the korean war? where are the koreans and why arent their views and images being shown as prominately? just curious.

Hongkyongnae 01:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the U.S. troops took the brunt of the attack, and the ROK paper army was seriously ill-equipped. As the U.S. fought technically for South Korean defense, we should, in fact, give more credit to U.S. troops in Korea. Oyo321 22:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This was not a civil war. This was Russia/China against the USA. It just happened to be fought in Korea. How can you compare this to the US civil war? Where were the massive levels of foreign involvement in the US civil war? No Koreans wanted their country to be divided in the first place. It was divided by Russians and Americans.

UK Troop Numbers

The BBC On This Day site says:
Of the 63,000 UK troops sent to Korea - many National Service conscripts - 1,078 died and more than 1,000 were taken prisoner.
That number surprised me, so I checked here and you say 14,000. What does anyone else make of this? --Loserdog³⁰⁰⁰ 17:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

• This reflects the difference between the total number who served in Korea, and the number there at any one time; the british servicemen were rotated, as were some of the other UN forces. The page on the Commonwealth Divsion shows this; the division would be about 25,000 strong, and was 1/2 British, 1/3rd Canadian, and 1/6th Australian, with contingents from other Commonwealth countries, but each battalion served about a year. So an establishment of 14,000 british troops, and a total of 63,000 who served there, sounds about right. Also, the navy maintained a force there, which would add to the number of servicemen.194.176.105.35 15:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear Threats

The conventional reason MacArthur was fired deals with undercutting peace efforts. In his book "Korea: The Untold Story of the War" Joseph C. Goulden claims the real reason was the NSA overheard MacArthur telling Spanish and Portugese diplomats he could start a nuclear war with China. Since we do not admit to spying on our allies, a cover story was invented. Does this claim go in this piece, the piece on Douglas MacArthur, both, or need to be reviewed by the editors? Wat Tyler, 16:17 CDT, 06/22/2006.

What exactly does Goulden say? has any historian agreed with Goulden? Rjensen 22:10, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Dramas are FICTIONAL

I deleted the following names. Who put in the following people as commanders of North Korea and South Korea?

Park Chang-Ju Jang Tak-Sang Kwon Soon-Jae Oh Chol-Lyong Mun Dong-Gee Choi Un-Hyeok

These people are from the Korean KBS drama "Seoul 1945". They are NOT real people. The people in a drama are fictional. The above people are fictional people, not real. How informed are you of historical facts? Good friend100 00:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

OMG,seoul 1945(서울1945)is NOT real.I didn't do it.thees r not real,most of the parts of it such as japan annexes korea,korea gains independence,korean war are real.most of da parts rn't real.only a little people in it r real like syngman rhee,lyuh un hyong,kim il sung,etc. r real,but da people on the top,etc.(oda not real guys)rn't real.user:dark-hooded smoker

I'm trying to get the message out to whoever wrote it in. It shocked me to see that fake people were on the page of the Korean War. Seoul 1945 is not even a popular drama in Korea and I have watched several of its episodes. Its really BAD. Good friend100 02:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

look dude,i wrote dat da commanders were kim il sung and douglas macarthur,den som1 caym and rowt da ppl dat r in seoul1945.den dat guy on da top deleted it.

ps.seoul 1945 OWNS user:dark-hooded smoker

Ummmm not really. On internet forums in Korea, everyone is angry at KBS for making the drama really unrealistic. Also, they think that the Communists are portrayed as "good" since the main charecter is a Communist. People in Korea are angry enough to scream to end the entire drama because it became a flop of goo. Good friend100 01:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

good friend100,i no dat ur korean,but u liv in usa.you can speak to me in korean at any time.

ps.i'll go to ur user page and talk to u in korean if u accept it cuz i CAN proove it user:dark-hooded smoker

Then prove it. Good friend100 14:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Please move this conversation to your talk pages. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 15:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I know. Good friend100 15:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Lol. Oyo321 21:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

US Withdrawl (moved from top of page)

Isn't that a good idea for the US troops to withdraw from the Korean peninsula and stay only in Japan? In that sense, the US won't lose influence over the region, but helps to promote peace. After all, it should be the Koreans who decide how they want the Korean penisula looks like. Isn't World War II over?

This page is for discussions on the article about the war. Wikipedia is not the place for discussions of real-world policies. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 22:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That is a discussion about the war. It isn't over yet. And to whoever wrote the above, I don't think U.S. troops should leave the peninsula. First-ff, the war is still going on, and one of the main reasons North Korea does not attack South Korea is because of the U.S. troops. Although there are quite a few people in Korea that hate America and their troops here. I do not and cannot understand them. It was because of U.S. that South Korea is here today! U.S. troops protect South Korea, so I don't really get why so many people are anti-American. Oyo321 21:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Dalbury's actually saying that it's not a discussion about the Wikipedia article itself. --A10203040 22:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

But its related to the article. U.S. forces are technically fighting a war in a ceasefire. The fact that U.S troops are defending South Korea is the war. If it isn't the war, then what is it? Oyo321 22:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I mean to say that the discussion doesn't help the article itself. This discussion is something like a forum discussion which Wikipedia:What wikipedia is not states that it shouldn't be. --A10203040 23:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What is commonly known as the 'Korean War' ended with the truce in 1953. As no country (that I know of) 'declared war' on any other country, there is no legal state of war existing. There has been an armed truce with occasional incidents along the demarcation line, but that has been no worse than the situation in many other parts of the world, such as the Soviet-Chinese border in the 1970s and 1980s, the India-Pakistan border since 1947 or the border between Israel and various other countries since 1948 (although the last two have been punctuated by full-blown wars every once in a while). You are also trying to discuss what will happen or should happen in the future, and Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

some stuff

Kim il sung and all the powerful north koreans agreed to creayt a war because kim il sung wanted to make 2 countries.1 is north and 2 is south.seoul 1945 is not real,i watch it but most of the people is fake,but only a small like kim il sung,lee syngman,jang tak sang are real.the korean war was a violent war.millions of koreans died. user:dark-hooded smoker

Stop smoking start reading!

The Korean War and Germ Warfare

Their needs to be some mention of the claim of biological weapons use by the US as originally reported by journalist John W. Powell in the 1950's and later covered the show 60 Minutes [[2]]. Their was also a book cronically the claim called "The United States and Biological Warfare" by Canadian historians Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman. Also their has been claims that Truman had briefly giving the militery the authority to use nukes on North Korea if needed but that the British and other allies feared Russia would use nukes against them in retaliation and convinced Truman to rescind the authority [3]. --Cab88 19:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The U.S used biological warfare in Korea? I didn't know. Also, I though MacArthur wanted to nuke China not North Korea and Truman fired him for not listening. Good friend100 21:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Cite reliable published sources, and it can be added, as long as it is kept NPOV, and acknowledges any refutations and/or counterarguments from reliable published sources. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Would napalm be considered biological? U.S. bombers did drop thousands of gallons on North Korea. Oyo321 01:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Napalm is just jellied gasoline, so I'm afraid that's just an ordinary weapon of war, like phosphorus rounds/bombs. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 02:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the U.S used napalm in Korea, I haven't heard of that. I know napalm was used in Vietnam. Good friend100 03:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Goodfriend, napalm was used in the Korean War. U.S. bombers dropped them on communist cities often. Oyo321 12:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not well versed in the Korean war, or the biological warfare claims, but here are a few links for someone who wants to pursue it. An account of the American journalist Powell's experiences, at one point he even went to trial for sedition. Amazon link to the Endicott and Hagerman book and a scheptical New York Times review of the book. An article from the Cold War International History Project, Bulletin 11 (see pg 185-199) which discusses Soviet documents that admit the incidents were faked for propoganda purposes. Endicott and Hagerman's refutation of the Bulletin article. Finally, there was a Brian McKenna documentary, Korea: the Unfinished War, which concludes that the Americans did use biological weapons. Whether the use of biological weapons was real or fabricated, it is an important aspect of the Korean War. For example, American POWs were filmed "admitting" to conducting germ warfare missions, and these films were seen in the US at the time.

Thanks Oyo321 22:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• The book "Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power" by Joseph Marguiles suggests that American pilots' admissions to using biological weapons were extracted under torture by North Koreans. (Some of the same methods currently in use at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station today, in fact, he claims.) -- YS

Strategy

This doesn't go for just the Korean War, but for all wars. I think we should have at least a basic outline of the battles of the Korean War, generals participating, and general information based on that battle. The American

This user is interested in the
American Civil War.

has a huge network of battles of the war, and I think we should be consistent with that. So if anyone has better ideas or wants to help... Oyo321 00:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Again and again, more F-86 vs. MiG-15 propaganda

"Sun, Earth and Sky don't rotate around the USA, dear American patriots, " So I will remove this silly words about 10:1 loss ratios and Evil Communists.

• I can't say this makes any sense to me. The numbers should speak for themselves. Either so many F86s and so many MiG-15s were shot down, or perhaps the numbers were different, but there should be records we can check, no? It's not got anything to do with Yankee arrogance or evil Communists, it's (mis?)reading the numbers. Don't like the numbers, bring a better set. -- YS

Actually... and I'll get the sources when I get home from work, but we had a 15:1 kill ratio F86 v. Mig15 Drew1369 14:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Too many unsubstantiated, unsourced, subjective statements in this article

This article definitely needs some inline citations, especially the first part where a lot of assertions are made about the cause and nature of the conflict. In fact, some of the article appears to be very POV from the PRK side and some of it very POV from the ROK/US side. I think that extensive inline citations would help resolve a lot of those issues. As it stands right now, I think an argument could be made about putting the "NPOV" banner at the top of the article. Cla68 13:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

 * For example the claim that US air strikes "leveled whole cities with their population" in the South without any citation is really incredible. (PaSt)

citations added

i just finished putting a bunch of citations in the article. but what puzzles me why the focus on the early points as being POV and not those later on? that is, we could justifiably challenge virtually each and every sentence if we wished to do so. yet, it seems to me that it is often the "non-mainstream" statements that are more likely to be questioned, while more mainstream assertions are left unquestioned. it seems equal amounts of healthy questioning should be applied to all points.

at any rate, citations now appear in the areas that were earmarked "fact". thanks for taking the time to mark them.

next, you mentioned, and rightfully so, that the article is a mix of dprk, US, etc POV. yes, but honestly what else could it be? was the north korean move into the south an invasion or a liberation? was the US intervention into the peninsula "helping" koreans or an illegal intrusion into a domestic, civil quarrel? the answer clearly depends on whom you ask doesnt it?

this is an ongoing and underlying contradiction/problem in wikipedia and not directly related to this article. but you wish to put yourself to sleep by reading more on the fatal flaws of NPOV, please visit my page and you are welcome to read some ideas about NPOV being the opiate of the wikipeidan masses. :) Hongkyongnae 23:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate footnotes

I removed a few footnotes that were merely repeating a reference to the same source. Unless there are specific page references, it's somewhat uncalled for to have several notes establishing the same note in the same paragraph. Assuming that every single fact statement can't have a separate references (this would make articles unreadable in the long run) it's more sensible to limiting notes to be included only in the end of a paragraph or section, assuming that all the information can be referenced with that one source.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Armistice Correction

In regards to this sentence, "The U.S. still maintains a heavy military presence in Korea, as part of the effort to uphold the armistice between South and North Korea." As someone else already pointed out, the Armistice is between the United Nations and North Korea, not between South Korea and North Korea. While it may seem like a technicality, it is actually a rather important point when looking at the relations on the Korean peninsula. As such, I think the terminology needs to be changed to "uphold the Armistice," deleting the second preposition, or "uphold the UN Armistice with North Korea." Rooster3888 05:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The Acheson Line

"On January 12, 1950 United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson, repeating what General Douglas MacArthur had said in March 1949, told the National Press Club that America's Pacific defence perimeter was made up of the Aleutians, Ryukyu, Japan, and the Philippines implying that the US might not fight over Korea.[9] This omission, though not deliberate, probably encouraged the northern regime to choose that time to reunify the peninsula under its political system."

I recommend changing or deleting this sentence. The idea that the Acheson Line encouraged the North Koreans to invade at that time has been a bit of "conventional wisdom" that has existed for a long time, but which has not been borne out by any evidence. There is no evidence that I am aware of that points to the North Koreans or Soviets as having paid particular attention -- indeed any attention at all -- to Secretary of State Acheson's comments to the National Press Club. The opening of the Soviet Archives also failed to back up this assertion. At the least, we ought to change the "probably encouraged" to "may have encouraged." Even that, I think, is giving the idea more credit than it deserves, based on the evidence. I would recommend changing this to something like, "This omission is often cited as a cause or catalyst for the North Korean invasion, but there is little documentary evidence to back up that claim." Rooster3888 05:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

POV in article

The view that global communism was monolithic and that the North Koreans were little more than stooges of the Soviet Union prevented the United States and other nations from understanding the initial conflict as a civil war, wherein each side wished to reunite the peninsula, albeit under their own political system.

First of all, global Communism WAS monolithic in the sense that to that date every Communist government and party except for Yugoslavia was aligned with the Soviet Union. Second of all, although the North was not a "stooge" in the sense that it did not take orders at the whim of the USSR, it was a client state. I don't understand what's wrong with saying "client state" as opposed to "stooge", which would be more accurate. Thirdly, it's implied that the U.S. did not view this as a civil war since it was regarded as an act of international Communism. What's wrong with the assumption that it was both? CJK 23:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

For instance we could say just as easily:

The view that global capitalism was monolithic and that the South Koreans were little more than stooges of the United States prevented the Soviet Union and other nations from understanding the initial conflict as a civil war, wherein each side wished to reunite the peninsula, albeit under their own political system.

Or maybe:

The view that global fascism was monolithic and that the Spanish nationalists under Franco Francisco were little more than stooges of the Germans prevented the Soviet Union and other nations from understanding the initial conflict as a civil war, wherein each side wished to reunite Spain, albeit under their own political system.—Preceding unsigned comment added by CJK (talk • contribs)

North Koreans aren't "stooges" while South Koreans are "stooges"? Is that NPOV? The edit you want definitely shows your replacement of North Koreans to South Koreans in the paragraph. Good friend100 00:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikproject Korea

The Wikiproject Korea has just been started! If you would like to participate click on the link on the template at the top of the talk page. The project is severely incomplete and help is needed to organize and start improving Korea related articles. If anybody is interested to join, please do! thank you Good friend100 20:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Removal

I took out material from the Western reaction section that didn't belong there. It described what happened to the first few U.S. units, including Task Force Smith. I did manage to mention the latter in an earlier section, but the rest was too detailed for an article on the whole war. Clarityfiend 00:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Query: Commanding generals

• Anyone got any info on General Vasilev (North Korea)? — Xiutwel (talk)
• Anyone got any info on the UN Commander Constantine Zinchenko? — Xiutwel (talk)

I am looking for further information on their respective roles in this war, preferably WP:RS. — Xiutwel (talk) 14:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

South Korea started the war

The events now taking place in Korea broke out on June 25 as the result of a provocative attack by the troops of the South Korean authorities on the frontier areas of the Korean People's Democratic Republic. This attack was the outcome of a premeditated plan.

From time to time Syngman Rhee himself and other representatives of the South Korean authorities had blurted out the fact that the South Korean Syngman Rhee clique had such a plan.

As long ago as October 7, 1949, Syngman Rhee, boasting of success in training his army, stated outright, in an interview given to an American United Press correspondent, that the South Korean Army could capture Pyongyang in the course of three days.

On October 31, 1949, Sin Sen Mo, Defence Minister of the Syngman Rhee Government, also told newspaper correspondents that the South Korean troops were strong enough to act and take Pyongyang within a few days. Only one week before the provocative attack of the South Korean troops on the frontier areas of the Korean People's Democratic Republic, Syngman Rhee said, in a speech on June 19 in the so-called "National Assembly" where Mr. Dulles, adviser to the U.S. State Department, was present: "If we cannot protect democracy in the cold war, we shall win in a hot war."

It is not difficult to understand that representatives of the South Korean authorities could only make such statements because they felt that they bad American support behind them. One month before the present developments in Korea, on May 19, 1950, Mr. Johnson, chief American administrator of aid to Korea, told the American Congress House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee that 100,000 officers and men of the South Korean Army, equipped with American weapons and trained by the American Military Mission, bad completed their preparations and could begin war at any time.

It is known that only a few days before the Korean events, the United States Defence Secretary, Mr. Johnson, the Chief of the General Staff of the United States Armed Forces, General Bradley, and the State Department adviser, Mr. Dulles, arrived in Japan and had special conferences with General MacArthur, and that afterwards Mr. Dulles visited South Korea and went to frontier areas on the 38th Parallel.

Only one week before the events-on June 19-Mr. Dulles, adviser to the State Department, declared in the above-mentioned "National Assembly" of South Korea that the United States was ready to give all necessary moral and material support to South Korea which was fighting against Communism.

These facts speak for themselves and need no comment. . . .

The United States Government tries to justify armed intervention against Korea by alleging that it was undertaken on the authorisation of the Security Council. The falsity of such an allegation strikes the eye.

What really happened? It is known that the United States Government had started armed intervention in Korea before the Security Council was summoned to meet on June 27, without taking into consideration what decision the Security Council might take. Thus the United States Government confronted the United Nations Organisation with a fait accompli, with a violation of peace.

The Security Council merely rubber-stamped and back-dated the resolution proposed by the United States Government, approving the aggressive actions which this Government had undertaken. . . .

The illegal resolution of June 27, adopted by the Security Council under pressure from the United States Government, shows that the Security Council is acting, not as a body which is charged with the main responsibility for the maintenance of peace, but as a tool utilised by the ruling circles of the United States for unleashing war. This resolution of the Security Council constitutes a hostile act against peace.

If the Security Council valued the cause of peace, it should have attempted to reconcile the fighting sides in Korea before it adopted such a scandalous resolution. Only the Security Council and the United Nations Secretary-General could have done this. However, they did not make such an attempt, evidently knowing that such peaceful action contradicts the aggressors' plans.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1950-gromyko-korea.html

---

I think we should make an article called "Humor of the Korean War" and include the above article, for starters. The ridiculus North Korean propaganda rarely fails to crack me up =) Yes, I am an avid reader of KCNA and dpr-korea.com, for that very reason. 193.95.232.7 13:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to KCNA. It's hilarious. I wonder if they have any idea of the damage that they're doing to their own cause. Raymond Arritt 14:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The Soviet Union's air force

Under the heading “The Chinese entry (October, 1950)” it first states that

“Soviet assistance was limited to providing air support no nearer than sixty miles (96 km) to the battlefront” (second paragraph)

It then goes on to state in the fourth paragraph

“Soviet assistance was limited to providing air support no nearer than 100 km (60 miles) from the battlefront”

I am not sure which one of the two is correct, but one of them has to be changed. [unsigned]

That's probably as much accuracy as you're going to find. "Near from" doesn't really work; you can only be "near to" or "away from." I think it's only been pretty recently verified/declassified that there were Soviet pilots and aircraft involved, so the discrepancy is forgivable. Since 60 miles appears both places, we could make it the primary measurement. That comes out to about 96.5 km. Since the location of a battlefront is usually fuzzy anyhow, 100 km is probably a close enough estimate. Ojcit 03:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There are several duplications under The Chinese Entry; so much so that I added a cleanup tag so that someone who knows a little more than I do about this conflict can clean it up. It sounds really bad as it is, especially considering that this is probably one of the most popular pages on Wikipedia today. -- Calion | Talk 18:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Hangul Jeonjaeng

Is the literal English translation of this term different from "6-25"? If so, it's worth including IMHO. Ojcit 17:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Its Hanguk Jeonjeng. And "6-25" is the most commonly used term to describe the Korean War in South Korea. Good friend100 20:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

"Hanguk Jeonjaeng" basically just means "Korean War". "6-25" follows a common pattern of referring to certain important events with the dates they started/happened, so 6-25 refers to the date of the invasion by North Korea. --Zonath^Yak 00:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

weird figures

Guys, this is really strange, the number of casualties is much larger the number of combatants. Why is that? Nielswik 14:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• I guess the reason is troop strength is the snapshot at a given time or peak troop number. Troops rotate and get reinforcement all the time. On the other hand, casualty number is accumulated number. - munford 04:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • perhaps a better metric would be the total number of troops who served in that conflict at any time. --YS
    • including both numbers would make most sense, and stating that one is peak number and the other is total served

This article is biased! South Korea started the war not North Korea

- MacArthur said "By occupying all of Korea we could cut into pieces the one and only supply line connecting Siberia and the south..., control the whole area between Vladivostok and Singapore.... Nothing would then be beyond the reach of our power." Hershel D. Meyer, The Modern History of the United States, Kyoto, p. 148.

- "In view of the strategic position held by Korea in Northeast Asia, establishment of control over Korea and her people... will considerably strengthen the position of our country". The Report of Information & Investigation Bureau of the US State Department, January 28, 1949, No. 4849.

- Upon receiving the news that the Korean War was ignited in Korea on June 25 1950, Acheson, the then US State Secretary, said "Koreans saved us". "South Korea and USA" edited by Silchon Munhaksa , south Korea, 1986, p. 26

- In fact, the Korean War was started by the provocations of the South Korea. Kyodo Agency, August 25 1975

- Colonel Eida, US military adviser in Iran army stated at an interview with staff-officers on December 6 1950: "The Korean War was launched by the ROK army under the direct command of MacArthur's Headquarters in Japan." Crossroads, Indian newspaper, December 23, 1950, Bombay

- In his book The Riddle of MacArthur, John Gunther wrote that on June 25 when he and his party were on an excursion to Nikko with a high-ranking officer of MacArthur' s staff whose name was withheld, this officer was urgently called to the telephone by the General Headquarters just before noon. "He came back," writes Gunther, "and whispered a big story has just broken. The south Korean army has attacked north Korea!"' (The Riddle of MacArthur, p. 257.)

- "North Korean army was suddenly attacked by the ROK army before retreating 2-3km of 38th parallel from all fronts and switched over to counter attack. The Modern History of the United States, p. 230)

- "The lie revealed at last. South Korea invaded North Korea." The Riddles of MacArthur" Tokyo, p.165) The History of the Korean War, Vol 1, p. 230, Tokyo, Korea Critique Publishing House, 1967 edition —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.186.85.116 (talk • contribs)

Let the North and South Koreans tell the story of their own lives. The Japanese have no authority on this matter in consideration of the Japanese revisionist approach to their own history.

This is Wikipaedia, not KCNA. Our purpose is not to be another official licker of Kims' boots, but to have a factual encyclopaedia. 193.77.240.28 21:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I can add a few to the top quotes; these are Channing Liem, Albert Einstein and I.F. Stone, from an article by Richard Sayers:

- Dr. Channing Liem, the former South Korean ambassador to the UN (1960-1961) wrote: 'For Washington, the question, "who fired the first shot?" carried special significance…. Assistant Secretary of State for UN Affairs…[revealed] before the Senate Appropriations Committee, 1950, the US had devised a plan prior to the start of the war to gain approval from the UN to send its troops to Korea under the UN flag in the event that South Korea was attacked. It was imperative, therefore, that the ‘first shot’ be fired by the North, or at least that such an argument could be made.'

- ROK President Syngman Rhee triggered the war 'with behind the scene support of John Foster Dulles,' the former-U.S. Secretary of State who met Rhee (June 18, 1950) just days before the pretext incident. Dulles told Rhee that 'if he was ready to attack the communist North, the U.S. would lend help, through the UN…. He advised Rhee…to persuade the world that the ROK was attacked first, and to plan his actions accordingly.'

- Albert Einstein told Liem in 1955 that 'the US was manipulating the UN…. [It] was being exploited by the great powers at the expense of the small nations…. He went on to say great powers do not act on the basis of facts only but manufacture the facts to serve their purposes and force their will on smaller nations.'

- I.F.Stone was perhaps the first to expose how a US diplomat deceived the UN Secretary General into believing there had been an unprovoked North Korean attack.

- North Korea claimed the attack began two days earlier when ROK divisions launched a six-hour artillery attack and then pushed 1 or 2 kilometers across the border. They responded to 'halt the enemy's advance and go over to a decisive counterattack.'

To the above poster, there's no question of licking anyone's boots, and I would hardly call sources such as the South Korean ambassador (Channing Liem) biased in favour of the North. Just so you know, governments of all countries have a tendency to play fast and loose with facts to suit their ends. We, as you said, have a factual encyclopedia and should present credible information such as this. philannetta, 16 February 2007

Neutral POV???

- This article repeatedly named the UN forces in general as "fascists"...since neither the US, UK, or the other UN nations are fascist nations, I am protesting the POV of this article. ((ThePacMan))

Soviet Union

Did not participate directly in the Korean War. So why is the country listed in the comabatants list? Oyo321 23:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Recently declassified documents reveal the use of Soviet Aircraft and pilots. IIRC, the documents are from Soviet archives. If bombing the other side and shooting their planes doesn't count as participating directly, I don't know what does. Ojcit 00:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The highest scoring fighter pilot ace in the Korean War was Russian, with 23 Air-To-Air Kills. Cat Balou 07:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a fringe view. In general histories of the Korean War, the USSR is not acknowledged as a leading actor. It is inappropriate to list USSR as a combattant.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.102.210.1 (talk • contribs)

The USSR was not combatant but was a leading actor, in supplying all of the heavy weapons.

I think the view that the USSR wasn't a "leading actor" in the conflict is more of a fringe view. It's common knowledge that the Soviets supplied the DPRK and contributed MiGs and pilots to both the DPRK and PRC, to fight under their colors. It'd be like saying the US wasn't participating in the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, even though it was directly supporting the Flying Tigers and sending supplies to the KMT forces. Parsecboy 19:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

On MASH

I wonder if it's worth noting that while the TV show MASH was nominally about the Korean war, in truth it was about the war in Vietnam (which was happening at the same time the TV show was airing); only, criticizing the war in Vietnam openly would have kept the show off the air. --YS

Show the proof and added it Drew1369 17:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Duplication in the Inchon Landing Article

I've given the article a bit cleanup and removed the duplication but not being an expert on the war i can't say for sure that i've done a good enough job to remove the tag. Could someone else give it a quick once-over and decide? Sapi 23:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Crossing the 38th parallel

The American troops were the ones who crossed the 38th parallel, and NOT the UN troops!!! Check Matray, James, Truman's plan for victory: National Self Determination and the Thirty-Eight Parallel Decision in Korea in The Journal of American History, 66:2, 1979. By this comment one does not mean to pass judgement on the military action but only to point to the correct the historical fact. 158.143.147.80 13:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

According to John Tolund (1991) In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950-1953. Pp. 233-4, the South Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel first (on September 30), without the knowledge of McArthur, who was commander of the UN forces. As the South Korean forces were under the UN command, it was UN forces who crossed first, even if they were acting without the knowledge of the UN commander. -- Donald Albury 15:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

In either case, since the US forces were acting out on a UN mandate, under UN command, they should (or at least could) be reffered to as the UN forces. 193.77.240.28 21:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Casualty Figures

Why are the casualty figures larger than total troop strength, on both sides? Maybe it's just me, but a casualty figure of up to 4 million is significantly bigger than a total strength of 1 million.

Troop strengths given in the article are the maximum numbers of troops in the theater at any given time. Including rotations and replacements would give a higher total, but not accurately reflect the extent of the combat. High losses coupled with high replacement rates and/or regular rotation of units in and out of the combat theater can easily result in casualties numbers larger than maximum force sizes. -- Donald Albury 02:52, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dirty Commies????

Maybe im mistaken but in the 1st paragraph the page calls a certain side the "Dirty Commies",:On August 6, 1945, the Dirty Commies, in keeping with a commitment made to the United States government, declared war on the Japanese Empire and on August 8, 1945, liberated the northern part of the Mexican peninsula, halting at the 38th parallel. President Harry S. Truman ordered the landing of U.S. troops in the south.

Is this meant to be their or has someone vandalised the site???

(The power99 23:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC))

The Chinese entry (October, 1950)

I painstakingly edited this section, so I hope you guys will accept. Similar editions can be done on the other sections to remove some bias (praising one side while criticizing the other) and make better flow and more exciting reading. Excess information (like dates or military details) can be made in articles on the individual battles that took place.

Below is a copy of what I edited:

The Chinese entry (October, 1950)

The alarmed People's Republic of China, fearful of American aggression and the establishment of a pro-American state along its border, warned neutral diplomats that it would intervene if the conflict does not end. Truman regarded the warnings as "a bald attempt to blackmail the UN". Since he was previously informed by the CIA that Chinese involvemnent was unlikely without Soviet approval, Truman went to Wake Island for a highly publicized meeting with MacArthur on October 15, 1950, who saw little risk. The general explained that the Chinese had lost their window of opportunity to help North Korea's invasion. He estimated the Chinese had 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, with between 100,000-125,000 men along the Yalu, of which only half could be brought across river. In addition, the Chinese had no air force, hence, "if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be the greatest slaughter." MacArthur thus assumed the Chinese were unwilling to help North Korea so as to avoid heavy casualties.

On October 8 1950, the day after American troops crossed the 38th, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army edged closer to the Yalu River. Mao Zedong, seeing intervention as merely a defense against American aggression, warned Stalin: "If we allow the U.S. to occupy all of Korea… we must be prepared for the US to declare… war with China." Premier Zhou Enlai was sent to Moscow to add force to Mao's cabled argument. Mao waited on Soviet consent, which postponed the attack by six days until October 19. Finally, the Soviet agreed to provide aerial support no less than sixty miles (96 km) from the battlefront, much to the dismay of the Chinese, who had expected full air support.

The Chinese made a skirmish on October 25 1950 with 270,000 PVA troops under the command of General Peng Dehuai, much to the surprise of the UN. However, after these initial engagements, the Chinese forces melted away into the mountains. UN leaders saw the retreat as a sign of weakness, and greatly underestimated the Chinese fighting capability given limited Soviet assistance. The UN forces thus continued their advance to the Yalu river, ignoring stern warnings given by the Chinese to stay away.

In late November, the Chinese struck in the west, along the Chongchon River, and completely overran several ROK divisions and landed a heavy blow to the flank of the remaining UN forces. The resulting withdrawal of the U.S. Eighth Army was the longest retreat of any American military unit in history. In the east, at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a 3,000 man unit from the U.S. 7^th Infantry Division were soon surrounded, but eventualy fought their way out of the encirclement after suffering 2,000 casualities. The Marines, although surrounded at the Chosin Reservoir, retreated after inflicting heavy casualties on six attacking Chinese divisions.

American soldiers firing upon enemy positions.

The UN forces in northeast Korea quickly withdrew to form a defensive perimeter around the port city of Hungnam, where a major evacuation was being carried out in late December 1950. All together, 193 shiploads of men and material were evacuated from Hungnam Harbor, and about 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies were shipped to Pusan in orderly fashion.

On January 4, 1951, Chinese and North Korean forces recaptured Seoul. Both the 8^th Army and the X Corps were forced to retreat. General Walker was killed in an accident and was replaced by a World War II airborne verteran, Lieutenant General Matthew Ridgway, who took immediate steps to raise the morale and fighting spirit of the battered Eighth Army, which had fallen to low levels during its retreat. Nevertheless, the situation was so grim that MacArthur mentioned the use of atomic weapons against China, much to the alarm of America's allies.

It soon became clear the Chinese could not go beyond Seoul due to logistical problems, as they did not have the necessary transport trucks. On March 16, 1951, a revitalized Eighth Army recaptured Seoul, for the fourth time in a year, in Operation Ripper. Seoul was in utter ruins at the time, with its population reduced to 200,000 from the original 1.5 million.

MacArthur was removed from command by President Truman on April 11 1951 due to misconduct, including a meeting with Republic of China President Chiang Kai-shek in the role of a U.S. diplomat, and providing false information to President Truman about the Chinese military buildup near the Korean border. Furthermore, MacArthur was rude to the President, and openly demanded a widening of the conflict to include nuclear attacks. Ridgway soon succeeded MacArthur, and managed to regroup his battered troops for an effective counter-offensive, which allowed the UN forces to advance some miles north of the 38th parallel.

Historian and Korean War veteran Bevin Alexander had this to say about Chinese tactics in his book How Wars Are Won:

The Chinese had no air power and were armed only with rifles, machineguns, hand grenades, and mortars. Against the much more heavily armed Americans, they adapted a technique they had used against the Nationalists in the Chinese civil war of 1946–49. The Chinese generally attacked at night and tried to close in on a small troop position — generally a platoon — and then attacked it with local superiority in numbers. The usual method was to infiltrate small units, from a platoon of fifty men to a company of 200, split into separate detachments. While one team cut off the escape route of the Americans, the others struck both the front and the flanks in concerted assaults. The attacks continued on all sides until the defenders were destroyed or forced to withdraw. The Chinese then crept forward to the open flank of the next platoon position, and repeated the tactics.

Historian Bruce Cumings noted that when Chinese soldiers and officers saw how Americans fought the war, they were surprised by how gratuitously the Americans would resort to what the Chinese considered to be excessive and unnecessary force. One Chinese soldier remarked how if the Americans encountered a single sniper hiding in a village or house, they would invariably call in massive artillery and air attacks, annihilating the village and killing everyone in it, which caused him to ask: "Why do they do this instead of simply sending in soldiers to kill the sniper?" Other accounts report bombings to be so massive that entire hills were reduced to knolls. American military actions during the war had profound consequences on the environment and civilian lives.

Canada

Someone mentioned in the Canada section in the article that Canada has not been involved (majorly) in other fights around the world which is not true they have contributed in many ways and been in many conflicts Cyprus, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, Suez Canal and Yugoslavia just to name a few...

Canadian Leader

I hope it doesn't bother anybody, but I added the Canadian leader during World War I in the Infobox. (RiseAgainst01 00:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC))

I also just removed it because I figured there would be conflict. If anyone has a problem with Canada's leader being added, then tell me and tell me the reason and I won't add it. If noone says anything I will put it back up. (RiseAgainst01 00:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC))

Political Allignments of the North and South Prior to Korean War?

It seems to me that this article is ignoring some blatantly obvious facts about the political setting for the Korean war.

1. South Korea was strongly supported by Japan, and Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese during WWII. There were Korean officers and soldiers who had collaborated with the Japanese during WWII, and instead of being punished as war criminals, they were pardoned by the U.S., and later received prominant positions in the South Korean government.

2. Japan made a great deal of money and good business supporting South Korea during the Korean war.

3. North Korea was made up, on the other hand, of Koreans who had fought against the Japanese during WWII. Have people forgotten the role of China, the Soviet Union (who invaded and defeated the Japanese Army in Manchuria simultaneously with the United State dropping the Atom bomb, which incidently, also killed large numbers of Koreans who were avidly working at Japanese weapons factories at Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and the Korean resistance, all who were fighting in cooperation with the U.S. against the Japanese enemy?

4. So much is made of the United Nations supporting South Korea, but why is the blatantly obvious fact not mentioned, that the Soviet Union (clearly one of the largest countries involved in founding the U.N.), had withdrawn from the U.N. at that time, due to the U.S. not allowing the People's Republic of China (founded 1949) from entering into the U.N.? In other words, more than half the population of the world - the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, were not members of the U.N. at the time that the "U.N." supported South Korea in the war.

5. Would someone mind breaking down and mentioning the specific political parties and political allignments that the various players in the North and the South had? It was not just as simple as the U.S. supported the southern capitalists, and the U.S.S.R. supported the northern communists. The Koreans themselves were broken down into a number of factions and allignments, some anti-Japanese and supporting the North, and some pro-Japanese and supporting the South.

If anyone wants to check up on these details, wander over to your friendly neighborhood library and pull down any book written during the late fourties/early fifties about the situation in Korea at the time. Are the writers of this current article hoping that their readers are so ignorant that they will not know what really happened in Korea, Japan, and China during and after World War II? Jimhoward72 05:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Section "Korean War 1950-1953" Is Gone

This section appears to have been erased by vandals.72.185.112.110 00:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)12/21/06, ME

Toop Strength's

Are the troop strength's the total number of troops that served in the war or the peak commitments? 58.84.81.164 07:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Clean-up

This article is a mess. I just read the entire article all the way through, and it seems like someone was trying to reorganize the whole thing but gave up half-way through. Entire paragraphs are repeated in different sections, some paragraphs obviously do not belong in the sections they are in (the last paragraph of Western reaction for example), and the "{U.S. Military}-Died from Hostile Action/KIA/MIA/POW" section should probably be deleted outright as a more thorough and encyclopedic discussion of casualties on both sides is already given in the Legacy section (and without the misuse of curly braces). Kaldari 04:27, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually I see that section was just added today by a well-meaning newbie, so I'll go ahead and nip it in the bud. Kaldari 04:36, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This article is horrible and needs significant mods, maybe a complete re-write. The grammar, repeated paragraphs, and speculation pushed as fact put this far below the Wikipedia standard, especially for an article that likely receives many hits. LCascio 04:36, 01 January 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

Pictures are always nice, but I'm wonder. This was the Korean war. I realize the Chinese and Americans were involved, but are there no pictures of actual Korean battles? Every photo is about the Chinese and Americans.--Crossmr 18:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Article Size

I've noticed that many of the articles on major wars are far too long; So, I've decided to section them all off. This is a really big project, so it will take awhile, but sometime in the next month or two I will probably redo this article as well. Please tell me if you have any concerns about this, or have any material you want me to leave intact on this page. Thanks! Ahudson 18:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Leave everything alone. Don't erase things others may not agree with. Oyo321 02:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is unreadable as it is; and I'm not erasing anything, just moving it and putting a summary of what I moved in this article. Ahudson 02:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The Chinese entry (October, 1950) is a really long section. You can't move it to a new article called The Chinese entry (October, 1950). I don't think anybody outside of Wikipedia would try to find an article on that. Good friend100 22:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I would support breaking the various campaigns out of this article and creating a separate article for each campaign. Each of the 5 different (main) campaigns can easily become an entire article in it's own right. While people may not directly search for them, they could easily have links from this article to them, so mission accomplished. As it is, this article is overly long (in violation of the WikiPedia guidelines for articles), and moving the campaign sections into their own arctles would drastically help cut the article size, but I would also propose that each moved section have a short summation in this article, while the new articles could expand their coverage of that particular aspect/campaign. wbfergus 11:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what we should do in this case. I also want to add more about resistance and reactions to the war, social changes and implications, etc.; this article, like a lot of the other war articles, has almost nothing but military history. Ahudson 00:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, for the different (main) campaigns, I would go along the lines of how it is broken out at [:http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/collections/KW-Broch.htm]. wbfergus 11:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The Forgotten War: Disambiguation Link and Redirect Issue

"The Forgotten War" redirects here, but there is no link to a disambiguation page. Will someone please link to the disambiguation page for "forgotten war" (no "The"). Please see my recent changes to that article and notes in the discussion for my supporting argument. I have no problem with redirecting "The Forgotten War" here, but I would like to see a disambiguation link to the disambiguation article on "forgotten war" so that we can clarify the nomenclature and to put it in perspective of other "forgotten" conflicts. The phrase is used more widely than one might expect (again, see my other notes). I would do this myself, but am not familiar enough with wikimarkup. Thelastemperor 20:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Too short

User friendliness is important, but consider how many branches and historical events are in an entire war. This article is too short. Not only have many editors contributed to military history articles much, deleting any section will crumble whatever link there is to other sections. Each historical fact is linked by another. Its obvious that an article on the Korean War would definitely be extremely long. Why does this come up so often? It has been suggested to trim articles on both WWI and WWII articles. Why? Oyo321 18:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Because The purpose of wikipedia is to serve its readers and all of these articles are unable to do that. The average user doesn't need to know every tiny detail about the Korean war, just a general idea; further information can still be provided, just not in the same article. I would also like to point out that military history isn't all there is to a war, and compressing that would leave room for things like the social impacts, political influences, and other related phenomena, which are severaly under-represented in all of these articles. Ahudson 23:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Truman sends in American forces - no mention of how poorly prepare US was for war.

Under Truman sends in American forces it said "The U.S. did not have an emergency response force ready, but it did have a large military and reserves, and a cadre of highly experienced officers and sergeants." There is no mention of how poorly the USA was ready for war. Since 1945 it had carried out massive budget cuts which end up with a poorly trained and equiped army. This resulted in US troops being unable to help stop the inital North Korean attack when they were delployed. Proper comments on this can be found in Max Hastings book The Korean War.

It could be also mention in particular how bad the unit from the Japanes ocupation forces performed due to lack of kit and training. This is particular bad as they were under Douglas MacArthur comand.

That's poor quality POv. Only if you think Truman could have done something different to win in 80 days. Truman won the war against N Korea in 90 days -- a remarkable achievement. Rjensen 17:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

South Invasion

somthing not mentioned in the article is that there is some evidance that suggests Rhee purposly provoked the North into a war through the border skirmishes. It is suggested this is becuase the USA had lost interest in Rhee in favour of Nationalist China on the island of Taiwan, which apeared to be more under threat from Mao invasion. Rhee wanted North Korea to attack to re-establish US support else he was finished as a political leader (due to his radical right wing views (over 35,000 political prisoners by outbreak of war)) .

provide some good sources and feel free to edit the article to include them. Parsecboy 17:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Your total piece of invertigated information and the rest of you who claims that South Korea started the war has proven at last that Wikipedia is the most least dependable source in the whole internet. "North Korea claimed the attack began two days earlier when ROK divisones launched a six hour artillery?" Since when have you people believed the sources of stalinists that brainwashed and continues to, to their citizens? "Truth is revealed at last" What truth? Can you prove this? No you cannot, instead you depend on propoganda and jump on the bandwagon so your not shunned out of the group.

"and whispered a big story has just broken. The south Korean army has attacked north Korea!"

Well, I and many others would say this is another one of wikipedia's faults. Let me explain the actual situation that it is mainly stupid and unbelivable that South Korea would attack North Korea.

1. North Korea was being supplied with weapons and USSR tanks by Russia. 2. North Korea had approximetly 3 times more than the South Korean military 3. South Korea's government was fragile and weak at that time 4. North Korea was also backed up by China which entered into the war sometime later.

I would say more, but of course I will save it for the mere feeble controversial arguements that would follow this. Also Rhee was evidently smarter than that to provoke the North Korean government.

If you see presenting more than the conventially accepted POV a fault, then perhaps you're in the wrong place. Regardless, you don't seem to be contending the arguments of the other editor, instead only hurling about your own vitriol-soaked POV. If there are objective, credible sources that support the other editor's assertions, then they belong in the article. Parsecboy 00:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Why are we using terms like "invasion" and "conquest" as though there is not a single Korean nation? North and South Korea were both artificial, arbitrary creations that were never intended to be permanent. There was no invasion by DPRK since it would be impossible for it to invade its own Korean territory.

It may be true that North and South are artificial, arbitrary creations, but they both controlled territory, and it is logical to say the forces of the DPRK invaded the territory controlled by the RoK. The same is true for the Vietnam war, when NVA forces invaded the RVN and took Saigon. We're talking about territory, not the people. Parsecboy 11:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

MIA misleading

Shouldn't we add that saying 33,000 died and 8,000 are missing is very misleading? They are dead, we just didn't find the bodies.

Little Known Fact...

Most people do not know where a word Americans used during both the Korean War and Vietnam came from. The word literally means "American" but when said by a Korean, is pronounced Me-gook. When Americans started arriving to fight in the war, Koreans would rush up to them and point, saying "Migook! Migook!" Americans, not understanding the Korean people were pointing at them and saying "Look, Americans!" thought the Korean people were saying, "Me Gook," meaning, "I am a Gook." Americans then started calling all Koreans "Gooks" which also carried over to the Vietnam War. This term, "Gook" was used often and became a negative word with racist implications later, but it is interesting to the Historian to know it started out as a simple word. Americans tend to take good words and make them bad sounding...the newest one being in Iraq, "Hajji." User:125.137.68.71 11:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Shigol-nom

"Americans tend to take good words and make them bad sounding" it works both ways - Gaijin, Paleface, round eye'd barbarian, Gringo, on and on.--Xiahou 01:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's blatantly POV and completely unresponsible to pretend Americans are the only people to use racial slurs. Everyone does it (that doesn't make it right); to pretend otherwise is sheer lunacy. Parsecboy 01:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A passing comment

I was just passing through when I noticed something slightly strange: Luxembourg is listed twice in the combatants list. Is this purposeful or a tiny mistake? 194.74.156.162 21:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're talking about; I only see one Luxembourg in the list. Parsecboy 01:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

GA in zh.wikipedia

Please add {{Link GA|zh}} in interwiki section. Thanks! -- Givegains 13:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC )

Is there a logic flaw here?

"POWs were mistreated by all sides. The UN side was ultimately responsible for more deaths and violence than the communist side as there were more prisoners. As pointed out by Britain's former Chief of the Defense Staff, Field Marshal Lord Carver: "The UN prisoners in Chinese hands, although subject to 're-education' processes of varying intensity...were certainly much better off in every way than any held by the Americans...."[34] Carver's assessment differs from other historical accounts which report frequent beatings, summary executions and death marches imposed by the North Koreans on UN prisoners.[35] "

Please separate Chinese and N.K. treatments of POW's. All the charges of abuse were against the N.K. Yet, China was somehow inserted in the general statement of POW abuse. If there are evidence against Chinese forces, please present them. Redcloud822 23:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Technical Problem

This is more of a technical problem but as the page on the conflict is apparently locked, I'll put this here. With the exception of Chung Il-kwon, all the military leaders link to a page about their respective countries and not the individuals themselves.

War crimes

I cleaned up the info here, but how about a separate article to discuss them in details? It was an extremally brutal war, in which MILLIONS of civilians died - imagine, 300,000 dead in Darfur (also going on for years) and people call "genocide". --HanzoHattori 18:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Name of the Conflict

I visited the South Korean Military Museum in Seoul. Their display on the war was titled "The Fratricidal War".