RSS Feed MenuIt was exactly 60 years ago – June 25, 1950 – that the army of North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung, encouraged by Josef Stalin, invaded the south in hopes of uniting the peninsula.
Thus began the Korean war.
It lasted a month over three years and resulted in over a million UN casualties, of which 1,500-plus were Canadian (500-plus killed). Some 54,000 American soldiers were killed, close to a million South Korean soldiers and civilians killed, and an estimated 1.5 million Chinese and North Korean casualties.
Yet until recently, the “war” was officially regarded as a “police action.”
Some police action!
When the war started, Canada at first dragged its feet. Didn’t think it would last long. But when the North Koreans surged south, captured Seoul and drove the Americans to the tip of Korea at Pusan, then-Prime Minister Mackenzie King realized we’d have to get more involved.
By 1950, WWII had been over for five years, and our military was depleted – back to civvy life. A Special Force was recruited – a battalion of volunteers that was a blending of young men who had missed the big war and wanted adventure, and sweats of WWII who, for various reasons, missed the camaraderie of army life, couldn’t find jobs, were restless or had other personal reasons.
They became the second battalion of the Princess Pats, and a rough bunch they were, under the command of Lt.Col. Jim Stone who molded them into a formidable fighting force.
By the time the armistice was signed in 1953, 26,000 Canadians had served in Korea – Three battalions each of the Patricias, RCR and Vandoos, plus armoured squadrons from the Dragoons, Lord Stratchconas, as well as artillery and support units.
The 25th Canadian Brigade was, arguably, the strongest fighting unit Canada ever assembled – part of the 1st Commonwealth Division, to which every country over-subscribed.
For what it’s worth, Canadians did not lose an inch of ground. Never retreated, and when attacked would call allied artillery down on their positions – witness the battles of Kapyong, and perhaps 355.
I was a soldier during the last year of the Korean war – a platoon commander with the Princess Pats, later battalion intelligence officer, then attached to the U.S. air force directing air strikes at attacking Chinese.
I was also one of many young men who caught the tail end on WWII (Navy – Fleet Air Arm) and still thirsted for more.
For many, Korea was frustrating. What started as a fluid, WWII-like mobile war, ended in WWI-style trench warfare, with our side perpetually on the defensive and forbidden to attack during truce negotiations at Panmunjon. Just patrols and defending against attacks. Maddening, when all of us hungered to retaliate.
The demarcation line at the 38th Parallel was steadily nibbled away by Chinese attacks – all except Commonwealth Division, which wouldn’t budge. By the end of the war, soldiers were cynical and disillusioned.
Like some view Afghanistan today, soldiers wondered if Korea was worth dying for, especially when we thought we could win but couldn’t fight back.
Returning home in those days was without fanfare or appreciation. Our dead were buried in Korea – among comrades, it turns out, and somehow reassuring and comforting for those who survived.
Korea became the forgotten war. At home, no one much cared. Returning soldiers went on with their lives, expecting little. And little they got. Koreans, however, remembered. Still remember. That government instituted a policy of inviting veterans back to Korea, to see the country they had helped save from communism.
While a truce” is not “peace,” it is clear that the war was won – the North was defeated and South Korea thrived. I think ever soldier who served there and returned on a re-visit program, gained a new appreciation.
The frustrations of 60 years past evolved into realization that the sacrifices were worth the result. The grace and gratitude of Koreans today towards those who fought as young men on their behalf, rarely fails to touch even the most cynical of veterans.
Would that Afghanistan eventually turns out the same way…
Carney // Jun 25, 2010 at 10:54 am
Sad to think South Vietnam could have been as prosperous and free as South Korea today were it not for our own Fifth Column here at home.
florishes // Jun 25, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for this tender, thoughtful, beautifully-written piece.
canuckistani // Jun 25, 2010 at 4:13 pm
As usual Worthington does have some reasonable tidbits to write about, but his previous articles on the mosque at ground zero and his rejection of the McCrystal resignation shows he is more in touch with events of 60 years ago than today.
The Korean police action was simpler in it description: post war Korea was a vacuum, China wanted elbow room and projected power, the north took a shot at it and nearly one.
Afghanistan is where “empires go to die”. The state simply defies any western description of a working country. We have no business being there and an immediate retreat will be seen within a few years as a victory of sense over nonsense.
Truman knew it, Bush 41 knew it too: containment works. Statecraft does not.
Unsympathetic // Jun 25, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Save the drama. Afghanistan is nonsensical corporo-fascism – nothing like Korea.
There is no point to being in Afghanistan other than to give more of my tax dollars to Dick Cheney’s kids.
florishes // Jun 25, 2010 at 6:00 pm
I was unaware that Worthington rejects the McChrystal resignation…
Like Admiral Mullen, these “people” make me physically sick. Like Unsympathetic above, I don’t want to support Dick Cheney’s kids with American blood and treasure.
Bring the troops home and put them on our borders.
Sunny // Jun 25, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Thank you for the perspective.
iveyguy // Jun 26, 2010 at 12:15 am
Peter,
Thank you for this column. It is important that we take a moment today and reflect upon the sacrifice of so many brave men who answered their country’s call.
Lest we forget.
sinz54 // Jun 26, 2010 at 9:40 am
Unsympathetic: There is no point to being in Afghanistan
We wouldn’t be in Afghanistan at all, if the 9-11 atrocity (and YES it was an atrocity) had never happened.
Truman knew it, Bush 41 knew it too: containment works.
North Koreans didn’t murder 3,000 American men, women and children in New York City like al-Qaeda did.
Containment is dead the moment the enemy crosses into American soil.
If the North Koreans had bombed San Francisco and killed 3,000 Americans, Truman would have very likely nuked them in retaliation.
blowtorch_bob // Jun 26, 2010 at 11:32 am
broke Harry Truman’s back, couldn’t wait to get out of te WH.
jakester // Jun 26, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Funny how the chief hawk and bigmouth of that era, Gen. MacArthur, was also the fool whose gross basic military error almost cost the whole UN Army. Any parallels to today?
jakester // Jun 26, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Concerning present day Afghanistan, our mistake is trying to win their hearts and minds when we should be crushing the jihadists instead. We treat their hate and indoctrination centers as inviolate sanctuaries, and make that ideology the ruling principle of their oxymoronic sharia’h constitution. The Taliban and Al Qaeda existed there because most of the people there approved of them. Then they strike back at us. Considering we never occupied them like the British or Russians and helped them get free of the USSR, that tells me all I need to know about their character and democratic principles.
At least in Korea half of them were our allies, darn good ones compared to the scum around Karzai. Hundreds of thousands of Afghanis live here in the USA, Canada, the UK; why hasn’t someone tried to encourage them to move back and be the new ruling and middle class?
Carney // Jun 27, 2010 at 10:58 am
strange, jakester, that MacArthur, whom you criticize so harshly, was just as frustrated as you by Communist bases across the Yalu being “inviolate sanctuaries”. It’s true he deserved criticism for not taking the possibility of Chinese intervention seriously enough (together with the entire US and UN leadership, including George C. Marshall), but he also engineered the Inchon landing – hardly the act of a “fool”.
kmort // Jun 27, 2010 at 2:03 pm
My daughter was born in Korea and adopted in 1983. Many have been the times I’ve been grateful for the sacrifices of Americans and other nationals that helped keep South Korea independent and outside the communist world. To me, Korea will never again be the “Forgotten War”. On a Caribbean cruise outing, I spoke with a veteran of Korea. I showed him a picture of my daughter and thanked him and his colleagues for making it possible for us to adopt our daughter 30 years after the war. He said no one had ever said anything like that to him before and he appreciated it.
That being said, in a democratic republic like ours, it is unreasonable to characterize legitimate dissent as fifth column activity. The former is characteristic of democracies, the latter is subversive in its goals and function.
Korea was/is described as a “police action” because there was never a declaration of war. I suspect the political nicities of that is lost on the men/women/families that sacrificed themselves or their loved ones in that “war”. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have learned much from that political distinction and we still seem inclined to enter into conflicts without declarations of war.
jakester // Jun 27, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Carney
True, Mac was all for total war, compared to hedging mentality of Truman’s “police action”. But he was a wildly egotistical person who swung from genius to incompetence like a pendulum. I agree with Mac to the point that we should have declared war and pressed harder and pushed the lines past Pongyang.
thijsvn // Jun 27, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Great article, thanks.
Oskar // Jun 28, 2010 at 10:34 am
The only justifiable war in our history was the American Revolution.
iveyguy // Jun 28, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Oskar “The only justifiable war in our history was the American Revolution.”
You are kidding, right?