Korea: The Unfinished War (1950–2010)

This episode begins with an overview of the wars fought in the Korean Peninsula from the first through the 19th century, revaling how Korea was forged through conflict.

All through the late 1940’s North Korean leader Kim Il Sung pushed on Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, to sanction and support an invasion of South Korea.

American, Republic of Korea, and U.N. troops were holding the Pusan Perimeter in the summer of 1950 as the North Korean invasion had pushed through all of the country.

General MacArthur devised a bold plan to outflank the NKA force, retake Seoul, and cut off the NKA forces from their supplies lines from the north.

With U.N. forces now in the North, the political leaders of Communist China and the Soviet Union became quite concerned.

U.N. forces were moving through North Korea, having pushed the NKA back across the 38th Parallel.

The U.N. forces in the eastern part of North Korea, mostly U.S. Marines and Army infantry, were being pulled out of North Korea to the coast to Hungnam to leave North Korea.

During the withdrawal from the North, the vastly outnumbered U.N. forces fought 4 Communist Chinese armies with 14 divisions and inflicted over 38,000 casualties.

In 1951 General MacArthur was advocating an escalation, including an attack into Communist China, besides and embargo and air attacks.

At the end of 1951 and into 1952, the Korean War looked like World War I: Static front lines, a main line of resistance, and no man’s land in between.