The Korean War (1950-1953) was a disaster of epic proportions; not only due to the immense carnage wrought by modern warfare, but for the monumental and thoroughly avoidable blunders that were made in its execution. At the center of these grievous mistakes is a narcissistic man who surrounded himself with underlings whose primary qualification was blind and unwavering loyalty to a figure who ultimately became a caricature of himself.
Further, when the proverbial s*** hit the fan, he refused to accept responsibility and even went so far as to say the outcome was just as he had planned. By all accounts, he was an arrogant narrow-minded egotist who surrounded himself with sycophants.
While, in the end, this man eventually faded away in disgrace, he left in his wake nearly three million corpses, more than half of them Korean civilians.
This, my friends, is a cautionary tale warning of the imminent dangers that follow when men like this are put into positions of power; a distant echo of the very similar circumstances we now face three-quarters of a century later.
I think of this now after reading On Desperate Ground: The Epic Story of Chosin Reservoir – The Greatest Battle of the Korean War (2018) by renowned historian and best selling author Hampton Sides.
Following World War II, the Korean Peninsula, which had only recently been liberated from 35 years of Japanese occupation, was arbitrarily divided at roughly the 38th parallel. Following the same assumptions regarding the division of Europe after the war, North Korea fell under the influence and protection of the Soviet Union (USSR) while South Korea was similarly influenced by the United States.
There was no strong cultural distinction between North and South Koreans and the peninsula’s division was simply a political and military imposition determined by the US and the USSR.
With the assistance of Joseph Stalin of the USSR, North Korea quickly built up its armed forces and in June of 1950 successfully invaded South Korea. On July 7, the freshly minted United Nations voted to provide military support to South Korea. By August, unfortunately, the North Koreans had already conquered nearly the entire peninsula. The only area left in South Korea’s control was defended along a small fortified line in the southeast known as the Pusan Perimeter.
Led by the United States and General Douglas MacArthur, more than a dozen UN nations sent troops to Korea, the vast majority of them American. MacArthur had served as Allied Commander in the Pacific during World War II and, in 1950, was overseeing the reconstruction of Japan.
In Korea, MacArthur convinced those around him, including President Truman, that a daring amphibious invasion—akin to the D-Day invasion of June 1944—would divide the North Korean Army. The North’s troops challenging Pusan would have their supply lines cut enabling UN troops to break out and head north. And, after reclaiming Seoul in central Korea, it would be only a short time before the 38th parallel division of North and South would be restored.
Beginning on September 15, 1950, more than 70,000 troops successfully landed at Inchon, meeting very little resistance. MacArthur was lauded for his brilliance and this praise was received as you might imagine. As North Korean troops began pulling back, South Korea’s sovereignty was restored and the “police action”—as it was called in the absence of a formal declaration of war—could have been concluded in a few short months.
Unfortunately, we still have a monumental ego to manage; the daring general gets the bold idea to take the entire peninsula.
General MacArthur and President Truman met on Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean on October 15, 1950. President Truman’s primary concern was that UN troops moving north across the 38th parallel and on to the Yalu River border with China might provoke a response from Mao Zedong. Truman told MacArthur, as Sides writes, that “[the general] must remain vigilant to any indication that Red China or the Soviet Union might enter the war. At the first sign of their involvement, MacArthur was to halt his advance.”
“MacArthur,” Hampton Sides adds, “played down Truman’s concerns. His own intelligence indicated that the Chinese wouldn’t dare enter the conflict – and if they did, he was sure his forces would destroy them… an army held together with hemp string and bamboo.”
Unbeknownst to Truman and MacArthur, on October 3 the US State Department had received word from China that if UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, the Chinese would intervene. The Chinese Communists only came into power in 1949—defeating Chinese Nationalists who had fled to Taiwan—and the United States had not yet recognized the fledgling nation. With no diplomatic channels between China and the US, China delivered its warning through India, who had only gained their independence from the British Empire in 1947.
Such were the circumstances in the years after World War II; years that largely define the world in which we now live, a world that is now threatened by the same instincts that drove General MacArthur into North Korea.
On October 9, MacArthur’s First Cavalry pushed across the 38th parallel and, as promised, on October 14, China “began deploying between 260,000 to 300,000 troops to North Korea.
Adding to the mistake of underestimating Chinese will, MacArthur repeatedly dismissed a growing body of evidence that he had miscalculated.
By the end of October, South Korean soldiers “reported that they had just engaged in a firefight with” Communist Chinese Forces (CCF). Chinese prisoners “freely indicated that they were part of a much larger Chinese force, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.” The commander on the ground receiving these reports was General Oliver Prince Smith, who deemed this intelligence information highly credible. However, when he passed these reports up the chain of command, they were met with indignation.
“MacArthur surrounded himself with yes men, like General Ned Almond, Smith’s direct superior,” Sides writes. “Unwilling to even consider the startling information that China had begun to amass a huge army in North Korea, Almond instead “admonished officers in the field to stop conveying the ‘erroneous impression that CCF units may be engaged.’”
True to form for those who live only to flatter the boss, it appears that Almond didn’t even bother to share this news with MacArthur who “appeared to have insulated himself from facts he found inconvenient or unpalatable.”
On the ground, General Smith “was flummoxed” with these orders. But, as a dutiful soldier, he rolled and marched his troops north, albeit “[in] a fog of uncertainty,” fully aware that hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers might find a way to discourage his advance.
Determined to take control of the Chosin Reservoir, a critical piece of infrastructure, Smith was ordered into the mountains along a narrow road that stretched his army thin for mile after mile. After reaching the reservoir, the Chinese engaged in brutal assaults against UN defended positions scattered along the roads that ran around the water.
The UN Troops were better equipped, better trained, and more prepared for the below-zero weather. The Chinese advantage rested in their numbers; soldiers smitten with communist propaganda were gunned down by the thousands. At one point, unarmed Chinese soldiers charged over the corpses of their comrades, retrieved their guns, and continued to fight.
After flying over one of these gruesome battlefields, General Almond continued to believe that the Chinese had not entered the fight in any substantial way.
I’ll spare you the horrible details that Hampton Sides graphically presents. Every once in a while, though, it might be a good idea to remind ourselves what war looks like, feels like, tastes like; in order to be more fully informed when it comes knocking at our door. And, if the entirety of human history is to be our guide, it most certainly will.
After 17 days of fighting in a frozen wasteland littered with frozen bodies, MacArthur finally gave the order to withdraw. However, now that the Chinese were involved and the Soviet Union continued to provide weapons, the war would last for more than three years.
At one point, MacArthur suggested that President Truman authorize detonating a number of nuclear bombs along the North Korean border with China. While Truman said to the public that nuclear weapons were being considered, he exercised restraint. Sadly for us, our MacArthur-like figure today has no Truman-like figure to answer to.
In April of 1951, President Truman relieved Douglas MacArthur of his command. The war he instigated would carry on, with Chinese soldiers and Soviet arms, until July of 1953.
In the end, the stalemate was settled with a cease-fire that restored the boundary between North and South Korea… at the 38th parallel.
As Sides writes, Douglas MacArthur “was responsible for one of the most egregious intelligence failures in American military history.” Yet, he continued to claim “that he had known all along that the Chinese were going to intervene en masse. He had seen it coming for many weeks.” With his bloated ego intact, MacArthur “was incapable of accepting blame, or assuming responsibility for the mistakes that had been made.” Sound familiar?
