Korean War

I wrote about the Korean War when writing about the War Memorial but decided to post this seperately since it would have been too mixed.

In year 1910 Japan took Korea under its annexation; economically to support it's own goals and politically to get a "buffer area" in case China would attack and also a pathway to China for itself to attack. Japan governed and exploited Korea but in the other hand also created a base for it's later industrialization.

Japan was defeated in the Second World War and in 1945 Korea was liberated by United States in the south and Soviet Union in the north. The border was set to the 38th parallel. There was tension and disagreements between north and south. When the Republic of Korea was formed in 1948, the communists didn't take part in that election and less than a month later formed their own Democratic People's Republic of Korea. These two governments considered themselves to govern the whole country and the disputes went on.

On Sunday 25 June 1950 early morning at 4 am North Korea invaded South Korea. Two days after that UN decided to aid South Korea and US against North Korea. North Korea had received a great amount of weapons, planes and tanks and also training from Soviet Union. It quickly proceeded to the very south of the Korean peninsula pushing the South Korean army to the southeast.

The course of the war changed when the UN forces, which consisted of forces from 16 countries the most being from US, successfully landed in Inchon, southwest of Seoul. The same time UN forces started to push the North Korean forces back from the south and the North Korean forces were besieged. The UN forces proceeded to the north over the 38th parallel in their intention to unite the nation.

The UN forces had reached Jalu-river in the very north in October 1950. China then entered the war sending 400 000 men using its unique "human wave" attacks. North Korea and China pushed the UN forces back south until 80 km south from Seoul in January 1951. Until late spring that year the both sides pushed the border around the 38th parallel reaching nothing but a standoff.

Negotiations for ceasefire lasted for two years and 27 July 1953 North Korea and US signed a ceasefire. No peace treaty was signed leaving South Korea and North Korea at war till this day.

In the Korean War over 3 million people died and a huge part of the infrastructure was destroyed.

Map of Korean peninsula showing how the forces proceeded.

An artwork representing the war: a teardrop made of soldiers' badges wrapped in barbwire.

The statue of brothers that symbolizes the Korean War. Two brothers meet on the battlefield, the older ROK officer and the younger North Korean soldier, and express reconciliation, love and forgiveness.