Korean war- the forgotten war
- Korea was invaded and ruled by japan from 1910-1945
- after ww2 korea was split into the north and south
- The united nations held an election in 1948
- the soviet union refused to allow participation in the election in their occupied zone
- instead, they handed over power to the north communist part under KIM -IL - sung
- the south elected the nationalist exile syngman rhee
- US government stated in January 1950 that korea was "outside of our defense perimeter"
- This encouraged North Korea to be aggressive
- South Korea president syngman Rhee and North Korea leader Kim -IL- Sung both wanted to reunite Korea under their own systems
- Because of the US withdrawal , the north Koreans were the ones able to go on the offensive
- The people Republic of china and the soviet union were wary of a war in Korea
- MAo and Stalin were concerned that it would encourage American intervention in Asia after just leaving
- Kim was able to manipulate both Mao and Stalin into supporting their invasion of south Korea
The war begins
- On june 25th, 1950, North korean forces invaded the south
- Using Soviet equipment, their surprise attack was very successful
- within days south korean forces retreated
- seoul was captured by the north koreans in the early july
- Eventually the south forces , and the small number of americans in Korea , were driven into a small area in the south
- with the help of the uS supplies and air support the south korean forces managed to stabilize this area
- Although more UN support arrived it looked as though the north could gain control of the entire peninsula
- 380,000 chinese troops pushed the United Nations troops to the 38th parallel, the pre conflict border
- the chinese assault caught US troops by surprise, as war between china and the US had not been declared On january 4, 1959, communist chinese and north korean forces re-captured seoul
- Due to the tough situation, macarthur mentioned that atomic weapons might be used, much to the alarm of america's allies
- in march 1951, UN forces succeeded in repelling the north and chinese troops from seoul
work day
presented deren, tyler, will, and pfah presentation over the 50's
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