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The Korean War might have been one of the stupidest ties of the 20th century. Three years of death and destruction might have been avoided if the idiots in the UN had just said, “Hey, we got all that lost territory back for the south. Let’s just stop here.” But no, they had to invade the north and then China said, “I don’t fucking think so.”
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: October 19, 1950--
It began in June of 1950 with 75,000 commie North Korean troops pouring over the 38th parallel to conquer the evil capitalist-allied South Korea. And they damn near took all of it. The first military action of the Cold War, it was a battle of titans with the Korean peninsula as proxy.
Within two months NK had taken all but a small portion of SK. The South Korea defenders were huddled behind a line called the Pusan Perimeter. But a UN coalition of 21 countries, with American troops making up 90% of the military personnel, launched a daring amphibious flanking maneuver at Incheon, cutting off the NK troops in the south, turning the tables on those commie rats. Go ‘murica!
But then, dumbassery.
The capitalist commanders said, “Those commie fucks need to be taught a lesson. They crossed into our side, we’re gonna cross into theirs.” And so, they did. By October 17 they reached Pyongyang, the largest city in North Korea and its capital. Two days later, on October 19, 1950, the UN forces had captured the city. Forces were only a hundred miles from the border with China, and China wasn’t fucking having it.
On that same day, China entered the war utilizing some linguistic fuckery. Linguistic fuckery? Yeah, get this. The regular armed forces in China are called the People’s Liberation Army. But China was worried if it sent those forces into North Korea that it could cause an official bigly war between China and the U.S. rather than a proxy war that wasn’t nearly such a big deal because fuck Korea. So, China took a bunch of those PLA forces and changed the name to the People’s Volunteer Army because adding the word “volunteer” meant Chinese and Americans could kill the shit out of each other in Korea without it snowballing into World War Fucking Three.
So, yeah, 200,000 Chinese PVA troops came pouring across the border screaming get the fuck out of North Korea, and they fought for another three years and lots of people died and everyone ended up back where they started.
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I live in Korea and I ride my bicycle to explore old battlefields, many of them from the various Chinese offensives in late 1950-early 1951, like Gapyeong and Solmari (Gloster Hill). The story of Chinese intervention is really remarkable, not least that the initial Chinese attack on October 19th was a warning shot almost, that went unheeded. The Chinese forces went quiet for a while afterwards and it was only in November 1950 that the UN mauling really got underway. If anyone's interested, there is a great book called The Marines of Autumn by James Brady. It's fiction, but excellent fiction, and details the retreat of the Marines to the coast at Hamhung after their disastrous incursion into NE Korea, as the Chinese chased them all the way. Very much worth the time to read.
And now China is itching for a war with the US. That’s per someone on MSNBC’s Morning Joe yesterday. Crap!