The Korean War Battlefield: Refugees

Figure 1.--Here we see refugee children at a camp in Pusan (January 21, 1951). They had fled from areas invaded by North Koreans (June 1950). They were watching as the great battles to the north were taking place. The press caption read, "Pied Piper of Pusan: Playing the part of a pied piper, Ed Hoffman, a staff photographer for Acme Newspictures, indulges in some horseplay to the delight of children at a Pusan refugee camp. In contrast to the ill-clothed and ill-fed refugees streaminmg south from the battlrounds to the north, the children here seem to be in comparitively good shape. .

The first year of the Korean War created an enormous refugee problem. After the North Koreans invaded (June 1950), fighting raged up and down the Peninsula. The North Koreans Army, heavily armed by Soviet leader Josef Stalin emboldened by the atomic bomb, drove the poorly equipped South Korean Army joined by a few American units rushed to the Peninsula into a pocket at the southern tip of Korea around the port of Pusan. The United Nations authorized military action to save South Korea United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 (July 1950). General MacArthur staged a brilliant amphibious landing at Inchon which cut off North Korean supply lines and retook the South Korean capital of Seoul (September 1950). United Nations (mostly American) forced surged north, approaching the Yalu River on the northern border with China. MacArthur had dismissed the danger of a Chinese intervention assuring President Truman that they would never dare. But China intervened in force with massed waves of infantry, (November 1950), driving the U.N. forced back south and seizing Seoul once again. MacArthur organized a counter offensive (February 1951) and regained Seoul (March 1951). It is at this time that MacArthur began openly criticizing the President an unprecedented case of rank insubordination, Truman replaced MacArthur with Gen. Matthew Ridgeway (April 1951). Ridgeway repelled a massive Chinese offensive and stabilized the front just north of the 38th Parallel, roughly the frontier at the time the North Koreans invaded a year earlier. After this, few additional refugees were created, but South Korean was left with an enormous refugee problem. This was the end of major ground movements, but had created an enormous refugee problem.

Created: 3:15 PM 9/14/2024
Last updated: 3:15 PM 9/14/2024