William Tyler
“I will defend Korea as I would my own country”: Quote of General MacArthur
William Tyler - “I will defend Korea as I would my own country” - Quote of General MacArthur
- Welcome, and my topic is the Korean War. It was the first war that as a five-year-old I was aware of, and all because of a book I was bought about castles, Welsh castles. Let me tell you the story. My father, who’d served in the war, obviously was still in 1950 on the reserve. And he suddenly got a letter asking him to report to artillery barracks in Cardiff, in Wales, from where we lived in Bristol. And I remember they had to get his uniform out, which he hadn’t worn since the war. Quickly get it sort of ironed and polished and all the rest of it, and off he went by train. And the purpose of it was he might have been sent to Korea. In fact, the Gloucestershire Regiment, which I also remember as a schoolboy, travelling on the bus in Bristol, because it suffered such enormous loss of life and captured prisoners by the Chinese at the Battle of the Imjin River. That stuck in my memory. But more than that, it was Dad coming home with this very nice illustrated book about castles. He wasn’t required and he came home. He wasn’t required because I think he was considered to be in a job that was necessary and therefore wasn’t, fortunately, called, up. Had he been, who knows what might’ve happened. Now, it is possible that some of you listening, whichever country you’re listening from, did in fact serve with the United Nations forces in Korea. And if you did, can you at the end sort of put that on the question and answer and saying, “Yes William, I did serve.” Because if you did I would like you to, if you would, you’re not forced to, of course you’re not. But if you would, you might like to share your thoughts all these years later. Now, if we could have the map put up, I’ll talk to the map if I may. And here’s the map. It was a map that I sent out with your joining instructions, so some of you will have seen it already. Let me just comment about the map.
First of all, Korea is a peninsula. It’s surrounded on both sides by sea. It’s surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the right, and the Yellow Sea to the left as we look at the map. You can also see that above the peninsula is Russia. Then, at the time of the Korean War, the USSR, of course, the Soviet Union. And then also, very largely on a much wider and longer border, a border with China. So China and the USSR are both there and are going to be players in the Korean War of 1950 to ‘53. You can also see what we now know, of course, because that’s Korea today, as well as at the end of the Korean War, there’s a North Korea, Communist Korea, and a South Korea, sort of inverted commas, “Democratic”. Now, there are just a couple of things I want to point out on the map. The but first Seoul in the blue area, to the top left of the blue area, which was the capital of South Korea and still is. And then if you go into the red area, above Seoul, you see Pyongyang, which is the capital of North Korea. So there you have the two capitals. It’s always interesting to me how near the border Seoul was. And it reminds us that in the 19th century, all of Korea was united as the Kingdom of Korea. And as we shall see, from 1910 until 1945, the end of the Second World War, the whole of Korea was occupied, indeed, annexed to Japan. In other words, Japan made it part of Mainland Japan. It wasn’t ruled as a colony, and we’ll come to that in due course. There’s three other words I want to point out on the map. At the bottom right of the blue, you see a little square marked out, or rectangle, with the word Pusan, P-U-S-A-N, at the bottom.
This small area of South Korea is important in our story. To the left of Seoul, as you look at it, there’s a seaside town, unmarked, called Inchon, I-N-C-H-O-N, just to the left as you look at Seoul in the blue part. If you look at the border between North Korea, red, and China, in grey, you can see on the left-hand side of that border, a river, the Yalu river, Y-A-L-U River. Now, those are the bits you need to know. I like talking about the Korean War because it’s an easy war to talk about. I’m going to give a sort of thumbnail sketch before I tell the story as a whole. The thumbnail sketch of the war is in 1950, North Korea backed by the USSR, that is the say not with force, but with arms and material and political strength. the North invaded the South. It crossed the line, which on the map is called the Armistice Line. It forced the South Korean Army right back to the bottom right-hand corner of the blue South Korea, around the town of Pusan, which you can see it’s marked off in the square. The Americans came to the aid of South Korea, and at Inchon, the place that isn’t marked just to the left of Seoul, General MacArthur landed and he pushed back the North Koreans. He landed in their rear, of course, so he was in a very good strategic position, brilliant military exercise was this. And he pushed the North back so far that they reached the Yalu River, that is the border with China. China, now under the control of Mao, Communist China, is petrified that the Americans will enter China. And so, the Chinese come into the war to back the North Koreans and they push the Americans.
I say the Americans, but it was an allied force under the auspices of the United Nations, but it’s largely the Americans that conduct the sharp end of the war, along with the British, but the Americans far in the greater numbers. The Americans are forced back by the Chinese throughout the whole of North Korea until they reach a situation like World War I, facing each other from trenches along the Armistice Line or the 38th parallel as we call it. And there was no movement. And in 1953, the American politicians want out. And this is Eisenhower is the Republican president, and Eisenhower negotiates a settlement, an armistice. It’s not a peace. It’s like the 1918 armistice. And they agree that there should be two separate countries, North and South Korea, divided by the Armistice Line at the 38th parallel. And that is exactly how Korea is all these years on from 1953 in 2024. That’s over 70 years now that line has held. But it is not a peace, it is an armistice. So that’s a thumbnail sketch, and you’ve got the map in your head and you probably all know that. Now, if we could get rid of the map and you can see my ugly face or you can relocate me to a corner or switch off and just hear me speaking. Let me begin by a quotation. A far away country of which we know nothing, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said about the country of Czechoslovakia in 1938. But this quotation could equally be said of the American view of Korea, following 1945 and the end of the Second World War. But five years on from the end of the Second World War, in 1950, another war breaks out and that is the Korean War. And the Americans find themselves with their United Nation allies, this is a United Nations exercise, with their United Nation allies, engaged in a war in the Korean peninsula to protect, as we’ve seen, the Democratic South from the Marxist North. It was, in fact, of course, to stop the spread of communism in this, what is now known as the Cold War. I said before that the Second World War merged into a Cold War.
And in Korea, as in Vietnam, later, the Cold War becomes a very hot war indeed. The American historian, Bruce Cummings, writes this. “Eventually the Korean War will be understood as one of the most distinctive and destructive and important wars of the 20th century.” That’s true, it will be thought of like that. And it’s becoming more relevant in our view of the world in 2024 than before, because of the position of North Korea. And because we couldn’t possibly in, the West contemplate either a Russian or a Chinese infiltration into South Korea, because it would threaten Japan amongst other countries. We also are petrified of North Korea because of its possession of nuclear weapons, which it could launch at Japan or possibly Taiwan, or increasingly, into the Middle East. North Korea is a dangerous country. North Korea is a rogue state in the language of today. So this area is now important. And if an area is important now and is on the news when you turn on the television this evening, and it could well be on the news tonight because it often is, then it helps to know the history, because the history enables us to interpret the present and prepare for the future. I said it was often described as a forgotten war because it was sandwiched between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Vietnam War. And now, memories of it, that is to say memories of people that served, the numbers of people still alive are declining fast in all the countries that took part. But the moment’s reflection on the fact that five million died within three years, and more than half of those were Korean civilians, which amounted to 10% of the pre-war Korean population as a whole. five million died in three years. More than half were Korean civilians, which amounted to about 10% of the pre-war population of the peninsula.
For America, which took the heavy load of the cost of the war, not only in money but in men, America lost 40,000 men in this relatively short waged war. It lost a further a hundred thousand men, wounded in this war. This is not a war that should be forgotten. However, it’s interesting to think why it was forgotten, partly because the media covered it sparsely unlike the Vietnam War which was presented to us on nightly newsreels in whichever country we happened to have lived. It was there in your face, as they say. Whereas out of the Korean War came the American television series, “MAS*H”, which was a, well, hardly a accurate description of the war itself. But to understand the war, we need to go back further than 1945 and the end of the Second World War, the end of the hot war, the Second War, and the beginning of the Cold War. In fact, we need to go back to the beginning of the 20th century, to the year 1910. Now, in 1910, if you asked the average American or Canadian or Britain or Australian or whoever about Korea, you would be met blankly. People would not have known much, if anything, about Korea. But in 1910, as part of the Japanese Imperial expansion, which culminated in Pearl Harbour which we talked about last week, in 1910, they overthrew after a series of wars, the Kingdom of Korea, and annexed it as I said, just now, annexed the entire peninsula to Japan. If any of you had visited Japan, and I guess you have, you may know that Koreans are regarded in very negative racist terms in Japan, many of them employed as servants and so on. There is no love lost between Korea and Japan, and that means between South Korea, Democratic Korea, and Japan, even today. And that is another of the elements of the confusing and complex picture of the Far East in 2024 and the tensions caused by China.
Japan considered, as I said, Korea, after 1910 through to the end of the Second World War, 1945, to be part of Mainland Japan. They did not view it as a colony. This was a conquest of a country which they regarded now as Japan. They destroyed, we are told, over 200,000 history textbooks, so that the history taught was not Korean history, but Japanese. They insisted that schools and universities teaching language should be Japanese. It was extremely difficult to be Korean during the Japanese occupation. I’ve recently watched a rather odd Korean film on Netflix which tells the story. It begins in 1945 as the Japanese are losing the war, but they are creating in Korea a super soldier. They are manipulating men and women’s DNA to produce a monster that can’t be killed. Now, that’s a silly part of the story, sort of thing I watch when there isn’t any football to watch and I want to turn off. But what was interesting about it, the Korean hatred of the Japanese and the treatment by the Japanese of the Koreans is made painfully clear in this Korean film, which I think was made in 2023. And so that brings the past into the present. At the end of the Second World War, Japan, as we all know, is defeated. And we know it’s brought to its knees eventually by the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, up until that point, Russia, although our ally against Hitler, was not involved in the Japanese War, I think partly because it had come unstuck in the 1904, '05 Russia, Japanese War, and they didn’t really want to open up another front.
But between the bombing of Hiroshima and the bombing of Nagasaki, i.e., a week before the Japanese surrendered, Russia declared war on Japan. To support the Americans? Of course, not to gain things. They gained, for instance, the entire Island of Sakhalin off the Siberian coast, which previously had been divided between Russia and Japan. I remember Sakhalin well because in a talk I gave at my own college, oh, a long time ago now, I thought I’m safe talking about Sakhalin. No one will know anything about it at all. And I confidently said, as I finished the talk, are there any questions? And, of course, some of you may have been to Sakhalin around this time. Not expecting anyone and somebody put their hand up and said, “Oh, yes, I did business in Japanese, Sakhalin, before the Second World War. So you never know what’s going to come out with adults. Sakhalin is now famous for oil, which is now all Russian. It is also apparently famous for a rather unusual selection of wild flowers, and apparently people go in the spring. If any of you have done that, I will be delighted to hear from you. I have met people from the oil industry who’ve been involved in Sakhalin, that’s true. But anyone who’s a botanist who’d been, I’d love you to come up afterwards and say, "Yes, I’ve been.” But Sakhalin was only one of the goals. The other goal was Korea. But as in Germany, America, in this case, not the other allies, America and Russia, USSR, agreed to divide the peninsula of Korea at the end of the Japanese War between a Russian zone of occupation, the North Korea, and the American zone of occupation, South Korea. So that’s no different than the allies had done in Germany, or indeed in Berlin, although in both cases there were British and French elements as well as Russian and American. But to all intents and purposes, it was Russian and American there too. But in Korea, it’s only the Russians in the North, the Germans in the South. Note, no Chinese. Why not? Because China is fighting a civil war.
Mao’s Communists against the Republicans are counter Ishak. Here then, we have the beginning of the division. Because when it’s divided into two zones of occupation, they used the 38th parallel as that line of division, which we saw on the map was later in 1953, the Armistice Line which it remains today. The Armistice Line at 38th parallel, set up in 1953, extant in 2024, but put in place in 1945 after the defeat of Japan by Russians and Americans. I talked about their hatred of the Japanese. So the North were happy with Russians. There’s a Communist Party in the North. The South is happy with Americans. What they didn’t like was Japanese. This is a story told in a article by Erin Blakemore. “During the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, outraged South Koreans demanded an apology from NBC after a commentator asserted that Korea’s transformation into a global powerhouse,” South Korea, that is, “was due to the cultural, technological, and economic example of Japan.” It shows current ignorance about the history of Korea. “For many South Koreans, Analyst Joshua Cooper Ramo’s statement reopened old wounds, ones carved by a generation of occupation of the country by Japan in 1910, 1945. Any reasonable person familiar with the history of Japanese Imperialism,” wrote Blakemore, “and the atrocities it committed before and during World War II, will find such a statement deeply hurtful and outrageous.” Tens of thousands South Koreans demanded an apology from the Japanese. The past is there in the present. It’s very difficult to move beyond the past, to beyond stereotypes. In this case it’s not a stereotype, the Japanese behaviour appallingly, and thus, it reinforces my continuing contention that to understand present crisis, we need to understand where the crisis came from.
I don’t really need to tell you, do I, that Korea is a problem today. I’m sure I don’t. And if you are talking about Third World War, and it’s rather worrying that some experts, particularly military in Britain and in the States, are talking about that possibility, indeed, politicians are, then you could imagine a Third World War breaking out in Korea. So it is important. When the Americans were occupying, the intention was, as it had been in Germany, that American and Russia would withdraw from the peninsula, following elections, and they would hand over to an elected Korean government. Now, the Americans did that in the South, and the man who came out of all of this was the anti-Communist, although very dictatorial, Syngman Rhee. In the North, it was Kim Il-sung, the Communist. There were no elections held in the North, so there was no question of a one-state solution. As there wasn’t in Germany, let me remind you, after 1945 when we had East Germany Communist and West Germany Democratic. And so the situation hardened along that 38th parallel between North Korea, Communist, and South Korea, “Democratic” in inverted commas. I don’t want someone to come on afterwards and say, “Well, it isn’t Democratic,” because we know that, but it’s “Democratic” in inverted commas. The North had the support of the Russians, the South, the support of America. Neither Kim Il-sung in the North, nor Syngman Rhee in the South, were happy about a divided Korea. Both wanted a unified Korea with themselves in charge, either a Democratic Korea, or a Communist Korea. And there was intermittent clashes on the border of the 38th parallel before 1950. And there were, it’s estimated, nearly 10,000 deaths on either side.
So this is little more than border clashes. This is a little more than the Indian-Pakistani border. This is quite serious clashes. Nevertheless, they didn’t lead anywhere until somewhat out of the blue, in 1950, the North Korean Army invaded the South, pushed the Southern forces down to that small area in the southeast of the peninsula, Pusan, and America panicked. Why did America panic? Because as they saw it, this was the advance of Communism in Asia. And later, it was Eisenhower who talked about the Domino Theory. And you all remember that, that if one country felt a Communism, it would be like dominoes. They would all fall. And that dominated political, and indeed, military thinking in much of the Cold War as regards for Far East. a reason for Vietnam, of course. America then sent troops to the South. But they didn’t do it on their own. They called on the United Nations to condemn North Korea’s invasion of the South, and by getting United Nations to do precisely that, they were able to call on other governments as allies. So this was a United Nations war against Communist Korea, unofficially backed by Communist Russia. I said before, it’s the UK and America that provide the majority of troops. And of those, America that provides the majority of those too. Other countries involved included Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, South Africa, all countries you might suppose would be, oh, and the Philippines which was, of course, would’ve supported America. But they were in addition, Turkey, Thailand, Ethiopia, Greece, Columbia, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. This was a worldwide alliance, not a Western alliance.
This was not just the British dominions, Britain and America. This included Asian countries and countries either not in Asia or in Europe, like Ethiopia, in Africa. So this is a very different war than the Vietnam War. This is an important ingredient. Remember that Britain didn’t fight in Vietnam, much to the Americans annoyance one might say. America’s never really needed British arms since 1945. But what it has needed, for example, over both Ukraine and Israel crises, what America has wanted is British support. And that has still counted for something, even though, and we know in recent weeks that the American Military have criticised the ill-preparedness of Britain in terms of the numbers of military being put in the field. But, if you think about the attack on the Houthis, the fact that Britain had to send aircraft from as long of a distance, as from Cyprus, to drop bombs in the Yemen is an indication of how much the Americans relied upon the diplomatic support of Britain. America didn’t need those British bombers to drop the bombs. Of course they didn’t, it had plenty of its own. But the fact that it wasn’t on its own and the fact that Britain was committed, the problem for America is that Britain is no longer a member of the European Union. And although the European Union is not a military force, it’s NATO. Britain word is not being heard anymore in NATO. In fact, Macron in France vetoed the possibility of a Britain becoming the Secretary General of NATO, on the ground at Britain was no longer a member of the EU, which is not logical, but is the reality. I’m sure you all know about NATO. NATO has to have, always has had and will have an American Military commander, but a European secretary general.
And a former British defence secretary was lined up to take over and would’ve been excellent, but, Macron simply said, “No.” Interesting world we live in. By September, three months after the North’s invasion of the South, the United Nations launched an attack against the North. The general commanding was Douglas MacArthur, and he landed by sea behind enemy lines at Inchon, just west on the coast of the southern capital of Seoul, which had fallen to the North. He wiped up the Northern Korean Armies in the South, and proceeded to cross the dividing line, the 38th parallel between South and North, and to push back, to push back the North Koreans. And he pushed them so far north that he reached the border of the Yalu River between North Korea and China. Now MacArthur, this is my words. This is not another historian or anything else, this is my words so you’re very free to disagree. I’ve written here on my notes, “MacArthur had a soldier’s grasp of the threat of communism and a soldier’s answer.” He said, “In the planning conference before the launch of the attack in Inchon,” MacArthur said this, quote, “I can almost hear the ticking of the second hand of destiny. We must act now or we will die. We land in Inchon and I shall crush them.” This is not about South Korea, alone, in MacArthur’s view. It is about the West liberal democracy and communism.
It’s the same as those of us who are arguing that Israel’s fighting Gaza is a fight of civilization, of Western civilization against terrorism, backed by a theocracy. And it’s a difficult argument to make now, and as it happened, it was a difficult argument for MacArthur to make. Truman, the President at the time, is uneasy about of all this. Politicians want answers presented to them. “Don’t come to me with problems,” says I, as a minister in a government, “come with me to answers,” I tell the civil servants. Soldiers are different. “Give me a problem and I’ll solve it.” What did MacArthur say again? “We shall land at Inchon and I shall crush them.” That’s the words of a military commander. Now, the problem was this was not World War II. And this is a war far away from all those allied states like Britain and America, Canada and Australia. And the public in Britain and America, if we just take those two, are relatively ignorant about what’s going on. This is a war a long way away, fought, well, in Britain’s case, not just fought by the regular army, but fought by those who had been conscripted to do national service. And one of the awful things about the Korean War is that young men doing national service were sent there. Also sent there from Britain, were men who had been serving as prisoners of war in Germany. And some of those were captured, as were some of those from my part of England in Gloucestershire, the Gloucesters Regiment. Some of the Gloucesters had served in prisoner of war camps in Germany, and later found themselves in prisoner of war camps in China. Can you imagine that? I met a man who was a regular soldier but he was a medic, and he was going to go with the Gloucesters.
And he told me that if he’d gone, he would almost certainly have been killed, and if he hadn’t have been killed, he would’ve been a prisoner of war of the Chinese. But he was lucky in as much as he was taken ill and couldn’t go. And he said that was the most fortunate illness he’s ever had in his life. Now, this was a dreadful war. But in MacArthur’s view, it is absolutely essential to win it. Now, I’m going to read what Alan Axelrod, the American popular historian writes. And he writes this. “Within the Truman administration in Washington, debate raised over weather to cross the 38th parallel and invade North Korea.” I’ve just said MacArthur did that, but they weren’t back in Washington entirely happy. “Truman compromised, authorising the crossing, but taking steps to avoid provoking the Chinese and the Soviet director. No United Nations troops would enter Manchuria or Russia, and only South Koreans would operate along the international borders. On the 7th of October, the UN General Assembly called for the unification of Korea and authorised MacArthur to invade.” Now, this is really so interesting because this is a three-way decision-making process. The military decision of MacArthur, the political decision of Truman and his cabinet, and the political decision of the United Nations. Now, given what increasingly we are aware of, that the United Nations is a broken reed, I don’t think you will get that today.
Incidentally, why the United Nations was able to continue to support America was, at the time, Russia was boycotting the Security Council and therefore didn’t have a vote that could stop any decision being made. It had no blocking vote because it wasn’t there. So let me read on. “The UN General Assembly called for the unification of Korea and authorised MacArthur to invade. On the 19th of October, the North Korean capital of Pyongyang fell and the North Korean armies were pushed far north of the Yalu River, the nation’s border with Manchuria. And this is where the problem of leadership in war comes about. MacArthur, we know, is not a man to be taken lightly, a more than competent general, and he’d shown himself in Japan to be a more than competent politician. Now, you can argue until the cows come home, who is right and who is wrong? MacArthur was proposing to go beyond the Yalu River into China itself. He’s also, although he later said he didn’t, he was interested in dropping an atomic bomb on the Chinese. The administration back in Washington are becoming nervous. They’re becoming nervous because they can’t really control this general. He’s out of control. It’s difficult. It’s difficult in a democracy to decide who is in charge.
The mistake that the British made in World War I was to put the generals in charge and to appoint new generals and to organise the campaigns. Churchill learned from that and in World War II, Churchill took total command, holding both the prime minister and defence secretary and sacking generals. And this is a question that has to be faced. In fact, it’s an interesting question, and I’m not getting into it afterwards because I don’t know the answers at all and I don’t know the background. But it’s interesting to think about that in Israeli terms, in terms of the prime minister and the government and in terms of the generals in the field. There’s always tension. But given someone like MacArthur, then the tensions are strong against Truman. Well, let me look and read to some passages from Arthur Herman’s biography of Douglas MacArthur, whom he describes as the "American Warrior”. “MacArthur decided to issue a call to the Communist Chinese to admit they were defeated and to either negotiate a peace or face a widening war.” “What the hell is he doing,” they said in Washington? “He can’t make peace. We’re the ones to make peace. And what’s he doing threatening them with a war? We don’t want to go to war with China. What’s he going to do? How do we control this man?” Now, he isn’t stupid and he writes, of course, back to Washington, “Oh, no, no, please don’t be misabused by this.” He says, “no, I’m not really going,” blah, blah, blah. But Truman is becoming more and more nervous. “Dean Rusk and others have been engaged in a delicate diplomatic balancing act, appalling the other participating United Nations countries. America isn’t acting alone.
Politically, the Americans have to consult their allies. The participating UN countries on the idea of announcing that the UN Command was prepared to accept a ceasefire as the first step to a broader settlement. On the 21st, a draught under Truman’s signature had gone out for final approval. The joint chiefs had even given MacArthur a warning of what was up, but the hope was to propose a halt to the fighting before they’d crossed the 38th parallel.” That’s before he’s reached Yalu River. When he’s reached Yalu River, it’s all become far more dangerous. Love it. The American defence secretary who had replaced Dean Rusk said this, quote. “MacArthur must be removed and removed at once. They regarded him as insubordinate. Truman sent a message to MacArthur. 'The president has directed that your attention be called to his order as transmitted on the 6th of December, 1950. In view of the information given you on the 20th of March, '51, any further statements by you must be coordinated as prescribed in the order of the 6th of December, '50. The president has also directed that in the event Communist military leaders request an armistice in the field, you immediately report that back to the JCS for approval.’” It’s becoming difficult to hold this man.
It’s becoming extremely difficult. In Brian Catchpole’s book, “The Korean War”, we read this. If I can get my glasses in the right place. “On the 11th of April, 1951, President Truman wired General MacArthur, expressing regret that he had to relieve America’s popular five-star general off his post as Supreme Commander Allied Powers and all associated commands.” They’ve acted, they’ve sacked him in the middle of this war. He’s on the Yalu River. He’s threatening bombing China. They dared, they dared provoke a major confrontation with China. Now, you must ask yourselves, was MacArthur right? Should he have pressed on, or was he wrong and was Truman right? I mean, if this was a balloon debate. You could argue the case for Truman and you could argue the case for MacArthur. Let me read on. “Unfortunately, as a result of a press conference held in Washington at 01:00 hours, US Radio Station broadcast the news before Truman’s wire reached MacArthur. Consequently, the commander in chief of the United Nations commander in Korea heard it secondhand from one of his aides, Colonel Sidney Hull, who telephoned MacArthur’s wife, Jeannie, who told her husband who was lunching with two guests.” He’d served the American Army faithfully and brilliantly for 52 years and he’s sacked via telegram, but before it arrives, he learns of what has happened through the media. It’s like receiving a redundancy notice on your iPhone. Is this really the way to treat anyone, let alone someone of MacArthur’s standing? But they did.
Before we leave MacArthur, this is the final words of his biographer on this man whom I regard as a great man. “‘Today, we stand on the threshold of a new life,’ MacArthur once told an audience, soon after he returned from Korea. He went on to say, ‘Its limits are as broad as the spirit and imagination of man.’” And then Herman, his biographer says, “As soldier, statesman and Supreme Commander, MacArthur’s lifelong goal had been to secure that future, both for America and for its allies. In its pursuit, MacArthur’s actions were never immune from criticism, but no one can doubt that his motives were always noble.” He is an outstanding leader of men. He is the military equivalent of Winston Churchill. And bluntly, Washington couldn’t control him. Washington didn’t accept his analysis that they should strike at China, and they should ensure that the Korean peninsula was Democratic from top to bottom, North to South, South to North, and that China would be given a bloody nose so it wouldn’t start again. That’s not the way of the Cold War. The way of of the Cold War is to negotiate. Now, I’ve said this is not like Vietnam. This isn’t pressure from ordinary people that’s forcing Truman to do this. This is Truman and his cabinet fearful of their general. This is not them being pushed from behind with an anti-Korean War, demonstrations across the world, as with Vietnam, this is quite different. So, what about the major players in this war, outside of the allies, America and its allies?
Well, we talked about Russia, but Russia never got directly involved. And it’s always said in the history books, it was unofficially supporting. Well, we’ve talked many times, or I have to all of you about the floating definitions of neutrality. And in this case, the Russians supplied war material to the North Koreans. They also supplied MiG Jet fighters. And in addition, they sent Soviet pilots to fly in aircraft with North Korean or Chinese symbols on the aircraft. After the war, the Russians claimed that their pilots have shot down over 400 American planes, a large pinch of salt required. And what of China? China sent two million soldiers to the war. And it’s often said that compared to the United Nation’s forces, they were ill commanded and ill equipped. They had no, for example, armoured vehicles. They had very little artillery and very few anti-aircraft guns. I’m looking at the clock because I’ve got to be careful that I actually finish on time. I’ve got a bit carried away, I think, today. But let me sort of calm down a moment and say that isn’t the view of a Britain, called, Reginald Thompson, he was with the Americans and they were retreating. This is when the Chinese Army were pushing back. You remember the three phases of the war? Chinese advance, MacArthur advances, Chinese fight back. This was the fight back by the Chinese Army and forcing the Americans and other UN troops back to the 38th parallel. And Reginald Thompson says this, “It was a game of blind man’s buff in these wild, rugged, irregular hills in which the enemy moved freely, easily eluding the groping arms of the Americans by day, and swooping down upon them blind in the night with devastating fury and magnificent discipline.”
Does that not remind you, you could use that quotation about Vietnam as well about Korea. Not a shot was fired by the Chinese until they were within 30 yards of the target. Interesting question, how much did West Point learn from the Korean War or could’ve learned that would’ve been relevant in the Vietnamese War? That’s always questions one has to ask. A young GI told this British journalist, “A young GI said, ‘We’re like the meat in a sandwich and the chinks are the bread. There was a quietness and humour in the Americans I’d not known before. You could see here quite clearly the great gash in the middle of a whole race where the middle class would’ve been. in Vietnam. At the top there were first class colonels, and at the bottom, these first class people. But all the people from whom officers, civil servants and all the rest of the educated men of background and integrity are drawn, just were not there. Vietnam, before Vietnam.’” It’s interesting to think of the two. And maybe when I’m talking next week, I can’t promise, but maybe, I don’t know which direction I should go in, but I may say something about that. “Indeed, the war did end on that 38th parallel. It was a stalemate by June, 1951. In November, 1952, Truman was out of office and Eisenhower was in office.” Now, Eisenhower of course was the great general of the Second World War, and now is the political president of the United States. “And one of the reasons he was elected was he promised to end the war in Korea.” Now, he doesn’t have to deal with MacArthur, who’s been taken out of the picture by Truman in ‘51. November '52, then, Eisenhower is in power. By July, 1953, an armistice, not a peace, an armistice has been signed at Pyongyang. on the 38th parallel, which left Korea divided between a Marxist North and a Democratic South.
And as we look at the picture of the world today, North Korea is one of the most isolated of states, the most dangerous of states. The present leaders, father and grandfather had ruled as dictators. The South, well, the South, I’ve not been to South Korea, but from all I’ve read and the pictures you see and the films they make, it’s, to all intents and purposes, a Western country in the same terms as we talk about Japan, except, of course, don’t ever forget the clash between Japan and Korea. Now, as we come to an end, I’ve got to ask a question. What had it been all for? Was it worth it? Well, yes. One, it contained the advance of world communism, or at least it contained it for a time. Two, it was a warning shot over the bows of Mao’s China. Thus, in those senses it was successful. But I would suggest you that both those pluses are running out in 2024 in terms of China. And to take out the word, communism, and put in Russia and China and North Korea, yes, it is running out in 2024. There was no United Democratic Korea, which was an American aim. And today, America faces the possibility of clashes with North Korea. And it led into the Vietnam War, which was a much less successful engagement by the United States, which is next week’s story. But I wanted to read you a short bit from Clemons’ book, here. And writes this. “The USA had learned that communism was a global issue, and if they were to prevent its spread, then a global commitment was necessary. In the early 1950s, President Eisenhower spoke of the Domino Theory,” which we mentioned.
“While the policy may appear incredibly simplistic, it was nevertheless deeply held and later used to justify full-scale US involvement in the Vietnam War.” Now, if you were doing a university postgraduate course for me then that would be your title of your essay. “While the policy may appear incredibly simplistic, it was nevertheless deeply held.” That’s easy to write about. “And later used to justify full-scale US involvement in the Vietnam War,” discuss. Then I come to the final quotation for today, which comes from Brian Catchpole’s book, “The Korean War”, in which he writes this. “The Korean War was the first ever to be fought I the United Nations in response to an act of aggression by a Communist state. To the extent that it preserved the territorial integrity of South Korea from a Communist takeover, it was an undoubted success. Its ramifications, however, conditioned much of world history for the remainder of the century. America’s experience amidst the war ravaged hills of Korea led her to militarise the Cold War and to construct her own weapons of nuclear deterrence. This in turn compelled the Soviet Union to compete in a new and punitively expensive arms race that involved the expiration of space and the construction of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Ultimately, the arms race exhausted the resources of USSR, a major factor in the collapse of Soviet communism.” We are gaining more distance from the Korean War, and those sorts of statements now can be made, which of course they couldn’t be made at an earlier date. Could things have been done differently in Korea? Could America not have gone in? Well, I think that would’ve been a green light to the Russians and a green light to the Chinese. And you can’t do that, and that’s why we have to be careful about Ukraine.
We cannot give a green light to Russia. And it’s important why we stand firm on Taiwan. We cannot give a green light to Marxist China. So the Americans in my view were entirely right. They were lucky that Russia was boycotting the UN, and so they were able to get UN support. And that’s one of the things that’s changed. The UN is now, you must make your own judgement , but I see it as a wounded institution now, and I don’t know how it can be brought back into a meaningful institution. I’ve written here, “Korea stands today as a living example and a warning that the late 20th century supplies to the early 21st century.” Thank you for listening. And again let me say, if any of you served in Korea in any way, please do come on. I don’t mind if you come on and say, “What you said was absolute nonsense.” Everyone’s view who was there is really important to hear, so please do. Let me see what questions I’ve got. Have I got any? Yes, I’ve got quite a lot. Hang on, let me read what it says.
Q&A and Comments:
“I’m the same age as you and also remember five-years-old. First year at school, one girl had a much older brother sent to Korea from New Zealand.”
“Wow,” says Barbara. That’s very, very interesting.“ Isn’t that interesting? You were in New Zealand that a five-year-old and I was in Bristol as a five-year-old. "Two American-born members of the Kibbutz Barkai, who had served in World War II, refused to serve in the Korean War.” Sorry, I should have said, this is .
“Two American-born members of the Kibbutz Barkai, who had served in World War II, refused to serve in the Korean War, which they considered an unnecessary part of the Cold War and had their passports taken away. One of them was Dr. Simcha Bahiri who had worked with Professor Seymour Melman on military to civilian economic conversion at Columbia University. Eventually they got their passports back.”
Jeff says, “The pre-war boundary line was the 38th parallel. The Armistice Line was determined at the end of the war.” Yes, it’s the same thing.
David, “I have watched a lot of YouTube videos on North Korea and the very strange and peculiar law such as regimenting haircuts, banning jeans, etc.. As recently as today, reports are that Kim Jong Un has ordered the removal of the reunification of the reunification that his father had built.
David says, "Sorry, I missed out the word arch or monument to the reunification.” Yes. I wonder. Yes, I’ve also read that story here.
Q: Stuart, “How did the UN authorise UN forces about the USSR had a veto?”
A: Because the Security Council voted. As the USSR wasn’t there, it didn’t have a veto. It had boycotted it so it just ignored it. They simply weren’t there.
Rita, “Quoting Stuart , ‘The Soviet Union boycott of United Nation Security Council in 1950, which is why it did not be…’” Oh, thanks. I’ve just said that, thanks. Rita, you and I are always on the same hymn sheet.
Michael Ofield said, “The United Nations General Assembly passed a Uniting for Peace resolution, which requested UN members to intervene in Korea Militarily.” Yes, and that was the green light for the UK. In Vietnam, it was different.
Margaret, “We knitted blankets at my convent boarding school for donating to the Korean War. I don’t know who received them. We didn’t know anything about the war, though.”
Margaret, which country were you in? Is this Canada possibly or Britain? Ralph says, “I was a national serviceman in ‘51.” So he’s British. “There were two postings, Korea and Germany. Between two of us, I lost and the other soldier chose Korea. I went to Germany.” Ralph, how fantastically lucky that was.
Q: Anthony writes, “In 1910, why did Japan want Korea?”
A: It it wanted resources that Korea had, which Japan did not have. And they also wanted to expand to create a Japanese empire on the mainland. Remember, he invaded later Manchuria.
Mike, “I visited Japan a couple of times. My impression was that they considered all non-Japanese as subhuman.” The Japanese had, I don’t know where we stand today, but they had been extremely racist. I had a black friend at the college I worked at in London who would not go for that very reason.
David. My glasses are so bad. “The DPR case National Airline is Air Korea, which refers to Korea’s ancient name, Koguryŏ. It flies Russian-made planes and the world’s only one-star airline. Thanks for the warning. We shan’t be travelling to North Korea.
Alex says, "William, thank you. My father fought in the Korean War. His abiding memory was for the bitter winter cold. Are you wearing a UN tie?” No, I’m not. I actually bought this tie at the time of the massacre in Israel, and it’s meant to have the Israeli colours on it. But somehow or other, I bought it through the post and I lost it. And I think my wife must’ve have found it because when I went to get a blue tie out in the drawer, there it was. I’m sure I didn’t miss it. I don’t ask because she will have found it in some odd place and I shall have a lecture on why I should put things away carefully. But no, I bought it for Israel, not for the UN. I’m worried about the UN. Let me get rid of that.
Can I tell you a story? When I first came into adult education back in the late 1960s, I worked at a residential college, and we had a group come who were Federalists. They believed in federalism in every form. In other words, they wanted a federal brick. And the lady leading it was an incredible woman. And she was the wife, sorry, she was the sister, a married sister a Wingate, the eccentric British commander in the Far East in the Second World War. And she was called Monica Wingate. Now, I had never met her, and I was delegated as the youngest to greet her at the door when she came in. She’d recently retired as head of Balls Park Ladies Teacher Training College. And I was, and she was a groomed dame and I was meant to meet. And I met her and I went to shake hands and say, “Good afternoon. Welcome. Can I get you a cup of tea,” and all of that. Instead of which she said, “Young man, where is your copy of the United Nations Charter?” I just finished reading law at Oxford. I had a copy and it was in a room in the college, just a floor above. And I said rather smugly, “Oh, it’s in my room, Ms. Wingate, just upstairs.” “In your room?” She said. “It should be here.” She said, clasping her rather large bosom. “It should be here next to your heart, where mine is.” And for one awful moment, she was my age then, I thought for one awful moment this lady was going to unbutton and produce from her bra this United Nations Charter. But, you see, in those days there were people who strongly believed in the United Nations, and why shouldn’t they after the dreadful war? And now we’re in a different world. I’m sorry I told the story, but sometimes I think people like stories, and if you don’t like them, I like telling them so there it is. Where have I got to?
Louise, I was hoping you weren’t going to ask me what was the name of the Korean film on Netflix? I cannot remember. But if you put Korean film with monster in it or something, it should appear. You should be able to find it. It’s not the sort of film I would advise, but I found it interesting 'cause I was thinking about Korea at the time.
Alfred. Sorry, Alfred. Not , Alfred. “In Japanese, Korea’s called Chōsen. It gives a different meaning to the phrase, 'The chosen people’.”
Margaret, “In spite of there being no love loss between Japanese and Koreans, when I was teaching English for foreigners in Amsterdam in the ‘90s, I had classes full of young Japanese and Korean wives. I knew about the distrust between the races, but none of that was evident.” Oh, really? “They all got on well and enjoyed swapping recipes.” Oh well, that’s interesting to hear Margaret.
Q: James says, “Did Russia claim a part to Japan in '45?”
A: Yes, half the islands of Sakhalin, which is an extension of the Japanese archipelago northwards, which they did and now it is entirely Japanese. They’re entirely Russian. They lost the southern half. It was Russian before. They lost the southern half in the 1904, '05 war with Japan. The Russians will say it was righting a historical wrong.
Monique and Danny, “American history only taught that it was US and Anglo allies that defeated Japan. Russia did not declare war until the last 10 days.” I think I said that, “before the Japanese surrendered. USSR did take Japanese islands, but that is different than defeating Japan. What am I missing?” You’re not missing anything except, that’s what I said. If you didn’t hear me say that, I’m sorry, but you’re absolutely, positively right.
Q: Shelly, “The Japanese never apologised to or acknowledged their actions in Korea?”
A: No.
“Also, a lot of the Korean women were used as comfort women, prostitutes, in Japan.”
Betty, “When we visited South Korea, we were surprised to see that the few Japanese cars that were there were keyed, and the stain of the so-called comfort women,” oh, I’ve just mentioned that, “is still bitterly remembered according to our excellent guide. Korea’s now so high tech and it’s so advanced in every way. Such an industrious people.” Absolutely. It is, like Japan, an American success story. In these days when empires are highly criticised by the woke, we know all about that in Britain, it is nice to recall, but in effect, America Westernise and democratise both Japan and South Korea. It is not some small achievement is that.
Q: Monty, “Apartheid in South Africa classified Japanese as honorary whites because of trade between the two countries. Also, isn’t Putin now trying to rewrite the history of Europe?”
A: Of course, right on both counts.
Gene, “And the Chinese were non-whites.” Yes. Sometimes politics can do funny things with definitions and history.
Monique and Danny, “The Soviet Union had temporarily walked out of the UN and so did not veto.” Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, I think we’ve answered that.
Jacob Malick, “The Soviet represented United Nations act at a meeting at the Security Council, this time in reaction to the defeat of its proposal to expel nationalist Chinese representative.” You will remember that Taiwan, the Nationalist Chinese or Republican Chinese actually represented China on the Security Council for decades after the end of the war and after China had become Marxist. That’s another odd story.
Who says this? Dennis. Hello Dennis. “South Africa’s participation in the Korean War consisted of the Air Force Squadron known as the Flying Cheetahs. They flew over 12,000 sorties. Their commander, Theron, was the brother of our next door neighbour and friend who kept us up to date with developments. Oh, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much for that. Monique and Danny, "The Soviet Union boycotted, oh, we’ve been I think through that.
Mark. "Labelling pre-war South Korea as Democrat is inaccurate. It was dominated by the…” Yeah, I didn’t say that. Oh, you put it in inverted commas. So you’re correcting me anyhow. “There was an ongoing civil war between the Communists and the upper class after World War II. The division into North and South Korea was trying to settle it, not unlike North and South Vietnam. Like there, the US stepped into a civil war during the initial period of the Cold War.” Yeah. I’ll let what you say stand. I could comment further about that, but fair enough. Let me let that stand.
Steven says, “I worked as a doctor in 2001 in Sakhalin, serving the Western oil companies. I didn’t do any botany there. Sakhalin was the place from which a Soviet shot down Korean Airlines flight 007 on the 1st of September, 1983, after it strayed into Soviet airspace. How fantastic, I want to go to Sakhalin. I’d love to go and I think I’d be more interested in the flowers than in the oil.
David, "A school contemporary career while doing his national service and won an MC.” For those who aren’t British, a Military Cross, which is about as high an award as you can get, short of a VC. David, you must be older than I am, can I put it like that, how incredible.
Q: Galaxy, “Wasn’t MacArthur bitter after World War II? I think he wanted a major role in Japan but was moved.”
A: Well yes, he was always grumbling with the politicians. That’s the problem with somebody. I don’t know. It’s what you think about leadership. But I wasn’t in Truman’s office and I wasn’t dealing with the problems of the world as Truman was. But my gut instinct would be a Churchillian one, stick by MacArthur.
Q: “I think if Churchill had been president in the United States, he’d give him a go ahead to MacArthur. So who’s right?”
A: It really is a difficult one to call. And none of us know what we would do unless we were placed in that situation which, pray God, none of us ever will be. Who would want to make those sorts of decisions? And I suppose you could say there was, Truman prevented a loss of life, further loss of life. He prevented the loss of more American lives. He prevented a bigger war breaking out with even more loss of life. The question is, will we have to do it in the 21st century? In which case, maybe MacArthur was right.
David, “My father had a friend who served with the South African Air Force in Korea. His take-away was trying to teach rugby to his American counterpart.” Well David, good luck with that. That must be as difficult as trying to teach cricket. I love it.
Judith, “In my Jewish in the early '50s we sang, 'United Nations on the march with flags unfurled, Together fight for victory a free new world.’” Yeah, that’s what Monica thought. Well, I don’t think any of us would sing that now.
Jenny, “My father was in the South African Air Force and fought in World War II and the Korean War. On his return, I made the large message of red flanders poppies on the lawn in front of our home, ‘Welcome home.’ I was six, thinking he would see it from the plane. Maybe he did. Who knows.
Bert. Suzy, sorry. Oh well, that’s nice. People have reassured me that I didn’t bore you to death with my stories. Carol, "The UN has been hijacked by these immoral countries. The USA have been always a little naive in the world arena of foreign affairs. Today, we have no integrity and honesty. Also, Israel today is fighting an existential war,” which I agree with. “We always have and I’m afraid we always also will.”
Oh Carols said, “And by the way, I was Bristol.” Where I come from last year. I get some wonderful messages from you and I get some wonderful emails as well.
Sorry, who is this? .
Q: “I apologise if you’ve already explained this. Where has the original difference in the philosophy North and South Korea would begin?”
A: It began during the Japanese occupation. The North had more Marxists, the South, more Democrats. And it was always, I think, likely to split unless one could overcome the other. But the Communist would’ve won, had America and the allies not intervened. As they did, of course, by pushing the South into Pusan, in that little southern corner, southeastern corner.
Jeff, “I highly recommend the book, "The Girl With Seven Names” and “The Orphan Master’s Son”, for readers who want stories about present-day North Korea.“ There’s actually, Jeff, a lot of books about present-day North Korea, and they are fascinating. It is something beyond our, I was going to say, almost, let me say almost beyond our understanding.
Ruth, "There was an amazing exhibition showcasing the modernity and success of South Korea at the V & A recently. It was fascinating.” I didn’t know that. I missed that, but then I very seldom go to London.
Gloria, “1959, a school mate’s husband’s, , overturned in Korea while with the Canadian Forces.” Well, hopefully he survived.
And Jenny says, “Thank you, not to me, but thank you to Rita who’s always keeping…” I don’t know, David mentioned rugby but I can mention cricket. When you were children, you couldn’t rely upon the wicketkeeper collecting the ball after the bowler bowled and the batsman missed because we weren’t very good as children, so you had a long stop.“ There’s no real position in cricket called long stop, but in children’s cricket, it was somebody who was behind the wicket keeper to catch the balls that the wicket keeper lost. And I think Rita does the long stop position for me and I’m very grateful.
Thank you so much for listening. But particularly, thank you for those of you who gave personal stories. Some of you were kind enough to say you like my silly stories. The stories you have told tonight have not been silly. They’ve been very relevant stories, and in that way, very relevant stories and so a big thank you from me. Next week, we turn to something more difficult for the teacher to teach, and more difficult for a teacher who is not an American to teach, which is Vietnam. And I haven’t yet thought about how I structure it, so to get away in one piece. But by next week I shall have sort it out, I assure you. See you all I hope same time next week. Bye for now.