U.S. soldiers man a bunker during the war 27
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U.S. soldiers man a bunker during the war 27 |
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The Korean War, began with the invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, in a suprise attack by the North. The South Korean troops and the few U.S. troops there were badly outnumbered and were pushed back until they were finally in the South Korea city of Pusan.
From here, the South and the UN forces which supported it planned their strategy and attacked the North's army. On September 15, 1950, the UN troops landed at Inchon, in the middle of the peninsula. This attack cut off the main North Korean army, as they became trapped between the forces at Inchon and those at Pusan. The North suffered heavy losses.
On October 29, 1950, the Northern capital of Pyongyang fell to the UN forces. The war seemed nearly over; then Chinese forces entered the war on the side of the North. Their attacks pushed back the UN troops, and fighting heated up. By May 1951, the battle line was drawn along the present border between the two countries, near the 38th parallel. 30
The line that split the two sides, at least in the minds of the combatants, was the 38th parallel. This had been chosen by Russia and the U.S. after WWII to divide Japanese-occupied Korea into administrative districts. The U.S. never intended for the split to be permanent, but the war defined the 38th parallel as the line push the enemy back to (or beyond) for both sides.
The fighting ended in 1953 with a truce between the two sides, but tensions run very high. The DMZ, which runs along the former battle line, is a no-man's-land intended to keep the armies from provoking each other. Although there has been no real fighting for decades, the countries are still officially at war.