Milestones of the Korean War
“Preliminary” Events
May 7, 1945 (VE Day): Germany surrenders unconditionally, ending WWII in Europe.
August 14, 1945 (VJ Day): Japan surrenders, ending WWII.
August 26, 1945: United States announces its intention to occupy Japanese-held Korea south of the 38th parallel;
Soviet Union to occupy the north.
March 12, 1947: Truman Doctrine: Truman asks Congress to support "free peoples who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures." Congress grants $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey to
defend against Communist guerrillas.
June 5, 1947: Marshall Plan: Secretary of State George C. Marshall calls on European nations to draft plan for
European economic recovery, offering aid in planning and "later support." Eastern Europe walks out of initial Paris
meeting at Soviet behest. The following March, Congress votes to fund the Marshall Plan to aid 16 European nations.
July, 1947: Containment Policy: George F. Kennan, writing anonymously in Foreign Affairs, articulates America's
policy to block peacefully the expansion of Soviet political and economic influence into vulnerable areas of the world.
July 26, 1948: Truman issues Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces.
August 15, 1948: Republic of Korea (South Korea) is founded.
September 9, 1948: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) is founded.
1948 - Russians withdraw troops from North Korea
April 4, 1949: NATO established: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. Later joined by Greece, Spain, Turkey, and West Germany. In
1955 Soviet Union forms competing Warsaw Pact.
June, 1949 - US begins to withdraw troops from South Korea
October 1, 1949: People's Republic of China is established.
December 7, 1949: The Chinese Nationalist government retires to Taipei, Taiwan.
1950
February 15: Sino-Soviet Pact creates a bilateral defense commitment, settles historic territorial issues between China
and the Soviet Union, and initiates modest program of Soviet aid to China.
June 25: Trained and equipped by the Soviet Union, 90,000 North Korean troops cross the 38th parallel and invade
South Korea.
June 26: President Truman authorizes the U.S. Navy and Air Force to assist the South Korean military defend against
the invasion. Within three days, however, North Korean troops capture Seoul, the capital of South Korea.
June 27: The United Nations Security Council first adopts a cease fire resolution. The Soviet Union’s envoy to the UN
is not present, as he is boycotting the Security Council because it recognizes Nationalist China instead of Communist
China. The resolution passes the Security Council 9—0. In a few weeks, a second resolution will commit a UN force to
support the South Korean government.
June 30: General Douglas MacArthur visits the collapsing South Korean front lines and calls for U.S. troops. President
Truman commits U.S. ground troops to South Korea, announces a naval blockade of the Korean coast, and extends the
draft for another year. He also increases aid to the French fight against Communist rebels in Indochina.
July 8: A third UN resolution acknowledges American leadership of UN forces and Gen. Douglas MacArthur is placed
in command of UN troops in South Korea. Although U.S. and South Korean troops will form the bulk of the UN forces,
soldiers from sixteen nations, including Australia, Great Britain, and the Philippines, also see action. Initial U.S. troops
prove woefully unprepared for combat. Pulled from soft occupation duty in Japan, they lack training and are out of
shape and ill-armed. American military strength is at its lowest state of readiness since Pearl Harbor. In the first weeks
of fighting, U.S. forces are pushed back to a defensive perimeter at Pusan. American air power, which controls the skies
over Korea and harasses North Korean supply routes, is the only reason North Korea fails to overwhelm the South.
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Milestones of the Korean War
August 6: The North Korean offensive is finally stopped by the line around Pusan.
September 15: In what is usually considered the single most brilliant stroke in his long military career, General
MacArthur sends an amphibious assault on the port city of Inchon, deep behind North Korean lines. The invasion force
encounters light resistance and moves quickly toward Seoul. With dangerously over extended supply lines, the North
Koreans are trapped between MacArthur’s landing force and the defenders at Pusan. They begin an immediate retreat
back across the border. Two weeks after the landing at Inchon, Seoul is recaptured by UN troops, who meet
unexpectedly stiff resistance from remaining North Korean troops in the capital.
September 29: The UN forces reach the 38th parallel, marking the boundary separating North and South. Presumably,
the aims of the war have been accomplished with the North driven back across its border. But Korean President S Rhee
announces his intention to continue the war by uniting Korea under his rule and punishing the North for its aggression.
This plan is fully supported by MacArthur, a staunch anti-Communist, and the American military command in
Washington, but any action against China is expressly ruled out.
October 7: Shifting from the containment policy to a goal of overthrowing a Communist government, MacArthur’s UN
forces invade North Korea. The move is denounced by the Communist government of China, which says it will not
stand idly by. The Chinese threat is ignored as a bluff. The United States has no relati6ris with China, and only
recognizes the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan (Formosa) not the Communist government of
Mao Zedong, who controls the mainland. Nearly one million Chinese troops had been massed in Manchuria.
October 8: Mao Zedong secretly orders Chinese “volunteers” into Korea.
October 15: President Truman and General MacArthur meet on Wake island. Truman wants to rein in the headstrong
soldier who has spent his career countering presidential orders. Truman leaves Wake thinking that MacArthur is
resolved to abide by his general orders.
October 20: UN troops capture the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and continue to advance north toward the Yalu
River, the border with Manchuria.
November 1: Massing under the cover of smoke from huge forest fires, Chinese troops attack South Korean troops in
the North, destroying one army.
November 2: General MacArthur announces that the Chinese constitute a serious threat. Under attack by the Chinese,
the U.S. Eighth Army retreats south.
November 4: A massive Chinese counteroffensive begins. MacArthur reports that the Chinese are in Korea in such
numbers that they threaten his command, and demands reinforcements.
November 6: Abandoning their concealment tactics, a million Chinese move into Korea. U.S. pilots watch a steady
stream of Chinese troops cross the Yalu River separating Korea from Manchuria. MacArthur announces a plan to bomb
the Yalu bridges, but it is overruled by Washington. MacArthur begins a political offensive in favor of all-out war
against the Chinese that will not only reunite Korea but topple the Communist government in China, allowing Chiang
Kai-shek to retake the mainland. In his worst strategic maneuver, MacArthur has split his armies, and the Chinese
easily drive through the center of the UN forces.
December 5: In the face of enormous Chinese manpower willing to accept huge casualties, UN troops abandon
Pyongyang and are eventually pushed out of the North. The Chinese continue their offensive, promising to drive the
Americans into the sea, MacArthur reports to Truman, “We face an entirely new war.”
December 8: President Truman announces an embargo on U.S. goods shipped to China.
December 16: President Truman declares a national emergency and calls for an army buildup to 3.5 million men. Three
days later, Dwight Eisenhower, who is serving as president of Columbia University, is named supreme commander of
Western European (soon to become NATO) defense forces.
December 29: General MacArthur announces that the United States should attack China, and advocates atomic attacks
on China and the use of half a million Nationalist Chinese troops to overthrow the Communist government in China.
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Milestones of the Korean War
1951
January 4: Chinese troops capture Seoul. MacArthur complains about being hampered by Truman’s decision not to
bomb Chinese supply dumps in China. UN troops eventually regroup and halt the Chinese offensive.
March 14: UN forces recapture Seoul and eventually push Chinese troops back across the border.
April 5: In the United States, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death on their conviction of passing atomic
secrets to the Soviet Union. The execution will be carried out in June 1953.
April 11: President Truman removes General MacArthur as commander in Korea after MacArthur openly defies
Truman’s plan to negotiate a Korean peace. In March, General Matthew B. Ridgeway takes command of forces in
Korea. Returning to the States as a national hero and greeted by huge crowds (some reports put New York crowds
welcoming MacArthur in a ticker- tape parade at 7 million). On April 19, MacArthur addresses a joint session of
Congress with a speech urging an expanded war against China. He concludes his speech by saying:
I am closing my fifty-two years of military service. When I joined the army, even before the turn
of the century, it was the fulfillment of all my boyish hopes and dreams.
The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the
hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular
barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier
who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good-by.
There is a huge popular outcry against Truman, and thousands of letters calling for his impeachment descend on the
White House and Congress.
July 10: While fighting continues, the United States joins peace talks between the UN and China. The U.S. goal is a
negotiated truce confirming the status quo before the war — a return to the containment policy.
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January 24: Peace talks with the Chinese are declared stalled. The war continues, fought primarily in a seesaw battle in
North Korea’s cold, rugged mountain terrain. These battles, for Heart break Ridge, Bloody Ridge, the Punchbowl,
and other hills essentially end in a bloody stalemate, bringing to mind the trench warfare of World War I.
November 4: Dwight D. Eisenhower, promising to go to Korea if elected, is elected President. Richard M. Nixon is his
Vice-President. His opponent, Democrat Adlai Stevenson, has won only nine states.
December 5: President-elect Eisenhower visits troops in Korea and attempts to break the stalemate in truce talks.
1953
July 27: An armistice is signed at Panmunjon, halting the Korean fighting. The fighting ends where it started, at the
38th parallel. A peace treaty has never been signed by the two sides.
What were the results of the Korean War?
The war cost America more than 54,000 dead and another 100,000 casualties. More than 2 million Koreans were killed
in the fighting. After three years, the situation in Korea was almost exactly what it had been when the North first
attacked the South. All of the fighting and deaths had changed almost nothing, and it has remained that way to this day.
At home, the war produced a massive call for militarization and a buildup of American conventional and nuclear
forces—strengthening what President Eisenhower himself would later label “the military-industrial complex.”
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