President Truman Relieves Gen MacArthur of Command
https://youtu.be/U7Siq4eFS-8 With the UN military situation in Korea improving in early 1951, President Harry S. Truman was contemplating offering a peace negotiation to Communist China. However, in late March 1951 General Douglas MacArthur independently challenged...
read more
General Mathew Ridgway assumes command of 8th Army
https://youtu.be/wJG4fI6e7bE After General Walton "Johnnie" Walker, the commander of the US 8th Army in Korea, died in a jeep accident in December 1950, he was replaced by General Matthew Ridgway. General Ridgway was a seasoned veteran of WWII where he commanded the...
read more
Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River
https://youtu.be/F8UGXcSItC0 Along the Ch'ongch'on River On November 25, 1950, the Chinese 13th Army launched a series of surprise attacks along the Ch’ongch’on River Valley, decimating the U.S. 8th Army’s right flank while allowing Chinese forces to move rapidly...
read more
U.N. Forces Evacuate from Hungnam North Korea
https://youtu.be/VPUVcOiYodM Despite the rousing background music of the Battle Hymn of the Republic on this video, the harrowing retreat from the Chosin Reservoir debacle to the coast at Hungnam was desperate and dispiriting for US Marines and Infantry. Encyclopædia...
read more
Chosin Reservoir
https://youtu.be/JOxvHkBpYX8 For Americans, the tragic battle at the Chosin (Changjin) Reservoir in late November 1950 might be compared to Custer's last stand. For the victorious Chinese Communists it was a Pyrrhic victory with heavy losses. In the initial phases of...
read more
Beetle Bailey
Wikipedia Beetle Bailey, an American comic strip by Mort Walker was first published in September 1950. Set on a fictional United States Army post, the comic strip satirized the life of an Army private during American wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf,...
read more
US Army Reaches Yalu River
On November 13, 1950 US Navy carrier planes destroyed ~85% of the military camp at Hyesanjin. on the Yalu River between North Korea and China. Yalu River - Wikipedia On November 21, 1950 US Army 7th Division elements of X Corps occupied Hyesanjin and surrounding...
read more
Truman & MacArthur on Wake Island
Source: October 1950 - Wikipedia https://youtu.be/rfmejTkQ4Lw On October 15, 1950 (one day after the Chinese army had crossed the Yalu) U.S. President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur met on Wake Island to confer about...
read more
MASH
The Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) was a fully functional hospital unit maintained by the U.S. Army Medical Corps in a combat zone. MASH units, established in August 1945, were deployed during the Korean War and later...
read more
Task Force Smith
https://youtu.be/Qk4lKp1C3ls On July 5, 1950 the first engagement between United States forces and the North Korean People's Army (KPA) occurred near the city of Osan south of Seoul Korea.400 infantry men of Task Force Smith, supported by an artillery battery, were...
read more
INVASION OF SOUTH KOREA
On June 25, 1950 ~ 90,000 soldiers of the Korean People's Army (KPA), well-trained and equipped with modern tanks, trucks, artillery and small arms by the USSR, crossed the 38th parallel in eight divisions and an armored brigade to invade South Korea....
read more
People’s Republic of China
Song of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) Forward! Forward! Forward!Our army faces towards the sun,Over the ground of our Motherland,Carrying the hope of our nation, We are an invincible power!We are the sons of peasantry,We are the arms of the people! Always...
read more
Korean Turmoil
In 1945 the unconditional surrender of Japan led to the division of Korea into two occupation zones. The 1945 division of Korea was meant to be temporary. The stated Allied intention was to reunify the country once a single government could be...
read more
U.S. Demobilizes Armed Forces
The USA had > 12 million men and women under arms at the end of WWII (7.6 million overseas). With increasing public demand for rapid demobilization, military personnel were returned to the U.S. on hundreds of transport ships and airplanes through Operation...
read more
Eisenhower Appointed Army Chief of Staff
Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York In 1915 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. During WWI, Eisenhower commanded a tank training...
read more
German POWS
Unlike the treatment of German POWs in the USA, the Allied treatment of German military prisoners in Europe at the end of the war is quite controversial. With titles like Eisenhower's Death Camps, The Real Holocaust, The Last Dirty Secret of WWII and Eisenhower...
read more
Post-War Germany
https://vimeo.com/126267047 23 May, 1945 — President of Germany Karl Dönitz and Chancellor of Germany Count Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by British forces at Flensburg. They are respectively the last German Head of state and Head of government until...
read more
Okinawa Falls
For the Japanese, Okinawa was the last stepping stone before the invasion of the main islands of the Empire of Japan. The ferocious Battle of Okinawa lasted 82 days. Many analysts believe that Japanese military leaders, realizing the war was lost, hoped to inflict...
read more
Dunkirk
After seeing the new movie DUNKIRK directed by Christopher Nolan last night, I wanted to recommend it to you readers. Like the top film critics, I found this film technically flawless and emotionally extremely powerful. The film's soundtrack by Hans Zimmer kept...
read more
Buchenwald Liberated
WARNING: This post contains many graphic images. The motto "Jedem das Seine" displayed over the entrance to the Buchenwald concentration camp, is an old German proverb derived from the Latin phrase "suum cuique" meaning "to each his own" or "to each what he...
read more
Okinawa
Wikimedia
read more
Cabanatuan Raid
In January 1945, 511 emaciated Allied soldiers (mostly survivors from the fall of Bataan and Corregidor) and a few civilians were held at a Japanese prison camp, near Cabanatuan on the Philippine island of Luzon. After 33 months of brutal captivity, the majority of...
read more
Chenogne Massacre
https://youtu.be/rYEp9wl7b4U The January 1945 massacre of ~60 German POWs near the Belgian village of Chenogne by American troops was one of the war crimes committed by both sides during the bitter Battle of the Bulge. Carried out shortly after the...
read more
Battle of Luzon
From January-August 1945 the Allies fought a land battle against Japanese forces on the island of Luzon. Although the Allies had control of all strategically and economically important locations of the island by March, pockets of Japanese...
read more
Execution of Pvt. Slovik
This haunting scene from the 1963 film The Victors depicts the Christmas Eve execution of a GI deserter modeled after Private Eddie Slovik. Private Eddie Slovik was the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for...
read more