The Korean War Week 003 - Never Fear, MacArthur's Here! - July 9, 1950
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- American troops have arrived in Korea and engage the KPA- the forces of the North- in the field this week for the first time. It does not go well for them. In fact, it's hard to imagine it going worse. The Americans are outnumbered and outgunned and are routed. In fact, the KPA are advancing all over the country, though they are taking heavy casualties themselves.
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Marek Kamiński
Community Management: Jake McCluskey
Written by: Indy Neidell
Research by: Indy Neidell
Map animations by: Daniel Weiss
Map research by: Tom Aldis
Editing and colour grading by: Simon J. James
Artwork by: Mikołaj Uchman
Sound design by: Simon J. James & Marek Kamiński
Colorizations by: Mikołaj Uchman
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Really need to describe the terrain in detail. Mountains in the south stripped bare from Japanese occupation . Rocky Mountains rising high from the flat agricultural fields. The fields a marshy bog from monsoon rains. The land of Korea is different from anywhere in America and the rest of the world. One of the neatest places I’ve ever lived. Keep up the great work. As an aside some US soldiers thought South Korea soldiers smelled like garlic and Kimchi. Some South Koreans thought Americans smelled like sour milk and meat. Good Soldiers All.
I hope you guys do a special episode and collab with Ryan when the Battleship New Jersey enters the war
@@Losantiville ❤Garlic and Kimchi 😉
@@Vtarngpb Cucumber kimchi is my favorite
❤
When my grandfather came back with the rest of the US troops he told my mom's family to never ask him about what he saw in Korea. Thank you for remembering the Forgotten War.
Same thing with my grandfather. My family would tell me how they'd ask him stuff, and he refused to answer.
Document everything. I can't emphasize it more
Same
my grandfather told me but he was warning me about the dangers of the left
@@theenchiladakid1866🙄totally… “the left”….
Its not like right wingers aren’t capable of terrible things…
Its the entirety of the left wing of politics and society, and right wingers are somehow incapable of similar things…
Many years ago, as a VA psychologist, I treated a Korean War veteran who was part of that initial wave that was thrown back in retreat. He had severe PTSD from being part of the collapse and barely making it to Pusan where the US held out. Thanks for covering the forgotten war, some of us remember
Thank you for working in the VA... The organization as a whole gets a bad wrap, but everyone I have worked with/through on a personal level have been pretty awesome. Be proud for taking care of us 😉
Same as guy above. VA has been great to me. Thanks for your time with them
There's a monument and a museum located at the very hill where Task Forth Smith had been deployed in this battle. It's called the Osan Jukmiryeong Peace Park. South Korea has numerous monuments and museums commemorating the Korean War battles including the one in Incheon that commemorates MacArthur's Inchon Landings.
Thank you for sharing this with us, we plan to cover it in as much detail as we can and give it the coverage it deserves.
My father was was there too. Eighteen years old. He came back ruined by ptsd and drank himself into an early grave in 74... not one penny to my mother for his service. This helps me understand the conditions that led to his inability to deal with reality, ever again.
I worked at a gun store and one of my customers was a WWII and Occupation of Japan veteran. His only WW2 combat experience was seeing a 🇯🇵 plane attack his base once, then the war ended. He got out before Korea. We were talking about the M1 Garand rifle and he said "I don't know, I never fired it"... During his occupation time 1945 - 1950 the weapons were just counted and stored. Indy's description was exactly what the vet described to me regarding Army life in Japan at that time.
"...Army life in Japan at that time..." No problem enforcing order upon a docile population, and plenty of Japanese girlfriends.
Shocked but not shocked to hear the “I never fired a Garand” line from an ex soldier after serving in US army in 1949. Wow.
@@MrShobar Or "girlfriends".
@@dabda8510 specifically his time in Japan. I am sure he fired it in training Stateside but the scope of his statement was during overseas World War 2 plus all occupation time.
@@Healermain15consent is such a woke concept.
I worked with a Korea war vet, he was in Pusan. Was 19 and partying in Tokyo one day, next day in Pusan. Within the week he was back in Tokyo a now wounded vet in a hospital. Ed was a great guy.
That's one quick career
Thanks for sharing it with us! -TimeGhost Ambassador
"Go Stop those guys" "With what?" "Whatever, I don't care." A story as old as history.
Yes stopping invading armies tends to be the most important thing ever
My maternal granddad was drafted into the Wehrmacht at about 17 years old. He was a horse handler but when they desperately needed men on the eastern front in Poland he and his unit got orders to attack an enemy position. The dialogue went "Tonight we attack!" Granddad: "...with what?"
11:15 in i see why the modern military is obsessed with making sure you clean and keep track of your rifle
Things can still go very sour if you don't. From what I heard many of the M16s belonging to the soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company wouldn't fire during their ambush in Nasiriyah in 2003. Apparently they never cleaned them once they landed in Kuwait and sand got in through the open magazine wells.
@@peteranderson037 I was about to bring up Nasariyah but you beat me to it.
@@peteranderson037 Something that many people do not understand about the Army is that most of the troops are not combat soldiers and do not see or fire their weapons very often. Expecting support soldiers to fight like infantry is not realistic or expected.
@@peteranderson037another stupid thing the military does never covers the mag well while in transport and then gets surprised 😮 why it dirty inside the giant hole in the bottom of the weapon
@@peteranderson037and yeah you are supposed to clean your weapon, it’s just rhetorical military wants you to over clean it way too much
“We’re the AVENGERS, not the prevengers” -Douglas MacArthur probably
lol
“Anti-communists, Assemble”
-Truman, probably
it's true i was there
"Don't worry you got this, I have to go now, because, um, message from Washington" McArthur, back to the enemy.
😂
I enlisted in the U.S.Army in 1976,at Infantry School we were told "No More Task Force Smith's"
Grandfather served in Korea, 92nd AFA. He was always sour about the Korean War being labeled "The Forgotten War", and I really wish I asked him more about his time over there before he passed. Very happy to see the conflict getting the recognition it deserves from this series.
Document everything. I can't emphasize it more. Your local Legion/VFW can help you understand it if you need it 😉
We aim to give it the coverage it deserves! Thank you for watching.
@@TheKoreanWarbyIndyNeidell Thank You for giving us a little background, before the war started. I didn't know why, Korea was split in two, from the beginning. (1945ish) I didn't know that the Soviets, entered Korea (I assumed pushed the Japanese out of that region). Nor did I know that any US Forces, were in Korea at the time. I just thought, neither the Soviets, nor the Americans entered Korea, and thus Korea, was pretty much, left to its own devices, without any outside influence(s). However, I hope this is covered in your channel. A more in-depth episode or two, on this time period. Definitely no offense to you nor your channel. I enjoy these series. Just have a lot of questions, from when WW II ended in Korea, til the Korean War started.
Ah, MacArthur. Surely nothing bad will happen under his command right? Smooth sailing just like the Pacific...
Plus, i do love that fallout game series....
I agree, but the Inchon landings were his finest hour. Of course, he got caught with his pants down a few months later...as usual.
I mean, radiation only last a couple of weeks anyway...
@@Moromom22 I'm sure everyone will be "Home by Christmas" , hey! that sounds like a good name for an Operation🤔
@@Larrymh07probably too busy lobbying for another moh
Spoiler: There aren’t any spies in the state department, however the British spy they ask to find the Russian spies in the state department is actually the Russian spy they are looking for.
Spoiler: McCarthy was right and was vindicated when documents were made public in the 90s. Read "Blacklisted by History" by M. Stanton Evans. Joseph McCarthy was right.
It's not Philby, is it?
@@Notto-tn9dy Philby is at this time MI5 head of station in DC charged with making sure the new boys in Langley know what they are doing. So they don’t just hand over a break into historical Soviet diplomatic traffic, only possible because of a Moscow fur cup, to the most valuable KGB asset in DC.
You might think it’s him. I couldn’t possibly comment.
There were in fact plenty of communists in the state department, as revealed by Soviet documents declsssified after the Cold War ended
Spoilers brah lol
My father came home from WWII in 1946 and went to a college with an army officer training program. He wasn't in the military program, but many of his classmates who returned from WWII were. He said many of those men got killed in Korea. How terrible, to survive the worst of WWII then get sent to fight an even more brutal, and unanticipated, war a few years later. One war in the prime of life is enough, and those men fought two. Alas, a lot of them never made it home.
good point, and a terrible fate for thoes men. Thanks for sharing.
A few British soldiers captured in Korea had earlier been POWs of the Japanese in WW2. In the earlier experience Korean guards in Japanese service had often been especially brutal.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Sometimes, we in civilian life may be prone to thinking life is unjust. But nothing could be more unjust than being POWs of a brutal regime twice in one's life.
@@alansewell7810 oh, quit being such a sycophant for the war machine
13:10 - Col. Martin was killed by a direct hit from a T-34's main gun - apparently he was trying to fire a bazooka at it.
That's how bad things got. It seemed that the only people who would stay and fight were officer and NCO veterans from WWII.
The old veterans is probably the only ones that is actually combat effective
.....and all of the veterans got killed by the time the fight reach Taejon.
Only rookies, who are demoralized and traumatized to be expecting for an effective combat performance, and Commander Dean as well as his staff are left as the survivors of Task Force Smith.
Classic US Army learning things the hard way.
We often think of the US being an all encompassing super power after WW2 but the details from this week and last really shows just how in rough shape the US military was. 1/2 million men TOTAL in the Army, just 70,000 Marines, ships being mothballed, excess aircraft sold for scrap. Plus a military with mostly new recruits with 0 training and combat experience really shows how an elite fighting force can erode in such a short time.
Truman deserves a lot of blame here, as the CinC, it costs almost nothing to have guys train with small arms.
But that had been the history of the US Military for 160 years: mass mobilization of warfighting power "for the duration" then melt away to basically a garrison force immediately afterward. The Founders' skepticism about large standing armies on permanent war footing endured, even in spite of an entirely different world order where the US was committed *like it or not* to project force as top power of the West.
@@chedelirio6984 The Truman administration is also a hive of Communist sympathisers and spies.
@@chedelirio6984This is the war that destroyed that pattern. After this, there would be 'No More Task Force Smiths'
Even after the Cold War we did a pretty big drawdown of the military. I was in the Navy during that time. A lot of bases were being closed. And for good reason, they were expensive. Now that said, the military did manage to keep up their potency during this drawdown in the 90's. So they appeared to have learned their lesson.
My grandfather was a WWII vet who went on to occupy Japan post-war and then saw action in Korea. He very well could have been part of some of the earliest forces in Korea. Wild to be hearing about the details like this, but I do remember hearing some stories of his time there that could curl your hair
do tell
This is what's so great about this format. Watching any other docu on the Korean War has a massive push to the south in the first 5 minutes and explains how the fighting was tough as hell on the leftover ground, while this is showing how long it actually takes. Thanks for the new series Indie and crew!
As if this format didn't take 20 times more money to make... what do you think the Ghost Time Army is for?
Covering it this way really does give a great sense of scale and time, with World War Two, the start of the war can feel like almost a life time ago but we are still yet to reach the conclusion of the war. Likely, the same will be felt here. Thanks for watching and thank you for the comment.
Sounds like a prime example. Why you need to have a well-trained military force. They couldn't even disassemble and reassemble their guns. That's insane to me
They should have trained like Forrest Gump, he was quite skilled at that.
Truman doesn't get NEAR enough criticism for his absolutely DISASTROUS reduction of the military post-1945. It left America and our allies dangerously exposed to Communist (and most notably, Soviet) aggression on nearly all fronts. He had to do a peacetime military draft in the late 40s just to get the numbers back up once the Communists started going full tilt with their provocations and expansion goals (such as with Berlin). The fact that we saved South Korea at all is an absolute miracle and a tribute to the hearts, bravery and skill of our soldiers and their allies (despite as Indy said their frequent lack of experience).
As someone who was in the military, though far after the Korean War...that sounds absolutely insane to me as well. Hell, at Parris Island we had to assemble & reassemble our weapons blindfolded & it was timed. You did it so often to clean & maintain them that it was all muscle memory.
@thunderbird1921 the US used to simply demobilize the military after a major war. Truman was just following the playbook. His military and political advisors thought nothing of it. The sad fact is that the world had changed, notably the role the US had to play. Korea was a slap of reality that would change the views of what a peacetime military ought to be.
B,buh...but PEACETIME!
Hearing that the initial batch of soldiers didn't know how to clean or field strip their rifles is insane to me as an army veteran. I guess I now know why they make us do it so often.
I read in history about a very unique situation that existed in Japan, Itazuke Air Base now Fukuoka was an accompanied tour with families present, an F-80 pilot could leave his house in the morning and fly real combat missions and be home for dinner at night with his family, maybe his wife asked him how his day at work was.
This was common during the war - US aircraft based in Japan would carry out airstrikes in Korea, then fly back to "normal" life in Japan. Unless, of course, they were shot down. MacArthur later complained about MiGs flying out of the "privileged sanctuary" of China to fight over Korea, but he forgot that for the Americans, Japan was also a privileged sanctuary.
I've heard stories about my grandma who had to hide under the floorboards of her house because DPRK guerillas in the nearby mountains of her village would come down occasionally, raid all of their supplies and kill anyone young enough to put up a fight. This was happening even years after the ceasefire. Thank you for remembering the forgotten war.
Yes that definitely happened
North Korea up until the 90s would send commandos into the South. My father worked for the South Korea government before immigrating to the US. He told me the South government had to evacuate remote villages located near the DMZ and on islands because of the North Korean guerillas.
@@user-ou9qd9no5n you good? lol
Just as I started getting nostalgic about the end of WW2 and the weekly updates I've been faithfully watching for years you guys gift us with three more years of action. God bless you all.
Three more years of blood, sweat, tears, hate, and death. Check out Sebastian Junger's Ted Talk... Yet her I am as well. Just saying
Spoilers!
Plenty more years to come, thanks for being with us.
My dad was called up, but his service in WWII and being married prevented his being drafted. My wife's uncle served in both WWII and Korea.
I spent the 80s in the Army...the training schools for NCOs often referenced the events of the early Korean War as a cautionary tale, and to emphacsize the duty of NCOs at squad/section, platoon and company level to insure both maintenance and training in fundamental skills. Task Force Smith and other items were spoken about.
My great grandfather served in Korea, and it's nice to have a series about it from this channel
I'm glad this series is a thing, I know a Korean war vet who has talked about some of his experiences during this time. And the fact that he was one of the survivors known as the "Chosin few " (yes I know that's more into the future of this series)
This series is already impressive. The scripts, the set, the pics and vids, and the quality of video and audio production has become the standard in UA-cam style documentary making. You guys seem to consistently put 99 cents out of every dollar straight onto the screen. Thanks for being so dedicated. This series is going to be great. 👍🏻
Thanks a lot for those kind words mate! -TimeGhost Ambassador
My late former Father in Law served in Korea. The only thing he ever mentioned was that it was cold, he only occasionally got a shower and his unit did get a hot meal at Thanksgiving.
That's all.
Thank you for sharing this. It must have deeply affected him.
The complete lack of physical training and basic infantry skills (like maintenance of your weapon, knowing the basic tactical moves) is just baffling from today's perspective.
I'm fascinated to think that beginning here, one of the many American troops who would find themselves in Korea was my grandfather, a US Army Ranger. I saw this patch he had with a quote along the lines of, "I must be going to heaven because I've already been through hell."
Document everything. I can't emphasize it more
🙏🏾
Love the new series!
Great to hear!
Trust me, we learned from Task Force Smith. Their sacrifice was noted and we adapted.
We have to Re-learn things all the time brother😉
I served in the 21st. Infantry in 90-92 and "Task Force Smith" was still referenced for training. Soldiers fight partially on their Unit historys.
Why isn't this series going viral?
This is even better than the ww2 series, incredible stuff as usual from time ghost
The Korean war doesn't have the same mass appeal and cultural presence as WW2 and killing Nazis, the casually interested audience just isn't as big.
That said, let Indy and the gang cook, we're almost at 100k subs after only 3 episodes and no specials, besides, WW2 is still going on so people are still getting their fix there.
@@NewfieOn2Wheelsit’s not a long string of glorious American victories, so it’s not as big in American pop culture.
MASH (which was really about Vietnam anyway) is probably the only media on the Korean War most Americans have seen, Bridges at Toko Ri maybe for some.
@@dimas3829 *_Did the right thing by openly backing up Ukraine_*
So much typos in your comment, there I fixed it for you.
@@dimas3829Grow up.
@@dimas3829 Wow... and all those unhinged russian lies and utter nonsense you just spewed forth 😂 and I'm the one drinking kool-aid... you putin fanbois sure aren't very bright.
Historians only need to be objective about history.
My dad was an officer in the Vietnam war. He eventually served on command and general staff. He said that their intel from Task Force Smith was: It was such a small unit, they thought it was scouting force or a screen. Hence the NK tanks rolling through and not stopping to destroy the potions and the units they encountered.
I've watched many documentaries about this war, but NONE of them had this much detail and explanation. Good show, Old Boys!
Thank you very much!
It’s crazy to think that this war was caused by an ineffectual posture from the United States considering the next 50 years of history. I always though Eisenhower’s brazenness during his leadership of the cold war was detrimental but it would appear that making clear a war would happen was great deterrence. This is made clear by Kim Il Sung when he stated he wouldn’t have invaded if he knew the Americans were going to arrive in force. Damn, now I want to learn the historiography of the Korean war.
And now, Ukraine war caused by same
@@user-ou9qd9no5n not untrue
Cute take-away.
Part of any deterrence is making the enemy think that so much as attempting their funny plans will end in disaster.
@@DokturProfesur The world badly needs to return to the era where US global supremacy was so assured and iron-willed that they could literally be like Dirty Harry and go "Go Ahead, Make My Day".
19:58 My sainted father was on the USS Valley Forge when the Korean War started. He worked the flight deck as an aviation electronics technician. This was his second war since he served in the Mediterranean and Pacific during World War II as a boatswain's mate. Having spent World War II on a light cruiser (the USS Birmingham) and dodged injury and death on three occasions (Japanese bombs/torpedoes at Bougainville, an exploding carrier at Leyte and a kamikaze attack off Okinawa), he said that the Korean War was pretty tame. The only casualties were airplanes that didn't return from air strikes.
Please do a series on the Chinese Civil War as well after World War II wraps up! It's one of the most important conflicts of the contemporary era but rarely gets any attention.
It's really quite shocking how unprepared the US was for this war. The basic lack of anti tank weapons is especially noticeable. It's hard to believe this is only 5 years after the end of WW2.
1 thing to keep in mind that the US has sold or given away their weapons and still have a large army in Europe at the time which had all the focus.Most of the elements in europe kept their weaponry leaving the Korean units with practically the left overs at the start.
Something to remember, these were Occupation troops. You don't need heavy weapons to instill law and order.
Once you read up on how badly Truman gutted the military post-1945, it shouldn't be too surprising. America's bomber force for example was almost reduced to nothing but some B-36 Peacemakers and a few B-29s for carrying nuclear bombs. We were literally having to pull old Superforts out of desert storage just to have sufficient aerial forces for Korean War raids. It took America until 1953 and over 37,000 of our soldiers' lives (plus hundreds of thousands of South Korean lives) for us and our partners to learn what we should have known by 1945: You must ALWAYS be prepared and you CANNOT weaken your strategic positions or forces when a major power with likely hostile intentions is well-prepared to make a move.
@@thunderbird1921which is, for what it’s worth, what the Constitution prescribes. The army can only be funded for two years at a time, the militia (now called the National Guard) was supposed to be the primary deterrent to invasion.
That we’ve had a huge standing army for generations now would have left many founding fathers very disappointed.
@@Justanotherconsumer Which had happened after every war until then, there had ensued a demobilization down to garrison and frontier forces. Which in turn reminds us, not everything what people could think of in 1787 will be something that *works* in 1950 (or 2024).
My BIL's cousin wrote a history of his West Point class of 1949 in the Korean War. In my second tour of Korea I was several kilometers away from where he served during the war.
Wow, I can already tell I'm going to learn a lot on this series. I knew things were pretty rough starting out, but jeepers! Thanks, Indy and team for providing the opportunity.
And thank you for watching the series!
I find it incredible that there were no anti- tank weapons around. How frightening that must have been. Thanks so much for doing The Korean War !
IF ROKA had just a few 57mm anti tank guns with appropriate anti armor shells, they could've have stopped the North Korean tanks (and its army) in its track.
There are only a few useable approaches for attacking army to use coming from the north into Seoul. Points where advance of tanks can be choked off with just some anti tank guns with anti armor shells.
US govt did supply ROKA with some 57mm (or 37mm) anti tank guns, but only with high explosive shells.
Anti armor shells were SPECIFICALLY excluded in the supply by US army/govt because someone in US army (apparently based in S. Korea) concluded Korean peninsula is not suitable tank country, and so N Koreans will think the same and not employ tanks like idiots. How wrong they were...
I learned of this while reading memoirs by Paik Sun-yup. That's a name you will become familiar as you learn more about ROKA in the Korean war.
love that the set and clothing changed era as well. its the details that make this channel special
Thank you!
12:20 Error alert. North Korea didn't equip AK47 yet until 1958 as Type 58 assault rifle based the Kalashnikov rifle, while the Soviet has equipped AK47 from 1948 to replace the WW2 weapons.
Should also be noted it took years for even the Soviet's own troops to fully equip itself with the AK-47. For a while they were heavily supplemented by SKS', and rear-line troops would use Mosins for years to come. The Soviets downsized their army far less than western countries (primarily due to much higher occupation requirements and multiple military operations soon after WW2) so it wasn't feasible to even have most of their front line troops equipped with AK-47s until much later. The AKM would already be in service before the entire bulk of the standing army had AK-47s, at which point production sped up greatly and the entire front line force was equipped.
A few SKS semi-automatic rifles were used in Korea, but no AKs. For the most part the KPA rifle was the Mosin-Nagant. When the Chinese came in they had a motley selection of old Chinese bolt-action rifles like the Hanyang, Japanese Arisakas, American weapons like Thompson guns captured from the Kuomintang, etc. Later on they were re-equipped with Mosin Nagants.
The Soviets quietly replaced the AK-47 with the SKS while they were sorting out the kinks with the design. It wasn't until 1953 did the AK-47 became the actual standard rifle of the Soviet Army before it got replaced by the AKM (the TRUE AK-47).
Note: the first AK-47 (AK-47-1) were made of stamped steel sheets which due to subpar manufacturing proved inadequate (cracks appearing in critical areas like the mag well and front trunnion). By 1953, the AK-47 got back into service as a fully-milled gun (AK-47-3) but given the expense of milliing out critical parts of the gun from solid steel it was replaced in 1959 with the AKM which was an improved AK-47-1 and used improved stamped steel sheets...
My father served during the korean war non combat. Peace keeping in Germany facing off against the russians. Most of his brothers sereved in either ww2 or korean. They never spoke of there time in the service especially the ones that saw combat.
He said the army was disorganized and everything they had was taken from ww2 stock pile including the food they ate.
Kim Ku was part of the post-WW2 struggles aimed at defining the political structure of newly-independent Korea. I was told by a Korean friend that he was part of neither the Syngman Rhee nor Kim Il Sung factions. Kim Ku was assassinated in 1949 by a South Korean army officer, who many believe was acting on behalf of Syngman Rhee. (The officer was sentenced to life in prison, which was reduced to 15 years by Rhee. After just one year the officer was released.) My friend's father was a supporter of Kim Ku, and she related that following the assassination an American general (family friend) warned her father to leave Korea to avoid the same fate. The general assisted the family to find transport on a small fishing vessel, and they fled to the US permanently.
He was if anything even more anti-Communist than Rhee, but he went north at Kim Il Sung's invitation in 1948 to talk about Korean unity. According to one account I read, Kim Il Sung did see him but treated him rather disrespectfully - a North Korean publication shows him in a photo walking behind Kim Il Sung during his visit, looking a little put out at having to follow the latter. After Kim Ku returned south, he was murdered.
@@stevekaczynski3793There is no way he was more anti-communist than Rhee. Rhee had roving de ath squads executing suspected communists
@@comrade_commissar3794 Kim Ku was definitely no leftie and his previous track record included breaking with other independence activists as far back as the 1920s over their sympathies with Communism. He lacked state power in South Korea and was no ally of Rhee, so was in no position to organise death squads, though his previous activity had included fomenting bomb attacks on Japanese officials, which is why he was regarded as a terrorist in some quarters. He seems to have come back from North Korea believing it would quickly overwhelm the South, and did not think the USA would help.
@@stevekaczynski3793 The backpedaling is unreal. From “he was more anti-communist than Rhee” to “Well he was no leftie”. Rhee never visited North Korea, unlike Kim Ku. It is hard to believe that Kim Ku would have ordered more suspected communists to death than Rhee, who had a rough tally of five hundred thousand. On what grounds do you make the claim that he was more hardline anti-communist than Rhee?
@@comrade_commissar3794 He was on bad terms with them as far back as the 1920s - they do not seem to have even shown up on Rhee's radar at that time. The difference between Rhee and Ku was not that Rhee was more anti-Communist but that Rhee, an English speaker, was the favoured creature of the US occupation and Ku was not.
I can't comprehend an infantryman not knowing how to strip and clean his rifle. That's some fundamental failure in training.
i really appreciate you putting up unit markers with names and size again. its just easier to get a picture of what is going on than with the empty flags.
Are you planning to talk more about the ROK Navy? The last two weeks they’ve had some surprising successes against North Korean ships attempting to land along the cost using old patrol boats and I’d love to see in depth coverage of these actions.
Absolutely amazing!
Your channel is rapidly growing with every episode!
Extremely detailed content pertaining to the Korean War and might I add that the day to day analysis is just spot on!
I’m sitting at the edge of my seat watching!
Excellent!
I think the Korean War was the turning point for American defense and military industrial posturing. I think that's the point where we learned that as a super power, the days of having a military with bare minimum capabilities for mostly defense only are over. We have to constantly be prepared for the offensive in an ever changing cold war environment, or get caught by surprise.
For a list of Korean War films made by South Korean filmmakers, there are a few notable ones, such as:
The 2004 film Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War (태극기 휘날리며),
The 2010 film 71: Into the Fire (포화 속으로),
The 2011 film The Front Line (고지전),
The 2016 film Operation Chromite (인천상륙작전),
The 2019 film The Battle of Jangsari (장사리: 잊혀진 영웅들)
Compared to the huge number of World War II films, Korean War films are more uncommon so these can be interesting to watch from the South Korean point of view.
Isn't 71 about a group of students defending against the North Korean invading force? I remember hearing something about it, and that's what my brain thinks it remembers
@@amhuman5138Yes, that movie was based on a true story of the Student Volunteer Forces (학도의용군) defending a strategic point (in this case a school) against North Korean units. I did remember the film being notable for showing a rare case of a M1 Garand thumb by one of the soldiers while loading a fresh clip during the battle.
Thank you very much !
I've seen 71 into fire once. Thank you for these Korean War recommendations.
I have watched a few SK "war" or action movies in different settings.
Northern Limit Line, Steel Rain 1 & 2
@@gunman47 yeah, i definitely need to get around to watching some korean war films, do you know if any of these are on any streaming services?
thanks for the info by the way!
Loving this series already
Same here! :)
Thank you!
I love this series, it's so educational and I like that it focuses on that over sensationalizing it. Always appreciated your approach of war is not supposed to be exciting and thrilling but a messy business. Keep it up!
We will, thanks!
Thanks all. I'm liking the new map animations.
Great to hear that!
Hollywood actor James Garner was wounded in the Korean was by a 'friendly' air attack. I think he was wounded twice during the conflict.
Having studied history in the uk it surprises me how little in mention of our contribution to this war. Even when its spoken about on context of the cold war out contribution isnt mentioned much in our history books
The closest British soldiers were deployed in Hong Kong during this battle. They arrived in Korea on the following month, which was during the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter. I'm sure that they'll be spoken of in this channel.
During the Korean war, 90% of UN forces were American.
I bet you get a lot of messages like this, but thank you for what your program is doing for the world of history and archive. I did my BA thesis on the Korean War, specifically the treatment of NK and Chinese POWs by the ROK and UN task forces. I would be honored to share it with you and have my efforts assist your presentation of any future episodes. Please let me know if this interests the group! Thank you for your work and efforts.
This is wonderful, thank you for all your work putting this series together. Its rare to find such in depth information so accessible about the korean war.
Good coverage. I had no idea of the 'behind the scenes' activity prior to the war.
Glad you enjoyed it! -TimeGhost Ambassador
Korea is obviously on a far, FAR smaller scale than either WW1 or WW2.
Thus, I believe Indy's skill at writing the scripts will be much more important during this series than it was in the first two.
Judging by the first three episodes - he appears to be up for the challenge.
☮
In some ways it's also advantageous. With a globe-spanning conflict there is always a little too much to cover, and prioritization will take a huge role in the script writing. Here, basically covering one fairly narrow front will more time for the details and smaller stories.
Indeed -TimeGhost Ambassador
I'll be honest, MacArthur being there makes me even more afraid than before.
hush little baby i'll save the world
Hope he doesn't turn into a Zapp Branigan
@@shaider1982 I am the god damn General of The United States Army. I don't know who this kraut Branigan is but unlike him I am Douglas MacArthur
MacArthur was one the best guys the US Army ever had
@@arnonym5430he was mad butcher
Crazy to see just how badly the US military had deteriorated in the 5 years since the end of WW2, especially in light of what the US military would become in the decades after the Korean War till the present day... with the Cold War and the Soviet/communist threat, you'd think Truman would've had the foresight to keep the US military at half decent combat readiness and strength. You'd think he would've kept the lessons of being unprepared for both WW1 and WW2 in the back of his mind. Again and again, the old adage of "If you want peace, prepare for war" rings true every single time
It wasn't wholly deteriorated, the US was still very much working to protect Europe from an invasion, but the US hadn't decided on what its Asian policy would even be at this point: after all, even if China (which was believed to be a Russian puppet state at this time,) directly conquered all of Asia, that wouldn't have much impact when the current plan was already to nuke the USSR into total submission by using a near-nuclear monopoly, with all of Asia following, if needed.
It's only during the Korean War itself that the US finally decided both that nuclear weapons were too substantial of an escalation for anything other than World War 3, and that stopping wars in Asia was crucial to preventing the kind of serial escalations that had led to World War 2.
The Korean War touched alot of us here, friends uncle was an officer kia, neighbor son was kia,and family friends son pow of chinese.
An awful bloody event.
Thanks for bringing it to us.
I would suggest increasing the size/contrast of the division counters on the map as it's quite hard to see the allegiance of the unit and the size/name of it
I like that you showed the North Korean military. Most of the Korean War documentaries made outside of Korea don't show the Chinese and North Korean armies. This makes the war seem much more smaller in scale, and hides the fact that the UN Forces were outnumbered. It also hides how much the UN Forces endured to save South Korea.
I like how the west keep saying they were outnumbered yet.......
It was north korea, china vs the usa, south korea, plus 14 other un nations......
Yes the north had russians weapons as well but still, in manpower it was 2 vs 16 !!!! along with all the material help from the western allies at the time !!!
@@supa3ek The Chinese alone outnumbered all of the UN Forces in Korea.
@@supa3ek 2 vs 16 isn't a clear indicator of numerical superiority. In term of peak combat troop strength, the UN forces are only less than 970K strong while the red forces totaled around 1.7 million troops. In the UN forces, Luxembourg only sent 100 soldiers...
@@swee2251 Not necessarily, and they had huge logistical issues that got worse the further they went south. In their initial intervention, some troops only had hand grenades, and some even seem to have gone into battle unarmed, they were expected to pick up a rifle from a casualty if possible. After the front stabilised they were better armed, mostly from Soviet sources.
@@stevekaczynski3793 What do you mean "not necessarily?" I know that they had logistical issues as they went further south. Still, the UN Forces were outnumbered and it wasn't an easy war. The winter phase in 1950-1951 and the Chinese spring offensive in 1951 were especially dangerous times. This wasn't a walk in the park for the soldiers and the civilians.
Thank you, Indy & team.
Thanks for watching.
Absolutely love everything you guys do. Really looking forward to watching this until the end
That was an excellent episode. The explanation about the background to what was happening was stunning.
Thanks a lot! -TimeGhost Ambassador
40 years later the 21st Infantry would be conducting extensive training to never repeat "Task Force Smith". "Bore Brother Bore" Gimlets, 21st Infantry Regiment.
Yes! Äntligen!
Det är lite extra spännande att följa denna serien eftersom jag nästan inte vet något om Korea kriget, till skillnad från andra världskriget.
Det lilla jag läst om är de 187:e Luftburna "The Rakkasans" (kommenderat av Major Ronald Spiers) i slutet av boken "Fierce Valor" av Frederick / Dorr. Kan rekomendera den boken som en väl undersökt källa.
Those Falling Down Umbrella men... 😉
Glad that you guys are doing another series! Ive been watching you guys for years.
Thanks a lot for your commitment! -TimeGhost Ambassador
The parallel's with China's Korean war in the late 16th century are interesting. Just like MacArthur, the Chinese thought that merely showing up with a few troops would cause the Japanese to flee in 1592. They were wrong.
damn, never knew US 24th Division getting humbled that hard and the early air friendly fire hit that hard
It is so exciting to have new series.
We think so too.
What many people should understand is that the structure of us military units back in Korea and Vietnam were much different than today. A company would often consist of 120/160 personnel, whereas today, a company consists of 200/250 personnel. A battalion used to equate to 400 personnel, whereas today, a battalion is comprised of 1000 personnel.
Thank you for the lesson.
And thanks for watching.
Loving the series so far. Quality work as always!
The writers aren't crap this time :))
Thanks!
And the British Royal Navy arrive too 🇬🇧
Thank you.
Thanks for watching.
The early U.S. defeats in the Korean War - Task Force Smith's was one among many - are sobering reading for amateur Western historians, coming off the string of nearly unbroken victories at the end of WWII where the Allies seemed invincible. As we're about to see, even holding Pusan was a pretty near-run thing until things stabilized.
“Rhee? He’s an SOB, but he’s our SOB.”
"In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores." - Harry S. Truman
Deja vu...
Truman's one to talk...
@@ives3572 Says the guy who didn't support the Chinese Nationalists and RoK properly and who gutted his military.
That war is not even a month old and I'm already learning lots of stuff I never heard about in school. Great series!
Turning into a great series, already know more in the first 3 episodes then I did before the start!
Amazing!
I did not know that US troops not knowing how to diassemble and clean their weapons was a problem during the Korean War.
After the post WW2 demobilization much of the system had reverted to the traditional practice where training was up to your regimental unit and many such units did not apply the kind of systematic constant requalification we are familiar with in serious militaries of our lifetime. As mentioned, these units had been for 5 years occupation garrison troops, their job was just keeping order in a place where the population was generally cooperative.
@@chedelirio6984 ahh, hoe true. I remember (spoilers) when Ridgeway took over, the infantrymen did not know how to execute infantry tactics like infiltration. I did not know the problems were way worse.
Best fucking thumbnail this team has produced yet!😂
Mikolaj does great work!
I was apart of 1-21 Infantry from 2018 to 2021. TF Smith was a big part of our history.
Bore Brother Bore.
B co 03-07
@@fathead8933I was also in B Co.!
You can never get the world you want without interacting with the world you have.
A very sober reminder. Even if Rhee is not "ideal" from the USA's point of view, they can't remove him without giving the land over to people even less "ideal".
So they're willing to put forth any force they can, even if it'll just inflict damage in retreat.
Thank you very much for this episode. Every week is a treat!
Korean history particularly fascinates me, so I'm happy to see this series.
Thank you
Thanks for watching.
I served at Osan AB in 74/'75 as a USAF radar technician on F4E Phantoms. We were ready to go to war on a daily basis, and it's well to remember that the Korean war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. We are still, technically, at war with the DPRK.
I thought Trump brokered a final treaty, no?
@timmyp34 that never happened.
@@timmyp34 Good one!
@vernmeyerotto255 kinda sorta did though. "Panmunjon Declaration", 2018, walks and talks like a peace treaty. Now, show you can think for yourself and are not a victim of TDS.
@timmyp34 you can believe whatever fairytale you like, but there is not a peace treaty in place between the US and the DPRK.
I'm learning a lot about the war that I didn't know dispite having studied East Asian conflicts in uni.
I find it rather cool you guys are using what looks like aviation maps for this
Love this channel so much. Seriously this is so good
Thank you so much!
@@TheKoreanWarbyIndyNeidell Seriously, your WW1, WW2 and Now Korean war series are all (in my opinion) the greatest history content on the internet currently, keep it up!
both sides blinded by ideologues, demagogues, zealots and thieves.
innocent people will be the victims of that blindness...
@@kidmohair8151 One side is literally built and led by all of those people who are also Godless.
Wow, its beem 10 years since Indy started hosting different conflicts in chronological order of events. Doug was in all of those three conflicts.
I visited the site of Task Force Smith's defeat in 2006. There is a monument there.
Before the Americans arrive, the Australians have been fighting the North Koreans as the only allied force to take them on.
MacArthur. Couldn't the US have put someone more competent in charge? Never mind that he was a prima donna, he kept making critical blunders that others had to fix for him.
In 1950 most of America still considered him the savoir of the Pacific. I'm sure there were a fair number of people in the Pentagon who thought differently. (Some Army, the entire Navy and USMC) But being in Japan he was the man on the scene so he was first in line to take charge.
MacArthur was insanely popular with the public. Using him would bolster public support for the war, and not using him would attract the ire of the American public for sidelining one of WWII's most famed commanders.
Truman would be eviscerated later for sacking MacArthur, even though he was totally in the right to do so.
@@christopherconard2831well of course America did. The man held a press conference to say that 30,000 Americans had arrived in New Guinea and counter attacked to save port morsby. Except it was the Australians that did that and even the American historian at the time noted that no American troops were in New Guinea much less counter attacking. Nah as several Australian generals noted McArthur was arrogant and panicky, great at drawing lines on a map though.
MacArthur was the best the US could realistically do at this point: they needed someone with experience in that region who might not also be needed if this was all just a feint for a Russian invasion of Europe (more specifically, either Berlin or Austria,) who also had experience working with severely limited logistics, and had the confidence of enough men to get any kind of plan going at all.
None of this is a small thing: this early in the war, something as small as sending artillery shells too far forward or too far back could lose critical battles, maybe even the war outright, and MacArthur was in the unenviable situation of making such decisions for the whole theater. So, while someone else _might_ have done a better job than MacArthur, anyone who did _worse_ could have seen the US evicted from Asia entirely.
The decisions being made also, quite frankly, required a massive ego: "I've decided this unit would do better with a full supply of artillery shells than several units stretched thin, and we literally don't have time to argue on this" is the kind of thing people lacking in boldness and charisma can't manage, and these kinds of early war decisions usually worked out in MacArthuer's favor, to his credit.
MacArthur was VERY competent. It was he that pushed the communist forces out of South Korea and North Korea and into communist China. Blame dimwit twit Harry Truman and his lefty F.D.R. cabinet and staffers for the problems!
Outstanding job!!! Cannot wait for the next episode!!!
Thank you! Every Tuesday! -TimeGhost Ambassador