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Although the entire Cold War passed without shots being fired between the two superpowers, the Cold War was anything but bloodless. The Korean conflict marked the beginning of proxy wars, regional conflicts backed by the full military might of both the United States and the Soviet Union. A brilliant amphibious landing turns the tide on the Korean Peninsula; meanwhile, America raises the stakes with a bomb so powerful it takes an atomic bomb to simply light the fuse.
6 replies on “The Cold War: What We Saw | The Forgotten War – Episode 4”
There’s nothing here. Just a YouTube link that doesn’t work 😭
This episode is simply more of the same … excellence, well beyond the the best otherwise available!
Excellent episode, bravo. Korea deserves far more attention than it gets, as do its veterans.
I was lucky enough to have the friendship of one such. An amazing chap called Bexley Holcombe. I knew him as a wonderful old gent who had more stories than Aesop and loved his whiskey. He had worked at the British Library and was involved in intelligence work, but in 1951 he was with the Royal Ulster Rifles at the Imjin River. He was captured and spent the rest of the war in a communist camp. It was one of the few subjects that could darken his otherwise sunny disposition.
I spent 1 year of my service in Korea and 9 months that all along the DMZ. I walked many miles in the trenches that are still there and discovered many bunkers with chalkboards and other items that were still there. You couldn’t help but feel the enormity of that particular conflict. It was also the most brutal winter I have ever experienced. I’m grateful for having gained a much greater perspective as a result.
Bravo on this episode, Bill.
US losses in the Korean War totaled 38,000 (this includes over 4,700 missing and presumed dead). Truman refused to use nukes in Korea. Eisenhower let it be known he would consider it. That’s when the North Koreans and Chinese agreed to a truce. MacArthur had wanted to end the war two years earlier by nuking key airfields in China and salting the border with radioactive material to prevent further Chinese intervention. Truman and the JCS were more focused on Europe and feared the Korean War would turn into a Chinese civil war, weakening our ability to stop a Soviet advance in western Europe. Who was right?
Bill: Excellent episode. I know you have time constraints, but I think you really should have gone a little deeper into the Inchon landing. The reason it was so devastating is because it was considered to be impossible. The extreme tides, limited access, rocks, and the sea wall all made it a very poor choice for an amphibious landing. The success of the landing was a miracle.
I had three tours in Korea, and loved touring the country. I’ve been from Panmunjom in the north to Pusan in the south, and even to the island of Chejudo. It’s really interesting to tour a country with over 2000 years of recorded history.
I’m looking forward to the future episodes!