dadakinder: Korean War, 60 years ago

Korean War, 60 years ago

...sixty years since the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. After decades of Japanese occupation, Korea was divided in two by Allied Forces at the end of World War II, with the south administered by the U.S. and the north by Soviet Russia. Deep divisions built over several years, leading to skirmishes and finally an invasion by North Korean troops on June 25th, 1950. The United Nations sent troops and support from 21 countries to support South Korea, primarily from the United States and Britain. The war lasted for three years, with large advances and retreats on both sides, and many casualties. Over two million Korean civilians lost their lives, and nearly two million soldiers from 17 different countries were killed. The two Koreas are technically still at war since hostilities ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty in 1953.

This U.S. Army photograph, once classified "top secret", is one of a series depicting the summary execution of 1,800 South Korean political prisoners by the South Korean military at Taejon, South Korea, over three days in July 1950. Historians and survivors claim South Korean troops executed many civilians behind frontlines as U.N. forces retreated before the North Korean army in mid-1950, on suspicion that they were communist sympathizers and might collaborate with the advancing enemy. (AP Photo/National Archives, Major Abbott/U.S. Army)

Two North Korean prisoners captured during fighting for Yongsan on September 2, 1950 sit on jeep hood under guard of U.S. second division infantrymen as they are taken to the rear in the Naktong River sector of Korea. (AP Photo)

With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-26 tank, at Haengju, Korea. June 9, 1951. (U.S. Navy/Maj. R.V. Spencer, UAF)

A U.S. Marine dives for cover in his bunker as a communist 82 millimeter mortar shell scores a hit on a ridge in eastern Korea, April 8, 1952. (AP Photo/Edward A. McDade/U.S. Navy)

Columns of light stab the night as U.S. rockets thunder toward Communist-held targets in Wonsan, Korean port city on July 1, 1951. The fire trails brilliantly lit the ship and could be followed by sight as they struck their targets. (AP Photo/DOD)

A pair of bound hands and a breathing hole in the snow at Yangji, Korea, Jan. 27, 1951 reveal the presence of the body of a Korean civilian shot and left to die by retreating Communists during the Korean War. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

Navy AD-3 dive bomber (top center) pulls out of dive after dropping a 2,000 lb. bomb on Korean side of a bridge crossing the Yalu River at Sinuiju, into Manchuria on November 15th, 1950. (U.S. Department of Defense/U.S. Navy)

A salvo of 500-pound bombs leave the bomb bay of a B-29 headed for communist-controlled territory below. The first bombs from the first squadron over a 21 sq. mile area west of the Naktong River, South Korea on August 16, 1950 where North Korean troops were believed massing for an all-out assault on the American lines. 98 B-29's dropped more than 850 tons of bombs on the area. (AP Photo)