Did You Know?

Some interesting facts about Korea: The Forgotten War
Edited by Jennifer Fletcher

Pork Chop Hill...The Iron Triangle...Heartbreak Ridge... These are the battlegrounds of the Korean War, a conflict whose toll on American forces was devastating.

This year, the 50th anniversary of the armistice agreement, the National Memorial Day Concert offers a special tribute to the brave veterans who served in Korea. Following are some little-known facts about the Korean War.

More than 54,000 service members died during the Korean War, including nearly 37,000 who died in battle, and there were 103,000 casualties. The South Koreans lost some 900,000 civilians and over 140,000 military personnel. Approximately 1,000,000 Chinese People's Army troops and 1,000,000 North Korean civilians also lost their lives.
Fifteen nations, in addition to the United States, sent combat forces to fight in Korea - the first full-scale clash of the Cold War - including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Five nations sent medical units including Denmark, India, Italy, Norway and Sweden.
The Chinese People's Volunteers infantrymen were extremely mobile because they did not employ any heavy weapons. In fact, the soldiers - whose largest weapons were light mortars - carried everything on their backs.
When the armistice agreement was signed, at 10 a.m. on July 27, 1953, the war stopped right where it had started - at the 38th Parallel. It was two years and 17 days since talks began, 18 million transcribed words had been spoken and 575 meetings had taken place. Today, the 38th parallel is still a center of relentless enmity between the North and South.
The U.S. practice of employing all-black segregated units ended in October, 1951, when the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment was disbanded. This action essentially ended segregation in the U.S. Army. By the end of the war, more than 600,000 African- Americans had served in the armed forces.
It was during the Korean War that United States forces for the first time introduced the use of the helicopter in support of combat operations.
Defeats at the infamous, and numbingly cold Chosin Reservoir, and a large-scale evacuation from the port of Hungnam, marked the Allies' withdrawal toward the South. In fact, over 14 days, 105,000 military personnel, 17,500 vehicles, 350,000 measured tons of cargo and 91,000 Korean refugees were evacuated from the port.
U.S. troops were subject to a points system that was put in place to establish priority for rotation home. The system was based on combat zones, with a "hot zone" worth the most points, while supposedly "safe zones" were worth the least. Thirty-six points sent you home.
The peninsula nation of Korea is a land the size of Utah, stretching some 635 miles long at its greatest distance and 150 miles across at its widest.
One of the first-generation jet fighters, the F-86 Sabres, were used during the Korean War. By the time the conflict was over, the U.S. plane had a kill ratio over the Russian MiG-15 of ten to one.
When the Korean War erupted in June 1950, women in the armed services numbered 22,000. Roughly 7,000 of these women were healthcare professionals, the rest served in line assignments in the Women's Army Corps (WAC); Women in the Air Force (WAF); Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service or Navy Women's Reserves (WAVES); and Women Marines. Although Congress had passed the Women's Armed Forces Integration Action in 1948 giving more women increased prospects for military careers, the Department of Defense's efforts to recruit more women during the Korean War met with limited success and were discontinued in 1952.
The United States military had a highly visible presence in humanitarian endeavors. The armed forces delivered vast amounts of food and clothing to people in need and routinely helped rebuild orphanages and schools. Troops donated money for supplies and equipment and American soldiers and Korean civilians worked alongside one another in reconstruction task. Chaplains also regularly visited orphanages.