Korean War

June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953

Over 53,000 ROK and UN troops, including over 8,000 Americans, are MIA. One assumes the great majority of them were murdered by North Korean soldiers after surrendering, or being found wounded, or in the (often death) camps for POWs.

Though most attention has focused on the Korean War's first year, bloody fighting persisted throughout the entire war. Half of our dead were killed after the truce talks began, while people talked and postured, at Panmunjom.

Artillery concentrations on the small outposts and contested hills of the MLR exceeded anything in WWI or WWII; typically a thousand rounds exploding in 10 minutes or so, followed by battalion- and regiment-scale assaults against positions scarcely large enough to hold a company. The Marines fought for Bunker Hill, Reno, Carson and Vegas; the ROKs for Sniper Ridge, Triangle Hill and Big Nori; our 2nd Division fought for Old Baldy, Arrowhead and Pork Chop, as did our 7th Division in their turn.

Dozens of other obscure, torn landscapes soaked the blood of other valliant infantrymen.

Some of the most dangerous and important sections of the MLR were held valliantly by the ROKs and our UN allies.

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My thanks to the following website for providing the timeline of the Korean war from which the above excerpts were taken. www.rt66.com/~korteng/smallarms/timeline.htm

Photos organized by: Dorothy McCann Collins