Air Power in Korea

Abstract

In 1945 the Japanese occupation forces in Korea north of the 38th Parallel had surrendered to the Soviet command, and those south of that line had surrendered to the Americans. Five years later this convenient division of responsibility had hardened to become part of the wider global confrontation between East and West, and after a lengthy period of local military and diplomatic skirmishing the North Koreans invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. The Security Council of the United Nations called on the North Koreans to withdraw behind the 38th Parallel, and when they failed to do so US forces were committed under UN authority.

Before Korea, all our military planning envisaged a war that would involve the world and in which the defence of a distant and indefensible peninsula would be folly.

General Ridgway¹