Sixty years after it was signed, the Korea Armistice Agreement is still very much in the news. In March, the North Korean military declared the agreement nullified and began making more threats. It all comes at a time when veterans of the war are attending 60th anniversary commemorations to remember fallen comrades as well as their own time on the peninsula.    

The Korean war broke out on June 25, 1950, when the Soviet-trained and equipped army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in a blatant effort to unite the peninsula by force.

The fighting ended with the signing of the Korea Armistice Agreement between the United Nations Command, the Republic of Korea, China and North Korea on July 27, 1953. The war cost tens of thousands of lives of the soldiers who fought the war and many more lives of Korean civilians.

In looking at the Canadian story on the 60th anniversary of the armistice, it is important to not overlook the fact that more Canadians were killed or wounded in the long stalemate that followed the on-again-off-again armistice talks of 1951 than in the nine months since Canadians soldiers first went into action in early 1951.

This is because while talks dragged on, UN front-line commanders were not allowed to mount any major offensives. Their orders were to dig in and hold. While company-sized attacks were sometimes mounted to improve defences or keep the enemy off balance, the war—for the most part—was fought in no man’s land with patrolling, night raids and artillery barrages.

During this time, Canadian and other UN troops languished in hilltop defensive positions surrounded by mines and barbed wire, sending patrols out at night to test the enemy’s defences. United Nations strength in air power, heavy artillery and armoured forces became useless in what was a static war.

The Chinese, meanwhile, struck at will, inflicting casualties and wearing down Canadian morale.

At home—in Canada—the stalemate took the war off the front pages of Canadian newspapers. The nightly raids and ambushes seemed too insignificant and even routine to keep Canadians’ attention focused on the war. The soldier’s nightly and weekly travail of constant danger, fought in the heat of the Korean summer or the biting cold of its winter, was forgotten.

Canada participated in the Korean War under UN Command, with air, naval and ground contributions totalling 26,791 personnel during the war itself, and another 7,000 between the signing of the armistice and 1955. There were 1,543 Canadian battle casualties of which 516 died on active service. The names of all 516 are inscribed in the Korea Book of Remembrance located in the Memorial Chamber on Parliament Hill.

To understand what caused the war and the decades of tension that followed, it is useful to go back to when Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945. Korea, at the time, was a Japanese colony and its fate was undetermined. The UN wanted the Korean people to hold fair and free elections to elect a Korean government, but those elections were never held. Instead, the two Allied occupiers—the Soviets in northern Korea and the United States in southern Korea—eventually established friendly regimes in their two halves of the peninsula.

The Soviets selected Kim Il Sung, a dedicated Communist and former anti-Japanese fighter to run the north. The Americans picked Syngman Rhee, an anti-Communist Korean nationalist, to run the south. The 38th Parallel was chosen as the demarcation line between the two.

The U.S. was almost ambivalent about the future of South Korea. Most of its troops left Korea by 1948 with only a few thousand staying behind to help train the Republic of Korea army. Most American equipment was withdrawn as well. When U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson made a public announcement in January 1950 outlining vital U.S. security interests in Asia and the far Pacific, he neglected to mention the defence of South Korea in his speech. Washington’s lack of resolve regarding the future of the Republic of Korea sent a message to Moscow and to Kim Il Sung in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang that the U.S. would not intervene if the Communists tried to unite the peninsula by force.

That was precisely Kim Il Sung’s major objective.

As soon as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established, the Soviet Union poured heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery and aircraft into North Korea along with training personnel from the Red Army and Air Force. Kim Il Sung first approached Moscow for permission to invade South Korea in the spring of 1949, shortly after most Americans had left the south.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was not enthusiastic at first, possibly because he feared a wider war and possibly because the new Communist government was just beginning to take power in Beijing. But he relented within a year and gave Kim permission to go ahead. Western intelligence agencies missed the signs of the Soviet-backed buildup and misunderstood Kim’s intentions. The picture became very clear when the North’s well-trained and superbly equipped and led army smashed through the South Korean army’s desultory defence efforts and began a deadly march of conquest.

Washington’s apathy toward Korea had been read by the Communists as licence to attack, but that was certainly far from U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s mind. As soon as he heard about the attack, he ordered American forces to help Rhee’s troops. American soldiers rushed from Japan, which was still under U.S. occupation, and U.S. aircraft, flying from Japan, attacked the North Koreans, but it was too little too late. By the end of August 1950, the North Koreans overran virtually all of South Korea except for a perimeter around the southern port of Pusan (Busan).

The Americans not only sent troops to fight, they were able to rally the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack and to invite UN members to send forces who would fight under U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, acting as the UN commander in Korea. That call for troops was answered by many countries; Britain and Australia being among the first to commit land, air and naval forces to MacArthur’s command. Canada initially sent three Royal Canadian Navy destroyers and a transport squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force, but on Aug. 7, 1950, Canadian Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent announced that the Canadian Army would begin immediately to recruit a “Canadian Army Special Force” which would be sent to Korea if needed.

This, however, was easier said than done.

Post Second World War cuts to the Canadian defence budget had been so deep that the regular force had been reduced to about the size of a single brigade which could not be sent to Asia because Canada would have been left with no regular army at all.

The government’s plan was to recruit a new brigade group consisting of infantry, armour, artillery, combat engineers and other support troops, from amongst Second World war veterans and, as much as possible, equip them with Second World War arms and other kit. Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Charles G. Foulkes believed that building the Special Force primarily with Second World War veterans would speed up recruiting and training.

Foulkes chose John Rockingham, a decorated brigadier in the Second World War, to command the brigade group. Each regular force regiment of infantry, armour, etc., was ordered to train a second regiment of Korea volunteers from amongst the thousands of men who showed up almost immediately at recruiting posts across Canada. The initial training was to occur at the home bases of the regular force regiments, but because fall and winter loomed, the government arranged to conduct final and brigade training at Fort Lewis, on the U.S. west coast near Seattle, Wash.

On Sept. 15, MacArthur led a successful landing at Inchon on the west coast of Korea, well behind Communist lines. The landing threatened to cut off Communist supply lines and the North Koreans began to retreat. Suddenly the UN appeared to be winning as North Korean troops retreated north towards the border with China. The UN urged Canada to send a contingent to Korea anyway and the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI), commanded by Lieut. Colonel Jim Stone, who had been commanding officer of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment in Italy, sailed from the U.S. west coast on Nov. 25.

The men thought they were heading to Korea to mop up, but shortly after, China sent hundreds of thousands of “volunteers” across the frozen Yalu River (its border with North Korea) to attack MacArthur’s troops. UN forces were sent into headlong retreat.

By the time 2PPCLI landed in Korea on Dec. 18, the Chinese attack had carried the fighting back across the 38th Parallel. American commanders wanted to rush the Patricias into the line, but Stone insisted on a few weeks to train his men and weed out those who were unfit and incompetent. The Americans had no choice but to agree; the Patricias were given six weeks to get ready.

The battalion joined the 27th British Commonwealth Infantry Brigade (27BCIB) on Feb. 27 to add their weight to a new push north.

In late February and early March 1951 the UN advanced up the peninsula while Chinese troops fought rearguard actions. The enemy was withdrawing to marshal strength for yet another major attack which it launched on April 21. The brigade was then in reserve in a small river valley near the village of Kapyong, several kilometres back from the main front. Its commander, British Colonel B.A. Burke, ordered his troops to make ready to defend their positions.

The Royal Australian Regiment, backed by U.S. tanks, defended the eastern height of the Y-shaped valley while the PPCLI was on the high ground to the west. New Zealand and American gunners, meanwhile, provided artillery support.

Burke’s caution—his decision to establish defensive positions—paid off because the Chinese crashed through a South Korean division and broke the UN lines further north. It then rolled on towards his brigade. First the Australians, then the Patricias, mounted a heroic defence. The Australians took the first blow and were forced to withdraw after hard fighting. The Chinese then focused on the Patricias who held their positions atop Hill 677. It was a vicious and bloody confrontation, but the Canadians held the enemy back until UN reinforcements rushed to the scene and the Chinese attack was thwarted.

The Patricias and other troops who defended Kapyong were awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for their valourous stand.

Not long after the battle the remainder of the Canadian Army Special Force, now re-designated the 25th Canadian Inf. Bde. Group, joined the UN forces at the front and were married up to the Patricias. Initially the Brigade Group consisted of the 2nd battalions of the PPCLI, the Royal Canadian Regt., The Royal 22nd Regt. (Van Doos) and armour artillery and other formations. After one year, all the units were sent back to Canada and replaced by the first battalions or regiments. By the end of the war they too had been replaced by 3rd battalions and regiments. In late July 1951 the Canadian brigade became an integral part of 1st Commonwealth Division.

The UN push north continued after Kapyong, but by then the UN and the U.S. had concluded that they had neither the manpower nor the resources to “win” a war in Korea. This decision changed the nature of the war. The new U.S./UN objective was to keep pushing the Chinese northward until they reached the 38th Parallel, thus restoring the political division of Korea that had existed prior to the outbreak of war, but then to end the fighting with an armistice agreement.

The talks began at Kaesong on July 10, 1951, but went nowhere and collapsed on Aug. 23. The UN offensive resumed until UN forces reached a new main line of resistance roughly astride the 38th Parallel. Armistice talks resumed at Panmunjom on Nov. 27, 1951, but produced no agreement for another year and a half—causing the stalemate that claimed many lives.

The death of Stalin on March 4, 1953, took much of the steam out of the Communist war effort. The armistice talks made much greater headway and by June 7, agreements were reached on all major issues.

South Korea evolved into a free society with one of the highest standards of living in the world. North Korea is a complete totalitarian state mired in grinding poverty, worshipping the Kim clan as literally gods, but in possession of both missiles and nuclear weapons. In one sense, then, the war of 1950-53 failed to solve the political dilemma of a divided Korea. But at least the people of South Korea retained their freedom and were able to build a society that is one of the world’s strongest and most prosperous democracies.

They did so largely because of the resolve of the soldiers, sailors and airmen—from countries like Canada—who helped defend their country in the trying days of the Korean War.