The Korean War
Peng Dehuai
As the marshal of People's Republic of China (PRC), I and the rest of the intellectual leaders felt that it was best to invade Korea. We wanted to preserve the North Korean Communist State, but not dominate it. Instead, we wanted North Korea to serve as a buffer between Manchuria and the US dominated South Korea. With this war, we believed, this was not going to happen. It was our best interest to enter the war and fight for what we wanted. Also, the United States promised not to cross the 38th parallel, which they instead did. The 38th parallel is the division between the North and South Korea. We did not want the United States in the North because we wanted to keep it as a communist state. So, on October 25, the Peoples Republic of China attacked the Republic of Korea and a week later, defeated American troops in Unsan in North Korea, the first Chinese-American combat of the war. MacArthur, an American general, constantly changed his defense, prepared a new offensive and tried several ways to defeat our army. However, our Army was extremely strong due to our extended civil war and battles against the invading Japanese during WWII. We also decided that when we fight the US, the initial attack would have to be as efficient as possible, a surprise-attack. We led our troops to the Yalu River, the border line of China and North Korea, during the night to attack the American army. Our tactics caught Americans of guard, who never suspected a thing. The PRC army kept winning battles and defeating the American troops. We had the ability to encircle them and counter attack many of their offensive raids. We even accomplished the goal of defeating their eighth army, one of their strongest forces. It wasn’t until Marshall planned an atomic bombing of our country that we smelt the stench of fear. However, before Marshall went through with his idea, a revived and re-strengthened eight army came to his rescue. With their Operation Killer and Ripper, they were able to kill many of our men. Further attacks slowly repelled our forces. The Korean People Army, the United Nations and we could not agree on a system of repatriation because many of Korean and Chinese soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north which was unacceptable to us and the North Koreans. We had lost many battles and were beginning to believe that we were going to be defeated. So as a reluctant agreement, we signed the Korean Armistice Agreement. It claimed that, “with its great toil of suffering and bloodshed on both sides, and with the objective of establishing an armistice which will insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved, do individually, collectively, and mutually agree to accept and to be bound and governed by the conditions and terms of armistice set forth in the following articles and paragraphs, which said conditions and terms are intended to be purely military in character and to pertain solely to the belligerents in Korea…”
After the war was over, Operation Glory was conducted to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The PRC lost approximately 400,000 men. We and KPA published a joint declaration which reported that the armies had "eliminated 1.09 million enemy forces, including 390,000 from the United States, 660,000 from South Korean, and 29,000 from other countries." No breakdown was given for the number of dead, wounded, an
d captured.
The war concluded with us being ignored by the overconfident Eastern Command under General MacArthur. MacArthur’s pride and failure to comprehend the reality of the situation led the entire United Nations army to near disasters. The only thing that held these defenses together was hold of the United Nation’s line during the retreats from North Korea. Once tied together and under new and better leadership, these men were able to persevere and continue to fight our strong army.
In my personal opinion, the only reason we entered this war was to keep a “safe zone” so that no countries would interrupt our internal reconstruction to that of a communist country. We did not want other countries to believe that they had a chance of overthrowing the CCP and change China into a democratic state. We also did not want to damage our economy’s development, or to be exploited by other countries.
Peng Dehuai
As the marshal of People's Republic of China (PRC), I and the rest of the intellectual leaders felt that it was best to invade Korea. We wanted to preserve the North Korean Communist State, but not dominate it. Instead, we wanted North Korea to serve as a buffer between Manchuria and the US dominated South Korea. With this war, we believed, this was not going to happen. It was our best interest to enter the war and fight for what we wanted. Also, the United States promised not to cross the 38th parallel, which they instead did. The 38th parallel is the division between the North and South Korea. We did not want the United States in the North because we wanted to keep it as a communist state. So, on October 25, the Peoples Republic of China attacked the Republic of Korea and a week later, defeated American troops in Unsan in North Korea, the first Chinese-American combat of the war. MacArthur, an American general, constantly changed his defense, prepared a new offensive and tried several ways to defeat our army. However, our Army was extremely strong due to our extended civil war and battles against the invading Japanese during WWII. We also decided that when we fight the US, the initial attack would have to be as efficient as possible, a surprise-attack. We led our troops to the Yalu River, the border line of China and North Korea, during the night to attack the American army. Our tactics caught Americans of guard, who never suspected a thing. The PRC army kept winning battles and defeating the American troops. We had the ability to encircle them and counter attack many of their offensive raids. We even accomplished the goal of defeating their eighth army, one of their strongest forces. It wasn’t until Marshall planned an atomic bombing of our country that we smelt the stench of fear. However, before Marshall went through with his idea, a revived and re-strengthened eight army came to his rescue. With their Operation Killer and Ripper, they were able to kill many of our men. Further attacks slowly repelled our forces. The Korean People Army, the United Nations and we could not agree on a system of repatriation because many of Korean and Chinese soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north which was unacceptable to us and the North Koreans. We had lost many battles and were beginning to believe that we were going to be defeated. So as a reluctant agreement, we signed the Korean Armistice Agreement. It claimed that, “with its great toil of suffering and bloodshed on both sides, and with the objective of establishing an armistice which will insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved, do individually, collectively, and mutually agree to accept and to be bound and governed by the conditions and terms of armistice set forth in the following articles and paragraphs, which said conditions and terms are intended to be purely military in character and to pertain solely to the belligerents in Korea…”
After the war was over, Operation Glory was conducted to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The PRC lost approximately 400,000 men. We and KPA published a joint declaration which reported that the armies had "eliminated 1.09 million enemy forces, including 390,000 from the United States, 660,000 from South Korean, and 29,000 from other countries." No breakdown was given for the number of dead, wounded, an
d captured.The war concluded with us being ignored by the overconfident Eastern Command under General MacArthur. MacArthur’s pride and failure to comprehend the reality of the situation led the entire United Nations army to near disasters. The only thing that held these defenses together was hold of the United Nation’s line during the retreats from North Korea. Once tied together and under new and better leadership, these men were able to persevere and continue to fight our strong army.
In my personal opinion, the only reason we entered this war was to keep a “safe zone” so that no countries would interrupt our internal reconstruction to that of a communist country. We did not want other countries to believe that they had a chance of overthrowing the CCP and change China into a democratic state. We also did not want to damage our economy’s development, or to be exploited by other countries.
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