By Episode 19 – Hard Fighting:
he combined Chinese/North Korean forces try to defeat the UN in South Korea. Ridgeway’s change of strategy meant that the UN forces would hold ground, relinquish it, then counterattack with superior air and artillery support. Napalm became the UN’s favored aerial bombardment weapon, with over 14 million gallons of it used in the Korean War. The US military’s reliance on artillery and airstrikes during the war causes enormous damage in the populated areas of Korea where it is used. By early March 1951, the UN forces were just south of Seoul, and pushing back. Peng Dehuai, the Chinese Army commander, gives up on “victory”. MacArthur still wants to attack China. He tells Philippe Daudy, a French journalist, that he would like to drop five atomic weapons on China’s main cities. MacArthur criticizes the US president again for wanting to negotiate with the opposition. Mac gets fired.
12:21 pm on August 1st, 2009 1
General Peng was later to be tortured for his "crime" of going against Mao. Peng knew that throwing live bodies against the American forces would not win the war, but Mao disagreed. Mao had become as callus of his own people as MacArthur had of his troops, but on a larger scale. Often the scenerio was three weeks to receive enough supplies, troops, and ammunition and then an attack that would falter after a week, then three more weeks of building up.
MacArthur was far past his prime and out of control. He did not know what to do, and envisioned grandious plans to win the war far from the plans of the JCS and government of Truman. Its regretable that he was fired, yet he should have been retired gracefully years earlier.
Ridgeway was the saving grace and skillfully used the forces at his command to stop the chinese. The only issue (for me) becomes, what if Ridgeway was allowed to defeat the Chinese army, or to continue to push them back? Its possible it could have been done to a degree, (a recapture of Pyongyang) negating the following two years of painfull negotiation.
3:21 am on August 2nd, 2009 2
There has been theories out there that Truman didn't want Ridgeway to move further into North Korea because he was concerned that if the PLA was defeated then the Russians may feel obligated to jump in. Plus Truman's approval ratings had plummeted due to the war and felt that if he could keep the casualties down by maintaining a front on defensible hills he may be able to salvage a 1952 re-election campaign. He never did run for President in 1952 because he was so unpopular. He is the only President to leave office less popular than President George W. Bush mostly because of the Korean War.
12:50 pm on August 2nd, 2009 3
I don't disagree with what you said at all, but, I don't believe it was theory, but policy. My argument would only be hypothetical. What if Truman allowed a punishing offensive against the chinese army. Would it have saved lives and ended the war sooner?