Term 2 Lesson 3(Online Lesson) Korean War

In this lesson, you are to find out about one of the major wars in recent history. Choose one of the wars below and write a report of about 500 words in length about the war.(Korean War)

The Korean War was caused by the 38th Parallel that divided the Korean Peninsula into two parts, North and South Korea. North Korea then established a communist government and soon the 38th Parallel became a political border between these 2 countries. There were also cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel and the situation soon escalated to an open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25th June 1950. The South Korean were surprised by the North Korean attack as there was no declaration of war before the North Korean had attacked. Thus, they were pushed back until the US army came to their aid. When the fight went back to the 38th Parallel, the Chinese army came to aid the North Korean in fighting the war.

According to the data from the US Department of Defense, the United States had suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths during the Korean War and 8,176 missing in action. Western sources estimate the PVA(People's Volunteer Army) had suffered between 100,000 to 1,500,000 deaths (most estimate some 400,000 killed), while the KPA(Korean People's Army) had suffered between 214,000 to 520,000 deaths (most estimate some 500,000). Between some 245,000 to 415,000 South Korean civilian deaths were also suggested, and the entire civilian casualty during the war were estimated from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000.

Data from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China.Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a "large" number of civilian deaths. In return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were "eliminated" from the battlefield.

The Korean War was the first major proxy war in the period of the Cold war(between 1945-1991) as it was considered as a war between people of different ways of thinking( communism and democracy) although the people that were fighting in the war did not have any idea what communism and democracy were. This proved that the people fighting in the war were simply just fighting as they were just following orders but did not care about the war itself. Thus, it is considered as a proxy war as the Koreans were used as third parties to fight the war between the two "super powers".

One lesson learnt from this war is that there is no reason for war as nothing can ever be solved by having a war and that wars should not be taken lightly as many people will definitely die as a result of having a war.