(MUSIC)
MacArthur was wrong. Several hundred thousand Chinese soldiers crossed into North Korea in October and November. Still, MacArthur thought the war would end by December twenty-fifth, the Christmas holiday.
This was not to happen. The UN troops were forced to withdraw from Pyongyang. And, by the day before Christmas, there had been a huge withdrawal by sea from the coastal city of Hungnam.
In the first days of nineteen-fifty-one, the North Koreans recaptured Seoul. The UN troops withdrew about forty kilometers south of the city. They re-organized and, two months later, re-gained control of Seoul.
Then the war changed. The two sides began fighting in an area north of the thirty-eighth parallel. They exchanged control of the same territory over and over again. Men were dying, but no one was winning. The cost in lives was huge.
General MacArthur had wanted to enter China and attack Manchuria. He also had wanted to use Nationalist Chinese troops against the communists.
President Harry Truman discusses the conflict in Korea at the White House
President Truman feared that these actions might start another world war.
HARRY TRUMAN: “If we do have another world war, it would be an atomic war. We could expect many atomic bombs to be dropped on American cities, and a single one of them could cause many more times the casualties than we have suffered in all the fighting in Korea. I do not want to be responsible for bringing that about.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25