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• 00:00:00 Korea, Summer 1950. USA leads UN into war against Communism in Asia. Winter retreat under attack from Chinese Communists. Rout like Napoleon leaving Russia. “The Cold War has become a Hot War”.
• 00:01:05 Title sequence
• 00:01:40 August 1945. Japanese Army had occupied Korea for 35 years. Forced to follow Japanese lifestyle, language, law. Russian and American soldiers welcomed in 1945. Division along 38th parallel as temporary measure.
• 00:02:40 Pentagon and State Department “made the Republic of Korea, really”. Rhee Syngman appointed as first President. American troops withdrew. North of parallel, Kim Il Sung groomed for power; handsome and much liked. Kim dreamed of uniting Korea under Communism with support for USSR.
• 00:04:35 March 1949 Kim Il Sung visit to Moscow; to seek permission to invade South Korea. Footage of speech: “to strengthen the relationship between Russia and North Korea”. Stalin, preoccupied with Berlin, rejected request.
• 00:05:10 By end of 1949, situation transformed by USSR’s atom bomb, and successful Communist Revolution in China led by Mao Zedong. Second front for Cold War in Asia. Stalin reckons USA lacks resolve for involvement. April 1950: approval for invasion of South Korea.
• 00:06:00 June 25 1950. Surprise assault. Sunday morning. Russian tanks and artillery. 10 divisions from North.
• 00:07:00 Saturday evening in USA; papers preparing to go to press. Immediate sense that action had to be taken. No contingency plan for Korean War. Request for help to US State Department; not something that America alone could help with; UN should be involved.
• 00:09:00 Footage of Security Council Meeting. USSR boycotting because of refusal to admit Communist China. Security Council vote to create UN Security Force with soldiers from 16 nations to fight against Communism.
• 00:10:00 President Truman addresses nation “Korea is a small country thousands of miles away, but what is happening there is important to every American … there may be similar acts of aggression in other parts of the world.”
• 00:10:40 Conclusion right at the beginning that invasion could not have been launched without USSR support. US Reserves called up. Popular war at the start.
• 00:11:40 General Douglas MacArthur, Allied Supreme Commander in Tokyo and victor of Pacific War appointed to lead. Worshipped in Japan. Simmons: Ego; MacArthur believed at this point that he was infallible. US Troops in Japan not ready for action; had been living a life of leisure. US Task Force imagined that stay would be short. But South Korean Army in retreat. Seoul captured in 3 days; North believed country would be reunified with ease. Americans fared no better than South Koreans, esp due to lack of anti-tank weapons; equipment left over from WWII.
• 00:15:10 Clement Attlee “If the United Nations Organisation was not to go the way of the old League of Nations, it was absolutely and imperatively necessary that a fault should be called.” 15 nations join US.
• 00:15:40 Map: South Korean and US Forces pushed back to Pusan. MacArthur gambles on huge sea-borne invasion at Inchon 150 miles behind enemy lines.
• 00:16:00 September 15 1950. Bombardment of Inchon. Landing of South Korean and US Marines. Sea wall had to be scaled. Poor landing conditions. Would not have survived against Japanese or German WWII troops. Many civilians killed in crossfire.
• 00:18:10 MacArthur reinstates Syngman Rhee in parliament building. Concern due to increasingly vicious Rhee government. Rhee’s army crossing 38th parallel; drive on to unify peninsula. UN troops also advance in hot pursuit of Communists.
• 00:19:30 Yalu River between North Korea and China. Chinese alarmed and fear invasion of China. Could not risk such a small border, or US aircraft disrupting Chinese rebuilding. Beijing divided over intervention. Mao recieves secret cables from Stalin encouraging intervention.
• 00:21:20 Fall of Pyongyang. Only Communist capital ever to fall to West during Cold War.
• 00:21:40 MacArthur summoned to mid-Pacific meeting on Wake Island with Truman. MacArthur assured Truman that China would not enter war. Awarded another medal, and refused to stay for lunch. While they were talking, Mao ordered PRC Army to cross Yalu river.
• 00:22:35 Song: “Bravely crossing the Yalu River at dawn / We’re protecting our homes for the sake of the Motherland / For the sake of our friends / Good sons and daughters of the Motherland. / March forward resolutely / The Anti-American pro-Korean War will defeat the imperialists.”
• 00:23:00 US Army paused for Thanksgiving, unaware of Chinese advance. MacArthur and troops still thought war would be over by Christmas. “The last nice day we had”. 300k Chinese attacked next morning. Bugles sounded.
• 00:24:30 As in Civil War, Mao believed greater motivation could defeat foe with superior arms. UN forces thrown backwards, abandoning materiel. Temperatures 25 below zero. “Bug Out Fever”. Truman speech of November 30 1950, standing by commitment through UN. Pressed at press conference on possible use of atom bomb; asked so often that people began to believe it might be used. Attlee flew to Washington for crisis talks. First telegrams to relatives in the USA. Scorched earth policy adopted by retreating US soldiers. Pyongyang recaptured. Seoul fell against to Communists. General Matthew B Ridgway appointed by MacArthur as new field commander.
• 00:30:00 US air supremacy. Using WWI and WWII tactics, but in jets with much higher speed. Mig fighters from USSR challenged this supremacy; Soviet mission was to train pilots, but they ended up as participants, risking bringing USA and USSR into direct conflict. Complete secrecy demanded of USSR pilots. F86 Sabre helped US win back mastery of skies. F9F Panthers used for ground attacks; explosives and napalm used.
• 00:32:20 MacArthur called for bombing of Chinese cities. Too much for Truman. Speech of April 11 1951 announcing General MacArthur relieved. Summer of 1951 fought almost to stalemate, at positions very close to a year previously.
• 00:33:50 Would be fought to a negotiation, not to a victory. Fate of prisoners of war was key at truce talks. Both North and South treated other side’s PoWs badly. 1/3 US PoWs died during first winter. Chinese took over control of PoWs to alleviate their own concerns. Daily lectures to indoctrinate them.
• 00:35:40 Home front not interested in Korea; only New York Times had a short column on Korea every day. Not like Vietnam where you watched TV and ate dinner and saw latest battle every day.
• 00:36:30 Galvanised Japanese economy; now bastion of capitalism in struggle with Communism in Asia. Dockyards / shipyards used to repair vessels. Kickstart for Japanese electronics industry.
• 00:37:10 Half of North Korean PoWs chose not to return to Communist countries.
• 00:37:50 Almost as much explosive dropped on Korea by US as they had dropped on Germany during WWII.
• 00:38:50 As many as 2m civilians killed in the North. “They say Stalingrad was destroyed 96% … but Pyongyang was destroyed 100%”. Atrocities by both sides.
• 00:39:30 Panmunjom truce talks spanned 2 years and hundreds of meetings.
• 00:40:00 1952: Election year in America. Truman didn’t run. Eisenhower’s slogan: “I shall go to Korea”. Landslide.
• 00:40:50 March 1953: Death of Stalin. His successors wanted to end war.
• 00:41:30 July 27 1953 truce signed by all except Syngman Rhee.
• 00:42:00 75,000 Communist PoWs handed over. 12,000 UN PoWs set free. Return of US PoWs. 54,000 US troops had died. 3000 from other UN nations. Mao called it a great victory in China. Estimated 500,000 Chinese killed.
• 00:44:30 3m North and South Koreans killed, wounded or missing. Another 5m homeless.
• 00:45:20 Fedorenko: in broad terms a defeat for Socialism.
• 00:45:30 “40 years later, at the end of the Cold War, Korea was still divided by the same line.”

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