Korean War Lessons

From the Korean War we, the United States, should learn that Communism is spreading across Asia and we cannoth afford nor are prepared enough for a war against the Soviet Union and its allies. It is clear that communism is spreading because in 1949 China became a communist country. When the Japanese troops left North Korea the Soviet Union took control of it and turned the government into a "Soviet-style-one-party system"(3). North Korea became a one-party system because a Soviet leader was trained by USSR and controled what went on and etcetera in North Korea.

Our overall aims in Korea is to get communism out, or the least get the Soviet Union out. The Soviet Union is getting out of control as seen in eastern Europe where all the satellite-nations are controlled by the Soviet Union, this is going to happen to North Korea, which is why evasive action must be taken because the Soviet Union is getting too powerful. As said by Senator Tom Connally "If the UN is ever going to do anything, this is the time, and if the UN cannot bring the crisis in Korea to an end then we might as well just wash up the United Nations and forget it," which is true because if we don't stop the spread in communism and the control the Soviet Union could have, like in Korea, than they will become too powerful and we wont be able to stop them.

However, we cannot win this war without more allies, the leader of South Korea, Chiang, is not taking advantage of all of the citizens he has. Mao, on the other hand, is offering land benefits and more to the peasants making them want to go to North Korea, which they have done. Without the same amount of effort from Chiang as us we cannot completely take out communism because we will just simply be out-numbered.

Although, with the help of the other members of the United Nations, such as Britain, we have been able to push more communism out of North Korea. Britain and the other members have supplied a decent amount of soldiers to give us somewhat of an upper hand, but without the boycott by USSR in the United Nations we probably never would have been able to attack North Korea. If the USSR hadn't boycotted the UN than they most likely would have used their veto to not pass the petition to help out South Korea.

I believe we could have done more, but without the cooperation of Chiang and not losing as many south koreans we could not have done so. The United States partially achieved its goals because there is still communism in North Korea that is highly influenced, if not controled, by the Soviet Union. Also, North Korea has more land controlled by them than we do, we need to push them farther north. Though we must be extremely careful because if we were to go pass the Yalu River, as General Macarthur almost did, than we would also be in a war with China which would probably be followed by a declaration by the Soviet Union saying that they were going to war against us as well.

General Macarthur did help us to achieve some of our goals at one point, which were to drive the Soviets and communism out of North Korea. He had pushed the 'border' of South Korea almost to the Yalu River, where then we had faced problems with China. China is also a communist country, as declared in 1949, which made us predict that the Soviet Union would help their communistic allies in fighting a war against the United States. This would be terribly bad because we are not ready or prepared for a third world war. General Macarthur is doing his best to push communism and the Soviets out of North Korea.

Although Macarthur did help us achieve some of his goals his ideas would have lead us into trouble. China had declared that if we were to go over the Yalu River they would declare war on us, and we had predicted that USSR would help them. That would have been extremely bad because the United States is not ready for a third world war. Macarthur, however, wanted to use nuclear bombs on China and invade it, which would have caused a third world war possibly. We just couldn't have it, so President Truman fired him, and there is proof of his intentions in the war. Macarthur had said that "had they (the Chinese) intervened in the first or second months it would have been decisive, (but) we are no longer fearful of their intervention. Now that we have bases for our Air Force in Korea, there would be the greatest slaughter." So General Macarthur would have brought the United States into war with China and probably USSR too.

Overall, the casualties of the Korean War were great (a total of 1.4 billion), but most were on North Korea and China's side (780,000 soldiers and civilains were killed). Although the people that got the most casualties was all of Korea, with North Korea being the most and South Korea coming next with 570,000 civilians and soldiers killed. American and UN soldiers have lost the least amount of soldiers and civilians at 34,500 deaths.

As one can see, past president Truman's "containment" plan was somewhat successful. His plan allowed us to push communism and the Soviet Union somewhat out of North Korea, but it did allow us to stop the spread of communism and USSSR in becoming too powerful. However, communism did spread to China, stayed in North Korea, and almost got us into a third world war. We were not able to send military equipment and funds to China to stop communism or in North Korea, on the other hand we were able to do this in South Korea where it did not succumb to communistic ideologies. Although, the containment system almost got us into another major war by another communistic nation warning us of a war against us. The system calls us to help countries who are trying to rule out communisms by supplying them with funds and arms, but we went beyond in trying to cross the Korean border into China were they had already declared that they were communist and weren't rebelling. I believe that containment has served the United States well, but I think that we can make something better that will prevent us more from getting into war with other nations.

Dropping the Atomic Bomb

1. What factors have affected viewpoints on Truman's decision?

Truman's decision of the atomic bomb was and still is greatly debated. Some people believe that he dropped the bombs to scare the Soviet Union. Since the war was basically over, or so they knew and thought that it was, the bomb was pointless. Others believe that Truman dropped the atomic bombs because the military wanted to test out these new weapons of war, instead of using it for military need. Lastly, many people believe that he used them to save lives, without the bombs more lives would have been lost. These people say this because there is few evidence proving that Truman was trying to scare USSR or the military wanting to test out a new weapon. In conclusion, with so many different theories, like scaring the USSR and military testing it out, people have put themselves on different sides on Truman's decision.

2. Do you think he made the right decision? Give your reasons.

I believe that President Truman made the right decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. In one of the Pacific Battles, at Okiniwa, there were many casualties and it was just a less harsher example to what the island of Japan would be like. President Truman didn't want to lose any more men in the war, and people predicted that there would be deaths in the hundred thousands or even millions if the allies were to invace Japan. Truman wanted to prevent this, and in this aspect it was the right way to go to prevent allied deaths by using the atomic bombs. Also, if he were to use the atomic bombs on Japan it'd be almost a guarantee that they would defeat Japan and overall the Axis powers. I think if anyone were in his situation they'd want to end the war as soon as possible without losing millions of soldiers. The Japanese were vey aggressive and were fighting to the death, how else could he have defeated them if they wouldn't even surrender. They would have to defeat the Japanese, in battles, until all the Japanese were dead or if the Japanese killed themselves. This made the probability of losing a high number of men in the war at a higher percentage. In conclusion, I believe that President Truman had made the right decision on dropping two atomic bombs in Japan because it would lower the number of allied casualties and end the Pacific War and defeat the Axis Powers quicker.

War in the Pacific

1. What was the importance of the Battle of Midway?

The Battle of Midway was very important for the war effort and the allies because it was the turning point in the war. The allies, mostly Americans, had demoralized the Japanese a little and had raised pride and moral in America. People, including the Japanese were saying that America had avenged Pearl Harbor (referring to the attack at Pearl Harbor). Also, after this attack the allies began seizing and attacking all the other islands, in the book they called it "hopping" and "leapfrogging."

2. What strategy did the United States adopt in fighting Japan?

The strategy that the United States adopted to fight the Japanese was being offensive. America started taking action that pushed them forward in the war. They went and attacked instead of being defensive and defending their land.

3. Why did the Japanese fight so hard on Iwo Jima?

The Japanese fought so hard on Iwo Jima because the island was so close to the main island, Japan. If the U.S. seized this island they'd be close to Japan and bomber airplanes would easily be able to attack Japan. The island was a major component on determining wether or not America or Japan could keep or get control. The island was so close to Japan that if Japan lost that island America would easily be able to attack the island. Also, the Japanese used this island as a major defense, it was loaded with the most men, amunition, and etc. to defend Japan.

4. Why did the Allies believe Okinawa was a foretaste of an invasion of Japan?

The allies believed that Okinawa was a foretaste of an invasion of Japan because so many allie soldiers had died. Churchill predicted that hundreds of thousands or millions of men would probably die in Japan. Also, they were opened up to kamikazes that detroyed many ships and killed many men. Then on land they weren't prepared for how much worse it would be thant he at sea battles. Millions of Japanese soldiers had died while hundreds of thousands American soldiers had died, and they also saw two generals commit suicide because they'd rather do that than surrender. The Allies just thought wow this is crazy, Japan must be a lot worse (or something along the lines of that).


5. What was the Manhattan Project?

The Manhattan Project was made to research and try to build atomic bombs. The project did become successful, and only a handful of Americans knew about it, the ones that were involved in the project. However, many Americans in the project didn't know what the bomb(s) were going to be used for, and President Truman didn't even know until he came into office.


6. Ultimately, why did President Truman decide to drop atomic bombs on Japan?

President Truman decided to dop atomic bombs on Japan because he wanted to end the war and possibly save more lives (Allie lives). President Truman solely used the atomic bombs on Japan to end the war because he knew that fighting in Japan would be pretty much impossible. He saw how hard and devastating it was to win over Okinawa and Iwo Jima; so he thought that the best way was to drop atomic bombs. The Japanese even said that they wouldn't surrender, but after the two bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki they did end up surrendering.

War for Europe and North Africa-Part II

6. What was D-Day?

D-Day was the day when the allied troops began the huge planned invasion to overcome the Germans. First they entered in northern France, they tricked the Germans by saying they would land in a place 150 miles from the actual place and they had a secret army (of about one million plus more) that would carry out this day. The allied forces did end up overcoming the nazis and taking France back from Germany. After this day they began to push onward to Germany.

7. What happened at the Battle of the Bulge?

One battle fought after D-Day while pressing forth into Germany was the Battle of the Bulge. What happened was there was an eighty mile long front of allied forces, and earlier had captured their first city in Germany Aachen. However, Hitler didn't want to go down quite yet; he thought that he could take control back if he demoralized the allied forces and seized some of their land back. Although this didn't work, they did make it pretty far into the allied forces eighty mile line, but lost. Six hundred tanks and over a thousand troops and air planes were destroyed and killed. Hitler's troops attacked just one part of the line and made a 'bulge' in the line, hence Battle of the Bulge. One sad part of the battle is that over a hundred allied troops were taken prisoner and were masacred by machine guns and pistols, an attempt at demoralizing the allies.

8. What did Allied troops find in Germany?

Allied troops found concentration camps in Germany that were far worse than what they expected. They found naked and burnt bodies, and all of them emaciated. They said that their bones were sticking out through their skin. The Germans attempted to burn all the crimes and documents but failed to. Also, German troops in Berlin panacked and tried running away, however they were shot and hanged with an emblem on their chests saying that they betrayed Hitler. The concentration camps were the biggest shock to the allied troops because it was far worse than what they expected.

9. What happened to Hitler? What happened to F.D. Roosevelt? Who became U.S. President?

Hitler ended up marrying his long time companion, Eva Braun, however they killed themselves before they could be captured or anything (he shot himself and she poisoned herself). Before Hitler killed himself he blamed everything bad that had happened, the losing of land that he had seized and etc, on the Jewish people. He said that it was the Jewish people that had caused him to lose control of what he had. FDR again became president for a fourth term but less than a month before V-E-Day he died of a stroke. Then Harry S. Truman became President of the United States as the thirty-third president.