POWs: The Hidden Reason for Forgetting Korea

Abstract

Despite recent attention, the Korean War (1950–53) remains underappreciated and further explanation of its ‘forgottenness’ is needed. Korea originally faded to gray because there was no satisfying victory. National security planners had ample reason to try and rehabilitate the war in the mind of the public, but had little success. This was because a primary accomplishment of the second half of the war – forcing the enemy to accept so-called voluntary repatriation of POWs (prisoners of war) – was semi-secret and never declared as a major war aim. Since the nation was never united around securing voluntary repatriation, there was little raw material for creating a memory of success.

Key Words:

• Prisoners of War
• Memory
• Korean War

Notes

¹David Bercuson, ‘Canada's Forgotten War’, Canadian Historical Review 65/1 (1984), 107; Richard L. Kiper, ‘Unconventional Warfare in Korea: Forgotten Aspect of the “Forgotten War”’, Special Warfare 16 (Aug. 2003), 26; Bonnie B.C. Oh, ‘The Korean War, No Longer Forgotten’, Journal of Asian Studies 57 (1993), 156; Glen Steven Cook, ‘Korea: No Longer the Forgotten War’, Journal of Military History 56 (1992), 489.

²Cited in Steven Casey, Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics and Public Opinion (New York: OUP 2008), 363; ‘Korea: The “Forgotten” War: Casualties Rise – No End to Conflict in Sight’, US News and World Report, 5 Oct. 1952, 21.

³David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion 2007), 2.

⁴‘Korea: The “Forgotten” War: Casualties Rise – No End to Conflict in Sight’, US News and World Report, 5 Oct. 1952, 21.

⁵Found in Richard K. Kolb, ‘Korea's “Invisible Veterans”’, VFW (Nov. 1997), 27.

⁶Stanley Sandler, The Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished (Lexington: UP of Kentucky 1999).

⁷G. Kurt Piehler, Remembering War the American Way (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 1995), 157.

⁸H. Bruce Franklin, M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP 1993).

¹⁰Ernest R. May, American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68 (Boston: Bedford Books 1993), 54.

⁹Found in Richard J. Barnet, The Rockets' Red Glare: War, Politics, and the American Presidency (New York: Simon & Schuster 1990), 252. Forrestal was in the Navy Dept. 1940–47 and became the first US Secretary of Defense 1947–49.

¹¹Found in Nancy E. Bernhard, US Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–1960 (New York: Cambridge UP 1999), 83.

¹²D[wight] D. E[isenhower] L[ibrary, Abilene, KS], Carl W. McCardle Papers, Series I Conference and Trip Files, Box 1, Folder: Korean Truce Negotiations, 26 July 1953.

¹³On the forcible withholding of prisoners, see Charles S. Young, Name, Rank, and Serial Number: Korean War POWs and the Politics of Limited War (New York: OUP forthcoming); Barton J. Bernstein, ‘The Struggle Over the Korea Armistice: Prisoners of Repatriation?’, in Bruce Cumings (ed.), Child of Conflict: The Korean-American Relationship, 1943–1953 (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press 1983); Rosemary Foot, A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1990); John Toland, In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950–1953 (New York: William Morrow 1991); Se Hee Oh, Stalag 65: A Memoir of a Korean POW (Portland, OR: Artwork Publications 2000); Albert D. Biderman and Samuel M. Meyers (eds.), Mass Behavior in Battle and Captivity: The Communist Soldier in the Korean War (Univ. of Chicago Press 1968). See also a fictionalized account based on real events: Ha Jin, War Trash (New York: Vintage Books 2004).

¹⁴Foot, Substitute for Victory.

¹⁵‘Seoul Abandoned to Red Armies; City Afire; UN Retreat Orderly’, New York Times, 4 Jan. 1951; ‘Reds Half Way to Pusan Beachhead’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Jan. 1951.

¹⁶Don Whitehead, ‘Withdrawal Inevitable: Observer Back From Korea Says Military Men Favor Leaving Before Army's Lost’, Newark Sunday News, 14 Jan. 1951.

¹⁷Xiaobing Li and Allan R. Millett, Mao's Generals Remember Korea (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 2001), 34.

¹⁸Kaufman, Burton I., The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command (Philadelphia: Temple UP 1986), 54.

¹⁹Li, Mao's Generals Remember Korea, 41.

²⁰Ibid., 46.

²¹Callum A. MacDonald, Korea: The War Before Vietnam (New York: Free Press 1986), 220.

²²DDEL, President's Committee on International Information Activities (Jackson Committee) Records 1950–1953, Numbered documents, Box 11, Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘Memo for Secretary Johnson: NSC 74 – A Plan for National Psychological Warfare’, 1 Aug. 1950.

²³Oh, Stalag 65, 169.

²⁴S.N. Prasad, History of the Custodian Force (India) in Korea 1953–54 (Delhi: Armed Forces of the Indian Union, Historical Section 1976), 69.

²⁵William C. Bradbury and Samuel M. Meyers, ‘The Political Behavior of Korean and Chinese Prisoners of War in the Korean Conflict: A Historical Analysis’, in Meyers Biderman, Mass Behavior, 265.

²⁶Oh, Stalag 65, 163, 172,

²⁷William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (Princeton UP 2002), 166.

²⁸[N]ational A[rchives, College Park, MD, State Dept. Records] RG 59, PPS Files, Subject: Korea, box 20, Stelle to Paul Nitze: Alternative Courses of Action on POW Problem, 28 Jan. 1952.

²⁹Walter G. Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front: United States Army in the Korean War (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, US Army 1966), 432, 500.

³¹[Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO,] PSB Files, SMOF, Mallory Browne, box 32, 383.6, The Strategic Significance of Involuntary PW Repatriation in Korea, Feb. 1952.

³⁰Cited in Casey, Selling the Korean War, 285.

³²Stelle to Nitze, ‘Alternative Courses of Action on POW Problem’, 28 Jan. 1952.

³³RG 59, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Memos, Edward W. Barrett File, box 2, Barrett to Mathews, Korean Prisoners of War, 4 Feb. 1952.

³⁴DDEL, White House Central File, box 29, PSB 7025, Confidential File 1953–61, Charles E. Wilson, ‘Proposal to Allen Dulles’, 19 Feb. 1953.