All language subtitles for Cold War - S01E05 - Korea (1949–1953) (480p x265 EDGE2020).eng

NARRATION:
Korea, summer 1950.

The United States leads
the United Nations

into a war against
communism in Asia.

In winter,

under attack from
the Chinese communists,

the UN troops are thrown into

full-scale retreat.

It was a
rout exactly like the

one that Napoleon
faced leaving Russia.

We ran head long,
helter-skelter, pell mell,

trying to get to Pusan,
trying to get back to Japan.

It was disgusting.

NARRATION:
The Cold War has become a hot war.

At the end of the Second World War,

the Japanese Army that had
occupied Korea for 35 years,

surrenders.

[ Speaking Korean ]

During the Japanese occupation,

they forced us to follow
the Japanese lifestyle,

speak the Japanese language,

use Japanese law.

When we were liberated we
welcomed the soldiers.

NARRATION:
Russian and American troops

liberated Korea -

meeting together just as
they had in Germany.

As occupying powers,
the Soviet Union and the

United States agreed
to divide Korea

along the in 38th Parallel -
as a temporary measure.

South of the divide,
the Americans were in control.

We made the
Republic of Korea really,

between the Pentagon
and the State Department.

NARRATION:
American generals installed a

hard-line anti-communist-
Syngman Rhee.

NILES BOND:
His charm is somewhat deceptive

because he's
also very tough,

he's absolutely unforgiving,

very patriotic.

And he's not nearly as
sweet as he looks.

NARRATION:
Rhee was appointed as first President

of the new
Republic of Korea in 1948.

American troops withdrew.

North of the 38th Parallel,
the Russians were in control.

They established a
communist regime through

a network of
People's Committees.

Kim ll Sung, who had spent the
war in the Soviet Union,

was groomed for power.

TEN SANDIN:
[ speaking Korean ]

He was a very handsome young man,

always smiling.

Everybody liked
him in Korea.

He made a very
good impression.

He was the national hero
of the Korean people.

NARRATION: The Democratic
People's Republic of Korea

was proclaimed with Kim ll
Sung as its President.

As Soviet troops withdrew,

Kim dreamed of uniting
Korea under communism.

[speaking Russian ]

Kim ll Sung understood that to
resolve the problem

of unifying the two
Koreas was very difficult -

that he would need help.

Of course the help
he was hoping

to get would come from
the Soviet Union.

NARRATION:
In March 1949,

Kim ll Sung went to Moscow:

his secret
agenda to seek Stalin's

permission to
invade the South.

NARRATION:
Stalin, pre-occupied with crisis in Berlin,

rejected Kim's
request to invade.

NARRATION:
By the end of 1949,

the international situation
had been transformed.

The Soviets detonated their
first atom bomb.

NARRATION:
And the communist revolution in China

was finally successful.

Mao Zedong proclaimed the
People's Republic of China.

NARRATION:
A treaty of friendship between

Mao and Stalin created a
communist global alliance,

opening a second front to
the Cold War in Asia.

NARRATION:
Stalin was now confident that

the United States lacked
the will to respond

to events in Asia.

In April 1950 he finally
gave approval

for Kim ll Sung to
invade South Korea.

NARRATIONI
June 25th 1950,

the North Korean Army launches its
surprise assault

on the South.

I remember vividly,
even today,

the day the
war broke out.

It was Sunday morning.

And we heard this
kind of remote

the roaring noise
from the North.

NARRATION:
Equipped with Russian tanks and artillery,

and directed
by Soviet advisers,

ten combat
divisions of the North Korean

Army flooded south.

[ Speaking Korean ]

We believed that
we had to fight for our

motherland, for our people,
for our leader Kim ll Sung.

We believed it would be
better to liberate

the South and
to unify Korea.

That's what we
were fighting for.

NARRATION:
Sunday morning in Korea -

Saturday evening edition
in Washington.

The Sunday papers
prepare to go to press.

HAN PYO WOOK:
It was Saturday evening.

I got a telephone call from
the UP duty officer saying

that Korea had been
invaded by North Koreans.

And momentarily the remark
stunned me so much that

I didn't know what to say,
whether he was joking with me

or whether he
was really sure.

NARRATION: Senior officials
were recalled that night to the

State Department.

When the invasion occurred
of South Korea,

I think there was
an immediate sense that action

had to be taken.

Exactly what that action was to
be and how far it was to go,

was not something we had
planned on.

We had not worked out a
contingency plan

for a war started by North
Korea with South Korea.

And about midnight

there was a call
from President Syngman Rhee.

I took the receiver
and he said,

"Please ask American government
to rush necessary help."

NARRATION:
The South Korean ambassador

went immediately to the
State Department to see

Assistant Secretary
Dean Rusk.

He said, and I quote him:

'We felt that this is
a matter America

alone cannot
be concerned with.

It is a matter the
world has to be concerned.

And with that judgment
we have decided to summon the

Security Council for an
emergency session.'

Noting with grave concern
the armed invasion

of the Republic of Korea
by armed forces...

NARRATION:
The following day,

the Security Council met.

Moscow was boycotting the
United Nations

because of its refusal
to admit communist China.

Those in favor will please
raise their hands...

NARRATION:
The United States seized

the opportunity to condemn
North Korean aggression.

...earned by 9 votes for;

1 against and 1 abstention.

NARRATION:
Two days later,

the Security Council
voted to create a

United Nations military
force to defend South Korea.

This is in fact an attack on the
United Nations itself ..

NARRATION:
Under the UN flag,

soldiers from 16 nations would
fight against communism.

HAN PYO WOOK:
We were elated.

We felt very, very good,
very encouraged.

We felt furthermore
we felt that probably Korean

unification was
to come about as

a result of the
Resolution itself.

NARRATION:
President Truman addressed the nation.

Korea is a small country,
thousands of miles away.

But what is happening there is
important to every American.

PRESIDENT TRUMAN: The fact that communist
forces have invaded Korea is a warning

that there may
be similar acts of

aggression in other
parts of the world...

NILES BOND:
The feeling at that time was

that a military operation of
this magnitude could not

possibly have
been taken without

the support of
the Russian military.

In other words it was
concluded right at

the beginning
that this was a movement

this was something
happening in the

context of the Cold War.

NARRATION:
The United States mobilized for war.

The reserves were called up.

At the time we entered
into the war-

and lead the UN into
the war with us -

it was a very
popular war.

FLORENCE GALING: Everybody was
agitated, getting ready to go overseas.

There were all
sorts of feelings,

trepidation, expectancy.

There was quite a feeling

of wanting to stop the
communists from

taking over anywhere
in the world.

They wanted to stem
the tide of communism.

NARRATION:
General Douglas MacArthur,

the allied
Supreme Commander in Tokyo

and the legendary
victor of the Pacific war

was appointed to lead the
United Nations' forces.

EDWIN SIMMONS:
He was worshipped in Japan.

This man had a tremendous
ego and it had been

fed for all
these years.

I do believe he was at this point

he felt that he was
infallible.

NARRATION:
The nearest troops to Korea were

the American occupation
force in Japan -

few of whom were
ready for combat.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
The lifestyle involved

a lot of leisure.

Our life was lived through
the Sears Roebuck catalogue.

We bought nylons and
what not for the native girls

and that sort of thing.

It was a
it was a good life.

NARRATION:
The US Task Force sent to Korea

didn't imagine their stay
would be for long.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
As a matter of fact,

we were told to take our
athletic equipment and leave

everything else
behind because we'd

only be gone for
maybe six weeks.

We'd have a show
of force in the

field and those gooks
would go back across the

38th Parallel and
we'd come home.

NARRATION:
It wouldn't be that easy.

Rhee's South Korean Army
was in retreat.

Two divisions threw
their weapons away and

joined the refugees
fleeing the communist advance.

[ Speaking Korean ]

As soldiers,
we did our utmost.

But the overall situation
was going against us.

The North Korean Army
achieved its initial objective.

It captured Seoul
in three days.

NARRATION:
With the capture of the southern capital,

Kim ii Sung won a great
victory for communism.

KIM REN OK:
[ speaking Korean ]

When we got to Seoul
the army told us

the campaign
was finished.

They told us political
reforms will follow.

Now the country will be
unified with ease.

We didn't think there
would be any more war.

NARRATION:
American troops fared no better

than the South Koreans.

With no effective
anti-tank weapons,

the American
line collapsed.

Within days,

American troops were
reeling back in disarray,

under assault from the tiny
communist regime of North Korea.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
We had equipment left over

from World War Two.

We were in very poor
shape for everything.

We were not ready
to fight a war-

that's what
it amounts to.

That's the long and short of it.

NARRATION:
Around the world, America's allies rallied

behind the United Nations flag.

The British Prime Minister
pledged his support.

CLEMENT ATTLEE:
if the United Nations organization

was not to go the way of
the old League of Nations,

it was absolutely
and imperatively necessary

that a halt should
be called.

NARRATION:
Troops from 15 nations

began to arrive in

Korea to join the
Americans in the UN army.

General MacArthur took a gamble
to turn the tide of the war.

With the UN forces driven back
to a tiny enclave at Pusan,

a vast seaborne invasion,
150 miles behind enemy lines,

would attempt to sever

and then roll back
the North Korean advance.

Dawn, September 15th 1950.

The largest invasion fleet
since the Second World War

bombards
the port of lnchon.

American and Korean marines
go ashore in huge numbers.

[ Speaking Korean ]

When we landed
we approached the beach

at full speed.

The ramp of the landing
craft opened with a bang

and we charged with our guns,
screaming down the ramp.

EDWIN SIMMONS:
There was a sea wall there -

out stone.

It had to be scaled.

Actual landing
conditions were terrible.

Part of the city
was on fire.

It was a rainy day
and the rain was mixing

with the smoke of the fire

and the smoke of the
bombardment.

If those beaches had
been defended by Japanese

German troops

of the same quality as
the Germans and

Japanese were in World War Two,

we would have been lucky

to get ashore
and we might not have

been quite so lucky
once we got ashore.

NARRATION:
Within two weeks,

UN troops
were engaged in a fierce battle

to recapture
the southern capital, Seoul.

50,000 civilians were killed
in the crossfire.

My house was located in

a hillside and there was a
crossfire between the

UN forces and the North
Korean People's Army

on the northern side.

Finally my
father told us

that it would be better
if our family split up,

at least somebody will

survive this war.

NARRATION:
After finally recapturing Seoul,

MacArthur re-instated Syngman Rhee
in the Parliament building.

Mac/Arthur's association with
Rhee's increasingly vicious

regime caused concern
in Washington.

LUCIUS BATTLE: Syngman
Rhee was a difficult man to back.

And once he was in power,
it was very difficult

for us to do anything.

It was not up to us to
change the government.

And there was no other
alternative obviously

available anyway.

NARRATION: Rhee's jubilant
army was the first to cross the

38th Parallel
into North Korea.

LEE JAE JEON:
[ speaking Korean ]

When we counter-attacked
across the 38th Parallel

every one of us,
soldiers and people,

thought now the
drive was on to

unify the whole
Korean peninsula.

NARRATION:
The UN troops too

advanced into
North Korea.

Mac/Arthur's war
aim now appeared to

be hot pursuit
of the invader.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
I thought we'd won the war.

[ laughs ]

I shouldn't laugh
at this point,

but I have to.

I really thought that
we'd won the war and

I think that was
the general feeling.

And we went north
with high hopes.

NARRATION:
The giant Yalu River

marks the boundary between
North Korea and China.

Across this border,

the Chinese leadership
followed the war

with alarm.

They feared the American
army in North Korea

would invade
the Chinese mainland.

[speaking Chinese]

If North Korea
was defeated,

only the Yalu River
would separate us

from the Americans.

We couldn't
accept this

nor the risk of American
aircraft disrupting the

reconstruction
of our country.

NARRATION:
From devastated North Korea,

an urgent message
went out to Beijing.

KAN SAN KHO:
[ speaking Korean ]

A government delegation
was sent to Mao Zedong.

'What can we do?',
they asked. 'We can't retreat.

They're attacking us from the
air, from the sea, and by land.

There is very little of
the North Korean Army left.

Many have died.
What can we do now?'

NARRATION:
The communist leadership in

Beijing was deeply divided
over intervention.

Mao received secret cables
from Stalin telling him

to enter the war to
save North Korea.

Wanting to assert
China's power in Asia,

Mao was agreeable.

Meanwhile,
the UN and South Korean armies

continued the race north.

On October 19th
Pyongyang fell.

It was the only communist capital

ever to fall to the West

during the Cold War.

MacArthur had the
bit in his teeth.

He was pursuing
a defeated army.

The race to the
Yalu was on.

NARRATION:
MacArthur was surprised

to be summoned to
Wake Island in mid-Pacific

for a meeting with
President Truman.

MacArthur assured his
commander-in-chief

there was no possibility of
China entering the war.

He took the award of yet another
medal as a signal

that he could continue the
advance towards China.

When the President asked
him to stay for lunch,

MacArthur refused.

While Truman and MacArthur
were talking,

Mao ordered the Chinese army,
called the People's Volunteers,

to enter Korea.

Haifa million
Chinese began

to cross the Yalu River
and waited -

for the UN forces
to approach the border.

As they crossed the Yalu
in enormous numbers,

the Volunteers
sang this song.

CHAN BOLIANG:
[sings song in Chinese]

[ speaking Chinese ]
That's how it goes!

NARRATION:
Unaware of the massing

of the Chinese troops,

the US Army paused for
Thanksgiving.

Roast turkey and
cranberry sauce

were served up.

MacArthur and his soldiers
still thought

the war would be
'over by Christmas'.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
Well, Thanksgiving Day in 1950

was a very fine day.

The weather was nice.

The typical Thanksgiving
dinners were there.

We had everything that we
would have had had

we been at home.

It was just a very
nice day

and that was the
last nice day we had.

[ laughs ]

NARRATION:
Next morning,

300,000 Chinese attacked.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
They'd blow these bugles

and they had a chilling
effect on the soldiers.

CHAN BOLIANG:
[speaking Chinese]

The first aim of

the Volunteers
going into Korea

was to defend our
homes and country,

the Motherland.

We couldn't allow
others to cross

the Yalu River
and invade us.

But also we wanted to help
the Korean people.

NARRATION:
As in China's long civil war,

Mao believed that greater
motivation could defeat

an enemy with
superior arms.

CHAN BOLIANG:
[speaking Chinese]

Because our war
was a just war

the enemy
could be defeated.

Our bravery and our strategy
developed during the years of

the liberation struggle
would help defeat the enemy.

LUCIUS BATTLE: The reaction
when China came in was that

we had a whole new war,

a whole new situation.

It was a very
terrifying situation

and one that was
extremely troubling.

NARRATION:
In the next swing of this seesaw war,

UN forces across North Korea

were thrown back, abandoning
vehicles and equipment.

CHARLES BUSSEY:
We had people on top of the trucks,

on the running boards,

just heading south.

I never felt so
inadequate in my life -

as to be part of an army
that was running.

It was unbelievable.

EDWIN SIMMONS: I ask you
to imagine a situation where the

temperature is 25
below zero.

Nothing is working
as well as it should.

Weapons have difficulty firing
in that kind of a temperature.

A lot of Chinese
out there.

I'm not aware of any other
movement of Americans

that were
as futile as that rout was,

and it was a rout.

NARRATION: American
soldiers called it 'bug out' fever.

PRESIDENT TRUMAN:
We are fighting in Korea

for our own national
security and survival.

We have committed ourselves to
the cause of a just and peaceful

world order through
the United Nations.

We stand by that
commitment.

NARRATION: At a
Washington Press Conference,

journalists repeatedly
pressed Truman on

the possible use
of the atom bomb.

It went on and on and on

just like that -

the President not being
able to shut this thing off.

And until people began
to think that maybe we

were going to use
the atomic bomb.

The Bulletins about the
President's Press Conference

went around the
world immediately.

And that caused
incredible alarm.

NARRATION:
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee

was sufficiently
alarmed to fly

to Washington for
crisis talks.

CLEMENT ATTLEE:
My aim in these talks

is to align our
policies in the new

and troubled situation
in the world

and to find the means
of upholding

what we both
know to be right.

NARRATION:
Next day,

Truman assured Attlee
that there were

no plans to use
atomic weapons.

[speaking Russian ]

I think the Americans
understood it would be tit for-tat.

If they use it,
we will use it.

We had an agreement
with the Chinese.

That's why they didn't
use the atomic bomb.

NARRATION:
At home that winter,

for many
American families,

the pain began with a
call at the door.

The 29th December,
the doorbell rang.

It was on a Friday.

I had just washed my
hair and I opened the door

and there was a boy
delivering a telegram.

And he turned on his
heels and left and

I knew the telegram was
going to tell me either

he was dead or alive.

And when I opened
it I just

thanked God that
he was 'missing in action'.

As far as knowing when
he became a prisoner,

that wasn't for
another year.

Even though we knew
he was in a camp,

I never knew
from day to day

how he was doing.

I never knew from letter
to letter if he was alive.

You know, so I
always held out hope

that he would come home
but I never could say

that he would come home.

NARRATION: Retreating UN soldiers
adopted a scorched earth policy.

After withdrawing from Hungnam,
American engineers

blew up the dockside.

The Chinese, rapidly advancing,
recaptured the northern capital,

Pyongyang-

At the beginning of 1951, Seoul
fell again to the communists.

General Matthew B. Ridgway

was appointed by MacArthur as
the new field commander.

At last, UN troops began to
slow the Chinese advance.

The defeatism
and the bug-out

fever and so forth that had afflicted
the 8th Army before

was eradicated.

NARRATION:
From the beginning,

the United States
enjoyed air supremacy.

SENATOR JOHN GLENN: When I was flying
up along the Yalu in the F-86, the Saber,

we were
using tactics that

had literally been used in
World War One and World War Two,

except we were flying jets
at much higher speed.

NARRATION:
When Russian MIG-15

fighters with well
trained Russian pilots

were sent to
the war zone,

they posed a challenge to
American supremacy.

In a new fighter plane
flies Major Pepeliayev.

YEVGENI PEPELIAYEV:
[speaking Russian ]

Our mission was to go there
to train pilots.

But later we ended up as
participants in the Korean War

NARRATION: The presence of Russian
pilots risked bringing the Soviet Union

into direct conflict
with the United States.

YEVGENI PEPELIAYEV:
[speaking Russian ]

Our government
and the military

demanded
complete secrecy.

We must never
let the enemy

know they were
fighting Russians.

NARRATION:
When the US deployed the F-86 Saber,

they slowly won back
mastery of the skies.

This enabled American
aircraft to keep up a

constant offensive
on ground targets.

For ground attack we
were flying the F-9F,

the Panthers.

And they would carry
a large bomb load

and we could carry a
couple of thousand

pound bombs on that airplane,
and on some flights

hundred gallon napalm
tanks with

a white phosphorous grenade
cap on there -

so that when it hit the ground,
oh impact it would burst

into flame
and ignite the napalm.

And so we used all
of those things from

time to time
on ground

ground attack.

NARRATION: MacArthur now
called for the bombing of Chinese cities

and for the pursuit of
the war in mainland China.

This was too
much for Truman.

PRESIDENT TRUMAN: I believe
that we must try to limit the war

to Korea for these
vital reasons.

To make sure that the
precious lives of our

fighting men
are not wasted;

to see that the
security of our

country and the free world is
not needlessly jeopardized

and to prevent a Third World War.

A number of events have made it
evident that General MacArthur

did not agree
with that policy.

I have therefore considered
it essential to relieve

General MacArthur so that
there would be no doubt

or confusion as to the real
purpose and aim of our policy.

NARRATION: By the summer of 1951,
the two sides had fought themselves to

a stalemate in the
hills of Korea -

almost at the point at which
the fighting had begun

a year earlier.

Every month brought another
two and a half thousand

UN casualties.

EDWIN SIMMONS:
It became evident to us

that we were not going
to fight this war to win it,

that we were going
to fight it

to some negotiated
kind of peace.

NARRATION: Armistice talks
began in July 1951 but got nowhere.

Both sides found the
other's attitude impossible.

PAIK SUN YUP:
[ speaking Korean ]

Negotiation with the communists
was very difficult.

They treated the negotiations
like a battlefield tactic.

Something to buy time.

NARRATION:
One of the main stumbling blocks

at the truce talks was the
fate of the Prisoners of War.

Both North and South Koreans
maltreated their prisoners.

One in three American
POWs held by the North Koreans,

died during
the first winter.

'DOC' FRAZIER:
A lot of them were lost to dysentery,

diarrhea, severe
beatings, malnutrition.

Some of them were,
you know, stragglers-

they were just

they were just beat with
rifle butts till they died,

or bayoneted.

Or, you either kept
up or you died.

It was that simple.

NARRATION:
Concerned by the numbers dying,

the Chinese took over control

of the prisoners.

They organized daily
lectures to indoctrinate them.

They would say- 'We will tell
you why you have come to Korea,

why you have come thousands
of miles from your home.

You'll spill your blood for
the profiteering warmongers

on Wall Street.

Why have you come here to lay
down your young lives?

They are sleeping with your
wives and daughters.

Do you think
this is right?'

And this would be going on for
days on end, hour on end,

days on end, forever-
continuously.

NARRATION:
Back home, few people wanted to know.

FLORENCE GALING:
Everybody was involved

with the World War Two but nobody,

nobody was involved
with Korea.

The newspapers had so
little in them.

If I wanted to know what
was going on in Korea

yesterday I would have to
get to New York Times

because on page 2 they
had a short column on the

Korean War every day.

But most of the other
papers didn't and

you would only see headlines
when there was skirmish

or if some hill had been
lost or won, you know.

So there wasn't
that interest,

there really wasn't.

It wasn't like Vietnam
where you ate dinner

and watched television and saw
the latest battle, you know.

It wasn't anything like that.

NARRATION: In Japan, the
Korean War galvanized the economy -

generating three and a half
billion dollars of spending.

Japan, the ex-enemy, now
became a bastion of capitalism

in the struggle with
communism in Asia.

Japan became the jumping off
place for the Korean War.

The dockyards and shipyards
were used to rebuild,

recondition the ships.

Japanese electronics,

which are probably now
the top of the world,

really got their start in the Korean War.

NARRATION: In South Korea, the
UN held 130,000 communist prisoners.

Each one was asked
if he wanted to return

to his country of origin;

or stay in the
non-communist world.

The communists were outraged
when almost half of POWs chose

not to return to
their communist homes.

Violent protest
dogged the camps.

When the Armistice talks
resumed at Panmunjom,

the fate of the
prisoners delayed

the negotiations
for months on end.

As the truce talks stalled,

the relentless
bombing continued.

American bombers dropped
almost as much

explosive on North Korea as
they had on Germany

during World War Two.

YAN VON SIK:
[ speaking Korean ]

The bombers came
without warning.

Too many people died
because of the bombing.

You found dead people
everywhere.

There was hardly a single
house left standing.

They bombed the
big cities,

the villages and the
countryside in the same way.

I saw it all
with my own eyes.

NARRATION:
Estimates suggest that

in the North as many as 2
million civilians were killed.

TEN SAN DIN:
[ speaking Korean ]

It was horrific.

They said Stalingrad was
destroyed 96%

in the Second World War

but Pyongyang was
destroyed 100%.

Everything was burnt to ashes,
not a single house left.

NARRATION:
Throughout the war,

both sides committed
horrible atrocities.

Northerners killed
southerners

accused of sympathizing
with the enemy;

Rhee's supporters massacred

those suspected
of being communists.

In seemingly
endless violence,

innocent civilians were
often the victims.

At Panmunjom,

the talking continued.

Spanning two years,
there were hundreds of meetings.

1952.

Election year in America.

Two years into the war,

Truman decided not to
run for the Democrats.

The Republicans chose
Dwight D Eisenhower.

His slogan
'I shall go to Korea.'

FLORENCE GALING:
A lot of us,

were disenchanted
with President Truman.

I somehow blamed him for the war.

So when the elections
came up in 1952,

I couldn't wait
to vote for Eisenhower.

I felt being a military
man and his pledge was

that he would see what
he could do to end that war,

that he was the man
I wanted in office.

NARRATION:
Eisenhower defeated

the Democrats in a
landslide victory.

There were changes
in the east also.

In March 1953,
the communist world

mourned the
death of Stalin.

Stalin had kept
the war going.

His successors
wanted to end it.

TEN SAN DIN:
[ speaking Korean ]

Soviet and
North Korean leaders

came to believe it was
impossible to win this war.

Because on the side of South
Korea was the whole world and on

the North Korean side was
the Soviet Union and China.

So an armistice was inevitable.

NARRATION:
A cease-fire was finally agreed

on July 27th 1953.

The Chinese, the
North Koreans and the UN

backed the agreement.

The South Korean President,
Syngman Rhee,

opposed the truce and
refused to sign.

The massive job of exchanging
prisoners of war began.

75,000 communist
prisoners were handed over.

12,000 United Nations POWs
were also set free.

'DOC' FRAZIER:
There's no words to describe

how elated I was and my friends
as we came across the line.

It felt like tons had been
lifted from your back.

It felt like for the last
two and a half years,

|'d been carrying
an enormous amount of weight-

I mean tons.

And all at once I could breathe,
I was light.

I was free. Freedom

Freedom's something
you can't describe.

NARRATION:
Bernie Gating also went home.

Florence was there
to meet him.

FLORENCE GALING:
I had only him known him six months.

We were only
married six days.

This young man who left
with blonde wavy hair

came back with brown
straight hair, thinned.

And he was gaunt.

I mean, he no longer
had the facial structure

that he had
when he left.

This man that I had
waited for, for 33 months,

and then he comes home and
I don't really know him.

But it didn't
take long.

NARRATION:
54,000 Americans didn't go home.

The war claimed the lives of

3,000 men from the armies
of 15 other nations.

In China,

Mao called it a
"great victory"

and the Volunteers
returned home as heroes.

An estimated half a million
Chinese soldiers

had died in the war.

CHAN BOLIANG:
[speaking Chinese]

The Volunteers demonstrated

to the rest of the world that
the Chinese were ho longer the

Chinese of the past.

China could
not be bullied.

China was no longer
the lame dog of Asia.

NARRATION:
In North and South,

three million
Koreans were killed,

wounded or missing.

Another five million
were homeless.

KIM REN OK:
[ speaking Korean ]

When the truce was
negotiated in 1953,

there was a chance for the
Korean people to breathe.

But there is no real
victory in war.

They kill so many people
and destroy so much.

NARRATION:
No victory-

but the west
held the line.

In Korea, communism had
been contained.

[speaking Russian ]

In broad terms,

it was a defeat
for socialism.

We were unable to impose the
socialist system on

South Korea so
it was a defeat.

NARRATION:
Forty years later,

at the end of the Cold War,

Korea was still
divided by the same line.