Since that surprise attack on a June Sunday morning in 1950, some 1,250,000 men had been killed, wounded or captured in battle—a million of them from the Communist forces of Red China and the North Korean People’s Republic. This was the estimate of J. Donald Kingsley, Korean reconstruction agent general for the United States. He reckoned the civilian victims of privation, violence, and disease at two million dead. Another three million had been made homeless refugees.[239]
[239] This section is based on by Peter Kihss, “One Year in Korea,” United Nations World, Vol. 5, No. 7, July 1951, 21–23.
On 25 June 1951 the Communists held less territory by 2,100 square miles than they occupied when they began their onslaught with an overwhelming local superiority in arms and trained troops. Losses of Communist equipment during the first year included 391 aircraft, 1,000 pieces of artillery, and many thousands of machine guns, automatic rifles, and mortars. North Korea, formerly the industrial region of the peninsula, lay in ruins. Cities, factories, and power plants had been pounded into rubble.
In short, the thrifty conquest planned by the Koreans and their Soviet masters had backfired. Not only had the Communist offensives of April and May been stopped; the United Nations forces had rebounded to win their greatest victory of the war’s first year. While X Corps was advancing to the Punchbowl, other major Eighth Army units had also gained ground. Perhaps the most crushing blow was dealt by I Corps in its attack on the Iron Triangle. Units of two U.S. infantry divisions fought their way through extensive mine fields into Chorwon and Kumhwa on 8 June. By the end of the month, I Corps held defensive positions about midway between the base and apex of the strategic triangle that had been the enemy’s main assembly area for the troops and supplies of his spring offensives.[240]
[240] EUSAK Cmd Rpt, Jun 51.
On the east-central front, units of IX Corps pushed within 10 miles of Kumsong while I ROK Corps advanced along the east coast to Chodo-ri. Thus the UN forces occupied the most favorable line they had held since the great CCF offensive early in January. From the mouth of the Imjin this line ran northeast to the middle of the Iron Triangle, eastward across the mountains to the southern rim of the Punchbowl, then northeast to the coast of Chodo-ri ([Map 14]).
Communists Ask for Truce Talks
The first anniversary of the Korean conflict was overshadowed two days earlier by the news that the Communists had taken the initiative in proposing truce talks. The suggestion was made in a New York radio address of 23 June by a Soviet delegate to the United Nations—Jacob Malik, Foreign Minister of the USSR. On the 25th the idea was unofficially endorsed in a radio broadcast by the Chinese Communist government. UN officials immediately indicated their willingness to discuss preliminary terms. The outcome was an agreement that representatives of both sides would meet on 7 July at Kaesong, then located between the opposing lines in west Korea.
Why had the Communists been first to ask for a truce conference? Both Generals Van Fleet and Almond believed that the answer might have been traced to military necessity rather than any genuine desire for peace. “I felt at that time that the Chinese Communists and the North Korean armies were on the most wobbly legs that they had been on to that date,” said General Almond when interviewed shortly after his retirement in 1953. “They were punch drunk and ineffective, and I, personally, thought at that time that it was the time to finish off the effort.”[241]
[241] U.S. News and World Report, 13 Feb 53, 40–41.