Korean War #40: Shock & Awe
When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
Zack Twamley
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2018
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 40: Shock & Awe continues where we left off last time. This was the result of the Truman administration’s months of planning and theorising, and for the sake of NSC68 and the strategy of containment, it was believed to be the right one. The Chinese had finally intervened, and thus the efforts to make this so must have been considered a success. Yet, on the ground level, it was anything but a success, as the Chinese advanced with a ferocious pace and zeal that stunned and shattered all allied soldiers they encountered. With MacArthur apoplectic in Tokyo, it remained for the soldiers on the ground, let blindly into this mess by their vain commander, to pick up the slack.
Instead, sense prevailed, and a massive retreat without parallel in American military history characterised the allies action in December of 1950. Several bloody and bitter battles were still to come with the Chinese, who blended their command with the North Koreans and fulfilled the total control of Pyongyang that Mao Zedong now aimed to seize. Beijing’s aims could not be certain, but Mao was now determined, after being pushed into this corner, to make something good out of the situation and to get some kind of benefit for his regime. As ever, it was the soldier on the ground that suffered for the statesman’s objectives. Meanwhile, Truman is confronted about nuclear weapons, and the plans to throw MacArthur under the bus were put into motion.
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Music used:
“The Gaby Glide”, by Billy Murray, released in 1912 and available at: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Billy_Murray/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_04282015/The_Gaby_Glide_-_Billy_Murray
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Hello and welcome history friends, patrons, patrons all, to the Korean War episode 40. |
| 0:31.6 | Oh, episode 40, this is a big one. |
| 0:34.6 | In the last episode, we took an in-depth look at the heady months of October and November |
| 0:40.1 | 1950. |
| 0:41.6 | In both of these months, we saw the Chinese intervention begin, only to withdraw, only to begin |
| 0:46.5 | again, with a massive attack on the 25th of November. |
| 0:50.3 | It had been a frustrating experience for General Douglas MacArthur, the man tasked with commanding the forces of the United Nations in Korea, |
| 0:58.8 | and the man who had also seemed positioned by the end of the month for a career-defining triumph. |
| 1:04.3 | On the one hand, the Chinese had apparently been beaten back after their initial flurry in late October, |
| 1:09.7 | however, on the other hand, it was becoming |
| 1:11.5 | clear to MacArthur that his orders had changed. In the past, he had taken solace from the terms |
| 1:19.1 | of NSC 73, a policy report which stipulated that if the Chinese attacked, MacArthur would be |
| 1:24.9 | permitted to attack targets in Manchuria along the Yalu River |
| 1:28.6 | crossings. Yet the stunning decision not to pursue the Chinese outside of Korea left MacArthur |
| 1:33.9 | seething and the Chinese free to operate unheeded before they broke against his troops. The sudden |
| 1:39.0 | absence of any Chinese from the field was also difficult to explain. Looked upon cautiously by several |
| 1:44.1 | figures in the UN |
| 1:45.1 | command, MacArthur came to see the initial attack as the limit of Chinese capabilities in the region. |
| 1:51.1 | He was, after all, going off the intel he had been given, which suggested numbers of Chinese |
| 1:55.6 | at a third of the strength that they had actually possessed. Under these circumstances, |
| 2:00.2 | his objectives could be best achieved by engaging in a probing advance |
| 2:04.2 | towards the Yalu, with fallback positions already established. |
... |
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