Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-xlmdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-10T20:51:06.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The United States, the United Nations, and the Second Occupation of Korea, 1950-1951

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Steven Lee
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article is part of an ongoing series at The Asia-Pacific Journal commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the US-Korean War.

Amidst the chaos surrounding North Korea's military offensive in the summer of 1950, the United Nations Security Council passed a series of resolutions which gave the United States-led United Nations Command (UNC) sanction to occupy the Korean peninsula. A crucial element of the work of this occupation – the second of southern Korea since 1945 – dealt with refugees. By August 1950, as the territory under United Nations Command jurisdiction shrank and came to centre around the Kyŏngsang provinces, South Korean authorities reported that the northern advance had displaced well over one million people.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 0 , March 2009 , e6
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

References

Notes

1I would like to thank the Korea Society, especially Natalee Newcombe, and the Center for Korean Research, Columbia University, for sponsoring the conference where I presented a different version of this article. Special thanks go to Charles Armstrong and Heonik Kwon for their support.

2The first American occupation lasted from 1945 to 1948; US troops withdrew in 1949, a year after they fostered-into-being the newly-established Republic of Korea. One can trace the history of the US-led United Nations Command occupation of Korea until at least the signing of the armistice in July 1953. In a broader sense, however, the second occupation has not ended, since American soldiers remain in South Korea to this day and US forces command South Korean troops. This article examines the first year of the US-United Nations Command occupation of the Korean peninsula, specifically the role of the United Nations Civil Assistance Command, Korea, in that history. For an overview of American occupation policies in Korea, see my “Military Occupation and Empire Building in Cold War Asia: The United States and Korea, 1945–1955”, in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, editor, The Cold War in East Asia, Stanford University Press, forthcoming.

3The text of Security Council Resolution 85 is available here.

4National Archives of Canada, United Nations Command, “Civilian Relief and Economic Aid - Korea”, 7 July – 30 September 1951, prepared by the GHQ, UNC, p. 9; United States National Archives (henceforth USNA), RG 407 Box 1995, General Order No. 5, 2 September 1950.

5USNA, RG 407, Box 4995, “Staff Section Report, Public Welfare Section” for the period 5 September 1950 to 31 August 1951, p. 6.

6Ibid., “Staff Section Report, Public Health Section”, for the period 5 September 1950 to 31 August 1951.

7Ibid.

8Ibid., General Headquarters, UNC, General Order 15, 19 October 1950.

9Ibid., “Staff Section Report, S1 Section”, for the period 15 October to 31 August 1951.

10USNA, RG 407, Box 1214, “Civil Assistance in Korea”, Far Eastern Command, June 1951.

11USNA, RG 407, Box 1150, “Command Report”, Civil Assistance Headquarters, January 1951.

12Ibid.

13Ibid.

14See Ibid., box 4995, Staff Section Report, Public Welfare Section, UNCACK 5 September 1950-31 August 1951.