The Battle of Pusan Perimeter was a long and extensive military engagement between the United Nations forces and the communist army of North Korea. It was fought from July 31 to September 16, 1950, at Pusan and its surrounding area, South Korea, during the Korean War. This battle marked the end of Operation Pokpoong, which was the code-name for the North Korean invasion of South Korea, which had begun on June 25, 1950. The Pusan Perimeter was the furthest reach of this communist invasion and from which the tide of the war would be reverted by the Allies.
The UN forces that stopped the communist offensive and held the Pusan Perimeter consisted of the 1st Cavalry Division, 24th Infantry Division, and the 25th Infantry Division, these three units belonging to the US Eighth Army, under General Walton Walker. Fighting alongside the US forces against the communists were 56,000 South Korean troops. By September 10, these forces had been reinforced by other US and British units, such as the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade and the 27th Commonwealth Brigade, which included Australians.
Waves after waves of communist attacks would be launched against the defensive line around Pusan, which was then the last enclave of Western influence in the Korean Peninsula. However, the North Korean Army ferocious assaults on the UN positions would be repelled several times. By September 15, after the Great Naktung Offensive, the last communist assault launched on September 1, the American and South Korean forces, with the vital support of US Navy F4U Corsair fighters, threw the North Korean troops back, launching a counter-offensive that routed the enemy.
Below, soldiers of the 24th Inf. Div., US 8th Army, firing 81-mm mortar shells against enemy positions as they held the line at Pusan Perimeter
Map of Korean Peninsula, showing the advance of the North Korean Army and the city-port of Pusan in the south.
0 comments:
Post a Comment