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For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong.[227] On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, and Li Kenong and Qiao Guanghua headed the negotiation team.[214] Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the UN Command forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea and to avoid losing territory.[228] The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later effected military and psychological operations in order to test the UN Command's resolve to continue the war. The principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August–15 September 1951),[229] the Battle of the Punchbowl (31 August-21 September 1951), the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September–15 October 1951),[230] the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June–4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October–25 November 1952), the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March–21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–9 May 1953), the Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March–16 July 1953), and the Battle of Kumsong (13–27 July 1953). Chinese troops suffered from deficient military equipment, serious logistical problems, overextended communication and supply lines, and the constant threat of UN bombers. All of these factors generally led to a rate of Chinese casualties that was far greater than the casualties suffered by UN troops. The situation became so serious that, on November 1951, Zhou Enlai called a conference in Shenyang to discuss the PVA's logistical problems. At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available to the army, and to improve air defense by any means possible. These commitments did little to directly address the problems confronting PVA troops.[231] In the months after the Shenyang conference Peng Dehuai went to Beijing several times to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. Peng was convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the near future. On 24 February 1952, the Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.[232] Armistice (July 1953 – November 1954) Men from the Royal Australian Regiment, June 1953. The on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years,[233] first at Kaesong (southern North Korea), then relocated at Panmunjom (bordering the Koreas).[234] A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation.[235] The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north,[236] which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans.[237] In the final armistice agreement, signed on 27 July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, under the Chairman Indian General K. S. Thimayya, was set up to handle the matter.[238] In 1952, the United States elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War.[239] With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice,[240] the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands. The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the DPRK. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953 to end the fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point, even though there was no peace treaty.[30] North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.[241][242] After the war, Operation Glory (July–November 1954) was conducted to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government.[243] After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl), on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American, and all but 416 were identified by name.[244] From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.[245] Division of Korea (1954–present) See also: Division of Korea and Korean Demilitarized Zone Delegates sign the Korean Armistice Agreement in P’anmunjŏm The Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss[246] and Swedish[247] Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ. In April 1975, South Vietnam's capital was captured by the North Vietnamese army. Encouraged by the success of Communist revolution in Indochina, Kim Il-sung saw it as an opportunity to invade the South. Kim visited China in April of that year, and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to ask for military aid. Despite Pyongyang's expectations, however, Beijing refused to help North Korea for another war in Korea.[248] Since the armistice, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression by North Korea. In 1976, the axe murder incident was widely publicized. Since 1974, four incursion tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors.[249] Again in 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians.[250] After a new wave of UN sanctions, on 11 March 2013, North Korea claimed that it had invalidated the 1953 armistice.[251] On 13 March 2013, North Korea confirmed it ended the 1953 Armistice and declared North Korea "is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression".[252] On 30 March 2013, North Korea stated that it had entered a "state of war" with South Korea and declared that "The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over".[32] Speaking on 4 April 2013, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, informed the press that Pyongyang had "formally informed" the Pentagon that it had "ratified" the potential usage of a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan and the United States of America, including Guam and Hawaii.[253] Hagel also stated that the United States would deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system to Guam, due to a credible and realistic nuclear threat from North Korea.[254] Characteristics Korean War memorials are found in every UN Command Korean War participant country; this one is in Pretoria, South Africa. Casualties According to the data from the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths, during the Korean War and 8,176 missing in action.[255] South Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths.[12] Western sources estimate the PVA suffered about 400,000 killed and 486,000 wounded, while the KPA suffered 215,000 killed and 303,000 wounded.[27] Data from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan, while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China.[256] Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a "large" number of civilian deaths.[256] In return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from the United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were "eliminated" from the battlefield.[256] Recent scholarship has put the full battle death toll on all sides at just over 1.2 million.[257] Armored warfare A burned out T-34, September, 1950 The initial assault by North Korean KPA forces were aided by the use of Soviet T-34-85 tanks.[258] A North Korean Tank Corps equipped with about 120 T-34s spearheaded the invasion. These drove against a ROK Army with few anti-tank weapons adequate to deal with the Soviet T-34s.[259] Additional Soviet armor was added as the offensive progressed.[260] The North Korean tanks had a good deal of early successes against South Korean infantry, elements of the 24th Infantry Division, and those United States built M24 Chaffee light tanks that they encountered.[261][262] Interdiction by ground attack aircraft was the only means of slowing the advancing Korean armor. The tide turned in favour of the United Nations forces in August 1950 when the North Koreans suffered major tank losses during a series of battles in which the UN forces brought heavier equipment to bear, including M4A3 Sherman medium tanks backed by U.S. M26 heavy tanks, along with the British Centurion, Churchill, and Cromwell tanks.[263] A Sherman tank fires its 76mm gun at KPA bunkers at "Napalm Ridge", Korea, 11 May 1952 The U.S. landings at Inchon on 15 September cut off the North Korean supply lines, causing their armored forces and infantry to run out of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies. As a result, the North Koreans had to retreat, and many of the T-34s and heavy weapons had to be abandoned. By the time the North Koreans withdrew from the South, a total of 239 T-34s and 74 SU-76s had been lost.[264] After November 1950, North Korean armor was rarely encountered.[265] Following the initial assault by the north, the Korean War saw limited use of the tank and featured no large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, forested terrain, especially in the Eastern Central Zone, was poor tank country, limiting their mobility. Through the last two years of the war in Korea, UN tanks served largely as infantry support and mobile artillery pieces.[266] Aerial warfare Further information: MiG Alley, USAF Units and Aircraft of the Korean War and Korean People's Air Force For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s. The balance would shift with the arrival of the swept-wing Soviet MiG-15 Fagot.[267][268] The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15 Fagot, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters.[267] The fast, heavily armed MiG outflew first-generation UN jets such as the F-80 (United States Air Force) and Gloster Meteors (Royal Australian Air Force) posing a real threat to B-29 Superfortress bombers even under fighter escort. Fearful of confronting the United States directly, the Soviet Union denied involvement of their personnel in anything other than an advisory role, but air combat quickly resulted in Soviet pilots dropping their code signals and speaking over the wireless in Russian. This known direct Soviet participation was a casus belli that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand to include the Soviet Union, and potentially escalate into atomic warfare.[267] A B-29 Superfortress bomber unloading its bombs. The USAF countered the MiG-15 by sending over three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre. These arrived in December 1950.[269][270] The MiG was designed as a bomber interceptor. It had a very high service ceiling—50,000 feet (15,000 m) and carried very heavy weaponry: one 37 mm cannon and two 23 mm cannons. They were fast enough to dive past the fighter escort of P-80 Shooting Stars and F9F Panthers and could reach and destroy the U.S. heavy bombers. B-29 losses could not be avoided, and the Air Force was forced to switch from a daylight bombing campaign to the necessarily less accurate nighttime bombing of targets. The MiGs were countered by the F-86 Sabres. They had a ceiling of 42,000 feet (13,000 m) and were armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were range adjusted by radar gunsights. If coming in at higher altitude the advantage of engaging or not went to the MiG. Once in a level flight dogfight, both swept-wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around 660 mph (1,100 km/h). The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better.[271] In summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.[272] On the ground the battle lines had stabilized by early 1951 and a static front developed, which changed little till the armistice was signed in 1953.[273] A US Navy Sikorsky HO4S flying near the USS Sicily UN forces held air superiority in the Korean theater from the outset, but this was challenged by the arrival of the Russian MiGs. It was regained in 1951 and was maintained for the duration of the conflict. This was decisive for the UN: first, for attacking into the peninsular north, and second, for resisting the Chinese intervention.[263] North Korea and China also had jet-powered air forces. Their limited training and experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against the better-trained UN air forces. Thus, the United States and the Soviet Union fed matériel to the war, battling by proxy and finding themselves virtually matched, technologically, when the USAF deployed the F-86F against the MiG-15 late in 1952. Unlike the Vietnam War, in which the Soviet Union only officially sent "advisers," in the Korean aerial war Soviet forces participated via the 64th Airborn Corps. 1,106 enemy airplanes were officially downed by the Soviet pilots, 52 of whom earned the title of "aces" with more than 5 confirmed kills. Since the Soviet system of confirming air kills erred on the conservative side—the pilot's words were never taken into account without corroboration from other witnesses, and enemy airplanes falling into the sea were not counted—the number might exceed 1,106.[274] After the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire.[275] The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed F-86s, respectively. However, one unconfirmed source claims that the U.S. Air Force has more recently cited 230 losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea.[271] The differing tactical roles of the F-86 and MiG-15 may have contributed to the disparity in losses: MiG-15s primarily targeted B-29 bombers and ground-attack fighter-bombers, while F-86s targeted the MiGs. The Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played a central role. Once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury[276]—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—relinquished their air-superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters arriving in the theater. The Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac).[277] In 1944–1945, during the Second World War, the YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a speedy medevac vehicle,[278] helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals.[279] The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War (1965–75).[277] Bombing North Korea The first major U.S. strategic bombing campaign against North Korea, begun in late July 1950, was conceived much along the lines of the major offensives of World War II.[280] On 12 August 1950, the U.S. Air Force dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.[281] After the Chinese intervention in November, General MacArthur ordered the increased bombing campaign on North Korea, including incendiary attacks against their arsenals and communications centers and especially against the "Korean end" of all the bridges across the Yalu River.[282] As with the aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II, the nominal objectives of the U.S. Air Force was to destroy North Korea's war infrastructure and shatter their morale. After MacArthur was removed as Supreme Commander in Korea in April 1951, his successors continued this policy and eventually extended it to all of North Korea.[283] U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II.[284] As a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed.[285][286] The war's highest-ranking American POW, U.S. Major General William F. Dean,[287] reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wastelands.[288][289] U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay commented, "we went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too."[290] The devastation of Pyongyang was so complete that bombing was halted as there were no longer any worthy targets.[291] As well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the U.S. had used biological weapons.[292] [show] v t e Naval engagements of the Korean War (1950–1953) and post-armistice incidents Naval warfare To disrupt North Korean communications, the USS Missouri fires a salvo from its 16-inch guns at shore targets near Chongjin, North Korea, 21 October 1950 Because neither Korea had a significant navy, the Korean War featured few naval battles. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Juneau, the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Jamaica, and the frigate HMS Black Swan fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them. The USS Juneau later sank several ammunition ships that had been present. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship PC 703 sank a North Korean mine layer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by PC-703 two days later in the Yellow Sea.[293] Thereafter vessels from the UN nations held undisputed control of the sea about Korea. The gun ships were used in shore bombardment, while the carriers provided air support to the ground forces. During most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea, sinking supply and ammunition ships and denying the North Koreans the ability to resupply from the sea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the main threat to United States and UN navy ships was from magnetic mines. During the war, five U.S. Navy ships were lost to mines: two minesweepers, two minesweeper escorts, and one ocean tug. Mines and gunfire from North Korean coastal artillery damaged another 87 U.S. warships, resulting in slight to moderate damage.[294] (See also List of U.S. Navy ships sunk or damaged in action during the Korean conflict.) U.S. threat of atomic warfare On 5 November 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets", which he never transmitted.[295] Many American officials viewed the deployment of nuclear-capable (but not nuclear-armed) B-29 bombers to Britain as helping to resolve the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. Truman and Eisenhower both had military experience and viewed nuclear weapons as potentially usable components of their military. During Truman's first meeting to discuss the war on 25 June 1950, he ordered plans be prepared for attacking Soviet forces if they entered the war. By July, Truman approved another B-29 deployment to Britain, this time with bombs (but without their cores), to remind the Soviets of American offensive ability. Deployment of a similar fleet to Guam was leaked to The New York Times. As United Nations forces retreated to Pusan, and the CIA reported that mainland China was building up forces for a possible invasion of Taiwan, the Pentagon believed that Congress and the public would demand using nuclear weapons if the situation in Korea required them.[296] As Chinese forces pushed back the United States forces from the Yalu River, Truman stated during a 30 November 1950 press conference that using nuclear weapons had "always been [under] active consideration", with control under the local military commander.[296] The Indian ambassador, K. Madhava Panikkar, reports "that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities."[156][297][298] Atom bomb test, 1951. This was the Operation Buster-Jangle Dog shot, on 1 November. After his statement caused concern in Europe, Truman met on 4 December 1950 with UK prime minister and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The United States' forgoing atomic warfare was not because of "a disinclination by the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China to escalate" the Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless while the United States fought China, who then might persuade the Soviet Union to conquer Western Europe.[156][299] The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised Truman to tell Attlee that the United States would use nuclear weapons only if necessary to protect an evacuation of UN troops, or to prevent a "major military disaster".[296] On 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major General Edwin K. Wright met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassing the next weeks and months of warfare.[156] In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN Command was forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without ROC reinforcements, and without an increase in U.S. forces until April 1951 (four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.[156] In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command had blockaded China and had effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the ROC soldiers were maximally exploited, and tactical atomic bombing was to hand, then the UN forces could hold positions deep in North Korea.[156] In the third scenario: if the PRC agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border, General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The U.S. Eighth Army would remain to protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of the armistice.[156] Both the Pentagon and the State Department were nonetheless cautious about using nuclear weapons due to the risk of general war with China and the diplomatic ramifications. Truman and his senior advisors agreed, and never seriously considered using them in early December 1950 despite the poor military situation in Korea.[296] In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because the PRC had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, "lacking only the essential pit nuclear cores". In October 1951, the United States effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practised individual bombing runs from Okinawa to North Korea (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs), coordinated from Yokota Air Base in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested "actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming". The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the "timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare."[300][301][302][303][304] Ridgway was authorized to use nuclear weapons if a major air attack originated from outside Korea. An envoy was sent to Hong Kong to deliver a warning to China. The message likely caused Chinese leaders to be more cautious about potential American use of nuclear weapons, but whether they learned about the B-29 deployment is unclear and the failure of the two major Chinese offensives that month likely was what caused them to shift to a defensive strategy in Korea. The B-29s returned to the United States in June.[296] When Eisenhower succeeded Truman in early 1953 he was similarly cautious about using nuclear weapons in Korea, including for diplomatic purposes to encourage progress in the ongoing truce discussions. The administration prepared contingency plans for using them against China, but like Truman, the new president feared that doing so would result in Soviet attacks on Japan. The war ended as it had begun, without American nuclear weapons deployed near battle.[296] |
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