War in Korea the Report of a Woman Combat Correspondent (Illustrated)
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Pulitzer Prize 1951 The following are among the Pulitzer Prizes awardees for 1951: International Reporting: Keyes Beech (Chicago Daily News); Homer Bigart (New York Herald Tribune); Marguerite Higgins (New York Herald Tribune); Relman Morin (AP); Fred Sparks (Chicago Daily News); and Don Whitehead (AP) of Multiple Publications, for their reporting of the Korean War. Copyright, 1951 by Marguerite Higgins Republished by Ebooks for Students, Ltd. October, 2014. Washington, D.C. (202) 464-9126 Copy editing by Natalie Pappas. Comments to [email protected]. If teachers need a copy in .epub format to share with their students, please write us at the above address. Please see our other titles at ebooksforstudents.org or by searching for Ebooks for Students, Ltd. in the publisher field on Amazon. (Amazon>Books and Audible>Kindle Books>Advanced Search tab on top>Publisher>Ebooks for Students, Ltd.) Reviews "....a whale of a war story." Saturday Review of Literature "This Maggie's eye view of the Korean police action is downright irresistible in its candor, in its simple expression of the things which most of us feel strongly but can't say very well, in its change of pace between the tragedy of the battlefield and the high comedy of much of human behavior in close relationship to it....Many of her word pictures are remarkable in their ability to convey much in little; where she philosophizes at all about men in battle her style is almost epigrammatic, and many of her observations have such a true ring that they deserve to be remembered and widely quoted." S.L.A. Marshall, political historian for the War Department. To Students This is a fast-paced, highly readable account of the first year of the Korean War—a time which was almost tragic for the Americans troops and the twenty million South Koreans involved. As the North Koreans launched a surprise attack across the border in 1950, Marguerite Higgins, a reporter from the New York Herald Tribune, joined a group of unprepared journalists and troops fleeing fast and far to survive. The border between North and South Korea was then, as it is now, the 38th parallel. This border which the North Koreans overran had been the division between the Russian and American zones of occupation in Korea after the defeat of Japan in 1945. By the outbreak of the war in 1950, the Russians had withdrawn leaving control of North Korea in the hands of the first dictator in the North Korean dynasty, Kim II-sung. American troops were in South Korea at the time of the invasion but in limited numbers. The United States had not equipped its ally, the army of the Republic of Korea, with offensive weapons such as tanks. Without tanks to counter the North Korean armor, the US and Republic of Korea forces came very close to being swept out of Korea as you will see. The South Korean army, known as the Republic of Korea or R.O.K. and a small group of American soldiers are almost pushed into the sea by this invasion from the north. This group eventually is able to hold the line against the Communists around Taegu. The stand of the army of the Republic of Korea and some American units around Taegu and Pusan, saved Korea from being overrun by the Communist invasion. The names of towns, cities, and rivers in North and South Korea such as Taegu, and Yalu on the border with China, will be new to you. The maps we have added to this new electronic version should help. If you find better maps online, please print them out and carry them with you as you read about the experiences of one of the only female war correspondents during the Korean conflict. You will see that she risked her life time after time to report on events at the frontlines. Upon further research on the Korean War, you will find that Higgins’s reporting ends in the middle of the war. She writes about the major military actions at the start of the war: the initial Northern Korean invasion, the quick decision to rush U.S. occupation troops from Japan to Korea, the Marine landing at Inchon which pushed the Communists back, and the pursuit of the Communists into North Korea by American and R.O.K. troops which led to Chinese intervention. The account of the war on Wikipedia or in your school or local library will fill in what happened after Higgins ended her story in late 1950. The war continued until an armistice in 1953, but the major battles were fought in 1950. The Korean War was not a complete victory for South Korea, the United States and the other members of the United Nations which joined in the fight to save South Korea. At the armistice in 1953, Communists retained Korea north of the 38th parallel. You know from news reports what the North Korean regime has been like for the last 60 years. Nevertheless, much was accomplished by intervention of American military forces, and the sacrifices made by Army and Marine units in Korea, and their United Nations allies in the 1950s. The twenty million people living in South Korea in 1950 remained free from Communist tyranny. The book, of course, brings up the question of intervention by both Communist nations and the United States. As you will see the last chapters, Higgins witnessed the Russian takeover of Eastern Europe in the late 1950s. She was staunchly anti- Communist. But she also feared that the United States would not recognize how much former Asian colonies wanted to be free of colonization. She writes "we must turn our backs on colonization...America should put herself squarely on the side of those nations asking national independence and self-government, and do all she can to help them economically." Has the United States followed Higgins' advice since the 1950s? Since World War II, the United States has sent troops to Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Afghanistan, and to Iraq twice. It has airlifted food to Berlin during the Russian blockade of roads and rail to Berlin. It has also led or assisted in political overthrows of democratically elected governments in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, the Congo in 1960 and Chile in 1973. Where have American interventions been welcomed? How have the people in the countries where we have intervened viewed us? Of the war in Vietnam, President Eisenhower wrote in his memoir Mandate for Change: “There was no plausible reason for the United States to intervene; we could not even be sure that the Vietnamese population wanted us to do so.” He added that the leader of Communist North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, was very popular throughout North and South Vietnam. He wrote that at the time of the French defeat in Vietnam that “possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than the Chief of State (in South Vietnam) Bao Dai.” (See Mandate for Change, p. 372.) Ho Chi Minh was blamed for atrocities in South Vietnam. He eliminated rivals and his government murdered thousands of landlords. Was the ideology of North Vietnam sufficient reason to intervene in South Vietnam? When you intervene in a country such as Vietnam that had recently evicted another Western power, will you be viewed as an invader or a friend? And what was the context for American intervention? Were there were powerful currents carrying the United States toward intervention in Vietnam? What had the United States and its allies witnessed in central Europe in the 30s and 40s? The question of foreign intervention has been central to American life in the last sixty or more years since World War II. Will the population of a foreign country view us as a force for freedom as in the case of South Korea, or will we be viewed as an invader? When does nationalism stirred up by a foreign intervention trump the good intentions of foreign invaders? Given college curricula which often do not require history, your high school years may be your best opportunity to study the danger spots of the world, and the threats posed by nations which are pushing their boundaries outward back into Eastern Europe and into the South China Sea. To find out more about the war in Korea, I would recommend The Korean War by Max Hastings. At almost four hundred pages, it takes some investment but gives you a perspective on the politics of the Cold War and the extent of the sacrifices of American armed forces in Korea that Higgins could not do in her much shorter book. While a number of other countries contributed troops to the United Nations mission in Korea, the vast majority of those who died in combat and in prisoner of war camps were American. According to a report from the Pentagon, "Korean War battle deaths(were) at 33,652 and 'other deaths' meaning deaths in the war zone from illness, accidents and other non-battle causes at 3,262. That yields a total of 36,914." Finally, the author of War in Korea may herself be worthy of further study if you are especially interested in a career in journalism. In a biography called Witness to War, by Antoinette May, you will see how Higgins pushed and pushed to become one of the first women war correspondents. You will also see the risks she took during World War II as she raced to report on the concentration camp at Dachau while as fighting was still going on the outskirts of the camp.