The chase was on in early autumn 1950. The North Korean People’s Army, after its invasion of South Korea, fell back north with United Nations’ forces in close pursuit following the Battle of Inchon the previous month. The United Nations forces, mostly American and South Korean but with a sizable contingent from the British Commonwealth and other member nations, kept moving north in an attempt to destroy remnants of the NKPA and put an end to the war. As summer gave way to autumn on the Korean peninsula, it appeared this operation would end in a swift victory after the initial setbacks experienced during the war’s first several months. Still, the NKPA was not entirely out of action.
The Korean War caught the United States by surprise. American troops occupied South Korea after World War II, but President Harry S. Truman had withdrawn most of the troops by 1949. By that point, only about 300 advisors remained in country where they continued training the fledgling South Korean Army.
North Korean Premier Kim Il-sung and his advisors wanted to invade South Korea, but they were restrained by the Soviet Union, which wanted to avoid a war that was sure to draw the United States into the conflict. In January 1950 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson stated that South Korea sat outside the United States’ defensive perimeter in the Pacific Theatre. This allayed the fears of both the Soviet Union and North Korea, and by April 1950 Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin approved an invasion. The Soviets, who had been liberally supplying the NKPA with weapons and equipment for their ground forces, had given North Korea’s army hundreds of T-34/85 tanks and SU-76 assault guns.
