KOREAN WAR FACTS

1. Stalin green-lighted the North Korean invasion partly because an American sergeant who worked in the U.S. Embassy became a spy for the Soviets. He revealed that the U.S. was withdrawing from South Korea to Japan.  Stalin assumed the U.S. would not fight for South Korea.
2. the Bodo League Massacre – before the war, South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee had rounded up hundreds of thousands of suspected communists and political opponents and put them in re-education camps.  This was called the Bodo League.  A few days into the war, Rhee ordered the extermination of many of these people.  The mass executions were done without trial and many innocent civilians were undoubtedly killed.  The estimates range from 60,000 to 100,000.  They were buried in mass grave.  The deaths were blamed on the communists and the South Korean government covered up the crime for four decades.  Some American officers witnessed the executions and did nothing to stop them.  When the crimes were reported to superiors, the reports were marked top secret and filed away.
3. The CIA knew about the North Korean buildup, but thought the forces were just for defense.
4. Truman did not declare war. The war was officially a “police action” under the umbrella of the United Nations.
5. The U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on North Korea. This was more than the 503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the Pacific Theater in WWII.  (We dropped around 7 million tons of bombs in the Vietnam War.)  It is estimated the bombs killed 12-15% of North Koreans.
6. On Nov. 8, 1950, the first all-jet dogfight occurred between a F-80 Shooting Star and a North Korean MiG. 1^st Lieutenant Russell Brown shot down the communist jet.
7. The South Korean capital of Seoul changed hands four times.
8. U.N. forces lost 178,426 dead and the communist forces lost an estimated 700,000.
9. 16 countries sent troops to be in the United Nations army. 90% of the soldiers were Americans.  Second most was the United Kingdom, then the Philippines, Thailand, and Canada.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/14-amazing-yet-little-known-facts-about-the-korean-war?fbclid=IwAR2vimLqZ-AHAGRu5e5lqbqVINn3JLpLCJxOhVZoQ7KMAQP3NdMPhQRBq64