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Canada's Role In The Korean War

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After the climatic end of WWII, countries across the world were at each other throats, the main two standouts being the Soviet Union in Russia, and the United States. Onsetting the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had negotiations about unifying Korea, which ultimately failed leading to North Korea being controlled by the communist Soviet Union, and South Korea being a democratic republic being formed by United Nations’ (UN) supervised elections. Years after the division of Korea, North Korea had begun to made advances on South Korea’s border which was seen as a North Korean invasion by the UN, which had the UN and the US being a main force to stop the impending invasion, later having 16 other nations come into the Korean War, …show more content…

This lead to twenty one countries contributing to the UN force, with Canada being one of the helpful players during and especially after the war. Canada came into the Korean war with a special force made up of veterans from WWII and other young men with the group of soldiers making up what would be called the 2nd Battalion. The Second Force Second Battalion and the first Canadian infantry unit were the first canadians to take part in the Korean war, and by spring 1951, 8500 Canadian troops were supporting the UN (.Veterans, 2018) From the time the Canadians enlisted in the summer of 1951 to the end of the war, most canadian’s area of operations was on a area north of Seoul, between the 38th parallel with the war front Thirty miles across and was a section of the British occupied UN front with the main Canadian threat being North Korean army, and China in the Battle of Kapyong. During Canada’s time in the war there was one major battle involving Canada that is now reguarded as the turning point of the Korean war and it was the Battle of Kapyong where Canadian forces learned about the harshness of the Chinese, "Many soldiers thought the Chinese fighters were crazed by drugs or alcohol. How else could they charge unarmed into near-certain death, hurling themselves against the …show more content…

As after the Korean War had ended by means of a Armistice, 7,000 of the 26,791 Canadians continued to serve in Korea during the cease-fire and the end of 1955. Because after the war had ended, hostilities were still high as the country was still split in two. So the Canadian troops that were assigned in Korea were monitoring the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which is a strip of 151 miles of land running across the Korean Peninsula, used as a buffer zone between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) which also roughly divides Korea into the two countries (Havely, 2003), it is most often used for negotiations between the two countries though a Joint Security Area near the western end of the zone. The reason why the United Nation had kept Canadians in Korea was because after the war had ended hostilities between both sides were still high with there being large numbers of North and South Korean soldiers still guarding in case of aggression from the other side, with access to the DMZ only being granted by the South Korean government. So to protect from another border clash similar to the one that caused the Korean War ,the UN had kept a surplus of soldiers, mainly Canadian to see over and protect the country, and it was from being military advisors to

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