Korean War (1945): Division at the 38th

Scholarly estimates put Korean civilian deaths in a band of about 2-3 million, with ROK military deaths around 137,000 and US military deaths about 36,000; Chinese military deaths are often given in a wide 180,000-400,000 range. For Koreans it is 6-25, not a "forgotten war." For US, British, Australian, Canadian and other UN veterans it became the war between 1945 and Vietnam -- under-taught, heavily memorialised only later.

A civil war that became a coalition war Korea in 1950-53 was at once a Korean civil war, a UN police action, and the first hot war of the Cold War, fought to a draw that still defines the peninsula. Japanese colonial rule ended in August 1945. US troops occupied south of the 38th parallel, Soviet troops the north. Separate elections and the 1948 founding of the ROK and DPRK made partition political, not only military.

Border raids and the 1948-49 guerrilla war on Jeju and in the southern mountains were already killing Koreans before the conventional invasion of June 1950. Kim Il-sung obtained Stalin's and Mao's assent after months of lobbying. ROK and the first US task forces were driven into a corner at Pusan by August. MacArthur's Inchon landing (Operation Chromite, 15 September) cut the KPA's supply and enabled the recapture of Seoul on 28 September.