Patton in Korea/MacArthur in the White House
- Thread starter BiteNibbleChomp
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He should have been, but at that point the American military was keeping at arms length from the Nationalists. Truman also wasn't the most reliable source for historical events. The million deaths for the invasion of Japan, MacArthur flying around Wake Island so Truman would have to land first. He was never a very objective observer.
Chiang is not going to send his best troops to Korea, especially in 1950. He still needs to hold onto Taiwan/Formosa with everything he has not with standing what the USN has there. Chiang was still worried about a coup from within the KMT and even worried the US might replace him since he was the local man on the ground who "Lost China" if they needed a scapegoat. Except for some of Mac's staff there were not that many people who thought the ROC army was in any shape to fight in Korea let alone on Formosa.
marathag
Banned
He still offered 33,000 troops in June.
That was equal to all the other UN contributions by the end of 1951, and the largest formation was a brigade of 6000.
Even if not the best troops, would be far better than most of the ROK forces, many that had never completed training at the start of the war.
Late he offered 74,000, if the UN would treat Red China as hostile and expand the War
It is my understanding that during the Berlin Airlift, Germans helped maintain the planes,d helped load/unload the planes, and other things to support the American effort.
I understand that was not a war and that the Germans were helping the Americas feed other Germans. My question is did the Japanese support the Korean War effort by helping maintain equipment, loading/unloading ships, and so on. I do understand that war time contracts were key to Japan rebuilding.
I understand that was not a war and that the Germans were helping the Americas feed other Germans. My question is did the Japanese support the Korean War effort by helping maintain equipment, loading/unloading ships, and so on. I do understand that war time contracts were key to Japan rebuilding.
Again that assessment was based on the fact they lost the war on the mainland. Chiang brought some of his best troop with him to Formosa, and had a year to raise, and train more. The KMT was doing a good job defending the off shore islands, and the PRC lacked the lift capacity to launch a major invasion of Formosa. With the USN patrolling those waters nothing on a large scale could happen, because they would breakup the invasion fleet. So with 500,000 men sitting on Formosa Chiang could afford to send 100,000 to Korea, to give them combat experience. The also already had experience with Chinese combat tactics, which would be helpful to the whole coalition.
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Chiang is paranoid about his position with being the head of the ROC. He is not going to want to have a fifth of his army out of his control in Korea getting combat experience and not being under his control or command. Any divisions sent there would not be an independent ROC command, but be subordinate to 8th army at the least and Mac at the most. He would not want to have that many combat trained troops and equipment return to Formosa under any commander that might want to stage his own coup. One of the reasons they had so much problems against Japan and the Chinese Communists was the fact he did not want any possible rivals (good generals) commanding good troops and his incompetent political ones commanded the good troops to keep him in power.
Japanese firms helped rebuild and condition American equipment and vehicles. Former Japanese naval personnel manned the transport vessels which supported the UN war effort in Korea, while US forces in Japan extensively employed local labor. So, yes, the Japanese supported the war effort. Partly, they did so because of antipathy for Communism, partly because it would help rebuild the economy, and of course, being under military occupation, they had little choice in the matter. The people and the government also supported Japanese support of the US military in Korea because a friendly co-operative attitude would speed the end of the occupation.
I understand what your saying, but there's another side to it. Chiang made the offer to send 4 division to Korea because it would strengthen ties with the United States. It would make the ROC an active ally, and raise American public, and congressional support for them. American support would strengthen his hold on power, by showing he could still deliver the goods, in the form of American aid, and loans.
Your right that endemic corruption, and incompetent generals were major factors working against the Nationalist in WWII, and the Civil War, but Chiang did have good generals, and some good divisions. In 1937-39 the Chinese put up a hell of a fight, but many of those German trained divisions were depleted by 1940. The army that Stilwell trained, and equipped for the Burma Campaign were good divisions.
He finally did get the big Far East Command job in Tokyo.
The US is still using the inventory of Purple Heart Medals struck to prepare for the invasion of Japan. One US War Department estimate was 1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities. Others such as General Marshall estimated lesser 136,000 dear. When Japanese causalities including civilians are included the estimates range as high as 10 million.
Whatever he was doing OTL. IIRC he had command of an army in the US at the time. He won't feature much in the TL.
TTL exists solely because Patton is really cool. Expect some fun stuff!
To be fair, most of the troops sent to Korea early on would count as "bad" troops - if anything the Chinese would likely be better than the average American draftee seeing as most of them had just fought the CCP.
- BNC
Is there any reason why the Americans in general can’t just put Rhee in his place?
Other than the fact that ignoring or threatening the Man, who is the President in the Nation that they are trying to protect, is a really bad idea?
One should remember that Rhee had a lot of powerful friends in the United States. Before his authoritarian rule over the Republic of Korea, Rhee spent a lot of time in the United States and in the Korean independence movement. He had converted to Christianity in Korea due to his involvement with the American Missionaries in Korea and this open a lot of powerful connections for him when he came to the United States. He actually became friends with President Woodrow Wilson and his family and attended worship service with them.
When Korea was eventually liberated, Rhee got a lot of influence and political cred as he was one of the very few Korean independence activists, who refused to give up on the cause of Korean independence. By the 1930s, the majority of Korean independent activists believed that Korea would forever remain in the Japanese Empire. Not Rhee. Throughout the 1930s, he kept pressuring the US State Department to aid Korean independence to the annoyance of Secretary Hull. When Korea was liberated, he managed to become President of Korea partly not only due to American support but also due to the fact that he was one of the very few credible leaders who was not tainted by past collaboration with the Japanese. During the years of Japanese occupation, most Koreans did collaborate with the Japanese to some extent. Rhee was one of the very few who didn't because he had to flee Korea at a young age and worked in the Korean independence movement aboard.
In addition, Rhee's distrust of the United States is not unjustified. Rhee's resentment and distrust of the United States can be traced as the result of a meeting he had with Theodore Roosevelt. At the time, Japan was about to completely annex Korea, the young Rhee, and the Korean delegation he was traveling with desperately needed American backing to prevent the Japanese annexation. President Roosevelt met with them and told him that he would consider it. Rhee celebrated this until years later when he realized that TR was playing him and had no intention of giving American support to Korea. TR had merely indulged him in order to prevent Rhee and the Korean delegation from messing with his own plans regarding Japan. Rhee remembered this and never forgot the lesson. That despite America's commitment to Democracy and Freedom, America was fully capable of abandoning causes that they dislike or have no interest in.
During the Korean War, Rhee was in a very difficult situation as he could not afford to let South Korea be seen as the United States lapdog, while at the same time he needed to maintain American support. This meant, he often felt that he had to be difficult and uncooperative with the Americans in order to assert South Korea's national sovereignty as Korea was occupied by US troops and there were plenty of accusations that Korea was being turned into a colony of the Americans. Obviously, the Americans were constantly pissed and angry at Rhee because he kept getting in their way and was very uncooperative. At the same time, the Americans could not move against Rhee because, at the time, the South Korean people overwhelmingly supported him because he was seen as defending the Republic of Korea's national sovereignty and the Korean people like Rhee wanted to reunify the Korean Nation.
One of the biggest examples of the Americans considering putting Rhee in his place happened during the Armistice talks. The South Korean people overwhelmingly opposed the talks as this meant that Korea would be forever divided. Rhee, who was aware of this, unilaterally released thousands of North Korean POWs in protest of the United States' promise to repatriate NK and Chinese POWs back to their nation regardless of whether they wanted to return. The United States was enraged by this and seriously considered overthrowing him, but they realized that they couldn't because the South Korean people overwhelmingly praised Rhee for his actions. Thousands of Korean students went to the Blue House and celebrated Rhee for his stern opposition to the Armistice talks, thus the Americans could not overthrow Rhee without losing their credibility with the South Korean people.
Obviously, the Rhee administration was extremely corrupt and seriously violated the civil rights of the Korean people. He was an authoritarian leader who kept power through undemocratic means and suppressed the civil liberties of the Korean people. At the same time, he was competent enough to defend and advocate the Republic of Korea's foreign interests, which was vital for South Korea's survival especially during and after the Korean war.
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He's the head of state of an independent country not the local mayor.
The Japanese played a minor part in Japan. They loaded and unloaded ships/planes. They continue to sweep Japanese waters for old minefields (the last units of the Imperial Japanese Navy were employed until 1950 on that duty). Basically, they were the dog's bodies which did all the labour in and around US units in Japan.
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