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tiring ldie ' rifles u they had none of their own.
On January 21. 1949 Peking fe In to r 1 9 the Communists pr
claimed the People's Republic of Chin with Mao as dictator. By the end of 1949, the Nationa s were driven to the isl d of Taiwan, where they t up the free Chine ve ent
The Nationalist gove ment w accu d by its enemies in the U.S. of ing undem ratic and unli ral It probably wa But it was not cruel and oppre ive and ems to have had the sup rt of the ople. The Commu­ nist gove ment, once in wer, slaughtered hundreds of tho nds of ople, outlawed the practice of reli on, r cuted th native Christians and forei mi ionaries, and t up a brut dictatorship.
e Kor n War
The Chine Communists had total control of China by January 1950. In June the North Korean with wea ns and ammunition supplied by the Soviet Union and Red China, launched an invasion of uth Korea Korea, an Asian ninsula, had en under Japan's control until the end of World War 11 Then, like Germany, it was divided, with the Communists control­ ling North Korea and uth Korea coming inde ndent, though cl ly allied to the United State When North Korea launched its unprovoked attack on the uth, it came as a complete surpri to everyone in the U.S. We had an unprepare untrained army cau our government had counted on ace. The ldiers nt first into Korea had en stationed on Japan, where they had but one week of training a ye .
The U.S. Army was easily defeated by the North Koreans, who drove them back through Korea until they held only a small area around the southe rt of Pu n (the Pu n Perimeter). At this int, the tr p ships carrying the First Marine Division finally arrived. All the way over from the U.S the Marines had en making ts as to whether they would get to Korea fore the war had ended with a total U.S. defeat
They were in time. Under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur, the Marines launched an amphibious landing at Inchon in Septem r. They outflanked the Communists and ret k the capital city of oul, driving the Communists out of uth Korea
Then MacArthur made the biggest mistake of his long career. He overconfidently a umed that the war could quickly and easily won and nt his tr ps racing into North Korea, where they spread themselves much t thinly. In Decem r the Red Chine came into the war, throw­ ing their battle-tested tr ps against the greatly outnum red Americans.