The US Military dropped more Bombs on North Korea than the Entire Pacific during WW II

During the Korean War, the US military dropped more bombs on North Korea than it had dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II.

This carpet bombing, which included 32,000 tons of napalm, often deliberately targeted civilian as well as military targets, devastating the country far beyond what was necessary to win the war.

Whole cities were destroyed by the UN coalition, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and many more left homeless and hungry.

Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the USA bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.”

The number of inhabitants of Pyongyang killed by bomb splinters, burnt alive and suffocated by smoke is incalculable.

As a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA, Korea had been split into two sovereign states, after a total death count of @ least 2.5 million casualties.

Both governments of the two new Korean states claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent.

A socialist state was established in the north under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and a capitalist state in the south under the leadership of Syngman Rhee. 

Seoul changed hands four times, and the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel.

The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive UN bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their allies.

The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners.

Sott.net / ABC Flash Point WW II News 2019.