NEW SCOTLAND — The Korean Conflict, which raged from 1950 to 1953, is known in China as the War to Resist America and Aid Korea.  In South Korea, it is known as the Fatherland Liberation War. 

Since the United States Congress never declared war on North Korea, the conflict is technically considered a “police action.”  Many Americans know it as “The Forgotten War”; many other Americans know little or nothing of it at all.

One American who knows a lot about it is Robert Hume, who served in the Navy at the time of the conflict. He helped put an exhibit together at the New Scotland museum and told The Enterprise of some interesting propaganda techniques used by the North Koreans.

“The locals,” he said, “were putting dog bones in boxes and sending them to soldiers’ homes with notes saying, ‘These are the remains of your son.’”

Lloyd Wayne Allen of Feura Bush served in Korea in the Marine Corps; he operated a water-cooled .30 machine gun.  He remembered well his assistant, a gunner named Isa Smith.

“He was a Native American, and he was a big guy,” he said.  “He played football, I remember…He could take that thing apart blindfolded and put it back together.  He was killed, over there….”

What lessons can be learned by remembering the Korean Conflict?  “I’ve forgotten why in hell we even went in there,” answered Allen.

“Where is all of our manufacturing?  It’s gone,” he said.  “We are the influence China is using by virtue of our imports.  I think our country is on a downward spiral; we’ve lost an awful lot of power by shipping entire factories overseas,” he said.

Allen noted that many people don’t know that the Chinese were involved in the conflict.  Chairman Mao Zedong sent the People’s Volunteer Army into Korea on Oct. 8, 1950.

“We were killing Chinese Communist soldiers along with North Korean soldiers.  Most people don’t know that,” said Allen.  “It was trench warfare, fixed position, machine guns every 30 yards, infantry with recoilless rifles and mortars behind the lines.”

A pivotal battle in the Korean conflict took place at the Chosin Reservoir in which United Nations forces, grossly outnumbered by the Chinese Communists, had to fight their way out of a geographical trap.  The warriors involved in the conflict are often called “The Chosin Few.”

“The winter was coming, and it got cold and the reservoir froze over, and 200,000 Chinese Communists came across the reservoir on the ice,” said Allen, who remembered the ferocity of the fighting.  He spoke also of the differences between that style of warfare and the kind U.S. troops in Iraq face today.

“In Korea, we fought a uniformed enemy, the Chinese Communists, and the North Koreans, but now we don’t know who the enemy is.  I don’t see where this is going to end,” said Allen, who loaned the museum several artifacts and photos.  He said that he was pleased the museum was putting on the exhibit.

“I think it is something that should be remembered,” he said.

Voorheesville resident Bill Lloyd fought in Korea as well.  Lloyd received the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, a medal for soldiers and officers who fought as part of a unit no larger than a regiment.  The medal is intended to acknowledge the disproportionately increased likelihood of those soldiers being killed in the line of duty due to the smaller size of their units.  Lloyd spoke modestly of his experience.

“It was kind of a contest every month to see who would get it.  If we had a mortar round, or an artillery round, or even a rifle shot come at us, someone would be on the sound-powered telephone, reporting it back to the CP [command post], reporting that it had come in, because it meant we got an extra $50 worth of combat pay for that month.

“I remember being called in to the sergeant’s office, and he said, ‘Go see the commanding officer.’  And so I went in and said, ‘Yes sir?’  And he handed it to me and said, ‘There’s your badge.’  That was it.”

Lloyd said that he couldn’t remember whether he got the badge on his second or his third day in Korea.

“I just thank God I got out with a whole skin.  I got one shrapnel wound, and I was bleeding like a stuck hog,” said Lloyd. “They put me in for a Purple Heart, and I agreed as long as they promised not to telegraph my wife.”

When he got back to the States, Lloyd found a job reading meters in the Capital District for $42 a week; he was laid off less than a year after returning from Korea.  He eventually settled in Voorheesville with his wife, Marilyn.

The exhibit, sponsored by the New Scotland Historical Association, is being curated by Marion Parmenter.  The display is to honor local veterans of the war and to educate the public on this often-overlooked period of American history, she said.

An “honor roll” with the names and photos of many local veterans will be on display; Parmenter said that there are some veterans missing from the list and she hopes that visitors will bring in the names and photos of veterans the historical society was not able to collect.  Last year, the museum hosted a popular exhibit on the World Wars, which continues in the museum.

Medals and photos loaned to the museum by local Korean War veterans will all be displayed, as well as artifacts such as combat rations and North Korean propaganda leaflets, uniforms, and rifles, including American Springfield M-1s and Mosin-Nagant semi-automatic rifles, made and supplied to the Chinese by the Soviets.  Soviet MiG 15 fighters, which were technologically sophisticated and highly maneuverable for that period, frequently engaged with and shot down American fighters and bombers, although American forces eventually gained air superiority over Korea. 

“The U.S. and Russia were consistently stalemating each other,” said Robert Parmenter, town historian for New Scotland; a retired history teacher, he is married to Marion Parmenter.  The Korean Conflict marked the first time the United Nations’ military clout was put to the test; over 17 U.N. countries participated in the action, including England, Canada, New Zealand, Turkey, Greece, and the Netherlands, said Robert Parmenter

Parmenter taught history in Voorheesville for over 32 years; he said that curricula on the Korean conflict were “limited.”

“You get about 10 minutes to teach on the Korean War,” he said.  “There’s much more time spent on World War II and Vietnam.”  He also said that history curricula tend to focus more on current history.

Hume pointed out the irony of that curricular neglect.

“We’re still in Korea, to this day.  We’re operating under a truce, but we have troops at the 38^th parallel,” said Hume, referencing the line of latitude that originally marked the boundary between North Korea and South Korea; that boundary was established after the Second World War.  Allied forces seized Korea from the Japanese, who controlled it until 1945, when the war ended.  The Soviets took control of the northern half and the U.S.-occupied the south; the two halves demarcated at the 38^th Parallel.

The Korean conflict marked the first and fiercest occasion in which two opposing superpowers used another country’s civil struggles to engage each other indirectly; the tactic was used in many subsequent Cold War contests, notably in countries such as Cuba, Chile, and Vietnam.

“It was a time,” said Hume, “when the Cold War got pretty warm.”

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The exhibit will open on Saturday, April 12, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. at the Wyman Osterhout Community Center in New Salem.  From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the museum will be open and re-enactors dressed in authentic costumes will be on hand; a military half-track truck owned by Jim Pollard and a 1951 Jeep on loan from New Scotland resident Timothy Albright will also be displayed.  Admission will be free and the public is invited.