CMH_Pub_20-3TruceTentandFightingFrnt

This is the second of five volumes to be published in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN THE KOREAN WAR. When completed, these volumes will present a comprehensive account of U.S. Army activities in what was once euphemistically termed a police action. Truce Tent and Fighting Front covers the last two years in the Korean War and treats the seemingly interminable armistice negotiations and the violent but sporadic fighting at the front.

The scene therefore frequently shifts from the dialectic, propaganda, and frustrations at the conference table to the battles on key hills and at key outposts. The author presents a solid and meaningful reconstruction of the truce negotiations; he develops the issues debated and captures the color of the arguments and the arguers. The planning and events that guided or influenced the proceedings on the United Nations side are thoroughly explained. The volume abounds in object lessons and case studies that illustrate problems American officers may encounter in negotiating with Communists. Problems encountered by the U.N. high command in handling recalcitrant Communist prisoners of war within the spirit and letter of the Geneva Convention are explained with clarity and sympathy.

Truce Tent and Fighting Front is offered to all thoughtful citizens-military and civilian-as a contribution to the literature of limited war.

The Author

Walter G. Hermes received his M.A. from Boston University and his Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University.

During World War II he served with the U.S. Army in radio intelligence and military government assignments. After the war he attended the University of Denver and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Dr. Hermes joined the Office of the Chief of Military History in 1949. For many years he served as Department of the Army representative on the Department of Defense Liaison Committee with the Department of State on the Foreign Relations of the United States series insofar as they covered World War II and the international conferences of that period. Dr. Hermes is at present a member of the Current History Branch of the Office of the Chief of Military History.



Preface

This volume is offered as a contribution to the politico-military history of the Korean War. Unlike nearly all of the previous wars waged by the United States, the conflict in Korea brought no military victory; in fact, during the last two years of the struggle neither side sought to settle the issue decisively on the battlefield. In this respect the Korean War had no modern American counterpart. It resembled most the War of 1812 when the nation had also carried on a desultory war while it attempted to negotiate a peace with the British. More important fighting, in both cases, went on at the peace table than on the field of combat.

Although the action at the front from July 1951 to July 1953 was inconclusive, there was a definite interrelationship between the intensity of the fighting and the status of affairs at the truce meetings. Both the United Nations Command and its opponents tried with some success to induce more reasonable negotiating attitudes in their adversaries through the application of limited military pressure.

Under the command system operating during the Korean War, the U.S. Army was given executive responsibility for carrying out U.S. military policy in Korea and for negotiating the truce agreement. Thus, the volume crosses service and departmental lines. General Matthew B. Ridgway, Commander in Chief, Far East Command, and his successor, General Mark W. Clark, commanded U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine forces as well as Republic of Korea units. As Commanders in Chief, United Nations Command, they also controlled ground, air, and naval forces contributed by some members of the United Nations for the prosecution of the war in Korea. Although the armistice negotiations were supposed to be strictly military in nature, political elements entered the discussions and the Army often had to participate in formulating and carrying out the policy adopted by the President and his advisors. Army officers, through Army channels, frequently handled not only military relations between the United States and the Republic of Korea, but economic and political affairs as well. The Army story in Korea, therefore, is more than a service account; in essence, it is the American story of the struggle for peace during the war.