The Korean War, which was variously called everything from "UN Police Action" to "Korean Conflict" was also referred to as the "Forgotten War" because even today, so little is known about it in the United States. Just about as many Americans were killed in Korea during the space of less than three years, compared to Vietnam which lasted over a decade. I know that "officially" the U.S. involvement in Vietnam didn't begin until large number of Marines and Army infantry units arrived in 1965. But U.S. troops (Army Special Forces and Military Advisors) had been in Vietnam since 1958, shortly after the French were defeated and the country partitioned. The first U.S. casualty was an Army Special Forces soldier, a captain, who was killed in a firefight in 1958. He was with the old 77th Special Forces Group out of Ft. Bragg, N.C. However, Pentagon did not admit to his death as being combat related until some 40 years later, because he was on a "classified" mission! In 1962, two Special Forces sergeants were killed in combat, but they were not on a "classified" mission so their death was not only recognized but publicized as well. So, U.S. combat involvement in Vietnam was actually for about 17 years, during which time we lost approximately the same number of men as in 3 years in Korea!
All wars are vicious and violent, of course, but the Korean War was especially so. For a variety of reason, which will take too long to cover. The Korean War saw more casualties, both civilian and military, than Vietnam, given the time period. During the first year of the war when the North Koreans were our main enemy force, North Korean guerrilla forces, the palchisan, operated behind our lines. However, by the time the Chinese stepped-in and the North Korean army was mostly destroyed, we also managed to destroy their guerrilla units. Interestingly, U.S. 8th Army decided to launch a guerrilla campaign against the north after seeing how successful the palchisan were in the earlier part of the war before they were wiped out.
In some of the earlier blogs I made mention of the KLO (Korean Liaison Officer ) program and the more successful UNPFK or the United Nations Partisan Force in Korea. The UNPFK was our answer to North Korea's palchisan. However, having seen the difficulty the communists had in the south, because their guerrillas were all northerners and the southern population did not support them, we made sure that we recruited only northerners for the UNPFK. If little is known about the Korean War in general, the war fought by the UNPFK was almost completely "unknown" to majority of American public. That is because the war they fought, their activities were considered "classified" and information about them was not made public until 40 years later when the classified status was declassified.
The UNPFK initially started out with a mixture of cadre members. There were former Airborne Rangers and former 187the Airborne RCT members that made up the majority of the cadre. It was a real mish-mash. There were even a few members of the British 22nd SAS! However, in time things settled down and newly minted members of the recently created U.S. Army Special Forces began to arrive to fill the cadre ranks. The guerrilla force was trained and led more or less like the typical Mike Forces that were led by the Special Forces in Vietnam. Most of the units were airborne qualified while some were trained to make sea-borne entry into battle. Units were battalion size but operated in smaller groups, company or platoon size. They became highly successful in infiltrating into North Korea and conducting raids and ambushes behind enemy lines. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, while the KLO program was not all that successful, in fact it could be called a failure, the UNPFK was very successful. However, their successes could not be advertised, so essentially nothing was known about their activities. In many operations, these units suffered very high casualty rates. In others, they were very lucky and would return with low casualties. American casualty rate was pretty high as it was for everyone in those units.
Despite the name of UNPFK, the United Nations Partisan Force in Korea, it was an all U.S. conceived and directed project. Yes there were some British SAS members early on, but it became an all U.S. project run by Army Special Forces members. However, they could not talk about it or discuss their Korean War experience because they were bound by the rules of safeguarding classified information. Only in the recent times information started to emerge about this fascinating part of the Korean War. The missions conducted by the UNPFK units was stuff of Hollywood movies. In fact, Hollywood could not duplicate some of their feats without making it appear as if it was pure fantasy or overblown fiction!
The Army Special Forces learned well from that experience and launched almost an identical program in Vietnam, the Mobile Strike Force or Mike Force program, which was highly successful. It was even started in Iraq, but when we pulled all our combat forces out of Iraq, the program was naturally abandoned. But while we were there, the Iraqi version of Mike Force was probably the only Iraqi units that were worth anything! Naturally after we left, the whole thing fell apart and now their current forces can't even handle Isis insurgents when they outnumber them 30 to 1! The UNPFK did not fall apart. After the cease fire, the former members of the UNPFK were given a choice to either go back to civilian life or be integrated into ROK (Republic of Korea) armed forces. Their U.S. counterparts also returned home and either stayed in the service or reverted to civilian life. Many joined the CIA as civilians, others that remained in the army went on to serve in various Special Forces units.
The UNPFK was a fascinating program that was set up and run by early U.S. Army Special Forces. It was not a new idea, we did the very same thing in Burma during World War Two when the OSS Detachment 101 gained its legendary reputation directing and leading the Kachins against the Japanese. The OSS Detchment 101s activities in Burma were not all classified so we knew a lot more about them than the UNPFK. At least now, UNPFKs activities are becoming better known.
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