Talk:Korean War

Collapsible lists

Hi.

Just wanted to say that it'd be better if the collapsible medical and other support lists would be non-collapsible and expanded by default, as, otherwise, content is simply missed by the viewer at first glance and it would be better for visibility.

Consistency of findings of National Defense Corps incident

As a neutral lay-reader:

The "National Defense Corps Incident" page says that "...and tens of millions of won was misappropriated to President Rhee Syngman's political fund." with a valid reference: [국민방위군 사건 (in Korean). National Archives of Korea. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2010.]

Yet on topic this page, under section "Starvation" it says Rhee Sygman was not involved. This is inconsistent or misleading. I suggest the quote above plus reference be added to the end of the relevant paragraph in this section.

There is NO details of casualties

You removed the details of casualties, such as how many American soldiers were killed, how many Chinese soldiers were killed. The numbers may NOT be 100% correct. But after you removed those details, that makes this page very low standard. It is like you even do not know you should provided those data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historyresearcher20233 (talk • contribs) 04:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The details of casualties are in the article. See this discussion and consensus reached there. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Are you the writer of the article? It is the worst article in Wikipedia. This article is about a war, and gives no information casualties.

You said "he details of casualties are in the article. See this discussion...", can you write an article as formally as others do?

And the so called "discussion" is a mess. Weblink2090 (talk) 03:31, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

According to German histories of the war the number of North Korean dead is around 500,000 and Chinese around 600,000 with the South suffering over 400,000 dead and the UN some 50,000 mostly Americans. The 600,000 number comes from a book, I can't remember which, on the war where a Chinese General had admitted to his Hungarian counterpart, a man who had spent the war in North Korea and China, that "The PLA did't do as well as we thought it would. We actually lost many more soldiers than we claimed to have. it was more like 600,000 killed fighting against the Imperialists." I hope that helps. FaladaHart78 (talk) 13:37, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

German are not the only historians, and which german historians? Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

That really helps faladahart78! thanks! i needed it for my 10 paragraph essay. i used my own words and i needed to know about how many were killed! thanks! 2605:59C8:625A:F510:5655:5665:8DD4:5A3A (talk) 21:09, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Need a North Korean soldier pic in the infobox

All the photos in the infobox at present are from South/U.S.A. perspectives. I think the bombing of Wonsan pic could be replaced with one of North Korean soldiers doing something that conveys the image of them being a worthy adversary to match the fact that the war ended in a stalemate. If you had nothing but the infobox images to go off it looks like the South/U.S.A. would have won the war. toobigtokale (talk) 06:11, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Any photos to suggest?--Jack Upland (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Nothing off the top of my head; I've seen a moderate amount of picture/video from the Korean War, but most of it seems to be from the US/South side. toobigtokale (talk) 03:17, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Also now that I think of it, we also need a pic of Chinese troops. Maybe can replace the Namdaemun picture for that. toobigtokale (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Toobigtokale. — Sadko (words are wind) 11:36, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

[1]

From the Zh version of the article. It's a bad picture though... Even on Chinese websites I see they often use Western pictures of the war, and not Chinese or North Korean.

Not sure if helpful but I'm watching this documentary rn [2] that has some unique footage from the Chinese/North Korean perspective, but it's watermarked and low res. toobigtokale (talk) 09:42, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

@Toobigtokale: I found some photos of the People's Volunteer Army helping North Korean civilians from a newspaper sold on a Chinese online book store. I'll be keeping an eye on any Chinese or Korean newspapers sold online to see if I can find more photos. Do you know of any Korean websites that possibly sell old newspapers? FunnyMath (talk) 05:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

@FunnyMath Very nice, great detective work. The pictures are a bit grainy and watermarked though, so respectfully we may need to keep searching. I'm not sure of what websites would sell old newspapers, but I know that several Korean websites (as well as American ones) that maintain high quality scans of old newspapers. I can't remember on which articles I've used those before... However, I think the newspaper pictures themselves may generally be low quality though.

An alternate route is to try searching around on [3]. This is a South Korean government-run website that tries to aggregate photos with various open copyright licenses. I encourage you to search on there; I may join in at some point. toobigtokale (talk) 05:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment and the advice! :P I'll be sure to take a look at that website. FunnyMath (talk) 05:47, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

@Toobigtokale: I uploaded a second batch of photos from the North Korean/Chinese perspective. This one is also from an old Chinese newspaper from the same site as the first one. I'll get around to using the website that you suggested, but I found quite a few Chinese newspapers with photos of the Korean War, and I want to get through them all first. They're unfortunately still low-quality, but at least it's better than nothing. :P FunnyMath (talk) 06:28, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Agree, think these are great to have. They're very interesting and are likely hardly seen by much of the world (probably hardly even by Chinese people judging by the websites I've seen). toobigtokale (talk) 06:32, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad that you find them interesting! I agree that these photos seem to be rarely seen, even by Chinese people. That's why I uploaded them ASAP. Chinese websites are tough to navigate because they often have photos without dates nor captions. These photos however do have dates and captions, so there's valuable information behind those photos too. FunnyMath (talk) 06:39, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

If you're interested in this period, you may find this interesting: An Assault of Justice. I wrote an article about this South Korean documentary. Links to the film (*cough* I confirmed the films are technically still copyrighted *cough*) in external links section. The film includes North Korean footage that was captured or left behind. It has incredible shots that are virtually never seen outside of South Korea to my understanding; portraits of Kim Il Sung and Stalin on Seoul city buildings, North Korean parades in the streets of Seoul, etc. toobigtokale (talk) 06:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

That film sounds interesting. I'll definitely be taking a look at that. Thanks for the suggestion! FunnyMath (talk) 06:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I uploaded a third batch. It has photos of PLA troops capturing islands west of the Korean Peninsula. FunnyMath (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Toobigtokale: I just discovered an article on a website of the People's Liberation Army that has tons of photos of the Korean War: [4] All the photos have captions, and some photos have dates and even the names of the photographers. The photos mostly show Chinese troops, but some do show North Korean troops as well. The only problem is that they put watermarks on every photo. FunnyMath (talk) 21:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the watermarks are possibly not a big issue. You can put those photos through a reverse image search at image.baidu.com and find an unwatermarked version. FunnyMath (talk) 21:57, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Wow incredible. Any idea how copyright for these will work out? If we can verify they're out of copyright then we should upload them to Wikimedia commons and start selecting which to display on this article. If we manage to use these I feel like they'll have a lasting impact on photography shown of the Korean War; I usually only see the same few photos (often from this article's infobox) used by the public. toobigtokale (talk) 07:17, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

The copyright situation is really complicated, to put it mildly.

On Wikimedia Commons, for public domain works, they have to be public domain in the source country and the US. The source country is usually the country where the work was first published, not created. See commons:Commons:URAA-restored_copyrights#Main_tests

One way for a non-US work to be public domain in the US is when its copyright expired in the source country by the URAA restoration date, which can be different depending on the country it is.

In North Korea, the copyright of a work whose author is an organization is 50 years from publication. There are no provisions for anonymous works or photos specifically. So I guess if we don't know who the author is, we can just assume that the author is an organization? See commons:COM:North Korea.

In South Korea, the copyright for a photo was 10 or 30 years from publication, until a new copyright law came into effect in 1987 which extended copyright protection, but not retroactively. See commons:User:Piotrus/KoreaCopyright.

So, photos of the Korean War by anonymous authors up to and including 1952 are potentially public domain. The URAA date for North Korea is 28 April 2003. So all photos whose author is an organization up to and including 1952 were public domain by the URAA date, since their copyrights expired by 1 January 2003. For South Korea, the URAA date is 1 January 1996. So all photos up to and including 1956 were public domain by the URAA date, since their copyrights expired by 1987. So if we have a Korean War photo from 1950-1952, and either of the two Koreas must be the source country, it's very likely to be in the public domain in the US.

But there's another problem. For any photo whose source country is China, their copyright usually expired by the URAA date if they were taken before or on 1945, but certainly not after 1945. So if a Korean War photo was first published in China, it would still be copyrighted in the US. There are Korean War photos used under fair use on Wikipedia, under the assumption that they were first published in China. See File:China capture Seoul.jpg, File:China Crosses Yalu.jpg, File:Cooper Force tank.jpg.

But on Wikimedia Commons, we only delete files if there's significant doubt that they comply with the URAA. See commons:Commons:URAA. And according to meta:Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/URAA Statement, files should only be deleted if they are found to be clearly infringing the URAA. So, I guess we can choose to be lenient and assume that a Korean War photo was first published in Korea instead of China, unless otherwise proven? I don't know.

In my opinion, if a photo only shows North Korean troops, such as the ones from the second batch, then we can safely assume the source country is North or South Korea. If a photo shows Chinese troops, then its source country might be China, so things are more shaky there.

On a more positive note, I think that the documentary An Assault of Justice is public domain in both South Korea and the US. Works made public in the name of an organization before 1957 had their copyrights expire before the 1987 copyright extension, since they only lasted for 30 years after publication. See commons:Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/South_Korea#Status_in_the_United_States. I see that the documentary is credited to the Ministry of National Defense "大韓民國國防部政訓局製作", but I don't see any names of individual people, such as the director. So at the very least, we have the documentary to work with. You said that it's still copyrighted. I'm assuming it's because you thought the copyright lasted for 70 years after publication/death of the director? FunnyMath (talk) 11:33, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, all the photos in the second batch were taken by August 1950, whereas the People's Volunteer Army entered Korea in October 1950, so all those photos should have their source country in North/South Korea. FunnyMath (talk) 12:24, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Assault of Justice I checked on the South Korean copyright registry. It was registered to the predecessor to the modern Ministry of Sports, Tourism, and Culture (idr what their name is) in the mid 1960s and then inherited by the Ministry after its founding. I think they even renewed the copyright in the last 15 years too.

For the other photos, I think your reasoning is correct. However we're technically supposed to lean conservative with what we upload. But honestly lots of photos that I've later learned are copyrighted have remained uploaded for over a decade with no complaints. I think there's an argument to be made for inclusionism toobigtokale (talk) 14:35, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, I did find the copyright registration for An Assault of Justice: [5] They put the date of creation and publication as 1965. So I guess South Korean copyright would expire on 1965 + 71 = 2036, and American on 1965 + 96 = 2061? I never knew that they could renew copyright. Is it written in law or statute somewhere? Plus, it was registered in 2018, which is really late.

I totally understand inclusionism. It's really annoying having to deal with the copyright laws. But honestly, I don't really want to risk getting my uploads deleted. There are lots of admins who ignore URAA-infringing files, but there are those who don't, and you never know if the uploads will get deleted or not. This is one of my uploads that got deleted due to URAA (but I got it undeleted later): commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Li Fu Lee, Kuan Tung, and their family in China.jpg. I can still find quite a bit of photos of the Korean War. I'll just have to skip the ones that show only Chinese troops, or have evidence of being taken by a Chinese photographer, such as the ones in the PLA link above. If they show both Chinese troops and North Koreans together (like the ones in the first batch), then it's still plausible a North Korean photographer took them and published them, so I might upload those kinds of photos as well. We are allowed to be a little bit less conservative with the URAA per meta:Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/URAA Statement. FunnyMath (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I was mystified by the Assault on Justice copyright too... Why register it in the mid 1960s? Maybe has to do with copyright law being poorly enforced and defined until that period?

And yeah I'm on the same page with the uploads. Worst case we can do just the few photos needed for the infobox. Thanks for doing this research, much appreciated 🙂 toobigtokale (talk) 20:13, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It's anyone's guess why the film is still copyrighted. Investigating the film's copyright is a whole research project on its own.

Yes, we can at least put up some new photos in the infobox. I just realized that I have access to the People's Daily archive, which has all the newspapers from the 20th century. So there's still plenty of photos to look through, despite the copyright restrictions. And I appreciate that you enjoyed my research! FunnyMath (talk) 00:03, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

@FunnyMath Btw, the need for infobox photos still stands. Did you upload anything to Commons that you like? toobigtokale (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

@Toobigtokale: I'm sorry about the lack of updates. I've been really busy the past few weeks, but things will clear up by next week. I did upload some more photos, and I added some in this talk page. They're all from the People's Daily newspaper, but it seems plausible that they were first published in Korea. There are other Korean war photos I uploaded, and you can check them out here: [6] I didn't upload as much as I would like because of real life. Next week, I'll certainly have more time to get back to this. FunnyMath (talk) 05:17, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

The issue with photos from the Communist side is that most of them are heavily propagandized. Good quality photos from the Communist side are particularly difficult to find, with most of them being in poor resolution. 2600:1700:FCA:5610:606F:D594:BD95:5956 (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

We can use a propaganda photo, but, yes, the resolution is bad.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:37, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Some of these photos may work, although they are still low res. If you do google reverse image search on them it seems like there are higher res versions of some of these photos floating around; could you replace the files with higher res versions? I'd upload duplicates but replacements are easier. toobigtokale (talk) 11:18, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The war did not end in stalemate North Korean objectives failed, The UN objective was a blocking action. North Korea lost territory, the 1953 ceasefire line/border is not the 38th parallel its further north to give south Korea a topographical defensive border rather than open country. North Korean and Chinese losses are comparable to western front losses in ww1. The war was 37 months in length with around 4 months mid 50 and winter/ early spring 50/51 spent in retreat the remaining 33 months Chinese and North Korean forces were blocked or in retreat. Much is spent on one episode the opening Chinese offensive and UN retreat ignoring later communist setbacks. China wanted to encircle and annihilate UN forces not see them retreat back into South Korea, those forces had to punch through Chinese lines against long odds and win battles to escape, a fighting retreat.UN forces then recaptured South Korean territory plus some North Korean territory all well communist forces had a numerical and proximity advantage 82.29.135.200 (talk) 18:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

What has this to do with the picture? Slatersteven (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

The North invaded first, but the South/U.S. controversially exceeded the UN mandate and pushed north of the DMZ. Both sides failed to seize control of the other. Stalemate. toobigtokale (talk) 19:19, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

First batch

• 
  The People's Committee of Yongam-ri distributes emergency relief provided by the People's Volunteer Army to disaster-stricken North Koreans,
• 
  The People's Volunteer Army sends bundles of wheat to the home of an old North Korean woman
• 
  The People's Volunteer Army helps the family of a soldier of the Korean People's Army repair the roof of their cottage
• 
  The People's Volunteer Army helps North Koreans hoe grass
• 
  The People's Volunteer Army helps North Koreans transplant rice seedlings

Second batch

• 
  Tank unit of the Korean People's Army enters the streets of Seoul while being welcomed by the Korean people
• 
  First group of US prisoners of war walks through the streets of Pyongyang, July 11, 1950
• 
  Korean People's Army garrison places a North Korean flag on a captured commanding elevation after their counterattack, 1950
• 
  The Kaesong branch of the Workers' Party of Korea shifts from underground to public after the North Korean capture of Kaesong, 1950
• 
  Korean People's Army garrison shouts "Long live the victory of the Korean people!" after capturing a strategic height, 1950
• 
  Wreckage of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning and its killed pilot after being shot down by the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force near the airspace of Seoul, 1950
• 
  Wreckage of a US plane shot down by the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force, 1950
• 
  Women parade and celebrate in front of Namdaemun after the North Korean capture of Seoul, 1950

Third batch

• 
  The People's Volunteer Army disembarks after capturing Korean islands along the northwestern coast of the Korean Peninsula, c. 1951
• 
  The People's Volunteer Army disembarks on a western Korean island under the cover of artillery and machine guns, c. 1951
• 
  People's Volunteer Army landing unit uses firepower to block the reinforcement of enemy ships and cover the landing of arriving troops after capturing the commanding heights of a western Korean island, c. 1951
• 
  Troops from a People's Volunteer Army unit that landed the first ship during the battle to capture Taehwa-do, c. 1951
• 
  People's Volunteer Army warship attacks enemies on a western Korean island, c. 1951

Long overdue update

• 
  Korean People's Army assaults and captures a strategic height and forces the enemy to surrender, 1950.png
• 
  Koreans join the North Korean volunteer army, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Army Ground Force unit stands in formation, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Navy unit stands in formation, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force military aircraft unit in formation, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Army artillery unit in formation, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Army armored fighting vehicle unit moves in formation, 1950.png
• 
  Korean People's Army guerrilla unit, 1950.png

Recent edit stating clashes were "mostly initiated by the South," citing DPRK propaganda source

New user GyopoSeraph recently added an unsourced "US and South Korean Map created in 1949, planning an invasion of North Korea" from his public Twitter account, directly linking to a thread in which he publicly stated "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is good."

When this edit was reverted because Twitter/X is not a reliable source, GyopoSeraph began edit warring in additional disputed material stating that border clashes were "mostly initiated by the South," citing a book published by the "Foreign Language Publishing House, Pyongyang, Korea, 1993," which appears to be a North Korean propaganda source.

GyopoSeraph states that this source is acceptable because "the original author of the book that was presented as evidence was from the South Korean ambassador to the UN, Dr. Channing Liem"; however, it remains unclear how much WP:WEIGHT we should give to Liem if his insights have not been reliably published and cannot be corroborated by independent mainstream academic experts. To me, all of the above seems like POV-pushing and WP:NOTHERE behavior that may amount to pushing WP:FRINGE theories or advancing a likely WP:HOAX (in the case of the Twitter map). Thoughts?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:25, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

That is not a WP:RS and its claims cannot be included. GyopoSeraph find a WP:RS if you can, but stop edit-warring this and pushing your WP:POV. Mztourist (talk) 03:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That’s not a WP:RS. Based on his obituary by NY Times, he started visiting DPRK since the 1970s when ROK still was hostile to DPRK. Not only was the book published by DPRK, but there were no reviews about the book, and there was no citation of it by experts. So there is no evidence to consider it to be a WP:RS. —Happyseeu (talk) 04:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 February 2024

Chanho1027 (talk) 03:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC) The reason South Korea failed to respond effectively to North Korea's surprise attack at that time was due to the lifting of the heightened alert status on June 23rd and one-third of the troops being on leave.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I have pointed it out more than a year ago, my comment is gone, yet the error is still there

In the Belligerents box, for the North Korean side under supported by, East Germany is listed with a wrong thumbnail flag. The flag shown is the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany aka West Germany, not the one of the German Democratic Republic aka East Germany. Replace the Germany flag with the one for the GDR. Spec10 (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

According to Flag of East Germany, the flag with the crest in the middle was adopted in 1959. before that it was without.

• East Germany (1949-1959) vs East Germany (1959-1990)

(Hohum ^@) 20:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

You can search the talk archives for your name using the option at the top of this page to see that you were answered 30 mins after your request from a year ago. here (Hohum ^@) 20:59, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I apologize. 87.175.120.133 (talk) 11:07, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome. (Hohum ^@) 15:04, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2024

for the line "PVA officers were under order to shoot security violators.", there is lack of reference for the argument. Chifeng (talk) 08:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Y Action made: Template {{Citation needed}} has been added.
— Urro^{[talk][edits]} ⋮ 13:49, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Drive-by comment by an experienced Wikipedian

The lead is WAY the heck too long. Please give visitors the raw outline in something shorter than a Starter-length article. Carrite (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Specifically, what parts of it do you think should be reduced or eliminated? Mediatech492 (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I will try to make it shorter overall and, if possible, an outline in the first paragraph. Senorangel (talk) 02:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Suggestions are welcome. Senorangel (talk) 02:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

An editor [7] [8] does not like the shorter lead. Until they communicate why, there is not much I can do. Senorangel (talk) 04:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Don't see anything of significance lost. The lead is after all a summary of a summary. It could even be trimmed a little more. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:06, 29 March 2024 (UTC)