Skip to main content
  • dva.gov.au
  • anzaccentenary.gov.au

The Anzac Portal

Home
Home
  • Home
  • History
    • Conflicts
      • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
      • Australians on the Western Front
      • Australia and the Second World War
      • The Burma-Thailand Railway and Hellfire Pass
      • The Kokoda Track
      • Australian involvement in South-East Asian conflicts
      • The Korean War
      • Australia and the Vietnam War
    • Special features
      • Veterans' stories
      • Great War memories
      • Victoria Cross recipients
  • Education
    • Education
      • Year 9 History resources
      • Year 10 History resources
      • Anzac Day resources for primary schools
      • All education resources
    • Competitions
      • Anzac Day Schools' Awards
    • Curriculum units
    • Online activities
      • Coming Home: An investigation of the Armistice and Repatriation
      • Keeping the Peace: Investigating Australia's contribution to peacekeeping
  • Multimedia
    • Audio
    • Documents
    • Images
    • Publications
      • 1916—Fromelles and the Somme
      • 1917—Bapaume and Bullecourt
      • 1917—Ypres
      • 1918—Amiens to Hindenburg Line
      • 1918—Villers-Bretonneux to Le Hamel
      • A Bitter Fate—Australians In Malaya & Singapore
      • Ancestry—Stories of multicultural Anzacs
      • Audacity—Stories of heroic Australians in wartime
      • Australian Flying Corps
      • Australian Light Horse—Palestine 1916–1918
      • Bomber Command
      • Candour: Stories in the words of those who served 1914—18
      • Chinese Anzacs
      • Comradeship—Stories of friendship and recreation in wartime
      • Curiosity—Stories of those who report during wartime
      • Decision—Stories of Leadership in the Services
      • Devotion—Stories of Australia's Wartime Nurses
      • Forever Yours
      • Gallipoli
      • Greece and Crete
      • Home Front
      • Laden, Fevered, Starved—the POWs of Sandakan
      • Memories and Memorabilia
      • North Africa and Syria
      • North Beach Gallipoli 1915
      • Operation Jaywick
      • Resource—Stories of innovation in wartime
      • Royal Australian Navy
      • Royal Australian Navy in the Atlantic and Mediterranean
      • The sinking of the Centaur
      • United Kingdom
      • Valuing our veterans
      • World Wide Effort: Australia's Peacekeepers
    • Videos
  • Anzac Day Schools’ Awards Winners
  • Conduct an event
    • Multimedia
    • Resources
    • Sample Speeches
  • Resources
    • #1MS (1 Minute's Silence)
    • 3-nine-39 radio and video series
    • 60th Anniversary of the Korean War
    • 70th Anniversary Tobruk 1941
    • 70th Anniversary of the battles for Greece and Crete
    • 70th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign
    • 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin
    • 95th Anniversary of the landings on Gallipoli
    • ADSA 2019 Poster
    • Anzac Centenary School Link Program
    • Anzac Day Poster 2019
    • Anzac Day poster
    • Anzac Day poster
    • Australia and the Vietnam War
    • Australian Prisoners of War
    • Australian Service Nursing: Wartime snapshots No.25
    • Australian Women in War
    • Australians at War Film Archive
    • Australians in the Merchant Navy
    • Australians on the Western Front
    • Battle for Leyte Gulf October 1944
    • Centenary of the Flanders Offensive
    • Centenary of the Royal Australian Navy
    • Centenary of the Sinai–Palestine campaign
    • Centenary of the Somme
    • Commemorating Australian Forces in the Vietnam War
    • Commemorating Australian forces in the Korean War
    • Commemorating Australian forces in the Vietnam War 1962–1975
    • Commemorating Australian prisoners of war on the Burma–Thailand Railway
    • Commemorating the Centenary of the Gallipoli Landings
    • Commemorating the Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation
    • Commemorating the centenary of the Armistice: Wartime Snapshots No. 24
    • Commemorating the first convoy of Australian troops to the First World War
    • Commemorating the return of Australian forces from Afghanistan
    • Control
    • Discovering Anzacs Exhibition Tips and Tools (Learn Area)
    • Discovering Anzacs School and Community Toolkit (Learn Area)
    • Discovering Anzacs Video Tutorials and Timeline (Learn Area)
    • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
    • Great Debates: The Anzac Legend
    • Great Debates—Conscription
    • Here they come—A day to remember
    • INTERFET: History in Focus
    • INTERFET—International Forces for East Timor
    • Indigenous Service
    • Investigating Gallipoli
    • Kokoda: Exploring the Second World War campaign in Papua New Guinea
    • Korea—A Cold War conflict (1950–1953)
    • M is for Mates—Animals in Wartime from Ajax to Zep
    • Ode of Remembrance: Wartime Snapshots No.26
    • Reflections: Capturing Veterans' Stories
    • Remembering Them app—Education Activities
    • Remembrance Day Poster 2019
    • Remembrance Day Posters 2018
    • Remembrance day
    • Schooling, Service and the Great War (Primary Resource)
    • Schooling, Service and the Great War (Secondary Resource)
    • Symbols of Commemoration Cube Education Activities (Secondary)
    • Symbols of Commemoration Cube—Education Activities (Primary school resource)
    • The Flanders Poppy—A symbol of remembrance
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian Korean War Veterans
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian Vietnam War Veterans
    • The Nominal Roll of Australian World War 2 Veterans
    • The Sinking of HMAS Sydney
    • The War that Changed Us Education Activities
    • Their Spirit, Our History
    • Wartime snapshot #23—1918-2018: Centenary of the Final Campaigns
    • We Remember Anzac (Primary Resource)
    • We Remember Anzac (Secondary Resource)
    • We'll Meet Again
    • Women in War radio series
  • Gallipoli and the Anzacs
  • Australians on the Western Front
  • Australia and the Second World War
  • The Burma-Thailand Railway and Hellfire Pass
  • The Kokoda Track
  • Australian involvement in South-East Asian conflicts
  • The Korean War
  • Australia and the Vietnam War
  • The Korean War
  • Events
  • Locations
  • Resources
  • The Korean War
    • The Cold War and the crisis in Korea
      • A chronology of the Korean War
      • What was the Cold War
      • Communist leaders and their policies
      • Anti-communist leaders and their policies
      • How was Australia involved?
      • The theatre of war
    • The Armed Forces in the Korean War
      • United Nations Forces in the Korean War
      • North Korea, China and the USSR
      • Royal Australian Navy in the Korean War
      • Royal Australian Airforce in the Korean War
      • Australian Army in the Korean War
      • British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF)
  • Events
    • The war begins - the invasion of South Korea
      • The communists advance towards Pusan
      • First Australians in the Korean War
      • Shot down over Korea
    • The United Nations counteroffensive to the Yalu
      • United Nations drives north (Inchon)
      • Australian engagements: Pakchon, Yongju, Chongju, 'broken bridge'
      • Charles Green
    • China Intervenes in the Korean War
      • United Nations forced to retreat south
      • The Battle of Kapyong, 23–25 April 1951
      • HMAS Murchinson in the Han River (28 September 1951)
      • The Battle of Maryang San, 3–8 October 1951
      • The aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney
      • Captain Reg Saunders
    • Stalemate, the war in 1952–1953
      • MiGs versus Metors
      • Battle of the Hook: first and second Battalions Royal Australian Regiment
      • Trench warfare and patrollling between the lines
      • Australian medical services
    • The support base in Japan
      • Australian nurses at the British Commonwealth General Hospital at Kure
      • The RAAF in Japan
    • Ceasefire at Panmunjon, 27 July 1953
      • Peace negotiations
      • Casualties
      • Policing the ceasefire: post-ceasefire operations 1953 to 1957
      • Missing in action
    • Prisoners of War
      • Australian prisoners
      • Other prisoners
      • Private Bob Parker
  • Locations
    • Remembrance
  • Resources
    • Korean War—strategic map
    • The Australian Veterans' Accounts

You are here

  • Home
  • History
  • Conflicts
  • The Korean War
  • Events

Stalemate, the war in 1952–1953

The last two years of the war in Korea resembled the trench warfare of the western front in World War 1...

Painting of R.O.K Wolfpack headquarters

R.O.K. Wolfpack headquarters. Oil on canvas on plywood, August 1952 by Frank Norton. WOLFPACK was established by South Korea to organise partisan operations behind North Korean lines on the south coast of Hwanghae Province. WOLFPACK initially established its headquarters on Yonp'yong-do, an island group at the mouth of Haeju Estuary centrally located between Paengnyong-do to the west and the mouth of the Han River to the east. The headquarters later moved to Kanghwa-do, an island at the mouth of the Han adjacent to the mainland. It was thought at the ceasefire that clandestine operations in the enemy rear kept over 100,000 of their troops on security duty. [AWM ART40011]

A war of rapid movement was replaced by one of night patrols in no-mans-land and set-piece offensives launched from trenches across enemy minefields and barbed wire with massive artillery support. Like WWI and WWII the war on land became an artillery war – artillery inflicted most of the casualties and without its support there was no prospect of storming the strong trench systems both sides constructed.

Photograph of an airstrike exploding on Hill 227

An airstrike on Hill 227, Korea during 1952. [AWM 044757]

While neither the United Nations Command (UNC) nor the communists now aspired to total victory, there was still a point in seizing vital ground to influence the ceasefire negotiations which began in July 1952. The communists reasoned UNC democracies were susceptible to political pressure from home to make concessions at the negotiations if the UNC was seen to suffer repeated battlefield defeats or high casualties. It was also possible no ceasefire would occur, so improving the defensive lines made military sense. Typically, battles of 1952 and 1953 were small but intense, designed to seize a high point of the enemy line which gave observation into the enemy rear area. Heartbreak Ridge, Pork Chop Hill and The Hook, where 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment fought, were examples of the kind of war waged.

If either side had decided to try it, a major breakthrough would have been unlikely because of the increasing size of the armies. By the start of 1953 the 200 kilometre front line was held by nearly a million men on each side. With an average of almost 5000 per kilometre of front, the prospect of a breakthrough was small.

As the more manoeuvrable army, well supplied with vehicles and able to transport troops by sea and air, the UNC was better placed in the mobile war of the first year in Korea. Now the stability of the front lines gave the communist forces some advantages. Over months they were able to build up huge reserves of ammunition for their artillery, and mass their troops without revealing where along the line they planned to strike.

Painting of air crew adjusting the rocket on jets

Adjusting rockets on jets, 77 Squadron, Korea. Oil on canvas on hardboard, 1952 by Ivor Hele. [AWM ART40325]

The UNC retained the great bonus of control of the sea and the air by which means it could rapidly transfer firepower to wherever it was needed. By 1952 the UNC maintained at last three aircraft carriers at sea at any one time, including HMAS Sydney. In the air the UNC had 640 combat aircraft including the Meteors of 77 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. These controlled the skies over all but the far north of Korea, known as MiG alley, where the Soviet-supplied and partly Soviet-manned Chinese air force held air superiority.

  • Home
  • History
  • Education
  • Multimedia
  • Anzac Day Schools’ Awards Winners
  • Conduct an event
  • Resources
  • Site info
  • Research tips
  • Contact
  • Copyright
  • Events
  • Accessibility
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • Anzac Centenary program

Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to us on YouTube