Page 554 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

554 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

advisory groups, mission, military attaches, and/or other US entities stationed in the
TCCs. After the arrival of the contingent in the operational area, the contingent came
under the full operational control of the Unified Command.
One of the most important problems in connection with the integration of national
units concerned command relationships in the theatre. In Korea, all units provided to the
Unified Command were attached to one of the major organizations previously designated
as components of the Command: Army, Navy or Air Force.
The ground forces of the various contributing members of the UN were thus
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incorporated as units into divisions of the US 8 Army and were under the command
of a US officer, except that, after 27 July 1950 all British, Australians, Canadians, New
Zealanders and Indians ground assets assigned to the UNC, were combined into an ad
st
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hoc established unit, 1 Commonwealth Division.
All naval and air assets from TCCs were similarly attached to the 7 Fleet and Far East
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Air Force/5 Air Force, respectively. All the non-US forces within the UN Command
operated fully integrated within major US units and received orders form the US HQs.
It may also be noted that the forces in Korea from a non-Member State of the United
Nations (as was the case of Italy, which dispatched a MASH for the military component
of national Red Cross) were incorporated into US forces units, as well was for the South
Koreans (grouped at divisional level).
The channel used by the US for keeping contributing members informed of military
developments was the Committee of Sixteen in Washington. This Committee was
composed of the Washington-based diplomatic representatives of the TCCs, but South
Korea was not part of the Committee. The Committee was used exclusively to relay
information to the TCCs and not for prior consultation on the conduct of operations or
decision-making for the negotiations with the other side.
It will be seen, therefore, that in military and operational terms, control was firmly
in the hands of the US. However, the parties involved clearly regarded the US as the
agent of the UN and the action in which they were engaged as a UN action. The TCCs
governments used the term ‘United Nations Command’ when communicating with it;
the agreements between them and the US employed the same term; and UN resolutions
(Security Council and/or General Assembly) referred either to UN Forces or to the UN
Command.
The US dominance over the UNC actions and policies was witnessed also in the
negotiations phase, when was established the UNC-MAC (UNC Military Armistice
Commission), and in the choice of the States of the two bodies which followed the end
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of the hostilities, NNRC and NNSC.

10 Jeffrey Grey, The Commonwealth Armies and the Korean War: An Alliance Study, Manchester Univer-
sity Press, 1988;
11 UNC chooses for its own side Sweden and Switzerland while North Koreans and Chinese Volunteers, Poland
and Czechoslovakia as members of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission and Neutral Nations Su-
pervision Commission; UNC, North Korea and Chinese Volunteers co-designated India as Chairman of the
Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission;