Page 102 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

604 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

Lessons Learned
The features of the Korea War is that
– The North Korean under communist control moved to southward
– Many refugees evacuated from north after Chinese intervention
– No South Korean moved to northward

The government measures and lessons learned concerning refugees during the Korean
War are as the followings ;

1 phase
st
First, the situation of refugees plunged into extreme confusion after surprise attack from
38th parallel to Han river, that gave great difficulties to conduct military operations.
Secondly, the reasons of utmost disorder were that the government didn’t make a plan
how to manage the refugees and the North Korean army gained the ground too fast south-
ward.
Third, the units prepared plan for refugees could be minimized sacrifices and conducted
their operations without an obstacle.

2 phase
nd
First, the withdrawal operation was evaluated successfully in the pre-and post the Janu-
ary-Fourth Retreat period by reminding the lessons learned in the 1st phase.
Secondly, there were more miserable situations than the 1st phase for several reasons
(Chinese intervention, many refugees, cold winter, long distance etc).
Third, there were the major limitations of government measures during the January-
Fourth Retreat.
In conclusion, the refugee was produced inevitably during any kind of war. If the govern-
ment make a contingency plan properly for preparing emergence situation, the victims of
refugees can be minimize.
Because the trend of the modern war is not able to be divided the front and rear line, so,
there might not be massive refugees. Thus we have to consider new measures to minimize
“the new victims.”