10. Douglas MacArthur Wanted to Nuke China
Early in the Cold War, the forces of communist North Korea triggered the Korean War when it invaded South Korea, overran that US ally and client state, and threatened to seize the entire Korean Peninsula. General Douglas MacArthur turned the tide in September 1950, with a brilliant amphibious landing at Inchon, in the North Koreans’ rear. The result was a swift collapse of the communist invasion, after which MacArthur vigorously pursued the routed enemy northward up the Korean Peninsula. Unfortunately, he then grew overconfident.
MacArthur blithely dismissed warnings that China would directly intervene in the war if his forces approached the Sino-Korean border, and insisted that the Chinese would do nothing. He turned out to be disastrously wrong. Soon after his forces reached the Yalu River, which marked the border with China, hundreds of thousands of Chinese began to pour into Korea. They evaded detection, suddenly struck in November, 1950, and caught a surprised MacArthur completely off guard. Within weeks, the US general and his forces had been defeated, and pushed out of North Korea back across the border into South Korea.
Also Read: The First American Fatality in the Korean War Is Reported (1950)
