EP 6 "There is No Substitute for Victory" (ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

Korean War
The NKPA withdraws to the mountains on the border with China. The South Korean army takes Pyongyang. President Truman meets MacArthur at Wake Island, as MacArthur's successes could make the president look good. But MacArthur's celebrity status makes the administration's ability to handle him all that more difficult. MacArthur tells Truman that the Chinese would not intervene significantly, and that if they do, they would be slaughtered by UN air power. In retrospect, this episode shows the limits of air power, which MacArthur may not have understood. The French journalist, Philippe Daudy, addresses the Americans' use of the term, "gook" in the Korean War. Also in this episode: Secretary of the Army George C. Marshall is concerned that the US public will not understand that ideas of "winning" and "losing" are not exactly applicable to a limited war, like Korea. The UN army moves further into North Korea in October, finding evidence that the North Korean leadership had ordered the killings of hundreds of "traitors" as they withdrew, much like the Rhee government did to its own citizenry in the summer of 1950. The airborne drop on Suncheon in North Korea was meant to trap retreating North Koreans, but the UN forces did not know that the NKPA and its leadership had already escaped to the northern border with China. The US X Corps was sent from Incheon to the northeastern North Korean port of Wonsan in order to envelope retreating North Korean Army, but it also was too late. Their new objective was to advance to the Chinese border. The US 8th Army and 10th Corps were now separated and advancing north. The People's Liberation Army (Chinese Army) were already waiting for them. 14 days of Chinese attacks push the 8th Army back. US units had identified that the enemy was now Chinese, but MacArthur continued to believe that the Chinese were not there. MacArthur asks the US Air Force to make good on its promise to obliterate the Chinese forces now routing the UN armies out of North Korea. President Truman is afraid of widening the war, and asks that bombing be restricted to Korea to avoid a wider war. MacArthur still boasts to the UN that the war will be "over before Christmas," despite the reality of what is happening. UN troops end up on the North Korea-China border on the Amnok (Chinese name: Yalu) River. In the East, the US Marines in the X Corps reach the Changjin (Japanese name: Chosin) Resevoir when they get surrounded and hit hard by many PLA (Chinese Army) division-strength units. The 8th Army in the west falls back in a total rout (late November 1950). For the first time in a foreign conflict, an entire US Army division (2nd Infantry Division) is totally destroyed in combat, losing all of its artillery and its division colors. 200,000 PLA troops push the UN army out of North Korea.